The Hockey PDOcast - What Auston Matthews Is Doing Well, and What Timo Meier Is Doing Not So Well

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jack Han to talk about how Auston Matthews has been scoring so many goals lately, why Timo Meier has struggled so much in New Jersey and what adjustments he can make to turn things around, and what Andrew Brunette does as a coach to help his teams out offensively. 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 Hockey-Pedocast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich, and joining me as my good buddy, Jack. On Jack, what's going on, man? We're back. We got a lot to talk about. We do. And much better circumstances this time. I feel like last time we were powering through all sorts of unforeseen things. You had the sore throat. You were battling a cold. I remember I was using choppy Wi-Fi. Seattle hotel room and an hour back to a regularly scheduled programming here with ideal recording conditions and hopefully it'll make for a great show.

We're going to do a bunch of different topics. We're going to do some sort of tactical stuff, certainly take some listener questions from a Discord. I think I wanted to focus on two players with you specifically, though, that are having very polar opposite seasons from a production perspective this season. one very good, one very bad. I'll let you hear, it's the holiday season, I'm in a giving mood, I'll let you pick as the guess which one you want to start off with.

Let's start with Austin Matthews because, like, for me, like, obviously he's on pace for 72 goals, which is incredible. But for me, he's just the whole package in terms of being a complete goal score. And I think, you know, you're not going to have developed a kind of skill, that he has, but if you're a young player, if you're a hockey parent, if you're a hockey coach who works with a lot of players, like, I just find Matthews to be such a great player to study because, you know, he does five things at an elite level. If you can do three out of the five, like, you're going to be just fine. So you can kind of pick and choose what parts of

his game that you can kind of adapt for yourself. So yeah, really great player to study. Okay, well, let's let's break all of that down then. He's a player who I really want to do a full breakdown episode going through his clips and everything with Belfry, but he can't do any Leaves players. So we will not be doing him. Unfortunately, this season is part of that, which is why I thought it would be good for you and I to do this here. So you mentioned the goal scoring, and that's obviously the main talking point. 25 goals in 28 games, including 11 in his last seven.

And the crazy part about that is usually when you see inflated numbers like that early in the season, you expect it to be linked to like some crazy shooting percentage, right? Where you're like, all right, well, this certainly won't continue. And then you look and it's a bit high, but it's under 20%, right? Pretty reasonable for a shooter with his talent ability. And it's just crazy. It just speaks to the volume and the quality of shots he generates. And I think what stands out to me and watching him play this year and the numbers back

it up from Sport Logic is the versatility with which he gets his looks, right? I think players certainly have their sort of trademark moves or like primary routes they take to find success in the league, right? Things they do really well that sets them apart and then they go back to that well over and over again. But for him, he's able to get these great A looks from so many different situations, whether it's off the cycle, whether it is, you know, off the forecheck, obviously creating sort of disruptions and possession changes and then attacking that way. And then this year, I think what's really taken him to another level as a goal scorer and an offensive weapon is the rush. And I think that's something you and I have spoken about in the past couple years where when he's not at his best or when he's not really feeling it or maybe he's not at full health, he sort of defers a bit more in terms of the carrying the puck up the ice and attacking the middle off the entry. And he's been doing that a lot more this year. and that's reflected by the rush chances where he's fifth in the league behind just Jack Hughes,

David Pasternak, Jordan Kairu, and Connor Bred. And he's seen a significant update compared to where he was at in that category last year. And I think that's maybe the most interesting part of this for me is his game and the Leaps in general maybe have gotten back to being so much more of a rush team than they were the past couple seasons. Yeah. And again, this is something I think we've talked about in the past, especially last year during the playoffs was that the one thing that shows up in Matthew's game that tells me that maybe he's not feeling his best is again if he's deferring a lot off the rush, if he's dumping the puck in, you know, there's a reason he does that.

And that's because for him to score, he wants to get the puck, give the puck and then get it back, right? That's where he does most of his damage. It's not him carrying it through people necessarily. And it's not him having the puck letting the goalie get square. But when he's deferring too much and not creating enough individual transitional threat, then his effectiveness goes down because he's a little bit easier to defend. He's still not easy to defend, but he's a little bit easier to defend. Yeah, he had 70 rush chances in 73 games last year, which is obviously just under one per game.

He's already at 41 and 28 this season. And that is a massive step up in the Leafs as a whole lead the league in rush chances by a pretty significant margin this season. And that was something that I had lamented in the past where it felt like they kind of gravitate away from that, become much more methodical, tried to slow it down, I think to be more sort of quote unquote playoff ready, I guess, or play a more conservative style of hockey. And then when they got pushed into these game environments where they had to open it up

and push for offense, we'd see them at their very best. And I think that's still been the case this year. But it feels like they're in that situation more often than they have been previous. what do you attribute that to? Just the fact that they've had so many injuries in the blue line, the personnel is a bit different, maybe a bit slower. So they're just not as good defensively as a whole, and they're just having to play that way?

