The Hockey PDOcast - What the Panthers Have Done to the Hurricanes To Go Up 2–0 in the East Final

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Steve Peters to break down the first two games of the Eastern Conference Final, how the Panthers have built a 2-0 lead, and all of the details in the Panthers game that led to the demolition we watched in Game 2 of the series. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDAOCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich and joining me as my good buddy Steve Peters. Pidi, what's going on in? You know, it's another day, great hockey. Well, kind of great hockey. That one was over a little quicker than we anticipated maybe last night in the Eastern Conference. But we're getting closer to the Stanley Cup. So it's all good. Yeah. I wouldn't say it was a great game by any means, certainly, as we're going to reflect with our conversation today. But I do think when you see a team that's, executing with the precision and details all across the board that the Florida Panthers are with right now, even if it doesn't make for the most fun back and forth game itself, I feel like there's so much fun stuff for you and I here to sink our teeth into, unpack, kind of get into the X and O's of how they're deploying the system,

what they're doing with it, and why they're giving the hurricane so much trouble, and that's what we're going to do today. We're going to break down everything we've seen from not only Game 2 last night, but I think the first two games of the East Final as a whole, because I haven't had a chance to do a show about it since it started, and we've got a lot to catch up on, and we're going to get into not only how the Panthers are up to nothing now, winning both these games in the road,

but just two wins away from making their third straight cup final, matching what their in-state rival did from 2020 to 2022. Let's get into it with this. I rewatch the game this morning with clear eyes, right? I watch it last night live, tracking the scoring chances, mixing it up with the listeners on the Discord, just trying to be involved in real time, got up this morning, got my coffee, rewatched it. And with clear eyes, I got to say, I'm comfortable saying that this was one of the most

staggeringly impotent performances I've ever seen, especially when you mix in the context, right, of playing at home where they'd been, the hurricanes had been 36, 9 and 1 this year coming into the series. What you'd assume as well to be an added layer of urgency, right? lose game one at home. You don't want to drop both. You come out. You expect a big push right out of the gate. And we did not see that here at all, not only throughout the game, but especially right out of the gate because the Panthers just immediately stepped into exactly what they want to do to you. They score that first goal, 70 seconds in. And from that point, it was an absolute steamrolling.

Let's break it down. What do you see from this game, PD? How did the Panthers do this to the hurricanes yet again? You know, I've said this before. I think that the Florida Panthers play very similar to the Carolina Hurricanes. They just do it better with better players. And we've talked about how the Carolina Hurricanes smother you in all three zones. That's how they play from game one all the way through through the Eastern Conference finals. They don't change the way they play. They're incredibly aggressive on pucks and they want to beat you to those pucks and they're

going to be incredibly difficult to play against. However, when you play that way, games one through 82 and you're playing Tuesday night against Columbus, it's not the same intensity of your opponent that you're going to face in the Eastern and conference finals when you're playing the Florida Panthers. So now the other team is pushing back. I think that's one factor. But two, these are both teams that don't give you much room to move that are very aggressive on the puck. But I want people to watch the difference in how these two teams play away from the puck.

And what I mean by that, the Carolina hurricanes play man on man, almost everywhere all over the ice. But they're tight on their man to man. And so what that does in the defensive zone for Carolina, when they chase the Florida Panthers all over the ice and they chase the puck up high in the zone, they chase the puck high in the zone, which leaves openings in behind, especially at the front of the net. And we saw that against the Dallas and Edmonton series,

the same kind of thing. But watch Florida when they defend. Again, incredibly aggressive on the puck. But once that puck moves, the Florida Panther no longer stays within a stick length of his opponent. He gets back to the front of the net. They always revert back to the house.

They'll chase, they'll chase, they'll chase, they'll chase, doesn't they get back to the house. So that when the turnover occurs, or there's a good play at the net, Florida's there. Florida is defending the net. They're tight around the house. They're a group defending as five. Where Carolina, when that play comes to the net, you're seeing two-on-ones in the net. You're seeing outnumbered situations at the net because they're playing so aggressive in other areas of the ice.

Sport Logic had Carolina at the end of the game were 0.74 expected goals generated, which I believe was the first game this postseason where a team finished under one, just two high danger chances. As I said, tracking these games and scoring chances by period. First period, 5-2, Florida, second period, 8-2, Florida, third period, 3-2. That's a final count of 16 to 6. Six scoring chances for the hurricanes here, despite trailing for 50 and a half minutes, essentially down one-offing at home.

Since the start of the second period of game one, right, I thought in game one, despite the fact that after all their time off, the hurricanes looked a little rusty, right? They were kind of botching passes to set up high-danger chances. they had a couple two-on-ones that they failed to connect on. The Panthers broke up. They were still pushing offensively, and they were getting into good areas of the ice, and they were getting scoring chances,

in particular, that top line with Aho and Jarvis, was getting some looks, and ultimately Aho scores off that little redirect with his foot at the end of that first period. You're thinking, all right, the floodgates are going to open here for them. This year is different. They're doing more offensively, especially with the matchups we're going to talk about later.

Since that point, so second period on of game, one, five periods of hockey. Scoring chances are 26 to 12 for Florida. So the hurricanes have 12 scoring chances generated. In five periods, they finish this game with just 11 shots on goal from the whole forward group. They had seven shots on goal, I believe, at the second intermission, and we're down for

nothing. Put all those stats together. And I stand by what I said about the offensive performance. I know the narrative is going to be, here we go again with the hurricanes, bumping into their ceiling offensively, playing a top-level competitor like this after blasting through the devils and the capitals in the first two rounds,

I'm choosing to give the credit here to the Panthers, and we're going to break down everything they've done, but I think they've executed to perfection all across the ice in every phase, and I think what they're doing to them is why this Hurricanes team right now looks like they don't have any answers and just absolutely discombobulated in every phase. Yeah, and you brought up a good point.

You look at the shots at game 2, 2117. I know Carolina out shoots Florida, game 133, 20, and more of what we were accustomed to with Carolina, 78 shot attempts to 46 for Florida, and it's the high-volume team, and this is the way Carolina wants to play. Game two, they get 17 shots on net, but you have to look at their shot attempts.

They still beat Florida in shot attempts. I know it's 5351 and it's tighter, but Florida blocks 23 shots, and I know one stat you don't want to get caught up in as block shots because if you're blocking shots, you don't have the puck. But Carolina is a high-volume offensive zone team that wants to possess the puck and get pucks at the net.

