The Hockey PDOcast - The Frozen Frenzy Fallout

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to talk about last night's 'Frozen Frenzy', where the Red Wings are at right now compared to last year, how to judge the Stars this season, and the future of broadcasts in the NHL. 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.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich and joining me for the first time this season, making his 24, 25 season debut, my good buddy, Sean Shapiro, live from, what is it, The Lounge of Little Caesars? Yeah, I think it's the, if I read the adverb, the signage right here, I think it's called like the, you know,

the Riemann Club or the Riemann Club. I'm not sure. I'm not exactly sure how it's pronounced. But yeah, it's a club level that is little with fancy people set before they want while they want and then come back and get food and beverage before they're watching sporting events. So, yeah, that's where I'm at. Very exciting.

Well, where we're all at is recording this on a Wednesday morning and we're fresh off of last night's Frozen Frenzy where all 32 teams played in the NHL. the league, you know, made a big point of, all right, we're finally going to give you what you want, what you want. We're going to stagger start times. We're going to do these 15-minute intervals. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that because I'm curious for your take

on sort of how it all sort of transpired. Obviously, we got a dose of it last year as well. I think the concept of it is very exciting. It makes a lot of sense. And I also, you know, I'm going to have some criticisms of my own. I want to kind of preface it with understanding sort of the hippoccurring. of like we we tend to complain about how the NHL never try stuff and is always kind of like cookie cutter and doing the same thing over and over again despite our pleas for more. And so them actually doing something different and trying new things is a good thing, even if the execution and the logistics are kind of lacking a little bit.

So I think that's a very positive thing. But I don't know if you felt this way. Obviously, you kind of focus all of your coverage on the Red Wings and the Stars. I want to talk about those two teams and the games they played in that mix last night. but if you're trying to follow the full league, I thought it was a very overwhelming experience, certainly. And there were times, especially in the meat of that sort of, I don't know, 7, 8 p.m. Eastern window where it was like, oh, my God.

I feel like my head just spinning. I'm trying to catch up with like seven or eight games here at once. And people will say, okay, well, the NFL does this, right? Like you have nine games starting at the same time in the early window on Sunday. it's very successful people love it I'd argue that hockey's different from an absorption perspective right it's very tough to just sort of like

have your eyes darting from multiple games or once it's best enjoyed where you really kind of dive in and enjoy the intricacies of it so I think that's a discrepancy between the two what were your thoughts on last night's frozen frenzy yeah I actually like the way I watched it so I um when there's not a Tuesday night home game here in Detroit or I'm not doing

doing something else in person. I've got a couple, I've got a couple of friends here who have, there's a bar near us that is a golf simulator and they do a golf league on Tuesday nights. And I go, I often go and hang out with them. And so my typical Tuesday with them is I'll typically go over there. I commandeer one television through the one television on the, on the wings game, and that I'll bring the iPad. And I'm the nerd that's hanging out with my friends at a bar on a Tuesday night watching hockey. And so it was actually kind of interesting because not all of them are, Most of them are like wings fans to an extent, but they're not really hockey fans, right? And so at one point I threw the TV on to the whip around show and everything.

And it was, it was something, it was, I think it was something for the hockey fan who, for the person who is a trying to, it's not the event, I think, that gets more people into the sport. Like I know like it was a whole like victory lap that the NFL took like, oh, staggered start times. I think it was a little bit, it's too much for an entry point of people coming into the game, right? Like, that was, I think we have to immediately throw that out of the window because I know that's one thing that'll be like, oh, it's great to try new things. It grows in the game. I don't think it grew the game. I think this was literally for the nerds like you and I who, when you go to the bar with friends on a Tuesday night are bringing iPads and watching hockey games.

That's who this was for. And I like that they've tried this. My criticism comes more so of we've done this before. So let's learn from what we did last year and make it better. And I don't think, if this was year one of this, I'd be like, okay, I'd give a little bit more of a pass. I'd be like, okay, this is fine. I understand. I'm happy they tried it.

But basically, my only lesson that they took from last year was, hey, this was a great victory lap we took last year. Let's schedule another victory lap. And they did. and they're putting out tweets about 98 goals scored yesterday and everything like that. But you didn't learn from your mistakes last year. And it was October 22nd and now it doesn't happen again for the rest of the year. Like that to me is my bigger takeaway of like it's no longer the NHL trying something new. They tried it.

And then in classic NHL fashion, they didn't adjust and take the wins. Like there's wins they should have taken from this. but then there's also, they didn't make the adjustments as well to make it even better. Well, a lot of our frustrations in terms of like puck drop times compared to listed times or lack of staggering of games for a lot of these like main slates on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday specifically can all be traced back to, I think, like obligations to advertisers, right? Without getting two in the weeds here. It's like none of it is by accident.

I think the league is aware of it and it's not ideal, but they want all the games. games to be pretty much at intermission at the same time. So they're like, you're not skipping away from ads or intermission broadcasts to go to watch another live game, right? Like they want to keep you just hanging around and waiting for the game to resume. So I get all of that. I just doing it on a Tuesday, a random Tuesday in October.

