The Hockey PDOcast - The Leafs, the Oilers, and Their Respective Issues This Season

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Shayna Goldman to talk about the Leafs, Oilers, and Wild. They discuss their shaky starts to the season, how worried we should be about it, and what can be done to fix the issues that have been dragging their results down. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedio cast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich and joining me is my good buddy, Shana Goldman. Shana, what's going on? Hey, how's it going for you? It's good. It's good. It's good to have you on for the first time this season, first of hopefully many.

We're going to start the conversation with not the most uplifting topics because I wanted to have you on to go through a little panic meter for teams that had high expectations. heading into the year and have been playing some uneven hockey, let's say generously of late. And we're going to go through them. We're going to kind of try to figure out what's going wrong, what's going right. If there's reason for hope moving forward, how worried we are about some of the underlying trends and see how far it takes us. Who knows? Maybe we'll come out on the positive end of things as we talk it out.

But we'll see. I'll give you the pick. Do you want to start with the Leafs or the Oilers first? Obviously, in the Oilers case, a much more extreme degree for this top. pick, but we're going to get to both of them, and I'll give you the floor to pick which one I start with. You know what? Let's go Leaves first.

Let's go Max Chaos, Max Drama first. I feel like they have it a little bit more amped up right now because it's like it always is with Toronto. It is. So they're now six, five, and two coming off of last night's loss against Ottawa. The Bruins, you look up at the standings in the Atlantic Division, the Bruins are already up seven points on them with one game in hand. It's like that meme where it's like the guy with the.

beard. I think it's Robin Williams from Jumaji. It's like, what year is it? It's like, this is, you could just tell me this from any year over the past decade, essentially, and it would just be true to form. I guess the difference this year, though, is we went into the year maybe expecting this would finally be a slightly different case, and it's just basically as much things change, they stay the exact same in the Atlantic Division. Yeah, absolutely. And like, you know, in the Leafs case, we know the pressure is up more than ever, right? Like, the pressure's always on. That's, that is the beauty of being the Maple Leafs, the center of the universe. You're facing pressure 24-7 and we know that but when we looked at the contract situations and yes there was

some you know answers with austin matthews extension there's still the nielander you know cloud hanging over the team and hanging over management you have the mariner situation in the year so like we knew the pressure was up even higher for the leaves and it felt like a little bit more of the opening for them when you looked at the panthers injuries the fact that timibay has you know continuously taken away from that cup team for you know cap reasons and then you have the bruce Bruins. Like here it is, the big bad Bruins who absolutely killed it last year against the odds in the beginning are coming in short-handed again because of their center situation. So it felt like the deck was finally stacked towards the Leafs. And this was their time to shine. And it's been an adventurous

start. Yeah, that man. We're not going to talk about the Bruins today. But I was looking, like we're going to talk about the wild later. And so I was looking at the amount of time they've spent leading versus trailing this season because we're going to mention that. And then I saw the ruins have been trailing for like 77 minutes combined over their first 12 games this season. And I'm like, oh my God, they're, they can't keep getting away with it, but they're doing it yet again. Okay, the positive for this Leafs team is this power play is absolutely ruthless, right? And it makes sense, given the firepower they have and the personnel they have and it's not necessarily anything new. But just watching it this year and maybe with the added emphasis on William Neelander and how aggressive he's been.

And we can talk more about the season he's having in this big contract here for himself individually. it feels like you can't cover everyone, right? It's impossible. You have literally one less player on ice if it's a 5-1-4, but there have so many threats that they're eventually going to get any look they want. So their fifth in the league in efficiency right now, they're generating about 11 goals an hour, and I would expect as the year goes along to them even move up in that regard,

just because they're absolutely devastating. So for all the concerns that they have at 5-1-5 scoring, and we're going to touch on those in a minute here, to start off on a more positive note, the power play has been absolutely ruthless this season. Yeah. And this is why, you know, like, I'm sure people think it's like you're beating a dead horse at this time, at this point. But there's a reason why these four forward power plays work so well because you have four penalty killers out there. And you want to stop the most offensive players, which tends to be the forwards. And in the Leafs case, it obviously is the forwards, you know, it's obviously the forwards for them between Marna Tavares, Nielander Matthews.

those are four forwards on a power play that not every team can stack up to. So that's a huge challenge for anyone trying to take them on. And they're just crushing it. And you look at someone like Austin Matthews, who last year had a down year by his standards, which was still a very good year by many, many other standards. Yeah, right?

And this year, you know, he's taking his game up a notch even more. And like what makes him so dangerous is the versatility in his game, right? He can beat goalies any which way he wants it on the power play. That I think it's even more emphasized because obviously you can't cover everyone. and you look at it this year in all situations like his shots are a little bit closer than they were the last two years they're back to what they were I think three years ago which was his best that was I think around like 22 feet was the average shot distance and now it's close to that versus

you know 27 28 so the fact that he's getting in a little closer too and at first it was interesting because it was like is he getting all of his goals scoring out in the beginning of the season with back-to-back hat tricks and then a little bit of a break like maybe he's shooting too close maybe his snap can't be as efficient if he's that close to net and he has to now work on where he's targeting it. Maybe he has to change something. And then he was like, no,

no, no, I'm good. Here's another hat trick. Here's more dominant goal scoring. And here I am with players. I know I thrive with. It's just, you know,

some teams come into the year with a very similar power play unit like Dallas and it can just go flat out of nowhere. And the Leafs, that obviously isn't the case. You probably know this better than either. I haven't looked at it recently.

And I know you track this quite closely. Now that the Red Wings have switched up their alignment as well, right? They started with Gostis Bear and Cider on the top unit power. play and it was getting good results and then they hit a bit of a snag and they and they shifted it up. Are any teams running full-time first unit power plays with two defensemen still? So the only team if I remember right and this was from like a week and a half ago that had three forwards on more than the Red Wing.

