The Hockey PDOcast - The Key Matchups in the Canucks vs. Oilers Series

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to break down what they saw from Game 1 of Canucks vs. Oilers, and the matchups that’ll determine how the rest of the series plays out. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy Thomas Trans. Tom, what's going on then? No much, man. Game 2, let's go. Beautiful day here, too. It is a beautiful day. We are ahead of my notes here. We're coming off the thriller from game one.

We were supposed to record on Thursday, fresh off of game 1. We have to push it back to this Friday morning. So hopefully people will slow have time to listen before tonight's game 2. but it was a thriller, right? And you were in the house for the crowd was certainly electric as that comeback was taking place within that five-minute span or so. Loudest I've ever heard that building. So the Canucks come back. If you somehow are waking up from a coma, you missed what happened.

Wednesday's game one. The Canucks came back. They were trailing 4-1, kind of late in the second comeback, then scored three goals within a five-minute span in the third to take game one. Let's get into all of it, both from the perspective of kind of what we saw from game one, but also I think maybe even more importantly what's sort of actionable I think for the rest of the series, right? Because regardless of the result,

this seems like it's shaping up to be a pretty long, highly competitive series. And so I think there's a lot for us to unpack here. As you roll your eyes, as I said that. Well, I just bring me length. Bring me more games in May. That's what I'm here for. No, the...

I mean, the Canucks outplayed the Oilers so thoroughly. five-on-five throughout that game. I mean, with the exception of the first period where it was like 50-50, like Vancouver started to really pour it on. And, you know, it's just hard for me to know, I guess after one game, like, I'm not shocked that the Canucks can skate with the Oilers, right? Like, that doesn't shock me given how we've seen this team play five-on-five, what we saw them do to the Nashville Predators in round one, a team that I actually think highly of. Like, I don't think that was, by any means, like a soft first-round opponent. I thought the Canucks were able to bottle them up.

I thought they were able to, for the most part, you know, manage at least a narrow edge in the run of play, five-on-five. So I didn't think the Canucks were going to get blown out of the water at even strength in this series. But, you know, as the night went on, it was pretty clear that the Canucks were able to skate with them to the point where they were having what looked to me like sort of a message-sending second period until,

the Oilers got two consecutive bounces, like within the span of a minute, one off Ian Cole's knee and one off Tyler Meyer's stick, both of which end up beating Artur's Seelovs. And, you know, at that point, 4-1, certainly you're thinking the Canucks are, like, dead despite having played well. And then I don't know what it is. Well, sorry, I think I know what it is, in this case anyway. Like what the Canucks did in game four against Nashville, right,

was just a sort of incredible accumulation of scale, guild plays by four guys, no weak link among them, right? Hughes to Patterson to Besser to Miller or Hughes to Olius Lindholm to Besser and boom. They sort of steal game four.

But really, I don't think you can understand what happened in game one of this series without specifically talking about it as a Stuart Skinner meltdown. Well, I thought it was interesting after the game. It's always tough to parse comments from players after a game like that, because

there's a certain level, I think, of face saving that goes along. Like, you rarely see someone just completely open up about like whatever had unfolded. Yeah, what's being said privately in the locker rooms, usually a lot different. Yes. So I think Mattiasette Colum had a comment where he essentially like, yeah, we felt very good like with the way we played. We felt like we controlled or whatever. And I actually do think for the first half of the game,

even though the shot count was low and they weren't necessarily generating much themselves. And in theory, it was much more sort of in line with that Canucks game environment that we talked about in the Predators series that I think they'd prefer this to be played at. I do think the Oilers were fine for the first half in terms of the way the game flow was going. Well, if they play that first period two more time, second and third period,

they're winning that game, no question. Yes. Right? It was somewhere along the line in the second period. They just stopped generating. And I just, again, with one game in, it's hard for me to know how much of that was like, the Canucks shut down the Oilers and how much of that was

score effects of being up for one. and yeah, exactly. Yeah, to take their foot off the gas. Now, what I will say is, I had the scoring chances in that game 19 to 14 for Vancouver. Yeah. 14 scoring chances for the Oilers. In round one against L.A., they average 25 by my count. Right.

And that's really encouraging. Yes. The other thing I will say, and it's kind of becoming a bit of a concerning trend for the Oilers from my perspective, is as that series against the Kings went along in games four and five particular, they stopped generating anything at 5-15. And I kind of posited the theory that part of it was not them playing down to their competition, but sort of realizing how much they had to do to get across the finish line against the quality of their opponent, and then just being willing to embrace that type of game almost like to prove a point that they can, you know? Because there's been so many years where like, oh, well, the Oilers, when the going's good, they can score a bunch of goals and they can play in these high scoring games.

But in this quote-unquote playoff environment, if it becomes a 2-1 kind of rock fight, are they comfortable being in the deep end there? And I think they almost, to prove a point, play that type of game. And I scored a bunch of the power play. But I think 5-on-5 were willing to play that. We kind of saw that again here. And I'm not sure, I think they can win that way, but I'm not sure it's in their best interest to be embracing it in this series.

Well, and I actually thought one of the things they did best was make some choices, especially in terms of the defensive zone coverage, to incentivize this game to have flood. to create pace in the game with some of their some of their sort of tactical choices overall. Now,

first of all, what you're talking about with the Oilers playing down to their competition or trying to prove a point, like, there is something about this team, right?

