Latest / The Sean O'Connell Show / It's @801AdrianDenny on NHL Latest, Mammoth NorthEast Dominance, Trade Deadline + more
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: All right, welcome down, I'm the bri' come Yore.
- 0:02Speaker 2: Welcome in our Utah Mammoth insider Adrian Denny, brought to
- 0:06Speaker 2: you by a lad Industries and Valley Plumbing, Heating and Cooling. Adrian,
- 0:11Speaker 2: Welcome to the studio again. How are you glad to
- 0:13Speaker 2: be here?
- 0:14Speaker 1: Sean? Thanks for having me back in the win column. Baby.
- 0:19Speaker 2: What'd you think of the performance by the Utah Mammoth
- 0:22Speaker 2: last night?
- 0:23Speaker 3: I thought it was solid. I thought it was a
- 0:25Speaker 3: business like performance. It's the game that they've had for
- 0:29Speaker 3: the last two months, coming off a game where they
- 0:34Speaker 3: don't like, they don't play well, which both of those
- 0:39Speaker 3: boxes were checked on Sunday against the Chicago Blackhawks. But
- 0:44Speaker 3: eight and two after a loss since December, opening a
- 0:48Speaker 3: trip that they've been strong going out on the road.
- 0:50Speaker 3: Now four straight wins to start a multi game road trip.
- 0:54Speaker 1: Six and two overall. But the big picture of it,
- 0:57Speaker 1: O C.
- 0:58Speaker 3: Is you know you lose that game like Chicago, come out,
- 1:03Speaker 3: you beat Washington. You're fourteen six and one since the
- 1:06Speaker 3: calendar turned to twenty twenty six. So the big picture
- 1:10Speaker 3: scope of it is what the Mammoth have been able
- 1:12Speaker 3: to manage and stay in control of right. One loss
- 1:17Speaker 3: hasn't turned into two losses, turned into three losses. It's
- 1:21Speaker 3: one loss has turned into a win eighty percent of
- 1:25Speaker 3: the time over the last two and a half months.
- 1:29Speaker 3: They've lost two straight twice since since early December, So
- 1:33Speaker 3: that's the that's the biggest thing is the sample of
- 1:40Speaker 3: work over the last two and a half months has
- 1:43Speaker 3: put them where they are. And and I thought last
- 1:45Speaker 3: night was an exclamation point that this team's a playoff team,
- 1:52Speaker 3: this team's ready to make that next step. And I
- 1:57Speaker 3: thought it was impressive to go into Washington, a team
- 2:01Speaker 3: two points below the playoff line with a really good
- 2:03Speaker 3: home record and lead the game for almost fifty minutes.
- 2:09Speaker 1: Gunther scored a goal.
- 2:10Speaker 2: And he's got more goals than he had all of
- 2:13Speaker 2: last year.
- 2:15Speaker 1: With more than twenty games left to play, and through.
- 2:18Speaker 3: The first two three months of the year, his numbers
- 2:22Speaker 3: were pretty pretty on target of where he was last year.
- 2:26Speaker 3: But it just didn't quite seem like because he didn't
- 2:29Speaker 3: have as many multi goal games. There weren't as many
- 2:32Speaker 3: games where he was the star. He was, he was
- 2:35Speaker 3: getting his goals, but he hadn't, you know, taken over
- 2:38Speaker 3: a game like he did early last year with the
- 2:42Speaker 3: multi goal performances.
- 2:43Speaker 1: But he's he's got that shot.
- 2:47Speaker 3: And when you can get the puck to him is
- 2:51Speaker 3: Clayton Keller did.
- 2:52Speaker 1: Last night.