So which like that was tracking both power play units the way I did it. So actually Prashant did he's smarter than me and can code. So we have a table on the credit in the world to him. but it was all powerplay units in Detroit, if I remember correctly, was second to last in, you know, percentage of time with four forwards one D. San Jose was the only one. That was a little bit different. And for them, it's tricky because you look at that forward group, it's underwhelming.

You look at the fact that they didn't have a true power play quarterback. So I can see why now that you have Addison in the mix, like we'll see if anything's a little bit different. I remember too, like in the off season, I think David Quinn there's a quote saying maybe they'd go five forwards. And it was like, well, that's an option because you have no true power play. like quarterback and they still had two defensemen on. So they were the one team doing it more than Detroit, but you could see most of the team, it's like upwards of 80% of the time.

It's four forwards. So out of the 31 NHL teams in the league, what you're saying is that Detroit Red Wings were 31st because the sharks are operating on their own, own sliding scale here. Yeah, I know. We'll talk more about Addison a second. I'm curious to see how that affects things there.

So Matthews has the 13 goals and 13 games. And you mentioned the versatility. Spore Logic has him second and rush chances for, fourth in cycle chances and second and four check chances. And so that just the ability to touch all those different categories and create those looks in various ways and not just the one brand butter is pretty remarkable. William Nielander on pace for 44 goals, 114 points in this contract year.

And I don't know if you've noticed this. He just looks so much more aggressive going for a shot. I think the broadcast was talking about that yesterday when he scored that goal early in the game just immediately as sort of the first option, just stepping into. to it and taking advantage of it even from distance because he has the talent to do so. And you look and he's tied for with Matthews, I believe, first in the league and shots on goal, fifth and attempt. And he's added about, I think, nearly four and a half or five shots per hour that he's played

this season compared to like as recently as two or three years ago. And so that just sort of speaks to or I guess highlights what we're saying there in terms of that shoot first mentality and taking advantage of his skill set. And so it's not surprising to see that his counting stats have spiked as well. and it's come at a good time. And I don't know, like, I guess all of these, like, you can lump Marner in here in Tavares as well. It feels like all of their top players have been feasting, right?

Which maybe makes the overall output for the team and the fact that it's not nearly as high as it should be concerning and maybe speaks to some of those issues beyond those top four, but it's tough to blame them for what they've contributed so far early in the season. Yeah, I think that they've given the Leafs, everything they could want more. And that's, you know, everyone's so quick to look at like the cap hits and the salary invested in their core,

which, like, you can make the argument it's the way you should build a team in today's game. You should have replaceable levels, you know, replacement level contracts outside of your core. But like everyone always emphasizes what those four do and they're killing it. And it's interesting too. Like Nealander picked it up at kind of a perfect time for the Leafs because we looked at what they wanted to do this off season. And it was maybe they need a new second line center.

Maybe John DeVaris is better off at wing, which is interesting because last year he picked up his shot and scoring chance generation, which had started to dip a little bit. But there was that consideration. Is he better suited, you know, on the wing? And then they even tried putting Kneelander down the middle of the third line to kind of strengthen the middle six center depth, which would weaken what they had on the wings. It feels like anything they've asked him to do, he stepped up to the task, Neelander. And now that second line, if you had any concerns because you didn't fill that need,

Max Domey really isn't a center at this level. He's better off on the wings and he really shouldn't be on the second line anyway. You know, if you can fill that need by having some like Neelander step it up, it just strength strengthens the top of the lineup even more than it already is. He's giving you everything you could want and more. like that's kind of been the story of his career. There's so much emphasis on Matthews and rightfully so. He's one of the best goal scores in the league.

A ton of emphasis on Marner. There's someone who is great defensively, elite elite playmaker. Like he can do it all too. Nealander is like a jack of all trades, I think. He is just your well-rounded, high, high-end, top line player. And to have him on your second line, to have them thriving, to have that balance at one, two punch between lines without them having to switch it up going, you know, Marner Tavaris again like they did for part of last year.

it's such a strength to have, but because that top four is going and they should be, that gap between the top four and everybody else is just growing even more. And obviously you want it that the top is always leading the way, right? Just you don't want it to be such a gap when they're not on the ice. Yeah, it's quite the experiment of like the, that sort of stars and scrubs approach for a lack of a better phrase, right, which is kind of like a fantasy concept in terms of building out your team versus like the weak link theory of like how bad you're the lowest players on your lineup are and how much they drag things down and how impactful that can be for the overall operation and yeah matthews tabare's kneelander are first second and third in the league in slot shots they've

combined for 120 of them so far in 13 games and yet still this team at five on five when you look at their output is not performing in terms of both like a lot's been made right shelding keef after they gave up six goals last night, comes out and he talks. I don't, I don't want to talk about the goal scoring anymore and our top players, how much they're creating. Like, we need to focus more on defense. And that's kind of been a recurring theme in the headlines, in the media and the discourse with this Leafs team for years. But for all of that, and maybe they've answered a little bit of it here, bumping Matthew and eyes up to that top line and then finally having Robertson, Nick Robertson, out playing with Matthew, with Max Domey and giving them a bit of a different, more dynamic look on the

third line. But you're right. the bottom six is not giving them anything. And really, and it's putting into focus, how disastrous the early returns are on everything they did this past summer in Brad True Living's first off season building this team, where you look and they spend 16.4 million on Bertuzi, Domi, Klingberg, Reeves, and bringing back Kemp, right? Those five players have combined for one five-on-five goal so far this season.

and that was by Tyler Bertuzi and three overall, all of which were scored by Bertuzi. And so for 16.4 million for a team that because of how much they're playing their top players, you have to get creative and really optimize every single dollar you spend against the cap. It's really tough to reconcile that.