Or do you think it's something by design in terms of them reflecting and then realizing that this is probably how they need to play if they're going to reach their true ceiling as a team? Well, I'm not in that room anymore, so I can't really say it for sure. but the one thing is if you look at their offseason, you know, they brought in Max Domi, they brought in John Klingberg.

So first of all, they brought in people who are maybe a little bit more adept at playing off the rush with which, you know, Domi, that's his calling card. And then also, funny enough,

like for me, on the back end, they got significantly worse. I think Connor Timmons has been a bit of a revelation. I think I like to see more of him. But because they're not as good at controlling, playing, keeping play-up ice in general,

there's actually kind of more of a track meet or more of a back and forth in their games. And, you know, like these star players like Matthews and Nylander and Marner and Tavarrois to maybe a somewhat lesser extent, they like to play in a track meet because then they get to use their hockey sense and their skills, right? Like if you're always playing small areas and these guys are very good in small areas, but if you're always kind of playing a half-court game, you're limited a bit in what you can do. So maybe the Leafs playing a little bit more loosey-goosey is actually a good thing. I've certainly become more bullish on them in the past, I would say, month or so, because for the first 20 games, like their stats were pretty pedestrian,

but now recently, you know, with Klingberg and Reeves out of the lineup, it seems like they're trending up to be more of a top 10 team, which, you know, they've been for the past number of years. But yeah, but let's see ultimately what this approach. which nets them, but it seems like it's starting to pay some dividends. Yeah, I mean, the offensive metrics are off the charts right now. They're second and goals, third and expected goals, first and inner slot shots, first and rush chances.

And that's come with a massive decrease in offensive zone possession time for them and then their own defensive metrics kind of plummeting. And I think that backs up what you're seeing. But I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing because I think that's sort of in a roundabout way going to incentivize them. to go even further in this direction. And I think that's actually a net positive for them with the personnel they have.

So I'm curious to see it. The other thing that's kind of come or coincided with this is them using Willie Nealander with Austin Matthews, right? And I think in particular when they use those two guys and then let's say like a Matthew Nyes on the wing, it just gives them a look with pace that they don't otherwise have. And I think that the reason why Matthews is creating so much more off the rush is kind of tied to this, right?

Where all of a sudden now, while he has a great connection with Marner and Marner's passing and playmaking with Matthews' shot certainly makes a ton of sense and we've seen them put up awesome numbers together offensively in the past, Neelander is like the immediate threat, I guess, that he poses off the rush, right, where it's so imminent and it forces you into this kind of like defensive triage where all of a sudden if you're defending against the Leafs, you have to account for the fact that he can just, he's a threat to, to step in and shoot the puck himself or, or as soon as he receives it, do something with it

as opposed to sort of patiently hanging on to it and wait in a pass and being more one-dimensional. And so all of a sudden now you have to command, he commands extra attention and resources sent his way. And I think that creates this extra shooting window, I guess, off the rush for Matthews to step into and utilize himself. And I think you've seen that on some of these rush goals, right, where it can be Neander carrying the puck, but then all of a sudden he enters the zone, he's got guys on him, he gets it over to Matthews and Matthews just gets this rush chance that he didn't really have

that much of previously. And so I think that's part of why he's getting some of those numbers that I cited a couple minutes ago. Yeah. And even like when I remember when I was working for the Leafs, like there was a lot of internal debate of like, you know, Babcock refusing to use Warner and Matthews together and, you know, which winger is best for, for Matthews. And obviously with the fan base as well, there was a lot of.

noise about, you know, which one is Matthews better with. And for me, like, it's the biggest kind of non-issue because he's amazing with both players. He's just, it's a little bit different, right? Like, Willie, I think what Willie does really want transition is, again, with his ability to be dynamic with the puck between the blue lines, he creates a lot of time for Matthews to get lost. And, you know, Matthews doesn't need, he doesn't need to do as much in terms of carrying the puck because he can just give it to Willie. Willie does his thing and then, you know, gives it back to Matthews and it's a catch and shoot and it's probably a goal.

Whereas Marner, you know, is legitimately a better defensive player, both in terms of his instincts and in terms of, you know, the defensive effort. Legitimately, he's a better in-zone passer in the ozone. But for me, Matthews and Marner work best together when Matthews is really feeling it in terms of carrying the puck. if Matthews is having to chip pucks in, dump pucks in, margarine's not necessarily the best to go and get that puck. And maybe, you know, when Zach Hyman was here,

you know, he would have been the one to go get that puck. Or now maybe we're asking Morgan Riley to do a little bit more in terms of jumping into the rush. So, you know, it depends on, you know, who's informed, who's maybe more healthy or, you know, more confident. But I mean, you know, either winger is fantastic.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's an interesting conversation just because they are stylistically different and it kind of puts them in different spots maybe. But I just like the way they look with, with it being Nielander, at least sort of time being,

because I think it speeds them up and forces them to play this way. And I think that's a much more exciting proposition for me. Any other notes here that you have on Matthews or the leaves before we move on and talk about Timo Meyer. Okay, so I wrote something quick for my paid subscribers last night comparing Matthews to John Tavares, which I think leads us in nicely to Timo Meyer as well, because if you look at just purely the stats that you'll find, let's say on natural statuary, right?

