The Hockey PDOcast - The Seattle Kraken deep dive

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Dimitri welcomes in Monday regular Cam Charron back to The Hockey PDOcast as the two of them conduct a deep dive on Seattle Kraken.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. 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.

Lessing to the Mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovic. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dimitri Villapovich and joining me here in studio as is the case. Every Monday this season is my good buddy, Cam Sharaw and Cam, what's going on, man? Hi, Dimitri, it's great to be here. I love hearing that music. It's a highlight of my week.

It's a great way to start. I'm glad we kept it going this season. So here's the plan for today. The Monday tradition, we're picking a team, we're deep diving them. It's going to be a team that's caught our eye recently. that allowed us to go back, watch the tape, combine it with the numbers, and talk about what they've been doing well, how they've been winning this week. We're going to try to keep the vibes going.

The vibes have been incredibly good so far this season, right? We've done the Buffalo Sabres. We've done the New Jersey Devils. This week, we're going to do the Seattle Cracken. A deep dive indeed. So, dare I say, the best hockey team in the Pacific Northwest? Is that a fair claim based on the first month of the season? Well, they're certainly in the top two.

and probably the first. And not number two. Yeah. So there's seven, four, and two on the year with a plus five goal differential, both of which are top ten in the league. This season, these are the wins that they've accrued. They've been the aves, the kings, the flames, the wild, our sabers, and the penguins twice recently. They've rattled off four consecutive wins and now head home for a six-game homestand. And so I thought this was just good a time of any is if we're going to do a Seattle crack and deep dive as we keep going through this Monday tradition.

I felt like this was probably a pretty good time because the vibes are pretty good with this team. And they're finally scoring a bunch of goals and winning a bunch of games. Yeah. And I think what's funny, too, is they've kind of caught the penguins at the start of their little run of malfeasance. Or they've helped expedite that process. Yeah. So, I don't know, it's been funny kind of watching. I watch both those Cracken Penguins games and just kind of how both teams reacted to that,

especially that 2-1 win by the Cracken in Seattle. that was a couple of weeks ago now where that just kind of started, the penguins, you know, kind of took away from their, their whole vibe. Well, this is a crack in deep time.

I don't know. Why you keep citing the Pizzary Penguins with this, but, but yeah, I think it's, what I've noticed is that they've had a lot of success winning these types of close games,

and they've never quite been out of any games this season. And I don't think that was really the case for the last year. And we can kind of get into, like, how sustainable this is, or we cannot, because I know you like the vibes. Let's keep the vibes good.

Yeah. But, you know, they've won, especially, you know, that comeback winning games of Flames, they scored the late winner. They had the late winner in Pittsburgh on Saturday night. We don't know how, you know, how much longer they're going to be able to keep this going, but just the fact that they're there and hanging around until the very end, picking up those points. Here's what I say is an encouraging sign here.

Right before we started recording, we were talking exactly about that Flames game. And I was like, oh, that was the game they went down big, right? and then you were like, no, I was 4-2. And in my mind, I'm thinking, well, if they had gone down 4-2 in that type of setting on the road last year, that probably would have been an insurmountable deficit. It felt like just because the idea of scoring three goals in the third period and scoring five overall for the game would have seemed like a very uphill task for that group. And I think to, if this was their first year, if this was their inaugural season, their inaugural season, sorry,

we would probably be a lot more confident about their ability to kind of stay in the playoff race. and actually make the playoffs. Like I think that they, you know, they're obviously right in the mix. It's only 13 games in, but they're, you know, they're right there so far.

If this were last year, we'd be a lot more confident, but just seeing, you know, knowing that we don't really know how their defense and goaltending is going to hold up over the, you know,

the remaining seven eighths of this season. They have one year of existence. Yeah. In this universe, and they already have a lot of baggage. Just that's how bad last year was in that regard. Yeah. And,

you know, Martin Jones doesn't have that package and he's been playing some great hockey for them. Yeah, well, here's the thing. A lot was made last year of that goal tending, right? And I think deservedly so. They committed $46 million to Philip Grubauer and Chris Rieger over the offseason. And what they got for it was 37th ranked, the percentage.

I think those two guys combined to give up 40 more goals against and expected. Do you say 37th out of 32 teams? It might. I meant 32nd, but that's how bad they were. They were the 37th out of 32 teams in the league. And listen, that was catastrophic. And I think especially, like, you have to note how demoralizing a lot of those goals against were. Like, they led the league in giving up goals on the first shot they faced.

I think they did so 12 times. Like, it just felt like they'd start games down one-nothing. And there was no confidence that they would actually get any saves from those guys. The other, the funny thing, too, is I know that you had that stat in this bag and you were going to bring it up. Yeah. I actually looked at how many goals they allowed in the first minute. They were actually like league average in that respect, which goes to show how they didn't often give up shots in the first minute. These are shots that they're giving up three or four minutes into the game off of the first, often the first set their goalie sees.

