The Hockey PDOcast - The Friday Mailbag featuring Jack Han

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Dimitri cracks open the weekly Friday Mailbag with special guest Jack Han as they answer your questions and reply to your comments.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 PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. I'm to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Villapovich. And joining me is my good putty Jack, Jack Han. Jack, what's going on, man? Can you hear me okay, Dimitri? I can hear you great, man.

You're sounding fantastic. Welcome to the show. It's good to have you on for the first time this year. Yeah, good to be on. And before we get started, a word from our sponsors. This is brought to you by my girlfriend, Stephanie, because she's waiting for me to get to her birthday dinner. So we're going to have an hour chat about hockey,

and then I'm going to have to run. Oh, thank you, Stephanie. Thank you. Thanks for sponsoring today's show. So it's Friday. We're going to do another installment of the mailbag here in the PDO cast where we answer as many listener questions that we received on Twitter as we can. If you're listening to this and you want to get involved next week or in future editions,

we'd love that. So please don't hesitate to fire over whatever questions you have or things you'd like for us to talk about specifically. So, Jack, with that out of the way, let's get into today's batch of questions because we got a lot of really fun stuff to get through. So here's the first one that I thought would be interesting for us. Our pal Meeks asks, it feels like every half decade the meta of the league shifts. Do you think the modernization of the game is driven more so from the players coming into the league and maximizing their skill sets? Or is it more that we're gaining a better understanding of hockey?

Well, I think it's kind of like a cash-22 in a way because, like, from what I see, you know, teams are defending differently because the players are getting better and then the players, in turn, get better because teams are defending in a more aggressive and proactive way. So I think that the game in general is trying to put a really great direction. and, you know, one recent example is, you know, unfortunately, Zegroos is not able to start the season, but, you know, when he was hitting the Michigan, now all of a sudden the teams have to defend the back of the net. And because teams have to defend it back than that, now it opens up some more options in the slot. And then basically, as Meeks pointed out, that the meta of the league shifts. And the other really obvious example is you'll see more and more teams play. either a one-one-three or have three players back because they want to avoid getting caught

with an obman rush if the other team is activating their defenseman on the breakout or in transition. So these are two, I think, really obvious areas where the NHL is playing differently than even, let's say, three years ago. Yes. My answer for this was both. And it's part that, which you just highlighted there perfectly. Other part, though, is the players themselves are just getting so much better. across the board and it goes well beyond like the advances we have in terms of like physical

training preparation through the off season nutrition getting the body right all that i think the the rise in skill development is really important here because young players these days who are coming into the league are coming in having watched and trying to emulate all the best parts of their favorite players arsenal right i think a great example of this is our pal thomas Trance this off season had a great piece on the athletic where he interviewed Connor Bredard who by the way has 73 goals in 89 career WHL games that he's played so far and Bardard in that piece kind of talked about how he loves watching Austin Matthews shoot the puck and he's really tried to kind of study and emulate and add to his own game that drag shot in

particular the Matthews has kind of turned into his bread and butter and so you're seeing more and more of that now especially with the availability of all this video, right, where you can pull it up on YouTube. You've got all these clips available to you. You're seeing it all on Instagram. Like, all these young players are able to watch all this stuff and kind of then go and practice and do it themselves throughout the off season and get better at it. And so I think kind of that appetite for improvement for young players, whether they're still

at lower levels or actually young guys who have already had success in the NHL is as high as it's ever been. Yeah. And, you know, as you mentioned, the current elite players and the future elite players, they study the game. Like, they watch a ton of hockey.

They'll, they'll review video. They'll try to steal from other, you know, superstars. But if you look at the bottom end of the roster, like the example that I would give you is, you know,

like I've coached at different levels. And, you know, if you're lining up as a defenseman against the other teams, let's say bottom six fours or especially, let's say their fourth line, there are some players that, you know, if you make any sort of effort to defend them through the neutral zone, they're

going to be happy to just chip the puck in and either, you know, create some token pressure or just go back and change. But in the NHL now, even fourthliners, they're either somewhat skilled players want to carry the puck in or they're really good at just chipping it by you and then getting right on you on the forecheck. So you don't have a lot of these kind of free changes of possession anymore and that's something that continues to involve in the game as well. You know, I haven't worked with players as directly as you have obviously throughout your career, but, you know, part of having like a bigger online persona and kind of having a growing following as I have had players reach out and kind of like, oh, like, you know, who should I

be watching? What should I be doing in terms of like adding stuff to my game and someone I keep directing people to is actually, you mentioned Trevor Zegers. They're actually thinking his teammate Troy Terry is far more interesting to me. because he doesn't necessarily have that same flash or that kind of same new wave skill set as Zegris does, but his ability to be the craftiest guy in the league right now, in my opinion, in terms of all these little subtle tricks he does to, despite not being that fast or that strong,

get to wherever he wants to on the ice, is so fascinating to me. And I find that skill set of his, like, so relatable or applicable, regardless of your talent level or your role on any team you're on right now for an H.O. player. you're watching what Troy Terry's doing and you're trying to kind of add that to your game like I think you can legitimately improve your own effectiveness out there through like just watching YouTube clips basically of what this guy's doing every night yeah and and I think a lot of a lot of the improvement in our game is related to how easily available all this video is because