In terms of just the pure like scoring chances as defined by shot location, Matthews and Tavares actually very similar. They get a lot of chances in close. They get a fair, more than a fair number of shots, whether it's five on five on the power play. But yet, you know, we expect Matthews to score more often and he does, right? It's, um, Tavares,

maybe he gets like a 5% more scoring chances individually, but, you know, he's getting outscored like three to one almost by, by Matthews. And there are some things that these models don't capture, and that's normal because they're not supposed to capture everything. But one of the main things that it's missing is in terms of shot distance, once you get too close to the net, and this is something that Darrell has brought up on the PDO cast in the past,

but if you get in too close, it's not good because the goal is right on your face. You can't elevate the puck. Like the pad is right next to the puck. So we see players, let's say, like Tavares or Brendan Gallagher or Brady cut shock, like they get dinged in terms of they're finishing, uh, even though they have, you know, extraordinary, uh, individual scoring chance creation in their primes. And, and that's exactly what Matthews avoids because he doesn't crowd himself. So he's not going to hang out next to net, you know, jamming pucks into the goalies pads. Uh, instead, if you, if you look at his,

his heat maps in terms of where he scores from, he's like at least 10 to 15 feet away. and he's not parked there either, right? He's moving in and out of space so that once he gets into this kind of sweet spot in terms of being close enough but not too close, his stick is not getting disrupted. Like in basketball, we have this idea of a contested shot where, you know,

you might be going up for a three, but then you got the defender's hand in your face literally and your percentage goes down because the shot has been contested. Whereas, you know, the really great ball moving teams, they get the ball to the perimeter quickly, the shot is uncontested, and then the shooter has a much better chance of draining that.

I have a question for you on that. Do you think we're ever going to get to a point, in our lifetimes at least, hopefully, where players are just more consistently scoring regularly from further out? Like, do you think the shooting talent and just the logistics of how hockey's played he's going to get to a point where players are coming into the league and they're just like they're regularly able to score from not even let's say 15 feet out or whatever but even closer not necessarily at the blue line but like just stretching out the offensive zone a little bit because obviously we know that there's a sweet spot there where you don't want to be too close certainly but you also the further you get out the less likely it is to go in and there's been so few players who can consistently just beat goalies from far out right like you're like you're also the further you get out the less likely it is to go in and there's been so few players who can consistently just beat goalies from far out right like you

probably count on one hand the players who were elite shooters from distance and it's the guys that you would think of where it's like a Stamcoast or a Kobolchuk and that's pretty much it, right? Like you thought line A might be that heading into coming into the league for the first couple seasons that it proved more difficult. Do you think that's a realistic possibility or do you think just the limitations of like goalies and equipment and defensive zone structure is always going be a prohibiting factor from allowing offensive players to be efficient for far out. So the only two scenarios

where I see long distance scoring becoming more of a factor is first of all, if we make the goalie's path smaller, then obviously there's going to be more open net. And if you shoot the puck hard enough than the goalie is not going to react in time and his equipment is not going to be there to make this say for him. And the other

thing is if we incentivize long distance scoring by adding kind of like a three point line like the NBA does, which I think is kind of a ridiculous idea. I'm not a fan of that. But if you change the incentive structure, then, of course, we're going to see, you know, more teams prioritizing that. Some reasons that I don't think are going to really move the needle. Like, I don't think shooting technique is going to evolve so much that all of a sudden

people are going to start shooting like 10% harder even. I think stick technology has gotten to a place where it's basically mature. Like if you look at golf clubs, tennis rackets, like anything that's kind of like graphed composite based, I don't think there's that much more juice to be squeezed out of that. A bit of a side note for all the hockey parents out there, there's no reason to buy your kid a $400 stick. A $300 stick is absolutely fine. Maybe you can go $250, $200 even. I know a couple of $150 models that I would happily use on a pond or anything.

like that. If your kid wants to use a $400 stick, tell him to go play Major Junior or in the NHL so that his team can buy. I was going to say, tell him to get a job. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Get a job shooting puck.

And then he can use $400 sticks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, uh, no, it's interesting to think about just because obviously with the way hockey's played, like we've seen it slanted more towards offense and shooters are having more success, right? but it's still pretty defined in terms of certain areas of the ice. And I think it would just be interesting if the offensive zone got stretched out.