And all of a sudden, you know, they're down one nothing through no fall of their own. They're up four one, five one on the shot clock. Well, that must be such a, that almost makes it worse in my opinion. You come out of the gate like three, four consecutive good shifts. You've got the puck in the offensive zone. You haven't given anything up. You're feeling good about yourself. You're like, all right, we're off on the right track.

and then the other team comes in the offensive zone finally gets a shot, scores. It's like, oh, we're down. Yeah, that makes it worse in a way to me. And I don't know, you know, I think the goaltending is obviously at fault. I saw Philip Gruberauer allow a lot of pucks he shouldn't have last season. But I also think it wasn't really a great environment to be in. I thought that they were pretty poor at defending and transition. There was a lot of, there was just a lot of open space to kind of work,

where the opposition was allowed to work in the offensive zone. I certainly knew last year when I would have been with the Leafs and watching those games, how it didn't seem like there was any sort of defensive pressure on our attacking players. And that might just be fooled by randomness and you're seeing the results as opposed to the process. But, you know, I refuse to believe that Philip Grubauer could just be this really good goalie in Denver and then all of a sudden move to Seattle and just, you know. Well, I think it was a need of a. another example of how important environment and surroundings are for goalies.

I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. He wasn't, like, he wasn't as good as he was in Colorado. He wasn't as bad as he showed last year. It was probably in between. But the point I was trying to make here was regardless of your mileage on how much better you expected him to be this year, like they brought in Martin Jones, I guess, as their backup, and he's performed actually pretty well for them so far in the past couple games, especially with Gruberauer out. But considering how much they had financially invested in Gruberauer, there was no they couldn't have entered this past off

season with any sort of plan of all right this is how we're going to fix our goaltending you almost have to ride it out and hope that he bounces back to at least league average or not 32nd 37th ranked in safe percentage out of 32 and so instead what they did and I think this was shrewd on their part

was they realized that all right for all the talk about how bad our goaltending has been we were almost just as bad offensively and I believe they were 28th in scoring across all situations. There were 27th in shooting percentage as a team. And yes, it makes sense when you look at the players they picked and how they went

about their expansion draft process. They didn't have necessarily elite talent, especially up front where they'd be able to score at a high rate. But I think that was kind of an under-talked-about part of their issues last year. It was so easy to latch on to Gru Bauer and how many goals they were giving up that, that, you know, were the fault of the defense. But they weren't able to provide any sort of real run support, and that was a big issue. and that's why this offseason they focused so many of their resources and efforts into trying to fix that.

And I think that was a smart plan of theirs. Yeah. And I also think there was a lot of issues with lineup continuity as well. It felt like every game Dave Haxel was running out just a different group of forwards every single time. I don't think they had a single three-man combination in terms of a forward line that played 200, 5-15 minutes together last season. It seems pretty hard to do. Do they already have two so far this year? No, I mean, they have two that are already over 100.

10 games in or whatever, so they're going to certainly get there. Yeah, they've really stuck with the Baneers line and the Wendberg line, and we're going to talk about those two in a bit. Having better forwards, I think, you know, part of it, having better forwards makes it easier to stick with those lines. I think that helps Dave Haxel. Not that I'm the biggest fan of Dave Haxel, but I think having better personnel certainly factors into that.

I should qualify that I don't share, you know, as an ex-co worker of Dave Hock. Oh, of course. I don't share that view. Well, I don't want to endorse it. No, I think it was a fair. I think it was a fair question. Last time we saw him as a head coach in the NHL when he was running the Philadelphia Flyers.

Yeah. They were one of the most point shot heavy offenses in the league. Then he was an assistant coach for the Leafs, where the Leafs were, I believe, the least point shot heavy offense in the league. Yeah. And then he went to Seattle last year, and I have the staff for you. Okay.

38% of their 5-1-5 shot attempts as a team came for a defenseman, which I believe was top five in terms of the highest marks. This year they're already down to 32%. which is kind of like where you want to be, I think. Middle of the pack? Yeah, around middle of the pack, which is fine. I mean, I'd like it to be even less if possible. Yeah.

But I think it's a fair question to ask of how much, how much is process and approach and how much of it is just having better players because they're clearly better offensively this season than they were in the first year. Yeah, just, you know, you hit the nail on the head a few minutes ago. Like you just have the better forwards. You don't have to rely on. taking long shots and hoping for the odd deflection or rebound.

I hate that kind of offense. I hate that kind of half-court offense that I don't think it works. I think when it does, it looks stupid. It's not my favorite. It's not my favorite. Just, you know, not to put you on the spot here, but which players were most at fault? Because I'm just thinking about which defensemen they had last year,

and I'm not really coming to mind of any. I think it was pretty much everyone, Although I think Mark Giordano was certainly shooting much more than he should have. But I think it was across the board. I think a lot of their game plan was, let's cycle the puck up to the point and hammer it as hard as we can and hope that it bounces it. Yeah, that's low to high. That's a hope plan. That's not like an actual.

I hate load of high and I hate point shots. But yeah, just kind of funneling into the middle, laying your defensemen work down below the hash marks, have players send pucks in the middle. I think that's just the better way to do it. Well, and that's reflected. the team shot chart. Yeah. You look at how they're like where their shots are coming from at 5-1-5. Last year, it was a startling amount of blue on the heat map. Yeah. It was like left point. Blue means bad. Blue means bad. Red means good. There's no red anywhere to be found where you'd actually hope to see it. Except for the left point like right by the blue line where they're like

the lowest percentage possible shot, the most inefficient shot you can take in hockey. I think. This year, still not great by it. any means. But I find it interesting that they're like inching more and more in towards the middle of the ice in between the two dots, which is the most premium real estate in the offensive zone. I think if you can consistently find a way to get shots in there. Like that's, that's typically the hardest part to get into. The defense is generally pretty good at sniffing that out and having someone there at least with a stick to prevent you from getting shots off. And the the reason why I bring that up is because one of the guys they brought in this offseason is Oliver

