The Hockey PDOcast - Wild Swings in the Western Conference Final

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to break down the latest from the Western Conference Final, including the wild swings in momentum we've seen, Roope Hintz's return and Chris Tanev's absence, and the changes the Oilers made to bounce back in Game 4.  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.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedocast. My name is Dimitri Philpovich, and joining me as my good buddy, Sean Chappiro. Sean, what's going on, man? I've got, after we do this, I'm, I could actually pack for a six o'clock flight. I'm headed down to Dallas for game five tomorrow down in at the old American Airlines Center. So that's on the docker right now.

I put off my packing to talk to you. So it's, you know, it's going to be a good show. Well, I'm a last minute packer myself, so I appreciate that. Oh,

yeah. Do it as late as possible in the game. So hopefully we can, we can reward you for it, have a fun time here, and push back your, your packing even further until the very last minute.

Here's a plan for today's show. We're going to break down what we're seeing in Stars Oilers. We just got to see game four last night. We're going to lump game three with it together because it's been a while since we chattered about this series and checked in. the Oilers emphatically for those that missed it hit the stars with the good old fashion Uno reverse card

and bounce back in game four and flip the series on them to even it up at two now going back to Dallas for game five which you will be at attendance in which will be very exciting let's get into kind of what unfolded and how it happened right because the stars go up to go up to nothing early in game four and especially on the heels of what happened in pretty much the final two periods of game three. I think the common sentiment was like, oh, here we go again from Edmonton's perspective, and the stars are in full control here.

And then the Oilers tie it up with just an offensive barrage in the final six minutes or so of that first period. They score two more quick ones in the second. And then all that leads us to this third period, which I think poses the most sort of pressing and irrelevant question to come from this game moving forward beyond Chris Hanif status. and we're going to get into that shortly. But just in terms of trying to sort of decipher what happened and how the game played out and whether it's going to be sort of indicative or telling of what's to come as the series progresses,

is what happened in that third period. Because the stars, in my opinion, mustered literally zero pressure or sort of offensive threat. Right. I had them down for two scoring chances. I think natural stature had him at like 0.37 expected goals generated in the final 20, which is really hard to do in any period. let alone one where you're down two goals and you're theoretically got score effects on your side

and are trying to push for at least making it a game. And it never really felt like they were close, right? I didn't think they even strung together multiple shifts that were positive in a row. The Oilers to their credit gave them nothing. And I think from Edmonton's perspective, it's highly encouraging, right? Because they came into it with all this baggage of blown leads

previously in the postseason and sort of changing the way they played once they went up in this game. They just kept skating, were so aggressive, and closed it out emphatically. And so from Dallas's perspective now, looking ahead to previewing game five, what does this mean, in your opinion? Was it just a gas team that had already won game three and was content to go home to two, or was it a sign of, all right, Edmonton's figured something out and Dallas doesn't really have many answers? What do we make of how game four ended, particularly, like, optically?

Yeah. for me, kind of one of the most telling moments in that game was how Dallas, like, I think on the broadcast, they were talking about how they were struggling to get Jake O'Hontinger out of the net, but for the empty net, to me that was actually pretty indicative of what had been happening. You can't really pull the goalie and go for the six on five if you're not getting sustained pressure, if you're not getting into the zone. And for me, that was kind of a encapsulation of what happened basically from, I don't know, probably from all the third period, part of the second period as well, where Dallas just couldn't really

break anything down from Edmonton. And in that when you're down 4-2 and you're trying to pull the goalie to get things done and you're not even getting enough pressure to get the goalie off the ice or anything built, to me, that was kind of the microcosm of like this right here is the, that's the part where if I'm Pete DeBore and his staff and the stars and on the flight back from Alberta, that's what I'm focused on more so than what happened in the first period. or what happened here. Like, to me, that was, that, that's the biggest thing where, like, okay, this Edmonton team

kind of, they kind of shuttered Dallas the way we saw Dallas shuttered a couple early times in the Vegas series before Dallas kind of unlocked them. And so that, that to me is the biggest thing from a Dallas perspective. How do you start unlocking things again offensively? And as much as I'd love to make jokes about a team that starts slow, like actually starting fast and then of course falling apart. It's really the end to me. It's what do you need to do better here? And we can talk quite a bit about that. I mean, often. So obviously this team's sort of bread and butter this entire postseason, right, in round one against Vegas, round two against Colorado specifically

is going to be their suppression and their defensive effort, particularly in some of these big situations where they're preserving a lead and they just haven't given those opponents anything. I think what's been kind of surprising maybe in watching. the first four games of the series unfold is beyond the second period of game three. Dallas hasn't really been able to muster that much offensively, in my opinion. And maybe the credit should just go to Edmonton. We've spoken about how they've been in the grand scheme of things underrated in terms of their defensive ability because everyone just has focused and latched onto the power play

and how dominant that had been along the way getting to this point. But once they're able to kind of control puck possession and cycle the puck and skate as well as they did in game before, the opposition just never really is able to cobble anything together. And that's what you saw as that game transpired. It was such a comprehensive effort by Edmonton, right? Where every time Dallas would even try to get the puck up the ice or pass it from point A to point B, it would just immediately get intercepted or cut off by an oil skater and they would just bring it back the other way. And you're right. I think that would be, if you're Pete to burn the stars, that would be the most alarming part. It's not that you lost four

