The Hockey PDOcast - The Hurricanes, Eastern Conference Contenders, and Teams That Could Work Their Way Into the Mix

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Dom Luszczyszyn to talk about the start to the year for the Hurricanes and the signs that they could be the best team in the East, the questions we have about other teams in the inner circle mix, and the ones that could eventually work their way into that category. 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.

since 2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pee-O cast. My name is Dmitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Dom, what's going on, man? Not too much. Are you doing? I'm doing well. We're doing a Friday show. We're going to close out the week with a kind of a look around the top of the league in particular. I wanted to have you on. You obviously did your season-long projections and ranking every team prior to the start of the year. We we can do without the small sample caveats. I think everyone knows everyone's played around four or five games so far, but we're going to try to make do with what we've seen so far

and kind of take stock where we're at and maybe where stuff differs a little bit from preseason projections and stuff we're either excited about or nervous about. I've got a couple mailbag questions for you later as well to tie into that. So it's going to be a fun show. I want to start off with this and talking about the Carolina Hurricanes in particular because you had a 104 point projection for them before the season. They finished with 99 last year, had 110 plus the three years prior. I was looking at your Stanley Cup odds in particular at this point

and acknowledging that it is still super early and none of these teams are going to look like they do now by the time we get to the playoffs. But as things currently stand, you've got them in a tier up top with the Oilers, abs, golden nights, and lightning, with the lightning actually atop that mix. Van DuLazim at plus 800.

which is kind of in the same mix or same tier. They include the Panthers as well, which is fair, just considering the reputation and the fact that if they're at full health, there's certainly going to be a force to be reckoned with. But I want to start off with this question for you. When you look at the power structure in the league and comparing the East versus West, particularly at the top of the hierarchy, do you think that we should view the hurricanes as a more realistic or probable favorite?

I know all the all the playoff baggage in terms of the regular season. and performance then coming in and kind of running into that ceiling or that wall with opposing goalies and some of the stuff they do stylistically not necessarily translating that well against better competition. But they did make a bunch of moves in the offseason. I feel like the competition around them is as wide open as it's going to be in the East in particular. Panthers notwithstanding.

And I feel like I'm growing more and more confident, I guess, that they're almost in a tier of their own in the Eastern. conference. It is definitely looking that way. I will reserve some judgment until we see Tampa Bay play their fourth game today or fifth or whatever. It's they've been, they were my, I think, choice to be the top team, the Atlantic this year. I think a lot of people as well. And they have looked terrible to start the season. I think in contrast with how Carolina's looked, it has created that separation. I think the thing to to I think slow things down with Carolina is they've had a very welcoming schedule to start with some easy teams on the docket.

But given how Florida has looked and their injuries and whatnot, Toronto hasn't looked the same without Mariner, Tampa looks pretty bad. I don't really rate the devils and capitals in that range yet to begin with. You add all those things up with the way Carolina is planning. And playing it seems like they are in a tier of their own, especially compared to the West, where Edmonton, Colorado, Dallas, Vegas, that is a bloodbath. And I don't think that the same thing is happening in the East,

at least right now to start. Yeah, you mentioned that schedule next week. It gets a lot off before them. They're on the road. They're playing at Vegas, at Colorado. at Dallas and then they come home and they host the Golden Knights again. So I think that'll be a nice little measuring sticks to stretch of the schedule for them. But so far they've taken care of business. They're 4 and 0. They've got a 19 to 8 goal differential. They've trailed for under seven minutes of

total ice time so far. And I think let's save the competition because I've got a lot more on the lightning that I want to get to, but just focusing on the hurricanes here, I think the reason why I'm coming around is we already saw that pretty much starting with the J. Gensel trade two deadlines ago and then bleeding into last year, I think they acknowledged that they needed to change the way they play if they want to achieve their ultimate goal. Like what they were doing works in the regular season clearly. That's tried and true. But just having the puck more often in terms of carrying it, trying to attack more off the rush,

being more deliberate with that offensive approach in particular, we've already seen this year that kind of take root a little bit. Like the rush offense is significantly different. They were averaging according to Sport Logic 6.7 rush chance. for a game last year. That's north of 11 so far. Only four games against weaker competition, but they're the only team in double digits.

The shot distribution, you look at the heat map on Michael McCurdy's website. And last year, their most concentrated location of shots in the offensive zone was that right point, the right corner in particular, where Brent Burns was just hanging around and bombing away from. And he had 50 more shot attempts than anyone on the team last year.

You removed that from the equation. And I do feel like we're, we still haven't even seen Nikola Eilers who can talk about produce yet and really make his mark on this team. But the operation around it and kind of the way they're playing, I do feel like is translating to a team that I'm taking far more seriously if it continues going down this road. Yeah, definitely. It is funny that Eelers is one of two players without a point on this team and the other is Sveshnekov. It is crazy. but the few games I've watched of Carolina.

