The Hockey PDOcast - What We Saw in Game 1 of the West Final

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to break down Game 1 of the West Final. They discuss what the Oilers did to secure the win, what the Stars can do to adjust, and every other notable observation they had from the series opener. 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-PedioCast. My name is Dimitri Philpovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on, man? My normal answer to not much is a complete lie right now, so quite a bit of much. I'm sitting in Saginaw right now. I'm going to cover hanging out here for game one of the Memorial Cup tonight for one of our mutual employers EP Rinkside, so hanging out here, but fresh off staying up late last night, watched some double overtime. So got the coffee flowing through me, and I'm good to go here. Well, this is going to be exciting. We got this joke that every time you are in one of these different locations on site, it seems to draw the best performance out of here in the PDO gas.

Not that when you're sitting at home, it's not great, but it just feels like when you're on the road, you're a little extra punchy, you know, and we get a dozen little combative back and forth. So the listeners like that. I'm a better road podcaster. If it fits that I cover the Dallas stars and the way I do at times, because I clearly seem to rise to the occasion when outside of the elements and not getting the last change and all that other stupid stuff. Yeah, we're building up a statistically significant enough of a sample size now

where your home road splits are, there's definitely something to it. No, this is going to be fun. We do need to put together a reel, though, of you just recording from different hotel rooms at Airbnbs and lounges and rinks and practice arenas and all that stuff. A little hockey travel book for the listeners. Here's a plan for today. We're going to cover everything that you need to know from game one of the West final. What happened?

Why it matters. How it affects the rest of the series moving forward. There was a lot to sort of chew on there. So we're going to work through all of it here today over the next 50 minutes. So strap in if the opener of this series was any indication, this is going to be a long and fun ride. So let's embark on the journey together. Let's get into it. So game one, what's the biggest story for you in watching that game?

What do you think is sort of the most pressing thing, but also I think the most indicative thing of the way this series is going to play out? For me, game one just kind of confirmed, it confirms some of the things I thought going into the series that we know that I truly believe in this series for the Oilers to win this series, it's going to take a collection of three to four guys to get it done offensively. We saw that last night.

That's a big one for me right off the bat. The other thing that I look at just kind of from a, I'm not whether it's confirmation bias or not, but it's, there's, the Oilers, the Oilers penalty kill is going to be a, is going to be, is going to be something that we need to talk about,

the Oilers defensively. Like we've obviously, I know I listened to your preview the other day for this series, and I think it was the one you would do with Jack. The, like, you guys talked pretty well about how the Oilers need to be given more credit for how good they are defensively. And I think that was a good show, that was a good point out of game one.

To me, those are kind of the two big things, where the Oilers can't be taken lightly defensively, but at the other end, I don't see much of what this, in this series from the evidence of game one. I don't see much happening unless McDavid and Drysidal are really driving things to really get things done for the rest of the Oilers offense right now.

Yeah, it's interesting how narratives get shaped about teams, right? Because I think understandably so, particularly with the rate at which their power play was producing in the first rounds, but especially at the gate against L.A. and round one, so much of the story became about how, like, the Oilers, it's just the power play, right? And it's sort of, I think, did a disservice in terms of

the collection of work they'd put together in the regular season after the coaching change where they really short up their defensive play, particularly defending off the rush where they were, it was a big problem for them at the start of the year and the reason why they were losing. And they really became good at that and also a really strong five-on-five team to go along with the power play prowess that everyone knows about as well, right? And maybe we didn't get to see that necessarily from a goal scoring perspective in the first two rounds of the playoffs, but that still is there. It's not like this was sort of the norm for them all season.

So I think that's a good shout for you there. The big story for me, and it kind of ties into one of the points you made there, and it's at the heart of everything in this series, is how the stars are going to choose to defend Edmonton's top guns, those four guys or five guys you mentioned, right? And in particular, McDavid is so fascinating to me because the stars enter the series with sort of,

the sample of excellence that Chris Tanev had put together against similar rush players in Jack Eichol and Nathan McKinnon in the first two rounds. And so you could lean on that and say, all right, well, let's just go back to that well and try to replicate that here against Connor McDavid. The point I was making to Jack in that series preview reference was despite that, I actually thought that a much better matchup for the stars would be leaning on Miro defensively in this series against McDavid because of his track record against him. I just think the foot speed and the ability to sort of match him step for step at times and compete with him for loose pucks and then use Tannov more so on Driesidal, especially if the Oilers are going to split those two guys up at 5-1-5. And we didn't really see that in game one. We saw Pita Bore for the most part use Lendell and Tanev against McDavid and then use Miro

and Harley against Dricidal. And I'm curious whether that was just by design in terms of him sort of feeling like he wanted a used Hannav against McDavid or whether it was potentially an acknowledgement on their part that, and I think this is a more interesting case for me, that Dry Cytle is almost kind of like the highest leverage player for the Oilers in this series. Because regardless of what you do to McDavid and the Canucks certainly made life difficult for him for much of that series in round two, he's going to break through and still create chances with his speed and get his, right? but I think if you can sort of limit dry-siddle or make life more difficult for him

or lean on him defensively, then all of a sudden I think it becomes more manageable to just deal with one line. If both those lines are going on their own, then it's going to be tough to compete with that firepower, right? And so I wonder if that's kind of what this acknowledgement was or what Pete DeBur's rationale was for kind of going down this road in game one. What do you think about that? So I think the defensive matchup is important to note.

