The Hockey PDOcast - What We Saw on Thursday Night While Watching Ducks vs. Stars, Lightning vs. Knights, and Habs vs. Devils

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Harman Dayal to break down what they saw on Thursday night while watching Ducks vs. Stars, Lightning vs. Golden Knights, and Canadiens vs. Devils. 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 P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEO cast. My name's Dimitri Filippovich and joining me is my good buddy Harmon Dio. Harman. What's going on, man? Another much. Just excited to wrap up another week by having a conversation with you on the pod. Yeah, it's a Friday. And we've got Harman, as usual, to break down Thursday evenings, most interesting games. The stuff we saw while watching those games last night, it was a nice privilege for us because I usually feel like with the way the NHL schedule is formatted on a weekly basis, these Thursdays can get a little hectic where they jam in like 12, 13, 14 games and we're trying to keep up with it. And it becomes a bit of a mess. This week we got nine. And it was one filled

with some really fun matchups, some East-West ones in particular. And so we're going to be able to break all that stuff down and get into all of our main observations. I think we got to start with duck stars. And the reason I say that I've spoken a lot about the stars, so we're not going to focus on much here but this anaheim team right now and what they're doing is probably the most exciting story in hockey um just watching ducks games right now it feels like there's nothing like it they're just cooking with pure gas it's all offense at both ends of the ice it's so fun to watch we did our watchability rankings a couple weeks ago i had them confidently in my top 10 i feel like if i redid it now a couple weeks later they'd be in the top five because it's been that entertaining and it's not

just that they're scoring a lot of goals. They're winning games too, right? They've won five in a row now against a pretty good slate of competition. They've beaten the Panthers twice. They beat the devils, the stars here, the Red Wings as well. They're sitting atop the Pacific Division. We can talk more about the substance to this and the outlook for the rest of the season in the West. But I wanted to kind of break down what we're seeing from them right now, stylistically and tactically and how they're getting these results out of all these young players, because it's everything we dreamed for last year when we were kind of drudging through. those great cronin games and everyone essentially has just been unleashed here put a jetpack to

their back and they've taken off and so what are you what are you seeing from them right now in terms of how they're how they've become the most prolific offense in the league through the first month yeah the biggest thing that stands out to me is just how deadly their transition game is every game i watch them their ability to transport pox up the ice as a five-man unit and have layers of off ice, whether it's defenseman jumping up with the play. It's just as soon as the ducks recover puck possession, everybody has the green light to fly up the ice. And the key is that they have the speed and skill to actually connect those kinds of plays,

whether it's one touch passes for wingers that are along the defensive sideboards to pop pox into the middle. Once you do have speed through the middle, they know how to use the, like, kick the puck out to the outside wings. and then, you know, you have the center lane drive. They're hitting east-west passes. Just fundamentally, they're all on the same page. And that matters, right? It's not just everybody has the green light to fly, and it's a bunch of chaos.

It's controlled chaos in a way when it comes to the way that they're attacking off the rush. And that Stars game last night, four of their six goals that they scored, you know, not counting the seventh empty netter, were off the rush. And the key is it's not just on the back of their top offensive players. It's not just guys like Leo Carlson and Cutter Gochier.

On the duck's second goal, for example, it's Ryan Paling flying down the wing and setting up Ian Moore on the back door who had jumped up in the play. And so whether it's, you guys like paling further down the lineup, Nestoranko with some juice, and then even on the back end, it's not just Jackson Lecombe who drew headlines with his breakout play last year

it's the way that Minchikov and Zelweger can get up the ice Drew Helleson and it's just as a team from top to bottom they have that speed and skill level it's not just concentrated at the top and lineup and I think that matters if you who want to embrace that as a team

identity to have lines one through four and deep pairs one to three be able to embrace that style. Yeah they're the first scoring offense in the league right now they've generated 54 goals in 13 games. They're also fourth in shots, that seventh in high danger chances, fifth in expected goals generated. I'm glad you brought up that distinction, right?

Because I think generally we want to see young teams with fluid skaters up front in particular play this brand of hockey. But sometimes that comes with these growing pains of kind of aimlessness, right? Where everyone's kind of just trying to cheat for offense and play a fun video game style. And instead here, there's a level of organization, I think, or tactical thought that they're putting into it. as well. I mean, they just keep pushing. I'm glad you brought up the green light as well. That's what I keep thinking when I watch this, that two, two goal in the second period being the

best example that you described where you go back 10 seconds before it even initiates, Jackson Lecombe kind of just pushes the pace, gets a quality look off the rush himself, and the puck gets into the neutral zone, and they quickly turn it over, and then it's immediately that second wave of counter where, I mean, they've got their third line out there with Paling, mentioned and their third pair essentially as they're kind of changing during the last change the long change in the second period and paling drives the outside and you've got you know functionally there's six defensemen yet more just joining the rush and bolting towards a net on the weak side and he's there for for the tap-in and they're doing this as a you know a key trait I think across the lineup

regardless of who's out there and I think that's incredibly exciting what they're doing off the rush I mean it's not just five-on-five as well right like they created two goals off the rush on the power play here. And that's incredibly hard to do. Sometimes we see some of these prolific five-on-five offenses stagnate a little bit on the power play just because the opportunities aren't there to do what you do best at even strength. And you have to kind of create in these half-court settings.

