The Hockey PDOcast - The Eastern Conference wild card race

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

David Dwork joins Dimitri to talk about the Florida Panthers, and why they haven't been nearly as dangerous as they were last year at both ends of the ice. Then Danny Shirey hops on to look at the Pittsburgh Penguins, and why their front office's approach has been so frustrating.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.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. 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.

Progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PDOCast with your host, Dmitri Philipovic. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dimitri Philipovic, and joining me is my buddy, David Dwork. David, what's going on, man? Dimitri, good to see you, man. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, no, exciting times. Coming off a huge win by the Florida Panthers on Wednesday night against Toronto Maple Leafs. They tied the game in the final minute. They won it overtime to avoid losing, I believe, a fifth straight game, which pulls them within one point of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who will talk about more in the second half of today's show

for the final wildcard spot in the east. Now the penguins do have a game in hand on them, but they're right there. And so I guess the first way that I wanted to start this conversation because we're going to focus on the panther side of things here is for me remarkably lost in everything that's otherwise gone wrong for them this season and the list of those things is very long, is the fact that offensively,

if you pull up all of their stats on either evolving hockey or a natural stater or any publicly available stats say that you want to use, at least at first blush, it appears that they're pretty much matching everything they did last year offensively at the very least. Now the goals, which is what we care about at the end of the day and which drives the results, have been lagging a bit behind.

But in terms of like the process itself, at least statistically, it seems like it's pretty comparable to last year. Now that doesn't match, I think, anyone that's watched the team from start finish so far. It doesn't seem to match that. But it is interesting that at least from the amount they're generating, it kind of seems pretty comparable. Yeah, it's, it's interesting too when you look at like a guy like Brandon Montor who's filled in a gap for Aaron Neckblatt, who's scoring kind of fell off

a cliff for a little bit this year. And last season, you would have thought that it would have been more comparable to what we've seen this year just because last year was so much run and gun, so much back and forth. But they really didn't give up comparably that many goals last year, whereas this year they've given up a ton of goals. And that's really what the problem has been. And the interesting thing is like when they hired Paul Maurice and they said, we're going to change things up. We want to tighten things up. We want to make it more of a playoff like team. That's really hasn't come to fruition yet. And it's because you think, okay, they're going to score less goals. They're going to give up less goals. Neither has been the case. It's just kind of been. And I don't want to say a free

for all because when you think of last year, it was very run and gun. This year, it's been more structurally bad. It's not bad, but just not on the same page. And last night was a good case of that, where you saw, you know, there's a couple of power plays where you could see guys getting frustrated, guys bringing the puck up, maybe not in the traditional sense that they'd been working on. And that's kind of been a reverberating theme over the, you mentioned, the four-game losing streak, just frustrations.

Paul Maurice not getting what he wants out of his team, not necessarily the effort in terms of how hard they play, but in terms of adapting to and following through with his systems, there's been a disconnect. It's been kind of apparent lately just because of what they've been saying, where it hadn't been talked about that much earlier in the year. But at this point of the year, Dimitri, it's, what, seven games left now. You're one point out of it.

There's no conversation that's going to fix things at this point. Well, yeah, I think it's a convergence of things, right? Because you mentioned, like, the goals they're scoring come down from four. 0.06 last year, which was the best we've seen in the analytics area since 2007, down to 3.41, which is still, what, fifth best in the league. So in isolation, that's not that big of a deal. But then their goals against go from 2.9 for 60 to 3.4. And what you have is a team that's basically breaking even. It's both of them have come towards the middle. And that's a bit of an issue. And I guess for me, the question you mentioned this, you mentioned the Paul Maurice factor here

and sort of the organization's desire this offseason to, I think, stylistically change their composition. Part of it was out of necessity because they had this upcoming decision to make with Hubert O and Uyghur and Wiger's contract status and having one more year and deciding whether they wanted to pay them or not to extend them long term. And then Matthew Kachuk becoming available in Florida being one of the teams he wanted to go to. We'll talk more about that deal later. But I'm curious for your take on how much of it is personnel driven and how much of it

is sort of Maurice and an organizational mandate to kind of try to change the way they're playing because of how obviously and disastrously last year ended in terms of them playing a certain way and it clearly running into a roadblock when they played a team like the Lightning. Yeah, I think what you saw with the Panthers is they kind of ascended over the last few years entering this year was a team that was learning to really be a high power team under Joel Quenville. And that was what he wanted to, you know, a high possession game, constantly with the puck, constantly driving. And how did that end? Back to back years, they got smoked in the playoffs by 10.

So this is a team now that's like, okay, we know that we can be good in the regular season. And we know that we have good players. Now we need to convert it into a playoff caliber team that can succeed. And that's where the change to Paul Maurice came in. Because, yeah, you last year, you were win a president's trophy. You get your first playoff round win in decades. You would think the team would want to continue on that ascension on that path. But no, they wanted to, you know, said, okay, we're going to look at our team.

We've got a great core. When you look at guys like Barkov and for Haiti, Reinhardt, Bennett, then you bring in a Matthew Kachuk. You've got Aaron Neckblad. You've got Gus Foresling, Brandon Montmore. You've got a very solid core in Florida. They wanted to shape that into a team that was going to be hard to play against come playoff time. So as the years progressed, we've seen, we saw the goals go down. Okay, that we expected.

The goals against went up. That was a little concerning. as the year has gone on, the meeting hasn't changed much, Dimitri. And I think that's where the frustration comes in because you've now had, what, seven months working the same systems, hearing the same messages with really the same cast of characters. You know, Anthony Duclair came back into the lineup after missing most of the year, but he'd been in every meeting.