I say few. They've played four. I haven't watched all fours, maybe a couple, or just here and there. But Eilers has looked electric. He looks like he's carrying the puck. He's a big part of that rush offense.

And his line is doing fantastically. Like they're dominating. He has been a big difference. And he just hasn't gone the scorchy yet. I don't think I'm too worried about that yet. because the impact is there, even if the points aren't. You look at Jarvis and Aho having probably their best start ever. I think Eler is a big part of that, and that is a line that I think makes Carolina a legitimate contender.

One of the questions we asked in our preview, every preview had a big question, and I want to really credit Sean Gentile for taking those on, because they were sort of the idea behind them is what is the big picture? picture thing that an algorithm might be missing. And for the Carolina, it might be model likes Jarvis and Ahio, but are they guys who can be like big dogs, like difference makers in the playoffs? And in the past, it felt like they were not at the level as a team like Florida, who's been in their way, even some of the stars on the Rangers as well.

But their start this year has been extremely encouraging Jarvis five goal and four games, unreal. I love that kid. Yeah, there's no real explanation for it, as you know, because I think we all love Nikola Eilers. They give him $51 million this summer, incredibly excited to see him in an expanded role where he's featured on this top line, and he has zero points in four games last night against the ducks. He has got a break away and he loses control of it and doesn't get a shot off, and he's just clearly fighting it right now. But to your point, that line with the three of them has played 42 minutes 5-15. Shots on goal 30 to 12, 74% expected goal share. Jarvis looks phenomenal. He's got five goals. He's shooting the puck a ton. Looks much more dangerous. And Aho has the six points in four

games, I think importantly, like last year kind of quietly was his least effective five-on-five season. He only had 35-on-five points despite staying healthy. They got outscored with him on the ice. And he just looks better to my eye as well. And that line is, I don't want to say clicking, because Eelers hasn't gotten on the score sheet yet, but I think you can see the makings of what's going to make them dangerous and what the vision was for them. And then you add in putting Stankov and down the middle, having him center,

Hall and Blake, and how they push the pace and attack and carry the puck. You've got the checking line with Stahl, of course. Svichnikov will figure into that. He's been bumped down to the fourth line playing just 13 minutes the past couple games because he hasn't gotten on the board either, but there's certainly going to get more from him there. And then there's the defense, right?

Slavin's been out the last couple of games, but Keondre Miller, their other big offseason, is leading the team at Ice Time. We're getting to see finally this full season of Nikitian in the NHL, him and Gostis Bear are up 8 to 1. At 5-1-5-sofar, he's gotten a point in every game. He finally scored his first NHL goal last night against the Ducks. And so I just feel like there's so many more weapons,

and that's not even acknowledging the fact that the hurricanes are so unique compared to most other contenders in the league and that they have so much more room to add if they so choose to. seen them do so the past couple deadlines, right? They've got a bunch of cap space. They've got a loaded prospect pool. They have all their first round picks. They've got contracts they could theoretically move. Even caught Kanyemi, who's been a healthy scratch. At his age under $5 million, we saw this summer that contracts like that were actually treated as net positive assets and would probably return something in return and not just be a pure salary dump. And so there's so many options for them to

be creative and exploring, improving this team, building on the infrastructure they already have. So I just feel like we're going to need to see it from them in the playoffs. I understand why there's going to be reservation. But at least in this early going, I do feel like we're seeing sort of the blueprint of why this could be a little bit different for Carolina this season. Definitely. I think the other thing is, especially when you talk about adding players, you can see why they were pretty heavy on,

rumored to be on Bouchard and Dobson and obviously got Miller, but Miller is left-handed. The other two are righties. I don't love the idea of Sean Walker on the top pair with Slavin. I think they really need someone to take on some of those tough minutes with him. And maybe a lot of my adjuid. They have the assets. It'll be interesting to see if they fill that because that would be, I think,

something that really puts them over the top. I think part of I hinted at this, let's get into it now. I think part of why I'm so bullish on their chances of coming out of the East is when you just look at the competition. And in particular, I'm growing increasingly skeptical of Tampa Bay. I know I had you on last year, and I feel like you and I were probably higher on them than anyone. You carry that over into your preseason projections.

You had them at 107 points. You're still holding the best Stanley Cup odds. Now, listen, it's a one-two-and-one start. You have to play five games. Vasilevsky will not have an 870s, say, percentage. He was phenomenal last year. Nick Paul is going to come back, and that's going to allow everything to shake out a bit more logically.