They're getting rush looks on the power play as well. The first one is a quick-up from Carlson to Crider, who finishes the beautiful shot. The second one is this play by Beckett Seneca, sending it cross-ice to another defenseman, Olin Zellweger, who activated and joined in the back door. and that was coming off a sequence shortly before where we were texting throughout this game. Seneca makes a play where you see some of the growing pains for youth, right? Because he kind of misreads the situation. It's the second period.

Guys are tired. He's got the puck coming down the right wing. And he tries to get a little too cute making a play at the blue line against Mero Hayskinan. And Hayskinin just immediately shuts it down, sends it back going the other way. And Tyler Sagan gets a rush goal. And shortly after, I don't know how much time passed. but it was in pretty close succession. Seneca gets to go back out there in the power play,

gets an immediate opportunity to make amends, and he pays it off. And so I think that's really exciting, but you're seeing some of these young guys get chances to make the mistakes they're going to make, but then make up for it with plays like that. And so it's all kind of coming together here. Nesterenko, as you mentioned,

they're up 7-2 in his 5-15 minutes right now on this third line with Paling, and even he has juice. I mean, he makes that play in the neutral zone leading to the Yen-Moral goal, where he knocks a puck down and gets it to a teammate, and then they're just off and running. And so on every one of these kind of quick changes of possession or exchanges in the neutral zone,

they're just looking to immediately push it going back the other way. And that must be so exhausting for other teams to deal with because there's really no breaks, I think, where you're kind of able to settle things down a little bit, get back into your sets. You're just immediately kind of chasing the game when you're playing against the Stux team. Yeah, and I love what you mentioned as far as the Seneca example

of he makes a mistake, but then is still out there immediately after. And that's massive because I've had conversations with young gifted prospects over the years who are trying to figure out there, figure out how to translate their success at lower levels to the NHL and there were big point producers as prospects. But then when you get to an NHL environment

and sometimes you're starting lower in the lineup and you're afraid to make mistakes. You're afraid that if I turn a pocket over or try something creative, how much of a leash do I have? Am I immediately going to get benched for the rest of the period? If you're a fringe prospect, am I going to be in and out of the press box?

And so a lot of times as young players, there is a level of pressure for some of these guys to where before they can even think of using their creative offensive chops, they're worried about, I got to avoid mistakes so that I don't end up in the coach's doghouse. So when you have an environment, and this is obviously unique because the docs are a young rebuilding team where they don't have a lot of veterans at the top of the lineup that are blocking these young guys anyway.

But you know, especially because there's so many of these young guys at the same time, that everybody's kind of growing and learning at the same time. And 100%, there are some nights where, not even some nights, most nights, where there are some shocking defensive breakdowns and you're relying a lot on Lucas Dostal to bail you out. But this is how they're going to grow and learn from it. And I imagine over the course of the season, and there are going to be bumps in the road and nights when if you're a Dux fan,

you're going to want to pull your hair out watching, I don't know, their net front coverage or some of these turnovers or the way the players get caught up the ice leading to odd man rushes against. But the results to this point clearly show that they're doing a lot more positive than they are negative. And that's where to me the strength of schedule difference matters too.

I think through the first two weeks or so, I was really encouraged by the ducks we're doing, but I also was looking at the slate of their opponents and going, all right, they're beating up on some teams that aren't expected to be very good. And I had circled this early November stretch of their schedule is, okay, the opponent quality really ramps up.

And you noted it beating the Panthers twice, the devils, the stars, the red wings in there. And even coming up, I'm really excited to see what they can do against Vegas. Winnipeg, Colorado, especially Vegas and in Colorado, those are going to be massive tests, but it's really encouraging to see that it's translated, not just against these bottom feeders,

but also against some of the better teams in Lake as well. And that might change as the year goes along just because I think opposing coaches are going to have a bit more opportunity to kind of sink their teeth into tape and prep a little bit more diligently against this team because there's this initial wave where I think you're used to playing the ducks and you're like, all right, well, we're going to be able to do certain things, and then you get surprised through this first meeting, and then maybe you adjust as the year it goes along. Because right now they're forcing teams that otherwise wouldn't do this

into very uncharacteristic breakdowns or mistakes through this tempo they're playing. It's almost like they're kind of creating this environment where they're dragging opponents into the way they want to play and then benefiting from everything that's ensuing, right? like they're just increasing the tempo to such a high degree and increasing the number of events that are happening. And so if you're another team, I was thinking of the game they played at home recently against the Panthers, where the Panthers had been so stingy defensively and had played such a carefully designed game to get by while they have all these key absences up front. And then they have to play that way to be successful right now.

