The Hockey PDOcast - The Oilers Are Down Bad, Barkov’s Quiet Greatness, and Other Nuggets Around the League

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to talk about Edmonton's latest soul crushing defeat, catching up with the Florida Panthers as they keep getting it done despite all of their key absences, and other fun nuggets from around the league.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.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to our HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitra Villapovich. And joining me is my good buddy Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on in? Too much. It's a good Friday. I'm actually, I'll give some love to our mutual friend, Max Boltman, getting married tonight.

So headed to a wedding this evening. So happy, happy day for Max Bolt. Well, you love to see love in the air. Max Baldwin, a friend of the podcast, congrats to him. Yeah, I was going to say, I'm doing pretty well to you. I think we're both unequivocally doing better than the Edmonton Oilers who are down about as astronomically bad as you can possibly be, I think. I thought it was a good way for us to start today. We've got a variety of topics that we're going to get to eventually kind of be moving all over the map and stuff.

but just while it's fresh on the mind, we're recording this on a Friday morning and just reflecting on last night, just the spectacle of it feeling like everyone in the hockey world staying up to watch this game between the 31st and 32nd ranked teams in the league and Edmonton scoring that goal late to cut it to one and then pulling the goalie and it all being on the line. I don't know.

It was, I think spectacles, a good way to put it. I tweeted the Martin Scorsesey. This is cinema meme. It really did feel like that for all the wrong reasons, but it was, I couldn't look away. Like I had Kings, Penguins on the other screen, and

that was a really fun game between two much better teams. And there was drama in that one as well. Brian Russ scores. He gets called back because of offside. He scores like 10 seconds later again anyway. Does the pointing at the goal for a good goal, sticking at the ref celebration. It was

amazing. It was a really fun night of hockey, and that's fresh on my mind. Yeah. It's a Super Bowl, right? Like, that's what it felt like. Everyone, everyone... Then all, it's a toilet bowl. Yeah, but everyone got to... I don't know what the numbers, because they don't make them available, but I wonder from a hockey perspective, is any game ever better sold ESPN plus slash flu? It's 31 versus 32. And then the... That was, uh, me, like, and then the side show of the, and then the side show of villain of like someone is going to give McKenzie Blackwood way too much money and a much better job in the future now because of what he's doing on a historically bad team like it's this there's so many fun things with this I mean I just felt like everyone was watching it eagerly with baited breath kind of the anticipation like you just see it coming from a mile away right in the shark scoring the first goal and then going up 3-1 the push at the end but just like

how hapless the oilers looked every step of the way how the shots wound up 41 to 28 for Edmonton expected goals were 4.3 to 1.9 and yet it was if you haven't watched a single Oilers game yet this season it was just the perfect encapsulation of every Oilers game this year where it's like they objectively got the better looks they had the puck more and yet the goals they gave up were the first one just broken coverage they just leave Fabian Zetterl and I believe just absolutely wide. open right in front of the goalie and he scores a tap and goal. The second one, a horrible bounce, but it comes right into basically the same area of the ice and Tomas-Hartle whips at home and then no chance. And then the third one just playing a two-on-one off the rush about as poorly as you can where both Skinner and CC are playing the shot for some reason and then the shooter passes it across for an easy goal and it's like this, this has been the oiler season. And for all the comments about, you know, coaching, the players, the goaltending,

Jack Campbell being sent down, everything, it all just keeps coming back to that. And it was just the perfect summation, I guess, of how they've gotten to this point where they're two, nine and one now. The spoilers are the NHN abutement of like you go and play a beer league game. And you're looking across the ice at warmups. And you're like, oh, damn, those guys, they know what they're doing. They clearly got guys who play. That looks great.

And then somehow they lose and you're like, I honestly have no idea how they made that collection of mistakes. Like that's, that's what they are. It's, yeah, it was, it was certainly something. I don't know. I don't have any more thoughts on the others right now. I'm sure there will be plenty more to talk about as we go along here. But I think we should move on to another subject because I'm already getting bummed out.

Just, just, I just think that was really, it was a fun night on Twitter though, right? Because everyone did stay up and watch it. And afterwards, it was just an absolute free-for-all of people just firing off jokes. And so it made for great content. But yeah, in terms of actual analysis of the product, it was pretty bleak. Let's talk about a more fun subject. Let's talk about Alexander Barkoff, a player that was recently playing against the Red Wings. He visited Detroit where you live and you were there.

You got to speak with him. You got to speak with people around him. You had a nice story about it on on EP ringside. And I thought this would be a good opportunity here for us to kind of catch up with him, the season he's having. The start the Panthers are off too because it's kind of flown under the radar a little bit. But I think it's a pretty encouraging one for a team that it would have been really easy to write off heading into the season based on just how many rough injuries they incurred during that run to the Stanley Cup final last summer. I think we all kind of like it was the easy season storyline going in a. like, well, at what cost did that cup run come to Florida?

Where, at what cost and how much would it derail this season? And would it be the kind of what happened to two years prior when Montreal goes on, no, that was obviously bubble-aided, but Montreal goes on that Canadian bubble run to the Stanley Cup final, and then just gets decimated the next year on top of all that. So I think we kind of, many people like, I admit it, in my mind, I was like, could we see something like that happened to Florida? And it is one of the underlying, like, hidden, like, good stories of the year that they're still a contender for the playoffs in this division.

