The Hockey PDOcast - This Week's Most Notable Stories

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to dig into Cole Perfetti's big start to the season, Tage Thompson rounding back into his form from two years ago, Alexis Lafreniere's extension, and the rest of the stories from around the NHL that they were most most interested in this past week. 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 PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy Thomas Trans. Thomas, what's going on, man? I'm doing well, Tim. Thanks for having me. Excited to talk about what I thought was a pretty electric week of NHL hockey. Like, I think we're really at an interesting moment. So here's just like a general October hockey observation for you to kick us off. I feel like every game starts a little bit low energy. It's very rare in October hockey that you get that like intense performance right out of the bat

or right out of the gate. And the only distinctions are if it's like the predators coming out of having lost five in a row. Right. That sense of urgency. Yeah, that sense of urgency. And sometimes teams will find it as the game goes along. Or you get, you know, a team's playing without a key guy. So the young guy getting a big look sort of brings it.

And once it's brought by either team or one guy, it sort of filters through, and then you either get the high energy conclusion to the game or not. Anyway, I find that a fascinating part of October hockey. It's like every game early on takes so long to watch the feeling out process unfold, and then the games become amazing in the second half or not. Or it just feels like sort of October hockey. Yeah. Well, it was an amazing week. And honestly, in the summer when you and I were hanging out and kind of kicking our ideas, of what we want to do with our content plan this season

and getting ourselves excited and worked up into a frenzy over doing this weekly show and kind of what the format would look like. I think this is exactly what we were envisioning, right? It was like we just watched a week of really fun games. A lot happened. There's key storylines. We've got a big extension to talk about. We actually had some sort of litmus test games,

but also ones where it's like, oh man, like things are going very sell for one team in particular. We're going to get through all of that. But it's really like a wonderful docket here. I was joking with you. I can't wait because we're going to keep doing this all season. At some point, we're going to blow this out into a full video show. We're going to be sitting here in the studio.

We're going to have like a PTI style ticker at the bottom where we're going to queue up our topics. And of course, in typical me and you fashion, we're never going to get to the final topic. It's going to be like the Matt Damon Jimmy Kimmel thing where it's like, oh, apologies to our last topic. Unfortunately, we spent an an order amount of time on the first three. So we'll get to it next week and we never actually will get to it. But this is very exciting. We're in the studio here at Sports Night on a Sunday evening. and we're going to recap kind of the week there was,

the things that caught our eye, the biggest storylines. Let's start with this one. Not necessarily the biggest one, although I think the Winnipeg Jets deserve our attention because they're the last remaining unbeated team. They have an 8-0 record, 36 to 16 goal differential in the season. Now, I will say, prefacing it with, I think they've taken advantage of a pretty soft schedule.

And obviously you can only play the opponents in front of you and that's going to kind of even out. But I'd say beyond an opening night win, and to their credit, I think it was a 6-0-3-3-3-3. of the Oilers and then an OT win, shortly thereafter, against the Minnesota Wild, those are probably the only two opponents of the eight they've played that I'd classify as playoff caliber, right? Like, we'll see the blues have been pretty feisty to start the season. The Cracken are going to be kind of hanging around there in a relatively weak Pacific Division.

But for the most part, they've kind of beaten up on some softer competition, but they've taken care of business on their end. And the reason why I wanted to start with them is one player in particular that's really popped off the screen when we watched in the season. and a guy that I know that you are just jonesing to talk about, is Cole Perfetti, who has really just blown up this season. Obviously on a permanent basis last year, right? Because, like, his usage wasn't necessarily the best under Rick Bonus, of course.

He was productive when he pro-rated it. But really now, especially playing full-time with Nick Eler's, like he just has a command now as well. Like, it's the way he's manipulating people. I know you wanted to kind of like break down the goal, and particularly set up in Seattle in the third period. That pass was just insane. I mean, he comes in the zone.

He's like, he's kind of streaking out wide, drags defenders with him, and then against the grain, through sticks. Yeah. He don't need a rider for the goal. And it's like everything you want to see from a young skill player. But it was the nuance of knowing that you're up against Adam Larson. He was a big, long, rangy defender, right? And he uses Larson's reach against him. He waits for him to reach.

And then he puts this cross-seam pass back through the vacated space, like a normal size. defenseman, a non-tree, has their stick in the lane that Perfetti uses. He opens up and uses the size of his opposition shutdown defender, who, by the way, for my money, like one of the most reliable shutdown guys in the league against him to create that space. And then, I mean, you will very rarely see a pass off the rush, but from down low, that just threads the needle as perfectly as that play did to need a writer for, you know, what ended up being a key goal, given that the Kraken were able to rally and, and sort of force overtime. There's some production stuff there, obviously, that's a little bit inflated.

Like one thing that's sort of interesting about the Jets is it feels like their top lines, not or their top guys aren't quite clicking, like Shifley and Company aren't, aren't quite clicking at five on five just yet. I'd expect them to sort of do, be able to do more of the heavy lifting. and it's been sort of Winnipeg's second and third lines here. I mean, Perfetti's better than a point per game. His minutes are low. He's power play two.

If he was in any other Canadian market, it feels like this would be, we'd be recognizing it maybe a little more widely as the breakout that it really does feel like. But, you know, I look at this guy's profile and just see, you know, what, he had 30 points in 50 games at 20, almost hit 40 points in sort of bottom six usage, you know, with some, like fumble jail usage to last season. I mean, this is the type of player who we often see take a big step at the age of 22. And I just,

I'm watching him play and I think he has. Like, I think there's an extra step or at least a half step in his game. And I think because he's competitive, he's not big, but because he's such a competitive player, because his motor is decently high, I think he could have made it anyway.

