The Hockey PDOcast - The Sharks and The Capitals Had Our Curiosity, Now They Have Our Attention

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to get into their top stories from this past week of NHL hockey. They talk about how fun the Sharks have been, the impressive showings the Capitals had against some of the best teams in the East, the biggest concerns that linger about the Rangers, the McDavid vs. MacKinnon duel on Saturday night, and the price the Wild paid for David Jiricek. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dmitri Filippovich and joining me in studio here for our critically acclaimed Sunday special here in the PTO cast. It's my good buddy, Thomas Drenz. Tom, what's going on, man? Not much, bud. Been an interesting morning of hockey. Like, the great thing about Black Friday is all the games that I've been watching at odd times, like weekday games, a 9-day.

30 Pacific time Canucks game today against the Detroit Red Wings, in which Lucas Raymond, by the way, wasn't up to his usual standard, which was too bad, although there was still lots of fun stuff about that game. I love it. I love sports at weird times, and this is a feast, especially when you're Canadian and your schedule doesn't change to the extent that it does for, of course, American television viewers, and happy Thanksgiving to your American listeners, right,

or our American listeners. but I love it. It's a feast for us too. It certainly is. We're coming off a really fun week. I like in particular not only the Madden A games that we've seen across the board, but because of the Thursday being off for everyone around the league so we could all enjoy our football games all day. We had just a jam-packed Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Slate essentially this week. And so there's so much for us to get into. I mentioned that the show is critically acclaimed because people are just in love with these Sunday specials we're doing. And in fact, in the P. In the G.Ocast Discord, there was people saying they can, can't wait for the latest edition of Cracken Corner with you after you've sort of made that a thing.

And I told them, well, we're not going to be doing that. Maybe we'll tangentially be doing it. But after those back-to-back games, those very Cracken played against our San Jose Sharks, I said, you've just, you've died fully headfirst into the Shark Tank. You're all aboard the sharks, just like I am. And say, we're going to start off today's show actually talking about them, which is a miracle considering how far we've come over these first. whatever six weeks of the season or so with them, but after losing their first nine games to start the year, we'll give you a few stats.

Can I just suggest, by the way, that Jake Wallman is the Brandon Montour we were promised? Well, Brandon Montour has been amazing as well. Has. He's been incredible. But, okay, sharks. Lose the first nine games to start the year. Since then, nine, six, and three. And at the end of last week's show in particular, we sort of joked about

how every team that loses to the sharks or had at that very sharp, until that point of time, took it about as poorly as you can. Like everyone just seemed catatonicly down bad afterwards from the fan base to the teams of the quotes you'd see to like just their reaction to whatever performance had ensued. And at this point, I feel like, I mean, first off, this week kind of reinforced that because you watch right out of the gate and they have this just seven two thrashing of the kings. And I was noting to you how it felt like watching that game first off. It was two clubs that are essentially,

in my opinion, the complete antithesis of each other right now from just a pure joy and energy perspective. obviously the Kings are a better team still at this stage and they're going to win more games and have so far. But even when they do so, there's something just so matter of fact and kind of robotic about their performances. It feels very joyless, in my opinion, both from a viewership perspective and actually from the players on the ice. And then you've got this shark seam that just sort of capturing our imagination right now with how electric some of these performances are. In that game, the crowd was awesome in San Jose. I first wanted to shout that out because they were just eating up everything they were seeing. They were they were showering.

them with a beat LA chance. I got Luke Cunning to make it seven too late. They're chanting, we want eight that night. I think it was like the last game on because the sharks are obviously playing out here on the West Coast.

And there's nothing else to talk about. And it didn't matter. The PDO guest discord was just alive and well. It was probably the most active night in there that I've seen this season. Everyone just was seemingly up for that game. It was a really awesome experience. There's been Mario Ferraro Wars in there randomly.

Yep, this year. And ever since then, it feels like that sort of inspired him to not always do good stuff, but certainly be incredibly involved in both good, bad, and funny ways. And so I've really enjoyed that subplot. But I've got a few notes from that game and from this week as a whole on them. And in particular, we're going to talk about Celebrini, certainly. But I didn't want to shout out before we went too far in the weeds, Will Smith, who I thought, you know, certainly came to this season as a rookie with a bunch of high expectations for himself, considering the caliber of prospect he was. And I thought early on,

it took him some time understandably so to like get the speed of the NHL game down like he just looked like he wasn't really meshing with it and now you watch more recently he scored goals in three straight games he's got six points in his last four games he's really riffing with mckell grandland in particular at five-on-five and i feel like on top of everything that's happening the fact that we're seeing him sort of flourish and be exactly his promise like he had this one assist where he's coming in off the rush he sells shot no look pass across the ice for a one timer and it's like all right this This is a guy who clearly has sort of gotten his feet wet now and is figuring out what's going to work and what isn't. And now he's able to actually tap into that fast sort of array of skills that he obviously had as a young player. Yeah, I'd be curious to ask him what impact Macklin coming back actually had on his game. Because one thing I thought when I was watching him play earlier

and I watched him play a bit in college, never live. But I was tracking that BC team because they were so sick, so loaded with, you know, guys who are all. already in the NHL. And, you know, one thing I thought early in the season watching the Sharks play was just little things about his play away from the puck made him look like a young player. And like one thing was a little too upright in the neutral zone, which to me is always a bit of a bad sign, right?

Just a sign that, you know, you have to figure out how hard you have to work off puck in the NHL. Even just for little things like getting open. You know, I know it's blasphemy on this program, but like Kyle Connor. the work that Kyle Connor puts in to get open in zone to me is, you know, something that, especially young scorers should honestly pay attention to because it's not something that players tend to have to do at lower levels when they're puck dominant, when, you know, they're playing defenders and then they're clearly the best player out there.