Berksand who has profiled as one of the best players in the league at getting there time and time again throughout his years in Columbus, and he's doing so yet again here in Seattle. I don't know if we're ever going to be able to get to the Columbus Blue Jackets deep dive because we have the... With the good vibes requirement? With good vibes requirement. But just thinking back to their offseason. And, you know, we saw that video of how the jackets basically got into like Johnny

Goddrow's sweepstakes because they signed his friend Eric Adrensen. Of course. However, in doing so, it forced them to get rid of all of your Bork Strand for basically nothing. Yes. Would you trade Bork Strand for Good Branson and Goddrow straight up? And I frankly don't know if I would. I think he's been that effective not only at 5 on 5, but also on special teams for this team. He's one of the really good middle guys on the power play for one.

we saw that Columbus power play was so much more efficient when the offense ran through him when Patrick Lina was hurt last year and now we're seeing at 5 on 5 that this is the top line, this is the best line that Seattle has. This is a dominant puck possession line

with Alex Wenberg and Andrei Barakowski. Yeah, I'd say that was, you know, we talked pretty glowingly last week about the John Marino trade for the Devils and how they were able to steal him from the Penguins. Bjorx Strand for a third and a four is as good as it gets, especially when you consider that he's under contract at, what,

$5.4 million for his age 27 to 30 seasons, and he's a legitimate top line winger. We always joke about, oh, is Sasha Barkov the most underrated player in the league? It's like, no, I think people are familiar with how good Sasha Barakov is. Oliver Brooks Tran, probably has been and continues to be the correct answer for most underrated player in the league because no one talks about him. He's legitimately very good. Just as an aside, I thought it was funny. the Hurricanes Leaves game and Jacob Slavin was brought up as one of the most underrated

players in hockey yeah I don't think he is at this point no people know who Jacob's Laban is I hope so they're following the right people yeah so Bjork's trying this season leads the Cracken with 57 5-1-5 shot attempts which is 13th most in the league by my count 26 of those 57 have come from that home plate area that we like to talk about the inner slot and kind of between the dots has zero goals so far remarkable I think those are coming because he's also 13th in five-on-five goals the past three seasons prior to this one. So tied with players like, Goodrow, who you mentioned, actually funny enough. And Willie Mealander, Matthew Kuchuk, the list goes on on with like elite bona fide top line players,

which is what Björchrand is himself. And so that's coming. And so I think the impact that he's had on this team's offense in terms of getting to those areas and being able to manufacture shots from those regions, that's an element that they just did not have last year. And I think, you know, regardless of what happens with the shooting percentage, whether they keep, especially on the power of play converting as high of a percentage of shots as they have so far, clearly this team's game plan offensively is significantly more refined than it was last year. And I think that is very encouraging. Well, also with that line in particular, they're not just, you know, it's not just the offensive potential that you get from these shot attempts in this possession. It's that you're keeping the other team out of your defensive zone. And that was a big, you know, that's also a big problem. if you have a poor, if you have a poor defensive goaltending,

if you can spend as much time the other end of the ice as possible, and win pucks, cycle the puck and, you know, not give up possession easily on those point shots and just kind of work to funnel it into the middle of the ice as you're talking about. Yeah. Just creates, you know, it creates a lot more opportunity.

And it also, it also forces your, your opposition to spend 20, 30 second increments on the other side of the ice. And these are good, you know, he's playing against good competition as well. So I'm curious for your take on this. then. Okay. How much of this is chicken versus the egg in terms of that offensive game plan where is it the type of thing where if you have better players, they sort of naturally or innately get to those dangerous spots on the ice and so they're going to make that happen? Or is it possible, do you think, for a coach or a team that has a plan to sort of diagram up

or scheme up good looks for their team, even though they don't necessarily have the personal to do so in terms of having a plan of this is where. where we want to get the puck. Now, it might not always work. And if you don't have talented passers and talented players, you might not be able to pull it off as effectively. But do you think you can actually sort of scheme up where you're shooting from the offensive zone?

Or do you think it is much more sort of random and you just need good players to accomplish it? I think it's both. I think good players are going to find, are going to find good spots. Well, they're good for a reason. Yeah, they are. And they have that, they have that, that,

that in inherent offensive awareness. you know, they've been playing this game since they were five years old. They know where to, you know, they know where to, you know, they know historically where they've gotten goals from. I don't think they need to be told, you know, they don't need to be given a map to the middle of the ice. What a good coach can do, though, what a good, you know, just like you talk about a good breakout scheme, how it can create space in the neutral zone.

You can create those opportunities in transition. You can encourage your players to be aggressive and to hit those spaces. You're basically looking for ways to create space and mismatches. And not only the neutral zone, but also the offensive zone. And you're creating these false two-on-ones and just these certain areas of the ice. I think, but I think eventually you just need good players to know how to do that. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

I do think like having a, like a general philosophy, though, because we've seen teams that have more talent kind of be undone by having poor strategy as well. Right. Like I think you kind of need, you need both. But. But I also think that. that there aren't too many forwards that spend a lot of time shooting from the perimeters either. I think that most of the time a forward is taking a shot, they're trying to get as close to the scoring area as possible.

And most shooters, most forwards in anyway, you're going to see their shot map is going to be reflected in that. You're not going to have a lot of guys that take the majority of their shots from the outside. They're all trying to work it in the middle. Defenseman's a little bit different because, you know, the incentives are a little bit different. You know, they like to shoot for deflections and rebounds. We've watched enough games of Jeff Petrie and Brent Burns this year. we don't need to talk about them anymore. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I actually kind of want to save Maddie Baneers for when we come back from break, because that's going to be like a full section. I don't want to pause that halfway through. Do you want to talk a little bit about Shane right here? Because I think that that's been a big topic of discussion, right? It's like, all right, he's playing about eight minutes per game.

