The Hockey PDOcast - The East Race, Marchenko's Cool Goal, and Josi's Adjustments

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to talk about the good and the bad of the Eastern Conference Wild Card race, Kirill Marchenko's cool goal against Ilya Sorokin and the predicament shooters are now putting goalies in with increasing regularity, and the adjustments Roman Josi has made to his game this year to improve his offensive efficiency. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey-Pedocast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy Sean Shapiro. Shod. What's going on, man? Not too much, man. I'm recording from the lounge and Little Seasard Arena, one of our favorite places to do this show.

And as you can maybe hear it in the background, there's a little more noise than usual. It's a Tigers opening day or, I guess, Elmulton or whatever today at the same time as Wings game, here tonight. So a little more energy around me right now as opposed to our normal quiet stuff. I'm good and I'm happy to be here. I'm going to treat that as a studio audience and the fact that the PDOCAST is blowing up and we've got people now sitting in on these episodes that you and I record. I'm doing a lot of myself as you might be able to tell from my voice, but the show goes on.

And the good thing is, you know, because we had such a strong regular season here on the PDO cast, we've already had a good fortune of locking up our playoff spot so we can use these last couple weeks of the regular season to iron some stuff out to get into peak shape for the postseason and to be ready for game one of the playoffs. So that's what we're doing here today. But I thought it'd be fun to have you on to kind of take stock of where things are currently at in the east, but also bounce around a variety of random topics that you've been writing about recently that I've sort of, I've had this whatever 10 days or so off now. And generally the way my brain works is I use that time instead of actually stepping away from hockey and relaxing and recovering.

I'm like mulling over like, huh, the Tampa Bay Lightning, are they good again? I'm bouncing around all these different topics on my head. So we're going to get into some of those things that have been on my mind while I've been off. Let's start with the Eastern Conference wildcard race, though. We've got this battle for the two remaining playoff spots, right? The third seed in the metro, the second wildcard spot. There's a big grouping of teams all of a sudden now that are jockeying foreign with the penguins becoming the latest entrenched into it.

I guess I'm curious for your takeoff. on how excited you are kind of following this because obviously one of the teams involved in it is the one who's lounge you're recording from right now who you watch live and follow very closely. So there's certainly some personal interest in that regard. But just kind of seeing how this is playing out because while the drama is certainly there, right, and this is what we really like in sports, it's like, all right, we're coming to the end of this 82 game regular season. These games still matter. These teams are still still competing.

There's still a lot on the line. I wouldn't also say that, you know, the quality of some of these games and the teams involved is particularly great. And certainly in some of these cases, it's like kind of a rock fight to the finish line here. So how are we kind of viewing this and how are you feeling about sort of all of these festivities that are unfolding here in the final couple weeks? Hey, it's fun. I think that's it's more fun for us watching than it is for the coaches involved because all of them are effectively in this spot because everyone else keeps losing it at various times. So like normally we've had good playoff races before right but normally it's like the rising tide lifts all ships type deal where like two teams push each other and they're both going and you're like this is the opposite where it seems like each team decides to take the part the turn to take a skid and everything like that it's like it's amazing to think we've looked at this up earlier this week where so since we've gone to the wild card format only the 2015-16 Minnesota wild reached the playoffs with less than 90 points in a full season obviously not counting kind of some truncated COVID asterisks.

So, but we're at a spot in the east, right, where we could legitimately have two teams in the postseason with under 90 months. And that's, that's historical. That is, that is historical for this time. And it's, at times it's fun. I think, I think it's, I think there's a level to it that, as we kind of, like, it feels like the playoffs have already started, right? It's very cliche to say that.

But right now, almost you watch and there's games every, night that matter, right? You're watching the wings play, watching the Red Wings will play tonight, obviously for them. It's kind of must win and, not must win or whatever. It's, it's been proven that must wins don't exist yet since everyone loses, but games, what happens last night in the Islanders, in the Islanders, Bill Jackets game, and then with the Penguins pushing and everything like that, all of a sudden, all these games start to hold more meaning. And I think it gives us a lot of, a lot to build on going in. And there's more teams, and it makes up for where the West is right now. It's like,

We know the eight teams in the West. Like the East is, it's kind of fun right now to actually have a playoff. It's an actual battle. Like there's actual, it's not just two teams, it's four teams. It's actually fun. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I think the incentive is certainly there, of course. And that's what we care about.

I think the theory of it certainly checks out, right? Like, especially you look at the schedule in the final two weeks. And in particular, the final couple of days, we're going to get some really big games there, right? where it's like there's going to be legitimate playoff spots on the line where in these head to heads and the winner might at that point secure their spot. And so that's incredibly cool. But then you also get into the position where like I'm watching that Capitals Penguins game on Thursday night. And, you know, with the caveat that I was sitting on my couch watching every single second of it from start to finish, uh, I wouldn't necessarily say like the quality of play

was particularly amazing, right? Like the Penguins get two shots in the first, whatever, 15 minutes of the game, they're both point shots that are very harmless and somehow go in. I'm sure the hurricanes are watching that and they're like, see, it does work. And then it's like, all right, the capitals now have to score two goals and watch them try to muster any sort of consistent offense is very painful and has been all year. And so actually watching these teams, it will be obviously much more, the superior alternative would be these teams actually being very good and these being like very consequential games that are being played at a really high level. But I guess we can't have it also. In that sense, I think it is enjoyable. And certainly like the Penguins getting into this, right? Like I think you can appreciate this sort of concept of they were left for dead. They trade Jake Gensel at the deadline and particularly mid-February. They had this stretch where they scored like one goal in four games and just looked completely miserable. And then all of a sudden they rattle off these three wins on the road against the capitals, the devils, the Rangers, Sydney Crosby's producing and sort of dragging this team back into the conversation. And so at least from like that perspective, I think that's cool. And that's cool. And that's