two or five two after the empty netter, but that you weren't. really able to meaningfully put together anything that you could hold on to as a reason to believe that, all right, next game, we're moving forward in this series. We're going to be able to go back to, you know, this plan of attack and generate consistent offense. It hasn't really all post-y, all series so far, it's kind of evaded them in this matchup. Yeah. And like, one of the things for me about the, when the stars are, are playing well and clicking and everything like that, it's, they don't always need all four lines going, but they tend to have, have the stack performances really well, as the terminology I like to use on it, where it'll be maybe

the Sagan line will lead to the Johnson line having a good showing. And then, like, you know, they don't need all four lines going, but it's a big thing where you, when you see, and like the star's fourth line is often, often a big part of that, where that line is hardly, I mean, sometimes they score the goals, but a lot of times they're part of like one of those middle like line stacks of in-game momentum and keeping things going. And I just felt like watching that. game last night for the stretch is like there will be a stretch in the third period where maybe the Sagan line with Robertson and Hins, maybe they had a good look here or there, but then that would be when the Johnson line struggled the following one out. And I just, that, that to me is

kind of, I want to give evidence credit for their defensive work, but I also think that's one of, if we're looking more, if I'm assigning more fault to Dallas and blame here, it's how they were never able to really string those together. And we've seen shifts. We've seen goals. We've seen goals. for Dallas throughout this postseason, where sometimes you see kind of that broken line where maybe it's the guy still on the ice from a prior shift, and there's been two other changes and they've kept possession. And we didn't see any of that. And that is the Dallas perspective for me of fixing that. But then I also want, as you said, Edmonton, like, give credit to Edmonton defensively. They did a really good job last night of they played a game where

for all of the ideology and the kind of the hoodspuner, you. around them being this team that falls apart in the third period, they did a great job. Now, they played a really good game. And when they're on top of it like that, that's why I've been saying that sort of their fastball or their best game is as good as any teams in the league, right? I think from a approach perspective, what's interesting to me here is a lot has been made over the past couple games of kind of people keying in on something you and I talked about after game one, right?

An observation that, I mean, it's mostly happening with the Donov and whatever a line he's playing with, but how Dallas has sort of strategically been using that weak side winger to try and get a bit of a head start, right? Blow the zone, push Dallas's, or push Edmonton's defense either back to create a bit of a gap in the neutral zone for Dallas's forwards to skate into and then create off the rush or potentially even get behind them because Edmonton's second and third pair with CC and NERS can sometimes be situationally irresponsible and lose track of you and all of a sudden you got to break away out of nothing, right? in a series where you're struggling to create offensively,

manufacturing a few of those easy opportunities is certainly an intriguing strategy. The issue of that is you're watching Game 4, Dallas's general approach, I thought, whenever they would get the puck in their zone, seem to be let's flip the puck up in the air into the neutral zone and then try to retrieve it or try to kind of get one of those hope plays going. And it's a good strategy when it works, but the issue is against a team like Edmonton.

we know that if they're able to maintain possession and kind of get the puck back instantly and get back into the zone, that's when they're incredibly dangerous, right? Where you see the cracks with this Oilers team is what happened in that second period of game three where if they're forced to defend in their own zone for an extended period of time, they will eventually have breakdowns and sort of those classic Oilers meltdowns defensively where all of a sudden someone's wide open or there's sort of a comedy of errors and you're like, oh, how did that happen? Those occur when they don't have the puck

and they're forced into those situations. By Dallas kind of choosing to play this way, and it's not necessarily something that they've always done. I think this is a bit more of a recent development. It's kind of playing into when Edmonton is at their best, if that makes sense. I think it's a crutch to that Dallas falls into sometimes. It's both a high flip, and then they also like the, there's times where Dallas likes to run that basically hard bank,

dump in play. Obviously, the most famous example of it, if anyone wants to pull highlight, is we go all the way back to last year. It's the Wyatt Johnston game winner in game seven against Seattle, where Dodonov throws the hard bank to a quarter and the Johnson.

That's the easiest YouTubeable search clip if someone's listening to wants to find an example of it. So Dallas always likes having that high flip play, that hard kind of bank pass, where you're basically asking that cheating a far-side winger to kind of beat the icing. They sometimes, though, when they struggle, they start to like, and this is kind of, I put this more a lot on a lot of the Dallas decision making, defense defenseman decision making. There's times like, and I've watched a lot of Essel and Del hockey in my career, right? Sleindel is typically high flipping the puck more than anyone else on that defensive group, right?

And there's times when other thing, when everyone else is starting to look like Essel and Del with a puck on your stick, that's when you know you have. problems with the stars kind of transition on things. And I think we saw a lot of that. And last night, we even saw, like, Dallas won game three, but there's stretches. You saw more of it in game three, but there was obviously Robertson and Hintz kind of rescued something. So it was a little bit, it was kind of hidden by the result here. And that's one of those trends that I'm very curious about how it continues, because this star's defense, and this is probably a good natural way to bring up Chris Tanov may or may not have Kristaanov in game five, may or may not be in a spot where you're going to have

who the sixth defender is is going to be a fascinating decision and you kind of need your big guns, your big guns, your big minute defenseman to kind of put it together a little bit. Not like, just kind of like get it together. Like there's almost too much, there's been almost too much panic to let's play the simple play even before there's pressure sometimes.