They're making things work with guys planning more minutes on defense than they probably ever should because of the nature of the injuries to Eckblad and to Mod Tour and things like that. And it's still somehow a fun team to watch at the same time, right? Like sometimes when teams are like scrappy and doing like at the end of the day, while the storyline is fun, the hockey isn't aesthetically pleasing. But the Panthers are still playing a game of hockey that is at least fun to watch. So it's all around like it's a good, it's a good underlying story here right now. Well, it's interesting also that you bring up that style of hockey. They play aesthetically because that was kind of my bigger question above the injuries and especially on the

blue line right just subtracting montour and eggblad and the volume of minutes they play for them and being like okay how are they going to piece this together with nicomichola and demitra kulikov and oligman larsen and so on and so forth was the reason they were able to make that run in large part last year everyone was just fixated on bobrowski's numbers and the goaltending but the bigger driving force of that was how hard and aggressively they played every single shift in terms of like just constantly pushing the envelope for checking you to absolute dust and and just grinding and outworking teams every step of the way essentially. And that's a really, it was fun to watch, but it's a really tough thing to then all of a sudden, especially after a short summer, right, where you're playing,

I mean, how late into the summer to the Stanley got final go, it felt like, it was almost July by the time it ended, you come right back and a couple months later, you start a fresh season, people have had time to recover, had time to recuperate, teams are feeling fresher, and meanwhile, you're like, all right, now game 1 of 82 again, we've got to do this all over again. It's really tough to channel that energy and have that type of an advantage over your opposition again the way they did in the playoffs. And so that was what I was looking for to see, whether they would just be able to keep that up, because from like a motor perspective, eventually the engine just stops working the way it used to, right? And

there hasn't really been any of that that I've seen yet. Like, even in the games that they've lost and what, they're seven, four and one so far. So they're second in the Atlantic Division by point percentage. Like, they're winning games, but even the ones where they've lost, it hasn't been for a lack of them just not being able to kind of muster that juice to, uh, to push themselves across the finish line the way they did last season. Yeah. It's, it's, they, um, it will be like the long-term ability of this will be interesting because one of the things about Florida's run and they even kind of admit it when you talk to players around that team is they got in they hit quote unquote playoff mode last year because they had to that's how they got it and they got into the playoffs by one point and they kind of had to hit that second level and there's kind of it's kind of one of always the questions that we sometimes ask about a team like Carolina right where we're like okay Carolina plays this style and they are on you and they beat you up all year. But at some point,

that style beats you up when you do it to yourself for 80, by game 90 or whatever in the playoffs, do you have a second level you can bring it to? And that's going to be kind of the interesting long-term look for me at Florida, is how do you, what do you sustain, do you have a push, things like that? Because it's a great start. They're in it.

And, hey, nothing against Gustav Forsley but when Gustav Forsland is playing like 28 minutes a night, you're not supposed to be the second best team by points division in the Atlantic. No. Well, there's many other reasons. Because unfortunately they're really good.

But yeah, certainly they're putting a lot on his plate which is out of necessity and he's doing fine in that. Which is why I was surprised to see this. I was just looking at the odds for individual awards the other day. I did a show about it with our pal Thomas Duran. and we didn't talk about it at the time, but it kind of ties into this conversation

about the Panthers. Paul Maurice for the Jack Adams was listed at like 25 to 1, which was I think tied for 16th, most likely by odds. And the people he's tied with are DJ Smith and Jay Woodcroft, who I think are the two most likely coaches

to be fired any day now. Yeah. And I think broadcasters vote for, for the Jack Adams, so it's not media. But if anything, I think that would loop in even more of this theory of like, it seems like it's a very narrative-driven award, certainly, right? It comes down to like what your expectations were. Generally, coaches of really good teams that are Stanley Cup contenders to start the year

don't get a lot of recognition for this award unless it's a historically great season, just because it's like, all right, well, you have a lot of good players and we expected this, so it's not a surprise. we generally reward coaches who either bring teams from obscurity into contention or just, you know, having this sort of Cinderella season. And in this case, just based off of last year's postseason run, the injuries to start the year, and the fact that Paul Maris always seems to be good for some sort of like motivational quote or like some anecdote that he gives to the media, it feels like he should be garnering much more recognition for that. So if you're into that sort of thing, I feel like that wouldn't be the worst way to sprinkle a few dollars for Palmer's for Jack Adams.

With, and I should know this, but I don't. Like with as long as he's, it's one of those also like long term like reputation things, right? Like with Jack Adams voters, like it's always not voters with those Jack Adams stories and everything, it's always fun to be like, oh, we're going to use this to talk about a new coach or a guy who got hired. whatever and like hall marisa's been part of the n-h-l fabric for forever right and so the it's kind of of one of the things where he's always going to be there it seems like even even after he left winnipeg and and everything like that he ended back in florida it's it's kind of funny how like the narrative of this stuff is if you put a coach who maybe had four years experience five years experience something like that right like in florida they're probably like second or third on

this list. They're like, oh, look, a young coach who's got, who's doing all this. But because he's a guy's been around forever, we're like, all right, well, we don't really need to talk about Paul Maurice right now. It seems like people generally like him. Listen, like, I, well, no, not that people don't like him. I just think it's the, I think it's the state of, right, kind of, how, how, what these stories do. No one, like, I think so much of these, and it's not supposed to drive when people are making odds makers lists, but I think when people are making these award-based lists for, for odds, And you could have someone who actually does odds on and maybe they could give me a better answer. But I wonder how much when you're trying to make these odds for, you're looking at, you're trying to speculate, okay, well, I know media votes on these awards.