Where, based off of what they can do at the top of the lineup, based on how the Ekholm Bouchard pair play, you know, based on just the top six, the fact that, like, I have time for their third line,

even though they have some, uh, tendency to get caved, in five on five. Like I look at this Oilers roster and I think you guys should be, and in fact are on true talent, if not the best team in the league, one of them, right? And yet I have zero trust

in their ability to just sort of play that way without moments where they kind of F around and find out. Yeah, lapses. Lapses and focus, lapses. And so I do think that's partly the story in game one. not unlike the story of their second game of the King series, where they come out, they trounce the King so decisively in game one, and then they're down through one at the end of the first period,

and it was maybe the worst 20 minutes we saw from any team in the playoffs. And it was just like you guys think this is going to be easy. Like, I don't know why this team seems to need these reminders, but they, all season, the whole first month of the year, right? It's like this team seems to struggle with maintaining focus, And against a, you know, pretty disciplined try hard group like the Canucks, I do think that's dangerous. It is. And let's get into the specific details of what happened in Game 1 and what I think is a big sort of thing for us to hone in on and watch into Game 2 and beyond.

And it's this. It's the matchup that I noted in my preview, the highest leverage point of this series beyond Oilers PowerPlay against anyone because if that gets opportunities and is cooking, it's game. over for you is Connor Garland against the Cody C, C, Darnelner's pair. Yeah. He got loose. Well, what I noted in, and this is what I love about the postseason,

you know, we talk about kind of like how like this concept of styles make fights. If you're going to go in a long playoff run, generally your best players will have to do something in every series, but it feels like based on the opponent and kind of the terms of engagement of how a specific series is going, certain players are going to be

more well-suited for one series than another, if you know what I mean, right? Like, you might have a quiet series in the first round, and someone else kind of carries the load, and then round two, all of a sudden, it switches, and a third line or second line, kind of takes the reins. Just like J.T. Miller caped up for the Connoxon round one, but now that he's chasing around Connor McDavid, it's going to be an awful lot harder for him to carry sort of the mustard offensively in this one. Yeah, so I think in that round one series that Joshua Garland, Lynn Holmline had a great game one, right? They were kind of the reason they came back in that third period. And they had moments where they scored clutch goals, but overall they didn't drive play.

I think they were on the ice for like three Canucks goals in about 75, five-on-five minutes in that series. But four against. But four against. And I think their main head-to-head matchup was the O'Reilly Pred's top line, I should say. It was something of a soft match, but yeah. It was. But I mean, like in terms of the actual whatever, the volume, in game one, they were on the ice for three five-on-five goals for the Canucks in just like 11 or 12 minutes that they played. and all of that came against Darno Nurse and Cody Cici.

And the reason why I thought it was so interesting was obviously that combination got put together with when home late in the year, but Joshua and Garland had been so successful for this team all regular season. We were kind of quietly their best 5-on-5 combination and their biggest drivers. You watch that King Series against Oilers, and Cici and Nurse struggled so much with annoying speed, basically, as I would term it, like guys who would just relentlessly. relentlessly attack them because I think their biggest flaw and the reason why they make some of these like low light mistakes that wind up on highlight reels against them is because once they're pressured into making decisions like that they just they have that lapse in judgment that you just mentioned like they constantly just make bad reads and a guy like garland can kind of force them consistently into those situations right that's why arvidson and lazott and guys like that had success against them right and that's exactly what we saw especially

on that last goal, right, where Garland takes it and kind of exposes that. And so we saw that play out in game one. And that's something that I think you have to keep coming back to as like the most exploitable thing for the Canucks. If the question is going to be, can this team score enough to keep up with Oilers, they did in game one. And that's the reason why. Yeah. Look, I'm out on, I'm out on Nurse Cici as like a championship caliber second pair.

I was before the deadline. I thought their biggest area of need to upgrade was second pair RD. And I actually really like C.C., I just think they need something a little bit different, given how nurse profiles, right? Given, you know, my view that realistically what you need is like a defensively oriented speed guy. It's why I liked the Sean Walker fit in my mind's eye anyway so much for the Oilers. But Dakota Joshua's goals off an offensive zone draw, ricochet off the end boards, right? Elias Lindholm's goal is scored by Jeff Skinner

as Lindholm just kind of hopefully puts the puck into the crease from behind the net. Stewart Skinner. What did I say? Jeff Skinner, who has never scored a playoff goal. Famously. So Stuart Skinner, you know what? I keep making that mistake on radio. It's a big problem for me in the series. I love the irony of it giving Jeff Skinner playoff goals.

So Stuart Skinner scores on himself. And then, yeah, you have the breakdown. But even then, like, I think it's the Oilers caught sleeping that the Canucks were able to execute, like, manufacture a partial break over 180 feet of ice from, like, effectively a stationary set. Yeah. But it's not a great angle shot. And that's a, and that's a, that's a breakaway move that Connor Garland tries like 12 times the air and it works once. You know that?