I actually think there's a second part of this. I think the stars are going to be comfortable with both pairs against the McDavid line as the series goes along. But one of the, and I've covered Miro Heskin probably closer than most people. There's some of the people who have spent time in Dallas since I've left there physically, but I've covered, I've covered Mero Heskin and since his draft here, and I know him pretty well. And one of the things that when it comes to Miro Heshkin and offensively, one of the things the stars have gone through a couple different times is finding ways to get him to realize

the just kind of the mental block to get through the, if there's a mental wall for Mero Heskin's game, it's I'm the number one with the puck on my stick. One of the reasons that they let John Klingberg go a couple years back was frankly the addition by subtraction of, hey, we're taking John Klingberg away. You are now the number one defenseman with the puck on a stick. We are no longer bringing someone else to be in on this. And Mira Hirschkin loves, and I've talked to Murrow many times, Miro loves trying to lock down another team. But he can also get very much in that I'm going to lock down the other team's top guy mentality.

And I wonder, and this is me just theorizing, I wonder if the game one usage is part of the, hey, we want you to cook against the other teams guys too. We want you to, you're not just the. McDavid eraser, you are also a part of our offense. You are part of us moving the puck. And so I don't know for sure on that. I just knowing how Miro Hitchkin's brain clicks a little bit and how the stars have done this in the past before to try to remind him, hey, you can go and be that offensive force. I wonder how much part of that might be coming to play here because the defensive part is important.

I think that that is big. But I do think for the stars to be a better team, they need Miro Hachan and to be part of the rush, part of the creation, part of the moving forward. And if you all of a sudden only assign him, you're shutting down McDavid, that sometimes can become a self-fulfilling prophecy where you're just trying to tie your matchup as opposed to win them. I wonder if that conversation happened in the Star's room. Obviously, it's playoff time. So it's a question maybe I can ask six weeks from now if they'll give me some more on that.

Yeah. I think there's certainly something to that in terms of like getting that sort of tunnel vision, right, or sort of like that taking a life of its own and then that becoming very one dimensional and certainly in the first two rounds he was pushing much more offensively and Thomas Harley whenever they were out there regardless of who they were playing against was kind of taking more of that backseat defensive role and allowing him to push more up front himself it's I guess one of the complicated things is we know that like like Pete is going to be someone who rolls lines more so than hard matches compared to other coaches right and in particular

I think with with the forwards and just the roster construction of this team we've talked so much about their depth and how many contributors they have. I think that's sort of like emboldens him or empowers him to do so even more with this group. I think he would otherwise, but I think he does so because of that. We did see in this game though, like it was a pretty clear relationship where McDavid plays 25,

five on five minutes. Lindell and Tannever are out there for like 15, 16 of them. Miro's only out there for four, whereas Dricidal plays 23 and Miro's out there for 13, 14 of them. Now we're going to see some McDavid and Dreycidal shifts. together and that's going to kind of throw a wrench in that stuff as well. But I think the bigger issue here for the stars is regardless of which defensemen's out there is not having Rupert

hints available in game one and you sort of saw that. And I think it's easy to overlook the impact of that and what a loss that is because they keep winning because they have so many other contributors and because he himself wasn't really producing offensively before. I think if this had happened during last year's postseason run where he just all of a sudden got subtracted from the lineup, it would have been a massive story, but it feels like it's kind of flown under the radar here a little bit. And I think even when he comes back, what is he dealing with like a hand or a wrist injury? It's it's something upper body, right? It's, it's something from what we do know is it happened from the play where he basically gets the little pick, play crosschecked

from McKinnon in game five. Yes. And, and if so that's what we know caused it. We don't know what exactly it is, but we know it's that. And I know having, having, spoken people have watched him skate, he's skating like rope a hence. So it's the, that's not the issue. It's not the legs. It's not the skating. It's the, it's something up top. And the reason why I note that is even if he is sort of compromising that way and

he's not producing offensively when he comes back, his skating ability and what he's going to provide with his legs is so important in this matchup because I think their best shot of kind of limiting McDavid's space and sort of corraling or bracketing him, particularly in the neutral zone is going to come through probably hints. And I would say Miro, it might just be TANF, but I think at least his ability to cover ground and stick with McDavid will give them a better shot of limiting that space. I thought it was pretty notable when you compare sort of the aesthetics of one series to the other for so much of that Canucks series in round two.

Vancouver made such a concerted effort of constantly being in McDavid's space, right? there was so little room to operate a maneuver. And then you compare it to this game. And the stars still did a good job of, and I was messaging you into DMs during the game. I think they frustrated him and you could sort of visibly see the results of that at times with him in terms of like getting sticks in lanes right when he was about to pass or shoot and that kind of disrupting stuff.

But he was pretty much skating at will into every single action he wanted to for the most part. And it was like almost night and day to me how much space he had to just fly up the ice in game one of this series compared to the majority of the previous round. And so I think hints coming back at some point here soon gives them the best shot, particularly with Mero, of accomplishing what Vancouver sort of did to him, right? I think the other key to defending McDavid is you make him be a player more and more of his own zone. Like we obviously always have this image of McDavid flying down the ice and burning people through the neutral zone in this speed.

but I think a big thing that their stars are missing with Hints is part of teams who win their matchups with McDavid, it's getting to expend energy in the defensive zone. It's forcing him to skate defensively from time to time. And I think it's, I think like the stars obviously have lost Hints and they've missed him and Johnston has stepped up and we've talked quite blowingly about what White Johnson has done. But there is a level of when you can go one, two, Johnston Hintz. and both of your setters that are in theory seeing that matchup against, against McDavid, pushing him back right now.

