The Hockey PDOcast - Your Mailbag Questions about Ovechkin's goals, the Kings, and In-Season Tournaments

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Ryan Lambert to answer your mailbag questions about Alex Ovechkin's goal scoring, the Los Angeles Kings, college hockey, the Penguins power play, and in-season tournaments. 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.

2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Philip Oavich and joining me is my good buddy, Ryan Lambert. R.O. What's going on? I'm chilling. How about you? We're both chilling. We're going to close the week out here on the PDO cast with the Friday mailbag. You and I did one a couple weeks ago and it was really fun to do. It was very well received. I think we covered a lot of ground. And so hopefully we're going to be able to replicate that magic today. So we've got a bunch of listener questions. they're coming from the PDCast Discord server. So if you're not in there yet, pop in there, the invite link is in the show notes,

come have some fun with us, the community's growing, it's awesome in there. I'm going to keep talking about it here on the show until everyone listening is in there, and then we won't have to do these promos anymore on the show. Ryan, let's start with this one. Jack asks, the OV goal chase is looking harder and harder

with each game. How do you think the capital's, react to this? I really don't know. Like, what do you do? Because this isn't the first year where the power play stinks because they're just like, you know what we should do is we should pass it to Alex Ovechkin, you know? But it doesn't seem like they have any better answers than that either.

Like you can't, there are obviously a lot of constraints here for the, for the team. But, excuse me. You can't just say, oh, let's just put him with a guy who's fast or whatever. He's not going to be able to keep up. You can't go out and trade for a guy who's, like, going to be able to play the game at his pace and keep them competitive. It's really difficult. I think the important thing to note here is that he's still shooting the puck, I think, like 15th most often in the league or right around.

there and he's got a career low shooting percentage by like a pretty wide margin. So that alone kind of makes it makes you go, okay, well, you know, some of this will fix itself, but how much I really don't know. Yeah, that is important to know the shot rate is there. He's 13th in the league firing about 22 and a half attempts per hour of play. He's got just the five goals in 23 games. Two of them were empty netters. And I think most importantly, at the nail of my head there, like one of them came five-on-five of those five off of like a face-off from the left circle.

But he hasn't yet scored on whatever our image of Obetchkin scoring his goals is, right, which is standing at that left circle, the puck coming around to him in the powerplay and him hammering at home. And first off, the team's power play has been atostrically bad. Like they have six power play goals this season in 120 minutes as a team. team, which is less than three goals an hour. Now, it's unbelievable. Here's two stats to give you, just give you the context of that. One, Tampa Bay themselves has 30 power play goals compared to the six Washington has. Two, there's four teams in the league that have as many or more short-handed goals than the capitals have power play. So, I mean, it sounds right, yeah. Yeah, if they're going to keep doing this, then obviously it's going to be an issue. On the one hand,

you expect like just through regression or just randomness eventually they're going to start scoring more there. I did think a couple of weeks ago, Flood-Oshin-Zawa had this really interesting piece on the athletic, which was sort of looking at how, you know, first the traditional slap shot became extinct, right, from the point. The team just kind of moved away, realized it was a pretty inefficient form of offense. Now what's happening is that power play shot, which Ovechkin has thrived on of the guy having the puck of the point and then passing it to the flank for the one-timer is pretty much becoming incredibly inefficient around the league. For that one-timer to work, it has to essentially come from the other side of the ice and go cross-seem to actually make the

goalie move laterally. Otherwise, he's just able to get there quickly enough. And with Baxter likely not playing anymore, and then Kuznetsov's declined and being scratched and him just not being the player he was before, they just don't have the facilitator to actually make that play happen routinely. And so I think that's an issue here. So I wouldn't necessarily expect that he's just going to start scoring all those power play goals all over again. Like I think it is a bit of a personnel issue. But yeah, if he keeps shooting, I think eventually he's going to just start scoring more goals. I mean, the lack of goals so far from him is shocking even with all of that in mind. Yeah, if he, I did the math yesterday and, you know, it's a situation where if he

starts shooting, even at his second lowest single season, uh, shooting percentage for the entire rest of the year and keeps up the shot rate, like you said, uh, he'll get to around 25 goals or something like that. Like, it's very, that's not a very ovechkinny number, but that's a perfectly respectable number for, you know, 95% of players in the league or whatever, right? Like if you said to most NHLers, you're going to get to 25 goals this year. They're like, great, I'm going to make $8 million next season.