So media temperature definitely comes into play. And so I think that is something that may go into the odds of things. Because unlike who's go, what are the odds and who's going to win the Stanley Cup, it doesn't matter what media coverage is. You're going to win or lose games. When it comes to awards, there's outside factors that as an odds maker, I would imagine you try to take into account for. And I don't know. Right. It's like for the art Ross or for the rock and richard, it's a meritocracy in the sense that if you finish with the most goals or points, it's your award.

Yeah. It's not, it's not subjective. Where in this case, you're trying to more read the room or read the tea leaves in terms of like where people are leaning and what they're talking about and what the trendy story is, right? And so that's why, and he deserves it. Like, I think he's done a phenomenal job, but how many stories are there right now, including on, on, on, on, on, on Eapy, our own site by the, by the great Sarasivian about Greg Cronin right now, right? And the job he's done with sort of bringing together this young group of Anaheim ducks that are playing really fun hockey and capturing everyone's attention. And like, I'm doing full shows on Pelham Mijikov.

And it's, because it's like, it's a fresh new thing, right? It's a shiny new toy. Everyone's focused on it. Well, art the ducks also, like one of the, one of the. The great lines that my old, my buddy, who now covers the St. Louis Blues, Matt DeFranx and I would always talk about when we were on the Stars beat is the classic philosophy in this business of write them while you got them, right? That's why we go and we write the glowing story about the sixth-th-round giraffe pick at development camp because we're like, this kid's going to be cut soon. But we're going to write this story because it's great content in July, and we're not going to go through and really talk about how he's never going to see the Stars organization ever again. And that's really what the Ducks coverage feels like to me right now in general.

And it's not a bad thing. It's the Vary in vogue right now to talk about. Sarah's story was great. I love what it brings over to the EP Rinkside profile talking about the brand there, right? But it's a lot of the Ducks coverage, right or wrong right now, feels like, okay, I don't know if the bottom's going to fall out. So let's enjoy this while we have it and write it while we have it right now and talk about it more. And that's so much what Ducks stuff feels like right now. where the Panthers don't really have that.

It's so. Well, also we had time to tell all those stories throughout Rowland and through Coral last year. Very true, very true. Very true. Yes. So, and it's very fitting here that what we've been talking about the Panthers for 10 minutes now, we started this with the intro and sort of the thesis of this being. Let's talk about Sasha Barkoff.

And we just spent 10 minutes talking about the Panthers. And I don't think we really mentioned him at all. Yeah. And that's, I guess, very fitting for all jokes aside about him being the most underrated player. Of course, yes. We've gotten past that point, but still, I think part of because he's been around for so long in your story, you're talking about sort of how much he defers in terms of like spotlight and attention and how humble he is and how egoless he is and all that good stuff while still obviously being a great leader and internally motivated to be. his best and keep improving into these later stages of his career, it does fly under the radar

because there's so many other things to talk about, right? And it's just not like the flashy thing that's guarding your attention in the present. And so, I don't know, let's talk a little bit about him and sort of just just the season he's having and how he's not necessarily carrying this team, but like once again, despite all the absences and everything. And like Matthew Kachuk has played really well and all of his underlying numbers look great and I believe he's top of the league leaders again and inner slot shots and high danger chances generated and all that stuff around the net. He's only got two goals in 12 games so far and the goals will come for him, but that's a big departure from the 40 plus goals who've become accustomed to from him.

They're missing key players. I think they've gotten what seven minutes this season total from Sam Bennett who came back in a game against Boston and got hurt again right away and has been out since then and yet despite all that, they're second in the Atlantic, and a big part of it is because when Barcov is on the ice, they're just absolutely mashing whoever he's playing. Yeah, it's, that's the true on-ice impact. And the other thing that I real, and this is kind of, to kind of circles back to the point of the story that I was, that I wrote last Saturday for your rink said on Barcoff is one of the things that Paul Maurice talked about and you talked to players around that room is his ability to get everyone moving in the same direction on things.

And it's something that I know it's cliche right now to sometimes to say like, oh, a captain gets everyone moving in the right direction or whatever. But that's something that we kind of often use because we truthfully as media don't really know how to describe a good captain. Too often we just, like we just, we get lazy and everything like that. And so that could be accused of being lazy and being cliche on this, but you talk to players in that room and you talk around. And there's a big point where players talk about in that team about how Barkov doesn't put himself, he puts himself on the same level as the, to use Paul Maurice's quote, as the same level as the 13th forward of the seventh defense. Where when he puts kind of the day-to-day interaction where he's essentially an eagle as human, many,

ways and the way that he kind of puts everyone else above him at the same time and makes other guys feel involved, that goes a huge way in that room. And it does a ton. I talk to players on that team. I talk to some coaches on that team about all that, even stuff he couldn't fit into the story. And that's, we hear that about other captains in the league. I've heard that

where guys are like, oh, he's the best guy I've ever played for. I mean, find me a player where you ask on the record about their current captain and they won't say he's the best captain ever played for. Like, That's the reality. Everyone will say that on it. I don't know, maybe, maybe too often. The end of Blake Wheeler's jet's tenure. And maybe you probably have found some quotes.