And I know like Sagan and Ben had a pretty good game last night, but it's not like as far as flow of the play in games like that where you're like, oh, well, I see them as a forcing McDavid to skate or anything like that. I think that's the other big thing with Hens when he comes back, where now you're forcing McDavid to be more dimensional to take. it's not just, you're not just defending McDavid. I think that's the big thing that the stars need to kind of get through. And I think it's one of the reasons I touched on that same concept where I think

Mirah Hashkin, part of the matchup is we want you to win your matchup. It's not just, I think part of the mentality Pete DeBore is trying to put in his team. And it's easier to have this mentality with Ropa Hintz is you're trying to win against McDavid. You're not just trying to equal him out. Equaling him out is a victory, but let's push and want more. Well, it's interesting you bring up Johnson there because he, got the primary McDavid assignment from a forward head-to-head perspective in this game without

hints available. And I'm of two minds of this because I kind of appreciate the confidence, the well-deserved confidence they have in his two-way game and kind of how diverse his skill set is and the trust they have and using him in that role and being like, listen, we're just going to go power versus power here to start this series. He's our number one center right now and we're just going to embrace that. And him and Stancoven did have a few promising moments. The issue for me, though, is, and you've seen this throughout this postseason run, when Johnston is on top of his game offensively and just humming and creating scoring chances, this star's team just looks entirely different, right? Like, he has meant so much for all the talk about their depth and how

many guys can generate offense for them. What he's creating scoring chances and he's stacking him together in bunches over the course of a game, they're just, they're a nightmare to play against. And then everyone almost feels more dangerous as a result of that compared to when he's sort of stuck in the mud a little bit, relatively speaking, I think they're much more manageable to deal with. And so similar to what you're saying about Haskin in there, in this head to head against McDavid, I get the logic of, all right, we want to, Johnson's poses a good threat to kind of make him spend time in his own zone and defend. But if you're Johnson, just put yourself in that headspace, it's like you can't really actively push offensively and get deep in the

zone as much as you probably would like and we know how he feasts in those high danger areas if you have to constantly be cognizant of where McDavid is and acknowledging that you need to stay above him and above the puck so that you don't get burned on rush opportunities going the other way, right? I think that's going to happen. It's just human nature that that's going to sort of seep into the way you play offensively yourself. And so I thought they were relatively unthreatening for the most part that line at 515

last night. And I don't love that matchup for him. I think they can get by certainly. But I think if there's a way to play hints when he comes back in that role and then potentially even now that you've got Ben Sagan and Doddanov playing the way they did, if you're using them against dry sidel, let's say, all of a sudden now I think Johnson is a much more advantageous offensive position to just be the type a player that I think Dallas needs right now at this point in time, if that makes sense.

Yeah, and I think the other issue that comes to, you talk about hints coming back and how it unlocks and makes things like right now, just speed-wise, just when you have a line of Marchment to Shane and Pavelski, that line, you just can't put them out there against that line, you just can't put them out there against McDavid. And I think that's the other, as much as Pete likes to roll lines, and I think he doesn't want to match, he wants to. He wants to to roll lines. I think last night was also more of a, I don't want to say line matching, but there's also line avoidance at times where you just couldn't really like, okay, we're not matching lines, but we can put the Johnston line out there. We can put the steel and Smith line with

Fox out there against them. They'll battle hard. And you can do the Sagan in line, but we have a line we have to avoid against them. And I think this all goes back to getting Rope hints back. As you reslot your lines once Hintz goes back in, all of a sudden you can trust all four lines again in some capacity. You're not going to try to do it. You're going to have some guys that a little get a little bit more of McDavid than others. But once Hince is back, the stars can roll four lines again properly against that trio. Yes.

But then what do you do with the Donov playing the way he did and we can talk more about that line a little bit because I thought they're pretty clearly the three best forwards in this game. I think the only thing you can do if Hins comes back, and I'm assuming you take a Craig Smith out of the lineup, for example, let's say if you want to keep Radic Fawkesa centering the fourth line, that probably means making the necessary decision of bumping Joe Povellsky down on the fourth line, right? Possible, yeah, that's fair.

And it's... And you think that's a part of that. I think so. I mean, I think Joe Povellski's... I don't think... I sometimes get the occasional start. fan who's like it's time to scratch Joe Pavelski and whether you want anyone wants to have that discussion or not let's just put let's call what it is you know Pete DeBore will never scratch Joe

Pavels yeah there is too much that that will never happen so it's it's that's a non-start of a conversation but um I don't think I don't think they're they're above and I think Fox would be the one that would come out by the way I think that's kind of I think Fox would come out but I don't think they're above moving Levilski down in the lineup for that because it's, I think there's a certain, like, there's certain like certain seal that you don't break. And I don't think him being a fourth line player, quote, unquote,

goes too far for what this stars team wants to accomplish or upsets the balance of that room to use a very undefinable hockey term. Yeah, I mean, listen, he made a huge play in that game six over time, right, to kind of fish that puck out and get it over to the shape. for the winner and and that's kind of what you lean on the idea of him coming through in those moments it's just the stuff in between has been pretty tough there was even one play it's been in game one where he like whips on a one timer and it's like man yeah I mean this can happen to anyone certainly but it's like stack enough of these together over the course of this playoff run and