I remember when I was growing up and this is like you know early 2000s if you want it to become a more skilled player, you would have these stick handling DVDs where, you know, it's either on ice or off ice, but basically you're doing a lot of things around pylons that aren't super applicable. And it was difficult to really break down what, you know, the NHL players were doing that actually worked because, you know, you didn't have cable or you didn't have a DVR or, you know, you certainly didn't have YouTube. So the fact that, you know, this video becomes available, it's happened in basketball with like N1 mixtapes back in the day or skateboarding or snowboarding. Like the fact that you're able to see the best and how they execute, like that's a max of accelerant for where the game is headed.

Absolutely. And I think it's all for the better. Like I think these are all awesome developments for just the product and entertainment value of it. Was there anything else on this kind of the concept of the modernization of the game or do you want to go on to next question? well it's yeah so right now it's you know how do you defend the michigan so you send somebody back there but and then how do you avoid giving up you know four on twos off the rush which is you bring an extra player back well it's so that's what you're going to see this year it's so tough though because you're taught from a young level not to chase players behind the net right yeah well you know

that that's what happens when you get to the highest level you got to sometimes alerts and habits And that's where I think some people get left behind because it's, you know, it's one thing to learn, but our learning is actually way harder. Right now, Mackenzie Wieger is listening to this, and he's like, see, I was supposed to chase Nikita Kutraulte behind the net in that playoff game last year. Okay, so Cabernet Firk here asks,

handedness on the power play. How much does it matter? Let's take that first, and then we can talk about the second part of this question. So handiness on the power play, how much do you care about it? it depends who you are and it depends what you're trying to accomplish well let's say ideally you're trying to score a power political yes which is which is what you're always trying to do right yes yeah hopefully i'm going to kind of flip this because i i have this whole rant about

NHL PKs playing the diamond yeah let's save that for later because we have another question about that Okay, okay. So I know. So handing this, of course, you want to have as many players available on their one-timers as possible. So most teams are running at one-three-one. So if you're, let's say, you're the Tampa Bay, like, well, you're pretty well set up because if Kuturov has the puck on the right half wall, he's either passing to Stanko's cross-seem or he's passing to Braden point in the slots. So that matters a lot. If you have high-end finishers, you like to get them on their one-timer side as much as possible because I think it's a fact of life that everybody performs better on their forehand. And if you're on your forehand,

it's easier to shoot it into the net if it comes on your one-timer side as opposed to across your body on the other side. So it matters a lot. And the other thing that matters a lot is handing this on the face off. So, again, this is a bit of a segue, but generally speaking, if you have right handers taking faceoffs on the right and left handers taking face off on the left, you get a 5% boost in faceoff winning percent. So if you watch, let's say, Boston's PowerPlay, every single time they're going to have Bergeron start PowerPlay 1, and they're going to have the face off in the right dot.

you know if you if you let's say watch toronto every single time you're going to have either tavarice or matthews taking a draw on the last side every single time okay and and based on you know you wanting to face off then you can very quickly get into your set and this is i think one of the reasons why actually florida's power play kind of went down the drain late last season because for most of the year they had um barcoff taking face off on the level of the level of left to start the power play. And then they got Claudeau with a trade deadline, and Claudeau was an excellent power play player and an elite face-off guy, but he's a right-hander.

So basically, very late in the season, they switched their entire face-off setup. And when you switch your face-off setup, then also you're switching, you're changing up all of your players' routes into your one-three-one afterwards. So, you know, someone working in the industry on the team side, send me a note, and he said, I think it's according to sport logic, but basically Florida went from a top five team after winning an ozone face off on the power play to the bottom five team. So that stuff really matters. Yeah, no, it is.

Well, it's funny that you ask that question of like it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, and then you brought up the example of the Bruins because what they're trying to accomplish off of offensive zone draws, especially on the power play, is they're trying to score within the first five seconds, right? Like they're, they're so confident in how good Bergeron is at that, that they're like ideally designing set plays right off the draw, understanding that the quicker you can strike, the more likely it is to happen.

