32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Back To The Future

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

How do you feel about a weekday afternoon game? Elliotte asks Jeff just that to kick off the podcast and explains why this has been coming up as an idea for next season (1:15). They then dig into some LTIR talk (8:35), Elliotte’s encounter at the Top Prospects Game in Kitchener, the return of Evgenii Dadonov, the impressive start from Hayden Hodgson (19:15), Claude Giroux and Ottawa (19:50), what the Islanders might do this off-season (23:00), drafted NCAA players making the jump to the NHL (26:40), and they take your questions to wrap things up (29:00).Music Outro: Dirty Honey - Take My HandCheck Dirty Honey on tour in a city near you: https://www.dirtyhoney.com/tour-datesThis podcast is produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: AT&T SportsNetThe views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

hang on a second hang on hang on 2020 hindsight what did i say 50 50 yeah okay that's really good elliot you know what i really like to do in the morning when i have a cup of coffee i like to drink half of it and then go back to the pot and fill it up again and try to convince myself that i haven't actually had two cups of coffee in that spirit this podcast is going to be that top part of the coffee that i top off because we just had a podcast a couple of days ago, kind of went a little bit Broadway on it. But this one's going to be a quickie. We swear, we promise we will not take too much of your time. This one will be a quick 32 Thoughts to the Podcast presented by the all-new GMC AT4 lineup.

And first of all, I have no idea what any of that just was. I'm listening to that. This is going to be a little top-off is all I'm going to say. This isn't going to be a full cup of coffee. Just a little top-off, sir. You're sitting there at the bar having your breakfast and you're sipping your coffee and you're waiting. What a tortured analogy.

I'm trying to be a little bit creative here instead of just jumping in with a big question about LTIR as everyone falls asleep as you were before the podcast last time and probably today as well okay let's jump right in with the most exciting topic we can think of no no i've got a question for you i want to ask you okay i'm gonna start with a question for you all right how would you feel yes about one game every week and it has to be a weekday. It can't be a weekend that starts at two o'clock local time. So an afternoon game. Yes.

One game a week. So personally, I love it. But then again, I'm not a nine to five worker. Like I'm not a traditional worker. For me, that would be great. I personally love afternoon hockey games personally just speaking selfishly because you said how would you feel about it i would support it what about you so there's an idea going around and you know i don't know how serious it is it was presented to

me recently that there should be one game a week in the nhl that starts at two o'clock why is that there's a couple of different reasons number one you wouldn't do it in one of the higher revenue places maybe one a year i think generally you don't want to do that in those areas because the games that are played in the afternoon on the weekend, and I would assume so during the middle of the week, they tend not to make as much in food. They definitely don't make as much in alcohol or drink revenue. Those games tend not to make as much in overall revenue because they're not at night. However, the argument that's being made is you make it up in terms of some places that don't get as much attendance at night you do special promotions whether it's school kids in the building or you know other people that maybe can't get

there at night can get there during the day you try to make it a special event you know I had somebody say to me that they think that they should consider it at Arizona where the attendance is going to be maximum 5,000 next year, maybe to do it a little bit different. The one thing we were kind of batting back and forth is that the average ticket is supposed to be around $160. I don't know if you're going to get that in the daytime. But the other thing that this person mentioned to me

was that it's good for wagering. And if the teams can capture. So his overall point was, okay, so maybe you don't make as much in terms of food and drink revenue, but in terms of getting people in the building, getting tickets paid for. And does it make your TV product more valuable? And does it make a team more intriguing in a local market where it doesn't sell out all the time at night? Plus the possibility of it being sort of a wagering target because it's a game that's all by itself. Does it make sense? See, when I think about this, I think about kids.

Yes, and I think that's very big. We have to get kids into the building. We have to get kids into the building. Here's why I say kids, and this is one of the sensitivities. When you have ticket prices, and listen, NHL is the best hockey league in the world, and the ticket prices reflect that. If I were running a high revenue team. High revenue team doesn't do it.

Maybe one a year. But hang on a second. If I'm running a high revenue team, okay, maybe for purposes of this discussion, maybe not even a high revenue team. One of my concerns is where's my next generation of season ticket holder coming from if they're already priced out of the building in those

formative years? Like I grew up going to Maple Leaf Gardens. My dad would take me to Toro's games, to Marley's games, and to Maple Leaf games as well. So I was spoiled, but I got into the building and I got hooked on hockey really early and it's just carried me through life. And I know that not all families have that luxury,

but back then it was easier to get hockey tickets than it is now. If I'm running a hockey team, one of my concerns is twofold, filling the building now, but also making sure that the next wave of season ticket holder, when this generation of season ticket holder ages out, is still there and interested in buying tickets. That's why there needs to be some way to get kids in to the building. Get them in there. Get the live experience. Whatever you have to do, personalize it for kids so that it's exciting and it's different and it reflects their tastes. Not just the tastes of guys like you, me, and Amel, but kids' tastes.