And the possibilities of scoring on a regular basis from different areas became viable. And we might, like you watch someone like Connor Bernard coming into the league and not that he's scoring from that far out, but just with the way he's an unpredictability, I guess that he's able to get a shot off, it at least opens a door for different looking scenarios, maybe. than we've been accustomed to. So it's interesting to think about, okay, let's do Tim O'Meyer. I know you wrote about him a bit a couple weeks ago now, but it's only gone worse since then for him.

And Devils fans are increasingly upset about it. And I feel bad because I sold them on Meyer last year, right, during the season when he was still playing for the sharks. I talked a lot on a regular basis about how I love the fit of him on this Devils team. it came to fruition. And since then, things have not gone well. And it feels like they're at their nadir right now. And so I think it's a good opportunity for us to talk a little bit about him,

what we're seeing, what's going wrong, I guess, and what potential fixes are for turning this around. Because whether you like it or not, he's in year one of an eight-year mega deal. And so the only possible scenario here is to figure it out between player and team because there's no other option, really. So let's talk about Meyer and kind of what you're seeing. Okay, well, the first thing is, is that he's been battling some injuries, right?

Like last year, during the playoffs, he very famously got knocked out and then came back late in the series, Wormacage. This year he's had, I think, some lower body injuries. We're not really sure what it is in the public, but he's been kind of in and out of the lineup. So if a player is not healthy, especially a skill player, like you don't really know how that's going to affect their game, but it is going to affect their game. So for me, like before we start kind of full-blown panic, about Timel Meyer is, can we get him healthy?

That's the first thing. If he's not healthy and it's more serious than we think and it's a lingering thing, then of course it's going to impact everything else. So again, like the first caveat is the conversation that we're going to have is rooted in the fact that health is not the main driver. Well, on that note, I've seen it noted. I think it was C.J. Torturo who had it where according to NHL Edge's player tracking data,

he's dropped about 20 percentiles in skating speed from last year to this year. And so that would certainly support the idea that there's some sort of lower body injury probably that is hampering him, right? And in the nine games, he, like, he missed two weeks with injury. He's come back, he's played nine games, he has zero points in those nine games.

And he's clearly not the player that we've been accustomed to seeing, like certainly just does not, is not a representative of all of the player that he was previously in San Jose. And so you're right. I think that's probably like a big point of this conversation. But I think even at full health, like even before this, I guess it just didn't look the way I thought it would or the way I envisioned ideally. And I think that maybe I underestimated the fit in terms of like,

like I just thought that he'd be a perfect player as a compliment for someone like Jack Hughes, right? Like from a size perspective, but also from a getting to the inside. living in the slot and then receiving passes and being the trigger man on that. And what I underestimated maybe was for Meyer to be successful, he's such a straight line player and he has been in his career. And so that requires him to have the puck carry it himself and really sort of just go downhill and barrel towards the net. If he's playing with Jack Hughes or even a Jasper Brat,

you just want those guys to be the puck transporters. You want them to be the primary carriers. And so that means Meyer doesn't have it. And now either he's slowing him down because he's the one carrying it or he doesn't have it and he's not used to those situations. And so I think it's going to force a serious adjustment on his part to make this make sense over the next, over the duration of this contract, basically. Yeah. And between you and I, the perfect player for Jack Hughes is Tyler To Foley. Right.

So the devil's at least got that right. But so if we go back to Timomeyer and we draw parallel to that Tavares, example, right? So Meyer, a straight line player loves to be around the net, you know, historically creates a ton of scoring chances in close, but also off the rush. And he's a kind of guy who a lot of those chances are contested because he's literally going through people, right? Bigger guy, historically a good skater, loves to play off the rush. If you drew a picture, you drew a picture, of a player in the NHL who is not expected to age very well, it would look very much like Tim O'Mire.

Because what happens is if you make your living, you know, taking contested shots and trying to go through people and playing people one-on-one, you know, straight line off the rush, and you lose, never mind 20%, if you lose 5% of your speed, your success rates in those scenarios, they're going to start going down pretty dramatically. So if you're 25 and you are at your physical prime, that's one thing. If you're 27, 29, 31, and you start getting these, you know, kind of bothersome lower body

injuries, you start losing your pace. Now, you know, we're in a bit of trouble. And the thing is, is that even going back to San Jose days, the big knock on Timelmeyer is that he was inconsistent, right? Either he would be taking over games and doing anything single happened. or you wouldn't see him or, you know, he may make some mistakes and come out on the negative side of the ledger. Well, the thing with that is, is that because his physical toolkit was so impressive, maybe Meyer never learned the kind of problem solving strategies to, you know,

