The Hockey PDOcast - The Wild Card, David Carle’s Coaching, and the Coyotes Leaving Arizona

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to talk about the most actionable pieces of NHL news from over the weekend. They break down the latest in the Eastern Conference wild card race, David Carle's coaching prospects after the job he did guiding Denver University to the NCAA title, and the impact of the Coyotes leaving Arizona from both a human and business perspective.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. 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.

progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitra Velpovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Sean Schopero. Sean, what's going on, man? Not too much, man. I'm wondering if today is the last game of the season, or sorry, last wing, Red Wings game of the season I'll see in person.

We're here in Detroit and checked out Morning Skate there today. may or may not have playoff games here in Detroit, may be covering exit meetings Wednesday. So it's a weird, no idea what the next week looks like in a wonderful weird way all at the same time. Well, we're going to talk more about that, certainly from the Red Wings perspective on today's show, but I just wanted to say we made it.

It's the last week of the regular season. You can almost feel the playoffs here. But before we get there, first we've got a lot of business to take care of because it was a busy weekend in the NHL. I think a lot of people are trying to keep up with everything, right? Certainly there's a lot of moving parts in terms of playoff seating. We generally know, especially in the West, certainly who's in and who's out, but in the

east, there's still so many moving parts. A bunch changes over the weekend, there was a bunch of games. So we're going to try to work our way through that here today over the next hour. We're going to highlight, I think, the most important stuff, but also the developments that I think matter for people to kind of be in tune with. And yeah, we'll see how much we get through. I joked with you before we started that I wanted to go rapid fire style because I think there is a lot for us to cover, but by our standards, that means limiting ourselves to about 15 to 20 minutes, I think, per segment, because generally we just go, I'm like, all right, I want to do all this stuff. And then we wind up doing like a full block on the first topic. And then we figure it out

after that. So we're going to try to try to get through this, help people who are struggling to keep up with everything. And hopefully it'll be a fun show. So let's start with that East Wildcard race. I kind of mentioned the Red Wings there. I want to focus more on the penguin's perspective just off the top because I thought that if you're just, you know, if you tune out on Friday and you're like, all right, I'm just going to take the weekend off and now you're coming back on Monday, I think the biggest development is what a catastrophic Saturday they had because not only did the Red Wings, Capitals, and Flyers all win their games. The Islanders got one point against New York and the Penguins themselves lost six four

in regulation to the Bruins. And that has their playoff odds now down to 16% on Dom's model at the athletic. Stat Leeds has them at 11%. And now they're in this spot where they've got two games left, pretty tough competition against the predators who still need to get some points themselves to lock in their seating in the West and the Islanders at the end of the year. And so they're still alive, but I think they took a massive blow to their chances. And I want to talk about them a little bit with you because I feel like out of all the teams involved here, my mileage on them seems to sort of be the most off with, I think, the general consensus, right? Because we watched that Thursday night game, which admittedly was a very thrilling game that. they won six five and overtime against Detroit.

And both on the Discord and on Twitter, it seemed like the sort of consensus from people was just raving about how exciting this Penguins run over the past month or so has been, how much they want to see Crosby and Malkin and Carlson and a tank get back in the playoffs. And I do get it because it's, you know, Crosby's still playing at such a high level,

even at this age. It was weird having the playoffs without him involved at all last year. And the idea of doing that for a second straight year is kind of a bummer. given his age. And I think it also speaks to a relative lack of appeal in the alternatives, right, particularly with teams like the Capitals and Islanders.

But also I feel like I've watched 82 games almost now of the Penguins. I think I'm good. I honestly don't think I need four to seven more. I think I have a pretty good grasp of what team they are. And it's an incredibly flawed one that is not fun to watch. And so I just, I'm at a loss a little bit because I feel like everyone is sort of rooting for them to get this done and I don't know if I necessarily feel that way myself. I'm not going to be contentious with you on this actually because I there's a lot of the

the teams that you find the most fun tend to be the ones where the game the teams you realize you've watched the most unintentionally. Those are the ones where it's like you're flipping through and you're like, oh geez, you know what? I watch even before they even before they went on their Peter and got into the playoffs picture. Like Nashville was a team I watched way more than I probably thought I would. There's, I really love watching whenever the Florida Panthers play.

Like there's certain teams and to me, Pittsburgh is one of those teams where like as a member of hockey media, a hockey fan and we acknowledge the history of what Sydney Crosby is and everything. I think there's a lot of times I turn on the Penguins game for that least.

where it'll be like I'm flipping through. And it's like, oh, let's see what they're, let's see what's happening. What is Crosby going to do? And I don't usually stay on the game for you a whole time. Like there's other teams that I'm like, oh, okay, I saw five minutes of this game. I can now flip over to another channel. And I think, so I kind of have a very similar view to you on this when it comes to the Penguins, where I think it's okay on one hand to put in the parthenon of hockey

and talk about Crosby being it's all time great. I don't think that was ever in question. It's not like, and it's not like what he's doing this season is changing where he is, as people are going to think of him. And so you can acknowledge that. This is who he is. And then you can also acknowledge that I think no one else wants to really bring up is at the same time, we're all grasping at straws to find a good story for an undeserving team that will get into the eighth spot.

