The Hockey PDOcast - What We Saw in Golden Knights Oilers Game 2, and Hurricanes Capitals Game 2

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Harman Dayal to go through everything we saw from Golden Knights Oilers Game 2 and Hurricanes Capitals Game 2 on Thursday night. 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.

Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich. And joining me as my good buddy, Harmon Dile. What's going on, man? Nothing much. Just enjoying all the playoff hockey. Yeah, we got another fun night of action on Thursday night. We're going to talk about the two games.

We saw the game two's respectively. And I wanted to start off even though it's out of order. I want to start off with order's night. because I want to give us as much runaway here today to cover that one. I love this series so much. That game two in particular had everything you could ever ask for. Is it fair to say that there's no show out there right now that's more entertaining than the Edmonton Oilers in the playoffs?

They're either completely dominating or they're a hot mess in train wreck mode with seemingly zero in between. And sometimes they're alternating those two modes within the same game itself. And we kind of got to see that in this one. And so, yeah, it was remarkable theater. it was amazing back and forth action. And to me, what a backbreaking loss for Vegas. I mean, to drop both games on home ice,

especially when in game two, they actually outplayed the Oilers, right? In game one, we sort of knew that, okay, once the Knights went up to nothing in that game, the Oilers just kind of curbstop them. And it wasn't even close. It felt like the Oilers were in a different weight class. But in game two, the Knights actually control large parts of the game.

And to me, when you're, in a playoff series against the Oilers, against McDavid and Drysettle, when you limit those two to zero points through regulation, that has to be an automatic W. In a seven-game series in my mind, you're realistically only going to be able to do that as far as keeping them off the score sheet

once or twice maybe. You cannot give up four goals in regulation. And then, of course, give them the opportunity to make the game-breaking, game-winning play in OT. So to me, right off the bat, that's found money for the Oilers to pull out a victory in a game where McDavid and Drysettle were complete non-factors through regulation. Yeah, it was a bizarreo Oilers game in that sense just based on what we've become conditioned to expect from this team over the two years over the past couple years, right? Like they get the two fourth line goals in the second period to turn it from a zero one-nothing deficit to a two-one lead through regulation.

As you mentioned, McDavid and Dry-Style were I want to say uncharacteristically poor, but more so just uninvolving. involved, right? Like they were on the broadcast, they were talking a lot about how few puck touches. Drysidal had early in the game and how he wasn't really looking like himself. McDavid had more puck touches, but very few clean ones. He was kind of bobbling the puck and giving it away and trying to do stuff, but a Golden Knight's stick would get in the way or someone would block the lane and the puck would be moving in the other direction. They just couldn't really complete anything the way we'd become accustomed to. They combined for 10 shot attempts between the two of them through regulation and they were held off the score sheet entirely.

And then in OT, I think very reminiscent of that Four Nations final, right? In thinking of kind of poor uninvolved McDavid games where he was really fighting it, there's an opening. He takes advantage. He puts Jack Eichael on a poster and he sets up that dry-sighted a winner. And in the blink of an eye, the entire narrative of the game, I think shifts. Because we can talk more about Eichael here. Certainly, I got a lot of notes on him.

But I thought he played a phenomenal game prior to that moment. And that should have been the lasting impression. yet I think, you know, as this pose season progresses and we move on to the future, the one lasting memory for everyone out of this game too is going to be that play where Ikel's skating backwards and he's a phenomenal defensive forward. I thought he probably should have gotten more Selky love than he did this year, but he's a forward skating backwards and McDavid's going at full speed and he kind of leans forward, puts him into a pretzel and by that point, it's over for him.

And it's amazing how quickly I think these things can swing. remarkable right and that's the beauty of having mcdavit on your team is he can look lost for the entire game and i sort of agree with your assessment in mcd in comparing mcdiv and dry settle where i think for dry settle it's not that he played poorly but he just didn't have any quality puck touches with time and space whereas i think mac david had more of those through regulation but he was just a little bit sloppy with the puck handling and in the actual execution um sort of reminiscent of uh the four-day nation's final against the United States. But you give those guys enough of a runway, enough of an opportunity. And even on quote unquote off nights, all they need is one window of opportunity to make that elite game breaking play. And let's be honest, as poorly as Ica looked on that sequence, there's nothing really he could have done differently.

When McDavid winds up like that and is twisting and turning, you're just in trouble, straight up. Yeah, the reason why I framed it as kind of a theoretically bizarre game just based on past norms is because it hasn't really been the case this postseason for the Oilers. I think certainly the performance from those two guys was, but an emerging story, this entire playoff run so far, especially since the round one series against the Kings when it started to kind of turn halfway through that matchup, has been the contributions they're getting from some of these depth guys beyond the top five-man unit of that top line and blue sharderners. look line two with Ryan Nugent Hopkins, Hyman and Kane, 45 minutes. They're up to one in that time, 58% of the shots, 71% of the chances. Line three, Adam Henrique with Connor Brown, who playoff Connor Brown almost scored another beautiful goal in this one ringing it off the bar after his game one master class schooling, Shea Theodore on the break and then finishing a Pasadent

Hill. Those guys with Trent Frederick, 39 minutes, up 3-1, 59% of the shots, 71% of the chances. And then line four, Matias Yanmark with Arvinson and Port Colson, 27 minutes, up 3, 1,000. 173% of the chances, 57, or 71% of the shots, 57% of the chances. And those two guys in particular, Arvinson and Put Colson, were two guys who were probably miscast at this point throughout the regular season because of some of the injuries where they were playing a ton of minutes in the top six with Drysidal. Now up they're playing on this fourth line. They've been buzzing in this series, creating a ton.

