The Hockey PDOcast - The Flyers Conundrum, the Oilers Turnaround, and the Arbitration Process

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to discuss the conundrum of trying to rebuild while winning games like the Flyers are doing this season, how the Oilers have turned their season around in the past 20 games, and why the arbitration process is such a risky one for goalies. 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 PDOCast with your host, Dmitri Philippovic. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name's Dimitra Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, happy Monday. Happy, very fun sports day that we got ahead of us. How's it going, man? It is a great sports day. We were just talking about it.

All of the between the football and hockey and the basketball and everything. It's a great day where, uh, I believe as we're recording this, I can even pull up an NHL game in the background where we're doing this. That's the, it's a fun day. But you won't because you're so preoccupied on a conversation.

I'm so focused here and I won't do it. But there should be as many noon starts as possible for hockey games. Give me all the noon starts. Yeah, there's going to be a bunch of Madenay hockey. I believe that the Crack and Sabers will start as we are recording, but we will power on and have some fun. So I've got a fun combination of topic.

for us to get into to start the week off here in the PDO cast. And here's the initial one for you. We're going to talk about the Philadelphia Flyers because I think there's a case to be made. Certainly the fact that the Vancouver Canucks and the Winnipeg Jets are like as high up in the standings as they are based on our expectations heading into the season. They've exceeded them, no doubt. But I think heading into the year, this Flyers team started the year with a over-under team total of 75 and a half.

The only teams below them were San Jose and High, Montreal, Columbus, and Chicago. And that seemed reasonable at the time, right? I don't think anyone had any real reason to believe that this would be a good or worthwhile team for us to be following throughout the year. They finished last season with 75 points. And then in the summer, they essentially just straight salary dumped. Ivan Proberov, Kevin Hayes, they actively tried to do so with Travis Sandheim as well before Tori Krug flexed his no move muscles and prevented that from happening. But now, more than halfway through the season and we're through 43 games of that. So we're getting into a really meaningful sample here.

They're 23, 14, and 6th. They're 12th in the league in point percentage. They're third in the metro behind the Rangers and the hurricanes, which means they're ahead of teams like the devils and penguins, who I think we had every reason to believe would be ahead of them at this point in the season. And they're coming off this weekend where they swept back-to-back games on the road in Minnesota. And then especially impressively, for my purposes, in Winnipeg, where they go into Winnipeg on the second leg of a back-to-back.

they don't have Sean Cotriori or Jamie Triesdale and they're facing this Jets team that has all the good vibes which we've talked about which has an eight game winning streak of their own and through the first 40 minutes they essentially just run them off the ice right the Jets made a bit of a spirited push

in the third period to try to come back in that game but really the Flyers just dominated through the first 40 they could have scored a bunch of goals if it weren't for Connor Hellebuck playing really well and so now we're at this point where we got to keep talking about the Flyers right it's I think it's one of the

It was interesting and probably under talked about stories in the league because what happened last week with the whole Katar Goce saga and them trading him and then all that conversation about that. It felt like that was like the majority of the Flyers conversation that we've had this season so far, right? It felt like that was the thing that led all the headlines and all the storylines about the Flyers when in reality you look and they've been playing really, really good hockey.

Well, it's the thing that's kind of the Gochier stuff happened. last week and everything like that, and he didn't want to play there and all that stuff. And the thing that kind of got lost and everything was people were all of the, a lot of the coverage in the chat about that kind of kept coming from this perspective of like where the Flyers are supposed to be this year, right? Like it almost felt like all that conversation was with the undertone of where the Flyers were supposed to be this year. And no one ever heard.

And it just there wasn't enough conversation of, this team is actually for all of the, quote unquote other rebuilds and everything like that. You look where, and this is a team that has gone, it's been a popular thing in the NHL right now to publicly acknowledge your rebuild, right? What was it? Five years ago, we had the Rangers letter, which was the full document. And the flyers kind of talked about doing things the slow and steady way here and everything like that. But you go through and you look at all these other kind of rebuilding or rebounding teams.

you look where they are. And the Flyers are playing better than those teams now ahead of them. And we had the whole conversation last week, I think about the Jets where you kept looking for kind of the trap doors where they're going to fall through and everything. And I still see some trap doors in Philadelphia than I did with the Jets, right? But at the same time, you're like, all right, this team is, we've reached, you've reached, you've gone, your past 41 games, you are in this division,

you have a chance to actually win this division and I don't really know what to completely make of it truthfully. Like I watch this team play and I see why they're good. And I kind of see them. But at the end of the day, you're like, then the game ends and you're like, okay, what am I still watching here right now? It's kind of a weird team in a good way. Well, Don model has them at 57% playoff probability right now, right?

Which still obviously leaves the door open for, I guess, that bottom or then the bottom falling out kind of know what you're expecting, right? I think there's a fun, there was a really fun, the reason why I wanted to start off today's show with this.

