The Hockey PDOcast - What We Saw in Game 5 of the Western Conference Round 1 Matchups

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to discuss what we saw in Game 5 of the Western Conference round 1 matchups. Topics include the Jets bouncing back at home with a desperately needed win, the Oilers flipping their series with a dominant effort and what the Kings have done to help enable it, and the razor thing margins in Wild vs. Golden Knights If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovin. Welcome to the Hockey-PedioCast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy Thomas Trans. Tom, what's going on, man? Just enjoyed a pretty interesting Jets Blues game. In some ways, it had the edge

that all of the games this series have had. But I will say, watching on the ESPN broadcast with the remote call, it made the MTS Center sound quiet. Yes. And no matter what, just like we found out, you know, watching some of those empty arena games in 2020 and 2021, right? There's just something about it.

Like, there's something offensive to me about the MTS sounding quiet while big hits and playoff hockey is being played. Struggled with that despite what a game that I thought was pretty interesting in terms of the dynamic between the two teams and how well the Jets played and some of the questions around Hullabuck coming out of it. especially in comparison to the Canadian broadcast, right? And I feel like that has been a general theme throughout the first round of this postseason, unfortunately. These games, the crowds have, for the most part, I guess Toronto notwithstanding, been pretty electric and are a big part of the experience, I think, even for those of us watching at home.

And so they make it seem urgent. Well, there's just a certain energy involved that adds to the drama and excitement to go along with reflecting what's happening on the ice at times. And so it's not really capturing those. moment as well. And I think that's what's disappointing. Let's get into Jets Blues. We just watched, as you said, that game three, or sorry, game five on Wednesday night. We saw a, I think the bounce back from the Jets that we were looking for, right? I think you and I recorded after game four, and we were sort of lamenting the fact that we saw the Jets wither away a little bit in those two contests in St. Louis, where as soon as the going got tough, they gave up a few goals, the Jets,

the blues pushed and it was game over from there. We saw a strong start early on. Now, I will say Helibuck made that remarkable paddle save in the first period on the two-od-one where you look completely out of position. And it's amazing because I think often you hear Helibuck described as such a technical goalie, right? Like he's so flawless in terms of generally getting centered to shots and just absorbing them making it look easy.

He doesn't have those in his repertoire as much. He's not a Jonathan Quick sort of scramble goalie. at his best. And so you saw him almost throw the technique out the window and just make that sort of desperation save. I imagine, while it's cool and obviously it kept the goal off the board, if you gave him truth, Jeremy would probably be like, man, I hate that I was in that position to get him. And then the second goal he gives up was one where it was very uncharacteristic where he completely

loses his angle, is almost diagonally facing the shooter and inside of his own net. And the puck kind of squeaks by his left pad. And so we didn't get the response we wanted to see from him necessarily because I thought look pretty shaky. To the Jets credit, I think they acknowledged as such and put together this remarkable defensive effort where a handful of minutes into the third period,

the blues were still stuck at 10 shots on goal. There was a certain desperation from them defending in front of Hella Buck, trying to block everything, really putting an added emphasis on boxing out in front of them and making life a bit easier for them in terms of not just giving the blues anything up. So it's easier said than done, certainly,

to kind of replicate that type of effort moving forward because there's tons of goalies who we've seen struggle in postseason settings, and I'm sure the teams in front of them are always like, all right, well, let's make life easier for them by just not giving the opposition anything, and we know the blues are going to probably get more looks at home in game six. But if the Jets can play this way, and Halibuck can figure out whatever is going on, all of a sudden that's a pretty good formula. Yeah, and especially if the Jets can find a way to play like that with the crowd against them.

right, in St. Louis, where it's going to be a different atmosphere and where we saw it in game four, how quickly it can snowball, even in a game in which I thought, really, the Jets played pretty well, and they just got so far away from them, you know, late in the second period, early in the third period, in part because of the energy of that crowd. The overall flow and tenor of this game, I mean, I thought while the Jets' defensive effort was stand out late, and, and, you know, Hellebuck did make that desperation save off the 2-1-1, as you're saying, and that neighbor's save right in the slot on a pretty significant breakdown in the third period to preserve the two-goal lead felt important in the moment. I thought the dynamic of this game was largely set by how much space the Winnipeg Jets shift after shift before Shifley left the game with that injury following the big Braden Shen hit, you know, after it too, right, to their credit. every time they were set up in the offensive zone,

it felt like they were creating a whole whack of space with their usual sort of intricacy. And we're used to seeing them do those team level moves up 200 feet of ice. There was a little bit more stationary attack. They were really stacking together heavy shifts against St. Louis. And I think that's, you know, that was the basis of their defensive game for most of the night. Like until the last push came with 12 minutes to go or so,

the Jets were really defending 150 feet. from their own net, which is a good way to do it. And it was wildly impressive. I thought Nemesnikov had a pretty nice bounce back performance after a game four. I mean, he misses on the empty net. I can see that you're wanting to jump in and talk about it. No, no. I was going to say, you know, kudos to him because he probably listened to our post game four