Maybe they want to put their names to it, but I'm sure you could have dug up there. Yes. But in general, when you take the actual, there actually feels like there's truth to this one. It feels. And it's something where I think his kind of leadership, style and everything like that. I think it also is what allows Matthew Kuchuk to be Matthew Kuchuk. You kind of need the leadership of you need the guy who is the silent one-on-one leader in Barkov and the guy who is willing to be to say the divisive thing,

to be the face on television, to do all of that stuff. And I think they work so well together. and the story was about Barkov, but I think it's also a point of how well could Chuck and Barkov. Their two personalities work well, because you need one of each of those guys in kind of this ecosystem that they've got in Florida. Yeah, you know how I know that Alexander Barkov's a really good leader and captain? He's got 12 points and 11 games with him on the ice at 5-15. They're out shooting teams 93 to 62. That's a 60% shot share. High-dage chances are 34 to 19. That's 64.62%. and they're outscoring them 12 to 2.

And it's him, it's Sam Reinhart, and Evan Rodriguez has been their top line, right? And one of the keys in that, and part of Barkov's versatility, and like Ryanhart's a phenomenal player, and Rodriguez is an excellent player, good addition for them fits really well there. But I think in an ideal world, it would be even easier for Barkov

if he just got to play with Carter Brahegey full time because we've seen the magic those two guys can create together and they have phenomenal chemistry, and Verhagi's a hell of a driver himself. But for this Panthers team to work at its best, like it did last postseason, having Verhagi play with Kachuk and then Bennett when he's back there gives that team and that line an entirely different dynamic. And so in this case, you can just basically put whoever you want with Barkov and you're going to win those five-on-five minutes against other team's best players,

and then that frees you up to put better combinations elsewhere. And that's how, I mean, that's the quantitative part, right? The qualitative part is what you're saying in terms of what. Yeah. It allows it all to kind of come together and have it all the pieces to fit. But just leading by example and kind of winning your minutes in the capacity that he does is a big part of this, right? And it's kind of like action speaking louder than words, I guess. And he just time and time again does that.

He's also fun, right? Like hockey's like I like watching fun hockey. I like being entertained by whether it's. the team or an individual. And when Barkov is on the ice, you're like, oh, it's fun to be a fan of this sport. That's another thing. Yeah, he's almost like done in by like how, how good he is because his form of being amazing is so smooth that I think you had this note kind of about Jack Eichel too when he's like

firing on all cylinders and he does it in a much more forceful way. But he pulls off stuff and this is like a mark of all the truly elite player. in the league, they do stuff where it just looks so effortless and so easy that unless you've either had to try to do that yourself on the ice as a player or you've been following the league closely enough to see other players not be able to do that stuff, you don't really gain in a true appreciation for what they just did, right? It's like it just flies on the radar because it just happens and you move on and maybe the broadcast, doesn't even really stop to acknowledge it because the game's so free-flowing and going back

and forth and so unless you see a replay of it or unless it results in a goal so you can stop and talk about it, it just kind of gets lost in time. And then you have people like myself who go back and pull up all these random highlights and make mixtapes out of them and try to bring it to people's attention. But time and time again, it's tough to capture all that. And it seems like that's like that probably happens about 10 to 12 times a night for park when he's out there. The sport and it would never work, right? Because the sport is not football, right? Football

is, and every NFL game, every play is replayed two, three times, right? And even in hockey we have a whole issue with how quickly, and I know some broadcast teams have even asked for. Like, we get 20, it's either 25 or 35 seconds from a goal

to the next faceoff. Like we were talking about the, the defining plays of a game, right? 25 seconds from a goal to next face off. You watch a European soccer game. You get two minutes of replays and you get to appreciate everything that had happened. In hockey, it's goal, maybe time for two replays. And that's if you don't want to show the bench reaction or something like that. And we just move on because that's the game's fast and we move on. And I know there's actually been broadcast groups of a ass for that extra 10 seconds before

and the league has said no. So that's always a fun nugget I like to drop in there because they'd like to show more replays, but they can't. And so can you just imagine just imagine the type of the players who are quote unquote underrated and everything like that, if we had even an average number of replays that could show us all the cool stuff that happens in the game and everything. And it's not football. It will never be football. But it's something I always wonder if like if I could get a broadcast where, hey, I want

the replays of actually showing me the cool stuff that's happening in the game as it happens, you'd see so much more. And I wouldn't have to just watch your mixtape. So maybe I'm hurting your viewership and your again. against this idea, but yeah, don't do that. People should keep watching the mixstakes. But no, I'm all for, I'm all for improving the way we talk about the product.