And I know it's only 12 games. We'll see, right, this team will ultimately for all the panic early in the year, will be judged based on how they perform in the postseason because that's all that matters at this point for this core. But you can't like what you're seeing from that. And I think with each, game the passes and they get these sort of diminishing returns from these players,

there's going to be a lot more questions being asked. Yeah, and there should be, right? It's new management coming in, and it's not like Bradtree Living has some perfect track record. He had some issues in Calgary as well, you know, especially at the end there on team building. And you look at the money invested and some people say, what's the big deal about this player getting X, Y, Z? It really isn't that much. And it's like, well, in the grand scheme of it, which is what you have to think about,

especially if you want to contend, it's dumping money places it doesn't need to be. You look at that fourth line. They're on the ice. I think it's like a minus seven goal differential with that fourth line on the ice, a couple different iterations of it. And it's funny because I was asked like, well, what should a fourth line be then? You know, I don't expect them to be an offensive threat. And that's fine, right?

They shouldn't be. I mean, look, if you can have a fourth line, that's an offensive threat, go off. Vegas is a team that, you know, they got contributions from their fourth line. It's a big reason why they're the champs. But, you know, you just don't want to be withstanding damage and doing nothing. You don't want to be trapped in your own zone. You don't want it that a top nine line is coming on in your own zone because that fourth line is so terrible either. So I started looking at other fourth lines around the league.

And my measurement for success was looking at teams we expect to be contenders. What do their fourth lines do? And you see goal different differentials of maybe a minus two, minus one, zero, plus one, plus two. I feel like that's kind of the range of outcomes that you should be hoping for from your fourth line. If you're a team like the Sharks and you don't have a fourth line, it's a different conversation. even if you're a team like the oilers that tends to run 11 forwards maybe it's a little bit more convoluted. But when you're the Maple Leafs and you have a fourth line and now you spent on that fourth line, you can't have it that they put you at so much of a disadvantage.

You want them to at least be a neutral or a minus one or a minus two. But to this extent, it's troubling. And it's even worse because you look at the deployment they're giving. You know, you score a goal against Buffalo on Saturday night. It's power play goal. It's huge momentum swing. And you decide to put your fourth line out there. You know, you're not thinking, oh, we have to protect a lead or anything.

Let's run on our fourth line. You need to keep building offensively, especially because you know you have these troubles on the back end. And you put them in that situation. They're on the ice for a goal against. That takes away all the momentum, which how often do we hear coaches talk about momentum, right? They're the ones that go for vibes versus us going for the numbers. And it's like, well, that's a momentum swing in the wrong way. And you see it last night, you know, against the senators again, they put the fourth line out in a situation.

They really don't belong. And they allow a goal against. You see Tim Stutzla making Ryan Reeves look as slow as ever numerous times and he's still getting shifts out there in such a tight game and then what happens it costs them so it's like why does this keep happening like i don't know why don't you look at what's going wrong who is contributing to the damage and what you can do to mitigate that instead of dumping salary into the the least important part of your lineup well if only anyone could have seen this coming right this is just totally out of left field no i don't want to beat a dead horse but i think when you're telling the story of what's happened this

season and some of the issues that are dragging the team down it's unavoidable right like right Henry just played 105-1-5 minutes in that time. High-danger chances are 25 to 10 for the opposition, and the goals are 9-0. Like, it's not, this isn't a matter of, oh, well, it's a fourth line, or you're not expecting them to score. It's fine. It's like, no, this is not only actively detrimental, but it's like, when you're getting outscored 9-0 in 100 minutes, it's just almost, it's almost impossible, really,

to overcome that, right? Like, it's like everything that your top players are doing, you're just instantly negating, and it's all self-inflicted. And so there's that John Klingberg, similar beating a dead horse, but 14, 5-1-5 goals against him the ice four in 210 minutes or so. He was on for four of Ottawa's five goals last night, I believe. And none of it is necessarily surprising. You kind of know what you're getting at this point. But it's becoming increasingly tough to justify, right?

Just from the lack of attention to detail and effort, like so much of defending is just making sure you're trying to provide some sort of resistance. by bodying up on someone or just not making life easy for them by just being able to skate into open looks. And he's just like not covering anyone around the net, always a step behind. Oh, like how many goals against so far this season have we seen? The camera just pans to him and he's like behind the net or something and just sort of looking like completely out of place. And so at this point with the fact that his offensive game has come down as well as he ages and the impact isn't there to neutralize a lot of those defensive issues, it's, It's looking like the clock's almost strike in midnight for John Glingberg here.

And I don't really know what you do with it. But I guess you just have to protect him more. You have to protect him more. But I don't even know what the situation is where he could thrive in at this point, honestly. Like I guess like on the power play. But even on this team, like you have Morgan Riley. You don't even really need him quarterback in the top unit power play. And that power play is so good that first unit that you want them out there for nearly the full two minutes.

So it's like, all right. well, he's going to be playing, I guess, extreme offensive zone minutes. But I don't know. It's eventually he's going to have to come back in his own zone. And at that point, it's probably going to wind up in the back of your net. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I think like the quotes were so interesting to that. Oh, we have to protect him.

We're like, well, that's your job as the coach. And you're doing that. You're doing that. You barely play it. You barely give him defensive zone starts as it is. And, you know, at the beginning of the year, he was on that top power play for a minute. And he was cooking for a bit. But there's a reason they didn't stick to that.

And if someone says, well, we didn't think he'd be that bad in the system. And it's like, why wouldn't you? If you look back, it's not like he just suddenly turned into a terrible player in Anaheim. You can go back further. That last year in Dallas, there was a reason he didn't get the big contract that he was asking for. His game really fell apart that last year in Dallas. And that's a team with a lot of defensive structure and, you know, a team that can mask any weaknesses or some weaknesses better than others because you're not as exposed. You go to Anaheim, obviously you're super exposed.

But then he goes to, you know, the defensive team of the NHL always, the Minnesota Wild. and the issues are still there. So if you didn't notice them before, I don't know what you were looking at. So when you're team building, you have to think about it. Is this a risk to take? Is this a risk to spend?