And then you've got the second pair of Walman and Klingberg. Walman, they acquired the deadline. Klingberg plays just 11 regular season games coming back from his hip surgeries, 67 minutes for those guys of 5-15, goals, 3-1, shots, 4, 3-20, chances, 23-11. And so it kind of is going against the grain, I guess, of what our expectations, because especially in that Rall-1 matchup and maybe even more so in this one, you'd think, all right, the depth advantage goes to the Oilers' opponent, and that hasn't really been the case as these games have gone along.

Like, they've gotten, I think, way more out of them than I think anyone realistically could have expected, certainly what I expected heading in. 100% agree. And that doesn't even include Corey Perry, who's been a monster for them in the top six. I mean, Evander Kane coming back as well. He's a guy that I looked at at times during last year's playoffs with the lack of foot speed. And I wondered, okay, how much juice does he really have left in his game and in his foot speed? It felt like at times last year, especially in the series against Vancouver round two, that he wasn't quite on it. and especially after missing the entire regular season game, or regular season to see him come back and make the impact he's had,

it's definitely exceeded my expectations there. I've liked to fit for Frederick on the fourth line. Connor Brown, as he mentioned, has been just sort of continuing the momentum from the strong postseason he had. Last year, in the bottom six, especially in game one, it was super noticeable, how much momentum they sort of created off the forecheck, how many issues they were giving,

Vegas' defenseman on the breakout. Now, I think the Golden Knights weathered that storm a little bit better in game two. But still, there have been stretches where you can see that the other lines are almost setting the table up for McDavid and Dry Settle. Again, especially in game one, to do some of that damage by wearing the Knights down, forcing them to defend, creating some momentum. him, just even if it's not always the high danger grade A chance is creating the sustained pressure that sort of has the feeling where the knights are on the ropes at times. And then you get your top six sort of over the boards to almost attack downhill. Yeah, it's pretty telling how in this game while they were still down one nothing,

Chris Nile blog. And part of this was because the top line wasn't playing up to its normal standards, but was sending that fourth line out in particular with increasing frequency trying to get them going and that's exactly what they did. They're up 11-7 now in 5-1-5 minutes without McDavid and Dreisdell on the ice to put that into context during this entire era by postseason. Last year, they were down 21 to 12 in those minutes of the year before, down 10-7, 21-22, and they made it to a West Final, down 17, 14, and 2021, they were down 5-2.

So this is completely going against the norm. I do want to, you kind of mention that cumulative effect, and I think it goes both ways, right? I think the fact that they've loaded up, Drey Sidel and McDavid together here, and they're creating a ton themselves, maybe not within this game, but you just look this postseason in their 5-1-5 minutes shots are 59 to 26. Oilers, high-danger chances are 24 to 8. I think there's some lasting impact of those guys are just wearing down the opposition so much, and then it's allowing some of these guys to step onto the ice in pretty favorable situations,

either against tired opponents or with good zone time and then being able to build off of that, right? So I think it kind of goes hand in hand there. What did you think about the adjustments from Bruce Cassidy in this game where, you know, coming out of the Wild series, one of the big stories was to adjust to Capriza of and Boldie, they put William Carlson with Eichael and Stone and that line really swung that series. They started off this matchup trying to accomplish the same against the Oilers' top line and it didn't really wind up working. And so heading into game two, Bruce Cassidy puts Carlson back on the line with Riley Smith and Brett Howder. and he promotes Ivan Barbershev up to the top line with Stone and Eichol. And I think part of the logic was not only giving them more options to defend McDavid and Dreisaito,

but also just to get Eichl's line going a bit more offensively because they just didn't have the puck at game one at 515. And I think despite the fact that they didn't score, you watch this game and I'd say mission accomplished in that sense, and yet it ultimately didn't matter. Yeah, as far as the Eichl versus McDavid matchup in regulation, I mean, he, he in that line did as well as they could have. And it sort of reminded me of a couple conversations with J.T. Miller in last year's postseason where he obviously spent a lot of time going up against McDavid and Dry Settle.

And he said that a huge key to trying to play as well as you can against those guys head to head is you can't give them too much respect and sort of craft your entire game plan around sitting back, defending. How do we shadow McDavid and sort of have. this negative sort of conservative mindset on how do we limit the damage. The theory that he sort of gave was you've got to feel confident enough to make plays to feel feel as if you can attack and apply some pressure back at them. And that's where I think in game two you saw the Eichol line really counterpunching offensively, making more plays, playing more fast and aggressive, whereas I thought in the thought in game one, there were too passive.

They were sitting back a little bit. A lot of it was how can we sit back on our structure and just protect the middle. Whereas in game two, I thought that line forced them, forced McDavid and Drosidel to defend for stretches. And that's ultimately the best way to prevent the offensive damage to those guys can do.