I mean, forget the fact that it was opening night in the NBA as well. It's kind of bizarre to me, right? Like, if anything, this would be a great. sort of gimmick for opening night of the season, for example, and especially on a weekend where you'd have more runaway to start games early, right, have games on at like matinee times, and then actually properly stagger them throughout the day so that you can absorb more of this product if you are one of the nerds you're referring to that this is really meant for, or even a casual fan that's like, all right, well, I'm just going to sit on the couch today and watch all

of these games. Instead, you wind up, I think, just picking one game. The game you probably would watch anyways and that's kind of what what you're stuck with right um why did why do they sort of do it that way is my question for you i guess and and maybe you don't have an answer for it but it's like we just saw on on the opening head of the season for example they were willing to have the Seattle crack and have their opener at like 1 p.m. local time or whatever and yet for this sort of gimmick for frozen frenzy it still starts i guess an hour before normal but like i would have liked it to at least start in the morning then and i guess at people at our work and wouldn't be able to watch and all that and it's complicated on a Tuesday,

but I don't know, I guess it all kind of circles around that for me. I mean, part of it comes back to the league is still, while the finances of the league have changed a bit, we are still covering a very much gate-driven sport. And it's no surprise that you got Philly and Washington to be the early game. And that game was in Philly, right? I know they're playing the back-to-back, right? I think that was the one that was in Philly. It doesn't matter.

Either way, that's a team that doesn't really struggle at the gate. It's a team that has a very, doesn't have a later riding crowd issue. Seattle, it was a big, it was a big deal to get Seattle to move their start time from a, like, messaging wise and everything like that. So you have to get teams on board to do this. And so one of the reasons this doesn't happen all the time, and we didn't get a little bit more creativity, schedule is each team is only,

each team is only willing to give so much, right? Like teams are only willing to, at the end of the day, it's, I think there was a couple games where you're watching where it's like, I think maybe they didn't do a good job letting the people in the building know, or letting the, like the local fan know that this is actually the start time, right?

Like there's a couple times we saw when there was a, a crowd that was probably a little bit more sparse or whatever. Like, I thought, I thought that happened a couple times last night. So the big thing is teams only want to give a little, right? No team wants to, no team right now is willing to give a lot and everything like that. Seattle was willing to do it for opening night because you can build it out. It's a day.

But at the end of the day, it became, well, you can do that for opening up. We're not going to do it for a random Tuesday in October. To me, the way the league, the lesson the league should take from this becomes more of, how do we do this on more Saturdays, right? Like how do we go like, and maybe it's not something you can do in the fall when you're going to head to head with college football in the United States, but how do we get more Saturdays like this where let's get 16 games going, call it frozen, you can use your frozen frenzy moniker and everything like that,

but have a puck drop at noon on ESPN, make it a big thing, and then have, and then have your more staggered out throughout over the course Puck drops over the next 10 hours. That's what I wanted to see. After I saw this last year, I'm like, oh, this is a good idea. Let's see it on a Saturday. Let's see, like, this is something that's become more and more of me trying to figure this out as a, since I became a dad myself, but I have kids, right?

So I want my kids to be able to watch more games, right? Like, that's the whole thing. And so right now we had all those games at once and it was great last night, but it's not like, well, hey, we're going to start them at, like, my daughter got home. from school, it's not like I could turn the game on and all of a sudden there was a hockey game at 4. I would have loved that. That would have been great. Like, hey, like, you know what? Let's like, like it was on opening night. So I think it's from a league perspective here. I think it's a good thing that ESPN is, this is something ESPN wants to do. They want the victory

lap too. Let's also give credit or blame where it's due. You can decide which, which silo you want to fall that into. But this is, this is an ESPN creation. And then the other thing that kind of comes out of this wise for me, and this is this is my big miss from the league on this. It's cool to take the lap. Now there's one game tonight. Right? That to me is the whole thing.

Like that's my biggest thing. Like I know like everyone's all excited. There's all the energy and everything like that. I now get one game tonight at 7.30. That's it. Like I think it's kind of one of those where it's like Tuesday was cool, but did I need to be able to. did I need to have to flip through 16 games?

It's the Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park Buzz. Like at what cost? Now I get a two teams playing the second game of a back-to-back tonight, and that's it. And it's like, well, so. Well, not only that, you got the one game Monday. It was the Amazon game, of course, but one game Monday, one game Wednesday. Well, Amazon, you're going to get a bunch of start times on Thursday. Real quick on that.

Amazon for you. Amazon for you, because you're sitting in Canada. easy, easy to find well-messaged. In the United States, NHL Network game, actually. NHL Network is not well carried in the United States. So unless you were in that market, unless you were in Tampa, because it was a Tampa-Toronto game, unless you were in Florida in the Tampa TV market,

it was very hard to watch that game Monday night. Like I don't have a TV service with NHL Network. Like every single year, I'm not sure if I should say this on radio, but I will. Every single year, I go and I basically go into a free trial of a service that has NHL Network so I can watch World Junior here in the United States. Like the whole, it's very hard channel to watch and get, not everyone carries it in the United States.

