The Hockey PDOcast - Thomas Harley on the Top Pair & the Media’s Role Covering a Team

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to talk about why Thomas Harley's recent play in a top pairing gig is such a big deal, the draft-and-develop system the Stars have going right now, and the role media should play in questioning a coach's lineup decisions. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedocast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich, and joining me is my good buddy Sean Shapiro, Sean. What's going on, man? Not too much, man. I'm liking the, I'm liking the by-week kind of, because it allows me to, there's some teams still playing, obviously, but I actually kind of like this, because it lets me, this week I catch up on some teams that I've been meaning to watch a little

bit more and it's as much as we love the full like 12 13 game slate i actually like the kind of half slate because it lets me catch up on half the teams now half after all star and all that stuff so i actually like this week is one of those teams you're catching up on going to be that like kings because it's going to be that's going to be that you just walk it in with the pizza ready to join the party and there's just absolute chaos with a fire burning and everyone fighting and people make fun making fun of pier luke dupois there's a lot going on so uh if you're catching up on them. You've got a lot to catch up on.

That's a perfect example right there. So it is the start of the biweek for most of the NHL in advance of the All-Star break. The schedule, as you mentioned, is grinding to a halt. I believe we've got two, one, two, and three games per day this week before four full days off over the weekend. But we're going to keep the show going. And I've planned some fun topics for us. And we're going to kick off with Harley Thomas, as he's known by many.

Thomas Harley has been a big story. Especially for someone who lives in Vancouver like you are. I mean, I believe that is the, that's, that's the birthplace of this name. It was. I was there in attendance for that draft, 2019, I believe, and it was a good time. We're going to talk about him because he's certainly not new in terms of content fodder for us here on the show, spoken about him plenty dating back to last postseason, but it's developing into an even bigger story because I think everything we wanted to see from both the stars using him appropriately

and then him delivering in those minutes has happened over the past couple weeks. Capped off in the most, in two most recent games by two overtime winners and two prolific performances by him in a very important usage. And so we're going to highlight all of that and talk about him. And you and I are actually, as a little bit of a tease, this conversation is going to manifest into an even bigger feature that you and I are running on him on EPRink side this week.

So if you enjoy this conversation, you'll almost certainly enjoy that as well. So it's kind of a nice little segue for a Dimitri and Sean collaboration that you can really sink your teeth into. So what's the most fascinating part of this story and development of Thomas Harley for you because they were there in Detroit last week

and you got to speak with both him and kind of people around the organization. Certainly, it's been a while since you covered the stars full time. you still got a lot of inside with that organization. And so I'm kind of curious for your take on everything that's happened here, culminating to this discussion we're about to have. I love how when Miro Hishkin was out, Thomas Harley stepped up and everything like that.

And I know you've been going through and watching this stuff. And we're going to write quite a bit about this over DAPU ringside this week. But after Miro Hishkinney came back, they didn't defy. fault to, okay, nice job, kid, go back over to the kids table. Like, they didn't, like the fact the stars didn't do that has been, to me, one of the most impressive and important parts of this, because I really thought there was going to be a spot where we were going to have to be tweeting guys with signs again, saying to give Thomas Harley more ice time after Mirahe Heskin returned.

And the stars have not defaulted to that. They've let him continue to run. And it feels like both a, I don't think there's a launching point Thomas Hark. Harley needed to prove anything. I think it was a coaching staff kind of being forced into, yeah, okay, this is how we are at our best. Let's, let's do this. And that to me is the biggest kind of change and progression in the recent Thomas Harley's story over the last three weeks of all of this. Well, I'm going to push back on that a little bit because while I guess they do deserve credit for using him in a top-brien role just with Mero Hayskin and rather than demoting him,

it's two games and I think on the one hand he forced their hand in the sense that he played so well eating up big minutes without hasten in the lineup that they really couldn't justify doing so like it legitimately would have been a really big issue if they had done that and the other is we'll see as the season progresses if he does oh of course regress a little bit or have a few rough games whether that type of usage continues I'm still skeptical because I default to team just, you know, taking the conservative route with this stuff and, and bugging us to no end. But we'll see how it unfolds. At the same time, though, like I mentioned that, since January 1st, 14 games played, 12 points in his 5-1-5 minutes, 57.4% shot share, 59.9.6% high-danger chance share. They're up 12-7. He leads the stars a nice time. I believe he's top 30 in the

league in overall usage in that time. Now, 11 of those games were without Miro, and then he came back in the two most recent ones and they played on the top pair together. And I think it was especially cool seeing them at least, even if it was just for two games, utilize those two guys as a tandem full time, right? Because we've seen it in stops and starts here, especially if they're down and they're pushing for a goal or for offensive zone draws.