I think there'll be times where a couple times I took note of last night where the stars would, a defenseman would have the time and space to read something or maybe do something different and there would still be that high flip and the forwards never even had a chance to take routes. Like that is, that's a really good point by you and it lines up exactly with kind of what I'm watching here. And honestly, Miro does it way too much for a player with his ability. Oh, 100%. Way, way, way, way too much. Yeah. And he was doing it a lot in game four. And I do wonder not to make an excuse for him, but I do, it feels like it happens more. when he's probably running on fumes.

And it's just the reality of when you have the workload he does and you're playing as much as he does. And that only gets heightened with Tanna, you know, being out after the first period essentially and him realizing he's going to have to play even more and shoulder an even bigger burden. Laid into these shifts,

there's a lot of, he could probably could make a better play either with his skating ability to elude someone and skate it out himself or just pass the puck tape to tape to someone. And he doesn't even try to. And instead he defaults to that play because it's, I think less consuming from an energy perspective, right? And it's like, all right, this is going to buy me a bit of time here if it gets out of the zone.

But the issue is it's being retrieved by an oiler's forward in the neutral zone or one of their defensemen, particularly if Bushard and Echoam out there because they're pinching so aggressively and gapping up. And then all of a sudden, it's coming right back. And so it's almost creating a snowball effect. And I think that's also why you're seeing like Haskinen's underlying numbers in this series. they were good in game three where they controlled quite a bit with him on the ice, but he's also having some pretty ugly, you know, shot attempt, shot high danger chance totals against him. And it's because there's this accumulation of stuff that it's almost self-inflicted in a way. And I think I may have said it on this show with you before. I may have said it

somewhere else. So either way, there's an emotional and like human element to Miro Hishkin. And one of the things that makes him kind of click is he prides himself on shutting down other guys. He prides himself on taking on a best player on the other team in winning that matchup. One of the reasons the stars got rid of John Klingberg a couple of years back was the addition by subtraction of taking away that mental block where he's like, hey, now, Miro, you have to be a power play one guy. There's no longer someone else to do it. And there are times where stars management and coaches have had conversations with

Maheshkin and not necessarily about how to play hockey, but just being like, dude, you're a really skilled puck moving player, you can go put the other team on their back foot. And I think sometimes when you talk about a player who is being overused or used a lot, you start to default to some bad habits. And it becomes, I think we start to see a little bit more of that quote unquote survival mode for Hachkin in here, where Miro is thinking more and more about how do I win my matchup defensively and not necessarily how do I win my matchup completely. And that is, you know, a mentality thing that is very hard to reprogram from someone who he him and cal McCar are always going to be linked forever right because one went right after the other macar's main operandus the motor end of

operadus whatever i can't speak now but is to was to always i'm going to control the game offensively mirro's control and his belief and he has this goal of wanting to be one of the best defensive players in the world but defensive is always the first thought process and i think it's kind of rain process kind of personality thing. He falls back on sometimes when he gets tired, when he's been used a lot, when you're trying into more of that survival mode, which frankly he's been in with how the stars have had to use him in the playoffs

and how they kind of built this roster and how they trusted things. I think we're seeing some fallout from basically him, from what's happened with the tan of injury is big last night, and that's part of it. But it was happening before this. It goes all the way back to when you're asking your top players to play this much, eventually you're going to have to pay the bill for it and that's what this is happening right now

I think. Yeah, he's approaching 500 minutes so far this postseason. Like he's going to get there in this next game. That is a lot, especially against who he's going up head to head against. And yeah, I feel like there's certain matchups where you can get away with sort of living to fight another day and chipping the puck out of the zone and then

just getting back defensively. That's not the strategy that I would go about against this Oilers team because it almost it just feeds right into what they're trying to do and when they're at their best, right? And so that's that's an issue. You mentioned the defense there, and even before the Tative injury is a plot or subplot

with the Stars team all postseason has been their defense rotation, right? And essentially using five guys. And they finally started using Alex Petrovich. At least they were comfortable somewhat giving him like regular shifts with Ryan Suter for the most part and not just being like, all right, you're going to play two minutes in the first period and then you're just going to sit for the final 40. But it is a bit of a self-inflicted wound as well, in my opinion, this postseason, because you're watching in games like this and even before TANF gets hurt, part of the issue with trying to cobble together these five-man rotations on the blue line is that often you're getting into these weird spots.

And I think, don't think we've talked about this nearly enough of the kind of the confusion it creates of like on the fly switching and then all the different defense pairings you wind up cobbling together as a result. And in particular, I think of all the shifts where you see Haskinen out there with Ryan Suter, for example, and how the issues that. sort of poses. And in these past two games, it's really been sort of jarring, watching the way they're playing together when they're out there in the situations they're kind of thrust in. And so I think that's another complicating factor here. And it's only going to get heightened with one fewer reliable option if Tanev is out. So I'm not sure what you do. The shame of it is in game three, I thought they really finally stumbled on the right combination, which was they flipped the top two pairs and played Mero with Lundell and they played Harley with Tanev and both looked

really good in my opinion. And then now in this game, because of the injury, and they probably, you know, he's said in his ways in some sense, that's similar to most coaches, he probably would have gone back to those previous pairs otherwise. But yeah, I think that would be a very concerning thing for me, both the usage and also how these minutes are actually being constructed. Because there's times where you're watching a mirror and he's out there for a shift, let's say, with Lundell. And then you're like, all right, that was a pretty long shift. That was approaching a minute and a half or so and then Lendell gets off the ice and Souter comes on and then you're like, oh, Mero's still out there.

