The Hockey PDOcast - The Oilers Struggles, the Avs Power Play, the Stars Offensive Approach, and New Coaches in the NHL

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jack Han to break down the Xs and Os behind why the Oilers are struggling, why the Avalanche power play isn't yielding the results their 5v5 offense is, the quality over quantity approach the Stars are taking, and what new coaches like Dan Muse are Marco Sturm are doing in their first NHL head coaching opportunities. 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.

Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey P.D.O.Cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich, and joining me as my good buddy, Jack, John. Jack, what's going on, man? super i actually i i thought we were recording an hour from now so i i just got home from Costco so we're uh we're we're in good timing though we're in sync we're good yeah it's going to be a fun show we're going to go through some key trends and important tactical developments we've seen while watching games recently cover a couple of the top team some of the stuff they're doing uh some of the stuff we have questions about as well i want to start with the oilers a team that i already did a big show on them earlier this week on the patreon feed with steep

beaters so people can check that out and subscribe if they haven't already But I wanted to build on it with you because you were talking about it a lot on Twitter earlier this week. And I always want to pick your brain about some of this stuff when I see kind of tactical incongruities or impasses for teams like this. And the Oilers are certainly struggling right now. I imagine, as we've talked about, part of it is the schedule where they've played this condensed schedule with a bunch of games on the road. They're going to go back home for a lot of games in December. They're really good at home. I imagine someone's going to work itself out.

Zach Hyman is back as well and that's going to help. but it's a team that despite their struggles in past seasons in the first month or two of the season during those times their underlying numbers still suggested that they were kind of this sleeping giant, especially offensively in terms of their creation around the net and the types of looks they were getting and eventually knew the goals would come and they did

and they made it to back-to-back Stanley Cup finals. That's not really the case this year. I feel like they're playing differently at both ends of the eight, especially and most concerningly offensively, and a lot of the underlying metrics bear that out. I wanted to talk to you today a little bit about what we're seeing from them, some of the adjustments Chris Knobach and his staff can make and where the kind of weak links in the operation are for them right now.

So in Discord, I was looking at some of the questions in the mailback section, and one person asked, you know, with Florida winning the cup again last year, like what are some teams doing to sort of emulate that? And on the flip side, it's like, I think a lot of what do you, Oilers are doing tactically this year is a response to why they lost against Florida last year. And we don't know if it's going to help them in a rematch in a cup final, but we certainly see already that it's not going to help them in a regular season context to get to the playoffs.

And the biggest thing I see is just whenever they have the puck on a breakout, I basically only see three people in the picture. You see both defensemen and then one forward coming back. whereas if I look at a team like Washington or even Colorado, it's like you're more likely to see four players. And like it's not a big difference, right? Because obviously you only have five skaters to begin with. And if all five come back,

then you're easier to defend because you're not stretching the ice. And then if you only have three coming back, then, you know, you have a lot of sort of quick strike opportunities, but then you lose in terms of your success rate because obviously you're playing three on four or whatever it is. Right. So I just think the oil is like right now they're having trouble finding the sweet spot. And the thing that I think is most striking to me when I look at the whole team's underlying stats is, you know, the big guns are still doing okay in terms of on ice expected goals.

You know, they're not doing as well as previous seasons that everybody's been trending down. But it's really the bottom six or, you know, the third parody is like the players were not able to execute in these like three on four scenarios. that are just getting caved it. They are. They're down a 27th in point percentage of the 995 record. We're about a week away from them going a full month since their last regulation win on October 28th. They're minus 18 at 5-1-5, which is dead last in the league.

And I mentioned kind of this impasse between the offense and defense, and those three things are sort of correlated. We generally think of them as separate entities, but really it all starts in your defensive zone and then kind of matriculates up the ice. And I think they're a classic example of that, where to your point, there's the spacing between the forwards and defensemen right now doesn't really make a lot of sense.

They're almost allergic to having multiple guys in the frame at one time. I feel like they scored this one goal over the last weekend in Carolina where they tried to execute the play. They keep running, which is darnelner just kind of like fires it down the ice. Jack Roslovich had leaked out. Freddie Anderson kind of misplays the puck, and he winds up scoring from it, And that probably enables them or emboldens them to keep playing that way. But then you miss all the stuff where they try to do that and they wind up kind of getting stuck in the mud and just spending time in their own zone.

And so with the forwards kind of leaking out and not really providing outlets. And that was something they did so well last year throughout the Western Conference portion of the playoff bracket when they really, I mean, part of it was their defensemen were playing really well. And the guy like Kulak is struggling this year. They don't have Klingberg. so that removes some of the puck moving options they had at that point. But they were so clean getting out of their zone and kind of tilting the ice and then working from center ice on. And right now what they're doing is without the forwards available, they're just going D to D a lot in the defensive zone. And that's essentially allowing the opposition to get reset and transition.

