The Hockey PDOcast - What We Saw in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final

Episode Date: June 16, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to break down everything they saw in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final. 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, Dmitry Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey-PedioCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on, man? I mean, not too much. There was nine goals in an HL playoff, NHL Stanley Cup final game, and it wasn't close at all. So, I guess not too much.

I mean, a lot, but not a lot at the same time, right? Yeah, I guess describing that game as featuring nine goals. is statistically correct. Also probably does not do justice to the 8-1 score line for the Edmont-Noyler's. We're recording this on a Saturday night. The game just ended.

It was already out of hand at the second intermission. You wanted to get going right away. I said, hold on, similar to the previous game, not that I thought Florida would come back, but I wanted to see what happened at third period because it felt like we were due for some sort of shenanigans from one side or the other.

It was actually pretty tame in that sense. There's a couple penalties, but nothing too egregious. and scored a few more to make it 8-1 by the final buzzer. So we're going to, we're going to talk about everything we saw in game four and do the breakdown. People who have been listening to the ones we've done here for the first three games, I appreciate you, as you can probably notice. I'm back in the studio here in Vancouver, recording with our pal shot.

I've been doing the ones with our other pal, Thomas Trans, while we were in Palm Springs together. I just came back home. But here's the deal. Even though it's a Saturday night, even though this was a blowout. the grind continues, right? It's the Stanley Cup final. A game happened and we got to break it all down and give the listeners what they want. So hopefully we're going to accomplish that tonight and kind of get into why that game went the way I did. So here's my first question for you then. Coming out of that game, do you feel like there was something you saw that sort of either tactically or strategically shifted things in Edmonton's favor where all of a sudden now as the series goes back to Florida, you feel like maybe our outlook or our idea of what is to come, should be? fundamentally change, or do you view this kind of similar to what we just saw in the parallel in the NBA final where the team down to three nothing at home, put together a spirited effort

as we'd expect from them. There's a reason they got to this level to begin with, and they're probably not going to get swept. And now we shouldn't read too much into it. How are you kind of viewing this game for performance from both teams? Yeah, I look, and I watched that, that Maverick Celtics game closely last night, too. Like, I feel very similar to that, where I don't think anyone on the NBA side of the world is thinking that the Mavericks are going to, I think a lot of us are just expecting Boston to now go win that series in five games on the NBA side. And I, nothing changed. I mean, I would expect Florida to, I would, I would, if I was a betting man, I would bet on

Florida to win, to win game, to win the cup on game five in Florida here. So it doesn't, to me, I didn't see the, I don't. Like, there's definitely, obviously, Edmonton did better things. They did that they're, but I mean, essentially what happened? They really first period, they hit two posts and then Connor Brown and Matthias Yanmark somehow combined for a goal that leaves two Panthers basically laying on top of each other. Like, and to give, like, give Edmonton credit, but nothing about this game for me from a actical, like, sense said like, well, okay, now I, now, now I feel like, Edmonton,

is going to be the team that's going to rip off four straight to win the cup this year. It was a great 8-1 victory. Take nothing away from that. But to me, there's nothing that doesn't, there's nothing where Paul Maurice in Florida don't go into game five and be like, you know what? We can essentially do kind of the same thing and just get something. Obviously, not completely the same thing, right? Don't let up eight goals.

Don't let up all the high danger. Don't let up some of the high danger chances to depth players. But there's nothing about this game where I see like, oh, man, momentum shifted. And also, to be. fair, you and I have been on this before, I'm not a big momentum from game to game guy in the series anyway. So really my answer was going to be kind of hedged that way, no matter what. I'd say especially with the extra day off for travel and the location of the game switching as well, right? If you were going to say like, all right, well, you can kind of keep the momentum going here. I think a lot of that

gets broken up. I will say maybe from the Oilers perspective, because I actually did see a few things we're going to get into them here, certainly, but just kind of like a bigger picture sort of philosophical view, whether it was sort of, you know, kind of faking it until you're making it in terms of like talking yourself up just to either safe face or to sort of, you know, manifested in a way. It was a pretty united. Like I thought in game three, I know they made the pushback late Adventin did to make it a one-go game and have a chance at the end to tie it and send it into overtime. But for the most part, the broadcast was kind of highlighting how for a large,

stretches of that third period while it was 4-1, it looked like a pretty defeated group, right? And I think we've seen this Panthers team certainly demoralize their opposition along the way this postseason because of how relentless they are and how they never really let you have the puck and how it almost seems like inevitable with their playing style. Now, in this game, heading into it, all the talk from the Edmonton side was them still feeling good about their process, right?

We've been generating chances. We just haven't been able to break through. The goal-tenings been good. We've been a bit unfortunate. it with our firepower and everything we've put on tape and done this season to get to this point, we feel like we'll eventually start scoring some goals. And so I think from that sense, a game like this certainly helps reinforce that a little bit, where it goes from kind of like just completely empty calorie coach speak and stuff to actually something now where, you know,

certainly after a while, like the game got out of hand and I think like the seventh and eighth goal don't necessarily matter. But when you're scoring the way they did and chasing Babrovsky in the second period, it might not transfer to the next game, but I will say that it also does at least sort of give a bit of credence to pretty much everything they've been saying along the way. Well, it gives more evidence to their, like, Edmonton coming out of, like, one of the big beliefs out of Edmonton. I was down in Florida for games one and two, and now I'll be on a flight to, my Fort Lauderdale flight is Monday morning, so I'll be down there. But one of the big feelings come out of Edmonton, especially at a game one, was that they deserve to win game one. And that was

the big belief that team had. And obviously it is a large hill to climb and everything like that. And it might feel like coach speak. But I think Edmonton is getting on the plane right now back to Florida feeling like legitimately they've played well enough to be up to be two to in this series at a minimum. And there is a, there is something to confidence, right? There is something to, I'm not a big momentum from game to game guys. but there is something to the confidence that, you know what, hey, we've had something taken away from us.