And then now he's having to defend those well. And it's like, all right, well, yeah, I would assume that his numbers are going to wind up being bad considering that's the way either he or the team is choosing to go about it. The other issue the stars have to handle. And it's a Ryan Suter problem. And this is not related to him falling on his goalie. No, he's killing them. He has been really bad.

He is absolutely killing them. And it goes back to one of the fundamental things about Ryan Suter. Every single Star's defenseman in that room is willing to play on their offhand, except Ryan Suter. Ryan Suter is unwilling and is unwilling to play on his offhand. And he is very open about it to his coaches. It's something that's gone throughout his career. And for a while, it was like when he was playing 27 minutes tonight from Minnesota, it's like, well, I'm going to play on my side. it doesn't matter what you do. I don't need to know how to play the other side. Now that you

need guys to switch in zone, you need guys to adapt, you have one guy who is unwilling to play his offhand and the other side of the ice. That's effectively what it is. And so it forces everyone else. So if you throw Lindell and Hishkin and out there and you get caught up and mixed up on the wrong side of the ice, they both are okay playing on their offhand. They're willing to do it. They've done it in their career. Even Harley in his young career has been willing to do it, even though he struggled a little bit more this postseason. Tanna was able to do it. Even in the, in Alex Petrovich's done it.

But you have one guy out there. He goes out there. He's like, no, I can only go to one side. And it is just causing, it leads to some confusion and everything like that. And there's been coverage problems because of it. And it is, it all goes back to the fundamental flaw that you have a player who on a team where we hear all the time about like we've seen the banner, right? Like we've all seen it a little bit less for a lot more, all like the stuff, right? you have a player who still has a very fundamental value that he will not break where he can play on his offhand.

And that to me is leading to a lot and he is killing them this series right now. He is absolutely nuking them. And honestly, everything I said about what you can't do against the Soyler's team, like he did every single one of those things in that first period that led to Edmonton's comeback. And, you know, you mentioned falling into Adinger and kind of being responsible for that first goal. It goes well beyond that. You go back and trace the 10 seconds before that. Look at the gap he chooses to maintain with Corey Perry and Darnell Nurse being the two players rushing the puck up on his side.

He like saggs all the way back basically to the point where he's going to fall into the Jay Godendonjur and just concedes the blue line and lets them enter that power play, which Edmonton didn't wind up scoring on at the end of the first, that Radic Fax took the penalty. He just passes it to no one in particular and just essentially gives it away and allows Leandro Settle to retrieve it and enter the zone again. and then Radic Faxa has to trip him. And then that allowed the momentum to build and gave Edmonton even more confidence and a bunch of great chances, it's really bleak. And the idea that he'd be leaned on even more and potentially even as a full-time partner now with Miro, depending on what they choose to do if Tanev's out, not only does that bring back PTSD, as I joked in the Discord from last postseason, but it just, Edmonton must be just licking

their lips at the idea of more Ryan Suter in this series. do we have any at the time of recording we're doing this on like a Thursday morning so we'll see I'm sure we won't learn from the stars regardless because they're going to keep this close to the best pretty much up until the last possible moment but are you hearing anything about Tanev or kind of where we're at with that or what the status is I assume that even if he has to get a lim amputated he might still be a game time decision so it's really tough to tell with him in particular but I think it'll be classified as a game time decision even if he doesn't take warmups. I think that's just how things work this time of year. I think the stars themselves

would call it a game time decision. We're recording this at like 1 o'clock, whatever, on Thursday. I'll be interested. I'm not there today, but I'm interested to see if any eagle-eyed reporters see the stars have media availability at 3 o'clock Central today at the place where the charter flight lands. So if somebody wants to be out there with the binoculars and looking at people's feet for walking boots and things like that, I'm sure someone could possibly do that. But to me, the most concerning thing about TANF is, and once again, this is no further, this is just basically off me watching the game last night and knowing what everyone else publicly knows is he's a guy who everything we hear about this, about him and from everyone,

is he's a warrior, he fights through everything, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. So for him not to return in the third period, it's, that's a pretty big deal to me because that's, that's someone who I would imagine would try to fight through everything. So maybe you can reduce the pain or whatever you have to do to get him into game five. And I'm sure they'll try to do everything possible to get him in for game five. But I would be highly concerned about him not. I would be more surprised if he plays in game five than if he didn't because I just based off the evidence in front of me right now. And if Dallas has to go a game without him or two or three, you're at a spot where you have a bunch of you're going with either a really rusty option.

in like Yanni Hockenbaugh who did take the trip to Edmonton, so maybe he's almost there. Or you bring in a Derek Puyat who has it played a game since March 13th in the AHL. Or you bring in a young guy who Pete DeBore doesn't trust at all

in Nils Lunkwist. Or you go into the the little excite our pal David Castillo and you'll bring in Liam Bixel who's never played an ACHL game in his life. All options I have not. thrilled about for game five of Western Conference final. Well, if only there was proof of concept in this series of a team

bringing in a young defenseman who hadn't played at all this postseason. Fair, fair, fair, fair. Going into the line of fire and making a difference. If only we saw someone do that, then Pete might be comfortable. But, um, that's fair. That's fair. No, it'll be, yeah, I love it. You know, Nils Lunkwis is breaking up.