certainly like a storyline that we can kind of get behind that sort of gives us a nice little appetizer at least for the playoffs because I think everyone would generally sort of agree that while anything can happen in the postseason, I think the reality of the one seed getting to play any of these teams who wins a second wild card is going to be a very lopsided series at least on paper. And so I don't think there's a lot of consequence from like a whoever wins this can go on a long run necessarily like there was with last year's Panthers team. But at the same time it gives us a bit of that playoff element during these days where otherwise like in the Western conference there isn't necessarily that much to play for yeah i do hope that in teams like

it's funny this morning i just left a morning skate right where i talked to the wings who are in a spot where it's he basically have to win and talk to the rangers they're playing the rangers who are basically kind of jockey and potentially the stars for the president's trophy and um i'm hoping that it's the type of thing that you hope organically leads to everyone has something to play for at some level where it's like, oh, we're playing for whole lights,

we're playing for a division, we're playing for this. And I think that's, that's really good. I also think if that actually plays out true, it's actually really bad news for whenever team gets into,

like, because whoever's going to, like Detroit, New York right now, right? This in theory could be a first round matchup. This could be, this could be the matchup if the Rangers, if Detroit gets in and New York wins the east, which seems possible right now. I think for these teams that are kind of slumping at the time,

these good teams seem to be kind of rearing up, and what happened to Boston last year against Florida kind of was that warning shot for everyone. So it's great that these teams are battled to get in, but it's not so funny to kind of think about what could be waiting for them. It's not going to be anyone taking anything lightly. is when these games actually become really real for those good teams. Well, also, none of these teams, let's be clear.

Not only these teams have the profile of last year's Panthers team where you could certainly see, and this isn't revisionist or hindsight, like you could see that while they had flaws, they also had a lot of things that could give teams trouble. In this case, it's a bunch of very flawed teams that are sort of throwing pebbles at each other and seeing who can stay up the longest, essentially. The wings are an interesting spot, right?

because obviously they have so much on the line here just because while they didn't necessarily do that much of the deadline, it's been so long since they've been in this position. And you've heard a lot of people within the organization talking recently about like how, at least how much of a nice sort of perspective change it is that these games actually matter at this point in the season. And they haven't in a long time. Now, they only have access to one of these two available playoff spots, right? Because like they obviously can't get the third seed in the metro, regardless of what happens with those teams. but they also, compared to a team like the Penguins who, while they're playing head to head against a bunch of these teams, they're trying to leaprog. They also, you look at their other games and they're all against like very, very good teams. In the Red Wings case, it's about as good as you could hope for from like a softest perspective

where they literally end the season with a back-to-back against the Canadians. Now, if you're a team like the Red Wings, you can't take anything for granted, certainly, and we've seen them in the past kind of fumble these games. But they are also set up in a pretty good spot to sort of take advantage of. this and so I'm curious to see how all that plays out. Yeah, I really much. I mean, it's, this is the, it's funny because this is the spot where Detroit coming into this season, like if you had said before the start of the season, hey, you'd be in this spot to control your own destiny a bit, you'd been happy. But it's, it's also a weird feeling at the same time because

they shouldn't have been in this spot. They shouldn't after what happened where they were. It's kind of the fall to have to actually be in this battle after being at one point. They were 10 point. They were closer to being on top of the division than being out of the playoffs at one point. And so the fact that they are here, it's the whole Detroit thing, it puts more the weight of whether they get in or not, I think now is now going to reflect more on how people outside of the wings view this team and Steve Eisenman and Derek Boulon than. you would have thought before this season. Before the season, whether the wings made or missed the

playoffs, it would have been either way, oh, we still soldier on, the plan's still there. With where they went and then how they stumbled, and now if they don't get in, it starts to feel almost like a failure, which I'm not sure if that's fair or not, but I think that's the other thing that's fascinating about this Detroit team. And I think there's the pressure and the weight of that that is really hanging on this team. It's, they like to say it's fun right now, but at the same time it's also not fun when you what do you feel like if they don't get in after where they were it starts to be like okay what's actually happening with this this plan and this rebuild right now and that's just the reality of how expectations change from month to month sometimes well i will say

watching that most reason their most reason game was against the lightning right on the on the road yeah yeah yeah yeah it felt like it really could have gone south there and in particular they come away they they they steal that game at the end of regulation but just watching it i've been so I'm not sure if you agree with this. I've been so impressed with watching Lucas Raymond play here as this season has developed, right? And the scoring is kind of modest, especially in the context of today's game where players are just putting out such ridiculous video game totals that were all getting desensitized to it, right? Like for you to be very impressed with a player's goal or point total, they just have to be doing something so preposterous. And a guy like Lucas Raymond is not, especially at this point of his career, given his circumstances, ever going to come close to that. But just what he's doing in terms of like, how much he's creating, and there's still stuff certainly being left to the table, and there's been a bunch of opportunities where he's made a couple nice moves, and then he either passed up instead of shooting or, you know, the puck just didn't go in and he didn't get credit for it.