There was a fun discussion brewing on the PDO guest Discord over the weekend. And by the way, if you're not in there yet, I don't know what you're waiting for. They invite like is in the show notes, get in there, have some fun with us,

be part of these conversations as are happening in real time. But about the Flyers, right? And I had a Flyers fan in particular posted and I quote, the Flyers are putting their fans in a conundrum with this surprise success.

They're hopeful for the future, but nervous about falling into the dreaded cycle of mediocrity, right? And I think there was such a clear runway heading into the season for them to quote unquote rebuild the right way, right? From that acknowledgement that you said, and I think they were trying to frame it as like, this is going to be a new era of Flyers hockey. We had this previous generation where we essentially just buried our head in the sand. And despite all the signs and all the warning markers, like rapidly blinking, telling us, us this is not a good team. We just kind of tried to plow ahead, right? Just bring in more better and spend more money and just try to double down on that

despite the fact that they weren't getting the results. And so in this case, they took a concerted step back, right? If anything, you look, Matt Bay-Mitchcock falls in their lap and that's like the longest-term approach you can take, right? It's this guy who won't even play for you for the next two or three years, but you're like, that's fine because we're taking the long view here finally. And I think people were really excited about that. And I think there's an interesting conversation to have about

that in its own right from that perspective because I think the reason why teams are sometimes limited in their optionality to do so that way or to rebuild that way with Longview is because of whatever internal budget or internal financial restrictions they have in place right it's not the typical salary cap ceiling where it's like all right well we can only spend a certain amount of money it's your owner probably being like well we're losing fans and people aren't coming to the games and people aren't buying the merchandise and they don't

care anymore and we have bills to pay and I have a certain baseline that I want to hit annually. And so let's speed this up. Let's get going. Let's be relevant. Let's play some meaningful games into March and April. And so teams sort of half asset and try to speed things up that way and it limits their ceiling long term. In this case, I don't think that would have been a concern with the Flyers, right? Because it's a huge market with a massive built-in fan base that's seen it all. They're not going to leave after a couple of poor results. they're already used to that, if it was by design and they were getting top picks, they'd be happy about it. And so I think the fact that they're not getting that this season is why this sort of

internal conundrum is in place for them. Yeah, it's kind of the, and so often we kind of talk about the rebuild and kind of, how do you get this guy or that guy or this piece right that checks the box? and I think the Philly rebuild was always going to be kind of weird in a way anyway, because they were never going to be, as much as they kind of talked about it, I don't think John Tortoralla takes that job thinking he's coaching San Jose Sharks level results. Like obviously they're committed to a rebuild and getting players and everything like that, but I really think part of the Philly rebuild is how do you make yourself better for three years from now? how do you put yourself in a spot where

Michkov comes in two, three years from now and he steps in and you get three years of his ELC, you get three years of his ELC when he comes in, you get to build around that, and you've kind of been building some other pieces. Mitchkov comes in, all of a sudden playing with Mitchcove becomes a really attractive thing

to someone else who's a big target free agent in that year. I think that was always kind of the Philly rebuild look was three years kind of went two, three years, Michkov arrives from Russia. That kind of, I think, it was always the, and capitalized on his ELC. And this kind of reminds me of, I had a conversation with someone from the Kings about this when they were, when the Kings took a cautious, when it was two years ago, two seasons ago when the Kings were kind of overachieving and within the plan with L.A. and was always to kind of target building two, three, years from now. And they're having internal discussions like, okay, why don't, why don't we go,

why aren't we buying more at the deadline? Why aren't we buying more at the deadline? And the internal conversation in the office goes essentially along the lines of, well, we're still on target for our two, three year plan from now. And they're like, oh, but they're like, well, we could, we could make trades here and that and everything. And one of the reasons they didn't was the whole concept of, well, making the playoffs this year, being good this year, that still makes us better for two, three years from now. And I think from a Flyers fan perspective, if you're looking at this from the buildup, I don't think being good right now impacts what the long-term vision is for this team. Obviously, you're dealing with right now the angriness of the Gautier stuff and all of that

stuff. But for the Flyers, the long-term plan is always, since they drafted Mitchcoff and decided to go that route, the plan is how do you build a core that can be around Mitchcov when he arrives and how do you then use it at that time? And I don't think being good now hurts that. That's with the way Philly's building. I don't think it's hurting them. And so I would look at it that way from a flyers perspective. Right now you're playing with House Money.

If you make the playoffs this year, you go on a surprise run, it's still going to make you better two years from now. So I look at Philly kind of in that perspective where this is one of those win-win things and you're not playing yourself out of, this is more fun than sucking, honestly it's more fun than sucking and it doesn't hurt you from two years from now it's kind of my blame this as long as you're internally able to sort of um keep that long view and not get carried away

yes yes that's important right because i think the reason why people are concerned is like it's very easy with short-term results to get carried away and put the carp for the horse and then that creates this glass ceiling you all of a sudden unnecessarily put in place right so much of of winning or building a sustainable contender in the NHL with the salary cap is getting like timing everything perfectly right and creating this runway for yourself to keep moving up and up and then maintain when you're up there and then figure everything out after that and I get I get the concern right because for all the things and I'm going to have a bunch of other stats here in a second and they're going to paint a very optimistic view of this season for the Flyers.