And then they come into Anaheim. And all of a sudden, they're just trading all these rush chances and playing this kind of free-flowing, open-ended style and it's probably a net positive gambit i think for the ducks because not only do they have all this finishing talent up front that we're going to break down a bit further but they have lucas to stall at the other end right and heading into this game the same percentage is whatever it was around 9-10 but sport logic had him at plus eight goals save above expected in 10 games and so you have a high-end golea that can hold up in this type of environment and then you're getting your own chances at the other end and that's a pretty lethal combination i i want to talk about a little

Carlson's leap here, right? Because this is his third NHL season. He's 20 years old. He's only really played about less than two full seasons worth of NHL games so far because in that 18 year old rookie season, they were very careful about his workload and load management and sitting him on occasion. And so now at this point, you look at what he was doing so far this year and the offensive results are just absolutely bonkers. I tweeted some of them. There was almost too many mind-blowing ones to include with the character limit on Twitter. But I'm going to give you all them here. 20 points in 13 games. He's third in the league in points per 60. He has multiple points in six games already. He's been held off the score sheet just twice. They're scoring nearly seven

goals per hour with him on the ice across all situations. His 5-1-5 impacts, 57% shots, 55% expected goals. And I think the most important development for him is you look in his first two seasons, he was getting off about 11 shots per 60 in those two years. This year, it's all the way up to 16 per 60. Now, part of that is just the team is better. They have the puck more often. They're not just spending entire games in their own zone chasing it. But his release is so nasty when he's coming downhill with that wrister that we've already seen him beat goalies on numerous occasions. And him getting to utilize that more often. I know there's still, I don't want to put the cart before the horse, there's still a lot of development to go along. And I think by the time he gets

the 23, 24 years old, he's going to put on more strength to win some more battles even. But right now, with his range, with his positioning and instincts and smarts, and then how good his stick is, he's kind of the closest thing right now to like what we've seen from Austin Matthews over the years, right? Where he can impact the game in so many ways. He's just such a handful to deal with, but then he's also got one of the most lethal shots in the game.

And so you put that all together, and it's all just clicking for him right now. Yeah, and that step that he's taken as a shooter is something that I didn't necessarily expect. I remember when I sort of watched him and covered him a little bit in the lead up to the draft, I was more impressed by just how shockingly talented he was as a playmaker, as a setup guy with the vision that he has

and how he can see lanes that nobody else can spot. And so when you add that shooting element, it's a little bit similar to, and I know they're different players stylistically, obviously, but when you think of what Jack Hughes and Logan Cooley did as they gained more experience in the league and just how much more lethal they became as shooters and what that did as far as they were sort of past first guys, entry-based players, but now you had the lethal

shot off the rush and now you're dual threat. And if you're coming down on a rush or in any office situation on the power play, teams have to respect both the shot and the playmaking threat. And that makes it difficult for goaltenders and defenders because optionality is what creates confusion and makes it harder to really defend against. a player. So to have Carlson with that explosive shot, but also at times this year to see some of the unreal East West passes on the power play and just a vision that he has and how smooth and slick he is, right? He's not the fastest player, but he is just so smart. His puck control is, is incredible.

And because he's got a big body, he protects it really well too. And just it always feels like he's in control and I just love his offensive skill set and like you said as he becomes stronger too he's only going to become more and more of a two-way workhorse and um I absolutely I absolutely think he's going to be one of the best sentiment in the NHL for a long time yeah the reason why I brought up the Matthews comp beyond the shot making is just because of that frame I think sometimes it can be a little deceiving because it looks like he's kind of gliding out there right like he's not necessarily getting incredibly low and looking like he's working so hard but he gets to his spots and he's just dislodging guys from pucks and is immediately a threat as soon as he gets it,

regardless of where he is on the ice. The other guy is Carter Goce, obviously, who has 11 goals in 13 games. He's firing at a crazy frequency right now. I think he leads the league or is tied with McKinnon with 62 shots on goal. And it just how quickly he fires, I think. Some of it is certainly on the power play, like the one-timer. He turns that around so quickly and gets so much velocity on it. But even in some of these in zone settings where like he's got his back to the net and he's in the middle of the zone.

and then all of a sudden he just quickly turns it around and flings it on net and challenges the goalie. He's going to, I mean, he's obviously scored a ton of goals already, but he's going to keep doing it, especially if he's shooting at this rate. And I'm so happy for Troy Terry as well, right? One of my favorite players in this league for a long time now and just what the kind of the arc he's gone through here in his seven years in Anaheim, some of the low points in terms of how bleak their offense has been and how much he was kind of like one of the only shining lights they had. And then now all of a sudden you look and he's almost one of the veterans. on this team that you're describing and he's playing with some of these talented guys and he's up to 17 points in 13 games and he's flying out there as well and yeah what's so exciting is the usage

for these guys right like their top four forwards right now in five one five ice time are mctavish who's 22 goche who's 21 Seneca who's 19 and then leo carlson who's 20 so I think there's so much to build on here I want to end it with looking ahead a little bit to the outlook because you mentioned the the strength of schedule and the opponents they've beaten so far they're nine three and one only Colorado is ahead of them in points percentage. It doesn't get easier here for the time being. Their next three opponents are Vegas, Winnipeg, and Colorado. And in particular, that Colorado game,

I think that's going to be a must-watch to see, because Colorado is certainly going to engage them in that playing style I was mentioning. And I'm curious to see what that's going to look like for their next five are on the road. But then they have a six-game homestand, and you'd figure that a young team like this would really benefit from playing at home as well.