He's like, all right, well, if Tanna is out, that surely means I'm going to play more than three minutes then. And Pete's like, that's not get crazy. All right. Let's not get any of it. No, we'll see. And to be clear, I'm with you on the TANF speculation, because especially considering it happens so early in the game in the first period,

like for him to be held out for the rest of it tells you a lot about the situation, because we've seen him leave games and go down the tunnel with like gruesome seeming injuries and then miss like two shifts and somehow come back and not really miss a beat. And so for this to happen, that clearly says this is more severe. I also will say, and I'll let you jump in there in a second, but to be clear, like, this also is not, like, the stars were headed down this path in this game four by, like, well beyond before he got hurt, right? Like, this wasn't like, oh, well, you know, they were playing well, and they were in a position to succeed. And then they lost Tannab in that sidetrack. I'm like, this was already happening.

And the fact that they couldn't muster anything offensively down the stretch is also not something that I appointed Tanev missing and being like, oh, well, that's kind of an excuse for why this happened. I think there's much bigger issues that are only heightened if you have to go into a full game or two without him, certainly. And it doesn't make life easier for you. But I also think like this kind of is a separate conversation and shouldn't necessarily be treated as a cop out or an excuse. Yeah, yeah. Like storytelling wise, it worked really well where TANF got hurt when it's two, two. And then the other team scored to make it four to two. But TANF was never going to be on the ice for the botched shift by Thomas Harley on the short-handed goal.

Right. So it's storytelling-wise. It makes a lot of sense. and the TANF story is a big one going into game five, but Chris Tanna was never going to be the reason the stars all of a sudden generated 16 scoring chances in the third period or something like that. The other thing about the TANF thing,

that's just the other thing about the TANF thing that I'm just interested to see with how the stars publicly comment on and everything like that is there's no hiding what exactly it is. We all saw a shot go off his heel, off his right heel, and then him in disgust, throw his shot blocker to the trainer and go down the locker. There's no like, it's one of those like playoff injuries. There's a lot of times like, oh, it could be this.

It could be that. We don't know if it's broken. We don't know this or that. But you and I and anyone with a pair of eyeballs can see what is hurting and where it's hurting. And that's another thing that I'm interested to see how the stars handle the public messaging of this. And if you're Vancouver, if TANF does play, let's be honest. I know that people like to say players don't target injuries, but if you're in a scrum and you can give a little whack to the heel,

I'm going to do that if I'm Edmonton. Now, you're more familiar with the ins and outs of the Dallas Stars medical staff and their capabilities, but do you think that within this whatever 48-hour turnaround or whatever, they'll be able to transplant Neil's Lunguist's heel onto Chris Hanav? I mean, I think Liam Bixel has a similar size that has a closer foot size, maybe, so it might be... No, I think they're going to want to preserve.

I think they're going to preserve all of his body parts of it. Yes. But no, the Nils Lungwist, there could be, if he comes out with one skate, that's much smaller, it'll be,

uh, like Nils, it's your time to finally contribute. Um, all right, let's, let's take our break here. And then when we come back,

we'll, uh, we'll jump right back into it. I've got a few more notes on this series to get into. You're listening to the Hockey-Docat streaming on the sports net radio network. All right, we're back here on the hockeypedeo guest with Sean Shapiro. We are chatting stars oilers.

Um, you know, just to put a bow on a couple of the points we're making a bar one and then we're going to move on to a few other topics from this series. I did, I forgot to kind of note that in our pal, David Castillo has been making a, uh, a point of emphasis this postseason about how, you know, for all the talk about Dallas's capabilities offensively and the weapons they have and all of that and their ability to generate chances and goals. They also aren't a very relatively speaking compared to some of their peers, aren't a very good passing team. And I do wonder if part of that is also what we're seeing manifested in this approach, right, where they're like just trying to kind of get 50, 50 pucks and flip it out or chip it out and then chase after it and sort of create indirectly as opposed to actually passing the puck up against the ice against the oilers. Maybe that's part of it. So I want to note that. And the other reason why we sort of framed the start of that conversation the entire way is I don't know what you make of, you know, as we look forward to game five.

And Tanev's availability certainly will impact how you feel about the matchup. But on the one hand, it's difficult to shake the most recent kind of lasting image, which was how ineffectual Dallas was offensively, right? And how uncompetitive that was for the large part. And then the reality of the NHL postseason, which we've seen reinforce so many times, especially in this round, which is whether it's period to period or game to game, it doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be carryover or lasting effect, right? Like obviously, if something fundamentally changes, then we should have.

adjuster expectations, but I feel like there's been so many highs and lows amongst all these teams and all these series to the point where if you're just going along with it for every step of it, it's entertaining. You feel like you're on a roller coaster, but also you're probably going to wind up being surprised or I guess kind of caught off guard by the fact that there's these wild momentum swings, right? And this series, we've seen it so many times. And so I'm just not sure what this what happening game four even game three means for game five or whether it's a clean slate and you kind of just grow back to the drawing board i'm a big believer that the momentum ends when the game ends i don't i don't think momentum goes from game to game in a series i think and the one

and it's not even a momentum i think the only way a pre i think a previous game can impact the next game and how a coach makes adjustments and how a team maybe comes out with urgency because they're down three, one in a series or something like that. But I don't believe that momentum from minute 58 of game four carries over to minute one of game five. Like I don't, I don't believe that. So I think you can have a coaching perspective. I think you can try to tactically apply things from game to game. But for the 20 players playing in the game, I don't think it really changes much, much of anything.