I think that at the end of the day, that's the reality of it. The last team in is team in is not really going to deserve this. And so we all want to act like it's been earned. We all want to act like, oh, my goodness, this is a great story. What in reality is, this is a story that should have been done and dusted two weeks ago by someone else. I think that's where my head is out on this right now. No, I think certainly one of these teams has to get in, I guess. And I mean, not I guess one of them definitely has to get in as the second wild card.

And maybe we should propose a new rule for the CBA when it's up that if you don't get to 90 points and hit that cut off, you simply cannot participate in the playoffs. Like if the second wildcard in either conference has 89 points or less, you just get eliminated and the one seed just gets a buy because I don't, I don't think that's deserving of a playoff spot. Or bring over the MLS rule to steal, because MLS has a rule somewhere where you can have a crossover team that if, and I don't know the exact MLS rule, I'm sure there's someone out there who listens to this, but who does.

But like, for example, the Blues have 91 points, right? Like, you should, if you have, if you're, I don't think, I don't think the Blues necessarily need to be in the playoffs either. But I'm not saying the blues deserve to be. I'm just saying from a points perspective, you're going to have if you could have, one of them has to get to 89 points, right? Philly or Washington play tomorrow. So someone has to get to 89 points.

But in theory, St. Louis could be at 93 if they win their last game. And if they're going to be, and no one, if no one from the East reaches 90 points, you can't tell me that St. Louis, even with the Eastern Conference travel, wouldn't be more deserving to get it. So I'm saying that. I'm not, I'm not, this is not a plea for the aesthetic play of this St. Louis Blues. This is just a point where I don't want to go full by, but I'm willing to find solutions here. Yeah. Well, this Penguins team, I was kind of hoping you would push back a bit more on this because I was feeling feisty and I wanted to, I wanted to get into it back and forth with you. But they've been sort of all year. They, they've fallen in this perfect blind

spot because of the name recognition value and also the way they play. So I think confound people that are necessarily following closely, right? Because if you look, it's like, all right, natural statrick has them at third unexpected goals generated this season. Like, this is a good offensive team. They've got Crosby. They've got Malkin. They got Carlson and Lattang. Like before they had Gensel at the start of the year. Like this is a team that's actually generating a lot. And then you look and it's like, all right, they're 20th and goals. The 26th in the shooting percentage. And a lot of models, especially because their 5-15 metrics are pretty good, especially compared to a lot of the competition here, they're in the top half of the league.

A lot of the analytical models this season have been high on them throughout, higher than they should have been because of that, right? Because you sort of in a vacuum, you look at that statistical sample and you're like, I expect positive progression here. I think this is going to get better. But this is a team that was 25th in shooting percentage last year. I believe the oldest or second oldest team in the league. and I think there is a link between that efficiency kind of, you know, deteriorating and decaying

with advanced age, especially when they have a bottom six that is essentially a black hole offensively and they get nothing from them. And then they're 28th in rush chances. And you watch them play and that lines up with it, right? They have a really old team, even their best players, like for all of Crosby's brilliance and how funny he is to watch, especially at this stage of his career, everything he creates is essentially going to be working the puck down below the goal line, cycling it for about a minute, passing it on the exterior and around the zone, and then eventually trying to kind of get

inside and create a one-timer that way. And that's just some people might like that hockey, I guess for me though. Like I prefer much more action and actual like meaningful modern day offense and you don't really get a lot of that from this team. And it's not a fluke. It's not an accident, that's sort of the flaw of the way they've been constructed. Part of it is there stars getting up there in age. And the other part of it is obviously all the sort of swings and misses they've had and filling out the roster around them. And so that makes for a team that I don't find particularly appealing to watch. And you're seeing that in a lot of these games. Yet I feel like people are just kind of looking at the box scores this past month and being like, oh,

the penguins, they're back. Look at this. And then you actually watch them and there's none of that really on tape. Do you think we also fall into the trap using the Royal. We here. I'm not talking about the way on this show, but I think the wee of excitement around the NHL, do you think we fall into the trap of, oh my gosh, this team sold at the deadline? Look how hard they worked to get over it, right? Like, do you think we sometimes, I think sometimes we fall into that trap where it's like a team, a team sold at the deadline or did whatever, and all of a sudden we're like, oh my gosh, look at this. And at the same time, there is team that actually sold to the deadline, but also bought as well and is going to may hit 100 points

in Nashville. And we're not giving them the same. And A, it's a lot more fun team to watch. We don't, we don't talk about them nearly as much. It's, it's just an interesting hockey echo sphere of how the narratives work on this, right? Like, I think, I think there's also a penguins thing for better or worse on the Kyle Dubus factor. I think there are people who will go through. and they either want the success. People either want him to have, people either want him to have to continue success after he left Toronto,

or there's people who want, and I think that's another reason the penguins kind of get a little bit more of this from a big section from hockey media perspective of, well, he left, I think that plays into this too. But I could be wrong. It's all about the path you get there as well. We talked about this, I think,

with the Red Wings last time you and I chatted, But it's also kind of like a framing difference in terms of like the Flyers have the exact same number of points as the Penguins right now, right? Or I guess they have one more and they've played one more game than them. But they're kind of in a similar spot except you take two very different paths where the Flyers had this month from hell before they kind of turned it around over their last two games where they're like shooting 6% as a team. They're getting sub 800 same percentage goaltending and they're just getting destroyed by bad teams at the bottom of the standings, whereas the penguins are finding ways to win these. games. And so I saw a lot of people, especially after that game against Detroit on Thursday, being like, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to necessarily make the lazy comparison

between this team and last year's Florida Panthers. But this is a team that's been playing must win playoff hockey for a month now. And if they get in, look out. And it's like, all right, I can tell you're not actually watching these games because there's no actual parallels between these two examples other than the fact that they might be the last team to get in. And other than that, I just don't really see it. Right.