You mentioned you watch them and you come away from it and they might have won and you're like, all right, how do that happen? You can still even see the sort of talent deficit they have on the true high end with this roster. And we know that high end offense and that talent is what moves the needle in today's NHL. And realistically, the most likely way for you to get your hands on those types of players is at the top of the draft. So part of the frustration is, all right,

you make the playoffs this year, you lose in round one and five games or whatever, you got two home games of revenue, but then you wind up with, what, the 16th overall pick or something, and you get an interesting prospect, but certainly probably not one

that is a true high-end talent that jumps right to the top of your pipeline. And so then you're back to square one in terms of, all right, well, next year then we got a suck up, we're going to get this player. So if you're going to go this route and you're actually just going to be this competitive moving forward, then all of a sudden that's going to make it even more imperative for this new front office to be creative via trades and particularly ruthless, maybe even via offer sheets or like targeting players in bad situations to try to steal that high end talent because you mentioned the Mitchcloth timeline. And I'm with you. And I think they've even publicly acknowledged it where John Torterella was like, we're trying to set the template of how we want to play. when he gets here so we can put him into that situation immediately. Well, by that point, their number one center,

Sean Cotcheria is going to be like 35 years old or whatever. And so there's, you know, Karagio probably wasn't even going to be a center anyways, but at least he was theoretically a center prospect. They don't really have anyone in their system that could fit that bill three years from now. And I think that's the concern, right? Like, how do you get that player then if you're not going to be picking in the top five?

Yeah. And I mean, another thing from a Philly perspective, that, And I think I can't remember the exact tying of how it works with the Columbus pick. But I think there's like they're going to have four picks in the top 60 this year coming up too. And it's going to be and you look at that from a arsenal of being able to make a move as well. You have those pieces. They have. So it is a good question of how do you find that center?

That is a really, that is a fair, that is a fair measured question. And I think aside from this year, basically completely blowing it up and being San Jose Sharks level bad, that's the only way you're going to get him in the draft. I think you're at the spot now where you internally, you have to kind of diagnose and figure out, okay, can we, how do we find that player? Is it through utilizing these picks we have? Is it through the offer sheet, as you said? I think you have to get creative in that way.

But I also think that it's funny because like the whole the whole Gochia-Drysdale thing, everything like that. I actually gained some respect for how the flyers are handling things because everything gets out right now. Right? Like I actually give the flyers some credit for how they handled everything without that being a brewing story, especially in a market where one of the NHL's top insiders literally lives in that market. You have agents who are willing to just give things out all the time and everything like that. And so I actually gained a lot of respect for the Flyers front office and how they kind of kept things quiet there.

It's silly for me to say as a media member, but it's true. And for that reason, I kind of, and I like how they went about, and we hear the stories about how they secretly met with Mitch Clove. and that came out afterwards how they went out of their way and they had those things where they didn't want people to know they were scouting him and they did this and all of that and everything. So I guess where I'm going on all of this is I have more faith in Danny Breyer to figure this out than I would have a year ago. I'm just kind of impressed with how they've handled everything. I could be wrong.

He could just be another hockey GM, but I'm at least giving him a chance right now to answer that question for me when I don't know what the answer is in the center. Yeah, to that point, though, just to close the loop on the sort of high-end talent and the deficiency of it, they're 31st in team shooting percentage. Only the sharks are less efficient. And there's 32nd in the power play efficiency to the point where they're almost as likely to score short-handed as they are with demand advantage. And those are, I think, two areas where you would see a high-end offensive talent manifest itself. And so that's very real.

Now, here's the thing. And I think this is an important distinction for this conversation and this conundrum fires fans are having. It's not like this team is just stealing points and getting lucky this season. I think that would be infuriating from a fan perspective, right? If you're playing a game and you're getting outshot 40 to 25 every night, but your goalie is just standing on his head and stealing you points and you're just watching and you're like plainly, I can see this team is not good enough.

yet we are limiting ourselves or preventing ourselves from reaching that point where we are good enough in the future because of the way our goal is playing or the way PDO is working in our favor or whatever right and that's really not what's happening with this team like they're playing well and i think most importantly like just from the fan angle here they're doing it in a fun way like you mentioned sort of watching them and not not knowing how they won well they are second in the league in generating rush chances this season but behind just the New Jersey Devils. And it's surprising, given the names involved

and the fact that John Tortoelo is their coach, but they've made this concerted effort to really modernize their offense and the way they play. They're getting contributions out of players who are all, other than I guess, Sean Couturey in their May 20s, right? Like, Cotrier sits out on Saturday,

and they use this first line of Kineefrost and Tippett, who are 26, 24, and 24 years old. Their top two defensemen this season in terms of ice time by 27 and 23. since they acquired Jamie Dreisell in that trade last week when he's played, they featured him. Joel Farabee is eighth in the league in five on five points this season, and he's 23.