And that sounds cool. Yeah. So he'll, you know, the question is, if he deteriorates further, even if his shooting percentage normalizes, um, you know, it's just a really,

it's a really tough thing to be like, oh, and he'll definitely get like 70 more goals over the next three years. Yeah, I think we just all became so accustomed to just penciling in like 40 plus, right? And even even lost here. And so maybe we need to revisit that. Same time, though, needs just 68 to pass Gretzky and is under contract for two more years after this one. So even if you sort of change that baseline, it's still like, listen, they're paying them 9.5 million for the next two years after. this one, right? And he's going to be 40 at that point. I mean, this is what it is now. Like, they've been a surprise to start the year, right? They rattled off after looking horrible the

first week or two of the season. They rattled off this win streak. The goal tending has been amazing for them. They're 12, 8, and 3. They have a minus 15 goal differential, right? Like, I think, I think you can kind of see where this is headed, but they have been more competitive than we expected. So, yeah, well, we'll see. Certainly a few more goals from him would help, but I just think We need to maybe change what those expectations are because of the way they're playing and kind of what everything around him is looking like. Okay. Nick asks, are the Kings the best team in the league? Hard to make the argument against him, right? Who's better? Is it any time, anytime you're saying, oh, well, they're not. Well, who is that?

They're an unbelievable five-on-five team, right? It goes without saying. the just you know the the special teams are there like they it turns out that if you go out and get like three really good centers you're going to win a lot of games you know but at this point like the only thing that you could say as kind of like a negative for them is like you can't expect Kim Talbot to be 930 all year which is true but like they don't need him to be 930 to be, at least among the best teams in the league. Yeah, I mean, they're winning by such a massive margin that they can stomach some more goals against, but also like their first or second and pretty much every defensive metric, both in the public and private models. And so it's about as good of an environment as you're going to get for any goalie. They're 16, 4 and 3 league best plus 36 goal differential, second and goal scored, second

and goals against. during this 11 game winning streak on the road, which I believe set the record to start the season. NHL record, yep. They're outscoring teams 48 to 18 in those 11 games. So, yeah, I mean. Now, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's not bad. High opinion?

That's pretty good. Camp Talbot's obviously been amazing. As you mentioned, 933, the goal save above expectives amongst the lead leaders as well. But it's the scoring depth here, right? where not only are they well positioned to stomach, you know, an injury or someone being out for a while, but also like the regular 82 game, regular season slumps or ups and downs for anyone, really, right? Like they're getting this much offense from Trevor Moore, Philip the No, Quinn Byfield, like you watch. I remember we spoke about him last time.

He's clearly just leveling up in an unbelievable way where he's just putting his head down and essentially just taking the buck to the net and scoring now to go along. with all the playmaking. Honestly, like, Dubois and Fiala have been two of their worst players in the aggregate this season in terms of, like, production and what you'd expect from them. And I would still think that eventually they're going to rip off a hot stretch themselves. So I guess the question for me with them is, you know, assuming they get Victor Arvinson back at some point, like, what do you do with this team at the trade deadline to beef it up even more? because they still have their first round pick, right?

Like, I imagine they're going to want to add or do something. They've got Brand Clark just chilling in the minors because they don't have room for him on the blue line. Like, there's, I'm very intrigued to see, I guess, what they do. Hopefully there aren't any injuries that create natural openings in that regard. But I imagine they're going to be active in doing something because they have been in past years. And that's scary to think about that they could potentially even add another player

to this group. Yeah. I think maybe the one place where you'd like to see the mad depth is on the wings. But they don't need like a ton of it. Like they, you know, they can do the thing they've done the last few years and go out and get a Gavrikov type guy where it's like, he's maybe a little overpaid. But like he's good if you put him in the right role or whatever. And don't ask him to do too much necessarily. And, you know, they're just, they just prove, oh, we can do that with, with just about anybody, you know.

So I think that, like you say, they don't, they don't need a ton of help, but, you know, they'll take it certainly. And if it doesn't cost too much, adding a winger who can put the puck in the net a little bit, it's not going to hurt them. Yeah, I guess it's easier to sit than done, but I agree. I think, sure, getting a, uh, some more finishing talent would help. Like, they obviously haven't had issues scoring this season. but just what we've seen in previous post seasons and what we know it'll take, like having someone who can occasionally just score a goal even when you don't create a high danger chance is very useful.

So I think that would be on top of the shopping list. But yeah, I mean, this is the reason why I brought it up beyond just having an opportunity to rave about the Kings is, like, that was a great way you framed it. Like, okay, who else is it? Who else are you going to make an argument for? Like, there's certainly teams that I think that have upside to get there. but just through these first however long it's been I guess two months now the regular season I haven't seen a more complete package from anyone right we've seen like stretches at the start

from the golden nights and I think that what it matters most they're still going to get there and the idea of these two teams facing each other in round two out west is is going to be remarkable right because they're just like there's such good foils for each other in terms of how fast they play and how quickly they transition and how well they defend um so that'll be quite quite a matchup but yeah there's them i think like still we can talk more about the devils later i just think because of their offensive buyer power they're going to be able to be involved in everything there's teams that you can mention here but the kings have just been almost unassailable through these first 25 games yeah you know the you like you said the devils you can make an argument that

if they didn't have the goaltending problems they do the same thing that's true of edmonton where like, okay, you know, everything goes right. Yeah, absolutely the oilers or the devils could be the best in the league. The Panthers, I guess, to a slightly lesser extent as well. But, you know, you don't have to be like, well, I mean, if you finagle it this way and that way with the Kings. You just don't have to do that. You can just say, look at them. They're unbelievable in every facet of the game, except maybe the power play.