the reaction time just doesn't really seem like it is what it needs to be and what it used to be and that's sort of I think upsetting yeah I've got to note here, just to tie the bow on the McDavid part of this, and we can move on to other components of this. I noted in the series preview that TANF had played 116 5-15 minutes in rounds 1 and 2 against McKinnon and Ikel combined, and the stars had given up one total 5-15 goal against in those shifts. McDavid already dinged him for three 5-1-5-on-5 goals, all three goals. The Oilers scored in less than 15, 5-15 minutes head-to-head in game one. not that he's all directly responsible for that,

just that the stat is ridiculous, the fact that he was on the ice. For that, and McDavid himself had the goal assist on ice for all three. Edmonton goals, as I said, game high, 10 shot attempts out of Edmonton's 23 team scoring chances I had them down for. He either,

he took five and he set up four more. Very chaotic night, right? Had the double minor at the start of the overtime. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Misses the yawning cage, but then redeemed himself in second OT. You and I were going back and forth. You were saying, like,

you weren't sure what was up with him in terms of health or what was going on or why he just looked so frustrated. I thought for my money, like after having watched him very closely, obviously in round two, I thought he had a lot of jump in his step in this game, particularly early on.

And he was like getting to a lot of spots on the ice that he had struggled with previously. They just weren't like things were just falling short of the stars were making a good defensive play in the nick of time. But I think that would be a pretty alarming game in terms of what he was able to unlock and accomplish from the star's perspective because that was a much, closer, I think, to the version of what Connor McDavid in all capital's letters is than what we've

seen for the past handful of games from home. And I think it's fair too good. Like, I think one of the things that, just to be fair, you can only pay, like, I try to watch as much hockey as possible. And you watched every single second of that Edmonton, Vancouver series. I watched a lot of it, but I did watch it as closely as I watched Dallas, Colorado in the last run. I think that's a fair thing to acknowledge and point out where you kind of come in with

your different bias and knowledge base. I think that's a fair thing to bring up. You're too busy watching the Grand Rapids Griffins. I have a lot of jobs, Dimitri, and I try to do my best at all of them, okay? You're doing a great job. You're doing a great job. I know, I know.

Okay. Let's talk about that star's top, not top line, but really what functioned as their top line in this game offensively, Ben Sagan and Adonov, and I got a few notes on them that They created both goals. They combined for 24 attempts, 12 scoring chances.

I thought, you know, even if you stretch it back to the third period and overtime with the end of that Ave series, like they're really playing well together right now. And I think on the SIGA front, what's interesting to me, and we were talking about this on the Discord during the game last night, how he sort of changed and remade his game out of necessity right after all the injuries he had from being like, like this high scoring more like, you're never necessarily a prolific sniper, but certainly much more efficient offensive player to this grinder net front guy who you look at all of his chances and goals now. They're all from this like very close area around the net, almost like Zach Hymanish at times, right? And he was awesome in this game.

He had so many scoring chances he converted on the two opportunities he got with open nets essentially. But this line was really good for them. a bit of a revelation for me. And so I'm curious to see when Haines comes back if they keep them together and kind of how this affects sort of the rest of the lineup for them. Sagan's funny to me because one of the things that, and this goes against popular stars narrative, because I, a lot of people in Starsland try to give credit to Ken Hitchcock for

turning Sagan into more of a quote unquote complete all around Seder and everything like that. and the one year he was there. And it's easy because, like, everyone, it's, it's, it's, Star's lore that Ken Hitchcock turned Mike Madano into a, a 200-foot player and everything like that. So it was very popular narrative in Starsland that Sagan buckled down and became a more complete player under Ken Hitchcar. That was also a contract year.

Let's not, like, let's not just, let's not, let's call it what it was. That was also a contract year for Sagan before he got his, his big deal that he has, that he's playing out. right now where so when you're getting told by your boss and you have to do one thing and in the coach you're going to do that to try to earn some more money so let's call that what it is but to me he's because his game is actually refined more in the past 18 months than it ever did during that that cat hitchcock time and part of it's coming back from injury part of it is the listening to your body i don't think knowing tyler decently well i think there's times where

he didn't probably listen to his body before and he still tried to be that that burner in that speedster and he really wasn't able to do it, even going back to. And so I think he started listening to his body more. He started listening to to continue to have evolution and still be a viable NHL player. He had to find a way to evolve his game. And I give him a ton of credit for what he's kind of done in the last 18 months more to change his game than the pre-injury and Hitchcock year stuff. And I think that's, we're seeing some stuff like that, that's kind of to me,

me the big Sagan story. And we see it last night where when he's scoring now, it's not, he doesn't score pretty goals anymore. I can't remember the last pretty Tyler Sagan goal, right? Like, it's, it's been a long, long time since that's happened, but they still all count the same. There's he's, you see them off of the forecheck. You see them off of the goal last night. It comes off. Obviously, it's a bobbled puck by the Oilers defenseman that kind of helps lead to it. but it comes off of doing these other things that I think he did before, but they weren't the key point of emphasis or where he looked for his offense before. Yeah, the core parts of his game.

I mean, I thought the way that line just cycle the puck down low, it kind of accomplished exactly what you're saying with this idea of, all right, how do you make McDavid and Dreisaitle work and how do you neutralize them offensively? Well, make them defend. And that's kind of exactly what they did. And I thought, especially against Dreisaitle, they had quite a bit of success doing so. So maybe that's a wrinkle that they incorporate more so.

