The Hockey PDOcast - The weekly Friday Mailbag featuring Thomas Drance

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

Dimitri welcomes Thomas Drance in studio as the pair crack open the weekly Friday Mailbag and answer your questions.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.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Filippovin. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Dmitri Filipovich. And joining me in studio, sticking around after his show is my pal Thomas Transd, Thomas. What's going on? Thrilled to be here. Always happy to join you, Dim.

By the way, the contrast between your intro music, which is so chill and mine, which absolutely is anxiety-inducing on the Kinex Hour, couldn't be sharper. I love it. It's Canucks Hour. I thought it was called Canucks Talk. Oh, Canucks Talk. There we go. There we go. Killing my self-promotion game. Well, we both had a busy week.

You had a busy day doing a lot of content. So we're going to ease into the weekend by having a little fun here. Sounds good. We're doing mailback questions. I've done it a couple weeks so far now. And it's generally a good time, get that listener engagement going. And honestly, the listeners, the P.D.O. guest listeners always come through. They always come through with the juicy topics.

Do you open it up to the 650, 650, Dumbar Lumber. inbox as well? I think we should. Yeah. And do you want to keep an eye on that? And then if interesting topics come in throughout. And this is all NHL, guys. Not just Brock Bessor takes.

Certainly not. Yeah. In fact, we'd encourage more NHL, NHL central topics. You can also, in the future, DM it to me at Tim Philpovich or email it to me.

My email is in my Twitter bio as well for future mailbag editions, the more the merrier. So, Tom, let's get into it. Let's, uh, I've got a couple of my favorite ones here. here it written down. Let's start with a particularly, particularly meaty one that I think we could probably do a full segment on here. Okay. 19 open tabs on Twitter asks. I'm 19 open tabs,

man. At least at all times. Would the gold plan drafting system be better than the current lottery system? And do you think it could be realistically implemented in the NHL and how would that come about do you want to give the listeners a quick sort of synopsis of what the gold plan is? And then we can go from there. Yeah. So my understanding of the gold plan is that from the day you're eliminated, right, you begin to amass points, which will then be used to determine whether or not you are going to own the first overall pick at the ensuing draft. So effectively, this is a system that incentivized.

or rewards the worst teams in hockey by giving them a head start at the ability to amass points, but they still have to win games at the end of the year in order to qualify for the substantial reward that picking first overall at the NHL entry draft is year over year. I'm a huge fan of gold drafting. Yes. Big fan. I mean, here's my thing. when the pandemic hit and the NHL had to end a season with an unequal number of games played.

Teams had played between 68 and 71. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly sent a memo to all 31 at the time teams, explaining the rationale for the play in tournament, what became the play in tournament, ultimately passed with the PA's consent as part of an omnibus sort of agreement to both extend the CBA. and play, you know, effectively like a 24-team modified playoff bracket in two hermetically sealed bubbles in Canada. Which feature you? One of which I spent a bunch of time at typing out all the swears on my Twitter account, which everyone liked, by the way.

I never got any negative feedback from anyone about having done so. So anyway, in that memo that Bill Daly sent, he noted something fascinating and that I think just, says everything. He noted that in fact with 83% of the NHL season having been played up to the date of cancellation, which was March 12th, 2019 or 2020, excuse me, the standings at that point were actually in some ways more reflective of the true talent level of every team because in the last 17% of the season, you tend to get teams playing young players and signing free agents, college free agents. Playing out the string. Playing out the string. And, you know, you you go through the trade deadline.

Basically, where they were then said more about true talent than where they would be after 82 games. Well, that's a stunning admission for me, particularly because if you're a customer of any NHL team, if you're a season ticket holder, the league knows that the last 17% of the season isn't like true hockey. Yeah. You're just killing time waiting for the playoffs. If you're a general fan of the league, you're just killing time waiting for the playoffs. If you're the fan of a bad team, you're rooting against your team. you're rooting against your team.

You're tuning in to watch the Canucks if you're listening to us in Vancouver or the flames. I know you guys haven't done this in a while. But you're tuning in and you're rooting against them winning with sort of the name Connor Bedard on your lips. You're hosted by our own Patard for Connor Badard.

Right? You know, whatever sort of saying is invoked that season. That's what you're hoping for. You're hoping for failure. And that's a ridiculous way to set up the incentives in a sport. The thing about gold drafting is you still reward the teams that are worse in the league, but you fix this 17% issue. You get to a point

where teams have to try and win, even when they're eliminated, because ultimately, we know what impact a first overall pick can have in changing, you know, not just a franchise's fortunes on the ice, but frankly, like, their valuation off of it, right? Like, Connor McDavid's worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Edmonton Oilers. Just, just a lot. just alone. Connor Bedard's going to be the same. Like, why do you get to back into that? Why do you get to lose into that?

Why is failure rewarded there? Yeah, if you're a fan of a bad team, realistically, the only thing in that back half of the season you have to look forward to is like those final eight or nine games where your top prospect might get called up, especially if like their college season ended or something, to play without burning the first year off their entry level deal, right? I think I have no issue with tanking,

in the current system because you're incentivized to do so, even if it doesn't guarantee you the first overall pick. Like right now, upon the latest lottery system, I think if you finish with the worst record, you're guaranteed a top three pick. It used to be top four, right? Yeah, which I also don't like. Right, but I'm just saying for right now,

let's play this out. In the current system, do we agree? Some people are like morally opposed to tanking. I think it's smart business. If you're going to be bad, you may as well be the worst, I think. I agree. Right? The place you don't want to be is in the middle.