break down defenses when he doesn't necessarily have that physical or that speed event, right? And that's why if you go back to Matthews, he's such a unicorn because here's a big guy with a great shot with a good skating stride, but also who has an elite mind and who can break you down in so many different ways. Right. So, you know, if you took, you know, maybe the two or three best assets for Meyer, it's comparable to Matthews, but he just doesn't have that depth of skill or that variety of offensive tools. and that's what happens that caused you to be inconsistent. Which is obviously alarming because he's 27 years old now, right? It's tough to, like players certainly the ones who have longevity, everyone enters a different stage of their career physically and the ones that have longevity are able to adapt and evolve

and adjust their game and find other ways to contribute or kind of workarounds because they can't do the stuff that they had success doing previously. So I don't want to close a door on that as a possibility, but it's clear like that's going to have to happen here. I just didn't really anticipate it happening this quickly, right? Because we'd just seen him like he scored 40 goals last year, 35 the year previously. And now it's obviously a different environment. But he just looks like, I mean, it's just so ineffectual because he looks so uninvolved, right?

Just because he doesn't have the puck, I think, as much as he used to. He's like in these spots where it's very unfamiliar territory for him. And then so when he does get it, it turns into this quick scramble where all of a sudden now he's just trying to compensate for the fact that make up for lost time almost. So he winds up forcing all these low percentage plays or turnovers and killing sequences. And that's very unfortunate because that's actually the opposite of what you'd want to do in this scenario where you're in a different environment. And all of a sudden you have to find ways to adjust. You want him to less is more almost. And instead he's trying to do the exact opposite of that.

And it's leading to these negative results. Yeah, and, you know, once Meyer and the Devils, they get the physical health sorted out, I think the second step is because this is such a long contract and it figures to be a very long collaboration, right? Like if you think about even conservatively, he's got 500 more games as a devil over the next eight years unless, you know, there's a buyout or a trade or whatever. So, you know, maybe there, there is some cause to sort of reevaluate and make some adjustments that will maybe hurt them in the next 50 games, but then, you know, pay dividends in the next 500 games. And certainly the things that are core to Myers game are not going to change, but there's got to be, you know, sort of an acceptance of, okay, well, as I age, this is not going to change. going to be as available to me and I got to find some other solutions and pick my spots a little bit better. And I can't expect myself to score 35 or 40 goals every year. But just because I don't hit those very arbitrary, you know, numbers doesn't mean that I haven't had a good season.

So again, it's part of the maturing process. And it's part of if you're a if you're a, if you're a smart NHL organization, you know, player development is important, certainly for players who are on their way up, but also on their way down because it can go either way, right? Like you can have guys who are aging fantastically like Joe Pavlsky did for so many years, or you can have guys like, you know, Danny Heatley, who just completely fall off after being super dominant in their 20s. So it can go either way for a variety of reasons. but I think this kind of 27 to 32 or 35 window is actually a really neat place to work with if you're in player development because there's so much more value that you can get on these kinds of contracts as long as you have a player who's still involved and still productive.

So what do those adjustments look like then? If you're working with him, like what are you doing to find ways where he's able to. to contribute because you think was still with his with his frame and his hands and everything like you'd think that even if he's not a straight line attacker anymore whether it's boardwork or whether it's stuff below the dots like you'd think there'd still be ways for him to make a difference especially like it's tough right now because he's playing on this line with dawson mercer and alexander holds and he's not on the top unit of power play right and so that's just naturally going to suppress his production and his offensive stats but let's say you get into a scenario

where like last postseason he's playing with Nico Hissier and I really like those guys from a defensive perspective together and they were dominating territorially and in terms of creating chances if you get to that spot, how, what kind of spot do you want to put them into or what are you trying to prioritize to get the most value out of them for the rest of this season? Because I'm with you in terms of like the long-term view

and maybe taking a slight step back to take more steps forward in the future. But despite their start, I still think the devil should be viewing, this season as part of their contention window, right? Like with the players they have, there's certainly things need to go right. And I think there's maybe some moves they're going to make. But this is still a year where it's wide open and they have the top end talent. They should be trying to win a Stanley Cup.

So what do you do to salvage this season for Fetimo Meyer? So for Meyer and his mindset is not unique by any means, but he's a player who likes to do everything quickly. like he's a guy where like you know there's a sports car he gets in mashes the the gas pedal to the floor gets into sixth gear and then tries to figure things out from there right but if you look at him along the boards despite having this power forward reputation like i don't think his board play is is very sophisticated uh certainly not to the same extent of like let's say um like a tavaris or matthews or a crosbie like it's he's pretty easy to pin uh

I don't think his spacing with the puck is all that great. I don't think he uses the cutback enough. I don't think he changes speeds as well as he could. He's a guy who accelerates very well, and his top speed is obviously very good, or at least he used to be very good. But going from like second to third to fourth gear and back down the second,

like that's the kind of area that I think he can be better in. Well, I hope it happens wrong. It's been pretty alarming. like he's still second amongst Devils Fours and 5-on-5 ice time this season on a per game basis and Kevin Ball is outscoring him at 5-on-5 so far. So I think only room for growth and improvement the rest of the way. But I think certainly getting healthy, a little bit of positive regression, and then changing his habits could go a long way here.