It is. But if you followed any of Kevin Woodley's work, the one way where you can have. attacks to a Skinner is getting him moving particularly off the rush. That's where he struggles. And that's why this was an interesting matchup because the Canucks, they were 30 second in the league and rush chances in the regular season. I think it was like 4.9 per game where Logic had them. Right. They averaged 3.6 rush chances per game in round one against Nashville. And that feels wildly played because I watch those games and I do not think they average nearly four rush chances per game. And so I was wondering in this type of series, that's the biggest weakness,

clearly are the Canucks going to be willing to kind of these rush chances sometimes for them and we talked about this in round one are like a water in a desert mirage for them right where it's like it's there for you I think they could have more rush chances but part of why they're so good defensively is because they they're so disciplined about resisting that temptation and in this series they might almost be incentivized and obviously in a game environment like game one you kind of do have to push for it a little bit more and so I I want to see more of that because I think that is one way you can attack where it's going to take advantage of his weakness.

My point being, though, that while I have real concerns about Nurse C.C., especially against a player like Connor Garland, who's really a top of lineup caliber player who, because of his size, tends to play far less than that, you know, if you're looking at the tape as Chris Knoblock today or today or yesterday, are you really that upset with the chances they surrendered? You know, I feel like I'm looking at those goals most likely in thinking, I mean, I need better for my goalie, and there's a few bouncers in there. There is.

I would say, though, what was it, early in the first? That pairing falls asleep in Carnagarland gets a wide open breakway. Yes, that's true. Center ice on. There's no one even close to him. The Joshua goal is a lucky bounce off the end wall. If you go back and watch it, though, I have no idea what Cody Cici's doing. He's like kind of wandering towards the point,

then realizes Dreisaito's already covering that guy. and if you look at it, it's a two-on-one down low for the Canucks to take advantage of that rebound. And then the third one, or the game winner. The Canucks are going to shoot from the point to generate rebounds. Like, come on, man. Yeah, and the last one is they're kind of just standing flat foot. And obviously, I think they're surprised by the fact that the puck came up that quickly. That last one was tough.

All of them are tough, though. This is a recurring theme. I mean, this postseason with CC on the ice 515, they're down 8 to 3. When he's not on the ice, they're up 12 to 8. Like, I don't know. Sometimes small sample goal trends can be deceiving. in this case I think we're working with large enough sample here where regardless of how those goals were scored those opportunities will come for the Canucks assuming this happens and I think this head to head will happen

and we're going to talk more about Dre Settles' health here in a second but the way Nalblock runs his five-man units is Bouchard and at Kohn play primarily with McDavid right and then Leon Dre Seidle's job and this is why I thought he had such an underratedly amazing season everyone was like oh his pace is a little down from last year it's like he's playing almost full time with Darnoaner's and Cody Cici and he's just dragging them around the ice and so the Canucks are going to go it looks like with Linholm versus him

because they don't want Lynn Holm versus McDavid Yeah and actually in game one the times McDavid had success was against Linholm 55 and so we're going to see that head to head at least in these Vancouver games And a way firmer hard match for especially for Canucks forwards Miller against McDavid

With Rick Tocket having last change way firmer hard match than Tocke it typically does. Like it's J.T. Miller versus McDavid, no question about it. From a Canucks perspective, we come out of game one knowing exactly what Talkett thinks because Eint Miller had like three shifts against the next sort of most frequent opponent five on five. Like he's out there when 97's out there, period.

And that's, um, that's going to be a dynamic to watch all series. Well, yeah, 11 minutes of McDavid's 19 to 5 and 5. Yeah. And the shots were 4 to 1 for Vancouver in the time in Miller versus McDavid. the few shifts McDavid had versus Linholm, I think he actually did have some success and so the Canucks would be wise to tear clear from it and that's what makes Garland

and Joshua and Linholm not only creating these opportunities but converting on them so important because in round one so much of the offense revolved around J.T. Miller and even in this game, right, he scores that sick at four on four to help them in a third period. That was a sick.

He still had seven of the Canucks 19 scoring chances were contributed by him either taken or set up directly. So, like, he was still so involved in the offense. But if he's going to be playing more than half of his five-on-five minutes against McDavid, I don't think it's fair to expect him to carry that much of the load offensively as well. And so, like, we'll talk about what Peterson here in a second in his line, but it will come down, I think, to how much Garland's line can expose the second Oilers pair. Well, let's, and let's talk about one, one qualitative factor that was so noticeable with Besser and Miller on the ice was,

we knew that the Canucks would want to play Keepaway in this series and spend as much time just holding the puck in the offensive zone and making extremely conservative puck management decisions as they can, especially in those Miller versus McDavid head-to-head minutes. And I thought there were multiple instances where I clocked it during the game. Besser and Miller down low with McDavid expending energy trying to check them and the Canucks just having a pretty significant size advantage with just enough skill that if the Oilers got the puck back it was,

McDavid wasn't going to have the energy to attack and like put it together a full heavy shift. I thought they did an excellent job of that, especially Miller and Besser. There were multiple battles won below the hash marks with either nine or six against 97. Well, I think the game plan for defending McDavid is so interesting to me because on the one hand, you sort of just have to concede the reality that regardless of what you do, you can have a diligent 60-minute effort, and if you have one slip-up, that's all I could take to break a game open. The other thing is that, like, this was such an uncharacteristically quiet game from McDavid, where he had zero shots on goal,

which I think was his first time in the posties of doing so. He had one shot attempt, zero scoring chances by my account, only two set up, which is so low for him. and despite playing 24 minutes it's going to take a team effort and I do think do you remember that one game the Canucks played earlier this year was kind of midway through the season

maybe a bit later on the aves were in town I think the abs actually wound up winning it in overtime McKinnon scored a couple power play goals but I have five on five I thought that was the best defensive team effort

I'd seen against Nathan McKinnon all year and it was like such a concerted effort of picking him up early and then almost sandwiching them with a back checker and the person in front of him, even when he didn't have the puck. And it was like, you will just,

you'll always be in a phone booth. You're never going to get to move freely. And I think that's almost what you have to do here. The issue is that if you like devote so much of that, you can almost take yourself out of your own game. But obviously keeping the puck deep in the, in the zone and just making him, kind of taking his legs by making him chase is one way to do so.