What is it, $4.4 million a year on? Yeah, it's only a one year deal. Yeah, it's no big deal. But it is. Every single thing in Toronto is a big deal because, one, it's Toronto, two, because of the situation they're in.

So why make it worse? And, you know, some of the bets you could go, this makes sense. The Tyler Bertusie deal, I think we could all say. That made sense. That one, that's one that I think will be fine in the long run this year. Max Domi, I get it. I don't.

Sure, whatever. But like, it's forward depth. That's something that they need. Then you look at the money into the bottom six and you go, well, that's really questionable. And then you look at John Klingberg and it adds up. And it's adding up like all at once. And it's adding up within the first month of the season.

And yeah, maybe things will get better from here. But what do you really expect when, you know, I think it's pretty defined what a player's weaknesses are at this point in their career. Yeah. And the sad thing is, is that I was a big fan of Klingber. game during his prime in Dallas and I thought he was a bit unfairly scrutinized. He was never going to be mistaken for a top defender. But he was just so puck dominant and his ability to distribute and walk the blue line

and get the puck up the ice in a clean manner was so valuable that it outweighed all of the other stuff that he was taking off the table. Right. And now with him getting older and you're right, the science of decline have been there for a while. And the other issue is that this Leafs team is so forward. dominant in terms of their attack, right? You want to get the puck to your forwards and then just basically get out of the way and they're going to create everything particularly down low and in the inner slot that his value on this team in terms of having the puck on a stick and trying

to create offensively isn't really existent there either. So if he's going to be on the ice in these protected minutes with top players, you're not really even using his own strengths in that in that instance. And then if he's playing with the depth players, well, then they don't really have the talent to create out of anything he creates. And so you run into this issue of like,

all right, well, what are you ultimately trying to accomplish here? So, yeah, it's pretty bleak on that regard. Obviously, just the top,

the top end players are playing at such a high level that I don't think it's necessarily time to completely sound the alarms, but clearly the fact that these players are underperforming to this degree and there's no real reason to believe that's going to turn around. is an issue that I think is going to linger through the rest of the season.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. And when you tie yourself to certain deals, it's only one year, but you don't give yourself many ways to get out of them mid-season. And that's the thing. I feel like the leaps needed like an element of flexibility

with their cap situation. I know that's asking for a lot, considering what they already had on the books before this year. But, you know, it always helps to give yourself some breathing and some time. You can't have it that you go,

well, we're going to just lean on, we're going to Riley, T.J. Brody, and, you know, 40-year-old Mark Giudeno forever. Like, you can't do that sustainably. So you should have had some flexibility. So you could have, like, assessed how the team is doing and then try to correct it mid-year. And it feels like they block themselves from doing that. So it's like good, good luck. And it's so similar to another team we're going to talk about. Yeah. And I'm not, oh, that's a great segue there. But one final note. And because I think you hit the nail in the head earlier, like, the reason why I'm not buying that as an excuse is because this is a new GM that came in. And for once, if anything, the Leafs did have a bit of financial flexibility because we just

said they committed 16.4 million in cap commitments this year to this group of players that were highlighting all of their flaws and their lack of production and contributions. And so, yeah, you had a lot of money tied up in the top players. Braddry Living did actually come in with so many outgoing free agents that they actually did have a bit of wiggle room to creatively improve this team and address whatever flaws they identified. And unfortunately, it looks like they brought in pretty much all the wrong players, right? So in terms of supplementing that high-end core and on the margins and fringes, optimizing each of those dollars in each of those minutes, it's tough to say that they've done that.

And that's very disappointing because the high-end players on this team at the top of the roster are playing at such a high level. Yeah. And it's even more challenging when you look at like the rest of the roster elsewhere too. Like you decided to commit money elsewhere because you didn't have to back in goal. You knew what you were working with in goal and you were okay with that. And obviously it's a tandem that had its risks because, you know, Ily Samson has had one really good year.

And that's kind of it. There's that inconsistency in his game. And I think they knew that. And some teams are a little bit more willing to bet on that this year when they feel that they're so built out in front of the crease because, look, Vegas just won that way. And, you know, it's a strategy I understand. Some teams don't need a true 1A starter or true, true, true elite number one. Like Colorado doesn't, you know, Darcy Kemper struggled through the playoffs and they managed

too. but you know then you go back to that and go well if that's your philosophy and you had this cap space this was the direction you chose to go like it really falls on management right now and I think someone you know find it super easy go well let's look at the previous tenure and this is the situation they were in like I think this was probably like you said the best position they've been in in a minute in the off season to work with what they have so if you were comfortable not investing more in your net then maybe you should have thought of ways to protect them because you kind of knew you should have known, you know, the risk associated with the tandem you are good

rolling with. That's a really good point. Okay, Shana, let's take our break here. That's a clean spot for us to put a pin in the conversation. And we come back. We will talk about the Oilers. So get excited about that. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on a sports net radio network.

All right. We're back in the Hockeypedo cast joined by Shana Goldman. Shana, we did the top half of the show on the Leafs. Now we're going to bounce to the oil. There's so much to talk about with both these teams that I was initially thinking. I was like, all right, we're going to do panic meter. We're going to be able to run through like seven or eight teams here really cover a lot of ground.

And honestly, at this point, we'll be lucky we can get through the Oilers in this second half of the show because there's so much for us to sink our teeth into. So obviously everyone that knows by now, they're 2,8 and 1. Their minus 18 goal differential is 31st in the league. The only team worse is the San Jose Sharks, the team they're playing tonight on Thursday evening a game that will be must watch television. The whole world will be watching. Now, a bit of the sizzle, I guess, was taken off of it with that sharks win the other night

against Philly, right? Because the honor or I guess the outlook of potentially losing a game to the sharks and giving them their first win is off the board. But still, if the sharks can win this game on Thursday night, then the two teams will be tied with the same number of points and that will open up its own can of worms. So let's talk about oilers. You wrote about them recently on the athletics. So I know that you've been digging into this as well.