With Florida blocking 23 shots, it goes back to what I said. Their ability to collapse and protect the house in front of Bobrovsky. And you go watch again. Go watch the film. They are not getting shots through because there's bodies in the way that bodies come back down in front of the hash marks. And they're fronting pucks and not allowing Carolina to do what they do best, get pucks low to high in the zone, let their defense deliver pucks to the net, and then crash the net with players like Martinukuk and Svetchnikov

and trying to get to the blue paint for those second chance rebounds. They're just not happening. They're not able to generate those. those looks because those shots are getting blocked on the way in and they're not getting the second chance opportunities against Bob Brodowski. They're not getting the tips and screens because the pucks aren't getting there. So the biggest problem for me for Carolina is this is the way you've played since the day Rob Brindamore took over.

There is no, hey, we do things differently. We find different ways to win. We can play offensively. You can play physical. We can do it. This is how they play, period. Carolina plays like this. They're aggressive on pucks and they throw pucks at the net.

That's the only way they know how to play. So to think that game three miraculously they're going to come up with a new system and a new structure to play differently to beat the Panthers, I don't think that's realistic. I think they're going to have a huge problem finding a way to dig themselves out of a hole because they do play this way. And there is no other way to play. Unless there's something I'm not prepared to see, I think we're up for more of the same, Demetri. So I'm going to give you a bit of an organic plug here off the top for your YouTube channel, which I love your breakdowns. you explain the intricacies of how these goals are generated and created well before the play rather than just the highlights themselves. And if you listen to the show throughout the postseason, I think that it's going to be right up your alley as a listener.

And so please go check out inside the coaches room and check out PD's breakdowns. And that's why I love having you on for these shows because I feel like it gives us an even longer platform to break that stuff down. And in your game one video, you kind of made this analogy comparing what the Panthers do to a football team. kind of gaining yardage, right, by how they move across the zones, how they gain those zones. And in doing so, they extend possession. They also kind of flip the ice in terms of winning the territorial battle and using that against the hurricanes. And the reason why I bring that up, I want to get into sort of the secret sauce here for the Panthers or the recipe that they're following. And before the series, Nate Schmidt had this quote where he said, I think the whole series is

going to be based on what the decor can do in terms of getting it to their forwards faster. The underlying factor is going to be if we can get it to our guys faster than they can. Spore Logic in Game 1 had the Panthers with an 89% exit percentage with possession coming out of their zone 515. It felt like I don't have the numbers for game 2, but it felt like more of the same, right? And the biggest battlegrounds for the series was going to be that forecheck at both ends of the ice, right? Who could win out, who could put on pressure on the opposing D forced turnovers and then capitalize off of that? and even if it's not resulting in goals, creating some looks,

kind of tiring out the other team, making them defend in their zone. And so far, the Hurricanes wanted for a check just simply has not been able to apply that pressure or get there, right, for a variety of reasons. I think the Panthers D has played remarkably well,

and I want to identify a couple of those guys in a second here. The other thing that I've been talking about this postseason, and it's not going to be anything new to anyone that's watched the NHL playoffs, but has even watched the Panthers over the past, couple years, they do this better than any other team. And it's those subtle little interference plays off of dump-ins that NHL referees simply are not going to call in the postseason, especially

once you get to the late stages of round two, round three, Stanley Cup final. And so in kind of bumping the F-1 for the hurricanes off the puck as soon as they dump it in and preventing them from getting in and applying that initial pressure, it's allowing some of these, you know, slightly slower foot speed defensemen that the panthers have down their depth chart to go back retrieve the puck make a play and then all of a sudden they're just following this cookie cutter formula of defenseman gets the puck passes it to the wall winger makes a play into the middle and all of a sudden the panthers are out cleanly either with a you know three on three or three on two potentially and then attacking downhill and it's just time and time again right i don't

the offensive zone time numbers sport logic has tell you that it's been pretty even or the hurricanes have even had more zone time. But when you watch this stuff, it's just not the same as it's been in the past in terms of heading them in and having these extended shifts where you get eight to 10 shot attempts on net in one sequence. It's one and duns. It's quickly out of the zone.

And so from that kind of gaining yardage perspective, I think the Panthers have done a phenomenal job of evading that forecheck and playing the game essentially from center ice down for themselves heading into the offensive zone. And I think there's a couple of good points to bring up here. one, when you talk about chipping in front of that player as he's, you know, the defenseman getting a little pick. And they're not egregiously knocking players over, but that little pick to help slow that

player down just a little bit. By the way, Toronto Maple Leafs fans get your fours in defense to watch that because they were giving up OLE, is what we call it when the, you know, the Buffalo, what I call it? OLEA and lets them go by. That's what Toronto was doing. And that's why they were unable to get pucks quickly out of their zone because they couldn't get to pucks. The one thing that Florida does, and we're going to talk about, I want to talk about both

of their forechecks because they're both known for having these very good forechecking heavy four-checking teams. When we watch the Carolina three forwards, the three forwards are aggressively pursuing that puck, and you are oftentimes going to end up with three Carolina hurricane forwards below the goal line or near the goal line. And then you're right. The first pass is up the wall. Consistently up the wall. It's just up the wall, up the wall, everybody knows what's coming to the wall. The defenseman pitches for Carolina, and then you said the puck goes to the middle. Well, they are able to bump the puck in the middle because the Carolina forwards are so aggressive. There's no one in that F3 defensive responsibility at the hash marks to the top of the

circle which leaves that middle ice open. Now go watch Florida to do the exact same thing on the other end of the ice. So when Florida dumps the puck, hey, their first forward's coming. Like he's coming hard and he's aggressively pursuing that puck. But watch their second and third forwards. And the difference in Carolina and Florida is Florida's got patience. Florida is going to look. Now they're still aggressive, but they're waiting for that puck to move before they move. There's a little hesitation between the second and the third forward. And I tell you what, that third forward, if the puck goes to the left, the right winger is pulling out. And he's going to go to the top of the circle and it's just consistently, they're robots. They're going to play defensively.

That third forward is going to be on the defensive side of the puck and you saw it in the first goal in last night's game, Foresling pinches. They've got, they've got somebody protecting the back of the net. And again, where is Kachuk? Kachuk's all the way over in a defensive position on the defensive side of the puck, which allows Florida to create the turnover and go to the net. And that's the subtle difference. I think we can say they're aggressively forechecking, but they don't give themselves up. They always are thinking away from the puck, I've got to be in a defensive zone position where Carolina is pursuing the puck. They're just pursuing the puck.