Whereas a lot of teams, for whatever reason, their objective on a lot of these draws seems to be like, all right, well, let's just hope to win it back and then we can kind of methodically get set up here. And sure, you have two minutes to do so and you're not in a rush, but it makes a lot more sense to not kind of, You're letting the opposing penalty kill kind of off the hook a little bit if you allow them to actually get in its structure as opposed to trying to kind of jump in there and quickly make something happen within the first five seconds off of any draw. Yeah.

And, you know, it's obviously, you know, but a lot of people out there know that I used to work for Toronto Maple Leafs. And the Bruins used to kill us on the power play because basically if there was any kind of a scramble puck on the right side of the ice, Pastornak, he would just go and find the left face-off dot. And if, like, a Marchand or Taylor Hall or Bergeron or whoever, if they're able to dig this puck out of the corner, they could just pull a blind to the opposite dot, and then Pasternack would one-time internet, essentially. So it was super easy.

Like, off a 50-50, off like kind of a scrambled face-off, like Pashternac was just there, and you couldn't cover him because otherwise you were compromising the middle of the X. Yeah. Yeah, I guess my one final thought on this question to kind of more specifically give my answer on it is I think at 100% matters the handedness on the power play because, as you mentioned, having players available on their strong side for the quick one-timer is so important to me just because we know this correlation between how long or I guess how short of a period of time the puck is on the shooter stick and then how like the shorter a period of time that can be,

more likely it is to actually score. So having a formation where players are lined up so that they can execute multiple things at once, whether it's one-timing it for a shot or one-timing a pass, is supremely valuable on the power play. And you mentioned Kuturov there. One of my favorite chapters of yours in, I believe it was the Hockey Tactics 2021 edition, was about what makes him so special as a weapon on that right flank on the powerplay. And it's his ability to not only pose a threat as a lot.

a shooter off the one time. But regardless of where the puck is passed to him, he's able to in one motion, either scoop and shoot, send it cross-ice for the one-timer to Stamcoast or kind of one-touch it softly into the bumper for Braden Point to one-time it. And you can't really read what he's going to do with it because there's no predictability to it. Like he disguises it so well because he's able to, from any of those positions, basically do all the three of those things. Now, that's what makes Nikita Kutrov so special. many teams don't have that type of player and you basically have to pick one thing and do it really well and just hope that that's good enough to

to get the job done. But I think being able to put players in a position where they're at least more likely to be able to kind of make you think about whether they're going to pass or shoot is so much more valuable than just having a design shooter standing in one spot and that's all he's going to do and you know that whenever he gets the puck, that's the only thing he can do. Yeah, so hadn't is super important. Yes. Okay, so we got a bunch of questions here about the New Jersey Devils.

Devils fans are very interested in hearing stock about their team. So, you know, it's a two-parter here. Let's kind of tackle them together. John Rambo asks, is there a tactical explanation as to the gap between New Jersey's expected goals for and actual goals for? And we got another question that asks, is there anything specific with Lindy-Ruff schemes, systems or tactics that make it harder for his goalies to make saves relative? of the league average. So obviously on both sides of the spectrum, they're offensively and defensively for the Devils, but since it is the one same team, I figured we could kind of tackle them together. So it's obviously quite early in the season. I was able to watch

some New Jersey clips. What I like to make is a larger point about what the game looks like very early in the season. And I'm talking like first month of the season, which we're still in. in New Jersey's case the biggest explanation is they haven't had great goal tending but now they're kind of turning it around so you know

we have this regression to the mean that we understand so well but there's also three things that typically happen with teams that are just kind of getting their feet wet to start the season and that's why you see some kind of strange results sometimes earlier on

So, you know, New Jersey is a team that I think is they try to play with the puck offensively. They activate their dees. They do some interesting things. You know, they're doing a lot of things that brought success to the Panthers last season. And overall, it's a game plan that I think is worth pursuing for them because they're on their way up. And they have a lot of young good players. And honestly, they should pursue more of a speed and skill and possession type game. but they've just kind of been turning the puck over at bad moments

because it's early in the year the players don't necessarily have a ton of familiarity with each other and you know sometimes crap just happens right sometimes you know what could be a scoring chance turns it to a ballpark and then it goes the other way and it's all of a sense in the back of your neck so I think that part is going to sort itself out as the players get more acquainted with each other and they get more comfortable. The second part is there's one thing that they do in their D-Zone that I'm not a huge fan of, which is they like to send both defensemen into the corner together. And the reason why you would do that is basically like that's what the swarm is.