Up front, their power play is still outrageously lethal. You could go even further. Kuturov's being outscored six to one. it's kind of not getting as much attention because Sam Bennett in state is having an even worse time of it. But he's been getting crushed at 5-on-5 in terms of goals. At least, Hedman has a 37% expected goal share,

which is largely because he started the season playing with Radish, I believe, J.J. Moser comes back. He's been playing 25 minutes and that's stabilized things a little bit for Hedman. So there's stuff that I think is certainly going to turn around once we get a bigger sample with this team. The issue I keep coming, bumping into with them, if I'm going to think they're going to beat three teams in a row in the east and make it to the cup final and represent the Eastern Conference

is this blue line though and the foot speed and the lack of mobility with it and you can even see in a game to start the year against the Sends for example they're so vulnerable in terms of getting beaten by just north-south speed by opponents and they're going to bump into that and with guys like Radish and Lilliburg it's a big problem all of a sudden you're relying so heavily on a 36-year-old Ryan McDonough who stayed healthy all of last year and had a phenomenal bounce-back season. But that pair of him and Chernak and how important they are to this operation,

Chernak seemingly is hanging on by a thread physically every year for a bunch of seasons in a row now. And so I feel like the margin for air there is, I think, a little bit smaller than you'd like to see for a team that is being treated as probably the biggest beneficiary of Florida. I potentially taking a step back to this season. Yeah. Everything you said there is spot on. One of the things I was definitely worried about going to season was obviously the age of everyone involved, but it doesn't feel like they have a second offensive horse on the back end, someone who can move the puckets, headman, and offensively anyway, just guys.

And my model hates Lilburn with a passion. It's really funny to see. And it just feels like they just get one more defenseman who can literally do. anything because with how talented this forward group is, it just feels like a waste and it feels like they can't really do what they're set out to do without guys and actually get them the puck. So it does feel, it always feels that way with, I think, top heavy teams where they, because they're more flaws that the team has, it's easier to see poke holes in the plan versus a team

like maybe Carolina who is deep, but their problems are mostly what they've always been. guess and it seems like they're solving a bit with Ajo and Jarvis with the lightning. It's like, okay, Kutrab is great, Gensel's great, points great, Hedman's great, Vaselfsky's great, but there's a lot of not great on this team that is worrying for sure. Yeah, and that Hagel's great too, and he hasn't really gone going at least offensively. He's got just the one assist. He's been getting looks still. I mean, they're getting good minutes out of death guys, right?

For a long time now it's been a concern of what do you get beyond that? And they're getting good minutes out of Gonzalves, playing the top six, homebergs chipping in um crozier's giving them good minutes like they're getting stuff on the margins it's just the defense is an issue i mean their games are certainly very fun like they're going to be i'm doing watchability ranking soon they're going to be very near the top they're played four games those games have featured 29 goals scored combined like there's going to be offense the issue is that for them that they've given up 16 of those 29 goals and so that's going to need to be figured out And I have my concerns.

I had them last year. And that was partly why I picked Florida, despite them being tops in the league in pretty much every metric in the regular season. And that's kind of carried over. It hasn't really been rectified, unfortunately. What do we do with the Panthers in terms of the projections? Because there's clearly so much uncertainty in terms of those major long-term injuries. Kachako will be back sooner. Certainly wouldn't expect Barkaw back in the regular season.

They started off the campaign with a couple of the, softer opponents and they picked up a couple wins but their last three losses 26 21 and 22 shots on goal combined um as i said bennett our our Canadian hero sam bennett after his big extension and miraculous here last year is getting outscore 9 to 1 at 5-1 5-5 getting dunked on by trevor zegris along the way an issue for me for them is it seems like a small one but with kulikov now being out long term they're playing this petri balinska's pair and that third pair is getting absolutely destroyed. The forward lines are kind of in a flux. You can see Paul Marisa is getting increasingly frustrated trying to figure out

what the right balance for the lines would be because I think even without those two guys, there's still enough good players to put together three to four good forward lines, but he just hasn't really been able to find the right balance yet. And I think they eventually will. But right now it's obviously a big work in progress and kind of a matter of just, I guess, staying afloat for as long as you can until midseason until Kachuk. comes back, but I just don't know what the projections, kind of what you do with that, given the uncertainty.

Mostly just pray that I have it, right? Like, I think adjusting for usage and whatnot will help show how big of a loss barcob is, and everyone has to jump up and play a bigger role because of that could chuck too. And it's, it is very tough because on top of, like, one of the assumptions I make is that that they got to replace about 40 minutes a night from Barkov and Kachuk or whatever. And other players are going to step in and take those minutes and perform at their usual rate in a higher role. I don't think it's a safe assumption necessarily where if you put someone like Lundell

on top power play, is he going to be very productive because he's just on it? or is he, does he have the talent to do it? It's just, there's a lot of things that you can't really control for and just making assumptions, and you've got to wait and see if those assumptions play out, really. And honestly, it is just hoping for the best and controlling for the fact that Kachuk should be back at some point. But yeah, it's tough.