That way, when it's their turn to grow up and get in a position where they can buy season tickets, they have in the back of their mind, yeah, you know what? That's my entertainment brand of choice, hockey. I'm with you on this. Someone brought it up to my attention today and said that I don't know if it's being discussed or it's an idea or what it is, just that it's kind of floating around there. And I thought it was a great idea you know every organization is gonna have their ups and downs where they're hot or where they're not and you know Toronto you know had their next generation game on Wednesday night yeah their next generation game used to be afternoon games when it was you know more possible to do it and I assume that

once things return quote- quote unquote to normal we'll get back to that but i'm looking at some places where you know maybe if you're not expecting a big year your attendance is down you say okay we're gonna go on a rotation where we're gonna play i don't know how many weeks there are in the regular season? Is it something like 35, whatever it is? Do you say everybody's got to play one game? Or maybe some teams don't do that. Everybody out there can argue about how it works. But should this league have one game a week that starts at two o'clock local?

Like one of the things that I really loved when the World Cup was on in Toronto is just, and I had to work part of it with Witten and Armstrong, but just going and being around the rink and being inside the arena all day long. And specifically afternoon games. Like you remember that

Sweden Team North America game, the one that we all went crazy for. That was an afternoon game. Yep. And that was awesome. And I think part of the cool experience was you're not used to seeing a hockey game at that point in the day. Your body clock isn't tuned for hockey. Like, oh, hockey's coming at me here early in the afternoon and it's great.

So I love it. I love the idea of afternoon hockey. I love the idea of having one day dedicated to making it mainly about kids and getting kids in the building. But the wagering angle is an interesting one too that I hadn't considered. I hadn't considered that, how to cater to the wagering crowd.

I don't want to give a frivolous answer for it. I want to sort of color this up with just a hot radio take because I'm on the air. But that's an interesting one that I'm going to have to think about because I had never considered it from that angle before.

The other thing now also is that, and it's not for everyone, it's for some people, not for everyone. But the workforce is changing, right? How many people are going to be returning to the office? Well, and you know what? When I opened it with the preamble saying, look, I'm not a traditional nine to five person. Well, who is now?

Yeah. Who is a nine to five? Anyway, that's one of the things to discuss amongst yourselves. We look for the feedback at our email, our phone line, which we'll get to us later. Because I would support it. I think it's a great idea. One game a week. I'm in.

Two o'clock. Okay. To another exciting discussion of the future of LTIR. What is it, Elliot? So there were some reports on Thursday that it's on the agenda at the GM's meetings coming up next week in Florida. And basically what it's being jokingly called is the Kucherov rule where players can't be stashed on LTIR and then show up for the playoffs.

And maybe what you do is you come up with some tweaks or changes to the system that prevent you from really having a situation where you have no cap and can really load up your roster now there's a couple of things here i had a couple gms tell me last year after kucherov the way he bragged about it when tampa won the cup that people were going to take aim at it it wasn't just that tampa did it it's the way that kucherov openly bragged about it that guaranteed that people were going to go after it yeah what everybody forgets is the players have to agree to this you can't just unilaterally say okay we're changing the rules they just redid the cba and we're in year two of what could be six or possibly seven you know the league says

that they're hopeful they're going to get that debt paid off the one the players owed them you know we'll see which would make it a six-year deal instead of seven but you can't just unilaterally say we're changing the rules without the player's approval and you know the big question i've been asking since these reports started coming out on thursday is does it benefit the players to say yes and i'm already getting arguments as to why it doesn't. Yeah. Or what are you going to have to offer the players to get them to say yes? If I'm a player, you know what my first question is about this proposal? Does it affect escrow? Well, it can't because escrow is locked in.

I get that, but that's my first question. And if the answer is no, then I'm saying don't change it. That's if I'm a player. Then I'm fine with it. If you want to change it, okay. Let's go back to the Bob Goodenow days where everything is a fight. Yeah.