Yeah. Then they healthy scratch him for a handful of games there. Then Jared McCann goes out of the lineup, so they have a more natural spot to kind of put him in down the middle and play him in the lineup. And I guess I think him against Minnesota, he even played like 13 or so minutes. I think it's, it's a pretty tough spot in the sense that he's such a clear candidate to be just playing as much as possible at the AHL level. And because of the current situation, he is not eligible to do so. And so I don't, I think it's almost kind of as simple as that because I think the natural inclination is to say, oh, the Seattle team struggled so

much last year offensively and then they get this guy, they get this talent. They should just be playing him as much as they can and seeing what they have in him and developing them. That should be the focus of the season. But then you look at the actual depth chart and when they're healthy, it's a pretty good forward group. Like it's not necessarily the most impressive list of names,

but they have 12 good NHL forwards. Like who is he replacing? They have Yanni Gord and Brandon Tannab on the third line. And we've talked a little bit about their scoring being better. and they're three point leaders, their three point rate leaders at 5-on-5 this year, are I think Connor Geeky, Yanni Gord, and Daniel Sprong, I think.

Yeah, Morgan Geiki. Who would I say? Connor Geeky. Right. So prospect, yeah. Okay. Different geeky, yeah. Yeah.

But, yeah, like, there's not an obvious place for him in the line of a fit, and a lot of times where a team will be in the draft lottery and pick a player that's good enough for the NHL, they have that spot available. Right. Because they haven't added. Berikovsky, Bjork Strand, and essentially Baneers in the offseason. Yeah.

Not to mention like Jaden Swartz is finally healthy and he was out for a lot of last year. Yeah. Like they have a good forward group. And yeah. And, you know, to be honest, I mentioned this on Twitter. The CHL-NHL agreement sucks. And it sucks for this particular purpose because there's nothing, there's really no reason for the Cracken to have Shane Wright in the lineup for more than

eight minutes a night. This isn't a developmental league. team that is clearly on the cusp of competing. And they're going to be, as it looks like right now, they're going to be in a playoff race. Yeah. And you can't really waste your time or spend those precious minutes developing players.

He should be playing in Palm Springs right now. He should be a Coachella Valley Firebird. And there's really no reason for him to have to go back to junior. He's done enough in the Ontario League. He needs to be learning. He needs to be playing on that pro scale, learning how to be a pro, learning, you know, and just kind of like integrating, integrating himself with the system. Yeah.

Learning the coach, you know, like being with the development staff every day. Being with the coaches, talking with the coaches all the time. And you can't do that if you're in junior. So we're kind of stuck with him being a healthy scratch when his relatives are in town. But as you said, if you put him in the lineup when the team is healthy, he's just knocking off a player that's been more productive. And I haven't, you know, I frankly haven't seen enough of right in the NHL to... I don't think anyone has. Well, yeah, you know.

I think that's why we're talking about this. And I think, you know, in the games he has played, I've been keeping, I've been keeping an eye out. Because I want to, you know, I want to see what he's been doing, what he's able to do at this level. Yes. And I haven't, I don't really have a read on him. I haven't, I don't know if he's playing well or poorly because, you know, well, he's seeing like eight minutes a night. But it's impossible to evaluate. Exactly.

Like, I think I've said this on the podcast. I'm not sure it was you or someone else. So sorry if I'm repeating my. self here but like this is like a big concept for Dale Belfrey when he works with his players especially young players it's devising ways to manufacture puck touches for them yeah and like especially for a young skilled player you need to have the puck on your stick because that's what you're best at to make plays in that regard it's like you can't you can't take a young guy put him on the fourth line where he's playing in real time like goes out every five minutes or so for a shift

and he's out there for 30 seconds, and his task is to dump the puck in, kind of throw a body check and get back off the ice so the other players can go on and do something with a puck. And that's a really tough position to put a young player in. Of course, it's going to be impossible to evaluate them. They're going to be unhappy. They're going to struggle. And so I guess the point I'm making is that's clearly not the solution, but you're right.

They don't necessarily have a natural spot. Now with Jeremy can out, yeah, it makes sense. That's actually a perfect spot for him to be insulated by, Gianni Gord and Brandon Tanev on his wings, that's great. That's an awesome spot for his development. And then you can ease him in that way. But unfortunately, when they're healthy and when Jeremy Kahn's back, he's not playing ahead of him in the lineup at this point of his career.

So I don't know what that solution is. And the only loser of that CHL agreement is the player. There's a lot of losers in the CHL-IHL agreement. And this, like, I'll be talking about this a lot, I think, over the next year or two. Right. It's until they can, until they restructure it to allow, CHLers to play in the

HL when they've clearly past the point where they need the the Canadian hockey league. It doesn't make sense for, it's not even good for the OHL to have right in Kingston. Like, he's not like driving ticket sales. If he is, then the league has a big problem.

Yeah. So, but, you know, I think later when we talk about Benyars, where I'm going to get back into that whole you know, NHL as a development. mental league and letting players kind of learn for themselves. Wright isn't a player at the caliber where you can kind of let him, where you can give them a lot of slack. You know,

you have to give them one or two touches a shift and really restrict it, 30s, 40 seconds max. Yeah. All right. Well, that's a good plug for the Maddie Baneer's conversation. We're going to have here after the break. Let's take a quick break here, put a pin in the conversation.

