The Hockey PDOcast - We Are So Back, so Let’s Catch Up on What Happened While We Were Gone

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by John Matisz to catch up on all of the top stories from around the league that we missed while we were on break. Topics include the Canadiens winning streak, Logan Thompson's stats, players like Byfield and Jason Robertson getting going, the Wild Card races, and the Hart Trophy battle at the midseason point. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy John Mattis John. What's going on, man? Not a whole lot. It's been a while, both for us chatting on this fine podcast of yours, but also, hey, it's the first episode back in a while.

So welcome back. It's very exciting. I know the listeners are very excited for us to be back. It felt good just saying the opening. line there. I, you know, gotten so used to say and then taking 10 days off or whatever I did. Apologize to everyone for that extended time off. I got back on Monday morning and then I spent the past three days essentially just sitting in the wherewood tree like the three-eyed raven and Game of Thrones just absorbing every single thing that happened. I tried to watch it all back,

consume as much as I could just to kind of catch up and get ready for this. And yeah, I'd say honestly the amount of hockey that I've watched in the past 72 hours is truly. sick even for my usual standard. So hopefully we'll be able to catch up on all of it. I thought it'd be fun this being our first show back and having you on and you obviously cover the league as a whole for the score.

And I know that this is a bit of an organic plug for you right off the top. You're going to have a big article with kind of quick tidbits on all 32 teams coming out that you wrote up. So I thought it'd be fun to bounce around, try to kind of play catch up a little bit on all the big stories that happened while

we were away, what caught our eyes, all of that fun stuff. So that's what we're going to do here today. I'll give you the floor here first, John. You open it up with what you think is the big story that's happened here over the past week to 10 days or kind of what's really caught your eye the most out of anything. Ooh, I don't know about like the biggest story, but for some reason in doing this exercise and basically just to bring people into

where my head's at is I just thought, hey, it's the midway point of the season. Today, Thursday is officially the midway point. Hey, why don't I just kind of bounce around the way? league and do one quick thought per team. And for some reason, the stars in terms of like starting the show jump off the page because I feel like they're that top tier cup contender that no one's really paying attention to right now. And that's, I think, deservedly so in a way where it's like, okay, they have the eighth

best points percentage, nothing too phenomenal about that. And, you know, Miro Heskin and Jason Robertson and Rupert Hintz and Y. Johnston, they've all had their tough stretches this year. and there's no guy on the team, aside for maybe Matt Douchain where you go, oh, he's killing it this year. Like he's been a real game changer or game breaker. So their third in the division, despite, you know, their main guys not quite hitting their potential. And then, you know, the right side of their blue line is questionable.

But I feel like both of those things can be figured out. I mean, the roster holes can be figured out before the deadline, especially with all that space created by, say, and going on LTIR. And I just feel like I believe in this core so much that they'll figure it out individually and then obviously as a group. So when I take a step back and look at the league, I feel like the stars are that one team that they're in a playoff position.

They're perfectly fine and secure. But like I'm still waiting for them to really like wake up and really give us their game. And that's totally fine, I think, right? After back-to-back Western Conference finals appearances, it feels like they've been sort of lurking in the shadows a little bit and trying. trying to get healthy. I do think it is notable. They were struggling offensively in particular to manufacture goals after Tyler Saygan went out. And then of

course, most recently Mason Marchman gets hurt as well. But in the five games, all of which they've won since then, they've scored 21 goals. And with some new look forward lines as well, you mentioned Matt Duchet in there. He's kind of been their most consistent and certainly available player this year up front. God knows where they'd be without him. What a godsend he's been, right? They put Wyatt Johnson with him, really get Waijo going and Jamie Ben as well and they've been clicking offensively. And then I think the biggest revelation during this stretch for me has been Jason Robertson looking much more like the player that he was, not even last year, but maybe even dating back to two years

ago. I know that he had the foot surgery in the off season was very slow to come back for a player who already doesn't necessarily have skating as his forte. And when you watch him play with Rupert Hince, it was clear that he was kind of dragging him down with him a little bit and they just couldn't really click or mesh together. The most recent game they play now, take this with a great assault because it was against the New York Rangers. And I think a lot of players find success offensively against them right now. But in that game, Jay Robb had 10 shot attempts.

And that marked his highest individual total all seasons the first time he got to double digits. Two of his highest shot output games this season have come since the new year. And so I think that's really encouraging just to see him sort of involved and initiating offense and at least being in the right spots to actually get some of these looks off where he wasn't previously. And so it's clear that they're just an entirely different team, especially offensively, when that top line is firing on all cylinders. And they have been recently or at least trending in that direction.

And so I think that's incredibly encouraging. There's still a big question for me with the blue line, as you highlighted earlier, and what they're going to do with all this cap space, they've been accruing with Sagan and LTIR. So it's a bit of a TBD there. but yeah, they're eighth in point percentage. When on my last show, right before the break, our pal Thomas Dransson and I were doing our Bear versus boatcase for everyone. We were kind of shocked to see that they were actually 12 in the league at that time.

So this five-game winning streak is all the time into the top 10, and they're kind of lurking, as I said. But I do think just offensively what we're seeing recently from them is really encouraging. Yeah, I'm glad you talked about Robertson because he has really come on here. And I feel like when he broke out with whatever that was, a 40-goal, 100-point season, And like it seemed very well earned. There's a lot of players that will have that one, let's just say Jonathan Huberto comes to mind,

that one season when they just shoot the lights out and the percentages are all wonky. And, you know, you give them credit, but sort of with the caveat, I felt like with Robertson, it seemed fairly real or fairly sustainable. I think because he's such a smart player, that seemed to be the right, you know, direction he was headed. And then he's, you know, stumbled a little bit since then, even though obviously he's still been an impact player. So it's good to see him come back

because I bought a lot of Robertson stock back then and now it's starting to pay off. It is. All right. Any other notes on them or do you want to go to my big story? Yeah, go to yours. The Montreal Canadiens, eight and two in their past 10 games, including a road trip where they went on the road

and they beat the Panthers, the lightning, the Golden Knights, the Aves, the four most recent Stanley Cup champions. They're all the way up to 18, in the league or a tie for 18th in point percentage. There's the wild card race in the east is especially wide open. Now it's a bit of a blessing and a curse because on the one hand, it's been such a mid race like it was last year that it's there for the taking.