breakdown. And I gave the stat where I believe he had scored one goal in his previous 33 games. And so finally got out of shine out, as he mentioned, it could have been even better for him because he made a nice little move on a two-on-one-round. Biddington and shot it wide of the post. Bittington got bailed out a couple times in there. I was sort of joking in my notes here writing down that Colper Fetti versus empty nets in this series

has been the most intriguing rivalry of round one of the post season for me because I believe by my count now, I'd have to go back and look at it just to confirm. But I think he's had three times now where he's had essentially a yawning cage to shoot at and has either hit the post or missed it wide and this series could be a massive, massive breakout for him

where all of a sudden we're citing his goal totals in his offensive production and talking about how he's arrived on the scene, I still think he's played well, and if he keeps doing this, more goals will come. We saw Gabe Valardi's return as well, right? Right off the hop for a shift,

he gets that nice rush chance on the top line in the third period. He had this nifty little Gabe Valardi-esque wraparound that he nearly scored on, so I think that was incredibly encouraging. And I also love the sort of symmetry tree between games four and five of hellabut gets beat by one of those point shots in st louis where i believe it was tucker and he just shot it from the point and it hit neopiang in the butt and went in

and then in this one we saw uh dillon de mello i believe she went from the point and similarly hit cold and preco in the butt and go in and so the butt really giveth and the butt taketh uh that's what we saw in this series i think that's one of the big takeaways as well it was an entertaining game right It was. It was what we wanted to see from the Jets. I think it sets up a fascinating game six ahead. Obviously, Mark Shafley's status is going to play a massive role. And that we only saw him play eight minutes in this one. The guys stepped in in his absence.

But it goes without saying certainly any team's number one center is going to leave a massive void. But in this case, because of the way the jets are constructed and the way they chose not to add another top six center at the deadline, all of a sudden that kind of bumps everyone up. into an even more unnatural role. And I'm curious to see what they do with Adam Lowry in particular, who was once again a horse in this game. He seals it with empty metter. He touched Philip Broberg at the blue line,

and Broberg went flying like 40 feet into the neutral zone, just hit by an absolute match truck, and it didn't even look like Adam Lowry really even meant to hit him hard. It was one of those clips where usually if a guy has a fall like that, you'd be like, oh, that's a sell job. But there was no extent to which, it was a sell job. It was just the raw force of Adam Lowry being a, you know, a human Mack truck.

It was, look, he was, he's going to have to step up for the jets here if they have to play the Blues without Shifley for an extended stretch. You know, I'm curious if they consider moving Perfetti to center, although I did think Morgan Barron had a really nice game, you know, in sort of a larger role than he might have played if Shifley was healthy throughout. if Sheifley hadn't left the game four shifts after that Shen hit, which, by the way, like, I guess we should talk about it. I do think it's relatively clean.

I mean, he was assessed a penalty on the play, but I'd be shocked if there's any follow-up to that just in terms of his elbows being tucked and on and on. Just a really tough hit, and you hope Shifley doesn't miss too much time. Because as you noted, the Jets aren't built, I don't think, to sustain his absence for an extended stretch. especially since everyone it really feels like on this team and this is probably a blessing and a curse part of the reason why they've been so effective all season is everyone fits such a perfect role for their skill set in a way obviously blademessnikov ideally shouldn't be a second line center on a scoring line with eilers and perfetti but otherwise what you get from that lowry line and then the fourth line especially with baron here down the stretch everyone fits in very nicely and all of a sudden that kind of throws everything in a question Do you have any other notes on this game? Before Shafley left, we saw him. We've kind of shouted this out in the past,

but the goal he sets up for Kyle Conner to open the scoring early on and send the arena into a frenzy, I can only assume, because it didn't really come across on the ESPN broadcast, was Vintage Mark Shafley in terms of Appleton kind of wins a battle behind the net because he came on for Valardi-laden that shift, behind the net pass out to Connor and picks his spot. with a beautiful look. And so I want to see more of that. Certainly, hopefully we actually do get to see it. I always wonder with the Jets because this is something that they've done as a team better than anybody for years.

I mean, I'm talking 2018, 2019. And I actually still wonder because I think one of the guys before Shifley was the master of it in NHL terms operating out of, you know, that zone on the ice that we used to refer to as Gratzky's office. Blake Wheeler was kind of the best in the league at it. And I wonder how much, you know, everyone talks about how much Shifley watches film and is such a hockey nerd. I wonder how much playing with Wheeler early in his career informed the evolution of that skill set because I do think it was prominent. The only other note that I really want to discuss is, you know, Baron kind of bumping up to play in, like really everyone just bumped up a slot. That was kind of Arneal's solve in. Sheifley's absence. So you had, you know, Valardi play with Connor and actually take some draws. You had Perfetti and Ii Afalo play with Lowry. And I actually liked how that line played a lot down the

stretch of this game. But the real elevation, like the real guy playing up lineup or bumping into the top nine in a different role is Morgan Barron. I've really liked what we've seen from him throughout this series and throughout this season. The work rate's obviously high. There's a little bit of that like Jake Evans, I think, there, where no one's going to confuse him necessarily with being a top six center or having sort of second line scoring center upside necessarily. But I don't think he's too miscast playing on the third line if the Jets have to go with that, you know, in a game six and a potential game seven should it go come to that and hopefully it doesn't.