So on top of, so on top of, so you add that factor as well from a league broadcasting perspective. Nice, big fun, victory lap Tuesday, but the one game Monday while in Canada, I'm sure it's pretty, it was, it wasn't hard to find in the United States. You basically put it on a platform where you couldn't even stream it. Well, does the league like want you to have access to this stuff? I'm always, it seems sort of like a redundant question, but I'm always curious about it. I don't know if you even tracking this, but I thought one of like a really fun little nerdy wrinkle this year is how on NHL.com now you got these goal simulations, right? Where you can like see the player bubbles moving around the ice and sort of what trajectory they took towards the final product of the goal. And it's like, oh, this is awesome.

And I've actually been like looking at them every now and then. And it's a nice way to visualize it. I'm not sure how many people would actually care or take the time to do. So obviously you and I are sort of in the in the top percentile of nerds in that regard. But even that, it's like they released it. And then I think early on, you were actually able to sort of scrape that data. And people with much better tech skills and I could actually do some fun stuff with it in terms of player tracking and potentially getting more answers to some of the questions we have for evaluations. And I think they banned that now too.

And it's like pretty much every single sort of thing in terms of player data tracking anything, games. it's like it's becoming harder and harder to find. To give you an idea of how the NHL works though, right? So that stuff that's out there, I first saw that, I want to say it was two years ago. It was the paying, I was doing a story on the puck and player tracking. And I did an interview with Mike Sullivan.

And Mike Sullivan was showing me what's actually on the iPad that the players look at, right? Like, and he was, and that was originally a puck and player tracking tool that team. teams, that team that coaches used, and the penguins actually used it as a as a bit of a coaching tool at times. But with everything with puck and player tracking, to make that public, all of a sudden it becomes a PA and NHL issue. Right? All of a sudden, it's the whole thing where it's like, why can't, it's the whole, like, if you go to arbitration, what numbers can we use? Can we use, can we use analytics? Can we use this data versus that data? Like, all of the stuff in the NHL basically, making anything public, any more public information about a player.

I mean, this is the league that almost didn't want to put out the expansion draft lists. Remember that? Right here. So anything that can be used to potentially judge a player effectively has to be greenlit by the PA as well. And I'm sure when they originally put it out, the both side, I don't know for sure on this. This is my theory on this. I'm sure when both sides agreed to put it out publicly, they didn't stop. and think that some smart people would start scraping it.

And then they're like, okay, well, now we have to put a safeguard to that. They thought it would just be, they thought we would give people to slice and that would wet our appetite. But instead, other people decided, oh, well, now we can try to find the whole pie and everything like that. And it's, and that's why we lose nice things because we want more information. Well, ultimately, like I said, I'm not sure how many people actually care about this beyond you and I and a few.

Oh, I know. listeners. So instead, let's cast a wider net and talk about something many more people care about last night, Islanders Red Wings game. What a classic. So out of the 60 games that were played, I have to definitively say Islanders Red Wings was definitely one of them. It was one of the hockey games of all time that I watched. The Red Wings wound up winning, if you missed it somehow, one nothing, with 10 shots on goal, two high danger chances

in 0.86 expected goals according to natural statric at the final buzzer. A feat that I honestly can't recall witnessing. And on top of that, I believe they scored on their first shot of the game, right?

It was the metric game set up by Tarcenko. And after that, it was essentially like they decided, all right, you know what? Our work here is done. And to their credit, it wound up being true because it proved to be enough and they close out the game 1-0. Let's talk about it a little bit and kind of what you saw there and what you're seeing from the Red Wings as a whole. I haven't spoken much about them so far on the show this season.

You know, in the heels of that move to waive or put Billy Huso through waivers last year or last week went unclaimed, right? They sent him down, bury the contract. Alex Lyons really stepped up here. I thought he was phenomenal in the game in Nashville. and I thought he kind of stole that game for them. And then certainly in this one, with the shutout, he was remarkable. He's up to 105 saves and 110 shots. So far this season saved nearly seven goals above expected.

It's only four games, certainly. But I just thought, like, just watching him from the eye test, he looks incredibly sort of calm and is tracking the puck really well. And obviously had, like, the highlight real save where part of it is luck. Part of it is, you could argue, just giving himself a chance to compete on the standard. Ghost one, for example, that I tweeted, right? Where he goes laterally, gets the knob on it, and saves the goal. But that's kind of far and few between here on these 105 saves that I just listed.

A lot of them have actually been just a very kind of controlled and matter of fact for the most part, which isn't to diminish if anything, like the job he's not. If anything, it sort of proves how well he's playing. What are you seeing from Lyon and kind of the game in general? Because obviously it was a very low event game. to put in I see, but I do think there's some interesting talking to and sending from it. So the Lion's story

is, I mean, for the second straight year, he comes, even though he played more games than any wings goalie last year, he comes in for the second straight year as the number three in camp. Right? Like they came into camp and they're like, oh, well, Billy Hussos is coming off injury. They signed Camp Talbot to the two-year deal. Lions here.

Lions here. That was kind of the definition of what Lion was. And they really, and they give Vili Huso the opening night start. and I mean, a lion doesn't even dress on opening night. And essentially it was kind of the spot where he went right back to number three again, where the organization is like, all right, well, he's a 4A guy who's kind of played above what he really is. And that's how they've treated him.