The power play's fine. And that's, again, that's a, that's a function of, you know, they don't have like the real top, top, top end offensive talent. Yeah. I mean, it just, it's, I guess they've had, I'd have to go back through their games. I'm sure they've had a couple stinkers. I think they had like a home game against Philadelphia where they didn't really play very well earlier in the year. But it's just like, in my mind, it's almost tough for me and envisioned them having such a bad game where like nothing is, working for them because they have so many different ways that they can beat you in different

contributors, right, which is the beauty of it where sometimes if you're a top heavy team, it's like, all right, your top players either get shut down or they're not, they're not handling the puck well that night, or they're just off or whatever reason. You're going to have a tough cool of it. For them, it's like, all right, well, the first line isn't really producing or they have a tough head-to-head matchup. Okay, well, then one of their other lines is just going to score or one of their blue liners or they'll be able to beat you one-nothing because their defense is so good. Like there's, there's so many outs for them to win in pretty much any matchup. And I think they have the versatility where, like I mentioned how they're very similar

stylistic Ler Vegas. I feel like they can also play in any type of game you really want to play against them. Yeah. That's, that's all correct. They are really, really good. The Kings are awesome. Okay. Pixies asks, who is the best Lambert in hockey?

Lane, Ryan, or Brad? I mean, I can only speak for, I can, I mean, R.L is thriving. So I don't want to speak for you And I'm obviously biased here As your friend and colleague And someone who is speaking with you right now But I don't know about the competition here It might be damning with fame praise

With all due respect to Brad Lambert Who has 14 points in 18 NHL games This is playing well as a prospect But I think Ryan might have the leg up here on the competition Well hey that's that's really nice to say of course All I'll say is they're not they're not they're not chanting fire or Brad Lambert anywhere. You know what I mean?

That'll be so if JetSman. People are always saying people are always saying they should fire me. Right. They're saying that about Lane Lambert lately. So I'm going to go with Brad here just because I think people are, people are looking and saying, you know what? Seems like this kid's got something. Yeah.

I guess you could view it through the lens of whether you're inspiring love or hate though, the fact that you're generating about them, eliciting that type of reaction from people means that you're doing something. But yeah, I think, I mean, I think Elaine is third on this list. He is down bad. Oh, no question about it. You see that interview after they blew the Sharks game? Like, he referred to it as like sin?

Like, he, like, he, he's getting really philosophical with explaining all these defeats. Right. This is the classic situation of a coach who's just like, can't say, look, I don't have any answers here. I don't know what to tell you other than like look at our roster I guess he could say but uh you know we we've when you when you see a coach start getting philosophical like this red light danger we're in a lot of trouble here yeah I mean they're 11 7 and 7 they've on the one hand it's like that's actually respectable and the other either there's sub 500 in terms of actual wins and losses.

They've blown just so many games late. They probably should have won. So they actually think, regardless of your mileage on the talent and the personnel, like their records should be better. And maybe that's a mark against lane here. At least, like, you know, you watch against the Blue Jackets last night and Barzal and Horvat playing together.

Like, they're playing really well. I think Berzal's been on fire lately. But, yeah, maybe the sharks just do this to you. And we should speak about them a little bit here, because last time we talked, they were in the midst of that historic stretch where we had like a full 20-minute conversation about whether this was going to be the worst team in NHL history. Right, start the year losing their first 11 games. The final two of those are 10-1 and 10-2 defeats. Since then, they are 8, 6 and 2, and in their last 4 games, they scored 6, 5, 5, and 6 goals.

And what I love about this most beyond just how chaotic and entertaining these games have been in last night's games. against Detroit was true theater, is in beating these teams, they're almost forcing them into existential crisis where it's like, man, we just, we just blew this game to the sharks, and it's almost forcing coaches and teams and fan bases to really take a long look in the mirror and kind of like self-reflect on what's happening right now. And I just love that. They're almost in a no-lose position here where like they should be losing games. They probably will lose a lot games the rest of the season, but then every time they put together one of these spirited efforts, everyone is just kind of in on the bit and having so much fun with it. Like last night's

game, when they came back against Detroit from now 4-0, whole and then, and then won it overtime. It was just, I mean, it was amazing. I just love everything about this Sharks' experience, right? Yeah, I was looking this up because I'm writing my, my weekly three stars article and you know nobody in the league had more points in the last week than Michael Granlin who had nine and four games I love that

but the other thing I love is you mentioned they scored 22 goals in their last four games they only lost one of them and it was a six five loss to the Rangers the best team in hockey at the time at least record wise maybe you know or kings

etc but of those 22 goals 17 were in the second third or overtime. They were trailing in a lot of these games, and they were just like, no, no, we're done doing that. We're just going to score a ton of goals late. Awesome.