He'd been at the rink every day. So, yeah, it's, I don't want to say it's a, whether it's personnel or coaching, I think it's kind of a combination of the two because you've got a coaching chain. trying to take personnel that was brought together intended to play a certain way. Now you're playing a different way under a different coach. And it's been a process to say the least. Can it happen? I also think this is looking big picture,

they're going to be some changes this is off season. Bill Zito, the general manager, he's going to have money to spend. There's going to be a lot more flexibility than they're had this year. So perhaps they'll be able to mold a little bit better towards what they're building with Paul Maurice. He can maybe have a bit of a say in the players he brings in. but in terms of this season, it's been a much more difficult process than I think anybody anticipated. Well, the reason why I framed it comparing, like, last year's offensive output to this year's is because, you know, they're generating about the same number of shots per hour.

They're actually generating slightly more high danger chances and expected goals against. But I haven't had a chance to look at this more recently. I know I did a bit of a deep dive halfway through the year. In ClearSight Analytics, in their tracking, reflected a wildly different offensive approach comparing the two seasons where the expected goals off the rush, which was their bread and butter, as you mentioned, that kind of run and gun style last year.

They were first in the league that had gone down to like 15th, expected goals against off the rush had gone from fourth best to 18th. And so that kind of reflects more so what's happening with the actual goals for and against in terms of coming to the middle. And part of that I think is personnel driven, especially like the goals against part because when you play a running gun, you're going to expose yourself to more opportunities coming back the other way. And McKenzie Uighur not being there, I think that loss is being felt very dramatically

because he, for all of his flaws, sometimes with the puck making the stakes and turnovers and lapses in judgment, he's one of the best rush defenders in the league, right? He's so aggressive and he was able to kind of single-handedly neutralize a lot of those threats last year himself, not having here has exposed them a bit defensively against speed. And then offensively, we can talk more about Hubert O and missing him on the power play. I think that's where his loss has been felt the most. But it's clear that I think that's where you see sort of this organizational mandate and Paul Marie is trying to come in and change the way they play and make them more quote

unquote playoff ready or what have you. And I think, I mean, the results speak for themselves. I think for me, the disappointing part beyond just how fun they were to watch last year, regardless of how it ended, was in a way, it's kind of like a sad irony, right? You try to, you look at yourself, you evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a team. team and you go, okay, we're good at these things. Now let's this off season try to address the things we're bad at. And in a way, by doing so, they've drifted further and further away from the stuff that made them so good in the first place. And I think that's what I keep coming back to when

I watch this team and evaluate them is, I think that's the shame of it more so than anything else. Yeah, I mean, you know, on one hand, you can't cry over spilled milk, but it's it's frustrating. And I'm with you on that because it was so much fun, not just watching what they did last year, but how they built into it. Like they worked to become that team. And then as you said, it's sadly ironic that in trying to become a better playoff team and trying to move away from that, they've really kind of taken a bigger step back on the whole.

It makes me wonder what's going to happen moving forward. And as I said, I'm really looking to this off season because I think it's going to be telling into the mindset of the front office and how they want to build this team for Paul Morris. But it's, it's very frustrating. is a word that I think I use more from from a fan standpoint just because it was it was very entertaining and it was cool to watch last year from from an objective standpoint it's interesting just because you're trying so hard to succeed and trying so hard to push forward

and that's really all these guys do it's their job 24-7 they live it and and to see the way it played out it's it's tough I think part of it is also and I wonder how much of this went into their decision making and their approach this off season was part of it, I think, was also never going to be replicable from last year. It did feel like especially the regular season I'm talking about. It was like not a flash in the pan, but it was like everything went right. And you could see that sometimes in how many times that they go down big early in a game and then just come storming back and score four or five goals in a hurry.

And we know that while it's like awesome in the moment, that's not necessarily a sustainable strategy of time and time. and putting these roadblocks in front of yourself and trying to overcome them. And you can see that like they're scoring, I think, a goal per 60 less this season when trailing than they were last year when they were just, every time they'd go down, they would just, they would just flip the switch and turn on, John Huff into a juggernaut. And that's really tough to do. So the shooting percentage itself has come down a little bit.

The way they've played has changed. I think all of that has factored into why the team is different offensively. Should also mention, you know, Huberto himself has certainly been struggling in Calgary. year and has his own issues. I think the biggest loss that they feel not having him in the lineup this year is on the power play, though, where they've also kind of come back to the middle in the pack. Yeah. I think in terms of power play personnel, whether it's been Aaron Eckblad struggling this season, because Aaron Eckblad, in addition to Hubert was a great facilitator on that power play, Aaron Eckblad was a great shooter on that power play. Now, I thought it would

be alleviated a bit with Matthew Kichuk coming in and being an amazing net front president that he has been. I mean, Matthew Kachuk has been as advertised pretty much across the board. But yeah, the power play has been interesting just because we've seen, we've gone from one defenseman with Aaron Neckblad to then one defenseman with McKenzie, or excuse me, with Brandon Montaure, to then two defensemen with Montauor-Netblad. Forewords have changed. We've seen Bennett was on there. We've seen Carter Verhege is now on there replacing Aaron Neckblatt. It's been so fluid, whereas last year was pretty much the same group when it was that Barkov, Reinhardt, Hubert,

at Blad and whether it was Bennett or Hornquest, whoever they were getting to play the net front last year, but it was very consistent. And I think it just kind of ties back into how big of a challenge this has been. And looking at the depth they lost last year, but when you lose like Claude Drew, who has played a part of the power play towards the end of the season, Mason Marchman, who gave you that depth that they've lost,

that kind of takes away from being able to play the game they played last year. The special teams has just been, it's been a challenge, not just on the power play. The penalty kill had a really good couple of months in like January and February. Other than that, it has been average at best. And staying out of the box too has been a big problem. So yeah, I'm just kind of going down the list in my head here. That's a long list.