And so I'm not sure what, what the future outlook is for the immediate short term for this season. Obviously, they're really high in the standings right now. I think, as you mentioned, there's going to be growing pains with this playing style, where there's going to be certain nights where they just give up an ugly goal total and aren't able to hang around. But with the pace they play at and the number of events there are, I think we know that that's going to increase the variance, right?

And so even in a game like this one where they go down a couple goals early, they're so game to punch right back and put up a couple quick goals and then all of a sudden get right back in it and I think that gives them so many outs moving forward

and so I'm not sure if they're going to be able to keep up this pace they're just scoring on pretty much everything they're shooting right now but I do think there's quite a bit of substance to this beyond just being an incredibly fun team yeah they're top five in the league

at generating shots for games so they they're a little bit like Columbus last year where yeah, they're running a little bit hot finishing-wise, but first I expect them to sustain a little bit of a higher shooting percentage just because of the style of rush chances that they generate, but also they pepper shots and chances like nobody's business. So I like that element.

I think they also benefit from some teams in the West looking weaker and getting off to slower starts than we might have expected. The blues obviously haven't been able to get off get any saves and are off to a bad start. The wild are struggling right now. The Canucks have been hammered by injuries. And even now that they are getting guys back, they still don't look like they are dangerous in this playoff hunt.

L.A. with some of the back end absences that they have are pretty kind of middle of the pack where sure they could make the playoffs, but they don't scare you, I think, in the Western Conference. So I think a lot of these other bubble playoff teams have been a little bit worse than expected. The only one that's really taken a huge step is Utah, and they're not even in Anaheim's division. So the Ducks have an opportunity here

with some of the fringe playoff teams in the West being weak to, you know, perhaps parlay this into playoff spot if they can tighten up some areas like the penalty kill which in that Dallas game uh you and I were joking about it earlier the the couple of tip goal tip related goals where they just didn't have anybody at the front of the net and weren't really adjusting to that um you know their PK which is currently bottom third in the uh in the league right now is going to need to tighten up um and as I think other their teams shake off the rest of first month of season hockey, they are going to tighten up

defensively and there isn't going to be as much easy stuff for the ducks to feast on. But I'm a lot more bullish on the ducks playoff chances than I was at the start of the season. Yeah, as I watching the Stars broadcast in Razor, who's one of the best color guys in the business, was at one point, he was like, I can't believe they haven't made this adjustment yet. This play is available every single time for the Stars. And it was that, you know, shot tip essentially to Wyat Johnson. and they score twice off of it. Then he finally kind of shade a little bit over to him,

and he sends a one touch pass over to Renton and for an easy tap-in. And you're certainly going to see some of that stuff from a young team like this. But at the same time, Dom's got them up to 47% to make the playoffs in his model. The market has them as 53% now. They've jumped ahead of teams like the Wild Blues and Canucks, who they're going to be competing with. And, you know, I think pretty clearly based on how they've looked so far, they've been one of the best eight teams in the West.

I think there's an argument to be made with, some of the underwhelming stuff we're seeing from the Kings in particular that they could be a top three team in the Pacific if this keeps up. There's going to be bumps in the road, certainly, but I think the building blocks here are in place for more than just entertainment value for this to be legit in terms of results.

All right, Haram, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we're going to jump back into it. I want to talk about Golden Knights Lightning with you, Devils Habs and some other stuff. We watched on Thursday night. You're listening to the Hockey, Ocast, streaming on the sports and every day. radio network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey PEOCast, joined by Harman Dial.

We're doing our typical Friday episode, breaking down some of the stuff we saw in Thursday nights games. Let's talk lightning golden nights, harm, a matchup, which we've seen twice now in the span of about a week or 10 days. I love what we're seeing from the NHL schedule this year with a lot of these seemingly sprinkled throughout the slates where these teams that are across conference play each other twice a year are playing in really close succession. So we're almost getting not a, not a playoff style environment, but you get to see some adjustments from game one to game two between the two and kind of how they size up against each other. And the lightning started this game incredibly slow. It looked like the golden nights were just going to skate them completely off

the ice. The first period was very one-sided. And then they come out of the gate immediately flip the script in the second period. It turns into a really fun back and forth. And they come away with a victory extending this stretch for the lightning now where I think the last time you and I spoke about them, we were kind of nervous about. about their in auspicious start. They'd been struggling in a variety of areas. They weren't scoring the way we're typically used to. We had concerns about the foot speed on the blue line.

And since then, they've infused their lineup with a couple of young guys that were going to talk about here. Their top players have started playing better. And all of a sudden, now they've rattled off, what, six wins in their past seven games with the only loss in that stretch being a very competitive loss on the road against Colorado where they lost three, two. So very encouraging what we're seeing from the lightning here over the past couple of weeks. Yeah, I didn't, I'll be honest.

I didn't expect before this game that we'd end up talking about this as the Dominic James game. What a performance by him where, as you mentioned, the Golden Knights were just terrorizing the lightning in that first period. And then it is really that James line with two goals in quick succession in the first few minutes of the second period that flipped the momentum of that game around. James had three points at night. And I mean, the first assist he had on Gonzalez's goal, it's a pretty brutal turnover by, I believe it was Noah Hanif in there. But what I liked by James on that play was the quick vision to make the bang, bang pass into the slot to Gonzalves. Because in that kind of spot, and really with playmaking down low in general, there's such a limited window of time where when you do possess the puck down low, there's you got to time it perfectly and see that play right away. otherwise the other team is going to be able to recover and take that pass into the slot away.

