The Hockey PDOcast - The Wild Races, The Stanley Cup Market, and Playoff Projections

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Dom Luszczyszyn to break down the wild card races in both conferences, and some of the biggest questions emerging in the Stanley Cup market. 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.

since 2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey P.D.O. cast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me to close out the week is my good buddy, Dom, Lusitian, Dom, what's going on, man? Not too much. Just happy to be back after a long while. Yeah, it's been a long time since you and I recorded. I thought this was a good point in the season for us to get together and talk a little bit about the playoff picture, playoff odds, some Stanley Cup futures. You obviously do the daily updates and modeling on the athletic for a lot of these probabilities. So I thought we could have some fun with it and kind of set the stage for these final 20 or so games for every team. Let's start with the playoff races in terms of the wild cards. And start in the West in particular, you know, we're approaching the 60 game mark.

And it's starting to get pretty tight. You got Calgary currently sitting in that second wildcard spot in the West, Vancouver, Utah, St. Louis, even the ducks are remarkable. remarkably putting it together and have played pretty well over the past 10 games with a big win against the Canucks on Thursday night. I don't know how you feel about this because for the entirety of the season really, but even right now, you and the market have both had the Canucks as kind of the prohibitive favorites here. I think a lot of because of what they did last year. And we'll talk more about them specifically. But the team that I can't shake in this race in this conversation all year, I just can't quit them. is the Utah hockey club.

It's been a very up and down season. They've had stretches where they look like they're finally putting it together. And then all of a sudden they have four out of five poor games and fall back out. But they've had this impressive three-game stretch at home where they beat the Canucks, the Blackhawks, and the Wild most recently. And you have them about 22% odds to make it. I feel like it should be higher. And maybe that's me sort of having rose-tinted classes here.

but I just feel like out of all these teams, especially compared to say the flames and the Canucks, it really does feel like they have the most upside, I guess, in terms of their bull case scenario, like if they put it all together with the talent they have and the underlying profile, it feels like they're almost a cut above these teams. Obviously, the results haven't necessarily warranted that type of love

because they still are a couple points back. But man, when this team's playing at its best, it feels like they just have a gear that some of this other competition doesn't. Yeah, I remember one of the, I did this to start the year. I had Utah around 50-50, and I think around 90 points or so, maybe a little lower than that.

And that was definitely higher than everyone else. And I am pretty happy that they're seemingly turning it around and getting back in the race. I think what really helps them right now is they got John Marino back. They got Sean Dersey back. Clayton Keller is using the power of spite to look electric out there.

and I think I agree with you that right now. I see the most upside with them, and they've been playing really good and all of that, and they have a full lineup. But what the Canucks did last year, as far away as they look from that right now, I think it's still a bit hard to forget that. And I think it's probably still there to lose,

but, man, losing a Utah this week and the way Utah looks, I can definitely see the argument why, I'd be a bit more bullish on Utah and I think it might end up being a bit closer especially if Vancouver trades Brock Besser as well but yeah I I've liked Utah a lot lately and the Canucks are

the Canucks so it's fair to not like them as much but yeah I'm with the Utah's been been good and if there's one team to bet on it's probably them let's put a pin in the Canucks for a second because I got a lot more on them but I don't want to lose our entire audience right off the bat here let's stick with some of the fun stuff on Utah

You mentioned Keller and the five-point performance he had against Bill Guerrins team who chose not to bring him to the four nations. Cooley missed a bit of a stretch there recently as well, right? And he came back and the line of Cooley, Keller, and Schmaltz has been outscoring opponents 14 to 4 now in their 160 minutes. It looks like a bona fide top scoring line. Gunther's back destroying pucks. You mentioned the blue line having Sergei Chav, Marino and Dersie all finally playing together

on that back end. At 5-1-5 is a team, their seventh in shot share, eighth in high-danger-chance share, and fifth in expected goals share according to natural statrick. Their power play is top 10 in the league in goals per hour.

I feel like the only question for me with them, and this is kind of, you know, you've witnessed it playing out in real time this season, is whether a young team like this can tighten it up and sort of figure it out on the fly here and whether this is maybe more of a next season thing because they've kind of had a lot of these hallmarks, of young teams where they slip up, right?

Like the only teams that have trailed less than them this season are Winnipeg, Washington, L.A., Tampa, and Dallas, all we can agree the top teams in the league. Yet still, they've lost so many one-goal games, despite playing on all of these close environments. I believe that only San Jose and Chicago have more one-go losses than then this year. And some of those have been backbreaking a variety too, right?

Kind of blowing late leads, losing at the end of regulation and not even squeezing at a point where they probably could have. They take a bunch of penalties. Only Montreal, Boston, and San Jose have been shorthanded more times than them. And so these are kind of the things where the margins are this tight.