Well, it's, it's funny though. The Edmonton Oilers didn't try to like regroup in the neutral zone with McDavid to get him moving much. like that wasn't something they really went to or tried to implement. They were pretty happy playing a direct style of game, especially I think because they were leading early and then building that lead as the game went on. So they probably didn't think about it or certainly it wasn't passing the puck around the neutral zone to get McDavid.

The puck was not sort of top of the line. The fact that they are hard matching, not just Miller against McDavid, but Tyler Myers-CarsonsuCusie pair, there were definitely moments where McDavid, despite the quiet game, still put that Canucks defensive duo under extreme duress on heavy shifts,

where it looked like the Canucks were hanging on by their fingernails. You're always going to be hanging on by your fingernails when you're checking Connor McDavid. So by no means take this as a repudiation of the stellar work. I mean, 10 minutes, Myers head to head against McDavid,

the Oilers had three shots in those 10 minutes. I mean, that's a job well done. Yep. but if there was sort of one aspect of what the Canucks were able to do against McDavid that I think is going to be almost impossible to replicate, like that's it, right there. You know, Miller versus McDavid, can the Canucks get a similar game as they got in game one a couple more times the series? Like I say yes. But that Myers-Susie versus McDavid sort of matchup and ungranted, they're all checking McDavid as a five-man unit. I'll fade that.

I think that's still going to be an area of concern, an area where I think the Canucks are, to some extent anyway, covered in oil and McDavid could well set them on fire. Couple notes on McDavid's minutes that I liked. I really love, and I mean, I know they do this, but seeing it live gives you so much better an appreciation

for just how different it looks than the way every other team plays. But I love watching in the neutral zone how both at Komen Bouchard and often at the same time just have a flat out green light. Yeah. The moment 97 gets the puck. The moment 97 gets the puck,

instead of hanging back with like any thought or care to the risk involved, those guys just shoot up ice and give McDavid extra outlets for GivenGhosts. And like the whole point is for a quick pass and a return pass to get McDavid into the zone. And it's such a smart way. to utilize the most singular open ice weapon in the league is just to have like, hey, we have two pretty skilled, pretty good, pretty big defensemen who are just going to join the rush the moment you touch the puck just about every time.

Watching that actually in practice and unfold, and again, you see it on TV all the time, you know they do it, but watching it live from, you know, that vantage point where everything looks slow and everything looks easy in the press box, it's just joyful. It's just like there's no other team that looks like this on the breakout, and I love it so much. Well, the point you made earlier about what the Oilers were doing schematically in their own zone to try and kind of speed the game up by potentially leaking out a bit more of themselves is someone to watch for me, not only because of the impact it'll have on the Canucks offense, but because this is such a fascinating matchup from the other perspective of Oilers cycle offense versus Canucks D zone structure, right? Where I think Oilers were second in the league this year, and Rush, chances, so they certainly got a high volume of them, but despite having the best rush player of all time on their team, and they're at their best, they are a dominant cycle team.

Right. And against this Canucks defensive zone structure, which is so good at protecting the middle and kind of being a bit more passive in terms of like they're not chasing up to the point as much as the hurricanes are with their mandamandie, they're willing to let you move around and they're just going to protect the slot and block stuff and insulate their goalie. It poses an interesting challenge for the Oilers to sort of break through. They certainly have the players like a Hyman or obviously the passers like Dreisle and McDavid. They can still carve you up if you give them one 90 second shift after another. Like they'll find holes in your armor eventually. But I think it does suit them better to find ways to quick attack the way they did with the Hyman goal.

Because it's just not going to be as easy sailing for them, I think. If they kind of are forced to just consistently cycle and generate all of their five-on-five offense that way. Because this Canucks team is, like, what are we, at 90 games now of them doing this? Like, I'm willing to buy the fact that they're doing something very good that frustrates the low they heck out of teams, right? No question. This isn't like, oh, I don't care what they're on a nice, save percentage is. Like, this is a real thing in terms of what they're doing to kind of force your hand as the other team's offense.

100%. Well, so I thought the primary thing that surprised me and looked a bit different, from what I'd seen the Oilers do previously this season and against the Canucks was I was stunned by how aggressively they pressured up high. And it wasn't just the point men, although it was functionally directed at the point men. You could notice it too with the way they were

super aggressively cutting off the top with even if a forward got the puck up high like, you know, at the top of the circles or by the half wall, pressure was coming. and I found it interesting because one thing Nashville did was they packed the paint. They played a compact front every shot sort of defensive structure as we talked about after game one. And on the one hand, it worked to frustrate the Canucks offense. On the other hand, it killed their own offense. It killed their own offense and the Canucks had the puck the entire series.