So I like that as soon as James got that pock, it was right off his stick and into the slot. No hesitation there. And then on his own goal, he had a nifty little chip pass into space to spring Bjork Strand for the goal. And then he follows it up to pounce on the rebound. But even in the third period, the quick cop back. that he had, which drew a penalty, and then Nikita Kutrov scored an insurance

goal on the power play on. He's a quick, underrated, I think, Pock handler. There's a reason why he's on that second, you know, a power plant, and at one point in the third period,

they actually had Brayden point off the ice, and then James jumped over, and then they had him in the bumper playing with Kuturov and those guys, just because he was feeling it that way. But he's been a really interesting story, because I honestly did not know much about him. at all before this season.

And he has come in and given them competent, capable minutes in the bottom six. And when he combine his impact with what the Yanni Gord line was doing as well in that game, and we can talk about them later. But I think the bottom six in that second period was a key catalyst for why the lightning were able to turn the momentum a little bit and start controlling playing that game. It was an impressive in-game comeback and adjustment they made. in the first intermission, right? Because I mentioned the first period.

They get out shot 15 to 3. They're down 2-0. I think it didn't register their first shot on goal until there was like four and a half minutes left in the opening frame. And a lot of my concerns about this team in terms of not them making the playoffs or being one of the best teams in the East, but just being a legitimate cup contender. And there's still a top Dom's model in terms of Stanley Cup projection is transitioning

from defense to offense, right? And when they're having to skate backwards, it's how you can kind of get behind them a little bit. And Vegas is one of the best teams in the league and do exactly that. Any sort of change in possession or kind of slip up in the neutral zone, they're just coming back the other way with numbers,

and that's exactly what happened in the first period. Now, in the second part of it was just effort, but the top players were certainly awesome. You got three points from Kutrov. The power play gets going a little bit. I think they're 27th in the league this year in efficiency, which is very surprising to see after their dominance on an annual basis,

but they score there to kind of, clinch this game or put it away in the third. Brendan Hegel, who we don't need to talk about that much because I think we highlighted him last time we spoke was awesome. Again, three points, 13 shot attempts. The usage for this forward group is about as well defined, I think, in terms of roles and zone starts and what their expectations are from John Cooper as any team in the league where you know with the first line or even the top, let's say four players because

they kind of interchange Hegel with either Sorrelli or Gensel or obviously Kutrov and point, those guys are going to get a lot of the heavy lifting offensively, the offensive zone start's going to be relied upon to create. Then you've got this fourth line, and I know they were on for a couple goals against in the first period, but with Gord and Gorgensen's and Holmberg, they're going to play in their own zone. They're going to kind of try to be a black hole and make sure nothing happens. They're going to get some looks, but probably shouldn't expect them to finish on a lot of

those, but I think they're going to be comfortable with just keeping it even so the top guys can come out and do what they do best. that's what makes that Dominic James line so valuable for them right now with Bjork Sharon Gonzalez because Nick Paul is obviously not available to start this season and getting useful reps out of those guys all of a sudden makes everything fall into place for them and in this game they swung it certainly in the second period with those two early goals I think they wound up just feasting on Vegas's bottom six in this one

they played about 12 minutes at 515 Vegas didn't generate a single shot on goal in that time and so I thought were incredible. And I thought that JJ Moser, a player, I know you wanted to highlight as well, had a monster game as this one went on, some of the stuff he was doing on the PK, how valuable he is defensively. And he's a really interesting guy for us to discuss as well. Yeah, he was massive in that third period to help close out that game on the PK. There was one chance where I think a pop pop pop a puck popped out. And Vasilisky was out of position and it was essentially an open net for Ikel to shoot on and

Moser sprawls out to block that. There was another play. Earlier in that third period where a rebound popped out and it would have been a glorious opportunity but Moser was there to box out and get the puck out of harm's way. He was

just eating a lot of important defensive assignments in that game and with the puck as well. I thought he made the smart, simple plays to make sure that they didn't end up in trouble on the on the back end so i i think moseer this year has just in general been pretty rock solid defensively and and to me if he can stay healthy which was part of the problem last year is when

he went down that's when tampa in the regular season started to struggle again um he's emerged as an unsunk hero i think for that team in terms of his his importance as just a steady no frills guy that you can rely upon. Doesn't do anything spectacularly. Isn't a flashy player by any means. But I really like his hockey IQ. And even going back to his days in Arizona, he always stood out to me as a player

that could competently handle top four minutes without making too many mistakes. He's going to be an interesting next contract guy as well, right? Because he's going to enter this summer. And I imagine they're going to try to flush out a deal before then. But he's going to be a 26-year-old RFA with Arbrites. Now, as you said, he's not flashy. He's only got three points in 12 games.

He doesn't put up the counting stats that you typically associate with leverage in those contract negotiations. But he's so valuable for this team. He actually leads them in 5-1-5 usage by a pretty solid margin so far this season. And health is important. He missed the first couple of games. And it's no surprise that Hedman was struggling in that time. His splits with and without Moser this year are completely night and day. And I think part of that is Hedman, despite the reputation.