And that's in large part why they're 23rd in rest chances. They're averaging less than six of them per game. That's two full rest chances per game fewer than they averaged last year. and that's a massive problem for them. And I think that's a big reason why they're just not creating as much a 5-1-5 as they did last year, certainly. Yeah, and on Twitter, someone share with me a clip of Paul McFarlane, who's their assistant coach now, talking about quick strike offense, about how most goals in hockey come within, you know, five seconds of a change of possession

or that, you know, playing the puck north is the most sort of high-frequency way to score goals. but like it kind of reminds me a lot of like the very primitive sort of research in soccer like from a century ago where the idea was like most goals in soccer come off of like a zero one or two pass sequence and you got to play long balls and it's like and subsequent events have shown that it was a faulty way to interpret the data because there's a difference between cherry picking what leads to goals and looking at like what leads to controlling a game in a more holistic sense. And I think the Oilers are still trying to find the balance there.

And again, you know, hockey and soccer are very similar in that sense is that there's a difference between playing to score a goal and playing to control the game. So strange thing is that like you'd expect something like this in terms of an early season low from a team that either switch coaches or had a ton of new personnel. Now they certainly, you know, they lost a bunch of forwards and they're incorporating all new guys and with Hyman out early in the season first, like 17, 18 games. they led the league in different forward combinations as they were trying to find the right fits. And so they are incorporating some new guys.

I do wonder whether some of it is as kind of overly simplistic as it sounds, just early season effort for a team that played a lot of extra hockey the last two years probably feels confident. They'll be able to turn it on in December and January and get their playoff spot and then play differently when the games matter more for them. But certainly right now it's pretty ugly. I mean, you watch that most recent effort on Thursday night in Tampa and they go up one-nuffing. second period on they get outshot 25 to 11 below the game late and that's playing a team with the defensive depth chart of j j mozer darren raddish charles edward dostoo emil eliburg

deklin carlisle and stephen santini i had to reference my notes again just to make sure i got all those names right because of what a cast it was and so it's pretty alarming to watch and they still have quite a bit of margin for error because of the state of not only the west but the Pacific as well. And a five or six game winning streak at home is suddenly going to change this thing entirely for them. But man, just watching them at 5-15 right now offensively, it's night and day from last year, right? Like, they're 25th and goals. They're 31st and high danger chances. They lead the league in percentage of their shots from defensemen. You look at their shot chart on hockey viz, and it paints a pretty ugly picture. And then to your point about the guys who are

struggling, they're down 32 to 11 in their 555 on five minutes with L. McDavid or Dersetle on the ice. So without any of that, you know, guys driving the bus or any connectivity from those guys to just make plays and bail them out, they really have nothing to fall back on right now. Yeah, I mean, I think you're, you're disrespecting Pampa's DECOR. Like, that's an elite decor in the AHL right there. But I think Emmetton's going to figure it out. You know, again, you know, it's an 82 game grind in the regular season. And I really just think instead of thinking about what's going to get them past Florida and set. in games, think about what's going to allow their bottom six to be cromulent throughout an 82

game season. I think that's the way for them to approach the rest of the year. Yeah, you got to watch the way they play it against Vegas and Dallas in particular and then compare it to now and it's a polar opposite. I think the Walman injury and he left this game early as well. Certainly complicates matters because he's one of the guys who actually could get the puck up the ice. And so they're going to have a world of trouble if he's going to miss any time. Do I know any other thoughts on the Oilers? Do you want to get to the abs? no but but I think they figure it out you know they have the high-end horses maybe they make some adjustments again it's just a matter of having one forward play a little bit lower and be in the screen a little bit more I think once they do that the rest will fall into place so the a abs don't have these problems they're 14 1 and 5 right now after their win on Thursday night they have a plus 36 goal differential in 20 games to start the year which is just preposterous the only thing they're not the best in the league at and 5 on 5 across the board their number one and everything is the power play They're generating 5.88 goals per hour, which is 21st in the league for some perspective on that number.

They score 5.93 goals per 60 of 515 with their top line on the ice. Now we saw a little bit of this malaise from them with the man advantage last year where the first 50 games or so before they made that midseason rant in a nature swap. They were about middle of the pack or slightly worse in terms of where they ranked in the league. And a lot of that was, for whatever reason, they were very predictable and stagnant when you watch them. of their hallmarks at 515 is the movement and kind of how uncomfortable they make the opposition and then they'd get on the power play and they were just trying to set up that cross-ice pass from mckinan and natchez comes in they explode on the power play they were first in the league at 11.7 goals per hour down the stretch and you saw a lot of that movement once again incorporated where

him and mckin were switching spots on that left side of the ice they were stretching the opposing pk out and then benefiting from it then in round one against dallas they only scored three goals in that series with a man advantage. Dallas score seven. They wind up firing the PP coach, Ray Bennett, replacing him with Dave Haxall, which was certainly an interesting choice based on everything I knew about him as a coach. But they're once again struggling a little bit. I want to talk to you about what we're seeing from them, whether there's any concern in terms of not, it's certainly not going to matter for the regular season, but once they get into a playoff setting against one of these top teams and the margins become smaller, whether if this

continues, that's going to be an issue and kind of what your adjustments, I think, would be to get more out of this group. So as part of the prep for this show, I went and looked at the numbers. And what I saw was if we assume that obviously McKinnon is sort of a reference point for the first unit, he's on the ice a lot. So he plays about, I don't know, 80 seconds out of, you know, the two minutes or whatever it is. But he's at seven goals an hour, which is below average, like it's bottom sort of bottom third

for power play one guys, I would say. Like it's not completely terrible. but then the second unit doesn't play a lot, hasn't scored at all. So that's the first thing. Like the second unit thing, I'm not really as concerned because there's a lot of turnover anyway and you're happy with whatever you can get in sort of those last, you know, 30 seconds or 40 seconds of the power play. So whatever, that's fine. The thing that really concerns me is like last year, Keel McCarr had 12 goals in the power play

in the regular season, if I recall, this year he's on zero. And it's not that you necessarily want Keo McCar to shoot more to score more, but it just speaks to an imbalance that exists on that unit, which is all of their best players are right-handers, right? Because you have now, NACHA mostly plays down low on the left goal line, he'll rotate. McKinnon, like, he's married to that left half wall or, you know, the Ovi spot. And then obviously Keal McCar is at the top.