Okay, Jack, let's take our break. And then when we come back, we'll finish up. You are listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the first. Sports Night Radio Network. We're back here on the Hocopcadio cast with Jack Hahn as we close out today's show. He's got some time here for some listener questions from the Discord channel. I'm trying to level, get level here. I feel like we've been riding a roller coaster on today's show first doing Austin Matthews

and then Timel Meyer. I can't think of two players having more different seasons in terms of how well they've been playing. Okay, here's a question for you. I know we've spoken. It's been a recurring bit every time we have you on. And trust me for the listeners, it's even more of a bit off the record or when we're not recording because I'm sending Jack texts every time the Predators win a game. And then every time they have a bad performance and lose, he responds. Never responding when they're winning, but always seems to have a good cell service when they lose.

But I got a question here about Andrew Burnett and his teams, first the Panthers, then the Devils, and now the Predators, obviously, the season. and it's about what he does as a coach to help his teams create more rush offense and if it's just having the personnel or if it's something structural in the details that he does. Now, the reason why I think this is interesting is because as high as I've been on the predators this season in terms of their watchability

and how much better I think they've been as a team compared to last year, it actually hasn't really been because of their rush offense. Like I know that's what we what we thought of Brunette in terms of his coaching when he was with the Panthers and then the Devils were obviously so good off the rush last year. But it's been much more of that half-court offense for the Predators this season. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on Brunette and the Predators and sort of what he does

because regardless of how he's doing it, he's clearly developing quite a reputation for himself now as having a positive impact in terms of at least getting more out of his players offensively. And I think that's notable because there's very few coaches that I can think of that we can actually say that about in today's game. So here's the thing for all the NHL coaches listening out there. So in my experience and from what I see in the past years, the biggest single thing that you can do to improve your team's offensive playmaking is to just stop punishing players when they try to make a play and it doesn't work out.

you know, it's different if you have like minor hockey players or junior players who don't really have that skill set. But essentially every single NHL player arrives in the league with a certain skill set of making plays off the rush. And it gradually gets coach out of them because as soon as they screw up, there's some sort of a negative feedback in terms of a benching or a yelling or demotion, whatever. Right. So when you stop doing that, your team's generally, tends to create more offense. Obviously, you give some of that back defensively, but for certain teams with certain personnel, it could be worth a tradeoff. And that's why you see, I think,

Brunette's teams, whether it's Florida, whether it's, you know, New Jersey last year, where he was an assistant, have a lot of success offensively because, you know, when their wingers get a puck in the defensive zone, they're not afraid to lug it out of the zone. Because the, the trickiest situation for winger is when you get a puck and you're not sure whether you should flip it out or chip it out or maybe take a chance and carry it even if you're being pressured. But what happens is once you get going and you take four or five, six strides and you got some speed and maybe you even gain the middle of the ice, all of a sudden the play opens up for you. But that could never happen if you're so panicked that the first reflex is just you want to whack

this puck off the boards and go forecheck. Well, there's an interesting trend developing here where, okay, I'm going to give you some Predators' offensive stats this season. Seventh and interslot shots, 10th and offensive zone possession time, 15th and expected goals. They were 28 last year. They're only 22nd on the rush, as I noted, but their fifth off the cycle, first, forecheck, second rebounds.

Now, I think adding someone like Ryan O'Reilly, as Darrell and I talked about during Philip Forsberg show earlier this week is making a massive difference here, but they are playing differently in the offensive zone in terms of allowing their defensemen in particular to work down the wall and get more involved in some of these passing plays. And they're really utilizing everyone as opposed to playing such a stationary style of attack. And what's interesting here is one of the failures for Burnett at the end of his tenure with the Panthers when they got embarrassed in the playoffs was a lack of offensive. diversity. They were so one and done, and they played right into Tampa Bay's hands,

and they got picked apart, and they had no real answers or recourse for fixing it. Then he went to New Jersey, and they took this massive step last year as a team in terms of diversifying their offensive approach and becoming much more able to stack the other sequences as opposed to just being a rush team. And now this predator's team has made a big stride there as well, while the devil's team he left. I know they had some injuries earlier in this season. but has regressed in that regard a little bit. And so I do think it's an interesting situation to monitor the rest of the season

in terms of his impact and maybe how some of these offensive tendencies are dependent on coaching, I guess. Okay. So when you look at what Nashville is doing, the ozone, it's pretty familiar to me because it's a very similar kind of ozone that I've run with the teams that I've worked for in the past two to three seasons.