But just watching how much he created in a game like that, I think that has to be encouraging. And there's going to be no silver linings. I think you hit the nail in the head there where the context of how you get to this point matters, because if this team had been out of it and then putting together a feverish run down the stretch here and winning a bunch of games and fighting their way back into it, we'd view it as a positive even if they missed it. But just because of the state of the east and where they were at a couple weeks ago, it'll be viewed as a massive disappointment. If they don't get in, I just think the play of him in particular so much has been made of

Mo Cider and you and I have certainly spent a full show talking his usage and deployment and how he's fared in that. I think what we've seen from Raymond in a situation where he's being asked with J.T. Comfer to shoulder a second line here, right? Like, this isn't a matter of him sort of running shotgun in a favorable situation with Adela Larkin or with an Alex de Brinkat. He's doing a lot of this heavy lifting offensively himself. And just the fact that he's putting that on tape right now in a big offseason for him where he's going to get a big contract. This is a crossroads moment for both him and the Red Wings. I think that's a very important thing here, regardless of what happens within the team context. And it's one of those stories, too, that kind of got a little bit

lost, I think, in the National Red Wing storytelling because of the Patrick Kane signing for right or wrong, right? Like, it's, um, I don't think Kane's edition actually made life easier for Raymond at all. Like sometimes, like, I don't, I don't think that's fair at all, but I think it did

kind of, it has overshadowed what he's doing when it comes to the narrative. Because so far, so much the talk about the Red Wing, so much is, especially when you talk about Wingers, it's going to come back to Kane, it's going to come back to Debrinkit. And it's just kind of been one of those stories. that is a reality as you laid out.

But I don't think we've talked about it enough. And it's going to lead to a fascinating contract situation because it's one of those deals where I think we're going to see how it plays out is going to be really interesting just because there's going to be a couple of schools of thought. And that could be another episode you and I do at some point because he's a fascinating player in that realm. Well, I think we spoke.

Well, there's a little bit with the cider conversation actually in terms of like the involvement of the agent and kind of like how you could frame, you know, the case for your client in that negotiation. But like this is one where in particular, like there's somewhere you're kind of in a tricky spot where you're obviously going to do your best to get your client as much as you possibly can, right? And there's certain ways where you can like fudge the numbers and move stuff around to make it look better than it actually is. in this case, I think there's like a very strong argument for Raymond to be worth much more than he probably is going to get based on just that production. Right. And in particular, like he seems like a player who just based on all of the little stuff we've seen and what he's put on tape so far, I would bet on him exploding offensively, much more, that being much more likely outcome over the next couple of years and him commanding significantly more money and attention than what he's getting right now. And so you get into that sort of balance of like long-term security and sort of securing the bag while you can versus also this idea that it's like, all right, your leverage a couple years from now is going to be significantly stronger if you sort of bet on yourself and believe that that's all going to come together for you. Yeah. I mean, if I'm in the wings camp, I'm trying to get a long-term deal done now with Raymond.

That's just my. That's that's where you're trying to get long-term done now because it's going to cost you more in the long run. there was. That's, that's the reality for me. And if I'm in Raymond's camp, I'm looking at, can I get the, we know, we know Steve Eisenman has tried to do. Now, those have been more with UFAs than RFAs. Like we saw him sign the De Brinket deal to, to a shorter, as opposed to the typical, like, De Brinket thing, you'd think like, oh, you bring a guy in, you sign him for eight years. I guess, sorry, technically Debrinke was an RFA, but he was came in from outside. But, so we've seen Iserman do these shorter deals and everything like that. And honestly, if I'm Raymond, maybe that's where I, kind of push for it. It's like I want something like that because I know I'm going to set up that next contract extremely well if I pop off the way you said. But if I'm Detroit with him, I want to get that long-term deal done because otherwise it's going to hurt me as I got to get some other guys signed to as we go into the future too. Yeah. Do you have any other notes on any of these teams? Because so much is going to change

every single day, right, based on the way these teams play. They're so close to each other. I guess in thinking about this, it's just like, what a missed opportunity it has to feel like not to rub salt on the wound, but like for teams like the devils and sabers where they came into the season with such high expectations, right, based on what they showed us last year. And the fact that it's opened up like this. And I think all of these teams ahead of them are so flawed and have so many weaknesses. And you're seeing it where every time we think one of them is going to distance themselves or or really logged out one of these spots,

they lose three out of four games or they just completely fall flat on their face. And for them to not be able to be ahead of these teams and the standings, I think that's going to be a really difficult pill to swallow as we get into the offseason and sort of think about what's next for them moving forward. Well, it's like when you and I did our last mailbag show, we talked about which teams were most disappointing, disappointing, or whatever, there's options give it out.

And I was pretty adamant that it's New Jersey. And it's their lack of willingness to get a goal. the earlier probably cost them. That's a team that should be a playoff team right now. And it's going to be a sour summer for that when even do you think about that because they've they had this opportunity

and they squandered it. They really have. I guess my one final note here before we go to break is I did, I referenced the lightning at the top and it seemed like for a while there. Like I think before the Red Wings went on that skid themselves and Larkin got hurt, they were

almost, they were like neck and neck, right? If anything the lightning were in danger of being one of these teams in this conversation. And since the deadline, it was kind of a bit of a relatively like innocuous move because it was like a third for a seventh or something. And we've seen Anthony do Claire bounce around a bunch of teams. But the addition of him has made such a big difference for them watching them. And I can't stop thinking about it because earlier on this season, I wrote this lightning team off completely, I have to admit, just because they look completely cooked to me. Right. I was like, Kucharov is having an unbelievable MVP caliber season. Their power play is obviously always going to make you

concerned in any given game or potential series setting, but they're so flawed 515 defensively. They're so slow. And now not only has DeClair given them some of that like individual skating speed, but he's also allowed John Cooper to play Brandon Hago full time with Sorrelli and Stamco's, and that's unlocked Stamco's a bit offensively at 515. It's given them a bit more depth. And now all of a sudden, everything's coming together. Like you're seeing Darren Radish playing with Victor Hadman and they're playing really well together. The team's defense is a whole. I know there's still a lot of questions about the foot speed on the back end and like the actual talent in terms of the players themselves.