Yeah. Yeah, right? No. And I think when you say how much of it is coaching, how much is personnel, how much of it is other factors, you know, the personnel element comes into this. You mentioned Claudeau there when he played only about 18 regular season games or something for them last year and was wildly effective on the powerplay is one of the best power players in the league for many years. There were times when they acquired them when they were going

with the most aggressive set in the league, which was that five forward unit, right? And this year, now they've tinkered with the various combinations, but out of their five most frequently used players on the power plate, two of them are a defenseman in Brandon Montreur and Aaron Eckblad. And it is interesting to me that they went from one of the most aggressive possible formations to being now one of the only teams that is really, at least even with any regular basis, using two defensemen on their power play. And some of that is personal driven and the players you have.

And random Montre is stepping up and has certainly earned some of those responsibilities. But also you can't help but acknowledge that in terms of the way this team's approach and thought in terms of the way they're trying to attack the game has changed as well. And that's why I keep coming back to coaching when I'm trying to figure out where some of these things have gone wrong.

Yeah, it's stylistically, there's a lot of changes. And just looking at that five-man power play that you were talking about this season, I asked Paul Maurice earlier in the season, like the change to two defensemen. And his answer was that Aaron Eckblatt isn't really a defenseman on that power play. And granted, earlier in the year, when you're looking at Aaron, Black, Eklad, and you're thinking of him as the player that he had been growing into the last few years, that was pretty feasible.

Okay, that can work. Eckblad, you know, he rotates, he moves around. He's taking most of his shots from the sideboards on the power play anyway. but the way his season is gone, like he's clearly not the same player. He's been the last few years. And that's a topic for another time in terms of what's gone wrong with our Neklad this season. But to continue to try to utilize him in the way that he's been utilized in the past where he's clearly not the same player that he's been. That's an awareness issue.

That's definitely something that I would point to coaching just in terms of you see it's not working. You've got to make some changes. Yeah. There's a lot to unpack there, certainly. You know, I think for me, let's try to put a bit of a silver lining on this because I think we've gone over all the things that haven't gone right. And I did want to talk about Matthew Kachuk and the role he's played on this team because that is very clearly a massive positive for this team moving forward. And I'm not going to try to frame this from the perspective of like they have a 36% chance by most statistical models right now of making the playoffs. Right.

It's still going to be an uphill climb for them even though they're just one point out. And when you go from winning the president's trophy and the high. that came with that last year and winning your first playoff series as an organization in 20 plus years to potentially missing the playoffs the following year and not having your first round pick in that draft. Like that's there's no real way to kind of sugarcoat that, right? Like that's a real thing that you're going to have to deal with and acknowledge in the offseason. But this is your silver lining.

Well, no, no. I'm trying to get there. I'm trying to wind it up, you know, build it up, build up the dramatic effect. The biggest decision they made is past off season and the thing that is going to determine the outlook of this organization for the next five, seven years and beyond was the trade they made with the Calgary Flames. And I think based on the returns this season and especially the contract status of all the players involved moving forward, there's no other way to frame it other than a massive home run, right? Like having Matthew and what he's shown this season for 9.5 million for his

age 26 through 32 seasons moving forward compared to Huberto, whose mega extension has even kicked in yet and it's going to be what 10.5 or something 10 and a half 10 and a half for his age 30 through 37 seasons. I mean those just you can't even compare those two right and and and what kachuk has done this season and what he's shown. I think there was some question about what the panthers would get from him because last year was a bit of a statistical outlier for him offensively. He'd always been a really good 5-1-5 player massive impact but he'd never produced the way he had last year when everything went right for him and goddrow and lin, home on that top line for Calgary, and he's not only matched that, but he's exceeded it in many

ways this season. And so when you're trying to think ahead, I always view this as a bit of a, take a step back out of necessity bridge year for the Panthers as an organization to clear up some of that cap space, get some financial flexibility heading into this coming off season. They were always going to take a bit of a step back from results this season. But now looking ahead and having a player of Kachuk's caliber, the way he's produced at that cap figure, that is the silver lining for me. Yeah, and you really said it right there, Demetia, was that this season was going to be a bit of a one-off. And that was kind of top to bottom organizationally.

Like, they realized that because they were going to be so strapped from the salary cap that they couldn't make any moves in the season. And despite that, we're still going to be completely limited with their roster opportunities because they were so tight against the cap with the few players that, you know, in terms of depth, the few players that they had right now. but that trade like just kind of take going back in time to last summer it was kind of known here that mackenzie weeater was not going to be able to be retained he was going to get a big contract in his ufa a year the panthers weren't going to be able to afford him and jonathan huberto so when that trade it kind of materialized that in nowhere it must have been like you know bill zito thought it was like christmas is because now it answered so many questions and it kind of solved a bit of a lot of problems and then when you throw into account what you said the chuck is on a cheaper contract. He's younger. He's ascending. It's just, I think what we said, it's a home run for the Panthers.