So you swarm the puck so that you want to overwhelm a 50-50 battle, come out with the puck, and then get quickly on your breakout or in transition. the problem with that is is that if the other team is able to get out of that pile you're kind of in trouble because if they bump that puck let's say from one corner to the other now both of your Ds are stuck on the same side of the ice

where the puck is. So they're kind of scrambling and meanwhile now you have forwards defending down low. The other thing is if they're able to slip this puck from the corner to the slot the net front D now is not a D it's a forward. And there's been a of instances where the puck kind of

sports out of the corner and then the net front forward for the devils is kind of caught in no man's land. It's not a situation that you're comfortable at all if you're forward. And it's really difficult for force to either, you know, go stick on puck or get into a shooting lane or just make a sort of

any kind of an emergency weed to diffuse that chance. So what ends up happening is, you know, you kind of make her always look bad but it's kind of the fault of you know, not having a deal out front. Yeah, yeah, those are the, those are the kind of breakdowns where the other team shooter all of a sudden pops up pretty much uncontested in the slot.

And you're like, okay, that, you know, that something wrong must have gone wrong here. And that explains that. I'd also say, you know, last year, according to Corey Schneider's tracking data, they were third behind the avalanche and the Panthers in terms of rush offense, right? and you kind of alluded to how much they like to create on the move like that. And I think it makes plenty of sense based on the young personnel they have and the talent they have. And it's a fun way to play. And also I think it's a net positive.

But when you do play that way, a natural byproduct is going to be you're going to kind of expose yourself to odd man rushes against. And those we know are, you know, more likely to wind up in the back of your net. So I think both of those things, it's kind of a bad formula for them defensively where they're giving up odd man rushes against because of the way they play. but also when they're stuck in zone settings, they also are kind of exposing themselves a little bit there too. So it's kind of, it's the worst of both worlds in a way. Yeah.

And it's a bit like investing on the stock market where, you know, you're taking a beating this week or this month, but if you think your overall strategy is sound, then you should try to write it out. Yeah, I will say like offensively, they, after their win, their 401 win against the Islanders on Thursday, the numbers are fine. still 30th in shooting percentage, but Jack Hughes has one goal and two assists,

both secondary assists so far this season in his four games. And for my money, aside from my guest, Connor McDavid, he's been the most dangerous player I've seen on a consistent basis. Like every time he's out there, he's creating a chance. He's got 12 high-danger chances of his own. He's probably created at least another 15 or so over teammates. And this was a problem for them last year where he was setting up. Hugo Sharon Govich and other linemates constantly, and they just weren't bearing.

the opportunities, but I think that's, like, you'll, that's a good problem to have in terms of having Jack Hughes creating all of those time and time again. So I think the points are coming for them in a big way. And I think if the devils keep creating the types of chances they have so far this season, where I think they've been one of the best five-on-five offensive teams in terms of chance generations so far, the goals will come eventually. They're not going to keep shooting at the 30th rate in terms of shooting percentage. And so once those goals start coming, like this is going to diffuse a lot of these problems for them. Yeah. And, and, Maybe the only thing I would say is, you know, going back to that D zone swarm,

if the other teams are already in your zone and you're not totally organized and you're not sure if it's going to come out with the puck, why would you expose yourself too much and send both these into that corner? Like, if you want, if you just take a moment, let things slow down, keep a D in front of their net, you're likely going to be fine. The puck is in the corner. there's a lot of bodies around the play stopped you don't need to force anything in that situation because it's actually really hard to generate offense unless you overextend and you do something that's kind of ill-by it and all of a sudden you're giving your opponents an opportunity

now the implementation of something like that like how hard is that to change during the season assuming you're not having a bunch of practice time as well right like it's like i imagine it's not one of those things where you just want to be telling your players, all right, we're actually going to change this differently without having actually seen it on the ice first. I mean, this one's pretty easy because most teams leave their second defensemen at front by default. Right.

So whether you look at Pittsburgh, whether you look at Toronto, like most teams in the league have their second defenseman in front, and then the second man into the pile is either the center or at least, you know, a low floor. So you're not going to be able to maybe pressure quickly and maybe you're going to be in your zone for a few more seconds, but it's not a bad tradeoff. Yeah.

Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. All right, Jack. We are going to put a quick little pin in the conversation here. Take a break here from the sponsors. And then we're going to pick it back up when we return. You are listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast on the SportsNet Radio Network. All right.