And then we come back. We'll do just that. You are listening to the HockeyPEDEO cast here on the Sportsnet Radio Network. We are back here on the Hockey PEDEO cast. doing our Seattle cracking deep die with Cam Sharon. Cam, we've been teasing at it. All the show so far. Let's talk about Maddie Baneers.

How'd he be? Just turned 20 over the weekend. Shout out to a fellow Scorpio in Maddie Baneers. Five goals, four assists so far. Seven of those nine points have come at 5-1-5. You know, it's interesting. We spoke about his shot. You highlighted him as a player.

You were really excited to watch this season. In the first show, we did here in the Pidiok has to start the season. There's a players you're excited to watch. you kind of highlighted his shot in particular, and we spoke, which I think aged pretty well in terms of how the Cracken needed to create better looks,

and he gave them sort of an avenue for doing so, especially with his finishing ability. I'd actually, just watching all of his shifts back today, I'd like to see him be a bit more selfish, actually, at 5-15. It feels like he is so kind of in the weeds of being, like a true number one center and kind of getting everyone involved that he's taking a backseat sometimes where I wouldn't like to see him do so. And I'd like him to be a bit more selfish in that regard because he's got one hell of a shot. And, you know, so far the season at

five on five, he's shooting less frequently than Alex Wemberg, who is like one of the most past heavy players since he's been in the league. I think Wemberg's only had 100 shots in a season once in his eight-year career and he's shooting more often than Baneer so far. It's not for a lack of having the puck or having opportunities to do so. It's more so he's kind of passing it off sometimes where he probably should be taking it. And so I know we always talk about how we want. We don't mind players being unselfish

when they're trying to turn a good shot into a great shot, but there's times where he's such a good shooter that I'd like to see him just grip and rip because I think that would help open up more spaces for him. Yeah. Just thinking about what you're saying here. And like at the start of the year, when I talked about Ben-Jars,

I was really excited to see him with Jared McCann. on the other wing. And that hasn't happened. Beniers has actually really struggled in possession when he's been off that, when he's been off, or not in between Jane Schwartz and Jordan Eberley. And both them have experience playing

with pretty good centermen in their careers. They're both veteran wingers that can work with him up the ice. And I think Eberle is probably a little bit more used to being kind of the finisher on a line because he played so much with Maddie Barzell in, or on... Just exclusively he plays with Maddie's?

Yeah, he loves those Maddies. Yeah. But yeah, I think you're right. And I was actually really surprised looking at it, looking at it earlier today is how low his shot rate is. Yeah. And I don't know if I want to see him be more selfish because I think a player breaking in over the line and taking a shot, even if it's from a good area, the goalie's really able to, you know,

the goalie's set. The goalie can accept that shot. It has to be a pretty good release because you're looking at medium distance. Yeah. So, you know, you're going to, you know, just back at the envelope math here, you're going to score about one of those goals every 20 times. And you get four or five zone entries a game. So that's a goal every five games. Yeah.

Versus coming in, passing it across, cutting to the net. I think it's less that I want to see Maddie be more selfish and more that I think Schwartz and Eberley need to start. kind of thinking about being a playmaker and thinking less about finishing. And we're going to talk about it a little bit later, his, you know, Matt's playmaking ability. Yeah. But, you know, what, like, how are Schwartz and Everleigh going to find him in those good spots along the flank, not just in the middle of the ice, but along the flank,

places where you can really beat a goalie. Yeah. I guess I was bringing that up just because I saw him a few times pass up good opportunities to actually shoot to kind of defer. And you're right. That's probably a better way to frame it. I'd like to see them find a way to get him more shots because that shot is such a weapon. Now, at the same time, I've been highly impressed by the playmaking chops he's already shown because, you know, coming in, I knew the shot would be good. I knew the motor and sort of like how hard it competes and sort of how he's always involved.

I knew that would be there. I had no concerns about that. I didn't know necessarily how he'd profile at the NHL level in terms of making others better and getting them the puck in great spaces. And, I mean, he had a game against the Penguins recently. I think it was the first time they played at home where he set up about three or four absolute great A chances for his teammates. And he's been showing a lot more of that than I expected in the early going so far. And, I mean, if you're going to combine that with all the other things we love about his game, I mean, that's going to be an unreal offensive player. Can we get into the other things we like about his game then?

Yeah, these are all the sort of, these are all the glamorous sort of, you know, you got to mention the shot, you got to mention the passing. what's your other favorite part about his game? Well, this is going to sound absolutely ridiculous, but I've, you know, I'm very, you know, I've been, I was very familiar, and I watch Austin Matthews grow from being a rookie into being who he is today. And I see a lot of a young Austin Matthews

in Matt Baneers. A lot of it of just how good he is in tight spaces, especially in the defensive zone, how he's always looking to make a play to break the puck out with control. I think it would be so easy. I think we talked a little about, up is a little bit with Shane Wright, how the NHL is in a developmental league.

But it's really nice at the crack and are kind of letting Benirs make that occasional mistake in the defensive zone just by also allowing him to make those plays, which goes to set up more rushes and more offense for the team going the other way. And he can make those little plays. He's not afraid of evading a four checker on his own or even using the body. He's not that big of a guy. You know, that's, I think, the big difference is Matthews is a much, bigger player and he was at that age.