And then moving forward, when you're looking at, you've got now, Barkov and Kichuk, both locked up until 2030 in their prime years. You've got the core that I mentioned, we got, you know,

Reinhardt for the next two years after this one, Bennett for the next two years after this one, Cardover Hades got, he's closing on 40 goals and he's making three million a B. The Panthers are very much loaded up for the future. And then when you think about the fact that they're going to have money to spend this off season, where they can get some of that depth back, which was such a plus for them, but a big reason why they succeeded last year and won the president's trophy was because

they were able to roll four lines and really be dangerous regardless of who they threw out there. It's very, that's what I've been saying all the years. I'm optimistic for the future. I think between last season, what they've been building the last few years, making the playoffs for three years in a row after going what felt like forever to take a line from Elsa or honor, whoever said it in Frozen, it felt like forever since the Panthers that even made the playoffs. Now they're a team that you're looking at like, okay, this is a team that we're kind of looking at as a perennial playoff team. They should be in the mix every year. That in and of itself

is a huge, just change from what's been this organizationally, this franchise has been for a long time. I think with Bill Zito running the show, he's made good move after good move after good move. And you really have to give him a lot of credit for building the team the way he has. and with that in mind, I'm excited to see what happens this offseason. Just knowing the team that they have, the core that they have, combining that with a bit more flexibility, hopefully, and as we said before, the idea of synergy between the front office and the coaching staff and building a team that's going to respond to what Paul Maurice is trying to get this team to do, that all has to come into play together.

But to this point, from when he was hired in September 2020, Bill Zito has had an amazingly good finger on the pulse of this team. So that's why I'm, when I say I'm excited to see how it continues to play out, it's just because it's fun to watch this, you know, this rookie GM, build this team into what it has become. And I want to see how it continues to play out. Yeah, I'm curious to see as well. I mean, they have about, by my count, 10 million or so without making any of further moves this offseason in financial flexibility, which is obviously a big change from where they

were at last year. Now they don't have their first round pick for the next three drafts. And the summer of 2024 is where it'll get really. interesting and that's why I'm curious to see how aggressive they become once again this summer because what Montour, Forsling, Ryanhart, Duclair will be UFAs and Lundell will be coming off as ELC that summer. And so that's going to be a real offseason of changes as if last summer wasn't already enough for them.

And so I'm very curious to see how they approach that. But one final note on Kachuk I did before we move on to this and sign out when I was talking about like what a season he's had, Micah tweeted out his impact of with Kachuk on and off the ice at 5-15 for the Panthers recently, and the charts are absolutely hilarious. I highly recommend checking them out with him on the ice at 5-on-5. It's just like a big red blob everywhere around the net and in the middle of the ice and everywhere you want to get shots from. And without, they're like just very middle of the road, right?

And that's reflected in the goals as well. When he's out there, they're scoring 4.82 goals per 60 at 5-on-5. Without him, that goes down at 2.2. it's rare, David, that we think about a winger this way, especially one that's kind of like as plotting and methodical as Kachuk is at times with his skating, right? Like you're not going to see him in a traditional 2023 way, take the puck from his own zone and just beat everyone up the ice and score a highlight real goal in that capacity. It's much more methodical of an approach.

But the way he dominates, especially for a winger, is just so rare. And I think that's why it's almost kind of tough to wrap your head around. a player that plays like him at the position he does having this type of impact. But by any measure, he's been one of the three to five most impactful forwards, definitely, if not all skaters in the NHL this season. And so what a year he's having. And that's something to hold on to apologies for the first 15 minutes, which are all very, very gloomy and dark and depressing.

But that is certainly something to build off of moving forward. Do you have any other notes on, Kachuk or do you want to wrap this thing up? No, just kind of to follow what you were saying, what I find interesting about Kachuk. And I could be a little off because I haven't watched all the other top players in the league as much as I've seen Kachuk this year. But he really doesn't seem to handle the puck when you talk about a guy who carries it up and down the ice.

He doesn't seem to carry the puck as much as a lot of the other superstars in the league. And yet he still impacts the game the way he does. And then when you look at his numbers, he hasn't played with Sasha Barkov, who's the Panthers best offensive player not named Kachuk. He's barely played with Barkov this year outside of special teams. Five on five, they've been on separate lines. most of the year. Florida's best line by far this year has been the one with Kachuk, centered by Sam Bennett with Carter Verhadi on the wing. That line for a good month between February before

Samda and it got hurt was the driving force of this team. And it's just interesting with Matthew Kachuk because he's so consistent. He puts up the numbers all year. We haven't really talked about him a whole lot in terms of this season because he's been so consistent. There hasn't been much to talk about other than, yep, there's Matthew Kichuk putting up his numbers doing his thing. It's just a great thing. he's only 25. He's just entering this big contract. It's, it's, it's fun. He's a fun guy to watch. And he's a good guy off the ice too, which makes him easy to root for. Yeah, the stuff that you mentioned in terms of like, you know, of course, around the net behind his passing from behind the goal line and all that is one thing. What I've been really blown away with this season is watching those

little touch passes he makes kind of like around his own blue line along the wall, right? You mentioned how he makes an impact without necessarily having the puck on a stick and lugging it up the ice himself, that's because he can't. If he, if he tried to do that, everyone would be able to catch up to him and get in his way. And so astutely, he lets his faster skating teammates do all the work and how fast he can pass the puck do the work to speed up the game. Right. And so he gets it along the wall and quickly passes it into the middle of the ice, hits a, it's a player in full stride and all of a sudden they're breaking up the ice for a three on two or two on one. And he does all those little plays time and time again. I think that's why his possession

impacts are as strong as they've been this season. All right, David, I'll let you quickly. plug some stuff here on the way out, let the listeners know where they can check you out. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on again, Dimitri. Thank you. You can find me on Twitter at David Dwork. I'm covering the Panthers for the hockey news right now. So there's a lot of written coverage going on the Hockey News.com, I think slash NHL slash Florida Panthers.

But if you just search Florida Panthers in the hockey news or follow me on Twitter, you can get it all there. I also have a podcast chirping the cats that I do for local 10, my home station here in South Florida and just a lot of Panthers coverage. So if you can find me, I'm easy to find because there's not a lot of dwarfs. in the world. Yeah. All right, man.

We'll be well. Thanks for coming on. Let's get to finally have you on. And we're going to say bye to you here. And then we're going to switch gears in part two of the show and talk about the Pittsburgh Penguins. But first, a break here on the HockeyPedio cast, which you're listening to on the Sports Net Radio Network.