We've seen them share the ice together five on five. But just seeing them unleash this way, now it was against the ducks and the capitals and two home games. So let's not get too carried away. But it sort of looked exactly the way I think the biggest optimists in us would have hoped it would look like, right? It almost, especially when they were out there with the top line, it looked like you could have fooled me and told me they were just on the power play the entire time,

even though each team had the same number of skaters out there because of that territorial dominance and how they were able to play off of each other. And it leads to an interesting conversation for me about optimal defense pair, right? Because here in Vancouver, we spent a lot of time this year talking about the Quinn Hughes, philanthropic pair comparing it to Kail McCarr and Devon Taves and this idea of, no, you shouldn't sort of spread out your defense pairs and have one puck mover with one sort of conventional defensive defenseman that stays at home, quote unquote, the way teams have operated for ages now.

Maybe it makes sense to just put two of your best defensemen or two, literally your two best guys together and just have them riff off of each other and kind of collaborate. And so seeing those two guys play off of each other, it's early, but it makes a lot of sense. And I think it's something that the stars should use the rest of the regular season to keep exploring, barring any sort of big addition at the deadline. Yeah, I have been, my eyes have been more opened up to your line of thinking on this originally. I'll admit that I was, my thought was, had always kind of been more of the, my old line

of thinking used to be way more of like, okay, you want, we'll use Hachkin and Harley as and the old line of thinking, you would have been like, okay, hey, I can get 48 minutes a night of Harley and Hachkin and on the ice or whatever, whatever it is, right? by them each having their own pair and everything like that. And for 48 minutes a night in theory, you've got your winning matchups that way. And I've come more and more watching this stuff and thinking more and past recently and everything to your line of thinking on this,

where it becomes more of, you know what, well, it'd be nice to you. Hey, you have one of those guys like, but how much better are they with together and playing off each other? I mean, the goal that Miroshenan scored, And while it's a bit of a flubber on our pal John Gibson on how the puck actually went in, it's the type of goal that Miro Hachkin hasn't been able to score

or even get that chance earlier in his career. So much has been him having to be, I got to go down low and do this, and I got to work it out to then. I got to go back myself, like seeing Miro Heskin and being able to get that space because Thomas Harley is the guy who's pitching low, the guy who's going to create.

Just seeing them play off of each other that way, that's the type of thing. We're like, okay, if I can get that, and especially when they play with that top line, if I can get this 20 minutes a night, that outweighs the scale of balance, right? Of, okay, we'll put them with this guy. Now, you make it trade at the deadline,

you get another guy in. We can have another discussion about it. But for right now, I'm fully coming on to your line of thinking this. We're like, okay, you roll with these two, and then you kind of figure out what comes next. Yeah, he just hasn't really had that luxury for at least a while now, right,

because of that line of thinking for the stars and because they're waiting for a guy like Thomas Harley to come along. I'm, it makes sense in some instances, certainly, but I think the talent drop off from their top two defensemen to everyone else, as much as I think guys like S. Lendell and Yanni Hacompa can serve a role,

if they're having to play these big, and I mean, we don't have to do the whole Ryan Suter conversation for the million time. But no, we don't, we don't. Last postseason, you just watch it. And it's like every single time Mero Haskins out there and he's out there for half the game, he literally has to do everything starting from his own end out. He has to go back, retrieve the puck, take a big hit from a massive individual in the case where you're playing a team like Vegas,

but even Seattle was for checking them very aggressively in round two. And then has to make a play and then has to work his way up the ice, get involved offensively, and then backtrack and do it all over again, how many times are. for the course of a game. It's just unrealistic to expect someone to do that and not wind up sort of having a physical, having a mental toll taken on them and then starting to make mistakes and having their performance sort of deteriorate a little bit. And that's kind of what we saw in that series. And so in this case, you watch them play together. And that example that you highlighted in the goal is obviously the most positive extreme. Like Harley skates the puck out,

weaves his way into the zone and then attracts all this attention. The puck bounces to Mero. And he's like wide open. He's like, oh, this is pretty. fine, I'll just shoot this fucking score. He hasn't had a chance to do that. There's a lot of even kind of smaller scale plays where one of them can just attract attention, bump it over to the other, and all of a sudden the other can move out and make a play, and it's not incumbent on one guy to do everything, right? And so it's such a privilege for Miro to have this opportunity to play with a guy like this. And obviously, for Harley, it's pretty awesome as well, right? So I think it makes a lot of sense. And I like the two of them together quite a bit in that way. I guess for me with watching

Harley. And I know our pal, David Castillo, who's been on the show a couple times so far already and certainly will be on in the future, has been on this about like how watching Harley play, how could a guy like this with this profile fall as far as he did in the draft? Like he was still a top 20 pick, but it was towards the end of it, right? I think he went 18th overall in 2019. Defenseman like Philip Broberg, Soderstrom, in Cam York, who I do like went ahead of him. And it's like a 6-3 guy playing in the OHL who moves as well as Harley does. It almost in hindsight seems impossible that he wasn't a bigger deal. I know that was a very loaded class, right, with all the national development guys up front.

And so I think that plays into it. But man, this is the exact type of player, I feel like, where every draft season we see teams doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to talk themselves into. And yet here he was. And he got passed up by a bunch of teams that could certainly. use a skill set. Well, if I remember correctly, too, wasn't that the year, and not that it was an issue, but one of our draft guys would probably be a better

expert on this, but wasn't that the year where kind of everyone in everyone, every single team fell super in love with guys from the U18 team? Because like, I remember, I remember, that's the draft where it was one where I think it was, there was five or six U18 guys that went in the top 15. I know obviously that was the Hughes went number one that year. Turkot, remember, was up high. Yeah, it was all the four. Yeah, of course, coffee all good.