- 2:53Speaker 3: Head coach Andrey Turney shook up the lines a little bit,
- 2:55Speaker 3: which I thought it might have come in the middle
- 3:00Speaker 3: of the game Friday, but things went so well against Minnesota,
- 3:03Speaker 3: but Kooley, Gunther and McBain that there just wasn't something
- 3:06Speaker 3: clicking there when Kooley came back, and I think they
- 3:11Speaker 3: noticed it Wednesday against Colorado. Okay, let's be in a
- 3:14Speaker 3: position here to move some stuff around Minnesota. That game
- 3:18Speaker 3: went so well Sunday was what it was. And then
- 3:21Speaker 3: they came out. They put Schmaltz, Keller, and guntherer together
- 3:25Speaker 3: their top three scores and it got a goal in
- 3:27Speaker 3: the first ten minutes of the game. But what Clayton
- 3:30Speaker 3: Keller did on that goal, it was it was a
- 3:34Speaker 3: great breakout by the d Menchev and Jersey both controlled
- 3:41Speaker 3: the puck. They go to Keller in the neutral zone.
- 3:44Speaker 3: He takes one hit as he's passing it to Schmaltz
- 3:49Speaker 3: from Ryan Leonard. Schmaltz gives it back to Keller, who
- 3:54Speaker 3: then takes a big hit from Tom Wilson, who hits
- 3:56Speaker 3: as hard as anybody in the NHL, and got the
- 4:00Speaker 3: pott to Gunther. So that's that's successful hockey when when
- 4:06Speaker 3: you're taking hits like that to make plays too on
- 4:09Speaker 3: one goal and be able to get that to Gunther
- 4:12Speaker 3: you know is going to score on him. Was big
- 4:14Speaker 3: for the Mammoths. So good to see Gunther get that
- 4:17Speaker 3: that twentieth goal of the year, surpassing last year's total.
- 4:19Speaker 1: With twenty one games.
- 4:21Speaker 2: Left, special teams, the power play especially clicking a little
- 4:25Speaker 2: better than it was early. We talked about this so
- 4:27Speaker 2: many times already this season, like, hey, penalty kills not
- 4:30Speaker 2: particularly great right now, power plays not even bearing the
- 4:35Speaker 2: kind of fruit that you would hope that it would
- 4:36Speaker 2: for a playoff team for a team that's contending in
- 4:39Speaker 2: the West. And in more recent days it's they've performed
- 4:43Speaker 2: better in those special teams.
- 4:45Speaker 3: Six power play goals in the last six games, six
- 4:48Speaker 3: for the last seventeen, and I think they figured out
- 4:53Speaker 3: why it wasn't working. Right before they went into the
- 4:55Speaker 3: Olympic break, you could kind of start to see it
- 4:58Speaker 3: picking up, and a successful power play is is really
- 5:02Speaker 3: just urgency, zipping the puck around, finding your spots, finding
- 5:07Speaker 3: your shots, shooting that doesn't go in, retrieve the puck
- 5:11Speaker 3: and go back to work versus there was there was
- 5:15Speaker 3: a lot of perimeter. They were controlling the offensive zone
- 5:18Speaker 3: on the power play, but there just wasn't much going on.
- 5:22Speaker 3: And for the Mammoth things things clicked a little and
- 5:27Speaker 3: and sometimes it just takes you know, now, this isn't working,
- 5:31Speaker 3: is it. Maybe we maybe we go to what the
- 5:34Speaker 3: coaches have been telling us this whole time, and and
- 5:38Speaker 3: here we are. And power plays are something because you
- 5:42Speaker 3: look at the worst power plays in the NHL, and
- 5:47Speaker 3: at the bottom of it, you got the Colorado Avalanche,
- 5:54Speaker 3: the Washington Capitals with Alexandrovtchkin. Utah is not as low
- 5:59Speaker 3: as they were. They or thirty first the six or
- 6:01Speaker 3: seventeen stretches bump them up five spots in six games.
- 6:07Speaker 3: So but there's there's a few teams out there trying
- 6:10Speaker 3: to figure out what's what's wrong with the power play.
- 6:13Speaker 3: Teams you wouldn't expect like the AVS, Caps and Utah,
- 6:16Speaker 3: who was the top ten team last year on the
- 6:18Speaker 3: power play in the NHL.
- 6:22Speaker 2: Veggie has twenty nine wins now, which leads the NHL
- 6:27Speaker 2: that they're riding him hard. And we've got no indication
- 6:31Speaker 2: that coach bhar has any plans to do anything besides that.