I love it. I mean, this is just what makes hockey so fun. So cool. It's really good. You can't take it too seriously. Even though this show tries to figure out why things are happening, sometimes you just have to, it's like that Pedro Pascal. video where he's on the Zoom call and he just throws his hands up in the air and just starts like laugh

slash crying. It's like that. Like it's this is what hockey is. You know, beyond it just being like super random and Niko Serm just randomly scoring a bunch of goals and stuff. I do have to say William Eklund has been really fun to watch. And that is highly encouraging because during that stretch at the start of the year, we had a conversation of like, if they like put any of these players on waivers, would anyone even claim them? Like, is that, there anything here that is actually going to meaningfully matter years from now whenever this team is actually trying to win games? And Eklin just seeing the way he's playing, he's got a modest offensive stat line, but every time I look, he's involved in some sort of scoring chance.

He's a funny player, right? Yeah. And so just watching him play and kind of seeing his development beyond the entertainment value of these comeback wins and everything, like at least having a play. like that to sort of latch onto and not only give you a reason to tune in, but someone to follow throughout this season is an important development for the sharks and their fans. So I wanted to shout him out. Okay. Another question from Jack here asks, I want the Boston College Intel from RL. Who is driving play on that top line? So I obviously have not watched nearly as enough college hockey as you have, but I, I'm familiar with the players involved. And also, I think it's important for NHL fans to, to become familiar with them, because I think they're going to

become household names and players they need to be aware of in their NHL fanhood in the years to come. So I'm kind of curious to, to hear about the, uh, the lowdown and the inside scoop from you here as our, uh, as our, PDO cast, uh, college guy. Yeah, I think it's, um, it, it kind of depends on how you look at it. Like I think Gabe Perrault, the Rangers pick, is maybe the guy who is creating

the most. For that, for that life, for those who don't know, they have Will Smith, Ryan Leonard, and Gabe Perot, all of whom were first round picks in this most recent draft. They all played together the last two

years at the U.S. under 18 level. And, you know, the coaching, I talked to their coach earlier this season. And, you know, I was like, oh, obviously those guys seem to really know a lot about, you know, where they all are. And he's like, yeah, they've just played so many hours together in practice. And like they, he didn't say this, but it is kind of like the Sedean thing of like, well, I just know where they're going to be. It's that simple, you know. It's just such a natural thing for them.

It's, to me, it's like. It's not fair that they're all going to be on different teams in the NHL. You know what I mean? Like someone should the sharks or somebody should figure out a trade that just brings all three of them to the NHL together because they're so fun to watch. I think Leonard and Smith are more the the trigger guys and Perrault's the guy who kind of, you know, the straw that stirs the drink kind of a situation with them. but they're all so good they're all so good and um and dangerous you know in a way that you just don't see from from a from a freshman you don't see freshman lines in general in college hockey because you know there are guys who were like 23 24 25 years old I think

there's a guy there that's going to be 27 uh by the end of the college hockey season this that rocks that rocks hey hey milk it is like as you can bud I totally agree. And it's, but, you know, there's a lot of rule, like stuff around COVID that makes it so that these guys can just stay till they're 26, 27 years old with greater frequency. Gus Nyquist was a guy who was famously 26 his last year of college hockey. But, you know, the examples of that are few and far between. But anyway, you just don't put 18 and 19 year olds, three of them together for that reason, right? like they're just going to get physically pushed around and and that kind of thing but has not

happened with them i'm going to just say won't happen with them you know if they're if they're doing if they're hitting the ground running like this where they're all north of a point of game um the sky's the limit on these guys and this is one of the best teams in the country well pro is the interesting one to me because smith and leonard are both top 10 picks right and I think their skill sets are, they're different, but they're also very projectable from like a pace and motor perspective at the NHL level. Now, like, Perot fell to 23rd to the Rangers. And I think at that point, it was a smart upside grab for them just based on his like production profile. And sure.

