The Hockey PDOcast - Trends From the East Final, the West Final, and This Year’s Playoffs

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Mike Kelly to break down Game 3 of Hurricanes vs. Canadiens, and the trends emerging from the East Final. Then we discuss some of the biggest takeaways from this year's playoffs in terms of how teams are creating their scoring chances, and what they're giving up to the opposition. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey P.DioCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey-Ocast. My name is Demetri Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Mike. Mike, what's going on, man? All good. Enjoying the conference finals.

How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm excited to have you back on. Last time we chatted was kind of right towards the end of round one. And we've got a lot to catch up on. I want to focus on Cain's Habs in particular in the game three. We watched on Monday night. and going to break all that down

where we're at in this series and then we'll end with some abs golden nights at the end. The hurricanes get their second consecutive 3-2 overtime went to take a 2-1 series lead in the East final. Let's get into what we saw

in that game three, some of the trends that have really started to crystallize in this series and what it means for both teams moving the rest of the way. What do your main takeaways coming out of that game three and the hurricanes win?

Look, it was interesting. Like, you know, obviously Carolina tilted the ice so heavily in that game. But, like, I'm here in Montreal. It was there last night for game three and it'll be a game four. I left the building thinking like Montreal kind of blew it, which is a crazy thing to say when you get out shot the way that they did. Like, I get it. But I'm like, you know, this is a great shot volume versus quality kind of battle to

debate, whatever you want to call it. Even if you're going to do that or be that type of team, the volume has to be more than 12 or 13. Like it's way too few. But, you know, at the same time, like, you think about the last two games from Montreal, they've gone to overtime and they've lost by a shot. And the, like, Dobson had a backdoor rush play at the end of the second period. And then in overtime, Suzuki has a breakaway.

And then Matheson hits the post. And you're just left with these chances. where you're like, you kind of feel oddly that Montreal could have, I don't want to say should have won that game, but like they had their looks, even though they're getting completely dominated in terms of zone time and shots and everything else. It's just, it's such a contrast in play styles.

And I do feel like Carolina has just gotten that much a little bit better at playing to the way they play as this thing's gone on. They have. And that's what makes it such a fascinating. series for me. To your point, shots on goal, the past two games are 64 to 25 in the Hurricanes favor. At the time of Hudson's 2-2 goal, and that was four and a half minutes in the second period last night, shots on goal were 16 to 8 at that point for the hurricanes. That means that the final 49 and change minutes of the game, the Habs managed just five total shots on goal. Now,

their best chances, particularly in overtime, don't register shots on goal with Suzuki missing the net on his break. And then the Matheson Post, I had them at about 10 scoring. chances during that stretch. So doubling up the actual shots on goal. And, you know, this series specifically, you could probably apply this to the entire postseason because I certainly think you could, to a smaller degree, say the same thing about the goldenites a halves. But shots on goal and their relevance in terms of portraying how games are playing or who's getting the edge in terms of the flow and the meaningful quality is very up for debate in today's game, but particularly for the purposes of a series like this where you've got one team,

even though I do think they've become better offensively and more efficient and more likely to score are never going to necessarily be as dangerous as their shot totals would indicate. And on the other, you've got a team that is almost certainly more dangerous or likely to score than their low shot totals indicate. And so it's a perfect storm for that types of margins and differentials. And so I think that context is important now, to your point, 12, 13 shots, especially when you're playing, whatever,

three and a half, four periods, essentially a hockey. on Monday night isn't necessarily giving yourself the best chance of scoring enough goals to win. So I think all that stuff is very important. Yeah, I totally agree. And like I've already seen a lot of, you know, Carolina outshot them this much and whatever. And without, I guess, fully understanding the way that Carolina plays and shoots and also the way that Montreal plays and shoots. And again, it's not to say that like, oh, the habs are doing exactly what they're trying to do. look how close it is because you can't get 12 or 13 shots and expect to win.

But it is such a huge contrast. So, like, I'm looking at things like, let's just go through the series and look at expected goals, right? We've got 11.5 to 7 for Carolina on all attempts. And that makes sense, right? Then if you look at grade A chances, we've got 2518 Carolina. That makes sense. If you look at a shots on net model, the grade A's are closer. They're even.