Exactly. Yeah. So now I completely get that losing on purpose fundamentally goes against the spirit of competition, which is what pro sports are. I hate it. I'm probably the biggest advocate locally in Vancouver for tanking. And yet I hate it. I despise it.

Everything about it. Here's what I'll say, though. I really like, maybe this might be a bad example right now because you look at the state of the Arizona a coyote's like you look at yeah yeah it's it's grim the shell roster they have and it's like this is you know it's clear what they're doing yes I think if you

are a smart organization and you utilize the lottery system that's in place right now and the perks of picking high you will realistically only be there for like three years yeah I agree with that right and I have no issue with the idea that the league always to to function needs bad teams.

Yeah. Like it loves to talk up this idea of parity, right? Like the NHL, anyone can win. Like, oh, look at all this. Sorry, the official term, I believe, is anything can happen. Yeah, anything can happen, of course. Except for like one out of five teams winning every year. Well, except anything doesn't, right?

Yes. The NBA has had more unique champions since 2016 than the NHL has. And the NBA also had four straight finals with the two same teams. Yeah. Like it's wild how consistently the best teams are the best teams in hockey. Also, I don't want 32 evenly matched teams. No. I'm fine with having four or five really bad ones and four or five exceptionally good ones.

And then a bunch of teams in the middle that could conceivably go in either direction. You're also never going to change that. Like, that's because players gravitate to playing on the best teams, right? Like there is a reward to being good that's pretty sticky. Just like there is a penalty to being bad that is pretty sticky. It's tough to become a destination team when you've repeatedly failed for four or five years. You know, it doesn't change overnight. Yeah.

And so, you know, it is difficult to move up or down. And I also think in the Flat Cap era in particular, we've sort of had this parody-busting paradigm in the sport. As a result of, you know, increasingly if you sort the NHL teams by point percentage, you will see at the top the smartest ones. Right? Like the combination of brainpower and an understanding, like raw intellectual horsepower connected to front office operations in combination with the flat cap has really created, I think, a world where the card counters are beating up on whales pretty significantly. And by that specifically, we should say the teams who invests. the most resources off of the ice. Yeah.

Right. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. I completely agree with that. I like the goal plan. And one of the main pushbacks to it is like, well, because you get the higher, the more points you get basically after you're eliminated, the higher you pick, right? Right.

And then it's like, oh, well, if you're a bad team, you're not going to get a lot of points. It's like, well, if you're a really bad team, you're actually going to be eliminated much sooner than the okay team. Sure. And so you actually will have a lot, much more runway to accumulate points. So I think in reality, you probably would actually wind up seeing bad teams pick higher. Right. While doing so in a way where they're actually trying to feel the best lineup they can throughout. People also say things like, well, the deadline is you're going to make the deadline boring.

The deadline's always boring. Deadline's always boring, A, but also B, why wouldn't you see a team sell early to get to the thing as quickly? Like, ideally, you sell early, you get eliminated just before the deadline or you're close to elimination. And then you use the deadlines of buyer. And then you, well, and you don't necessarily buy all out. Right. What you do is you're like a cap clearinghouse. Like, oh, you don't like that totally useful middle six forward who's a little overpaid?

Perfect. He's perfect for me. He'll help me win, you know, an extra half game over the balance of the season. Like, I mean, I actually think you'd create interesting opportunities for smart teams within the gold system. And again, the main thing, the main thing I like about it is it's for the fans. It's for the fans. if you're paying full price for an NHL ticket, if you're tuning in to watch a game, right,

and watch the advertisement that comes with the game, even if it's moving on the boards, you deserve to have the reward of not having to watch that game and rooting against your team. You should never be in the seats, whether it's your couch or in the arena, rooting against your team, ever, ever.

I think that's a very basic principle that the league needs to figure out how to accomplish, in my view. particularly because in their own admission, the last 17% of the season barely matters. Yeah. Yeah, I guess the one point that I was going to make was I think the idea of us needing to institute a new system because tanking is running so rampant and ruining the league. It's a bit overblown. There's been a couple, like, extreme examples. But you look throughout the league.

First off, there's a lot of teams that would do really well to tank that are scared to do so, misguidedly, in my opinion. And so they're like, oh, let's try to be okay so we can sell tickets. And in reality, their fans the entire time are like, can we please have a plan instead of trying to sell tickets? That should not be our organization's plan. Are you talking about it? Are you talking about any market, of course. So I would say that the number of teams who actually take advantage of the current system is very minimal. So I don't think it's like that big of an issue.

I think it's actually a tired take to wish for draft reform. form, the wire take is we need to change the contract structures where RFAs being an RFA until you're, what, 27 or seven years of NHL experience is preposterous. Although it's already been demolished. The line between RFA and UFAs. It's still, I mean, you still. I think it's changed rapidly. Yeah.

There's still players, though, that'll take way less than they're worth just to get that security. For sure, for sure. But 10 years ago, the vets were the highest paid guys on every team. And now it's 21-year-old. who are the highest paid guys on every team with significant repercussions in terms of the internal dynamics and teams all around the league. Yeah, which is the way it should be. You should be compensated fairly for your most productive seasons, which happened to be from like 21 to 25. I mean, I'd love to just have a bonus pool and no draft.

