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With less than three weeks to go until the NHL playoffs,

these teams have a lot of work to do.

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Part of the Locked On Podcast Network.

Your team every day.

Hello, everyone and welcome to this Thursday edition of Locked On NHL.

I am Mixerars, the host of Locked On Euler.

That is my good friend.

And one of the co-hosts of Locked On Penguins Hunter Hodes.

And we want to thank everyone that is making Locked On NHL

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On today's show, we are going to hit on three teams

that are having rough marches that are in the playoff race

and then varying degrees of security and said playoff races.

We will start out with the Vegas Goldenites

who are three and seven in their last 10.

Our second segment will pivot to the Redwings who are reeling

and on the verge of falling out of a playoff spot.

And then we will wrap up with the New York Islanders

who have also fallen out of a playoff spot

over the course of the last few weeks.

So starting out was Vegas.

Defend a team, Stanley Cup champions in recent memory.

You still got I cool.

You brought in Mariner.

You have found Pavel Dorfiev

who has become one of their key top six contributors.

You went out and you traded for Rasmus Anderson.

And it's not coming together.

You know, this is one of those teams you look at it on paper

and you keep asking yourself,

what's this team's problem?

Why haven't they hit that second or third year?

If there were November and this were their points percentage,

okay, you added a new big piece in Mariner

and everybody's trying to settle in.

But it's March 26th.

And the Golden Knights still look like they haven't gotten out

of the starting block.

It's very strange.

And Nick, you look at their last five games.

They only have five goals during that time.

This is a team that's really struggling to score right now.

Their goal-fitting issues have long been documented.

I am not a fan of them going into the playoffs

with Aiden Hill as a starter.

And yes, Nick, I understand.

They want to Stanley Cup with him.

But that is not this version of Aiden Hill.

Hill is playing a lot worse this year.

Just when you look at the numbers, Nick,

this year for Aiden Hill,

only has nine wins and 23 games,

868 percentage.

Now, Akira Schmidt,

he has at least 16 wins and 34 games,

but he's still only at 893.

He's probably their better option,

but I don't know if he's going to get game one in the playoffs.

And this team is still going to make the playoffs,

by the way.

Literally hilarious when you compare it to the East

and how close it is,

especially for the wild card spots.

And then the top three in the Metro.

But this is the biggest team.

Again, their problems are twofold.

They can't get saves.

And they can't get scoring right now.

And the second part is even stranger,

because look at how talented that team is.

Outside of William Carlson,

they're mostly pretty healthy.

I go is still doing this then.

They got Mark Stone back.

They survived that stretch without him.

Obviously, they brought in Mariner.

Dora Fiat is awesome.

I love that they were able to get him.

But they're still having a lot of trouble scoring.

And, you know, I've seen the penguins play

against them a couple of times.

And that first matchup,

they couldn't get anything going at all.

I mean, this is a team that's only one four games

in the month of March.

So far, and I understand there's the condensed schedule

and everyone is playing a lot of tough teams on a nightly basis.

But this team should still be a lot better than what they've shown.

And Nick, they're also not defending the way

a Bruce Cassie level team defense.

I also, you know, kind of rings an alarm bell in my head

because when you watch Bruce Cassie hockey,

it is shut down defense for 60 minutes.

You try to win those games three to two.

But they just have not been doing that at all this month.

And I'm really concerned about them going into the playoffs.

I agree with you in that respect.

This is a team we've seen the last couple of years

in the postseason in particular.

Really struggled to find offense.

You think about that restaurant series they had against Dallas

a couple of years ago,

where the goal differential in the series was two

and they could not score more than three goals in a game.

Last year against the Oilers,

they struggled mightily to score in that second round series.

On the macro, the underlying numbers are horrendous.

52% of those shot attempts.

54% of the shots on goal.

48% goal share at five on five is not great.

But their special teams have at large been good this year

to offset that.

53% of the expected goals.

55% of the high danger chances.

That tells you on some level,

this is an execution problem.

This is a shooting percentage.

And as we discussed a little bit,

a goal-tending issue.