And no one has really kind of taken it and ran with it yet. But the problem is that there's so many teams in this glut right now that just leapfrogging them and kind of establishing yourself amongst that is going to be tricky because we know there's going to be so many three point. games when these teams play each other and it's going to be tough to really kind of establish any sort of distance right but you look at the halves they have the same number of points as the sends uh the sends have one game in hand on them there are four points behind the ruins with three games in hand but for me i think the most important development in watching these games and especially

those recent ones on the road is that you can make the argument that for the first time in really years i think at any point under mardi san louis they've shown signs of being a team that understands how to play defense and has established a level of competency at their own end. I think what was most alarming watching them early this year was teams could just get whatever they wanted against them, right?

Like all the metrics certainly portrayed them in a very negative light, but just watching it, they pose no resistance. There was no game plan, execution, cohesion, connectivity, any way you want to describe it amongst the players. And all of a sudden now,

you look in this 10-game stretch, they're giving up only 25 shots a game about 10 high danger chances against per game. Those numbers are incredibly improved from where they were previously. It coincides with the addition of Alexander Carrier, which they made right before the holiday freeze. And we can talk a little bit about that and the impact it's had on their defense pairs. But I think regardless of the results,

and it's nice for them to bank a bunch of wins and get into this race and play meaningful hockey in the second half of the season. But we always talk about how for young sort of rebuilding teams, it's always concerning when you're just not competitive. right when you're just getting the doors blown off of you against good teams and at least in this case we're actually seeing them play legitimate NHL hockey right like they're actually posing a threat to teams they're not just giving up 35 shots and eight or nine goals against the way they did a couple times previously in the season and so i just think watching that from this group i think that's something that you can really kind of hold your hat on as a sign that even if they're not going to keep winning eight out of every ten games they play they are actually trending in the right direction Yeah, I mean, it wasn't that long ago that some people were calling for Martin St. Louis to be on the hot seat maybe a month ago. So things have really turned around. And, you know, they've hit with some of their bets.

Like, let's face it, Cole Calfield, a core piece who's been on the cusp of breaking out for, it seems like forever. You know, he's finally doing it. He's got 22 goals and 40 games. So that's, you know, whatever, 45 goal pace. You've got line A, obviously acquired in a buy low summer trade, you know, kind of. it was kind of a gravy to trade regardless, but he's contributed eight goals and 13 games battling an injury right now, but he'll be fine.

Lane Hudson falls to 62nd in the draft to them in 2022, mostly due to his, you know, small stature and kind of the projectability of him at the NHL level. So far he's proved all the doubters wrong, scoring chance machine, sits atop the leaderboard for rookie points. And, you know, they wanted to play meaningful games down the stretch of the season.

And you use that. phrase there in your little monologue their meaningful games and right now they're doing it's obviously not down the stretch yet we'll see what they do in the next couple of months but they're trending towards that and they went through some growing pains with the defensive system and I feel like

there was a lot of confusion there at the beginning of the season in terms of what St. Louis wanted them to do defensively because there was a lack of structure previously but now they've figured it out at least they've caught lightning in a bottle here I mean it's only 10 games or 15 games or whatever but

it's nice to see because I feel like the Canadians are trying to go about things slightly different than some other franchises where I love that they go out and acquire guys in their 20s who need to change of scenery and put them in sort of the development bubble of St. Louis and Adam Nicholas and guys like that who are on their staff that really go to town on Kirby Doc and Alex Newhook and Patrick Klein. you know, there's a list of about five guys now that they've brought in. And, hey, not all of them are hitting right at this moment, but I think their hit rate's been pretty good. Yeah, the Lane Hudson development in particular is huge for me. We're going on 11 straight games now of the halves, out shooting the opposition with him on the ice of 515 for the year. He's now broken into the positive in 515 goal differential in his minutes,

which I think is incredibly impressive given the state of the team early on, all the minutes that he played with David Savard, the drag down his results and the fact that he's 32nd in the league in 5-on-5 ice time per game for a rookie defenseman. We know how incredibly difficult that is to do and keep your head above water.

He's got 10 points in this 10-game flurry which has him on pace for nearly 60 now for the year. You watch the most recent game against the Canucks and just kind of how in command and in control he was with the puck and how elusive he is and the distribution and all of that and how the game is slowing down. It's really fun to watch.

And you look at the Calder Market now and it's still celebrini than everyone else in terms of the way the odds are priced, but he's kind of quietly leapfrog might be Mitchkov now for second. And in fact, it's really sort of solidified itself as, I guess, a four-player race up top with Celebrini, Hudson, Mitchcov, and then Dustin Wolf, and then a massive gap amongst the field, pretty much. And so, yeah, I think all that's interesting. I mentioned the Carrier edition and how well he's played for them. He's made so much sense as a defense partner with K.

in Gulli, you watch that same Canucks game, and that's one that I really had my eyes on, because it was kind of on an island the other night with a very quiet schedule around the NHL, and Gulli's just throwing his body around with such a beast in that game. That pair has played really well together. Then Hudson, in his minutes with Mike Matheson, look really, really good at five-on-five in terms of all of the underlying metrics. And so all of a sudden, now there's something that kind of build off of and a little bit of stability, and for a team where it looked like they weren't even really practicing early in the year

or hadn't really played together at all based on the way they were communicating and interacting with each other, all of a sudden now it just looks much more like an actual professional on a HL team. And so I think that is very encouraging because I'd argue this is the first stretch of these sorts of games really in the Marty Sandal year era where you could say that and it could be true. Absolutely. And I'm curious for your, you know, a mid-season pick for Calder because I think there's a case for Hudson. I think there's a case for Celebrini. Mitchcoph's kind of faded a little bit, but still

I would entertain someone going to town or going to bat for him. The thing with Celebrini, and I know you've mentioned this on the show before, but what really impresses me is the sort of process that ultimately has led to his points. Like, sport logic

data, and this is from Monday, so it's, you know, slightly dated, but on a per game basis, Celebrini ranks third in the entire NHL and ended in rushes. third in scoring chances off the cycle, fourth in puck battle wins, fourth and controlled entries, and 10th in slot shots.