Yeah. I mean, that's my personal view of it. Okay, part of his question was realistically implemented. Well, the gold system is good. I don't see anything changing, though. And I thought it was really disappointing when the league moved from three to two, right? You know, I get that the devils and the Rangers just kept winning the lottery and teams overreacted to it. You know, everyone felt bad for Steve Eisman, I guess.

But, you know, the league with the three lottery, the three lotteries to determine all three picks meant that being the worst only guaranteed you fourth. It was still worth doing, by the way. It was still worth being last to guarantee yourself no worse than the fourth overall pick. but they've sort of created a system now where, you know, failure is rewarded even more gloriously than it has been for the last five years. Teams weren't tanking before. We actually are seeing a few teams tank this year. Maybe that's the quality of the draft itself probably is more than anything else. But I also think the league did create an environment where tanking was actually further incentivized when they reduced the number of draft lottery slots.

I hated that. You know, I would, I would even, I would even expand the odds. Like, I think the more random you can make the top of the draft or if you're not going to connect it to winning something, the better it is. Yeah. Okay. We need to move on. We're 15 minutes and one question.

Yeah. 19 tabs. Hopefully you can close a few of them. Never. Never. I'm going to die as I lived buried under a mountain of tabs. All right. Mark does here.

This could be a quick one for us, but I thought it was good because I think sometimes I make the mistake on this podcast of just like, a. assuming that everyone is on the same page about everything. And in reality, there's a lot of people who might be new listeners who might be like, oh, interested in learning about this stuff, but might not necessarily have a full grasp on it. So Mark does here, asks, can you explain goaltending stats? I often hear things like both goalies have an 880 say percentage,

so their goaltending is bad. But at the same time, you also hear, oh, say percentage is low, but look at the team in front of them. So how can both those things be true? I mean, the fact is that we're not good at yet, right? We're really bad at it. save percentage with the team. We're bad at measuring defense.

And we're bad at measuring responsibility for keeping the puck out of your own net, I guess is the best way to put it. For sure. We're just bad at measuring defensive contributions or goal prevention contributions, sort of across the board. Yeah. I still like save percentage better than wins and losses and stuff. And I definitely like it more than goals saved above average.

Yes. Which is a stat I'm increasingly dubious of, even though I used to use it. Throw it out. Yeah. It's just, you know, like I'm watching. Thatcher Demko a lot, obviously. And, you know, he's not playing well. But he's also not playing 870 goaltender.

Like, he's not an 870 goaltender based on the chances and the way this team is getting seamed. Like, if you get seen twice right off a face off for a backdoor tap-in, I'm sorry, that's not on you. It's not on you. Fans in this market right now are trying to blame him because he, like, made the first save on a screened shot only for an completely not boxed out forward to have a tap-in off the rebound.

Like, I'm sorry. If the puck changes. direction and it's screened. All you can ask is a guy to make the first save. Anyway, whatever. And then I see the goal saved above average numbers. And I'm so dubious of them because I think, I think Demko's performed about as well as anyone could behind the team he's played against.

Right. Or played behind. I see these examples every year. And, you know, yeah, he hasn't been superhuman. But he'd have to be superhuman. And even if he, you know, was what, 910, I bet you'd only be like zero. Goals saved above average, considering the chances that are being surrendered are so dangerous because of a puck movement thing. And these numbers are just tracking location.

Yes. Yeah, that's, you hit the nail on the head there. I think goals save above expected is significantly better than save percentage because at least it's trying to account for the environment and where the shots are coming from. Now, Demko has given up 32 goals in eight games. He's the prime example for this. 880 save percentage. So this example, this question asked when you referenced in 880s, literally Demko. He also has a league worst negative 8.5 goals, goals save above expected,

according to evolving hockey. I talked about as Woodley yesterday. I don't necessarily want to the whole thing when I please just go listen to that conversation. Yeah. But I watched back all 32 goals. I'd say four of them were shots that he should have had them. Like a Rovetchen won, like a few others. Yeah.

I think four, maybe five. Yeah. The rest were all either a blown assignment in front of the net where a stick didn't get tied up, a breakaway, a tip, or like backdoor across seam where he had to move laterally and had no chance. And there's been a lot of those short-handed. Really bad. Oh, and he has a 914, 5-15 say percentage, which isn't great, but it's kind of middle of the pack, not 880 overall. And he's playing behind the league where his penalty kill.

How about the devil's having a 900 say percentage and still being 8 and 3? Yeah. How funny is that? How much did you enjoy watching a fun, exciting, fast, young team? Well, I just, they do so much cool stuff. Yeah. They just do so much cool stuff. And that was one of their worst games they play this year, too.

Oh, by far their worst game. Yeah. By far, certainly the first period was their worst period of the year, not close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, the way that they use like forwards and the high slot on exits, just some of the cool spin passes into space down ice, knowing that they're the fastest show on ice and can just beat people to pucks. Yeah, I mean, a ton of fun.

A ton of fun. In that Edmonton game, I kept an eye on it even as I was at the, Canucks game watching that, you know, Canucks Ducks contest, uh, contest last night. Scrimmage. Game of, uh, it was, it was fire wagon hockey in the second half. I'm not going to, uh, it was fun in the building.

But, uh, but yeah, I was keeping an eye on that thrilling. Yeah. Just a thrilling game of hockey. Yeah. We had another question in here about, um, which team were most high on moving forward from like, I think it was like the red wings, the sabers and the senators or someone else. Sorry, so the red wings?