But that extra step, I think you're seeing him taking, advantage of that in terms of opening up lanes in terms of seizing on opportunities. And then there's a level of East-West dynamism in his playmaking sort of profile here that I think makes this emergence really exciting, even if there's an extent to which we know it's going to cool down as the sample expanse. Yeah, you mentioned on PV2, I believe, scored the game won up being the game winning goal last night in Calgary as well, beautiful shot kind of from that right flank.

I mean, this is a player who wound up signing that bridge this offseason, right? It was a two-year deal, 3.25 per. And that was kind of coming off of a postseason where his coach, who obviously isn't the coach anymore, Rick Bonas, essentially didn't trust him to play, what, the first four games in that Avalanche series, and they kind of put him in in the final elimination game. And obviously it was incredibly frustrating for anyone to follow in the situation being like, this is exactly why we keep fretting about what Rick Bonas is doing, because like this is now at the most critical juncture of the season.

He's not trusting a player who probably could make a difference offensively. And now what we're seeing him doing here, I'll rattle off a few stats for you. So as you mentioned, obviously some of this stuff is small sample size, percentage inflated, whatever. Up 7 to 1 and it's 105.15 minutes. The 9 points in 8 games are good, but that's 8th in the league on a permanent basis as well.

And he had a game, it's against the sharks. And listen, like the sharks played a game yesterday where I believe they were down 3-0 to the Golden Knights. and shots were 22 to 3. They're 22 to 3. They had the same amount of shots on goal as Vegas had already scored. So, I mean, take this with a great assault. But he played a game against them recently where he quite literally pitched a perfect game.

Yeah. The shot attempts were 21 to nothing with him on the ice and goals were 7-0. And so I really like what I'm seeing from. I just want to continue to see him more in these reps. I think it's wonderful. I mean, listen, Nick Leela is one of my favorite players in the league, but he finally seems to have a legitimate running mate,

especially at 5-15, they can keep up with him on a skill perspective, pace perspective, also like just the way he sees the ice. He's not just playing with grinders anymore. I think it's very encouraging. So I think this Jets team, as we mentioned, 8 and O, we wanted to talk about them. I think Perfetti's performance in particular, because you've got the established guys, you kind of know where you're going to get from them. And as you mentioned, they haven't even necessarily played up to their full potential yet.

I think he does elevate their ceiling a little bit because he's all of a sudden, he's like another legitimate, dynamic, creative playmaker, and they need more of those. I also think it's a big development for them long term, given the uncertainty around Nick Elers, right? Like this Winnipeg Jets team is built around the concept that, hey, you know what, we need to win sustainably because we're in a relatively small market. I think you're seeing that with some of the crowd sizes at MTS. And we need to build in a sustainable way while generally not being able to rely on being able to attract top free agents. We're going to need to do it with homegrown guys. We're going to need to do it through the draft.

And if you're going to pull that off, you need like a shifley quality guy coming through your system every three years. And for the most part, to this point, they've actually kind of hit it. But you need to be able to repeat it. And so for Perfetti to be hitting right now just feels so much bigger even than just, hey, this guy has a shot to give a really good team the sort of extra gear they need to be an elite team. last thing the first time i saw col perfetti play live was in penticton for the young stars tournament and you know his age maybe it was his draft plus one season right had been completely soared by an injury right like he hadn't played a game i mean obviously he'd been skating in the summer but he hadn't played a game of at any level in like eight months yeah comes out he's the best player

on the ice like dissecting on the power play but the jets lose like four three i think he has a point a goal and an assist And so I go to chat with him just kind of expecting the like, how did you feel, right? Like literally trying to do for an athletic notebook, the like Cole Profetti bounces back after lengthy injury. Right. And he was like almost too mad about losing the Penticton Young Stars game, his first organized hockey game in like six months to really have the conversation. So I sort of steered into it and I was just like, how are you possibly so mad? Yeah.

And he was awesome. But like that always strikes me. Like you have that type of personality. I'm generally going to be more excited about sort of betting on what you can become because you have to be that maniacal, I think, to improve, especially when what's going to separate you is the nuances of the game and manipulating defenders and, you know, mapping out sort of on the ice, like being the sort of puppet master type,

which I actually think he's got the skill set to potentially be, I think we're seeing it right now. And I think that's pretty instructive because obviously you always want to bet on young talent, especially for a 22, soon to be 23-year-old or wherever he is. But we've seen, like, for young players at this stage of their career, when there's, like, frustrations with usage and ice time and uncertainty on organization, it's like, what's my next deal going to look like all this stuff? I think things can either sort of stagnate or even go south potentially,

and maybe wound up rebounding in a second stop or third stop years down the line in a different role for him to, like, internalize that this offseason and essentially clearly, like, put in the work and come back and be much better all, not that he even needed to because I think he should have been playing regardless last post season but took that personally clearly and stepped up and used it as fuel for like getting better as opposed to just pouting so that's awesome it's not like that contract situation was like easy either right like there was obviously obviously a lengthy stalemate and you know lots of chatter about it so yeah I think you're right to be able to take all of the sort of tough breaks and turn them into this start

does, well, certainly has our attention, but I think it should have everyone's. Like, I think this is potentially sort of the sort of first emergence of what might be one of the most important breakouts given the quality of the team around him in the NHL and the early going. Okay, next topic to discuss that has my attention, Tage Thompson. Oh, yeah. Personal favorite ours, of course. I think one of the best sort of developing stories in the league of the first month of the season is that he just looks so back to his form from two years ago. It was pretty clear he was playing with essentially one healthy wrist last year after he got hurt and he wasn't shooting as much. He didn't have that same sort of vintage zip on that one timer where he just