You know, one of the things about perimeter shooting, if you look at the home plate slot area, on average, you need about 30 shots from the perimeter. And I know how ridiculous it is to make the perimeter one thing because you can be, obviously, at the blue line in the corner versus eight feet from the net. But just in a general sense, you don't score a lot from the outside. Like in this series, every goal has come from the slot except for the last one, which was Svetnikov's overtime winner. So a lot of Carolina's advantage, and they do have an advantage from the slot,

but a lot of it as well has come from perimeter shots. Over time, those will add up, and you'll get what Carolina got, which is that bounce and that goal. That's why it's not a bad strategy, obviously, especially when you can tilt it that much. if you look at things like slot shots, it is still heavily in favor of Carolina. If you go into the quality of those shots. So one-timers from the slot, one of the most dangerous attempts you can take in hockey,

the average shooting percentage in the regular season was 25%. Montreal has more. Inner slot one-timers. Average shooting percentage is over 30%. Montreal has seven. Carolina has three. So you start to see that difference of like, If Montreal gets a couple looks, maybe they're more likely to score because maybe their finishers are also a little better.

And those quality shots, they're getting a little more of. But all the rest of it, Carolina is getting way too much of the rest of it, I think, for it to really matter unless Montreal can kind of bridge that gap of it. Undoubtedly, I think another interesting trend that's developing. I saw this from a courtesy of the NHL and their NHL edge stats. I'm not sure if the sport logic stuff bears it out. as well. But it does feel like even watching this regular season, something the hurricanes, whether it was by design or just getting kind of more talented players who are likely to create from there, are getting more of those mid-range shots as well, not necessarily the perimeter

stuff, but obviously not the rebounds they used to jam in in the past, which probably have diminishing returns in terms of how likely they are to score, especially against the goalie, like Doebes. And I know a guy like Eilers, for example, really fires a lot of his shots from there, and they've scored a good number of them this postseason, and I've liked that they've added that to their offensive profile to go along with all the rush stuff. I do also wonder, like, you think game four is going to be, what, the 100th game the HABs have played this season,

and we've talked a lot about Dobish's workload as well, and he was phenomenal in game three again, but particularly for their defenseman, and you see the mistake Hudson makes at the end and some of the stuff Gully was struggling with over the course of game three, there probably is an accumulation factor as well where a team like the hurricanes, if you just kind of build this sort of volume in this particular situation,

it probably will lead to good things more often than maybe in an ideal circumstance for Montreal. They were fresher and hadn't played as much and weren't kind of putting this kind of workload on the roadometer. Yeah. Well, that's another interesting thing too, right,

as this series goes along with how physical Carolina is and how much more hockey Montreal is played, is it going to start to wear on the Canadians more? Like, I don't know how you feel about this, but I kind of feel like if you're looking at the stat sheet on Carolina's side of it,

I wouldn't be nearly as comfortable as the numbers suggest they should be. And if I was looking at it on Montreal side of it, I wouldn't be nearly as down as maybe you think they should be. But it's still not good enough for Montreal if that makes sense. Yeah, I think both teams are playing

the way they need to play. I guess the concern from me for the HABs in watching how games two and three have progressed is in game one it was very clear especially early on that whether it was rust or just being overly amped up like the hurricanes were making a lot of defensive breakdowns in transition and the Canadians were really punishing them on that there have been some of those opportunities sprinkled into games two and three but it feels like these games in terms of how they're being contested are sort of pushing further and further into Carolina's preferred playground in a way,

and I think they're going to be much more comfortable if it keeps going this way, even though when you're going to back-to-back overtime, obviously it's subject to a bounce or one of those breakdowns being immensely costly, and so you're playing with fire. But just in terms of the playing style and how it's been progressing for large stretches, I feel like Carolina's almost taking more control in a way in terms of dictating it, particularly in the forecheck where I thought the Canadians really struggled at times to string together passes out of their zone

and had a bunch of turnovers that kept them sort of even when their forwards were trying to fly the zone just stuck in their own end and Carolina is going to take that all day. So in terms of like how the messaging in each respective locker room I imagine Rod Brindamore is probably pretty satisfied with the way these games have progressed. Yeah, I would think so.

You know, again, at the end of the day, like you're a post or a breakaway miss away from being down 2-1, which is kind of crazy too, right? So it's, it's, it's interesting. Like I felt like watching that game, it was, it was interesting because I got to, I was sitting in the press box beside Nate Thompson, obviously played in the NHL for many years, played with the abs for a bit. And I felt like Carolina's four checks great, but, but Montreal was so against just living

to fight another day in their D zone of like, we might have to ice this block. And they did ice it 12 times, which is more than any team has in a game all playoffs. It's not like they didn't ice it. But I felt like they were just, and you don't want to just flip Pucks out and have Carolina pound it back in again because that's playing right into what they like to do. But I thought a lot of those D-Zone turnovers, failed exits, were more on Montreal than anything,

where it's like you're the second and the third time in a row, like you just got to get it out. And it didn't really come back to bite them. The thing that did was, I call him danger zone turnovers. and it's not me that came up with it. I was talking to some coaches this summer, and they talked about blue line turnovers, right? Offensive and defensive and how they're the ones they hate the most.