And once again, I think he's leading the team in scoring. I like, they're all very close because they play so much together. But I think he does have the most raw points out of any of them. Yes, he does. He has 23 and 16 games. Yeah. And so, I mean, obviously the skill is just through the roof, I guess, with a player like that, though, the question of like when the game speeds up, right? Like, are you going to be able to still make those plays? And we've seen over the years that, you know, there certainly are like highly skilled players who can't get there and can't at least get their pace that they play at to a functional enough level to let the skill shine through in NHL. But we've also seen a lot of examples of players who have either figured out tricks or they're just. like their hockey sense is so smart that they can compensate for it. You obviously get better coaching and better like development in terms of like your training and everything to actually

potentially get the most out of like untapped skating potential that you do have. I worry where you land on Pearl in terms of like seeing this projection, seeing this production and then sort of trying to project it to what it could look like years down the road at the NHL level and if it'll actually play not necessarily at this degree where he's going to be like just smashing scoring records but good enough to be like all right at 23rd that was a really smart pick I think

I think what I would say is Smith and Leonard are both two guys where it's like they can create something out of nothing and it's not the game like this is going to sound like I'm knocking Perot I'm not like I said he's more of the like guy who helps make

helps make things happen whereas Smith and Leonard because they're those they're the whatever top six or whatever picks. They're more like, they can make it look like, oh, I have nothing here and the puck's in the back of the net, where Perot is more of the, again,

like the guy, the game kind of flows through, but maybe not the guy who is the finisher on that line. And so it's always tough to tell in college hockey, major, junior, whatever you want to say of like, I think they wouldn't be doing quite as well without Perrault, obviously. But I also think Perrault,

if you put him on his own line with whoever, Andre Gasso is a perfectly good college hockey guy who doesn't really have the highest ceiling in the world for me. If you put him with Gasso, you know, That's a, I think you would just see the production decrease. And so, you know, the Rangers in theory have guys they could put him with two, three years down the line where they could, they can make some offense happen,

but maybe not at the level that we're seeing right now, if that makes sense. All right. Well, I'm interested to follow along and see how that turns out. Okay. All right. Let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll pick things back up. we'll keep taking the listener questions and having some fun with them.

You're listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the HockeyPedocast with Ryan Labr closing the week with our listener mailbag. Ryan, before we went to break, we had a college question, and I've got one more here before we switch back to NHL. But while I have you, you're one of the few guests I have that actually knows what they're talking about and watches these games and has the boots on the ground reporting. right is going to these rigs checking these guys out so Dave asks we're a couple late round NHL drafted prospects who are currently playing in the NCAA from the last few drafts that have surprised you so far this season

is there anyone that people should be aware of where it's not a top prospect and it could be from any of the last couple drafts where you're like oh this could be someone to watch for whenever whenever they're ready to make the jump or whatever their eligibility expires yeah I mean the one that that springs to mind most readily I guess is Massimo Rizzo who's a junior at Denver he is let me look this up real quick here as a seventh round pick of the Carolina well he was he was part of the the on again off again Tony Angelo trade wasn't he that might someone else me I don't remember now yeah but um he has

talking. You got it, man. He was close to a point of game as a freshman, blue past point of game as a sophomore, and right now he leads the nation in scoring with 28 points in 16 games. He's just really, really good. Almost every game this season has been a multi-point game for him. He has one, two, three, four, five games where he hasn't had it. more than one point out of 16 so far. He's just, and he plays for a program where, like, you're going to be really smart to be on the top line, like you're going to have a very high hockey IQ to be on the top line there.

And he's just, he's really, really good. I don't know. The thing is, like, he plays with this guy, Jack Devine, who is also a seventh pick. and all but like i i think personally i think rizzo is the guy driving that a little bit not that divine isn't really really good at this level he is um but i'm more i guess i'm more of a rizzo head than a divine head um when it comes to this kind of thing and uh yeah other than that i'm trying to think like those are just the two

most obvious guys because they're killing college hockey this year um other than that, yeah, like, it's tough because kind of late round picks have been really pulled out of college hockey in the last few years in a way that isn't, you're getting a lot more undrafted guys where it's like, whoa, where did this guy come from? If that makes sense.

So, yeah, I don't know. Like, there are obviously guys who are having really nice seasons, but nobody where it's like, Like, oh, I straight up did not see this coming from, you know, X, Y or Z. Like, it just, it's becoming a weird mix in college hockey, I would say, of like, really highly touted young players. And, like, older players who are undrafted but having really good seasons. And then not as many as you're used to in that in-between area. I like, you know, first two or three rounds is where most of the best players in college hockey are coming from now in a way that just wasn't the case even five, six years ago.

Well, to put a bow on the, on the Massimo Rizzo conversation here. So I did remember it incorrectly. I didn't have all details correct because this happened like after a free agency had passed. And I think a lot of us were on vacation and not following this as closely. But remember the flyers were going to trade Tony DiAngelo back the hurricanes. Then the league told them they weren't allowed to do so because of the time. Yeah, okay, sure. So then they wound up just releasing him and he signed with the hurricanes instead of the trade.