Welcome to the Hockey Pee-Ocast. My name is Amitra Filipovich. And joining me is my buddy, Danny Shire. Danny. What's going on, man? Well, it's a first day of baseball season, which is exciting for some like myself and we are in the stretch run here leading up to the postseason and that's at least for me you got to be the best time of the year yeah although i will say this wild

car race is probably a bit less exciting than the optimism that a brand new season of baseball provides but we're going to power through before the break we talked about the florida panthers into things highlighting their sort of recent struggles now we're going to shift to the pittsburg penguins the team you cover and you're near and dear with and a team that is competing with the panthers for that final available playoff spot out east. And, you know, during the break, I was thinking to myself about how I didn't like that my tone around this conversation was so negative. So I was trying to build myself up to provide more optimism for the penguins.

But I feel like this isn't going to get that much more encouraging. And that really should, I think, tell you everything you need to know about the state of this Eastern Conference wildcard race, right? And describing it as a race almost doesn't seem fitting because both teams really more aptly are kind of crawling towards the finish line here. Yeah, it's almost like, I might be missing some of the target audience here, but it's kind of like that SpongeBob episode where Patrick's trying to erase his pet rock like all the way down, and it's just like nothing is moving at all here.

And it almost seems like these handful of teams that are competing for the last wildcard spot are competing to see who could lose that spot rather than actually sneak their way into the playoffs. But as far as the penguins are concerned, like even if they do end up sneaking into the playoffs here down the stretch. It's just they have not, aside from a stretch, you know, late November into December, they have not even put together really a two or three week stretch where you can say this team's playing the way that they need to be playing to at least compete in the Eastern Conference. Now, even if they are playing at that level, I'm not going to sit here and say that I'd put them up toe to toe against the Bruins or even the Devils or hurricanes for that matter. But at some point

here, like Mike Sullivan keeps saying it, they are running out of track here. And, you know, we look at their most recent game against the Red Wings here. They came out and were completely flat in a game that they actually had a little bit of wiggle room because the Panthers had continued to, they kept losing some games there. And all of a sudden, it's like, okay, this is a really nice opportunity here to kind of separate yourselves and distance yourselves a little bit. And then they come out and fall flat on their faces the first period. They obviously came back and tied the game before they lost seven to four. But that's really just been the issue with them all season, whether it's, coming out of the gates slow and then turning it on afterward or then coming out of the gates really hot and then they just fall on their faces again throughout the rest of the game.

That's that's been a recurring theme for a number of issues. And, you know, even when they put together a game or two here and you're like, okay, they're building a strong stretch. All of a sudden those ugly habits start to build their way back. So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens with them. But as far as I'm concerned, they still have quite a bit of work to do if they even want to, you know, because it's looking at. like they're going to whoever gets that second wildcard spots is obviously going to play the Bruins. So if they get it, it looks like they're going to have a matchup with a team that not only has given them quite a bit of fits here over the past however many seasons, but it's also a team that's putting

together one of the best regular seasons in NHL history. Well, certainly. And I think just to get there, like for the year, you mentioned this, the penguins are plus 10 in the first period in goal differential, plus 18 in the second period. That's been their strong suit, minus 12 in the third period. And in the past 10 games in particular, I believe they've been outscored. like 19 to 11 or something in the third period, which was highlighted most in their most recent game

against the Red Wings. And, you know, when they're, some of the other teams that are competing other than the Panthers with them for this final spot and like the senators and the sabers, when they have these sort of lapses in games or especially, you know, if they can't close strong or whatever,

it's very easy to attribute that to well, oh, it's a young team learning the ropes. This is sort of their first time here. These are the growing pains, right? I think for a team that is positioned as, as quite literally the oldest team in the league and has been through

this with this core for many years, you can't really even apply any of those excuses or cliches. And I imagine that makes it even more frustrating watching performances like the one we saw in Detroit. Yeah, no doubt. And I, I've really struggled to put my finger on why that continues to happen. Because to your point, like you've got you've got all that experience in that locker room. It's like you'd think that, yeah, they might be susceptible to some lulls here in the middle of the season on a random weeknight game in January. Like that happens across hockey, right? But this is something entirely different. And the only thing that I can really come up with, it's all that substantial is that aside from this just being a mediocre roster, I have to

imagine that a lot of those guys in that room are like, we've got Sidney Crosby, Evgeny Malkin, and Chris LaTang in here, like, they're going to lead the way they're going to do it. And that's not me questioning anybody's effort or anything like that. But I, you know, the human nature element is such a big factor in sports. And that's one of the biggest reasons why they play the games, right? So one of the things I keep coming back to is like, are they just that comfortable with the guys that they have and what they've accomplished that they think they can, you know, will themselves to victory like they didn't 2017?

If they do, I don't think that there's many people, including myself out there that actually thinks that's a case. Yeah, Dom and Moneypuck both have them at 67% chance or roughly around there of securing that final spot and making the playoffs. And that seems remarkable to me because on the one hand, it feels like we spent all year talking about this imbalance of power in NHL between the two conferences, right? The East has been so much better than the West. For a while there you can make an argument that like the best four or five teams in the entire league,

we're all in one conference out east. And now here you are, me and you're talking about a Penguin team that is on pace for 91 points, has a minus seven goal differential of 515 and minus four across all situations, is getting beaten pretty handily in the third period in crunch time. And it's just like, I don't analyze. politically know how to even capture this, but it feels like watching the games on a game to game basis, it's a relatively uninspiring feeling, right? And for all the talent this team has, when they were at their best, it really felt like they were just to be able to sort of lock down

and sort of sink their, sink their claws and you tighten the screws and take a game over when it mattered most. And you don't see that. Like any game is basically a toss-up, whether they're playing the Boston Bruins or whether they're playing the Columbus Blue Jackets, right? I really feel like from a game to game basis, I have no idea what to expect from them. And that's what's been so bizarre. And I imagine for you covering this team, like on the one hand, it's entertaining, but as the roller coaster ride, but on the other hand, it's very tough to sort of even get a gauge of what we should expect from them as their baseline performance.