But the metrics defensively have all significantly improved. They've been in the top 10 for a while now. And this team is just much better than I thought they had any right to be like as recently as a month or two ago. And so I guess kudos to them because they've laid their way. out of this sort of caliber of team. And good as Anthony DeClair, too. I mean, he's a guy who, one of the things I think we need to keep in mind

with DeClair on all of the stuff, I think he's a good player. And I've read about this before, actually, is DeClauer's his own agent. He's a guy who actually controls his own destiny completely on things. And so when he went to San Jose and decided to go there,

it was fully done him to make that decision. There was no outside recourse pushing him one way or the other or figuring out of those hope. Credit to Anthony Duclare. too for, I'm sure it wasn't, I mean, when he signed with San Jose, he had to know, obviously, the vision of the plan for something there, but it's a team and a player who, I think, they found each other at the right type. Well, no, so what happened was he was already

into a contract, right, because Florida essentially had to move him because they were so tight up against it. So he signed that deal for himself with the Panthers. Yes. But it kind of flew under the radar because he hired an agent right before the deadline. And I'm not sure how much of that played into it, but it was really funny because that's true, that's true. You could frame it as he fired himself to hire a different agent. That is true. That is true.

Yeah, that detail was one that I forgot there. So thank you for reminding me that. Yeah, that was, yeah, he did, agents teams, GMs are more receptive to actual agents calling you around the deadline as opposed to the player. Can you imagine the fly on the wall of like, hey, we're going to let you go work out of trade and then just Anthony Duclair calling him calling Julian Breezeball himself up of

I think I'm worth this I think I'm worth this send a this pick for me just sending him sending him clips of goals he scored the other night because no one was actually watching Sharks games yeah that's good stuff all right Sean let's take a break here and then we come back we'll move on and we'll talk about a variety of other topics you're listening to

the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet radio network All right, we are back here on the Hockey Pee-O guest, joined my Sean Shapiro, Sean. We talked part one. It was all Eastern Conference wildcard race. Let's get into a variety of other topics and kind of try to have some fun with it. I want to talk to you about, you saw the goal, Girol Merchantico scored last night. Certainly coming, you know, with increased prevalence.

Every time I have Kevin Woodley on these days, we talk about it particularly from the goalie's perspective, which I think is almost just as interesting. these shots kind of either behind the net or around the goal line that are specifically targeting banking it in off their helmet or off their shoulder from these tight angles. And I think the conversation around these shots is so interesting to me because whatever one of them happens, there's a certain segment of fans that are certainly like, wow, that was really cool. And then there's a bunch of other ones who are instantly complaining about goalie technique and how that was the reason it happened.

And then there's fans who are looking at it and being like, all right, well, that was sort of you know, disrespectful from the shooter's perspective or like, oh, man, like, how mean of him to do that? And obviously part of it is kind of tongue in cheek, certainly. But I'm curious for your take on it, in particular from the goalie perspective, because I think you have an interesting anecdote about it. Yeah, it's not, A, it's not disrespectful. It's you're trying to score goals. It's a hockey game. The point of the game is to score goals. You should do whatever you can to score goals. But it is interesting because, so obviously this happens in Mershenko scores the school the other night. and I'm at the morning skate.

I'm at the rink early this morning to try to beat traffic around the building because of that baseball game. And so I'm out there a little bit earlier and I can hear just see Alex Lyon and the Redwood's goalie coach, Westland. They're on the ice or anyone else.

They're talking and they're talking or they're on the net and they start talking about play. And I don't hear the whole conversation completely, but essentially they were talking about, well, how Seroquen actually played that, a goalie should play that. That is a, that is a, credit to Barshenko that it worked. But at the same time, it's, to me, it's like, it's a good slice that, A, these things

you get talked about, like, around the lake, like, you think, like, you and I talk about these things in essence at the same time, NHL coaches and goalies are probably looking it at the day and breaking down, okay, what happened, even less than us. To me, the thing that's interesting about it, is we always get we see the highlight when it goes in right we see the highlight

when it goes in and you clipped it right it's great it's a great clip sick we're not clipping every single time a guy shoots from below the net and he misses a foot wide or it hits the side of the net like we're not we're not going through

and getting all that it is a it's a play that's working now but it's not this like oh it works every single time type deal and I think that's important it's also I laugh at where people are like, oh, that's disrespectful or whatever, because it's a

I'd say it's a chance to score goals. Scoring goals is hard. You should do it any way you can. And I think it's part of, and Woodley would probably give you a more eloquent answer on this. But if you're in the goalie spot on that, do I really want to duck my head back into the net and take away my view of that pass out? Like, how am I going to be able to telescope out to a shooter, to another? shooter if I'm stuck, sticking my head deep

into them. It's cool that Marginco did it, but it's like, you got to treat it like a one-off as a goalie. And that's kind of one of my thoughts on us. You can, hopefully, hopefully I've said something of substance there. No, you did. Well, first off, I think the real ones know that Carol Marginco is

a stud. And I think if you watch that whole sequence, like I only tweeted out the replay of it, he just expertly stick lifts, no adoption in the last second to actually gain possession of the puck. And then if you watch, like, the replay is cool because you can actually sort of like see it play out. But I really recommend watching the real time shot of it because how quickly he goes from receiving possession of it to instantly making a decision to fire and executing it.