There's enough skill there. And I think when you combine like the old, I always. always think of it as the Nick Benino traits where it's like you've got just enough skill to punish mistakes and just enough intelligence to sniff out those mistakes, right? If he can hit that sort of bar, and I think he can, I don't think he'll hurt them if he's playing 15 to 17 minutes in a third line role. I agree with that. I think it's going to pose a challenge certainly. Like we've seen in this series in the three home wins compared to the two row losses. Yes. For the Jets, it feels like the biggest differentiator has been getting that production from the top line,

right, with Kyle Connor looking much more engaged at home and getting those setups from Shifley. We referenced how dominant they were in the first two games in particular this series, and then they were on for whatever six goals against a five-on-five through games three and four. And so, yeah, it'll be fascinating to see, but, you know, it was like this series has been in general. Very tight, very physical, a lot of moving parts and very exciting. Do you want to move on to Oilers Kings? Yeah, let's do it. Are you proud of us for not starting today's show with Oilers Kings,

finally breaking our Cal Ripkin-esque streak of starting Oilers Kings on every show we've done? I see, I think we should start Oilers Kings on every show we do, because we're talking Connor McDavid in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and we're talking about a human being who's playing at a level that I've never seen with my own eyes in my life. Like, I've never seen an individual skater dominate like this. And so in some ways, he wasn't even. necessarily the driver of Edmonton's dominance. He's always the driver of Edmonton's dominance.

In terms of scoring, he wasn't. But in terms of everything that was going on in the game and territorial play, he certainly was. Yeah, he certainly was. I mean, my point being that I think the absolute shalacking that the Edmonton Oilers put on the L.A. Kings on the road in game five was, honestly, I'm still kind of trying to wrap my head around at Dim because four games in this series, LA's been the better team. And then they were so far away

from being able to hang with what Edmonton put out there in game five, that it's dizzying. I mean, it's hard to fathom. You know, we talk sometimes like, momentum doesn't carry over game to game. The Kings looked like having missed two shots to sort of come at the Oilers,

a team that's been their personal Babadook across the last three playoffs and having missed so spectacularly and so painfully at sort of the pointy end of the game in game three, in game four, with, you know, coaching malpractice, frankly, shaping the outcomes. It felt like there was no belief in that King's team anymore.

A King's team that had not just outplayed the Oilers, but had like really taken it to them, had looked like a team that, while they couldn't necessarily answer McDavid, had a gear, especially in terms of attacking through the neutral zone, that the Oilers couldn't contend with. And to see a performance that flat, a performance that tilted in Edmonton's favor was wild, in part because it was so out of context with everything we'd seen before it in the series.

Yeah, it wasn't representative of the way the rest of the games in this series. have been played, I do think, though, in telling the story of the series, it does make sense in some ways. I'll give you a couple of stats here. Since the start of the third period of game four, when the Oilers made their pushback, stole that game, and then the rest is history, at least up until this point. 98 minutes of game time. Shots on goal, 79 to 35, Edmonton. Scoring chances 39 to 12, Edmonton and goals 6 to 1. Now, support logic had them with 17 inner slot shots in game 5, which is the highest single game postseason total since 2017 by any team. Oh.

I would say that it felt worse than that. I would say it was probably the most lopsided game we've seen this postseason since opening weekend, game one, Hurricanes Devils. Yeah. In terms of just one team exerting their will and just the entirety of the game being played on one side of the ice. And I'm of two minds here because on the one hand I want to start off this conversation by giving the Oilers their flowers because it was such a dominant effort.

And in particular, you could see that they applied themselves defensively in terms of backtracking to slow down that King's rush that had really given them fits in the first three games in two periods or so. I also will say that, you know, it feels like, and I don't know if you agree with this, the last two years or the last two post seasons, it feels like it's a bit of a different story. story for the Oilers when they get pushed up against the ropes and really feel a level of desperation and how they lock it in and how difficult it is to sort of apply that final nail

in the coffin to them. And we saw last year they really stretched the limits of that in the Stanley Cup final when they went down three nothing and made a spirited effort and fell a goal short essentially of getting it done. They had to do it every step of the way, not in round one against LA, but they did it in round two against Vancouver. They did it in the West Final against the stars. And then they came back from down 3-0. As I recall, we were describing it as the F-around and find out sort of part of the Oilers that they were so good that they were able to make suboptimal lineup choices really in a series or B-flat and then it kind of didn't, or change goaltenders mid-stream, and it kind of didn't

matter because their top gear was so ridiculous, supernova. Yeah, when they're this dialed, they're an absolute beast. that I think that's why all year, despite the win-loss record and some ugly performances along the way, we kept referring, which has now become an inside joke on the PDO cast, their fastball, and the highest level they can hit to, and it feels like we've seen that now as this series has transpired. Sorry, you brought it up as like, it's an inside joke, and I was like, yes, great point. And I meant it. Finally, the first reference on today's show, dry titles played 93, 5-15 minutes in this series.