A team like the Canucks or flames that are maybe a bit more disciplined or have just a bit more experience, they can kind of claw out some of these extra points where maybe they don't even deserve it. Where, as it feels like Utah, when they win, it's very decisive. And you're like, man, this team's awesome. They were to

better team tonight, they deserve this. And then sometimes when they don't have it, they don't find a way to still pull out a point or two where they don't deserve it. And so maybe that could be the difference here. It feels like they really could have at least a handful more points and it would be a bit of a different story. But it just feels like, you know, what we mentioned earlier,

the juice they have with this team, especially with the forward group, is just like when they're at their best. It just seems like there's so much more lethal and exciting than some of this other competition. Yeah, they haven't even needed podcast, favorite, Matias Machelli this season. I know.

Wow, because his falloff has been crazy. But I think to your point, I wonder if part of that is missing two top four guys in Marino and Jersey for a huge chunk of the season. And you're suddenly putting these younger, inexperienced third-parated defensemen in these pressure cooker situations. And I wonder if they're more liable to fail and cough up those leads where a more steady player like marino maybe able to to bring it home like i i love michael kesslering i think he's done phenomenal job this year i i'm not sure i'd trust him in the last minute of game compared to

someone like marino and i i think now that they're healthy and have more bodies because maybe kessler ring can can do it in certain points but if he has to do it every night at the top of the lineup instead of on the second pair. Maybe that's a lot harder on him for the experience he has and just having that rotation can maybe bring it home a bit over the final stretch of the season. One other perk for them is you look at the schedule and they have two games against the Blackhawks, the Cracken and the Predators the rest of the way. And they just played a game against the Blackhawks where they just eviscerated them.

I think shot attempts were 93 to 39 in that game and that caused Seth Jones to just completely lose it afterwards. And so having those types of games is a good way to sort of beef up your point total. Let's talk about the Canucks, who squeaked out a win in L.A. on Wednesday after Jim Hiller just inexplicably chose not to use his best line with Kempay playing with Fial Ambeye field until the third period. For some reason, on Thursday, and Anaheim, they go up to nothing after Tyler Myers just turns into Kail McCar out of nowhere and creates a pair of goals. Then they proceed to give up five straight. and it's funny, I was doing Drans's show Canucks talk on Thursday afternoon before this game.

And I was kind of joking about how if there was any team to get right against offensively, it was the Ducks because they're 32nd and like shot, shot attempts allowed, shots on goal out, high danger chances, any metric you want to look at defensively. And he was saying, no, like, no matter who they play against, this Canucks team will not be able to generate offensively. And he set this arbitrary line of 24 and a half over under shots on goal for them. And it was looking good early on. I was like, you know what? They're going to hit over.

They're going to hit 30 because it's the ducks. Everyone does it against them. And they have like 19 through two periods. They're up to 22 with like 15 or 16 minutes left in the game. And sure enough, they finish with 24. They couldn't hit the over. And so Drans knows what he's talking about there. He covers his team, obviously.

And so even against the ducks, they could not get to 25. Shots on goal. I mean, they're 26th in goal score this year, 28th and expected goals 32nd. in slot shots. The broadcast had this remarkable stat that I wanted to reiterate here. Lest Patterson has one goal this entire season outside of the second period, which almost seems

impossible, but I went back and checked, and that is true. It just feels like they have to play such a specific style of hockey to not only win, but actually stay in some of these games. Right now, they'd executed it perfectly under Rick Tockeet last year, and obviously had a remarkable regular season and made it to game

seven of round two. But I don't know. You were kind of hinting at this earlier. I just, I'm not sure if we should be baking in the data from last year because obviously the personnel has changed somewhat, but just watching this team and how long it's gone on now. We've seen little glimpses here or there where they've played a couple good teams and they've shut it down and really stifled them defensively.

But it's really difficult to keep doing that and relying on it. And I'm not sure they have another higher gear to hit here. It might be enough against this competition to still squeeze out a wildcard spot. But I think we might almost need to throw out last year's data when it comes to this team because right now it's just such a miserable watch. Yeah, yeah, for sure. A lot of points hit there. First, I'm going to talk about Drans, who is a market savant. He pays a lot of attention to that stuff.

And I wouldn't be surprised if he looked at the save over under for the goalie and saw that it was really low. And that's where his line came from. I don't want to give Trance too much credit here that he pulled that out of his own butt. But I think he pays attention to that stuff and he trusts the market and respects it enough to sort of. And he also uses his own viewing the Canucks to say this team can't generate offense. The market is pricing that incorrectly. I know that because I sometimes look at goalie over under saves. And I noticed the other day against L.A., I think both goalies were around 21 and a half saves,

which is like remarkably low. And the Canucks, I think ended up with like 15 shots or something there. a very tough watch and I do agree that we can't I don't want to entirely throw out what they did last year but everyone except for Quinn Hughes has been, Quinn Hughes has been downgraded significantly because of what they've shown this year. And even still that might not be enough. Like Elias Pedersen, who really knows what the hell has happened there. but just as an example, I think to start the year, I had his projected offensive rating around like plus 14, plus 15, one of the better offense players in league, right?