- 6:36Speaker 2: And you're getting down to the final twenty regular season
- 6:38Speaker 2: games and then we hope some playoff series and attrition
- 6:43Speaker 2: slash fatigue where and tear can become more of an issue.
- 6:47Speaker 2: Is there anything that needs to be done with Veggie
- 6:51Speaker 2: in order to make this sustainable if they're going to
- 6:54Speaker 2: be a playoff team.
- 6:55Speaker 3: The schedule right now is pretty pretty favorable for us
- 7:00Speaker 3: starting goalie who you want to play every night. The
- 7:02Speaker 3: Mammoth the rest of the way only have two back
- 7:07Speaker 3: to backs left, and one of them is next week
- 7:10Speaker 3: at Chicago at Minnesota on Monday and Tuesday, and then
- 7:13Speaker 3: in April they play Carolina at home and they go
- 7:16Speaker 3: to Calgary on a Saturday Sunday. So every other day,
- 7:22Speaker 3: every couple of days you're playing. Now, the schedule's kind
- 7:26Speaker 3: of normalized a bit. You're good to go with him,
- 7:29Speaker 3: and Filmelka has told the coaches before, like I could
- 7:34Speaker 3: use a day. In November he did say, look, I'm
- 7:38Speaker 3: a little tired here. When Utah was all over the
- 7:41Speaker 3: map and playing all those back to backs and he did,
- 7:44Speaker 3: but that game last night, he might have been the
- 7:49Speaker 3: unsung story of the game. He stopped twenty three of
- 7:52Speaker 3: twenty five. It was the twelfth time in his last
- 7:55Speaker 3: sixteen starts he's allowed two goals or less, Like that's
- 7:58Speaker 3: a recipe for success, and your goalie allows two goals
- 8:02Speaker 3: or less than seventy five percent of the games. And
- 8:05Speaker 3: even more impressively, last night, he didn't allow a five
- 8:07Speaker 3: on five goal to Washington would score the second most
- 8:11Speaker 3: five on five goals in the league. Both goals came
- 8:14Speaker 3: on the power play, which is you give back to
- 8:16Speaker 3: special teams. Washington's special teams have struggled. They're probably due
- 8:19Speaker 3: to normalize, like Utah's power play and Utah's PK was
- 8:23Speaker 3: in the top ten and the first first half.
- 8:26Speaker 1: Of the season. It's it's not now.
- 8:27Speaker 3: But against the team that scored the second most five
- 8:30Speaker 3: on five goals in the NHL, and Washington didn't allow
- 8:33Speaker 3: one and they were really bringing it in that third
- 8:37Speaker 3: period he turned aside twelve shots. But as I was
- 8:40Speaker 3: processing the game after and this morning, I'm like, gosh,
- 8:45Speaker 3: Butmelca was really really good in that game and and
- 8:48Speaker 3: he had the game against Colorado Wednesday. I've never been
- 8:52Speaker 3: more wrong in anything I've ever said on the radio
- 8:55Speaker 3: than on the show last week when you said, what's
- 8:59Speaker 3: the the biggest advantage I think coming back from the break,
- 9:03Speaker 3: I said, well for Melca, because he's been over practicing
- 9:07Speaker 3: at the Olympics.
- 9:08Speaker 1: He didn't play, he's been taking pucks.
- 9:10Speaker 3: And then when Sin I looked looked a little rusty,
- 9:13Speaker 3: and we were talking with with Andre Tierney after He's like, yeah,
- 9:17Speaker 3: he was at the Olympics, but he was the third goalie,
- 9:19Speaker 3: so he wasn't seeing a lot of shots in practice,
- 9:23Speaker 3: and the practices are short, so he flies over to Italy.
- 9:28Speaker 3: It's the third goalie, which is standing around because there's
- 9:31Speaker 3: only two nets. So I was wrong on that one,
- 9:35Speaker 3: but he got it back going against Minnesota. And then
- 9:37Speaker 3: everybody was terrible Sunday and good response from from literally
- 9:42Speaker 3: every single person on the team last night, because every
- 9:46Speaker 3: single person on the team was sub subpar, below average.
- 9:52Speaker 3: What other what other nice things can we say about
- 9:55Speaker 3: the game?