They have a top five power play.

They have a top five penalty kill this year.

That is largely what he sustained a mat and average five on five team.

When you go and you look at the tempo,

the rate at which they create offense.

15th in scoring chances.

13th in shot, shot attempts.

17th in goal.

17th in expected goals.

12th in high danger chances.

This is a team that doesn't play with a high tempo.

This is a team that is very controlled.

That doesn't create a lot of volume offense.

And that's a tough way to live.

If you're not winning on the margins,

you know, it's okay to try and play low event hockey.

But that makes each of the individual events more valuable.

And when you have a goalie who's at

860 as a safe percentage,

each of those saves becomes infinitely more important.

It's great.

He only has to make 23.

But if he's giving up a goal on 14% of 23 shots,

you're going to lose a lot of hockey games.

I mean, when I went and pulled the numbers from evolving wealth,

88 goalies have registered at least five starts to qualify

for the goal save above expected leaderboard on evolving wild.

Inhill's 85th at 88 goalies in the NHL and goal save.

It's bad.

He's been unplayable.

And this is the drawback.

And there was a really interesting article in the athletic the other day about this

trying to find the correlation between goal tending performance and what you spend

on the position.

And it's more debase than ever.

You know, we coming out of that Stanley Cup final run,

we all looked around and said, wow,

it's really impressive.

They won with Aiden Hill.

That's a testament to how good the team in front of him is.

And let Logan Thompson leave or they moved Logan Thompson.

Excuse me.

And now you're sitting here with Aiden Hill, Akira Schmidt.

You can't dress Carter Hart because he's been unplayably bad.

And you don't have the cap space to play him.

So you're boxed in.

You do not have any more moves.

These are your goalies.

And you need the team in front of you to play better.

That's your only option.

I can't realistically sit here and say Aiden Hill needs to be better.

Yes, he does.

But this is what he's been for a full season now.

At this point, this is what you're getting from that goalie room.

And even if you go with Schmidt, whose numbers are better,

you still can't feel great about that.

No, I don't think any.

I don't think any Vegas fan is feeling good about that.

And Nick, I'm sure because it's Vegas, they tried to poke around the goalie market at the trade deadline.

It would have just been a really tough move to make with where they're at.

I'm sure they tried.

It's probably going to have to be more of an offseason thing where they bring in.

Uh, maybe obviously more of a difference maker.

I don't think you're going to get like an elite goalie of the trade market,

but someone who can be.

At least average again, I'm sure they looked at it,

but it just probably didn't make much sense for them.

At the deadline, but they've made their bed with this tandem.

They're going to have to live with it and the regular season going into the playoffs.

I also do think, you know, the loss of Patrangelo on their back end has really affected them too.

And, you know, I still like their back end.

I like Hannathon on the second pair.

Shade Theodore is a bona fide number one defenseman still for me.

Brighton McNabb is on that top pair.

I like Rasmus Anderson on the third pair.

They have a lot of these players spread out next.

So I like those pairs.

It's just that.

Again, they're not scoring enough to offset the bad goal tending that they've been getting for the entire season.

I just don't know when that's going to change.

Compliance.

I mean, it's also why I've been scared for them to play a team like the Oilers and Hellenic.

I don't think the Oilers are very good this year.

I know you've been saying that I'm locked on Oilers.

This is not the same Oilers team for what we've seen in the past two three years.

But right now, if it was those two teams were to play,

I think I'd honestly take the Oilers to win that even though they have a lot of goal tending problems

and other problems as well.

So again, I just need to see them.

A, get more saves.

B, still defend a little bit better.

And C, you know, find other ways to score.

Put your best players in better positions to succeed.

I just don't think they have done enough of that this season.

So adding on to your point.

So Edmonton and Vegas have played twice already this year.

They play the third time tonight as we're recording this.

The Oilers have won the first two games combined score of eight to five.

And the other thing for me, when I was looking through the numbers,

Rasmus Anderson's had a really rough go of it in Vegas.

He's been out scored 22 to 13.

I know he got there in late January.

That team has had guys miss time.