Maybe, maybe this is. Maybe you say like kind of mediocrity. Maybe that's what it is after 75 games. Yeah, going into the break earlier this season, they lost a pretty crushing game at home to the sharks. and at the time I wrote a column that was basically like, look, these penguins have been doing this all season at some point. If they keep trying to show us who they are, just let them show us.

Like hockey is a sport and myself included. I'm sure I can speak for anybody who's done any sort of hockey analysis is that we can tend to try and overthink things and overcomplicate things when we really don't need to. And I think that's kind of the case with the penguins here. It's like, are we overthinking it? Like even my comments about like the guys, guys in the room and knowing the star power that they have and kind of just trusting them,

that might even be overthinking it. It might just be as simple as this roster just isn't good enough. And another thing I keep bringing up is that even though Sidney Crosby and Evgeny Malkin are putting up, you know, pretty respectable numbers for what I'd say, players that are their age. And Chris LaTang has really turned his performance around here over the past month or so. So those guys are taking care of business. But at the same time, if you look at the other stars around the league,

league and the other top guys on other teams, I wouldn't consider them the best of the best of those groups. So in turn, you're going to need more contributions further down your lineup. You're going to need strong goaltending. And obviously, they haven't gotten that at all. So when you combine all those factors, I think that's what you end up getting here, which is the relatively average team that when the star power and the rest of the guys are following the system further down the lineup, you can play decent games. But at this stage of Crosby and Malkin's career, and I'm not saying Crosby hasn't carried the penguins this season. I'd say he has unquestionably been their best player, but he can't carry them the same way he did when he was 25. That's just completely

understandable for all the miles that he has on his legs. So I think it's just a culmination of all those factors here. And, you know, if we want to get into how they should have handled the deadline and whether they adequately address those needs is a whole different story. But at the end of the day, the results speak for themselves, and I don't know that we can come to expect anything close to the team that was blowing the doors off the oppositions. You know, and it's been a while now, five, six post seasons ago, but, you know, we're not going to see anything close to that, even if they are playing. For sure.

Well, let's key into that. So the Crosby has 63 primary points this season, I believe, on Corey Schneider's tracking. He's fourth in the entire league and scoring chance contributions. Malkin is not only over a point per game, which is obviously less impressive. a standard to hold in today's game, but still nonetheless, regardless of his age, that's remarkable. I think even more remarkable is we used to judge Malkin based on like,

all right, let's pro-rate his stats because he's missed 15, 20 games or whatever. He hasn't missed a single game so far this season. Watching him with Jason Zucker, they've been delightful together on a nightly basis. I have them down for their top six forwards have combined for 97, five-on-five goals this season. The other 15 forwards they've dressed, who have combined for 4,500 minutes or so at 5-1-5 have 38 goals total.

And so that's the stunning part to me here, where even if the top end isn't necessarily on a night-to-night basis consistently as high as your Colorado's or your New Jersey's, they're still certainly holding up there under the bargain. The bottom six has been the big issue. And that's a tough part for me to reconcile because around the trade headline I had Adam Gretz on And we were talking about this sort of dynamic between the management group the penguins have and the coaching staff where it seems like they almost aren't in lockstep because there was this period of time where there was a very certain archetype of player that you could slot into the penguin's bottom six that Mike Sullivan would be able to put in a position to succeed, especially defensively and really draw strong five on five numbers out of them.

And for whatever reason over the past two years, they seem to have straight away from that and have been. adding all of these players that really don't fit that mold at all, in my opinion. And that's bizarre. I'm not sure how much input Mike Sullivan has in that player acquisition component of it. But for whatever reason, there seems to be some sort of misalignment between the players that have had success in that system in the past and the guys they keep adding or keep rewarding with ice time. Right.

And Sullivan and Hextall, they'll both tell you that they're on the same page as each other and that they work hand in hand on those kinds of decisions. But if you look at what they've actually done and then the way that Sullivan has deployed those players that Hextall has brought in, it does not line up with what they're saying at all, right? So, and, you know, I'll just dive right into it and talk about McHale Granlin. Like that trade just absolutely reeked of inept general manager just doing his job, right? Like the penguins, and I've heard that Hextall was very, very careful about what he was saying to his front office because he likes to keep things pretty close to the best. He doesn't like things getting out to the media before things actually happen.

So I'm not exactly sure if he was necessarily like lying or tell him little white lies, like two people in his front office to kind of figure out where some of those media leaks were coming from. but I think from what I've gathered, the penguins did, we're at least trying to fry a big fish and bring in somebody that would make a legitimate impact for this team because he, Hextall looked his way into, you know, a pretty significant amount of cap space to actually go out and add a player that could make a difference a little bit further down the lineup. Well, all of a sudden, Jacob Chikrin comes off the board

that the penguins were rumored to be talking to them. Penguins were also rumored to be talking to Vancouver about maybe J.T. Miller or Barack Besser. well, all of a sudden, once those talks fell through, it's like, well, I've got all this cap space. And I've got Sidney Crosby and I've got Getty Malkin, who haven't missed a game all season. I have to do something about it. And then he goes out and gets Mikel Granland, who I don't know what went into their evaluation of the kind of player he is, but all the analysis that I've done and people that I respect their hockey knowledge way more than my own are saying the same things,

that this player is not the same guy that was, you know, the analytics darling back in his final couple seasons with Minnesota. And then when Hextall's doing his post-trade deadline press conference, he's talking about, yeah, Granlin was a guy we tried acquiring a couple deadlines ago. And it's like, okay, well, like, did you just see that he was on the board right there? And then, you know, because you had that cap space and you had to do something, you went out and got him. And again, we can get into the kind of player Granland is and all that. but just on the surface, he did not address, even in a best case scenario, did not address the penguins issues whatsoever.