And I think he's still such a valuable offensive player, atop that umbrella and what he can do hammering the puck and distributing off puck. He's certainly slower than he even used to be. There was an instance in that game in Colorado where he's going back to retrieve it and he struggles and kind of fumbles against Victor Olivesin and winds up leading to a goal against.

But playing with Moser, you know that he's always going to be in the right place and he's such a stabilizer for that. And then on the PK, those block shots, kind of erasing plays net front, it's what this Tampa team does best defensively, right? like they're so good when they're set in zone right now they sport logic has them given up the the least amount of offensive zone possession time to their opponents you look at their defensive

shot chart on hockey biz it's a completely like blue blob around their net they're so good when they get set when they're having to chase a little bit it opens things up but he's a big part of that and then the other dominic james let's talk a little bit more about that because this is completely out of nowhere for me i think few people if anyone follows hockey hockey more closely than we do on this show. Watch just an obscene amount of games and pretty aware of what's going on with every single team. And this guy is a 23-year-old, former six-round pick who finally makes a jump from NCAA to pro hockey. He gets a couple of HL games to start the season and all of a sudden gets up here. And he's played 86 5-1-5 minutes this season for Latt Tampa,

just obscene underlying numbers, 58% shot share, 67% high-danger chance share, 72% expected goals, playing on this line with Gonzalez and Bjorksrand, as we mentioned, he finally gets rewarded for it. He'd been playing really well previously, but he gets his first three points in the NHL in this one. Some of the stuff like funneling pucks into the slot to help create that first goal, a couple other looks along the way, and then getting rewarded for it as you talked about getting PP1 time in that bring in point bumper spot playing with some of these other superstars, an incredible glow-up for him, the combination of him and Charles Edward Dashtu, who's one of my favorite stories as well right now in terms of looking at his hockey DB page and him bouncing

around and getting to this point and then now all of a sudden he's stabilized Lilleberg. You look at their numbers together. There's so much better than they've been previously for Lillberg. He's playing PPP 2. He's being relied upon to distribute the puck. He had a fight with Gabriel Landiscaug in their last game in Colorado, like just an unreal turn of events for him. And I think for any team in Tampa Spa where you have so much of your cap sheet devoted to the

top four or five guys, you need to find a way to keep cycling these ELC contributors and they've done such a good job of that over the years and it seems like these two guys, at least for the time being, are the latest examples of that. Yeah, I want to know where the hell of Julian Breezebaw finds these guys because literal no-name players before the season started

and Destu, yeah, I've found him to be steady, uh, offensively and defensively when he has the puck, he generally sees the ice well and makes sound decisions. That's one of the big things that I look for. When depth defensemen are trying to make the transition to playing a more regular role, is can you avoid critical turnovers and just make sure that there aren't any egregious breakdowns that are happening because of you and he's excelled on that side, but also from a defensive positioning standpoint, I've never found him running around

or pinching in spots where he shouldn't be in getting caught completely out of position, which happens to a lot of depth players that are trying to stick on an NHL blue line. So he's been super steady and hasn't looked at a place at all, which is meaningful. Because early on in the year, we mentioned that Tampa's depth defenseman looked completely out of whack. I mean, he settled down Lillebergh, who looked like a liability at times. and even a guy like Darren Radish, you look at as, oh, he can produce some secondary offense and some points. We know that he's topsy-turvy defensively.

And even in that Vegas game, didn't love his net front coverage on one of the goals against. So to just have a steady, low-maintenance, a guy like Dasu, that to this point looks like you can count on him and minutes further down the lineup is valuable. And then James as well, I know he didn't actually have a point in seven games before the three point outbursts against Vegas. But when you would watch him play, you could see the sparks of the speed and the skill and the creativity and the ability to manufacture his own entries.

And considering this is a player that just turned 23 years old this past summer and in a brief four game sample was lighting up the HL as well, he's all of a sudden an interesting player. obviously not the biggest body. I think he's listed at six feet, 190 pounds, but there's some legit skill there. And I'm really curious to see, especially with the two-way underlying numbers that he's put up so far,

to see where he can go for the remainder of the season. And it's such a big blind spot for a lot of organizations as well. You look at some of the defensemen that are playing minutes for teams across the league and finding these guys who can step in and just reliably give you even 13, 14, 15 minutes a night. getting that is so massive for them.