I've loved what I've seen from Tyson Forster and he's 21. You go on down the line, these are all positive things. And I think there's an element of like a rising tide lifts all boats too, where all of these players now that are playing prominent roles and playing well, become more valuable assets as well down the road. So if you do decide to pivot or things start to go south and you want to make long-term trades, pretty much every one of these players, I think, has increased their relative stock

compared to where it was at the start of the season. And so it's frustrating in the short term if you were just hoping, all right, the objective of this season is to get a top five pick. But at the same time, I come away from it making it, it seems difficult to me to kind of paint this as a negative thing based on the way the season's unfolded so far. Oh, yeah, I agree to that. It's hard to pay it as a negative. I have the other thing I would argue, too,

and it's just kind of the whole hypothetical, right? You can try to figure out the exact math of this. And I don't know. This is a question. This is a hypothetical. What if I told you you could have, before the season, if I could told you, you could have a, whatever the percentage is 16.7% or whatever the odds of,

of getting a Macklin Celebrini or whatever. You could have that. Or all of a sudden you get, but instead of being in the chance for that lottery, you're going to be in a spot where you're getting growth from Farabee, you're getting growth from Brink, you're getting growth from all of these guys who are 22, 23, 24. And maybe, and I would argue for this,

maybe just maybe the growth of those guys from this season, from the success is worth more than one player and all of those players going through a rather depressing year, where they just where they suck. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we talk about that all the time in terms of that sort of like, that obviously the human element,

but there's like a psychological accumulation too if you're just constantly in this like soul crushing situation where you dread coming to a ring, it's going to be a mess when you're playing. It's really tough to develop. It's also really tough for you to evaluate who is actually good and competent and who will be part of the solution in the future, right?

whereas I think right now it's becoming much clear in terms of who's like legitimately valuable and who will be on this team three, four or five years from now. And I think that's valuable. And the other part of this as well is maybe I'd be a bit more wary if they were in the situation where like four of these guys were impending UFAs this summer. And then you were like, all right, do we trade them for stuff or do we try to make the playoffs? And then if you chose to just push for this season and keep these guys and then lose them for nothing in the off season, then I'd be like, well, that seems a bit short-sighted. But in this case, Sean Walker and he's a valuable asset as a right-shot defenseman, and maybe we'll talk more about him later when we talk about a different team is certainly going to be a hot commodity if they decide to move them at the deadline and they'll probably get, I mean, maybe even a late first depending on if they take money back.

But they can certainly get some sort of a good asset for him. that's the only guy here. I think maybe when it becomes really interesting is what they do with Travis Kinec, who is a free agent after next season, and that'll be sort of a hot button kind of crossroads decision for them organizationally. But for right now,

there isn't necessarily a ticking clock here. It's like you don't have to decide between now and early March in terms of what you want to do with any of these guys other than I guess Sean Walker. Yeah, I agree with that. All right. Any other notes on the Flyers here, whether it's on ice or business related? Yeah, I mean.

One other thing on Philly, just that I just, I think is important to remember from the space and time of this is. The Flyers and the Bruins as well, these are the two teams that kind of fit this mold the best. Every single year, Flyers and Bruins are the top two local TV broadcasts, no matter what. Whether they're good or bad, it's always, it's always that. And the other thing, and I remember I talked to people in Philly about this before, where it's the thing the Flyers have is it's, Philadelphia is such a homegrown city. It's not a transplant city. Most of the people who live in Philadelphia grew up and grew up there, stayed there and everything like that. And so from a Flyers perspective, and it's one of the reasons that the Gauthier trade has been just such a nice galvanizing piece for that city.

city too is like it's one of the few like all the time oftentimes we hear so and so against the world right it's it's it's an attitude that every one tries to co-op and everything like that where oh so and so like insert city here against the world Philadelphia is one of the few cities where it actually works because of how homegrown the city is and how the fan base has been basically raised on that team and they're not going anywhere else it's it's that's the reality of and so you get the time to do this. And it's it's one of those where I think from a building perspective and a human side of this, I think there's an element that you have, there's an element of this where people are going to embrace this group that built them back to where they are, whether it's this year.

Obviously the people like, oh, no, are they messing it up? I think in the long run, people are going to embrace this team as what builds Philly back up. The other thing that's just a funny note, just because it's how NHL GMs think. You really don't think some other GM is going to call Danny Breyer about Mark Stahl just because he played in the Stanley Cup finals last year. Like at some point, some like some GM is going to call like, someone is going to call and be like, oh, well, hey, I've got a lightly used Mark Stahl available.