So I think in game two for the Eichel line, it wasn't just the tweak on the wing, but from a mindset perspective, perspective, being on the front foot a little bit more rather than on the back foot. And look, that's a tough thing to do. It's easy for us to say. But in reality, it's tough to execute because there's such a slim margin for error where you know if you turn a puck over, those guys are going to burn you on the counterattack.

You know that when you're trying to be more aggressive on the forecheck or you're trying to step up in the neutral zone for your defenseman, that if you miss and you get caught, Like that's going to be a great A chance. There's a very good chance, a very good high, high probability that's going to wind up in the back of your net. So I thought they threaded the needle with that well in game two through regulation. The issue is I would have liked to see more from the Carlson line at five on five.

Now I know William Carlson scored a tip goal, but that was with Eichl on the ice. That line has been a little bit quiet. And when I look at Vegas is like we've spent time talking about how, Edmonton's forward depth has sort of come through. Vegas in the regular season had 12 forwards who scored at least 12 goals in the regular season. That doesn't even include William Carlson, who only scored nine because he missed games due to injury.

And so so far in the series, Vegas only has three forwards who've scored. Mark Stone, who's obviously on the top line, Victor Oliveson with a pair in game two, both on the power play with the top unit. And then the aforementioned Carlson goal while he was on the ice with Jack Eichol's So they haven't been getting those depth contributions from the rest of their forwards. And I think that's sort of what's been killing them. Yeah, I thought that Ikel had one of the more prolific playmaking games I can really remember as a passer in this type of setting. Like he must have had the puck on a stick for, I guess, at least three minutes or so in terms of offensive zone possession time in this game.

And I have to put that into context, this postseason sport logic tracks it. Him and McDavid lead the entire league and they average less than a minute and a half. offensive zone time with the puck and so he just had it on a string the entire time I thought some of the skating details of like the hip swivels to create space and keep defenders on their heels

was awesome he had so many cross seam bullet passes here I really think you know we mentioned barbachev being promoted to this line I think he winds up with 11 shot attempts five of them registered his high danger chances probably had seven or eight scoring chances within that and if he had buried a couple of them maybe the story's

different and Ikel could have realistically wound up with six, seven assists in this game based on some of the looks he was setting up for those guys. It's tragic for him, as I said, that he plays this tremendous game. He goes head to head with McDavid for nine minutes, five-on-five, controls 80% of the expected goal share in that time, and then all you're going to remember is those final five seconds where he gets twisted into a pretzel. I want to talk about the zone structure with you. You mentioned Vegas, as we've discussed throughout the year, is so unique in terms of how passive they are for the most part in their own zone, right? kind of getting into that shell in the home plate area,

trying to block everything by fronting, conceding territorial time and perimeter actions to the opponent and allowing it to essentially tire yourself out with low quality looks. And I thought they got burned by that in game one. Part of it was they had that lead early on where they go up to nothing. But you look in the final 40 minutes of game one, I think they registered three five-on-five shots combined between periods two and three, and that just because they spent pretty much the entirety of that time in their own zone

defending. And I think in the aggregate, it's a great strategy in the postseason that they obviously want a Stanley Cup executing in watching these games against the Oilers, though I do wonder whether it's playing with fire a little bit because all of a sudden, if you do that and sit back, you just allow McDavid and Dreisel to stack together these puck touches. And they're so good at, as you see on the power play, even if you're set defensively in your structure, they can eventually stretch you out, find a hole, and then punish you. And if you do that long enough, it's going to happen. inevitably. And then there's also the fact that, you know, Vegas prides itself on having this super efficient counter game whenever they retrieve possession, they come back with a three on two

or four on three and make you pay. And if you're spending 90 seconds chasing around your own zone, defending those guys, it probably kills your legs a little bit. And all of a sudden, you neutralize your own counterattack a little bit. Maybe once you get it, you're just trying to dump it out and change and get fresh bodies out there. And so it's a bit of a double whammy there, I think, for them. Yeah. And the Oilers are vulnerable defensively. in the series. We know with Ekholm out and you give the Oilers defensemen credit for how well they've been moving to puck and through this postseason. I think John Klingberg has been, has exceeded my expectations coming off of all the injuries he had, but they are vulnerable

defending the middle of the ice. We saw that in game two. And that's where Vegas, the more I can sort of dial up the aggressiveness just a little bit, which I believe they did in in comparing in game one to game two, it puts the Oilers under a little bit more duress, whereas if the Knights sort of sit back a little bit, concede all that territorial and zone time, it's not just that the Oilers are able to spend all that time in the attacking zone, where the Knights down a little bit, but there's no opportunity for Vegas to actually counterpunch and apply pressure on the Orler's defensive structure, which has been up and down at times through this postseason for sure.

So I think you saw Vegas execute that a little bit better. I wonder how much of the, like how much they sat back and, and how sort of conservative they were was them going up to O early in that game and sort of thinking that, okay, we can we can sort of just park the bus and win that way. Whereas obviously in game two, they didn't quite have that opportunity. They spent a large chunk of that game sort of, trailing, but they're definitely going to have to be a little bit more aggressive, find ways to give the others a little bit more trouble on the breakout.