The Ds are very active down the wall. and essentially if the puck is outside of the dots and let's say it's a rim puck and it's coming up toward the D. The Ds have permission or they're even encouraged to come down and pinch on that puck or to make a play outside the dots. The forwards, they're concentrated between the dots. So what happens is, you know, you mentioned all the really glowing inner slot and rebound numbers.

What's because the forwards are not being spread out. facing outside the dots, they're either down low or they're in the slot. So you have the defensemen wide. They're kind of like wingbacks, if you will. And then the forwards, they're working together in the middle of the ice that F3 can get really high. But the priority is for the forwards to control that area between the dots. And that's why it's so effective because everybody's skating forward.

Everybody's got like a jump on, you know, retrieving the puck. And also they've pretty much always got good. numbers in the middle where those high danger chances occur. Yeah, that's well said, and I enjoy it. I think it's a good strategy, and I think you're seeing the positive results of it. So I'm curious to see where 30 games in now. I'm curious to see what it looks like in another 30 games. Okay.

Travis asks, is the power play a young man's game? I've always thought of the power play as an area of the game where you could utilize an older, quote unquote, designated hitter type. But after two years of watching the Penguins power play struggle, it's starting to make me wonder if that's the case. And then a follow-up to this from Kendo is the increased pace of the modern game causing teams to underestimate the value of reliable net front guys and the man advantage seems like a lot of the best power plays is someone who's excellent in this role.

So I just lump these two together because they're obviously both with regards to the power plays. how do you feel about that? You can take the one at a time. You can lump them together or you can just pick one to answer. Okay. So let's go with the first question about Crosby and aging. So, you know, both of us, I think we've read a lot of statistical studies over the years. And, you know, we know that hockey is a young man's game.

That players tend to peak between, you know, 23 and 25 offensively. I don't remember seeing anything suggesting. that things are dramatically different on the power play. Maybe players peak a little bit later, but it's still not dramatically later. It might be 27 or 29 instead of 25, but it's certainly by and large players are not peaking their 30s. And certainly, I think on the power play,

there's less room to cover unless you are a designated pod carrier on a drop breakout. But just your ability to accelerate in a small area, your ability to change speed, change direction, react at play. All of those things will erode over time. And I just don't think that 5 on 4 is that different from 5 on 5. And, you know, again, in terms of the studies I've seen, it sounded dramatically different phenomenon.

Yeah, I think it's probably, I mean, considering it's been happening for multiple years now, I'm sure Penguins fans don't want to hear this, but the fact that Crosby is third in the league in 515 points this season and 71st in the power play is a bit of a statistical aberration. You would think that if anything, even if the power play is a young man's game, his particular skill set with his work around the net and his hands and his ability to tip and deflect pucks and kind of dominate in that small area would lend itself to actually squeezing more value out of the power play, if anything, right? but that clearly hasn't been the case. And now there's so many other issues which you and I have spoken about in the past about what the penguins are doing on the power play and issues with that.

So I don't think that's necessarily a Crosby problem. But it is very strange because if anything, if there was a player with a skill set that you think would buck that trend, it would be him. And yet he's the reason why this question came up. Well, like I don't think it's Crosby causing these problems. And in our previous conversation, I think I kind of underestimated how severe the problem is.

And fortunately, it's not my problem. It's Cam Choran's problem. So, you know, hopefully he and his staff figure things. Well, they figure something out. But, yeah, so I think Crosby is going to be fine. The Penguins power play. I don't know. But certainly something's got to change.

What do you think about the net front then? Because I think we've also spoken about how that has evolved as well, right? Where you're not really just getting the biggest guy on the team anymore to just stand in front of the goalie and try to screen them. It's much more dynamic. you're trying to at least like set flash screens and kind of move in and out, pop down to the goal line, make yourself available, at least have some sort of passing ability so you could work that low triangle.

Like there's so many added responsibilities or nuances to play in that position now. But I do think the listener is on to something here where I do think having someone who excels in that role, whether it's as a pure sort of tipper in front or whether it's someone who can facilitate a lot of other actions and sets, is a vital part of the power boy. Maybe not the most vital because I think having players on the flanks who can work that cross-ice action and unlock the ice is more important, obviously,

but it's still one that probably goes, I guess, under-talked about in today's game. For me, the best example of where we are now and where we're headed is Nick Paul with Tampa. So when I was with Toronto, Nick Paul was a player that I saw seemingly on a weekly basis when he played for Belleville in the HL and he wasn't necessarily a player who I thought was going to be like a

surefire NHLer like you know big center two-way play pretty tough had some skills but nothing like that really kind of jumped out to me and he's carved out a really nice niche in Tampa as a middle six center but like he does it all at that goal line slash net front position right like it used to be. Alex Collorn there. Anthony Sirelli's play there a little bit. Corey Perry was there a little bit. Like Nick Paul, he'll take faceoffs on the left side.