We, and this is, if any team has any, I know I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth on this, but if any team has the past evidence in this season of, hey, you can go win four games in a row, it's Edmonton after that team, after what was that streak that they had when they won 16 or whatever it was straight in the regular season. Now, obviously it wasn't against the Florida Panthers. It wasn't against one team that was trying to close out the state of the state. the Cup, but still, I think there is a, that, that, that, that, that's where Edmonton comes from this. The other weird thing that I just wanted to know on this game, and it's, like, I don't know if

it's a, I don't know, and this is a Panthers thing, and I don't know if this is something that we just, we saw a little bit from it last year in that Vegas series, and obviously that Vegas team was so much better, and we all know that, but there's something about this Panthers team that, there seems to be like at some point in games where they've lost. And I don't ever say, I don't want to say they quit on games, but like for a team that we know works so hard and battles, there'll be times in games that you've seen them where they're like,

yeah, you know what? It's not our night. And they just kind of like more, like they kind of just like shut down as a group. And that was, it hasn't happened to ton this playoffs and, and everything like that.

But like even in the regular season, like there would be times where you notice like, Florida would be so good, but that there would be the occasion. game was like, ah, this is not our night. And it would just kind of like, they would just kind of coast to the end. And it was kind of like just keep everyone as healthy as possible. And so I don't want to accuse Florida of like quitting on the game or anything like that.

But it was like, you know, it's down 3-1, down 4-1, whatever. It just became, you kind of like, well, we get to go be on the beach tomorrow at our practice facility in Fort Lauderdale. I don't know if it was that necessarily, but I do think there is something to the idea that it can snowball a little bit on them or kind of like unravel. Yeah. Because of their inherent playing style, right? If we talk how they're like, yeah, by design, so on the line and pushing the boundaries and so aggressive, if things aren't going your way and early on in that first

period, the puck bounced on them a few times and kind of negated a few of their scoring opportunities. I do think it can sort of optically, I guess, kind of move more in the extreme. And obviously, this is the most extreme version of what you're talking about, I guess, pretty much since the close-out game of last year's Stanley Cup final. But yeah, I think Edmonton did a few interesting things in this game. Now, without at the risk of kind of becoming a bit too self-referential here, after game three, Drans and I were talking about what we needed to see from Edmonton

in this game beyond obviously converting other opportunities to throw a legitimate haymaker at Florida and not only win a game, but at least plant a little seat of doubt of like, all right, this is what we're capable of in this matchup. it's not going to be easy. And I think we did see that in this game. The first thing for me was the lineup adjustment, right? Where you look at the top six heading into this game, and I have absolutely no idea what the rationale are thinking was

for having Corey Perry in there in game three and having Leandro Seidel have to perform the unenviable task of trying to drag him around at this point of his career, especially in a head-to-head against Asha Barcove, and we saw how that played out. They went with like a full, or at least as close to as they can, speed approach atop their lineup in this game, right?

They move Warren Fogel up to the top line with McDavid and Hyman. They give dry-sidal both Holloway and R&H, and I think we saw that pay dividends in this, not only because guys were in the right spots all of a sudden, but I think it gave them a little bit more juice off the rush as well. And you saw that in this game on a couple of the goals they scored, right, where they're able to push the puck up the ice and then attack Florida when they're out of position.

and they weren't really set up to do so previously with their lineup configurations. And so I'm not sure if this necessarily unlocked something moving forward, but I do think it at least sort of passes my, I guess, confirmation bias of what I wanted to see with this group, with the personnel they had, as limited as it is. And so far so good in this game, right? We saw pretty much all those adjustments, every guy moving up and playing a different role,

contribute in some meaningful way. And so I think that is something that you can sort of buy into, I guess, and view as an encouraging development for heading into game five. Well, and then the other thing, too, right? Like, it's the overly cliche, but it is true. Like, I don't, I think, I don't think Stuart Skinner is as good as the, now I was watching the ABC broadcast, I don't think Stuart Skinner was, deserves as much credit as the ABC broadcast was probably giving him.

I mean, his team scored eight goals for him. But I did think he made the timely stop. And I think that was, got some help from the post as well, but I think that's another thing too, where there's been little moments in this series where Bobrovsky has, really for the first three, for the first three games,

but Broowski made the timely saves. He made the one mistake on the at home goal in game two, but in that shutout obviously stopped everything, but like in game two, he didn't let anything snowball. In game three, even when Edmondon made their push at the end, he had some stuff earlier.