It was like young teams who like, the senators have like made recent moves slash have shown promise right and we could like lump i mean i think the devils have sort of um leapfrog those teams yeah gone past that maybe buffalo but i see before the season i think we would have had the ducks there not necessarily for this season's expectations but in terms of like we were super high on them in the watchability podcast and we were like i'd like to see them take another step here towards competency they look like a team where the 18 skaters just got together on a Thursday night for an hour to get away from their families. And have a beer after the game.

Yeah, that's bad. Maybe watch the Thursday night or after. And like, do they practice? You know what? You know what? I've never seen. I've never seen, you know, and I've never seen this before until last night. I've never seen so many players bunched together away from the puck.

Yeah. Like they are literally standing next to each other. There is no sense of shape. Yeah. Or discipline. in the way that they're playing. It is wild. It kind of reminds me a bit of when the things really went off the rails for the Patrick Waive Lange

or even maybe the Jeremy, Jeremy called it in Blackhawks. Yeah. Where the personnel is bad in terms of like compared, like they're not a contender by any means. Yeah, but they're also disorganized. But they should be much more organized. It looks like they're almost unprepared. Yeah, I wouldn't put the, would you put the Blackhawks in that category? No, not this year's.

I mean like, no, no, there was two years ago or everywhere. defensively, they were like, how is this keep happening? I know. The Blackhawks just played such weird hockey, though. Yeah. You know, and it was, I do think they were just like catering to Patrick Kane. Like, they did these five-man breakouts from behind the net. Like, might as well have been deploying the flying V in a real HL game. They played roller hockey.

Yeah. It's disappointing, though, because heading into the year, I think we were, you and I were really high on the ducks, the sabers, the devils. Now, two out of three is bad. Two out of three is not bad, especially when you're picking dark horses. But I thought the ducks would be able to move north-south. of? Yeah.

No. They can't move at all. And they can't defend. It's, they were bunched up. I was honestly blown away. I was blown away by the defensive coverage. And I was hearing from people in the league watching the game. And they were just like, this is atrocious.

I'm calling. I can't believe it. Yeah, I have higher hopes for them than that. Me too. All right. Let's do another quick one here then before we go. Actually, no, we'll start it. And then it'll be a great as we go into break.

And we'll be like, come back for more of this. Let's go. Radio pros. Players we love for no good reason. Now, your mileage on no good reason can vary. Like, I don't think we should say, like, guys who are clearly stars, because it's like, we like them because they're really good. It's like, there should be guys that it's like a niche sort of take where...

Like Nick Blankenberg. Sure. Nick Blankenberg is at the top of my list. Okay. Because he's a 5'9 guy who can skate, move the puck, and hits everything. What's not to love? Yeah. Anyway, we'll get more into, we'll get into more Wilburne.

Oregon talk on the other side. Let me, let me give you a quick one. Okay. Logan O'Connor. So I kind of did this podcast last year. I'm going to regurgitate a few of the guys I did, but I, they still apply. So I just can't move off of Logan O'Connor. Every once in a while when I'm watching an abs game, I like look away from my screen.

And then I look back and I see someone moving up the ice incredibly quickly. And it looks like their number is 20 something. And I'm like, oh, there's Nathan McKinnon. And then they do something that's not very skis. with the puck. And then I'm like, oh, no, that was Logan O'Connor. I love him because he has one gear and it is maximum speed. He plays at all times.

Like that, there's no shifting of gears, no throwing curveballs, change up, slowing down. Nope, he just goes as fast as he can. He's really fun to watch on the penalty kill where he's like, he's legitimately more dangerous on the penalty kill than at 5-15. If he had finishing ability, he'd be so good. But he also wouldn't cost the abs, $1 million or $1. 05 or whatever he does. So he's like a he's a nice utility piece for them.

But I just really enjoy him because he's really fun to watch. And he fits this example of guys you love for no good reason. Because I remember last year I posted like a mixtape of him with having penalty kill breakways or something. And people are like, who is this guy? And like what's going on here? And they were like amazed that he had like 12 breakways on the penalty kill last year. He's got that Michael Grabner gene.

But I have a soft spot for guys like that. I know the finishing's never going to come around. But one year, what if he does shoot 15%? Well, the thing. The thing is, is if you hang around along enough, it'll happen. You will. You'll have one, at least one, you know, Gravner scored 36, Yanuk Hansen, scored 22. Like, that player type does go off.

Yeah. All right, Tom, I can't wait to hear more about Wolf Borgon. But this is a good spot for us to take a break. When we come back, we're going to keep rattling through as many of our listener questions as we can. You're listening to the Friday Mailbag edition of the HockeyPediocast here on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the HockeyPedioCast, Dimitra-Fovich.

Join by Thomas Durantz. We're doing mailbag questions. Tom. keep going with our list of players that we like for no reason. Yeah. Well, I was going to say Will Borgon, but most listeners on Vancouver Radio have heard me do that. So I'm going to pick... They're like enough of this guy.

I'm going to pick a different Seattle Cracken player. Okay. Daniel Sprong. Oh, I love Daniel Sprong. Here's what I like about Daniel Sprong. In a lot of ways, he profiles as like a classic perimeter shooter. Yeah. Right?