Where do we start with this in terms of kind of addressing the issues, who's to blame, how we divvy it up, all that good stuff. All right. Let's start with the offense, right? Because that's their strength. That's what we know the oilers seem to be their most dangerous is when they're just thriving offensively. And it's guys like, I don't know, the best player in the world, Connor McDavid and Leon D'Aiddle like, crushing it. Like that's what you expect. And I think dress out of fantastic October. Like his play driving numbers were way better than I expect for him. We saw it last year where like the first half of

the year he was struggling and it wasn't until you know like February March. So they really kicked it into gear and tired that into the playoffs. So him doing his thing great and wonderful. McDavid is not doing McDavid thing. So that's going to hold everybody back has a trickle down effect because he's their best player. He's their driver. He's there everything. And you know, I do wonder did he come back from injury a little bit too soon, but you look at the team as a whole and they're creating chances for themselves. They're not finishing their chances. And they're not doing it a five-on-five around the power play. And the power play, I think, is just overall underwhelming.

It's something we know to be a strength. So if we know, you know, the oilers have a gap. They have a hole. They usually can make up for it with the power play goal. Usually at an unsustainable rate, but we know the finishing talent. We know how loaded that top unit is that, you know, we make sense of it to a point that we're like, yeah, they can count all that. That can be their backbone to an extent more.

most teams, I think, could say. So when that's not doing its thing, and it's not just bad luck, you have a problem. When the five-on-five offense, you're not catching a break, you know, that's going to hurt. And now when you have so many other flaws building up, which they absolutely do, you're going to find yourselves with a very bad start. And this is a team, like, we all expected them to be true contenders. We did. They are, yeah, I don't know what to make of the fact that part of it, it's such a small

sample, right? We're talking 11 games at this point. the fact that they are third and expected goals generated second and high danger chances generated but 26 and actual goals across all situations it's like there's too much talent there for it for the shooting percentage to be in the toilet for that long at the same time I think you nailed it there where it's kind of a combination of playing poorly with not getting a single bounce at both ends and that convergence of those two at the exact same time is how you get this this year from hell that they seem to have kind of

like embarked on here in the early going. Yeah. It's so not what like anyone could have expected. And it's not even looking at it going. Well, because the power play's not going, blah, blah,

we all told you you couldn't operate at 40% forever, like things like that. Like that's not even the case. It's, it's, you know, bad luck. It's,

it's struggling to play to their strengths in an area. And then you have to play on the other side of the ice, which is like abysmal right now. And it's funny too because like this isn't a team that's bottom five and shots. against, right? They're not a bottom five in expected goals against either, which kind of surprised me. It's when they make a mistake, it's so crushing. Some of it's because of the goaltending, a lot of it. You know, Stuart Skinner had a great rookie year. He won the starting job. He was, he was really good.

We saw some flaws in the playoffs, but you figure he's going to build on it this year. That's not the case. Jack Campbell, who signed a huge contract, who among us would have thought that would have gone South, you know, he got waived and sent to the HL because he just has not been up to par. And it's interesting, too, because he did have a good preseason. Like, we saw, we heard the narratives like, oh, could this be Jack Campbell's bounce back year? Even if he could have given half a good year and then collapse, it would have been something. But to come into the season, like, they can't get a save if the defenseman make a mistake,

which is happening pretty often now that they switch systems. And it's just all falling apart. It's all piling up on them at the beginning of the year. And, you know, maybe this is a good thing. Get your problems out now and then go crush it down the stretch. But if you don't, you know, you're not losing your playoff spot now, but you're not making it easier on yourselves. And in theory, you have a weaker division, but you have the Golden Knights killing it.

You have the Kings, you know, rising up as well. And you have teams like the Canucks surprising and way more than I think any of us had them going. We figured what, like, bubble team, they should make it. They'll be good. And they're really coming out hot. You can't afford this. And the 30 second and save percentage, they're giving up 4.25 goals against per game and the penalty kill has been dreadful, right? And so the combination of that, it's like the goaltending is just not giving them any reprieve in the way of saves and bailing them out at all.

I believe I saw the stat. They've played 11 games so far in two of them. Their goalies have given them a goal save of I've expected of either even or positive, right? Where they... Yep, one of each. it's Campbell against the Predators was one. And Stuart Hed and Skinner and Alder game. Yeah.

And those are the two games they've won this season. And so it's like, all right, that's not necessarily groundbreaking use that if your goaltending plays well, you're going to be more likely to win. But I think that certainly illustrates where we're at. And so it's tricky because I think there's this situation that I've noticed where a lot of the public metrics even are, I think, not properly illustrating how. how bad they've been defensively when those breakdowns have happened, right? Like I think in the aggregate, they're kind of like middle of the pack, I think,

and expected goals against. And they're actually really good at suppressing high danger chances. And so you look at it and then you pair that with the save percentages being in the 860s or whatever. And it's like, all right, it's clear like the goal attending needs to make some of these saves. Every team gives up the occasional high danger look. You can't give up a goal every single time that opportunity arises. But at the same time, I think the important thing.

to note, and we're talking about in the show the past couple weeks, is so much of it is coming off the rush, where I think they're minus 16 now in goal differential off the rush. And last year, they were one of the best teams in league at a plus 18 in that regard. And you just look at the second goal they gave up to the Canucks the other night where, like, they completely came unglued as that game went along, right? You start off the game, I think the shots on goal were 20 to two or something at one point. They only have the one goal to show for it. They wind up leaving that period, down 3-1, start in the second period, short-handed. and then just resorted to like just not even playing hockey in the third period, right?

