The Hockey PDOcast - Wild vs. Stars, and Playoff Officiating

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

Sean Shapiro joins Dimitri to talk about the first two games of Stars vs. Wild, teams making adjustments as the series go along, and how the playoffs are officiated. This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. 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. 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 PDOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on, man? Much, man. I'm trying to recover from being on the East Coast, Eastern time is a little bit as rough with these 930 games that really start at 10 p.m.

So trying to catch up on some sleep. You're not the only one, man. I'm only 31 years old, but I may as well be 75 because I generally go to bed at like 10 p.m. Because I got to get my eight or nine hours. And the other night was the first, I think it might have been the first night of the playoffs or whatever, when there was games going into overtime and stuff. And I was like, still staying up. It was 1130 or so here.

I was like, oh, my God, this is bad. I can't even imagine doing around the East Coast. But you know what? The playoffs, it's what it's all about. And it really tests your medal. You got to stick with it. Yeah. I just, I'd love for like, just for like a day or two, just to steal, you know how like Major League

Baseball will do playoffs and they'll be like, they'll do like a couple of games like during the day? Like I would love that. Just give me like a couple of like games during the day just like as payback for games that allegedly say 930 would actually start at 950. Well, the bubble playoffs. There was so much horribly wrong with it, including like everything going on in our world and the outside, but the one, the one silver lining.

boy was at a silver lining was especially at the start there were just games on all day like from first thing in the morning on and i was just like that was that was absolute heaven um we're gonna get that in the over the weekend though i believe i think there's going to be some maddena game so yeah looking forward to that all right let's um let's talk stars wild i in preparation for this i for some reason subjected myself to rewatching both games uh including game one which took like five hours or so to get through. So don't you dare ever test my commitment or my eye test because I'm not only watching it once.

I'm watching it twice for you people. Let's start with the good. Rupa Hintz. Obviously coming off of the game two hat trick, but just watching him play right now, I mean, he's, I think it's fair to say he's playing at a different speed than anyone else. Like sometimes Miro Hayskinnan can match him in that regard, but watching him in this series when he's on the ice, I mean, the wild service. don't have anyone that can keep up with him, but it really feels like he's just waiting for

every single possible opportunity to go sprinting on a fast break. And it's, it's really fun to watch. He reminds me of those, like, those kids wind up toys, you know, where, like, you wind it up, and then all of a sudden you let it go and then it starts moving around and doing crazy stuff. That's Ruba Hintz. Like, he's always just circling, circling, circling, and as soon as he gets a whiff of a loose puck or, like, he knocks something away and poke something away, all of a sudden, it's in it's in the neutral zone he's just highest gear getting after it and it just so fun to watch he's got there's no it's like there's no zero to 60 with him right like it just goes straight 60 he is it's quite literally i mean it's not zero because he's kind of like gliding around yeah he's

like at the lowest possible setting and then it's at immediately the highest possible you're right there's no there's no transition time in between and there's also never time where he's going half speed it's always one or the other and it's and like you watch the like the lack had the hat trick last night right but you watch the way it lips like i i love that like i love that he kills penalty obviously led to the short-handed goal but like i love like a play like last night where he turns a kind of just basically turns nothing into something to something big obviously it's like he's kind of he's one of those guys where there's a lot of guys in this league and like using dallas for example like we've talked

a lot about like Jason Roberts in the past where Jason is someone you have to kind of watch shift to shift to really appreciate it where or hints is a guy who if you're kind of like if you're trying to give a list of people if you're going to kind of give a list of players to someone who's new to hockey someone should pay attention and watch just because hey this person will get you you'll be able to see the excellence you'll be able to see the excitement right away without much of an education like he's one of those guys like he would be right on that list of like watch him, watch the explosiveness, things that apply to like everyday life. Well, and I'm not, it's not fair to say that he's like a home game player because like he's

perfectly fine on the road. But it does feel like out of all players, he has like some sort of a weird helipathic connection with the stars home fans in that building. And you watch it in a game like last night, right? It's like it's this sort of building up momentum and excitement. and that's exactly what Rupa Hintz's game is. And so it makes sense that he would sort of feed off that. And then he would give the fans a reason to cheer. But it does feel like once it's like this snowball effect at home, once he gets going like he did in game two,

it's just it's all gas, no breaks, right? It's just like go, go, go. And it's remarkable to watch. The penalty kill point is an interesting one. We've certainly seen, it's not nothing new, but like we've seen teams do it. I think the Oilers started using Connor McDavid on a penalty. kill quite a bit this year to great results.

I think the calculus has changed so much, right? Because before it used to be like, all right, I don't want to have my best player out there killing penalties because penalty kills were so conservative. So the list of requirements of what a penalty killer needed to do was, all right, you stand and you just absorb shots and you block as much as you can and you hope that it doesn't get to your goalie, right? Now with sort of how penalty kills, you want to call him power kills, whatever, are pressuring opposing players and not like that.

letting them get set up in the zone. A guy like Rupa Hintz doesn't really need to stand and block any shots because he's so high in the offensive zone trying to knock Pucks out and then chase them down like he did on that goal that he's never even put in that position. So in reality, you get a lot of these situations where he's going up against teams where like Kirokaprizov is the last guy back for the wild on the power plays sometimes because he's at the point. And so that's a great, that's a very, it's almost being on the penalty kill and having a

guy like Rupa Hints out there is one of the most advantageous scoring position. you're going to get in a game when you do get the puck. And so it makes sense that you'd want to have them out there for those situations. So I love the stars using him as much as they possibly can out there for the penalty kill. Yeah, for a guy who had 75 points this year, more than a point per game guy, it's almost funny to think you could almost make the suggestion where he's a more dangerous, like if you had to pick one space for him to play, like if you were given a choice as a coach, like you could only use them on the power play or only the penalty goal.