Yeah, but but but but so like guys got kind of all wrapped up in that. And I think that's one of the reasons that like, I think York kind of, and I like York too. I think one of the reasons York kind of got bumped up a bit was everyone was kind of watching that team so much. And like the other D who went before him, right? Like look at the profile for like who at the two first two D in that draft. It was Byron Insider, but then you had Broberg and Soterstram. Yeah. Yeah.

So I kind of, I think this happens every year in a draft, right? Where you're going to stop and you're going to come through and the guys are going to fall a little bit farther than they should. But it's easy to come to sometimes look at this with revisionist viewing, I think. And that's kind of where I'm defending this right now. Like I think it's a really good pick by Dallas. And I think it just kind of played out a little bit more of. teams fell in love with a lot of the forwards from the U18 team. And there was just kind of slipped through a little bit.

The other thing about Harley that makes him interesting too is he's got a bit of a, like, and I love this about the kid. He's got an ego. And I love Thomas Harley's ego. And he's someone who I remember talking to him at Mississauga before he ever played in the NHL. And he always knew he was going to be this good. He had confidence.

He had everything like that. And we know hockey people. That ego, the stars, and like I remember I've talked to people from the stars, they talked to him and they heard the ego and they used it as, well, no one ever was good in the NHL without having this type of ego, whether you're out right, whether you're honest about it or not. That's the reality. But we know hockey people.

Some hockey people like to, in the interview process, they want to feel like the prospect is feeling privileged to talk to them and everything like that. And so I think there's also, there might be a slight piece to that. And I'm just saying that based off my own interactions with Thomas Harley and knowing how hockey people operate, where when an 18 year old kid believes he's this good and he's not the projected number one, right? All of a sudden, you're like, well, he needed to be more grateful to speak to it. Like, it's just little things like that sometimes. And he's, I love how his, but like, there are people who thought, and I remember even writing about talking to people like, oh, yeah, this kid can come off as a bit of a jerk. And I don't think it's that. It was just more of, he always had that abundant confidence and ego that he was honest about who he was.

And I love that about him. But I think some people might not have his. Well, not only to get to the NHL, but to actually succeed in it, you're right. you have to have at least a certain level of self-belief, even sometimes if it's not important to it, right? And it obviously is because he's very good, but even that goes beyond kind of that heat check mentality and you see it on especially the first overtime winner

against Anaheim where he gets the puck deep in his own and he just pushes it up the ice, walks right into the shot and picks his spot and scores. And for you mentioned he's not necessarily a rookie right now, this is his first full NHL season. especially from start to finish. And he's 22 years old. And he's on a team with a bunch of other great scores

and very established offensive players. And so to have that mentality of, I believe that I deserve to be the one to have the puck in this big moment and take this shot, you need that type of approach if you're going to succeed. You can't just defer to the guys around you, especially with the skill set to back it up. And I'm all for it.

Like I obviously there's a line you don't want to cross necessarily in terms of like, talking yourself up and just being obnoxious to be around but I also hate like fake modesty and when especially in an interview process it's like you're just saying

what you think the other person wants to hear and now you're not being your true self like that is going to come out eventually I'd much rather know right away and in that case I'm all for it like this is it's a very difficult league to play in and you have to have to have that level of self-belief

and to be fair with Harley it's nothing like it's not like he's not like he's going out of his way and self-promotion. It's not like that. I want to be clear on that. It's not like it's a guy who's going out of his way. It's, it's much more of the, you ask him a question he's going to answer rather honestly. He actually is a very similar personality to Miro Hachkinin, but Miro Hachkinin doesn't come off as abrasive or overconfident because Mero Hachkin is Finnish and you get a, and you give and it's just, this is just a reality. Sometimes a guy is speaking in English and there is their second language, like Miro Hachin,

And from the time he was from the time, first couple times I spoke to him, he would be rather honest. I want to be the best defenseman in the world. That was like, it's the stuff that Mira Haskini would say. But because it's coming from a Finnish guy who speaking English as a second language, we don't overly think about it as like personality. We think about him. It's like, oh, well, he's just saying that. And he's being honest because he's going through the language barrier. When a North American guy is honest, all of a sudden we feel like we have to apply these other modifiers and he should have known the social cues and everything like that.

And so we talk a lot about Hachkin and Harley, as far as the way they approach the game and they talk about their games and everything like that, very similar all the way down to that, just what happens to get the benefit of speaking in a finish accent. Yeah. No, Harley rules. I mean, he's got 12 goals, which is tied for second amongst defensive in the season.