And the problem is that, you know, when Colorado has the problem, puck on the left side of the ice, you know, McKinnon to Nietzscheass is a very natural play and they run it all the time. But then McKinnon to McCar is a reset. Like nothing happens. Like McKinner, sorry, Macar cannot one time that puck. It's hard for him to catch it and then walk in because, you know, he's, he's walking into three penalty killers right away. And then when you look at the other two players, like Lekkon is, he's a good puck retriever. And and then Oliveson is just, he's a pure shooter. So, if Olofson is not getting cross-team one-timers, he's basically negative value on that power play unit.

And, you know, obviously last year he's got some success in Vegas, but they've replaced him with Dorofaea with like zero problems. Because again, aside from the shot, Oluson doesn't bring a whole lot to the party. So the point that I'm trying to make is like they would really, the Aves would really gain from from adding someone on that unit who's more of a pastor in the Olobson spot. because then, you know, last year they had Casey Middlestad and obviously Rathen, but they also had Jonathan Droran, who I think Droran would be really good at on that unit right now because he likes to have the puck. He's a very good pastor. And then if he has the puck on the right side, it's a one-timer to McCarr.

It's a one-timer to McKinnon. It's a one-timer to Natchez. So either they got to go out and get a left-handed passer because they don't really have one right now. or maybe they try knee-chast on the right flank coming downhill. So that's another way to bring some balance that unit. I will say that we saw about 30 minutes or so with Valanchuskin on P.B.1 before he got hurt. And they were all the way up at 11.8 goals per hour. And they've had success with that unit with him there in the past.

I think part of it is he's so good in the middle of the ice, not only as causing traffic and tips and making himself available for that little bumper play in the middle, but also sometimes when the puck gets stuck on the wall a little bit, just kind of leaking, like popping out a little bit and providing a bit of an outlet to diffuse the pressure and then let them re-orchestrate and get set. And you look at the shot chart for them on the power play. And as you'd expect, it's a lot of stuff from the top of the point, the middle of the ice from the car and then from the left flank from McKinnon and not really a lot of middle of the ice presence. And so I think nutrition coming back is going to help a lot. I think part of

it to your point about the the p2 it's even more extreme than that i think power play one plays about 80% of the time so you really get like the final 20 25 seconds and you're not going to get much ultimately i think the reason why they're not quite as lethal there because they're just so exhilarating at 515 is a lot of the stuff they do at 515 that's so unique to them and puts opponents in such a bind gets kind of eliminated by nature on the power play right like obviously the rush attack um the quick neutral zone regroups that follow the way they kind of compress the zone and use the high ice and move around and interchange a lot of that stuff gets taken out of the equation for the most part in the power play

and so everyone's kind of just in their spot and they're still certainly incredibly skilled and got to score their fair share goals but it's not quite as much of a snowball effect as you get it even strength so i think i think that's probably part of it just i mean you saw they scored the one power play goal on Thursday against the rangers and it is from pp2 and it's a three on two essentially from brock nelson he gets a nice rush look and you're just not going to get much of those because the opposing team is very comfortable getting the puck deep preventing that center of the ice regroup and then getting set in their structure and not allowing you to come back with speed so i think that's probably what's what's ailing them more than anything

yeah i mean they've got such a long runway to figure things out that they they will do that and you know even i would say uh you don't really want to bring your fastball this early in the season so maybe in the last 20 30 games of the year we see them click and into something a little bit different that works really well that's going to help in the playoffs because obviously the playoffs are really where these sort of areas of the game aren't going to make the difference for Colorado.

And it is going to matter. You saw, I mean, if they're going to play a team like Dallas who's so good, I want to talk more about them here in a second, it's going to matter. And they are one of the top teams in drawing penalties. Historically, they are once again this year just because they play with so much speed and have the puck. And so those opportunities aren't necessarily a momentum killer, but

can definitely take you away from what you do best and sort of reset the game a little but related to the ads while we're on them. I got a question on the Discord from Bobby, and he asks, what's caused more teams to make more moves at the blue line this year instead of getting a deep or at least waiting till the hash marks on the half wall?

I can recall a couple goals just from this week alone that were caused directly by a player making a bad move, a step inside the blue line that went the other way for goals. Now, I do think this is happening in watching the league this year. It feels like there's an increased prevalence of teams try to manufacture more offense by utilizing that high ice in the offensive zone. I think part of that is the Colorado effect because a staple of their approach over the years has been McKinnon up high, kind of switching spots with McCar.