I'd argue you'd almost have to consider he's more. dangerous on the penalty kill just because of you talk about that scenario where like, okay, Capri So I was the last guy back. And the way he can turn a naturally disadvantageous space, the penalty kill, into an advantage for you. It's like it's one of those spaces where like you look at his numbers, right? Like, hey, he gets some power play points, but I don't need Rope Hints in the half ice setting. He'll score there sometimes.

But to me, what makes Rope Hints the must watch. the reason that you circle 24s on the ice is, there's any moment that he could turn the, or anyone on the stars could turn the broken pass, the miss, the bobbled puck in the corner into excitement at the other end. And that's why this game is great, right? That's one of the things that makes this game great.

Again, I want to see more of it. Yeah, well, and that, I think what you're trying to say there as well is, like, there's so many fewer dead periods in these games now where it's like, all right, nothing exciting is going to happen here for a couple of minutes. It's like even when you go on the penalty go, if you have Rupa hints out there, something cool could happen at any moment. I will say I agree with the theory behind your point, but then his utility in being able to

navigate traffic and get the puck into the zone. He saw on the power play as well, setting up that Jamie Bend goal, which was a weak goal that Mark Andre Fleur gave up and we're going to talk more about the goaltending decision in a second here. But seeing what he can do when he has that extra space as well, it's like, yeah, that'll work for me too. but you're right. Like when you get set in that offense's own setting,

it sort of takes away a big part of what makes him such a difference maker compared to everyone else. It's the way he moves. And if he's having to be stationary, it's all of a sudden not as important. And to his credit, he has gotten better in the stationary space. That is something where he really has kind of taken a jump.

I mean, like his game, one of the things about Rupahans, two of the biggest questions about him. One was kind of his style and the durability. He's never played more than he played 80. last year, but he's never played an 82 game season. He's always kind of, he only played 73 games. The biggest questions with him are always,

we're always kind of the durability. And would he be able to add that space in the zone where he didn't need to get the head of steam, not even had of steam, but he didn't need the runway to go, to blow past someone. And the injury front, he's still, that's still always going to be a long-term question mark, I think. Something's open.

I think that's just the nature of how he plays. But the half, half I set, in the zone, the way he makes decisions there. And I think you and I talked about it earlier this in this season, just about how I feel like he's kind of co-opted a lot of things that he's picked up from playing with Jason Robertson and Joe Pavelsky, that he's kind of added to his game that we've kind of forgotten because of how good Robertson and Pavelsky already were at those respective things. Yeah, I think the human body is like almost not designed to go as recklessly and as

constantly as Rupa Hins plays and he needs to do that to be effective. I think I'm sure even, you know, Jim Nell and Starr's coaches would like, like him to pick his spots a bit more and not necessarily put himself in harm his way. But that's kind of, that's the package, right? That's what you get. It's like with any sort of like with a pest with like a Matthew Kachak or, or Brad Marchand, it's like sometimes they go over the line or do something stupid on the ice and take a dumb penalty.

And then you're like, oh, I can't believe they did that. It's like, well, that's, you take the good or the bad. That's kind of part of the package, right? That's what you get with this player. it was it two years ago that he was like a game time decision heading into literally every single game and still had like well over the point in that season yeah he was like yeah he was like yeah he was and i mean the other thing i love about hints too is like you look at like what's one of the things that we always throw out there as like as a guy as as it says like all the player will crash down

like i love looking at now 20 like he shot 20% this year like like is this 20% is this 20% sustainable, but like for him, he's a career 16.5% shooting percentage guy. He's 17.4. Like, I, I just kind of love that his quantity of shots went down this year. But his production went up a bit and it's not like in his game, he kind of just took out some of the extra noise almost. And that's a testament to that that's something that I think we, I don't, I don't know if that gets talked about enough some of the noise he took out so he is able to be a little bit more effective in the time he is playing and everything like that certainly and then a lot of the shots he does take our very high danger ones where he's moving downhill off the rush and those are types

of shots that lead to a higher shooting percentage generally so um yeah no he's been he's been phenomenal that was one of my takes from from rewatching the games um you know the the adjustments the stars made in game two to me um like there we can talk about the wild not having Ryan Harmon available, which obviously hurt them, right? Going from Gustafson to Mark Andre Fleury, that clearly played a key difference in the result and then giving up seven goals. But the stars pretty much from like the third period of game one on have just absolutely steamrolling them.

And the adjustments they made, I think, are very interesting because there's one that I noticed and it's a very sort of like nerdy niche one. But I think as someone to watch as the series goes along, the one, the one, the one Wild have a very conservative breakout scheme out of their zone. Like you're not going to see their defensemen doing the Mero Hayskinin, where they like take the puck up the ice themselves and go through the middle and try to use their skating to beat guys. It's a lot of we're going to go off the wall and then we're going to try to bump it

past all your four checkers. Yeah, exactly. You're showing me a piece of paper that's written down there. They're doing the bump play where like they beat one four checker, beat another guy. And then all of a sudden they have someone sprinting up the ice. And if they get the puck past those guys, all of a sudden they have open ice for a two on two or a three on three or whatever. And they're in an advantageous position.