And basically they had to break glass earlier than they did last year. Last year it came on around, I think it was November, I think it was November 2nd or 3rd or whatever. It was the games in Finland. I was sorry, Sweden, when Detroit played in Sweden, where Huso. and Hussaud and his wife had the baby and Huso kind of, and there was a back-to-back in Sweden, so he had to play. It was after the famous James Reimer Duck game.

And to me, the thing about Lion that works really, that's worked really well with his game. And I thought we saw it at times last year before. I thought he kind of got a little bit overworked near the end of the season. I think he is a, he's very aloof, is like in a good way right like i think he's very like i think he's very kind of numb a bit numb to the moment when it's happening like i talked to him quite a bet he's a i'm going to talk to him today after the wings practice in about an hour here um but he is he's pretty confident that his way

is the right way but he's also not the person who's jamming that opinion down anyone else's throat and it's a it's a mentality i think that works really well for a goalie who is effectively I had to kind of scrape his claw from an undrafted free agent for a guy, now played more games than anyone else for an NHL team last year. And he is, I like the way Lion kind of can be, like, there's a lot of times that, you watch the last night in the Islanders game, right? And yes, there's the glove save that looks really fancy and nice, but to me it's the I like he's in

he does a really good job of letting the game come to him in a way that some goalies in his position overly come out like there's a save with about a minute a half left where it's a bit of a scramble play and everything like that and he gets the freeze on it but the reason he gets the freeze on it is because he's effectively on the goal line right where if he's a little bit farther out he's in a less ideal situation and maybe that puck squirts out a little bit and then there's the angle to beat him so he it's it's very much to me it's all

of his positioning and his composure there, which is a long-goender way to say that. The other thing about it, too, is this is a Red Wings team right now that as a goalie, you know exactly what you're going to deal with every night. You know you have to be that calling for it. So like, look, the wings are three in three right now. Lions stole the game last night. I would say he stole the game against Nashville the other night. Only other win is a 42 save shut up by Cam Talbot against Nashville.

This is a team right now where if not for three, if not for three goaltending performances that effectively stole games, we're looking at an 0 and 6 team. And maybe you're asking me right now, does Derek Llan lose, get fired if they lose to New Jersey tomorrow night? Just like that's a legit, that's a legit question. If they don't get the goaltending they've gotten from in the last four games, because it's, they can't do much offensively at all, right?

Like, it's like, and I thought even for a while watching this Wings team, it's only been six games, but for watching this Wings game's team so far, there's times like early on in the season, you're like, I don't like this defensive structure. Like it seems way too scrambling for a team that's going to build around defense and everything like that. But then you get lost in that,

and then you realize other than some individual moments, I just, I don't see any offensive. of rhythm at all in this team right now. You watch them play and you see individual guys who might have a have a play here or there a couple guys that look like they're like the cane goal from Teresanko last night. There's shifts where Raymond will look good. But right now it's a team that just like I don't know what their offensive plan is. And that's and that's that's a scary thing because it's you have to score goals to win.

That last time I checked, right? Which is so bizarre, right? Because I would have thought heading into the season based on. on watching all 82 games of them last year. I can't remember how many times there were last season where they won games like this where you'd say, wow, they really got bailed out because offensively they weren't able to get anything done.

If anything, it felt like any time they would win, it was because the offense was really cooking, right? And the power play was scoring a bunch, and they'd be like winning these sort of high scoring back and forth shootouts. And so on the one hand, it's a very encouraging thing for a team that's looking to finally take a step

in the right direction organizationally and make it back. their playoffs to be banking some points early in the season when you don't deserve it because they didn't have a lot of that last year. At the same time, though, it's not something you certainly want to rely on. And so that's what's confounding to me because I would have thought if anything into the season, you knew exactly what you were saying there, the defensive environment is going to be sketchy. There's going to be nights where they leave the goalie out to dry. And based on the names involved, as much as I do like Alex Lyon, you probably don't want him playing 50 games if you're

going to get the best version of them. And you also don't want to be relying on him to steal games every single night. So if you're not scoring, you really don't know what you're going to get from this team. And it's almost been the exact opposite, albeit just two weeks or whatever into the season. Well, it's similar to where they took some of the problems

it's, they took some of the problems they had last year and they didn't fix them. Right? Like there's the whole like like, like Teresenko basically only replaces David Perra. Right? Like as much as you, it was like as much as someone might not,

someone who does watch the wings a lot, like find that statement a little surprising, but like, Teresinkle basically replaces what Peron did. Like they, I think they, they lost about 45 goals off this roster from last year that they didn't replace. And then they went through and at least last night,

like we're seeing them give Edvenson and cider and we're, like, not what cider has been that guy for there, but like at least we're letting them, like they're at least giving Edvenson the chance to be the guy. But once again, they're in this spot

where they went and they just spent big on defensemen again who, like, Gustafson's been awful, right? Like, they made the, they signed Gustafson and he comes in

and he was healthy scratched after two, after game one, uh, they waved to Justin Hall and try to bring him back in and actually thought he was decent for a game or two when he came back. And it's,

uh, like, it's the whole like confounding part of this Detroit, a long-term, build where it's it's always like every single positive that you find

Detroit rebuilt for me right now it's hard not to go with yeah but and there's some sentence that attaches to it and that's the and that's the weirdest thing about watching this whole thing

because like I want to like I watched the game last night and from a Detroit perspective I thought Evanson was really good last night right for a game they got just torched and they got caved in I think he was at a he's someone I think he was around 50%

expected goals for like I thought his play was really good like I thought he was really good you're like okay that's awesome yeah but you look at everything else like it's uh it's like I mean I don't know you watch the game

I don't know you watch part of the game you watch part of them like I just don't see where this team is going to score enough to take that step that they allegedly claim they're going to take yeah I mean you would expect more from the top of the lineup, certainly, in terms of offensive creation, and they haven't really gotten cooking yet. I think that's sort of one of the frustrations with this entire operation over these past however many years, right, sort of trying to kind of fast track it.