Their transition, they'll kill you. And in two overtimes that, you know, obviously Carolina dominated both the overtimes in terms of shots and the rest of it, but it was an offensive blue line neutral zone giveaway in game two that led to Eilers goal. And then it was obviously Elaine Hudson's like uncharacteristic. kind of brain cramp that led to the second one. And then, you know, that's the difference of potentially at being 2-1 Montreal.

As crazy as it sounds potentially 3-0 Montreal in the series. Yeah, it's interesting because on the one hand, you know, you have the Hudson turn over, the leads eventually to Svetnikov's goal in game three. And as I said, there were moments where they're really kind of stuck in the mud. And that's why the shots piled up the way that they did. I thought that really over the course of this entire series, when the HAVs have had success in terms of creating some of those transition opportunities and catching the hurricanes leaning a little bit in the neutral zone have been on these plays

where they kind of like have these delayed exits in a way. They almost like fake like they're going to exit and then either their defenseman circles are back or they work it back and then all of a sudden the attack through the middle and we saw them nearly get the game through overtime winner on a play like that where Hudson sends a pass through to Suzuki coming off the bench. Yeah. And then a very similar play, whether it was a miscommunication or whether it was Hudson, and who had taken a couple shots,

just made a mistake. It winds up being picked off by Svetnikov instead of going to Slavkovsky, and it winds up in the winner. So you kind of see that risk reward of that approach. But I do think in terms of generating their highest quality looks, if the volume is going to be this low, that probably is Montreal's most sustainable path towards at least creating a couple of those over the course of these games

and moving forward. Yeah. Do you remember, I think it was late in the third period, Demadov, the movie made on a guy in the D-Zone on an exit. that was wild. And I'm like, if they go out the ice to score here, that's going to be something.

Obviously, it went the other way with Hudson and what happened there. But in overtime, I don't know, it kind of circle back on just the game overall. Like I thought Carolina in the first period, Montreal had nothing going on their breakouts, nothing going in transition, all the things that fueled the game one success that the HABs had. Carolina, that period to me at the time was their best people. period of the series. Second period, you know,

Carolina still tilted it, but Montreal started to finally get out of their zone and get into the zone with possession and some good looks off the rush. You know, rush chances on the power play continue to be one of my favorite things. I just, I love it when teams don't default to automatically,

like button hook can set up if there's, if there's a lane take it. And for those two guys, Hudson and Caulfield, the give and go, like that was pretty impressive. And then, you know,

period on it was it was all carolina so like i feel like montreal kind of had had its moments and spurts but yeah it's flirting with disaster obviously to be kind of territorially outplayed that badly you know who i thought out of phenomenal game three is kiondra miller and he plays a game high 30 plus minutes 26 of those minutes five-on-five shots on goal were 14-1 carolina in that time he leads them in time on ice this postseason they're up 13 to 3 with him on the ice 5-1-5 also chipped in with seven assists in those 11 games and I've loved like the growth we've seen from them offensively in particular whether it's on pp2 and you saw that in game three or or just in general like they're leading up to the two one goal that taylor hall scores out front he makes a

couple of really higher level reads like right off the draw he sends this diagonal set play pass to blake which just hops over his stick and then he jumps on a loose puck and takes it to and sends it out to Hall and I've been very impressed by him and you know Eilers gets a lot of attention deservedly so for his monster game two performance and in general how he's infused this team with what they so desperately lacked in the past but Miller's another one of those guys where those were their two big off season additions adding to the club that fell short in last year's Eastern conference final and he certainly added another in a dimension and element that I think they needed and I think he's been just as good and one of their most important players

yeah no no argument for me on that one that's where Carolina's done, you know, such a great job, obviously, is finding guys that can be better there. And Eric Tolski's talked about it, like guys that can be better in the way that they play than maybe they've been in other places. Which is an interesting way to look at things. I think a good way to look at things. Carolina, you know, probably has the most, you know, clear way of playing of a lot of teams. and you need to be able to skate, Miller can do that,

and he's got a good stick and he's physical and, you know, look at things like puck battles and zone denials and, you know, all the things you would expect him and want him to be good at and he has been in these playoffs. Like Chatfield, too, is, you know, noticeable last game and getting up in the rush

and killing plays and just doing a lot of those, you know, kind of things that help that team have success. they don't really like the weak link versus strong link argument in hockey and his sports is always interesting Carolina like it's hard to find weak links up and down that that lineup isn't it it is undoubtedly I do think one of the the differences is for most teams and even maybe the hurricanes in the past maybe it wouldn't have come back to bite them in the first two rounds but if they were getting this little five-on-five production from their top line I think be in more trouble.

