The Hockey PDOcast - What We Saw in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Harman Dayal to break down everything they saw in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final. They also talk about the Devils acquiring Jacob Markstrom. 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.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name's Dimitri Filippovich and joining me here in studio the day after game five, the Stanley Cup final, we'll break it all down with me. He's my good buddy, Harmon Dile. What's going on, man? I'm excited to talk about the game.

That was a really fun one. It was a really fun one. We're going to go through everything we saw during the Oilers win to extend the series and set up a game six on Friday. night in Edmonton. I guess we've got to start with talking about Connor McDavid, right, and his heroics and how much he's carrying this team offensively now in particular. With them kind of on the ropes facing elimination down 3-0, he's posted back-to-back four-point efforts. You watch, as that game five went along in particular, everything they created offensively

was almost due to his individual brilliance, right? I thought, despite the fact that they scored a bunch of goals and he factored into what, four out of five of them, they weren't actually generating that much as a team aside from him just carrying the puck and setting others up, right? Whether it was the dash at the end of the power play to set up Perry's goal or a few others where, you know, he sets up a hymen near the net front, draws a penalty, a few other instances like that. He really took on the burden of everything. And after, I don't want to say a slow start to this series, because I think anyone that

was watching could still appreciate like the stuff he was doing, how many chances he was he was creating how involved he was. He wasn't being rewarded for it on the score sheet. These final two games, or these two most recent games, he's finally broken through and delivered on everything we expected to see from him. And the Panthers got to be left wondering here, like, what do we do to at least make this manageable, right? Because I feel like you're never going to stop this guy.

But there's ways to beat the Oilers as long as he's not just churning together four-point nights. And these past two games, they haven't really had any solutions for that. He just looks like a man on a mission, like a guy who is, saying, I am not willing to lose the Stanley Cup, and by hook or crook, I'm getting this done, which is a terrifying thought. And also, to do it when the ice didn't look great in game five, I think that makes it that much more special. I mean, you look at even the goal that he scored from that sharp angle.

A lot of people will say, oh, that's a goal. Babowski has to have back. And absolutely, from his perspective, yes. I will say that. 100%. But I also think there's a brilliance in being able to, there aren't many players that can spot that weakness in that situation. And then with the perfect level of precision,

actually get that in. So I think that's both a bad goal by Bobrovsky, but I also think it's a stroke of genius by McDavid to spot that opportunity and have the pinpoint accuracy to hit that spot. I also think what's underrated in terms of, why he controlled play so well in that game is I can't count how many times I noticed him coming back in the defensive zone and quickly killing a play. I think that was massive for him controlling the flow of play was, hey, he didn't get hemmed in his own end. So many times he was

just within five seconds of Florida entering the zone, able to strip a puck, able to force a turnover. And when McDavid's doing that on the defensive side of things, it's just going to feed into what he can do in transition. Yeah. And there was, I mean, there was one I can remember off the top my head early third period, right? Florida had a promising transition opportunity and he just came back and just like effortlessly stripped someone of the puck and just nipped it in the bud there. There was the play which in the grand scheme of his performance, I think, will go overlooked because it didn't result in immediate goal and there's so many other instances that did that we can point to, but it was like 15 seconds left in the first period. And Barkoff has the puck deep in his own zone

and generally such a reliable player to like make the right play, either get it. out of his zone or just eat the puck there. And McDavid just hounds him into a mistake, causes a turnover, and then they wind up drawing a penalty on that sequence with about 10 seconds left. And then they score on the ensuing power play to start the second period off of Bouchard kind of banked it in off Hyman's pants. And you put that all together, and it was just a remarkable performance. Let me give you a few stats along the way that is accumulated here because I think everyone

by now has heard the, you know, he's in the 40s and points for the postseason and where that ranks all time and his pursuit of the single best. postseason in that regard. 11 points in the Stanley Cup final. The second best Oilers forward is three. Evan Bouchard has five. I think Holloway and Henrique and Hyman are tied with three. Edmonton has 11 goals in his 118 minutes in this series.

They've scored six in the other 181. He's been on the ice for 53 of their 80 goals this postseason and has a point on 42 of those 80. So the amount he's carrying here is just staggering. And what's interesting to me as we look ahead to the series shifting back to Edmonton is one thing we saw that they had a lot of success with in game four during that 8-1 kind of just like demolition of Florida was Chris Knoblock was finally able to really win the matchup game the way I think he wanted to, right? In that game, we saw him get McDavid and Drysaitle away from the Barkov line and essentially use this new look third line of Yanmar, Henrik, and Connor Brown to essentially, essentially,

just like, develop that Barkov matchup and allow his top six forwards to produce offensively, right? And I think we're going to see them try to do more of that in game six because as good as McDavid's been in this series, when Barkov's been on the ice, he actually hasn't produced that much offensively. I believe the Oilers have like one five-on-five goal in the 30 head-to-head minutes. And so if you're telling me in game six, McDavid playing at this level creating as much as he is, getting to play against maybe Anton Lundell or maybe even some fourth line head-to-head shifts as opposed to having to go head-to-head battling against Barkov, all of a sudden that becomes like a very scary proposition

for Florida in terms of trying to provide any sort of resistance against this guy right now offensively. It's a huge advantage and not just that even strength, but also for that top power play unit to get going in and I know both of their goals are sort of towards the end of their opportunities. I think what stood out about those sequences is just how to how, like we know the skill that they have, how well they can snap the puck around, the game-breaking talent, how everybody on the ice is a threat, but also the puck recoveries, just how relentlessly they hound and win battles. That's something that I remember at the start

of the season when Rick Talk, for example, was highlighting and men mentioning power play strategy and was bringing up Edmonton as, of course, they're the gold standard. He made a point that everybody focuses on the skill that they have on that unit, but what you can actually emulate from Edmonton's success because you can't replicate McDavid and Drystone on PowerPlay, but what they are a model for that other teams should be trying to be as good at is their puck recoveries, is how many battles they win, how many plays they keep alive, and for them to do it against a Panthers P.K. That is top-notch in the NHL. It's been really impressive to watch. It really is to watch that in particular.