But Benyers certainly doesn't play like 175 pound player. He looks like he has kind of this swagger and bigness about him on the ice. He's, there's the one play from, from Saturday where he kind of poked the puck, a passive getting him at the point. Just kind of blew by him and set up a two on one. And Malkin's, you know, not a weak player.

He didn't even blow by him. He like, he collided with him and came out ahead in that situation, which is pretty rare because Malcon's huge. Yeah. So, you know, looking at Baneer's size,

I was actually quite surprised to see how light he is on his feet. But, and, you know, I think the other thing, too, is just, you know, just that, that offensive instinct as well. It's not just the shot,

but it's also that ability to finish in tight. And that winning goal he had against the flames last week, from that really tough angle, just, you know, to get it, to elevate that over the goalie's left pad, over the Vodar's left pad there, just to the top of the net.

That was a fantastic finish from a really, really tight angle. Yeah. Yeah, his game is already so mature. Like the support he provides, and you mentioned deep in the defensive zone where he's sort of a pressure relief out for his defense, when he goes back and he gets the puck. It seems like he's always picking someone up off the puck as well.

Like he's very attentive and alert to what's going on around him on the ice. Like you'll rarely ever see him kind of just gliding around in the defensive zone aimlessly. Like, he's very diligent about his center responsibilities. And there was a play in the, like, in the Flames game where I believe, like, Blake Coleman kind of came out of nowhere off of broken play and seemed like he was going to have a great one-time opportunity right in the inner slot. And Baneers kind of sniffed it out and got there.

And I don't know if he stick-lifted him. We're kind of just, like, knocked him off his stride enough to prevent a scoring chance there. And so I really like seeing stuff like that. He's always kind of engaged in these one-on-ones. You mentioned the Matthews comp to me earlier. And I was kind of struggling. with it because I've already seen Baneers this year skate

out of his zone, like hitting a gear in terms of speed. It already puts him above in terms of just like how fast he can look when he's moving with the puck. It feels like... It's not the prettiest stride though. No, but once he gets going, like he covers a lot of ground. Yeah. And he's already broken it up time and time or broken it out of the zone like that.

And I love we were talking about puck touches earlier with Shane Wright. I mean, clearly he's getting the opportunity in terms of ice time. But when he's out there, he's not kind of like tentatively just waiting for the puck to come to him especially in his own zone like he'll go and he'll get it and he's always involved in the play and i know i know you don't necessarily love looking at penalties drawn as much as i do i just think that i think that officiating is random which is my only thing if if but i do like the idea he's played he's played 23 games yeah at the nchl level so far between this year and last yeah he's drawn nine penalties and he's been whistled for none himself i don't know i don't know if that's going to necessarily continue. I'm sure he's going to wind up taking some penalties and we'll see as his career goes long how many more he's going to draw. But I think in terms of his speed and how hard he is on the puck and all that, like some of, I think that is a translatable skill. And if it is, that's clearly, like, such a net positive for his team to give them those opportunities to play with a man up. It's also like the, just the volume of puck touches he gets as well. And you're right about how he's, he's always looking to do something. He's always, he's looking to make the play happen as opposed to waiting the, waiting for the play to come to him. And that's something about Austin, Matthews's game that I that I've I kind of noticed in him or he's just when he's on the ice you really notice he's on the ice it's tough to it's it's tough to it you can't ignore him out there because he's doing something in all three zones and so he if you know if you're

going to have the puck on your stick a lot you're going to draw a lot of penalties and just that ability to kind of have that defense you know the zero penalties against is more impressive to me because because he's involved it's not for a lack of trying he right he's involved defensively and we're you know this is you know he has the makings of a guy that's going to be a top 10 goal score that gets some Selke votes. And those guys are really tough to find. Seattle got a good one here. Yeah.

I'm really excited about him. I mean, being a young center in the NHO, I do believe is really tough. It's not one of those things that's like over talked about. And listen, like he's, for example, he's getting worked in the face off circle quite a bit right now. Like he's not doing well in that regard. I think that's like a very natural thing that happens in a young player's development. and he has to learn the tricks of the trade and that'll come with time. But a lot of these other little details that he's already shown so far,

that motor, like how hard he competes and how involved he is, I think that stuff already, like, puts him so ahead of the curve. And as a freshly turned 20-year-old center, like, he's already so far ahead of where we had. I think we had any realistic reason to believe he'd be at, right? Whenever a player gets drafted that high, I think there's certainly going to be certain fans. that are just, oh, let's pencil him in. He's going to be an all-star.

He's going to do this, and he's that. Like, sometimes that stuff takes time, and he's already shown so much more in the early going. I was in a choke career than I thought he would. Like, I thought he'd get there eventually, but it would take him some time to do so. And he's kind of, they've thrown him in the deep end, and he's swimming just fine. Yeah, and, you know, you talk about that, that all-star status, and we're going to have an all-star game this year, and I can't think of anyone else on the crack at that. Well, you, of course, mentioned Bjorks-Rs-Rand.

Yeah. But I think that Ben-Eerke-Rexran. is the natural fit to represent the cracking at the all-star game in Florida this year. I think it's in Florida. Either way, I don't think that that's the thing that really matters. When, you know, all-star games because a lot of players miss them, but it's a testament to just how quickly he's become not just someone who looks really good for at 20 years old, but just an overall top 15 center in the game at 20 years old.