This year through 53 games, he's at plus two, which is like a second line forward. And that might even be generous to what he's delivered lately. And my model now has downgraded his projection, offensive rating to plus 9, which is somewhere in between, what he was last year, which was an old world offensive talent, what he is this year, which is Elias the friendly ghost out there.

And it is a really hard thing to balance when you're operating between those two extremes. And obviously he might be heard a little or something is off with a system that's not meshing with him now. But that is definitely part of it where you're trying to figure out which version you're going to get of these players who, I mean, some of them do look good. Connor Garland looks great this year. We're asking at straw.

I was trying to find another forward. It looks good. But the other thing. Filipinos look really good since he's played. It's obviously a very small sample, but he actually is creating a bit off the rush. So that's a nice to see. For now until he's told to no longer do that.

Yeah, cut it out. But you mentioned, yeah, you mentioned Utah's schedule. I actually have Vancouver as the 4. easiest schedule going forward. So that is that is part of the the reason that I have them higher. I think they also have a nice home away split. 13 games at home 10 away.

I don't think I don't recall that they've done well at home. Yeah, I was going to say is that I'm not sure that's an advantage because this team's just bumming out of the fan base so much that sometimes these home games are like the crowd is just like doesn't even know what it's watching and it just like seeps into the game. And so I'm not sure that's necessarily a positive. But yeah, generally playing at home. is better than on the road.

Yeah, generally, we'll see if that's the case. They just need like one streak to believe. And I don't know how it's going to happen. It's just, it's just been painful. It's a complete contrast in vibes from last year where it seemed like everything possible went right in this year, everything possible except for Queen Hughes is going wrong. And it's wild because even last year, obviously a lot of magic happened in terms of scoring but like under the hood they were they became a very strong team especially defensively but now it seems like they're only focused on defense and trying to lose their point their way to the playoffs yeah i guess motivation's another important thing to consider over the next week here right we'll see how it plays out but you mentioned the possibility of them selling better i'd add even pew suitor and there who's obviously played a key role for them down the middle over the last

year and a half or so, whereas Utah, they might not necessarily be an aggressive buyer, but it feels like if anything, they're probably going to try to add here or there to kind supplement their team the rest of the way. Demko is obviously out as well. And I think Shilov's been fine. He was awesome in the game in Utah that they still lost. But it is a bit of a downgrade there. So yeah, it's, it's interesting. And certainly, I'll be tracking it. Do I want to talk a little bit about the blues? Because I haven't, you know, I've sort of been dismissive of them, a very poor start to the year. They obviously, You see, make a coaching change since Jim Montgomery took over.

Their 15th in the leading point percentage. The only team with a better 5-1-5 goal differential than them in that time is Winnipeg. Defensively, especially under Jim Montgomery, they've really tightened it up. I think Sport Logic has them for the year now at 7th, in expected goals against, and third-fewest inner slot shots against. So they might have dug themselves too big of a hole early on. I'm not sure if they have the juice to necessarily make up this much ground, but they're within a couple points now all of a sudden.

I guess speaking of scheduling works, it'll be interesting. They, for some reason, have three games against the Kings over the next week. They're almost playing a mini playoff series against them. So I feel like how that goes will maybe dictate the rest of their season. Obviously, they've had guys like Shen, even Kairu and Bichnevich, to some extent, some smoke around them on the trade market. So we'll see what they do and whether they still have their full complement of talent by March 7. But they've obviously been playing much better and at least kind of have talked

themselves into this conversation for the time being. Yeah, they're definitely on the fringes of it just based on what we've seen from them in the past, but they do seem to be a different team under Montgomery. I wrote about that, I think last month with Jeremy Rutherford. And I was looking at all the different changes since Bannister left. And it seemed like it was like night and day at five on five for a lot of players, especially that second line with Holloway, Shen, Kairu. They might have changed it since,

but that line was absolutely fierce for a while. And I think they have issues executing on special teams, but I don't know, they're hanging around, and the way he has them playing, they're in the mix at the very least. I think the best course of action for them is still probably to maybe do a light sell-off and really go for it next year

and sort of do what Washington did last year or two years ago, where I think, well, obviously Washington made the playoffs last year, but they were still, if I recall correctly, light sellers or maybe the year before they were light sellers, where you implement the new system with a new coach and then the next year, you come back stronger with a few tweaks here and there are a few retooling steps. So that seems like the blueprint for a team that,

is a bit middling but has some intriguing pieces still that can move the needle. You have any notes on the flames? I've covered them a bunch throughout the year here on the show. I don't necessarily have anything new to add. It's interesting, though, that you know, you have them at 15% playoff probability. I think the market is a bit higher. It's kind of around like 25% implied odds or so for a team that is currently sitting by, at least by point percentage in the second wildcard spot in Hold on,