He's got the shot velocity. The mechanics are sick. when he's when he's on the flanks on the power play it's always a ton of fun to watch him tee up but he's massive like he's massive and he's such a smooth skater it's almost like what I was hoping

do you remember Timu Polkinen I used to have high hopes for Timu Polkinen it's like what I always wanted out of Timu Polkinen Daniel Sprong is the ultimate 4A player He's the ultimate 4A player I think Sprong's better than that though like Sprong's legit NHLer No no Sprong Sprongs

Sprongs become the NHL version I actually think Sprong's good. Like I think sprung can help you win. Yeah. Can help a good team win. But it's just this combination. He's got all of the skills that I almost associate with smaller guys, but he's just massive.

Yeah. And he's so slick on his skates. I just always have a ton of fun watching him. He's the ultimate heat check player. He is the ultimate heat check player. Yeah. Like if you catch him on the right night, he'll like snipe two goals and you'd be like, this guy's in the race for the rocket, right? He's NHL skipped to my loo. And you're like, he has 12 goals. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, he had this classic moment

when he was on the capitals where he was coming down in a two-on-one, he had the puck on the left flank, I believe. Ovechkin was on another side. He looks off Ovechkin, beats the goalie cleanly, and then has like this like evil smile after, as if like there was any doubt that I was going to keep this in score. That's amazing.

So yeah, I love Daniel Sprung. I think that's a great call. And I'm actually surprised that he was as available this offseason as you, like literally anyone could have had him for free. And he's, he'd help a lot of times. team. Yeah, because it's hard to score goals, especially if I won five and he's, he can do that. Especially when you've got like your plus skater with size. Yeah. And then you also have special

teams utility, like plus plus special teams utility. You can build a whole second unit around that shot. Yeah. It might not be better than average, but that's useful. I like sprong. That's a good one. I'll give you the next on my list, Connor Clifton. Oh, Connor Clifton. Did I snake you? No, you know what? I hadn't actually considered him, but he's like one of my long-term. guys. Let me give you my case. Okay. This year he's playing 17 minutes of 5-on-5, 21-30 overall with McAvoy out,

and now 4-Birds out as well. He's playing, I think he's second on the Bruins behind Hampus Lane Holman usage. Yeah. At the time of the expansion draft, I remember talking about this is like no-brainer pick for Seattle. And I took Jeremy Lozahn instead, who they wound up turning into a top 50 overall pick from Nashville. So I guess it worked out in that sense.

I actually don't hate Lozon. I think Clifton's just a significantly superior hockey player. He had Seattle's Nate Schmidt potential. But here's the thing. At the time, he was a 26-year-old, right-shot defenseman, making one million a year for two more years. He might be a lefty who plays right. I think he shoots right and he plays both sides. Got it.

In my head, he's like literally a right shot in terms of he shoots right, but I think they've used them more. Oh, you're right. He is a right shot. But he's playing on the right now with Linholm. Okay. It's an excusable that they took Lozahn. This is why he's my pick. He's listed at 511.

I believe I think that might even be a bit generous. He's probably like 510 or something. If he was 6-2 without changing his game or his results. So I'm not like this. Literally if you just stretched him up vertically, NHLGMs would be falling all over themselves to get this guy, to sign him to a mega deal. to like feature him atop their depth chart.

And because he's 5-11, people have talked themselves into him being like an undersized guy. He's a tweener. He is nasty. Yeah, he's good. In terms of like physicality. Like he throws the body. He will hit you hard.

And he'll drop a lot. Like he'll do everything except he's short. So people are like, ah, he's not that type of player. And I just don't get it. What's amazing. I was so high on him leading up to the expansion draft. And then he wasn't very good last year. Yeah.

And now this year I'm watching in play. I'm watching that whole Bruins team play. Like going into the season, I had a big Bruins fade going, aged poorly. And largely it was like, I'm not sure about their defense. I like Carlo, I don't love Carlo, right? I love Greslick. I love McAvoy, but he's going to be out. Yeah.

I'm not sure how much Lindholm has in the tank, right? And now Lindholm is dominant. Yeah. Having a dominant season. And Connor Clifton's back to doing what I expected him to do last year. and now once McAvoy gets back, that team's going to be cooking with oil. I mean, they could very well win that division,

and I would never have thought that was realistic. Are we into the underrated puck-moving D part of the list? Of course. Should I give you Mikey Anderson, or should I give you Nick Jensen? I'm going to give you Nick Jensen, because Mikey Anderson's more obvious. See, I would pick Martin Farivari on that same blue line.

Oh, yeah. See, I'm a Jensen guy. Okay, so give me your take. Faravari is awesome too. I just, Jensen is the perfect, like the perfect second pair defenseman, right? I just, in my mind's eye,

what do I want from a second pair defenseman? I want a guy who can make some plays with his feet, but doesn't try to make too many plays with his feet. I want him to play within himself. I want him to be reliable defensively. I want him to be able to be physical, but I want him to be able to key the transition game. Nick Jensen is just like the perfect, like holding mid,

style hockey player. He just controls games. He doesn't try to do too much. He knows his limitations. He gets the puck moving in the right direction consistently. He is, for me, especially in combination with Orlov, right? They are the infrastructure that keeps the capitals from succumbing to the gravity that they so obviously should be succumbing to based on the age and like lack of foot speed and lack of dynamism in their forward group, particularly with both Baxter and Tom Wilson out. Like, I'm watching this Caps team right now, and I'm like, these guys aren't even good.

And then they throw their second pair on. And it's like, oh, wow, they outshot the opposition 12, 5 in those minutes, and they won a game by one goal. Yeah. And it's not a coincidence. Like, they, Nick, you can build meaningful infrastructure around Nick Jensen.