I still have them around 96 points or whatever. It is around where I have them to start the season. I think some models were a bit lower than that. The market was a lot higher than that. I'm somewhere in the middle where I think this team is good enough to survive Barkhavenka-Chuk, but it'll be more of a grind and less easy than I think the market currently has them, which to start they were at like 100 points. I thought that was a difficult bet without Barkop-Kichuk,

and we're seeing it over the last three games. Despite the losses, I think they're still controlling play for the season. I don't know if that's just because they won their minutes very handily in the first three games, but I'll bet on the 52% XG more than the 42% goal rate at 5 on 5, even though life is, it's a bit harder to score when you have to take over Barkov's defensive duties. And Kachuk's playmaking. And I think that they have a bunch of shooters, but guys, you can actually set the table

for them, I feel like that's where they're going to struggle to piece together those minutes. Let's add the stars to that tier of teams that I mentioned for the true kind of inner circle of Stanley Cup contenders because I would include them there. Is there a team outside of that that you're looking at as like I could see once we get to 25, 30 games, either the model or just myself personally itching to bump this team up a little bit higher and into that range? Or do you feel like it's pretty defined at this point? Because we've sort of seen in the past couple years where it does feel like we're almost shifting closer to the NBA model of like having very defined Stanley Cup contenders and then teams who are interesting and certainly competitive playoff teams but don't really have that. extra gear to join them.

Do you feel like we could have someone who's not in there right now that could work their way into it with an extended stretch of how they've been playing so far? It's really tough because I think this year more than ever, the tiers are like clearly defined. The caps have had a fantastic start. And if they can repeat what they did last year and be a more and control play to the tune they are right now, then they could be a team that joins that range, but I'd still have a very hard time believing it because they, I think, are sort of like Carolina

where it's a lot of depth but not a lot of star power, but even less so. Like to have less star power than Carolina is a huge roadblock to enter that realm. The Leafs are the Leafs. They're interesting because they are technically deeper without Marner, but like not what.

where it really matters. And I think they still have a big, if they add a top six guy, I could see it, but they're still playing brooby hockey where they're getting out chance, Stolaris is standing on their head, and they win by one. And it's hard to put them in the same realm as those top six teams right now without, I guess, the assurance that Marner brought to table as a superstar guy, even if he didn't always live up to it in the playoffs. I don't know.

It's like the huge wildcard might be. The two teams where there's a lot of volatility and what to expect, that would be the currently two, three, and one Rangers, just because they do have all the stars. Mike Sullivan has them controlling play at a very high rate. If they figure out the power play, if Igor keeps playing lights out the way he has, like that feels like a team that could get back to their presence trophy ways,

despite their current record. Like, they can't buy a goal right now. I don't truly buy. that that is a sign of the team they are. So I, like, as a long shot, I think the Rangers have a shot. And the other one is Montreal, just because they're so young,

they have so much growth potential, and it feels like Dobson has slotted that defense so perfectly. Hudson looks like he's ready to go to another level. Suzuki and Caulfield have been unreal to start. And if they get a second line center, if Crosby says, hey, I'll go to Montreal. all, like, that's a contender. They're obviously a Crosby away right now or a lot of growth, but they have so much potential

for growth that if you're looking for a team to make a leap, that might be a team that takes like a meteoric one, sort of like what all those teams had to do at one point. Like Colorado went from being a terrible team to a 92 point team to a contender, and sometimes it is that fast. Oh, man, there's so much unpack. Let's do it one at a time. I want to start with the Rangers because there's probably no more confounding

statistical team right now. Their second and 515 chance share, their third and expected goal share at 515. They've scored seven 5-1-5 goals in six games because they're shooting 5%. Now, they had two games earlier on in the road where they put up six on the penguins, they put up four on the sabers.

The four other games, they've scored one goal combined on 119 shots, which seems almost impossible. to do in three of those games obviously here at home and that was a big talking point. It's certainly going to get better from there, right? Like no team is a 5% true shooting team. I do have in terms of them actually vaulting up to reflect those underlying numbers, partly because of age, partly because of, I think, just a clear lack of like true dynamic

creators up front beyond an Aaron, really. I do wonder whether they're going to control play but not necessarily be as efficient as they used in the past, which is such a polar opposite. of what they found themselves in previously when they were in Eastern Conference final team. But I do think it's a very promising start for them despite those results. Let's save the HABs for a second because I got a mailbag question about them. Okay. I do want to say I'm disappointed that the Kings aren't in there because it feels like they should have been.

But the defensive slippage when you watch this team and, you know, they mercifully after a couple of games split up that CC Dumlin pair who played 40 of the worst five on five minutes. I think you're ever going to see at the NHL level. It's gotten a little bit better since they split those guys up on a separate pairs, but they've given up 19 goals against in five games, just lost at home to the Penguins, and this was a team that that was their calling card, right? Like only Winnipeg gave up pure goals in them last year, and unfortunately I just don't see a way out of this right now

with how they box themselves in, and I find out disappointing because they came so close to finally beating the Oilers last year and should have been one of these teams we're talking about, but I just don't really see a viable argument for it at this point. I would have seen an argument if Byfield and Clark took the massive step, I think. Some people expect them to, but there's still a wait-and-see team in that regard. But yeah, what they did with Cece and Dumlin was something that literally anyone who pays modest attention to this sport could have told you.