Like, I know people probably listen to that and go, oh, that's nice or, oh, that's interesting. But like, to put that into context, the guys who are consistently in that many categories and in that many areas of the game are like the Crosby's and the Matthews and the McDavid's. Like, he's already playing at, you know, roughly a superstar level.

And he has very little help in San Francisco. I know they have a couple of pieces there, but like it's not like he's on a contender. So Celebrini has just been, just been like this, this revelation. I know he was hyped to coming in, but like he's way better than I thought he would be. Yeah, I'm right there with you.

I think he's blown me away. I've got a couple other notes on the sharks that we're going to get to maybe later, so I'm going to hold off on that for a little bit. My one final note in the haves, and then we can move on to the next team on your list is, I mentioned the race. If you want to call it that, whether there's a turtle race or however you want to describe it,

For the Eastern Conference Wildcards, there's currently eight teams between 37 and 42 points, and that doesn't include the Sabres who are down at 35 and then the Bruins who have 45 points, but they've played a couple more games than everyone else. So from a points percentage, it's so incredibly packed between essentially eight or nine teams. So I'm incredibly intrigued to see how this plays out for the HAB's. Their upcoming stretch, I mentioned that they've won a bunch of games against really good teams. It does not get any easier. They have a back-to-back against the caps and the stars.

Then they have Utah and Dallas on the road. Then they play Toronto, Tampa Bay, New Jersey, Winnipeg and Minnesota to close out the month at home. So they're going to play some of the best teams in the league. And if they can carry this over, even if the wins don't carry over, but they just keep playing in terms of this process and holding their own at 515. I think that's going to be a very, very encouraging sign, I guess, for them moving forward. All right. Who's next on your list, John?

Yeah, let's keep it in the east and around that sort of bubble area. area. I feel like the lightning, and you mentioned how Dallas is lurking in the shadows. I think the lightning are lurking in the east. They quietly own the NHL's fourth best school differential, and they have games in hand over, you know, multiple teams in their conference. I looked at hockey references strength of schedule metric, which isn't like a perfect, you know, exact science, but it gives you a feel for what they've faced and what they're about to face. And they have a relatively easy second half schedule if you compare their two halves. So that's that's another thing to consider. And the offense is is humming like like no other league high three point seven goals per

game. Andrei Vasilevsky looks like his old self. So it's kind of weird, right? Because it's like the lightning should never surprise you this version of the lightning that won two cups went to three finals. John Cooper's, you know, ever present. You know, Nikita Kutrov. There's all these reasons to pay attention to them. But it feels like. like maybe people have just gotten fatigue with the lightning or just checked out on them because they saw all these players leave in various off seasons. But like, I'm not saying they're like a top tier contender, but they're like not far down there, especially in an east that's, you know, completely up in the air at this point.

Yeah, they went through a bit of a dry stretch offensively through that California trip recently and struggled a little bit. It was very uncharacteristic. But the game they played most recently at home against the Carolina Hurricanes was incredibly fun one and much more like what I'd expect to see from them. And it must be so frustrating from our hurricanes perspective where they've been down this road. It's like they're playing this tight game against this team.

And then in the final minute, the goal that the lightning create to put them over the top and wind up winning was just outrageous and there's almost nothing you can do about it. Right? It's like Gensel rims it around the boards. Kuturov pretty much the only player in the league who do this just scans quickly over his shoulder before the puck comes. He's about to absorb a check and he just spins around and fires a bullet into the middle of the ice.

point corrals at behind them spins around and scores and it was like it wasn't just one sort of incredible individual feat but they stacked it together with those guys and they make it look so routine and i think i saw a lot of people talking about the goal and everyone's focus naturally was on what brayden point did and deservedly so but the past i would highlight that kutrov made is also just why he's so special and so the fact that they have that of their back pocket makes them such an incredibly scary opponent because you know that they're going to be able to manufacture those goals when it matters most. So yeah, I think the lightning are incredibly intriguing.

They have some games to make up. They had a very weird schedule early on. So I'm curious to see how it unfolds for them. You know, something I was thinking about in preparation for this and in catching up because I was just watching so many of these games in a row is like how, um, how wonky the regular season is in the NHL. And I think everyone's sort of familiar with just following your team, the ups and downs and how much randomness there is and how you kind of need to like keep a bit of perspective and take a

step back sometimes because a couple games here or there while they may feel like you know do we're gloom in the moment don't ultimately matter that much and just seeing how some of the results sort of very depending on who you're playing and how anyone can beat anyone and I was thinking about this because I listed off all those teams of the habs beat recently right and the one team they lost to in this stretch was against the Chicago black hawks and the black hawks are 32nd in the league and I would argue the only truly bad team in the league this season right now, right? Like there's certainly been teams that have played really poorly, but you look around and obviously the Predators were 32nd for a while,

and they've had their, you know, errors and calamities and struggles, but they still, I would argue, they're not like the 31st best team in the league on true talent, certainly, and they've had stretches or flashes where they've played better and with UC Sorrows, they're capable of shutting you out, and Stamco's and Barrecha, so I've started to score a bit more recently. The sharks themselves are losing a lot, but I'd argue they've perfected the perfect tank season