And instead of relying on the young players that you invest in draft capital in and sort of doing it organically, it's like, all right, well, we're going to bring in all of these sort of competitive, gritty veteran guys. And then you box yourself into a position like this. It's something we've talked about and sort of documented over the, past couple years. In the note of Edmondson, though, I will say in terms of silver linings, I thought he was excellent. And in particular...

Oh, he was great. He was great, yeah. In particular, using his best attributes, which is his size and his reach specifically to, like, disrupt. And even on the PK, you could see kind of how he poses problems and compared to some of the other defenders they've used on the penalty kill this year. He's actually

been quite successful. And so that's something I want to see more of. I like that they're playing him with cider as well. They've actually been a positive for them this season in terms of like you look and it's like all right it's only 40 minutes or so together at 5-1-5 they have a 56% expected goal share

which is something that would have been unheard of last season and this is still a guy who's only 21 pretty much right off last year right because like I think that shoulder injury clearly seeped into at least the start of his season and never really was able to get his footing I agree yeah I agree so I like what I'm seeing defensively

from him I also like in the offensive zone I've noticed that he's at least willing to like try cool stuff and it doesn't always work and sometimes he can overcomplicate it a little bit but instead of like always making the safe play he's trying to get into high danger areas he's stick handling he's trying to do stuff and I really like that and I want to see more of that one thing they need to be careful of with him is kind of what's plagued most cider pretty much since his rookie season is if you get into these sort of negative environments bad habits can build

in terms of decision making with a puck in your own zone specifically and I've seen a few times where he makes the safe play off the glass and out and you can trace back how they get into trouble from that directly. And so I want to see that removed from his game. But all of that traces back to the core of the issues with this team, right? And kind of how whether you're actually giving the young players a realistic chance to reach their full potential, considering the way you're sort of operating on the margins and what you're choosing to do every summer. Yeah.

It also is just like it's the more and more just like the other part of just like Detroit and it's used it's been used all the time as a whether you want to call it an excuse or a defense depending on your view of things it's like oh well Steve Iserman has a plan and we're all going to it's going to happen and like I just I just wonder if this and I think it's already happened starting to happen a little bit because I think people are smart and they watch. how this team plays and they realize that it's not a good hockey team right now. But it's, you start to, from the public sentiment perspective of, okay, when does the heat finally turn back on this franchise icon a little bit where it's like, you know what? He's not doing a good job building a roster. Like that to me is the line that is, when does that start to become a conversation that people are willing to have that aren't just contrarian? Because that's been very much in Detroit.

It's been like, oh, well, trusty visor, trustee visor. And it's, I don't know. I think you also have to take into an in a town too, or I think one of the reasons the trusty visorman, trusty visorment stuff, and I think one of the reasons he got more rope than any GF than NHL history has ever had was Detroit's overall sports scene had struggled. I think this really comes into play.

I think people don't think about this on the big scale. I think for the longest time, it's like, well, the only thing that's ever had success really in Detroit was what the Red Wings were great and he was a captain of that team and everything like that. The Lions were awful. The Tigers were a team that pop every once in a while. But now this year,

the Lions are one of the best teams in the NFL. The Tigers just went on a bit of a miracle playoff run here. I mean, I'm in this building and I watched the Pistons practice when I walked in. They're still awful. But the fact of the matter is it's not like, well, we can wait for Steve to get this done. It's like right across the street.

Tigers figured it out this year. The Lions have figured it out. All of a sudden it starts to turns like, okay, well, we've been given this guy seven, eight years, and we've been told that we were going to be promised something. I think fan culture starts to change a little bit as people start to realize that, you know what? This team is not any closer than they were last year,

and in fact, they're farther away. Yeah, I mean, I said the note on Edmondson. I also say that seeing Casper and Bergeron be given a chance is nice, even if they have games like yesterday where not much is happening, just because I do think if there is going to be a way out of this, it's going to be through that as opposed to the alternative of what they've been trying to do, right? Like a frustration of ours has been you trace back since Iseman came in for all the draft capital they've had. And it's tough to judge players who were just drafted in the past year or two because like those guys are going to take some time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for the most part, it's like, all right, I think it's time that we can start evaluating picks made in 2019 and 20 and so on and so forth. And aside from top six picks, it's a shocking lack of NHL production and opportunity especially, right? whether they burned it or not is a different conversation, but they haven't even been given the chance. And so at least seeing those guys, it's like, all right, at least you can talk yourself into a little bit, but man, it's tough.