It makes sense, right? On these power play situations, you have one extra skater out there, but yet they're able to consistently leverage that into creating all of these two-on-ones, right? I think we think of like the given goes between Dreisel and McDavid as examples of that, but the less glamorous ones where the puck's along the boards, it looks like it's a 50-50 puck, and they just have so much support there where it feels like they're going into all of these with two skaters as opposed to one for the opposition, and they almost always come away from it. And I do wonder whether that's a reason why, as the individual power plays go along,

they feel so dangerous because they have that top unit out there for quite literally the full two minutes at times. And as you noted, both the goals they scored on the power play in Game 5 came in the final, what, 10 to 15 seconds of those? And that, by the way, McDavid having that rush after being out there for like a minute and 45. Wild. And just challenging. I know it wasn't, you know, it wasn't Forzling Ekbite. It was Mikulakulikov. But still, to just be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like,

take these guys right now and school them the way he did. Just adds another layer of how impressive that was. But not only as the individual power plays go along, but I think as these postseason series go along, and I kind of wanted to ask you about that and what your thoughts are. You saw that firsthand in the Canucks series where for a while it felt like, you know, early on they had a bit of success in that series. Then in the middle part of it,

it felt like the Canucks did a pretty good job of, you know, challenging them taking away, Bouchard as an option, maybe giving them a few different looks on the PK and Edmonton had to adjust. They finally broke through. in that game seven, we saw against Dallas, right, in the final two games of that series. They scored, I think, four power play goals in the final two games. They scored two again in this pivotal game five. It feels like as the series go along, I'm not sure how much of it is just an inevitability because the Oilers have so much talent that you're never going to, you know,

hold them under wraps for an entire series. Eventually they'll break through. But it feels like there's something actually tactically or schematically going along that's allowing them to, as these series get it to their deeper stages, finally break through and score some of these key goals. And considering how small the margin is laid in these postseason series, that's ultimately like the big difference maker here. Yeah, I think a lot of it does come down to the movement, the adaptation.

I think when I go back to the Vancouver series, part of the reason outside of Vancouver's adaptation to pressure the top pretty aggressively was it sort of felt like they were, the Oilers Power Play was a little bit too reliant on the dry stuff. backdoor play. And I think they've shown that, okay, if the PK is starting to anticipate this one play, then we have five elite weapons. We're going to find a way to draw something different up.

And this is where when you look at their power play success in game five, dry settle wasn't very involved in what was going on. You had Nugent Hopkins had a lot of puck touches. Bouchard obviously had that bomb go in. Hyman had some puck touches in front of the net. McDavid was doing his thing. The movement as well on that unit where we know this. We've seen Edmonton's power play forever, but they don't have like one guy.

This is you're the left flank guy. Yes. You're the right flank guy. People don't have like assigned rolls on the ice. Yeah. It's very interchangeable. There's a lot of fluidity, a lot of movement. That makes it tougher to defend as a PK unit because there are so many moving parts.

There are so many variables that you have to account for, so much off puck movement. and when they're passing it with the level of precision that they did. Again, really impressive considering I thought the ice was pretty bad. It's really difficult to stop, and I think this naturally leads us to Edmonton's other special teams units, which is to PK, and this is where, okay, it's one thing if Edmonton's power play is operating at a historically elite level in these playoffs, but I remember before the Stanley Cup final started,

I was looking at every team's, penalty kill that had lasted at least 16 games in a playoff run. Edmonton's PK was the best of all time up until that point. So you're talking about arguably the best power play of all time and a PK that is on an all-time heater as well. If that's the margin by which Edmonton's going to dominate the special teams battle, it's almost not going to matter what Florida does at 5-1-5. And that's been a common theme throughout this series for me where it feels like,

I mean, in totality, I would say Florida should feel good about the 5-1-5 play, particularly in this game 5. But in a lot of these games, Florida seems to start out well. And then, you know, they're generating pressure. They're having offensive zone time. They're getting some looks. And then what happens is you generally draw a penalty off of that, right? Because if you have, like, offensive zone pressure, the other team's going to hook you or high-stick you or do something to get called. And that immediately just changes the tenor of these games for me, where it's almost a problem.

point where I know it's kind of like a cliche joke about they should just decline the penalty, but it really feels like if they had the option, they should treat these power plays as five-on-five. And I'm very against having two defensemen out there just philosophically on the power play. But considering how aggressive Florida's been and how many odd man breaks, they seem to be giving up on these power plays, they have to fix something there, right? Edmonton is really targeting them there. Even when they're not scoring on the Connor Brown short-handed goal, they had a few other like near two-on-ones. the puck would bobble and it was like man that was very dicey for florida considering how it just came out

of nowhere and so i'm not sure what the adjustment is there but it's such a landslide now in both special teams that florida's going to have to figure that out because clearly no matter how well they're playing in five-on-five eventually we're going to see penalties called and then it's almost this double whammy where edmonton's getting momentum off of their own penalty kills and then we know that i think the refs are more likely to call a make-up penalty or kind of an even up to make the numbers all match up. And so Edmont is going to get their own power play, then they get an even bigger advantage of that. And it's a disaster for Florida where it keeps snowballing every single power play opportunity, regardless of which team it's for, it's just bad news for them at this point.

