Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich.

Welcome to the Hockey PEDEO cast. My name's Dimitri Filipovich. And joining me as my good buddy, Jack, on. Jack, what's going on, man?

Super. I actually, I thought we were recording an hour from now. So I just got home from Costco. So we're, we're in good timing, though. We're in sync. We're good.

Yeah, it's going to be a fun show. We're going to go through some key trends and important tactical developments we've seen while watching games recently cover a couple of the top team. Some of the stuff they're doing. Some of the stuff we have questions about as well. I wanted to start with the Oilers, a team that I already did a big show on them earlier this week on the Patreon feed with Steve Peters. so people can check that out and subscribe if they haven't already. But I wanted to build on it with you because you were talking about it a lot on Twitter earlier this week. And I always want to pick your brain about some of this stuff when I see kind of tactical incongruities or impasses for teams like this. And the Oilers are certainly struggling right now. I imagine as we've talked about, part of it is the schedule where they've played this condensed schedule with a bunch of games on the road. They're going to go back home for a lot of games in December. They're really good at home. I imagine someone's going to work itself out. Zach Hyman is back as well, and that's going to help. but it's a team that despite their struggles in past seasons in the first month or two of the season,

during those times, their underlying help, but it's a team that despite their struggles in past seasons in the first month or two of the

season, during those times, their underlying numbers still suggested that they were kind of this

sleeping giant, especially offensively in terms of their creation around the net and the types of

looks they were getting. And eventually, you and the goals would come. And they did. And they made it to

back-to-back Stanley Cup finals. That's not really the case this year. I feel like they're playing differently at both ends of the aides, especially and most concerningly offensively. And a lot of the underlying metrics bear that out. So I wanted to talk to you today a little bit about what we're seeing from them. Some of the adjustments Chris Knobach and his staff can make and where the kind of weak links in the operation are for them right now.

So in Discord, I was looking at some of the questions in the mailback section.

And one person asked, you know, with Florida winning the cup again last year, like what are, what are some teams doing

to sort of emulate that? And on the flip side, it's like, I think a lot of what the Oilers are

doing tactically this year is in response to why they lost against Florida last year. And it's,

we don't know if it's, if it's going to help them in a rematch in a cup final, but we certainly see already that it's not going to help them in a regular season context

to get to the playoffs.

And the biggest thing I see is just whenever they have the puck on a breakout,

I basically only see three people in the picture.

You see both defensemen and then one forward coming back.

Whereas if I look at a team like Washington or even Colorado, it's like you're more likely to see four players.

And like it's not a big difference, right?

Because obviously you only have five skaters to begin with.

And if all five come back, then you're easier to defend because you're not stretching the ice.

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