And that's where I think one difference from game one to game two, as far as why Vegas control play a lot better too, was I felt they were more connected against Edmonton's forecheck and were crisper transitioning the puck up the ice. Yeah, I thought you could notice the point of emphasis for them in this game of trying to kill plays a bit sooner in the sequence defensively. and attacking that point of attack for the Oilers. The reason why I say it's playing with fire,

you watch that King series in particular, and something I kept harping on was the Oilers were so good at getting the puck to the net front and then creating these mad scrambles and then getting second, third opportunities off of rebounds. And we've seen, whether it's Kemper or Hill, kind of struggle with some of those as bigger, clumsier goalies. And that's a good segue maybe for us to talk about the respective goaltending here.

I don't want to spend too much time on it because I've got our guy Kevin Woodley coming on next and I'll allow him to cook there. But I thought that was a story come out of this game as well, where you look on the Oilers end, and I know Calvin Pickard comes out with only an 875, say, percentage he stops 28 of 32 shots. That was about as good of a performance as I can recall seeing from him.

There was that one game against the Canucks last year where he got a ton of credit for keeping the Oilers in it, but I thought that a lot of that was very fortunate where he wasn't really seeing the puck. He was giving up a ton of rebounds, and the Canucks just weren't really making them pay. In this game, I know he gives up. the Petrangelo point shot to tie it in the third after getting rolled up on by hurdle.

And there were certainly a couple instances where Vegas either missed a net point blank or an oiler's defensive stick got in the way of breaking up a potential goal. But especially in that second period when they were trailing 1-0. It felt like that game could have gone off the rails and really landslided. There was the Barbashev chance in tight off the rebound. There was the power play after with the cross-ice passed Oliveson. One of the times he didn't score where Pickard got across. there was the breakaway on Pearson, obviously the break and then the rebound after in overtime as well.

I thought he was pretty huge in this game, stepping up and making some big stops to keep the Oilers in it before their offense finally got going. And on the other end, Aiden Hill has given up nine goals against on 66 shots in the series. Now evolving hockey has him at minus 2.7 goal save above expected this postseason. Support logic is looking less favorably on his performance. They've got him down at negative nine goals saved above expected. which is pretty bleak in this short of a sample. And you look at those two goals by put calls in a nurse in particular. Those ones just can't go in in the second period, right?

Like they're just straight line rush shots where he's not even moving laterally and it just kind of goes through him. And I think they got away with it in the Minnesota series because they were just such a one-line team. And Vegas ultimately had too much firepower for them. But the margins were still tight in that. And this one, he just flat out needs to be better. Right.

Like I thought his performance was pretty sloppy in game one. I know he had a good overtime to keep them in it. before that winner during the five-minute major, but otherwise, I feel like it's remarkable that through these two games, I feel like decidedly the advantage in that has gone through Oilers. And you just can't have them in the postseason. When you know that the Oilers have Pickard and Skinner as a goaltending options, you can't afford to lose the battle in the crease.

And you're right, I really felt like Hill's performance in the second period just killed them. In my mind, that's one of the biggest storylines of the game. high danger chances, according to natural stat trick in that second period, were 11-0 for Vegas at 5-on-5, but Edmonton ultimately outscored them in all situations in that second period three to one. You mentioned the Pod Colson off the rush, sort of just going through him five-hole from the top of the circle on screen. That was brutal. The nurse mid-range unscreen shot just over the pad was brutal as well. But I also didn't love the Wallman 1-1 goal. We know that Wellman has a bottom of a shot from the point.

It was a great one-timer, but still didn't love that sort of going in clean on Hill either. So he absolutely has to step up. And especially now that the Oilers have a 2-0 series lead and they're going back to home where they've been so dominant this postseason, Hill's going to have to be one of Vegas's best players for them to have any chance of clogging back in the series. Let's talk about overtime a little bit real quick here before to go to break. Like, first off, that was an all-time wires crossed moment for Nick Waugh, who just inexplicably cross-checked Trent Frederick in the face. And, you know, they killed off the five-minute major, but that was one of the more bizarre penalties in that situation that I've seen. You were texting about it and just how undisciplined Nick Waugh's been in this series.

He took a penalty in game one. He had a sequence earlier in this game where he's kind of like dumping the puck in, and he just gets his stick in his hands up high and catches darn old nurse in the face as well. you can't have that. There was the missed call before the McDavid to Dreisito goal where it clearly should have been a penalty on Victor Arbetson kind of getting a stick in between the legs and tripping up. Braden McNab, we took a nasty fall there. It was, I mean, that overtime was crazy.

There were so many. Obviously, the Oilers hit the crossbar with the Hyman shot. Then they get a post from McDavid before the goal itself. That overtime was so chaotic. There was so much going on. It was awesome, especially the way the Golden Knights started that O T frame, you thought they might end this within five minutes. They were all over the nights.