Also, on a bit of a tangent, but sort of related as well is, on a couple of occasions when Florida scored, they very soon after took penalties, which took momentum away from their five-on-five play. And I think a big part of that is credit to, as much as this was the Connor McDavid show, I think Edmonton's bottom six at least is looking like they could drive play. Of course, Brown obviously chipping in with the shorthanded goal as well. But I think right from the first shift, they set a pretty good tone that Brown-Henrique line where they had speed, they had energy, they were winning battles. I mean, Connor Brown, how many times in that game did he just? strip pucks on the forecheck, create havoc.

And it's like those, you know, bottom six lines on a couple of occasions, Perry in the third period also drawing a penalty, that, again, it sort of felt like it changed the momentum shortly after Florida score. I feel like I'm living in this bizarro world right now and I was making this joke on the PDO guest Discord yesterday. But sometimes I'm like, oh, is that 28 or 29? I can't tell if it's brown or Rice Idol. And when I see his Rice Idol,

I almost feel like it's going to be a less dangerous opportunity for every minute at this point because of the way the two guys are playing like it's completely irrational and i'm sure leon is going to break through eventually here if he if you know either it's game five six or seven but man like the way brown's playing right now has just been a marvel and to extend the point about the pk so for the entire postseason matthias yanmark 4622 at four on five short-handed emminton's up three two in that time connor brown 30 minutes and four seconds short-handed emminton's up three-one i mean that's just remarkable and our pal Drans and I were sitting on the couch in Palm Springs watching the first three games of this series.

And this was obviously developing storyline based on how this PK unit had played the past couple series. And he was asking me, like, what are they doing? Because we didn't really see any of this in the regular season for the most part. I wouldn't say it was a unit that was, you know, breaking ground here in terms of tactical strategy or the way they were playing in terms of efficiency. Yet this postseason, they're just absolutely dominating. and it just seems they're just winning a lot of battles. It feels like I'm not sure. It's like not really like a glamorous tactical thing or something that I can point to like as an aha moment of what they're doing.

They're just competing really well. They're challenging stuff. Montour has been so sloppy in terms of plays around the point and decision making. And you saw that burn him on that Brown play where he tries this very low upside high risk move of passing the puck along the blue line essentially. And Brown jumps that lane and then winds up scoring. There's been a few other close calls that way. in this series. And so they're taking advantage of those, but they're just contesting everything. Florida's never really able to get set up in the offensive zone, never really able to feel comfortable

that they're in their set and they can execute. It's just constant scramble situations where they're panicking and making mistakes. And Florida's typically good at those chaotic situations, but in this case, Edmonton's just been coming out ahead in all these battles. Yeah, I think there's zone entry defense on the PK has been really impressive as well. The level of pressure that they're able to apply how compact they look, how many stick battles. Also on that Brown short-handed goal, he also deserves credit,

not just for picking off that pass, but for not over-committing before Montour made that decision. Because if he had jumped that lane too aggressively, Montour would recognize that and gone that this passing lane isn't open. He timed it perfectly

where Montour felt like he could make that cleanly across, and then Brown was able to jump it. Because Brown had enough time, where if he wasn't thinking about it, he could have just straight bulldozed into that lane. I think the timing was massive on that one too. The timing is massive and obviously has been noted, like, he's just skating so much better than he was earlier in the year.

And it makes sense that with more time removed from the surgery and the recovery, that's happening. Yeah, that line, I can't believe, you know, for all the star power and big names in this series, as I'm thinking ahead to game six, I kind of alluded to this, but I think it's a point worth hammering. In the matchup game with Eminton at home, I think we're going to see a similar situation where Noblock tries to get that line of Henrique, Brown and Yanmark out as much as he can against Barkov, right? And in thinking about it, what an interesting sort of, not bind it puts Florida in,

but situation where they need to adjust their approach, right? Because I think heading into this series, I'm sure internally they were talking about it the same way you and I were publicly, it's, all right, we got to try to limit McDavid and Dreytele here, what we're going to do is use our best guys to kind of clamp down on them, right? And we've seen them try to do that at home in the way they've used Barkov. I think your responsibilities or what you're trying to do as a player if you're Barkov in those situations is very, like, well defined in terms of, it's easier said than done, but it's like just be defensively reliable, you know, don't take chances and just try to limit them and

keep them to the outside. All of a sudden now, heading into a matchup where you're just going up against this third line, it's so incumbent on you to actually create goals and score. And I think the dynamic changes quite a bit, right? Like, ultimately, for a player of his caliber and a guy who's still in the top two of cons my thoughts and has a chance to, I think, still win it, depending on what happens in game six, he should be able to do it. But it is also, like, a transition, I think, both like mentally and physically of what he has to accomplish, as opposed to what he's been sort of wired to do for not only a lot

of this series, but really his career as a player, right? Like what we think of him as and the way he plays. All of a sudden, now I just think he needs to be much more aggressive offensively and create a few goals if Florida is going to win. For sure. He needs to get back to earlier in these playoffs, earlier in the series where he was dominating play and really taking things upon himself to drive play, to create offense. And it's a big, as you alluded to, it's a massive mindset shift.