But then a couple weeks later, the two teams made a trade involving David Kasha going for like a fifth round pick and that's right. Yeah, Rizzo went to the flyers. that's right. And those transactions definitely were not related in any way. And I'm sure that the two teams, of course, it was all above board. And none of this had anything to do with each other. The fact that Massimo Rizzo was going to get traded to the Flyers. And then they wound up completing it in two separate transactions anyways. But yes, he is with the Philadelphia Flyers organization out. Okay. That'll do, that'll be it for a for college corner here. We'll try to every time we have you on, try to do at least a couple minutes to, because I know a lot of us. happy to, man. Do care about this stuff. Okay, back to the NHL questions. So, we got a question here, but I mean, I have a lot of questions about the penguins and the, the amount of leash that Mike Sullivan has and what they do here as they keep taking hit after hit. I thought the last game in particular that we saw them play, I mean, losing the back-to-back games to the flyers was tough, but then the performance in Tampa Bay was particularly ugly, I thought.

I know you wrote about Mike Sullivan and the power play's got a lot of conversation. So this specific question asks is Pittsburgh's power play an anomaly for not scoring in their past 33 opportunities? Are the goalies making great saves or the penguins just not get quality shots looks? So where are we at with this because we spoke about the capitals? These two teams are always somehow linked during this. In the same process of Eskin era. Yes. Both just catastrophically bad power plays.

the Penguins, at the start of the year, you would look at, all right, by expected goals, by shots generated, chances, everything. They should be better. They're not getting the goals in that power play. Just stick with the process. Now you watch it, and I think that conversation has entirely changed. Where are you out with this in terms of what our expectations should be, what the fix is, what's wrong?

Because clearly, where the players involved, even if they're at a different stage of their career, it's just inexcusable for them to have like zero power play goals in the past 12 games or however long they're going through this drought right now. Yeah. So two fun stats about this that I pulled up. In the last now 12 games, the Penguins power play has been outscored by the Penguins goalie. That's bad.

And the other one is cool if you're Tristan Jerry. That's pretty cool. Sure it is. Yeah. The joke we said on Puck Soup this week was like, they got to put them on the top unit. This guy's a weapon out there, you know? But the other stat is that over the past 15 games, they have been outscored on their power play 2 to 1.

Yeah. It's tough. And sorry, three to one, three to one. Yeah, I don't totally understand how Todd Reardon still has that job. They don't seem to have any real solutions, right? I think they tried their all right. We're just like, but Alex Nielander on there instead. Maybe mix that up.

It's like, yeah, it's probably not going to fix things. You know, you watch it. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I'm not the power play coach here, but from my couch, I don't think that's going to fix it. I just like it's very, they like struggle to get into the zone. Then when they get there, it's like five guys were kind of just hanging out on the outside. They pass the puck around and then force like a one-timer from a bad angle by either Malkin or Carlson.

and then they're like, well, try, well, we'll get after it next time. Well, uh, maybe things will be different. And it's just like the same thing over and over again. So I'm well past the point of looking at any underlying number or anything and being like, oh, we should expect this to change because this is clearly just gone so sell. They're not going to shoot zero percent for much longer, right? I will, I will hit them with the, the underlying numbers in this stretch where their, their power play just stinks, right?

Oh, for 33, like you said, they are generating seven expected goals per hour, which is a low number, obviously, on the power play. It is, in fact, 27th in the league over the last whatever, 12 games. So they're not going to shoot 0% forever. But even if they were shoot, you know, if they had two power play goals, in this, you'd still be like, well, this sucks, man, this is bad. You know? And it's, it's, I think, you know, I don't want, I don't want to be to, uh, you know, watch the games here with anything in my life.

But it, it is just a thing of, uh, there's only one puck out there and all these guys are used to having it on their stick when the, when it's power play time. And you, you, you just see this sometimes where it's like, oh, no, we put like nine. stars on her powerplay somehow and nothing works it happens it happens on on a couple of different levels and you can't i think just expect at this point that those guys are just going to break through figure it out all of a sudden like you do have to shock the system i don't think Alex kneelander is the is the answer there but you got to you got to take someone off that top powerplay unit and just go, look, you know, you can see what the problem is here. I know who you are

who you are. You're a future All of Fame or whatever. But something has to change. We're trying something. If it works great. If it doesn't work, we'll try something else. But like you say, the idea of, and of course, Alex Nealander is the answer here. Like, that's just a psychotic decision to me. Yeah. I think the frustrating part for me, though, beyond just the fact that like, It's cool players and seeing them struggle so much offensively sucks as a fan of the sport, is that it's also just encouraging the laziest, most unfounded takes about this team as well. You've already seen it. You can't win with a guy like Eric Carlson.

I just can't do it. Oh, I watched Carlson and Burns in San Jose. Why did you expect that Carlson and Laetang would work together now? It's like, what are you talking about? Like that they're different players. That's one thing. Well, but also like they're far from the problem in the few. instances they have shared the ice together. The Penguins have been perfectly fine.

It's just like the issues just extend so far beyond this. I don't think acquiring it across in like what for what they paid and what the other options were. It was clearly a good decision, right? Like this isn't like this prevented them from having some other great players. Like they basically turned spare parts they had no use for. And as you mentioned, one of those was Michael Granland who's been like leading the league in scoring recently. So that obviously stings a little bit, but just based on what they got from them last year. I think it was still an ed positive. And so I think they really need to change something and it's frustrating.