And they were beating the stars that way where I think I had it down for nearly five periods of hockey in game one, by the way. We should know that's going to distort some of these numbers. But in that game one, the stars were able to generate seven shots off the forecheck in those five periods. In game two, they had six shots off the four check in just the first. period. And you could see that they were, they were sitting on that exact play and they were sort of forcing them to go back the other way and reverse it. And then all of a sudden you have Jacob Middleton trying to do stuff that he doesn't really have the skill set to do. And I love that stuff. It's a really like small little X's and O's thing. But seeing that

adjustment from one game to the other and then seeing now what the wild are going to do in return is what makes these playoff series so so exciting to me, I guess, as a fan. It's the nuance to it that is great. Um, you have the, this, one of them, my, one of the things that, like, I like, we have, we have a bigger league. You get to see more players and everything like that. But one of the things that we don't have now with a 32 team league and, and the fact that even teams in your division, you only play what four, four times, I think, or whatever. Yeah. Sometimes even like three, I think this year's. Yeah. We don't have as much of the, it's, teams don't really prep for other teams as much anymore. It's become more and more of you just worry about yourself.

And now you get to a spot where you actually have to adjust to the other team. And it actually becomes a chess match. It's like going from, it would be like going from, it would be going from like what's baseball is now to what it used to be when you had National League Baseball versus American League Baseball where there was clearly a required different set of rules. in the National League that required you some game management. It's fun to see. Like, we know what, and to me, one of the more impressive things about the Dallas forecheck on top of that is Flurry is A and Flurry struggled in other realms, but Flurry is typically a better puck handler in Gustavson.

Flurry is typically better at controlling the breakouts, typically better at, if anything, the goaltender you would have thought Dallas would have been able to kind of capitalize on the forecheck. it would have been the other way around, but they ended up going that way against Flurry, which is just another just testament to the adjustment and how they do. And it will also, like, we're going to game three,

Minnesota will have to adjust. Obviously, they'll probably be a different goalie in there. There'll be an adjustment there. And it's, I love this stuff. It's great. It's great to look at it.

And it's one of the things where, like, I know you went and you watched eight hours, eight periods of hockey this morning to go to watch, to watch the game. But it's part of the reason that makes, playoff hockey actually worth rewatching. Like a regular season game, you can be like, oh, that was interesting.

Maybe I'll see Edmonton, maybe I'll see Edmonton versus even Calgary, their neighbor. Maybe I'll see him again in three months. Like, that's, that's it. Like, I love being able to try to do this. It's the one space we get in hockey that football fans actually get, right? Like, in NFL, one of the great things about watching an NFL game is you sit there and like, I wonder what they're going to do here. And like, you just, you get to process and try to figure out play strategy.

just one of the great things about being a football fan. Hockey, we just get kind of robbed of that, but we get it back in the playoffs if you really want to nerd out on it. Like you who watch eight periods of hockey or me who draws very poor pictures of play diagrams. Well, yeah, and it's, you know, one of the most common pushbacks you get is, oh, well, it's much more free-flowing.

It's much more random because the fuck's bouncing around. It's not as fast. But a lot of the, especially like when you're dealing with like a breakout scheme, right, like this is something that you have been practicing all year that you have in place with, your coaching staff or cater around your personnel. And then it's very cookie cutter in that way where you just try to replicate that over and over again, kind of like a shooting motion, right?

Like you're just trying to do the same sort of checkpoints where we get the puck up here. It goes boom, boom, boom. And it works out. If it works out perfectly, this is what you want it to look like. And so, of course, if you're preparing for something like that, it'll allow you to like kind of key in on those tendencies. So that was really interesting. The other adjustment that I thought the stars made was, and I'm not sure how much of this

was just sort of recalibrating for the way that the wild defend in their own zone. But in game one, there were just way too many point shots. It was like, I had him down for 26, 5-1-5 shot attempts from the point for the stars. In game two, they toned that down to just five. And they did a much better job of instead of, and it was funny here. Like, you're listening to Brian Boucher on the broadcast for the ESPN call. And he's like, oh, I want to see the stars just get shots on net here from anywhere. like they need to test Philip Gustafson

and it's his first game and I'm like no this is a horrible strategy this is like this is making Philip Guserson feel incredibly comfortable he you're not going to score from there he's really good at this the wild box out in front of their net as well as anyone there's no traffic there's no point no tips it's it's like as

clear as day that he's going to stop that and then in game two different goalie but you saw the stars instead of shooting that it was all right well Colin Miller is going to work the puck back down and actually for all the credit the stars get as a team for being good off the rush and how fast hints skates and everything we just talked about for the first 10 minutes,

part of their identity this season was working the puck down low below the goal line and then just picking you apart with really sophisticated passing plays from out from behind the net into the slot. And especially with the second and third lines, right? Like you'd see and now that they added to Donov and Domi as well, who are really nice playmakers in that regard, it's given them different ways to beat you. And that's exactly what they did in game two. and now that the wild know that like they're good at defending in their own zone and they're good at boxing out but if they can't anticipate where those shots are going to come from as cleanly it will test them more than than anything the stars did in game one especially the first two periods of that