I know it compared to some of these other teams. and there's only what 20 or so games left now. You could see the game in Tampa, and we're going to talk more about the lightning later on when we talk Stanley Cup futures, but they go down a couple goals, and at that point it's a wrap, right? Like they're just not really built

to come from behind or generate offense when they need to push, and so that's a clear limitation for them. But they've been hanging around all season, and whenever you think they're finally kind of regressing to what we expected from them heading into the year or running out of steam, they all of a sudden put together a couple

impressive performances and hang around and, you know, with what they're getting from Dustin Wolf and Ned in particular, that gives them a chance every single night to compete. So I wouldn't write them off, but it is remarkable that we're pretty lukewarm on a lot of these teams. Maybe I'm a bit higher on Utah than you are the market is, but obviously all very flawed teams. And yet the one that's actually in the playoff spot right now has incredibly low odds, relatively speaking. Yeah, I think it's just hard to buy this team. They seem to win because of Dustin Wolf exclusively. It is hard to believe they're still hanging around and kudos to them for

doing so, but even with 20, 25 games left, it's just, it's hard to see them holding on, especially with Utah on their heels and Vancouver healthy-ish with a soft schedule. I don't know. They might do it. We've seen bad teams make it all the way playoffs. But this, they do seem, they're, they seem like a rebuilding caliber team. And they're hanging on just because of their rookie goalie, that it would be really surprising,

even now that they're still in a playoff spot this late for them to, to hold on. Let's switch gears to the east. That's all, that's all I got in the West. I want to talk about the blue jackets with you. I have to admit about, I don't know how long ago it was now,

maybe six weeks ago or so, Dranson and I do the Sunday special every Sunday here in the P.D.O. and we were breaking down the Eastern Conference wildcar picture and we are referencing your playoff models and your playoff probabilities and at the time you were still and I think part of this is scar tissue

higher on the Bruins in particular and their odds were inflated compared to a team like the Blue Jackets and now you've come up. They're all the way up to 46% after last night's win in Detroit I still think it should be even higher I get the sort of

the unknown with them maybe, how young they are, obviously, the defensive environment isn't necessarily great, but man, when you compare them to some of these other teams, their top gear in terms of what the top of the lineup for them can do with the top line and the Kent Johnson and Zach Werenski. They have so much game-breaking ability and takeover in their game. And when they go off, especially at home, it's a sight to behold. And so I'm not sure if it can continue the rest of the way, but man, I've been incredibly impressed with them and at least they're they're remarkably fun team but i think they're very

live in this playoff race oh yeah absolutely i i i'm impressed that they were able to hold on even with with mona han out who's been unbelievable this year and then marchenko was out for a little bit as well and they even they haven't had boon jenner all the year and they just got him back and that's a huge addition uh it's they are a very tough team because before the season started, every single person thought they were a bottom two team and not just like a, oh, they might be bottom three or bottom four. Like it was like San Jose, them, and then everyone else. And I was interested in checking.

I haven't done it yet. But I'm wondering what the lowest market point total has been for a team that made the playoffs. Because I can imagine Columbus will definitely challenge that this year. I don't think we've ever seen a team rated so low. to start the season, be in a position to legitimately make it. And I genuinely hope they do. Because if it could happen to any team, it is great that it's happened to Columbus, a fan base that has been starved for success, a fan base that went through utter tragedy

before the season started. And a team that legitimately looks like it's turned a corner under Dean of Basin. And this isn't just some fluky thing that we've seen in the past from bad teams. Columbus looks like a legitimate player going forward, where the top end has come together to look incredible. Monaghan is having a Renaissance season, Werenstke's looked like a top three defenseman, and everything has come together.

It's just impossible not to root for them, even though this is the most wrong I would have ever been in my life, I want it to happen. And I do agree. I do think they should be a little higher, but it's just the East playoff race is extremely convoluted right now where you have a team like Columbus that everyone thought would be bad and isn't, and you have a team like the Rangers,

who everyone thought would be great and isn't. And you also have the, the scheduling issues where I do think it's a big part that people underrate, which is it's one of the reasons I have Vancouver are still higher than the other teams of the West, but it's also a reason that I have both Detroit and Columbus lower because they have the two hardest schedules in the league. And that is a definitely consideration when there's still six or seven teams vying for two spots where I want to believe I just don't want my, my, my whole. hopes to be crushed. And I think it's better to be a little more cautious and hope that they

really come through and beat expectations. Yeah, I think it was perfectly, I don't think you should be yourself up, I think it was perfectly reasonable to be low on them heading into the year based on what we saw from them last season. I think maybe what we underrated was a new coach coming in and actually putting his young players in a position to succeed, right? And all of those guys taking off, whether it's the Marchankos and Broncos or the Kent Johnson or now Adam Fintilly post Monaghan injury where all these guys are all of a sudden actually playing top line minutes and just being allowed to play freely and offensively