You had the contingent that were on the American Olympic team.

Sit out a game or two after the Olympics.

And I get it.

There's a lot of turnover and change there.

But they gave up a decent asset to go get Anderson, who I think can be good.

But Anderson is one of those guys where it's very reminiscent to what we would say of

Jacob Trooper or Darnell Nurse, where they like their game a lot.

And they overestimate their own abilities at times and take chances.

They probably shouldn't because they like having the puck on their stick so much.

So I'm looking for Anderson to settle in there a little bit more.

We are going to take our second for excuse me.

We're going to take our first break on today's edition of Lockdown NHL.

When we return, we will dive into the Detroit Red Wings and a team that has fallen out of a playoff spot

after what it seemed like was almost a locked qualify for pro season play.

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Thank you so much to everybody who is hanging out on this Thursday edition of locked on NHL.

And if you aren't already, you got to get in the everyday club and get in the discord server where any cell fans like yourselves are chopping at each other's throats talking crap in very fun conversations that I've enjoyed watching from a bird's eye view.

The link is down in the show notes.

Cost you a couple bucks a month, get in the discord server, get ad free episodes of the show and pivoting to Detroit.

This is a team that we have been waiting for for a while now.

Steve Iserman has been in there for several years now.

He has had ample opportunities to mold that roster to take some swings to go out into the trade market to really put his stamp on that team.

And right now as we sit here, there are a couple points back of a playoff spot.

They are really struggling so far in March.

There's three five and two in their last 10.

Their underlying numbers are pretty ugly across the board, especially in terms of possession metrics, even though they do okay on quality.

The power plays at 15% over the last 10 games.

That's a massive red flag for that team that is not the best in terms of goal scoring a five on five.

It's really simple.

It feels like this team is kind of run at a juice.

They're just at a gas and they're dealing with injuries and they have guys missing time.

And it's a lot to overcome simultaneously.

Yeah, the thing with the wings is they survived that stretch ever so slightly without cop without Larkin.

Now they're back.

Let's see what they can do Nick to end this season because when those two were in the lineup, they're obviously a much different team.

I mean, Larkin has been unbelievable for the wed rings this season.

29 goals 56 points and 64 games.

You know, Andrew cop.

He only has nine goals, but he's still been one of their better playmakers with 30 assists for 39 points.

And you take those two out of your lineup.

You're obviously a completely much different team.

The thing with the red wings though for me this year, they're very top heavy neck.

A lot of their offense comes from a select few players.

Again, like Larkin, like Lucas Raymond, who is having an unbelievable year.

He's at a point for a game like Alex to bring it who was on pace to finish with over 40 goals this year.

Most cider has been fantastic.

I just mentioned Andrew cop.

You know, Patrick Kane is still kicking a little bit, but once you get a few players down this depth chart.

The scoring really drops off.

So if it's not really your top line plus a couple players on your second line scoring plus cider.

There's just not much happening out there for the red wings.

John Gibson overall this year has been fairly good.

I think he has been resurgent for the red wings.

However, as of late in the last, you know, five of the seven losses and all five of those losses.

He's been below 900 again.

I don't think he's been awful in those, but he's been below average in those.

So if they get him back up to the level that he has been playing at for most of the season.

I think they'll have a shot at getting in here in the final few weeks.

But again, I still think they need more of their depth to step up down the stretch because again, it just can't be a few guys carrying the offensive load on a night basis.

I was watching their game against Boston over the weekend.

That was a huge game for both teams.

I do think in that one Gibson made a lot of really big saves, but I also didn't like one of the goals that he especially gave up late.

I felt like it was just from too far out where he had a clear line of sight, probably could have had it.

But again, they need more of their depth to step up to help out some of these star players that have just been carrying the load all year.

But again, now they have lurking back.

Now that they have caught back, let's see if they can go on a little bit of a run here.

They've been in a playoff spot for most of this season.

Now they're facing quite a bit of adversity.

The vibes have not been good as of late.

Can they rediscover that?

That's what I'm going to be keeping an eye on because no, this fan base is starving for a playoff earth.