Everything is a battle. Everything is a negotiation. Oh, you want to change that? Okay. What's my cookie? So what cookie can you give the players here? Well, I think that that's the thing. It doesn't have to be a battle, but there has

to be a cookie involved. You're not just going to get the players to change that. And there's been arguments in the past that when escrow wasn't locked in, it made sense for the players to close the LTIR loopholes. Because the more players get injured, and it's a contact sport, so players get injured, the more salary gets brought in and the more money the players would have to owe but in this particular cba as you just alluded to it's locked

in so unless you really think that by not changing this you're still going to owe money at the end of the deal that incentive is lessened and you know as the commissioners come out and said, they're very hopeful that they're going to have this done well before the end of the deal. So that immediately takes away one incentive. The other thing a couple people were saying to me is, so let's just say, for example, that we're back into last year and this rule's in place.

So all of a sudden, if you're Tampa, you're sitting there and saying are we going to load up if there's a chance we can't use kucherov or another good player in the playoffs well then you may not load up and then you're basically saying to players you might get less opportunity you might not get a chance to play. You might not have the opportunity to get traded to Tampa Bay. All of that is a part of it. And then in the playoffs, you're going to say to somebody, well, right now you can absolutely play if you're one of the 20 best players

on a roster, but now you're going to say, well, in the playoffs, you can't play anymore because we have to do the salary cap, and sorry, your situation is such that you can't be on the roster. Are the players going to vote for that? I have a hard time believing that one for each. So I have a hard time believing the players would go for that. Right.

So I think the question is, yes, I can understand why some GMs hate it and they don't want to do it. And I would bet that these are particularly GMs of teams that either don't do this or don't want to financially do it but the thing is how are you going to convince the players that this is an idea that they could get behind the only way is to show them a way they're going to end up putting more money in their jeans to be blunt is there a way to do that like i don't know other than you know sticking more money in their jeans or reducing escrow. How do you do that in a negotiation like this? What else do you offer?

That's what it comes down to. What are you offering? We shall see. We'll be there in Florida from Sunday to Tuesday. So we'll see what the discussion is about. so as we begin here jeff i did want to shout out before we got into everything i wanted to shout out i was at the top prospects game in kitchener on yes on on wednesday night i don't know how many seats that arena holds, the auditorium now, but everybody brought their

own car. I couldn't believe how crazy the parking lot was before and after the game. It was like one person, one car. I love, that is one of my favorite junior hockey places. It's great. It's a great, first of all, the organization's

great. Joe Birch and Mike McKenzie do a bang up job there with the Kitchener Rangers, one of the marquee franchises in the entire CHL, and the Rangers do everything first class. And it was a great night. It was a lot of fun. And sitting right near me were the representatives of the Chicago Blackhawks.

Colin Fraser was in there. Brian Campbell was in there. Rob Faka, who was their USA scout, was there. And they had with them a couple of young fans. Colin's son, Calder, he's 11. Rob Faka's nephew is Oakley McNeil. He was there. And they said they're huge fans of the podcast.

And the reason I wanted to shout them out in particular is they say that everything I say is good and all of your ideas are terrible. So I just want to say Calder and Oakley, you two are geniuses and we appreciate you listening and always supporting the right side of the argument. Young men, if you think you can bribe Elliot Friedman

with compliments, you're 100% correct. Hold it. Down a couple of steps. Feeds it across. Stevenson. A march to Sony. Put it off the outside of the net.

Maybe the toss. It's a double. Scores. They've gained it on up. On the power play. It's 3-0. They move it down to Michael. That's so good.

Abel, make that back pass through the seam. Dodonoff to Marcheson. It's going to Stevenson to Marcheson. He misses. And Elliot, to close things off on Dodonoff, as we're watching the game on Thursday night, the void scores to make it 3-0 Vegas. And Elliot, I'll tell you,

this is the exact kind of story I want to see down the stretch. The voided trade, the Donoff back, leads the Vegas Golden Knights back into the playoffs. I'm backing on Vegas, Elliot. I thought that was your new nickname for him a second, The Void. The Void, yeah.

That's what I'm calling him from now on, The Void. The Void scores. Well, first of all, you see his reaction, the big fist pump, the celebration for him. Totally. Those guys were really happy for him. Of course. A friend of mine who lives in California sent me a text. He joked, he said, another player leaves Anaheim and goes on a hot streak.