We are doing mailbag questions here in the P.D.O.cast with Jack Han. Jack, let's pick it back up. I have a question here from Chaniel J.D. asks, which tactic, whether it's Forecheck, breakout, coverage, etc., is extremely effective on paper but very difficult for players to execute

consistently in-game? I mean, it's a very case-by-case basis. The one thing that maybe I would use as an example is the 2-1 2.4 check. So the 2124 check is essentially the most aggressive variant of an offensive zone

forecheck that you can have. And, you know, we talk about hockey being a game of aggression and a game of possession, which means that if we're able to pin your opponents up ice, you know, that allows you to control the game, whether it's by, you know, zone time, by, you know, coursey or eventually by actual goals. So the 2-1-2-4 check essentially is a lot of teams will use it off the lost ozone face-off where you have two wingers kind of attacking the D like heat-seeking missiles and then everybody kind of lining up man-on-man behind them. And you basically cannot get more aggressive than that in pro-hockey without being completely suicidal.

So this is something that I think lots of fans really like because again, it's the most aggressive value of the forecheck, and it looks really good on paper because you can really create a lot of havoc. But I remember when I first started consulting for the Connecticut Whale of the PHF in women's pro hockey, they ran a 2-1-2, and they were getting absolutely slaughtered because it was way too easy for the other team to just kind of throw the puck off the wall or off the glass or just basically anywhere have it kind of trickle by two or three people

and all of a sudden they've given up they've given up an all-man rush so you've got to be very selective on where you use that yeah i would say the like the breakout would be the most important in my opinion in terms of i think we naturally think of it as all right break like breaking out of your zone is important for transitioning offensively i think there's like a trickle-down effect in terms of on your defensive metrics as well. It's really important and can really kind of be linked back to that we just saw in the Stanley Cup final really the main difference between the Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning was the lightning simply didn't have the personnel or the ability to consistently get out of their zone cleanly against Valor and Etruscgen and Hattari Lechon and

Gabriel Landis Cog and all the great four checkers, the avalanchevents were able to throw at them, whereas the avalanche had kale McCarr and Bowen Byram who were capable of single handily taking the puck and basically beating that first four checker and getting out of the zone and relieving pressure that way. So that kind of goes on a case-by-case basis. When I read this question, though, the thing, the first thing I did think of was, I think in-zone coverage defensively is the toughest to execute consistently in terms of maintaining it if you have to keep doing it without eventually slipping up and having those breakdowns, right? And that's why we value possession and spending time in the offensive zone with a puck so much because if you have it, chances are eventually

you're going to get a great opportunity if you just keep that pressure up. And then it also means you're staying as far out of your own defensive zone as possible, which has that added bonus to it. So I think in zone defensive coverage is something regardless of how good you are. If you have to keep doing it, you're eventually either going to take a penalty or give up a goal against. Yes, absolutely. So the thing that grind my gears the most about whether it's casual fans or

or high-level coaches, when people harp on defensive zone breakdowns, I find it very unfair to players because you have to look at what's been happening for, you know, the previous minute sometimes. Because if you've been stuck in your zone for 45 seconds, 50 seconds, and, you know, your heart rate's at 200, you're completely unable to think. Yeah. And that's when the really brain dead moments happen. But, you know, anybody would be victim to that just,

because you're so overcome by the events, especially if you're playing against, you know, these top-end players, you know, if you can't breathe, then you can't think. And if you can't think, then, you know, you tend to do some pretty dumb stuff. Well, this is a natural segue for us into a question about the Colorado Avalanche and their system. And now I will direct people to listen to you and I did a show that was fully about what the Avalanche do. This was two post-season ago. I have it down is May 29th, 2021.

It's in the Pediocast archives. I'd recommend going to listen to that if you haven't yet. Where we just talked about kind of everything they do, how they assembled this team, what has made them special now. They wound up, funny enough, losing in kind of unceremonious fashion at a golden nights like a week after we recorded that show,

but a lot of it still stands and I think applies to them finally getting to the mountain top last year. So it's not out of date by any means. beyond just having a bunch of great players and we know they have an embarrassment of riches at pretty much every position in terms of the skater group, what do the avalanche do specifically in terms of their system or their tactics or their approach that not only allows them to maximize that but makes them so dangerous? This one's maybe less obvious,

but what I would say is good things take time. So they've been at it with more or less the same style of play for, I would say five years now. So when they hit rock bottom, the year before they dropped them a car, they couldn't do anything right on either side of the puck. But ever since then,

they've been methodically working to implement this possession system and, you know, win or loss, and it was mostly wins, but they've stuck with it. So I think they bought themselves some leash with their, obviously, their Stanley Cup win.

They've had some roster turnover. And if they keep going in this direction, to keep building on it, then they'll be just fine. So it's just whether we're talking about New Jersey, whether we're talking about the new coaching staff in Florida, whether we're talking about Toronto, who can't seem to get it done in the playoffs, you know, good things take time.

