00:00It's a hump day Wednesday right here on the Sports Grid Network. It's the early line. It's
00:03how we get down. We've talked a lot about the NBA. We've talked college football. We've talked
00:06the NFL. Now we bring in the experts to help us out on the ice. It's Donnie Wright said it's Joe
00:11Raniere. Let's welcome in Troy Perlowitz from the NHL media. He's here with us this morning,
00:15rising and grinding on a Wednesday. Troy, thank you for joining us today.
00:19Thanks so much for having me, guys. How are you doing?
00:22Doing good. Hanging out. We need the ice advice. We're about a month away here from watching the
00:27absolute best on the ice in the Olympics. But, Troy, before we get there, we got a lot to get
00:32to. Now we could bog this down and talk about, you know, the Flyers ins and outs and which lines
00:36make some sense for that. We're not going to do that to the national people. They want to hear
00:39about the big topics, which are the Colorado Avalanche. And when I blink my eyes and say,
00:42hold on, hold on now, 31 and four on the season, absolutely dominant. Troy, on a night to night
00:48basis with the Avalanche, why are they so good? Yeah. And they've lost two games in regulation
00:55for the first time. They're 31 and two a couple of days ago. When you look at offense and the team
01:02they played last night, the Tampa Bay Lightning are very much in this conversation. Hockey teams
01:05try to generate offense in basically two ways. They try to generate offense off the cycle,
01:11which is you get into the offensive zone, you forecheck, you retrieve pucks and you get shots
01:16on net that way. Or you generate offense off the rush, which means you take transition offense,
01:21you take turnovers and within five seconds, the puck's on net and possibly in the goal.
01:26Colorado does that better than anybody. They're so versatile. They're that football team that could
01:31run and pass. They're that basketball team that could hit threes and also get fast break points.
01:36They're so good offensively. We all know about Nathan McKinnon. We all know about Kale McCarr.
01:41Their offensive firepower is great. And also they're leading the league in goals against average.
01:46So they're, they're a really complete team, playoff bound team, and they're ready for the playoffs.
01:51They look great to me. All right. So I got to be a homer here, Troy, because you mentioned,
01:57you mentioned, I did just watch one team beat Colorado the other night. And that would be my
02:04Florida Panthers, who obviously getting a little bit healthier here and have kind of turned the
02:11quarter at the mid season point. So how, how alive are they? I mean, what is the East looking like to
02:18you now as we, as we are at the halfway point here? Yeah. I w I wouldn't sell any of my Florida
02:25stock. I know they, they took a tough one last night against the Tampa Bay light or against the
02:29Toronto Maple Leafs, I should say. Yeah. Like you said, they're, they're rounding into form the injury
02:34bug, right? We've all, we've talked about this whole year with Florida. They just played so many games
02:39the last couple of years. When you go to the Stanley cup final to three straight years,
02:43when you win two of them, that's a grueling stretch. That's a lot of games. We had that
02:48Sasha Barco injury before the start of the year. That's really devastating for them. Now they could
02:52get positive injury news this week with Matthew Kachuk returning to practice. He's a huge part of
02:58their offense. He gets, like we just said, he gets in front of the net. He could score goals from
03:02anywhere tips, deflections right in front there. That's Florida's game. If they stay healthy,
03:07they're still very much alive in that Atlantic division, which is, is really crowded. Cause like
03:11I said, Tampa Bay is really good. Montreal is upstarting Toronto. Eventually I think gets it
03:17right with Austin Matthews and William Nylander. So that's a tough division, but you know, we've
03:21seen Florida come out of it before. True. If we take a look at the best in the East right now,
03:26odds wise, you have the lightning and the Carolina hurricanes, along with the Florida Panthers here,
03:30give me your assessment here on a team that maybe we should watch out that maybe most people aren't
03:34talking about right now in the Eastern conference, who might be able to make a run and get to the
03:37Stanley cup final. So I'll give you one surprise team, which is a real long shot, but there's
03:43every time I watched them, they seem to impress me more. And that's the New York Islanders.
03:47Now I can look really smart because they came up coming off of a nine, nothing victory last night
03:52against the New Jersey devils. But they have that 18 year old defenseman, Matthew Schaefer,
03:57with so much juice and energy. And Beau Horvat has been out the last couple of days. That's the
04:01calendar's probably best goal scorer. And he hasn't even played the last couple of games
04:05and they're still doing really well. We saw Ilya Sorokin pull off his 26 shutout to set a
04:10franchise record. That's a team that's a long shot in the East, but right now they're right there.