And I saw some stuff like that in his game, specifically the upright stuff in the neutral zone. And that caused him to be a little bit late in a ton of battles, caused him to get out muscled. And I think you're just seeing a more engaged. player and I'm not saying Maclin Celebrini's like come back and came back into the lineup and showed him how to do it. Right. Because that stuff was in his game at the college level, just not amped up or elevated the way it has to be in the NHL. I feel like there's been an amazing amount of growth from him just over the last six weeks in terms of the off puck motor. Because his skill level, I mean, I thought that was evident right away. But it's that stuff that I think is opening up all the stuff

that we're seeing now from him in terms of, you know, the passing and all the stuff that he can do at an incredible rate. Yeah, I think it certainly makes sense, especially because it, first off, takes a lot of pressure off him as well, right? Because to celebrate he's not there. He's going to have to play a larger offensive role, but also everyone's just going to be then keyed in on him, right? Because he's sort of the second guy there. Now all of a sudden, with Celebrity playing as well as he is with Eklund and Zetterland, it allows him to play this kind of secondary scoring role with Granland and is clearly thriving in that spot. So the sharks go from that King's game to this four three loss I wanted to highlight

to the Senators, which was, in my opinion, the perfect outcome for them. Because first off, I think they're okay in the grand scheme of things, losing as many games as they can this year to still ensure one more kind of really high draft pick before we get to carried away with our expectations this year. But they just dominated the Senators in that game. Shots on goal were 39 to 11. I noted watching it at the time, the Senators scored on their, 10th shot on goal in the second period, then 20 minutes later of game time scored again on their

11th shot on goal. They did not have any shots in that 20 minutes of game time to wind up winning that game. And then they go into his back-to-back against the Cracken that we hinted at. And on the Friday Maddenay, I wanted to just say this because it's kind of putting my money where my mouth is. We're not just sort of talking up a team for no reason here. There were so many games going on in that in that particular slate that they were on in the afternoon. And I ensured that I had Sharks Cracken on one of my screens above maybe some games involving better teams because I just wanted to see this progression. And they delivered, I think they scored seven goals in that game.

They go to Seattle the next night and win again and having 12 goals combined in those two. And it was really funny because I'm watching the Cracken broadcast in that second game on Saturday night. And they have this whole thing about how Oliver Rueb-Berc strand before the game was saying that he was actually happy that they were playing this same Sharks team in such close proximity because they wanted to get the sour taste out of their mouth of the previous game. They wanted to have a chance to bounce back. And this was going to be a quote unquote statement game for the Crackin. And watching that game, the only statement that I think was delivered to the Sharks team is incredibly fun because they put it to them yet again

before kind of hanging on at the end there. And so, I don't know, man. Let's get into Celebrini. I did a big segment on him right before the weekend with Jack We've got to broke down the technical parts of his game. I want to take a bigger picture scan of where we're at with him right now because as one of our listeners noted, you remarkably got away with kind of planting your flag as having the first overall pick as one of your guys, quote unquote. And your whole premise behind that was as good as everyone thinks this guy is, for whatever reason, he hasn't been celebrated as much as the first overall pick the year prior.

And I'm incredibly high on him. and I think he's going to deliver on it right out of the gate. And sure enough, that's exactly what's happened. Yeah, I mean, I honestly, I think, you know what I think it is? I think there is a difference in terms of the hype machine, especially from a Canadian media perspective for a player who goes the NCAA route, as opposed to a player who's playing in Major Jr. And, you know, has multiple appearances in Baudard's case,

three at the World Juniors because he was eligible for that sort of rescheduled bubble world juniors on and on. So he became this familiar face. We'd all seen him. His team won gold on home ice in Halifax. And so I think there was this

natural like exhale after Bedard's draft year where it was like, yeah, Celebrity's good but Bard was after all we just went through an hour eight year. Right. And I think it obscured the extent to which like I still, by the way, I think it's premature to do the Celebrini is better than Bedard stuff.

Which isn't what we're doing here, but no, no, I want to be so clear about it. I've got takes on that too. But the fact is that Celebrini was still like a very, very special first overall. Not just a normal first overall. Yeah, or not even like, you know, the Tavares Stamco's here. Like I thought there was a chance that he could be elevated beyond that. And it was the completeness of his game, man. That was the completeness of his game I felt was getting short shrift in terms of what people's understanding was.

And I think you're seeing it where there's moments where he carries the puck through the neutral zone and you'll be like, that reminds me of. And you'll list, by the way, one of the best forwards in the league while comping him, right? And then there's the play away from the puck and the attention to detail stuff. And you'll list, you know, one of the best defensive forwards the last 10 years while sort of bringing that up. there's the shot from that right flank, which he finally got the five on three goal, but that's going to be a weapon for him. Like he's going to be a serious weapon

at the right flank on the power play over time. And it's like, hey, that looks kind of like Pettersen or what have you. And it's like there's all these different attributes of his game where he's channeling all-time great's because he's checking the boxes of what it looks like when you're just a great player. Yeah.

He does seem like some sort of like Frankenstein version of taking some of these individual skills from various great players that we've seen along the way. And I think that makes sense because as we talk about this sort of next generation that's coming in has spent so much time now just like studying and repeatedly watching all the tape and YouTube highlights and TikTok videos and everything of like the great players in the league doing their thing and excelling in their own particular traits. And now you're sort of seeing them essentially incorporate that from day one into their game. So I'm completely with you on that. Did you see he had this play

the other night. I can't remember. I think it was the I think it was the Kings game, the Monday game against the Kings. And there's this pass in the neutral zone and he catches it on his blade.