All of a sudden, you get McCar moving downhill around the net, and it just really causes a lot of miscommunication and blown coverages and creates openings for them. I think the issue for teams is that they don't have McKinnon and McCar, both in terms of their playmaking, but also I think just as importantly, how good they are at that chase down recovery once they do lose the puck in preventing stuff going the other way. And for a lot of these teams that are trying to incorporate this into their game, once they turn it over,

it's so much more likely to lead to not only a breakaway or a high danger chance, but specifically a goal against because you just have guys so far in the offensive zone and they can't recover and the other team is just going to feast on that. And so I don't know if you've seen a lot of this as well, but certainly in watching these games, it seems like teams are trying to use that more as everyone's in the pursuit of optimizing their offensive efficiency and I think we're seeing

some of the pitfalls are there right now while teams figure it out so there's kind of two things happening here so first of all there's sort of a trickle up effect because now it's been about

I think seven or eight years that teams like Colorado have really embraced this sort of downhill offense where you have the third forward high and you play in the high ice so now you have you know junior teams are doing it

and then the players who are graduating to the end NHL, they're used to doing this now. And a lot of them, whether it's, you know, at a system level, whether it's an individual read level, like there's more forwards we're actually carrying the puck into high ice and using it. So naturally, you know, frequency goes up. Well, error rate's going to go up as well, right?

Or, you know, even if the error rate stays constant, the frequency of errors are going to go up. The other thing is like, you know, most teams now play sort of a hybrid, these lines. zone where if the opposing forward is carrying the puck up the boards toward the point, the defenseman is going to follow. And, you know, I know that there are certain analysts on the media side who don't like to see this because if there's a breakdown, the D is really far away from the net and it's not a good look.

But the advantage of that is, you know, if you're able to force the opposing forward to carry the puck up toward the point, but you're not giving him a lot of room to work with, again, you can provoke a mistake. Like, you know, I watch Montreal on a regular basis, and Lane Hudson does a very good job of aggressively chasing people up toward the boards and essentially play more like a forward or in man-on-man coverage, and he's able to force a turnover, and then let's say someone like a Nick Suzuki or a Col Coffield,

they're sprinting underneath the puck, and then the puck comes to them, and then Montreal's up and running in the rush. So again, offensively, there's more. players who are comfortable doing this, but then defensively, teams are being, I think, more cognizant of using more man coverage in those situations. Yeah, I've seen Ryan Poulog in the past couple of games alone have two pretty much breakaways just from that type of play, just kind of contesting up high in the zone and then

getting an opportunity off of it. So you're certainly seeing that more. And I love that chess match element. It makes sense that teams are trying to use that more because the abs have had so much success. And you want to kind of stretch the offensive zone and create some unique angles. But you certainly have to be careful with those plays when you do that. All right, let's get to the stars who are certainly doing their best to keep pace with the aves.

They're up to 13, 5, and 3 after their win on Thursday. They're four points back of the abs, despite the abs, essentially never losing in regulation. They've got a five-point cushion on the Jets who are third in the central. And the reason why I wanted to talk about them with you, you wrote about them on your substack. They're essentially the polar opposite in terms of profile and style right now. They are second in the league in power play efficiency at 12.2 goals per hour. At 5-on-5, though, they've got this. credible quality over quantity approach right now where they're 30 second in shot attempts per hour

they're 30 in shots on goal per hour only the sharks and cracking teams that don't really try to create or don't have the puck that much are the only ones generating less than them their hockey vis shot chart is a masterpiece it's essentially blue everywhere in the offensive zone except for this one little red dot kind of to the side of the net on the left side where why johnston tends to do that tip play yet their third in shooting percentage their second in their slot shots, only the caps generate more than them. And so I think the natural inclination when you see something like this, they make a coaching change.

You know, Thomas Harley's out now. They've had a bunch of injuries up front as well with Dushain and Ben and Hintz missing time. You look at the 515 metrics and it looks pretty pedestrian for the most part. Yet part of me thinks this is by design. I don't think they necessarily want to not have the puck as often as they do. But I do wonder you were mentioning that point about the Oilers kind of trying to learn from their playoff failures and devise a way. way to be more prepared once they come to that setting against the team that's

beaten them. The stars are going to have to go through the Avs, certainly in the central by the second round. And then if they get past that, the Oilers in the conference final, who they lost through the past couple of years. And I do wonder whether this is sort of preparing them for an acknowledgement that they're not going to beat those teams at their game. And so instead, trying to use their game against them and kind of play this counter-punching, selective, opportunistic style that is probably going to be frustrating for everyone involved, but might give them the best chance to win in those situations.

So they're actually trending up. Like I have hockey viz open in front of me. And like in the past five games, like the goal scoring has been off the charts, but the play driving has actually improved where, you know, they're still a low event team, but they're actually in the black now in terms of differential because they're, um, their creation doesn't improve. So, you know, if that trend keeps going, like I have absolutely no problem with how this team is playing because, you know, Dallas, if, you know, if you can see 22 shots

versus Dallas, there's far more chance of you getting hurt versus conceding 22 shots to a team like the Bruins or even to the capitals. So, you know, with their roster, like, we know that they have tons of sort of career 10 to 12 to 14% shooters up front. again, like they don't need as many looks to hurt you as some of the other teams. Again, if they just sort of maintain some semblance of volume creation at five on five, like they're going to be fine. They will.