Those guys have generated a lot of chances. I know you've kind of identified Svetnikov in terms of the puck battle wins and how good he is along the boards. And even early in the series, I thought like game one, Seth Jarvis racked up a ton of rush scoring chances and Svecicov was sort of playing the role of a distributor, which is nice to see because sometimes I think you can get a bit of tunnel vision

in terms of being a shot first guy. And he started to get more and more looks after game two. I thought he was coming really close after a couple of those chances. And he finally gets his first five-on-five goal of the postseason with that overtime winner. There is an element of like those guys aren't producing and it's still incredible that they're working as hard as they are to create a lot of these chances, which some other top players in the league, you probably couldn't say that about when the puck's not going in for them.

But ultimately they haven't really been producing. And I think one of the differences between this year's Keynes and previous ones is that's not as big of a death blow for them because they're not as relying on those guys to be their primary offensive drivers because you have that stank open line early in the series and they get another goal from Hall here and then what we've seen from Eilers as well, right? So I think there's different pathways for them to get by when those guys have like a 4% on ice shooting percentage or whatever they have so far these playoffs. Yeah, definitely.

And not like as one dimensional. Like one criticism that I had heard about Carolina, if you go back and just look at, you know, whatever the last five, six, seven years, this iteration of the team is, you know, the way that they play might be the hardest. to play against of any team in the league. But if you can beat their pressure, they didn't really have another way to beat you or to play.

And they don't, you know, they're not the solely kind of dump and chase four-check team that they've been in years past. Like I've talked about it before, and I'm sure you have too. They've scored more goals off the rush this year than any team in the regular season. They're leaving the playoffs and rush chances per game.

They were going into last night anyways. So they're not this kind of one-trick pony where it's like, and it would take a really good team to beat that pressure, but that's what you end up with in a conference final or a cup final. They're more multifaceted. And I don't think that was accidental. You just look at, again, the players that they brought in. They can provide a different element.

So, yeah, they're probably best positioned with this roster of all the other ones. Like I had been critical in a sense to them in the past, keeping in mind they're a very good team of just not being sure that they were really ever going to be as good as the couple best teams who were, had more dimensions to their offensive game and had those star player game breakers. But this hurricane scene when they're playing, you know, the way that they want to play, no one's getting the territorial advantage on them. It just becomes a matter of can you, you know, score on enough of your opportunities to beat the other team. Here's a crazy thing I was just looking at completely apropos of nothing, but we talk about chances and everything. I was looking at Seth Jarvis because he's had a bunch, right? Yep. In the conference final especially.

In the conference final, and I haven't watched the video on this, so that's always another important part of it. But Jordan Stahl, 10 scoring chances, zero on net. I'm not even sure how that's possible. possible. But eight of missed, apparently. I can remember a couple of them. I think it was in the home game specifically, and they were pretty much all set up by Nikola Eilers. And it's him kind of attacking off the rush and getting it into him, like sort of streaking through the slot. And he rang one off the bar. Yet another than missed the net. I think Martinuk had like a spinning pass to him coming out of the slot. So I can remember a handful of them. But yeah, that that is a pretty crazy stat.

He's, I mean, he's getting all of his looks from that area. I was also impressed by Jackson Blake. I love his game so much. You talk about some of the guys who win those battles. I know like Puck Battle wins the stat that really has caught your eye and you're interested in. It feels like over these past couple games, the Hurricanes have won more of them after a slow start to the series in that regard. It feels like Jackson Blake wins every single one he engages in. I'm not sure if the stats bear that out.

But just to my eye test, it looks like it. In particular ones where like it's kind of a 50-50 puck with the skate, or the, the puck potentially into defender skates and he just like sort of reaches in there and pulls it out and all of a sudden they're attacking downhill off of that and I think guys like him were really giving some of the slower maybe less talented defenders on the habs in particular I can recall kate and gulie a couple times where he sort of picked his pocket or targeted him and I thought he was awesome in this game so yeah there's a lot of a lot of positive things to point to for the hurricanes in terms of guys who are contributing and driving the bus here yeah puck bottles are interesting

and it's it's I kind of liken it to like scoring chances in a way where if you ask 32 head coaches what a scoring chance is, you'd get 32 different answers, right? Talk battle kind of criteria for how you define it can be different depending on who you talk to. But that's something that I've kind of worked on and we've looked at refining and everything to what we believe is an accurate representation, obviously. And that to me does tell a big story in these playoffs because I don't feel like Montreal, well, you know, this season, because they're a smaller, skilled young, whatever team, whatever narrative you want to kind of look at with them, got enough credit for their ability to win battles. And like a guy like Lane Hudson is a great example of someone who knows how to angle a guy

off a puck and uses stick and uses leverage in a way that helps him win a lot of battles. Jackson Blake, again, not, you know, it's not like he's 6'6, but he's top 15 among forwards in these playoffs and winning puck battles per game. Same idea. So the puck battle thing to me was going to be interesting coming into this series because we know how Carolina plays, obviously, but Montreal, I don't think, got enough credit for that.