But to Donov as well here, I just love him so much. It's just such a hilarious player for me. Noted previously how he keeps incorporating more and more of these zone entries where he's just backing into the zone. And it's like very cartoonish at times, but somehow effective. And he keeps trying it even when it doesn't work. And now people will just keep messaging me every time he does it. So I love that this is kind of taking a life of its own. He reminds me, sometimes his own entries remind me.

I have a sibling who played like AAU basketball through like 12, 13 years old. And they were on the team that, and they were the point guard. And there would be times where they would often get against these overmatch teams. And they'd be bringing the ball up court. And the minute they got to half court, they'd turn around. And they'd basically just, they're watching just like basketball, the half court basketball where the point guard just trying to start backing people down from half court. That's the,

that's the feeling I get watching Dodado sometimes on zone entries. I love it. Have you heard is, have I told you, I think I've said it maybe on the podcast before. I think people in the Discord have heard it. But his story, our pal Drenz has a story with him when he was working with him in Florida.

And everyone would obviously just call him daddy as his nickname, right? Yeah. And then Luongo started calling him Padre. And then once Drenz tried to call him Padre and Donov just looked at him and very seriously said, no, only Longo is allowed to do that. So don't you dare call him Padre. Only daddy works. No, I love it.

It makes sense also. When he's playing lower in the lineup, he was still found a way to be effective earlier, but I think he makes a lot more sense in this configuration because he keeps trying these passes into the slot and around the net. And when he's playing with less talented players, they're much more likely to not just be ready for it or be able to convert it. And so I like it more now that he's kind of. in a scoring role and they've thrived for them.

So that's something to watch for. All right. Sean, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back in. We'll finish strong with more on game one of the West Final. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back here with Sean Chapparel.

We are chatting about game one of the West Final. Sean, we're talking about McDavid's game and in particular the Oilers, top guns in terms of what Dallas is going to do to defend them, the way they're going to produce. were responsible for all three goals that Edmonton scored in this game, and that's going to probably be a recurring theme in this series, especially if Edmonton's going to win. We've got to give Evan Bouchard some love here because he is having a phenomenal postseason now. He's had that wonderful assist to set up McDavid's game winner where he pinches down the wall and then makes a pass into a slot off of it with him on the ice at 515.

In this game, goals were 3-0-0. Edmonton, high-dangered chances were 7-0. nothing. He's up to 21 points in 13 playoff games now, including a league leading 12 points of 5-1-5. And when they, I mean, they're using him almost as a as a linemate for McDavid right now, where the two of them share the ice for about 80 plus percent of McDavid's five-on-five minutes. And then sometimes they stack together, Dreisito, with, with Hyman as well. And they go with their top unit power play essentially at 5-15, and it functions as such. The postseason he's having as remarkable. I think kind of how important he is to the entire operation, right? The one game

where he really struggled was game five against Vancouver where at home was sick and didn't really play as usual amount. And then Bouchard was a bit frazzled by it and made a few mistakes. And essentially, you could just see how everything for Edmonton in terms of what they want to do fell apart, right? Like they couldn't navigate Vancouver's forecheck. They couldn't get out of their zone and they just got completely stuck and didn't look at all like the team that they are at their best. And when he's playing like this, you sort of just kind of reinforces how integral a part of the operation he is. And he doesn't get really, I think, the respect he deserves for that, right? Because I think everyone just says, well, he's playing on the top unit power play with McDavid and Trisidal. He plays a lot

of 5-1-5 with McDavid. Anyone could be putting up these numbers. But then you watch a game like this and you sort of see that, all right, while he's certainly benefiting from a very favorable situation, I think the stuff he does not only to put them in that spot, but then once they're there to capitalize on it, works as such a force multiplier for. them that it deserves full marks and not just kind of this yeah but that he generally is treated with it's similar to the whole zach hyman discussion right where everyone's like oh anyone can score 50 goals on on on macdavits win yeah it's like all right can you point me to a list of guys who have done it yeah exactly exactly so to me it is a it's a complimentary i think too often

in narratives we forget that complementary skills exist and complementary skills can help stat when you stack them together well. And I think that's one of the things about this Oilers team when they're really good is you have Bouchard's skill set works well with that with that top line. You have Hyman's skill set really works well with McDavid and everything like that. It's okay to appreciate complimentary skills that stack on top of each other. And one of the things I like about Bouchard too just from his game is I like that they've let him be, Evan Bouchard. I always,

like, I, one of the things about his game, like, and it's a very simple, but let's, let's look at how he shoots the puck,

right? In today's NHL, it's a league of little risters and floaters, and everything like that. We've been told, like the slap shot has died, right? A lot of coaches,

if they work with guys, you want to work on game puckst through, you want to get work. And I'm sure they talk to Bouchard about how to get more pucks through from time to time, but they just let him rip it. And I love that you let a player, when they have a strength, they've had something that's got them there.

You let him keep doing it. And I think you can then use that to build other strengths. I think that's part of the obviously not being in Edmonton, so not knowing for sure and not asking Bouchard myself this, but me looking from afar, I always kind of think about that as part of the Bouchard story. If no one went and said, okay, well, you have to change something you're doing well. And I think that's something too that I love that they've done with him there. Yeah, he does so many little things, like starting from the breakouts to gaining the middle of the ice in the offensive zone to extending possessions on the walls and then getting the pucks through, as you said, that helps sort of maximize everything they do and like take advantage of that. And just like the abs do where they play, especially this year, they played McCar and McKinnon so much together. Like I think this is generally what when you have players like this, you should be doing.