Shots on goal are 6230. Edmonton needs a 74%. My God. Expected goal share. I wanted to note as well. A lot of dog. The Oilers entries really stuck out to me as the series just transpired, but especially in this game where it feels like partly because McDavid is just so unguardable and presents so much fear

in everyone that's out there against him. But it's essentially a walk-in for them every time, right? Where it's an automatic entry and then you start deciding what you're going to do after there, whereas you watch other playoff series and even when the best player is on the ice and guys who are in the top percentile of skill in the world are like having a nightmarish time like baubling

the puck and trying to get past sticks and getting through squeezes and defenders surfing aggressively back checking forwards cheating to the strong side to force them against the wall I mean that's like that battle through the neutral zone you know is where you see the most hits

it's where you see games decided series decided and then McDavid just completely bends the, not just the gravity, but like the math of the game where it's just like, he's it. Well, and there's no right way to slow him down, but I'd say that it's doubly problematic when you start playing on your heels and passively and sitting back because now all of a sudden you're letting him build up even more speed and hit his highest gear. And if he's able to get there without being slowed down with a little nudge or a bump to kind of get him off his route, it's game

over. You're essentially at his mercy. And that's also what we've seen. I think that's been the common theme in that third period in overtime in game four and then the entirety of game five where there was no resistance in that sense either and that's a massive problem for the kings because even though the oilers were certainly getting looks of their own and posing challenges for them in the offensive zone as we've described in the first three games when the kings were really throwing massive haymakers at the oilers even when mcdivod would get by them there was still a certain sense of like they were pushing themselves in terms of being on their toes and aggressively trying to combat it. And there's no right answer for stopping them.

But I feel like that gives you the best opportunity to at least make it a bit of a challenge and give yourself an opportunity if you do get the puck in some way to then go the other way. And instead, we've sort of seen a complete reversal of that from this Kings team. Yeah, I mean, talk to defensive coaches around the league and they'll tell you the key to defending McDavid or and no one can actually like stop McDavid. That's not possible. But just to containing him or at least make him work for it. You know, you've got to be skating forward.

You've got to be attacking in layers. And honestly, you've got to have other players on your team willing to leave their checks and cheat just because every time you're able to get him to change direction or take an extra stride east west as opposed to north-south. That's a huge win for you because once he's going. full tilt, you are dead in the water. And, you know, ever since they started sitting back in that fourth game, defending, skating backwards, as a team, they've had absolutely no answer.

He's completely taken over. The other thing has been where the Oilers have really had success in this series is off of these cycle plays in the offensive zone where they're really wearing down the Kings and how they force this King's D to sort of collapse in upon itself. Yeah, they've had a lot of second chance opportunities. Like I mentioned the 17 inner slot shot. shots in game five, it felt like more because throughout this series, there's been so many scrambles in front of Darcy Kemper where he's trying to freeze the puck and they're

knocking away and kind of getting second, third opportunities off of the initial shot. And I'm really glad that on the Canadian broadcast, Jack Michaels, who was getting a shout out here from us for a second straight show, actually acknowledge the fact that this has been happening all series, right? I've been bewildered, and Darcy Kemper was phenomenal. He was the only reason it was... It could have been seven. It could have been before the Kings had even scored. It could have been completely out of hand. He at least gave them a bit of a puncher's chance, although they never really generated enough to actually follow through on that. But he's really struggled with, for whatever reason, catching the ball or catching the puck.

Just freezing it, it feels like it's always such a challenge for him to do so. And I feel like the Oilers have really capitalized. on that. Do you want to go through the list of our issues with what Jim Hiller has done in this series and why he's opened the door for this? Because as I said, I do want to give the Oilers credit for the problems they pose and how they've taken advantage here as this series has swung. But I really do feel like the door was opened by internally through self-inflicted wounds

by the Kings. I think so too. And yeah, it's a little tough because we don't want to be the sometimes you got to to tip your cap to the best players in the world, guys. And then, you know, the truth is that there are still unique circumstances where decision-making, tactical decision-making can, you know, in this case, I think turn a series, turn a series to the point where a team that has been the better team four or five games is now on the brink of elimination entering game six, which is, you know, catastrophic.

Like we're talking about a catastrophic run of decision making. So where do you want to start with it? Here's my unofficial list. I'm glad you asked. Off the cuff. I certainly haven't been thinking about this for the past 72 hours. The challenging game three. Yep.

Which obviously resulted in two goals within 10 seconds to seal that game. The turtling in the third period of game four where the Oilers were going to make a push regardless down two goals. That was bad. But you were kind of mentioning, oh, well, when you were. get into a one-three-one against McDavid, that can be a difficult solve for you. My resort was, man, if they had gone one-three-one, I think they actually might have won that game. Unfortunately, they went with a zero-three-two where there was no isolated forechecker up top because they essentially just sent everyone back to their own blue line and were like, come on in.

Yeah. And then the Oilers would just cook offensively. Yeah, don't treat McDavid like a vampire and do not invite him in. How about this one? Depleting the king's depth advantage. Yes. Now, guys for the Oilers, as a series of regressed, have really stepped up, as we noted. The scoring actually wasn't coming from the top line in game five. Yet, I think you look on paper at the personnel and what we saw from these two teams all regular season. You'd say that the Kings had a decided advantage in terms of depth of personnel,

like guys who could actually be productive and contribute in various ways. And instead, we saw Jim Hiller, and I don't know why they did this, I think part of it is the baggage of what's happened in the past and then feeling an added layer of desperation to finally get over the hump this year. So it's like, this is my one last shot. I can't mess it up. And so what they've done is they've completely depleted their own bench. They're essentially using 13 guys full time. Like the fourth line is going to be lucky to play five minutes in any given game.