They came into the conference final with the best puck battle win percentage of any team in the playoffs. And in the first game, they won 61% of them, obviously won the game. The last two games, Carolina's won 57% in each game. So that's swung. a bit.

But even watching the game from in the press box in game three, like, these battles are ferocious. It's rare you'd see a guy on either team go in and not really give it 100%, which is a crazy thing to do over the course of 60 plus playoff minutes. Like it's, it's a war out there for those pox. And, you know, both teams are capable of winning them and doing a pretty good job of it as well. I think a couple of the ones that really stand out to me from game three where the hurricanes had success and got the Canadians in trouble a little bit were off of ironically offensive zone draw losses where the habs would win it back to their defensemen and then one of their wingers would immediately attack I can think of the Svetnikov one where he creates a turnover and the chance and draws the penalty in the second and Blake and Stankov and had a couple of their own there so that's an interesting thing to watch for for game four a couple other notes I had on this game I love this Cain's four line. And I'm not typical

someone who thinks like I think coaches generally overplay their fourth lines that should probably just give more of the ice time to their best players. But these guys get offensive zone face offs and opportunities have created a goal in every one of these games and I think have some legit juice.

And then my last note on the hurricanes is when we're talking about some of the shot volume, I do think we need to differentiate especially from shots from defensemen where like the Gostas bear ones where he's kind of a attacking downhill and getting lost and on the weak side is a shot that I like. And then there's ones where it feels like Nkisha in these past couple of games has been just kind of firing wildly like the hurricanes used to the past couple years and racking up a ton of volume, but not really threatening.

Like Doebish is absorbing all of those with relative ease. So those are a couple things from the hurricanes angle that I'll be watching for in game four. You got any other stuff on this series for either side in terms of either game three or what to look for in key battlegrounds for game four? Yeah, the fourth line for Carolina, like that's a great one. They've been really good in this series. You know, just, again, the whole team's kind of tilted the ice. But they've scored three goals, been on for none against at five on five. Like, that's more productive than other very productive lines for that team.

So to do that and, you know, 23 minutes and change and tilt the ice the way that they have has been pretty impressive. Yeah, I think like, I don't, again, I don't feel, like Mike Matheson talked about wanting more zone time and you get it, right? But like you're not, I feel like for Montreal, you're not going to try to beat Carolina at their own game, obviously. You just have to have a better version of your game. And I don't think it's that far off. Like the shots cannot be, whatever, 35 to 13 or 12. It's too crazy.

But if it was 35 to 19 or 20, with the way that Montreal generates its offense, that to me isn't outlandish in terms of them potentially winning a game. Dolbush is an X factor. If you're going to play that way or try to have success against Carolina in these types of games where as great as the disparity has been, it still really does come down to volume versus quality approach, your goalie has to be better than the other guy. And he has been, like Freddie Anderson, to me, is not inspiring the same amount of confidence that he did in the first two rounds if you're Carolina, right?

And I think for a goalie, like it presents its own challenges. When you go, forget game time, how much real time intermissions included, TV timeouts included, where you're not facing a shot. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, great, here's a one T from the house that, because that's kind of what Montreal wait on or try to get, that you've got to try to stop. So it's, the series fascinates me to no end because it's such a contrast to styles. that has really gotten extreme, but it's still kind of close.

Yeah, I'd be really interested to ask about Marty St. Louis about this. I feel like in game three more so than the first two, their defensemen were very active in trying to sprint up the middle of the ice and get involved. And I can think of a number of times where Noah Dobson played that role. And in general, in the offensive zone, I thought he was far more aggressive in this game

and dearly creates that 3-2 goal in the third. The winds up being called back on a play like that. and had that backdoor play, I think it was on four-on-four from Demet, although you mentioned that he just missed on. And so there were a couple of looks there that were interesting. And that part is a fascinating dynamic to me as well, because I think when you play a team, the pressure is the way the hurricanes do. There is an element of just trying to survive and kind of going off the glass and out in a way to alleviate pressure, at least temporarily. But it feels like even though it's more dangerous, the best pathway towards creating some of those quality looks, is almost flying through the middle.

And we saw in the power play, they create that with Hudson and Koffield doing that give and go right through the heart of the defense. So they're going to need to do that, but it's certainly risky and playing with fire because this Hurricanes team can beat you if you mess up the execution of that or turn it over and it's quickly going back the other way.