And that's not a negative thing, right? It's like this combination of players gives you the highest likelihood of scoring goals and optimizing your lineup. And so they should be playing together. And that's a good thing. And so the fact that they're thriving the way they are, everyone is responsible for it. Right. It's kind of everyone contributing in their own ways. And yeah, I mean, they've been so good together.

And then when they put, like they had a couple shifts only. I think it was only wound up being a couple minutes yesterday at 515 where they loaded it up, particularly after the penalty kills where they put dry saddle out there with those guys. and it almost looks like they're on the power play, right? And I think they've scored six five-on-five goals in about 50 or 50, 55 minutes or so at 5-1-5 with those guys out there. So that's a nice little, I guess, you know, breaking class of a case of emergency that they have over the course of these games.

But I wanted to give him some love because I thought he was really, really good in game one. Let's look ahead to what we're watching for a game two then, right? Because you've kept making this note. And I was on with our pal Bobster. on his radio show there locally before game one. And I made sure to credit you appropriately, as I like to do, right? You got to set your sources with the stat that you like to throw out here

about the stars and game ones and how they struggle in these series. And beyond just the losses, like I think, you know, game two, or sorry, game one and round two against Colorado, they were had that big lead and then they kind of let it slip away. So I think that was slightly different than certainly what we saw last night,

but also what we saw in game one against Vegas. the result was the same. But I think you can make the common sort of uniting theme between the three of them sort of trying to gather their bearings against these teams a little bit, right? Where it's like every series is different. It has its own challenges and unique circumstances and every team's going to play you differently.

And in both those, it felt like they had to take a little bit of a time to sort of gauge the speed and how the other team was going to play and then make the adjustments necessary. And I think one of the perks of the same thing, Stars team is they have such a malleability because of the diversity of skills that they have. So that allows them to do that. It's going to be incumbent for them to do so in game two and beyond in this West Final against

Edmonton. But I think if you're going to make a bullish case about this team because I didn't think they looked particularly good in the opener, it's that that's kind of what's happening here. Do you think that's a fair stance to take or how do you sort of view a relatively uninspiring, I thought, performance by them? Or was it just, you know, credit to Edmonton? Like they played, they skated really well. They're good defensively.

Like I thought they brought it themselves. So maybe it's just as simple as that. It's a great question. Credit to Edmonton for one. I think that is, that is important. But the other just like odd thing about this. And this is like, normally you'd be like, oh, losing game once, this is just a, there's no trend to this. There's like, it's, you know, like, but this is, this is wild to me.

So in the seven game losing streak of losing game once, um, six of those series under Pete DeBore, one of those under Rick bonus. And so let's throw out the Rick bonus one, since you're talking, under this coaching staff, right? You've lost game one in all six series that he's played with this coaching staff,

Pete DeBore staff. All six of those games have been one goal games, and four of them have been overtime losses. Like, so this is the, normally you'd be like, oh, this is just anecdotal. They lose game one. Like, they lose game one in the most,

annoying fashion ever. Like it's when you're watching at home, when you're watching home, you're like, I would just like him to lose game one like for nothing. So we can just like, just get smoked. Yeah. Just get smoked. Get it over with and we can just kind of like, they just lose game one of the most annoying fashion ever each time. And I

don't know like to me this is a, obviously you never want to be in the business of going down one oh. That is never part of the plan. You always want more wins than the other. Exactly. Yes. So you never want to be in that business. But I, I do, to me, this, I'm starting to come to the theory and I was thinking about this while

sitting in traffic today. It's starting to come to more and more. This is more and more of a thought process for me where I start to think about how does this reflect Pete DeBore? Is it one of those where you kind of let game one roll and you just roll the tape and let it go and then you kind of get to work before game two? Once again, one of those questions that I'd like to ask Pete, maybe six weeks from now when when there's a little bit more truth serum of time and space behind? Because I start to, I'm starting to have that theory on things where from a coaching perspective, we start to see the stars make more adjustments later in a series. A lot of times in game one in these losses, and I went back and checked some of this stuff, he doesn't make many

changes in game one. You just kind of let everything go through. And maybe it's because in all of those games, the games have been close or the stars have had the lead. So maybe that's part of the reason you don't change when you have a lead or like the colorado game where you let them come back like maybe you don't change when it's a close game but we see we talked about in the late in the colorado series late in the Vegas series we tweak key on these moments where pete d'bore made in game alterations and i never see them in game one very rarely i mean they're just probably probably missing something from here and there but i just i'm starting to have that theory and this is me bringing this up as popped in my brain sitting in traffic 45 minutes ago so i could be completely

wrong and maybe it's the problem to bring it on to the radio or the podcast this quickly, but that's, that's kind of what's been rumbling around in my head on this one, as I think more and more about this statistical oddity that is now large enough of a sample size where it's a trend. No,

I think this, this podcast is a, is a testing ground for takes. So I think it's good to try some stuff out here. I mean, it makes sense, right? Everything we know about Pete is, is he obsesses over this stuff

and analyzes it and thinks about it in a different way than I think a lot of other coaches who are much more, let's say vibes based, right? And so I think it makes sense that once you get a sample of information, both statistically, but also on tape of what the other team's doing, how they're playing you, there's stuff there to adjust. And then the stars also have a personnel group that I think is versatile enough to play in different ways to accomplish that. There's some teams where it's like you just have to play a certain way and you're either going to win or lose doing so.