Right. And there aren't a lot of centers I'd take ahead of them right. now. Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait to see how the rest of the season goes from. Yeah. So I think that's a good, good way to wrap up our deep out of the Seattle Cracken. Was there anything else on this team that you thought was worth mentioning or while we're still here? Um, I'd like to see them shoot a little bit more on the penalty kill actually. They're, uh, penalty kill? Yeah, well, they're, they're, they're six the lowest in PK shots four, but they are fifth in PK shots against. This is per natural stat trick. They've actually been giving up quite a few goals on the PK at five on four,

four on five, I want to see them, I want to see them spend a little bit less time in the defensive zone and defending and more, uh, trying to create stuff, yeah. Pressure down ice and I think that that's the way to go about it. I don't like, I don't like passive penalty kills. Yeah. So go after it. Yeah, we agree there.

Okay, that's all I had on the Cracken. You know, we should mention, I think last week we were talking, we were going to do a deep dive of the Boston Bruins. Yeah. Today on this, on Adopt the series. and, you know, I can only speak for myself. I'm curious of your thoughts on this. But, like, for me, like, quite frankly,

it just didn't feel right to sit here and do a glowing review of their on-ice performance. And I think at the time we were doing it, they were like 10 in 1 or something. Yeah. To just sit here and celebrate it after what they did this weekend in trying to sign Mitchell Miller. Like, it just didn't, I don't know,

it didn't sit right with me. So that's kind of why we pivoted and we decided to do the crack and instead, I'm curious for your thoughts on. Yeah, and I didn't hesitate to, to, agree with you when you mentioned that to me, even though we, you know, I did quite a bit more prep for the Bruins than I was able to do the crack in. But that's, and I, you know, it's, I felt, I kind of feel bad for the player, like obviously there's a lot of people that, that were impacted by the signing.

But I do feel bad for the players as well, because they kind of had to, they have to live with the mistakes that their management staff made. And Patrice Bergeron's playing well, Hamas Lindholz having fantastic gear. And I love, you know, we'd love to be able to, to talk about that. But it just felt you're right it felt really toned to discuss that because there's so much stuff going around the brunes right now well i thought i thought you know when you mentioned the players are i thought you're going to say like i thought it was cool to hear them speak up yeah in one voice and actually like stand up for what's right yeah and show some morality as opposed to what hockey has been like in the past where everyone's kind of you know you tow the company line you'd be a team player you know all that

and just stay silent even if there's something clearly problematic going on and so i thought it was pretty cool to yeah to see like filino's comments and burson and marshanes and so on and so yeah and philino isn't a guy that's been there for so long right but burgeoning charries that grabitas though as a veteran and it's great because well and it's great that he you know he's he knows that he has the support of the people in that dressing room to be able to have comments like that so i don't want to spend too much time on it because this is you know i did want to acknowledge it right like it would have felt also just ignored and pretend like everything is okay as well would have kind of sucked on our part i i like one final thing i do want to say on is i i i i i

Like we've been around hockey quite a while. I feel like we actually, like you and I first connected very early into my media career. Like what was that? Like 2011 maybe or so when we both started working for a Knuck's Army. You were already there at the time. You're already a media veteran by then. But, you know, I've been around the NHL for a long time. And like I'm generally pretty cynical about the way like this league conducts its business and everything involved in that.

and how if you contribute on the ice or you're deemed to be valuable in that regard as a player, teams are just willing to overlook transgressions off the ice and the bottom line is all the matters. And I'm cynical about that already. And when this news came out on Friday,

like I was genuinely stunned and then just seeing all the reports come out about how badly they handled everything from not talking to the victim's family to not consulting with the league about whether he'd even be eligible to not asking their own players what they thought about it or not valuing their opinions enough if they did.

I just, what the Bruins did from start to finish in terms of their handling of it was even for my cynical brain, just blew my mind. And I was like, I didn't even think these lows were possible. Yeah, and you think that just for how much weight in the organization Patrice Bergeron has, how long he's been there,

how he's one of the most valuable captains in the league, for a player personnel decision that so clearly affects the culture of the dressing room that he wasn't consulted at all. I think that that's, I think the Bruins have a lot to, to think about, about the way they go about these decisions. And,

you know, we said it. Credit to the players for, for, for doing, for, credit to the players for doing this. And yeah,

you know, I spent eight years in an HL front office. I saw, like, there's a lot of things. They kind of have to plug your ears and look the other way for, and just kind of hope that you provide, you know, smarter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hope to, yeah, hope the future generations are going to be better. Yeah, yeah, it just, yeah, it sucks that happen. It sucks that. You know, old trauma was dug up and a lot of people were hurt and it was very easily avoidable. And so I didn't want to let them off the hook and I'm glad no one else is because I feel like,

they probably thought, I imagine this was something that you just, you know, for a couple days of bad PR and then, Yeah, it'll blow over and then everyone move on. And I'm glad that that's not what happened here. Um, okay, we've got about five more minutes here on the PDOCs before we have to sign off. Um, another part of our Monday shows here are going through the schedule and looking at games we're interested in in for the coming week and kind of going, going day by day and highlighting some stuff for people to watch. Cam, what's, uh, what's first on your list? I'm not actually, I'm not going to be watching any hockey tonight.

Now the games really appealed to me. You're watching Monday night football? I might be watching some of the Monday night football. Tuesday, we get the back half of the home and home between Calgary at New Jersey. Oh, yeah. And the first game was an awesome game. Yeah, on Saturday night. That was a really fun one.