completely uncorks it from the left circle. We saw his most recent game against the Detroit Weddings on Saturday, releases 15 shot attempts, scores the two goals, really just look like an absolute force and he really has all year. He's up to seven goals in nine games, has the four primary assists as well. His shot rate is up to 25.4 attempts for 60, which is behind only Forsberg-Matthews in the league. And so that's exactly what you want to see from him when he's playing at the top of his game with him on the ice this year, 5-15. The Sabres have 63% of the expected goals. High danger chances are 37 to 12. And he's essentially been on the ice for about half of their team goals. And they just, in their most recent game, they finally scored their first power play goal

of the season. And you expect, regardless of how much they're struggling with the personnel they have, they're going to start scoring more there. And that's going to do wonders for his sort of baseline production as well. I really wanted to bring this up though because not only individually does he look so good, but I love watching the chemistry he's developing with JJ Paterka. Like Paterka's seeing the ice so well, doing such a good job of delivering the Puck to him where he needs it right in that sweet spot for that one-timer. And so just watching them sort of find, strike up this chemistry and getting the most out of Tage Thompson. I think is really cool. Obviously the Sabres still have a bunch of work to do after the start of their season, but the way they're playing when he's on the ice,

because when was that conversation you and I had about them? Was it the watchability rankings maybe, where we expressed our concern about, for all the talk about the Sabres team sort of projecting as this young high firepower group, you look at it's like, all right, well, if Tage Thompson and that top line isn't going to produce all the goals, where is it really going to come from?

And maybe the answer is they just will if he's playing this way, right? Because we've already seen that he has at his bag two years ago when he scored nearly 50 goals, and he's kind of pacing at that, spot yet again he's already got the seven five and five goal so let's talk a little bit about tage him and petrka and kind of just like why we're i guess feeling so good about what we're seeing from them yeah so i think the good side of it is the way that that that line has been able to put that team on their back and and i think the sort of um where with the area where our concerns

are i think being felt a little bit is that team's still playing low event and it does feel like they're very reliant on what Thompson and co are doing in terms of generating enough offense. We haven't seen yet the thing that I think we'll see when the Sabres arrive, whether it's this season or next, especially if it's under Lindy Ruff, which is that like warp speed hockey in the service of dominating defensively. We haven't seen that yet, but we also haven't seen some of the like fun stuff we saw in the second half of that good Granado season where, you know, they were generating at will and at least if you weren't on your game the buffalo sabers we're going to be capable of skating you off the ice.

I feel like we haven't seen either thing yet. So I'm kind of just to wait and see like a hold on the sabres. It's good to see them stabilize their season here, but it feels like a lot of that's been a goaltending story with sort of an addendum, which is Tage Thompson looks like he's picking his teeth with the opposition again, driving play, scoring outrageous goals, taking 105 mile per hour one timers, which is, you know, just, just Tage Thompson doing really cool stuff is good for hockey. Yeah, him bombing away is awesome.

I think it's really encouraging to see that. You know, one guy that I think really has contributed to what I think we want to see that final product in early Indie Ruff, and that warp speed has been Ryan McLeod, unsurprisingly, because he is and has been in his years in Eminton, a bottom six pace driver, but a pace driver nonetheless. And I really like the way he sort of fit into it and what they've gotten out of him. I think that's already a big win for Kevin Adams and the Sabres. So, yeah, I think there's some encouraging stuff here. I have to admit, after watching those first two games overseas against the Devils,

and then even when they came back to North America, I was pretty not pessimistic, but I was cautious because I was like, man, they're putting so much of the responsibility of invincibility here on Tage. And I think he's capable of it because he was just such a superhuman force two years. years ago, but that's a lot to ask of any player, really. And he looks like he's going to be up to the task right now. And so obviously, you don't want to necessarily just rely on him in that line and they need more contributions elsewhere. But the fact that he's proven capable of it, I think, is like, all right, well, at least we can kind of check that off as something we feel like we're

comfortable within our bag, and now we can move on to the other stuff. Well, and in this NHL climate, right, where only two of the, I can't remember the exact number, but it's 16 or 17 players, only two of the players that hit 90 points or not played for teams last season that didn't make the playoffs. Like at the end of the day, the way that the sort of contemporary NHL works, where say percentage drops, like I do feel like we still see great systems teams. Don't get me wrong. But increasingly, I think, does your star player have their best this season determines, you know, again, not the elite teams, but for the sort of teams where you could make it or you could miss it any given year?

it's so determinative. I think in the contemporary NHL climate, like if the Sabres are going to do the thing that everyone in Buffalo is going to scream if they don't do, we would just make the playoffs. Tage Thompson needs to be, you know, one of the 15 investigators on the planet, like period. And so far I think he's been at that level.

I think it certainly increases just your general baseline as a team, right? That's kind of what you're saying, the baseline of making the playoffs or at least competing for it, if you have one of those guys that legitimately drive success that way offensive. you're kind of in that camp. And if you're going to get games like he had, as I said, against the Red Wings of the weekend,

a team that they'll theoretically be competing with for one of those Atlantic Division spots as like the upstarts who can sort of maybe benefit from some of the top teams getting older and we keep waiting for that cycle to sort of carry over, if you're going to get a two-goal, 15 shot attempt performance from Tage Thompson, you're probably going to win most nights or at least have a chance to, right?

And so not that you can get that every game, but just seeing that as like, all right, I feel much better about this team now. But if you can get 30 games like that and 10 games where he gives you 60% of that, that's the baseline that makes. And by the way, the other team that I've been thinking about with this in mind in the early going is watching Caprizov, you know, do his usual stuff with Zuccarello that, you know, we saw last year, he was still fantastic.