and they're rewarding them for it. And so it's been really fun to watch. And I mentioned the game against the Red Wings on Thursday when they won in Detroit. All of a sudden it's setting up this incredibly meaningful outdoor stadium series game on Saturday for the rematch with the two. So I can't wait to watch that. And the Blue Jackets, by the way,

you know, we're talking about them in this wild card race. You look up and all of a sudden, they're only four points back of New Jersey for third in the metro. And they have a game in hand on them, I believe, and two more head-to-head matchups within this season. So, yeah, a lot of possibilities for them there. You mentioned the Red Wings, and we talked a little bit about coaching bumps

and kind of trying to bake that in when we were talking about Jim Montgomery and the Blues. I feel like the in-season ones are really difficult to model, right? because Derek Colon was there at the start of the year. They're incredibly poor at 5-on-5 again, but also their penalty kill is dreadful in league worst or 31st at the time. And then Todd McClellan comes in since then they're 17, 6, and 2. Only Winnipeg is a better point percentage.

And so kind of trying to adjust for that or quantify, I think everyone obviously understands that it's a massive improvement for them behind the bench since the change. But I think it's one of those things that's really difficult in some of these models and projections. to actually sort of bake in to the formula, right? Yeah, it is definitely difficult. So one thing I do, I don't do it for coaches,

but I'm just like talking about the process in terms of players that change teams is when they change teams, I sort of look at what they do with their new team more. And then what they've done the past of the previous team, I sort of look at what they've relatively done. and if I could do the same thing per coach, I think that might be able to solve some of that issue to an extent.

But yeah, it's definitely a challenging model issue because they are obviously a night and day team with McClellan. And it just makes you wonder what the hell they were doing before that. But yeah, Detroit, 14 of their last 23 games are on the road. the average net rating of their opponents is plus 17 and Columbus is second at plus 10. It's a huge, huge hill still left to climb and you hope it happens because the playoffs are better with a team, a hockey city like Detroit in it and their fan base has been star for a while, but it's another area where it's just, it is usually better to be cautious than it is to go all

And we've seen it in prior years where suddenly Buffalo looks good. And you're like, oh, is this is this the time? Florida looks bad. It doesn't look like they're going to make it. And then at the last second, there comes Florida. They were as good as the models thought. And then they go to the Stanley Cup final. And Buffalo sort of languishes because they maybe weren't as good as the record was at the time.

I'm not saying the same thing is going to happen for Detroit. But a lot of times finding the mean. you just got to write it out and know that there are going to be times where teams go way above it or way below it and sort of work from there and I do think your choice probably a better team than I gave them credit for the start of season

especially now with the new coach but they do have a tough challenge ahead that they're going to need to prove themselves with. What do we do with Ottawa? Because your model is still high on them, I believe you have them at 50%. They've lost at least five, maybe six games in a row here

since the four nations. They're obviously quite banged up, especially up front. So I think that explains some of this drought they've been in. But for the year now, they're 31st in 5-15 goal scoring. So it's been a continued struggle for them. I think one of my favorite stats now is only a couple games.

But since the Four Nations break, since the play resume, Leon Dreisel has more goals than the Ottawa senators do. The defensive environment has been significantly improved under Travis Green, right? And we've seen a lot of their young players take a leap. you could see in the Four Nations what guys like Jake Sanderson and Brady Kachuk were capable of in some of these meaningful games for the first times in their careers really. And so I think it's very encouraging to be like, all right, you're going to take this over to the stretch run. Obviously,

Brady Kachuk hasn't played since then because he's been banged up. But what do we do with them? Do you feel like they can kind of turn this recent skit around? And why is your model as high on them as it is? Because all of a sudden now, I believe they've fallen behind CBJ, Detroit, and the Rangers in terms of point percentage. Yeah, they're tired of the Rangers. They have the exact same record as the Rangers, which is wild because we had some folks saying they were just, quote, unquote, four points behind the Leafs as if just it's, I do get annoyed when people say just four points when it's like 50 games and

there's 30 games left. And now they're just, I think, 12 points behind or something like that. So anyways, I actually, I don't like, my models isn't like the centers that much. have them as a completely mid-team. The thing again, and it's going to sound like a program, but it is the schedule, where they have the third easiest schedule behind only Edmonton, Colorado,

average net rating minus nine, and they have a plus four advantage of home games. So that is another big boost, which is just a complete opposite of Detroit, where it wouldn't be a shock, to see those two teams sort of converge. And I wouldn't be shocked if it was between them for the final playoff spot when it's all sudden done. All right, John, let's take our break here.