We're pursuing the puck. Dog on a bone. Pursue the puck, even if it puts them at a defensive disadvantage for the next play. I think the difference is the sequencing too, right? Because I imagine that if you're able to quickly get out of the zone, it's going to allow you then to just have more juice left in the tank to then four check at the other end the ice. Whereas if you fail one, two, three times, even if you are able to get out of the eventually you're probably going off for a change, buying time for the other team to get the puck back.

And then all of a sudden, it's coming right back at you. And I think that's what you're seeing there. I think the first goal you highlight there is a great example of this, right? It was a masterclass in terms of five-man unit movement and how they all help each other out because you go back. And, you know, part of this is Orlov misplays the puck. He has it along the wall and he kind of bats it and it misses it and that engages the sequence. But first, actually, along that left wall, Echblad pinches. and keeps the puck in, then it cycles back behind the net, then it comes to Svetnikov.

He thinks he's going to have an easy out up that same wall. Foresling pinches sends him back. He kind of loops around, evades Foresling and thinks, all right, well, the left defenseman just followed me here. There must be an opening for me to go back to where I was, and then Kachuk's just standing there essentially having filled Foresling's spot, and by that point, it's game over for them, right? And so I thought that was a great example of it.

I mentioned how incredible the defensemen had been. this has been a theme all season for the for the panthers they have 13 goals now from their defensemen all seven of them after foursling scored in game two that have played this postseason have scored i think they're getting lost in some of the defensive coverage man on man some miscommunications uh you saw that on the ecblad goal off of the turnover where he's kind of just standing unabated near the left circle and is able to to get that one pass freddie anderson neko mickelah as well right i a running theme here i talked about him a lot last post season especially around the Stanley Cup final. Every once in a while, I joke that he becomes Miko Nikola instead and essentially just channels this offensive defenseman form that's breathtaking every time he does it

because he's just such a specimen. His skating in these two games has been completely unhinged. He's been all over the ice. And that goal that you highlighted in game one where he sets up the two-on-one goal for A.J. Greer, essentially, go back to the start of it. You've got this 6-foot-6 freak who goes 10 and 2 behind his own net to OVeyta

four-chicker, gets it up the wall, then sprints dot to dot, beats everyone up the ice. On his way there is tapping his stick on the ice, demanding the puck back, gets it, and then has the wherewithal and the ability to actually execute this backhand pass cross-ice for the Greer tap-in. I mean, it was just an incredible sequence from start to finish, and I feel like he has been phenomenal in these two games. And so when I say they're executing, it's top-down for the team, but I feel like the defensemen have really engaged in their role and are enabling a lot of this stuff to happen.

One of the things, and I agree 100%. Mikala is one of those players that you're just like, yeah, it's fun to watch a guy of his size be able to move the way he does, but his anticipation from his defensive zone to the offensive zone when he sees that puck turning over, there's not a hesitation, especially for you anticipate seeing that in some offensive defenseman, you know, like a Fox or Quinn Hughes, you want to see them. Okay, possession is changing. I'm going.

And Nigo Mikula, and dude gets that big body moving, and he's first on the forecheck. Like, how is 77 first on a four check against Carolina Hurricanes? So he's fun to watch. But you're right, the defense for the Florida Panthers is playing better than the defense of the Carolina Hurricanes. And I don't mean that just defensively. I mean two-hundred-foot game. Their ability to get involved in the offense in Carolina, we usually think of them throwing pucks of the net and their defense getting involved.

And I think Chatfield is an issue there. But they're not getting the pucks offensively like this year, not joining the rush like they used to or that we're accustomed to. And their gaps in the neutral zone, nobody's better than Florida. They're just amazing how well their trust is in each other. And as you said, as a five-man group that gives them the ability to be so tight on their opposition between the blue lines. This defense, I don't know if they ever get enough credit, like how well this team gets driven by their six defensemen. And the addition to Seth Jones is up. And Schmitz having a fantastic playoffs. And Gustav Forling might be one of the best guys coming back into the play at using his stick to break up a two-on-one or not giving up on a play. So right now, you're right. Without question that the Florida Panthers, and they're leading all defense right now in points in the playoffs. Well, there's a reason because they play the right way. The Panthers are leading the entire postseason that shouldn't come as surprised anyone in goals off turnovers, right? And we kind of highlighted that first goal. I'll include the second one as well where you go through the motions of it and Walker essentially tries to go up the middle of the ice to Orlov.

Kachuk steps up, pokes it back into the zone. It engages the cycle play. Bennett's able to get in and pin Svetnikov along the boards. There's no support there. As it's happening and the puck comes high, Orlov, if you mentioned some of the drifting in the man-to-man coverage, Orlov follows the puck, comes up high in the zone. It happened again with Burns on the 4-0 goal, I believe, for Bennett.

And he's out of place. The puck works its way back down. Verhegey has it behind the net. Sean Walker's kind of left in this predicament where it's a two-on-one, essentially with one guy behind the net, he's wondering whether he should stick with Kachuk on the back door or whether he should attack the puck and try to kill the play there. He really does neither. Brahegey's able to walk out front, send it cross ice, and Kachuk Berries the backdoor goal. And so there's a lot of this stuff off of turnovers.

I'll add as well, I mentioned the execution for the Panthers and some of the set plays. They also, to go along with leading the league in goals off turnovers this postseason, lead the the league in postseason goals off of offensive zone draws. And they didn't necessarily create any here, but they created some good looks later on in that first period. There's this play from the left circle where the puck comes back to Foresling. He goes cross-ice to the right circle to Toulouse Arena, who's just standing there wide open, get a great A chance.

They've been executing there as well. And I've been hard on for Hagee this postseason, really this year, because I feel like as a shooter, he's just been inefficient and killing a lot of these plays for the Panthers. love the way he adjusted his game in this game too, where he became much more of a playmaker and was initiating a lot of the stuff because he's had the puck on a stick so often. And I thought he was phenomenal as a playmaker, right? He winds up with three assists.

Two are virtually identical to that two-old goal where he gets the puck behind the net, wraps it around backdoor for one of his line mates. He sets up the third one with a shot that gets tipped by Bennett. He had a couple other plays in the second period. One was kind of this giving go off the rush with Evan Rodriguez, where he gets a buyer-law for a great chance. He tried to do another rap play. Unfortunately, Gajavich had come on for Kachuk, and so he was wide open in the slot and they weren't able to connect on it. But I thought for Hagee, easily in this game, could have had five, six assists based on the way he was moving the puck

into high danger areas. And that was a massive development for the Panthers because that line, despite getting to this point, hadn't really been doing a lot of the heavy lifting. We talked so much about how the third line had been driving a lot of the 5-1-5 offense that Bennett-Kachuk-Kachie line actually got outscored in the Leaf series and wasn't really. quite as effective as you'd expect. But man, full marks for this game. For Hagee has five points in these two games now, and I thought they were absolutely phenomenal.