I'm a big believer that momentum is kind of a silly thing to talk about. It's kind of one of those things that almost makes like, like when people talk about like winning streaks in the regular season and people kind of get like excited about them. I don't think it's because momentum is it's just things happen to be going the right way and coaches are sticking with what works. It's not necessarily, oh, they were great here. And those momentum that carries over to another opponent and another building. No, not at all. So I am a momentum in games, but I don't, I think momentum typically ends at the end of a period too. Like I rarely think momentum carries over from period to period.

I think it might look like a team ends one period well and carries over to the X, but I think that's just a coincidence. I really think momentum is contained within a period and that's it. Well, and which is why I agree with that, and which is why I think the Oilers deserve a lot of credit for the fact that they change that first period within the period the way they did, right? Because we've seen a lot of these one-sided swings where a team comes out of intermission and all of a sudden looks entirely different and just puts the boot to them

and it's just as one-sided as it gets. but that generally is happening either between periods or between games. And in this case, the first like, what, 12, 13, maybe even 14 minutes of the first period, the shots were 5, 6, 1 for Dallas. I didn't think Edmont didn't really generate it that much at all. And then all of a sudden, they turned it on. And it was that one goal. And then they stack a couple good shifts together.

Dreisel gets another chance. Then it's the second goal. Then it's the power play. And by that point, it was kind of in full swing, right? And I think that differentiated it here. I guess the other thing that bodes really well for Edmonton is I did think the lineup changes they made paid a lot of dividends. And in particular, contrasting in a game three, and I think the reason why I brought up the momentum point is I'm always so intrigued by the way teams respond to adversity or like when things are going their way, whether they kind of revert back to bad habits or kind of combinations that they maybe previously ran just as a force of habit, even if it's not the right one for the occasion. and we sort of saw that from Edmonton in game three, right?

The game wasn't going their way. And then they put together the nurse C-C-Pere again. And I think everyone watching it, regardless of your allegiances, was like, this is not going to end well, right? And then you saw it as that game unfolded. Like, I have this theory. I'm sure I've said it on the show before. Maybe I've even pitched it to you directly, but both those guys, I think, can be perfectly

fine. Like, Darno-N-Less, regardless, will be overpaid. But I think they can both be perfectly functional if they're playing with just, like, a regular person as their defense partner. And that's why I think Brett Kulak, who is like the most regular defenseman in the NHL, works so well as a compliment to either of those guys as a partner. But if you put two of them together, they're just so cartoonish in their mistakes and mish that's like it's just a disaster waiting to happen, right?

And that's where you see it. They can't really balance each other out in any way. And so that's why they don't work together. In this game, they scratch with Penny D.R. who I think must be hurt. Like he was struggling. On his birthday. He heard her name was scratched on his birthday.

It's a cool business. It's a, so that's, that's, someone said it's not a friend's league. It's a winning, win games league. Certainly.

And he had been, I mean, he had been struggling to keep up physically. And so he scratched him. They put Brober again, who I thought you could just see visibly, whether it's just being younger or fresher, like his skating popped off the TV for me.

Like, you could just tell. was moving well. And so they put him in, maybe that's a note to the other team in this series. I don't know if there's any to learn from that. They play him with Cece. They play Nurse and Kuwack together. I know they were on the ice for the first two goals against, but they played well the rest of the way. And so I like that. And then I really liked the other adjustment, which I thought was going to be interesting to track moving forward, is they bring Ryan McLeod back in. And they most importantly put him on the wing with Drysaital, right? And previously in this series, Leon had been quite

quiet by his standards. And I think part of it was like, he's just dragging around a bandir cane at this point. And it's doing him no help at all. And they put McLeod on the wing. And essentially that allows him to just play to his best asset, which is skate really fast and cause havoc. And so all of a sudden they play him with Perry and Dreis Eidel.

That works. I thought Leon looked really good in game four. He was just so active and engaged and involved. Obviously, he scores the nice goal to kind of put the game away. right after the PK, but also on the first goal, he didn't get a point on it, but he makes this beautiful play if you go back and watch it in his own zone, evades Marchment and another four-checker and then gets the puck up the ice to transition it into that three-on-two. And so he finally made an impact in this series. And so if you're the Oilers, you have to feel really good about that combination because the McDavid line has been playing really well in this series regardless. And so all of a sudden now, things are kind of fallen into place much more for you based on those adjustments. And so if you're spinning it forward to game five, I do think that is a bit of a fundamental difference for Edmonton that is worth tracking now. First of all, how fitting it would be if a Broberg game was somehow the door opening glass-breaking moment that saves Niels Lindquist's career. Just the irony of all of that would be incredible and wonderful.

And I would laugh about that for years. On Drysiddle, I really like his game a lot when he gets out there with multiple different lines. Like obviously, I like when they do a good job of finding the ways to, get him on with McDavid and Hyman and everything like that. But when he's playing with McLeod and Perry, I think there's parts of Dry Seidle's game where he has shifts where he just wants two guys who work hard and know where to go. And I think that's something where, and it's kind of there's a full understanding of the line. Look, we know who and where and what drive this. And we're okay with that. And I think there's times in Haynes game, you talk about

Drysidal kind of dragging, being forced to drag Kane around right now, well, when they were on the same line is, I think there's part of Kane's game where Kane still thinks he's more of the guy than he is. And I think having two guys who, A, come in a little bit humbled slash hungry, who had played the last game, and two guys who basically their careers, one, his entire career kind of based off just, hey, work hard, get to the right spot. The other one who is still playing in the NHL because he's done that, I think that allows Drysidal to play his game a little bit more effectively as I'm going to dominate the puck, this space here.