where you look in the last 13 games they've played. They've only won a couple of them, but they've only lost one game by more than one goal in that stretch as well. They're essentially playing every single game, very competitively giving Deans a scare, and then ultimately losing and improving their draft stock, and especially when they play Yaroslav Ascarov these days,

and maybe we can talk about Ascarov here quickly, because I had him on my notes. He's so fun to watch. He's so electric and that the athleticism is just off the charts. And he's stacked together some incredibly impressive performances against high-level competition. And so I almost wonder from their perspective, it doesn't even make sense to play him that much

because he's almost too good right now for their motivations. Like I don't, especially with the young players in front of them, you don't want to get bad habits of not trusting the goalie and then allowing that to impact your play and the detrimental effects they can come from that as well. So I don't think they want to play. Alexander Georgi have all the time, but at the same time, like pretty much every time Ascroft is in there,

they have a really good chance of at least getting a point, if not too. And so I'm curious to see what his usage is like moving forward the rest of the season, whether he's just too good and too exciting to take the training wheels off or whether they take a bit of more of a sort of moderate approach, I guess, with his usage. Yeah, they're still going to finish, you know, probably bottom five. Obviously, a lot going to happen in the second half, but, you know, Yeah, and when you're talking about Ascroft, honestly, my mind immediately goes to Barry Trots. And we talked earlier about Carrey a little bit in passing.

So that's a trade that, as of now, Barry Trots has lost. The Ascroft trade probably lost. All those signings in the summer, we spent over $100 million, not going so well when you're third from last in the NHL and points percent, you know, at the midway point. So, yeah, that's not a great look for Trots these days. But, yeah, the Blackhawks, I think, you know, I hadn't even thought about how they're the one truly bad team. And I guess if we're excusing the sabres from the conversation because they should be better. And some nights they do look like, you know, they shouldn't be in the basement of the league. But because, yeah, if you look at the teams available for that sort of discussion of truly bad teams, I mean, San Jose, you already discussed.

They've kind of leapfrogged that at least on the fun level of things. Nashville, you know, on their best nights, they still look pretty good. And then there's Buffalo, the crack in. I mean, the Islanders, you could argue, but they have too much talent to really put them in the Chicago tier. So, yeah, I think that's fair, even though it hadn't really dawned on me that Chicago is the one, you know, real stinker in this league right now. Yeah, just in terms of that sort of traditional definition of, like, young, bad team that just most nights doesn't really have a chance to compete. and on most nights it's just going to get blown out

or really look like they're completely outclassed even when the sharks are losing these days, as I said, they're generally pretty competitive in these one or two goal games and actually have a chance to win. And so that's the differentiation point for me. But the point I was making about the Hawks

is so they beat the Habs. They also beat the Colorado Avalanche. I'd argue those are the two teams. They're the hottest teams of the league here recently and those are their two only real wins over the past nearly month or so. And the reason why I pointed out I sent you this, the NHL put out this combination, I guess, of stats league-wide right now through

the halfway point of the season. And one of them that really stuck out to me was that 76% of games so far this year have been deemed, quote-unquote, close. And the definition of that is essentially it was determined by either one goal or empty netters that followed. And that's the highest mark ever. And so when I mentioned the sort of volatility or variability, I guess, in these results, that's what comes to mind for me, where it does feel like, despite the fact that there's obviously

bad teams and good teams, for the most part, a lot of this stuff, especially on a nightly basis, can vary so much. Yeah, and I mean, I think that that's 76% close game stat relates to a couple of other things. I mean, we've got a 900 say percent of the league wide, the lowest since 2005, 2005, 2006, third lowest in 30 seasons. Like, clearly if the goal. goalies aren't making the saves. There's going to be more goals and more lead changes.

I think also, you know, you brought up earlier the sort of turtle race, tortoise race happening in the east where there's that wild card there. Does anyone want it? So obviously those teams, that group of like six, seven teams are all somewhat around the same quality if they're all scratching and clawing for this last spot. So I imagine those teams have a lot to do with it where, you know, you're in a divisional game. and it just goes back and forth, back and forth, and ends up being a one-goal game. And I don't know, I guess it also speaks to sort of, I don't know, the shooters in the league.

I think that there's so many one-shot shooters, so many guys who can just turn it on at the drop of a hat and fire a puck past a goalie, that you see these sort of, you know, a 6-3 game turn into a 6-5 game in the final five minutes or whatever the case may be. Well, an interesting thing for the wildcard race in the West is the impact this has had on it. And I noted this in that Bear versus Bull show, but Utah is a team where I think they're 28th in the league in point percentage in one goal games.

They've only won seven of the 19 games or whatever they've played there. And you could argue that's kind of a hallmark of a young team, right, kind of learning how to win those close games. I'd argue there's a bit of randomness or luck certainly involved. And hopefully they figure that out a little bit more in the. second half, but one of the teams they're competing with for that last spot and they're five points behind them now is the Vancouver Canucks. And they're going through this remarkable stretch where in their last 10 games, you could go, okay, glass half full despite all the injuries, they have points in seven of their last 10 games. Like they're getting something out of a majority

of the games they're playing. And then you look and it's like, well, they've lost actually eight of those 10 games. They're just getting into overtime and losing a bunch of them. They're getting at least one point out of it. But it's hardly an impressive feat when you actually. think about what's happening. And so, yeah, it's remarkable, I guess, how small or how thin the margins are and how, what an outsized impact, I guess, that's going to have on making or missing the playoffs and deeming whether your season was a success or not. So I think all that stuff is really interesting.