And, you know, they're being matched up head to head against the Cain's top line, and they went out in that matchup and won those minutes. And when that happens, this Panthers team is going to be a nightmare to play against. Yeah, and one of the things that that line does extremely well. And I agree, because what Carter Verheagie does when he gets the puck, his thought process is get to the blue pain. And that that's the way he's always played. Get to that area of the ice, which bowl as well for his two linemates,

because they like to get there as well, so they know the puck's coming there. But one thing this line does extremely well is they're able to alleviate the pressure of the Carolina hurricane smothering defense. So when you watch this line, when you're getting ready for game three, when the Bennett-Kitchuk-Vragge line is out there, how quickly they move the puck along the wall. And what they're doing, their defense have to be ready because this puck is going to the weak side. When they get stuck in a corner, there's no thought process. This puck's rimming around the wall.

We're going to alleviate the pressure. We're going to get the puck away from these tight areas. in the corner and we're going to get it out to the point. We're going to alleviate the pressure and get the puck to the weak side. All three of these forwards were able to use the boards, get the puck back to the defense, and then they can breathe a little bit and then get pucks to the net. It was exceptional watching this over and over again. Matthew Goochuk is phenomenal.

He doesn't even think it's puck hits a stick, it's off a stick, and it's around the wall. And again, you've got to get the puck moving faster than the defenders for the Carolina Hurricanes, and that's how they smother you. If you think at all, if you get the puck on your stick at all and wait and think, that's when everything gets eaten up, and that's how they take over and create turnovers. So that line specifically did an outstanding job at being able to alleviate pressure by moving the puck quickly, especially along the walls and getting pucks to the weak side. So keep an eye on for that in game three,

because I think that was one of the ways that Florida was able to beat the pressure of this man-on-man-smothering defense of the hurricanes. Well, I mentioned that the power play goal that Bennett tips from the Verhegey shot, rewind 20 seconds before that, and the hurricanes get one of their rare opportunities. I think it was our second scoring chance of the game only at that point. And it looks like it's going to be a two-on-one break going the other way, and the hurricanes do that so well on the P-K. And Verhege backtracks remarkably well, essentially neutralizes a two-on-one, then jumps back up and contests the Mardinuk shot as the trailer,

and they don't score on that, and then that allows the power play goal at the other end. And the reason why I highlight that is because, you know, if you watch the round two series against the Leafs, it was clear that the best way the leaves were going to generate offense was getting Nylander out against this line particularly, especially when they're matched up with the Mika, Seth Jones pair, because sometimes they overextend themselves. They're too aggressive off the forecheck getting caught deep in the zone. And when that happens, there are some odd man rush opportunities, right? So I think heading into the series, correctly so, Rod Brindamor identified that the best matchup for them was going to be using Stahl and Slavin against the Barkov-Rindhardt combo and then try to trying to get his top scoring line, the guy's most likely to create off the rush against this particular line for the Panthers, right? And that's the matchup we did see for the most part in these two games and that effort and the ability. I know there were a couple of hairy moments in game one where the hurricanes actually did get out in transition on the move, but in this game,

those opportunities were just immediately cut off and, you know, full credit to them because they applied themselves and they addressed one of the potential weaknesses or exploitable parts of their game and they just nullified that and that's exactly what you saw in this one. Yeah, and I think when you look at the Toronto Maple Leafs, it goes back to again, I know we talk about the deficiencies of the offensive Carolina Hurricanes, and it applies to the situation. When you can get the puck in behind the defense that's pinching aggressively and Florida pinches aggressively and Toronto was able to get the puck behind those defense, many look at the

foot races, they were able to win in the neutral zone. Carolina can't get there. Carolina can't get to the pucks to get it passed and chipped along the wall to get those foot races in the neutral zone. They're losing the battle to the next puck to the puck along the half wall. So they're not using their speed. They're not able to get those odd man rushes that like you described that they're hoping for with their top players to try to create odd man rushes against Florida because that's one of the ways they give opportunities because they're so aggressive on the blue end because they hold for so long because they pinch so deep that they're

hoping that they can get the puck in behind those defensemen for those odd man rushes against and it's just not happening because they can't get the puck. They can't get the puck on the half wall. they can't win that next race to get the puck in behind the defensive of Florida Panthers. And I think that's been the biggest problem for Carolina is they're losing those foot races in the defensive zone, not just once or twice, continually. They can't get to the puck first. Florida has been so good at getting pucks not just along the walls and being able to leave a pressure, but winning those wall battles and being the next guy to the puck along the walls.

They play as a group of five where Carolina is a group of one chasing the puck. And when the puck moves, watch the Carolina put. hurricanes move. Like it's just, there's a puck, there's a puck, there's a puck. And Florida's like,

okay, the puck's going here, where do I go? And I think those two distinct styles of pursuing the puck are so much different. Carolina's pursue, Florida's support,

support the puck. One guy goes, where can I support the puck? Where's the puck going to go next? And the two styles are so different to watch right now. And I know these games, and I use the word boring,

and I got in trouble for saying that, Carolina fans, but this boring style of hockey, you can find the excitement and the X's and O's part of it, if you look at the players away from the puck. And right now, Florida is just phenomenal away from the puck. And that dynamic between that pursuit versus support is interesting to me, because I feel like in this particular spot,

the Panthers need for that line to work, guys like for Hagee and Bennett to really cover a lot of ground, right? Because you mentioned Kachuk there, and I think this speaks to just how otherworldly, talented he is as a playmaker, that he still has 12 points this postseason, despite what I'm about to say. he's clearly limited in his movement and especially you can see that he's just lacking

the lower body strength right now coming off that injury when he gets engaged in a check, especially down low because before he'd be able to kind of spin off of it or still make a play, and now he's kind of getting stuck below the goal line and that's creating some of these odd man rush opportunities. And yet that wasn't really the case there. The other thing that I want to mention from an execution perspective

and some of the details, if you watch game one, the hurricanes had clearly done their prep in terms of watching that Leafs Panthers series and what the Panthers were doing to sustain offensive zone possession with that low to high, right, kind of rimming it around the boards, working it down low and then getting it back up, moving a D-to-D, getting a point shot, trying to create traffic off of that, and doing it all over again. And in game one, the hurricanes come out and they were sitting all over that. Like the winger would essentially

be anticipating it would jump, get a stick on it, create a turnover, and then they'd be able to get out of the zone without having a deal with the Panthers' forecheck because it was so high up in the defensive zone. I thought in game two, the Panthers did a really good job of adjusting to that by operating much more down low and not really trying to create those opportunities. And instead,

you see some of the Verhegei wraparounds and some of the stuff they tried to create out there as opposed to their usual bread and butter off the cycle game. And so I thought that was a nice little wrinkle from Paul Maurice and the Panthers again. And they had success in this game by doing exactly that. And that's what we're talking about where you were able to win in different ways.