It was interesting watching them on Thursday night against the Canoxa team that's bottom three and pretty much every defensive metric. And they wind up getting out shot 36 to 24 still in that game before too. And it was a lot of what we've seen from them this season. Now, I will say when you look at their shot distribution, an important note here is their top three forwards, essentially, Jason Robertson, who's playing phenomenal hockey, Miko Ranton, and Wyatt Johnston have accounted for over 35% of their total shot attempts. And so you compare that to what we just said about the Oilers, where their defensemen are occupying such a massive portion of their looks and how inefficient or low percentage those shots are, the ones these guys are getting are certainly going to be much more likely to lead to high-ager chances. and goals. And so I do think the the raw total and the baseline that we're referencing is misconstruing it a little bit because those guys are certainly getting their fair share

looks and they're, as you said, just going to be so much more likely to convert those into goals. Yeah. And I think as we get to a point where just the overall shot differential or expected goal differential becomes better understood and teams sort of, you know, ring as much juice out of that as possible, the distribution of who gets. gets to take the shots, I think becomes more important. And obviously that's a tactical issue. And again, like, it's something that I saw in Discord that Michael Blake McCurdy brought up. And I think maybe Dallas is onto something.

We're going to have to wait and see a little bit longer. But certainly, yeah, like, you want your career 12% shooter taking shots as opposed to your career 4% shooter, you know, near the blue line. Yeah, we saw Vegas have a lot of success with this, right? Like, there was all those years where they kept making it far in the playoffs, but then eventually getting goalied and you'd look at the end of the day and the shot totals would be in their favor but they just weren't getting the goals when they needed it and it was because their defensemen were occupying such a large percentage of their shots and then when they made that run to the cup and wanted ultimately after getting jack ickel they totally reoriented their profile

and were trying to hunt those high danger looks with their forwards and just giving them such a massive share of those opportunities and it feels like that's what's happening here i mean i mentioned those three guys and how many shots they've taken rupe hints is the only other forward on their team with over 60 attempts and he's missed five games they've played 21 as a team so pretty much everyone else is only at a couple per game and these guys are just eating up most of the share all right um let's take our break here and then when we come back we'll jump right back in it with jack on and cover a couple other uh tactical and coaching things that we've seen around the league you're listening to the hockey pdo cast streaming on the sports net radio network

All right, we're back here on the Hockey-Pedocatio cast, joined by Jack Han. Jack, we've talked about the Oilers, we talked about the ads, we talked about the stars. I want to talk to you about an individual player now, Pavela Minkigov, a player who we fell in love with you and I did during his rookie season in 23, 24, for how he was playing, the tools he was immediately putting on tape. I believe early on in that rookie season, we did a full show essentially about him, kind of talking about how he had jumped into the NHL as a 20-year-old defender, and he was coming from that second. a spirit team in the OHL that was playing this very unique kind of extreme offensive style where they were just allowing their players to attack constantly and move around and not really occupy set positions. And he jumped in and did that immediately against NHL competition.

And the thing I keep coming back to is that Daryl Belfrey point about how that first wave of games we get from players at this level is very indicative or reflective of who they are. And then sometimes they get that coached out of them or they lose ice time. and then they have to readjust and it feels like that's what's happened here because he was essentially being used as their sixth defensemen in terms of usage in rotation

and then Goudis gets healthy a guy like Ian Moore and other young defender takes his spot and now he's on the outside looking in and the reason why I wanted to talk about him with you is his name is in trade rumors now we got that Elliott Friedman report that if he's not playing he'd like to be traded

he's at an interesting crossroads in his career and I imagine a lot of teams around the league right now are scrambling to to get their intel together to figure out how aggressive they should be in potentially pursuing this because a former topic like this who's still not even 22 years old becoming available potentially is certainly going to garner a lot of attention league-wide. Yeah, I mean, there's a few sort of angles to this.

And, you know, as you mentioned, you know, what Belfrey said about what we see from a player in their first few games is indicative of their ceiling, right? So the ceiling for Mintikov is sky high. Like, I remember, again, when he first came into the league, like, I just thought that he played the way that he did because he was very, very physically mature. So, you know, he looked like he wasn't going to get pushed around. Whereas for someone on the ducks like Olin Zellweger, it's taken a while because that physical development has relatively lagged. And now we see him coming to his own and passing Minchikov on a depth chart.

So, you know, maybe it's just the fact that, you know, because the. physical development came so early for Minchikov, a lot of the other stuff in terms of reading the game in terms of managing the risk hasn't been sort of emphasized or maybe, you know, hasn't been prioritized. And then for, for young players, like, you never really know what's going on. Like, you know, there are young players now with a lot of off-ice problems. And obviously, that bleeds into what happens on the A's. Like, we can talk about alcohol problems. We can talk about gambling problems. We can talk about, you know,

off-fights relationship stuff. So I have no idea what's going on in this case and whether a change of scenery is going to fundamentally alter that dynamic. But certainly I think it's when you look at the potential, when you look at, you know, what he's able to do in terms of the microstats when he's on, this is a potential top pair of defense. But then like we don't really know what's going on, right? I think part of it is things changing on the fly for the organization, right?