Yeah, yeah, those are wise words that apply beyond just hockey. There's two things I see that they do on a consistent basis better than any other team in the league. one is that positional interchangeability we talk about where you see kale mccarr or bow and byram get deep in the offensive zone even take the puck behind the net which you rarely ever see defensemen do in that hl and they're comfortable doing so because they know nathan mckinin or valer natruchin or whoever is out there is going to be reliable enough to cycle up and fill the spot that they have left in the point and not only do so but actually be dangerous

there as creating another avenue for them to get shots off. So they do that remarkably well, and I think that's a very underused tactic. It requires great players, I think, to pull it off and actually make it dangerous. If you just have a fourth line and third pair out there, it might not matter that much. But I think throwing different looks at other teams like that constantly leads to confusion. And even though everyone's watching tape and preparing for the avalanche and they know what they're going to do, you see it time and time again where all of a sudden

Nathan McKinnon is kind of wide open at the top of the circles there in the middle of the zone because other teams just aren't used to seeing that and if they've had a 45, 50 second shift they're chasing around a defensive zone maybe it's not on top of their mind they're not thinking as clearly

and then all of a sudden they kind of forget they have a slip up and Nathan McKinn gets a great shot off from there because that's kind of what happens over the course of a long shift. Yeah, I mean you know as much as we talk about their system, it's not possible unless you have great players. And they have great players at every position.

That is true, but here's one thing they do that I do think you could pull off with lesser players. How quickly they regroup in the neutral zone and don't let other teams off the hook, especially in the second period if other teams are trying to sneak in a change after one of those long shifts, how quickly they're able to get it back in the offensive zone and attack off the rush in that capacity is something that I do think is applicable to other teams that don't have Kail McCarney, Nathan, again. Yeah, I think that's fair.

And if we have maybe some minor hockey coaches or minor hockey parents or players listening, as a defenseman, the one thing that you can do to really kind of embrace that solid play is, if you get the puck in a wee group, just take two steps toward the offensive zone and see what happens. Don't just automatically go D-to-D

or automatically throw the puck to forward. Like, take a couple of steps and see what's out there, and then you might be surprised. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's well said. Okay, next question here from Intelligent Dice. I'll give you this one. It says, give Jag a platform to talk about the 112 versus the diamond penalty kill.

You kind of hinted at this earlier, so I'll let you talk about this a little bit. Okay, so I want to bring your attention to an epidemic that I see at the NHL level right now. I might be being a little bit dramatic, but, you know, every year now, I'm putting together an e-book on every team's system. So last year was the first time I actually published it and was actually really well received. This year, I'm starting the research process and I'll have it out around January of next season. And I've looked at maybe a third of the league so far, and half of those teams are running a one-to-one diamond penalty hill. So what that means is that you have the top forward that's pressuring the point.

You have the two middle players who are responsible for the flanks, and then you have one player that's responsible for the net area. So this is in contrast to the 112, which is basically a triangle down low and one player pressuring up top or the traditional kind of two-by-two box PK that nobody uses anymore. And the reason why I think the diamond is a very bad idea, at least at the NHL level, is because if I go on natural stat trick and I look up all of the NHL team's power play outputs last year, a typical NHL power play will control 80% of shot attempts.

So they get four shots for every one shot that the PKers get. And they'll control 90% of goals. So they get nine goals for every one. one goal that the PK managed to score shorthand on average. So when, as a PK, like, these are very, very long odds. Like, you're basically playing a game that's extremely unfair for you. And when you're playing this game that's so unfair against, you know, power players that know what they're doing,

what you want to do is you want to slow things down as much as possible. You know, there are teams and, you know, Toronto last year, they scored some short-handed, Ottawa scores some short-handed two years ago. ago. But generally speaking, trying to score or trying to create offense on the PK is a recipe for disaster because all else being equal, the faster the tempo is, the more you're going to get outscored. Because remember, you're getting outscored at a rate of 9 to 1. So when you run a diamond PK, what that allows you to do is you can be very aggressive on flank players and you can be very aggressive on point players to force turnover is up top.

And if you're able to force a turnover up top, then perhaps that gets you a two-on-one or even a shorthand breakaway. And I think I would see it as the biggest rationale why more teams are going to the diamond is because it allows you to pressure the high part of the zone better. Unfortunately, what that gives up is at least that middle bumper player in a one-three-one completely open. So if you're pressuring to flank and then they're able to kind of slip a puck out to the bumper player, now he's got a two-on-one to the net every single time or he's got a one time.