And then we come back. We'll jump back into it. I want to talk a little bit about Stanley Cup futures. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We were back here in the HockeyPEDEO cast joined by Dom, Dom, Lusitian today. Dom, let's talk a little bit about the stand. Cup futures market. I got a few, I got three questions in particular that I want to ask you,

and I'm curious for your take on. Here's the first one. Should the oilers still be treated as the preeminent favorite? You've got them at 14% cup odds. The market still values them as the odds on favorite to win the Stanley Cup this year. That's been the case, pretty much the entirety of the season, as far as I can tell, even when they were struggling earlier on, we seen them kind of have these peaks and valleys and then turn it on. I think whenever you have Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisidal, it's going to be a nightmare, especially in a postseason setting when you can get creative about ramping up their usage and in tight games, their ability to kind of just break it open and manufacture a goal at the most

opportune time. But we've also seen them struggle quite a bit here recently, right? They have five straight losses. They've given up 21 goals against in four games. out of the break and I was kind of laughing because I read your most recent Friday sort of stock report or I guess power rankings at the athletic and you and Sean were sort of listing all the needs for every team and each one is like a very reasonable like one or two kind of like at here on the margins and for the oilers it's just a long list of like

top six winger top four defensemen starting goalie and it's like oh man and then you look and there's still the question of whether they're going to be able to use abander canes cap hit at the deadline or whether he might come back before the end of the regular season. They've already traded away their 2025 first. They don't have much wiggle room or ability to actually add as much as they probably need. Yet the infrastructure is obviously as it has been for years still there and we've seen what they're capable of. How do we sort of treat this team and do you think they should still be viewed as the favorite

in the league? Yeah, I do think they should still be viewed as the favorite. but I think it's a more wide open question than it might have been even two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I feel like Edmonton is the favorite. No question. They're the best team in the league. They have been unreal since their cold start. They have the two best players in the world.

They have three great defensemen. And it seemed like despite the flaws in their depth, they were a well-oiled machine. the last five games, they've looked horrible. Like, it's not just like they're getting unlucky in typical oil or fashion. They were getting outplayed. They just looked completely lost in their own zone. Skinner can't save a thing.

It's just been brutal watch. And part of it is just that Mick David has probably had one of the worst stretches in maybe his career. He's looked pretty bad over these last five games to the point where you do wonder if maybe they do need a lot more help than we might have thought. We all knew that Evanton was a flawed team going the season, but because they had McDavid Tricidal doing their thing, they probably would have gotten away with it. If McDavid is not doing McDavid things on a consistent basis, and to his credit, maybe he's just bored. Maybe it's the regular season.

He doesn't care. That's fine. But if he's having these moments, I think you need a lot more insurance going to the playoffs that other parts of the team can take over. And I think that probably has to start in net. With a defense question, I think Brett Kulak is a top four defenseman. He's fine on his offside or whatever. It's fine. Top six, maybe Matt Savoy is the answer.

Maybe the coach starts to like Jeff Skinner again. Who knows? The answer might be internal. in net, Calvin Pickard is a very scary option behind Skinner. And Skinner is a very scary option himself as the number one guy. And I've gone to bat for Skinner a lot in the past because his numbers, his first two years were great. They were comparable to Jake Ongers. He looked fine.

He looked like an acceptable goalie that an elite team could win with. No one is winning with Skinner the way he. he's playing this season. He has been, he's looked like vintage Mark Andre Fleury. Like that is, like you always compare the Oilers to those penguin teams because you have the Karasian Malkin comparisons. You have the Latang comparison.

You have the Chris Coon's comparison. You unfortunately also have the Mark Andre Fleury comparison. And Skinner has just looked very, very shaky this year. Flurriette's worse that I would not feel confident with him as the only reasonable goalie to play in the playoffs on that team. I would definitely find a way to upgrade that. I'll take it a further on the McDavid point. So he doesn't have a 5-1-5 point since January 27th.

Now, obviously, there was a big stretch of time off in the NHL in those intervening weeks. Yet, I know he scored the ultimate golden goal in the Four Nations final, and that's all the matters. I thought previous to that, that was one of the worst games I'd ever seen him. play where like he was just mishandling pucks and looking bizarrely off they've been outscored 12 to one with him on the ice of 5-1-5 in the last seven games and for the year now when he's not playing with leondri sidle and that's about 565 minutes worth they've been outscored 34 to 23 uh matthias at home over this past month and and you know those minutes kind of coincide or overlap because they play mac david's line with bouchard nekhome quite a bit but i think he's been demolished as well now

I think he was sick around the Four Nations. And so maybe that's kind of bled into this return of play. And that explains it because he was much better previously. And so maybe that would be an encouraging thing for the Oilers where it's like, other than Leandro Seidel, one of the issues is their top players have also played well below their standard. And they're probably the most likely to turn around or just kind of like organically fix itself by the time we come to the postseason.