And so I thought it was interesting. It feels like the Oilers are providing the Canucks with a dare. Right? Like, we'll pressure you up high because, A, if we're able to force a turnover, we're going the other way and we want to attack you off the rush. But B, you want to just kill time in the offensive zone and make conservative decisions in terms of managing the puck and making plays and, you know, assuing trying to send hopeful passes for scoring chances and preferring, you know, layered traffic and shots from a pie. But if we're going to pressure you like this, there's going to be. opportunities down low, are you even willing to make those passes? Are you willing to try and take those shots knowing that if you miss, A, we've got a forward that's already jail

braked up high against, you know, one of your slower D or Philopronic or Quinn Hughes, and, you know, we're coming at you now. And I think it's an interesting dare. It's like, are you willing to play our game if we give you sort of the first mover advantage? I thought when that game was played in the Oilers' favor in the first half, the pace was really high. I thought it really favored the Oilers. Canucks took over late, and I don't know how much that matters for the rest of the series, given how significant the deficit was. But I thought that approach, being willing to surrender a little bit more to the Canucks,

in order to have the game flow freely and not be played on their terms, I thought that was a fascinating sort of approach, and I think explicitly that's what they're after. I think that's something to watch as this series goes along. Well, I think it's the correct one, but the other side of it is that it does put more pressure down low on Skinner. And on Jeff Skinner.

And after game one, I think that's something where it's like, that's someone to watch for, right? Not that he was getting beaten on those, the Josh Owen was kind of more of a freaky bounce, but also you are going to get probably into those spots where the Canucks have a two-on-one down low. more so than otherwise because you have guys up high, right?

And so I think it makes sense for them. Like it's a net positive risk reward because I don't think they necessarily want to play a two one game where they're spending full shifts, McDavid on the ice with the Canucks just loitering at the point. Like I think they want to speed it up and force the issue, but it does come with a tradeoff. It's not necessarily as clean as like, all right, let's just play our way. I appreciate sometimes when talking about conservative or aggressive hockey,

Rick talk, it will be like, It's not like we're going to play a 1-4. It's like, no, we know. We know that's not how you're going to play conservative hockey. It's so funny. It's such a funny dynamic where the Canucks play aggressively without the puck, and it's their version of hanging back comes with it. It's such a departure from how we usually think about the game.

And I think it's been one of the reasons this team's so different. And I think that's been an edge for them as they've gone through you know, not just this regular season, but into the playoffs. I do think this is going to be a big series for the Oilers' defensemen one way or another. Like in game one, we saw sort of the negative. I think we also saw the positive, yeah, from the top pair. Well, in certain really, like from H. Holm's shot. And I think those shot opportunities are going to be there because one of the things that happens

from the way that Canucks play defensively, and we saw a lot of this, I thought, in the Nashville series, is like on the far side or the weak side, you're almost always, if the defender activates, they will always have a shot available kind of at the top of the circle and that's just like the byproduct of you have to give up something defensively and the connects allow that but I think there's going to be a ton of Matias Eicholm bombs from the point yeah and sometimes those goes in but also sometimes defenseman efficiency at scoring isn't doesn't go in and you get into troubles and not just bombs that guy has so much control yeah over where the puck is going when he winds up for a slap shot you can even notice it on clears

If you're really paying attention to Matias Echome, like even on clears, sometimes, you know, guys wind up or whatever. And you're like, oh, this could be interesting, right? Or like, there's a chance it's not going out of the zone or chances going over the glass. And it's like, I find you can even notice him like wind up at like 75% or 50% or just like half-masked sloppers. And it feels like he has perfect control. He hit, he hit C-loff's top corner on a perfect half slap on his goal. It was actually an absolute thing of beauty. And exactly what, you know, one thing that I've always enjoyed about watching him play is it just feels like he has way more control over his slap shot than your average.

Almost like, you know, those golf video games where it's like he sets the speed and sets like where he's hitting the ball. And it's just like, it's super fun to watch. Yeah. All right. Let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back in. I'm going to keep chatting about the series of Thomas Drenz. You're listening to the Hockey-Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.

All right. We're back here on the PDOCast. Let's keep it going. Do you want to talk, I'll give you the choice here. We're going to talk about them both, but I'll give you the order. Do you want to talk about Pedersen and his line? Or do you want to talk about Dreisadel? Because I think both are obviously very big talking talking points. Can I go off the board first? Just like a really quick one? Sure. You ready? Yeah. Okay. I always used to love watching Marion Hosa play because I thought of him as like in, second straight video game reference for me is not ideal. But as like the Mario character from Mario Carter, Mario Party. Like he was big enough to overpower the little guys, and he was fast enough to be faster than the big guys. And famously watched a ton of video was just like a famously intelligent two-way player.