He played 100-something games last year with the Panthers in the Stanley Cup final. So they're going, someone's going to trade for Mark Stahl. That's my other Philly thought. Yeah, I just think like, and sort of I was hinting at And it ties into that concept is the reason why bad teams stay bad or mediocre, a team stay mediocre is because, like, despite the fact that there's different coaches brought in and different GMs or whatever, different players, certainly. It's the ownership just doesn't really give it a chance in terms of like,

you just, you can't pass up the quick buck or like the urge to become relevant again really quickly. And obviously it's kind of ironic because that's sort of what's happened this year organically for them. where I think this would be a dream for like 15 other NHL organizations to have this glow up from last year to this year like this. Yet for the pliers, it's like, ah, they were actually one of the few teams that probably could have bit the bullet on five more years of being a bottom three team because they wouldn't worry about losing that fan base or selling the product because it would just be there. And that would have been a big luxury for them. And it still might be down the road. But for now, it's it's ironically less of a consideration. It is. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, Sean, let's take a break here. And then when we come back, we'll pick things right back up. You're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Breaking down the top stories in the NHL every day. The Jazz Mary Show. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are back here on the HockeyPedocast, joined by Sean Shapiro. We did Flyers in the first block.

Let's talk a little bit about the Hamilton Oilers, a team that was in, uh, in town there in Detroit. A couple days ago, you got to see them live. They are winners of 10 games in a row. They find themselves comfortably in the first wildcar position by point percentage in the West. And I think have reasonable aspirations or ambitions for climbing even higher if this keeps up, which is amazing considering the fact that they started the season 5, 12 and 1. everyone thinks of that Sharks game,

which I think we did a show the next morning and we were talking about it off the top and how it was just, it was cinema at its finest, right? In terms of watching the game unfold in real time and seeing everyone's reactions to it, everyone thinks of that as being kind of their nadier this season. I actually think the reason why I brought up the 512 and 1

and that came even after the coaching change, a few games after, it was that game in Carolina where they went down for nothing in the first. There was that. image of Drisital and McDavid on the bench, like consoling each other because they were just so demoralized by what was happening. There was the one goal that went viral in that game where I believe it was Marty Natchez was

just like wide open in front of their net as all five of their skaters were looking around behind him, no one covering them. And he just easily scored. And it was like, man, this season is just going off the rails for Edmonton. And since then, they're 18 and 3. They've climbed to within one point of L.A. for third in the Pacific. and they have three more head-to-heads with the Kings this season. So that should make for an amazing battle in the second half of the season.

And just watching them live, I imagine you felt the same way. It was a close game, right? They wound up squeaking out an overtime win. But it was never really in doubt watching that, who the better, more dominant team was. They just completely control that game. And that's been a common theme for them over these past couple weeks. And I think so beyond the results and everything,

and, you know, the defense kind of being short up, less rush goals against, the goal tending isn't as much of a concern anymore. The fact that they've become this 5-1-5 team that is just, I mean, they've been the league best in pretty much any metric you look at in the span. I think that has to be the most encouraging part of what oilers moving forward. Well, yeah, and the, I saw, as I said, as you said, I saw them at that in person in that game against Detroit last week. One of the things, the only reason that game was at three-two overtime,

game was because they got goal lead basically. It was Alex Lion was great in that game. And that's the only reason he even made it to overtime. At the same time, but also you talk about cinema. It created one of the my favorite scenes of the season where half of the Detroit defense are raising their arm for an off sides while McDavid is just deciding to stick handle them around them like traffic cones.

You talk about cinematic moments. Well, I think Jake Wallman, that was pointed out as Jake Walman calling for an offside. I think it was more of a crime for help because he realized he was one-on-one versus McDavid. But it's open to interpretation, but that's the way I view that that particular moment. The first part for Walman on that was, it's funny because it's like what image we get left with. Like he actually had been really good against McDavid the entire game and was so sick. He hadn't played the day before.

And so it's one of those moments where you go home and you're like, I did everything great. but everyone's only going to remember me just put the hand up waiting for the alien tractor beam just to raise me up so I'm not on the ice for this moment. But the Oilers, anyhow. So I talked to a bunch when Edmonton was in town and I talked to a bunch of the players last week. One of the things that was interesting

to kind of hear their perspective on it was with and part of it is gold ending is a little bit better, but the bigger thing that a lot of Oilers players talked about was there's no longer the feeling. There was no longer the feeling right now, meaning they won nine in a row. They won eight in a row going to that game and won nine in a row that night. So obviously they were feeling good anyway. But there's no longer the feeling that you had to score six goals to win a game.

And that was kind of the thought process before, where it just felt like you would go into a game early in the season. and there was almost a checklist of, hey, we got to get to four or five goals in that mentality. So it wasn't, and when they score that many goals now, it's great, that's fine. But before it felt like, okay, you had to go, you had to do this. This was the task. It wasn't the enjoyment. And now it's become more so the feeling for the Oilers internally has become, you can win a game three to two. You can win a game, a two one.

You can win those close games. And I'm not even going like old school. Like you got to be tough hockey mentality thinking. I just think there is a human side to this of when all of a sudden you're feeling like, okay, we play where we've gotten better defensively. We've gotten better at five on five. We have the tools to win the game without having to outscore the other problems. And I think that's just been really freeing overall for the team.