It was the game against the Sabres the brightest weekend, yeah. And he likes it. He likes it. He hangs up on it like ranton and does. Yeah, it's a do-so. He does it to like essentially extend the neutral zone pouts.

And then he wheels in, of the middle of the ice for a slide. And it's like that level of control, that level of control that, like, Celebrini's got that aspect to him where there's never a bad pass to him. He's got that sort of level of control of the game. And that puts some pretty outrageous comps in terms of that aspect of his game. That puts some comps that I'm like absolutely flat out going to refuse to make because I don't want to put undue pressure on anybody in play.

Like he's got that kind of juice, I think. Well, and his, off the, like, you mentioned off the puck in the offensive zone. I really recommend people just key in on the way he moves to get open similar to what you were just saying about a Kyle Connor and how the kind of routes he takes. He also does that in his own zone. He had this play on Saturday Night against the Cracken where there's like a backdoor play materializing for the Cracken and it's a cross-ice backdoor pass. And he, like, jumps into the lane and knocks the way and then is able to get it out of the zone and create some neutral zone action for them. And then, I mean, he's, you talk about the amalgamation of players. Like, his zone, he's at a zone entry machine right now.

Like, I feel he's already on the short list for me. If, like, we were playing against aliens and I needed someone for one possession to just get the puck into the offensive zone with possession. Obviously, you always take with David, McKinnon. Prime PA Parento. Prime Fia Parento. Celebrating, he's already vaulting into that tier for me. Go watch those early six on five, Patrick Wa, like, that Aves team that went on that crazy run. And it's like rookie Maca.

Kenan, Matt Dushane, and it's like PA Parento with the puck, just like signal calling and settling it. I assure you, I've already studied the PA Parento tape. You don't need to worry about that. So the thing is, though, is we have guys who enter the league and can do some of that neutral zone driving thing. And they're incredible downhill, right? And with Celebrini, I think what people are responding to, the excitement that we should

have for him, that I have for him when I watch in play, is it's that ability to not only make the play and do all the physical stuff through the neutral zone, but to think on his feet two steps ahead, right? Like that play that we're talking about where he catches it on his blade, it's not that he, it's not just that he can do it mechanically, which is incredible enough. It's that he knows that if he catches it like that, he can gain the step he needs to get a dangerous shot off. Like, that's what, it's that connective element that makes it potentially sort of evidence of a superhuman tool case. Well, okay, there's a couple things.

I don't really want to get into Celebrini v. Bedard because I think that's a storyline that's being wildly overblown right now. Well, we can push back on it. I find it's kind of amusing because there's this sort of like revisionist post hoc situation going on right now where people are treating it like, all right, well, I mean, Celebrini is clearly in a much better position to succeed

because he's in this amazing environment. And if I recall, I don't remember too many of those same people saying that the San Jose sharks were going to be this immediately competitive team that was setting up an infrastructure, at least in terms of current NHL players right now this season, to allow a young player like this to step in and immediately thrive. I think, if anything, it's a testament to the greatness already that we're seeing from Celebrity and what that level or that caliber of young player can do for your entire organization's outlook where he steps in, he elevates everything around him, he allows other stuff

to fall into place beneath him, and then just generally increases the vibes, the energy, the hope, the optimism, however you want to frame it for that very organization. I think that's what you're seeing here from him. Certainly, I don't want to diminish, like, you watch the chemistry he already has with William Eklund and how he's allowed Eklund to flourish now as well, and the way they sort of do these, like, giving goes in the offensive zone and play off of each other. That's a luxury for him. Zetterland has been a perfect sort of third wheel for that. He's got this second line now with Smith and Granlin, as we said, Gazzick to Foley and Wemberg.

I think they did a good job of insulating him in the offseason with players that are not only good professionals off the ice, but legitimately still have game on the ice. And it doesn't necessarily have to be, all right, if Celebrini doesn't create three goals tonight, we're going to get shut out, right? And I think that's kind of the case in Chicago right now, whereas you compare it to Bajard,

and there's this been this rotating cast of trying to figure out, is he going to play down the middle, is you going to play on the wing, who's he going to be playing with? For some reason, Luke Rich is not actually playing him with any of the players that they brought in or promised to be sort of side pieces for Badaard to work with. And so I think it's two different situations. Are you saying there's a difference between what Eklund and Zetterland are able to provide Celebrini and what Baderd's getting out of Kyrushchev and Foyno, whoever he have? Although Tera Vinen, Tera Vindin Baderd has been by far their most significant. successful. Yeah, but he had to prioritize him with him with Bertuzi. They were in the season. He looked like he was taking a step forward as a five-on-five player. I don't know why. Yeah. I think there's also an element, though. Okay, obviously year one was here too. I think just expectations frame a lot of this as well, right? I think the sharks are right now in this sort of

innocent stage of the rebuild where like you're watching them play and it's like all right we all thought they would suck but they're actually exciting now compared to last year especially when they just had no chance every single night yeah and now you're seeing these performances and you're like allowing yourself to dream in terms of what it can look like whereas we were okay taking that with the black hawks last year but now year two it's like all right well now we need to see progression and i think that's an important part of this conversation but it's a really important part too of a rebuild. Like, you know, I, I, obviously my knowledge of the Vancouver Canucks will come through here, but it's like the end of the lost season where there's the three on three shift in overtime and

Hughes Besser and Pedersen just pick their teeth with the Kings and they don't even score. They don't even score. But it's like two minutes withering pressure. And it's three on three. It's not even five on five. But it was like this moment where it was like, okay, there's, you can see the outline of what it should look like. And, you know, where's Chicago's, where's Chicago's, where's Chicago's was Will Smith for for butard right I think that's you know they've had a lot of high picks but a lot of them have been like defenders and sort of strenkines are all overmore like I read as guys who aren't on the team yeah totally so I think there's still a I think there's still a layer to go there but you know make no mistake right make no mistake this is a slow burn

on badart and is celebrini keeps popping that conversation is going to get louder and that happens by the way there were there were a lot of people having it about Deshain and Tavares. After their rookie seasons or into their second years, when Tavares, you know, didn't immediately. Stamco's had a struggle as a rookie now. He popped in a major way in his second year with, you know, Adam Oates installing the 131 and on and on.