Because all of a sudden, with their hot start, they're up to sixth in the league in point percentage. I feel like looking around the Pacific in general, they should feel like they're a top three team moving forward. And so they're kind of reinventing or I guess like reimagining their short-term goals as an organization after being rebuilding for so long. And then a guy like Zellweger steps in, he's playing with Truba full time. They're up 17 to 7 in their 5-1-5.

minutes together. Ian Moore, as I said, takes his spot. And so all of a sudden now, if you're him, you're looking around and he turns 22 in a couple days, so there's still so much runway here. But his ELC expires this offseason after, you know, the healthy scratches and stuff last year under Great Cronin and the way they were playing in general as a team, I understand the frustration for both sides. The ducks are also, you know, he's going to be up for a second deal coming off his rookie contract. They also have Zellweger, Carter Goce, Leo Carlson, in same spots. And so I think just prioritization wise,

I think that's what's happened here. I still am immensely intrigued by this player. Like you don't put out this list of sort of statistical comps, including all sorts of different metrics. And it's a fascinating list, right? Because you've, as you'd expect, with the unpredictability of young defensemen, you've got some big hits there with guys like Shay Theodore and Gus Foresling.

You've got some guys who wind up having very successful NHL careers like Damon Severs and Darnel Nurse. And then you've got some big, misses like a Derek Pooleyot or even a Lassie Thompson. Now, sometimes I think when guys demonstrate offensive instincts and skills the way Mitchikov did right out of the gate, we can from the outside get really enamored by them because you just see those flashy plays and you're like, man, let's scale this up, higher usage, tougher competition and see what it looks like and it winds up failing. A lot of times it's because they're either undersized guys who lack

physicality and their coaches won't trust them or they fall out of favor. And that's not really the case here. Like he plays a very physical style, sometimes too physical in terms of taking penalties. He certainly got a big frame. And I feel like just the way you have to go back a couple years now, but the way he moves, the way he sees the ice, the lanes he attacks, those offensive instincts, I feel like that's something that is certainly worthy of a very long look. And if it's not going to happen in Anaheim, I'd love to see it happen elsewhere because I'd hate to see a young defenseman like this wind up getting wasted at this point of their career. Yeah. And the best move for Anaheim is probably to hold on to them unless, again, there's a compelling non-hockey reason

for that. The only thing is just, you know, their three big prospects are all left-handers and maybe they like to have a righty in there just to have a real top three or somebody plays their upside. But I think Anaheim should hold on the player and then we'll see what happens. I think so, too, whether it's injuries or what have you, certain stuff's going to happen as the year goes along. But yeah, having Lecombe and the minutes he's eating up there and him kind of leap-rogging

in the organizational depth chart and then Zellweger now as well, I think, has led to the situation. All right, we got a question in the Discord that asks, who's innovating in terms of tactics right now can be forechecking neutral zone play, special teams, whatever. And there are a couple new coaches in terms of this being their first head coaching opportunity in NHL and Dan Mews in Pittsburgh and Marco Sturm and Boston that I wanted to talk about with you because I think they're both doing some cool stuff. And ultimately, I'm not sure what the upside is for either of those teams, despite some of the early season results, but I will say in terms of just getting the most out of the personnel

they have, it's really tough to argue what they've done in the first 20 games or so that they've coached in the NHL. Yeah, and I just think, like, when we think about coaching innovation or tactical innovation, like it's way more subtle than in other sports, like, you know, like the way that people play hockey, especially at the highest levels, like, it's not going to drastically change. what really sort of impresses me or draws me to certain coaches and certain teams it's just the pragmatism that they show in relation to what they have to work with, right? Like obviously Spencer Carberry has done a really good job in Washington,

reinvigorating a roster that we thought was completely cooked three years ago. This year, Marco Sturman, Boston has done a tremendous job. Again, re-eviguating a roster that we thought was cooked. same thing in Pittsburgh with Dan Muses. It's really that. Like, you know, we talked about how Edmonton is overstretched to the ice and that Dallas maybe is having some trouble figuring it out. But like what, again, what impresses me is teams that are just on point.

And if you're not the fastest team, you don't try to play super fast. If you're not the best forechecking team, you're not looking to impress people with how aggressively you forecheck. you know, if you're Washington, you sit back sometimes, you let the other team come to you and make mistakes and capitalize off that. If your defensemen are more active like a Jacob Chikrin is, you know, you let them roam the ice a little bit more. You have a higher F3. It's just like pragmatic, common sense things that you're able to implement.

Like those things are surprisingly difficult in an organizational setting. And so when I see that, like it kind of warms my heart more than fancy footwork or fancy player rotations now. Yeah, the answer to this is what Spencer Carberry is doing in Washington for me. I've spoken about them a bunch. That's why I didn't want to necessarily highlight it. But they've been one of the most fun team to watch a 5-1-5 for me. And I love the way they've remade themselves not only from year one when they obviously

struggled incredibly offensively. And it looked like they were on the way down as an organization. Then last year they get that PDO bump and wind up having great results. But a lot of that last year was what you were saying, kind of sitting back after getting early leads with goal sequencing and then capitalizing on that. And then this year, they've been so much more aggressive. It's not only trickering, it's guys like Sandine and Carlson, who are just so involved deeper in the zone and jumping into lanes and making themselves available. And it's a deep understanding of your personnel, too. I think that's a massive kind of feather in the