And that's kind of the feeling I got from talking to the players. and the other thing just about the Oilers too on everything is and this was a big one and I just I'm going to needle this in there because this was in my column yesterday for over at EP ringside like one of the more freeing things that they did that I don't think we talked about enough is Chris Knoblock comes in and he's not the quote he's an age he was an AHL coach until November 12th, but he wasn't coming from Bakersfield. He wasn't the, it's not like, hey, we're calling up the minor league guy to get it. They went and hired a guy from a different organization, and it was kind of the spot where

obviously took a little bit of time. They had some, you mentioned that Carolina game, right? That was even after the coaching change, but it wasn't, well, we just brought in the minor league babysitter to get it done. We went out and hired someone else. And whether the players were involved in that hire or not, which we can all remember back to November with the conflicting statement. on that, I think that has played in the long run that's played out well of bringing someone in

from the outside who didn't, who wasn't there for the struggle, but also was able to come in and diagnose at the same time. I really hope any of this has made sense. No, it does. I mean, I think part of it is they were certainly going to regress regardless if they put a potato behind the bench. I think they'd be performing better, but also unless he came in with a magical remedy that made McDavid healthier, which I think just would have happened over time as well, then I don't want to give him too much credit for that because it's clear that he was playing hurt, right?

And then now it just went back into absolute supernova form. But you're right. I mean, in terms of the winning in different ways and winning close, low-scoring games, like their last three wins during the streak are 2-1, 3-2, and 2-1 wins. Now, in the two most recent examples of that, you've outshot the opposition 47-17 and 41-24.

it makes it easier, right? You could certainly say, okay, it's easy if you're scoring that little on that many shots and opportunities to become frustrated and potentially like melt down or start making uncharacteristic mistakes because you're frustrated.

But at the same time, your defense and goaltending are to look better and everything is going to become a lot easier when you're just controlling play to that degree, right? And so I think it's interesting. They're up to second in the league in expected goals offensively, but they're also fourth in most expected goals

against suppressed as well. So they're humming right now. And the point that I was making about the 5-15 dominance, in particular, is they're back to doing the formula that they had after the trade deadline last year, right, where they went into the playoffs, absolutely scorching hot in the sense that McDavid and Dreisidler carrying their own lines right now, right? In these 21 games during this streak that I mentioned, they've played just 45, five-on-five minutes together.

And even when those two guys aren't on the ice now, the bottom six, is winning their minutes 13 to 9 as well. And I think all of these things were sort of big reasons for their success last year, completely went away from it at the start of the year, which is partly why they were struggling, and now they're back to it, right? And so I'm very curious to see how this keeps going and whether they can keep playing at this type of level,

because obviously it's a frightening proposition for everyone else that they're back to doing, I think, what we expected from them heading into the season. It's a fun team to watch. That's the other thing. You and I like fun, exciting hockey, and it's fun to watch. I mean, it's the McDavid goal. We joke about the arms up, but you watch, it's kind of the moment where it's like, okay, this is good for Pocky when McDavid is dueling cool stuff.

Well, they have two more playoff runs here now until Dreis Seidel's a 30-year-old UFA. And I'm very curious, I know they acquired Matias at home last straight deadline, right? And that was a great move. I'm very curious to see how aggressive they are finding a player that improves their team, not only for the rest of the season, but potentially has another year left in the deal to kind of fit that timeline. Because I think in that case, pretty much every single one of their prospects and picks

should be on the table if someone like that is available. And I'm going to save this for a couple weeks from now when we do our annual trades we like to see show. But just as a little spoiler, I imagine I will have a Travis Kineckney to, the oilers trade or certain variations of it brewed up in the meantime because that is exactly the type of player that they need who has conveniently enough this year or next year on his deal and so I'm very curious to see

just to tie it to what we talked about in the first half of the show if something like that can happen. Okay, we've got time for one more topic here. I'll let you pick. Do you want to do All-Star event, which I don't know how much I have to say. I it but we haven't really talked to very much on the show yet and I think there are some interesting components to it or the arbitration process. I'll let you pick as the guest. Let's start. Well, let's let's talk arbitration, but I will say my one hope that would just be funny with the all-star thing is I'd love it to be like McDavid and Drysiddle like one and two like in that

skills competition and the decide just to split the million. Like that would be just the most hockey thing ever. So let's uh, but let's let's let's start arbitration and splitting other financial things. See, I died that all together. There you go. I think the reason why I think it's interesting is because Jeremy Swayman had this quote the other day, right, where he was

asked about what it meant to be named to the All-Star game. And his direct quote was, after dealing with what I did this summer with arbitration, hearing things that a player should never hear, it felt pretty special to be in the situation. And that's obvious a success story because he's been phenomenal this year