And I think Skinner kind of added, countered back a little bit, what we saw from Skinner a little bit in that Dallas series. When there was times where Dallas, again, in that Dallas series, Skinner made some saves that Edmonton clearly built off of. And I think that that happened as well. To me, those are the two big things. You point to the coaching change, that the lineup changes being more connected, things being a little bit more. And then at the back end, it's the overly, it's the simplest thing in hockey, but it's just true. someone stopped the puck at a timely moment and that I think that's a huge

I don't want to I'm not trying I'm not trying to oversimplify it but I am at the same time no I mean especially in the margins of these games obviously in an 8-1 one there's a bit more wiggle room and especially like in that third period there's a bit of an onslaught by Florida that sort of pads the numbers a little bit and it winds up making it amazing performance I'm totally agree with your point that early on you know especially that Ryanhart post off the rebound

Africa, Chuck had just hit the post himself. That easily could have been sort of a crossroads moment for Hagee on that two-on-one, the stop he comes across and makes if he places that shot a little bit better. All of a sudden, it's two-two. I think the framing of the game is entirely different regardless of what happens next, right? And so in that case, a few things go there away, and then he got to settled in, and that was ultimately a difference and allowed Edmonton to build on that. So I'm with you.

I don't actually think that's a cliche. It's a frustrating thing because it does seem like it's kind of, over simplifying it, right? Like we're going to break down all this tactical stuff and X's and O's and adjustments. But at the end of the day, they say this sort of tongue in cheek in basketball is a make or miss league.

It's sort of the case here as well, right? Like either your goal kind of stops it or doesn't. And then a lot of analysis is so results based. I'd like to think here on the PDOCast may be hopefully a bit less so than other outlets, but still, you can review it differently based on the result. And so I think there is something to that. Let's put a pin on the goalie conversation, though,

because obviously we're talking more Bob Brodsky as well, and we can kind of talk about that a bit later. I just want to stick with the Edmonton theory here in terms of what we saw. I think the other thing they did really well in this game is leveraging Florida's vaunted aggression up the ice to create stuff off the rush themselves, right? I think what, certainly the first five goals, and then they scored the power play goal, I believe, to make it 6-1. But I think all of their other goals that were scored off the power play,

essentially came off the rush. Even the Henrique sort of redirection, I think the broadcast kept referring to it as one of the goals that wasn't off the rush, but even that one comes like five seconds after an entry. It was just a bit delayed because Yanmark took a bit of a circuitous route to get there. But I still view that as sort of a rush goal because the Panthers weren't set defensively. And so what you saw in this game, I thought was similar to what I thought Florida would actually do to them heading into the series using Kachak as kind of that like midfield anchor in the middle of the ice

in the neutral zone, Oilers sort of flipped that script on them and did a really good job of setting up a player either at their own blue line or at center ice to sort of stop Pox and essentially give the breakout a player that could sort of handle a play

and then stretch out the ice for them to attack off the rush. And that was something they weren't really doing much of between games two and three. They did a lot of it in game one. And so I think that's what you saw in this game and they certainly converted on those opportunities once they got them, unlike in game one.

But I think that was a big distinction here for me, just seeing how many goals they were scoring in this game off the rush and taking advantage of the Panthers sort of being a bit chaotic and out of position. And I'm sure that Paul Maurice and his staff are going to watch back this video and then come up with adjustments for it and we're going to get that chess match element that we love in the postseason. But at least they kind of gave them something to think about here. And I'm curious to see what that means for Florida heading into game five,

because you certainly don't want to give this Oilers team as much space in the neutral zone as they were able to afford themselves tonight. Florida overly respected the guy too. Like, it's a great point. Like Florida overly respected kind of the, it's for me. And I know I use soccer analogies quite a bit, but it's just because that's kind of the other sport I follow. But like to me, it was very, it was like overly respecting the center forward who draws back in, has his back to the goal. And Florida kind of got sucked in too much on no matter who. it was in the neutral zone, basically just kind of drawn too much attention to the guy with

his back, basically is back to the net effectively. Not sometimes he's facing it, but in general, right? The guy who really isn't much of a threat and is almost stationary. And it just kind of kept unlocking everything. And it's fine, I'm sure, from a coaching perspective, you look at it and you want to, you don't want to just give that guy the space to go and everything like that, but just too many, there'd be times in this game you see maybe a second player would maybe try to pinch in on that guy as well.

And it would just open up these extra wide lanes for where Connor Brown and Matthias Yanmark are killing guys on rushes. Like that to me is, it's a really, it's a really good point you bring up. And from a coaching perspective, I think that is, I think it's a pretty simple tactical whiteboard video session of like, look, you can't, we can't, we can't, this guy's, if this guy's getting the puck here, we can't be drawn two guys to this guy. I think that's just, we saw too much collapsing at the wrong time there. I'm trying, I know I'm using, I'm trying to use coaching terms or whatever, but I'm so.

No, that's how I look at it. I think there's certainly, like, they clearly stretched them out by design and then took advantage of that extra space afford to them. Part of it is also, I think they were certainly trying to do some of this stuff, at least elements of it earlier in the series, but either Florida's defenders were making better decisions in those sequences, which you're referring to, or Edmonton's forward. themselves, we're making poor decisions and kind of being a bit too compact, I guess, in terms of their spacing and having guys too close together.

And then all of a sudden, I think that throws a lifeline to someone like Aaron Ekblad where strength and numbers, right? He's got less room to cover himself because Forasling's near him and he can kind of help out. And also he's like understanding enough at this point of his career to sort of leverage the forward into the boards or into a certain space where he can then lean on them as opposed to have it to rely on his skating. And then in this game, I thought you really saw him.