It happens within the blink of an eye, right? This isn't a matter of him just kind of hanging out behind the net like we sometimes see with Michigan's and then doing that as kind of a last resort. The reason why I brought up this idea of like it kind of being like embarrassing or whatever. And I think it clearly is embarrassing for goalies, right? Like you never want to have a guy from a bad angle, bank it off of your helmet. Not only, I'm sure, kind of like, it rattles you physically, but also like it just, it doesn't look good, certainly.

It's not showboaty or it's not like it looks cool, but it's in a way it's like the most functional possible option from there if the passes are taken away, right? And this is kind of what we talk about a lot. I think it reflects a bit of a misunderstanding of a play in terms of what's happening because I think Sorokin did play that right, right? He did. No, he did.

100%. He did. There was space there to shoot. But in that span and from that position, like that, if anything, just reflects how talented Kiralmerschenko and how talented shooters in today's game are that they can pick that spot that quickly and hit it, right? And there's certainly going to be times where he tries or someone tries and they miss and we don't talk about it.

And that's all well and good. But if you watch it, when he goes behind the net, there's two Columbus Blue Jacket skaters who start cutting from the top of the zone down, right? And the whole point of the reverse VH is to essentially protect the goalie from the most likely or imminent danger, which is either passes across the ice where he's going to have to move laterally and cut off down low or out from behind the net for a tap-in that's probably going to go low as well, right? And so that's what the goalie is trying to stop. Now, the compensation for that because you can't take away every single little square inch of the net,

is that there's this one little window near your ear for a shooter to try to target. And sort of that cat and mouse game or that chess match that's happening between the shooter and the goalie is what we're seeing here. So it's the natural byproduct of that. Shooters are targeting it and executing much more frequently they did previously. and I think the next domino to fall will be fascinating and we're not going necessarily see it in season but I'm curious to see in the offseason or in years to come particularly for young goalies on the way up

how much their technique changes in this regard right? Because I think for a while, and you've written about this, we've talked about it, the goalie position has become so robotic especially in comparison to their skater counterparts where we're seeing so much more creativity and nuance with the way players are training and what they're trying to accomplish, whereas goalies went the other direction where it was like, all right, this is the one technique that works.

Everyone's going to play this way. Everyone is going to look the exact same, be the same size, and move the same way. And it's, I don't think it's enough anymore to just be like positionally sound to be like, all right, I'm going to block off this and I'm going to be good because skaters are too good now at problem solving and they're going to work around that. So like now goalies with the game being as fast as ever are going to have to problem solve on the fly and be sort of accounting for the situational awareness, which is something they probably didn't need to worry about as much before. And so I'm not sure of the goalies in today's game,

while they're all so athletically gifted, are necessarily wired to do so right now. It might be like a next generation thing, but I'm curious to see what the sort of adjustment is from the goalies to compensate for this and then what that opens up for shooters after that. But I think one of the keys to problem solving is I think the guys who are going to be the bona fide number ones as things go and everything like that. They're going to be the guys who are willing to adjust and and be athletes about this, right?

Now, not the exact same type of season, but like one of the things that he actually said something about it in an interview on the Turner broadcast the other night. So we've, you and I've talked a lot about the Dallas Stars and Jake Onger. Jake Onger's year has not been nearly as good. but past five games, part of that is the Pristana up trade.

Stars have been a better defensive team. Another thing that he did is, and I've spoken to people from the stars about this, where one of the things the stars did with Ottinger was they went, he and his goalie coach, Jeffries, went and looked at where he was playing in his crease. He started intentionally playing, and they kind of used an example going back to Lundquist

because A, Othinger was this huge Lundquist, Adder's favorite goal of all time was Lundquist. So it was easy to use his hero as kind of the example in the video, But if you look at where Ottenchers feed are set in the crease, the last five games where they were for most of the season, he's much deeper in his crease. He's adjusted, like he's made a slight adjustment. Those are the type of examples that I think we don't call out enough when we look at how things go over the course of the season. I think part of it is also people don't always understand goal tend to. I think we just assume it's a, we see a goalie.

We don't really focus on what they're doing until they get the puck, until the puck comes at them. So this kind of Just like that conversation I witnessed with Lyon and Alex Westland That is a perfect example of the goalies that are going to adjust And probably right now there's probably no in-season adjustment to dealing with trying to have someone trying to bank it all the back of your head But you go into the lab you figure it out It's going to be tested and figured out

I I hope just as someone who A likes bullet ending and still attempts to play it myself that this is a thing where goaltending gets better because it's kind of silly when we like high-scoring games, we like bulls, but I go and I watch some junior hockey games being right here in Michigan, and it's sad to watch just kids get like just ripped apart

because they all try to do the exact same thing. And I hope that three, four years from now, you and I have a conversation, I'd be like, oh, I actually get to see good goaltending at an OHL game. I actually get to see good goaltending in a year. USHL game. And that's so rare for people now just because it's a bunch of 16, 17 year old robots. Once again, I keep losing my train of thought mid-talking deal. And I hope that I'm, this is why I need

an editor. This is why JD had a lot of my stuff. No, well, this is the beauty of the format of podcasting, right? We just talk, talk away with our thoughts. I think at the intermission, Marchenko actually, and part of it is just he's a hilarious character. And like, he really deserves more attention as being like a young star that, that people care about. And unfortunately, the Blue Jackets just have not warranted it in the two years he's been in the league. But I think that will come if he keeps this up and they hopefully turn things around. But he was asked sort of like if he practices it, right? And he essentially said, no, because it's hard to get goalies to sit there and let me shoot it off their head.