- 9:57Speaker 1: What do you expect?
- 9:58Speaker 2: Excuse me, what do you expect from tomorrow's matchup against Philadelphia?
- 10:03Speaker 3: The Flyers are going for their four straight win. They're
- 10:07Speaker 3: four to one and two in their last seven. They're
- 10:08Speaker 3: six points below the playoff line, but they play a
- 10:13Speaker 3: lot of low scoring games. Five of their last six
- 10:16Speaker 3: games have seen five goals total or fewer, so like
- 10:20Speaker 3: three one games, three two games in a shootout.
- 10:23Speaker 1: They beat Toronto on Monday.
- 10:25Speaker 3: Rick Tockett is their their head coach, and wherever he's gone,
- 10:28Speaker 3: his team's play like that strong defensively at the expense
- 10:34Speaker 3: of the offense. So that that's how their games have gone.
- 10:40Speaker 3: That's how the game was Tuesday in DC UH for
- 10:45Speaker 3: the mammothon and Capitols, even though Utah went into the
- 10:47Speaker 3: Chicago game with four more than ten to fifteen, so
- 10:50Speaker 3: they can put the puck in the net. But I
- 10:53Speaker 3: think you know, Philly has got their brand of game going.
- 10:59Speaker 3: And we remember just over a month ago they had
- 11:02Speaker 3: a four to two third period of lead on the
- 11:04Speaker 3: Mammoth for UH. Nick Schmaltz took a puck away from
- 11:08Speaker 3: a guy who had a wide open empty net and
- 11:11Speaker 3: was just trying to get a little closer before he
- 11:13Speaker 3: shot it, and that never happened.
- 11:15Speaker 1: So you have that. Here's a fun fact for you.
- 11:18Speaker 3: O see, how about the fact that the Mammoth are
- 11:20Speaker 3: three and oh all time in Pennsylvania and six and
- 11:23Speaker 3: oh all time in New York State.
- 11:25Speaker 1: How about dominating that region.
- 11:27Speaker 3: So I'm gonna try and make it four and oh
- 11:29Speaker 3: in the Commonwealth of PA.
- 11:31Speaker 2: There's a weird satisfaction that rises in my body when
- 11:35Speaker 2: you'd give me those two stats. I don't mind it either,
- 11:39Speaker 2: because so often those those are talked about as being
- 11:43Speaker 2: the meaningful television markets and that's where sports are more
- 11:47Speaker 2: significant and things like that. Soh really, why can't you
- 11:51Speaker 2: beat this little upstart group from Utah? Then New Yorkers Pennsylvanians.
- 11:57Speaker 3: I agree, I like that, don't mind it at all
- 12:00Speaker 3: for Politan Division for the Mammoth. Two games left in
- 12:05Speaker 3: the Eastern time zone for Utah Thursday and Philly Saturday
- 12:09Speaker 3: and Columbus and that means, oh see ore five o'clocks starts.
- 12:14Speaker 3: That's nice, so primetime the rest of the way.
- 12:18Speaker 2: Okay, trade deadline approaches, there's a lot of conferce speaking
- 12:24Speaker 2: in New York, Vincent Trocheck seems to be the biggest
- 12:28Speaker 2: name that there's some buzz around. Very hilarious anecdote. By
- 12:33Speaker 2: the way, if people have not seen it when uh
- 12:35Speaker 2: he was apparently trying to prepare his young son, his
- 12:38Speaker 2: seven year old son, for the possibility that he might
- 12:42Speaker 2: be traded, and was, you know, talking to the young
- 12:44Speaker 2: kid about it. I guess the sun I'm paraphrasing, was
- 12:48Speaker 2: just like, well, I've got a hockey team here, i
- 12:50Speaker 2: haven't been traded.
- 12:51Speaker 1: So he's not going. Seven year old boy, he's staying
- 12:54Speaker 1: with that. That was that was hilarious. That was great.
- 12:57Speaker 3: That's the mind and that's the brain of seven year
- 13:00Speaker 3: old is I've experienced and I'm I'm sure you have that.
- 13:05Speaker 1: I don't need to go.