But we see players go through this. This is slow burn for Baudard. Chicago's a mess. I think that's doing him no favors. You hope that there's no scar tissue that he's going to pick up in terms of some bad habits. but I don't think he will. I think he's too competitive.

This guy remains a no doubt franchise player in my mind. And it's going to be, it's not going to be long before he's a 140 point guy. And as high as I am on Celebrini, I don't know that I see that type of ceiling as like a mid-range probability for their next 18 months. And to me, that's sort of where the conversation, I think where we've lost sight of it. You know, Celebrini's got some more NHL-ready tools right now, maybe. I definitely think the situation, have we given my career enough credit? I think he's done a really good job.

I think he's done a really good job, especially given the difficulty that like Anaheim and Chicago have had, Columbus have had just like create a fun environment. Columbus has finally made some progress in that this season. But, I mean, the Babcock thing, that miserable season last year, I mean, they made, some serious missteps in terms of just that that step where hey you're not a playoff team yet but can you compete over 40 game stretches 30 game stretches can you string together a good half season

can you at least be fun and exciting Greer's pulling that off in a way that a lot of the other rebuilding teams have I think bumped into more serious divvets trying to execute I just think that for me ultimately at the day a far more compelling narrative that's stemming from all of this is celebrating how good Celebrity looks out of the gate,

yet how fun the sharks are, then trying to like diminish for sure or drag down what Carnaburd isn't doing in year or two. Yeah, because I think they're in different circumstances, but I just think that ultimately, like, I just think it's nonsense to say that Celebrini is all of a sudden in this like significantly better spot.

Obviously, that's, recently he buys, that's what's happening right now. But I think he's driving a lot of this. And I also think that just reinforces exactly what I'm saying, which is like, this guy comes in and just immediately improves the entire outlook on everything. I don't think they're having this season certainly without him. And I think everyone else just looks wildly different if his presence isn't there. Well, they also weren't having this season when he was out. Yeah.

I mean, he came back and everything changed. I mean, you cited the, what, 9, 6 and 2? Yeah, they lost. I went, I think eight straight games with him out of the lineup. So, I mean, look, it's a ton of fun. end of the day, it's great that we have both of these guys to watch over the next two decades, because they're both going to be phenomenal. As we look ahead, this next week upcoming for the sharks, at Washington, at Tampa Bay,

at Florida, at Carolina. And I want to be watching certainly, because, as I said, I'm watching all these games. I'm very curious to see how they look still with that elevated level of competition. I think it's also a fun subplot to have him to have like the Eastern time zone get a full look live of him now, as he's playing, right? Because as I said, a lot of these games, like when they're playing the Kings and it's on at whatever, nine Pacific time in the second period, I'm not sure how much of it is being appreciated. On the PDOCS Discord, it certainly is, as I said, but maybe not elsewhere. This is what's so fun about this show as well that you and I have the runway to spend

the first block of today's show talking about celebrating and the Sharks, because I think a lot of other shows are probably in this spot and be like, right, well, let's talk about as Oilers from last night. And we're going to get into that. Housy hard, too, as well. But I wanted to start out of the game with Walshers. It's, in my opinion, has been the most fun story from this past week. The pod calls and glow up. The pod calls and go up, which we started talking about last week as well. All right, Tom, let's take our break here.

And then we come back. We'll jump right back into it. And we're going to get into some other fun stories from the week that was in the NHL. You're listening to the Hockey-Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the HockeyPedocast with Thomas Transd on our Sunday special, Tom. We talked about it before I went to break. Let's get into the Oilers game we saw on Saturday night against the avalanche, which truly served as a nice main course for the weekend.

obviously whenever you get McDavid versus McKinnon, it's going to be pure theater. I think that unfortunately, the final 25 to 30 minutes of that game weren't really representative of what these teams are really capable of from like a fun perspective. Because the game kind of dragged on. Once the Oilers went up, it really sort of took the wind out of the sails. I think both teams were playing on second leg of a back-to-back after having traveled in altitude the night before the abs had played McCarar, like 30 minutes against the stars, McKinnon, 26. And once the Oilers went up, Colorado didn't really have enough juice, in my opinion, clearly, to kind of mount any sort of a pushback. But early on in that game, that first period was unbelievable, in my opinion, from a level of play and just like how they were sort of trading haymakers. And we'll really stood out to me. And I don't think it's just come as a surprise, but just how Alpha Connor McDavid's performance was, especially, because the abs go up one-nothing, right?