He's like, it's like having a really good left tackle in football. It just opens up all of this stuff and makes everyone look a little bit better than they are. Nick Jensen's like the perfect player to do that. Well, it's funny that you brought up Mikey Anderson and then that's what led me to thinking about Martin Farivari because I tracked every single playoff game that happened last year and last year's postseason. And they were like the two big standouts for me of guys that I hadn't really appreciated enough before from just kind of more casual viewing. Yeah. And just seeing them actually play a game after game after game and tracking their individual contributions. So good defensively, especially in the neutralism.

own like an ability to just stick with puck carriers, which is such a, such an important skill in today's game and such a tough one to find. Because they're not necessarily like elite skaters, especially like we think of elite skaters as guys with the puck that can move up the ice, but we don't necessarily think of like backtracking and those guys can do it so well without necessarily taking a lot of penalties. And so I like Mike Anderson is a great call as well. Well, this comes back to our lack of appreciation for goal prevention. You know, there's something in soccer where a guy like Javi can like, like,

never have a touch in the box their entire career, but everyone knows that they're a metronome. You know, and for whatever reason, the transitional puck mover who's never going to get PP one time, probably never even going to get PP2 time, maybe they don't have the most dynamic shot, you know, can go an entire career being underappreciated.

I mean, before the injuries caught up to Danny DeKaiser, right, he was in that mold. Chris Tanev's, to me, like the standout. Yeah. Of a guy who's played his whole career just being, like, just eating tough minutes for breakfast and has never even like, you know, up until he basically went to Calgary, it was like controversial to call him a first pair defender. He's been a first pair defender for a decade. Yeah. And, and so, you know, it sort of speaks to our awareness of it. Like,

there's this player type. Anderson's a good example. I think Jensen's a good example. These guys aren't, I don't think appreciated for just how big an influence they can have on where the game is played as like signal callers effectively at 5-0-5. For a while there before he lost the footspeed Mark Edward Vlasic. Perfect example. Except Vlasic somehow got the attention. He did, and he got the contract as well. Vlasic and Gerardy got,

were like the only players of this ilk that got the attention. Yeah. I don't know why, but that's just how it played out. Yeah, that's a good point. All right, I'll give you one last one here. I'll give you the floor for it,

because we both wanted to talk about this guy, and he actually kind of ties into a question that we got from another listener as well. So I think he's actually, I think this guy has, has, transcended this group based on his start the season. Okay, okay. So, sorry, you want one more before you go to him?

No, I want you to go to him right now. Oh, okay. Can I just shout out one more guy? All right, fine. I need to shout out one more guy. I need to, Blake Lazott. Yeah. I just got to shout out Blake Lazotte.

He's awesome. I think it was like game four of last year's first round series against the Oilers. We go back and watch that one. I don't know why anyone in the right mind would do that. But if you, if you're feeling up for it, he played like 15 minutes or something, and he had like 15 shot contributions. Like he was like literally everywhere.

He had a Connor McDavid-ish game in limited usage. Blake Lazot, by the way, rocking devastatingly low percentages across the board. Yeah, the Kings are pretty smart though. Yeah, no, I know. But I'm not saying it's a by-low for an NHL team so much as it's a by-low for anyone with a really like playing in a 16-team fantasy league. Lizott's going to be much more productive over the balance. And a King's-only fantasy league.

Yeah, 16 team kings only fantasy league. All right, let's do Marty Natchez. Yeah, Natchez is the smoothest guy with the puck in the league. Yeah. It's just so sick to watch. His puck skills are outrageous. And we, you know, it's like they have to hibernate because the hurricanes are players. I'm pretty sure hurricanes players are contractually obligated to never transition a single zone with control ever, right?

If you punt everything, you dump everything. and so we don't often see Naceous's sort of just natural affinity and slickness come to the four. But you see it in hints and starts, and when you do, it's so exciting. Just limitless potential. I'd love to see him play on a puck possession team that really just trusts him full-time as a centerman. I think it would be one of the most fun. He'd be one of the most, he'd be must watch for me in that type of position. On the Hurricanes, still good, having a great start to the season, crushing it.

Love to see him get more responsibility there, but ultimately, you know, I still think we're only seeing like 75% of the Marty Nietzsche's experiment or experience because as a center on a team that emphasizes control, I think it would be lights out. Well, let me give some stats on him this year because I was actually surprised to see this. At 5-1-5, last year he played 1228 per game, which was eighth amongst Cain's forwards. He leads the team in 5-on-5 usage this year. Unleashed, let's go. playing 1952 overall, which also leads the canes in terms of forward usage. Him, Svetnikov, and Kockenemy has been their best line. Yeah.

Like I love Ajo and Jarvis, but they've been their most consistent all year in the first 10 games. I actually have really come to like watching Yisperi Kockenium this year, too. He's been really good. I still think, though, in another system, you'd want Kockenemy as the winger so that he could do the weird stuff he does with his range and along the wall as the F.1. one more. Yeah. And you could have Nache's... Nathus is the center.

He is? He is? Well, no, but he, like... He is the center with the pot. He needs to be in the middle of the ice. He needs... Yeah, I'm just saying, I want him to be the brain of that line, you know, and I want Kockinyemi to be doing Valerie Nachushkin stuff with his range and speed.

Yep. And just a battle winning ability. His raw battle winning ability this season has been standout every time I've watched the Keynes play. Yep. I'm with you there. I love Marty Natchis. Um, okay.