- 13:10Speaker 2: He's not the only name that we could see move,
- 13:12Speaker 2: but we'll start at the top there. What do you
- 13:15Speaker 2: think this trade market is going to look like.
- 13:17Speaker 3: I think the Mammoth have one of the deepest prospects systems.
- 13:22Speaker 3: I think they have some untouchable prospects and they've also
- 13:26Speaker 3: got a boatload of draft picks, so they've got plenty
- 13:32Speaker 3: that they can bring to the table. And if there's
- 13:35Speaker 3: a deal that they want to get done, Bill Armstrong
- 13:39Speaker 3: will be able to get it done with the way
- 13:43Speaker 3: that he's strategically stockquiled draft picks and prospects here because
- 13:47Speaker 3: you you know, you got a top five prospect pool
- 13:51Speaker 3: in the NHL. But if so many prospects, not all
- 13:54Speaker 3: of them are going to be able to play in
- 13:56Speaker 3: the NHL, but they're they're attractive pieces. Which is you
- 14:01Speaker 3: know that the second best thing about having a prospect
- 14:05Speaker 3: pool is you can you can dip into that there's
- 14:08Speaker 3: there's untouchable prospects to me, but you got lots of
- 14:15Speaker 3: good prospects that but lots of teams are going to
- 14:17Speaker 3: like that are going to put you over the top.
- 14:19Speaker 3: If you're if you're going up against somebody and there's
- 14:21Speaker 3: a player that that you want, you'll be able to
- 14:24Speaker 3: get the deal done.
- 14:27Speaker 2: When we talk about, you know, the ripple effects that
- 14:32Speaker 2: certain trades, certain personnel moves have, right because you're I
- 14:36Speaker 2: don't think that Mammoth are in this particular place yet,
- 14:40Speaker 2: but teams like the Oilers or whoever might be where
- 14:44Speaker 2: you've flirted with ultimate success. You've gotten to a Stanley
- 14:47Speaker 2: Cup Final, You've you've been so so close, and now
- 14:50Speaker 2: you've really got to make those little tweaks and you
- 14:52Speaker 2: might have to make tweaks specifically to win a Western
- 14:56Speaker 2: Conference championship.
- 14:57Speaker 1: If you're Dallas, or you might have to make.
- 14:59Speaker 2: A tweat we specifically to anticipate beating, like the Florida Panthers.
- 15:04Speaker 2: If you're somebody like Edmonton, will this trade deadline potentially
- 15:11Speaker 2: force any of those types of conversations any of those
- 15:14Speaker 2: types of moves. Are those types of players maybe gonna move?
- 15:20Speaker 2: You look at anything could happen, and those teams, like
- 15:27Speaker 2: some teams have been better for their championship runs, like
- 15:30Speaker 2: Edmonton has made some really questionable decisions with their roster
- 15:37Speaker 2: and with their salary cap, while teams like Tampa Bay
- 15:43Speaker 2: and Florida have been really really strategic, to the point
- 15:49Speaker 2: that Florida was able to resign their top three unrestricted
- 15:53Speaker 2: free agents last year right after the Stanley Cup, and
- 15:57Speaker 2: question was can they keep one or two of them?
- 16:00Speaker 2: And I think Bill Armstrong, uh, he he's kind of
- 16:06Speaker 2: gone on the record, but I think he kind of.
- 16:09Speaker 3: Laughs at at at some of these teams. And and
- 16:12Speaker 3: we talked about big name teams from Pennsylvania and New
- 16:16Speaker 3: York and in the NHL you got big time teams
- 16:19Speaker 3: from Canada and some of the things they they do.
- 16:25Speaker 3: You're just like you sure you you really want to
- 16:28Speaker 3: do that? And and and that's why the Mammoth are
- 16:31Speaker 3: in such a good spot because they could have went
- 16:35Speaker 3: bananas on July first, and they're like, I think, I
- 16:39Speaker 3: think we'll wait and they can make a swing here.
- 16:45Speaker 3: And if they they they make a blockbuster deal. It's
- 16:51Speaker 3: it's going to be somebody that they want to be
- 16:53Speaker 3: part of the long term plan that's on a long term,
- 16:59Speaker 3: extended contract, and it's going to be strategic.