And so this is a team like, look, PowerPlay, 31st in the league, during this stretch where they've been winning games, they've scored eight PowerPlay goals in 100 minutes in those 21 games. They've given up four short-headed goals against. Like, this has been not only 82 or 80 games now of this, but going even back to last year, it's been nearly two full seasons now of this team playing this exact same way and getting highly mediocre results. And I think the concerning part moving forward,

is this has happened in a year where their best players who are 37, 38, 34, and 37 have missed zero combined games. I think Latang is playing hurt at this point because his performance has been truly appalling I think over the past little stretch

here, especially for his standards. But they haven't missed any games from their top players. You look at the teams they're competing with here other than the Islanders, but amongst the wings, the caps, and the flyers, None of those teams have even won more than three games in their past 10.

If you look on the at HL.com, sort of last 10 playoff picture, and yet they're still behind all these teams. I just don't understand how this is being sort of portrayed as this amazing story. But I guess we'll see. They have two games left. And if they get in, it will be fun to watch Sydney Crosby play more. But I just think from a team wide view, I'm out on this, I think. In a vacuum that Pittsburgh, Detroit game last Thursday.

if you had told someone who walked into the game and you said, and they'd watch the hockey and say, oh, that's a pretty, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, yeah, yada, yada, yada. And you would have been like, pretty exciting. Two really flawed teams, but you know what? We need bad teams to play each other at some point. And then all of a sudden, when I tell you, one of these teams might get into the playoffs, you'd be like, oh no. Oh, no, no, no. So. Well, I guess at least with the red wings and obviously, a highly flawed team, like there, there's no sort of yeah but about this. Yes. Yes. But the two games they lost last week, right?

The Capitals game at home and then this Penguins game we're talking about where they made the comeback. I thought they were clearly the superior team in both those games. Like those were actually two of the better performances they had had from like a process perspective in a long time now. And then they win that game in Detroit and they blow the or against the Leafs on Saturday. I know they blow the 4-1 lead, but they wind up winning it on the Lark and overtime winner. And at least with them, like I feel very confident. the game's three and four, the crowd is going to be insane in that arena.

This has been so long since they've gotten playoff hockey. And you're seeing like young performances that I think you can latch on to as like, all right, we're on the upward trajectory here, right? Like we've spoken about Raymond and how phenomenal he's been. He was once again a menace against the Leafs. Edvenson played a huge role and we can talk a little bit about here in that game, but they're leaning on him quite heavily now finally. And he's delivering for them, I think.

And so there's young players at least that you can kind of hit your wagon to hear beyond anything the penguins present, right? So if you just have no sort of bias or rooting interest to any of these teams, I think that's a much more enticing storyline, like, perspective for me than the alternative of Pittsburgh. But maybe I'm, maybe I'm wrong there. No, you're not wrong. You're right. You're right. I mean, this is not the greatest podcast material since we're agreeing with each other, but you're right. Well, so, okay, I mentioned Raymond.

He had the two-on-one set up there to Debrickette, right? I thought the play he made, that was his second period, like, he was kind of fighting off Pontus Holmberg, I think, and he's on his knees, he's falling down, and he still gets the pass over to Larkin for a glorious scoring chance and kind of demonstrated the strength he's put on, I think, over the past year, and it's been a big reason for why he's taking this step. And then I mentioned Edvinson there. He played 1827 a 5-15 against the Leafs. Over eight of that was against Tavares, seven minutes against Matt. Matthews against those two shots were 10-5 for Detroit goals won nothing. And that one goal was a brilliant play by him where he almost Kutraev style, like receives the puck off the wall, comes off of it, passes it off, gets it back,

picks a spot, scores. And I was like, man, I can't believe we have to wait. We had to wait until March 19th to see this guy full time. And I don't want to belabor that point because we've spoken about it quite a bit this season. But that was very cool. Like this is a, that's the type of play I want to see. Right. And so I think for all this Red Wings team's flaws, I think they can at least engage in an environment where it's going to be ugly. I'm sure if Derek Lelon had any more hair to pull out, he would. But it's going to like, I could see some fun six four, six five, seven five types of games if they sort of embrace that. And so I'm intrigued to watch more of that. As I say that, I understand the risks of a, you know, they have two more games here that on paper look very winnable against Montreal.