And it is baffling. That's the direction they took, considering those two costs the exact same. amount of money as what they literally had last year. Just do that again. Maybe Gavrikov didn't want to be there anymore. That's fine. But like, it's just crazy that that's the direction they took. And not for nothing, Jordan Spence is doing pretty good in his sheltered minutes in Ottawa. And maybe they should have just kept him instead of playing, paying a bunch of money to guys we know aren't good. So I did a show yesterday with Steve Peters. And one of the replies to it was someone, saying it's very endearing but also kind of sad how badly you want the devils to regain their

2023 form and so i'm just going to keep living that bit because i think they have upside in this regard for that the the mercer his year my line has been phenomenal for them in the early going and really carrying them offensively while the top line kind of figures it out jack use is obviously coming off of that major shoulder surgery he's got just the one goal in the most recent game but he's firing the puckalaw, which is good to see. And for whatever reason, they just can't quit top line, Andre Palat. But the pieces are there, especially with, I think, the gear they can hit defensively. Now Markstrom's going to be out for a while, so maybe that's going to challenge that a little bit.

But I think they could certainly be heard in this conversation. So I include them because they're coming off three. I thought really strong games, you know, they start off with a brutal one on the road at Carolina. But since then, the games they played against Tampa, Florida, and Columbus, is where I think really promising. So they'd probably be the team I'd include here to keep an eye on. But yeah, it probably is already like less than two weeks into the season. That inner circle is kind of tightening and really solidifying before our very eyes.

Yeah, I want to make note that the reason I didn't include the devils is because I am tired of the devils holding the football for the little contender football and me going to kick it. And then they say, yeah, never mind. the last two years have been very difficult as a devil's truther. So I'm going to plant my flag and say, actually do it before I say you can. Because they got to realize their potential at some point before we keep huffing up the potential smoke. Yeah. I mean, based on the way they approach this off season, they probably are envisioning that becoming a reality more so next year and probably in 2027.

but just because of the pieces they have and the flexibility, I think, especially like the young right shot defenseman, where if there was an opportunity to significantly improve their team in the short term, I feel like they could act on that probably more than many other good teams out there. So I think that's an important thing to note. But yeah, we haven't really, it's been a lot of wishcasting in terms of us wanting to see that, especially this past off season, and I'm not really acting on it or kind of biding their time frustratingly.

So, all right, Dom, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we will jump back into it. We're going to close out today's show with a couple mailbag questions from our listeners in the PDCast Discord. You're listening to the HockeyPedocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back here on the Hockey-Ocast, joined by Dom was just going to close out the week. Dom, you talked about the Habs before we went to break, and I wanted to save it for this mailback question. Listener asks, does Dom's model account for the Habs being a magical team?

Now, they've won four in a row after dropping the opener in Toronto. The last three have been in about as dramatic fashion. as you could draw up, scoring the last minute on the road in Chicago, then the past two in particular, tying it late, winning it in overtime. They've certainly captured my attention because especially when they're playing at home,

that home crowd is unparalleled right now in terms of what an electric atmosphere it is and they're seeming flair for the dramatic to reward them for it. I think some of the questions we had in terms of could they build off of that run down the stretch last year that got him into the playoffs was a full season of Demidov,

which is obviously very tough to quantify with any statistical model just because we haven't seen them play a full season at this level, but then bringing in Bullduke who scored a couple goals for them, and then in particular the Dobson acquisition, and what that would mean for the depth chart and their depth in particular. And I think we've seen that take root where last year a massive anchor for them was that defense pair with Matheson and Carrier just because they were tasked with the craziest defensive deployment to allow Hudson to cook a little bit more offensively.

and now you put Matheson with Dobson and he looks like an entirely different player. The numbers reflect that. You've got the Hudson Gouly pair. Everything's lining up a bit more logically there. And then what Suzuki is doing right now in particular in his line is, I don't want to say legitimate contender stuff because I just think there's still a lot of things to iron out here. We may be putting the car before the horse. But like these top teams typically have an alpha driver like this that puts the team on their back

and carries them and creates the types of results that Nick Suzuki is doing right now. So it's only four or five games or whatever, but I will say they've definitely captured my attention in watching the past couple in particular. Yeah, the one caveat with the HABs right now is that they lost to the one real team they've played and had a very soft schedule. So there has to be some tempering of expectations with the 4-1 record because it has been a bit of a softer schedule. Having said that, they look genuinely exciting.

Sometimes you can feel when a team just has it and they seem to be that kind of team. And it helps to sometimes have that soft schedule and build the kind of momentum that can carry a young team through a long season. I think the big questions we had before the season started were how good could Hudson be in year two? how big is the Dobson effect on defense and is Suzuki a franchise player? And it's only been five games, but all three of those questions seem to be leaning in the right direction.