And, you know, Ben Chirot, what a game yesterday. The numbers were unbelievable. Our pal Jack Fraser tweeted that out, but there's been 130 players this season with 105 on 5 minutes. He's dead last in those players and shot share and expected goal share. So yes, more of the same in that regard. All right, let's take our break here, Sean.

And then when we come back, we'll jump back in and we're going to talk a little Star Sabres and a few other notes we had on the way out. You're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the SportsNard Radio Network. Hey, it's Big Nazar. Have your say and join me on the People's Show with big takes and even bigger bets, weekdays three to four on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcast. All right, we're back here in the Hockey P.D.O. CASS with Sean Shapiro.

Sean, let's talk Sabers stars last night. I've got a bunch of notes on the stars, the other team you cover, but in talking about this game, I thought the big takeaway for me. And it's been sort of bubbling to the surface the past, I guess since the season started really. But I'm so cautiously optimistic because last year was such a bummer in this regard. but I think we can start saying that Tage Thompson's back

because that goal he scored was very reminiscent of pretty much stuff he was doing on a nightly basis two years ago when he really burst onto the scene with those 47 goals he was very hampered last year missing time and then coming back clearly wasn't himself with that pretty mangled wrist

I thought he just didn't look like the same player that was just unleashing bombs all year the year prior and that given go play he had with Owen Power and then the finish and then the passion after. Like, I want to see more of that so bad. And his numbers this year look awesome. He's got the five goals, three primary assists in eight games.

High danger chances with him on the ice of 5-15 are 36 to 12 for the Sabres. I mean, he's looking like that dominant force again. And I kind of wanted to start off with an acknowledgement of that just because he's obviously a player very near dear into our hearts here at the PDO cast. And so that was really nice to see. Yeah. I love watching him play. I mean, he's just one of those guys that's like, you flip around for a couple different players.

And on a game like last night where there's 16 games and you're like, oh, I want to watch a couple different guys who are different and everything. Like, I like watching guys who approach the game slightly different ways. And Thompson has to approach the game slightly different ways because of his size, right? We don't have players his size and aren't supposed to play the position he does. And so I love watching him play. and I love seeing the success for him. That to me is fun and exciting because I want to see what other things can be unlocked

from a player of that prototype. That to me is just from a very nerdy hockey perspective of if he's doing the things he was doing two years ago, okay, what are the other things he can add? I'm getting selfish, right? I want to see what else we can kind of add to it. What else he can kind of add to? But you're right. He's fun.

I mean, such a unique player. truly a sight to behold that when he's cooking like that and moving and firing the way he is one of just the top players to tune into from the star's perspective i find them tricky to evaluate right now because you look on the surface and it's like all right five and two record that's sixth best in the league in point percentage 19 to 13 goal differential fifth best they're kind of humming along yet at the same time five-on-five numbers are quite middling to below average power play score two goals in 36 minutes.

So far this season, and in particular, I thought, looked quite poor in that aforementioned game against the Sabres and really did them in early on. And then I'd argue they haven't really played a complete game yet. Like even you look and that Oilers game over the weekend, you get the win. I thought the third period was really good. But obviously early on, they were just kind of hanging on for your life and having Jake O'Doninger bail them out. And then they got the goal in the second and sort of turned it on and brought it home

after that. What do you make of this team and kind of how do we evaluate them or how do we use this season to either confirm our priors or change our expectations for them because it would make a lot of sense that based on how much hockey they've played the past two years, the depth of this team, the names involved that we talk about a lot here on the show, expectations should be really high for the playoffs. Yet for the regular season, you could argue it's like everything should just be about around making sure you're healthy when you get to that point and sort of managing workloads

and making sure you don't bump into some of the issues that had them fall short the past two seasons. How do we evaluate them right now and sort of the product we're seeing from them early in the season? Yeah. I mean, like, do I have some concerns about the stars that we don't so far, of course. The power play has been like they're two for two for 21, right? And that one, I have a hard time in counting the one because it was just the clean face off wind from Hintz to do Shane. And basically it was a power. It was a, that was the power play goal against Edmonton where it's like it happened in two seconds and you're like they didn't get enough time to kind of mess around and mess it up because that's what they've both that's what they've been doing on the power play the entire time it's just been messing around and messing it up and not actually creating so um they're concerned yes but the points of this team like every team has different goals and everything point of this team right now early in the season is bank points staying near the top of the central figure out, get everything clicking and humming for the spring to finally get over the hump in the Western Conference final.

That's what everything, that's the entire Dallas Star season to me. Other teams will be judged on what they do in October. Other teams will be judged on November or December. But like the stars are in that class of teams where the only way we will judge this season is when it comes to the Western Conference final. If they aren't the ones going to game one at the Stanley Cup final, that's when we judge this team. That's just what they've, that's what they've both earned and kind of inherited as both expectation. And, um, so they're winning games.

They're getting out played. The Otentures playing well. Um, I just, I look at it as a team, too, where like, knowing my, having covered this team so closely more than probably almost anyone and then, and then maybe Mike Hika who's covered the team since the mid-90s, like, this team is always maddingly, madinglandly, it's a very, you're very angry watching them start games and start seasons. Like how many times, Dimitri, do you watch them in a playoff game? Like, this is a common Dallas Star's experience.