And that's true. Like I think in practice, you probably aren't trying to shoot the puck at your own goalie's head to try to score because while I'm sure you do want to score and practice on stuff that you might use in a game, you also are a bit more cognizant of like their health and potentially just shooting bugs at their head, right? And so that I think is a testament to the fact that while you can sort of work on your on your shooting accuracy, a lot of this stuff does have to be freelanced in the game. And that's because these skaters from a young age now with like all the development coaches and skills coaches they're working with and skating coaches and everything,

they're being given the tools to not necessarily do this stuff in practice. but because they've cobbled together enough different skills, when they get into a game, they're comfortable trying stuff like this, right? And obviously the risk reward is much different for a goalie where if you try something crazy and you're out of your net and you give up a goal against, you're going to look foolish.

Everyone's going to be like, why did you do that? And it's going to be a whole different can of worms. So it's not the same as a guy like this shooting from behind the net missing and no one thinks twice about it, certainly. But at the same time, I just think goalies are not in a position right now to be trying stuff.

And part of that is the limitations of the position, but part of it is also because of all this stuff that goes into it behind the scenes and during the summers before we actually get into NHL season. Well, it's also part of the quote-unquote YouTube generation of hockey now. It's great. So there's going to be a bunch of, I'm sure there's a bunch of kids. There might be a couple triple-a goalies across Canada in the United States today who are going to be pissed because of the, someone's going to go, their own teammates

going to go behind the net and try to shoot it off the back of their head. because you saw it in a Twitter highlight or a YouTube highlight the night before. And it is goalies though. Anytime the clip comes out, it's, man, the goalie's gone crazy. Like nothing,

nothing from the goalie YouTube generation is something that is that a coach would say, yeah, yeah, go try that. For the players, it's, you can mess around, you can do that. You can try this here or there. And it's, it's the same thing like with the Michigan stuff, right?

where every player can do it now because they've seen guys try it in games and now, okay, I got an extra five minutes to the end of practice. I'm going to do this. Goalies, you don't really, you don't get to be, what are you going to, what are you going to try to stick handle yourself? But there's nothing you can try as a bully kind of in that time. You could stretch more. You can work on your skating, but there's nothing sexy about that time where you can try to create something new in five minutes of practice or something like that. Well, I guess part of it is also the job requirements or kind of what you're trying to accomplish, right?

Where I'm sure the goalies and part of the members of the goal union are listening to this will not agree, but you're generally trying to like remove fun, right? And like that's the goalie's main job is to prevent fun stuff from happening. You're trying to prevent fun stuff for the other team. Okay, I'll put it that way. As a member of said goalie union, you're trying to remove fun stuff for the other team. No, but also I think also from like from your own perspective where I think like someone who knows

the goaltending position would always agree with the fact that one of these highlight real saves where you're diving across and making an acrobatic save is something you don't want to depend upon because it's kind of a reflection of you potentially being out of position or chasing the play. whereas if you're in the right position and the puck just hits you squarely in the chest and you control the rebound, that's like a nothing save that no one's ever going to think back to. But a goalie Purist would be like, yeah, that was the right play right there, right? And so that's kind of the opposite of what's happening with skaters. Now, I do also, like the reason why I want to note that, though, is because I know what you mean,

but sometimes I think Purist can sort of bemoan the fact that all of these like trick plays and this YouTube generation is going away from from the stuff that used to work back in the day. But this is like this, I guarantee you, this is the most functional in today's climate until goalies adjust. This is the right play to do. Like I think it's much more likely to go in than trying to wrap it in, wrap it around with the puck on the ice and trying to jam it in. That's not going to score very often against today's goalies. This actually has a chance of becoming a goal beyond just looking cool. So I think it's very fascinating. Do you have any other notes on this? Sir, do you want to talk a little bit about Roman Yose?

Yeah, let's talk, let's talk Yose. Okay, so you wrote a fascinating piece about them, about him. You've written about the predators this season. We've spoken a bunch about them. During this run, Nashville's on, and it's 22 games now. Their point streak ended, but they still, they had a very fun win against St. Louis on Thursday. It's 22 games now. In that time, since they turned their season around,

Roman Yosey has nine goals, 19 assists, 14 of which are primary. I think Quinn Hughes has had the Norris' choice. if you locked up for a while now, but I think this stretch of games for Roman Yossi has worked his way and warranted him to be in that conversation for finalists beyond Quinn Hughes. And I think he's been phenomenal. He's been a big reason for this. But much more interesting to me than that is sort of the adjustments that he's had to make in concert with the adjustments the team has made under Andrew Brinette this season and

kind of how moving away from kind of like, or moving towards, I guess, a less is more approach for him has actually improved everyone's efficiency. And I think that's so interesting because he's a player who certainly had success previously, but did so in a way where it was very like the NBA term heliocentric, right, where like everything had to revolve around him. He did so much of the heavy lifting with a puck on a stick. And now he's still got 20 goals this season of the defenseman, which is great. But he's doing it in a much different way than it did previously. Yeah. He's, uh, and then Andrew Burd out told me this. And then you go, you look at it, look at the numbers on it too, and you've talked, you watch you have two.