Let's do another listener. question here. So I actually got one. It was from Matthew Hames here, asks, favorite defensive D-Man, quote-unquote, who isn't very tall or big. I think we kind of answered that with like Mikey Anderson, Martin Ferrari, Connor Clifton. Let's keep going here. Do you want to do a bit about Eric Carlson? I got a few Eric Carlson questions, people just wanting us to talk about them. Sure. The sharks. Well, they're a team. No, Eric Kossens off to an incredible start. He scored 32 goals this season.

He has 10 of them. And he's been on the ice for 24 of the 32. Unreal. I just wanted to give Eric Kosson's love. It's great. It's great to see him. I love to see him. He's moving so well.

Like, he actually legitimately looks healthy. I think someone's going to get him at 50% retained, right? Here's the thing. I don't think so I think, well, not yet. It's too much. I think maybe we underrate, like, for these pro athletes, how much being healthy in the off season? might matter in terms of like coming into the season not already nursing stuff like i think john tibera is

another great example of this where he i thought looked quite horrible physically last year like he was still effective down low and kind of like doing the crafty stuff the classic jt area but watching him move around the puck we're trying to do anything in space because this was painful yeah cement boots and now all of a sudden not that he's a burner but like he's actually moving around and it and it opens up so many different plays for him when he's not just relying on like posting up or like doing the hockey equivalent of pushing up, right? Like he can actually step outside. And so I think a similar thing going on with Carlson there where I imagine he had a pretty

good offseason in terms of training and feeling good about himself physically. And that's translated. Kevin BXA was talking about his career and his relationship with the Canucks fans yesterday when he was in at Rogers Arena to retire as a Canucks player. And he was like, you know, I had a good start to my career. Then I got injured. Then I got grinded down as I returned back from it. And then I got injured again.

And the criticism started. And you know, I think you're right. I think an awful lot of what we see as, you know, players declining performances is so often injury related. And honestly, that's one of the prime ways that I use Corsi 4 in particular to track player health. Like when I see a really good player's numbers just fall off, especially when they're a sentiment. And I haven't like noticed that they're hurt. It's always a tell for me. It's always a tell. And, you know, back, something like that, right? Like something that they're managing, I always track it in part because I want to know.

I want to know for the team that I cover, the Canucks. Like, I want to know quickly if a guy's fallen off a map and why. And if I should be carving them for their performance or if I should be. Well, it also sucks because I think we, and unfortunately so, like really lionized players who play through pain. Totally. And then there's different forms of it, right? If it's like something that like won't impact your quality of life after retirement or like

can't get significantly worse physically. If it's like something where it's like, you know what? I can like, I'm not feeling my best, but I can still contribute. I understand that, especially in the postseason one,

it's like something potentially dangerous. I think we should like fully stop celebrating that. I agree with you. You need to take care of your body. But at the same time then if a player plays through pain, but we're not necessarily privy to it because obviously it doesn't behoove them to tell everyone, hey,

um, you only find out about it if they're eliminated. Yeah, exactly. And then it's like, oh, I had 14 different surgeries. Right.

And I never want to be like, man, this guy's really letting down the team. Yeah. It's like after their team's eliminated. They're like, he played with a punctured rib. And it's like, oh my goodness. Yeah. punctured rib. But you know what I mean?

Like I'm thinking about a broken rib that could puncture your lung, la Patrice Bersh. Right. That's literally the injury in my head. So, you know, I'm, it's honestly one of my main usages of shot attempt differential. Because I have this memory in my head of Henrik Sidene, one Henrik Sidene season, his back was flaring up, and it just, like, dropped off a cliff. Like, all of a sudden, the twins' usual game just disappeared.

And all, you know, team starts losing. Everyone's criticizing the twins. And it's just like, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of work going on just to get him on the ice for morning skate. Yep. So anyway. Yeah, I'm with you. Tyson Monroe asks, do the Oilers need to upgrade right D or left D first?

Ooh. Do I me give you my take? Yeah, go. I think. I think they actually need to upgrade their left side by subtracting Tyson Barry from the right side. Yeah. It just allocating $4.5 million in cap space

to what they're getting out of them and the way they're using him as such like a luxury item on the power play when I think Evan Bouchard there would be totally fine. Totally fine. Or it really doesn't matter who's physically standing at the blue line because you have Connor McDavid and Leandro's Idol. it makes no sense to me to have that. I'd like to see them improve the left side.

Like Brett Kulak, who I love and had an awesome postseason. Struggling. Has struggled this year. He's made some mistakes. He'll bounce back. He'll bounce back. Well, it's funny. If you look at the numbers, like, he actually, like, revived Barry last year when he came and they

paired him up together, and he kind of did everything for that pairing and allowed Barry to play to his capabilities. This year, they, like, were getting hammered. And then they put him with Bouchard and the numbers were fine. again. Yeah. But yeah, so I, you know, right now they're left sides, there's cool, I'm Alainan.

I'd like to see them add like a second pairingish lefty, especially because realistically in today's NHL, you probably have to pay less in terms of assets to get a competent lefty as opposed to paying a premium for a righty when I think CC and Bouchard at top the right side are totally fine. So paying 4.5 for a third pair right shot Tyson Barry, it just makes no sense. Yeah, I mean, I'm still of the opinion that the, Edmonton Oilers are the team that should go hunt and trade for Seth Jones.