Yeah, going off of that.

So like we said before with Rasmussen Anderson, they went out, they added Justin Fox.

Somebody we thought Detroit would be in the market for at least at least one of a defenseman or a center to add to their mix.

Fox and Sherat together 43% of the scoring chances, 50% of the shot attempts, 47% goal share, 52% of the high danger chances, 5.3 shooting, 9.1 to save.

So decent numbers that are passable for a second pair.

For me, it's really going to come down to math for Detroit.

They have 11 games remaining.

They're sitting at 90, they're sitting at 83 points, 84 points, something like that.

They're going to need to probably win six or seven of these final 11 games.

If they would like to qualify for the playoffs, one thing they do have working for them.

The senators are down for defenseman right now.

We'll see how long it takes for Sanders in to come back.

We'll see how long it takes for some of the other injuries.

He's going on the road trip.

So I think Sanders in is getting close.

Shabbat.

Shabbat won't be back.

Shabbat probably won't be back until the playoffs if they make the playoffs and if that's if that.

But from what I read, it looks like he broke his arm on the slash the cross check from JT Miller

because they said arm injury and they said it's going to be a while.

So that would lead me to believe a pretty.

It's pretty tough here down the stretch neck.

I mean, they have Buffalo coming up here.

Buffalo is trying to win the Atlantic.

They got Philadelphia a few times.

And yeah, Philadelphia is probably not.

I can make the playoffs, but they haven't been playing better.

Pittsburgh who is also fighting for their playoff lives.

Columbus who's been red hot.

Minnesota.

They still have.

They got Tampa Bay to end the season.

There's quite a few tough games in there for the red wings, man.

They're going to have to really earn this.

And it's really.

It's really curious how these surges happen because you know, a month or two ago, we were at.

We thought this was more or less wrapped up.

The bottom half of the east was so catatonic and effectively non-existent from that second wild card spot down.

It felt like nobody was capable.

You know, Columbus was in dead last in January when they hired Rick bonus.

The Rangers have been dead since about December.

The penguins have been locked into a playoff spot.

The flyers have been in the firmly in the middle of the pack.

The islanders have been pretty stable in their playoff spot.

Washington made a push, but they ran out of gas and effectively folded at a certain point.

But yeah, this division has been excuse me.

This conference at large was sitting there waiting and we say this every single year.

That bottom half is always right for opportunity.

All you got to do is play slightly above average hockey and you can get right back in the mix.

You know, Columbus has been nuclear hot for like a month and a half now.

That's different.

But all you got to do 540, 550 points percent of hockey for two, three weeks.

You'll get right back in the mix now.

The loser point makes it tough to make up ground.

A lot of these head to head games are ultimately what's going to determine who makes it and who does it.

You know, a lot of division games for everybody down the backstretch.

The schedule makers know what they're doing to amp up the drama.

We will see on the red wings.

We will see on Ottawa.

We will see on Columbus.

We will see on the islanders.

All of these teams are in the mix firmly.

Hell, the flyers are five points back in the last playoff spot.

And that would be a tall order for them.

But even that's not entirely out of the question.

That's just the nature of this division.

It's just really high though.

It is.

It is.

Five points with the loser point still very much.

I think for all these teams, Hellenic, give it if you get a point.

And you win if you're a team behind them.

You're still only getting a point during that time.

It's just really hard to make up ground.

They've lost a couple in a row.

They've had a fine enough march.

They've slipped back to third.

But they're still very much fighting for their playoff lives right now too.

So this is going to come down to the wire.

And I'm really stoked.

And you mentioned the islanders.

That's the team up next.

Nick.

I'm curious to see because their schedule is also turning really nasty.

We are going to take our second and final break on today's edition of Lockdown NHL.

When we return, we will dive into Patrick Wallace Islanders,

the deadline additions that have not worked out in the slightest bit.

And a whole lot more right after this.

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Everybody who is hanging out on this Thursday edition of

Lockdown NHL making locked on NHL their first listening listen

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We will keep it moving.