The broadcast was mentioning, oh, it seems like Jim Hiller has really made a concerted effort of getting his fourth line out there tonight and trusting them. And you look and it's like they played between four and a half and five minutes tonight. And that's up. And that's a massive improvement as a series progressed. Jordan Spence plays eight minutes in game five. Brand Clark plays 12 minutes. There's just such a lack of trust there. And so as a series progresses, I think that has had a fact that's played a role in this series as well.

And I just feel like ultimately in, you know, listening to the post game interviews and then just, you know, judging through decisions. I often say that if you want to get a good sense of how a coach actually feels, don't listen to what they say. Look at what they do with their usage decisions and who they trust and how much they play them and what they do. And I don't think you can come away from these games feeling like this King's staff right now has a genuine understanding of what makes them a good team and why they were in that position of going up 3-1 to begin with.

Because none of their actions have reflected. that even when things have gone south, they've just gone the complete other way and almost tied their own arm behind their back here. And so I think that's incredibly frustrating. Yeah, I mean, doesn't it feel like if Alex Turcott was on the other side in this series,

and I granted he missed some time because of injury, but he only plays five minutes in that game, doesn't it feel like if he was an Oilers' bottom six guy we'd be talking about him as a major X-factor for that team just given the speed, the wheels, the ability to punish mistakes with some skill there. Compliment skill guys, play down lineup. I feel like every series we watch while we've been here in Palm Springs,

we're watching whoever's playing, and it's not the Oilers. And there's like some random bit player on the third or fourth line that just starts scooting up the ice. And your first response is, oh, man, let's put this guy on the Oilers and see how good he looks. I just want to see an Oilers team built. somewhat as well as last year, ideally with some goal tending and maybe one more top four defender. Is that too much to ask for Connor McDavid and Leon Drysidle?

Am I being unreasonable? Anyway, like Spence, Clark, Turcott type guys, Hellenius. Hellenius isn't a perfect guy. I mean, who amongst us is? Who amongst us is? He's thrown some good hits. Like, he's had some moments on the forecheck. He feels like a pretty perfect energy guy to give you five or six.

minutes. Easily. He strikes me as a guy who at some point in the next five years, you're going to spend 12 minutes talking about on the show. Only if he masters the penalty kill. Oh, man, the growth in Claudelius is game. Hey, I would love to see that. My point being, there's no justification to have emptied the tank to that extent with

your best players. Do you have more stuff to go over? I think my one final massive issue right now, and this one's less so maybe I'm holding against Jim Hiller, I think this would probably be universally applicable to any coach in this position. But as this series has gone on, how many times while we've been watching these games have I been? Have you heard me say, oh, man, Copatar, Dowdy. Like, we've seen everyone on the Oilers blow by Dowdy, him really struggled to keep up. We've seen Copatar. A lot of the, a lot of pucks are dying on a stick right now because he's struggling with whatever pressure the

Oilers are throwing at him. He's certainly massively struggling to get to any loose puck in a 50-50 battle. And they're still relying on them quite heavily. I mean, Dowdy is a 34% expected goal share of 5-1-5 in this series. He's also a 35-year-old who came off a massive injury and missed a significant portion of this year and has been playing catch-up ever since. Copatars a 38-year-old. And yet they're relying on them to this extent. And that's going so counter to all the speed and rush attack that the Kings are best at right now, right? And so these are big problems. I mean, you look at the usage.

And we had that one long, essentially extra period overtime game in game four. But Dowdy's playing 27 minutes per game in this series. Joel Edminson's playing 24 minutes per game. Yeah. Like you just look at the usage for the Kings right now. And I think that's my last point here in terms of negatives from what I've seen. Yeah. Look, when you've got weight, historical weight for a franchise.

Yeah, there's a lot of deference. Yeah, and some of it is reasonable. You know what I mean? Like there's an extent to which I think everyone would play those guys and lean on those guys and should. And yet, you know, I think the turning the dial on it or finding different combinations, look, the Gavrikov-doughty pair has been a problem in the series, especially as the Oilers have clawed their way into control in the latter three games that we've watched. you know, there are ways to turn the dial on it and protect a guy better.

I mean, you know, Kuzmenko, like if Kopatar, if the defensive pace, or if the pace of his too high that some defensive seams are showing for Kopatar, maybe he, maybe Kuzmenko needs to play on a different line, right? Maybe he needs a faster winger. Maybe he needs, you know, you've already given him Kempay, but, you know, there's, there's, whether it's, you know, a moor or, or somebody like that who, can do a little bit more, maybe take on a few more of the defensive responsibilities, check a little bit further back into the defensive zone, play like a center of it. You know, I think there's

ways to disguise it that I think have maybe been left on the table, even if, you know, you are somewhat limited by the stature that those players have in the room. It's bizarre to me that, you know, with about five minutes left or so left in this game and the Kings being down a goal and kind of pushing and trying to mount one last effort to tie this game up. You see Jim Hiller go to like, all right, I want to pull out my final stop. Adrian Kempe is going to be playing as a defenseman on this. We're going to go forward as one defenseman. And like, I love it. I've talked so much about how Kempe is so perfectly suited with his love of hip checks and being the last guy back on the powerplay. And part of why the five forward look works for them on the power play and get away with it.