Yeah, well, exactly. They, again, let me talk about have a rush game that wasn't always there because of some of the guys they have. But I give the Hurricanes credit again for a team that I thought in the past had been too rigid in not making adjustments and kind of just always believing if we just execute the way we know we can and we'll beat anybody.

That game won. Like they got beat out of their own end, right? On a lot of passes and their forecheckers got beat. But then they were still pressuring in the neutral zone. And then if you can make a pass there, you got odd man's breakaways, whatever. And game two, even game three, like their D were not nearly as aggressive in the neutral. zone trying to pinch guys off. And that takes away some of what Montreal was able to do, obviously, in the first

game. So, you know, it becomes even harder for them. Like, these are kind of interesting, you know, adjustments that each team looks to make, I guess, or get better in each game. And then, you know, game four, game four will be interesting. So I thought the second period, like, there were spurts for Montreal where you're like, that's how they can win a game against this team. It just,

it might be impossible to do it for 16. It's obviously against a team like Carolina. Yeah, no, there was that stretch. I think it was after it got the 2-2 where they started trading rush chances in particular a bit, and Eler sent that beautiful pass over to Gossus Bear, which Dobish got a pat on, and then the Habs came back the other way and got a couple looks themselves.

And it was really fun, and then it kind of stagnated a little bit and became sort of a half-court contest. But yeah, I love this series. I think there's a lot of fascinating moving parts, and it's much more nuanced than a lot of the coverage I've seen of it. So I'm glad that we got to talk through it a little bit. I want to quickly close out on Avs Nights.

I did a full deep dive of it coming out of game three yesterday with Steve Peters, so I don't necessarily want to rehash two of it. But as I said, it's certainly to a lesser degree in terms of the shot disparity. do think this quantity versus quality discussion applies to this as well because the Golden Knights as they've done all postseason it feels like you know game two and three specifically game one was a little bit of different case after they went up three nothing but they've really controlled the the most meaningful looks in my opinion and have really bogged down the abs paths towards creating good looks especially in transition and I think the defensive effort

they've put together has been exemplary and probably the biggest story of that series for me and why we're at this point where it's a stunning 3-0 series lead for them with the abs one game away from being eliminated. Yeah, I know that's no one saw this coming. I don't think obviously like the series then starts with McCar being out for two games and then McKinnon gets banged up and, you know, isn't himself slash not playing for a good chunk of game three. Like I thought Colorado was the better team in game one. They didn't win. That's fine.

That happens in the playoffs. with that Cleveland Cavaliers coach with the expected wins. You can't say those things, man. It's not in the playoffs. But they cut a one game one, they didn't. So game two, Vegas to me was better.

And like what you talked about, not allowing shots from critical areas. That's where like Vegas to me, it's not as simple as just goal tending, in my opinion. But they've been an elite, elite defensive team all year. And I think in the regular season,

they were second and expected goal. goals against. They were first in net front defense, interslot shots against, also first producing them offensively. So you're winning that differential significantly, which they're also doing in the playoffs. They're the best net front team at both ends in the game. They couldn't get saves.

And that includes from Carter Hart, who wasn't good for a good chunk of the year. And then now he's providing not only like solid capable goaltending, but very good goaltending. and part of it because the golden night, like he's kind of stopping everything that he should stop, perimeter shots, low dangerous stuff. Like none of that's really beating him.

He hasn't been great on shots from right in front of them, from those dangerous areas, but he hasn't had to face many of them. So there you go, right? Recipe for success. And the abs, like they had 12 inter-slot shots in game one, and they've had 11 in the other two games. So I give Vegas a lot of credit.

I give Torx credit for coming in and not trying to do too much. Like this was a team. Look at expected goal differential in the regular season. Colorado was number one. Vegas, I believe, was number two. It couldn't get saved. And so it wasn't like it was broken. Like William Carlson now and the impact he's having.

Mitch Martyr, turns out the guy can play in the playoffs. he's been great for them. So Mark Stone coming back and having a good game. It's, I don't know about you. Like I look at them as a cup favorite right now. Yeah, I think, I mean, listen, I think it's a bit premature putting the carbon over the horse

because as we talked about for 30 minutes about HAB's hurricanes, I don't think there's any foregone conclusions at this point. But a potential matchup between the Golden Knights and the hurricanes would be really interesting. I think it would be quite a test for everything we just discussed about the hurricanes, having more dimensions to their game offensively, because if they play that series the way they used to in previous post seasons, I would view it as a nightmare matchup because a lot of the stuff they would settle for, the Golden Knights are actively trying to beat you into doing.