And for Edmonton, who would have thought earlier in the playoffs that we'd be talking about, oh, Edmonton can absolutely trust one of their bottom six lines against Barkoff. But this is where, again, earlier in the postseason, it was almost, you would set, you almost wanted to set a timer for when one of the bottom six lines was on the ice, as if to say, this is a timer, how long before we can put McDavid or Dry Settle back on the ice? there was almost zero level of optimism or excitement that forget even creating offense that one of the bottom six lines could have a good forechecking shift cycle the puck control it you had no optimism around any of that whereas now i noticed myself in game five the

connor brown line steps on the ice and it's like oh nice they're gonna they're gonna generate some momentum if florida's had a good shift they can counter punch here they're they're setting the table for the big guys to step on the ice and be in a more conducive environment to excel. And when you also consider what some of those death guys, Brown and Yanmark have done on the PK, it's like for as much as this has been the Connor MacDavid show and this is a top heavy team, the Oilers aren't in this position if it isn't for these bottom six guys elevating and actually chipping in.

Well, and it sounds overly simplistic, but I do think that. there is something to like what you view as a successful shift or a game and then how that influences your performance, right? I think in this case, if your head to head is going, being matched up against McDavid, you'll come away from that. If you just have a draw at 515, you feel good that you've put your team in a position to succeed if you're Barkaw, right? Whereas now all of a sudden, that's not good enough. Like if you go into a head-to-head against this Henry Klein, as well as they've been playing as competent as they've been as much as trust as they have from Chris Knoblock, if you do, if you do,

don't generate at least one or two five-on-five goals. I think we're past the point where offensive zone pressure and chances and stuff are important, right? You're going to be judged based on results at this point of the season. If you don't actually cobble together a few goals by some means, it doesn't necessarily have to be you scoring, but you're a line and you're a unit when you're out there. It's going to be tough because you know that McDavid against Lundell or whatever the matchup is is going to be cooking and creating some of their own. And so how are you going to compete with that, especially since we know what the special teams battle's been like, right? So I think that's a really interesting thing to consider.

I guess one sort of factor we should note here was Matthew Kachuk's game in game five and the performance he had. Let's do all of that when we come back from break. We'll kind of switch gears and talk more about the Panthers' perspective. I think some of the positives they can take from Game 5 despite the loss and why they should maybe feel encouraged. Because I do think despite the fact that the result was the same as the previous game, you come away from that game feeling like, all right, this at least looked much more like a Florida Panthers product as opposed to. whatever they did in game four. We're going to do all that after the break.

You're listening to the Hockey P.D.Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back here in the HockeyedioCast, joined by Harmon Dile. We're doing our Game 5 breakdown of the Stanley Cup final. We teased it before we went to break. Matthew Kachuk's performance. So I have this notebook in front of me, which you can see. And as the game was going along, I was kind of jotting down some notes that I wanted to talk about with you.

And I was going in real time period by period, right? And in the first period, I wrote Kachuk. way too preoccupied searching for contact. And they ran that sort of montage from the previous game or previous two games of him sort of getting out of position searching for those reverse hits, where he sticks his butt out and tries to hit someone and him just going out of his way to do so

and then being in the wrong position and the puck either winding up in the back of the net or him missing out on an opportunity. Is the game went along in this one? There was still some of that, but he was actually doing it functionally with the puck. There was one play behind the net where he did that reverse check to create a bit of space against Nurse and created a wrap-around opportunity. He was so dominant in the second and third period of this game and looked much more like the player.

We've become accustomed to seeing the player that was the best forward in the league last postseason before he got hurt. And that's concurring, right? Because they got to this point being up three nothing in this series with very limited contributions from him in the first couple games of this matchup. And he was very quiet, very uncharacteristic. at least in this one, they dominated with him on the ice. He was at least partly, if not directly responsible for all three goals they scored. And all of a sudden, if he's going to be able to replicate that type of effort, then all of a sudden I can talk myself more into feeling like,

all right, Florida's actually going to get back on track here a little bit. Definitely. His playmaking down low looked terrifying again, which is always a sign to look for when Matthew Kuchuk has at his best, is when he gets the puck below the dots, how successful is he at? at controlling it, at absorbing contact, holding onto it, and then finding the passing lanes into the slot,

even when it looks like the slot is defended pretty tightly. That's where his vision, his precision to hit tape to tape, his decision-making, his assertiveness all stood out in a massive way, and then, of course, his finish to first get the snowball rolling when Rodriguez forced the turnover and Kachaku was able to roof it. You could immediately tell how much of an extra pep it also gave him in transition.

Yeah, that rush right after where he weaved through and then set up OAL, I believe, for a rush shot, was like, wow, weird of that. I haven't seen that in a while, and it was magnificent. He almost looked like McDavid on that rush. And again, you could immediately see the confidence just go through the roof,

and I think that was a real turning point for him and definitely, like, if he can carry this momentum, him over and he doesn't need to single-handedly dominate, but get on the score sheet, be impactful, drive play, that's really going to boost Florida's odds. Well, heading into the series, part of our preview, I was like, man, and just mapping out how the series is going to go, we're going to see a lot of Barkov and Foresling against McDavid and Bouchard.