and I assume is going to earn himself a nice well-paid long-term extension from the Bruins. It sounds like I could have pretty soon not even waiting until the off-season. And that's obviously, you know, he used that as added motivation and this is a sex story. I think we'll talk about Elias M. Sonob, I think it can go in the other way. And I think that's almost what I'm more interested in because this is something where it's probably I was telling you before we went on the air. It's maybe my most coveted being a fly on the wall story that we're never going to

fully get the behind the scenes of for a variety of reasons, but just being there, seeing both sides, make their impassioned arguments, and then in particular, watching the players face and monitoring their blood pressure as the team presents a case for why they should be paid significantly less than they're asking for. It's such a unique process that you wouldn't obviously have in our regular day-to-day jobs, right? Where your employer is essentially just telling you all the reasons why they want to pay you less than you think you deserve, especially like so bluntly and right out in the open. But it's the process itself is just so interesting to me, especially like the Sonsa one,

for example, right? He, he filed at 4.9 million, I believe the leaves filed at 2.4. they found obviously the award was in the middle around 3.55, but with that big of a gap as well, all of a sudden, it can go south so quickly in terms of just like hearing your team rip you apart that way. And especially for a goalie,

I would be very wary of going that route because we know how much of it is confidence and rhythm and the mental aspect of it, right? And it's a very dangerous and slippery slope to go down if you're doing that to your goalie, I guess. Yeah, I mean, one of the things about arbitration, that is the system is like, you have to play the game. That's the issue. Like, the issue is this is how the game is set up.

So you have to play by the, you have to play by the quote unquote rules on it. Like, it's when, that's the thing that's always kind of laughable on Twitter. Like, I remember it happened with the Samsonov. People saw the reported Samsonov said 4.9, team said 2.4. everyone's laughing like, oh, he thinks he's worth this worth this much. The team thinks he's, yada, yada, yada. I mean, the end of the day, you have to remember is that's, the Leafs didn't think he was worth $2.4 million.

The Leafs probably thought he was closer to $3.3.5 million or whatever it was, right? But if you offer that as your number, because NHL arbitration is not good faith arbitration. It's NHL arbitration. The arbitrator gets to pick a random number in between. I believe it's a, it's, is, I can't, we, we should know this and I should have looked this up before it came on, but it's either MLB or NFL arbitration where each sides make a case, an arbitrator has to pick one of those numbers. And so in, in that scenario where you and I come to a table and, hey, I think I'm worth

this much, you think I'm worth this much. and we're both giving our fair stake number that we both think we're worth, well, that I'm worth, then all of a sudden the arbitrator has to pick one of those. So we both are going to come with a more fair number. When it's the arbitrator has, can pick any number they want, you're of course, I'm going to ask for the moon. Let's pretend I'm the player, you're the team on this. I'm going to ask for the moon because I need to start from a higher point.

I may really want something, I may want something $2 million less, but I have to ask for this much more. the team then has to do this. So it's not a good faith arbitration. It's two sides basically haggling over the price of a house, but the house has feelings and is sitting right there and getting, and it is getting picked apart. Just like it's,

and so from a player perspective, like I've talked to an agent before who brought up to me, he was like, he's like, I wish that players, if I ever take a player at arbitration, I don't want, I wish that my player wouldn't go because it's just too much for,

for them to sit there and hear their team basically rip them apart and find all their flaws and everything like that. Those are things you can't unsay. I mean, one of the famous ones, right, is the whole over a decade now was the whole, the seeds of the P.K. Suban fallout in Montreal came from his arbitration case, where it was him in Montreal, things that were said in that conversation ultimately led to the divorce, the divorce there. And for Swayman, I mean, it's what the Bruins had to do from a cat perspective. And Swayman, it's what Swayman had to do by his own. to get as much as he could.

And luckily, it's worked out well for Swayman, but as you can see with Toronto, and obviously no one knows exactly what's going on in Samsonoff's head. It's up to him. He actually played pretty well last night than I probably would have expected last night in the game against Detroit.

But you have to wonder with Samson, when all of a sudden you're hearing about all these flaws in your game and all of this, you hear it enough times, it gets spoken into existence. And it's fascinating. Like, I covered a case. The one case I covered really closely, and this is a name that probably no one ever expected here in the year 2024 talking about the NHL.

But when I was covering Dallas, I covered Jamel Smith, who filed for arbitration against the stars and actually went all the way to arbitration. And one of the things about that case that was interesting was the stars from the beginning always looked at him as an entry-level contract type player. And they were going to – and they were interested in doing – a one-way contract with him. But when Smith fired filed for arbitration, and they had to work on bringing that cap number down, that's the first time they went and offered a two-way deal. And then on top of that, they went and waived him in the summer.

They put him on waivers in the summer, and he cleared on purpose to use that to show to the arbitrator of, look, nobody, like, look, nobody wants him. No one claimed him on waivers, even though we all know, no one gets claimed on waivers in the summer, but that's a tool that teams use. And so ultimately, the stars ended up getting basically exact what they want, and Smith basically took them all the way to arbitration for about $5,000 extra dollars. And it's, was the $5,000 extra dollars worth the hearing about how you're not this good, or you're, there's other guys better than you.