And that's what Florida can do. They can be aggressive around the blue paint, which they have been able to do. They can stretch out a zone by getting puck's low to high and using their defense to generate offense. They can be physically dominating below the goal line on the forecheck, but they can also play soft and let teams come into them at the top of circle. I think Florida is much more versatile and they can play different ways. And I think that that's why you're having all this playoff success where we talk about

Carolina plays like Carolina. And this is what Carolina is. This is all they know. And I think that's becoming very apparent as this series comes on. Where it is right now, it's just, they don't look like they're competing with the Florida Panthers. I don't know how they're going to change or what they're going to do differently other than if Anderson's all world. But even there, it hasn't been Anderson's fault. So I do agree right now the Florida Panthers are schooling the Carolina Hurricanes on how to play in all three zones.

And they look like a team that's been there before. they look like a team that knows how to play. And I'll say this, game one against Tampa Bay, I said, Kachuk's coming off an injury. Eckblood's not here. He's suspended. Karshans never played with any of these guys. they flipped the switch. And they flipped a switch. And they're going to catch them off guard. And they flipped a switch. I'm going to play. And they're playing like the Florida.

Panthers. And when they play like that, on the puck, away from the puck, with a puck, without the puck, they are incredibly difficult to beat. And I just don't see any path that the Carolina hurricanes can get through the Florida Panthers and can come back in the series. All right, Pee, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back in it. I got a bunch of other stuff. I want to go through with you from these first two games. You're listening to the Hockey PeeDocast streaming on the SportsDad radio network. All right, welcome back to the Hockey PeeleyoCast. I'm joined by Steve Peters. Pee, let's keep going through what the Panthers are doing here. I think something else they've done really well is,

you know, when you watch these series against them, there's certain points where they sort of either Jedi mind trick you or kind of bait you into trying to beat them at their game. And to that, I got to say good luck because you're not going to do what they do better than they do. And if anything in the process, I feel like sometimes you're going to take yourself out of what you do as a team, why you got to this point, why you were successful to begin with, to the point. where, you know, part of it was the stifling defensive effort, but I never thought I'd see the day where I watched the Carolina Hurricanes game and their home crowd would be begging the team to create some shots on goal. That's usually not an issue here, regardless of some of their other faults. And you saw it in the first period, some of the, you know, when they kind of force you to try to match them from a physical perspective and you wind up kind of chasing hits or trying to be overly physical with them to match what they're doing. And you take yourself out of the game doing so, Svetikov's penalty as a retirement. valuation against Kachak, kind of along the boards where he gets that second extra shot in. The refs catch it.

All of a sudden it leads to the 3-0. Panthers goal, I feel like they do that to you as well. And tying into what we said earlier about the cane's kind of man-to-man coverage and a couple of the goals here, part of it is sort of the drifting out of that coverage in chasing the puck and trying to do so, right? And part of it is that that kind of one-track mindset you mentioned of you see the puck, you go after it. It's just constantly go, go, go, pressure the puck. and the defenseman here, especially Orlov and Walker in this game, were guilty of falling victim exactly to that, right?

They'd kind of see the puck. They'd go after it. All of a sudden, they wouldn't be where they're supposed to be. There'd be an odd man outnumbered opportunity for the Panthers, and it led to a couple of goals that happened. They had a broken stick on the play, so Roslovich doesn't have one. Burns goes up, and all of a sudden he can't recover,

and there's another backdoor play here. And I think that ties into that theme of not playing the way that you had up until this point because of what the Panthers are doing to you and kind of that psychological element, I guess, of trying to match it and the harmful effects of it. Yeah, and I think that that physical one is a good one to bring up. And I think that when you're looking, looking at the differences in how Carolina is,

especially Svetsnikov, and I think he's a key to this on how he has taken himself. You look at a guy, he got eight goals in the first 10 games of this place. He's got zero goals in two against Florida. His shots on goal, he had 35. five shots in 10 games prior to the Florida Panthers.

He's got one shot now in two games. And it seems like his mindset right now is I got to go hit somebody. Trust me, you need to be physical at this level of the Stanley Cup playoffs. At the Eastern Conference Finals, you better be physical. You're going to be pushed around the ring. Having said that, it can't be what drives what you're trying to do on the ice. And I agree with you 100% that I think Carolina is starting to focus on, hey, we've got to match the physicality of a team that we can't match the physicality of. and the Carolina is smothering and they pursue,

but they don't do it by putting you through the glass into Section J. They do it by sticks, good sticks on pucks, and they do it by using their speed to get to an area of the ice quicker. It's not about the physicality for Carolina, and they're trying to make it about the physicality, and it just doesn't suit their style of play, and you're right is putting guys out of position, and I think to meet you on our lives,

and another guy that's playing out of what his traditional comfort zone is, again, because he's trying to chase things that aren't there. So for Carolina, you can't get pushed around. You can't let the big bully put you down. However, can't take penalties. We've clearly seen that they can't sit in the penalty box against this Florida Panther power play. And don't try to match them a hit for hit.

If the hits there, take it. If the hit on the forecheck is there, definitely punish their defenseman time after time over a long series. That will make a difference. But don't let the physical side of the game carry away from the way you play as a team. Don't take because once you make that hit, and especially when you're playing so, so tight on pucks. Once you make that you're out of play. You get tied up with that player.

You fall down at times. You're out of the play. Get to the play. Stick on puck and they get back into the play. And I think that that mentality of trying to finish those hits is taking Carolina out of this game. And it's hard not to. It's hard not to when you got Bennett and Marchand and Kachuk on the other side. It's hard not to get that creeping into your head that you have to play that way. But that's what Florida does. And that's why they have those guys that do what they do. and it has clearly taken Carolina off their game. And you know what? Game two was worse than game one. And they've got to find a way to snap out of that.