I mean, I would say that about every game involving the New Jersey Devils right now, based on the way they're playing, but I thought the flames were a good foil for them. I spent my night watching one of the worst hockey games I've ever seen. The Canucks spreads, right? Yes. What were your thoughts on that game? it was the worst I don't want to talk about it anymore that was it was a travesty both teams played to lose and one of them succeeded that's that's all I have to say about that one so you're watching these games

for the purposes of tracking them for your site right yeah which doesn't include shootouts you know how it ended right I do know how it okay it was like you're tracking it might have been it might have been bad it got even yeah better or worse depending on what your mind well I don't I don't track shootout attempts yeah yeah but I did have to watch I did have that that was also the first time I watched it sing like a three on three and been like miserable through the entire. Well the final, I don't know how many minutes of that game. Like you could have told me that during a break, the coaches literally shook hands and we're like, let's each get a point here tonight. Like there was no interest in either team. I don't know if it was interest or capability, but neither

team seemed able to score. I don't want to talk about this anymore. All right, Tuesday night then. Tuesday's a busy one. So we got Calgary and New Jersey. And then we have the remit. Edmonton at Tampa Bay. Well, no, I'm looking ahead too, is that the late game, the rematch of the Wild, Wild and Kings match up from earlier this year. That ended 7-6 for the Kings. Yep. So that will be, we have a rematch in Los Angeles. The Minnesota is going through California this week. So those are, you know, the California teams, two of them are, one of them is good, all of them are watchable.

One of them is Eric Carlson. Yeah. And the other one exists. The other one is Troy Terry. I still believe in our ducks from a watchability standpoint. I do too, but it's been unfortunate to watch it so far. Okay, so Wednesday, I'm looking ahead to Thursday. Yeah, Tuesdays and Thursdays really are the breadwinners here for us, I think.

Yeah. I have a sneaky pick for you on Thursday. That is... I know what it is because you told me, but tell the listeners. The Arizona Coyotes at the, I believe, league leading goal scoring team New York Islanders. That is amazing. I'm looking that up right now just to fact that,

because I know it was true at one point. Nope, it is not true anymore. But here's what I will give you. Here's a good step. The Islanders are fourth and five-on-five offense. The coyotes, unsurprisingly, give up the most five-on-five offense. So I think there's going to be some goals in that game.

Yeah. Scored by the New York Islanders. And watch. Now it's going to be a great, great coyotes. I believe also, is that the first? No, the coyotes start this week before that. Yeah. They play at Buffalo on Tuesday.

Yeah. This is, they're starting there. That's the rematch of the 2015 Connor McDavid Bowl. Yeah, but I was going to say they're starting there like, how many games is it? 14, 15 or 16. There's like some ungodly amount of consecutive road games while they wait for access to their home rink. At least this one will have a dressing room. Yeah.

Saturday is also looking really good. by the way. It has a, because we have four different blocks of games. Clodjeru returns to Philadelphia. We have Matthew Kachuk after serving his long and deserve suspension. Yeah. Gets back in the lineup to play Edmonton. That'll be a good game. Edmonton, Florida is the afternoon game. And then we have, you know, take your pick from the, from the 7 p.m. and the 10 p.m. games. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's going to be, I mean, I feel like Tuesdays, Thursday, Saturdays generally deliver. The other nights you can make dinner reservations.

You can plan other stuff. All right. What do you got to plug? What do I have to plug? I have my website, camshraw.com, for Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leaf's post-game analysis. Those posts used to go up the morning after the games, and now they're kind of, they've kind of made their way to the afternoons. It takes me a long time to go through each one. Right.

And I had a piece at the athletic on Friday, I think, about why score effects exist. What exactly is happening during the game that makes the leading team start to give up shots and what makes the trailing team start to take more shots? What exactly is the – what exactly is happening on the eyes? Why does it happen other than psychology and other than, oh, well, you're being conservative? And how much of it do you think, realistically, we're talking about that chicken under the egg in terms of offensive approach? How much of that do you think could be controlled by an enterprising head coach that was actively trying to fight against those psychological elements? Well, considering the Colorado Avalent are really good at avoiding scorefuss.

I think quite a bit. I think that it all comes down to what your approach is going to be. Well, it's like risk tolerance, I think, right? Yeah, you have to be okay. You know, like playing to win means you have to. I watched, by the way, just to throw it out here and credit to Andy Reid, we watched a football game last night. And fourth and one in overtime in field goal range and Kansas City goes for it

because scoring a touchdown wins the game And then winds up kicking anyway Well, they wound up kick on fourth and ten after But scoring the touchdown wins the game I think in any situation you have to play to win I think that's one of the reasons why Colorado did win One of the reasons why the Canucks lost Saturday night is you have to go out and play to win

You have to go out and take the game You can't just let wins happen Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree with that. And yet I feel like we've been talking about this for a long time. And it still keeps happening. So we'll see. All right.

Well, this is a blast cam. We're going to be back next Monday with another adopted team series. We'll see. I like the idea of waiting to actually see how the team plays. And I think we're preferring the format of when a team plays three games. It gives us a nice sample of games to kind of dive into and discuss. And so whoever performs well this week, I had some requests for doing like a blues deep dive to figure out what's going on with them. I'm sure we're going to get to them at some point here.

But I feel like this is like to start off the week, it should be kind of like a fun show. For those of you who can't see Demetri's face when he mentioned the blues, he looked like a disappointed father. I am. I talked them up a lot since last season. And it's been a rough go of it here so far. They got off to a great start. Yes. All right.

Thank you for listening to PEOCast. if you enjoyed, please as always help us out by smashing that five-star button wherever you listen to the show. And we're going to be back with more this week. So until then, thank you for listening to the HockeyPediocast here on the Sportsnet Radio Network.