and I think we certainly know that there's high likelihood for some sort of massive disappointment based on everything that's happened this season with this Eastern Conference wildcard race and nothing is a given in that sense but yeah I think they're an interesting spot there yeah do you have any other notes on the Red Wings uh well I'm with them I'm just interested to see how like they get this Montreal series and I brought this we've talked a lot of about this, but the one thing I just want to bring up now and not go too deep down this map, but just bring it up is with the

Ed Vincent thing that's interesting with them playing Montreal tonight. I'm not wanting to give Max Bolton and our buddy covers the wings for the athletic credit for bringing this up when he was talking to Marty St. Louis this morning where St. Louis they were talking about Slavkoski and how

his kind of time to grow into this more dominant player, this more impactful player. He was basically there was in St. Louis said, There was never any question in his mind that he was going to Laval, never any question at all. And Max was the one that said it this morning, so I want to make sure I give credit to people who say these things. But the Red Wings are kind of that classic example where everybody blocks prospects.

It's just the question of whether how you're blocking prospects, is it damning or is it out of, well, we're that good and out of necessity. And obviously Max and I were talking to Detroit's practice, and we all know my past. sister of Dallas. So it's like, Dallas stars, not enough room for prospects. Well, that's because they have ridiculous depth and it needed an injury for Logan Stankovind to get a chance. Detroit blocking prospects. Somehow, we have all of this and you have Marco Casper, you have Mazur and the H.L. You have all these guys who aren't getting chances. And even though Edmondson is not a forward, so maybe you apply a little bit of the, oh, we have to wait for a defenseman to grow, think that's, to me, this season and what happens in the next two games aren't going

to impact what Steve Iserman does in the future, but he should learn from this season and look heavily on how he actually keeps signing guys that block actual future building pieces from actually being future building pieces. That's kind of what I've got on Detroit. Yeah, I think that's correct. Yeah, I had a few other notes here just in terms of while we're on this topic, the caps. They're game against Tampa Bay. Shots were 34 to 34, and I note that because I think it was the fourth highest event game the Capitals have played this year. So for a team that's been just routinely playing games where shots are in the low 20s, I thought that was an exciting development. And the Islanders, they played a fun game against the Rangers on Saturday and MSG. I think

one of my, what I might lament or one of my disappointments was that they blew that game late, because if they had won it, it would have like firmly positioned us for a Rangers Islanders round one series, which I think would have been full of storylines and excitement. And instead, now, if the Rangers take care of business, we're going to get Hurricanes, Islanders most likely again in Rangana. And we saw that last year. And I don't think that's necessarily a particularly appetizing series from like an entertainment perspective.

So that's a bit of a disappointment. But otherwise, yeah, we'll see. The scheduling is kind of weird, though, don't you think? Because a lot of these teams are going to be done by Tuesday. And we're going to have Islanders, penguins. on Wednesday and that game might not matter at this point depending on how the next two days play out but it's also it's kind of like nerve-wracking because a lot of these other teams that are involved are going to be done and so it's going to be just kind of this 24 to 48-hour period

of not having any control over your destiny and just waiting obviously it might be a moot point by then but i thought that was an interesting sort of scheduling note well it's also weird too with there's no eastern games on thursday right there's only western games on thursday so we know, like, if you start to try to reverse and engineer it, we know that, I think there's a TV window for two games on Saturday. So, like, we know that there will be, common sense would tell us there will be two Eastern Conference game ones on Saturday based off the TV windows, but who knows? It's kind of weird on that front, too, where it seems like the league has, like, two different stop points, start stop points. And for some reason, we get this Pittsburgh game on Wednesday.

it's the only, I think it's one of the only Eastern. I think the other one, maybe there's one cross-conference game on that Wednesday or something like that. But in general, it's the only game that really matters out east. And then it's, it is weird. So. Well, I thought it was notable because, I mean, obviously, I think selfishly, while a lot of these sort of kind of quote unquote play in games are fun, like it's like last game on the season and winner takes all and gets a and loser has to go home and their season's done, the drama of that is really fun.

It's almost an extra playoff game. But as someone in the content business of creating like playoff previews and stuff, I was like, oh, man, if this goes up to like the end of Thursday night and then Saturday afternoon we're going to start getting playoff games, the timeline there of trying to squeeze stuff in is going to make for a very chaotic Friday and Friday afternoon is generally not a great time to be indulging in content. So selfishly, it's nice that it kind of could get wrapped up, especially for a lot of the the main kind of balls in the air by Tuesday.

But yeah, what happened there with the schedule, right? Because I think the playoffs were supposed to start later and they moved it up. Was it simply a matter of like the rights holders having these open slots and sort of encouraging the league to move it up knowing that the regular season was done obviously before?