Suzuki is a completely different player than the one he was four years ago, where there were legitimate questions about whether he can be a true playoff caliber top line center. Now I don't think there's any question anymore. And he, if he plays the way he has to start the season, he could be like flirting with a top 10 center kind of vibe because he's been that good to start and does help to have that fully constructed defense. Dobson, I can't help but laugh about how many Islanders fans were gaslighting the general public about how bad Thompson was last year, how poor he was defensively. And obviously he has those moments sometimes they're going to come this season. But on balance, there's a reason that Montreal is playing him in tough minutes on top pair with Matheson.

There's a reason it's working. And that's because he is better defensively than I think he gets credit for. And he came the season, I think I had him projected for a pretty high defensive rating. And I felt like I was losing my mind because the noise surrounding him was how bad he was defensively. And last year, he had a great defensive year. He limited chances better than a lot of other reputable defensemen. He didn't score as much, but his defensive game improved a lot. And I don't think it got as much attention as it should have.

And I think we're seeing some of that manifest right now with the HABs where I'm definitely paying attention. I think it would not surprise me at all. They were, if they made the playoffs again, whether my model accounts for the team being magic, no. I wish, but you can mentally add a couple points for magic and see if they're projected for 94. Like, okay, this is a 96 point team. The bell center atmosphere is definitely one thing where I wish I could do this, where there are definitely some models in the NFL and other sports where there's a specific home ice effect or home court effect, home ice advantage, home court advantage for different teams,

like playing outside in Denver, obviously different factors. In the NHL, it's a bit tougher, but if I had to imagine which team has the best home ice advantage, Montreal would definitely be up there, considering the atmosphere at the Bell Center. Yeah, the play, I mean, it's been so fun to watch. The play Suzuki made at the end of last night's game on Thursday night against the Predators,

where he gets the puck along the wall with five seconds left, and I feel like 99.9% of NHL players would acknowledge, a clock ticking and like just try to jam it in to the goalies pads and soros is going to eat that up every single time and instead he he attacks the net but then drops off the pass for cofield who's able to bury it that lines played 57 5-on-five minutes shots 32 to 12 70 percent expected goals shared to your dobs to note i think something they got overlooked in a lot of the conversation about his season last year was also that mat bars outplayed just 30 games and previously like they had such a good connection in terms of playing off of each other in the offensive zone and so you're a move that

and unsurprisingly, things looked a little bit different for him in terms of point totals. And I think that was partly why people were misguided a little bit with their thoughts on him as a player. Here's the next one. Is Dimitri wrong for holding on to his Utah mammoth shares? Now, you had a 90.5 preseason projection for them, which I think was like 17th in the league. They've started off with a pretty pedestrian two-and-two start, just eight goals scored. They haven't really gotten the offense clicking yet, although Petrka scored in back-to-back game. so that's really encouraging.

I'm going to let you take this one because I've already, for months now, outlined why I'm high on them. It's probably more still of a long-term projection than it is for their reality this year, although I would like to see them take that step that you just kind of outlined for the haves, which is like going from very low understandings to 90-ish points making the playoffs and hitting that over slightly and then the following year really leveling up and becoming a contender. But where are you at with them so far? and do you feel like, I mean, did you get any pushback in the preseason?

Because I feel like the general consensus is people being very excited about them, especially after particular trade. And that was, I thought, a relatively lukewarm projection in terms of having them around 17th or 18th or whatever in the league. The biggest pushback I got was from Thomas Drance, who I have to believe you and him were sitting on a Vancouver beach, drinking your beers after a nice bike ride, and spending the entire summer talking about how good the Utah mammary. would be. We sure were. And this is exactly what happens, how it went down.

So I was talking to him in the summer about Canucks and he's like, where do you have the mammoth? Pure curiosity, obviously. And I was definitely lukewarm. I think we have the same idea of where this team is going. You and Drans are probably just more optimistic that it's going to happen this year. And I'm more of the wait and see kind of vibe. where I would rather be late on them than far too early,

because you get burned being too early as well. You look smart if you get it early, but that's part of the risk-reward factor. I am playing it safe still. The general thesis is Cooley is going to be a superstar. Genther's going to be a star. Keller's already there. That's your big three.

I see the vision for that. I think I want to see Cooley actually play up to that. level of something we're already seeing with Suzuki as it is. I don't think he's going to be as the two-way kind of player, but enough offense to offset that, obviously. My big concern with Utah, and I think the reason I'm not as high as you guys, despite that exciting top three is I am not sold on their top four.

I think Surgachev is a decent number one, but he's not Hudson. He's not, he's probably close to Dobson. and Dobson is their number two. They don't have, I think, a solid enough number two. If you slide Dersie down, if you slide Marino down, and you just add a number two that I think changes everything for Utah. Without that, it's hard for me to believe

they're going to be this 100-point team ready for contention. I think they're still missing some pieces that could get them there. And I'm not, I don't really like, love the depth either. I don't think, I don't see Mada or Shep. Schmidt or Simashev, well, Simashev, maybe, if he really lights it up as a rookie. But I just don't see anyone getting it, getting up to that level. Well, I think the logic with them, for just this year is that I'm with you on the depth from an offensive perspective.