So, you know, generally speaking, hockey, you want to maybe give up the outside part of the ice to protect the middle. But if you watch a PKK team running the diamond, they're essentially giving up the middle to cover the outside, which is almost never a good idea. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. I think certainly a common theme that you see for a lot of the most effective, especially consistently effective penalty kills, is that sort of selective or situational pressure, right, where they're able to force you into making mistakes and not necessarily allowing, you to kind of in the more traditional or conservative sense, just sit back and basically, you know, slow play exactly getting the puck where you want to and just hoping that, okay, we're going to. hopefully block a shot here or kind of be in more of a turtle position like the the PKs I guess it kind of runs counter or what you're saying though because if you're saying if you're pursuing the puck in that capacity especially aggressively you're potentially exposing yourself to all of a sudden speeding up the sequence of which is played which

may leave you at a bigger disadvantage yeah and again normally like you know when we talk about the importance of of having pressure right we're talking about five on five and five on five it's an even fight. But the thing is, is unless you're exceptionally good at pressuring the puck and then actually getting it back at four on five, sometimes it's better to actually let your opponents have the puck and let them run out the clock, you know, by themselves.

Now, how would the calculus change at all for that if you saw a team running a five-forward power play set? Like, would you feel like you want to potentially, pressure them even more because all of a sudden you have, you're guaranteed that the last line of defense there for that power play is going to be someone who's getting backwards and is very uncomfortable doing so. That's actually a potentially useful use case for a more aggressive Diamond PK. Another use case is if you're down by one in the third period and you need a goal.

And the other teams on the power play, maybe you want to sneak a shorty in there. but the thing is is that as far as I know NHL teams, they don't really adjust their in-zone power play setup according to either the other team's deployment

or the score situation. So if you're running a diamond, you're running it all the time. Right. Do you see the Avalanche running the three defensemen, the second unit power play? I mean, the last thing that I remember

running it was I think it was Nashville, back when they had like Suban and Ellis and Yossi and... Yeah, and it's not generally great because even if you have defensemen who are good shooters, so we're talking about Suban or Ekblad or, you know, you name it, they're not very comfortable sprinting down the wall to retrieve pucks in the corner. So if you have a defenseman playing the flank, and the most obvious example it uses when Shea Weber played on the first power play in Montreal. So obviously,

Shea Weber's got one of the heaviest shots in the game, maybe of all time. But on any sort of a loose puck in the corner, he's always slow getting there because he's got to kind of catch himself, you know, switching his mindset from, I'm a defenseman to I'm a flank player, and that's my puck.

Yeah, which he's uncomfortable doing so. Yeah, but I mean, if Colorado have, you know, whether it's Sam Girard or Devon Caves or Jacob McDonald or who have you. Maybe they can do it very well. Like I don't see the reason why they couldn't. It's just usually defense more or less comfortable in those scenarios. Yeah, definitely.

All right. Question here from ST. What does it say about a team from a tactical or personnel standpoint if the second period is consistently their worst period? It says that either they have issues, well, certainly they have issues with a lot. long change because that's the most obvious thing. So either they have personnel who are slow because, you know, if you're on the long

change, potentially one pass can be three or four players if they're caught. The other thing is maybe they have an issue with their puck management, whether it's on the breakout or in the offensive zone, which means that they get caught on the ice for a long time. They can't get off. And then the other team really feast on that. I can tell your, uh, you're, uh, you're your, your, your, your, a coach because my first thought was okay it reflects poorly on the coaching but you're

instantly going instantly going against the personnel there but to me it just signals a lack of preparation or a lack of understanding of the situation but um well i mean the thing is is ultimately the players play the game right so perhaps it is an issue of poor coaching that the wrong players are being put out there or you know the wrong tactics are being used to address these end zones scenarios. So it certainly could be coaching. Yeah, I mean, obviously over a short period of time, it could just be a complete aberration or randomness or just

getting caught a couple times. If it's a consistent thing as the listener is asking here, that would signal to me, okay, well, if you're not, like, if you're realizing this is happening time and time again and you're not making adjustments or you're allowing it to keep happening, then that would signal a coaching issue to me. But yeah, over a short period of time or whatever, it could

just be complete random stats or, you know, just a random goal here or there against that doesn't necessarily signal that anyone's at fault has happened. Yeah, that too, but I think it is a very real thing. Like I remember three years ago

now, when Shelton Keith first took over as the coach of the Far Maple Leafs, later that season, they played Pittsburgh, and I heard through the great line that Sidney Crosby after that game said, the Leafs in the second period was the most

aggressive team that they've ever played and the most effective in terms of creating pressure on. So, I mean, if it's good enough for Sid, it's good enough for me. There we go. Yeah, that's a good way to think about it. Swimming Totoro here asks, is scoring up across the league? The answer to that is yes, because it sure feels like it is. Is there anything systematically that teams are doing to get ahead offensively? I think we've kind of hinted at the fact that there's just much more skill throughout the league. In terms of strategy, though, I think teams are kind of naturally