And they didn't necessarily need that many days off or kind of what happened there because that was a relatively recent development. Yeah, because originally it was supposed to start the 22nd, right? We were supposed to start a week from today. and now moved up to the Saturday. And I believe, I don't know for sure on this, but I'm 99% sure it's related to ESPN and Turner and ABC had the windows

to fill those things out on Friday and Saturday. And that was like, well, hey, let's try to capitalize on it. So I think that's a TV thing. I'm surprised it's one of those odd things. and it's very almost NHL in a way for them to originally come into this season thinking they weren't going to capitalize on a weekend to start. Like it's kind of laughable,

but that was the reality. They came in thinking it would be three days dark and when we all know this league really should be, if you're going to capitalize on that Saturday and Sunday, come on. Yeah, I do remember the days where the regular season would end on the Saturday and every single team. would be playing. And obviously you get into a spot where a lot of the games are utterly meaningless because

both teams are either eliminated or one team is already clinched that they're just playing guys who otherwise wouldn't. But that was always kind of fun. So we don't get that this year. It's going to be more staggered. All right, Sean, let's take our break here. And then when we come back,

we will keep going and chatting about various other topics. You are listening to the Hockey Pedyo guest streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Miss any part of Halford and Brough in the morning? Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast and don't miss it. episode. All right, we're back here on the Hockey PEOCast with Sean Shapiro. Sean, let's talk a little bit about the Frozen Four. We don't obviously talk much of college hockey here. I just simply do not have time to follow it. I reserve that for bringing our colleague Ryan Lambert on. I give him RL's NCAA corner and he generally just talks about it for a bit and then we move on. But I was watching

the Frozen Four and Denver won. And in particular, I think for our purposes here, beyond the teams and prospects involved is actually the coaching perspective here, right? It's, it's, David Carl and the job he's done this season. And I know that you kind of prophetically immersed yourself with this team in situation this season. I know you wrote a ton about it. So you're very well equipped to get into this here. But I kind of want to get your takeaways about the season they had, the job he's done,

some of the stuff they're doing. And in particular, you know, you look at them compared to like on their path there, right? They beat both BU and BC. They hold them to one goal against in those two games combined. and comparing the rosters, not to take away from anything they had, and there's certainly been some interesting names in the prospect world that have come through Denver

over the past, whatever, five, six years that Carl's been coaching the team. But I'm curious for your sort of view on this in terms of whether it's a good thing that they've had this much success while not necessarily being this kind of, like, loaded NHL team of young guys that have been top prospects, or whether that's kind of like a recruitment thing,

just the nature of how the NCAA is sort of different to the NHL. I'm curious for your take on all of that and sort of this program they've constructed and then spinning it forward to what seems like an inevitable outcome, which is this guy sooner rather than later taking an NHL job and being sort of the next trendy young NCAA coaches coming to the league. One of the truly actually young coaches. Like how often do we talk about a young coach, quote unquote young, and it'll be a guy who's in his late 40s.

Like David Carle is only 34. he makes me feel old because he'll be whenever he gets his NHL job he'll be the first NHL head coach younger than I am so that'll be the that'll be the day I turn old so and I hate to break it to you buddy you turned old a long time ago this has no bearing on that which has already happened oh okay well um any of whom so Denver I think one of the best return on investment thing trips we've ever had at E.P. Rinkside was when I convinced J.D. to let me go to fund my trip to Denver in early December. And I spent a couple days there and watch them practice for a couple of days and spent some time around David Carl on the program,

the program there and some of the players. And obviously a team that I came away highly impressed with then and then throughout the postseason. And for me, one of the things about Denver that's really interesting is a lot of the teams that don't play, college hockey is very systemic, very, you are, it's a lot of chip and chase, it's a lot of give the puck up, go get it back. That's what a lot of college hockey is. That's the reality. The teams that play with puck possession more with more bona fide NHL future players and superstars and prospects, the BUs, the BUs, the BCs, even the Michigans of the world, the guys who have these guys who are going to step in and play

the NHL games tonight, like Lane Hudson, right? He's going to play tonight. Most of those teams, the teams that typically are more of those puck possession teams aren't those teams that are those teams that have the younger top three out two run pick guys. And Denver's got some prospects. Let's be clear on that. Denver has some prospects.

Zeev, Zeebubium is going to be a top 10 pick on defense. They got some other guys who have come through. But Denver is one of the few. teams that I think the way David Carl has built that program and credit to Jim Montgomery before him who David Carl took over for as one of those few teams that's kind of

mesh those two things together of building this puck possession game with without getting the Macklin Celebranis without getting the the cutter go chase

the cutter go yeah yeah the Adam fin tillies of the world like obviously Bume, Zee of Boone has been great, but he, the entire, all four, all six of the defenders on that team are pretty good at Pock possession, even though some of them will never even sniff in NHL game. All four lines play with a pretty nice Puck possession style. And one of the things to, and we saw, and we saw what Carl could do with truly elite talent. He coached that gold, that gold medal team that won the World Junior team at the U-20s. We saw what happens when he gets those guys, and the only player he brought from his own team was, was, was, was, was, was the, and then when it came to the NCAA tournament, and the way Denver won a title, I think is also important, that was an impact of a coaching change on things, where Denver was the highest scoring team in the country. They hadn't won a game before the NCAA tournament, where they had scored less than two goals. In the NCAA tournament, they won two one, two one, two one, two zero.

essentially they got to the spot where in a one game set against some of these, against these teams, the BCs and the BUs in particular, we know they're going to be faster than us overall. So we're going to make life so much harder. They got into a more restrictive, they got more restrictive in the neutral zone. You probably heard on the broadcast them talk about the one two to two over and over again ad nauseum,

which it was a good point. It just we didn't need to hear it every single two minutes of the broadcast. And they were, they, they made it, Carl made a coaching change in, in tournament adjustment that the other four coaches he faced, or other two coaches, if we talk about BC and BU, because that's really what you plan for, didn't, didn't count for. And to me, he is such an intriguing coach because I've seen what he can do at, with this elite talent at World Junior, I've seen what he can do with Denver where he has a couple elite talents and then kind of, call it the average level. And this is no disrespect to every, but the average replacement level. Relatively compared to some of the teams they beat.