I do have some concerns beyond the goaltending. And you mentioned Kulak. Kulak's awesome. Unfortunately, they only have one of him. them to play with either nurse or Emberson. And so I don't see another solution there unless they add someone to fix the other pair. And the finishing for this team at 515, they're down at 26th in 515 shooting percentage now. And some of that is certainly poor luck because they generate a lot of chances around the net and in the slot.

But they also have a bunch of guys who aren't particularly good offensively, especially on the wings. And you look at guys that McDavid and Drysider are playing with specifically. It's like, all right, those guys probably won't convert on a reasonable now. of their shots. They're just kind of slower this year as well. And so maybe that's part of it. But I do have some lingering concerns about them. And I still think their upside is probably the highest of any team because of dry saddle and McDavid. But man, when you get to this point of the season and there's this many question marks, that starts to kind of compound itself a little bit. It's not as easy as just like a one little tweak here or there. They have multiple things

that they need to figure out over the next couple weeks. So here's my next question for you. Are the Winnipeg Jets getting enough respect? No, I don't think they are, which is, which is wild because they, I think I've been the best team this season. They have the best goalie in the world. They have one of the best defensemen in the world. They have Dylan Sandberg, who is amazing. And I think people don't see Dylan Sandberg as a true number two defensemen.

He absolutely is that. And Shifley and Connor, I think we. both had our doubts about them in the past, but they've been amazing this year as well. Eilers has been great. They're deep up front. They've got some solid blue liners, and they have Halebuck. Their power play is amazing. I think they're the second team to beat after the Oilers.

My model has them number two after them. Maybe there's some just Canadian bias up there. But I think they're probably the team to beat in the central with the way things are shaping up and I don't think people view them that way. I feel like because they have had their playoff struggles in the past and because they were 110 point team last year and got dismantled immediately, that just people are viewing them as a regular season team only. And maybe that's the case.

Come round two when they have to face Dallas or Colorado. But this team seems like a much better version of last year's team. I think they can shockingly surprise people considering the fact they're the number one team in the league. Yeah, having the best goalie and the best powerplay is generally a pretty good formula. And then you mention all the other stuff they're working with as well. They've got a plus 71 goal differential. They're going to push 120 points this year. They just had an 11 game win streak snapped, which was their third separate seven plus game win streak this season.

I think I'd also add you kind of mention for the wild card race, the importance of sort of strength of schedule moving forward, right? And for them, I'd argue that winning the West this year as the one seed is probably the biggest advantage in terms of getting to play one of those wildcard two teams in the West that we talked about earlier. And so just the most, the cleanest path, I guess, to advancing is probably from that slot. Now you're staring down a round two match up against the winner of Colorado, Dallas, most likely. And so that's going to be an entirely different set of challenges, but at least you're

getting already deeper into the playoffs and assuming they can take care of business in round one. I think that's going to start to make us feel more confident or comfortable in them and sort of shedding some of those previous demons. They've clearly entered that spot that various other teams have over the past 10 years of the sort of yeah, but phase of the regular season, right, where you see them win again in the regular season and you're like, all right, well, I'm not going to get fooled again. So I think that's why people have been skeptical of it. But yeah, I think this team is, uh, my hot take is there very, very good this season. And so I agree with you. I don't think they're getting enough respect. Here's my last question for you. And then, uh, we're going to

be done for the week. Are the lightning the best dark horse slash long shot pick this season? Yes. I, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to agree with that. I think there was a time where like, they might have been like outside of playoffs by like points but not point percentage, but like they had like the second best goal differential in the east. Something along those lines. And I remember I had their cup odds fairly high and people were a bit surprised by that. And usually the answer to why is your model so high on them, it's their goal differential is really high and they seem to be doing that in a sustainable way.

But the lightning's top end is super scary. And they have Fastelowski and that who seems to be. back doing Vasilevsky things. So, I mean, they've been red hot lately. They look unreal. And if I was Florida or Toronto, I'd be doing my absolute best to make sure I wasn't going to face them in the, in the 2V3 battle, because they look like a very scary team. I'm just seeing now they have a plus 53 goal differential.

Didn't even know that. They're flying way under the radar this year. I've seen tweets saying that this is the Leafs year because Florida's injured or doesn't care and the lightning are washed. I'm like lightning are definitely not washed. This is still a very, very strong team. Yeah, they won seven in a row here. I know what you said about the same kind of a couple points back at this point of the season, but they are within three points of Florida with two games in hand on them, which is the most important part, right? And so I think getting home ice in in round one, even if they have to play the Panthers, is very in play for them. You mentioned