He'll screen the goalie. He'll pick up rebounds. He can pop out and be a passing option. He can finish to play in tight. This is the kind of player that we're going toward in this net front or goal line position where he's pretty. much he's pretty much got to be the most versatile player there like he's got to play kind of a hard power forward game but also he's got to have some playmaking touch and some finishing touch and

another example is Mitch marner so when i was with the leifes marner was pretty much permanently a right flank player coming downhill and distributing maybe shooting once in a while but now uh under guiche he's spending a lot more time at the goal line a lot more time in the bumper spot, which were two spots that he was really uncomfortable in and he would really find himself in those positions back when I was there. And it's made him a much more complete player and a much more diversified threat. Yeah. Well, first of all, I think you have to at least pose some level of shooting threat if you want to play on a power of play flank in today's game.

And there's actually a case to be made that maybe your best passer or distributor, should be on the goal line because you'll all of a sudden be able to unlock a lot of different sort of passing options from that position. So interesting to think about, okay, let's end on a positive note here. A fellow Jack asks, which struggling teams right now are you excited to see going forward, say around three years out from now? You've been, as we transition into the end of the show here in the plugs, you've been working away at your latest hockey tactics book.

And when we were speaking off air, I was joking about, because you were saying you had done alphabetically through to Edmonton or whatever. And it feels like a lot of the teams that you've done at the top there are ones who are struggling right now, who are necessarily having good seasons, but probably have more encouraging outlooks for the future based on the young talent that's going to be infused in future seasons. So anyone jump out to you here in terms of realest, excitement beyond just like a hope and a dream of the future could be different, like stuff you've actually seen that gives you reason to believe that within three years from now,

things will fundamentally look different. Well, I mean, first of all, it's not impossible that the, the Edmonton oil is recover to win the cup this year. I'm not saying it's probable. I'm not even saying it's likely, but it's not impossible. Remember that last year, Florida was a coin flip to make the playoffs until they did and they went all the way to the final. And I think Emminton is a better team than Florida last year.

So certainly impossible. Three years from now, you know, I've thought for years that the Ottawa Sanders were going to turn the corner and become a really good team because they've got all the pieces to be a dominant team, right? For all the, the shade that Ottawa thought,

I threw Jake Sanderson's way. I think he's a really good player. Like he could be a legit number one, defenseman, certainly defensively, offensively, I think you can add some things to this game. But they've got all the pieces. And now they're under a new coaching regime. And three years from now, again, I wouldn't be surprised if they were challenging

for a cut. The obvious answer here is the ducks. And I'm shocked that you didn't pick them. Just based on what we've seen this season from Minkhov and Carlson, adding other, I mean, McAvish as well, in three years, you know, I guess Terry will be getting close to 30 because he's older than you think, but Zegris will still be in his prime, you know, Zellweger's on the way, a bunch of defensemen they've drafted, they will still have another topic this year by the looks of it, like a bunch of cap flexibility. I think the sky's the

limit. It's always playing the game of three years out from now can get you into trouble, right? everything looks good, but actually taking that step and putting it together and then making the necessary adjustments is a whole other conversation. But I just think in terms of runaway, the ducks have about as clear of a runway right now as you could hope for. Would you like to see him try to land William Nylander next summer? Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd like to see everyone. I'd like to see the Leafs keep the Nielander as well. I mean, he'd look great on every team. So, but yeah, I mean, just in terms of adding high-end talent that's still in its prime, I certainly think they should be very involved in that and be pursuing creative methods for

for accumulating it. So, yeah, give me the ducks there. Okay. Jack, I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out here. Let the listeners know what to check out as this is your final appearance here on the PDOCAST in the year 2023. So I am still working on hockey tactics 2024, which is an e-book in which I diagramed the systems of all 32 NHL teams. Also, once the PWHL season starts, I'll try to put together a little bonus on that.

Really exciting. The other really exciting thing I'm working on right now is next year will be the first year where the players that I've worked with since. leaving the Leafs are eligible for the NHL draft. I've been working with some really good young players in terms of their skill development in terms of their long-term development. So really excited for the coming year. And I just want to use this opportunity to, you know, thank all these players and the parents and the agents and the coaches for their trust.

And, you know, I'm just really excited about that right now. Awesome, buddy. Well, happy holidays to you and yours. Thank you for coming on the show. we will have you on again soon in the new year. Thank you to the listeners for listening to us. Go join the Discord server, which we use questions from today. The invite link is in the show notes.

Go check out the YouTube channel. We referenced the shows I do with Daryl Belfry and the Forresberg one in particular in the Brunette Parenthooder section that's up there. Just search HockeyPedocat on YouTube and you'll see all those archived. And we'll be back soon with more of the HockeyPediocast, as always streaming on the SportsNard Radio Network.