I mean, he was still one of the best three left wingers in hockey. but to watch that team play and for Caprizov to have opened the season just like absolutely at the apex of his powers in terms of his honest impact right now. I mean, it changes the vibe around Minnesota. It's like, oh, right. I almost had forgotten when thinking about what this season could look like that at the end of the day, if Caprizov does this, that's going to be a team that's a force to be reckoned with, or at least on the margins of the central division. I don't mean to sound like dismissive here, but it's going to come off. way, there's only a certain number of players in the league that ultimately matter, right?

Like, obviously there's really nice stories and it's awesome to get secondary contributions and role players are very meaningful, especially as we get later into the season. But in terms of, like, capturing the essence of the season or like who matters or even from an entertainment perspective, who you have to watch, there's like 15 to 20 guys probably that like you can comfortably put in that list. And then maybe a couple other guys where it's like, all right, I want to see more from them, but they certainly could get there. And he's like, Tage is one of those, obviously.

office as well. It has been for years. But I think it's just so huge having sort of a trademark guy like that. Right. And so any other stuff on Tager the Sabres or do you want to move on to a final topic before we go to break? Yeah, let's move on to a final topic. All right. Laffer Nier's extension. Oh, yeah. So comes in, what was it? Maybe it was it Friday? It was late this past week. 7.45 million over seven years covers his age 24 to 30 seasons kicking in next year. He's off to a good start. I think unsurprisingly, he's picked up where he left off last year with that 5-15 chemistry with Panarin. Panarin's been incredibly productive to start the year. Lafran in his own right, four goals, four assists in eight games, all at 5-on-5, of course, and that's something that he was

a top 40 player in last year in terms of just raw 5-15 point production. I think we're both in agreement here that this is a slam dunk, right? Not only with the cap, obviously increasing. By the time we get into the back half of that deal, who knows where the caps are going to be at what percentage this is going to represent. But even right now, like if you told me just the cap is going to stay stagnant, it's like, all right, this guy's a bona fide top line producer at 515, you've got him locked in here now, and you also don't have to worry about the fact that if he actually does eventually make it onto that vaunted ranger's power play and they have no reason to mess with a good thing right now

because considering that continuity we talked about, it's only going to add another, what, 15, 20 points at least to his baseline production. And so at that point it's like, all right, now we're really going to have to pay for it because we know that sort of goals and points are what drives salaries in this league. And so I think just getting him at that number for literally the rest of his 20s and also now give like they're going to have a lot of. And we can talk about cap ramifications of like what's next for the Rangers where they're going to be at this off season. But just right now, I mean, just having him in at that number, I think is awesome. And so heck of a player. I know that you're incredibly fond of him dating back to our, our guy.

section from the start of the season. And I've seen nothing this season that's maybe be like, all right, last year was not legit. Like, he's just following up everything that he did. Yeah. And dating back, too, to when his usage lagged for years in New York, right? If you look at it across, you know, the last four seasons, like since the start of the pandemic abbreviated, or no, sorry, since the start of the first post-pandemic, 82-game season, he's like 205th among NHL forwards in PowerPlay Ice Time. Like behind Frederick Goodrow. And I think when you get something that extreme, right, it is rare for the New York Rangers,

a team that's been not just perennially in the playoffs, but like a perennial threat to advance to the conference finals. Or at least the conference finals on an annual basis. It's very rare for a team that good to be able to bring in a player as a, high caliber, a young prospect as high caliber as Lafrenier is. And it's even rarer still for that team that's that good who a sudden, you know, somehow luck's into, not somehow, I mean, luck's into a talent like Lafrenier to also then have like the best power play in the NHL. And we actually shouldn't touch it. And no one would

suggest they should, you know, I mean, for the most part, in, in 31 other NHL teams, Lefrenier would have long since been needed on PowerPlay 1, right? He would have, and then he would have had this huge boost in production. So, you know, you have this player who's like overall production profile, I think, is restrained by the limited usage that he had in sort of the tail end of the Galante era. Plus, you know, the totally reasonable fact that he's not leaned on to be a Power Play guy. And, man, I mean, the extent to which that I think makes his value, first of all, has made his value difficult to see until maybe the last 10 games, honestly.

Yeah. Like, I think even, you know, he was, I think, under the radar enough to be a justifiable, my guy, right? That breakout's coming. We've seen it this season. He's doing exactly the stuff that he's done for so long, which is, you know, not just the high-end shooter and creator, but, you know, like the perfect Rod Brindamore winger. Yeah. Which I'm saying mostly to tweet you. I'd say way too talented.

But you know what I'm saying? Yeah. You could, he can play stress hockey. He can play matchup hockey. He's a monster on the wall. He's extremely high motor. Like there's a lot of good away from the puck elements that Lefrenier has as well. But yeah, to be able to sort of take advantage of a variety of things that have, in my opinion,

sort of artificially restrained his production. and get this type of long-term deal. I saw the Vincent Trocheck quote was, you know, I think he did the Rangers a solid with this one. Yep. And it's impossible to disagree with that statement. Well, and I think those extenuating circumstances you listed are very important to include here in this discussion

as contextual factors, because I think you've seen since the extension came out a lot of, and to his credit, I think Dom said as much when he tweeted out his player card or his projection of Lafranier's value over the term of this, this contract, he falls in a bit of a blind spot if you're just like applying pure sort of value added to the Rangers. So it's a lot of money for a guy who's career high is 57 points. And who like up

until last year wasn't really producing at that level and it's like, all right, well, all of a sudden he's now being utilized in a correct way for a player with his skill set. And he's also being capped sort of artificially just because he's a luxury that the Rangers don't necessarily need right now on that power play. I think those are very important factors here. I think what's interesting from the Rangers perspective is this puts them at about 56 million by my count, committed to next year, to six forwards, and two defensemen. That doesn't include dumping the final year of Jacob Troopa's deal. Now, obviously, that proved very difficult this past off season.