What does that leave you with? Well, that leaves you with Matthew Kachuk playing against probably Darnel Nurse and whatever pairs he's on. And for whatever reason, the first couple of games, even though Nurse was banged up and struggling, that line still wasn't really been congenerating that much offensively against them. In this game, Cachuk played seven 5-1-5 minutes

head-to-head against Nervis and Broberg. Shot attempts were 17-0-0 for Florida in that time. Now, part of that, like, there's, I think in this analysis we should note there's some score effects a lot, right? Like, the team was up, or Eminem's up 3-0, they were up 4-1, the game looked different

before that, as opposed to how it looked after, and it makes sense that the ice would tilt a little bit with added desperation for Florida. At the same time, though, that looks much more like what I expected heading into this series. And in particular, you know to the stuff below the goal line, he was giving Nurse a lot of trouble with kind of shedding him for a little bit of extra contact, bumping him and then getting open, sending passes out front for the OEL goal.

But he had a few other ones, I believe, Tatarenko in the second period. A couple other ones that were dangerous opportunities. So, yeah, Kachuk just simply needs to play that way again, right? Much more like that and less so what we saw in the first four games from him. The other note that I had for the Panthers, I'm not sure if you noticed this and watching this one, was I thought Skinner was awesome in this game. I know he looked like a little shaky in a few plays,

had that weird bounce that went off nurse on Rodriguez's goal, I believe. Early on, he made a few lateral saves, right? There was one against Reinhardt, and then another one shortly thereafter against Ekblad. And that's huge for him because I think we know that his one weakness is a goalie because of his size is moving and getting around to those. As the game progressed, Florida was getting a lot of rush

opportunities in this one. And I believe every single one other than the Kachukta OEL one in the second period that I just talked about was so straight line at him. Right. It was like Verhege flying into the zone and just ripping one moving downhill. Ryan Hart had another one. Lundell. You go on down the line. There was no threat of East-West movement or like lateral complex rush plays. It was so dumbed down and simple. And part of that might just be Edmonton's not allowing you to make those plays and so they're just taking what's given to them. But I feel like if you're going to give Skinner trouble and get into his head and finally break through and start scoring a few more goals, they're going to need to do a little bit of that,

right? I'm not sure if it's in Florida's repertoire as much because their rush game can be very simple in that way at times. But I think they need to try to do some more East-West stuff on those plays because right now it feels like Skinner's job has been pretty simple for the most part, right? It's like you know where the shot's coming from, you square up to it, there's not, that much traffic in front of them and he's making a lot of these saves pretty pretty routinely and so I just think they need to give him something else to think about and part of that's going to be trying some more

east-west stuff that they didn't really execute at all in game five despite the shot counter arising the way it did yeah that's a really good observation because I would agree outside of the kachuk to oel shortly after kuk's goal outside of that rush it felt like they when they got their opportunities they were more dangerous in zone and off the cycle off the four check more so than they were in transition, which when I think, when I think about the Rangers series, for example, Florida had moments where they were terrifying in transition. So for sure, and part of it is Edmonton has defended the neutral zone better, but yeah, if they can find a way to be a little bit more creative off their rush chances, they should definitely, they should

definitely be targeting that. Yeah, I think so. What other notes? Do you have any other notes from this game. I mentioned the score effects part of and I do think that's notable here in terms of how the game progressed. At the same time, you know, the sports internet broadcast here was making a note after the first period of how Edmonton should feel really good about the way they were moving the puck out of the zone. And that was a continuation from the previous game where I felt like they unlocked things a little bit using like an anchor in the neutral zone to get the puck to them and then make plays from there as opposed to trying to, you know, either just purely send the puck up the wall or kind of playing into Florida's forecheck,

that sort of dissipated as the game went away. They got into a trouble a few times, right? The Kachakul was off of a play where Dreysaitel tries to kind of rim it up the wall, Holloway gets taken from them. A few other instances where promising scoring chances happen for Florida because Edmonton was a bit too casual, just kind of rimming the puck up the wall as opposed to trying to incorporate that anchor or use something.

Maybe that's an adjustment from Florida, from one game to another, where they were kind of sitting on them more and limiting that. it didn't bite Edmonton ultimately in this game, right? They won the game. And so that's all that matters. But I don't think if they're reviewing the tape between these two games with the extra day off,

I don't think they should feel too, like, happy with the way the second half of the game went, because at 5-1-5, it was very heavily skewed towards Florida. And it was also the type of dangerous game for Edmonton where if you keep playing that way, you're playing right into their hands, and all of a sudden I think you're going to allow Florida to build up the momentum they need to win the series.

Yeah, the zone exits portion was really, really fascinating because for the first handful of minutes Florida was able to string together a few heavy shifts and I thought right off the bat, Edmonton, their defensemen were falling into that trap of just rimming it up the wall and considering how aggressively Florida's defensemen pinch up the boards, that's never going to be a safe or productive playing. I think they ran into trouble doing that, but around at least from the 10 minute mark of the first period onward till the until the end of that frame, I thought, okay, they're executing a bit better. And throughout the game, they had moments where they were spotty on zone exits.