came yeah there's also a like you see you saw and it's the stars lose joe pevelski and it's the the joe pevelsky tip the way the net front presence obviously that's it's a huge thing but the other thing that the stars one of the like the hallmarks of joe pevels the joe pevelsky era right of coming to dallas and not that the stars didn't work on high tip plays before joe peelsky got there but he kind of changed a lot he basically he kind of made that part of the entire team arsenal it became something where the stars as a group really worked on it more just just frankly obviously you have joe pevelsky in the locker there's a real human element you see him working on it every day in practice all of a sudden

and tied to Landria starts going out there with him. Jimmy Ben spends a couple more minutes out there with them. Like you start to like there's, so it's almost fitting where it's funny because it's the guy who came in the trade who had one of them in Dodonov last night on the tip play. But it's one of those things where we talk about culture building and it's sometimes very much a catch-all. But very rarely do we have something where you could be like like so often someone will say, oh, they build culture, they do this. And it just becomes like I don't really have a good way to explain what they actually do. do. That's what it becomes. The Joe Pavelsky impact is actually, it's more than just the culture and being helping, helping Jamie kind of being a second captain alongside Jamie Ben without having

to wear a C. It's also the element where he kind of set the stage for the star's entire offensive mold to kind of work around him. And he kind of did it without demanding it happening. It kind of happened organically. And it's, it's kind of interesting to see it happen continue even when he's obviously hurt and probably will be out for the rest of this round, at least, dealing with the concussion, to see it and to see how the stars can still seamlessly do that, even though he's not part of the lineup for the foreseeable future. Well, I don't think he needs to action speak louder than words, right? So it's like you don't need to demand it when your teammates see you do something very

successfully and consistently time and time again. It's like, oh, maybe we should start doing that too. But I do want to differentiate, like, the Donov one you're mentioning. Yeah. him and Hayeskinen actually ran the exact play either earlier in that game or game one. It's all blending together for me. I can't differentiate between two anymore.

But they ran one and the Minnesota wild goalie saved it, but it was a really nice, nice effort. And then they wound up scoring later on the exact same play. That's like a very high percentage play, if anything, that's like Merau Hayeskin being one of the best defensemen of the world, being able to see that that quickly and then hit the Donov's stick with a pass.

The plays I don't like, it's when eight combined skaters for the two teams are all standing right in front of the goalie. And then you have Ryan Suter just kind of like mindlessly shooting the puck as hard as he can into a mass of humanity. And it's like, this is going to be blocked. It's not even going to make it towards a goalie. And if it does, it'll be fine. The wild have every single player stick tied up.

It's much more different when it's sort of free flowing and everyone's in random spots. And then you have to Donoff tipping in a pass where everyone is expecting Hayes getting to shoot. So two very different plays. And I obviously like one much more than the other. you want to talk a bit about Jason Robertson here just in passing because I thought yeah his game was I thought game one was one of like the worst games I've seen him play this season yeah he just looked very passive very indecisive I thought he looked kind of clearly and understandably so clearly rattled after the Pavelsky injury like he just it just was

a very uncharacteristic game from Robertson much more what I'd expect to see from him in game too. He was on the puck making plays for himself and others, much more of a threat. So that was good to see, of course. And it's not because the playoffs are a different game than the regular season. He played the seven games for them last year. This isn't anything new. I think it was just, it was just kind of like a weird one game right off. And I would expect much more of game two from him. But I thought that was notable. Yeah. I mean, very rarely is Jason Robertson to use a coaching terminology that coaches love. Very rarely is Jason Robertson a passenger in the game. And he was, That's essentially kind of what he was in game one.

And the Pavelsky injury, I think it's, it is one of those injuries, like, we sometimes think these guys are video game things where you can just re-plug and keep going. I mean, obviously, a lot of the stars as a team were very rattled after the Pavelsky injury, and some of the guys, and some of the other guys I've talked to, like, there are some other people, there's some people on the team who are able to better, for lack of a better word, isolate. Yeah, compartmentalize, I guess. Compamentalize. Like, I always go back to, I've talked to Alex Chazahn about it since now, but like, I always

go back, and this is a very extreme example, but the stars when the Rich Peverly incident happened. And Alex Chazon was right there next to him near the bench when it happened. And he's someone who he couldn't even get on the flight the next, like he had his own, like, kind of panic attack and couldn't even fly just after seeing that. And I always kind of remember that, that's something that, that's something that's, the extreme example, but it's an example that always sticks in my head of when you see a guy, when you see someone who you spend so much time around, who becomes almost like a family member

to you, and they're in that state, some people compartmentalize better than others. And it's just a human thing. And I think Jason Robertson is one of those guys who needed the resex. We've talked about Robertson before. There's so much of his game where he's very robotic in a good way, in a computer like input in, input out. There's no input that is typically built for the veteran you look up to hobbling off the ice. He played with at all times. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, that does make a lot of sense.

And I do think, you know, to the Wilde's credit, what they were doing was also helping make that worse, right? Like they were being very physical with them like they were with everyone. They were just at every time. There was one player I remember where he was like, I think just dump in the puck in at Centerizing, he was about to go off, and then Marcus fully, you know, like hits him after, and it's, it's so close to being interference, but it's not really, and typically in the playoffs, that play isn't called.