cap of a coach, right? Because you probably enter a room and everyone has already made it to this level and they probably did so much at previous stops just to get here in the first place. And so they want to do everything and just understanding who you have, who you're dealing with and then getting the most out of them based on their relative strengths and weaknesses. That's what a coach can do if they're doing their job. And that's what Carberry does with his usage, with the zone deployment and how extreme he is there getting the most out of them. And I've seen a lot of that from Dan Mews as well. He's certainly in terms of how he uses his top six or his bottom six, depending on the zone, is very impressive. The special teams and part of that is the staff you

surround yourself with as a first time head coach. But Their top five on both the power play and PK, and I believe Don had the stat in his recent article in the athletic of the last team to do that or be that high in both metrics was the 2007, 2008, Detroit Red Wings were obviously a remarkable team. And then you just look at their shot chart and the way they play, and there's so much thought behind how they move the puck and what they're trying to accomplish in terms of where they're getting their looks from, how they're creating them with an obvious limitation in terms of team speed at this point of their careers. is with guys like Raquel and Brazil who were awesome in the top six missing the most region chunk of games and they're still doing it. They're still top ten in goals. As I said, they're awesome on the power play. And so I really love watching them and I wasn't expecting that coming into the season. Yeah.

And the thing is like, you know, the power play especially has been sort of a sore spot for so long for the penguins, right? it was always a unit that was sort of less in the sum of its parts. And now, like the thing that I just find the most salient for them is they're scoring a lot of goals at the backpost. And that's an adjustment that, you know, we're seeing now that maybe wasn't as prevalent in the past and just something that is so simple, right? Like most goals in hockey, obviously they happen across the slot line and then you've got to get close to the net to increase your odds.

So naturally you put someone in the back post, but it seems like a lot of teams just like don't utilize that part of the ice is as much. Like, you know, Zach Hyman goes to Edmonton camps out at the back post and scores 50. Like I think there are other teams that can benefit from that approach. Yeah, Tyler Bertuzzi is certainly doing that play with with Connor Bernard in Chicago. I mean, it feels like it's been forever since Spitzberg play because they went out to Sweden, played that back to back against the predators. But they're 53% high danger chance share five on five and only Colorado. Washington and Carolina are generating more than them. So I think it's really impressive.

They move the puck so precisely and so quickly. And it's similar to when Mike Sullivan took over in an ironic way because the whole thing they preached at that time was we don't necessarily have the team speed from a skating perspective to be atop the league. But if we move the puck in that manner, we can compensate for a lot of that. And that's what I'm seeing from them. What are you seeing from Mark Westerm in Boston? Because the overall line, 12 and 10 record, isn't a number.

necessarily that impressive. They've done it the hard way. They'll add a six game losing streak, followed by a seven game winning streak, but I know you're, you're really high on him. And certainly when you look at the personnel and some of the injuries they've had recently for them to be as competitive as they have and as effective offensively, I think, as well outside the top line, I do think is impressive because they have no business being as good as they've been, I think, when you watch them play. Maybe some of it is just cultural bias, but when I watch a Marco term team play like I always think of the German national soccer team from you know 20 years ago where they're just in good spots they complete passes they're not necessarily the most ambitious

individually or collectively but they just they just move the ball downfield right and and and defensively they're stout they play as a collective and they just do solid sort of collective hockey things and in addition to that we all know that David Pasternak is an amazing player and he scored tons of goals in the past but I've never seen him have the puck as much as he has the season and be as effective as a facilitator and as a playmaker rather than a shooter because you know in in bosses prime years

it was always somebody else has the puck and all of a sudden it goes to Pasternak and it's in the net and now we see Pasternak play much more of, again, of a passer role to the benefit of guys such as Morgan Giki, who's a really underrated player, very smart player, who's maybe just not the fastest. But like, I've never been as impressed with Pasternak's overall game that I have this season. Yeah, the top 10 in both special teams, similar to what I just said about Pittsburgh as well. And they're a top 10 rush team in terms of the chances they generated. And I was watching their game against the ducks that they ultimately wound up losing earlier this week. And I came away really impressed with the thought

they put into it in terms of how the layers they incorporated in transition, right? It wasn't necessarily a matter of just like, all right, we have a numbers advantage because oftentimes the ducks would have enough guys back to defend it. But with layering, all of a sudden, you're creating this odd man effect where you've always got a guy either coming in late as a trailer in transition or you've got a center lane drive pushing the defense back and creating that kind of pocket to pass it east-west and create an opportunity for a guy with time space. And so it's been cool. And Pastornak and Geeky, to your point, have certainly benefited from it. All right, let's end with this. We've got a question in the Discord as well about

has anything systematically changed with Patrick Waugh and a system in Long Island this year due to Schaefer or are the islanders being healthy and adding Schaefer in the same system the cause for the improved results because they look like a whole new team. Now, I've talked about how they've fundamentally transformed their operation offensively. Like we've thought about this team for so many years now as being kind of plotting slow dump and chase not really creating much in transition and by pretty much every measure they've been a top 10 offensive team this year and it certainly looks the part you watch them on that road trip and how impressive they were in winning six of those seven games with the only defeat being in Colorado which