And then I can then bring a different element when in those times when I'm on the ice with McDavid and Hyman. I think it really just turns dry settle into even more and more of this kind of two-headed monster himself. And he was, he was really, really quiet. And then last night he was really, really noticeable. Yeah, he really was. Yeah. He made a big difference. I still think the final like,

fully formed version of that line. And to your point of like bringing in hungry guys who have even been scratch is just playing McLeod and Fogel on his wing, we saw him have success with those guys in the regular season. And I think that's exactly what you're saying, just having two guys who are just going to like work really hard, retrieve puck, skate fast, create space for him because they're forcing the other team with their speed to move back a little bit. And if you're giving Dreisdiel any more room to navigate with the puck, he's going to make you pay for it. Right. And so I think that's what you're seeing there. I also love I should know it.

I don't even know if I've talked about on the show, but anyone in the PDOCast Discord knows that we kind of like uncovered that his middle name is Tim for some reason. And so everyone just calls, I said, I don't Tim now in the PEDAOCast Discord. And so I love that. So the real ones call Leon Tim. And if I see you doing so,

then I'll know that, you know what's up. At the Olympics, at the Olympics, when the Germans are there, it'll be the German Tim's. Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

is the most surprising part of this series for you, the special teams battle, where I believe they've combined for like 29 power play minutes so far in this series between the two of them and the only special teams goal we've seen is the Oilers shorthanded goal from game four or the fact that, and I know this is like a big talking point right now and I'm sure it's part of it is just like recency bias and overblown. But heading into the series, it was framed as, all right, Edmonton's got like two or three players. You have to worry about and Dallas is this team full of scoring depth. And so far through these four games, Dallas's scoring depth has not really been very

existent and a bunch of players have been passengers, whereas certainly there's a couple guys driving the bus for Edmonton offensively, but they have gotten key contributions down the lineup, particularly on special teams. And so I think that's kind of been a bit of a surprise as well, which of those two? And maybe they're kind of linked, right? Because a few of those guys in the fourth line are the ones chipping in with that shorthanded goal, so maybe they're kind of inextricable, but I'm posing, I guess, the question to you, which of those do you think is a bit more surprising for you through these first four games?

The more surprising is that the power plays are negative combined. That's more surprising. I mean, I get the, and I know there's a lot of written today about how all that the flip has been scripted, the oiler's depth, and everything like that scoring. And I don't expect MTIE Mark to score another goal. I don't expect, I don't mean, maybe as soon as you say that, you've basically booked, If anyone is betting on these games with TSE I and Rack, any time goal score. I don't really, I think Dallas's depth has always been there.

We've always talked about it, but there was always times and stretches, and we saw it where it sometimes would not have the finish. And so I don't buy the depth scoring storyline nearly as much. I give more credit to Edmonton's defense than I do on Dallas. Then Edmonton's depth offensively outplaying Dallas. I do, to me, it's the special teams thing. It's the spot where Dallas's penalty kill has been perfect, and then Edmonton's penalty kill has been perfect plus some. And I think it's, I think part of the Dallas problem is I don't think they're getting, I think there's, I think, I think, I think Edmonton is closer to score in a power play goal than the stars are.

Let me put it that way. Where Edmonton, Edmonton, you still see the looks and you can still see the creation for, okay, this is why this power play will click. Dallas, aside from Robertson really hit in a couple posts back in game one, you don't really, I don't see much of anything that really intrigues. And that's both Dallas being bad and Edmitt's penalty penalty kill being good. And when you combine those, it's like, that's why Matias Yamark has outscored the Dallas powerplay. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, the star is power play at this point may as well as to start flipping the puck out of their zone, as is a continuation of the rest of their game because what they're doing right now is, not working by any means. Yeah, no, I'm with you on that. And you know what? You're right. Because I thought, especially in game three in that comeback for Dallas, like that Marchman Dushan combination was buzzing, right? They had a couple of just monster shifts where they were creating a bunch of scoring chances

and they didn't wind up getting any goals for it. And so you look at it, it's like, all right, well, they're not contributing offensively, but that result probably does not happen regardless of the Robertson Hattrick without their contributions and kind of setting the table for that. So yeah, yeah, you're probably right on that. But still at the end of the day, right, we talk about in the postseason, that sounds great. But each of these games is being decided by like one or two goals and scoring chances and goals are really hard to come by. And so you're going to be judged on whether you actually wind up converting on them or not.

And the stars guys for the most part haven't yet. Do you want to talk a little bit about Robertson and Hints? We've seen Hints back for two games now. Let's do it. Let's do it. I think what's notable to me is, so in game three, Hince makes his return. and Robertson Hattrick gets a ton of the attention and deservedly so, right? He finally starts scoring some goals in big moments for them,

and that was huge for the result of that game. What was notable to me was in that game, despite Edmonton having last change in being controlled the matchups, we saw a ton of hints versus McDavid. And that line fared very well for Dallas, not just the goals, but also just controlling shots and getting chances and really limiting McDavid offensively.