This schedule upcoming for them, I wanted to know, you know, they've gone through this seven game stretch now where they beat Vegas twice, they beat Utah, they beat Dallas, they beat Anaheim, seven of their next nine at home where they've been so good over the past couple years, only one back-to-back situation, so we're going to see a lot of Basilewski, and I think they have a good chance here to bank some points and make their rise up the Atlantic division standing. So it'll be fun to watch how that progresses for them. Let's end with Habs Devils, a 4-3-O-T win.

for New Jersey. Now, you look at the box score. It's like 47 combined shots between these two teams. It was pretty low event. That is wildly misleading. There were especially early on so many breakaways, close calls, wild puck bounces, including one that got by Markstrom that bounced off a number of guys and kind of went over him. This was a really fun one to watch between two obviously fast-paced rush teams. We got the benefit of having our guy Mike Johnson calling this game, and he's just the absolute best. There were a number of occasions in this one where he's just calling out plays as they're developing. He's like like the puck's in one into the ice. You can't really see it through the view what's happening at the other end. And he's just like,

look out, watch for this. And then all of a sudden the puck's hitting someone wide open, bursting down the wing for a scoring opportunity. Warrior takes from this one in terms of anything that surprised you or anything that popped out in terms of either usage or performance. Because we definitely got to see, you know, we got to see the dream matchup, I think, of the Suzuki line that have been playing so well against Nico Hishier, quite a lot. a bit. Guys like Hughes and Brat were certainly dancing in the offensive zone. The Demitov line was creating some looks as well.

There was a lot of fun components of this one. Yeah, I think we could do an entire show just on that game. I have so many thoughts. First of all, what a monster game for Noah Dobson and how perfect of a fit he's been for them as a whole this season, the way that he's handling tough minutes and matchups. Saw a lot of the Jack Hughes line in that game. They're up 3-0, 5-5 goals-wise. in that loss to the Devils.

And for the season as a whole, up 14 to 8 in terms of 5-on-5 goals. And just watching him play, he looks more like the player that he was in junior. I watch a lot of Noah Dobson in the queue. And it was contrasting him to Evan Bouchard, who had also watched a lot of in junior because they were projected to go around the same range in that draft class. And watching those guys, I thought, Bouchard was going to be much more of an offensive guy with some defensive warts and that Dobson would be more of your two-way workhorse defenseman because of how well he skates,

how long he is. And I think it was interesting to watch him early on with the Islanders where the offense really popped, but he definitely had some up and down moments defensively. But to see him really settle in and be really reliable on both ends of the ice has been awesome to watch. just the number of controlled exit passes he can make under pressure that's been a treat to watch. He's still making plays offensively and piling up points despite not being a power play one

guy. And on the, even on the PK, right? In the first period he broke up a scene pass to plot, which would have been a brilliant scoring chance after some of the other penalty killers were caught running around.

The way that I think he has just generally made sure that he's not caught out of position and isn't trying to do too much offensively. I think he's just really calmed his game down and has been a huge two-way workhorse for this Habs Blue Line that because they're missing Caden Gully, they've had to shelter, I think, that Lane Hudson deeper a little bit because Jaden Struble's on it and they're kind of giving them a little bit easier deployment and then relying a lot on Dobson and Matheson to handle some of the defensive duties and responsibilities. Yeah, and that's why it's been kind of funny to see.

credit to him certainly because he had been struggling so much last year and came under a lot of fire on that sort of defensive assignment pair with Alex Carrier, but they're just asking Mike Matheson to do stuff he's not really equipped or capable to do. And then now all of a sudden he's having this breakout awesome season. It's like, yeah, well, it helps playing with no Adopson instead and some of the opportunities he creates for you. Suzuki's point streak ends in this one at 12 games. The setup he had in the third period, I believe, where it was kind of this like down, give and go. with Slavkovsky and then he sends it out to the other side of the net with a nasty backhand sauce for a great A for Slavkovsky.

That was certainly on merit worthy of extending that point streak. But it was fun watching him go head to head with his year and this one. You know, the Habs power play won, which we discussed in the past. It didn't score in this game. They had very limited opportunities. I think they had one full power play and then an abbreviated one after they took a penalty of their own against the dominant devil's PK. But the brief glimpse we saw, good God, is it?

intoxicating to see how they move the puck, right? So quick and decisive with high, low movement right off the draw. They created like two grade A's within five seconds, essentially on that first opportunity. And we've seen 1627 now of Demidov with that unit. They've created six goals, which pro rates to 22 goals per hour.

So it's certainly going to be something to track moving forward. On the devil's side, Brat winds up finishing it with the, with the breakaway in overtime. He had had a breakaway previously, a number of opportunities, and high skill level plays. I've got a couple notes on one, Shimon Nemitz,

who's gotten a lot of criticism as well for his play. He really struggled on that road trip with all the absences they have on the blue line, playing with Chilovsky, getting them in some tricky spots. He was a chaos agent in this game in terms of the on-ice results when he was out there. But similar to what we said about Seneca off the top and young players having to kind of stick to their identity

and keep playing their game despite mistakes that might sort of cause them to turtle a little bit and try to be more conservative. He kind of on that palakal, works his way down, deep in the zone, sends it back out into the slot, winds up resulting in a goal four. And he just needs to keep doing that stuff. I had Bryce Salvador on the show earlier this week, and we were talking about the runway he has here over the next two or three months, which is going to be such a fascinating subplot, because they have so many injuries on the blue line, Pesci's out, Kovacevich is out.