I love the way, and we're going to talk about this a lot in the article we write up on him, but the way he shoots very strategically, it's almost surprising that he scored that many goals because he's often. shooting to play into what the stars forwards do, which is stand in front of the net and try to tip bucks in. Like he shoots low purposefully to try to facilitate that. And yet he still managed to score this many goals. And then you get into the skating ability, especially at that size, but regardless of it,

like his ability to cover ground and play into the transition attack the stars have, which I think is rather sophisticated, right? There's teams that attack off the rush. And it's just very point A to point B. we're going to go north-south and then shoot it when we get into the zone. And when you watch them, especially with the top line, but you've seen it a lot more with Duchin, say again and Marchman this year as well,

there's so much like weaving and you pass the puck and then you go and you cut around each other, especially around the blue line. And for most defensemen, I imagine getting involved in that can be a little daunting because you don't want to mess up. You don't want to be the one that goes outside or you know, you kind of just stay back and watch them work their magic. And in this case,

he's often the one that's leading the charge. or getting involved in that and sprinting towards a net, which all of a sudden opens more lanes for those guys to work with with their passes. And so it's really fun to watch it. And he's the perfect stylistic fit for how they want to play. And so it makes sense. But as we talked about on the show in the past, it's always dangerous to just assume that a young player who's thriving in a supporting role

can all of a sudden start to be featured with way more usage and continue that success, right? Like there's going to be growing pains. There's going to be adjustments when you have to play that much more. against better players. And for him to take on that challenge and continue doing this and arguably even taking his game to another level is what's made this story special and what's, I think, totally changing the ceiling for the stars this season if this keeps up. Yeah, it's throughout this season, right?

The stars, the whole narrative around them has always been, well, at the deadline, they're going to need another defenseman. They're going to need this. They're going to need that. And obviously, you could, well, every team can stand to upgrade. certain ways, and you could definitely make the case the stars could upgrade with a move of defense. All of a sudden, it's no longer the, like, this team has two elite defensemen now. And that's the, that's something that I don't think, I think you make that claim right now,

anyone who's watched this team in the last month, you're not going to get pushback on it. If we made that claim a month ago, we probably would have got pushback. I mean, it's, and I know the way they did, they do the system, but like our pal J. Fresh, when he did like his top 100 defensemen or whatever, and I know it spans clicking on which one do you prefer out of these too. Like he didn't even have hardly in his top 98 defensemen in the NHL or whatever it was. And I know that's, he wasn't asking people to give a ranked list. It was kind of the system, the way that system works. But that still to me is a, a perfect example of this is, this guy, as we're talking about one of the better defensemen in the league right now, that is

legitimately underrated. Too often in hockey, we talk about this. this, let's get into this underrated conversation when a guy's not actually underrated. The only way they're actually, the only way they're quote unquote underrated is because they play for a team that doesn't get more than three national television games. Thomas Harley is legitimately underrated from the perspective of everything. And he's like, his ceilings go, like, you talk about the team ceiling going up. You talk about a guy's ceiling going up too. Now that he's getting this opportunity to play with Mero and to see where things are going to

go, like, that's going to, it's just going to go up from here. Well, here's a thing. Please get me back on track. Give me back on track. No, but last postseason, like he's playing 15 minutes a game at 515, 609 overall in the postseason. To put that in perspective, that was fifth among stars,

blue liners in 515, and for the team, 12 among all their skaters, right? Like Ryan Suda was playing seven minutes more than him. And so a guy playing that little, even if those that are watching him every day, realize the unique skills that he has and the tools he's showing,

at the end of day, if you're playing 16 minutes in that type of role and your team's not even trusting you to, despite not having better options, have that bigger role. I understand from like a fan perspective, not cluing in until you finally see it like this, right? And so that's why I also say it changes the ceiling for them so much

because you're essentially not only subtracting a big problem or negative in your lineup, but you're like adding a legitimate top pair of defensemen like this, which teams very rarely have the opportunity to do, right? So I think it's just so huge for them moving forward. Let's take a quick break here. And then when we come back,

I've got a few more things on both Harley and also the stars that are all going to tie this conversation together. And then we'll move on and do some other stuff before closing out. You're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Big guests and bigger opinions on everything happening in Leifeland.

Real Gipper and Born. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back here on the Hockey PEOCast with Sean Shapiro. Sean, we're talking Thomas Harley and the stars. A few more quick things on this while we're on the subject, then they will move on and take a listener question that'll guide another fun topic for us.

But I'm kind of curious for your take on what the stars are doing organizationally with some of your inside knowledge on them kind of conversations you had with this with respect to the whole drafting and developing thing, right? Because now this is turning into a bit of a trend. I think they got a lot of attention and credit for it the past couple of years for the 2017 class, right, which was undoubtedly an all-timer when you use your first three picks on Mero Haskin and Jake O'Dinger and Jason Robertson like that'll certainly certainly do, right? But even if you look beyond that in 2019, they get Harley 18th overall. 2019, they get Maverick.