Exactly. Yeah. And so you have that. And you can play both. And you've got a team that can go from playing this puck possession. We're going to win games five to two to, we can win two nothing. We can win two one.

Now granted, like take nothing away. Matt Davis effectively in goal helped steal that title at the end. Right. Like his work in the third period, BC is probably kicking themselves all summer. But with what Carl's done and how he's kind of grown that program and the way they've won in different ways and they've been able to get more out of the sum of the parts,

to me, that is what intrigues me the most about him as a future NHL head coach. Because I think that's the thing. That's some team, I mentioned in a piece over at my site, over at Shapshots today where, like, if I'm New Jersey, I'm calling him. Like he's a guy who I want to, I would be trying to figure out how do I make it work if I'm the devils?

Because I've got some young players, I've got a lot of guys who would fit well with the way he plays. And honestly, he could probably help with the structure. To me, this is a guy who, I'm a little bit biased here because who isn't after you've written about a guy and you feel like you're taking your victory lap.

But to me, he's a, if I'm in New Jersey, I'm hiring him. they didn't take my suggestion on trading for Ascaroff as we did at our trade deadline show, but they are, they should take my coaching suggestion. Yeah, well, that's interesting.

And obviously, I think he probably isn't enjoying his spot right now as well. So it would be interesting to see his willingness to come over at this point in particular. I'm sure it's inevitable at some point in the near future. But yeah, I was going to joke when you first started chatting, I started talking about it about how like, oh,

this idea of winning these, these elimination games 2-0 and 2-1. I was like, oh, NHL teams must be just salivating at that. But then you started talking about the fact that he made these on-the-fly adjustments and actually tactically changed things. And then that got me personally salivating, thinking about it, right? Because often I feel like a lot of these young coaches who come up are generally associated with sort of being like vibes guys, right?

It's like, all right. They're like, personable. They're just willing to like let their players play. but also like they can communicate with young players. And I think that is a very important quality. But we've talked about this with with Don Grotto and the Sabres where I think they've sort of bumped into maybe some of his limitations as a head coach, which is the tactical side of things when you're serious about actually winning where it's like it's great to empower your players. But when things don't work, you sort of need a second pitch. You need some sort of something that can kind of get you over the hump and so give it opposition a different look.

and the Sabres have had no real sort of recourse for that over the past year. So, and a team like the Devils desperately needs that because they certainly have the young talent, and that's what they failed at this year. So that would be an immensely intriguing fit, obviously. I'm not sure what their appetite for, like, bringing in a young, relatively inexperienced coaches, although we just saw them have about as experienced the coaches you could have for a lot of this year. And that certainly didn't work for them. So who knows what direction they go.

And I think a good way to kind of compare David Carl is to me, you compare him to Jim Montgomery. And I obviously cover Jim Montgomery closely in his time in Dallas. And we've seen what he's done in Boston. And Jim Montgomery was the personable, you talk about that vibes guy, right? That's what Jim Montgomery was. And when he came to Dallas and his one playoff series, his one playoff run with Dallas, he got severely outcoached. He even admitted it. Like before he took the Boston.

job. There was an interview out there from his time in St. Louis where he talks about how his time in Dallas, he was incredibly outcoached by Craig Barreube in that in that Blue series. His other playoff experience last year, he won the coach of the year last year, obviously. He won the Jack Adams. Great story with him opening up about his struggles and everything like that. But he got outcoached by Paul Maurice in the playoffs last year. And it's, I wrote about this in the middle of last season with Jim Montgomery. I don't know how good of an in-game tactician and manager he is. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe David Carl gets to the NHL and he's exactly the same. But to me, the difference between the two of them coming out is Carl is, I feel more confident slash refined

in claiming that I think David Carl is more than just the vibes guy. He's also that guy who is going to fit his system, fit a team to his system, make adjustments. I'd get more of that feeling from David Carl than I got from Jim Montgomery. So that's the, I think that's the best side-by-side comp I could use without actually having scientific evidence right now. Yeah, the coaching this custom is so interesting to me, right? Because I think we generally talk about it in very sort of black or white or kind of binary sense where it's like you're either good at something where you're not and that's the coach

you are, right? Or like you're this type of coach and that's just who you are. And we obviously don't talk about that way with players and particularly young ones because as they progress through the NHL, they adapt, they evolve, they work on stuff and they generally get better at things they were previously bad at. And so I'm always willing to kind of keep that door open for a coach to develop and get together, particularly with like playoff failures, right? I talked about this a lot with Andrew Brunette where he certainly got schooled by John Cooper that year. They got swept by the lightning, but that was also his first real kind of exposure to something like that. Like it would make sense that against the coach who's been through all of that previously,

that would happen. And I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that it might not happen this year and whatever round one series the predators have because there'll be an underdog, but that he will learn from that and adapt and potentially get better as the years go on, right? At the same time, though, and I should be careful saying this because I'm 32 years old now, I guess, and I'm pretty stuck in my ways for the most part. Like I have struggles adjusting to new things and stuff like that. But I'm also willing to, I think, give a 34-year-old coach more belief that they can sort of

change over time than a 54 or a 60-year-old coach, if you know what I mean. So that's what makes Carl, I think, here, so interesting because obviously the runway is just so immense here. And you would take a longer term view beyond just bringing him in and being like, all right, we're going to try to win the cup this year. I think if New Jersey did that, they certainly would have high aspirations, but it kind of extends beyond that. I agree. Yeah.