And, but, like, there is an accumulation of that where, like, every time you're just getting hit and it must be very frustrating. And it takes an adjustment. It makes sense. It would take a game or so because it is just an indifferent type of way to play the game compared to a lot of the regular season. So, yeah, that was notable. And then one final thing, I want to give Wyatt Johnson some love, because,

He really stood out upon rewatch where I've got him down for nine scoring chances of his own and he set up three others. He's only got the one assist in the series so far in about 42 games. If I was a betting man, I would bet on him scoring a bunch of goals the rest of the series. Like if he's getting the looks that he has so far. And it's cool because he does it in a different way where he's a young player. He was a rookie this year. he's still a teenager, but playing on that second line or third line or whatever you want to define it, he plays so well off the puck as well.

Like he's very skilled and he's able to, he's had a few nice toe drags where he can create space and get a shot off on the move. But he's so good at kind of finding open spots in the slot and then making himself available and then shooting. And so I foresee if he keeps playing this way, he keeps getting these chances. He's going to score a bunch of goals. So I would look for that as well. I am in a media hacks pool that is run by Scott Burnside with 18 other NHL media members.

And there was two things when you're doing like the playoff pool, right? There's two things you make sure you do, especially with one that large, right? You want to, A, make sure you get a goalie that actually plays because with 19 people and it's three people. There's only 16 starters in theory. And two, you want to get guys go deep. I grabbed Wyatt Johnston, I believe, in the ninth round with a nice sneaky pick. and I am feeling very happy about that prognosis and what you just said because hopefully that leads to victory for the unnamed Shapiro pool team.

Well, it's coming and I believe I didn't have it sorted this way, but I think literally all of those scoring chances I cited happened from the third period of game on on. Like as the star's fortunes turned around offensively, so did Johnstons. and I think he was a big part of that. And so, yeah, the goals will come from. I think that was a good pick. When you picked him, did you get a lot of like, ooh, sneaky pick? Or was it like, oh, why would you take that guy?

He only scored whatever 20-something goals this year. Yeah, I got some of the reaction was I got a little bit of the homerish pick. Just obviously, I'm having my history covering the stars. There was definitely some people who thought I was going a bit homerish. But I stuck to a policy. I picked only, I only picked players. And I only picked good players. and I only picked players,

I picked only Boston out of the east. I was like, okay, I'm going to just put all of my bread in that basket coming out of the east. And then I only picked players from Dallas and Vegas in the West. So I was like,

okay, I'm going to try to build a strategy here where I at least will have players playing deep, even if I'm not going to get the, because I'm speaking like 16th, like where you're not going to get the pastor, actually,

you're not going to get McDavid. I wasn't going to be in a spot where I was going to get one of the guys who's going to be able to carry everything, no matter how far, goes. Yeah. My two, I only, well, I have three, three notes on the while. We're going to talk about the goalies after the break, and that's going to be a longer conversation. I did want to give Gus Nyquist love. He's been phenomenal. And it's, he's like, he's surgical with his

passing. It's, it's, it's beautiful watch. I mean, I think he's got the three primary assists already, but he's set up countless other good looks for them. He doesn't have the puck very often. And pretty much every time he does it, something good happens for them. And in Brock Faber, who was a standout, most notably in game one, but so far, this series he's played 35-10-10-10 minutes for the wild 70% on ice expected goals here in those minutes according to natural statics zero goals against the idea of having a pair with jonas brodeen and brock favor on one shutdown unit for the foreseeable future moving forward is one that should be highly exciting to wild fans and also just highly depressing for anyone that has to play them

because absolutely nothing is going to happen when they're on the ice. Yeah, it's the Nyquist trade. Like, you got to give, that was, what a story NyQuest seasons is, right? Like, we at one point, he's like, the blue jackets come out and say he's done for the year. He's not going to play. Nyquist himself says, no, I'm still going to try and play. They trade him. Like, I'm, what round pick did he go for?

Do you remember what round? I think it was like a third or fourth, probably four. What a sneaky good pickup for the wild. Like just really, really good pickup. And he's been so good. Yeah. Yeah, and exactly what they need. And honestly,

what a lot of other playoff teams need, which is like a guy who can create easy looks for others that could have been had for cheap. And I'm sure there's a lot of teams kicking themselves that they didn't pursue that more, I guess, do their due diligence on when he'd be back and how much he'd be able to contribute. All right, Sean, let's take a break here.

And then when we come back, we'll keep talking about not only this series, but some other stuff around the league as well. You're listening to the Hockey P.DO cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Catch up on what happened in Vancouver Sports with Halford & Brough in the morning. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back here on the Hockey PDO cast, joined by Sean Shapiro.

We're talking about the Stars and Wild. Let's talk about the Wild's decision to start Mark Andre Fleury in Game 2 because of obviously a hot button topic, very divisive, especially after the way the game turned out, it was a lot of, I can't believe they did that, they ruined their momentum in this series, what were they doing,

why did they punt that game? First, okay, I'll ask you for your thoughts on it because I've got a lot of my own, but I'm curious what you think about it. Yeah, I think there's, I think it was, to me, it was a classic case of a coach not willing to be to adjust.

I actually think going in to the series, Now, I would not have done it. I would have, the guy who had the 931 save percentage or whatever was in the regular season, he should have been your guy for one and two. But if you were going to say, hey, it worked because they rotated, fine. I'll give you that. But as a coach, as an organization, a guy goes in Monday night, does what he does, is a very, like, even though he's the younger goalie, Flurry is the more energetic.

energetic scattered goalie just that we know that about mark andrew flirting yeah gustafsson is a more is a bigger calming goalie and after what he did in game game one and he's pro athlete he can play two game and i know there's five periods of hockey but whatever he can play a game too like to me after what he did in game one even if you're playing going in was okay we'll split game one and two you have to go back to him in game two just i look like you have to continue to roll on that and you have have to, as the lower seed, if the wild are able to take game two and be up to O in this series, that almost feels like a kill shot. Just, I mean, even it's just, it's to go back to Minnesota up to O. And so I just, I look at it where like, you're trying to win the series.