Just trying to goon it up and really letting out their frustrations as the team just fell apart. And the second goal of the Canucks scored in that game really illustrated all these issues for me where if you go back and watch it, it's like, Ian Cole has the puck behind the Canucks net. The Oilers are completely set in their neutral zone structure. Like this isn't a transition situation. This is they've had a change. everyone is where they need to be theoretically. Ian Cole passes the puck to Pew Suter on the boards. Pew Suter moves the puck up the ice, passes it to Dakota Joshua.

Joshua skates the puck into the zone, passes it back to Pew Souter, who in the meantime has skated into the middle of the ice, who gets a wide open shot from like seven feet out or something and winds up scoring off the rush. And it's like, how do you not, like no one during that entire sequence was touched in any way, bothered, try like no obstacle was provided nothing and so when j woodcroft says stuff like the system didn't fail because everyone's been talking so much about this new defensive system the players failed to execute it I really think that's like a good example of that theory and maybe it maybe he's not blameless because it's up to the coach to get the players to execute and put him in a position to succeed and get the

most out of them and if it keeps happening you can't just say the players aren't doing the job the coach is obviously to blame to some degree but instances like that really stick in my mind where it's like it's everyone is theoretically in a position where they should be able to do something and just no one on the ice wearing an oilers jersey is providing any resistance or doing anything defensively and what was the goalie really supposed to do? I guess good goalies make saves occasionally on those shots, but also it's like if this keeps happening, maybe you have deeper rooted issues than just blaming the one person who's at the end of the play and fishing the fuck out of their net. Maybe you should figure out what

happened in all of the steps that led up to that moment. Yeah. And like the conversation the system didn't fail is such an interesting one because this is not some uncommon, we're breaking ground system. A lot of teams already run zone defense instead of man's band coverage. Some teams do it more effectively than others. And some teams have switched to it more effectively than others. Nashville predators think are prime example.

They've been so good defensively and they've really seen to, you know, clinch on to that and thrive. The thing with the Oilers is, you know, they really didn't change their defense at all. So you're asking six players who played a system that you implemented, right? And I think Woodcroft when he came to Edmonton initially did a really good job, you know, adjusting how the team played in all three zones. He seemed to really know how to instruct the players and how to communicate what he wanted. But now it's a shift for the coach and for all six players.

So, you know, you can ask, is the team not built for it? I don't think that's the case. But I do think that maybe you need to be less stringent in your structure. it's like what Marty San Luis said last year, you know, it's concepts over, you know, system sometimes because players have to make the right reads and know how to react. And I think that's where there's a big gap in it because you look at like the Evan Bouchard pinch. And in that situation, if you say, well, he did the wrong thing, you as a coach need to tell the player, this is what you might have done before, but this is what you have to do now. And obviously there's going to be an adjustment

period. When isn't there? When a new coach takes over, a team just changes systems. You know, there needs to be you have to work through the kinks out of it and for this kind of system like there can be lapses in coverage that's just a consequence of playing there's flaws with every system that's why you know everyone plays something a little bit differently right it just feels like the players are hesitating in their decision making trying to think what the right move should be and the coaches i think have to do a better job communicating that and that's like a big difference you can look at the anaheim ducks right like they didn't change anything they're still man to man coverage there's a big difference in how Dallas Aiken said, hey, we're playing that versus Greg Cronin going in going, going, this is how we're going to do it. And this is how you're each going to play within it. And this is how you're going to make reads. And this is what we're going to do. It's all about communication. It's all about teaching the players right way. Like if you're not up to the task, then you shouldn't have changed anything. So I think that's where there's just so many breakdowns. And that Kinnock's game was such a good example of it because there were numerous instances where the goal like you said, everyone was properly in place in theory.

mistakes like the Bouchard one or just other plays where it felt like everyone's just puck watching. You can watch so many plays where every defenseman is just staring at the puck and not reacting. And I don't know if it's like a double think of what you're supposed to do in that situation that they're struggling with. But whatever the case, like as a head coach, as assistant coaches, it's your job to figure it out. If it's not getting through to the players this way, how are you going to change your strategy so they can better understand and execute the tactics you're now instructing them to do? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This isn't a case of an isolated incident or isolated.

Then you're like, all right, well, this is a one-off. Like, this is something that just keeps happening time and time again. And you're watching it happen in real time. And it's kind of developing like a massive car crash, right? And it seems like every one of these expected, every goals against is either just that breakdown off the rush or a defenseman just losing a battle in front of the net. Right. And so, I don't know. It feels like a lot of poor execution.

You mentioned like the goaltending and how much. it is to blame. It's just wild to me that Jack Campbell, who as you mentioned, got, got waived and sent down, he has like an 873 save percentage, I believe, or something this season in his five games. And sport logic has him down for minus 1.3 goals able to have expected. Like, he's been bad, but the types of shots he's faced have also been so dangerous or on him that it's tough to even fully blame him for it, right? Like all of it is just a combination of things that have gone wrong for them. And so I think everyone is kind of to blame at least to some degree.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, now that he's going to be out of the picture for a bit. And I don't think it's a bad thing for him, honestly, to go work on his game, get away from the pressure of playing on the Oilers, this Oilers team, especially with everything that's going on. I really don't think it's like the worst move in the world because he definitely has things to work on, unquestionably. but when the problems are going to keep happening because they're going to,

Stuart Skinner isn't going to suddenly flip a switch unless they think this is what's going to light a fire under him. Kevin Picard is who he is at this point too. You know, then I think that it's going to start posing bigger questions of, you know, what can you do now? What's the answer now? It feels like Campbell's kind of being used to the scapegoat and he's definitely part of the problem, but he's not the only one.