Both of their goals against came from failed exits. And yet, when it mattered most in the sense of leading up to when they got the 3-0 lead, it didn't disrupt their ability to control play too much, which I thought was interesting. But in having said that, I think the nurse brober, pair especially. I think they, like I know Broberg had one or two nice exits, but throughout the game I thought that pair really struggled with their decision making. I thought they were hemmed in their own end a lot. I think, I thought it was an adventure for them defensively. Even the, the Kachuk to OEL chance that, that Skinner robbed OEL on. I didn't love the way Broberg was, I think it was

Broberg on Kach there, the way he defended that play. I think if you're Florida, you're still looking at that nurse, I think Broberg pair is like a, okay, we can take advantage of that. We still feel like we can potentially give Edmonton troubles on the breakout, even though the Oilers were just good

enough that it didn't bite them in the rear. Yeah, no, I feel that way. There was one, I added in my notes here, about 10.30 left in the game. The score is 4.3. And the puck comes along to Kulak and he just like casually on his backhand tries to move the puck up the wall. And within

In three seconds, Eqblad has a grade A scoring chance, like, beneath the circle. I'm like, man, that's, that escalated very quickly. And now sort of an example of how quickly this stuff can go off the rails for them. So I think they got to be careful. The only reason I note that is because, you know, game four was such a systematic sort of unraveling in that game, right? Like Edmonton was able to break through the neutral zone and just created rush chance after rush chance and eventually just broke through and then really kind of a landslide

occurred from there. In this game, they had the three-goal lead on multiple occasions, but a lot of it was either the power player or just McDavid's individual greatness. And if you're going to bet on one player being able to replicate that, it's him. So I'm not saying that's a bad strategy to have, but also I think the ways they found success in the two games were different for me, right? And that maybe resembles adjustments Florida made, and now it's going to be incumbent on Edmonton to reciprocate and try and use stuff and try to get back to that because I'm I don't think just playing the way they did in the second half of this one is going to be a recipe for success necessarily in game six, right? So I'm going to be looking for that.

Any other notes from you on this one? We can talk a bit about Brovsky and some of his struggles. I thought that was sort of a notable thing in particular with the fact that he's still third in Kansmyth odds and the fact that his postseason still keeps being portrayed as something that's just totally out of line with everything I've been watching. But I don't know. Maybe this is just a hill that I'm going to die on. But it's been driving me absolutely crazy. So we can talk a little bit about Boerovsky and his performance so far. Yeah, I'd love to hear.

It sounds like you feel strongly about this. I just, even after game three, right, it was 3-0, there was a big victory lap being taken by people who were just either fans of his or were pushing an agenda that like it's important to have this star goalie and that he was stealing this series for Florida and that he'd playoff Bob. And he's having a historically great performance. Look at his say, And I just was not in line with anything I've been seeing, right?

If you go throughout this postseason, he was like league average in the first two rounds, right? Wasn't really tested against very inferior opponents in both Tampa Bay and Boston. In the Eastern Conference final, he was fine, but the Rangers just never had the puck. So I think when you compare his responsibilities compared to Chesterkins, I thought that was a pretty manageable series for him. He was phenomenal in game one, no doubt about it. He made a bunch of breakaway saves and key stops. but then game two awesome defensive performance game three another strong performance until they went up four one and so i guess just like the the enormity of his task and kind of what he had done had been really blown

out of proportion for me where florida's defensive acumen and the environment in front of him was almost being sort of dismissed because he was making highlight real saves on occasion and so now that he's giving up goals all of a sudden it's just interesting like the way the narrative shifting and kind of how people are talking about this stuff. I think he certainly needs to be better than he's been, but also I don't think he was ever necessarily playing as well as it was being made out to believe after game three. Yeah, that's a really good point.

I think even heading into the cup final when a lot of people were discussing the matchup or even when Florida has been discussed in the past as a cup contender, I think it hasn't always been the case through the series, especially in game four, of course. but I don't think they got enough credit for just how stingy they are defensively. I think they have this reputation of, of course, being high skill and having the physicality and the bite and the edge, having a lot of mobility on the back end.

But I don't think elite defensive team is one of the first things that came to mind when people discussed the Florida Panthers, even though objectively by every metric that's been true. So I definitely agree with you to a certain extent. but it's also like when you think about Bobrovsky he's been so we know how streaky he can be and so he started the series phenomenally he had the one bad game in game four got pulled I think a lot of people were thinking okay is this going to unravel in the other direction he wasn't awful in game five but it wasn't a good performance yeah yeah I mean no you're right

it wasn't awful right like a couple of the goals it's like all right well, those are just high quality plays at the same time. You know, you look at the McDavid pass to Perry. He had another one, the Henrique goal in the previous game, where it looks like a high danger play, but also he's playing so deep in his net on some of these for some reason. And if he had just been out a bit more, a bit more aggressive, maybe that pass never gets across, right?

He's able to kind of just block it before it happens. Obviously, the McDavid goal, I think, from his perspective, cannot happen. And so there's a few of those, and that's the difference in this game. Right? Look, I think Edmonton had 0.75, right? were so expected goals at 5-1-5 generated in like 40 plus minutes and yet there's still scoring goals. And to me, that's kind of indicative of where this series is being played at right now, right? So I just think he needs to be better on a lot of these and he probably will be. But also, I just feel like even at his high, that's what I was pushing back at that it was never like,

I just, I never believe that he was a runaway cons my favorite for this because I felt like so much of their success was on the back of Barkoff and Forre. laying in the defensive environment they've been creating all year as opposed to the goalie behind them and now you look and he's got a 906 percentage this postseason i don't know that's yeah that's kind of what he's been doing for most of this run and that does not scream finals MVP to me but who might to say i mean who might have evaluate goalies right all of this stuff seems so it's also like we can discuss the goaltending and yet the way i look at it is we're entering game six and bobrowski versus Skinner might be the most unpredictable

goaltending matchup in in terms of you literally have no idea what version of Bobrovsky you might get, you have no idea of what version of Stuart Skinner you might get because if one of them imploded, none of us would be surprised. If one of them was really good, none of us would be surprised. And I think that's part of what is so interesting

heading into game six is just how heavily the narrative around the goal tending is sort of flipped. Yeah, I'm curious to see how Edmonton approaches it. Because beyond the goals themselves, there were a few instances in that game five where in the first period, Darnelner is kind of just like from the corner, throws the puck at his feet. And it nearly went in late in the second Henry. He got a similar play.