You're trying to win the hockey game. And Dean Eveson made the decision that was more so the decision you make in the regular season when you're like, oh, we're trying to. to rest guys so guys are fresh for the playoffs. Like, that's not that you try and, why don't you put your best lineup out there that you can? And the wild didn't do that. And I just think conceding a playoff game is such a loser mentality. Like, that's it.

It is. It is. I can't believe you put me in this position where I'm going to have to defend a coaching decision because I feel like normally my stance is being like, oh, I hate this and critiquing it. In this case, though, I actually, I'm not sure what I would have done in their position, but I'm much more willing to see the logic, I guess, behind it. And I don't think it was because I certainly don't think they thought, oh,

you know, we've been alternating goalies, so we're going to stick with it. I don't think it was a rigidity of game plan. I think the way game one transpired is why this happened. I'm not sure if it's even been reported what their game plan was heading into the series, whether it was like this all the way, I think, from what I saw, DeNificent said that yesterday and the day off in between games, they made a decision and told the goalies accordingly. And if that's true, what I imagine happened to this sort of timeline was they probably the next morning after game went back and rewatch the game and we're like, oh, wow,

we were quite lucky to win that game. We were running on fumes from the third period on. Now we don't have Ryan Hartman, so we're down Joel Erick's and Ryan Hartman. We're not necessarily conceding game two because they were still in it. It was 4-3 at one point. But it was like, yeah, this is a pretty uphill battle. And we just played a game where not only was it five periods, Sean, but Philip Gustavson had 114 shot attempts fired at him.

Now, he didn't have to make a save on all of them. but I think the shot attempt of all you matters there because there's like you have to prepare for every one of those, right? It doesn't matter whether it hits you or not or whether you have to save it. About 114 times you prepare to try to stop a puck is a lot. And I think they just viewed it as like, we're going to get him ready and he's going to be a guy for game three and four.

I certainly don't think they thought that alternating was the reason or that Mark Andreo Fleury gave them a better chance to win that game because he's a veteran and because he's got the experience or any of that. So yeah, maybe I guess they were punting and maybe that is a loser mentality, but I don't, I don't think it was wrong because I don't think they were winning game too regardless of who their goal he was. Like if you look at what they gave up in that game, the third goal, certainly like hints brings it into the zone on the power play with speed and then Ben shoots one and Flurry just sort of stop that,

right? Like it goes through his legs. He doesn't even react to it. And then the last or the second Hintz goal on the breakaway where I don't know what Flurry was doing there, just kind of dives that it tries to poke kick it, I guess, gets caught in no man's like. and gives up the goal, those are both really bad. For the most part, though, I mean, man, they were, they were outclass in game two. They were bleeding chances. They were giving up a ton off the rush.

I don't, even if Philip Gustafin was in there, he's been really good this year. I think they would have lost that game based on the way it played. And so, I don't know, I'm fine for, I'm fine with living for another day. They were one, one going back home. They took back home ice. You don't ever want to give up games or take it for granted,

but I just, I can see the logic at least. So I guess I am defending. ending Dean Everson in this case. Just concede completely. Just concede completely. Just sit, sit, Capersov.

He's getting, like, save Capersov for game three. Like, like save Capersoff for game three. Save Zuccarello for game three. Just like, if you're going to go.

He has one of those games where, and we've seen this from him in the past where he has like a 47 save shutout and stands on his head and makes 20 highlight real saves, which he's capable of. I still think at this point of his career. We're all like, oh, like,

whoa, what a genius. Like, pushing all the right buttons. I don't know. I think the wild, if they can't get Hartman and Joel Erickson back here, like they're in trouble regardless of who they may as well put both guys in that at the same time. Like I don't, given the personnel they have, it's going to be tough.

They're just, they're playing at a different speed right now. And so I think they gave it literally every single thing they had in game one. And they took that game and replicating that effort is going to be really tough. So there's a roadmap there, but it's going to be easier said than done. I mean, can you imagine if like, you imagine how quickly this series could have been over if Dallas wins game one, where Minnesota gave everything they had in game one, every single thing they had. And Dallas had a terrible start and it still took you to a bounce in overtime to actually win. Like if Dallas wins that game, all of a sudden you're like, this is a very, very quick series. Now, obviously it's 1-1.

Lots of things can happen. But I don't know. I just, to me, it's, you're trying to, you're playing to win hockey games. And I just, the potential value of going back up 2-0 at home to me, you took away, you didn't play your cards the best way to potentially do that. And that's, and that's, and you can disagree with me. Dean Evanston certainly will.