Vasilevsky. 16 goals against in his past 10. starts. Since the holiday break, he started 20 games and he has a 936A percentage in that time. So this is some peak prime Vasilevsky stuff we're seeing the Four Nations break bought Nikita Kutrov two weeks off to rest up. And his usage previous to that was incredibly high, right? He had games where he was playing like 25 minutes. And so I think that was important. And the reason why I brought this up is I still have a few concerns about them in a playoff series, whether it's against the Leifes or the Panthers in round one. I think the footspeed of their blue line is very exploitable. I think in the games you've seen them play against Toronto specifically this year, it's been a

major issue for them. They haven't really been able to keep up because the Leafs under Craig Brubair are just like, all right, we're just going to dump the puck in. And then we're just going to go forecheck you very aggressively. And you've seen their defensemen really struggle going back to retrieve puck and make a lot of mistakes. And the Leafs are just punished them that way. And you could see that playing out in a series. You watch Victor Headman in the Four Nations. And I know that his numbers this season for the lightning have been quite good, but in a setting where that was very playoff-like for the most part in terms of the pace and the physicality, I thought he really struggled in terms of his movement and made some mistakes. And so I have concerns about that.

But to your point, especially about the modeling and kind of looking at various inputs, pretty much any way you slice it, they've been on an elite team this season offensively. Their second and goals, expected goals and inner slot shots, defensively, their top 10. in goals against, expected goals against, inner slot shots allowed, and the PK. Only Winnipeg has spent more time leading than them. Only Winnipeg and Washington have a better goal differential than the plus 53 you mentioned.

So you get to a point where it's like, all right, by any measure, they're almost a top five team this year, yet they're just not really being viewed or treated as that way. I think a lot of people seem to think that their time is up. And they made some really shrewd moves in the offseason of sort of trying to pivot a little bit.

grandfaster, a bit deeper. Obviously, the second line with Hagel and Sorrelli, you saw what they're capable. And the four nations, they've been incredible as well. And I think on FanDuel, you can still get them at plus 1,700 for cup odds, which is outside the top 10. And so I'm not sure that's correct. I feel like they should be closer to a top 5 team than outside the top 10. And so I think that's why I pose that question to you.

Yeah. I have that plus 1,400-ish. So I think there's some value there for sure. I think the, anytime a team is likely to finish in that 2B3 battle, their cup odds are going to be a lot lower. I think that's definitely affecting the lightning where they, like that series with Toronto and Florida is probably going to be close to a toss-up,

but that's going to make the battle upwards, where winning the vision is going to be crucial. one thing with the lightning so this is something I've always wondered when you have like a clear top six bottom six divide and then you see the second line may play like

17, 18 minutes and the third line even though there's a huge drop-off still getting their usual third line 14 minutes whatever I love what the lightning are doing we're like we have two lines they both get 20 minutes each the other two lines get like 11 and we're fine with that I would love to see more teams just

opt for that very obvious approach when there's such a divide. Obviously, this doesn't not the same distribution for every team, but I, I like what the lightninger in doing there where it's like, all right, points line, Sorrelli's line, fourth line, points line, sirrelly's line, third line, points line, points line, sorrelia line, fourth line, just that kind of, I guess, rotation, which I don't think we see very often in this league. Yeah, even taking a step further, the game they played against the flames on Thursday night. Brennan Hagle played more than any other player on the team, including their defensemen. So like we've seen John Cooper also just be willing to like,

all right, this guy's feeling it. He's skating well tonight. We're just going to play him. Even though he's on our second line, he is going to play more than anyone else. And so I, that's a great point in terms of sort of the, um,

I guess the way they're sort of staggering the minutes or the way they're rotating those guys and not just conventionally rolling the four lines, but just using their horses as much as they could. Good stuff. I still would like to see them at a, uh, like a right shot, especially a middle six winger to give either Nick Paul or, you know,

if they bring Connor Geeky back up or just some sort of different look. So they're not relying on guys like Chafee and Concaldez and some of these guys. But yeah, I think they're very, very interesting this season. All right, we're going to get out of here. I'll let you plug some stuff right now. Let the listeners know what you got going on. I know you're going to be busy with all the trade grades and everything come the deadline next week. Let the listeners know about that.

Yeah, I just dropped a trade. timeline primer yesterday where I just go through the numbers for each player, what they, the value they expect to bring the table, how much they move the needle. And I went deep into quotienters, all three zones data to sort of see where their skills are, where they can kind of fit, what can they bring to the table. And when I look at the comments, they were nice. So that's usually a good sign for an analytically inclined article because the comptors are sometimes mean. But this time they were nice. So I think it's worth checking out. All right, buddy. Well, good stuff. Keep up the great work. We're going to have you on again soon, especially we enter the playoffs.

I want to break some more modeling stuff down with you. That's all for us this week. If you want to help us out, smash the five-star button wherever you listen, join the PDOCast Discord to get involved with the community and the conversation moving forward. We'll be back Sunday with the highly anticipated trades we'd like to see Sunday special with not only Drenz, but our pal J. Fresh as well, joining us. Hope everyone has a great weekend. And thank you for listening to the Hockey Pediocast streaming on the Sports Today Radio Network.