So it'll be interesting to see, you know, like how many times do we see a coaching change when a team just has a streak of bad goaltending? like I don't know if the oilers are turning in that direction but like we've seen that happen before too so I'm just super curious about like how management sees the blame being shifted around and also what their part in this is it isn't all this because not for nothing they put together that crease they put together that blue line they knew the you don't just if you're a coach like j woodcroft with what position the oilers are in go I'm going to just change how we play and like I'm sure players signed off on it. I'm sure management was like it's an organizational decision. We support that. Look,

Vegas just beat us with that and they just won the cup. Like, let's do that. Look at the Bruins. Look how good they are. Like, you know, it definitely is bigger than that. And it feels like there were maybe options they could have looked for this year. And, uh, but they signed that Campbell contract. They put themselves in the situation. They put this team together. They didn't make many adjustments this summer. So it's like the blame really does fall on everybody. So hopefully it's not just Campbell who has to wear it. It is, and he's a very easy scapegoat in this. I think where the coaching, or maybe you can tie the management into this as well,

an added wrinkle to this where I do think they deserve blame and that's becoming increasingly worrisome is that whether it's not trusting them or just not being able to get anything out of them, like young players, like let's say a Philip Broberg or a Dylan Holloway, they're just really not receiving any sort of contributions from them right now. And it's tough to argue that they've put them in a massive position. to succeed and they've just failed, right? It's like, it's a combination of the things. But these are players that are obviously young and very cheap and affordable. So if you can get stuff from them

on the ice, it's very valuable for a team that has as much money tied up to their top players, similar to what we were talking about with the Leafs. Or if not, and you deem that they actually can't contribute that, then you're kind of being negligent in not trading them to get players who can because they're valuable assets that you could theoretically, because of their draft pedigree and stuff, you could get other stuff for them, right? And we saw last year at the deadline, they wound up getting at call many ways, but a big roadblock for them not getting Jacob Chikrin, for example, was they didn't want to trade Philip Broberg, right?

And so they're very reluctant to give away these pieces. Lump Xavier Borgo, one of their forward prospects is well into this, and they're very reluctant to give away these guys and they want them to come in and produce on ELCs, and that's all well and good, but they're not actually doing so. And so you're kind of stuck in this holding pattern, and that's a problem too, right? And so it's tricky because when you have these types of expectations where it's kind of like they come into the season talking a big game or it's like it's Stanley Cup or bust for us, right? And it's like, fair enough. You were very close last year.

You pushed Vegas about as hard as anyone did in that second round. I get that. And so then when things are going bad, it's really tough to give younger players an even longer look and give them more responsibility because you're all of a sudden feeling all this added pressure. You just want to rely on things that make you more comfortable, which. is the veteran players, but then it's kind of this like endless feedback loop that's really tough to get out of right. And so part of it is self-inflicted. And so I wanted to mention that as well, but there's just so many different avenues you could go in terms of like the name game and figure pointing here. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, figuring out a way to balance winning and

contending with player development is something how many coaches have struggled with around the league. Usually it's one or the other you can't manage both when I think there are teams that show you can. You look at Bowen Barroom in Colorado playing an important role. role on a Stanley Cup team. Like, there's room for that too. You just have to like balance it out. And the Oilers aren't doing that. And, you know, it's so important to maximize entry level contracts.

They are some of the most cost effective deals you're literally ever going to have. And yes, it helps when your Jason Robertsons are on your entry level deals. Like that's a huge deal for Dallas when he was or you know, Hayskinon, things like that. But it helps at the bottom of your lineup. Because if you sign someone free agency, they're probably going to cost more. You know, maybe you can get lucky with the minimum contract veteran. in, but you have to think about what their ceiling is going to be versus to someone else. You can help you now and in the future and extend your window.

And there's so many benefits to it, but teams are so hesitant. And with Edmonton, it's interesting because when you see players like Broberg and Fini Day or Nye, like getting those minutes, it's usually when they're rolling 70. So they're not even getting as much playing time. And, you know, they have to deal with juggling minutes a little bit differently than you would have true pairs. I mean, the weird thing is last year, they were one of the teams that ran with 11 forward 70 more often and they were better below the surface when they did, which is great, wonderful,

like for the team results, but you have to think of the impact it's going to have on the individuals who you need to become different makers at a certain point. Like, your blue line is better than it's been, right? Echholm and Bouchard are a great pair together, generally speaking, and it knocks nurse down to, I think, where he's more like appropriately slotted, but you need something more in the bottom three. So getting them up to the level that you hope that they can be should be a high priority at this point. Yeah. The blue lines theoretically better than it's ever been. But unfortunately, the way

they've played has not really borne that out. Okay, let's talk about the Minnesota Wild here really quickly because I thought this would be a fun topic to end the show with simply because I haven't really spoken about them much this season on the podcast. And I think in general, just how outlandish every single number on their team right now is, has gone relatively underreported. Right. Like, Certainly, your colleague Michael Russo, obviously, who covers the team is like all over this. And I was laughing. You guys as a staff did the piece where it was like a quick blur on the biggest issue you were concerned for every single team in the league right now.

And his for the wild was just like literally everything. And, you know, they're scoring a lot of like goals and they're kind of balancing it out and they're five, five and two this season. So it hasn't completely gone off the rails. But just for those who are kind of unfamiliar with it, their 30th and goals against. They're 31st in the league in times. been trailing. They've trailed for 351 minutes, as I referenced earlier, in just 12 games. They're 29th in team save percentage. They're 32nd on the penalty kill, and I know you wrote

about this. They're giving up right as of recording about 14 goals against per hour shorthanded, which to give people context is like the equivalent of every time they're shorthanded, they're facing last year as Edmonton Oilers power play. Like they're making every team look like a historically great man advantage. And so it's been balanced a lot of, out a little bit by the fact they're also fourth in the league and five-on-five goals. And so they've been able to win some higher scoring games and come from behind like they did the other night against the Rangers. But for the most part, it's been a pretty hectic start to the season.