And it's, I think there's also a spot too where he is a, you're going, wherever David Carl goes, he's going to, he's going to, he's not going to be, he's not at the spot where like sometimes we see guys jump from college or junior and they're in their late 40s, early 50s. And they're like, well, if I'm never, if I'm ever going to go, I have to go now. because I'm not that operative. I'm not going to, Carl is one from his perspective to where, again, he's 34. He's at a spot where most coaches are literally, are typically only getting their career started at this point. And he's already got a dozen years of experience. He has the time to, if the devil's don't come and make the right offer, he can go back to Denver and continue to make a really good amount of money from what I've heard at Denver. And then just wait for the next opportunity. And he's still, six years before he even turns 40 on this, right?

So he's a guy who I think when we do see him in the NHL, it's going to be a team that he and them realize they're the right marriage for each other. And I think for, I think hockey is better. And the NHL hockey is better for us if the devils make that decision sometime in the next couple months. These types of segments are a little inside baseball here. These types of segments are just like SEO steroids

because I know there is a couple, just magnificent maniacs and are devil's fans that are going to be just like eating this segment up and like, oh my God, what about this? Because every time I talk about a goalie, that's interesting, it's always like, oh, this kid is, what about this fit for the devil?

So I know that this is going to be something and I fully embrace that. So good job by us. Okay, let's talk a little bit about the coyotes. I'm curious for your take on it because you have certainly have a lot of experience, kind of like on the business side of hockey

beyond just the sort of on ice, and O's. And I want to pick your brain a little bit about it. I haven't talked about the coyotes move, even though we kind of got some early nuggets, I guess, or like initial knowledge late last week because I kind of wanted more to come out. But I also want to speak thoughtfully about this topic, right? Because I think it's often treated very callously where you just sort of, and I get the excitement of like, our teams move into a new place.

They might potentially spend more money. This might be playing in a relatively actual NHL arena, although it seems like there's some with their initial rink in Salt Lake City as well. But it's a, it's a kind of fresh start, so to speak, right? Yeah. And then we kind of overlook the human element impact of all the people that will lose their jobs that are being put in a tough spot, whether it's staffers, whether it's players, like all that sort of stuff, right?

We kind of just treat that as something that you just kind of bury under the rug. And then you just talk about this sort of what's next, what's the next chapter. And so I wanted to talk about this thoughtfully and with respect to everyone. but at the same time, that's obviously a very interesting topic that as we get towards the playoffs here is still something that people are fascinated with and want to hear more about. So give me your takes on sort of this developing situation, I guess, and where we're at right now with the coyotes. Yeah.

I mean, I do think I really appreciate you bringing up the kind of expanding shrapnel impact that this has on everything. Like, for example, our good pal Craig Morgan, right, he does a tremendous job covering the coyotes. and him and the whole crew of a Go Phoenix, however you pronounce it, is spelled PHNX Sports. They do a great job covering the coyotes. And I, for example, I think they've done a really good job where many hockey markets where traditional media sources have pulled out in the United States. They've done a good job, kind of creating a good model for what can work in hockey coverage.

Kind of, I feel sad that we have a spot where we're no longer going to have Craig Morgan covering the NHL, unless, I don't know. know what Craig's life plans are or anything like that. But to me, there's this, there's this, there's this, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, the shrapnel that comes when a team moves, so we need to remember. We need to remember the people who are going to lose jobs. There's people who are going to be, the Tucson Roadrunners apparently are going to go play at Bullet Arena now, but the staffing and type of, uh, business for an office that you have for an NHL entity is much different than an HL entity from just, just to be quite honest with you, But an NHL, an HL team, for example, the PR guy and the broadcaster are the same guy. They're combined into one role. There's only one broadcaster, right? And for an NHL PR staff, there's three people. And there's just like just, that's just a small example of the downsizing that will happen.

And hopefully people get to land on their feet in Salt Lake City and everything like that. So to that note, it sounds like the hockey off side will be moving over, but the business side, which is a lot of what you're referencing there will not be going with a team and they'll be hiring new people. So I think that's an important. Yeah, that's important to note. And so it's important to remember that. And the thing that's, the other weird thing about all of this is somehow at the end of the day, and we don't like giving Gary Benman credit for this.