First 10 minutes if you're like, wait, did they know the game started? Like, that's a common, like, that happens in, that happens in game six of the second round. That has a team that just commonly doesn't know when games start. and that's been something that's been common in what I call the entire Jamie Ben era. And it's been through Pete DeVore. It's been through Lindy Ruff. It's been through Rick Bowness. It's been through Jim Montgomery.

It's been through Ken Hitchcock. I'm running out of fingers to list head coaches that I've covered. It is a, it is a, it's just, they start game slow. They start season slow. This is, this is common. So from a Dallas perspective, I just, Pete Dibor said, want to judge the power play after 10 games. Okay, maybe we use that as the line to be like, okay, this is, maybe that's when the season starts.

I don't know. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's it's, it's how they've started this year. Yeah, I mean, they were top five unit last year. So you obviously don't want to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just think it's a, it's, it's, it's an interesting team because on the one hand. It is an interesting team. Yeah. Our job here is like I do a daily show pretty much, do whatever, four or five hours of podcasts a week. You're watching all these games as they're transpiring and going along the season.

And so your job is to like watch it and then comment on it. And at the same time for me, they're almost reaching a point where it's like, I obviously want to watch them because I like the players on the team. And I find that when they are playing their game, they're an entertaining team to watch. But it's almost like none of it matters. I don't know what I could see from them from now. until like once we get to March trade deadline at least,

that would really force me to be like, wow, I need to think differently about them right now, right? Because we've seen them go through stretches where they're not playing well. We've seen them go through stretches where they're dominant and rattling off a bunch of wins in a row in various manners. We know the player is involved.

And so as you're right, like they're going to be judged based on what happens in the in the playoffs. And so their approach for this regular season is a very interesting one because you don't want to necessarily take it for granted because I think the Central is looking much better maybe than you would have thought heading into it. And the Jets are certainly banking a ton of points. Colorado is getting it together. Minnesota and St. Louis are playing well. There's a lot going on there. I think Nashville is going to bounce back.

They already started that against Boston last night. And so you can't just be like, all right, well, we're going to check back in in March. But ultimately, I think in a big picture sense, that's kind of where we're at with them right now. yeah i mean it's from like if you're in the dallas stars daily universe which i still add in many ways like you have to look at like okay well what's wrong on the power play let's let's look at how they they basically i've watched all 21 of their power plays so far every single power play they've tried the exact same entry every single time and it's like like i don't know i don't know how players and coaches haven't been like you know what maybe we shouldn't do the drive-in and then

dish back to Jason Robertson and just wait for the team to get set because that's what they've done every single time. And so it's easy to get all wrapped up in that if you're in the daily space. But from a big picture and everything like that, the whole power structure of the league and who's going to be, who's going to move up or down various echelons, right? Dallas is very boring in that perspective. They're going to be one of the top three or four teams in the West, really no matter what happens, in my view. and so we just kind of keep them there. And they're interesting to me, but if you're someone who is trying to like,

I'm curious of how these playoff structures are going to race and kind of go and everything like that, it's easy to be like, all right, well, we just know Dallas will be there. And at some point, they'll hit that switch and that's it. It's a very, it's an interesting spot for a team that is still waiting to actually have won something to earn that too. Like a lot of times we say that about teams where it's like,

oh, it'll be a team like, like Colorado, right? like Colorado we use that. Colorado's won a cup in the last three years, right? Dallas hasn't, they've yet to win something where it's like, okay, they've proven that in the end they can just do it that way. Yeah,

or at Tampa Bay is a great example over the past couple years. Yeah, yeah, regardless of what happens in the regular season, it's like, well, they've already reached the mountain top and clearly pacing themselves and trying to work towards

whatever the product's going to look like in April. I guess, you know, those stars to their credit have played a ton of playoff hockey the past two years. getting pretty much as close as you can. But still, it's kind of the dialogue around them is interesting that way. I will say that from a watchability perspective, though, Logan Stankovins playmaking in particular this year has really been quite fun.

Still doesn't score a goal yet, but has a seven assists, and he's setting guys up routinely with really, really beautiful looks. So that's kind of a fun subplot, especially in the Calder race, but for the most part, a lot of it is like pretty much as given or as known. as you're going to have in any team around the league this year. Can you win the call there with zero goals and 82 assists? It'll be an impressive feat. Okay, any other Star's notes, or do you want to get to our final topic here today?

Let's hop to the final topic. What we got? All right, I want to talk to you about the Bally rebrand and kind of do a full circle of this conversation today because we started talking about broadcasts and kind of where we're, we're out with that. If you're out of the loop, Bali is essentially re-branded to the Fand Dual Sports Network. I will say ultimately, like, from a functional perspective for a fan sitting at home, this changes nothing, in my opinion, because you look and it's like the broadcast that have changed, all the voices are the same. The scorebug is the exact same. I guess, except for the logo,

but it all looks the same and sounds the same. And so it doesn't ultimately matter. But I do think it is a big event in terms of like league business. So I want to talk to you a little bit here, considering your sort of, your business correspondent here on the PDO cast. Well, this is fresh on mine too, because I think I'm going to write something about it this, this afternoon over at my site,

over at a Shepshotshockey.com. So, yeah, it's, I tweeted about this yesterday or, I don't know, it's been a long, maybe it was yesterday, it was two days ago, but like I didn't realize how many people didn't realize, Ballies wasn't a gambling company, right? Like, because I see all of these people.