That brings us to the islanders a team that this year kind

of nowhere in the playoff mix a team that has overachieved

its roster expectations that maybe dare I say got a little too

confident in where it stood in the standings going into the

line and the type of moves that darsh made and the players

he acquired.

The islanders were in an interesting spot this year.

You know you pick first overall last year you slide high

up in the lottery kind of out of nowhere.

Shafer Johnson he's going to win the call they're running away

maybe even dare I say unanimously with first place votes.

He's a franchise caliber franchise altering player.

And the islanders have had that in conjunction with a

Vesna caliber season familiar Sir Rokin and just enough

from their supporting cast and yes it sounds crazy to

refer to Matthew Barzel and Bo Horvat as a supporting cast

but in this formula in this format of for this team the way

they play they are the supporting cast.

This is a team that is built and predicated on defense

and gold sending the underlying numbers they've got a

40% gold share over the last ten in the month of March

which is brutal the underlying numbers are a little kinder

50% expected gold share a 51% a shot of 10s 44% a high

danger chances against and I think that tells you a lot

about what this team's weaknesses are for a team that is

predicated on defense they give up a lot of high danger

chances and it's why Sir Rokin has been so integral to this

team success this year they have rotated in a lot of

different pieces on that back end they preemptively they

traded for Carson Susie well ahead of the deadline to give

him time to settle in they added Andre Palette they added

Braden Shen and basically none of those moves of worth

Susie's been out scored 14 to 5 Palette's been out scored

13 to 11 and Shen's been out scored 8 to 4 Shen's

underlying numbers are really great they've been he's been

out scored 4 to 8 35% of the expected gold share 28%

of the high danger chance share that's brutal that is

unplayable and granted it's a small sample it's been

two and a half three weeks of him on the islanders those

numbers will get a little less noisy the longer he's on the

team but we're still talking a sub replacement level player

at the moment for that Islander team I think he has two

assists since getting to the islanders and the islanders

made moves like they were a team right there at the

finish line you know that these are the types of moves

you would have expected from like a Colorado or a Tampa

Bay where we're showing up our depth we're getting veterans

with playoff experience the islanders aren't there go look

at the islanders lineup right now on daily faceoff it's a

story they're fun to watch they're one of the most fun teams

in the league to watch because their games are so chaotic

but this isn't a cup contender and they operated like one

it's funny Nick we actually are finally saying the islanders

are fun to watch after so many years under you know

Lane Maverick and Barry Trots but I do agree this is

probably the most fun islander team you know we've

seen in quite some time just with the way they play defense

but also the way they can counter you offensively that's

Matthew Shafer I mean just an elite specimen an elite pure

talent he just played 31 minutes the other night

you hear that OSHA 18 year olds working after nine

o'clock playing way too much work that's got to be some

type of labor rights violation I'm sure team Canada could have

used him on the Olympic roster he'll be there on the next one

but this kid is disgusting man it really he is elite

in all three zones he's a one man break out his release

his pure filth his playmaking ability is also through the

roof I remember when he played the penguins in the second

game of the season and I was like oh my god just the way that he

skates man it's breathtaking like that's a player that

completely changes the short term and the long term view

of your franchise and they're having a season that not

many people saw coming I mean you and I even said especially

going into the season that the islanders they're probably

going to miss the playoffs they weren't going to be that good

and now let's them three weeks to go they're fighting for

their right to get into the playoffs and again a lot of that

has to do with shape or I do think or that is also having a

really good season barzel just the elite playmaking ability

that he has the edge work that he has in the offensive zone

he's a ton of fun to watch but the thing though Nick is

lately you've seen some cracks with them they're not

good defensively they've given up the most high danger

chances at five on five this year of any team they've

also given up the fifth most scoring chances at five on

five of all teams in the NHL they're not good defensively

but who has been bailing them out Ilya Sorrowkin because

he's having the best season if it's good he's going to win

the best of this year if anyone else wins the

Vesna it's a sham Sorrowkin has just been on the

three years ago too and they give it to Omar he wasn't

even the best boy on his team Sorrowkin's insane and but

again Nick over the last few games and I know that's a