I think the stars team probably can adjust. So it makes sense that that trend would be kind of establishing itself here. I think what's interesting to me is how this game sort of played out and went, right? Because it was very reminiscent to me of what we saw in game one of the East Final, where it started between two really good teams. And you could tell that they were cautious and it was a very low event because I think they were recalibrating and trying to sort of figure out the other team and weren't willing to really make mistakes. And so there weren't very many shots or even chances.

You and I were talking about this. I think chances were like three, three or something. something or four three for Edmonton in the first period, which is very low for these teams. Then by period, how it went, what for me was, so it was four three, Edmonton in the first period, scoring chances, 11 to six Dallas, eight to three Edmonton and the third, and then five five in the overtime plus the whatever, 45 seconds or so in the second OT. And the interesting things to take from that for me are one, the slow start and the game state, I think itself, right?

Similar to what we saw from, like say Boston, they finish off that series against Toronto in round one and it's so low event and physical and nothing's really happening. And then they enter that series against Florida and it's just much more open. And they're just like, all right, oh, we actually have room to skate and stuff's happening and we have opportunities to create chances.

And Boston started that series really strong and took game one. I think a similar thing kind of happened here for Edmund, where that round two series by design from Vancouver's perspective was just so brutal and nasty. And then they entered this one. And for the most part, I think it was pretty refreshing for them that it was, you know, there wasn't overly physical. I wouldn't say it was pretty free flowing for the most part. Even though stuff wasn't necessarily happening, I think they were just able to move around more freely.

And I'm sure they enjoyed that. So I'm curious to see if that tightens up. The other note is, well, can I, can I, can I add a point to that real quick? Of course. You talk about in play. I don't know if it's something where it's fresh off watching Florida and the Rangers try to clobberate each other after every single whistle. But like, this was one of the least animosity, friendliest post-scrum playoff games I've ever watched last night. Right.

Like, you're watching that game. And normally, and I don't care much, I don't think it impacts the game one way or the other too often. But it was just, it was just an interesting note where you talk about kind of more space and free flowing within the game. But then even after the whistle, like, you're, and maybe if there's not enough history, I don't know, but it just, it was just an interesting thing for me to see where you don't see much of either of these teams. It's like, oh, the whistle, the whistle blew and, all right, we just go to our bench and chill. We don't really, we don't, we don't worry about getting that extra shot in, which has been such a,

which is such a common playoff thing. So it was. Yeah, most of it was happening. I don't know that's a good or bad. It's just an observation. Yeah. Well, most of it, ironically, most of it. of it wasn't happening after the whistles.

It was happening before the whistles. Like the faceoffs in this game were just so unruly, I thought. We're just like the officials just kept having issues with dropping the puck and kicking people out of the draw. And I was like, this is like, this is the most contentious part of this game, I find. In the third period, I mentioned the scoring chances were eight to three Edmonton. And the reason why I think that's notable, they obviously, you know, Dallas gets that balance, scores to say again, goal forces the overtime.

So Edmonton blew another third period lead technically. but a big narrative heading into this was their struggles in that Vancouver series holding on to leads, right? They got way too conservative and then allowed Vancouver to like just aggressively attack them and put together Shots, chances, goals. And I actually thought they played that third period really well and probably should have closed that game out in regulation. Like Dallas did not really generate a lot in my opinion. No, no, it's beyond that balance, right? Stancove had that nice little steal and back end that kind of missed the net high. But for the most part, it was actually a very well-played third period by Edmonton, I thought, very in line with their game generally.

Like Dallas got up to the mid-30s and shots and kind of evened it out in that overtime. But I thought especially after that power play, and it didn't really generate much on the power play beyond the Robertson shots. They were really stat patting Stuart Skinner's line as well, right? There was a lot of kind of one-percenters from the point that he was gobbling up. And I was thinking from his perspective because this was obviously a very good game for him. He got a bit lucky with that Robertson posting the overtime. But it's also a totally different environment for him. And you and I have spoken about this from a goalie's perspective of that Vancouver series

where it's like you're going to face 15 shots tonight and 12 of them are going to be scoring chances and they're going to be spread out. There's going to be 10 minutes at a time where you just don't see the puck. And then good luck. Now you have to make a tough save. and then in this type of game where it's like you actually get the field of puck and see it more frequently

and Dallas is just putting it on the net more I imagine from him we'll see how he fair is the rest of this series but I imagine it's a slightly less challenging like Dallas certainly is going to score their share of goals and they're going to get scoring chances but at least I think it gives them a better chance to hang in there than maybe kind of

what he was thrown into in round two he gets to do a rhythm right Like it's the, it's, it's, it's just like getting the warm-up shot throughout the game, right? Like, why do goalies take warm-ups? So you get your body moving and tracking pucks and it makes everything else easy. Well, if you keep getting the warm-up shots throughout the game, too, you just keep getting more dialed in. I think that's a, that's a reality from, for the position. I do think, I do think, and you and I were messaging back and forth, I do think, like, Edmonton,

they should have won the game before made it to the third period. That's a hockey is fluky, and so give Dallas credit for capitalizing on a fluky bounce, but Edmonton played well enough in the third, but they should have won that game to one. They should have closed that game out. They played well enough to do it. It's just fortunate bounce, and that's how Dallas tied it. Well, even in like 20 plus minutes of overtime to have five scoring chances from Dallas