I always used to love watching Marion Hosa play, not just because he was amazing and did amazing stuff, but because I always tried to learn from the way that he'd attack defenders. Right. Right. It was like the Marion Hosa. test. Can you pass it? Can you not? What does he think? Where does he think you're vulnerable? And I had never considered this until game one, but watching Zach Hyman, not that Zach Hyman is a

Hall of Fame player like Marion Hosa, but I do wonder if Zach Hyman's maybe the closest proximity that we have today to guy who's big enough to beat little guys with his size, fast enough to beat big guys with his feet, skilled enough to attack the heels of defenders that maybe are a little bit more clumsy. And if you actually just watch how he goes about attacking various players, you might learn a lot about what he thinks, what one of the smartest guys in the league thinks about how and where his opponents are vulnerable. And I noticed he had this unbelievable entry where he literally put his shoulder into

Hironic, maybe a step over the blue line, and then just like used that and almost circled the net. And it was just this thing where it was like so telling about where he thought his advantages were on Heronic. And likewise, his goal, which was a bounce off Tyler Meyer's stick, he's immediately attacking Myers' heels. Yes. Immediately he's just like, you're huge, your reach is big,

but if I'm just like skating at a point at the back of your feet, you're going to have trouble sort of crossing over and staying with me. and he was right. That to me, it's just a credit to where this guy's gotten to as a player that I'd even think about him this way, but I also just thought it was incredibly revealing to just watch him move about the ice

and attack various Canucks players using different sort of weapons in the toolkit. Man, he's become a totally different guy than he was five, six years ago. Certainly. It's awesome. No, his game has grown so much. He's a stud.

And listen, I will never on this program get mad at anyone for dropping Marian Hosa references. I will say, though, And it speaks to how much, like, how far the game has come, where I just think there's so many players now that have such multifaceted offensive arsenals that they can be, like, I would even argue, like, not that Miko Rantanin is a burner, but like, if you get him in a one-on-one against the defender, even if the defender is a really smooth skating defenseman, if he gets in an awkward pivot where he exposes his heels, Rantanin is absolutely going to target you and pick you apart. Yeah. There's just so many guys like that now that also, that have like the physicality to put their shoulder down and attack you. but can also off the rush burn you. And so, yeah, the game is in a great place.

In a great place for that, yeah. Once again, Tom. Pedersen or Dreisado. Okay, let's go Pedersen. Okay. The, so he picked his teeth with the Ryan McLeod line at 5 on 5. The Canucks used him more than any other forward in the third period, especially, and his ice time spiked especially after the Canucks took the 5-4 lead.

So clear defensive. value there. He had five hits so that, you know, for a player who's been dogged by speculation about their injured status and had missed practice the day before, that's a good sign that he was assertive and comfortable physically. He was, but we can't, we can't reference hits. We can't reference real-time stats on this program. I just think in game two of, like, Barkoff had like nine or ten hits, and he had an awesome game. Yeah. You think he got some for playing knick-knack paddy with, I think a couple were maybe he was in the vicinity and it was like, all right, well, he's a big guy. My point is, he looked

physically unencumbered. Yes. And to me, the number of hits more than anything, this was like a numerical... The physical involvement, for sure, is notable. Yeah. And then, for me, the most important thing, and it's not like his shot attempts were through the roof. I think he had four on the game. He had

three shots on goal, so at least he was getting them through. Early in the series against Nashville, those first two games, he had 15 shot attempts. You'd have to, you'd have to find me the video on that. I can't even remember them. But it's because they were all blocked. He wasn't getting his shot through against Nashville defenders. Maybe that impacted his confidence.

Maybe, I don't know. But it felt like Pedersen's such a savvy dual threat producer, right? He's never going to be a high shot volume guy. Because temperamentally, that's not how he sees the game. Patterson's not out there looking for his shot or looking for a goal. He's out there to make the right play. Right? Like, that's just true to who he is, right?

and that's been frustrating, I think, as he's looked so non-threatening throughout the playoffs to this point. It felt like the shot was prioritized, like, way higher in his decision-making tree in game one. So you saw decisively takes a one-timer on the power play off of a really nice cross-team feed from J.T. Miller misses. But the point was only miss of the game. but it was the sort of one-timer. We just hadn't seen him even try in the playoffs to this point. And he took it and he took it with zero hesitation, right? Like it was, he leaned into it.

He got a lot of it. He missed by a foot, maybe a half foot. But like, if he keeps taking those and if he's willing to take those, if he's not willing to take those, he doesn't exert gravity. Like no one has the space that they need on the power play. He literally, whether he's scoring or not, he needs to be launching those when the look makes sense. And then he also had the wrist shot off the rush Pretty aggressively against Skinner

That handcuffed him he was able to fight it off So yeah I just thought Pedersen was getting to his shot A little bit faster Without necessarily here's the thing too When he's playing with Hoaglander and McKeyev It's like you shooting is always the right decision But I just don't think it's inimical to how he plays

Yeah Yeah when you're heading into the series Especially in the home games he would get all of the bottom six matchups he could handle, right? Like it was like, that's just going to be the head-to-head. These matchups literally unfolded exactly as we would have expected them. But I think the bigger thing is it was also primarily against DeHarnay, who I thought looked very slow in that matchup and the Kulak pair, right?

Not that CC and Nurse are defensive Titans by any means, but that is a pairing you should theoretically be able to win. And we saw a lot of territorial dominance. Now, the issue for me is, despite all that, You mentioned how Pedersen's never going to be a volume guy. He's always going to be an efficiency driver. And I think that's what makes it so maddening that he's playing all these ships with arguably the least efficient offensive player in the league right now. Like Ilya McKeyev has one goal in his past 57 games.