- 17:03Speaker 1: These guys are on the road right now and.
- 17:06Speaker 3: I haven't heard, but I can guarantee that Bill and
- 17:10Speaker 3: his staff are probably at the hotel in a conference
- 17:13Speaker 3: room and haven't been seeing a whole lot of to
- 17:18Speaker 3: this point on the trip, just because they're they're looking
- 17:21Speaker 3: at every scenario, taking every call, making every call, and
- 17:28Speaker 3: David Ludwig, the assistant GM who who is the salary
- 17:33Speaker 3: cap czar, is popping everything into his spreadsheet to look
- 17:37Speaker 3: at what's this mean for five, six, seven years down
- 17:40Speaker 3: the road.
- 17:44Speaker 2: Who else are you paying close attention to right now,
- 17:47Speaker 2: especially in the West, because there's some red hot teams,
- 17:50Speaker 2: there's some teams that are on shaky ground right now.
- 17:53Speaker 2: Who is drawing your eye away from the Mammoth that
- 17:56Speaker 2: obviously occupy a bunch of your time.
- 17:59Speaker 3: Over in the pace. The question is who's gonna win
- 18:02Speaker 3: the divisions? Who's the best team over there? You think Vegas, right,
- 18:06Speaker 3: you think Edmonton, But Anaheim's been hot, Seattle's been good.
- 18:12Speaker 3: And you look at that in anticipation of Utah staying
- 18:18Speaker 3: in that first wildcard spot, they could potentially have a
- 18:22Speaker 3: better record than the Pacific Division champion, be it Vegas, Anaheim,
- 18:28Speaker 3: or Edmonton.
- 18:29Speaker 1: So that's that's one one.
- 18:32Speaker 3: Key importance, uh, for Utah staying in that first wild
- 18:38Speaker 3: card is gonna play the Pacific Division champion and you
- 18:41Speaker 3: might have a better record than they do. In the
- 18:46Speaker 3: Central Dallas is won ten in a row. They've gotten hot.
- 18:51Speaker 3: Avs look like they're back and rolling, beating La and
- 18:56Speaker 3: Anaheim in back to back nights this week. Minnesota might
- 19:01Speaker 3: have been affected by the Quinn Hughes publicity tour. Did
- 19:04Speaker 3: you hear about this? So THESA gets back from Italy.
- 19:12Speaker 3: They start in Miami, they go to the White House,
- 19:15Speaker 3: they disperse, Quinn Hughes and his two teammates, Matt Bold
- 19:19Speaker 3: and Brock Faber, fly to Colorado wild beat the Abs.
- 19:24Speaker 3: Then they come here. Utah beats them. That was Friday night. Saturday,
- 19:28Speaker 3: Quinn Hughes flew from the Twin Cities to New York
- 19:33Speaker 3: to do Saturday Night Live, flew back, Wild played Saint Louis.
- 19:40Speaker 3: The Blues won their first road game in several months
- 19:44Speaker 3: on Sunday, and then Monday, Quinn Hughes flew back to
- 19:48Speaker 3: New York City to be on the Tonight Show. So
- 19:51Speaker 3: you could tell that was might have affected things. Friday
- 19:53Speaker 3: definitely affected things.
- 19:54Speaker 1: Sunday.
- 19:55Speaker 3: They eked out a win against Tampa Bay on Tuesday,
- 19:58Speaker 3: and they're off today, so we'll see if the Wild,
- 20:01Speaker 3: who's been kind of up and down coming out of
- 20:02Speaker 3: the break, and get back and roll. And they'd won
- 20:05Speaker 3: six straight games before the Mammoth snapped their their winning
- 20:07Speaker 3: streak on Friday.
- 20:11Speaker 2: That's between the pipes, Adrian Danny, are you tell Mammoth
- 20:14Speaker 2: insiders kind enough to join us every single week?
- 20:18Speaker 3: Thanks for coming in, dude, Thanks for having me man.
- 20:20Speaker 3: Always fun to catch up. Safe travels to you and
- 20:24Speaker 3: see you next week.