It would be that they hold up enough well defensively and they've been good defensively so far. And then the top guys just go nuclear offensively. And that could be enough to at least get them in the playoffs. Now, to be clear, you're still incredibly high as of eye on Logan Cooley, right? because right before the season, we got that report that he turned down an eight-year extension that would have been just under 10 million per. And your market value for him is still north of that, right?

Like for a player with this profile at this age, signing away all your prime years at that price, while it's certainly a lot of money that any of us would be very excited about the room for growth there in terms of what that could look like a couple years from now, well exceeds that still. Yeah, without question, we already have for reports that the next year's cap is not $104 million. It's going up again to 107. Who knows what the year after is going to be or the year after that? So 10 million is not what it used to be.

And if a player like Cooley is going to sign away his entire prime, when the stellar cap is $130 million or $150 million, $10 million is going to be nothing for what Cooley is going to become. And I think playing this season out and maybe getting up to a point per game could really add a a couple million to that for sure. Yeah, I'm still, we haven't seen it yet. Gunther, we've seen it a bit more.

He's shooting the pocket time, but the connection between those two, I'm still, I'm still all in on earth for this year, and I'll be watching very closely. Let's end with this question. How does Dom's model adjust for coaching changes between seasons? And how quickly does it react to veteran players who were previously injured, bouncing back to full health? Let's take the first one in particular with coaching changes,

because obviously that's a really tough one. And I think, you know, the question comes from a Ducks fan. And that's probably a good example of this. We haven't necessarily seen it in terms of wins and losses. But I think they've fundamentally changed the way we want to see them play for the better since the coaching change. But how that must be a tricky thing because theoretically on paper, especially if we're very down on what a coach is doing with the team with the usage and playing style, it's easy for us to just be like, all right, well, you know, arrows up in terms of our excitement. but in terms of actually putting numbers to it, it's a much more difficult thing to do. Yeah, it is definitely tough.

I've never done it before, and that's always been a blind spot, and we write about it, we make a note of it. But last year, Columbus hiring a real coach for the first time and a long time and getting a basin, I think that should have been something I clued in on better and said, okay, this team might not be as bad because they have a guy who, who took the wild to some exciting heights. And he happened to do the same thing for the blue jackets. So seeing a coach with the stature that Quenville does

and then seeing how bad I had the ducks ready going to the season, I felt like I had to make some adjustment, especially looking at the market and they had the ducks around 83 points. And I think I was closer to like 75 to 78 range, something along those lines. And I felt that that was way too low, given the excitement, given the potential for growth, and given the coach, which I think was a big factor. Because like Blue Jackets last year, they were getting a real coach.

So the thing I did is definitely a hack. It's not super mathy. It's not the best way to do it. But it's all I could really think of. And I looked at the results. I said, yeah, that's doable. Gets me closer to the market. That's fine with me.

basically I looked at how the team did from year one to year two with a new coach. So Quenville has had two recent stints when it was with Florida, one was Chicago, and I looked at how all the Blackhawks players, how their game, how their projection changed from year one to year two offensively and defensively. And then I did the same for the Florida players when Quenville joined. and across the board for the Quenville teams, there was a big offensive push where they became a lot better offensively.

Some of this will be just age related. Like Taves and Kane were I think in their second or third year when Quenville joined. So some of that will be in there, but hopefully with enough players and with two different team stints, it works out fine. I looked at the effect size that I got from,

him and from Sullivan and Talkett and they all made sense. I'm like, yes, this seems fine. And then they all ended up being pretty close to the market. So I felt it was good enough. It was a good enough hack. It doesn't have to be 100% perfect, but it worked. It worked. I think that's all that matter is. And now that I can have like real data coming in, that effect will just naturally start appearing slowly where all the Ducks players there'll be more weight put on this season and as more Cuenville data comes in

I can sort of phase in the real stuff and phase out the hacky thing that I did to get some Quenville effect going is this is going to be the same thing with someone like Crider where this year's data becomes more important than last year's data and there'll be sort of a a blend between the two as a sample size increases this year, that'll gain more importance and model more relevance.