And then all of a sudden, like, you can tell that he understood the assignment and took the match up personally. and the shift where they score the goal. You go back and you have to watch like 30 seconds before it actually gets created, but he like puts in max effort to essentially rub someone off the puck, keep the puck in the zone, then works it around the net, gets it into the sloth, shock gets blocked, gets it back again, overpowers Duantes behind the net, and then just like sends this outrageous pass, cross-ice for a cap and tap-in,

and just puts it all together in that one shift. You look now in the 10 games he's played since you come back, nine goals, 12 assists, and I just sort of like reinforced that to me and watching that. I don't think there's any lasting takeaways from being more concerned about the abs than we have been. The Oilers obviously have been up and down this year as well. But you watch a game like that and you're just sort of reminded

of what like he's capable of and also how fun that particular matchup is for me. I still think whenever they play each other, I want to be watching. Yeah, 100%. The Cappan fits been a nice one by the way. Not that Kaspari Kappan is... Well, they just need it to add some skating. It just made to add some speed, which was, you know, also elevating Brett Kulak, I think, has given them a little bit more mobility on the back end. I think you're seeing just like marginal gains given some of their offseason losses in the skating department, I think show up huge.

And, you know, that goal is obviously finished by captain, but I think you've seen it since he joined the team. Just that adding a little bit of marginal velocity in terms of the speed at which your team moves, I think pays the balance in a major way for that team right now. Just something that I'll be curious to see if they're, if they recognize their cognizant of in sort of shaping their shopping list between now and the deadlines. Yeah, and you watch the difference between the two teams for me as well. Beyond that is obviously so much is made up Biav struggles in net.

And like you watch games like they played earlier that week in Tampa Bay. And it's like, all right, there's just so many backbreaking goals against where it's like a shot along the ice or very easily say, well, and the goalie just flubs it. And it's like, all right, you're already starting from an area of deficit there. They add Scott Wedge, what I'm not expecting that to necessarily make a huge difference, although I guess he's like a competent backup NHL goalie. And at this point, that might be a help for the Aves. But in that game, we look at the two goals that were scored after that, and they're both sort of like net front wins, right? Whereas on the second one, the Pocleson tip, where he just essentially plants himself

in front of the Aves net, boxes out the defender, gets a tip. Then the traffic on the cool that goal after. And that's beyond the goal tending. Like that's still, remember last year we were talking about this with the Aves, where if the Jets were going to beat them ultimately, they didn't. They just got to run out of the gym as a series progress. But it was like, yeah, they're losing a lot of battles in front of the net. I think that's still

very suspect and that remains for me beyond anything else. You got any other notes on that game or do you want to get into two other teams that I really wanted to highlight on today? Just the pod Colson play I liked because he makes a pretty nice play to help them maintain possession

down low and you can tell maybe that this run of goals has him feeling a little bit more confident because he just keeps it simple and goes to the front of the net. Not that he's a player who needs sort of reminders, but you've seen him be a thinker on occasion in terms of his play style. I like seeing him just turn the brain off and just be like big body go net. You know, that's it. That's it. That's what you need to do, especially, you know, spotted the opportunity to play with

dry-sidal that he's been given. So I like to see that. I do as well. Let's quickly talk about the Capitals. Now, these episodes may as well be just rebranded as Caps talk because I feel like every Sunday we get together and I have a whole new blurb that I want to get into in the caps. I feel like we- Will you talk about the Weeks tweet you sent me really quick. Yes. That was so good. So he had this, they had this tweet where it was like, Neil's Houglander is obviously available, has been in a lot of trade rumors and the caps are listed as one of the teams that have expressed interest. Yeah. I'm not sure how much interest they've expressed, but it clearly enough for them to be involved in that tweet. And as we've spoken about here, arguably no team in the league does as good

a job at pro scouting as the caps do, which was highlighted in how they built this entire team, but especially this past summer in terms of the names they went out and aggressively targeted and then brought in and how well they've played for them right out of the gate. And so I'm at the point now, remember it used to be the whole thing where it's like, if Joe Sackett calls you, offering you a trade, just hang up. Yeah. Because he's going to lease you. I'm at the point where if the capital's express interest in one of your NHL players, you should just give that guy an extra extension on top of the one that you've already given him or value him much more highly than you clearly do for them to be available

because they just have such a sparkling track record right now of knowing what they're doing when it comes to pro scouting. And so if they like your guy, you should like them a lot more. Yeah, I agree. I love it. And a scary, a scary thought to think that the caps might continue to shoot for guys in that upside mold, right? Like I also found that interesting in that Hoaglander's 23, 24, right? He's locked up for three years beyond this. There's a lot of bet big, you know, the protist contract sort of standing out in my mind. But yep, they've done it with a lot of their own young guys.

The idea of, you know, continuing to target players in that mold on the trade market, I think, is an interesting one, especially because this is a team with actually a little. little bit of a surplus, both in terms of bodies on the back end, but also, you know, in terms of that Mirro-Chinko tier of, like, quad-a, guys pushing to make the league who could probably play for a lot of teams and might have even played for the caps already if the caps weren't going, like running so pure out the gate. And we have to keep talking about them. I don't feel guilty about it because arguably no-so-muched so much fun.

Well, no team, arguably, in my opinion, had a better week than them. You just go through their wins. 4-1-1-in in Florida where they just out-shoot them 31-21. I thought visibly outskated them and outplayed them, and that's something that very rarely happens at a Panthers. A 5-4 win in Tampa Bay where Charlie Lindgren in the third period scores on his own net, and you're like, all right, Tampa Bay is up four-three right now. They're at home. This is a tough sort of just like psychologically situation to bounce back if you're the caps,

and that's exactly what they do. They come back to win that game. They're down 4-2 heading into the third period against the Islanders. They come back and win in overtime 5-4. And then this 6-5 game they played where they win in New Jersey, really stood out to me because just like what I said about that Panthers game, they comfortably outshot them, they just looked deeper and faster than New Jersey on that night, and they outplayed them and outskated them. And I think that's an impressive feat in today's game.