The salary is only $6 million compared to the $8 million, A.A.V. And it drops down to a 12-team no trade, although, as we know, considering the teams that would theoretically be interested in taking him on, there's going to be a way for him and his agent to sort of creatively finagle that and maybe even make sure that they can't trade them. But I think they're going to certainly try to Ryan Lindgren, who's going to be a UFA and at 27 with just an absolute laundry list of like horrifying injuries he's incurred the past couple years. I think understandably becomes a sketchy long-term investment. And then also, obviously, this is stricken impending deal and Keondre Miller as an RFA as well. And I should note, Keondre has been awesome this.

year. And what they did is, and I think very smartly, they finally bumped him up to the top pair with Adam Fox full time, right? They demoted Lingren to play with Truba on kind of a more defensively oriented pair. And since then, we've seen, as you'd expect, that top pair has a 67% expected goal share. Five-on-five, 68% high-danger chances. They're absolutely tilting the ice. Makes sense. I mean, when you're out there with Adam Fox in scoring situations, that's going to happen, but I think Keandre is way better suited to benefit off from that than Ryan Lingard was in previous years. And this Rangers team is humming. Like there's 6-1-1-I-1. I know their one regulation loss was at home against the Florida Panthers. If you go and watch that game, they certainly

had their fair share chances. And Bobrovsky made some incredibly athletic saves. And then Florida kind of took over. But they out a 34 to 16 goal differential this season, 23 to 10 at 5-1-5, and that's the story here to me. I know it's still early. We want to give at least 20 to 25 games of a sample before we really buy in as like, all right, the ceiling for this team has changed in this particular area of the game. But this Rangers team is dominating a 5-15 to go along with that power play and having arguably, or maybe even arguably the best goalie in the league. And so all of a sudden, like, now you're really cooking.

So I'm very interested to see if this is something, this 5-15 play from them and the adjustments they made to the defense pairs, if that's something that's going to carry over once we're at the 25 game mark. Because if it is, all of a sudden, we need to start talking with this Rangers team, not just as like, all right, well, are they going to come out of the metro? Are they going to compete? Like, we know what we're going to get from them. It's like, maybe we don't know what we're going to get from them

because all of a sudden now you actually have to factor in that they're a top five, five-on-five team as well. Yeah, it wasn't long ago that I had an almost perpetual fade position on the Rangers. And just because their five-on-five game wasn't as imposing as I think it is right now. Yeah. And that is, those days are over. Like this New York Rangers team, I think, if they're, if this isn't, their season, you know, it's coming.

Like they're, I think, smack dab in a real window, like a credible bona fide contender window. And I really do think that this is maybe the first or second season that that's been truly open, even though they've been sort of knocking on the door and right there. I do think we're talking about a group with a meaningfully higher ceiling right now than we have been the past few years. I agree with that. All right, Tom, let's take our break here. When we come back, we'll jump back in.

to our topics that have caught our eye over the past week in the NHL world. You're listening to the Hockey PEOCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the HockeyPedio cast. We're joined by Thomas Drens. Tom, next story on our list. This game we watched on Friday, and you got to see the Penguins play on Saturday against the Canucks as well. But the game on Friday I wanted to talk about because I'm sitting there with no life sitting on my couch Friday night watching Oilers Penguins. And my God. I mean, the Oilers, the final count was 50.

shots on goal 5.5 expected goals according to natural statrick, 26 high danger chances. Spore logic I saw had them at 20 odd man rushes, which seems mathematically impossible in the course of one game. And it could have been worse because the shots at one point were 33 to 12, I believe, and the Oilers kind of

the third period. Scored a couple goals to put the game away, but took their foot off the pedal. Although, it was the perfect finish to the game because the last lasting image was the Oilers getting a short-handed breakaway as time quite literally hit zero. 0.0 on the clock and it's like, all right, this, thank God this is over because nothing was going to change.

We're just going to continue regardless of how much you let the play. And so I want to talk about that game. And then also just the totality of what we've seen from the Penguins right now because this is a drum I've been kind of beating over the past week here. But like, I'm not sure how many people are cooing into the fact that this is truly one of the worst defensive teams that I've ever watched. From like a non, like San Jose Sharks level, like sort of rebuilding young team, like from a team with N. all veterans, this is staggering. Well, I think the age part, like, the fact that they're such a veteran team, I think, is...

It's like the life cycle, now it's bringing them back to the youngest team in the league in terms of tactics and tactics. It feels like, yeah, it feels like they'd be a much more imposing team playing half-court hockey. Right. You know, like half-rank hockey, because in open ice, I mean, the Canucks, too, just destroyed them off the rush. Three straight rush goals after they got sort of an opener from Pedersen. But, you know, so there's two, parts of this that I think I want to discuss in terms of that game on Friday, which is that

the Pittsburgh Penguins, I think, are uniquely vulnerable to a performance like that to begin with. But I also think the Edmonton Oilers are uniquely capable of dropping a nuke that thorough. I mean, a 4-0-50-shot shutout victory is just about as complete a performance as you'll ever see in this league. It's extraordinarily rare that you get that thorough, a team level dismantling. It was this sort of signpost that like, okay, the Oilers still have the highest ceiling, right? When this team throws their fastball with discipline the way we saw in the playoffs,