And that's another sequence where Calvin Pickard stood tall. There were a couple of pretty dangerous looking Vegas rushes where he was able to make key stops. And then it's not just, of course, Watt takes that penalty and the night sort of kill it off. And so you think, okay, bullet dodged there. But I think it derailed the momentum that they'd sort of been building because on the other side of that, the Oilers were able to continue pressing, spending time in the offensive chance in the offensive zone. And that sort of led to them slowly taken over that overtime period. And then I think the most inexplicable part of that OT was just how much Alex Petrangelo struggled.

He missed the defensive zone retrieval that led to McDavid having the puck wide open right in front of the net, rang it off the post. Petrangelo Wift a clear, which Hyman hit off the crossbar. He had two other failed clearances on the PK that you thought, oh boy, this could immediately cost them. In that game, he was on the ice for three, five and five goals against. But especially in that OT, it was baffling to see Petrangelo struggle to that large of an extent.

Yeah, especially since, you know, he misses game one with the illness. he comes back. I thought he was really good. And the regulation, he was making a lot of plays. He, of course, scores that 3-3 goal to send it to overtime. And then, yeah, the compounding of those crucial mistakes ultimately want to them just not. I mean, you're watching that game. How many years now have we seen, especially during like three-on-three overtime,

but in any situation, really, if McDavid and Dreisdler in that spot where there's a two-out-of-one, it's pretty clearly going cross-ice to Dreysidel for the shot. McDavid's obviously the best player in the world. If you give him a clear look at the net, he still might beat eight in Hill, especially since Hill has struggled so much five-hole in this postseason. And McDavid loves to kind of do that crafty little shot along the ice through the pads. But you have to live with that eventually. If you're kind of playing arbitrage or picking your poison,

you've got to take away that past the Dracidal and Petrangelo did not. And it wound up killing them. My one final thing on overtime, this is a totally sort of niche and random frustration. but I noticed this in game seven of Blues Jets where I believe the Blues ice it in overtime and it's like nine and a half minutes left and halfway through the overtimes. They don't go away for TV timeout commercial because they stick with a game, but they give you essentially a TV timeout while they scrape the ice. And I get it for ice quality and performance reasons and health and all that.

But I hate when they do that after an icing in those situations. And they did that again here during an ongoing Oilers power play that allowed everyone to kind of rest up. I just feel like in those spots, you got to play it out and then do it on the next whistle when it doesn't involve one of those. Let's spin this forward a little bit to end the conversation on this series. Going into game three, I thought to this game at a very similar feel to what we saw from game two, or games one and two lumping them together of Florida, Toronto, where Florida, or Florida struggled and really didn't play their game or execute in game one and lost that one. Game two, they bounce back, they get back to their script.

They still fall short for a variety of reasons. and now they're going home down 2-0 and in a bit of a hole. Same thing I think can be applied here to the Golden Knights. Now their circumstances are probably even more of an uphill battle because they're going back to Edmonton now and the Oilers are so good at home for games 3 and 4. I think we both agree that while there might be concerns about Dreis Heidel's health and whether his performance in game 2 was just because he's not really anywhere close to 100%. And maybe that's why they're just playing him and McDavid so much together, 5-1-5.

McDavid is just going to be so much better in one of these games, right? It feels like we're due for an inevitable McDavid new game where he has five points and just goes completely nuts. And that's going to happen sooner rather than later. And so if you're the Panthers, it's not a great spot, but at least you can kind of talk yourselves into, all right, well, if we play better, we just kind of limit a few of those crushing mistakes.

Maybe it's a different outcome for the Golden Knights. Similar logic can apply, but just I feel like in much different circumstances. It's a really bad omen for me. if again going back to the one of the first points I made when McDavid and Dress Settled don't get on the scorching regulation, you can't pull out a victory. That to me is a sign of a team that that is in trouble in Vegas right now. And I don't have a lot of confidence in them for a few reasons. Number one, Aiden held to be quite honest with you because it isn't just this series. But even in the Minnesota one, he was outplayed pretty significantly by Philip Gustafson.

And the spot that they're in right now, how dynamic the Oilers look offensively, the Golden Knights need top tier goaltending. And I just don't have a lot of faith that Hill can give them that right now. The goaltending is voodoo. So maybe that flips. But right now I don't have a lot of confidence in that. The Oilers depth and on the flip side, how the Golden Knights forward depth hasn't really been stepping up. like that on paper has to be an advantage for the golden nights to win this series and so far it just hasn't been and not just from a goal's perspective but even process wise how it's looked

the oilers just look deeper right now which is really problematic when you know that the oilers also have the advantage at the top of the lineup like those those factors and then the oilers having home ice and now that they're going to have last change being able to get creative as far as favorable situations to get McDavid and Drysettle out against against softer matchups occasionally like that's going to be an advantage too

so this is a pretty major uphill battle though the one sort of silver lining in the path the Golden Knights could take to really mounting a comeback in this series as special teams.

We know that the Vegas power play was second best in the NHL in the regular season it was lethal and dynamic again, plus, you know, the Oilers penalty kill has really struggled. So, and it wasn't just the two goals that they scored, but just how ruthlessly Vegas was able to pick apart that East West seam with Eichel, whereas on the flip side, the Golden Knights did an exceptional job against the Oilers power play of denying those East West passing plays.