Bork 30th and we haven't seen him yet in the NHL, but I imagine he's going to be quite good based on what he's doing at his age in the HL. And then the following year, they get Y Johnson 23rd and he's already a legitimate star pun intended in the NHL. And then they get Logan Stankov in 47, the Short King, who is also just like Maverick Bork dominating in the HL and I think is going to make an impact on this team. And so they're clearly doing something here. Maybe you and I just need to get our pal, Luke Chilcott, on the show once.

we've been planning that and we can talk about what they're doing from like a skating perspective because clearly that I think plays a role in this because you look at all these players that are coming into their team and they're attacking in a very distinct way and so I think part of it goes into that but I mean this is like this is your dream for an organization to be able to find legitimate needle movers where they have it's not like other than Miro we're not talking about a bunch of guys who were grade A top five picks here right these are these are players they're finding later on where the probability of doing so is quite low, much lower than I think fans like to acknowledge, and they're just doing it time and time again.

I think part of it is there's a, and whether they are willing to admit this or not, because it's kind of the, I think they, it's one of the weird things in hockey sometimes where people don't want to admit they change something because they don't want to admit that they ever did something kind of wrong in the past, but you look at how this, and this stars team is still big. So let's let's be like you, you look at how this team is built. It's still a very big team and everything like that. But Jim Nill's roster construction has kind of evolved a bit, right? Like it was for a while, it was even when they were that high-flying Lindy rough team that scored a lot,

he was always kind of on the search and the lookout. And like, I'll always remember the dual press conference of Martin Hansel and Mark Bethat. Like that was right there. was like the moment of like, this offseason, we went and got Martin Hansel and Mark Mathat. And I remember Jim Nill at the introductory press conference standing between the two of them, like almost giddy. He's got these two giants there to be part of his team. And obviously, we all know how well those two signings went. Obviously, injury reasons didn't help either, but neither of them really had much of a Dallas Star script.

And I think the stars in general, well, from their development, perspective. If you look at kind of like the line and I'm making hand motions and a Zoom meeting here when no one can actually see it, but the line is gone from looking more and more at the, okay, what's the size, that physical tool to changing the mentality to the skating physical tool, to looking at it's more and more now of how does said big guy get around and things like that. And I think that's been a big element that is really kind of opened up how they view. different players when it comes to skating and movement and things like that. Like a guy like Stankhoven, I don't think the star is probably,

Stankoven's a weird one because he played for Camloops and Camloops is owned by Tom Galardi. So Stankovans's player profile is one that's kind of weird because of the Camloops connection. But if you had taken away the Cameloup's connection, I don't know if Stankovin is a player that would have been a star-style draft pick in 2018. Like, because even even Jason Robertson going in the second round, Jason Robertson was, Jason Robertson's not the prettiest skater. Jason Robertson still had a bit of that.

Well, look, he's, he's big, like deal. It was still kind of, it was kind of more so of that. And it's kind of been more of since almost maybe starting with the Harley draft, you start looking at, it became more of, okay, how does the guy get around, how does he skate, how does he fit in a faster game? And it's easy for team. to say, oh, we think about that all the time

when we do that, but the stars have actually gone and kind of delivered and acted on that. The Bork is a good example of another guy who I don't think they would have drafted under their prior philosophy on things. And the thing that they've been doing that's been interesting once they draft these guys, and it's kind of the dual-edged

sort of it is we see it right now. We saw it with Harley last season when he played in the H.O. We're seeing it right now with Bork and Stankov and who I think are combined for 100 points in the league right now, or if not, they're pretty close to it right now. They're one and two in the HL and scoring right now. One's got 50, one's got like 48 or something like that.

And we're seeing them still live by a bit of Jim Nills old. You let prospects overripen philosophy. But at the same time, they are being better about allowing those prospects to have the equivalency role in the HAL. And I think that's something that sometimes gets lost, right? Like, I think there's times in the past where Dallas would go and sign good AHA veterans that honestly would take time on the power play.

Guys, when you would have, and it helped Texas win a lot of games. Texas won a championship in 2014 and the Inbit and into the Calder Cup final in 2018 and everything like that. But a lot of those power play roles, a lot of those opportunities that were going two older HL players who were there to score a point per game in the HL, but not really part of the NHL plan. And I think

Dallas has done a better job of shifting to they're still signing those HL veterans. Like Curtis McKenzie is in his eighth or ninth season in the Stars organization, but Curtis McKenzie isn't taking power play time away from Maverick and Logan Stakehoven. And it's been that way from the beginning. And I think that's kind of part of

the two shifts we've seen with Dallas, where they're still letting guys overripen because Bork and Stankovin, They could be playing in NHL right now. They're still overripeny, but they are playing the role that will at least be their NHL equivalent. And they're drafting guys that move better. So that's kind of how I look at both of this. And I'm going to let you get me back on track here because I've rambled quite a bit, but I'll let you do that.

Well, you know what's interesting. I always, especially this close to the trade deadline, I've got my, I've got my trade deadline sick old brain where I'm like just trying to map out every trade I'd like to see and how teams can better and especially doing so in a reasonable way. as opposed to cooking up these trades that are just never going to happen. And for the stars, they've got access to their 2024 first and second and then 2025 first, right? And this is a team that despite the relative youth of some of these guys, I think should be about as firmly all in on this season as any team because it's pretty open. I think they got a really good team. And you just don't take these seasons for granted, especially after how close they got last year.