Unfortunately, they're heading to sunrise. And it's going to be even harder to do in Florida. Yeah, so Tchukov had a rough game here. Not only that penalty, you mentioned the shot generation and how high it had been before he plays 1946, which I believe led all hurricanes forwards. Just the two shot attempts. One of them was this kind of play where he's coming down the wing one-on-one with Mikala

and he just shoots it into the shin pads and kills that sequence right away. He was on for three goals. against in 15-5-1-5 minutes here. I don't really want to single him out necessarily, even though Rod Brindamore had some pretty hard comments on him, and I think it's justified just because you could apply it to pretty much everyone across the board here. I really thought that Logan Stancoven was arguably the only guy that came and tried to play

through it and tried to make something happen right? In the second period, he has this kind of play against Foresling down low, shakes him, brings it out strong to the net. It winds up in an opportunity, which I think gets blocked, so it's not even necessarily a grade A scoring chance, but it was kind of indicative of what he was trying to do. He had one off the rush in the first period as well. We spoke about him after they beat the Capitals.

I love the way he plays. And it really felt like he was trying to make something happen here. And unfortunately, you couldn't say that about a lot of the other players on that side. In doing your Game 1 video, you talked a lot about Scott Morrow and some of the defense's mistakes he made in his first playoff appearance here. you know in game one chatfields out he plays 12 5 on 5 minutes is out there for the three goals against has a penalty where he's not even really pressured and just shoots it out from his zone for a delay a game penalty clearly rod brindamore didn't trust him in this one because i think he got his first shift to the game 12 minutes in and then sean walker's out doesn't play the third period he still winds up playing just 10 minutes for the game and you wind up having to use burns a ton i believe he's played more than anyone in this series so far And so that's a problem for them. It sounds like Chadfield will be back.

So at least that'll be alleviated a little bit. But you know, you mentioned Freddie Anderson there earlier. And I wanted to tie him in here because he gets pulled after the second period, gives up four goals against and 16 shots. I, at the risk of sounding like Kevin Woodley here in absolving the goalie of all blame for every goal against, I really feel like you watch this one. And it's tough when the guy on the other side of the ice has a completely clean sheet and hasn't given up anything.

But, man, the foursling shot. redirect off Orlov, the Bennett tip on the Verhegey shot where he kind of drops down as Anderson's about to glove it. Then the two backdoor tapins we described earlier. I feel like what happened here defensively for them is as representative of the way the team was playing defensively as anything the goalie did wrong. And so I don't know if you agree with that. But I feel like that that pull beyond anything was kind of you're down for nothing, prepping potentially for game three, trying to reset and ultimately just trying to spark the team a little bit because nothing else was going right that night.

Yeah, and hey, I'll be the first guy here to blame the goalie when it's the goalie's fault, without a doubt. Now, I'll tell you, the difficult situation Anderson's in here is Florida is a team unlike Carolina that's trying to get that high volume shot, shot attempts and shots on goal of Florida is not putting up the kind of numbers that Carolina does. So for Freddie Anderson, one, he's not getting to see the puck as often. And he doesn't get the opportunity to make those big saves. I don't, you can't stop what you can't see.

So he's screened. The puck going off Orlov, the puck, two puck tipped. I don't think Anderson played poorly at all. Now, was he elite? No. You've seen an elite goaltending, I think in Dallas right now. That's elite goaltending. I don't think Anderson played poorly.

I don't think he's been bad in this series. But I do think his numbers were inflated a little bit through the first two rounds, basically because of the opponents they were playing in the first round. Two rounds didn't have the offense to the Florida Panthers. do. They didn't have offense who could get to the blue paint like the Florida Panthers do. So I think Anderson was able to make that first save and then he has a defense that can clear out the rebounds and you can get those second chance opportunities that he's getting with Florida. So I think Anderson's numbers and they were elite through two rounds.

They were the best in the NHL through two is partly because his team defends so well and gives up so few great a scorer chances against. But not his fault. Give him a rest, clear the slate. And then if it does get out of hand, it's got Kochetka. But I will say this. I don't know where Carolina goes from your goaltending. Do you give the team a spark? And the reason I say that is because how many things can the Carolina Hurricanes reset for game three? But what can they really do? Chadfield coming back is huge.

Like I do, and I don't want to blame Morrow. A guy who's played 16 NHL games throwing them into this situation and going, okay, you're not playing. Well, dude, that's a tough situation to throw Morrow into. So Chadfield will definitely help. But at some point, does changing the goaltender happen? One, because I think Kachov is a little bit more athletic than Anderson. And maybe it's just an ability for the team to reset and go, oh, okay, we're trying something different. We're doing something different.

Now we have a chance again. Is it just that moral boost? I think we'll go back to Anderson. They got him his rest. And I think you'll go back to Anderson in game three. But I don't know how long that leash is going to be on Anderson as a series goes on. Yeah, I think it ultimately doesn't matter unless something changes at the other than ice because you compare it to what Bobrovsky's had in front of him. And, you know, in game one, they kind of made a point of trying to get after him after the,

after the whistles and bug him and skate through the crease and try to hit him here or there. But in terms of meaningful traffic pre-shot and trying to take away the eyes, as you mentioned, that just has not been here. I think the rush looks are also indicative of everything happening where, you know, in the opportunities they've gotten through these two games, a lot of the stuff that's actually made it on its way towards the net has been very straight line. And I think they've tried to open it up and be more creative with some of the passing off of two on ones and three on twos and trying to get some pre-shot movement.

The issue is that they just haven't been able to connect on it, right? And a lot of the times it's been a two-on-one, and either Mekla or Foresling essentially cleans it up and prevents the pass from getting through, and it doesn't wind up materializing anything. There was a sequence, I think, in the second period of this one, where the puck's in the neutral zone, Ekblad falls, all of a sudden Jarvis and William Carrier are out for a two-on-one.

Forsling sprawls, cleans it up. then later, Martin Nukanajo are trying to do a little drop pass upon entry, Foresling cleans it up, sends it back the other way, and Bennett brings it off the bar. And so the Panthers deer just cleaning up a lot of the stuff that the canes are trying to create, and it's

leaving them in a spot where they're having to resort to some of the less efficient stuff that we don't typically like from their game. So I think that's a massive factor here. One other thing that I wanted to mention, you wouldn't have seen this. I don't think the American broadcast showed it, but the sports that one here in Canada did.