That's fine. I also look at Flurry, like, as while they were rotating and it was, working for Gustafson it's not like Flurry's number it wasn't he like like two four and one or something like that like down his last like I don't have his exact number well Gustafs and clearly the better goalie at this point I don't think anyone is necessarily debating that yeah like so yeah so I know I saw I saw I did see it spun as especially in the broadcast I'm sure you know out of the respect for Marc Andre Fleury in the careers he's had of course they're not going to be like well the wilder punting on this game and that's why they're using their worst

goalie but like this has nothing to do with believing that Mark Andre Fleury gave them a better chance to win in that game. I think it was purely to try to have the best possible chance to win game three. All right. Well, if you're going to do that, I'm being facetious, but if you're going to do that, like Creel Kappersoff have a night off and not get dirty cross-checked by Ryan Suter for a game. Yeah.

So, like, just. Yeah. Well, we'll see. I'm really curious to see. I mean, I, Gustafson does give them a chance. I mean, he was so good. this season. Like he didn't have the workload, I think, to get Bezna votes

or at least to be a finalist, top three. But when he was out there, he was pretty much as good as any goal in the world. So we'll see on that. I wonder if they would, I wonder if in rewatching that tape, they like, they noticed something with his own fatigue in that game that made them worried.

Like Gustafsins, I mean, in terms of like giving up rebounds or in terms of like being a bit slow to react to stuff as that game went along because that would be a reasonable justification beyond just being like, all right, well, we've been doing it this entire way. Because the Kings, the Kings, at the end of the regular season, right, after the deadline, they did the exact same thing.

They rotated Copley and Corpusallo. And then in game one, they play Corpus Hollow. They win. Now obviously significantly lower workload played like two less, two full less periods of hockey, basically, because that overtime finished quickly. And then they went back to Corpus all and they lost in game two, but he played well again. And I would assume that he will be playing the rest of the way for them because he's their starter. So, but also not that this is like some sort of a crazy innovative strategy that's like so exotic and totally changing the game.

But it's also like this is like why when coaches do something that isn't just exactly chalk the way everyone's always done it all the time. And then it doesn't work out and they get ridiculed for it. And then that's why coaches typically act the way they do and don't try to do stuff because there's very little to gain and a lot to lose in terms of like public perception and the way you're. talked about. So I don't know. No, to be to be fair to Dean Evanison, he went against what's the typical coaching mantra? You when you keep your line up the same. Assuming all help is there. So to credit to Dean Evanson, he went against one of the traditional coaching mantras that sometimes quite frankly annoys me. And so credit to him on that front. And

I was just as you were kind of talking about looking back on the tape, because I also didn't do it this morning, but I went back and yesterday I watched, I went and watched a bunch of that Dallas, Minnesota game one again. When I looked at Gustavson, there was one play where maybe you could apply it. It was, I believe it was Marchmont Chance coming down, coming down. He actually got the shaft of the stick. And I don't, I didn't, it was kind of one of those plays where I don't know if it was him responding slowly to the reverberation of the stick getting knocked out of his hand

or him responding slowly to get up. That's like if you're thinking of moments and you want to go like Zuprooter film on something like like that's the one thing where if you asked me to like go deeper on it from my own review and obviously not nearly as intently as the wild would have done. Maybe maybe there's some evidence there. I think he also stopped like the final 44 shots he faced in that game. Now bailed out by the post a couple of times and then Brock Weber's like miraculous diving effort as well to save a clear goal. But he was obviously very good. I think there's some, for wild fans, I assume there's also some baggage here as well that's worth noting from last year, right? Where they kind of felt like they like messed up the situation by going from Flurry, the Taliban, back and forth and not figuring out how to properly use them and then losing in round one to St. Louis.

So I think this is a different thing, though, because I just assume not only will Gustafson be playing the rest of the way in this series, but also there should be no concerns about like confidence or him feeling like he's not the guy. or the team isn't behind him. Because that isn't what this is about. No, no, it's not. It was, yeah, it's a shot-stopping thing. I would expect the Philip Cusbtson strong effort in game three, and that would give the wild a better chance to win. And so we'll see how that plays out.

All right. Do you want to talk a little bit about officiating? Oh, yeah, let's do it. Because it feels like we should to wrap up today's show. I'm hesitant to do so because I just find all refereeing discourse to be so nauseating. because most of it is centered around my team is being unfairly treated and the league is biased against us

and this is why we're losing and if you want to talk about making excuses and loser mentality or however you want to classify it blaming stuff on the officials is right up there with that mostly because I don't think there's any sort of bias involved

I don't think any the league or any officials are out to get any team specifically I just think it's a kind of a sign of how bad they are the job. I think it's uniformly bad. I don't think it's necessarily focusing on one team or the other. Certainly, in an individual game,

a team might get the short end of the stick more so than our opponent, but I think it evens out over the long haul in terms of there's going to be horrible calls throughout, and you watch that game against the hurricanes and the islanders. There's going to be missed calls that decide the outcome of a game. And sometimes the logic is, well, as the officials, We don't want to have a direct hand or direct say in how this game turns out. And then by willingly not calling the rulebook and calling impactful plays,

you play the biggest role of anyone because if you just call what was a clear high stick, then the goal doesn't happen. Now, the hurricanes may still very well win and there was other calls that were missed, like when Tara was Terravine and got slashed and his hand broke or whatever earlier in the game, that didn't draw a call and they should feel aggrieved as well. But that's the example of how it's just bad for everyone involved. And it's tough to talk about the postseason and what's happening in the results without at least acknowledging it. Yeah, I mean, I've come to the point where I really, like, I don't think officials have biases against a team.