And I think there's in particular a few ways they could vary strategically, make big gains. And I think part of that is adding at least one, if not two top four defensemen. Like you just mentioned how it's like, all right, they've got two top their guys

in Haskinen and Harley. Well, if you add two more guys and like I love Chris Hanna for them, I love Sean Walker for them. If they can add guys like that, then you can have the best of both worlds where you can split them up

and make sure one of Harley or Haskinen is on the ice pretty much the entire game or you can play them together and then have guys that you can actually trust in a secondary role, and then that bumps guys like Lindell and Hockenpa into something that I think's more suitable for their skill set right now. But at the same time, in saying that, I was looking through the draft history and this ties in his conversation. Last year was the first time

they didn't pick as a team in the first round since 2008, which is kind of crazy to think about because they've been a playoff team and one that's, I think, been trying to add for many of those seasons and yet they pretty much never give that pick up and even in this case where they didn't have that pick it was because they traded it for like a 20 year old or 21 year old cost controlled defenseman with term on their ELC right and so it's like it's just so rare and so out of character from Jim Nell to make that type of move and yet I really want to see them do that this year because I think it's the it's the most prudent thing to do for the organization but it just it would be completely out of character for the way they've acted for the past decade plus.

Completely. That's why the Nils Lundquist trade, that's why when people talk with the stars and Nils Lunkwes being part of the long-term future and everything like that, Jim Nill does not trade first-round picks. He only, the only reason he, in his mind, justified trading a first-round pick for Nils Lundquist was he viewed Nils Lundquist as basically his first-round pick that year. That's kind of how he viewed it as. This is the equivalency of that. And it's wild to think, like,

you look at that Western Conference final last year between them in Vegas and the two wide ranging opposite spectrums of how teams view first round picks. Like the only way in Vegas that a first round pick stays in Vegas is if your dad happens to be a super agent right now. That's every everyone, every other first round pick in Vegas has been shipped off, except for except for one. And in Dallas, it is sometimes to a fault. I mean, they waited many times to a fault. You held on to Riley Tuft, not held on to Riley Tufty, but you

held on to the belief that Riley Tufty would be more than a bottom 6 NHL for way too long. You held on to the famous Julius Honka stuff for so too long. And so the stars moving a first round pick or moving a future asset

that's like a Borker, a stankovin, because I know there will be at some point, I'm sure, I will see a five dames who could get traded at the deadline prospect story like and i'll see like a bork or stankovina and that's not happening jim nils mo and profile on this is he is so overly patient on things and um it's why that's like you like i love sean walker for them like you you brought up sean walker that's that's one that i would love a move i would love to see them make um but anyone from philly who all of a sudden

listens to this podcast and wants to go aggregate the stars are in on Sean Walker, know full well that Jim Nill is not trading first round pick or one of those two big guys for Sean Walker. It's just the reality of the space where the stars are because they could go and they could add something that would make this team go. But in Jim Nill's mind, it's going to be something that potentially hurts his ability to have a successful team three, four years from now as well. And he always manages and balances that.

And you can argue the thoughts and values of that to the end of the day. But this is how Jim Dill thinks. And any trade is going to, any big trade is going to, it would really surprise me if they move a first round. Well, and in their defense, they did make two moves last deadline in adding to Donov and Domi and both guys were huge for them. And there is, while I'm like, I'd love to see them be aggressive. I think they might be able to facilitate a trade for a guy like Sean Walker without getting a while with a first round pick. but also if you've proven and you feel like now, I'm sure that even if that pick is in the late 20s or even 30s, that you can still get a guy who's going to be viewed as a valuable organizational piece for you. I understand the reluctance now.

It makes much more sense now with the track record they've sort of established here as opposed to maybe five or six years ago when the most recent few picks that they had drafted and developed weren't as glamorous, I guess, as this with some of the names you outlined there, right? So, very interesting. I mean, yeah. And I mean, Joe Mac Donnell, who runs the Starst draft, he's gone from, we went through some of those, these names we talked about before and not painting it now. We're like, okay, do they need to rearrange how they look at the draft to, oh, no, the guy who's running the draft has been hitting in all cylinders. So it's not just Jim Nill. It's the, you look at the person who is making the decisions and at the table and all that stuff. And it's been, it's a bit of big shift there.

Okay, let's move on. You mentioned Lindy Roth earlier, and I got a question kind of that relates to that, and I think this is a good place for us to end and kind of switch your gears a little bit. It's from JR Jersey on the Discord channel. If you want to get other questions in for future episodes, this is a good plug now to to find the invite link in the show notes and pop into the Discord server for the PDOCest. It's a great place. We're building it out.