And he looked very awkward handling these. And then McDavid's goal, obviously, as well. So you're at the point where I feel like just getting stuff on net at him. Regardless of whether it's lower high, I feel like is good to see whether what version of them you're going to get, I guess, in that pivotal game six. It's interesting if this was an NBA-style finals MVP, right? Because the cons might, even though sometimes people don't treat it as such, is a playoff long award and it's supposed to encapsulate the entire postseason. The NBA one is just purely NBA finals. And we'd obviously, McDavid would win it regardless. But it'd be

funny because Florida's best candidate would be Evan Rodriguez, which is a timeline that I want to live in. So I thought that was pretty funny. stand by the way on like are you at the point now where regardless of if edmonton wins or loses are you on board with the idea of mc david winning the cons my i mean he's i mean he's clearly been the best most valuable player regardless of the result right and i mentioned the stats off the top in terms of like what percentage of goals he's directly contributing to and it's just like on the ice for i don't know it's it's clear to me i think if game six goes a certain way i could be talked into a barcove win, right? Like if he does what we said where he has a dominant offensive performance,

creates a couple goals, leads them to victory. I think he's done enough throughout this run, but especially like even in this series, right, for all of McDavid's success, one goal in 35-1-5 minutes against him. Like he's done his end of the bargain defensively. So I could talk myself into that, but he's the only panther that I feel like at this point you can make a really compelling case for. I believe it's either him or McDavid. So all right, let's, uh, Any other notes on this or do you want to move on to Markstrom a little bit? Let's move on. Okay, so we got 10 minutes left here.

About an hour before you came into the studio, we got news of the Jacob Markstrom trade. It's funny. We also got a tied to Landria trade, which is obviously less important, I think, for most people's interests. But it's almost like NHLGMs, we're just like waiting for this series to end and had the documents already and wanted to press send. And then this game wound up happening. The series gets extended until Friday.

And they're like, all right, we just can't wait any longer. We're going to press send on all these documents. we're going to make these trades happen. We got a bunch of stuff today. Markstrom to New Jersey. It finally happened, right? We had this longstanding flirtation around the trade deadline. Will they, won't day?

It fell through. He wound up staying in Calgary. Now he's finally going to the devils. What are your thoughts on the trade? I like the fit. I've wanted this to happen for a while. I did a piece with Max Boltman, ahead of the deadline,

looking at perfect fits that we wanted to see at the deadline. And we had Markstrom and, Markstrom going to New Jersey just because the Devils are a team where I know early in the year there was a lot of debate among Devils fans about how much of this is goaltending, how much of this is poor defensive play

in the sense of why are we leaking so many goals against. I think the answer is both. Markstrom, I think, can help definitely solve the goaltending side of it because Vanichek just wasn't it this past season. There were too many nights where you just had zero confidence that, okay, if there's going to be a breakdown that they're not going to get that big save. So I think Markstrom is a terrific fit there.

I also believe when I look at his track record that he can thrive in environments that are more high event where there are a lot of chances against maybe more of a track beats down when I think about some of the success that he had in Vancouver. And even this year where with the coaching change going away from Daryl Sutter, the flames are a lot more permissive defensively this year, and Markstrom was really solid for them. Yeah, he was up to the task. Certainly, any concerns you'd have about a goalie at this age with committing long term to them, I think, get alleviated with the details of the trade,

right? With Calgary retaining over 30% in particular, brings his cap hit down to 4.125 for the next two years. So even though those are his age 35, 36 seasons, based on the way you played last year, I feel okay with that certainly as a risk factor. I'm with you on the blame game in New Jersey. I think you and I have also spoken about it throughout the year

in terms of some of the defensive issues they had in front of their goalies, but it's clear that their goalies essentially compounded every single problem in front of them, right? Giving up bad goals early in games, that stat of them going down 1-0 and like 50, whatever, seven out of their 82 games or something this season, which is just a really tough hole,

to climb out of regardless of how much firepower you have. There were 30th in, say, percentage as a team, really bad rebound control, really bad lateral movement side to side on a lot of these rush opportunities. Markstrom excels in a lot of this stuff, particularly the high danger rush stuff this past year, as Kevin Woodley's talked about. So it's an intriguing fit there certainly.

I think they have Jake Allen there as well. So he'll be able to eat up whatever, 20, 25, maybe even 30 starts, because I do want to keep Markstrom around the 50 games. mark because I think we know his play falls off quite a bit in terms of his like discipline and technique once he gets fatigued. So that'll be huge for them. And listen, like now you look at it, they're paying Markstrom and Jake Allen less than they were investing in the goalie position last year because between Vanityechek, Schmead and the two million that were left on Corey Schneider's last year of his buyout, they were spending like six plus million on the goalie position last year.