really there's no team that can hit it. You're just sort of hoping that their goaltending shoots them in the foot. But also, when you see it sort of in full gallop against the penguins, it looks even It looks that much more terrifying, right? So it was like this perfect game script, this perfect match between, you know, I do think the highest ceiling team in the NHL and maybe they're figuring it out with the Oilers. And this Penguins team that I think in Open Ice is liable to get absolutely smoked by just about anyone in the league right now. Yeah, from the Oilers perspective, I didn't have them like specifically,

although I thought that we could include them in this particular topic for a reason, because they're playing the Red Wings as a recording on the Sunday evening. And so I'm like, I think the numbers won't obviously be mathematically correct by the time people listen to this. But at the time of recording, I have them down for three PowerPlay goals in just in 40 minutes this season, which obviously, regardless of your concerns about like, oh, they're getting too predictable. It's like, if you have Connor McDavid and Landry settle on the ice on PowerPlay, you're going to score more than that as the season progresses. So I'm not worried about that at all.

They're shooting a dead last 6.5% as a team across all situations. if they just converted at the rate they did last year, which wasn't even, like it was like 10.5 or 10.6, which wasn't even top five in the league, I believe. They'd have 18 more goals scored this season based on their shot volume than they have right now. And all of a sudden, you add another 18 goals to their docket. It's like things look much different in terms of the win-loss record.

So, yeah, in terms of like that upside and ceiling and any early season concerns, I think a lot of that is very sort of explainable by just that. Yeah. Get your screenshots of Evan Bouchard and Zach Hyman's slash lines tweeted out now because that's not going to last for very long. You know, I don't know if you saw

like people were doing the Broberg Bouchard side by sides last week. And it's like, I mean, over under, over under 30.5, how many points Bouchard finishes with more than Broberg this year? I'd probably take the over on it. Right? Like not even with a ton of hesitation.

I certainly wouldn't want to be on the other side of it as a season progresses. So shoot your shot now. Yes. if you want to because this team is still terrifying. So that game, the Penguins back to them, played against the Canucks. They're up 2-0 or whatever and then give up four goals in what, a five and a half for six minutes ban? They gave up three goals in 65 seconds.

And just blitzed. I want to hammer on that because I find it almost inexplicable. I understand like the average age of this team and kind of just the pace they're able to play at. but and maybe maybe it is that they're just overcompensating because they're aware of that and so they're like cheating offensively in terms of just like committing too many guys down low and that's why this is happening but their ability to somehow just give up like an odd man rush to a team and then just immediately give another one up in such close succession seems almost impossible right because if you watch a typical team play in an hL setting there's blown assignments there's you know miscommunication mistakes happen yeah mistakes happen Other team catches you off guard. You get an odd man rush. Generally, the team, like, accounts for that and changes up something so that at least the next handful of minutes, it doesn't occur again, right?

Like, you're a bit more cautious. All of a sudden, it's like, all right, well, we need to, like, stop the bleeding here. We're going to play back a little bit, let the game sort of normalize and settle. For this team, it's just, like, to give up an automatic rush goal against, and then within 20 seconds of game time, it to happen again is just unacceptable, to be honest, right? It's like you cannot, that cannot be justified. Something has to give in terms of like someone paying for it, I think eventually. Probably won't be the players because another issue here is that there's just not a lot of intriguing assets for other teams.

And that's a bit of a frustrating thing for me as well. Not to keep comparing them to the capitals, but something the capitals have done beyond actually getting good players over the past year. So is they've done a good job, I think, of kind of identifying and targeting players who, hold value around the league that other teams will at least be interested in some point. And the Penguins, for whatever reason, haven't really been able to do so. Like, if you look, it's like, all right, we're going to bring in Anthony Beauvillier this summer. And I know he scored their goal last night. He scored a goal and had an assist.

But it's like, all right, we're going to bring him in and he's going to play on the top line. It's like, all right, even if he plays with Crosby all season and scores a lot because Crosby's setting him up, I find it hard to believe that someone around the league is going to pay any sort of meaningful asset for him at the trade deadline. right? Like we've seen what he goes for in terms of stock around the league. Yeah, he'll get a mid-round pick because his contract's attractive, and he does have some big goal experience from his time with the Islanders, and that'll be that, you know? Wow, this organization is a one-fifth rounder away from really, really getting somewhere.

The, I mean, the errors you're seeing from Carlson-Latang, Greslick, and company, I mean, it does look, Boudreauera Canoxi. And how do you explain that, given that it's a Mike Sullivan team? Like, given what we know about sort of the structural integrity that this coach has generally had and been able to impose on his group. I mean, yeah, it's bad. Like, I was stunned by how easily the Canucks were able.

Now, like, there was, that takes nothing away from them. But if you go look at the J.T. Miller breakaway on the three-two goal, right? This is a play where they've already surrendered two goals against relatively quickly and, you know, go watch them. The first one, great play by Connor Garland to set up Elias Pedersen. That one's at least a stationary defensive breakdown. Pedersen finds quiet ice, no matter what the conversation is around him, he's going to do that and he's going to make his shots. And then the other one, you know, Kiefer Shirt makes a great defensive play and jail breaks quickly with Teddy Blugher. I mean, you can watch that one and say, hey, you know, Chris Lattang, maybe could have played the two.

When Teddy Lugar and Kieferra were running wild on you, there's only so much you can do. He's got to hold on for dear life. No, but I mean, they're good counterattacking. Like, they're skilled enough to punish mistakes and smart enough defensively to occasionally spring a play like that. The J.T. Miller goal, though, right? That is one where, especially in the context of you've given away two, given up two goals to level the game in 30 seconds. I mean, there is no one within screaming distance of them. There is, you know, like he had.

time to honestly like lay out a full fancy Halloween themed charcutory platter, right? With the witch's fingers and on and on. And then start indulging. And then and then eat most of it while watching half of hocus pocus before our penguins defender got close to him.