All right, John, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump back into it. We're going to keep bouncing around and get through a variety of other topics. You're listening to the Hockey, Ocast, streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey P.D.O. cast joined by John Mattis. John, we're bouncing around and trying to catch not only me up, but hopefully the listeners as well and everything that's been happening recently around the league. I think it's your turn. What's next on your list of developments or things that have caught your eye? Yeah, so at the midway point with the Kings, my sort of overall thought on them is that similar to last season, we saw this last season around this point. The Kings are an absolute defensive juggernaut. I mean, They rank first in both actual goals allowed per game and also expected goals against. So, you know, there's kind of no denying.

Like they were the best defensive team at hockey. And it's obviously a feather in their cap because usual number one defenseman Drew Doughty is at to play a shift all season due to injury. And Mikey Anderson has continued to stand out on the blue line. This time he's been with Vlad Gavakov. And I just have all the time in the day. for Mikey Anderson and, you know, props to Jim Hiller and his system and obviously the skaters for for buying into it. I think that they deserve the bulk of the credit, but Darcy Kemper's underlying numbers look pretty good too. It's not like he's been been sort of dining out just

on the environment. I think the environment has a lot to do with it, but if you compare him to David Ridditch, the backup there in L.A., it's almost night and day. So props to Kemper, even though, like I said. I think LA is really hum on along defensively because of the system that Jim Hiller has put in place here. It must be incredibly infuriating watching how much effort Pierre Lou Duvah is exerting on a nightly basis though, after what

they saw from him last year. I mean, you watch that game where scores the two goals for the caps, including the overtime winner against the Canucks on Wednesday night, and he's been so good for the capitals this season, obviously an entirely different situation. I'll add to the King's point as well, not only is Drew Dowdy yet to play,

their number two player in terms of Ice Time last year, Matt Roy, who's a really good defenseman speaking of the Capitals, is also not on the team. And they didn't really replace them, right? They brought in Joel Edmondson, but a lot of it has been internal and guys just taking on bigger roles. And they've continued these defensive metrics. They're up to fifth in the league in point percentage now,

which is incredibly impressive. Yeah, what I'll say about that is with each passing day and each passing victory, all it does is more firmly solidify an inevitable round one meeting with the Edmonton Oilers for the fourth straight season. because the biggest goal of the Knights themselves have gone 13 and 2 since the start of December and are up six points now in the Pacific Division. And so I think that's something to monitor in terms of playing well and getting these results and yet still just facing this inevitable path to a round one meeting against the Oilers.

I watched, and this was on December 28th. So it was a while ago now, but for me, it feels like it happened recently because I literally watched it yesterday. I watched the full Kings Oilers game from that night. And I will say that in watching that, the game Byfield put together is essentially the full thesis of what the Kings could be. It's just a scintillating individual effort, right? He plays nearly 21 minutes, five shots on goal,

three points, including the overtime winner, a couple of just like beautiful individual skill plays that only really he and a few others can do at that size in the league. And that's why he's such a special player, or special talent, and he hasn't done that enough this year. But recently, after, like, he didn't score his first goal until game 14 this season. He only had three goals in his first 30 games. He's got six in his past nine now.

And they've stumbled upon something playing on this line with Fogel and Genoa. I know Trevor Moore's played there a little bit, but this kind of size speed combo and just playing with force, they've been outscored teams 11 to 1 in their whatever, 120 minutes. They've played together as that line. And so they've stumbled upon something. there and now it's going to be kind of imperative for byfield to essentially just keep doing this. But the elevation of him, Turcotte, Laferrier, at least there are a few young players now

who have taken legitimate strides offensively recently. And so that would be an encouraging selling point for me. But yeah, like I said, this team is still 32nd in the league. You mentioned the defensive metrics. They're 30 second in the league in terms of slot shots generated themselves. And so that's going to be a really kind of difficult thing, I think, to overcome in a playoff series against a team like the Oilers that's going to generate those at will, regardless of how well you play defensively against them.

It is crazy to say about such a young player, but I really do believe that Byfield is the key to unlocking something for the Kings offensively. Like if you take him out of the equation, there's just not enough juice there, not enough guys who can really fill the back of the net. I mean, you've got Adrian Kempe, okay? Kopitar, but he's more of a distributor and the defensive conscience of the team. and then like you look at the rest of the forward group and you go, who's scoring goals here?

And yeah, Turcotte's a good story. Fogel, good story, Laferreier. But like Fiala doesn't produce like he used to back in the day. Genoa was obviously just sort of just went on a hot streak in Nashville and hasn't really replicated that. So if Bifil's not doing it, I feel like the offense goes from, you know, when he is doing it, it's like, I don't know, maybe average. It plummetes all the way down to like a bottom five offense.

And it's crazy to say that about one player, let alone such a young player. Yeah. I mentioned the Capitals there a couple times, right, with Pierlupeau and with Matt Roy, and I've got Capitals brain. So let's stick with that theme. I want to talk about Logan Thompson a little bit because I tweeted this stat where he started 21 games this year. So 42 possible points that they could accrue in that time. The Capitals have gotten 36 of those 42 in his starts.

He has a 9-19 save percentage. His goal save above expected prior to Monday night's game against a kind of was plus 15 for the season. And I imagine he added at least a couple to that total because he was incredibly good in that game. And in watching it and then watching the Colorado Ravlanch, and I don't want to talk too much about Blackwood here because I'm going to do a full app show soon here to close out the week. But I feel like those are probably the two best Canadian goalies going right now in terms of just pure form this season, especially recently. And neither of them are actually in the team.

It might not matter because the skater talent is so immense on that team. but man, Logan Thompson has been so good this year. And it's interesting that the Capitals clearly made a concerted effort after how last year ended, where they just kind of played the wheels off of Charlie Lingren down the stretch just to make the playoffs. They wanted to really go with a 1A, 1B pure timeshare in terms of alternating starts. And you look in pretty much, I think the entire way, but especially recently, one guy plays one night next game no matter what, whether it's a back-to-back or how well they played or what happened. the other guy gets the start.