And so I'm totally fine with that. And for them to push this trade across the finish line without including Holtz, Mercer, or even 10th overall this year, is just a no-brainer for them, right? Like, I would have thought that certainly at least one of those assets would have moved. Yeah. And so for Calgary to not get any of those, I'm of two minds because on the one hand,

I think we've seen that like teams aren't really in the business of paying for goalies much, right? And so the market for trading a goalie, regardless of their value and name brand recognition and everything, like I just don't think the flames were ever going to get whatever you thought Markstrom was worth. worth based on how he played last year. But for them to not really get any premium assets here, right?

They get Kevin Ball. They get a 2025 first, which is topped and protected. Aside from the Linholm trade, I could argue that pretty much every move they've made over these past couple months, they've kind of taken a volume approach, I guess, with stuff they've gotten back, as opposed to actually getting like blue chip quality premium assets. And that's a tough pill to swallow for me because maybe they were never going to get more for Markstrom. But man, this is, I think this is a pretty.

lean return. Yeah, for sure. I also think, and this was, of course, just fantasy, but when Max and I did the piece ahead of the deadline, I think the proposal that we had, as Mockland was like, Holtz in the second round pick. And I remember just getting torched, annihilated. My mentions were a tire fire from Flames fans, basically saying, oh, they're never going to trade marks from him for that little, and now it turns out they didn't even get Holtz. So I think it just goes to show you that, goaltenders really aren't worth that much, which is ironic given how many teams need help at the goaltending position. I also want to go back to what you mentioned, just to really hammer at home when we think about the Marks from it in New Jersey. The workload thing is so massive.

How many times have we seen a team, whether it's Vancouver, Calgary, use him a little bit too much. And it's not just that his play starts to deteriorate, but then he gets hurt, right? And that's with risk in mind for New Jersey, the potential downside scenario, like, how could this go wrong? It's the durability side. And that's where they have to make sure they don't lean on him too aggressively, especially they want to be a team over the next couple of years that they just don't want, they don't just want to make the playoffs.

They want to do some damage when they're actually there and go in a deep run. So they're going to have to be cognizant of that. But yeah, going back to the Calgary standpoint, a little bit light for sure. Yeah, I mean, it's tough to evaluate because like I said, I just think the goalie market, like our idea of what these guys are worth is just not in line with what teams are in the business of paying for. Now, this is the first domino to fall and what I think is going to be an active goalie market this summer, right? Whether it's Soros or whether it's Allmark, maybe Gibson, like there's going to be big names that are potentially on the move.

And so I'm curious to see how this affects that with one obvious potential suitor or bidder with intriguing assets off the board and how that affects any future moves there. From New Jersey's perspective, one final note. And this is fresh on my mind because I just did a mock draft for the upcoming entry draft and we're going to run that here shortly. But I was thinking about it, right? Because they wind up keeping that 10th overall pick. And if you're them, you have to be viewing it.

You obviously want to be flexible to account for like worst case scenarios. You don't want to necessarily put yourself just in one box so things can happen in this league. But man, you have to be viewing it as. all right, we're picking 10th this year. We should not be picking not only in the top 20, but maybe in the first round at all over the next seven years, right? Because with the nucleus you have in place, if you can stay healthy, you should constantly be a contender that's buying at the deadline. So you're moving late first to give yourself a better chance and a shot in the arm. And so this pick is almost this kind of like last vestige of all right, all right,

we're going to try to maximize this opportunity, get a player who could potentially be a useful asset for us on an ELC in a couple years. And for Calgary I would have been pushing really hard to get that pick because even in this class it's relatively weak compared to people's usual standards and beliefs that's still such a more enticing asset for me than this 2025 first which I would maybe I'm being foolish here and I'm too willing to go back in on on all my devil's hype but I would expect that pick to be I don't know 24 to 30 next year and so at that point even in a stronger draft it's less promising of an asset for me and So if that's all they could get, I guess that's, that's all it is.

But man, I would have liked to see more from Calgary. And I think for New Jersey, it's almost a no-brainer price. Yeah, I think the 10th overall was probably unrealistic just because we haven't seen too many instances of goaltenders going for really high draft picks. Plus Markstrom is a little bit up there in age as well. But you're right. I think there was a middle ground in between the package that they got and the 10th overall pick somewhere in the middle of what might have been a better return for Calgary.

agree. All right, harm. Let's get out of here. I'll let you plug some stuff because I know you've been hard at work with both the Roanick extension and obviously end of postseason merging into the start of the off season. You've been hard at work. Let the listeners know what you've been cooking up. Yeah, just a lot of Canucks coverage, anticipating what's going to happen in the off season. And then a lot of national league-wide stuff to Tom and I did a piece looking at buyout candidates. We discussed a little bit of Jacob Truban there as As well, and leading up to the draft and for agency, going to have a lot of coverage around what contracts teams might be looking to move out, the biggest offseason questions we're looking

at. So really exciting time of year. All right, buddy, we'll keep up the great work. Like I said, a few minutes ago, we just did our annual mock draft here in the PDO cast with Chris Peters and Cam Robinson. We'll be running that here on the feed Thursday morning, so check that out. We still got playoff hockey for some reason, even though we're into the final 10 days of June, but I'm not complaining because these games are awesome and any Stanley Cup final hockey is good in my opinion. So we're going to have a game six breakdown later this weekend and we'll be back with plenty more of the Hockey P.D. Ocast as always streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.