And his momentum like he wasn't even skating toward the Pittsburgh end when he picked up the puck. That that breakdown is impossible for me to understand. It's tough. And then the issue is that it's just been recurring with such high. frequency. They've given up 42 goals against the season in 10 games. And honestly, that's probably on the low end of where that number could be because Joel Blumquist, when he's played, has played really well. And that's at least encouraging that it seems like they have a legitimate goalie there

in him. But it's alarming. I don't really know what to make of it in terms of like how much of this is coaching, how much as a person. I think no one is blameless here. And that includes Sidney Crosby as well. You watch these broadcasts and the way he's spoken about. by the commentators still, and listen, he deserves every bit of that praise, but the reality is at this point of his career, he's now blameless here in terms of the defensive woes because he's getting punished at five-on-five himself, and part of this is just deteriorating line-made quality, certainly.

I think part of it is him realizing that if they're going to succeed offensively, it's going to be him needing to drive the bus and create for others. And so he's very strategically cheating to try to get ahead. extend plays, and so he's getting caught up ice as well. And so the reason why I bring that up is just because when you watch his broadcast, the commentators will be quick to tell you how he's still playing Selky caliber, two-way hockey, and that just not the case anymore. Still incredibly valuable, one of the best offensive players in the league,

but so much of his value now to this Penguins team on ice is tied up to what he's doing offensively and not necessarily the regard he's held in as sort of this dominant two-way center, just not really the case anymore. So it is what it is, but I think that's an important distinction to make there. Do you want to move on from the Penguins here? I've got the Aves next on my list. Now, when I was preparing this dog, I just want to really quickly say, and then let's move on to the abs. But I just want to quickly say that I do think, because if you go watch that game on Saturday

and watch their four-three goal, it's Evgeny Malkin, you know, a predatory neutral zone 4A, deeks out the goaltender. I mean, elite, elite stuff, right? There are moments in which you'll see what Prime Malkin looks like. and, you know, Crosby's two-way game atrophying a bit. I do things probably tied to the fact that, you know, he started a little slow, and Sidney Crosby always starts a little slow. Right.

You know, like, we're going to see the Four Nations, and my guess is that the defensive side of the game is going to be dialed. Yeah. I do think with elite, elite players, you get to a point in their careers where they can still do it. They're still great on any given night against any player in the league. You might see Evgeny Moll can be the best player on the ice. or you might see Sidney Crosby be the best player on the ice.

But to do it consistently is where, you know, you start to see sort of the falloff. And with a core group this old, if you're getting that level of inconsistency, especially in a league where your best players have to be your best players if you're going to be a playoff team, you know, the margin for error just feels too great. The path to them getting there feels like every game

they have to hit an inside straight. If they're going to, if they're going to, merge with the two points and that's no way to live in this league. Yeah, I mean, listen, from a motivation perspective, I think, like, the reality is that these guys can sort of see the writing on the wall, right? Like where this team's headed, what they're capable of playing at with this current group. I guess the interesting thing for me here is, like, I don't think Mike Sullivan, despite the

fact that he himself is regarded as one of the top coaches in the league, is blameless here either, because while there's limitations to the personnel, ultimately some of this disorganization you're seeing and, like, last. of attention to detail, I think, are two of the primary responsibilities for the coach. I'm curious for your day, because I know that you're big on the four nations and, like, how meaningful it is that this NHL season, both from a player perspective, like, how much they care themselves and how much of a spectacle this is going to be, but also, like, how telling it'll be for, like, the hierarchy in the league.

Yeah. I think it's interesting because obviously Mike Sullivan winning the Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the way the esteem he's kind of held in in league circles, I'm sure. sure it would be one of those cases where he would not be out of long out like wouldn't be out of a job for a long time if they did eventually decide to at some point part ways with him would also be incredibly awkward considering he's coaching the u.s. team right at the upcoming four nations midseason so i think that's like an interesting wrinkle to this but also they gave him that extension that i believe runs for two more full seasons after this one not that's ever stopped a team from firing a

coach and making a change behind the bench but i think all of these stuff all these things are kind of like intertwined to make this like an interesting story to watch because I think at some point any organization reaches its boiling point not only from a losing perspective but from like a being publicly ridiculed and embarrassed perspective and that Friday night game which is why we wanted to highlight it was one where everyone is just like openly laughing right at the Pittsburgh Penguins like I can't believe how bad this is well you also need to restore some sense of hope and I don't mean that in the skin deep superficial way of selling hope within a fan base, you know, like the Pittsburgh market is won cups. They know what greatness looks like.

But I mean it from the perspective of players. Like, you need something to hold on to as a reason why this could turn around, whether or not that reason is fair or not or called for or not. And so, yeah, I think you're right. The future of Mike Sullivan's definitely going to be one to track here, especially if the penguins can't get this ironed out. And, you know, given that I sort of think, at least part of the issue is just like a raw team speed. issue. I don't know how that gets fixed. Yeah, because there's no real, at least immediate infusion of young talent along the way here either, right? And so that's one where you kind of organically fixed that underlying theme. That's not even on the way. So, um, all right, final topic.