Like, he's gone from a lot of the, well, I got a, I'm taking, I'm typically taking a puck and I'm lugging it from the defensive zone through. I'm taking, that, that neutral zone transition success depends on the puck staying on my stick. And that's kind of used to be a lot of the Roman Yossi mentality on it. And now it's become more and more of a, it's become more and more of, I, I'm both a, to use a, steal an NFL term, he's become more and more of the run-pass option guy where it's more given goes.

It's more taking space as given and then finding the pass and then getting the puck back. And the predators in general, if you watch, and I think this one I was looking around that story, if you go and you watch Yosey, it's fascinating to see he may not have the puck as much, but he's manipulating space more.

He's doing all of those little things. It's very, and I'm a big soccer guy, as people know, to me, it's very similar to a great central midfielder whose job is not necessarily to dribble the ball down the field, but to make those one-toes, to make those slight space manipulations, so others can get involved. And that's what Yossi's kind of become more so this year. It's always a great defender, but for me, that's just making a next step in his game.

And frankly, it probably took about half the season for him to really feel comfortable, fully embracing that role too with Brunette changing their system. Well, I think what it highlights is, and I think it makes sense, but just seeing it kind of reinforced here, is the puck travels faster than any player can skate, right? Yes, yes, yes. So much of today's game and it's kind of this fascination for us of like optimizing the efficiency of offense and finding ways to create is predicated on attacking the opposition

before they can get set defensively, right? You wouldn't necessarily know it by like all the individual point totals and you look at the R. Ross race right now and generally the goal scoring around the league. But teams have gotten really good defensively because I think there's a gained appreciation now for what works and what doesn't when you see a team like Vegas have the success they add and the ability to kind of like, all right, we're going to give you shots from anywhere in terms of these in zone situations, but we're going to protect the slot. And it's easier said than done.

but I think every team and the good ones in particular go into games now with that as their game plan, right? And that's how we're going to try to give you problems and slow you down offensively. So the way to work around that is to attack off the rush and quickly off a broken plays and transition before they can get set. And so for a player like Yosey now, instead of having to go back, retrieve the puck, allow the forecheck and defense to get set, and then kind of weed was way through and then have to create in the offensive zone, he's quickly passing the puck off the ice and then skating without it. And what that's allowing as well is for him to kind of get lost a little bit more now in the traffic, right? Because I think when a guy like him, he's such a dazzling skater, but when he has the puck,

it's very easy to have your defensive assignment on him, right? Like everyone knows where the puck is. You're tracking him every step of the way, and it's tough for him to get lost in coverage. In this sense, when he passes the puck up, all of a sudden now he can sort of weave around and get open and get the puck in more advantageous scoring positions. And so he's doing a bit less himself and his puck touches might be down. But it's almost impossible to argue that he's getting more out of his game because each of those puck touches now are more efficient and in more dangerous areas of the ice.

And I think that's really cool the way him and Andrew Burnett have worked together to sort of get that out of him at this point of his career. Yeah, it's the other thing about you watch UFC 2 or all that. You kind of sums it up perfectly. the other thing that he's done really well. And he always did it before, but it's something that actually didn't end up in that story. But I remember Brunette, one of those things Brunette told me to kind of watch or want to watch Yosi play when I last talked to him was Yosey has taken, giving that free time and space now without lugging the puck, Yosey scans more. And that's, I don't know if there's a way to quantify it or whatever, but it was something Andrew Brunette told me to kind of look for when I watch Yose.

And he said, he says like, Yosey scans more. he's when he doesn't have the puck he's now looking at all these options and he's finding other routes and other ways to get to space that he probably was frankly ignoring before just because of the well you have to lug the puck or you have to do this it's it's that's a thing too that wasn't in that story but just again I had to your point there you watch yosey blade just look at how he scans the ice now it's it's at a higher rate I have no way to quantify it but it's at a higher rate were to do his coach than it was before. Well, and I think one of the added perks of this is, like, he's going to be 34 in June, which sounds crazy to say, right? Because he still looks so young and it still feels like he's still young. And certainly his production is, like, very prime level. But he's going to be 34.

And I think, like, the sustainability of playing into your mid-30s at this level is much more likely in this way where you're just having to do a bit less. I think there's less of a physical toll as well, right? where I think the shifts you take are much more onerous when you have the puck and you're taking a bunch of physical contact and you're having to do a lot more with it as opposed to kind of skating more freely and then picking your spots the way he has. I think it makes much more sense that this is going to elongate his prime, whatever that is for the next couple of years as well, right? And that's something we certainly is kind of more theoretical, I guess, and we'll see how that plays out over

the next couple years. But beyond just the value it's provided this year, I think, as like an investment in the player and him being the team's captain and his importance to the franchise, it makes sense that I think this is going to be able to stretch that out and ensure that he's playing at this level when he's 36, 37 as well, which I think is kind of cool. I mean, with your best, I mean, just from a black and white business perspective, too, you sign a guy to a big contract. If you want to maximize the value of that contract,

you want to maximize his play as a player, and that's what this does. Yeah, he's been phenomenal. I mean, during that 22-game stretch I referenced, He's been on the ice for 51 of Nashville's 88 goals. At 5-1-5, they're up 32 to 16 in his minutes, and he's got high-danger chance shares and expected goal shares comfortably in the 60s. So this is very legit,

and he's doing so in a very sustainable way, so it's really cool to see. Any other notes on Yosi here, or do you want to do our sign-out here? Because I know you have a... Let's start sign-out. Yeah. A bit Daniel Sprong anecdote as well.