I'm not expecting unless they change it fundamentally that it will get better. Like they're not going to shoot 0%, as you said, but like something is broken in the, in the underlying process in terms of what they're trying to accomplish. So there is that. Okay. Here's a question for you. Mike Honcho asked, should the NHL adopt the in-season tournament? in like the NBA, and if not, how do they make the regular season matter more?

Well, it's not a question of should at this point. I think it's like destined to happen. All the, all the, you know, rating success and the way the players and teams are caring about being in this in-season tournament, the NHL two years from now, there will be an NHL in season tournament, especially because they're going to be like, oh, it's crazy. We can't go to the Olympics again. what are you going to do you know um so they'll give you the in-season tournament it's going to happen

and i i'm literally again like i was writing the three stars for the week before uh before we we went on here this time of year isn't the problem everybody's relatively healthy and for the most part and a lot of teams are like still play like the problem is February that's when the problem in the regular season starts where a bunch of teams are effectively out of the playoffs even if they're not mathematically eliminated and a bunch of teams are trying to protect

what they have by like coasting a little bit load management it's obviously less of a thing in the NHL but it starts to come into the play into play later in the season whereas in the NBA they do it all year long and so

like to say oh here's how they should make the the regular season more meaningful. It doesn't matter. I can say, oh, they should make a win worth three points or they should make overtime 10 minutes of three on three

and no shootout. They should bring back whatever. They're not going to do any of that. They're just straight up not going to do it. They like how the regular season works because the loser point creates the illusion that all these teams are still in it. We can sell tickets that way, blah, blah, blah.

the way they can make games more meaningful is for or feel more meaningful is for all the goalies to still be bad right like look how many like teams scored five and six goals in a game more than once this week and it's not zero teams it's not even close actually so like the hockey is really good right now or at least really entertaining and I guess that is that is. is the differentiating factor, right? Like, in the NHL, if a team scores a lot of goals, one of the coaches is like we played badly. Right. If not both of them. Oh, we can't, we can't keep expecting to win like that. Even if you win like that, your coach is going to be like that actually sucked. We didn't like that. Um, and so like if you want to make games engaging, you need goals and, you know, you don't want 11 goals in a game probably as a job. general rule, but like you want a team getting to four, five, six goals a night in most games, and then it'll feel meaningful.

But like there's, again, there's just no if about this end season tournament thing. It's going to happen. I don't know how else to put it to you. Yeah, I'm with you. It's certainly entertaining and I think the hockey is as good as it's ever been. Mikey asks, why has every team so mid this year? And we kind of hinted at this in the King's conversation. And it does feel like everyone has kind of converged to the middle.

Now it's like only the first 25 games this year. and I'm sure the tiers will become more kind of distinguished, I guess, in the second half of the year, right, where it's going to become a bit more clear who the really, really good teams are and who's really bad and their motivations are going to skew in opposite directions. But right now it does feel like, and I'm sure the league is loving this because they'll be happy to tell you all about the parody and all about how anyone can win on any given night and that's what make this league so special. And I often push back against that. But in this case, it does kind of feel like it's just, everyone is kind of lumped together for the most part. Now, you know, you mentioned that because of the

success of the NBA, it's like it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of wet and probably in a couple years. I'd love to be there with you. But if we know anything about Gary Bentman, it's that he will gladly cut off his nose to spite his face. And so this idea that like, you know, you've heard him say already, oh, we love our regular season. All we care about is this, this international best on best that they're trying to create in a couple of years, which is only going to have four teams involved. I know. It's, I know.

The big question, or I guess the big pushback of the NBA in season tournament was, will the players care? And why should they care? Right? Because for them, with how much money they're making, whatever the prize was would be so menial, right? It's like, all right, this isn't really going to actually motivate anyone. And then you watch it, and they care so much.

And that might not continue every year down the road. it might just be the novelty of this first year. But it's almost impossible to argue with the fact that it's been a smash success. And the thing that I enjoyed in particular during the qualification rounds or the group stages or whatever was like the importance of point differential. And at the end of the blowouts, watching teams like aggressively try to run up the score and stuff, I mean, obviously you can envision how in hockey that is going to just drive purists absolutely crazy, right? With teams having their top you to power play out. in like a 6-1 game in the final minute, try to score a seventh goal. But I am all for that.

And I love the idea of that. And so if we get into those game environments and we create an incentive for teams to try as hard as they can through the full 60, that's good. Let's go. And that's it. Yeah. That's what I agree. So. Um, okay.

Let's see one final question here. Mike asks, what's the worst place to finish the season as a non-contending team? second wildcard to just get swept ninth in the conference fifth of division i mean i guess the worst place is is missing the playoffs but dot getting a top pick right well i was thinking about this and i think about this kind of thing a lot i think the absolute worst place to finish like if you're if you're looking at league wide is like 21st you're not close to the place to the place playoffs, you have a pretty low chance to get a top three pick. And, you know, it just does, this is the example I use all the time.