That's my hottest take. That's what the Oilers should be doing. Just get, here's my thing. The Oilers should just go get the best defenseman they can possibly get. Yeah. You just need another difference maker there and then figure it out. That's my view. I just think the Oilers need one more big piece on the blue line.

I don't think they should be investing significant resources in that piece. I think they should. I think you have four years right here. This is it. And you have to win with McDavid and Drysidal in their primes. You have to. It would be so embarrassing to not turn this stretch of hockey dominance into a Stanley Cup. Of course.

And I just think the thing they need is a really good defenseman who can log huge minutes. Yeah. That would be the one thing I'd get. Now that they've overpaid on a goalie, that would be the one thing I'd go get. Yeah. I've really upset you. I've really upset you here. We don't have enough time on today's episode of the PDOCAS for me to fully unpack that one.

Maybe next time we have you on, we'll do a full episode on that take. I'm going through the questions here. I feel like we've actually done a really good job of answering a lot of these. A lot of people really came through. Bert Morrison asks, is John Marino, aka Johnny Marinerer in the Norris conversation? No. No, he's not playing enough, right? Like, I watched that game.

I mean, we don't need to talk about awards, 10 games. three seasons. No, but also I watched that game the other day. He's so good, though. He's so good. No, he's brought such a huge dynamic to that team. But I watched the game the other day that he played in Vancouver. I watched it live. He was great. And then at the end of the game, I check the time on ice. And it's like, oh, I played the fifth most minutes on their team, five on five. I know. You know, like, and that's a, that's not inconsistent. No, you know, I mean, he's playing a few more seconds per game than Jonas Siegenthaller, right? He's second on the team in 5 and 5 ice time,

but it's like game dependent. He's not always. So, you know, I just, I don't know, I don't know if his usage is significant enough. Like, I just, I don't see, I don't see the case for that if you're not really the 1A defenseman on your own team. You know, like how do you win the Norris when you're not the 1A on your own team? Well, I think, yeah, I can't argue with the numbers in terms of the usage.

I will say like the past couple home games we saw. I did a whole deep job on this with Camtura on our pal cam. The final, or the last couple of homies before they came out on the road here at West, Lindy Ruff, like, hard matched him against McKinnon's line and then Goodrow's line in those two matchups against the abs and the blue jackets. And he did great. And he was just a blanket. And I think that's how they want to use him.

I think they're, like, so confident in terms of their depth throughout their defensive blue line. They're just rolling those three lines. And they're not really, like, obsessing over getting them out there. soon as the first line hops on. But yeah, the impact, like even in that Knucks game

where it wasn't necessarily prolific, he had that stretch pass that led to the two-on-one goal. He broke up a two-on-one defensively as well, like made it look effortless. Like, some of this stuff he's subtly doing

is, I got to do a mix tape on him soon. Yeah, he was incredible. He's really good. I just think you need to be a 1A on your team before I'm really taking your Norris case. Seriously, he's got 70 games to take those reins, right? But I need to see that.

That's like, I can't, I can't vote you for Norris. as if you're not the 1A guy. Yeah. That's my view. Yeah, that's fair. But, you know, I'm also the guy who had Chris Tandive on his ballot, so.

Number one, number one, video cast reply guy, Meeks asks, you're given the green light to make a new jersey for any team with the only directive that it has to be crazier than the one Tampa Bay just made for the retro reverse or whatever. Do you see that one? Yeah. I hate it. What do you do? So I have to make a crazier jersey than the Tampa Bay store.

They literally just like had a kindergartner just throw a bunch of stuff up against a poster and then just roll roll over it. Yeah, I mean, it's like. And you know what? I actually was watching the game. I don't, I don't mind it. Really? I don't think it should be like their full-time jersey, but I think the L'NHL takes itself so seriously. And honestly, for a couple games a year, why not?

Like, it's actually fun when you're watching as depraved amount of hockey as we do, and I'm flicking between games and I'm like, oh, everything is just like, it's getting so monotone. I think it actually, it's actually nice. And it's all navy and red. Yeah, it's actually really nice. They're just like, oh, wow, that's, that's, that's kind of random. Well, when the Dallas Stars, like, first adopted those, like, light green uniforms, it was, like, such a relief. Yeah.

Especially because they were playing exciting hockey under rough men, right? Like, those were fun teams in part because they looked fun. They looked like the Hulk on ice. Okay. I think I've always thought that we need to see a pink Florida Panthers jersey. Yeah. I think a pink Panthers jersey just makes so much sense. It's like so easy to sell and you can do it in that like Miami Vice color scheme that the heat have sort of made popular.

Like the red becomes pink. Yeah. The blue becomes sky blue. Easy. Would be so sick. And you get to call it the Pink Panther jersey. That's pretty cool. Everyone wants that.

Right? Honestly, those Panthers ones, the baby blue ones now are sick. How have we not gotten care packages and like promoting it on SportsSat 650? I haven't. I haven't inquired. I suppose I should do so. I really hope you do because I want one. that was so bad. All right, Tom, that's all the time we've got today. I'll let you plug

your show. Hopefully people enjoyed the band for between us because I'm on your show every, it's either Wednesday or Thursday, but Thursday's. Thursday. The PDO report on Canucks Talk, which is airs on Sports 9-650 and obviously I'm at The Athletic. I love it. And at Thomas Trans on on Twitter. You'll be back on the PDO guest again very soon. If you enjoyed listening to today's show, please smash that five-star button and give us a nice review wherever you listen. Thank you for checking out the Hockey PDO cast on the Sportsnet Radio Network.