Like the penguins are a team that, yes, they can generate a bunch of good looks, but they have quite a bit of trouble finishing on those looks, and that's a problem that's dated back to last season. And as a component of that, they also get pretty pass-happy at times and like to pass up on a bunch of good looks. Well, Mikhail Granlin, his best attribute is that he's a past first guy that can make some pretty nifty passes. But aside from that, he doesn't really push to play at all.

Even though Sullivan and Hextall have referred to him as a strong defensive presence, his isolated impacts and his defensive metrics have been abominable the past three seasons. And you really just look at it's like, what was the game plan here? And I, you know, Sullivan, he's never going to say, oh, yeah, this guy that we just brought in, we're paying another $5 million for another two seasons after this one. he's not going to come in and go, oh, yeah, well, he wasn't the guy that we wanted. He's not going to come out there and say that. And it's his job to try and figure out how to mesh him into the lineup and figure out where

his best spot is. But I can tell you, Mike Sullivan didn't want McHale Granland at the deadline. He wanted somebody, you know, and I don't want to start throwing names out there either because it could come off like I've heard things or it's just purely speculation. But I promise you that he wanted somebody that could push the pace in a sense that Michael Granland simply can't. And I think that just speaks. You can even go back to last off season and look at some of the moves that Hextall made

and bringing in Jeff Petrie, which I was okay with. But again, it's like you look at a guy like John Marino who they moved out to bring Petri in. It just doesn't really line up with the kind of game that Sullivan likes playing. Yeah. So for the season, they're tied. If you're looking at their offensive profile, right, let's break it down. They're tied with the devils for second and expected goals generated as a team. Their second, as you mentioned, in high danger chances generated as a team.

They're getting looks. If you look at where their shots are coming from, they have the shot and chance profile of an offensive team I like. They don't take that many point shots. They don't kind of work on the margins. They pass up low quality shots for high quality ones. They try to funnel it towards where you want to get it to. The issue is there's 17th in goals in large part because they have a 26th team shooting percentage, right? And I think there's undoubtedly some bad luck involved.

I know you tweeted a chart recently comparing on an individual basis, expected goals versus actual goals. And it's almost nearly impossible, even if he has declined or taken a step back in efficiency, for a guy like Brian Russ to only have 16 goals this season, considering the type of chances he's routinely getting and how many of them he's had. So I think there is some bad luck involved. And if they keep generating these types of looks,

eventually they're going to fall their way into more goals. But when you're judging the process versus the results for me, I think part of this conversation has to be the fact that they are the oldest team in the league and their biggest additions at the deadline were a 31-year-old who notoriously doesn't shoot or score and two other 32 and 35-year-olds whose main utilities are defensive contributions and both of who have gotten heard since. And that's what drives me crazy about what they chose to do. It's not necessarily that they gave up a second rounder because I was all aboard.

I don't think they should have even any of their first rounders anymore. Like when you're in this position they're in, why are they still holding onto their next three first rounders? they should not have. Honestly, the fact that they have as many picks as they do, even just going into this upcoming draft is just ridiculous. It's infuriating. And so it's not even that. It's not the $5 million commitment, which is an ideal for the next two years for Granlin considering his career trajectory right now. It's that it seems like they misidentify the type of player they need it, right?

And then you'll watch a guy like, I don't know, you didn't want to name names, but let's say, Jacob Rana goes to St. Louis for 2.65 to cost them a seventh round pick. They're basically given him. He scored eight goals in 12 games since and is doing exactly what this team needs. And that would keep me up a night, even if it's not Rana, just someone else that can fill the hole that they have, which is getting these chances and turning them into goals. And Granland was just so mischaracterized for that role beyond all the stylistic stuff of him,

not necessarily being like a high motor guy or a forecheck or anything like that. And so that's this impasse I keep reaching, which just doesn't make sense to me. And that's what's so frustrating because it's so hard to get the top guys and they have those and then surrounding them with the right talent should be the easy part. And for whatever reason, they've failed time and time again over the past whatever calendar year or two years to supplement them with those guys. Yeah. And I mean, I do give Hextall credit for acknowledging some of the issues he made in the bottom six

and moving on from guys like McGinn and Caput. But you look, it's like those are guys he brought in to supplement the top guys. Like you did that. There's no excuse here of what Jim Rutherford did before he, He left town, right? And, you know, the second that Hextall showed up in Pittsburgh, he continued to bone the salary cap and the penguin salary cap constraints. He traded Jared McCann in the name of salary cap space.

And well, guess what? Jared McCann's making just a little bit more money than McHale Granlin's making right now. I know which player the Penguins would rather have. So it's just a very, very bizarre thing. And I, before the trade deadline, because it was a little bizarre. Hextall hadn't spoken. He had one press conference from the start of the regular season up until I want to stay a couple weeks into February. And the only press conference he had was when Chris LaTang had his stroke.