And I don't want to give him credit for this is like how he drew it up or whatever. But like at the end of the day, he somehow got the landing that best serves him. and serves his true bosses. People got to remember that at the end of the day, Gary Betman reports to 32 NHL owners. That is effectively his boss. His job is to make them as happy as possible. And he worked out a deal at the end of the day

where he gets a new owner in the fold and Smith, who is grateful to Gary Bettman for bringing him hockey. He's got an exiting owner who leaves in Marillo, who gets this space where hey, if you can secure the land, you get an expansion team within five, secure the land within five years and get an arena built, you get an expansion team.

And everyone else gets a little bit of money sprinkled in on top of this with all this, basically the locked in new expansion. So, like, Gary Bettman comes out as a winner out of all of this, which is kind of one of the ironies of all this. Like, he waited so long and they pushed and they protected and they did everything they could to keep hockey in the desert in Arizona. And while this all feels,

kind of sudden, sort of. Really, this is probably, the reason it's happening now is because it's the first time there's been an exit strategy that allows Gary Bettman to go into a board of governor's meeting as like a concrete hero. That's really my take on it.

Well, I'm curious for your take on reading between the lines and from the business side of things. And we'll talk about the hockey side in a second here. But because of the timing and everything, right, it certainly seems like there were a ton of concessions made by the NHL to Marullo here. And I think part of it is you read

and some of it is actual direct quotes and a lot of the writing and reporting on this is the league was pretty concerned about like potential long lasting litigation and like lawsuits about like enforcing the relocation, right? So he gets a ton of money. He gets to keep owning the HL team. He's still going to be part of the board of governors as an observer at least. And they're keeping this door open depending on how this auction at the end of June goes if they can if they can get the land to actually build an arena and potentially being a

Ode you seen back here. How much of that do you think is actually real without necessarily knowing at this time or how much of it is kind of posturing to make sure that they keep them happy and to avoid that litigation because I think a lot of fans right now are looking at this and being like, man, I can't believe the league would still be willing to conduct business with this guy after everything that basically transpired here where, you know, to your point, the NHL kind of eventually in a backwards way, go what they want. But in also classic in HL fashion, it happened through a ton of embarrassing PR incidents and an optical disaster essentially for whatever the past year or two now with how all this all played out.

Hockey is run by labor lawyers. That's the reality of it. And we often forget that. That hockey is run by lawyers and labor lawyers in particular. And one of their biggest fear is always is the big lawsuit, the big dragout fight and everything like this. So so much in hockey. So many decisions get made, like of the high-powered decisions get made, how do we make this

as legally simple as possible? I mean, it's just like one of the things, it goes back to like when player, when the P.A. and the NHL are battling over Olympic participation. It's one of those things where how that gets used as a giant leverage point when really the league keeps pushing back on that so they don't have to fight on other things that that are actually should be, frankly, more. important to the PA at times and we'll see how that goes in the future with Marty Walsh running things um so this is and I'm not in Arizona I'm not a person who has am inside

Morello's head or anything like that but I personally have a hard time I have a hard time seeing and this is where I'm very sad for coyote's fans because I think I I personally have a hard time looking and reading through between the lines and the tea leaves or whatever terminologies. I have a hard time seeing him getting a billion dollar, a pile of billion dollars like Scrooge McDuck and then being like, I want to deal with his headache again, right? Like there's so many things you can do with a billion dollars that you could, that it's, if he really is, if this is really his, his isish that he wants to go down, like, great, fine. That's like, the league has that set up. But I think both he and the league looking for

afar realized that one avoided the legal fee, the legal like implication and struggles, the league, and the other one got kind of the thing he ultimately wanted, the money and the power, money and power. He got money, which is power. But then also the power to be within five years, the NHL can't do anything, effectively can't do any expansion without Alex Marulo giving a green light to it for five years. Right? They gave him more power on all of this.

It's rich people like keeping their money. I don't see him parting with the billion dollars. And I hope I'm for a coyotes fan. I want the coyotes to be back there. I think that can be a successful. I need you under better circumstances, certainly. To your point, retained all the IP, I think under better circumstances,

massive market should mention the junior programs as well, all the success they've had from the grassroots level there recently in the success stories. I really hope there isn't a negative triple debt. trickle-down impact of the NHL leaving there. Let's put a pin in like the Salt Lake part of this in terms of like what happens this off-season because I have so many questions for you about like the no trade clause component of this of the differences between Arizona and Utah for players.

I also want to talk about Ryan Smith as a new owner because I think there is, they're going to come in hot and spend a bunch of money and I'm fascinated to see how that plays out. And also I think for Bill Armstrong, assuming he's still the GM, it's all of a sudden this like brave new world where you suddenly are actually spending. real money as opposed to the less than $50 million in salary that they dished out this season and can actually feel the competitive NHL organization. So there's a ton of fascinating stuff here, a bunch of meat on the bone. We'll save that for later.

Sean, we've got to get out of here. Everyone go follow Sean Shapiro on Twitter. Check out your substack, Shapshots, and your writing at EP Ringsside where you'll be doing. I'm sure a ton of stuff this postseason, as will I, and we'll have you back on again soon. My only plugs are join the Discord. Invite Lake is on the show notes. smash the five-star button wherever you listen and we'll be back

on Wednesday I believe with more of the HockeyPEDO cast as always streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network on the Sports Night Radio Network.