And certainly not something the Minnesota Wild as an organization have been associated with. And last year, it was kind of the opposite where they got back to their roots where when Capriza wasn't out there, they couldn't score at all at 5-1-5. But Philip Gustafson was so good and they became so stingy again that they were able to squeeze out really low event, low scoring games. And this year they've sort of progressed in that other direction. And it's just been an absolute free for all for everyone involved. Yeah.

And I mean, a lot of it definitely stems from the fact that they're down penalty killers and defensemen from last year, right? Jared's Virgin has been hurt and they don't have Matt Dunba anymore. And you don't want to see two players out of the fold and it suddenly leads to a collapse. But like it really has. Like on the penalty kill, Jared Spurgeon was someone that usually was top unit, over the boards first out for the draw and would play you know 57 58% of the minutes right now

brock faber stepping up into that role he's someone that was second or third pair on the PK last year and pretty much only played on the fly shifts i think he had like 20% that weren't so it's a huge you know change for him and he's playing with someone like brodie and it's it's a huge responsibility you had the fredericka dro injury at some point in this year and that takes out another guy that you expect to play a lot of like penalty killing minutes but it even strength it's it's the same issue you know and it's funny to you look at the differences in their shot makeup from this year to last year on the penalty hill though and you see like the difference of spurgeon like his impact on the middle of the ice and that's exactly where they're struggling now but you know it's on the coaching

to kind of fix those issues and instead they're like hey let's get older and slower Zach Bogosian over cal and addison who we didn't trust in any situation so it just feels like you know the wild our team that we know to be defensively sound and we know the goalies to be pretty good behind that. But this year, like, the goalies are facing way more, at even strength, way more short-handed. And they're not responding as well as they could to that workload. You know, like, I know Philip Gustafsson, like, has been better the last couple games.

So that is something a little bit more encouraging. But it's a really tough go for them. Like, it's not like this team has to be a defense, an elite defensive team to succeed, right? Like, you can change your identity, but the roster isn't any different for them to be someone else all of a sudden. Yeah, I think under Dean Neverson, they ideally want to, though. And that must be so frustrating for him. I think Jared Spurgeon might become the first player.

They usually start getting nominated for all of these awards watch heart pieces through the first month without even playing. He should just be recognized for apparently how valuable he is. And obviously a fantastic player and has been for many years and probably one of the most underrated players in the league. But the impact of and stripping Matt Dunba as well, but I think Spurgeon's departure and due to injury is a big issue here. And so you look like Caprizo's numbers are just mind-boggling where yes, the wild goal, he's having an 845, say, a percentage of them on the ice at 5-1-5, which is impossibly low. And that's why they're giving up over five goals against in those minutes per hour, which is also amongst the lead worst. But he's also just bleeding high-danger chances against he's only got

one-five-on-five goal himself so far this year. And so he's managed to produce on the power play in other areas in terms of point totals. But the fact that Pat has, Maroon and, you know, heck of a career at this point and certainly giving them a massive bang for the buck, but he leads the team in 5-15 scoring right now, which isn't something that would have thought heading into the season about a month of the way through. And so, yeah, I just wanted to quickly touch on the wild because as I was just going through all of their numbers, it was just my jaw just kept dropping lower and lower. I was like, I just, I can't believe what's going on here. All of these numbers, none of this makes sense. It's like they were all just randomly generated

just to mess with us. Yeah, it's so uncharacteristic. And like, you wouldn't think that it would be one player being out to do that, or two players being different to do this. And, you know, you see a guy like Jacob Middleton who I feel like you really progressed after his San Jose career, like really progressed in Minnesota. And like his numbers are all over the place because his mainstay partner has gone to. Like, it literally is wild.

Like, what can you say? It's so different for them. You expect them to be this strong defensive team. And we know that they have comeback ability too, right? Like, you look at the team, the list. couple years like they're one of the best in six on five situations and they're good and overtimes but like you can't rely on that and it feels like this year they are doing a pretty good job battling back when they you know fall behind we saw them do that against new jersey

and then they just fell short we saw them successfully do it against the rangers but and and we saw them i think come back against the islanders as well like they they really just uh need to get back to their strengths because they're not some like offensive powerhouse and you can't just rely on power play scoring. So they they definitely need a little bit more stability in their own zone. And I think once you get that from their defense, I think the goaltending, then the onus is on them to step it up. And I think with their workloads eased, because like, let's face it, it's the same thing with Samson. If we've seen so much of Phil Gossifson, yes, last year was excellent, but he has one really strong year to date. And Mark Andre Fleury, great wonderful goalie, great wonderful person,

you know, is in the later years of his career too. So you need to have. You need to have. that stability to succeed. Like it just feels like you can't, the way the roster is built, you can't succeed without that, you know, like strong defense to give the support on both ends of the ice.

That if you're better in your own zone, you're not spending so much time in the defensive zone, your offense can pick up because you're going to have like a better chance of playing in the zone you want to play in and you're not going to be forcing your goalies to be like the difference maker

when it just feels like it's too tall than ask right now. All right, Shane, I wanted to talk about coaching impacts with you. I wanted to talk about her Tammy Panera and dynamic duos, we're going to have to save that for the next time we have you on because we're out of time here today. We spent too much time going down the rabbit hole of the leaves and the

oilers. But you know what? It's okay because they're very interesting. And obviously, everyone's talking about it right now. So I'm glad we got to flesh that out. On the way out here, I'll let you quickly plug some stuff, let the listeners know where they can check you out and promote some of those pieces that we've talked about here today. You find me on Twitter at Hey, Shay. There's three eyes on the hay and three eyes on the shay um and you can listen to too many men podcast because we're talking about all this stuff too especially the leaps it's always affecting the leaps we're always talking about them and you can read my work at the athletic i'll have things on the leaps tomorrow and uh on power plays next week awesome well keep up the great work shay and that was awesome to have you

on the show we will certainly have you on again soon thank you to everyone for listening to us we'll be back tomorrow with plenty more of the hockey ptio cast as always streaming on the sports internet radio network.