He had a really tough goal of it. I've actually thought, I've been hard on him throughout this postseason run because I feel like, you know, those, like the memes where there's like a bar graph and then there's one bar for like reputation and then another bar graph for either like production or talent. And then they're heavily skewed. And then people are like, oh, which player is this or whatever? For me, the way he's being talked about on these broadcasts because of his reputation and

what he once was and the draft pedigree and all. that is like completely out of line with what he's actually been putting on tape in this postseason. Well, let's also, let's also be clear because they are not giving the time to Gus Foresland like they should. And I know that that hurts you deep in your soul. So that's, let's, let's, well, listen. Listen, yeah, I'm sure there's certainly certainly something at that. I'm not going to deny it. I'm self-aware enough to at least recognize that. But I did think in my long-witted way of saying this and kind of a back-and-a compliment, the past couple of games actually thought he was quite good at making good reads in terms of timing and knowing when to sort of jump in and break plays

up. And in this game, he got isolated a little bit and they really took advantage of him. The Holloway goal, right, he almost like loses track of Leon Dreisel entirely and then has to do this awkward pivot where he turns his back to Drysidal, which is pretty much the biggest no-no you can do as a defender off the rush. And then they're able to create a goal off that. he makes the pinch on the McDavid goal and doesn't really get the guy or the puck and they always are able to move the puck up the ice. So he got exposed a few times there and I thought Doylers did a really good job of then actually punishing them and taking advantage of it, right?

You can do all this stuff schematically and that's all well and good. But then if there's a drop in somewhere along the line, it won't really matter. In this case, they really kind of followed it all the way through. So you're right in terms of with the extra day, I'm sure the Panthers are going to have better answers for this if they give them these looks. But it's imperative. The Oilers have to do this, right? Even if it doesn't work out, they can't resort to play any other way because we've

seen throughout the series that's similar to Vegas last year during their Stanley Cup run, Florida has been so good in their own zone at setting up a box in front of Bobrovsky, essentially and keeping you to the outside and forcing McDavid to just essentially tire himself out, skating laps in the offensive zone. And then just winding up resulting in a bunch of Bushard. neck home, you know, point shots that aren't actually dangerous that look good analytically, but ultimately the Panthers are very happy to give them. And they're not creating anything off of those, which is surprising to me because Edmonton's been the best team in the league off

the cycle all year and creating opportunities that way. So for them, it's a bit of a philosophical adjustment, I think, but recognizing your opponent and what's working and what's not, you ultimately have to, if you're going to go down, you have to go down this way because at least it gives you an avenue for doing what you did in game four. Yeah, you've effectively given me a homework assignment right now for what I'm probably going to do at the airport on Monday because remember last year watching Vegas in Florida. And I remember going through and basically just basically taking a stopwatched

every goal of time from zone entry to puck crossing the line or whatever it was. And I don't have those numbers in front of you because I'm literally just thinking about this right now as you're bringing up. But this is now a project I'm fascinated to kind of go through and take a look. at when you look at the goals in this series, because we hear about how these teams are tough and rough and that's what the narrative fits. But let's pull out the, yeah, my Monday Homer project myself now thanks to you bringing this up is going to go and to take a look at it. Because like off the top of my head right now, I think about Edmonton right now. You

say there's eight goals fresh in my mind right now. So it's, but like you think there's probably five that came within six seconds of the zone entry. We know the at home goal for Edmonton back in game two clearly came on the entry. try to classify the goals from like I would have a hard time finding how many I have a hard time finding more than two Edmonton goals that have come

with more than seven seconds of zone time like that's that's that's staggering so I now have a homework time on Monday thank you well the parallels between what Vegas had such such success employing and executing to this Panthers team now listen that Panthers team at that point

of that Stanley Cup final was so banged up and quite literally like hanging by a thread for some players in terms of like various body parts just being like glued to their bodies just so they can be out there. So it's kind of unfair in that sense. But it was a very similar strategy. And we talked about it all the off season, all year in terms of teams taking notice and then trying to implement that themselves after you see someone have such success. Right. Now you need to have the personnel to do so. But we've seen Florida try to do that and have success, at least through the first three games, of frustrating the other team off of those extended in zone sequences and kind of that being uncharacteristic for them.

And then opportunistically, once they do get it off the rush or in transition, converting all those opportunities, right, and being very efficient doing so. And I think that was kind of the story for me in the first three games. Edmonton was able to sort of break through and give them something different to think about heading into game five. So I think that's really interesting. You know, just back to the point on on sort of the, I think, speed infusion in the top six and how that made a difference in this game. I'm kind of struggling in terms of how we sort of talk about or frame the job Chris Knoblock's done, right? Because I think as a first time in HL coach, right, getting thrown into the spot that he was this season with this team with massive expectations, everyone's going to say, well, yeah, coaching Connor McDavid and Leon Dries Seidel is a pretty cushy gig for anyone. but that comes with a certain level of expectations

and you're taking over this team that's wildly underperforming. They got healthier along the way, but I think he certainly did some stuff particularly defensively that helped shore things up for them and allow them to be in this position. But I've been sort of noting throughout this postseason that he's almost kind of in a really like mad genius way creating problems for himself with lineup decisions to then be able to swoop in and be the savior, right?