And they've been rotating them. Logan Thompson has 21 starts. Charlie Ingram is 20. I imagine Lingren will probably get the next one to even that up again and they're going to keep going back and forth. I'm curious to see once we get into the later stages of the season, it might not matter because the capitals will build themselves a little bit of a cushion here. But in the games, when they start to matter the most,

I'm curious to see how that goes because I love Lingren's game and he was so good last year. But the way Thompson has been playing this year, he's made a very, very strong case that it should be his net. Yeah, on the Four Nations front in Canada, like I had time for the whole, okay, we're going to take Aiden Hill and Jordan Bennington because they've gone on cup runs, they've been in the big moments. Like, I'm fine with that when you have just a glut of like average goalies. Okay, sure. So that's two spots. But the Montembo pick, even though he, you know, obviously has shown potential and like it's not like it's a garbage pick, I thought that it would have made more sense to use that one on sort of a hot goalie, the guy who's come out of the gate and really shown that he should be.

part of that that trio but they went with sort of like i don't know if you want to call montemboa project but they sort of went with like the flyer um so anyways i thought that was a little strange and you know that that's not in hindsight at the time thompson was doing almost as well as he is now like he was already at the top of the list in terms of canadian goalies and their underlying numbers and whatnot um but yeah i mean everything that the capitals have touched in recent memory has turned into gold like if you think about you know you brought up doing Blonde passing. Has it been, you know, is he back to, you know, the peak of his powers? No, but he's, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a good hockey player again. Jacob Chikrin's fit in well, you know, Logan Thompson, internal growth from Connor McMichael, Prudis, Spencer Carberry seems to be pushing all the right buttons. Alex Ovechkin, making a mockery of the gold chase at this point. Like, it's kind of wild, especially when you, when you also toss in that, this team that's either retooling or contending, whatever they end up being.

They had six prospects at the world juniors, including the MVP, Ryan Leonard, and including the leading score, Cole Hudson. It's like everything's coming up capitals right now, and that will come to an end at some point. But I mean, it's kind of undeniable how strong their, I guess, evaluation was of certain players on the market in the offseason. And they threw caution to the wind and made some trades. And at the time, some of them you went, okay, I could see. that working out. Some of them you went, it's probably 50-50. So yeah, we'll see how this all unfolds. But I was actually in Buffalo when Washington was there about a week ago. And there's something about

this Caps team. Like I don't want to get too like kind of cliche or too old school. But it seems like they have some sort of magic touch in that room right now. I don't know if it's, hey, they have a lot of guys in their 20s and they all get along, like just as simple as that. Like it's a good place to work right now, but like between Carberry and sort of his vibe and the Lindgren and Thompson, I guess, romance, if you will, where they're not jealous of each other or just, you know, just a multiple guys on the team. It just seemed like everyone's having the time of their life and why wouldn't you when you're winning? But it seemed almost next level. I give a lot of that credit to Spencer Carberry and the market obviously does because of the

record he's a runaway favorite for the Jack Adams right now. But I think integrating this many new players, especially whether you want to call them veterans or established NHL players coming from different teams, it can be incredibly difficult to do that on the fly in an offseason, especially figuring out the ice time and everyone's role and how you want to play and changing the team so fundamentally in terms of playing style. And they've done that. And I've noted how on the odd occasion where they have a stinker, they play poorly or not up to their standard, watch their bounce back games after that, and how they immediately write

that. And that speaks to me a lot about the preparation and the coaching. and how he just is pushing all the right buttons, pulling all the right strings. Any way you want to describe it, I think he's done a phenomenal job, and he clearly used watch these games. He carries himself with a certain air of swagger behind the bench as well, and I think that is rubbing off on the team as well. So I think there's just so much to like with them right now.

I know you kind of listed everyone off there in passing, but how dare you just mention Alexi Protis in passing without actually properly stopping and acknowledging what an animal he is? I mean, on that overtime winner by Dubois, I thought I'm the biggest Alexi Proto's fan. and wanted to be around him. And then you look at the way that Canucks Plate him, and they sent all three guys behind the net

and into the corner to chase him out of a sign of respect for what a threat he is. And all of a sudden, it leaves an entire offensive zone open for purely to Water Coast and score. And so obviously a bit of a defensive breakdown there or laps in judgment. But man, pro to us right now, just look at the gravity he has on the ice is otherworldly.

Well, I'm here to report as a PDO cast correspondent that he's a gentleman. He's got a firm handshake. talk to him in Buffalo and I wasn't sure, you know, what was his English going to be like and whatnot, but it's one of those things too where like there's a bunch of guys in the league that are like six, five and bigger, just like massive dudes. But some of them have sort of slight builds.

Protis is an absolute mass of human being. And I'm sure that's noticeable on TV, but like it's kind of like Matthew Nyes in Toronto. Like you shake his hand and it just completely like takes over your hand and he's just got this big bear paw. Like Protis is not only a big dude. He's a large dude. we need the official handshake rankings from you all the hands you've shaken and how you feel about it

and what that says about the players' strength and also persona and aura all right what's next on your list because I believe that Logan Thompson in the capitals was mine so I think you're on deck here oh boy let me think here um do you want to do Utah I know you wanted to talk about them a little bit I sort of put that on the back burner just because I feel like I've spoken so much about them and they haven't been playing necessarily glowing hockey recently, but I'll let you have them here.