04:15The other team I'd give you that I, you know, no one's really talking about, but they're still
04:19really strong is the Washington Capitals, which was in the contention for the president's trophy
04:25last year. They're a really good hockey team, but no one seemed to like them in the public
04:29vetting market. We know about Alex Ovechkin, but they are plenty deep with, with Stroman
04:35at center. Logan Thompson's one of the best goaltenders in the NHL. So those two teams
04:40in the East against, you know, again, playing in that Metro division, which is a weaker of
04:43the two divisions in the Atlantic or in the Eastern conference. I think those two teams,
04:49no one's really talking about, and they can come up and they could upset some teams because
04:52they're, they're really good hockey clubs.
04:53Hmm. Well, what about the Western car? We know Colorado. I mean, that price is disgusting right
05:00now, but do we give Edmonton or Dallas, uh, or, you know, Vegas, do we give them a shot at
05:07surprising us in the end? And maybe it's not Colorado. Yeah. So what's frustrating for me about
05:13the Western conferences, I think the three best teams in the West are all in the same division.
05:18So I have Colorado, Dallas, and Minnesota as actually the, probably the three best teams
05:24in the West. And remember the way the format set up in the, in, in the playoff format,
05:29only one of those teams, if they're the top three teams in their division, only one of them can make
05:34the conference final. So it's really set up, you know, really well for anyone in the Pacific.
05:38We're still waiting for teams like Edmonton and Vegas in that Pacific division to step up and really
05:43be well. A couple of days ago, that Pacific division all had negative goal differentials.
05:47So all the strengths really in the central division, uh, it's going to be a, it's going
05:51to be a really tough path for any of those teams to come out.
05:55Troy, my favorite sport, whether it's the summer Olympics or the winter Olympics is always men's
06:00ice hockey, because especially when the superstars get there, I mean, every single time they have,
06:05it's unbelievable national pride. If we're looking right now in the odds market, Canada is the
06:09favorite at a plus one 35 price followed by team USA plus one 90. Then they have Sweden and Finland
06:14looking forward to, and again, this is next month is going to take place.
06:17Do you have any advice on who you think is going to win the gold medal?
06:22Yeah. Anyone, everyone at the league has been super excited about this ever since I joined
06:26the league that, that, uh, America NHL players are back in the Olympics for the first time
06:30since 2014. Look, I love Canada. It's, it's probably going to be really tough to knock off
06:34the Canadians. I think they're a little mispriced. I think they should be more heavily favored
06:39than that, to be honest. Yeah. All that McKinnon, McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Macklin,
06:45Cellebrini. Just think about this, the cons might winner from a couple of months ago with
06:49Sam Bennett couldn't even make this team. That's how strong Canada is. They're a really,
06:54really tough opponent and they have good goaltending too with Logan Thompson and Darcy
06:59Kemper and that, if you want a long shot, look at Sweden. You know, they, they were a goal.
07:03They were silver medalist last time the NHL players were in the Olympics. They have a really deep
07:07defense and really great goaltending as well. So I think they're a little mispriced as well,
07:11but I'd still go Canada. That's Troy Perlowitz. He's going Canada here. And also in future updates
07:17here, we're going to get his Flyers outlook on the chance to make the playoffs. It's 50-50,
07:21baby. Troy, thanks for rising and grinding with us on the early line on a Wednesday morning. We'll
07:25be right back. The predictive markets. You know, we love those predictive markets right here on the
07:29Sports Grid Network, particularly on the early line. And now's the time to dip into some of these
07:33topics that you might want to get invested in. Joe loves to sell some hockey. I love myself some
07:37Flyers hockey. The one thing I do know is how to pronounce some of these names. The NHL's
07:41Vesna Trophy going to the best goalie in the NHL. How about Sorokin, Thompson, Shisterkin, Knight,
07:47Gustafsson, Vasilevsky, Ottinger. Look at that, Joe. I'm very fluid on my goaltenders in the NHL.
07:53And right now, the favorite in the clubhouse with a 60% chance is Sorokin here, followed by Thompson
08:00and Shisterkin. Any shakeups here, Joe? Or do you agree that it should be Sorokin right now?
08:04Yeah, why not? I mean, you just heard about how well his team is doing here, Donnie. And you would
08:10think that he is going to be a big reason if they're going to make a big push. He's going to
08:16be a big reason why. And listen, it's nothing new. Like, we've known this about that he was capable of
08:22this kind of play for a while. He just, unfortunately, the team around him doesn't feel like giving him
08:27any goals to work with. But I could have turned a corner here, but there is no doubt that he is sitting
08:33on top of his head here. Very tough to get the puck past him right now. I like it. I think it can
08:39continue. I mean, that's the crazy part about it, Donnie.
08:41You're welcome.
08:42Okay.
08:43All right.
08:57Bye.
08:57Bye.
08:59Bye.
09:01Bye.
09:04Bye.
09:05Bye.
09:09Bye.
09:10Bye.
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