I don't think so. And that's the, and it's from a arbitration is, it's kind of one of those things where I wish, as you said, the fly in the wall thing would be amazing to watch because Swamen, give Swamen a ton of credit for kind of making it a little bit of an FU moment where it's like, okay, now I'm going to use it and try and probably get that other long-term deal at some point. But at the same time, it could have easily been the FU moment I'm out of here. Yeah, well, by all accounts, it seems like he wants to be there long term. so it didn't go that badly. And I think there was probably less to nitpick with his game as well. Like obviously,

Allmark was phenomenal winning the BESDA and the system in front of them was good. So I imagine that was the argument they were making. The reason why the Samsung won, like the circumstances of are so fascinated to me. And I think, you know, part of it was like the Leafs obviously didn't want to pay up long term for the one season he had for them.

And it also opened up a second buyout for them in the summer, which they didn't wind up using, but it was just an interesting option. is on the surface, he had a 919 percentage and he won 27 of his 42 games, right? And so if you're just using like that old school, just counting stats approach of evaluating a player's performance, you can make a very compelling argument that this guy had a phenomenal season. His evolving hockey goal save above expected last year was 21 plus 21, which was really,

really good. Sport logic had him down at five. and I think I don't even know if you're probably not allowed to use those numbers, right? Because you're only allowed to use league-based stats. But if you're the Leafs and you're aware of this, right? And I think they're certainly aware of the fact that this is a goalie who kind of struggles, as Kevin Woodley's talked about in the show with like most goalies, lateral below the slot line plays, right, where he has to move within tight, laterally from side to side. And they limited that really well last year, obviously this year.

they've progressed defensively and that those issues have popped up. And so if you're aware of the fact that like once we contextualize for defensive environment in front of him, his own value in terms of creating these stats he wound up with on the surface was much more minimal than you'd be led to believe, even if you aren't using those specific numbers, I think you're obviously going to tee off much more on him in terms of like nitpicking his game and presenting that argument more vehemently as opposed to if he full marks earned this 919 say percentage you'd still try to make an argument to bring the salary down in the arbitration process but maybe it might be less less impassioned i guess right and so in this case i imagine there were so many routes they could take to nitpicking the flaws in his game and why this wasn't repeatable and then now that happens obviously and i don't think anyone expected an 867 say percentage or whatever he's at this year like he's minus 20 goals able to be expected in 16 games and games by Sport Logic, which is just truly unfathomable, but now they're forced to essentially rebuild this guy's confidence in game, and a lot of it was self-inflicted.

Yeah. Well, and the other thing, too, that is that I've talked to someone about this before, where they said one of the big things that when you do have a guy who go to arbitration, that it ends up testing, it ends up testing how well you've separated your coach from your GM. because a lot of the times, if you've got a guy who goes to arbitration and then comes back and figures it out, those tend to be the ones where the GM, where the coach right or wrong is able to truthfully sell the player on. Look, I don't have anything to do with that. I don't care how much money you make. I'm just your coach. And it's one of those where I'd be, I'm actually, it's a question I'm fascinated to maybe in a more relaxed environment,

maybe even at All-Star Media stuff since both Montgomery and Swayman will be there. fascinated to kind of talk to them since Swamen already opened the door to talk about this, right? So it's actually a wonderful spot where we already have Swamman's already opened the door to talk about this. I'd be fascinated to kind of hear Jim Montgomery on this a little bit more of like, okay, how do you, when you're separating coach from GM on this, what's your perspective, what's your approach to this of making sure you're getting the goalie to that you believe Swamen is? And at the same time, not throwing your own employer under the bus at the same It creates so many other little conversations that arbitration is fascinating.

We could do an entire show on this. Yeah. I mean, I think the time to do it is when Ilya Simsonov signs for like $1 million with some basement level team in the summer in a smaller market. And then you can get him for a one-on-one interview and ask him about the process. I think that's where the most more interesting quotes would probably surface. All right, Sean. Let's get out of here.

I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out. What do you got in the works? Yeah, we've got some stuff already up right now over at ringside. I got my weekly unnumbered thoughts column over there that runs on Sundays. I've headed over to the All-America game over in Plymouth today. We'll have some stuff from that. Got some fun stuff coming up the substack. And then maybe a first PDO cast plug of this.

coming out on Friday night. I'll check your Twitters and all of that stuff. There's a new movie trailer dropping Friday night that yours truly is in that comes out on Friday night. So keep an eye out for that. I will drop that plug in there. Your debut cinematic performance looking forward to, bud. It is. Be well.

We're going to have you on again soon. My only plugs on the way out are, of course, as I mentioned earlier, join the Discord channel. and my link is in the show notes. Check out the YouTube channel as well. We did David Pasternak last week with Daryl, with Daryl, we're doing Gabe Pilarty and Nikolai Heelers this week. So looking forward to that one. And that's all for today. Thank you to everyone for listening. And we'll be back tomorrow with plenty more of the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.