We've got about five or six minutes left here. Let's kind of use this. I think this is what we should do because we're going to be doing these weekly Sunday shows, get people ready to start a new week of NHL hockey. Kind of like look ahead. Okay. And so selfishly, here's the thing. And so selfishly, here's I'm looking forward to now. I know you and I did a full show in the end aftermath of this exact event last year where we broke down this full New Jersey Devils Vancouver Canucks game when the Devils were in town, which was obviously dubbed the Hughes Bowl. But we've got that this coming week on Wednesday night as well. And I'm really looking forward to that one, not only because I think this Devils team is incredibly intriguing and there's a lot of storylines there, but also

just to watch more of Quinn Hughes as well. I wondered, like, because you watch it. him every night and obviously you've covered him for years now. Do you ever get like desensitized to just what he's doing? Because like if you look at right now, obviously the, he only has the one goal right? And he scored 17 last year. I know I know that he made personally a big deal of trying to get the 20 as kind of like a benchmark. He's going to score more goals. But he's shooting, like he went up from 11 shots per hour two years ago to 16 last year and we were all talking about like, all right, well, this is why he's scoring goals because he's like worked on a shot. and also his mentality.

He's up to 21.5 shots per 60 this year, and that's with playing more minutes on top of that as well. And they're not point shots. Yeah, like they're not classic. Yeah, it's like probing on the flanks, like extending plays. With him on the end of 5.15 this year, 92 to 51, shots on goal for the Canucks. Goals are 8 to 2, high danger chances, 36 to 20.

He's been just unbelievable. And the reason why I bring that up is because he obviously, you know, unquestionably wins the Norris. last year, and yet he's even more dominant this year, it feels like, at least statistically. So I'm really excited to watch that game and just watch all of those dynamics up close. I think that's going to be a really fun event this coming week. So, you know, I had a chat with him in Chicago post game, and he definitely had like people to see or something, right? Like, it was a relatively quick chat, and, you know, you read a player when you report.

You know what I mean? Like, if a guy is being polite, you'll get them out of it. of there quickly. You know what I mean? If a guy's willing to talk and has time... If Colpherty, he's furious about losing this exhibition game. Oh, yeah, you have to read the man. Like, okay, well, then I'm going to not ask you questions about why this was such a good sign for you. I'm going to ask you about why you're so mad, right? So anyway, nonetheless, you know, I just, I needed to basically ask the question of, like, you look better than last year. I don't care with the scoring production. Like, how are you

so dialed right now? You talked about one thing that he'd been a flage. by earlier in his career is he sort of came out of training camp with, you know, groin injuries, multiple, a multitude of years. And he sort of changed how he takes care of his body from a diet perspective, from some of that stuff. And, you know, he definitely thinks it's making a difference for him. He definitely thinks that whether he gets there or not production-wise this season, that his game has gone up a level. And it has. I mean, I don't think we're yet talking about it, you know, not just you and I, but generally speaking, I don't think the hockey world is yet talking about Quinn Hughes as like, hey, one of the most impactful skaters in the sport. I think he's

sort of talked about as like, hey, you know, maybe in that Adam Fox and Mero Hayskin and tear behind Kail McCar among defensemen. And the fact of the matter is, is that this is Vancouver's best player. He's legitimately, like, he's flipping the ice on an insanely regular basis. and he's doing things that defensemen just don't do, including McCar. He impacts the game like he's an elite centerman at this point. In terms of the influence, he exerts as an individual on where the game is played and how it looks. It's incredible to watch. It's just incredible.

Yeah, when he's out there at 5-1-5, I know that the eyes, in terms of counting, the number of skaters out there tells you that both teams have the same number of players on the ice. But it just doesn't feel that way. No. In terms of just the command and control and, like... It's preposterous. Yeah. All right.

I'd say except for the game that he played against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yep. And was on the ice with Nikita Kutrov. He has been pretty clearly the best skater on the ice every game. I've watched him play this year. Yep. Yeah, and then he bounced back, right? It was the game of Florida was right after.

Yeah. And he was just on one in that one. Can I give you one I'm looking for this week? The Seattle Crackin. Oh. Who played that great game against the Winnipeg Jets on Friday. electric third period. I'm not saying he's back,

but Maddie Baneers was dominant in that third period, like really, really good, scored the key goal to tie it up, set up the three-two goal, and then they got sort of Brindamord pretty hard in Seattle on Saturday night, but at least he had an assist, at least he was sort of involved and engaged,

seeing some of the swagger come back to his game, seeing some of the neutral zone, own puck carrying stuff come back to his game. And I'm really curious to see if we continue to get some of that like rookie year Baneers, um, you know, uh, assertiveness here, especially because that team's about to go on an East Coast swing through Montreal and Toronto and, and there'll be a lot of eyeballs. Uh, I do think there's something coming there, though. Like, I do think there's a guy who's struggled so massively last year and then had a slow start this past season, but now to me looks like he's finding his way back to being the guy he was at Michigan, the guy he

he wasn't in that rookie year in Seattle. And that's an exciting thing for the Cracken for sure, but also for the league, because this guy, I mean, there's no reason for him not to be one of this game's signature two-way sentiment. All right, that's great stuff from new Seattle Cracken beat writer Thomas Drans, who every time we do this show somehow finds a way to loop the Cracken in. No, deservedly so. They've been playing some really fun games, I think, very notable.

And so I'm with you on that. I'm just, you know, just teasing you a little bit. Yeah, no, fair. I like to watch at 7, so they have a lot of games on at 7. Yeah. All right. Everyone go listen to Canucks Talk on the Sports Night Radio Network. See how a crack and beat writer.

Rick Thomas's work at the Athletic. Yep. On the Canucks and sometimes read the Cracket. And tune in every Sunday because we'll be doing these. Yes. Either Sunday or Monday morning going forward and really excited about it. Yeah, and if you're enjoying these, please go show us some love by smashing that five-star button wherever you're listening.

Join the PDOCAST Discord to get involved in the conversation as well moving forward. And that's going to be all for today. We'll be back soon with plenty more. So in the meantime, thank you for listening to the HockeyPedocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.