So I love that, but it's it's so incongruous to me that like the same. coaching staff can be willing to do that and then act in so many other ways that run completely counter to it right like i just wish we got to see more of that just pushing and if you're going to lose at least lose on your own terms as opposed to losing the way they have the past couple games at least at least lose showing some at least lose because the thing that you're best at wasn't enough yes and i think what's frustrating about this series especially on the heels of so many other series where the kings have felt like a foil for the oilers doomed to lose eventually, just good enough to have their heartbroken by McDavid, this has not been that series.

And it's easy to cast it in a similar light that we cast the other series where it's like, wow, if you thought the kings could beat the oilers. No, the kings should have beat the Oilers. With what we've seen in this series, they just didn't lean in to the element of their game that was materially better through at least the first five games. they're not dead yet. No. They still have two chances to win both games in advance,

but it's looking grim at this point, down 3-2, heading back to Edmonton. Point being, if they'd been, if they'd leaned into doing what they did well, it feels like this was theirs for the taking and an opportunity missed

in a way that the other series losses weren't. And I think it's really important that we qualify this one differently, remember this one differently, and talk about this one differently. Wow, we're so in the weeds. I was so fired up that we completely overshot. Our signal they'll go to break here.

So let's actually do that now. When we come back, I got a couple more notes on this series, and then we're going to close up by covering another series as well. You're listening to the Hockey P.Docast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the Hockey Ocadipadus, Tom. Before we switch gears and cover another series, I just want to close the loop here on Oilers Kings, because I feel like there was a certain level of maybe, like, finality in our conversation,

and, like, talking about why the Kings lost. Yeah. You look at it and you know, they're still alive. They haven't. We're going into a game six. And I think what we saw when things were going good in the first three games would give you some level of confidence that if they can replicate that, that's still going to give this Oilers team problems and they're right back in it.

My concern, though, and I don't know if this is too much, you know, kind of like psychological analysis or whatever, but I do think it makes sense because of what happened. in games three and four, there would be some lasting impact to that. And I do believe that for as well as the Oilers played, you just watch the Kings and it looked like a shell of the team that we'd seen in the first couple of games in terms of like, I thought they looked obviously much slower and the Oilers were winning all the battles and just out competing them. But there was also like, they were missing on so many passes.

Like they weren't completing passes. They were so disorganized. They were kind of crowded. hitting each other and not really stretching out the Oilers at all, and it was all accumulating, and they looked demoralized. And I think that would certainly make sense. I would be if I was on the Kings right now, I'd be like, man, I thought we were going to win this series.

And all of a sudden, I was watching the Kings right now. Yes. I mean, so look, at the end of the day, you'd hope that understandable, though it might be, momentum doesn't usually carry over game to game even if it felt like it did in game five. and the king's come in and at least, you know, resolve that they're going to go down swinging. And if they're going to go down swinging, then they're going to get out galloping on the rush. And if they're going to get out attacking with speed, we know that they can do damage. We know that they have an edge in net, even if Kemper's glove hand has been, you know, something of a, like a leak in an otherwise sturdy series for him,

despite, you know, some wild game environments. The, you know, Kempay effect and the power play is a mammoth edge for them. And, you know, as good as the Oilers are at home, you know, we know that their goaltending is leaky. And if you get a couple early ones, you can maybe make the crowd nervous. You're not going to get them out of it because the Oilers are at some point going to have a heavy shift and everyone's going to go nuts. But nonetheless, you can maybe seize the initiative and it would behoove them to do so. because if you can't get by the Oilers now, with the gap having narrowed this sufficiently,

and with Byfield having been this good going into the playoffs, and with Kempay having spent large swaths of this series as the most dynamic offensive player in it, more so than McDavid. Like if all of those things align and you lose to this team in six, that is, you know, that is hard to swallow. it is it certainly yeah kempa has been as i said by far the coolest player i watched in the game where they didn't have anything going for them offensively i don't know how many

high danger chances they were credited for in that game i can remember i can remember one yeah and it was that kempay breakaway and i was joking when we saw it i was like man i know he hasn't scored on every single shot he's taken but i feel like an oiler's goalie has not stopped him in the series like it's been a matter of him either missing or like on that one he puts it through Pickers legs and the pad gets it a little bit and it squeaks through. He's hit the post a couple times. He's getting anything he wants offensively once he's able to shake loose. And so that would certainly be part of the strategy.