Did you see this, Adam Silver was recently on JJ Redix podcast, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, and I saw the expert of it on line about how he had this comment where he, she was essentially saying he wishes NBA media, like, did a better job of talking about the game. from like an X's and O's perspective and breaking stuff down as opposed to just sort of resorting to like the lowest common denominator of analysis in terms of like, these guys like just wanted more or, you know, they outwork them or, uh, or just showing the pure highlights, like actually talking about like picking roles and defensive schemes and stuff like that. And I think

you and I have spoken about this in terms of like hockey analysis as well and like intermission panels and actually getting to see more of that and how there is an appetite for it and people are interested because it's just not really common knowledge, right? And like all of a sudden we hear at the start of the season about how the admitted Oilers are trying this new exotic defensive scheme where it's like really just like a very common thing that everyone does, but we just don't hear about it so like that often. So when it's a big deal when a team like Oilers tries to do it, based off of Vegas's success last year, it brought latches onto it and it becomes a big story. And that's probably just because we don't, in the meantime, in intervening weeks and months and years, spend enough time talking about it in other cases.

Did you see the clip from Mike McDaniels, the Miami Dolphins coach? I've seen every single Mike McDaniels clip ever. The one, but the one from the, with the German media this week. Yes. Where he is getting that. A couple listeners about it. Yeah, where he, where the reporter asks a really, like, goes through and asks a really in-depth. proper question and about brings up proper systems and things that I'll never understand about

the NFL where the reporter goes through and clearly is trying to is coming in with knowledge and wants to learn at the same time. And it was the type of question where you could kind of see McDaniel's reaction was like, I'm not used to getting this question. I'm used to does this guy do that as opposed to, hey, I understand the game and I want to learn more. And those questions, and you and I've talked about before, those questions typically don't happen in hockey ever really. Like it's, it's just the type of too often it's, what do you think of this? What did you think of that? It's never the, hey, I understood what happened, but helped me understand it more. And those are the questions that never get asked in

hockey ever because of a format of the game, B, the format of how teams do post-game, the thing like that. And C, just we don't have a broadcast system that leads it. And that's nothing you and I have talked about before quite a bit, where if more people understood and as they were watching and growing there would be more interest for those questions in general but broadcast just doesn't have the time to actually teach

what's actually happening. True. Well there probably is a time. Maybe the time isn't like during the game in terms of those like on the bench interviews or even the quick one in the tunnel after the during intermission. But like just from from studio shows

and stuff like that there probably is enough time to do it. it's just it's tougher to do and do it thoughtfully. But yeah, but the amount of things that like, so I'm watching it, like, the amount of things that I'm sure that you're watching at home, or you and I are watching it at home, if we're watching a game at home, we hit pause on something and we find something interesting. And the amount of things that we show, right, the little details that we show on Twitter, that we show on Twitter or reporters find and everything like that, that aren't rocket science. They're literally just opening your eyes and seeing something hardly ever end up

actually in the broadcast. Like, for example, I took a screen grab by the last night. I'm watching the Dallas-Colombus game after Mason-Marchman School. There's a, Matt Dushin has a, has a, not his stick tape, it says try Texas on it, right? Literally says try Texas on it. Now, this is more of a human thing, not a hockey thing, but that's one of those things where that's, if I can see that on the broadcast, and I'm like, oh, that's super interesting. Isn't that something where if you have a reporter there, which I believe ESPN did. That's a very easy, like, oh, that's a simple thing I can follow up on. That takes 30 seconds.

I just think there's little things that easily can be added more to broadcast that some broadcast teams do better than others. Yes. All right, Sean, let's take our break here. We've run along here on a segment one. So we'll squeeze in a break and we come back. We'll pick the conversation back up. You're listening to the HockeyPedioCat streaming,

the Sportsnet. All right, we're back in the HockeyPedio. with Sean Shapiro. Sean, did we get to everything you wanted to get to about Barkaw and the Panthers and even broadcast? We had to cut ourselves off there because we were running out of time to squeeze in our break. But I don't know if you had any other things or if we kind of put a bow on it. I think we put a good bow on it. I think we did a good job.

All right. Let's talk a little bit about the stars here then because I've got a question to kick off our mailbag today. We're doing mailbags on Fridays, fun way to close out the week. And we got one from a Stars fan, I'm assuming, clap bombs, asks, what's going on with Jason Robertson? And I did realize that he, what, he has only three goals so far this year. He scored in an empty netter last night against Columbus. And in 12 games, that's obviously well below his pace, the way I've become accustomed to. especially last year where I think at this time he probably already, well, he was like still playing

at a goal per game pace, I think, early in the season. So it's certainly strange to see that. And initially my first thought without having looked at the numbers was, all right, well, I'm sure that this is largely driven by an unsustainably low shooting percentage and he's going to be fine. And then I looked at it. And it's a bit down certainly. Like he's been a high level finisher because of where he gets his shots from, right? A lot of like tips around the net. I mean, he's got a really nice shot in terms of the wrist for himself, but also rebounds and stuff like that, very high percentage looks in high danger areas. And so you would expect him to be in the high teens as a shooter and he's only a 10% right now. So certainly a bit low, but nothing that screams like,

oh my God, he can't possibly stay this low. And so for him having so few goals, it certainly is strange and something that I probably wasn't realizing enough in real time before our loyal listener clap bombs here pointed out to us. So what's going on with Robertson and let's talk a little bit of all the stars. Yeah, I mean, it's fun with numbers, right? And I promise myself I'll never do math on your podcast again after that's led to some jokes here before. There's not a lot of memes about it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But he's at the 10% shooting with 180 foot empty net goal last night against Columbus. So whatever that does the percentage. It's really like two goals on 29 shots as opposed if it's three on 30. Right. So it's he's not creating nearly as much as last

year. Obviously that's pretty simple to point out there. But I don't think like he's on pace for like 20 something goals right now. If you had if you had told you before the season, Jason Robertson after 12, 13 games would be on pace for 21, 22 goals. You'd be, that's crazy. and I think part of it is, from my view, and it's kind of, like the star's power play has been just bad. That's just a reality.