I have... News Mid-Round reporting. I have a... Hideo cast listeners are always down for more Daniels. I mean, I mean, PDOC...

I mean, this is a... Talking to Daniel Sprong today after he and I chat about this, I felt I had to tell this story here because I know the big Daniel Sprung fans we have here. So Daniel Sprung is as a... Remember, he has Dutch and Canadian descent. He was born in the Netherlands, but grew up plain hockey in Canada.

And so I was today in kind of a locker. I was curious to kind of get to the first-hand story if I asked Daniel Sprung at the... ever considered playing internationally for his birth country. And it was the, he told me that if, if the Netherlands ever reached the kind of the division, the spot where they were potentially playing to qualify for the Olympics, he definitely would. But the problem is right now, the Dutch National Hockey Federation doesn't have enough money for, doesn't have the right finance, he put it, to have the insurance to cover him playing for them.

and he was worried about the lose-lose nature of potentially playing in the Division B World Championship, whatever the technical terminology is, where he believes that he believes in his heart of hearts he could carry the Dutch team to at least the championship game of that level. But he would, he said he score a lot of goals in there, whatever, you're going to be either ripped on for doing too well or not well enough. So he did also say there's other players. He did leave this one thing open. Daniel Sprung said that if he knows there's some other players that have slight Dutch nationality

and would potentially could get Dutch passports. And so if a couple of them were to come together and decide that they would all come together, maybe later in his career they would form the Dutch super team. So that is the Daniel Sprung Dutch national team's your story I got today for you. Well, I thought your story was going to be like, all right, he's looking at these broadcasters that are talking about Canada's roster and he's like, all right, is Crosbyr and McDavid bump into the wing? And if so, which guy I might play with?

Who's feeding me the pucks? And I thought that's where his mind would be at. But no, that's interesting. I was at a dinner party recently and my partner has family friends who are from the Netherlands. And then what they're obviously, you know, he comes up what I do for work. And we're talking about hockey and stuff. And they're like, oh, yeah, like, you know, hockey's not that big. in the Netherlands and I was like, oh, well, you must not be familiar with Dutch Gretzky,

Dale Weiss and in his historic run in the league over there. So they were like, I was, they were like, no, we actually are not familiar with that. And I was like, all right, well, I mean, very few are, but maybe just because of the local connections here, I was, that was something I was keeping very close to have zone. I thought this was going to be a story where you were going to say someone was just like, oh, have you ever heard of Daniel Sprung? And then your poor, your poor partner, all of a sudden, now subject to the entire night of talking about shooting locations and in the confidence to shoot from everywhere over dinner and perhaps a lack of defensive zone coverage.

I guarantee you that has happened at various points. Not in this particular occasion, but Daniel Sprong has come up. Sean, this was great. I'm glad we got to touch base and talk about a bunch of stuff. I'll let you plug some stuff here the way out. Let the listeners know either what you're working on or what they can look forward to from you moving forward. Yeah, for coming tomorrow, I got my weekly column over at EP Rinkside. We've got something with the kind of the nature of the President's trophy race with both the Rangers and the Stars.

I've got that coming at Rinkside tomorrow. Check that out. I just dropped something over at my site looking at faceoffs and the fact how we've got more players than ever. It's not a new thing, but we got more players than ever who are maybe a righty taking the face off as a lefty. on their weak side and flipping the stick over and talked to Vincent Schrochek about it this morning who does it more than most in the NHL and the Rangers are a team from my, from my recollection and from my research on it, the first kind of team that's actually done it as a, on a whole team base as opposed to seeing one guy or a couple guys. The Rangers have pretty

much all four centers do this where they go that. So I've got that over at the substack over at Shapshots. And as I've been plug in, pitching. We made a beer league hockey movie. It's the late game. Go to the late game.com and you can stream it there. It turns on everyone's really got their limits, right? Because I think I'm in the in the tall percentile of like my interest in random niche hockey stuff and my knowledge on it. But you were DM me about Austin Zarnik's face off technique and I was like, I got to be honest, Sean. Even for me, this is going too far. And I got out of this conversation. I had last night, so I'm working on it last night. And I'm trying to visualize.

this last night. This is how my ridiculous, dumb, beautiful brain works. I get the one kid to bed. My wife's getting the other kid to bed. She comes downstairs. On the computer, I've got the random face-off stats. I'm in the kitchen. And I have grabbed a right-handed hockey stick from the garage. And I'm holding it left-handed, trying to visualize how this works. And my wife just walks downstairs into the kitchen. It just shakes her head and turns around. This is how. This is how this is how my brain goes down some red caps. So that's a, that's your wagon rolling by

the live studio audience, the PDO cast right now. And that's a good time for us to sign out here, Sean. I'm going to let you go. Thanks for coming on. Thank you to the listeners for joining us for the ride. It's good to be back at it, but we're not done just yet. I'm going to let Sean go here. But we're going to come back for one more episode of the HockeyPediocast to close out the week here on the Sportsnet Radio Now.