I want to one final note on this. I wanted to shout out our pal and in front of the show, Jack Hahn. He had a great post on his site recently about this kind of concept of secondary patterns for teams offensively and being able to generate through that as a means. And I think of that a lot in this series, right? because when we talk about where things have gone south for the Kings, and certainly their power play has been awesome,

and they've scored a bunch of goals through that. So much of it has been needing to be funneled through the rush, and all of a sudden when they weren't able to get out in transition, I'm left wondering where the offense or even where the scoring chances are going to come through for them. Whereas while the Oilers can't match them there, one thing they can, and you see it on all those McDavid, Dreisaitle, Perry, and Bushard shifts essentially a 5-on-5,

the amount of freelancing that's afforded to them in terms of a first look, that gets closed up because of the nose stick or a shot lock or the king's kind of defended well on an initial wave, the lawyers are just able to essentially kind of troubleshoot by looking for what's next, right? And kind of like working the puck around and then probing again and attacking and stretching out the kings that way. And after 90 seconds of chasing him around doing that,

eventually something gets going to happen. And the kings just don't really have a solve for that. right now. We've seen them score off of breakdowns from Oilers' giveaways and their defensemen letting them down a lot off the rush. But in terms of that sort of set stuff at 5-1-5, that hasn't really been an avenue available to them. And part of that is certainly personnel-driven when you have McDavid and Dreisaitle. That's just the luxury that's afforded to you. And few teams are going to be able to match that. But that really kind of, because you see it in the playoffs all the time, right? Especially after a couple games, if something is burning you time and time again,

there will be some sort of an adjustment or something to kind of like stop the bleeding. a little bit through that facet, and then it's going to be imperative that you have a secondary approach. I mean, think about the Panthers in the brunette year, right? Where they face the capitals. Peter L.A.L.A. was like, okay, no rush chances, guys. And they were like, what? Right. And then, you know, in comes, I mean, Paul Maurice,

but also Matthew Kachuk, right? And the down low playmaking and his, you know, dynamic game, both as a goal score but mostly as a playmaker, frankly, for Kachuk, right? That's the underrated part of how he drives. You know, in those stationary attacking situations, revolutionized what that team was to great effect as the Tampa Bay Lightning had found out. And, you know, I think there have been moments.

Like one of the reasons I liked the Kuzmenko ad for them so much is, you know, there are some limitations to what Kuzmanko does as a player. But in terms of, you know, protecting the. puck down low, feathering passes through. I mean, he's a really good down low playmaker, and he's kind of a savant getting his stick loose in the blue paint, getting lumber on, you know, passes, shots, and sort of finding those goals. And, you know, look, we saw that on the power play. That was the goal they scored, was a deft Kuzmanko deflection. So it's, like, kings have some, have sort of some ability to do that personnel-wise. It's not the, it's not

that they're, I think, completely limited. I actually think the Oilers deserve some credit for the defensive game in stationary attacking situations. I don't think their defense in terms of handling the rush has been good enough at all. And I actually think that's very much a personnel based limitation baked into the construction of this Oilers team. They're a sort of lack of environmental creators. But I do think the, I do think the Oilers defense has limited. them because look we see fiala like fialo with some of that up high action that he's able to do i mean we see that him create in stationary attacking situations all the time kuzmanko is really good at it byfield i think can do it pretty regularly even if he is most lethal off the rush uh that just hasn't

happened with nearly the frequency that the kings have needed it especially in key moments when momentum is kind of you know begun to tilt against them goldenites wild So another thrilling chapter to this series with the game five, the Golden Knights, of course, winning in overtime, marred by controversy in terms of the offside challenge and goal reversal that Hartman scored in the final minute or so to put the wild up. And then initially they reviewed it for whether it was a kicking motion or how the puck got into the net. And then the Golden Knights challenge and wind up winning because Gus Nyquist was offside by millimeters. And what's your take on that? Because I feel like you know, you and I generally haven't talked that much about challenges in offside in particular.

It obviously plays an outsized role in this particular instance. I find it frustrating. I mean, certainly brutal for the wild. I just don't love this particular instance because Nyquist's positioning on the play doesn't influence the outcome at all. No. Right? Like it's not like he drags a defender with. him. So, you know, changing the Golden Knights defensive approach. He doesn't touch the puck. It's a

solo effort by Hartman. And it just kind of goes, I think, against the spirit of the rule and the installation of the challenge to begin with to try to remove the embarrassing kind of badly blown calls where Matthew Shane is 10 feet offside or whatever he was in that game that essentially spurred this. And so I know that the, you know, the pushback or the counter is going to be, well, this is the rule and everyone has to play within it and there's a certain level of of discipline or effort involved to making sure you stay on side and so that's all part kind of baked into the game and how it's played but man i i just find it frustrating because you remove a cool goal off the board and it wasn't something that really affected it in any way shape or form so i have a couple issues one is

when i'm watching these playoff games especially in overtime i prolonged offensive zone shift is the most exciting part of the game because it could end at any point. And if the entry is at all close, you're always like, oh, man. I'm like, oh, I hope they don't score here. Yeah. And then my incentives as a fan are completely polluted. I'm watching it almost wincing, hoping that the great play that I should be waiting for doesn't happen because I don't want that like emotional high of a home crowd losing it.

then the flatness. I mean, that's the other part of this, because I think you see this too in soccer with VAR, where, I mean, how do you win after that? How do you win after that sort of emotional outpouring and then the flatness of the disallowed goal? There's no world in which that doesn't impact the game an awful lot more than just a whistle blown and a face off for offside would. My view is, at the end of the day, I really think we should all be adults about accepting that these are human games and that human error is going to play a small role in them. My personal opinion is, you know, I think it should be obvious enough that, like, if you're going to take a goal off the board, you should be able to say definitively that you missed it in real time without the benefit of slow motion on two viewings.