It's like game one. All right, I'm going to play C-C-C-C-C-E. see a nurse together, even though every single bit of statistical or video evidence tells me that's an absolute nightmare scenario for us. And he does that. And then he's able to take CC out and change up those combinations, right? Game three, he puts Corey Perry on the second line with Leandro Seidel. It's like, all right, well, this is really bad. So now I'm going to actually do what I should have done all along. And it's going to be proclaimed as a shrewd move and a coach, you know, pushing the right buttons at the right time, but also I can't help but think think or lament, all right, if you just

did this from the start and I think this isn't high-site or revisionist, right? I think we would have said that heading into this series. Don't play nurse and C-C-C-together from game one and put as much speed as you can atop the lineup to give your star players a chance to succeed against this Florida team. Those are things everyone would have agreed with. And if they'd done it, maybe it would be two-two now all of a sudden or kind of a different score line as opposed to still having their backs up against the wall being 3-1 with no margin for error. But it's interesting, I think, It's like coming out of this game, I think he's going to get a lot of credit for the adjustments he made, but also it's something they probably should have been doing all along. Yeah, it's funny.

Like I was laughing as you were bringing that up. Like there's been a lot of like, Noblok's got a lot of hero worship this playoff run. And I don't want to like rip on him as a bad coach or anything like that. I think he's done a good job. Like he obviously came in and he's helped him become a better team and everything like that. But there's also like, it seems like we've jumped the shark on some of this stuff. We go back a couple rounds earlier or a round earlier and start two rounds earlier. And he makes the, Stuart Skinner was playing terribly.

And he goes to Pickard for a game. And then all of a sudden we're like, like, oh my goodness, look at the, look at the, look at the, look at the Hutzpah on this guy to change from a bad goalie. He changed from a bad goalie who was struggling. And like it was like I think the whole the knoblock thing has just been a fascinating thing just from a media perspective to watch. because I think if they deserve credit for, he deserves credit for helping get his team where they are. And at the same time, are they down 3-0 in a spot where they need to make these changes for game four?

If you don't have, so if you didn't make some of the decisions you made in game one or earlier in the series, the whole knob-block thing is just interesting to me. And I don't, I think sometimes we overly try to blame or credit coaches too much sometimes because we get this far and we've told so many stories. And it gets to the point where we're like, well, we don't know what other thing to talk about right now. So we're just going to talk about coaching. We're just going to pretend that everything is coaching.

And I think it's always, it's actually sometimes a little bit more in the middle of that. And the whole knoblock thing is, to me, it's one of the biggest examples of that work. He's a good coach, clearly. But at the same time, there's certain parts where how is it taking this glass breaking moment to break glass when, wouldn't in theory a good coach have done that? A better coach have done that four periods earlier. It's just, it's really interesting for me to watch from a media perspective. And it's, it's, I don't know, I don't think that's where you're. going with that. But when you said it, it just hit the top, the button, the topic in my head.

No, well, I think it's interesting because now it's my turn to sort of speak out of both sides of my mouth here because I sort of thought of question framing it that way. But I will say in just thinking about it now, I think there's a lot of coach in this league and even ones that have had success and even in the postseason that would just stubbornly go down with the ship, right? And just like refuse to admit mistakes or or try new things. things because it's just like, all right, if I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down my way, and I've been doing this a certain way, and that's what we're going to do. And then despite all evidence, you wind up losing, and it's like, all right, well, you know,

we'll get them next time. And in this case, even though it has been late and a lot of this has been self-inflicted along the way, at least they have been willing to try stuff. And it's funny, like the, the, the, what they did in the Knoch series of the goalies that you referenced there was actually one where I thought he handled it really well because. Oh, I think he did too. Yeah, I think he did too. No, no, but if you'll remember that game.

it was the one in Vancouver where it was like Edmonton's probably one of their worst performances this postseason where they just they really got outplayed pretty significantly by Vancouver and lost that game five but pickard made like 30 plus saves and especially with the backdrop of what skinner's save percentage was previously in that series that performance was being held up in like in this highest team of like wow Calvin Picker played so well like if they could just get this type of performance the rest of the way this team is going to win the stanley cup and the point i was making after that game was, all right, the same percentage was good, but if you go back and watch it, he just kept kicking out rebounds into the middle of the ice and the Canucks just weren't really making him pay off of it. And this could go south really quickly. And with their season on the line down three, two, as opposed to just kind of playing it off the results and bringing picker back for game six and having that potentially happen and really cost them, he actually did go back to Skinner,

who played well, and they wound up winning. So I don't know. All of this is very interesting, but I do certainly think from the media perspective, just the way a lot of this stuff is being talked about has been fun to watch, I guess. All right, let's take a break here. Can I have one thing on that? I think the other thing, as you're saying that, I'm thinking more about it. I think we're also, as a media perspective, we're trying to find ways to make Noblock as interesting as Paul Maurice.

I think that's another media perspective. Paul Maurice has so many natural built-in storylines that it's easy to tell. Like, there's the story, this series, his son wins a third straight title in the ECHL as a broadcaster. We hear about him talking about that. He's always really gives these eloquent quotes. He's coached more games. He's coached all these organizations.