And then a lot of the defensive mishaps in terms of broken plays and odd man rushes against that we saw the Canadians punish them with in game one. The Golden Knights have been doing that kind of to the abs in this series. and so it would play right into their hands, but still a lot of work to be done for both sides. I do think, you know, the shots of the abs are generating, it's been interesting. There's an element of McCarmus is the first two games,

and he's so vital for getting the puck to a guy like McKinnon where he wants it and being able to do those neutral zone regroups and attack downhill and attack and transition and just beat guys up high in the zone to create space for others as well. And so they're missing him for a couple of games, games comes back, played a lot and did as well as he could, but was struggling with handling the puck and clearly wasn't himself in that game three. And then they lose McKinnon and that taps a lot of the other stuff they had going for them. But I've been shocked how those games

have played out more so than the three nothing score. Like I picked the abs going to that series. I thought they should have been the favorite to win the Stanley Cup outright. So it's stunning to see them down three nothing. But I think in particular what the Golden Knights have done to them to take away those rush looks and then a lot of those seam passes that a guy like Natchez really relies on have not been available and so to your point a lot of the shots are generating

are ones from either the peripheries of the zone or they're very straight line stuff without east-west movement into the slot that makes it a lot easier for a goalie to line up and save and that's been the most surprising part to me in these three three games yeah

like so there's a I think the ripple effect too of like how much better just Tave's Devon Tave's look with McCar in the lineup. Like he's a little more free maybe to play the way that he wants to play. So it's like you got McCar who's not himself, but you've got Taves without him

who didn't really look like himself either. McKinnon, I mean, even when he came over the boards and the power play and all that late in the game with the extra attacker, like he couldn't, Nathan McKinnon at full capacity probably goes in at least battles for that, loose puck in the corner that ends up going down the ice for the empty net goal. Like he couldn't do it.

So he's extremely limited and we'll see what happens in terms of availability and all that. But what's the series if those two guys are there? Like you can do the ifs and bots about it. I'm sure they're in a better spot. And NACIS, like that's an interesting one too that you bring him up because I very much agree where a lot of what makes him successful in the way that he wants. to play, which is with speed up the ice and laterally in the offensive zone and

being creative and doing all those, you know, things that make him great. Vegas is the exact team that can probably of any team take a lot of that away. And I don't feel he's been as effective as you want him to be

or he has been. So that's been a challenge there as well. And now, you know, never say never. Like if McKinnon and McCar, were magically healthy, I still wouldn't count Colorado out down 3-0 to anybody. It's just, man, you're right about McCar. Like, he doesn't quite look like himself, which he's still incredible.

But that's a tough task. Well, you mentioned that Jordan Stalstad earlier about the number of slot shots or chances he's had that having at the net. I imagine Brock Nelson is close there because by my county's had a ton of chances and has just missed the mark, unfortunately. And, you know, on one of them, the most recent one in game three, it's the post, of course, on the breakaway, but just has not converted to his usual standards

and really all postseason after a really strong goal-scoring season in the regular season. So, yeah, there's been a ton of issues, and it's been pretty jarring to watch. You got any on the way out here, because we got about 10 more minutes left, any sort of playoff trends, just in general, taking a bigger picture view of this year's postseason,

because we got into this a little bit the last time I had you on, and it was just one round worth. So we didn't have that much to work with, but I remember we spoke a little bit about, you know, rush chances in the postseason. Just stuff that's working or isn't working for teams or kind of takeaways because, of course, the previous couple post seasons,

everyone watched the success the Panthers had, whether it was, you know, those hard rims into the zone and then pinching down with their defenders on the weak side, some of the stuff they were doing off of faceoffs and broken plays and teams tried to incorporate that stuff. in terms of the copycat league or anything you're seeing that's going to become sort of the big talking point coming out of this year's postseason

with obviously some big games still yet to come. I haven't gone super deep on that, to be honest. I'm covering these games here in Montreal and I'm kind of half looking at the draft as well, which is less than a month away or a month away. In terms of overall trends and all that, usually is the kind of conference finals and the cup final go,

You get into like even more pronounced chip and chase, battles, space being taken away, less rush, all the things that kind of playoffs versus regular season, but it becomes more pronounced. I haven't really noticed too much of that so far in these conference finals, which again, it's a pretty small sample still. But, you know, there's still teams that are getting, you know, enough looks and quality looks off the rush. You know, dumping rates and those kind of things aren't soaring up super high. I again chalk that up a lot to small sample and we'll see where we go and obviously you're seeing who's left but like Colorado's not a dump and chase team even Carolina isn't really anymore certainly not as much as they used to be not as much as even Montreal is so it's a little bit of who you get to but