It's going to be a good time. Got a lot of fun stuff planned for the trade deadline there. So get in there. But the question goes, was thinking about different levels of media involvement, especially in the U.S. versus Canada. With this in mind, how would Lindy Ruff's recent media conferences plus making of excuses fly in different media markets? A lot of New Jersey fans have been sorely disappointed in the logic. I'm not sure that if we had a more involved media covering the team, that he'd still have a job right now. Obviously, a bunch of different ways to go with this.

the most notable example, I think, is in reference to a back and forth he had with Ryan Novosinski, who covers the team and has been on the show in the past where he essentially asked him the question that I think anyone following the Devils this year has been curious. It's like, what are you doing with Alexander Holtz's usage? And Ralph just like went off about how he is bad at watching games and gave this wild reasoning for why the case is. Now, there's obviously a lot of injuries involved. all with New Jersey and we can get into that a little bit as well. That's really sidetracked their season. But I just think this entire concept is a really interesting one. And you're our kind of our media guy here at the PDOCIS. I thought it would be a good opportunity considering both your history with Lindy, but also with this kind of just general topic to get into it a little bit. I was the guy who was called into a team president's office because the media wasn't hard enough. So I know full well about the concept of how much media. has and

everything like that. And so they say like a more involved media was kind of the thing. And the I think the first thing I want to establish real quick of what the state of hockey media is right now.

And because it's kind of sad. Like it's right now it was Philadelphia. So on Thursday I'm in Philadelphia is a pretty well-covered team and everything like that. And it was the Flyers come to town. And the only traveling media covering the Flyers was the Inquirer.

Credit to the Inquirer, they were there. They were covering in person. But I'm walking around the Flyers locker room talking to Sean Walker. We did not talk about Dallas. We talked about Bowling Green hockey. Shout out to VG hockey there. But and that's it, though. Like in the Flyers visiting locker room on Thursday, the only people that were in the locker room after a morning skate for a team that is doing super well and one of the larger American media markets that care about hockey, it was me who was there because I'm based in Detroit, the inquirer, and team and team paid employees who cover the team.

That's it. And that's what the state of hockey coverage in the U.S. is right now. It's people don't travel to cover teams when resources are split. Even in Dallas, you get the stars beat, which you and I both know and love was split to where one of them is now split between for one place it's a high school football beat and a hockey beat at the same time. And the other place, it's a Cowboys beat and a hockey beat at the same time for the same person. Those two people do a great job with what they can. but at the same time they have to serve two masters and one is their employer. And so it's the level of hockey and media coverage is,

I think the status quo of people covering the games and everything like that and how involved they get, hockey media has become more and more. I like to think I push it back in a little bit sometimes, but we're all, it has become more and more of how do we promote the sport. it's become more and more of that. How do we promote the sport? It's not as much being critical about the sport

is how do we promote the sport because at the same time we're in this weird ecosystem where we want hockey media coverage to grow and how does it grow, you need more people to read. So it becomes how do we keep promoting the sport? And so I think coaches have kind of naturally learned

that's where hockey media has gone. And it's, and so when people get critical and everything like that, it tends to shut people down. It tends to shut calls don't get picked up. things like that. And I like if from, this is a great question because it's got me going off on a little bit of a tangent here.

But if you want someone going through and pushing Lindy's buttons on every single thing, and I think it actually be great because I've done it before. I've, Lindy and I have had our run-ins before. And that's fine. It's not going to change what Lindy's employer thinks about him. And it's not going to change how he does anything. And that's kind of the sad reality of this.

where people want to think, oh, well, go to the media, go to the media, the media can push things. Some coaches overly listen, some coaches overly read. But we're in a day and age now where the, and media is so spread out and everything, where criticism from this outlet or a tough question from this guy or that girl or whatever, they aren't going to change the internal operations of things. I mean, in Toronto, like, for example, the most covered team in the world, there could be 16 negative things written tomorrow. The Leafs are going to look at those and be like,

I don't need to listen to those 16 negative things. I'm going to read the five positive things. I don't think the hockey media has come further and further to the point where it is an accessory to entertainment, save for a couple people like Katie Strang and Westhead who are doing actual real journalism. The rest of hockey media has become more and more, and I know it.

I think it's something you have to acknowledge in my own role in living in this space, we've become more and more of an accessory to hockey entertainment. My job is to create content and write things that make you as a fan more interested and better to watch the game and everything like that. And if that involves asking tough questions and it does sometimes, it's not the hard job anymore. It's not the main point of the job anymore because it's whether this guy or that guy

gets extra minutes on the power play or whatever. It's not really, I hate to say, but it's not really that big of a deal for the coach to care that you ask that question. I just had a bunch there. Well, I don't know if you, quite frankly, Sean, it should be. Because in this specific case,

you've got a team that started the year with 107.5 team total, which was tied for first in the league. I think they had legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations. And they have 24 wins and 23 losses right now. They're pushing a 90 point pace, if lucky. They're behind teams like the capitals and flyers.

And I think they're tied with the caps and penguins actually right now, but they're behind the flyers for third. Dom has them at like 30% playoff probability. And you've got a young player in Alexander Holtz, who is neck and neck with your team leaders in goals and points if I want five, and yet is being used like a fourth liner. And I think that's a very fair question for... Oh, 100%.