And we kind of, we have all these Paul Maurice stories from a media perspective. That's this like big bucket, right? It's impossible not to tell good Paul Maurice stories. And I think we start digging more for Nowblock stories because we want to try to find to put these things on equal footing. You want to try to like, it's just, sorry, another media commentary, another observation bringing up as we talk about it,

but just food for thought, I'll let you go to our break. Well, I mean, certainly options available to him, as I say that, you know, he made the right moves finally and put the guys in a position to succeed. What Trans and I were talking about after game three was you could sort of just tell the demeanor and the vibe. It's like Paul Maurice looks like a guy who knows

that he just has a stack roster and he's like love and life with it. right and I think it's pretty not easy because I do think he's done a really good job but it's it's certainly easier to sort of be that like gregarious and charismatic in some of this stuff when things are going your way

right whereas if your options and personnel is kind of limited particularly with some of these wingers to play with your top players I'm sure it could be kind of more stressful you can come off that way so the differences of the two are interesting but I do think there's deeper stuff in terms of the cards I guess they've been given to play with

okay let's take our break here We come back. We'll jump right back. Go to keep chatting about Panthers, Oilers, Game 4, and then looking ahead to game 5. You're listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back here on the HockeyPedocast with Sean Shapiro today as we talk about game four, the Stanley Cup final and everything we saw from it. Sean, you know, before we went to break, we were talking about some of the stuff from the Oilers perspective. They did differently in this game to help create the advantage that they rode to the 8-1 decisive victory to extend the series. and give themselves a chance to keep competing for the Stanley Cup. One other thing that I think is worth mentioning here, from their perspective at least,

is in this game, they did a really good job of getting their top players away from Sasha Barkoff. And the first two games, with the benefit of last change, the Panthers were very diligent of getting Barkov out there against McDavid as much as they could in game three, for whatever reason. And it certainly made for delicious fodder for us

after the incident between the two in game two, right, where Dreisado takes the run at Markov and knocks him out of the game. Edmonton embraced that head-to-head matchup 5-on-5 in game three. And it did not go well for them, particularly with Dreisdahl having to play with Corey Perry for much of that game. And that was a very decisive victory for Florida. And coming out of game three, everyone was wondering, what's wrong with Dreisel? Why is he underperforming so much?

He doesn't have any points yet. Why is this happening, right? And I think there's a variety of factors there. He's clearly battling through some sort of injury. has had a tough draw in terms of the players he's playing with. He looked much better in this game. He creates that goal off the rush. He finally places one of those sort of patented shots of his on the power play.

He doesn't score off of it, but he beats Stollers enough so that Ryan Nugent Hopkins can bang in the rebound. I thought it was a much more promising showing from him, certainly. In this game, at least through the first two periods, I think we can kind of throw out the third because, you know, the game was already out of hand at that point. but through the first two periods, Markov played 537 against that Yanmark, Henry,

combination of players, which was his most sort of heavily matched line that he went head to head with. 242 versus McDavid, only two minutes for a strike cycle, right? So he played more against that one third or fourth line, however you want to describe it,

than he did against both those two guys combined. And so obviously that advantage or that opportunity to get away from it is not available. for Redmondton in game five without the benefit of last change. But I'm curious to see whether Paul Marys is able to essentially get back to that and whether they're able to have success doing so. Because if you're just kind of wondering why I look differently for those guys

and why they're able to produce a bit more, I just think they had more space and were able to sort of feast on inferior players because they didn't have to play against him as much. So I thought that was an interesting note from this game. I mean, yeah, 100%. We talked earlier about the different ways that the, Oilers top players got going. We talked about the entire team attacking the speed,

but the early's top players, too. We saw the rush chances for Drysidal. We saw a rush chances for McDavid. And McDavid was, McDavid's always going to get rush chances either way. But it seemed, it was, there was less of a toll paid to get any of it done. And it's,

you, it's a very simple thing. You look at, you look at, I mean, Barkov, I think, clearly in the first two games,

Barkoff had an impact on what Edmonton I was able to do. I think I would argue it even happened in game three, even when Edmonton did a slightly better job of getting away from him. And it's, that's a big thing, right, for your Florida. And it's the easy, it's a very easy, simple fix of, you now get that control of that in game five. It's, you took my point, so I don't really have a great. No. I think it's notable because, you know, you were talking a lot before I went to break about the media coverage of this series and how a lot of this stuff is being positioned. Well, I thought we really jumped the shark after game three of it just kind of

Bobrovsky being anointed as the cons might because he had given up so few goals in the first three games, right? Yes. In preparation for this, I message you. I was like, if the Panthers win this game because I knew we were going to get together after the game and talk about it, I was like, I've got the rant of all rants locked and loaded because I just have yet to see a rational take on this from any big media member covering this series. And I'm already preparing myself for the inevitability of him just like unanimously

being awarded the cons might, even though I think there's been more deserving players and the way this series has been covered has not lined up with what I've been seeing transpire in these games. I wouldn't certainly say that game four was on him by any means. He obviously gives up the five goals and gets pulled early in the second, a lot of them were great opportunities off the rush, as we described, and shots of the Oilers were finally able to convert that maybe they were getting earlier in the series and weren't doing so with. But maybe this is going to kind of move us more so in the direction that I was hoping we'd get to all along if the Panthers are able to win this series and close it out, that Barkov or, you know, Forzing, but I think more likely Barkov is going

to get credit for Florida's entire engine and an operation and success. And all of that starts with the defense and being able to neutralize some of these players as they have throughout this run. And what we're saying in this game is, all right, you get them away from those guys. And all of a sudden just winds up looking different out there. And I think that illustrates that point, right, of how important and integral it is to everything they do defensively. Well, the other interesting kind of question, because if Florida had one tonight, I mean, it seems like it would have been a lock based off reading the tea leaves that