Yeah, let me just rattle off a couple of notes. Like, the one thing that I was not shocked by, but like sort of like taking a back by when doing this, this midseason check-in is that Utah has a serious lack of discipline issue, like league leading 10.7 penalty minutes per game. And, you know, they have a decent penalty kill. It's 13, so they're not getting absolutely rushed short-handed. but like they have they've been short-handed for 55 minutes more than they've been on the power play and that's just putting you behind the eight ball to a pretty large degree when you've only played

whatever 40 games like that's more than a minute a game that's rough so that that when I couple it with like so much promise um between I love that they've really found pairs in terms of up front in the top six with Cooley and Gunther and then obviously Schmoltz and And, and Keller, I've been together for a while. But, like, I feel like they've really found something long term there with those four. And not every team that's coming up through the standings can say that. So that's something that also jumped off the page. And then, like, I think we have to give them props, even though, like you said, like, it hasn't been the perfect season, bit of a roller coaster.

But I think we have to give them props for how well the blue lines fared without Dersey and Marino. Like, Circa Chavs had a really good season. But even other guys on that blue line, like, for a team that doesn't exactly have. all of its pieces together to be a contender. The fact that they had two top four, at very least top five guys out of their blue line for this long

is quite impressive. Yeah, we talked a lot about the Eastern Conference Wildcar race. The West one obviously doesn't have the same volume of teams, but the Canucks are up five points on the Utah Hockey Club now. They're only up one point on the Calgary Flames. And in watching that most recent Flames game against the Ducks, it was devastating seeing

Connor's area get hurt. it sounds like it's going to be a pretty serious knee injury because I thought he was just so fun to watch this year and the strides he had taken as a playmaker had been off the charts so hopefully he can come back soon but I know you wrote about Dustin Wolf as an unsung player as well recently and we spoke in a bunch of bottom here but I did just want to reiterate that when he's in net I mentioned that stat about Logan Thompson

it's not quite to those levels but the flames are playing at about a hundred and ten point pace in Dustin Wolfe starts this season and so he's been remarkably good and he's gives them a chance every single night. They struggle certainly to manufacture goals and not having Zary is not going to help with that. But the flames are right there as well through halfway through the season. Do I talk a little bit of the Red Wings? Because we've gotten to see about what, five or six games now since the coaching change.

And the Todd McClellan era starting, it obviously started about as poorly as you could possibly have where they go down five nothing in the first two periods against the Leafs. Since then they've rattled off five stray wins though. and they're firmly in that glut of Eastern Conference wildcard teams. Our pal, Sean Shapiro, has written about this on his substack, and I'd recommend checking it out because it's very in-depth and I think very interesting to look at. I'd say the biggest fundamental change we've seen from the Red Wings has been on the PK so far under Todd McLaughlin,

and maybe that shouldn't be a surprise, a defensive advancement or improvement, has been what he's brought to the table in such a short period of time. Under Derek Lal, they were 31st in the league. They were giving up nearly 12 goals against per hour on the Pek. to put that into perspective, the Jets are the only team that scores more often

on their own power plays. So it was a catastrophic short-handed unit. They've only given up four short-handed goals in 27 minutes in those six games under Todd McClellan.

They've kind of shifted to a bit more of a passive diamond not to get two in the weeds here, but in reading all the comments on the players, they certainly seem to be appreciating at and enjoying. The coaching changed

quite a bit as a result of it. So I'm not sure anything has fundamentally changed here for the Red Wings other than Patrick Kane finally scored. a few goals, including a dramatic what an overtime against Ottawa senators, so that

certainly helps, but you look beneath the hood and the 5-1-5 offensive generation is still a massive concern, hasn't really improved. A lot of the struggling players that are dragging the results down are the veteran players like Teresenko and Comfer that Steve Eisenman went out and spent

money on in the free agent market to bring in, and they have not helped out or returned the favor. And so I'm not sure if anything has really changed here, but at least they've salvage their season a little bit with the coaching change and the immediate bump that ensued because they won these five straight games and they're in the thick of this race

and so I guess mission accomplished in terms of what they were striving for and what they got from it at least with the early returns. Yeah, I find them to be a very difficult team to get a handle on as far as, okay, they look rejuvenated under Todd McLullen 5-1-0, two weeks into his tenure, but it's like

it's not like McLohen showed up with a couple of you know, goal scoring forwards and a couple of top four defensemen and they were on their way. Like it's the same group that he's got to deal with. And it remains a very blah lineup top to bottom. But hey, like it's one of those things where, you know, has he unlocked something with this group? Like had they been underperforming, underachieving?

Or is this new coach magic and it'll fade away? Like you look at Boston, that's actually a pretty good comparable where it's like Joe Sacko comes in. Boom, new coach bump, you know, whatever, five, ten games. later, they're back to reality because the roster's pretty flawed. And yeah, so I wonder what's going on with the Red Wings on that front. It's just hard to like really buy

into it when you look at the roster and aren't too excited. Well, they've got Chicago, Seattle, and San Jose is their next three games before a tough road trip. So a chance here to get a few more points at least. We've got time for one more. Do you, at the end of the season, because I know you do vote for the awards, you vote for the

hard as well, right? Yep, yep. where are you leaning right now at the halfway point? Caprizov, but with dry sidel, like just a tick below him and, you know, the long and I guess the short version of Cabrizov's candidacy is that he has far less to play with than most others in the conversation, whether it's, you know, McKinnon or, you know, even Marner if you want to go kind of with a dark horse, you know, Matt Boldy is probably the second best player on the wild, you know, maybe Brock Faber or whatever, but, and I love Matt Boldie, but he's certainly not a Rantinen or a car in the instance of McKinnon.

And then obviously, dry-sidal has McDavid there, which always complicates things. But so anyways, Caprizo, like the amount of impact he has in all three zones, the amount that he plays, the points he's producing, the sort of clutch ability that he has,

just, you know, the tour to force that he's had, this season. Like it puts him at the top of the list. The injury recently, obviously, you know, you start to question, okay, is someone going to jump ahead here? And I don't think it's quite to that level. But Drysidal is right there and like leads to the league and goals.