And, you know, in game one, Gostis Bear has his play at the offensive zone blue line where he dances around. Jonah Gajovych falls. He's able to cut in, sets up a backdoor pass. Stankov and doesn't really get a stick on it, but it was a really nice look for them. And then later on in this one, and I love this as the series progresses, they're put in a similar spot one-on-one high in the zone. And Gosses-Ber is doing his act of dancing around, trying to create an opening here or there. Gajvich mirrors him, stays with him, sticks with it, knocks the puck away on, on a shot attempt essentially sends it harmlessly to the side,

and then he lets them have it a little bit after a little smack talk being like, you're not going to get me a second time. And so I love that as well because this fourth line for the Panthers, you know, it's certainly not glamorous by any means. Paul Maurice puts them together in game three heading home of round two when they're down to nothing. And all they've done since then is win their minutes four nothing, 5-1-5, and they've gotten great contributions from them. So really, it's been an across-the-board effort from everyone involved here for Florida.

Yeah, one of the things that fourth line, too, is bringing, like you just said, it's surprising that they're bringing offense. Like, I think when you put 10, 12, and 92 over the board, you're thinking, hey, gosh, please just stay even and stay out of the box, is what you're hoping for when you put that line over the boards. But they're playing exceptionally well. And I think one of the things you're seeing with the Carolina Hurricanes and their ability to put the Carolina Hurricanes again off their game.

And Gostas Bear has been the target right now. Gostas bear has been the target, Marchand, he's been the badgevich. And he's getting pushed around. And I think it's a guy that he's been able to get. him off his game. And it's funny because I do think this team is going to have to find a way to to generate offense from the back end. I do think Carolina, if they're going to find offense, it is going to come from their back end. And I think Gossus Bears, one of the guys that can provide that. But now we talked about them getting off their game physically, is that starting

to get into his head? As he's starting to think of his one-on-one matchup with Marchand in game one, is that starting to get into his head? Like, hey, I got to look for the hit. I got to look for keep my head up. What's coming next? Is that getting him off his game? So he's getting away from his ability to move across the blue line, his ability to move in and be active off of the line to create offense. It is, again, it's these mind games that take place over from game one to game four to game seven that Florida's winning. And they did it against Toronto and they did it against Tampa. And you're seeing them do it early here against Carolina. And that's one of the reasons they are the defending Stanley Cup champion. I think the thing that's definitely surprised me.

You mentioned the special teams battle earlier in the Keynes. P.K. had been so good through the first two rounds, even if it was against softer offensive competition, they gave up just two goals against in all of the games they played there. The Panthers already have four power play goals in seven minutes here, and that's with running this throwback to defensemen

first unit as well, and it hasn't necessarily been pretty, but they've been efficient in doing so. And, you know, a lot of the themes we brought up here, you look at the five-nothing goal and the game's already, you know, out of reach by that point. But the Barkov tip, and that was the first goal the Panthers got from their

first line in in this series. Reinhardt only plays five and a half minutes in this game after taking a bad hit from Maho and he's out and hopefully he'll be okay moving forward. But Barkov's essentially just standing in front of the net completely untouched and is able to tip that puck in. And when you compare that to what's happening on the other side, it's just night and day. And they're able to Panthers are because of all these contributions to get by without that top line necessarily leading the charge offensively, right?

My guy, I do loose to Renan, I don't, I assume, just because. because the numbers and especially, you know, you give up as little as they have offensively here and all the love he got for it last year. If the Panthers were to go all the way again and repeat as champs, I imagine there'd be a lot of sentiment for Bobrovsky to be the Kahn-Smith as their team MVP, just because there hasn't really been a skater standout and it has been such a team effort. But man, what Luster Rinen's done and he scores a nice goal again in game one, he's tied for five-on-five points at this point with Connor McDavid,

despite playing 36 fewer minutes. 11 of his 12 points there have come on the road. They're up 15 to 3 in his 5-on-5 minutes, and it's them, it's now that Verhegei-Kachuk combo. It's just across the board from the Panthers in terms of getting offense from all these different sources and all these different guys. Yeah, and for Florida, it's a different line every night.

And that's one of the things on a hallmark of a team that's making it this far in the playoffs. We talk about depth of all of the teams that are still remaining in this playoffs. And Florida, you can't argue that they're the deepest team. Because what you're saying is that Luceyne Lundell, Marchandle, were exceptional at times against Toronto, that they led this offensive group,

that they were the best line on the ice. Well, last night it was Rehagi Bennett and Kachuk. Well, at other times it's Rodriguez Barkov, Reinhardt, their ability to have every line pick up the slack. And every line's got an identity, and every line plays just a little bit differently with a skill set that brings something different to the ice. And that's hard to defend when every line is just enough different,

but they all bring something to the game, it's hard, and it's hard for Carolyn to defend. And when you're this deep and everybody can bring offense, everybody can defend. And more importantly, everybody's on the same page for the Florida Panthers. This is a team that if the right play is to dump, get over the red line and dump the puck in, they're going to make that play.

And I think player one through player 19 on that bench is going to make that play. I don't think anybody's going to, gosh, I'm going to go through three guys, I'm going to make a play like you've seen other. teams and I won't mention names, Neelander, but you want to get that puck. If it's get the puck over the red line and get it in and it's the right play, that's the right play. And Florida just plays the right way. We talked about them gaining, you know, like a football team running just a few yards at a time. Just move the puck along the wall. It's ugly. It's grinding, but everybody's doing it and everybody does it the right way. And if everybody plays unselfishly and does it for the

benefit of the team, if I need to play defensive side of the puck here, I'm going to be on the defensive side of the puck. Everybody. And the leader, and the leader, do it, Barkov does it, Kachuk does it, and when they do it, it makes it so much easier for the guys deeper in the lineup to go, well, if Kachuk's doing it and Barkov's doing it, I better do do it. And I think that's contagious in that locker, and I do think that's why this

is another chance for this team to win a Stanley Cup, because they do that, those little unselfish things from player one through player 19 on the bench. Anthra's now in their past four road games. The games five and seven, round two, games one and two here are up 22 to four in those four games, just absolutely.

mind-boggling dominance, and you saw that yet again here. The hurricanes are now over 14 in their last four conference finals appearances. They just look completely out of sorts as well, right? I think part of it is everything we said about the Panthers are doing. Part of it is they just haven't played well enough. And in game one, I thought they had many more opportunities. Game two was an absolute disaster. But, you know, puck bouncing all over the place,

not executing within that chaos, guys falling down. You look at the 30 seconds before. the 4-0-0 goal. And, you know, Chuck has them in the neutral zone train tracks, but Hall's bringing it out, carrying the puck and just slips and falls, and then the puck's back in for a chance and cycle and a goal eventually for the Panthers. And there's been so much of that that's kind of just inexplicable from the hurricane's perspective. So, yeah, it's very, uh, it's very difficult circumstances down to nothing now, going on the road with as miserable performance as you saw in game two at home. Um, but we'll see what the rest of

this series holds. And, and I'm looking forward to it. You got anything else, uh, that we haven't mentioned yet about either this matchup. No, I think maybe, maybe Carolina can take a deep breath on the road and they're not getting that home crowd pressure where they felt that they need to pursue so heavily. And maybe without the crowd rushing them on that they can take a step back. I do think, and this sounds counterintuitive, I think for Carolina, get back in this series, they can't be as aggressive that they have been through games one and two because they're giving themselves up in the defensive zone.