Special teams is going to have to be the route where Vegas really exploits Edmont and to have any chance at clung back in the series in my mind. Yeah, and we should note also. I believe Nick Waugh is a hearing for that cross-check on Frederick as well. And if he misses one or two of these games, all of a sudden, that limits you even further

at even strength in terms of those matchups. So yeah, you got any other notes on this series or do you want to go to break? I feel like we got to hit it all. We didn't mention, you know, maybe this runs counter to what we're expecting because we've talked so much about that Vegas transition game. And maybe part of this is mitigated

by having Pickard in there instead of Skinner because he's a bit better at moving lateral and getting across to some of those. But it is a bit surprising to me, I guess, for all the talk about Edmonton's sort of half-court game in the offensive zone and the commander and possession time and everything, I believe eight of their nine goals so far have come off the rush. Now two of those, as we mentioned,

we're in the second period and we're pretty soft by Eden Hill, but they've been actually kind of picking apart the Golden Knights there, whereas we haven't seen nearly as much of that going back in the other direction. So maybe that's another thing we add to our list of potential developments through these first two games, that maybe run counter to what we're expecting. Yeah, it's a really fascinating observation, especially when it did feel like in game one,

the Oilers were still getting a lot of looks where they were setting up shop behind the net, bowl the hash marks, and we're still generating some of those mad scramble type of plays that allowed them to generate so much offense in the LA series. So the fact that they have both areas of their offense clicking right now is definitely a potent fuel here. All right, Haram, let's take our break here.

And then we come back, we'll jump back into it. We're going to talk some Keynes Caps in the first two games of that series. You're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockeypedo cast, joined by Harmon Dile. Today, Haram, let's talk Cain's Caps. I thought that the amount of relative disrespect coming out of game one, heading into game two for the caps, was notable. To me, I believe that near puck drop, the betting line, if you're interested in those sort of things, it's gotten a plus 160 for the caps to win game two at home. That's like a sub 40% implied probability

for a team playing at home after having dropped game one. And we know how, as we've seen pretty much throughout here, how that sort of swings things in terms of incentive and motivation and everything. I think part of that was certainly largely driven by just the optics of how gnarly game one was, shot attempts were 94 to 34 for Carolina in game one. Washington managed just 10 shots on goal in 53, 5-1-5 minutes of play. Spore Logic at ozone time as 34 minutes for the canes in game one and under 17 minutes for the caps. So just coming out of that and watching that,

it felt about as lopsided and one-sided territory as you're going to get. I don't think it was necessarily that bad from a quality perspective because it was a very vintage spray and prey game from the canes, but they obviously won that on the slave and point shot. in overtime. And so it felt like we're headed towards more of that in game two in the first period. The caps to their credit really bounded an impressive pushback, I thought, in that second period of game two.

They outshot the Keynes 9-4, chances were 7-2 for the caps and actually generated some quality looks and probably could have scored more than they did with Beauvilliers missing a wide open net. But what are your kind of impressions heading out of the first two games of this series? Has it sort of gone the way you envisioned heading in? or do you think there's something you've seen that is either a red flag or kind of something to bookmark as we head into these games three and four in Carolina? It's been pretty similar to what I expected where, you know,

the Corsy Cains are going to dominate sort of territorially and in terms of shot volume. But the challenge is always going to be, are they going to be able to get to the inside enough consistently from a quality standpoint? And do they have enough of that sort of game breaking, finishing talent to actually convert and translate all that possession time into meaningful offense. And for the caps, the challenge was always going to be, how do you, when you're stuck defending in your own zone for so long, are you going to be able to manufacture offense against the stingy Keynes defensive team and structure, especially one led by Jacob Slavin?

And so I really like the caps adjustment from the second period onward. It felt like in the first period, it was just a carryover for. from game one where they were on their heels, they were just sort of holding on for dear life. And I will credit them for holding their structure very well. They were clogging passing and shooting lanes well. But you knew that, okay, at some point they're going to have to mount some type of counterpunch offensively to have a shot at winning this game, at winning this series.

And there were a couple of things that really stood out to me. First, it felt like they were more in the second period comfortable handling. Carolina's speed and aggressiveness on the forecheck. And what really stood out to me was off the puck, they were supporting each other on breakout so much better. I noticed that, let's say, when a defenseman got the puck in the corner, I would note how urgently a winger would, let's say, or even a centerman would immediately sort of make the read and anticipate where he needs to be as a passing option, A, and then

be hustling there with his legs to actually get to that right space. spot quickly enough to be a sort of a pressure release opportunity. And so that made them a lot more connected, I thought. Whereas in the first period, it sort of felt like one Caps player might get the puck and there was no help around them. So all they could do was really chip it out into the neutral zone or try and remain around the wall where Carolina would already be stationed. So that really stood out to me.