there's no shame in what are you seeing from from the islanders right now and should we put this entirely on the Matthew Schaefer effect and him just like giving a facelift to the organization or Do you think there's more to it? I mean, like, I watched some underst clips last night, and it just seems to me that their Ds are just more involved in all parts of the ice, and that frees up the forwards to be maybe a little bit more aggressive or lean toward offense, knowing that, you know, sort of that five-man unit is moving up ice a little bit quicker. And more, you know, specifically with Schaefer,

the thing that really makes him potentially an elite player is not only is he, an incredibly fluent skater in all directions and he's obviously very fast and a straight line but he also has his gift of like anticipating. So it's almost like you line up

to run a sprint against somebody and they're always false starting except false starting in hockey is actually an advantage because obviously when he's got half a step or a step on you on every single play, that's going to translate

to small numerical advantages here and there that really makes a difference ultimately. And when you look at most elite defenseman across the league. Now, these are guys who not only skate really well, but they're going early. And if they guess right, then perfect. If they guess wrong, then they recover. And going back to the oilers, like lots of people have bones to pick with Evan Bouchard, because he's a guy who anticipates, but isn't as strong as skater. So when he guesses wrong, it's more

obvious. But for a guy like Schaefer right now, or McCarr, or Lane Hudson, or Miro Heiskin, and if they guess wrong and they recover it, you almost don't notice it. So you always think that they're in two places at once. Yeah, we did a full breakdown of Schaefer's game and him and a couple other notable rookies earlier this month on Patreon. So if you haven't listened to that, check that out. But I keep thinking about that last point you made about him being in two places at once. And in particular, I mean, he moves so well.

And part of that allows him to cover as much ground as he does. But he also does it in a different way than a kale, a car where it's much more off puck like you'll have these brilliant dashes from him and he had this play uh recently in dallas where he put the puck through his legs and took it to the net and created an opportunity out of thin air but a lot of the times it's like quick puck movement and it feels like that's kind of incorporating everyone around him and then bringing them along for the ride and change the vibe so much and it's tough to argue with the results i mean i mentioned their eighth and goal scored their sixth and expected goals generated their ninth in slot shots sixth and inner slot shots

fifth in offensive zone possession time. They are a top 10 team right now. They have some defensive issues in terms of how much they're giving up and their goalies have covered for them. But man, they're coming off this seven game road trip, as I said, where they went six and one against some really good teams.

And they put more on Schaefer's plate in those road matchups in terms of assignments and matching them up against top guys. And he certainly looked apart. And so I think they're really fun to watch. And if you're kind of slow to this, because you've had years of being trained to avoid Islanders games, I highly recommend changing that behavior because he's been so fun and they as a team have been certainly worth tuning in for him.

Yeah, I mean, at times he's almost playing forward, but that's exactly what the best in the game do now. All right, buddy, this was great. We covered a lot of different stuff, try to incorporate some of the stuff we're seeing into some of the tactical X's and O's. You mentioned that question earlier that we had from the Discord and your answer was the Oilers,

for wrong reasons in terms of teams that have learned the wrong lessons from Florida. And we talk about that kind of copycat effect around the league and teams trying to take lessons from successful ones and then incorporating themselves. I don't know if we've seen as much of that around the league because a lot of teams are trying to do the same stuff relatively. They took different effects, certainly, and some are blessed with better personnel than others. But it does feel like everyone is certainly trying to create more offensively, particularly off draws than we've seen in the past. And so I think it makes for fun in terms of breaking the same. stuff down and studying, but ultimately, it's not like anyone, I think, is really separating

themselves, at least for good reasons from the pack. Yeah, and again, I just think, I think some coaches, you know, they talk to their teams about wanting to be, you know, the best forechecking team in the league or the team that, you know, flies out of the zone the quickest in the league. Like a lot of it, maybe I find it's ego driven without really looking at what kind of personnel you have. So the, the team, teams that are going to do better and have better results are always going to be the ones who are more realistic and more pragmatic about what they can actually do. All right. Good stuff. What do you want to plug on the way out?

It's been a while since you put out that hockey tactics 2025. I saw a little bit of a tease online about a potential 2026 version. Is that in the works? Can we report that here? What else do you want to promote? Yeah. So I'm actively researching for hockey tactics 2026. So as usual, there's going to be a chapter on every team breaking down their five on five and special teams tactics. Obviously this year we got the Olympics coming up, so maybe I'll do something on that. You know, I'm kind of open with taking the format a couple of different ways.

So if you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see in the book, shoot me an email, jack.han at hay.com or get at me in the P.DOCAST Discord. That's right. Tag Jack and the Pediocast Discord. Join us in there as well while we watch these games. break all this stuff down. It's an invaluable resource that Jack put together in the unhawked tactics

2025. So I'm already looking forward to this year's version. If you want to subscribe to the PDOCAST Patreon, I highly recommend doing so. We'll reference to a couple shows we've done here recently, breaking stuff down further there. We have a couple game breakdowns coming with Harmon later today. We also did a full section

on what we're seeing from the Oilers and the capitals with Steve Peters. So if you want more from today's conversation, check that out there. Give us a five-star review. Wherever you listen to the PDOcast, and that's going to all from us here today i hope everyone has a great weekend we'll be back sunday night as usual with drans for our sunday special thank you for listening to the hockey pdocast streaming on the sports net radio network