They're giving themselves up in the offensive zone. They're not getting the opportunities because they're not being paid. patient on the puck and they're not waiting to see where the puck's going. They're just going. And I think maybe in Sunrise it's a reset that, hey, let's just go play a good road game here. Maybe they can simplify their game and maybe that will help them. I don't think so. But maybe. I think they're going to have to try to adjust their game and be a little more passive and a little more patient and let the game come to them because right now running around the ice chasing the puck all over is clearly not working for Carolina.

What are you from your experience? What do you think that post-game 2 team film session is looking like for Rod Brindamore right now? Is that one of those where you just, you bring out the tape and you just dramatically burn it in front of everyone? Or do you actually go into it? Because, I mean, you could just spend hours and hours and they're picking every single thing they did. If it's Tuesday, like I said, I keep going, if it's a Tuesday during the regular season, this game is behind you. Just put it behind you because we didn't produce in any areas of the game. We didn't play our game, so let's get over it.

I can't do that in the playoffs. Because you're playing the same team and you can't make the same mistakes again. And so absolutely going through it with a fine tooth combing. It's the little mistakes. And you talked about Orlov and his drifting away from the puck and just puck watching. Can't do that. Guys, we got to do a better job defending from the top of the circle. And I think for me, that's the mantra for this team is in this period we need to defend better.

So the film that I'm going through, yes, we need to generate offense. But this is a team that struggled to create offense for the entirety of the season. It's about they need to defend better. And they won't win unless they defend better. So for me, we're going through our defensive zone coverage. we're going to watch film. We're going to watch how we're drifting following the puck run. We have to be much better on the walls.

We've got to be able to stop Florida from using the walls to their advantage. Let's make that our advantage in this game. Let's win those wall battles. Let's beat them to the puck on the wall. Anticipate the puck's going to be there and let's win those wall battles. So you're right. These film sessions in playoffs are daunting because you have nothing else to do, especially when you're on the road for 36 hours and you're all in the same hotel.

Man, we've had nine or 10 o'clock meetings with Rick Tocket. Man, the whole team all of a sudden he goes, hey, let's go. Get on the phone. Get everybody together. And you're like, oh, buddy. And we're sitting in front of the film room because there's nothing else to think about. So they're dissecting this frame by frame and they're going through all of these things that led up to these goals, just like we do on this show.

And I do think you'll see a better team by Carolina in the game three. I just don't know if it's going to be enough. I don't know if they can out correct their deficiencies against the team that's just better right now. Well, I think it would be almost impossible for it to not be better than what we saw in. game two. So looking forward to that, at least. That's the half-classful approach here. All right, Pedy, we're going to get out of here. Let the listeners know about that YouTube page I was mentioning earlier. Plug some stuff. Yeah, I'm just getting ready. As soon as the show's over, I'll be finishing up the game we just talked about, the game two, Carolina, Florida, all of the goals and

some of the things to look for on improvements for those teams. A lot of things we discussed, you can actually see on video in just a couple hours because it does take some time, but it'll be up today. And again, this isn't for high-level coaches to watch. This is for fans. Like, what am I missing away from the puck? What happens in this game where it happens so fast that I just don't get to see? And they don't have time on the TV broadcasts to break down a goal as minutely as we can on inside the coaches room. So check it out.

All right, buddy. Oh, I was going to ask you, you know, work with the ESPN. One of my frustrations this postseason, and I've really enjoyed these NHL playoffs, but has been the replays on these broadcasts, and neither, neither programmer network has been immune to it. Walk me through that process of picking the replays and doing so in a timely manner,

because, I mean, it happened. The ESPN one actually showed the correct replay of Evander Kain, high sticking, Matt Dusha and what happened there in that third period of the West Final game one. The Sportsnet one just did not show us at all, and so for 15 minutes, people were all up in arms. they can Dushain completely sold it and flopped

and then you actually see it and it was the stick was under his chin if it was like this is happening at a shocking rate this postseason and I don't know if it's driving you crazy but it's had me up the wall. I would tell you as a video guy that needs the information

and that's my background as the video coaching side of it drives me up a wall and the replays I'm getting now and I won't say it's ESPN the World Wide Leader in sports but the when they show these tight looks of the goals and I just get to see the guy shooting the puck, I don't see where it went in on the goalie, how it went on the goalie, how the play developed,

what happened on the play. I just see a tight look of the guy that shot the puck and then watch him cheer. I don't need to see that. As a hockey fan, I don't need to see that. I need to see what happened. Why did it happen? And where did the puck go in? That's all I want to see.

That's all I want to see. And it just show me that. It's just to not see a higher look on some of these goals, I'm going out of my mind. what happened on the goal because I'm getting so many tight looks. But I will say this, from the other side in defense, especially on the penalties are hard. The inside a TV truck is absolute chaos when something like happens. There's a guy running a machine and his machine will have two cameras, maybe three cameras. And there's just a multitude of guys that are, they're tape guys and they all have their own cameras.

And they will just holler out. I've got it on, I've got it on red. I've got it on X. I've got it on Y. And you're getting all these guys yelling at it. And you hope somebody gets a penalty. And sometimes they don't know when the penalty happened or who did it or what number it was. It is chaos.

So I can see it on penalties that sometimes, and I'm a fan too, I get frustrated because they can't find exactly what happened on the penalty. On goals, dude, it's a goal. We know when it happened. Just tell me how it happened. So in defense of the guys in the truck, man, it's a chaotic job and there's a lot going on. And we just need to have a little patience watching on TV. All right, no. I want exactly what I want right away.

And I'm going to keep talking. talking about until it gets changed. All right, PD, this is a blast. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for doing all the work. You've been doing this postseason. Keep it up. We'll have you back on again soon. If you want to help us out, you enjoy today's show. Smash that five-star button. Lee was a nice little review wherever you listen. Join the PDCAS Discord as well. And that's going to be all from us here. We'll be back to cover game two of the West Final to close out the week with our pal Harmon dial. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPediocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.