Nine of them are game winners, which is wild, 29 goals, nine game winners. He's second in primary points, second in total points. So he's just right up there in terms of producing across the league. His underlying numbers defensively are terrific. like dry sidels arguably powering Eminton's offense more than McDavid and he's doing it alongside Victor Arvardson and Vett Cooley, uh,

Basilipod Colson. Yeah. So anyways, I like, I, if, if you removed, if, say if, say if McDavid was injured for longer than whatever it was four games, say it was 15 games, I'd probably, you know, inch dry saddle up there in the top spot. But I just feel like, when McDavid's there and it's really hard to dice up the value,

even though I think that Dry Settle's done such a fantastic job. So anyways, at the midseason, I'm like kind of confused, but I'm sort of parting with Caprizo for now with Dry Settle just right there. Yeah, I think that's fair. Caprizo's obviously been unbelievable this season. He's been since the last six games, five of which, ironically, the Wild have won, despite other mounting injuries. You look at the blue line, death chart right now with some of those injuries. and it's remarkable they have found ways to keep winning.

It's interesting, the market actually has Connor McDavid as the current slight favorite, although it's a functional three-way tie between McDavid-Capervynne. I would argue, and I have argued, and I stay steadfast in this, that the most impactful player this year has been Leon, Tim, Drysidal, and you can still get him at if this is something you're interested in, about six to one or so, because he's got, let me let us have a couple of stats for you. So he's got the company leading goals, which you mentioned, with 29 of them on pace for 60.

59 points in 40 games, which is 121 point base, that's second behind McKinnon. 22 of his 29 goals have come at even strength to go along with the game winners that you mentioned. His efficiency is a shooter. He's shooting 23% this year, and often that's used as a knock in terms of like regression.

He's on a seven-year Odyssey now of being between 18.5 and 23%. He's been shooting over 20% in that seven-year stretch on early 1500 shots. His 5-on-5 on ice metric, tricks. At last check, I believe he's the only player in the league right now that's over 60% share in shots, high danger chances, expected goals, and actual goals scored at 5-1-5. There's guys like Sorrelli, Barkov, Hishier, and Jordan Stahl to come to mind to check some

of those boxes, but fall a bit short in one of those categories. Drey Cytle is above 60% clearing it, and all of them, only 200 of his 660 minutes have actually come with McDavid at 5-15. His top linemates are, as you mentioned, Baud Coles, Arvetson, who came back recently, Caputon, he's played 75 minutes with guys like Connor Brown and Corey Perry, what he's done at both ends and just that gravitational impact he has and creation to go along with obviously leading the league in goals is just has been unparalleled, in my opinion, this season. And so he's already gotten his flowers in terms of that year where he won all the awards

across the board. So it's not like he's necessarily, quote, unquote, do. But I just think objectively looking at it, regardless of the fact that Connor McDavid is on his team. Leandro Seidel, if you're just taking at face value, what's happened through 40 games this year, I think, has been the most impactful player. Like, he's just been outrageously good. So, um, I wanted to shout that out. I will say, though, I'm surprised that Jack Eichael hasn't gotten more love here. And maybe it's just because of the raw point total. And I think people think of Vegas in terms of the contributions from other players and the way they're

built in all of that, but Vegas is first in the league in point percentage. His 35-1-5 points are tied for first in the league. They're up. 43 to 21 in his 5-15 minutes. That offense, which is fourth in the league in goals this year, pretty much entirely funnels to him. I know they have a bunch of various goalscores, but it feels like you watch them play. A lot of it is coming from him carrying the puck

and then attracting attention and setting players up. So he only has one power play goal this year, has a bunch of secondary assists. I get why when you just kind of compare the resumes from a scoring perspective to some of the other league leaders. He's not up there. But I feel like in terms of impact and just watching these games and team success,

which I do think factors into this award. Jack Eichol, I'm a bit surprised that I guess he hasn't really gotten as much traction, I guess, around the league in terms of these names that are bandied about for this award. Yeah, we've talked about it before on the show, but his defensive game is almost night and day

between Buffalo and Vegas, and I know that this isn't his first year in Vegas, but I think that that factor needs to be considered where, like, if you had an opinion about Jack Eichael being a one-dimensional player three, four years ago, like, that's just false now. And yeah, I was just looking up his stat line, 42 assists in 40 games. I mean, that's pretty phenomenal.

And yeah, he's really the engine there, especially because Mark Stone is unreliable as far as his health. And he's played 26 of 40 games. So there's a decent sample there where it's been, it's been Eichl's team. All right, John, we've got to get out of here. This is really fun. I'll let you quickly plug some stuff on the way. I'll let the listeners know about that big piece you have coming out of the score and where they can check you up.

Yeah, so yeah, in the score app on Friday, I'll have that piece up. You know, one quick thought on all 32 teams. And I'd also like to plug, we got a new YouTube hockey show going called Top Shelf. So go to the Score YouTube channel, and I'm on there with three colleagues talking hockey every week, every Tuesday. So thanks for me on, Tim.

Nice to catch up here. Awesome, buddy. This was great. As always, my plugs are get into the P. P.D.O.cast Discord, where all the other loyal Pediocast listeners, are, as I said, off the top apologies for leaving you without a show for so long, but it's great to be back here.

I'm excited to keep it going. Now that we're back. We're getting to regular schedule programming. I've got a bunch of fun shows planned ahead. There was one post in there from a, from a listener named Shea Theodore's missing tooth, which really cracked me up while I was on vacation. It went day, day 386 with LPDOCAST. My family's worried because I've been watching Gustav forcing highlights on repeat for three days.

I'm scratching, quote unquote, teams can't hit their foul. ball on the walls. Shea Theodore is missing tooth. I love you. Your watch has ended. You don't have to count any more days. We're back and we're not leaving anytime soon. So thank you to you and everyone else for supporting the show and for all your love while we were gone. It's great to be back. We'll be back here tomorrow with another episode. Thank you for listening to the Hockey PEOCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.