I think they realized, okay, against this Cain's team, you're never going to have time and space to make plays. are going to be on top of you. So that means for the players that don't have the puck, you have to work that much harder and be that much more intentional to support your teammates so that you play with more speed. And I think from the second period on

where the caps looked like they could match the cane speed a lot better. Yeah, it's remarkable comparing this series and this game two that we watched on Thursday to the one we just talked about between the Golden Knights and the Oilers, right? I believe that natural Statsrick had the expected goals coming out of this game

4 to 3.3. If you believe there were 7 plus expected goals worth of offense generated between these two teams in that game, boy, do I have a bridge to sell you? Because there's no way it was even approaching 4 based on some of the chances I saw. I thought that Tom Wilson was

immensely impactful in this game. He had a couple early on, huge defensive efforts sprawling out with a two-pad stack to block a potential goal, a couple other plays where he either back-checked or got back into the play at a breakup, a promising Kane sequence. Ray Ferraro had this cool anecdote from between the bench

sort of talking about how the entire Kane's bench was essentially just like very loudly and audibly warning Kane's defensemen every time they're going back to retrieve the puck and he was on the ice. And then he had the beautiful setup on the Carlson Power Play goal. It was the first Power Play goal against that the Keynes have conceded all postseason. He seals it with the empty netter.

It was a big bounce back for that line, right? Because, you know, nothing went well for the caps. by any metric in game one, but that line in particular with the onus of the head-to-head of PLD and Wilson against Aho, Blake, and Svetnikov, and that assignment, they got out shot 10 to 1 against them, and, you know, they held them in this game by comparison in seven head-to-head minutes. They're just the one shot-on goal for the Canes. They got the McMichael breakaway goal off of a very Keynesy play where Sean Walker's like

trying to essentially just dump the puck in wildly from the neutral zone. It hits Shane Goste Bear in the play. throat drops to McMichael and he goes in on the breakaway and has a nice finish. So I thought that they'll bounce back from that line, considering the outsized impact they have, right? We talked a lot about what the job they did against Suzuki and Caulfield in round one and how the games in Washington where Spencer Carberry could get them out there diligently against their top players, looked wildly different than the games in Montreal on the road where

the matchups were different. They really came through in this one and had the type of game that they obviously need to for the caps to have a chance in the series. Wilson was such an all-round beast and this is like he's the exact prototype where a lot of times hockey traditionalists will sort of point to

you know bigger power forward and say oh just imagine what kind of beast he'll be in the playoffs he'll level up his game a lot of times that's not true but Wilson's one of the examples clearly in this post season where he's just such an X factor in a playoff series

where you're playing one opponent time after time the fear that he strikes in opponents it was funny seeing how Martinuk in the first period basically just ducked and bailed and a savvy maneuver by him to avoid the full freight of Wilson's contact but just when Wilson's on the ice there is that intangible factor of you got to keep your head on a swivel

defenseman going back you especially have to have to be careful there is that intimidation factor and when you combine it with how impactful he was defensively especially in that first period where the cap were a little bit sloppy, we're a little bit slow at the start, and so they had to make sure that they stayed compact

and didn't give up the middle. Defensively, he was obviously part of a couple of key stops, and then, as he alluded to, Beauty Pass on the power play, seals it with the empty netter. That was just an unbelievable all-around performance that extends beyond just the statistical impact. Yeah, what I'm really curious is to watch for in game three and four

as the series shifts to Carolina is those matchups, right? Because for the Keynes, if the question's going to be offense, I know in round one, and in the regular season, really, it was sort of a depth approach, right? They got a lot of contributions.

We can talk more about Stankov and Hall as well in their fit in Carolina. And I really like what I've seen from them. I know Hall kind of bungled that two on one early on where Trevor Van Riemstike broke it up. But Stankovin has been very firmly involved in everything. He has three goals this postseason. He had that hilarious.

after the game sort of joust with McMichael and then he's just yapping the entire time as he's getting dragged away by the referees like they're sending him to his room for a timeout. I love Logan Stankov and so much he's he's awesome. I love the idea as well that, you know, the hurricanes obviously have a lot of work to do here. They've got to win three more games against his caps team.

But at age 22, he could very conceivably make a West final and an East final already by then, which has to be some sort of a very rare feat. but for the Keynes, just getting that whole line going, I think he's going to be imperative. You look and he's got just the two secondary assists at 5-1-5 so far this postseason. Now he has nine points in all situations.

He's been good defensively. He's been creating a ton on the power play as well. But getting him and Svechnikov and the shot volume he had had previously going and Blake as well, if they can get them for some minutes against, let's say the Strom line, which is obviously going to struggle to keep up defensively. and Carberry, you know, he kept that head-to-head match up to like 52 seconds or something. In this game, he clearly wants to stay away from that or potentially against the Eller line.

And I think Eller is emerging as a bit of a weak link for this Caps forward group at this point. The Dowd line should be okay for the most part. But those two lines in particular ahead to head, I feel like that's a situation that could be very fruitful for the hurricanes and getting that line going and finally starting to score a few more goals than they have so far in this matchup. Absolutely. they looked quiet and even when they have had zone time, I thought the Keynes night game, they didn't really manufacture enough true grade A chances. I remember thinking when McBichael scored the breakaway goal

and yeah, there was a fortunate bounce involved, but thinking to myself, or even the Bavillet chance, up until that point, the Caps hadn't really quite found their game yet. The Keynes had a huge advantage in shot volume and ozone possession time, And yet I was thinking to myself, for all of those opportunities with the puck, though, the canes haven't had any scoring chances close to the McMichael breakaway or the Pavilion backdoor hits the post with a wide open net. And that's a concern to me because in the playoffs, they, you don't want to be over reliant on just spraying and praying point shots. And I know eventually if you get enough of them, you're you're bound to get bouncing. tips, deflection, second chance opportunities,