leaning towards being more aggressive and you know whether it's through earlier goalie pulls everyone now using four forwards and one defensemen on the on the power play in terms of their setup um or just not you know not icing goons on the foreline and actually having players who can create and contribute offensively i think all of that kind of ties into it but in terms of like actual um you know actual systems or actual tactics i don't know do you have an answer here for that So I certainly appreciate that I think overall the game is getting more skill-oriented, and I think overall scoring is going to maybe trend up a little bit in the long term. But we've got to pump the brakes because it's so early in the season that, again,

lots of teams are making these defensive mistakes that you won't see later on. Same as like every year we say, oh, well, officiating is fixed because power play opportunities are up. And then once we hit January, like it all kind of goes back to the historical. norms. So I think most of it is just due to the teams not really hitting their stride structurally just yet. But certainly the players are getting better.

So, you know, overall, like, I don't think we're going to go back to the kind of slog, sloth fest that we used to have. It's just the raw numbers of the goals, they are going to come down because teams are going to they're going to find more defensive solutions and

scoring is going to kind of regress back and more in line with the historical norms, I think. Yep. All right, one final one, and this one's from me. I put in a good word with the host to get my question answered. Is there a team that you've seen so far this season that has made you want to watch them more, not in terms of like just being incredibly entertaining or whatever, but like you're just,

you've seen kind of sprinkles of them doing something and you're thinking to yourself, all right, I want to spend more time watching them or breaking down this tape because it is of interest to me for whatever reason. It could be good or bad. Okay. I don't quite know what to make of the Florida Panthers just yet. It's a team that I've identified as a candidate for kind of a really bad follow-up the last season when they were so, so good.

You know, I've watched a couple of games, and they're still able to create a lot of offense, but I just think that when it comes to creating pressure and making plays, their forwards are carrying a really, really heavy load, and I wonder if they're able, they're going to be able to keep it up now, especially with, you know, Eggblad being out potentially long-term. Their second and third pair Ds are Mark Stahl and Josh Mahura.

You know, these are NHL players, but I don't really trust them at that level. So we'll see. Like maybe if they keep it up, then they'll be comfortably a playoff. team. But if at some point the forwards, they start slowing down and they start getting tired of being the ones making all the plays, then this is a team that maybe is in for a rough time. Yeah, we had a question about them in Palmary and kind of how much has changed since last year.

And the reason why I didn't pick that question I answered today is because I just want to watch them more. So maybe next time you and I chat here on the PEOCast, we can, we'll have a bigger sample of Panthers games. We can kind of break that down at a deeper level beyond just. just kind of doing a lot of guesswork because we haven't seen that much of it. My answer to this question is the Buffalo Sabres who, you know, just swept the two Alberta teams. Now, you know, there are 47% expected goal teams so far this year, which I think is actually quite good considering they've played the senators, Panthers, and then those two Alberta

teams. And, you know, even if they're not necessarily that good this year or, you know, we'll see how the rest of their season goes, I think they're. they've been really fun to watch and so for me i kind of want to see how those players develop i think they have a ton of interesting parts there and i had a listener kind of bring up the pat the the the fact that they've noticed that they're sort of intentionally seemingly playing more high event hockey by kind of cherry picking and being okay giving up more defensively because of either the tactics or the personnel they have and the the data certainly seems to bear that out in terms of how much higher

event hockey they've been playing so far this year than last so i kind of want to see a bit more of that and see if that continues and see how they hold up if that is the case. So I'll be watching the Sabres quite a bit. So I hear you. In that category of rebuilding teams that could be surprises, I prefer Detroit.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, why can't we have both? We'll see. Maybe if Florida falls a little bit and then Buffalo and Detroit fight their way up, we could have something. Okay. Well, we'll revisit this next time I have you John Jack, this is a blast.

Thank you for taking the time. Thank you to the listeners for sending the great questions. And as always, looking forward to next Friday's mailbag already. If you enjoyed it, you can help myself on the show out by giving the PDOCs 5 stars wherever you listen to podcasts. Jack, how can the listeners help support your work and where can you check you out? Okay, so at this point, you know who I am. Follow me on Twitter. Buy my e-books.

The next one comes out in January. five on five special team systems for all 32 NHL teams. I'm consulting again for the Connecticut Whale of the PHF this season. Watch our games if you want fascinating tactics. That's the team to watch. Okay. Well, I love it, Jack. Have a great weekend.

We'll be back on Monday with more of the HockeyPedio cast on the Sportsnet Radio Network.