I saw a lot of like the public reaction to like, we can't keep gambling out. We can't even keep gambling out of sports. And I'm looking at it and like, well, Ballet's was the name. I mean, it was named after a sports gambling company for the last two and a half years or whatever it was there already. So I'm not sure if that's a testament to how poorly,

to how poorly the naming rights would be a word for ballet that people didn't know what the company was. So that's that's one takeaway here. The other thing that's been, just like the big push on this right too is this is, it's not that the future's here. We've been in the future, right? Like it's the whole like the whole,

the sports gaming setup, that everything like that, it is, you have to follow the money on this. And now fan duels, well, we can buy this and we can do that. So it's, I watched the game last night

and the broadcast looked exactly the same to me. That was from a user perspective. I mean, even previously, even before the name change, they were even on the Bali broadcast, they were still jamming Fandual live props and games for the game that you're watching down your throw anyway, so I don't think anything changes there.

I think it is like the word association with it, but ultimately I just think nothing really changed. I do think it is interesting as that's happening, comparing it to a topic you and I have talked about in the past. It's kind of growing in size now, which is the Stars team we talked about, kind of taking control of their broadcast, right? We saw Vegas start with it with scripts.

I believe Florida followed suit now as well. Yeah. We've got what the Stars and the Ducks on Victory Plus. I'm kind of curious to track that as that goes on. And do you have any initial takes on kind of how that's maybe changed from at least the Star's perspective? Because obviously it's the same voices, right? It's still Razor, Josh.

What did you think? I'll throw this to you. What did you think of the, having watched the Victory Plus broadcast with stars of Handel in particular? They've decided it's the new casual era where like the talent is no longer wearing ties. And it's like I'm not sure if like I'll throw it to you on that. Like have you noticed anything different when you, when you pull a game up on Victory Plus the way you do.

No, it looks the same. But I'm also watching it through a third party. I'm watching it on sports at now. Exactly. So it doesn't necessarily change it for me. But I do think it probably enhances the experience from a local perspective and especially the accessibility. And that's sort of the big driving selling point of it, not necessarily for me here in Vancouver, tuning in to watch a stars broadcast. Well, and I think that's the big thing as teams go through all of this.

It's the, I'm interested to check in, this is probably an end of the year. check in and everything like that. But check you go and you check in with the people from the Stars organization. I'm like, okay, did it work financially? Because that's the question, right? Like, it's the whole, like, for the user's experience and essentially giving your games away for free and market, that's a great community outreach perspective. But will it work where you have, they believe the finances will work.

and the media company they're working with, a parent media company, which is not made up, it is actually a real one. It's, I'm not just using Alphabet soup, a parent media company. They've given the stars and the ducks a little bit of financial

skin to kind of smooth anything over early on, but at some point this has to work. And that's going to be the thing that is going to be, the conversation that when we ask, when I talk to people from the stars, like 13 president Brad Alis, when I talked to Brad in March or April, it's going to be, okay, are you seeing the ROI of this? Are you seeing the way to, are the way, because the stars, I believe, were making around 30, 35 million from Diamond Sports Group, which is the group that owns the Ben Valley now Fanduel, sports group.

So did you make up, were you able to make up the 35 million? I don't know if Brad will give me the exact answer on that. We'll see. But that's the, will this, is this, is this going to work? And how do you make it work in your brain too? Is it right now, so you take $35 million, right? Take $35 million of revenue. If all of a sudden you sell an additional $5 million in merch because of, do you, do you move that

into that silo of money of money back? do you if you get if you get uh because like let's assume they're they're definitely making some money on ads because they've got that and they've got that working so if you so you take that so how do you rectify it in your mind is it if all of a sudden brand exposure does that like it's going to be the interesting story that like i want to have this conversation again dmitri multiple times this season of like okay is it working and what and why is it working and um it's hard to tell after six games obviously but It's, I'm going to, this is, this is one of the most fascinating stories for me to track all year when it comes to the ducks, the stars, how the, what's happening with Florida is doing their own thing now with kind of a script deal, but then a streaming platform, like, our team's actually making it work.

And how is this changing the economic model of this league? Because we talked earlier, right, where it's still a gate driven league. One of the reasons teams push back against those frozen frenzy times, they got to make their money at gates. So how do we, how is it, where are all the dollars going on this? And it's, it's big, it's huge, right? Let's see where it goes. All right. Well, we're going to follow it as the season goes along and you and I are going to chat

plenty more times about it. I'll let you go here. Everyone, follow your work at Shab Shots. And we're going to have you on again soon. Enjoy Red Wings practice. Hopefully they practice shooting the puck at least more than 10 times today, which will be an improvement from their game last night. Thank you to everyone for listening.

If you want to help out the show, go smash the five-star button wherever you listen. Go join the PDOCast Discord. The best company, as overwhelming as last night was, being able to just watch, kind of follow it all along with the community we're building in there. It was a really good time. I can't think of a better way to enjoy the games than chatting with everyone there. So get in there. And we'll be back tomorrow.

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