I look back in the regular season. Oh, yeah. And in the playoffs, he has, I've got him up to like 16 or 17 scoring chances so far. And on the one hand, I'm trying to remove subjectivity out of. my tracking. So like if you get a good look, I'm giving it to you. It's also one of those like expected by whom type of situation where it's like, yeah, this is theoretically a scoring chance. Did I ever believe it was actually going to lead to a goal? Not really. Yeah. And that's frustrating because it's tough to knock when it's like, all right, you're spending an entire game in the

offensive zone. You're threatening the other team. You're keeping, as we said, whoever you're playing against pinned. And then that has like a snowball effect where other guys come on the ice. They're in an Adam and Data's position, you keep going. But man, it's just so frustrating. Well, he hit the post in game one. He had a, he hit a post off of a rebound. Yeah. Just like one of those classic like Canucks,

long range bombs that becomes a close range chance that McKayev spoils, right? It's just like you couldn't write a more Canucks specific line. Three, four months ago, I was saying that, you know, my understanding was, and I'd made the calls and I'd done the work. and my understanding around the league was like, hey, you know, I still think McAev will have value around the league just based on his two-way chops, his size, the regard for his defensive game.

And, you know, a relatively widespread understanding that, you know, a player's first year back from ACL surgery, right? Surgery at a.cured or parin ACL tear. You know, you might not get their fastball. And I saw a Canucks fan on Twitter reference like, Drant says he still has trade value. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I said that when he'd add one goal in 25 games.

Yeah, 32 games later. Yeah, once we get into one goal in 60 game territory, I think that logic, you know, not that I've done the work to like update. I'll do it after the season. I'm a little too focused on the playoffs. But yeah, I mean, things change quickly when you score that little while playing that many minutes in the top six with Elias Pedersen, fixture on PowerPlay too. I mean, it's pretty hard to wrap your head around.

Now, when people around the league were saying he had value, were you speaking with Calduis? He'd be a great fit on that Pegman's offense. I mean, the Leafs didn't even try to retain him. Bro, have you seen their 5-1-5 expected goals share? They're playing pretty good hockey. Hoaglander 2 has not been, he's not leveled up the way that you'd hoped. It's gone better. The start of the playoffs was like just he wasn't.

He's still sticky along the wall and like he's still, you know, annoying on the forecheck. But, you know, there's still growth to his game. I think it's little skill plays to help Pedersen drive that are lacking with him. And just a reminder too that while, you know, he was like top 10, five on five goal scorer this year, stuff like that, shot like 25%. Yes. And that's going to make a player look pretty different in terms of their.

offensive capability than they actually are. I'm always, I've always been Team Hoaglander. Like, I'm a big fan of his game overall and, and I believe in his impact. But there's growth in what he has to do with the puck in terms of what he sees as a playmaker. We're watching a lot of these minutes, and it feels like Pedersen is not getting the sort of service that he can actually cook with. Yeah.

In addition to the fact that he's struggled for most of this playoffs, it's like both things have been true the whole time, but last night. It's only magnifying it, yeah. But on Wednesday anyway, with Pedersen's form, looking more recognizably Pedersen, you know, I do think it looked. I do think it sort of threw into Starker relief, the linemate question. Okay. We got to talk to Rice Idol because we got 10 minutes left here, and that's the elephant in the room in terms of his status and his health. And it's just a bummer because round one, he was just unbelievable.

I thought he was probably the best player league-wide that I watched in round one. The start of this game, he was cooking in the first period, right? He had a couple of puck receptions kind of around the blue eye neutral zone where he like reaches back, pulls it between his legs, inside out move, rush to the net, creates a scoring chance. It gets the puck by the side of the net. Jedi mind tricks Ian Cole to even get it. And then gets it over to echo. Well, how many players, 99.9% of initial players are immediately putting that directly into a goalie's pads. Yeah, all of them, yeah.

Yeah. And Leon Dreis-Eidel's like, I'm going to thread a low to high pass through four defenders. Yeah. It's unbelievable. It's so cool. No, it was so cool. And I thought in particular in round one, like, you just saw the activity defensively off the puck as well,

where he was just playing such a well-rounded game. And you could tell that he was visibly hampered. Like, he missed a significant stretch of it being in the room. And then when he came back in the third, and after the game, they were like, oh, equipment issue slash cramping. Equipment issue slash cramping is a new one. And it's not available the next day for the skate or whatever in between. and now questionable for tonight.

So we'll see. I would guess, though, just like, you know, I would guess based on the fact that it was Sam Gagne on the second line at Euler's practice. It's not like they reconfigured their lineups. It looked like a placeholder. I would assume, well, you know what?

It's a hockey player in the playoffs, man. Yeah, exactly. Okay, let's move on, though, also because everyone's going to be listening to this after they already know. Yeah. So we'll see, but I will say, he comes back in the third,

and he had the sequence. I think it might have been his first shift back, so maybe give him a little bit of leeway because he was cold like he hadn't played in such a long period of time. But it looked like he was driving. Pedersen had the bug on the wall. He kind of goes to engage him and Pedersen gives him a little reverse check

and the reaction was a very ginger one by him and then later in that sequence, Pedersen just dashes towards a net. I think Horonick hits him with a pass and it just misses being a tap-in. But he said it was just slow on that. That was the tip that he beat, yeah. And he was just slow to get there.