100%. I'm not disagreeing with that. What I'm saying is the media's role is to hear what the fans are talking about and then be an extension of that and ask these types of questions, right? So I think a lot of Devils fans have spent the year wondering why is Alexander Holtz playing four five minutes. And in a game where he gets benched despite, I don't know if he scored a goal or set up one in that game, but there's no real visible reason for that. I think that's the media's job in that instance. and I'm not that it's necessarily going to mean that Lindy Ruff is going to be like,

all right, you know what, good point and change the next game. But I think if enough of these questions start to get answered, there's a certain level of accountability, I guess, or like either positive or negative momentum that can build off of it. And just giving them a free pass is not the right way to go out.

Okay, but here's how it has to happen, though. And this is, and this is where I go with this. I want Ryan to keep asking that question. I think Ryan does a really good job covering the team. The issue is,

when it becomes only Ryan asking that question. Right. And I ran into this issue in Dallas, where it would be only Sean asking that question. Because you ask it and all of a sudden it becomes a Sean problem. Or in New Jersey becomes a Ryan problem. Ryan cares about this. It's not the, it's not the local talk radio host is not asking of this. It's not the, it's not the New York Post columnists asking about the devils or everything like that.

It's, it's not the, you talk about more involved media. It's the, how does it extend? beyond one person asking the question. Because when you have a back and forth with a coach or a run-in or whatever, run-in's the wrong word, but like it's easy to isolate it. That's one person's opinion, and he's just a hockey writer who cares. But when all of a sudden it goes beyond that to the actual media environment around you, the people that don't always cover hockey, the people that actually make you think about it

aside from when this very regional sport is covered by very regional writers, that's how media gets involved can actually change it. So what I'm going with on this is basically, I love that Ryan keeps asking, and he should keep asking. That's part of his job, and it's his job to explain what happens, and it's Lindy's job to answer the question. But until you get someone else showing up to the devil's practice and also asking that question and also doing that as well,

it just becomes Lindy versus Ryan. And I've been in Ryan's spot before, where it's been Lindy versus Sean. And we didn't have nearly as Lindy calls saying, I don't know how to watch a game. But I've been in that spot before. And it becomes a spot where it's like, okay, until someone else in the room starts asking similar questions, it's not media. It's one person. But isn't that kind of the point in terms of like involvement?

Because I think, like, this should be not necessarily just exclusive to that Alexander holds thing. But like if a team is underperforming this way, and I think they've given up the first goal in 34, to 47 games this season. Like that is a big story, right? Part of that is just like randomness and whatnot, but it's like, that seems to me like a team where the coach or whatever they're doing is not preparing them to start games correctly. Like they keep starting with a one nothing hole.

They're not utilizing or getting the most out of their players. There's been a lot of injuries. And I think that's like a very easy thing to fall back on or to use as a valid excuse in some instances for their performance this season. But also like, I think that getting this. conversation going about like, all right, maybe we should try something new, I think is also valid as well, right? So it kind of has to start somewhere.

So I think that's the point I was trying to make so in terms of like the media involvement and not necessarily this is going to enact change, but at least like maybe more people should start doing so. But then you're going to get teams who restrict access, right? Who cater to team employees asking a lot of these questions. And they're certainly not going to be trusted to ask critical questions, right? it's going to be a lot of fluff. And then that's, I think, the way a lot of teams operate,

and that's how you get into those positions. Yeah, it's just kind of the weird reality of it all right now. And I'm not trying to defend or accuse or anything right now. It's just, it's just you've cleared, it's this topic that all I think about all the time with my job right now, because it's how you want to do the best job. You want to do your job, cover stories, you want to do this. and at the same time, it's never been easier for,

the control has never been easier for team control and everything like that. It's just the reality is, and it's something that just completely ramped up a million times after COVID, right? So like COVID happened, and the only people allowed into the bubble with actual access were team employees. So the only access we got to NHL teams were beat writers, or team employed beatwriters, social media, people, everything like that. And that was kind of the launching point where everything from that point forward went from,

okay, NHL media, quote unquote, existed an independent realm until then, if you want to use that as the flashpoint. And then after that, it changed. And now there's so many things, interesting little things that used to be fun newspaper stories and everything like that, that now are guy steps off the ice. Oh, who you're ready for in the Super Bowl or whatever, right? You'll see a bunch of those from teams this week. Who you're in for the Super Bowl.

That used to fill a reporter's notebook in the newspaper. Now that's a social media person with the phone as the player steps off the ice. And so people stopped going to people stopped going to newspapers to read that type of stuff because now you can just get it on Twitter and you get the video and everything like that from the team itself. And it just kind of added to this whole ecosystem where the independent media person asking the tough question like Ryan is doing. and we keep giving him a ton of credit, as we should, is becoming less and less required for everything else. So they don't get, so I'm sorry, this is a hot topic of my brain.

I'm with you. We are a team noble here. And shame on me, because I should have introduced this topic much earlier in the show, because I think we've got a lot more different stuff to stay on it, but we've got to get out of here today, Sean. So I'm going to let you go. Everyone go check out Sean Substack.

Go check out the Thomas Harley piece that we are going to have up on Elite Prospects, spring side, I believe on Tuesday. Goi joined the Discord server, as I said, and we'll be back with plenty more of the Hockey-Pedocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.