but you also got to have an ability to get to the inside and that's where those top guys need to come through. The other thing that you could see is, with those favorable matchups, are the caps going to make a few more mistakes? Because I thought in game two, even when the caps were on their heels, they held their composure well as far as when they,

on the few opportunities where they did get the puck, back, they weren't turning it over in the neutral zone. And that's where, you know, watching the Keynes of the regular season this year, on top of just the forecheck and the point shots, it was interesting to note that when, you know, a few times against certain opponents, when opponents would turn it over, the Kane's counterattack game was so quick off the rush in a way that wasn't as dynamic in years prior. But the caps, I thought in game two, even when they were sort of against the ropes, didn't turn, turn those puck's over, didn't sort of blow their coverage assignments anywhere. And so when you get more

favorable matchups for the, for the Keynes and those top guys, can you force more of those mistakes? That's going to be interesting. And if that can happen, I think that's how it feeds their rush and transition offense game. Yeah, especially because you'd think that the one area where this Keynes team would be potentially exploitable defensively, they certainly were in the regular season, was giving up odd man rushes and then giving up opportunities off of those, right? Just because of how aggressive they are up the ice. But obviously, easier said than done, getting by that forecheck and actually getting yourself into those spots.

I thought that you're talking about the adjustments by the caps in game two, especially early on. They were doing some creative stuff with putting more an emphasis on sending extra guys in on the rush and giving themselves an opportunity to, you know, kind of create some daylight in the middle lane through that havoc and then attack through there. We saw Bavillier kind of breakthrough and then Slaven recovered as he does and knocked away and prevented a scoring chance. But there were more of those opportunities, I think, in game two as well.

It's something that the devil's in round one, because largely due to their injuries, by what the personnel they had available to them towards the end of that series, just weren't really able to actually take advantage of that. I'm skeptical that the caps are going to be able to if they have the puck as infrequently as they did for the first four periods of this series, and we'll probably see more of that to start off in game three with the Carolina crowd going nuts. But I'd look for that as well. I thought that Spencer Carberry had a really interesting press conference kind of talking about all this stuff after game one or game two where he was talking about the optics of it, but also just the stress, this type of hockey.

What's on you and Archai Drance loves to talk about stress hockey and how the hurricanes employ it. But that's exactly kind of what it comes down to here for the caps. I think this is kind of boring analysis. This is one of my last thoughts on this series, but I think it's nonetheless true in the NHL playoffs. sometimes a lot of this stuff is as simple as coming down to effort and battle in terms of just being quicker to pucks and some of that support you were referencing earlier. Like in game one, all the numbers you'd expect lose puck recoveries were 128 to 45 for Carolina. Rebounds, 8-0, recoveries after shots, 22 to 8. Puck battles 19 to 5 via Mike Kelly at Sport Logic.

And the caps just did a better job of applying themselves there in game two. It's a very tall task, especially since they're using some of their guys at a higher volume than the hurricanes are in this series where they're really divvying up the minutes pretty evenly throughout. But for all the X's and O's and matchups and stylistic traits that we like to talk about, and I do still think those are by far the most interesting components of the NHL playoffs. Sometimes it's just as simple as being a dog and coming out ahead and winning the puck and that making the difference. And so that's what I think of when I watch these games ultimately. Yeah, through the first four periods, Carolina had the clear advantage there. They were faster, more aggressive. They were winning all of those battles.

And then in the second period onward, that's where not just the Pox support, but even just getting their legs moving on the forecheck, they were able to apply a little bit more of that pressure. And that's what sort of level the playing field a little bit. I have concerns about the cap's ability to sustain that sky high work rate because that's not quite natural. naturally part of their DNA compared to the canes or that's their whole identity. That's what they do. That's really easy for them to maintain.

So especially now that the canes are heading home, that is a concern is, especially over a potentially long series, can the caps maintain that same speed, that same aggressiveness, especially since they are a bit of an older team? I will say my one parting shot, as I thought, especially as this game progressed,

Brent Burns was just way too involved. in everything for the Hurricanes. I believe he leads the team with 43 minutes played through these two games and forget the, you know, wanting to desperately see Nikitian on NHL ice. I'd just be happy with Scott Morrow right now. I feel like I loved what I saw from him in his 14 games or whatever he played this regular season. And I feel like he'd add a much needed element to this. I don't see Rod Bindamore making that type of a major shakeup unless there's an injury at some point here.

But that's a lament that I have, I guess, in watching these games. All right, harm, we got to get out of here. This was fun. I'll let you plug some stuff here on the way out. What are you up to now as the postseason is progressing? Yeah, it's been a little bit quiet these days, but through the remainder of the month, going to focus on some postseason coverage,

Knoch's off season stuff, obviously. So excited about those two things. All right, buddy. Well, this is fun. We'll do this again soon. I'm sure I love breaking these games down with you. We've got one more show here to close all the week. As I said, Kevin Woodley's joining us.

So looking forward to that. Thank you for listening to the Hockey PEOCast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio. network.