So it wasn't even like a hockey related and I'm here to talk hockey. It was here to like, I'm here to kind of let everybody know what's going on with Latang. Well, after they waived cap and then he held another press conference, which coincidentally was the day after the first fire hexal chance came writing down at PPG paint. arena. And I asked him, I was like with, you know, some of the supplementary guys that you've, that you personally have brought in, are you in your front office considering any kind of changes or reevaluation of your player evaluation process? And he kind of just, you know, his answer is his answer. I'm just trying to get his thoughts. But he kind of just laughed it off and was like, no, like, as a general manager, you always try and do what's best, but they're not all

going to be home runs and everything. It's like that. It's like, okay, well, I can sit here and write a I'll call him on what I think I would do, but whether it's right or wrong, it has no impact. I have another story to write tomorrow. You might not have a job. Yeah. So it's just very bizarre to me. I'm really curious to see whether the penguins get it in and do anything or whether they miss what is going to end up happening with heckstall.

It is strange because I think during his time running the flyers, he became known for sort of this like analysis by paralysis approach, right, where it was like always preaching patients, always like taking the long view. And unfortunately, and I think they made the right choice this summer and being like, we're going to retain Malkin, we're going to retain La Tang, even we're going to sign Rust and spend all this money for this team that helps us now because you're sort of committed to yourself and your fan base to do so, right, with all the players you have and everything they've meant to organization.

And they're still performing at a high level. But when you do that, every single decision that needs to be predicated on, every future decision needs to be, how do I help then justify that by pushing us closer to competing with this group. And in doing so, you sort of eliminate that patient approach, right? You need to have a certain sense of urgency. And every time, not that I'm saying that I need to see him coming out to media every day and sounding the alarm or, you know, pounding the table and acting all crazy. But it's just, it's so bizarre based on where they're at, the way they're performed, what we're seeing from them, that this is the approach they've chosen to take. And I imagine, I'm not sure what

the local market is like, but I imagine Penguins fans must be just, you know, absolutely furious. Oh, yeah, they're not happy with him. And really, you could go back to the moves he made last off season, and, you know, everybody loves the new shiny toys. But, you know, when they're not getting the job done, that shine wears off pretty quickly. And when it got to a point here, you know, a month and a half ago, when the penguins were, you know, just stumbling all over the place.

And they were at the time, they looked like they, if they continued that track before they went on it, they put together a nice, like, six one-and-one run or a seven one and one run here before this most recent stretch that kind of resilidified them in playoff contention there. But before that, everyone, like, they wanted his head, right? And I know fans are passionate and might not have the full story of what's going on here, but they have not been happy with the way the Pittsburgh Hockey Club has been managed. All right. Is there anything else here? I had some notes on, like, Jeff Carter, but I feel like it's just so depressing. The goaltending, haven't really talked about it much. Like, I think

I actually like Tristan Jerry quite a bit, but considering the track record, I don't think there should have been a high level of trust, especially from my health perspective. And so deciding to go into the season by just bringing back Casey to Smith and kind of wiping your hands and being like, all right, well, we're all set there. I think we've seen the issues with that. It kind of ties into this whole sort of lack of proactive approach and lack of urgency that we've seen that we just talked about. Is there any other stuff here that you think is relevant?

We can also talk about looking ahead the next couple weeks, but I don't know. Ultimately, I keep trying to rack my brain around like how this Penguins team, even if they do make it, is going to give the Boston Bruins in round one, which seems like the inevitable matchup, a scare or at least pose some sort of a problem to make them think. And unless a goalie gets hot, unless there's injuries, unless Crosby and Malkin, I guess, just absolutely put the team on their back and just go off. I'm struggling to find a way that that actually realistically, like there's a

a path towards achieving that. Yeah. And to your last point, like when around the trade deadline, a lot of Penguins fans wanted them to be stellar at the deadline because they're like, there's no way this team, even if, you know, they add a piece that they're going to put themselves among the Boston's of the league. But again, you do have Sidney Crosby, you do have Afghani Balkan. There is a very legitimate possibility that they could turn it on at the right time.

And if, oh, I don't know, Jeff Carter happens to have a good playoff series. or something. Look, I'm not saying that all these things are going to combine here for the Penguins to beat the Bruins. But again, when we saw what Sidney Crosby and Jake Gensel did last postseason, and Evgeny Malkin, even though he probably wasn't still completely healthy yet, he got a pretty darn good series as well. So again, they're a year older, but if Crosby can find a level that's somewhere close to that, it's like, okay, does anybody really want to bypass another season of seeing Crosby in the postseason just to say that we accelerated some sort of rebuild here, which, oh, by the way, isn't going to happen anyway while Crosby and Co

are here. And oh, by the way, isn't going to happen less than a season after you just committed to a bunch of older players for a considerable term that's going to supersede their expiration date as effective players. Yeah, that's well said, man. All right. Well, that was a very uplifting view of not only the Penguins, but the Eastern Conference wildcar race. Get excited for the final 10 days or so here or two weeks of the regular season. Danny, this was a blast, though. I'm glad even under these circumstances that we're able to finally link up and do a show together.

I'll let you let the listeners know where they can check you out and promote some of your work. Yeah, I really appreciate you having me on. I'd be happy to join you again anytime. So I cover the Penguins for DK. Pittsburgh Sports. You can find everything I write at D.K. Pittsburgh Sports. sports.com. If you're a Twitter person, you can follow me at Danny Shiree PGH. I tweet out all my articles there. I also, not every day, but most days I'll try and tweet out something fun, like a chart or a graph. And I like doing a fair bit of film breakdowns as well. So you'll be able to

find all that there and try and engage with people a little bit too. I know some people that are in the media don't really like doing that or whatever, but I'm always happy to talk hockey with anybody and have a fun conversation. Well, I had a blast talking hockey with you, pal, or certainly have you back on down the road. So thanks for coming on to the listeners. They can help us out by smashing that five-star button wherever they listen to the show, letting the powers of B know that they're enjoying the daily PDO cast.

And we'll be back tomorrow with another episode to close out the week here on the Sportsnet Radio Network.