And so they're just stacking together all of these performances now where they're essentially as good of a bet as there is in the league to just score four goals every single night. Seemingly, everyone is chipping in. Jacob Chikrin is up to eight goals, which is tied for the league lead at the defense position with McCarren Werenski. He's just absolutely ripping the puck right now on those risters. And for a PLD update, he is still trying. And I think you watch the final 15 seconds of closing out that game against New Jersey. He essentially full sprint, length of the ice, beats out Jack Hughes in a foot race

to negate an icing that essentially seals the win. And I thought it was an incredible team performance. They got contributions from pretty much everyone across the board. and it was just a great encapsulation of what's made this caps seem so good and also so fun to watch. Yep. They, it's get the, I like the, we're not piling on, I think, by continuing to praise PLD for working hard. Because I do think there's an element to which that's a canary in the coal mine, as it were, to the caps sustained success. And that it's not enough to identify that Pierre-Luc de Bois is talented.

We all knew that. They're getting the most. It's which is a testament to them, right? The coaching staff, the organizations, all, they've done this with a bunch of guys now and they just keep doing it. It's the integration too, right? It's the, we're not going to be scared about playing Trevor Van Rheem's Dykentuffs. It's the, you know, we're going to put Chikrin at the top of the lineup whenever he's healthy

and let him rip pucks and live with some of the mistakes. And you know, and pasteurized milk. Yeah, I mean, and live with some of the diarrhea that that causes. So, no, I think that's, that's where I think this gets really interesting for them, right? They clearly found the right guy in Carberry. There's clearly a level of alignment. We'll bring in a talented guy who's been underperforming, but you need to get him to work and he has. And when you are working sort of glove and fist like that, I mean, I think you can do pretty special things.

And especially when you're talking about moving from like the 18th best team in hockey, which they probably were last year, even though they made the playoffs with a minus a million goal differential to being what they are right now, which is certainly on the fringes, I think, of that sort of top eight, top seven where we start to get excited

about what they could accomplish in the spring. Yeah, I mean, they're first in the eastern point percentage. Also offensively, you look, and I believe they still lead the league in goals within 10 feet of the net, so they're just dominant in tight. They're also a top five rush team.

They're getting scoring from every player essentially right now. They're just playing really well. Like I think that's the story here for me beyond anything else. It's like we don't need to project ahead necessarily. I'm just watching this right now. I'm like they're a nightmare to play against because you're going to get no shifts off. Right.

You're not going to no easy matchups. And everyone can beat you. And so I think it's made for great entertainment. And I just they're rising. As I said, I think they might be number one on my watchability wrist combined with the broadcast, the potential of wearing those black screaming eagles like you put it all together. And I'm like,

I want to be tuning in to caps games this year. And that's why we keep selling. celebrating here on the show. On a sort of lesser, on a more low light note, the New York Rangers, I want to get to them with you because you and I actually, I'm not sure if people noticed this. Last week's show was only about 46 minutes. We had a four or five minutes segment about the New York Rangers and we had some audio difficulties. So I wound up just being scrubbed from the show. But I thought that was okay because you and I would be just getting back here the following Sunday. And so we're here. So let's talk about them. Because everything fell apart in the interim and we were

talking about all the warnings. We've done. So that's too bad. We did raise a lot of, especially at the end of that Western Canada road trip, right? It's like for a while now, they've been playing incredibly porous defensively. They've been yelling just hammer it off the rush. And that continued. Even, you know, they snapped their five game losing skit on Saturday afternoon with a whole win against the Canadians. And it was about as unimpressive a win as you can have where you blow a 3-1 lead in the third period. Three or four goals are on the power play. You're once again losing five-on-five minutes. And so I think that's sort of like quieted things down just a little bit because the losing streak is over, but in my opinion, none of my concerns about the way they're

playing or whatever personnel issues they have have really been diminished at all. No. The yeah, the thing that we talked about last week too was talking about those three games in Western Canada where, you know, the Canucks were able to beat them with efficiency even though they ultimately hung on and were victorious in that game four three. The flames threw a whack of volume at them and managed to turn, you know, that volume into pretty, pretty, quality like pretty high quality chances and just like overall domination territorial domination and then the oilers kind of mix the two and also put up a crooked number against them and it was like what what can you defend like if if you're springing leaks in all these different ways

um that that to me sort of seemed like a concern and and i feel like we saw that concern come to the four over the course of you know this week i mean that friday game they played against philly where they're already down 2-0 nothing before they get their first shot, it probably could have been 5 or 6-0-0. Failure, it's just Thurkin, just wasn't amazing as he usually is. Like, the Flyers were just getting

one rush opportunity after another, essentially just waltzing into the zone and teeing off on them. And it's just been a continuation. What I did find interesting, and I had Emily Kaplan on this week, and we spoke about this a little bit, but obviously the week started

with that report that, you know, they made it clear to other teams around the league. They're open for business. guys like Truba and Crider were highlighted as being players they're willing to entertain deals on I think for obvious reasons I think a far bigger concern for me than those guys right now is oh first off is Mika Zabinajet

because as a continuation of what happened last postseason where he was really struggling and then Sasha Barkov essentially just annihilated him over the course of that he's final I wasn't going to hold that as much against him because our thoughts on Barkov are well documented and he does that to a lot of people people, but over the past 120 games he's played in the NHO, Mika's Benajad, including that

postseason. He has 12 5-1-5 goals. Now, Peter Olavri that has bumped him into essentially third-line minutes. At 5-1-5, he still has a lot of special teams utility, of course, for them, but they're getting absolutely destroyed with him in the ice at 5-15. It's like 40% shares, shots, expected to expect the goals, high-danger chances. And that's reaching like a fever pitch of being untenable for me because he's the 31st highest paid for it in the league. He's on the books for three more years after this. And he just looks like a shell of the player he used to where he still had his flaws a couple years ago, but he'd have these nuke games where he'd score a bunch of goals. He just had so much swag, right? Like just hammering the puck was a legitimate weapon.