There's no, there's no better way to put it. It's been a bad power play. And part of it also comes down to, and this is my opinion on things, part of it, I think, comes down to they're not, they're not creating,

and someone who, if you want to pull the numbers, you could probably prove me, right or wrong in this, so I don't know. This is just me watching the game again last night and my initial view of it. A lot of the times when the Star's Power Play was working well in the past, you'd see that spot where Robertson's on that flank and the 1-3-1 and he's moving up and down, right? Like, it's whether it's either with the puck or without the puck, either way, he's more constantly moving. And when he's got the puck, he's going downhill.

He's creating a bit of that shot. Without the puck, he's opening up space for that kind of allows Pavellsky and Ben to kind of cycle around a little bit more in the kind of bumper slash netfront area. And he's been way more stagnant on the power pole. You watch them play this year. And he's been kind of sitting there, standing there more of as a kind of just like an isolated canon approach more than anything. And I'm not sure if that's Robertson's decision or coaching staff decision or whatever. But either way, that's been the biggest notice for me. He gets so many points from the power play. He's supposed to be that weapon from there. And

in reality, he's not moving. And he's not moving his feet enough. He's not doing that. And that to me is the biggest change when I'm watching the game last night, watching their game against Boston on Monday. And you're seeing what looks different about Jason Robertson. That's the biggest one I can isolate right off the bat. Yeah, the 29th in Goals for 60 on the Power Play this year after being fifth last year with the exact same personnel and they were probably even better than the fifth most dangerous power play last year just because that takes into account all the minutes where they were giving Ryan Suter PP2 minutes, right? Like the actual top unit itself was about as efficient as you could be and it made sense because of the players they had the way

they were able to funnel the puck into that high danger area. And so far, Robertson is one secondary assist in 30 power play minutes. He had 13 power play goals each of the past two seasons. He's got zero, of course. And he's just not getting any of that sort of easier, I guess, relatively speaking, production to boost his totals. And you could have a good debate, which is, I guess, what we're having here in terms of chicken or the egg, right? How much of it is the power play's inefficiency is dragging his production down and how much of him not doing what he needs to be doing is dragging down the power play's efficiency. Like I'm sure those two things are clearly intertwined

because of how big of a focal point he is of that unit. You still would just based on the track record, expect that to come around. I'd be stunned if the star's power play was this inefficient all year. And I guess it should be encouraging for them that, despite that, they're 8,3 and 1, their seventh and gold differential, they have the league's best penalty kill. They've been awesome at 515 and controlling all the markers you look for. And so this seems like a pretty,

identifiable and fixable thing that could make them even deadlier, which is great for them them and worrisome for the other Western Commerce teams. Yeah, it's kind of one of the weird things about Dallas season two has been, it's been so disjointed, right? Like the Star's season has been they had, you go back to October, they played something And like, I think it was like, they said from the number on the broadcast the other day. Like they went from playing like eight games and like 20 days to like playing like 12 games and like and then to like 12 in the next 16 days.

Something ridiculous like that. So it's been a weird team because you watch them play and the schedule has been kind of one of those where you're like, oh, like this week they played Monday Thursday. And now I know that's not a huge break between days, but you're thinking like, oh, I'm watching what happened, watching the game last night and connecting it to Monday. Like, that feels like there should have been another game in between that. All of everything with Dallas. It's been kind of a weird team to track off kind of all season on that.

And the other thing, like, with the power play, it's been interesting, too, because the, I think you look at, like, at Hachkin. And last night, he was last, last season, he stepped into that role that they really, when they let John Klingberg walk, they really handed him the keys. to the top of the power plane, everything like that. And I think there's been a little bit of, part of this, we talked about Robertson and Chicken or the Egg thing, but I think part of this also comes down to, stars also need Haitian to be a little bit more dominant and a little bit more assertive with the puck on the power play too.

And it's the cliche, right, best players be the best players. Like that sometimes, sometimes you just, you need that. I don't know how much you can coach that and things like that. So yeah. I mean, otherwise, I like all the underlying markers in terms of we're seeing what we hope for heading into the year, right? Like, they're giving those power play two minutes to Neal Zonkwist and not run our Prattner or Prattor anymore. They've toned down Souter's usage in general and they've given a lot more of those five or five minutes to the Thomas Harley now. Souter's still playing a bit more, but the gap between them has shrunk, right? The depth players, I know Faxos out of the lineup for a little bit, but like I like what I see from it because, it's a much more offensively oriented or at least like dangerous group when they're out there you're not just hoping to not lose the minutes you actually might create something along the way Matt Dushain has looked good in his start to his Dallas Star his tenure like there's a lot to like here and so that's why I was also interested to see I know you noted this in one of your pieces