And I was like, that's not great. And then later he fell. I think that was a super. skate issue, but it was like... And he got cross-checked. I mean, Nikita Zadurov understood the assignment. Well, man, Zadorov. And speaking of talking to people around the league and his value, you know there's

NHLGM's watching this right now doing the Vince McMahon, like, ooh, like where he's like sitting in the chair, getting, getting progressively more, like, crowds. Cross-checks the player in the spot. He knows he's probably hurt and then scores. The stretch pass also for the girl. Oh, yeah, that's right. I mean, the way he's moving, like, bombing from the point, just the physical, all of it is like, a GM's just wedger. Like, it's unbelievable.

So you know, he's so cool, though. It's so fun to watch. I mean, the goal he scored against the Predators and Game, what was it for? Like, it was just awesome. But yeah, Joyce Idol, I think the concern here is we've seen him in the past and previous post seasons, even at well less than 100% still be effective because he's so stationary on the power play that he can. still from that dead angle score but also distribute the puck and is always you just got to account for him when he's on the ice. The issue though is in those series because he was limited in terms of his movement, they had to play him with McDavid 515 because he just couldn't carry his own line.

And then what that does is a domino effect the rest of this lineup I think is concerning in something to watch because a big reason why they've been so scary is you had McDavid and Hyman just crushing at 515. Then you had Drysidal crushing. crushing a 5-1-5, and then that allows you to have McLeod and Fogel and Holloway and all these other guys in the bottom six, if you remove that and kind of compress the top line, all of a sudden, then I think the connects would feel really good about multiple matchups beyond just like one here or there. I do think, though, that that's still the answer. Like, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, if Ilya Mikhail is going to beat you, Ilya McKeyev's going to beat you.

Like, that's going to have to be the choice that the Oilers are comfortable making. And honestly, it's not one they should hesitate to sort of court. You know, it sounds scary when it's like, well, then, you know, so you're going to bump dry-sidal up to first line, left wing, you're going to put Ryan Nugent Hopkins in the middle, and you're going to move one of McLeod, Fogel, or Holloway up, right? Like, that's the answer. Yeah.

And probably you don't want to move McLeod up because you want some sort of engine on the third line. Okay. So you're, yes, you're weakening your second line against Lindholm. But like, are you really that worried about, um, about Phil D. Giuseppe, Sam Lafferty, Teddy, like, take your medicine, man. You know, that's not a matchup. The Oilers can afford to be mindful of. They, they just need to make their minutes against the Miller line and the Lindholm line count.

Like, period. That's it. Um, in my view anyway. And I honestly think that something they should consider going to, anyway. Like I think McDavid might need the help and he certainly might need the help down low. And that's also sort of I guess where you get into the concern of like can dry sightal

help him down low in terms of adding to what the McDavid line can drive because we know even if he's physically limited he still can help McDavid produce. No, he certainly can. I think the complicating thing is that even when he's

feeling his absolute best I would describe his skating stride as looking ginger and uncomfortable. And so it's like almost difficult to know, like, you're trying to like, Zapruder style look at the film and you're like going frame by frame. And you're like, I don't know. His like, his knee flexion there didn't look quite as. And then all of a sudden it's like, I don't know.

This is how he usually looks out of it. I can't really tell. I know what it's old. Yeah. They need him. They need him. But I, especially because of how he had been playing previously, right? This isn't a thing where it's like he was struggling and then it's like,

all right, whatever, what's going to be the difference? It's like he was their best player. Yeah. And so now. You can't hesitate. though you cannot hesitate to thin out your lineup if you're the oilers there you're down in the series now um mac david you know and and dry sidle can cook five on five even if dry sidle's not a hundred percent and you're you're going to need those minutes to count you know

leaving dry saddle on the second line it's not like you it's not like you're you have an edge in the mcclod matchup as it stands right you know um it's not like the problem in the lindholm matchup is is the defensive play of you know evander kane and and the fact that ryan in Hopkins is probably like he can still do the job at center. The issue though, like I said though, was part of the reason they're able to get by is because they just have Dreisito play with Nurse and Cecee. And all of a sudden now if that defensive pair is playing minutes with someone significantly worse, all of a sudden now, I think they're just so much more exploitable than those.

So much more vulnerable. I think there's like a cascade. No, there is. Domino effect. Yeah. And I mean, I know they're load to do it, but I'll be curious to see if if at some point the Canucks, like you'll know the Canucks have really taken the initiative in this series

if they can split Bouchardacom. That's going to be like the Canary and the coal mine to look for in terms of the Oilers need to find an answer. But yeah, I mean, everything we're talking about from Drysidal to Nurse C, C, on and on, I mean, it really does sort of put a microscope or a magnifying glass on the fact that like the Lindholm, Garland line is really the key to this series for Vancouver.

That's a perfect bow on this. You brought it right back to the starting topic. We should also note, Oilers first powerplay 40 seconds in on too many men, score, and then that was the last one they had all games. So I think that is also, when you're talking about the story of game one and what to look for, I think it may be a different story if they get a few more opportunities along the way. So we'll see how that unfold. Tom, everyone can check out your coverage of the series at The Athletic. Also listen to Canucks talk here on the SportsNay Radio Network 16-50. This is great, man.

We'll have you on again soon. Enjoy the rest of the series. Thank you to everyone for listening. Pop into the Discord. The invite link is in the show notes. Go smash the five-star button wherever you listen. And that's all for this episode with Tom. We will be back with one more here to close out the week.

So looking forward to that. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedio guest streaming on the SportsNad Radio Network.