And it is also one of the reasons why I look at not just the year prior, but usually three years prior, because Kreider has a history of being a strong player. And there was a reasonable expectation for a bounce back because of that. Same with someone like Elias Pedersen. You add some age adjustments based on that and figure Kreidel bounce back, but then get worse because of age and you get a number that probably

makes some sense with a lot of room for error on both sides, obviously if Crider completely returns to his vintage form. Yeah, you mentioned the Blue Jackets there. That was kind of my hope for the ducks this year and it's still early but so far so good because you just look at the pace

they're playing at the number of events in their games. They are averaging nearly 37 shots on goal 4 per 60 and they're giving up 34 shots against per 60. So there's still certainly a lot of work to do defensively. But they're just playing so much more up-tempo and that's clearly going to suit their personnel and the young players. The usage as well, right? Like I've been blown away so far watching this Cutter-Goce-Mason McTavish, Beckett Seneca line. And I want to call them the second line because I feel like whichever line Leo Carlson is centering at this point is the number one

line. But that the trio is actually getting first-line usage. And you compare that to last year where Greg Hohnen publicly referred to Mason McTavish as a third liner. And now all of a sudden he's playing over 20 minutes and getting to really spread his wings and blossom. And that's really exciting. Carlson is phenomenal. I mean, the size puck protection shot coming down the wing in year three is really exciting. Jackson Lekome as well.

And to the Crider point, the power play, like they were dead last last year. I think they were averaging under four goals per hour with the man advantage. They've already scored six goals in 24 minutes. And so I think there's really encouraging stuff. I was actually watching that game because I knew we were going to talk about the hurricanes off the top today. And so I wanted to key in on it last night. And so I was watching hurricanes ducks. And eventually the hurricanes are just so relentless that their pressure just eventually broke the ducks down.

And they started making mistakes. And the score line got a bit out of hand. But if you just watch that second period in particular, I think there's so much reason for excitement because the hurricanes are just flying around doing their typical thing. and the ducks were very game for matching it, and we're trading haymakers with them and getting a lot of good looks. And so you want to distill that and scale it out, which is going to take some time, certainly,

but I'm just so much more excited about what I'm seeing from them now than I was at this point last year. Let's end with this. We have a couple more minutes. I just want to quickly ask you, we got a question, who is the player that breaks the model the most right now for you? For years, it was Brady Shea with the hurricanes,

and you had admitted as much. Is there anyone that's coming to mind right now where either you watch them, and it just doesn't line up with what you're seeing or someone you get the most feedback on as like they're better or worse than the numbers suggest. That is very, very difficult. I'm going to have a second to think about

because I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years trying to make fewer players that break the model. And I think when I added stronger usage adjustments two years ago. That was the thing that like really clicked for me where player, like especially defense been that had previously underrate, they ended up looking a lot stronger. Someone like Maureat Sider was one where fans loved him.

His numbers weren't great. How much of that was usage? Like that was, I think, a big aha moment. And so since I've done that, I don't know if it's my own confirmation bias for my baby here, but like I, there are fewer times where I look at a player and think that is obviously wrong. There's obviously going to be times where a player is wrong and they won't be as good as the model says or they won't be as bad as it says. But it's not to like an obvious degree where it'll rate some rinky dink third pair defenseman as one of the best in the league or some top pair guy who is in a very challenging role. as one of the worst.

So there's still some players that squeak through the cracks in that vein. Like I think Jordan Spence, who we mentioned earlier, is still kind of a model breaker because he's so good in sheltered minutes that it believes he could be a number three defenseman. Then again, he just had a three-assist night and looked great, and maybe he'll step up in the lineup and be that guy. And maybe there's size bias. at play and I think other models are even higher on Jordan Spence so I think being maybe a little more

conservative is is better but he's still someone where I see his rating and think I am not so sure about that where he's rated higher than established top pair defensemen like to me those will always be the guys I think about when model breakers is guys who just absolutely crush sheltered minutes, but there's a reason the coach isn't playing them. Yeah, there's a reason they're sheltered, right? That's fair. All right, buddy. Well, we got to get out of here. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way. I'll let the listeners know what you've been putting out recently. Well, I took a hot break for like a week and a half because I wrote so much before this thing started about every team and all the top players. But me and Sean Chantilly do power rankings every Friday. We did our,

first one today, and it was a lot of fun. We did some tongue-and-cheek comments about everything we're already wrong about, and I think it was really fun. One of them was how we straight-up didn't have Beckett Seneca mentioned at all in our Duck season preview. Now he's playing top-line minutes. And to all the Ducks fans who read that, and we're hoping for some Beckett knowledge, we are very sorry we dropped the ball with that one. And my This morning I wanted to see the projections for some rookies based on the very small sample side just to see like how the model handles that. And it already believes Seneca is a second line player, which is fun based on just four games or five games. And it has a really nice rating for Matthew Schaefer.

So that's fun too. Well deserved. All right, buddy. This was awesome. Looking forward to having you on again later on this season. My only plug is subscribe to the PDOCast, Patreon. if you haven't already. We're doing extra shows there. This one is obviously on the main feed, but I just put out a abs deep dive with our pal AJ Haefley as well for the sickos on the Patreon

feed. So we're doing two extra shows every week there. Join us if you haven't already. That is all for this week. We're hoping to be back first thing Monday with the return of the Sunday special where Drans and I will certainly be talking more Utah mammoth hockey. I hope everyone has a great weekend. And thank you for listening to the HockeyPediocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio network.