It creates like the early to mid 2000s or maybe, maybe just like early 2000s, Calgary Flames or it's like, yeah, we're picking like eighth every year. You don't, you don't want to be picking eighth every year because it just means you have to really knock it out of the park with getting a bounce and a guy drops to you. But also like, you know, you're like nine points out of the playoffs. So I think if you're finishing like 21st in the league, you are screwed. Yeah, I guess it also depends on where you are in terms of like what your recent history has been. Sure.

Right. Like if you have a young team that already has drafted those core players, right? Yeah. Like let's say New Jersey a couple years ago or you in Buffalo right now. I think obviously just because they haven't made the playoffs in such a comically long stretch of time, anything short of that is going to be viewed as a disappointment. But in this sense, it's like you already have those players that are going to move the needle, getting them competitive reps and actually playing like fun, important hockey in April,

even if you don't make the playoffs, all right, whatever. The difference between the sixth overall pick and the 11th is not that big of a deal in that case. If you're like, at the start of that rebuild and you're like, man, we don't really have like game-changing talent in our pipeline coming in the next couple years. The only way to really get that, statably, is through those top five picks. And so if you're finishing 21st and then not getting those as well, that's a tough pill to swallow. So I think it kind of depends in that regard. I guess no one really cares about lining their owner's pockets.

But like being the second wildcar team and getting swept, I'm sure a lot of teams would gladly take that because it means two games of gate. So yeah. It's an interesting question, though, because I think depending on, on which team or owner you ask, you might get some different answers. So I recently said I got a little bit of flack for this, but recently on on Puck Soup, I said like the, the blue jackets winning that round against Tampa by like keeping all their players or whatever. That was the Tampa one and not the Toronto one, right?

The Toronto one was in the bubble. The Tampa one was when they swept them when Tampa was historically good in the regular season. Right. And but like, you know, the thing of like, oh, let's keep all our players instead of trading them even though we know they're leaving the summer and blah, blah, blah. I think that's the worst thing to ever happen to that franchise. I mean, there's been some pretty bad things that have a franchise. I understand. But I'm just saying the way it changed their mindset.

Like, look, we're just a Mike Babcock away from getting X, Y, and Z done. And maybe, you know, maybe if we get Mike Babcock, we can be the seven seed in the Easter. whatever. It's like, what are you talking about, man? That was never going to happen. Just straight up it wasn't. So like it just, it just, what I'm saying is it changed their mindset as an organization so much. Like we just need all these things. If we only get three things to bounce exactly our way all season long, we can be the team that accidentally sweeps the one of the best teams in the history of the regular season. Okay, man, cool. Yeah, I mean, from like a cold calculated just pure business perspective

that fallout of that is tough. I guess like if you're a fan of the organization though or you're part of it in any way just considering they like literally never had a taste of it at all, right? Like what was like the previous example was making the playoffs and getting swept by the Red Wings

many years before that. Right. So just like getting into the playoffs winning a playoff round like that like that was pretty cool. So no, I mean you're going to look you got to look at the long tail on. No, I know.

I know. That's all what being a fan is about, though, right? Well, maybe we're going to think about what being a fan's all. Oh, wow. That's a whole separate show that we could probably do. Okay. Let's get out of your, R.R. This was a blast.

I'm glad we got to do. It was a fun array of questions. I feel like we cover a lot of ground there. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out, let the listeners know whatever you want and check out. Yeah, eVRinkside.com You can read me, you can read Dimitri, you can read J. Fresh, you can read all of our brilliant scouts who, you know, I'm people asking me about like, oh, what do you think of the, this guy's seal? I don't know any of that stuff. I know how good they aren't college on, you know.

I don't know what that means for how they're going to be in the NHL, usually. I can, I, whatever. And especially with World Junior coming up, head over there, you're going to have. have a lot of, a lot of, uh, content to sift through. And then, uh, Patreon.com slash PuckSoup, all the Puck Soup, uh, podcast stuff, wherever you find your podcast, et cetera, et cetera. You know how to listen to a podcast at this point. I think so. Yeah. You're listening to this. You probably, you probably are familiar with the concept. Uh, all right, this is a blast. We'll have you on again soon. Keep up the great work. Uh, thank you to the listeners for listening

to us. My quick plugs are, like we said at the top, go join the discord. They invite like as the show notes and I participate in future mailbags go on the YouTube channel HockeyPedioCast did a Alexander Barkov deep dive there this week we're going to do Ikel next week so lots of fun stuff going up there in the future and that's going to be it we'll be back next week so everyone hopefully you have a great weekend and we'll check back at on Monday thank you for listening to the HockeyPedocast streaming on the sports head radio network