Lavrovsky would have been getting the Congress might, right? the other key question now on this is has no matter what happens now in this series and it's kind of funny like because first of all I agree with you I look I would put bark off right now I would put bark off as playoff MVP for me that's what I would I would vote but it will it is interesting now where this game changes the optics when Bobrovsky gets pulled he gets yanked save percentages now down to a 909 for the playoffs and all the sudden, Connor McDavid is breaking Wayne Gretzky records. Like, are we at a spot where by forcing a game five and hitting that type of untouchable record, a Gretzky record, because that's what they're always looked at as untouchable records, are we now in a spot where McDavid has a chance to win this cons might, no matter who wins the game on Tuesday? Because I think that may have been one of the biggest pivot points tonight from a hardware

perspective, because I still have a hard time seeing Florida lose four straight games, so I still Philadelphia, Florida is going to win the Stanley Cup at some point in the next six to seven days. But I now think from a other hardware perspective, the other one to be given out, it could be going to Edmonton now. Well, certainly, even if they don't wind up coming back and pulling off the historic recovery, the longer the series goes, just by definition, probably what happened was McDavid played as well as he did in this one. And so I think it gets pushed more in the direction of it becoming a more viable candidate.

I think because of the options of Barkov and both Forsling and what they've, the totality of their work this postseason, I don't think we're going to get to that point. But I do think like if this, if the Panthers had completed the sweep, it almost seemed that it was going to be Vibrovsky, right? And I mean, first off, I get that the Stanley Cup final, it's like specifically, but also the later stages of conference finals get weighted more heavily in this award, even though it is a playoff long award and not. just purely for the finals.

But I think if you go back and watch just follow along what happened with this Panthers journey this postseason, just the work that those two skaters have done has just simply exceeded what Barowski's done just in terms of what he's been asked to do. This has been the best defensive team in the league this season and in this postseason,

you go through the first three rounds and they were just so good at insulating him. Obviously, he'd be asked to make a heroic save here. they're off a breakaway or off of one of those breakdowns. But I just think like if you're viewing why what's made this Florida Panthers team special, how they have gotten to this point, I think the storytelling starts with what Barkov and Forzing have done defensively more so than a goalie standing on their head, right?

Game one in this series was a bit of an exception there. But beyond that, I just, it feels like I've almost been watching a bit of a different series than most of the people covering it. I think the first off, you know, I agree that Barkoff, I would have Barkov as my like Hansmyth. I've said that already. You and I agree on that. The other thing that's been interesting is Bobrovsky is giving us a bit of the wrong narrative that goes against the grain, right? Like, I think so last year we have Aden Hill as a starting goalie when we win the Stanley Cup. And when in Vegas was the Stanley Cup, right? You have, there's long been this kind of pushback now

that, you know what, you don't need a bona fide, number one. You don't need. You don't need. to invest big you can win with anyone you can win with the guy who gets hot you can and I think the Brovsky being that guy who is clearly paid to be a number one and everything like that I think all of a sudden it's people pushing back on this narrative it's it's it's become a natural pushback to this narrative of you need you you need a Bobby to quote to quote who was it was I think it was Nico Mikala who said that or whatever. I think that's been the other pushback where it's like, oh, like, yes, Bobrovsky has been good and he's helped Florida win games. But the Florida Panthers are still

a game or game two away from the Stanley Cup if they have a different goalie in that. And I think, but they are not if they don't have Alexander Barkoff or Gus Forson. I think that to me is my big point here. Yeah. Well, I think what helps him, Bobrovsky, that is, is like how ingrained in your mind it is some of the amazing saves he makes, right? Just like how flashy they are. Certainly, I think it's an easy thing to remember. And then obviously the way this series started, I think it sort of planted the seed for that. And then it only blossomed to be on that. But yeah, obviously we'll see what happens in game five. And the tides could turn here certainly in any number of ways. But I do think like the silver line on this is it's kind of I think

pushed in more towards being within the realm of reality for me in terms of how this is transpired as opposed to the histrionics that I saw of like this has been a historically great performance. And citing the same percentage in the Stanley Cup final as an all time and all this, right? And it's like, all right. Yeah, I mean, first two periods of game one were phenomenal and he stole that for them. But third period of game one was an absolute lockdown defensive effort. Game two, I noted Doylers had seven scoring chances the entire game.

Like that was one of the, you know, most anemic offensive performances I've seen from any team this postseason. And then game three, he, you know, he. He gave up the three goals. That's probably in line with what he should have given up, I thought. Like, he made that great save to save the game against Bramac Cloud at the end. But in the aggregate, I think it's kind of been a very good performance behind a very, very good defensive team and how we allocate and distribute the reason for that success was, I thought, slanted way too far towards him,

as opposed to the guys in front of them were doing a lot of the, you know, the less glamorous, I guess, grunt work along the way. Yeah, I mean, it's save percentage. it's I'm sure there's some coach who'll bring out the cliche that's a percentage as a team stat. I think this is where that can heavily apply to. Like give Florida's what Florida has done as a team in front of him to put him in a spot where this number and this everything and obviously took a major hit tonight.

But like it's a testament to Florida's entire team. And where did it? And I intention, I wrote about Barcove after game three because this is pressure in my mind. And yes, this is part of me pushing my own narrative. But like, where does everything start? If the Panthers won the Stanley Cup, which I think they will, where does it all start? It starts with what Barkoff does. And that, to me, is getting somehow overshadowed by some flashy saves and a highlight reel.