Now Dougie Hamilton got banged up. So they're going to need him and they're going to give him as many reps as he can possibly handle. And considering his age, his contract status coming off the ELC, some of the needs they have up front, how that develops and what it winds up turning into long term is going to be something, I think, really worthwhile to track for all of us. Yeah, it was a high event game, as you kind of noted. I mean, one of his first shifts to the game to see his slick zone entry beating multiple Habs players up the ice all by himself. You could see, all right, his confidence with the puck is brimming. and then the backhand feed on the placle. And we know with Nemich, when he's at his best with the puck,

it's not that he's the most dynamic skaters, just how smooth and slick he is, the deception, his puck control. And I think all of that was on display and even jotted down a nice zone exit pass that started a sequence for Jack Hughes entry, which drew a penalty. And I think having that kind of skill further down the lineup

matters for this devil's team that I think last year outside of, like they're just too reliant on Hughes and obviously he got banged up at some point, but then Brat, Heeshier, Meyer, outside of those top four, they didn't have enough offensive drivers.

And I think this year, Gritsuk, who I also think is an absolute dog and was awesome again in that Montreal game, he's made an impact among the forward group. And then on the back end to see Nemich make it plays and creating offensively is encouraging. And yet on the defensive side, you are still seeing that he's a definite work in progress.

He took a hooking penalty late in the second period defending in that game at 5 and 5. He had the highest expected goals against of all devil's defenders in that game. Although I also wonder how much of that is a product of playing with Shalowski, who I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of at all. And if Nemich had a better partner, I wonder how much steadier the defensive side of the game would look like for him. Yeah, it's no surprise that the first 10 games or whatever before these injuries, when he was playing Brendan Dillon, who's really bounced back this season. It looked quite a bit different for him in terms of the environment. I mentioned Gritzik there.

I mean, I'm going to keep talking about this. He is so good. Like, he's such a dog battling for pucks, creating opportunities, so many close calls. He's creating, I think, an offensive explosion is on the horizon now. It might not happen while he's playing on this third line with Pilat and Glass, although Glass came back and scored in this one off the rush, but I'm almost waiting for Michelle and Keev to just take the training wheels off fully. And he's kind of got this luxury car right now in the garage,

and I'm just waiting for him to take it out for a spin and show it off to the world, because we saw a glimpse of it for a couple games with him playing with Hishier and Meyer, and that was awesome. I think I want to see some reps at this point of him playing with Hughes and Brad and seeing if he can be a solution to that top line left wing before they, entertain some sort of a trade using some of these defensemen when they get healthy at the deadline. You got any other notes on this or do you want to kind of put a bowl on it? I wonder to also talk about Caps Penguins, but we spoke about the Penguins quite a bit a show or two ago. And so maybe

we can circle back to a deeper Caps conversation next time we're on. Yeah, a couple quick notes on the Montreal side. Not really loving Struble with Hudson. I am looking forward to when Caden Gully returns to the lineup. A couple bad puck touches for Struble in the defensive zone. Two bad penalties for him in that game as well. I mean, Lane Hudson was still brilliant and offensively in doing his thing, making magic happen. But I would love to see him with someone other than Jaden Struble,

who I thought struggled in that game. So can't wait for Gully to come back. And then on a positive note, I think Kirby Doc looks significantly better than needed last year. Now, last season, he was, of course, coming off a long layoff and was thrust into the second line center role, which he was clearly outmatched for. And you could see it in the results. Control just 44% of shots at 5-on-5. They're outscore 41 to 22. And he just watching him play looked lost in like a shadow of the player that we'd seen in the past.

And now he's been bumped to more of a third-line role. And the productions popped a little bit with eight points in 14 games. I know the goal he had in that game was pretty fluky, but just in general, he seems like he's playing more off his instincts, using his physical tools to make an impact. The underlying numbers have improved a lot, controlling 52% of expected goals in his minutes. So he's just stood out to me when I've watched the HABs

as he looks so much better compared to the start of last season when because of all the time off and because he was asked to play this high-levered second-line center role, he looked completely out of his depth last year. Certainly. All right, harm, that's all the time we have for today.

I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out. I know you finally put out that piece. We teased last week about some of the conversations you'd had around the league with the changing market dynamics following some of these extensions. Let the listeners know about that now that they can finally read it and whatever else you're working on. Yeah, I spoke to agents and execs about how the skyrocketing cap affects different player classes, the league as a whole.

And so that was a really fun one. Broke it down into winners and losers who benefits, who could end up being hurt. So that was a lot of fun over at the athletic. All right, buddy. Well, we'll see you back here next Friday to pick the conversation back up. I haven't looked at the schedule yet for next Thursday, but I'm sure we'll have some bangers.

And we're going to break all those down with you. If you want to help us out, you want to listen to more of the PDOCs, subscribe to the Patreon for some additional content. We just put out a wide-ranging mailbag episode with our pal, Jack Fraser on that feed for our subscribers. So join us there. The link is in the show notes. You can also just search up the PDO guests on Patreon and come along for the ride with us. Give us a five-star review wherever you listen to the show. Join the PDO guest Discord. So you can get any mailbag questions for future episodes. And that is all for another week of shows.

We'll be back here Sunday night with Drans for a Sunday special. I think Thomas and I are doing our projected Olympic rosters for some of the top teams. So that'll be a really fun conversation. We can get that out Sunday night on the Patreon feed as well. well as early access and then I'll be available in main feed first thing Monday for the rest of you have a great weekend and thank you for listening to the hockey pdo cast streaming on the sports night radio network