South. And in game four, Edmonton, I think, made a much more a concerted effort to get back to that McDavid versus Wise Johnston matchup. And we saw those times essentially flip where Hintz only played a couple minutes against McDavid and Johnson was out there instead. And so far

throughout this series, that's been something I've been keeping an eye on because McDavid, and especially when he's out there with Bushard and Eckholm, and that generally is the case, they've really been tilting the ice and creating a ton against that matchup. And I'm curious with two of these final three games potentially being in Dallas, whether

we see that change at all, whether we see the stars able to get hints out more against them, because I think it's pretty clear. It's a small sample. It's only like 12 minutes so far in the series of Hinsmerst McDavid. But I think just theoretically and philosophically, you would prefer that if you're them, not only because of Hintz's skating ability, but also because then that, you know, hopefully frees up Johnson to create more offensive. himself and potentially create there.

And so what do you think about kind of on that matchup and what we've seen from Pins so far and what Dallas does accordingly in game five? Yeah, I think the stars need to not be afraid of Johnson against McDavid, but they also need to not try to feed Johnson to McDavid, which they seemingly have at times. And I think that's, I'm not sure if that's coincidence or causation. I'm not sure which. But I think the hints line against McDavid, that's a key thing for me.

And I know Pete DeBoer doesn't like to line match. He likes to line roll and everything like that. But it's okay. You can find ways to match and roll at the same time. And I think, and Hintz had an interesting game for me too, because I think there was, and this is just kind of having covered Rope Hintz for a long time and watched him play a lot. That second game was kind of, not that he was bad, but it was kind of semi-expected, right? Like, he's come back, and we have such a large sample size of Rope Hints coming back from injury.

And so this is both, this is partially anecdotal, partially my observation, and I haven't pulled numbers or stats or whatever. I'm not a man of science like you on this, so I don't know. But the, I've always looked at, Rope Hince comes back from injury really well. First game back, he's flying. It's Rope Hins go Zoom. And then kind of his body in game two reminds him like, hey, we just were out for, we were just out for two weeks or whatever. We might need to, we might need to hit the other gears every so often. you're saying his body gets hung over.

He can't do two nights of going out on the town. There's only, there's only, you can only go full force so much. And so I, I, I think that second game for hits is going to be, was kind of somewhat expected after

the first one, or it was just buzzing and everything like that. And so I think hints will be better in game three. I think he, as you kind of look, I mean, watched him historically when he comes back, he starts to kind of find that happy medium again.

And so whether he finds, it in game, his third gameback or fourth game back will be really interesting, but I think he'll be better too. Not that he was bad, but I think he'll be better in the next game too. And that's something I would intentionally knowing that as someone who, with knowledge of the sport itself, I would try to use that against McDavid more. This makes sense. Well, also building off your anecdotal point, I haven't looked this up, but I just feel like historically, Rupert Hins at home is the best player in NHL history. And so I will also be watching that as well.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. We'll see how it goes. I think that's very relatable, what you said, in terms of him being able to do it once, but the second time, his body telling him to kind of tone it down a little bit. I still think, though, we have enough of a sample, not that you're going to shy away from it and keep Wyatt Johnson off the ice to try to, like, shelter him or avoid that, right? Because he's just too good and too important to his team and you need to get him out there. But we're going on a stretch now.

where McDavid and Bluchard, when they're out there, are creating so much in this series. I believe the Oilers are up 7-2 at 5-1-5 in their minutes, and a healthy chunk of that has come against the Johnston line, and they've kind of gotten the better of it so far. So maybe from the star's perspective, if you're going to win this series, that has to flip regardless, and you need to finally start scoring some goals in that head-to-head. But I would try to make life easier for them. And despite not being as sort of eye-popping in the second game back, I still think the totality of what you're seeing,

like I feel more comfortable with that head to head. So I'm going to watch for it. All right. Let's put some stuff and get out of here because you've got to pack and you got to get on the road and get to Dallas. You've also been, so we can look forward to that coverage from you. You've also been covering the Memorial Cup as well. You're doing it all.

Let the listeners know what you're going to have to. Yeah, I'm not sleeping much right now. I told my wife that like July 3rd, I'm going to have to, my Canadian cottage season just going to be going to into my room and just sleeping for like a week and a half. So, but yeah, so I've got the, from stars for this series,

I'll be down in Dallas for game five. I'm doing a bunch of stuff off of every game over at my site, Shapshots, shapshotshotshockey.com. Check that out. You can also find it in the substack app. And then I've been covering my first Memorial Cup right now at the same time up in Saginaw. And for our fine folks over at EP Ringsside,

I've been up there with Lauren Kelly, and we've been covering that of some coverage heading into the semifinal of that for tomorrow, be on site for the championship game of that on Sunday. And Lauren's been doing a great job as well. And I'll also got to give a credit to because I know our pal JD has been not sleeping at all. And so the EP draft, the EP draft guide comes out on Monday. So I got to plug that right now because I know the amount of work that's going into that. I know the amount of time. I know everything that's gone into that.

I've seen some, I've done some editing on it. I've helped out with it. So got us tell people that Monday, the draft guide's going to come out and you're going to want all 26 days or whatever it is between the draft guide coming out and the draft itself because it is loaded. So I got to plug that for our guy, JD. Awesome, buddy. Well, I highly co-assigned that as well. Keep up the great work. Looking forward to your coverage from both Dallas and from the Memorial Cup final.

And we'll have you on again soon. Speaking of Monday, I'll have a fun. I'm going to tease a special announcement here on Monday that I think once you'll, listen on a Monday show. We'll get into it, but just in terms of programming plans for the PDOCAS here over the next couple weeks. So looking forward to getting into all that with you in the meantime. Have a great weekend. Enjoy all the games and all the events. And we'll see you back here on Monday with plenty more of the Hockey PDOCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.