about Patrick Kane being linked to them right and and that being a possible destination because aside from the fact that it would be tough from a CAP perspective to make any sort of addition like that work right now. Like I'm sure by the deadline, they'll be able to creatively add if they want to by like moving out a contract and tossing in sweeteners and making that work the way we see contenders do time and time again every trade deadline. But just in terms of like adding another salary onto this roster, that would be tricky. But the other thing is, I guess you could always add laymaking talent, but for the most part, especially. shit on the wings, like, they're pretty good right now. I guess it would, it would take Mason Marchman's spot on that Dushan Sagan unit, but for the most part, like, especially in the top

six, you're not at this point of his career really supplanting any of those guys with what we see Patrick Kane recently. So I just don't really see the, uh, the neat there, I guess for that. No, I mean, the only, the only way, and I have, I struggle to find, um, a way to make it work, even in armchair GM mode. It would be, as you said, can you get Kane into Marshman's spot, both slot on the roster and slot in the lineup? Because, I mean, Marchman, I wrote a little bit about this this morning at the substack, where it's like, you look at Marchman's career and he's a fine player,

but he really, you talk about capitalizing on one good offensive season that he had with Florida, right? Like, you look at kind of his numbers, you look at his stats across the rest of his career, you're like, okay, and I know it wasn't just Dallas, Carolina was in on him, too. We picked between Dallas and Carolina. Talk about a guy who capitalized on a market, and I think we're seeing what Mason-Marchment really is. Right now in Dallas, the story has been what's wrong with Mason-Marchman, how do we fix him and everything like that?

And I think more of the story of Mason-Marchment is, well, he's a guy who got paid more because he happened to hit free agency at the right time and played on a really good Florida team that everyone was scoring on that president's trophy winning season. So unless you can find a way to move Marchment and open the space for Kane, I don't see the way it fits in Dallas. That's just that's the reality of it. And with what Marchman has done this season, I don't see how another team could be like, oh, I see that $4.5 million and I can fit it, especially with like, especially with like right now, like, especially with like now, like now, especially with like now, like, I haven't looked yet today or yesterday, but as of two days ago, there's only 11 teams in the NHL that could even call up a guy on leak minimum right now. Like, that's just, no one has space to, to make Marchmitt fit, so the stars could then fit Cain and it. It just, it does, I don't see how it could work.

Yeah. I, I mean, I haven't really talked about sort of like potential landing spots for, for Cain on, on this show much, just because I, I think the, the amount of attention that seems to get from other platforms compared to the actual impact it would realistically have on a team's outlook is about as big of a gap as, you know, it's, it's about as big of a gap as, you know, it seems to get from other platforms. platforms compared to the actual impact it would realistically have on a team's outlook is about as big of a gap as you're going to see. Patrick Kane's pre-agency right now, free agency right now. Good on CIA. This is, this is this Patrick Kane, the Patrick Kane hype should be like the marketing video that CAA gives to other like prospective clients of like, look what we can do for you.

We got everyone to care about this guy coming off hip shaving and as it played and we can get everyone talking about you. Like, CIA should use the Patrick C.A. should use the Patrick C.S.idario to try to sell their clients, like, raising their profile. It reminds me very much of in a tongue-in-cheek way, but true. It reminds me of when all of a sudden we get to each spring, we get the college-free agents. And we're like, oh, man, we've got six, like, this college-free agent is going to, is picking between these four or five teams, and we all can't, and it's a big deal, and it's a big win. And whenever he signs with the team, we write the story about how, like, oh, this is how they landed this kid who was a who was a point per game guy at uh at northeastern and everything like

that and then the guy plays like two n hl games at his career and and has and it's just it feels like it's the equivalent of that where it's a lot of fuss and a lot to chat about but at the end of the day is it going to have a huge impact probably not i mean he's going to be 35 next week yeah he's coming off a very serious procedure that we've seen players struggle with, right? Like the hips are nothing to mess around with as we see this week, right, with Nicholas Baxter probably being over. I understand that everyone's body responds differently to these things and all that. But I don't think the track record of recovery from this and coming back to peak form is very long.

And the last time we saw him, I understand it was before this procedure, but towards the end of that devil's series, series and last year's playoffs, like he just couldn't operate at the speed required to play against the league's best, fastest teams. It's just not a reality. And so you linked like the Panthers for them. And I see why he would be interested in that. That sounds great. Yeah. We just spoke about them. And like, what did we see from them last postseason? What makes them so unique and special? It's how much they put on the plate of their wingers to aggressively forecheck every single shift. and work their butts off to recover possession and attack you, not let you up off the mat. And even in his prime, I wouldn't say that that was a hallmark of his game.

So I'm sure he could, it's an environment where you've seen players step in, right, look good offensively, put up point totals. I'm sure they could make it work. And they have to creatively find ways to add talent because of how little flexibility they have themselves. So I understand it theoretically, but in terms of like actual. nice fit, even that one is a pretty strange one for me. It's, I'd love to like the truth serum that we would never get of how many GMs actually,

actually would actually want Patrick Kane right now. Like that's it, because it's one thing right now we're hearing about these lists and everything like that. And these are his lists, right? Like, I could easily see. Like, oh, of course, I would, I would love to, if I'm Patrick Kane, I'd love to be in that spot. But these are all his lists.