short sample size but you've seen what the team looks

like when they're not getting the elite gold tending

from Sorrowkin all those top chances that Sorrowkin was

saving they're now going in the back of the net you saw

that against Chicago especially you saw that against

Montreal when Cole coffee on Mr. Saturday night how does

hatchback and now they have a humongous game against

the Dallas stars tonight their schedule is also going to

get pretty nasty here they have Dallas obviously that game

against Pittsburgh on Monday that's probably the biggest

game for both teams they have Buffalo at Carolina they

still at Philadelphia they have a game against Ottawa

Montreal another gaming against Carolina their schedule

is also turning because they're all playoff seems yeah

100% so again for the owners to turn this around they're

going to have to tighten up more defensively you just

you can't keep giving up the chances that you've been

you know again allowing Sorrowkin to face like you've

seen the cracks now it's on you to tighten up I know

that Jangelove is now a bit banged up Brian Puy Lock

is also big banged up your store without Alexander Ramana

of but this team really needs to tighten up defensively

again I think this has been a very special season for

them I think even their fan base did not see this coming

but if them to make the playoffs.

They're gonna have to play a lot better defense because

Saro can just can't keep facing these chances on a

nightly basis man.

They're asking too much of them right now and it's

reasonable to say that like and that's one of the real

inflection points you get to with certain people where

it's if they're that good, how come they're not carrying the team, it's only so much.

You know, on the year, the islanders have like a 913, say, percentage of five on five.

Over the last month is at 896.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You ask a goalie to play at 915 for five straight months.

Eventually, you're going to reach a tipping point where you can't do that anymore.

That's just those are the tradeoffs.

You're going to have to either score more goals or you're going to have to tighten up

defensively.

And based on how poor the defense has been, you would probably argue it's a little bit easier

to be better defensively, even if that comes at the concession of creating a little bit

less offense.

You know, you're going to have to make tradeoffs.

None of these teams we're talking about today are as deep as they probably need to be to

make serious one playoff runs, which means your options for improvement or your options

for maybe changing course and how you're solving your problems are really limited.

And that means the next three weeks are going to be really chaotic because you're going

to have opportunities, man, as tough as these schedules are, some of these teams are going

to make the playoffs.

You know, the islanders probably get in Vegas.

We assume we'll get in and Detroit, it really depends how auto will please because there

are going to be opportunities.

The math is there.

The one thing I will say before you wrap, you don't want to be the team that doesn't have

game and games and hand that sitting there where other teams are playing game 81 and

game 82 because you left points on the board.

You want to go, obviously you want to win 11 out of 11 down the stretch here, but you

need to win at least six or seven of your final 10 or 11 games if you want to have a real

chance to make the playoffs.

That's the standard.

It's supposed to be hard to make the playoffs.

So I'm saying that on the pod, man, like people think it's so easy, like if the penguins

are going through like some rough times right now, it's supposed to be hard.

Like these schedules, they're supposed to be hard, man.

You got to fight for your right to get in.

This goes for any team that is on the bubble, trying to get in the playoffs that are not

already clinched.

You're like, obviously they're going to be some teams that we know that they're getting

in like Minnesota.

For example, they're going to clinch their playoff spot here really soon, but stay with

Carolina.

But for all these other teams that are right on the bubble, right on the edge, you got

to fight for your right and I'm just, I'm excited to see how these next few weeks go

man.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

It's Cop McNight saying dodgeball, dodgeball, doesn't build character, reveals it.

Yeah.

Playoff hockey reveals your character.

We're going to find out who's about that action over the next three weeks.

That'll do it for this week's edition of Lockdown NHL.

Be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast or over on YouTube.

Check out the every day or club.

The link is down in the show notes.

For your second listen of the day, go check out Lockdown NHL game night and keep up with

the action around the league to know what's going on in your playoff race.

If you're watching over on YouTube, we send you the first ever 247 National Lockdown

YouTube channel.

We'll talk to you guys next Thursday.

Everyone enjoy the stretch run.

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