I haven't really gone as deep as I haven't passed years of kind of trying to drill down specific trends that way yeah I wouldn't classify Vegas as such either obviously see like with their bottom six, particularly the fourth line, like they're going to dump it in as soon as they cross the red line, but otherwise atop the lineup, like they are trying to carry it an attack with purpose in transition. And it feels like these teams are gravitating more and more that way. I think the other thing is like the importance of,

and the theme of today's show has maybe been the concept of scoring chances and shot quality. And as you could argue that this has been the case for a while, thinking back to those Hurricanes Panthers series of previous post, seasons, but it really feels like this year particularly, like, I can't think of too many goals where, you know, like there's the Eichol one, which is a scoring chance, but I'm sure Scott Wedgwood feels like he needs to have a better angle on that and probably should stop that regardless of the shooter and the positioning. But in general, like, those are the types of goals, which I would classify

as the worst ones. And you think back to post seasons from, from another era where it really was kind of just like hoping for bounces in front of the net or wild shots that were getting by goalies through traffic and there isn't really that much of that almost this year's version is like that's fetching a call overtime winner which is I guess not a great A but Aho's right in front of Dobesh and it's a first line forward shooting from just above the dots so it's not necessarily a terrible perimeter shot is just not a great A but that's what a low percentage shot in today's game almost looks like yeah like that's not a bad shot to take right um the reasons that you mentioned, even though it's from farther out.

That's true. Dobish has played more than anybody. He's played a lot, obviously, in the playoffs. So every kind of goal against or whatever is going to be more than anyone because of the volume of it. But screenshots, even say percentage-wise, he's been like okay. It's 12 screenshots that have beat him. Anderson, just in contrast, again, has faced far, far fewer.

But his say percent, he's only let in one, I believe, of the top of my head save percentage well over 950 on that. But yeah, I wouldn't say that's a bad shot at all. And like you can bring up the whole goaltending

philosophy where like some teams, I guess Carolina's one of them, would think we've got a few guys we trust and we're not going to spend giant amount of money on the position because it's so volatile. And we think we can build a good enough team

and have good enough goaltending to win. And Montreal's got Dobish who is kind of a little, like he's had spurts, but he's a young goalie who's kind of come a little bit out of nowhere to be this good, this season. And then you've got all these other guys, Hellebuck, Vasselowski, Seroke and Shisterc and go down the list who aren't here. So that, and I like talking to people that, you know, are kind of in the analytic space or look at the game in the way that we might, what their belief is on how. to allocate dollars to the position, again, given just how kind of big of a crapshoot it can be with so many different goalies. Yeah, I'm moving more and more towards the idea that all you really need or want is a goalie who's going to make the stops they probably should.

And the rest is going to be incumbent on your team's defense, preventing all the other stuff or at least limiting the damage there. And that's probably going to be good enough now. It's easier said than done because you need a bunch of good players to control that defensive environment the way a team like Vegas has, but that seems like a much more sustainable path towards success this time of year in terms of actually dictating the quality of those looks are given up and how many you're creating as a differential as opposed to just relying on one player at that position to do all the heavy lifting.

Yeah. Well, I think obviously where teams can get into trouble is when you start giving the kind of mid-range goalies term and big money and all that. like the top guys are the top guys and I'll still take a Vasi or Shisterkin or whatever if you can get them but you can always find guys in that kind of $2 million range that the other big thing too

and this would be just fun as like a bigger project to do it's just how a goalie fits within the system of play your team has and the type of shots that your team gives up. I know there's teams that very much view what they're looking for through that length. I think it's an undervalued lens and one that, you know, teams can,

teams can separate themselves from others by understanding it and doing it well. Yeah, and whenever I have Woodley on, he talks about that a lot. I guess one of the issues you're going to with the lack of longevity at the coaching position is when you make that sort of a fit and commit to that player and then change your coach potentially because you're not getting results. And then a different coach comes in and maybe change. changes the variables in front of them and then you're sort of stuck in a previous era of what your team should look like. But yeah, that's a fun conversation.

We can pick that up later. I'll let you go here and I'll let you plug some stuff on the way. I'll let the listeners know where they can check you out and what you've been working on lately. Yeah, thanks. Just on X, Mike Kelly, NHL, in Montreal the next couple days for the HABS and hurricanes. And, you know, maybe a game six if it does come back here. but other than that, just, you know, keeping dialed into things. And the draft will be here before we know it.

So excited to do that for the NHL network as well. All right, buddy. We'll keep up the great work. Enjoy the rest of that East Final. And I'm sure once we get into the Stanley Cup final, we'll have you back on and we'll break that down. Then if you enjoy today's show, give us a five-star. Wherever you listen, subscribe to the PDOCast Patreon as well.

As I said, we did a big West Final show with Steve Peters on Monday. So you can check that out there. That is all from us for today. Thank you for listening to the Hockey, Ocast, streaming, on the Sportsnet Radio Network.