It's not like we've seen stories come out of like, oh, teams are banging down. his door to have him come talk to them. Like, I've yet to see that story. I've seen he's talked to people and it definitely seems, and I think if teams were banging down his door, I don't think his agency is putting out videos to show how good he looks when he's skating. That's just me reading tea leaves there, though. Yeah. Um, we could note on Billy Huso, we actually wrote about recently as well. I was very, I mean, I get he struggled recently, right? At Sport logic hasn't met negative 4.01 goals he above expected for the year now and nine starts. He got lit up against the Rangers. The note that I

had that I thought was interesting was they made him the third goalie for the night, right? When they gave him the night off, it was not sitting on the bench as the backup. And I've spoken on the show previously with our pal, Kevin Woodley, about how I would love to see teams incorporate this and even go a step further where just don't even show up to the rink, take a night off, recharge. And so in that piece you kind of you showed both sides of it right in terms of like the human element and sort of maybe a potential hits the ego but also the logic behind recharging and getting a different view of things and being able to kind of remove yourself from the situation for a little bit um i think it's something that i would love to see applied universally by teams if you're giving your starting goalie the night off if you can do so from a numbers perspective actually give them a night off and don't have them you know work

warming up and preparing as if they might play when they're not going to, and the mental toll that takes on them throughout the season. So I thought that was an interesting move. It was cool to see a team do that. I want to see going further. I want to see a team in like Detroit's a perfect example. They should do this. While you're carrying three and you have Alex lying there, you should do this. There was a when, especially as an Eastern Conference team that's got a bunch of back-to-backs, when you have, you should do the baseball starting pitcher thing. baseball teams will send the starting pitcher a day early to the place where he's going to start. So he doesn't have to, so he just can focus on his start the next day. And I want to see a team be willing to do that where I think it was earlier this year. The Detroit had a back to back where in Ottawa and at home on, think of Saturday Sunday or Friday Saturday. Either way, the second game was at home. And they, that was one of those where I even asked Derek Kuland about it.

And he said, well, that's outside the box. I might think about it. But like, that's one of those where I, why are you taking Sunday's starter with you to the game when you know he's not playing that night? And if you are going to pull your other guy, it's probably it's either for injury or disaster anyway. So you have your third string guy there who can be mop up anyway. So I want to see the team that's willing to be like, okay, we got a back to back. We got three goalies. We're sending whoever, the guy who's starting the next game, who's starting the second game of the back to back, they're in that city and just.

watching the game in their hotel room a night earlier and then the rest of the team will meet them there. I want to see a team be willing to do that. Let's go further that way. Let's see, like, let's see that happen. Yeah, but hockey is just good and bad thought of as such a team-oriented game, right? And so I don't think that would fly very well. I get it. I get it. The phrase, but hockey is it's one of the phrases that anytime you have a good idea about something, And you get, you get that rebuttal all the time, but hockey. Like, that's, uh, I'm not saying why I wouldn't do it. I'm saying what the listener who is listening at home right now,

or the executive that is listening to this, uh, which there are many of, um, are probably thinking to themselves. But yeah, I, uh,

I'm with you on that. All right, Sean, don't, don't, don't, don't take, uh,

my counter as, uh, as, as pooing your, uh, your, uh, your great ideas because I'm all for it.

You know, I love to think outside the box and, uh, and, and we need to change. the way we do things. And the fact that we've always done it this way is never a good enough reason for not trying something new.

All right. Plug some stuff. Let the listeners know what stories you've been working on and kind of what to expect from you as well moving forward here in between the times between today and the next time we have you in the show. Yeah. I've got for over at EP Rinks recently this week or something up on. I have a fun story.

I'm a Rundem Lovshaenov, the Michigan State defenseman, Belarusian kid who's probably going to be, I know, probably a top five pick in the draft. Good fun story. You and I, one of our mutual favorite players when he was playing well, fun-wise, was Dennis Gurionov for you and I. As is from a human side, I get a lot of Dennis Gariano vibes from Lefshendov in a good way. It was kind of fun to sit down and chat with him.

So that story came out this week earlier at ringside. my weekly column for Rinkside comes out on Saturday and you have a fun background story where from having talked to an executive about their memory and reaction from when the Canadians hired Martin St. Louis away from a 13 and under AAA team to coach to coach an original six franchise

so that that leads the column tomorrow and then yeah it's and then at some point soon here. I'll be going to make a trip up to go to watch the to watch the O.A. The Memorial I Cup hosts soon because they've played a pretty fun style and they got some

on names and everything. So I'll be have something on them sewn too here. Nice. Well, looking forward to that. We will certainly have you back on the show again soon. And yeah, you mentioned the eating side there. I write there as well. We got a great staff. As we mentioned, Sarah Sivian, joined our roster as well, and that a great

beats and a duck. So this is a good time if you've been holding out to go sign up and get access to our work and Ryan Lambert and Cam Robinson and countless others who you hear on this show time and time again. I just put out a big Quinn Hughes feature and broke down the tape of why he's been so remarkably fun of watch but also wildly effective this year. So go check that out. And yeah, this is a blast Sean. Be well. And we'll be back with plenty more of the Hockeypedia. streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.