Like, I really think reviews should be, we shouldn't be going pixel by pixel. we shouldn't be frame by frame. We shouldn't be, you know, seeing them in hyper slow motion. That's not how the game was designed to be viewed. That's not how these, the games were designed to be called. You know, these are human beings playing a human game called by human beings. I'm cool with video assist. It would be silly not to avail ourselves of the technological advancements we've made

across 70 years, 80 years of, you know, contemporary hockey history. But the way that it's done now with, you know, these. reviews that drag on for five or seven minutes and goals taken off the board for plays that have nothing to do with the the playing question. For me, it's, for me, I think we've just gone too far. I don't know how you unravel it, especially because, you know, even in a world where you didn't review, you'd still have fans going loco on, you know, social media posting like stills and, you know, parallax stills and clearly offside. And, you know, so it's, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't, but the level of precision that we've hit now, I don't think's helpful.

I thought that was a good example of it. I think a massive development in this series and maybe moving forward for the goal of the Knights is the Jack Eichael finally got going on this game. Yep. We were talking after game four about how ineffective and unproductive he'd been to this point in this series. I thought he finally had some space to use his skating, was much more involved. On Park had the two assists.

The first one was the short-handed rush where he drags his defenders over, slides it over to Carlson for an easy tap-in. And then I thought the second one was just as impressive, where it was exactly what Jack Eichol's been doing all season, if you've been watching them, forces the turnover in the neutral zone, taps it past the defender to get into the zone, then does this slick little play where he, like, stops short,

slides the puck behind him, creates more space, gets it at the point, they score a goal off of that. And this is kind of in concert with the adjustment Bruce Cassidy made in game four, where he, as a means of, trying to combat this Caprizov boldie Joel Erickson Eichs and put Eichol with William Carlson

and you look 11 minutes head to head in this game at 515 Caprizov versus Carlson the Golden Knights were up 7 3 in shots, 1-0 thing in goals the while that's just 23% of the expected goals and that's a massive departure from the dominance we saw. Caprizo obviously scored the about the quick response powerplay goal after the William Carlson Shorty but they did a much better job.

in this game and yet once again a common theme we've talked a lot about Kempe and his rise Matt Boldie man the goal he scored here yeah where he just goes right around Petrangelo power move to the net and then in tight just roofs it was so cool the pass also from Joel Arseneck was sublime it was just like backhand cross ice across lines above a defender's stick right on the money it was such high level stuff that we've been seeing all series from that line, but I thought all that stuff was cool. And my one final take is in back-to-back games now, we saw, first it was Middleton in game four, right, with like the fail clearing, and then the puck unfortunately bounces off of him,

but he's slow to react, doesn't pick anyone up, they tap it in front of the net. And in this one, we saw the puck just go over, Zach Progoshan stick behind the net, comes out front, game over. And so that's really cost them in these high leverage moments in back-to-back games. I think just the lack of puck skills from those guys. unfortunately. But yeah, it's been, it's been razor thin. And then, as we said, this has been a remarkably fun and entertaining series. It feels an awful lot different as it shifts back to Minnesota for game six than the king's shifting back to Edmonton, right? In that, look, not that the

wild are guaranteed to survive, but two straight overtime games, an overtime game decided, you know, in part by an offside review, a successful challenge. I mean, this rock. This rocks. And I also think no matter what happens, we will come out of this series and come out of experiencing this wild performance. I think with an elevated view of their sort of immediate future as a team and their chances, for example, of using their cap space this summer to level up even further, to be a fringe contender, to be a contender to win the division. I don't know that we will be. talking about them necessarily as being like a tier down, especially as they, you know, are released on parole from cap jail, as being in a different tier from the avalanche and the Jets and, you know, the Golden Knights next season. Like I think we're going to be looking at this team as a side that with some of the right moves, you know, bolster the middle six a bit and on and on, actually has this sort of top end gear now where I think we can look at them as a team

that has a real shot to be a contender and maybe even for once the flexibility to actually get there. All right, good stuff, buddy. We've got to get out of here. We're going to do one more show, though, cover the Eastern Conference matchups, especially the ones that have already been decided and settled, and we're going to break those down as well because it feels like we've really been, we have been spending a bit of a disproportionate amount of time on these West Series. I mean, partly because they've been much more competitive and are going deeper in,

and I think have more back and forth and I guess adjustments in a chess match feel to them as opposed to some of the more one-sided Eastern Conference alternatives. So tomorrow? Yeah. A full segment on E2 Lus Drainon? I'll try to limit myself to just one full segment. It might have to bleed into future episodes as well. But man, that's a good plug for it because he was an absolute rock star

and sealing that series. Yeah, unbelievable. All right, Tom, we're getting out of here. Everyone go for all your work at the Athletic, listen to Knox Talk on Sports and Radio Network. All your Rick Talk at departure content. Yes, you're a busy guy. to go along with everything you do here on this show as well.

So we'll be back with that Eastern Conference episode. Thank you for listening to the Hockey P.D.Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.