I do think, I do think there is something to, I think there's certain players who have earned certain reputations where they end up getting, there's, there's plays where there's a guy with one reputation. if two guys go into a collision, the guy with one reputation is more likely to get a call against him and the other. I do think there's an individual. I think there's an individual, but I honestly, to an extent, I think those are actually earned. I actually don't think like, like, should they impact how you call the game? No, but that is, that's earned over time. Honestly, I look at officiating now. It just, it becomes more and more of, it's just like a roll of the dice. And really, it's the officials have just, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, difference really from game to game now or series to series is how often the game master, the official decides to roll the dice. They're not, like, it's, it's just that that's really what it's become. And I know it's a hard job. It's hard to do at full speed. Um, the line we always hear when coaches, like the line, like there must have been a, uh, like, there was a pamphlet handed out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like you and I need to like, let the draft in Nashville. Like, we need to split force of us. One needs to go. sneak into the coaches association. One of us needs to seek in the officials meeting and like and see if they're and they're like who's a coach with a lot of power. Like John, John Cooper obviously being a former lawyer is probably like at the front like everyone. If you want to criticize after you criticize the coaches,

stand up and say our officials are the best in the world. Like John Cooper giving the seminar a PowerPoint, just telling every all the other like giving some legal advice on how to handle this. Because it's like that's what like. Other than what, Brenda Moore had said something, a couple times guys will cross the line and then they'll walk it back real quick. It's the sad thing about all of it to me is if these really are the best hockey officials in the world, why don't we do more to fix it?

Why don't we as a, why doesn't the league do more to fix it? Why, like, it's the whole thing where it's like, it kind of goes back to like the, there's like the famous non-hockey phrase, but like if you love something, you have to love something enough to be critical of it. And it's like the NHL is at that spot where like it loves officials so much, but it has no realiness to give any harsh love at all other than Tim Peel getting picked up by a hot bike. That's like the only example I can think of where they've ever been like, that now we've got to like do something. Yeah, there's very little accountability, very little self-reflection, reflection in general by all parties involved. I think, yeah, the inconsistency with the standard and certainly not knowing from game to game period to period, what will be a call and what won't. You see a guy's hand broken by a slash and then you see like a little tap that the other player probably didn't even feel and that's a penalty and the other one isn't.

It must be very frustrating for the coaches, the teams, but also the players because you don't know like you want to, you need to play aggressively and physically and you need to play up to a certain line. But if you don't know where that line is, I don't understand. you're kind of just like drunkenly stumbling around trying to find something that you don't know where it is. I don't know how that, like that must be an impossible way to play effectively. You think, and I don't know, there's, I don't know if the human element would do this, but one of the like most famous things in living in the Detroit area, it always comes to mind is the, it comes from baseball.

It's the, the, the Andres Gala Raga imperfect game where it was the 27th down. There's before replay and everything like that. So, and Jim Joyce is the umpire and blows the call. after the game it makes is addresses the media about the blown call and everything like that and major league baseball umpires as far as i know are available to the media not saying they they're the greatest in the world i'm sure there's lots of baseball fans who would tell me they're they're bad but i do wonder if there was because right now umpires referees and officials

in hockey are so protected um like even if i know that there's some people in dallas who after the the bevelski uh the dumba hit you um the dumber hit on Pavelsky. In theory, you're supposed to make the, the head of officiating for series is supposed to be available to a pool reporter. And I know there was even a little bit of pushback when some media members in that press box originally asked to get them. I don't know if they actually got them or not. I actually should probably follow up on that. So if, and I don't know the answer. If referees were available after games, if they had to be available like players, does it change the equation at all? And I, I, I, I don't know the answer. I, I, I,

I don't know. I'm throwing the hypothetical out there because I don't know the answer to that. Well, in the NBA does the final two minute review or whatever, right? And I publish that. And I think that at least that accountability afterwards, like if their call was blown, it doesn't change the result. But I imagine from a fan perspective, it like at least gives you a little bit of closure on it or a vindication at least to be like, aha, see, like, I'm not crazy. They did mess this up. It doesn't bring back the result and give your team the win. But at least, it's better than just the league pretending like, oh, no, that was great. Actually, nothing went wrong and just moving on and then doing it all over again the next night.

Or what if this, how about this? I'll propose this solution to anyone. I'm sure you have like Steve Mayer listen to this or something like that or Bill Daley. I'm sure one of them is listening to this podcast. Almost certainly. Of course. Almost certainly. What if when, you know, because you know, officials move on in the playoffs too, right?

Like it's what if when we announced the list of officials that moved on? because we always have to treat things with a winner's mindset. What if we gave a list of like, hey, West McCauley moved on because he handled this right, this, this, this, this, and this. What if we, what if we published it that way? What if we, the list came out of like, hey, so and so, this group of officials have moved on. And here's a quick bullet list of why they moved on. We don't have to list why the other guys did move on. We don't have to be, we can leave something to the imagination.

I think maybe sometimes it'll be difficult to put together a full list of things they did. So maybe that might handcuff them a little bit in some cases. All right, Sean, we got to get out of here. This is a blast. I'm not, we didn't even have time for, you have a laundry list of stuff to plug. You have a book came out. You have a new podcast. You write several places.

Everyone just go check out your Twitter feed. Is it at Sean Shapiro? It is. It is. We're going to have you back on next week or the week after whatever. You're one of our most regular contributors here. So thanks for coming on today. Thank you to the listeners for listening to us.

We will be back tomorrow with one more show. show the Hockey P.D. Ocast to close the week out here on the Sports Night Radio Network.