respective, considering you had four full minutes of power play time. And then there was a big chunk in there in the middle of the first overtime, where you could tell Edmonton was completely gassed. Like they had DRA out there for a shift, and you could tell, he was laboring physically and Dallas just wasn't actually really leveraging it into actual stuff of substance for the most part. Like they, I think Edmonton did really well defensively there,

but I think of your Dallas, you're probably like, okay, we should have probably done a little bit more with that, especially with how gas they were. The one other note that I have for what I'm looking for moving forward. And our pal, David Castillo was making a point of this was like they had success with it early in the

game, right? where they like Dallas is I think by design trying to get out in transition quite a bit and so by doing so they're their cherry picking at times and I think against the soilers team especially against the second and third pairs it's a smart strategy because a lot of those guys like defensively I wouldn't say that their recognition of situation and time and place is the best at times and so you actually can't I think sneak behind them and get lost and all of a sudden create all of these breakaway opportunities. And we saw the Donov have his and then Ben had the rebound off of it.

And so I'm going to be watching for that as well because in round two, Vancouver was just so reluctant to attack off the rush at all against Edmonton and kind of let them off the hook that way. And so in this series, if Dallas is able to facilitate that a little bit more, I think that's going to be an interesting dynamic that we didn't really see in the previous round. Well, and that's a dynamic of that Ben Sagan. in Doddanov line too. It was going all the way back to, I think it was Ben's breakaway goal against Vegas.

He had a pretty latent goal-hanging sheet that led to a breakaway goal against Vegas there, too. So I think it's a little bit more common with one specific line for Dallas than the others. But it is a, it's an element from my viewing of the Vancouver Edmonton series, not something we saw. that Vancouver try to do that Edmonton to deal with on any of their lines

right the camera angle my god I uh it was listen I think the alternative of it being recorded from outer space

in some of these ranks and you're like trying to squint and see it where the puck is isn't ideal either but I think in this case there were such long stretches where the puck's on the near boards

and you just you're just guessing where it is I was laughing because our pal Jack-on did a video breakdown under the substack of the overtime winner, right? And the action is happening on the near wall with having Blouchard pinching, as I said, and making that play.

And then he's trying to, like, on his video, he's trying to highlight where Bouchard is. And so he's, like, trying to put a circle to identify where it is for your watching the video. And you can't actually see Bouchard in the play because you just see, like, 10 people standing near the boards. And so he's just, like, highlighting random people. And he's like, just take my word for it.

Bushard's here somewhere. this mass of people. And so it's like, I don't know. I just had to note that because I thought that if we're observations from game one, I thought that was one of the most notable things in my opinion. I will, one thing I should do is I should reach out to someone from the stars to just like volunteer and leave up. What are those like those wooden boxes that you see on film sets that they kind of

that they use just like leave a couple of those with the camera guy. And so like four or five of them, you can put up the set of the tripod on it. get the camera up probably like six inches higher so we're above the head head headline of all the people and maybe we get a slightly better uh better angle on that yeah but yeah that was note also the other thing since we're doing game one observations the sound levels seemed really weird on this game like it was like there was times where it sounded like the audio levels were really high on commentators and not on the game itself and it almost felt like they were i know they were there in person but it almost felt like they were, it almost felt like they were kind of calling remote, even though I know

they weren't. That kind of felt, I felt that at times. Yeah. All right, pal. Well, this is a blast. I, uh, I really enjoyed that game one. It was a fun one, but it's a precursor of what this series is going to be like. I'm looking forward to it because I thought that like already, I thought there was much more in that game than pretty much all of the previous round between Dallas and Colorado for all the hype about those two teams playing each other and like, oh, this series deserves a game seven, because it's these two heavy weights. It was like, I didn't actually think it was that competitive of a series for the most part,

not that it was like one-sided. I just thought that there were very few stretches where I thought both teams were playing really good hockey at the same time, whereas already in this one, it wasn't peak hockey by any means, but I did think it was already very high level in terms of what the teams are doing. So I'm looking forward to seeing all the adjustments from that and everything to come in the upcoming games.

What do you want to plug? Because you are on site as we said off the top there, at the Memorial Cup. What are you looking for while you're there? What can people expect from you? Yeah, so I'm up here at the Memorial Cup doing some, it's doing some back and forth drive in here to cover it for fine folks at EP Ringsside where you can find work from both of us. I got something up there today on Zane Perake, who's one of the top defensive prospects coming into this, into this draft, some stuff there. And then obviously my own site over at the substack shapshots. And for if you want, for your knowledge to to our coffee book of unique places to record.

I am flying to Dallas next Thursday, Dimitri. So if you want to, if you want to book in time to record something from a lounge with an American Airlines Center next Friday or something like that, I'll let you, there's a prime opportunity to get road, to see me on the road and stay and paying attention during these podcasts. We will definitely do that. But I actually want you to do it during the game.

I want you to go down to the front row and just record it from like within, a mass of bodies where I actually won't be able to see you, but I'll just be hearing your voice. And we're going to record that and stream it for the listeners to watch and try to figure out where you are in that midst of bodies. Sean, this is great. Thanks for coming on. Thank you to the listeners for listening to us.

That's it, not only for today, but for another week of shows. So we'll be back on Monday. Have a great weekend. Enjoy these conference finals. And we'll see you with a whole new set of PDOCAS here on the SportsNet Radio Network.