And all of that seems to be gone. And you watch him play and it's a pretty miserable experience. Well, it's the foot speed is what stands out to me when I watch him play as an issue is Do you agree with that? Yeah. So. But it seeped into the rest of his game now. Part of this might just be not being able to get to his spots as much. And that's why at 515, he's really not even able to get any looks anymore.

But it seems to just completely eroded whatever confidence he previously had. And it's essentially just doing cardio out there at this point of 515. The thing that I think can happen to really high-skilled guys is when they lose that step, when they're not getting to play is the way they expect to. They stop being able to, like, execute what they're thinking they're going to execute, and then it can snowball on them quick until they sort of adjust to their new level of pace. Like, I saw Oliver Eckman-Larsson go through that in real time, and now I watch him play. And I think he's much more comfortable thinking the game. Now, I also think he was dealing with an injury recovery that had sapsed some of his pace.

I think he's a half-step faster than he was during some of those years. But I remember watching him and talking to him a bit about it. And I think that was something that really afflicted him in banking. Vancouver and that he was able to sort of overcome as he adapted his game both in Florida and now in Toronto. So maybe there's an act like that for Zabandajad. Maybe he ends up having to move to the wing, something like that. Or certainly he plays a lesser role at five on five and becomes just a sort of bottom six power play specialist as sort of the last act. But, you know, that's not what the Rangers need.

It's not like the Rangers have enough difference makers necessarily to slot him in there in perpetuity. They need more than that from them. They do. Another area of concern for me, certainly, as well as the D pairs, right? Because we saw a stretch of games with Lindgren out at the start of the year where they went to the Fox, Kandre Miller pair, and those predictably posted really good results at 5-1-5. I know you're going to say pretty much anyone playing with Adam Fox is going to be able to do so, but then you look at the minutes that Fox has played with Lingren every since, and that's not really

happening. Linkren's actually dragging him down. Now, listen, I feel bad because I actually think. he's quite a useful player. Yeah, the issue is that he's just had some millions, like debilitating injuries at this point, like just breaking every single body part, essentially.

And if there's a silver lining here for the Rangers, maybe it's that he's entering this point of his career now where he's going to be a 27-year-old UFA this summer. And I wonder if previously, it would have been tough to Fennagle because I think that he's still, because of his reputation, he's going to get some sort of a big deal on the open market,

regardless of how the rest of the season plays out. I don't think the Rangers would have been able to be the team that did so, regardless because of how many financial commitments they have. But if anything, now, I think the ability to sort of walk away from that with a clear mind is probably made a lot easier because he's just struggled significantly this year. And I think they have to figure out what they're going to do with that top four because right now that combination is just not working. It's pretty much bringing everything, everyone down along the way. Well, and that's why I think no one was surprised to hear Truba's name involved in, you know, what they'd be willing to consider moving,

right? I mean. Well, was that even a report? after how actively they try to do this or something. It didn't work. Like, it's just not going to happen. No, they, but they do need to fix the defense. Like, the defense is a big issue for them, especially, you know, they've, they've reached the point, I think, especially now that Miller and Fox were clearly their two best defenders play together.

They've reached the point where they look like on some nights, you know, like a permissive defensive version. of the Vancouver Canucks where you've got Hughes minutes and non-Hughes minutes. And you don't want to be there. Like that's not that's not sustainable, especially for a team that's surrendering 30 plus shots per hour in all minutes that Miller and Fox aren't on the ice together. I mean, that's the, that is not, Schisturkin can only do so much. Like, at the end of the day, he's not going to be able to, you know, jam a finger in the dam

that's breaking rapidly for the Rangers defensively. do you want to quickly we got about seven or eight minutes here before we got to sign out do want to talk a little bit about your check yeah because neither you or i are obviously prospect evaluators right where can only speak so much about like the technical side of his game and whatever skating issues sort of plague him that has people feeling lukewarm about him i think it's an interesting conversation i have though about the wild paying the price that they did for it what it does for them and also just in general the way once highly regarded prospects are valued in the league because I was actually, I found myself not that it was a bad bet for the while to make, I get what

they're doing. I found once the return, the news of the return started trickling out and it came out in very slow fashion, right, where it was like, you're a check for a first. And then it was like, you're a check for a first and a second and a pick swap from round four to round five. And then I was like, oh, and there's also another third. And it just kind of kept growing. And it just kind of kept growing. in a volume and at the end of the day you look at the final return and in my opinion I'm not sure if you agree with this but I was actually pleasantly surprised from the blue jackets respect that they were able to recoup the number of assets they did I guess even if a lot of them aren't peak quality just because when the young prospects put you in this position or

the blue jackets aren't blameless here certainly but like when a situation like this deteriorates we've seen that those players typically don't command the return that you'd think they would based on the fact that he was a sixth overall pick a couple years ago because everyone in the league knows that they just want to reach some sort of resolution here. And he's clearly not, you know, a young right-shot defenseman that you can immediately step into your lineup and he's going to kill it because otherwise I feel like the blue jackets probably would have entertained that more seriously by now. Yeah.