And I think maybe it self is, maybe it normalizes now. Yeah. One other note that I had, I guess I had a few other things as we look ahead here to game five. We do have the extra day as we noted for travel. And just I think with the scoreboard being what it was in this game, the Oilers to their benefit were able, I think McDavid Wana play in like 17 and a half minutes or so, which was a far departure from what he'd been playing early in the series

where they were leaning on them for 23, 24, 25 minutes. And I did think in game three, all of their stars look kind of gassed and lethargic relative to their standards, despite the late pushback at the end of that game. And so I think there will have the benefit of being more, rested and potentially just being able to lean on them even more. Now getting into the spot of the series where there's going to be extra days off between all the games. And so I'm curious to see

if that has some sort of effect, right? But just I think like you looked at the ice time and then also within those minutes, just the immense pressure you're under from the opposition and then everything you're being required to do if you're McDavid, I think it made sense. There was kind of an accumulation of that weighing on him. And so I'm curious to see if he just looks, you know, fresher and can just play another ungodly amount in game five and what that means for that game. So I think that's an interesting thing to note. What about you got anything on that or the broadcast itself because both you and I were watching the ESPN one.

And I think it's been interesting, right? Certainly, like it came out that McDonough, the play-by-play guy had been sick for game three and that explained why it was such a muted response for pretty much every single notable event. and goal in that game. He was certainly more energetic in game four and sort of meeting the moment of a Stanley Cup final with cool goals being scored. My note on the broadcasts with especially the ESPN version

is the aerial shots just got to go. I'm sure there's some people that like them. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm just sitting at home and they're giving me vertigo. Like I just, all of a sudden, without any warning or any sort of explanation, they just randomly pan to it. And stuff's happening.

And I just like start feeling dizzy and can't track the play. And it's a minor grievance in the grand scheme of things, but a frustration nonetheless for me. Yeah, it's one of the things that was nice about, I think the way Turner presents broadcasts, and I think one of the things Turner did is, while Turner gets a ton of credit for reinventing the wheel

in American hockey broadcasts on the studio show and everything like that, they basically stuck to a formula that worked really well from what NBC did. before. Like Turner actually hired, I believe they hired some people. They hired some hockey people who worked on the production side for the NBC world, I believe.

I had to double check that. But at least whether they hired or consulted, I remember which. But basically Turner went and basically took the things that worked within the game broadcasts and kind of stuck with it. And I think ESPN, there's been a lot of times where there's been kind of like, let's try to rearrange the deck chairs to see what works when there's certain things you know that don't need to be moved around. That's kind of, to me, that's one of the biggest things about my commentary on ESPN broadcasts.

The McDonough one was like, yeah, he had more energy tonight, right? And it's one of those kind of where you come off of how publicly, like, he struggled so much in game three that it came to the point that ESPN had, went out of its way to put out a statement that he was sick, right? Like ESPN acknowledged it with that statement. And he sounded a bit better tonight, but still a bit lethargic at times. too, but then again, maybe that's also with the fatigue of a nine-goal game where the game's well out of hand. I hope that the thing I liked most about the ESPN Turner era of hockey in the United States was I think there are spots where one network has particularly taking challenges when the other one does well, and that's Turner. When there are things that ESPN does well,

Turner then uses a challenge to push forward. I really hope that ESPN hears us having conversations like this, sees other things like that and uses it to push their coverage forward to. Because I hoped that that competition would help. And it's funny. And I love my, like, it's even the down to, and I know I'm probably getting in a message from my buddy Danny Chi at ESPNPR for pointing this out.

But like the desk that they have at the NBA final. And I know getting the desk to get getting a desk in Edmonton is not the same as having a desk in Boston or Dallas where you already have. But like it's it's little touches like that that I think ESPN's hockey production hockey department sometimes misses the mark on. I'm taking that extra step. So that's my commentary on that. Yeah. Yeah, it sounded better in this game certainly. I you know as that as I gave three was progressing I was just sitting on the couch of dranns and I was like is are they recording this remotely or something like from home because it just sounded so distant and in muted and not really representative of of the moment and I was like man this is this is bleak so I did think it was better and hopefully they can rise to that moment in game five and beyond in the series if it calls for it all right let's get out of here I think we did game for justice and I'm excited already for game five even though we have to

wait an extra day. You're going to be in the building for that game. So everyone should follow you online for all of your coverage from live on location. I will be sitting in the studio watching the game and probably, I don't know, definitely will do a show either that night or the next morning to break it all down. So we'll probably be back here on the PDO cast feed on either Tuesday night or Wednesday morning to talk about what happened in game five. Any quick plugs that you want to throw out there?

beyond what I just said on your way out. Yeah, no, just do that. If you have an extra day or two and you're in the United States and you need something to watch hockey-wise, I'm in a beer league hockey movie called The Late Game, so I guess I'll give that a quick plug since we have two extra days before. And then I also check out the work over,

obviously my stuff over at EP Ringsside, give that a read, and then we'll have some good stuff this week, too, over at the Substack Space Shapshots. So I'll give those a plug. All right. And if you're enjoying these and for some reason, you've listened to me, talk about it, but you're not in there yet. Get into the PDOCAS, Discord. The conversation throughout these games is always fun and a bunch of good back and forths in there.

So join us if you haven't already. And we'll be back, as I said, after game five to break that all down. So in the meantime, thank you for listening to the Hockey PEOCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.