You know, the thing is, though, is the reason I like it for Minnesota, right, is they've made so many picks. They've got so many guys, you know, whether it's like, even guys that aren't necessarily trending great, but are still sort of in their system are still lottery tickets, you know, guys like Lambos, guys like

you know, you sort of go down the list. They've got this, yeah, obviously Ziv BEO would be sort of at the top of the list, but you know, they've got, you're off, they've got height, they've got Walsdet, they've got all these young So Oggren who's going to make a difference for them down the stretch.

When you get to a point like that, I think it makes sense to at some point be like, okay, we're a probable playoff team. So we're not picking the first half of the first round. We'll be able to put some protections on it anyway to, you know, just in case. And what we really need to add is a guy who can actually make our team, which given the sort of depth of our blue line isn't going to be easy. We need a guy who's really good, a potential difference maker. I think it makes sense to cash assets like that,

especially with all the accumulating they've been doing over the past few years. Not that I think they got, not that I think they didn't pay full freight or that it was robbery or something like that from the Blue Jackets. We all know that the history of first rounders who move this early tends to be pretty mid, right? It's pretty rare that a guy in your chick's shoes goes on, goes on to hit their ceiling.

But I do think his caliber, especially when you consider, you know, that he was like a 40-point guy in the American League at the age of 20 or 19. He's a big right shot. Big right-shot guy.

But also, you know, a phenomenally exciting scoring profile at all levels, World Juniors, like was dominant in his age group. I think they should be pretty excited about what they can do to insulate him. I think it made a lot of sense

for them to do, even if the price, I said, look, the price was probably fair, relatively speaking. I still think they probably paid 75 cents on the dollar. I think it was a worthwhile bet for them because of the reasons you highlighted also with the lack of confidence in Jared Spurgeon moving forward because of his health issues and his age, right? And Jonas Burien is in his 30s now. Just the idea of like having Faber to go along with William and our year.

That makes a lot of sense as building blocks on the blue line. They've obviously historically done a great job as an organization. of developing young defensemen and getting great value out of them. If Judd Brackett and that scouting staff, clearly this draft was a couple years ago, things change in the meantime, but they clearly liked Eurichak quite a bit, and I'm sure they had to say in this as well. So they've identified them as a guy that they like for those purposes. I do like that.

I think that is dynamic and maybe a more interesting part of this conversation beyond the player himself is the way the value prospects retain in the league. Because on the one hand, we see the guys who are first round picks, especially lottery picks, have a long shelf life in the league, regardless of their level of success, because actually one wants to bring the person to mine that talent or that received talent. On the other hand, though, I actually do think that it goes the other way because I feel like teams really overvalue making their own pick, like everyone wants their prospect, quote unquote. And so as soon as you make the pick, I actually feel like the player, almost like a car,

loses some portion of their value as soon as you make that pick just because the potential of what that sort of pick slot could be or what that first round pick could be, the appeal for it for some of these teams seems to exceed whatever that player is as soon as they've been drafted. Yeah, for everyone but you, because there's also an endowment effect where, you know, an organization picks a guy, he becomes their guy,

he's stamped, he's going to get, you know, durably a greater amount of opportunities and on and on down the line. So it's sort of an interesting dynamic. But the way I've always thought about it is draft picks are cash in hand, right? And a prospect is a gift card, right? 25 bucks is 25 bucks. You can spend it anywhere.

But 25 bucks at Timmy's isn't as valuable to you as a Starbucks drinker, for example, right? So that that's where, you know, individual opinions and differing preferences on player form sort of coming to play. terms of actually adjudicating what value a player has. But with Eurichik, I think there was a ton of interest. And I think there's, you know, down the line, we'll hear about some teams that weren't willing to trade inferior prospects that are their own to sort of gamble on this guy, even at a premium price. I guess two main takeaways for me from this deal are there's a lot of teams in my view that should have made this trade. And two, there weren't a lot of teams that were as well set up

to make this trade as painlessly as Minnesota was because of all the talent they've been able to accumulate. That's my takeaway as well. That's why I found the price so interesting. Like I said, I thought it was more than they'd get. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, okay, well, I get why a team like the Penguins didn't make this because obviously their first round pick is much more valuable for good forward. And yeah, this is actually pretty hefty for a team like that to pay. On the other hand, I look at a team like Nashville, who I think organizationally needs more young defensive talent, has a pick surplus to go along with the prospects that they've already drafted. And it's like, I'm kind of kind of curious why they weren't more heavily involved here or why we did hear a report right my

russo had that like a team offered two first round picks i'd be curious about that and if they were factored into that but ultimately minnesota is the one they got him and so i kind of like it for both sides actually especially if you're nashville and uh you have the perfect long term fit for his left side and in your guy tanner mollandike oh man don't get me started on that all right tom we got to get out of here this is another fun sunday special here in the pdio cast you got anything to plug. Check out all my connect stuff at theathletic.com slash Vancouver or just theathletic.com. I don't know. I added a complicated URL into the mix. And then also SportsDed at 650 Kinnock's Talk, which also, of course, goes up.

To go along with his shoulder. Halfstock, shark's talk. Yeah. And Kinnock's Talk slash 650 on here. No, excuse me. Available wherever you find your podcasts. All right, buddy. This was great as always. My plug here in terms of what to look forward to this coming week. We're getting the roster announcements on Wednesday night. Let's go with a four nations tournament. I'll be very curious to see how much of decision makers for all four teams have actually been paying attention to games this season and how much weight they put into the performances we're seeing as opposed to defaulting back to sort of that big name bias that exists in the league circles and whether they bring guys who I think are inferior to some of the names that

have elevated their play. We're going to have a mega two hour show here on Thursday on the PDOCAST speed reacting to all that. So we have that to look forward to. Thank you to everyone for listening and we'll be back with plenty more of the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.