You know, if we ever get him on the podcast, the first thing we have to ask is, so how come it didn't work out in Anaheim I think a couple of things here first of all you could tell those guys were ecstatic for him totally you know I think in in all of this it kind of got forgotten what a talented offensive player he is he had three goals in his last two games they the two games without him they were shut out you know he's a good player there's no question about that and he gained a respect of a lot of people in the league for standing up for himself the easy thing to do was would have been just to say uh okay you know i'll just go to anaheim because this is too much

of a fiasco but he stuck to his guns and he stood his ground and i think there were a lot of people in the league who noticed and said you know know, good for you for standing up for it. Apparently behind the scenes, Monday night in Minnesota was pretty wild that he was there and he was telling people he wanted to play for the Golden Knights, but he wasn't on the roster at the time. So just a wild week and we'll see where this goes. I don't think that all of this is over yet. I'd heard rumors that, you know, Vegas was going to try to appeal it in some way.

I don't think that that can really happen. Dodonov has his rights, his contracted no-trade rights, and that can't be overcome. But I don't think we've heard the end of it just in terms of how the league starts changing the way it deals with no trade clauses. And also, you know, could there be any penalties or something at the end of it? I don't think this chapter is fully over, you know,

and speaking of not fully over, we can't conclude any part of this podcast without talking about the big story coming out of Thursday. What's that? The Minnesota wild over the Vancouver conducts in overtime. The in season cup is alive and well in my hip-hop you know what I found really cute the way that JT Miller hit the post in overtime right before Joel Erikssonak ended it for the Minnesota Wild just to give David Amber

a glimmer of hope that was really nice that was really nice by the way I also wanted to mention on Vegas how they they really played it up on social media. Quote, unquote, welcome back, Evgeny Dodonov. That Vancouver shot there, I really thought that was going off the post and in when Miller took it. I couldn't believe it stayed out. It was such a great shot.

That was a tough, tough one for the Canucks. You know who really laid an egg tonight was Winnipeg, losing at home to Ottawa. That's one you just cannot have at this point in the season. And we should mention too, Hayden Hodgson. Oh, what a story. What a great start in his NHL career. You know, you sit there and you look at his, his

travel. I mean, this is a guy who started in the OHL with Connor Brown and Connor McDavid on Erie five years, one year in Slovakia, ECHL, AHL signs his contract. The other day gets his chance one-on-one in his first NHL game. Uh, okay. So to a couple of notes you have at your blog,

and then we'll get to some phone calls and emails, and we'll fulfill our promise of making this a quickie podcast. Emil Delic, you're welcome. Claude Giroux, and as we're recording this podcast, Claude Giroux and the Florida Panthers are facing off against the Montreal Canadiens. On Florida's first goal, Claude Giroux picked up and assist. And you write in 32ThoughtsBlog at Sportsnet.ca that, how shall we say, he's investigating, he's curious about,

he's intrigued by Ottawa. I just don't think it's an option that's off the table. You know, he's got a lot of ties to Ottawa. From Hearst. You know, there's an expectation that that's where he's going to potentially retire to when he's done. I think he's building a home there. There's a lot of tie-ins.

Now, I don't think it's a guarantee, but I think it's on the radar. And like I will say, someone reached out to me after I wrote it and they said that he's been asking questions about it. But he said that, you know, I wrote it right, that that he's been asking questions about it. But he said that, you know, I wrote it right, that just because you asked doesn't mean it's going to happen. It means you're doing your homework.

One of the games I like to play when I read your blog is, okay, what if I put thought, let's say 21 next to thought 11? Okay. I don't even know what I did, but okay. Okay. to thought 11 okay i don't even know what i did but okay okay and in this case should i put the thought about claude geroux beside the thought about colin white to montreal i can see why you're doing it i don't know if those two things have one to do with the other you know unfortunately it's been a really rough couple of years for colin white like i thought that was a good contract when

auto was signed it yeah how do i judge everything i don't judge everything with 2020 hindsight but this is what i thought then and when when they signed colin white to that deal i thought it was a really good deal now it hasn't worked out and you know the fact is he's still a one-third buyout because of his age yeah and some people have wondered if that's where this is heading but you know on trade deadline day i heard rumblings about white that he might be going in particular to montreal it makes sense can't use the gm of the canadians is the agent negotiated that deal for white i mean look are they exactly to do with one another i would say no because unfortunately the way it's gone for white they were probably looking to fill that hole anyway.

Now the question is going to be, is white going to be in Ottawa next year or is he not? And is he going to be traded or people going to see if he gets the buyout and then a fresh start somewhere else? It's just too bad because I think that's a really good player. I think the other thing too with Ottawa is that, you know, they've got a lot of good young players a lot of really good young players and the one thing Ottawa was going to try to fix and I think any Sanders fan knows this is that you know who are the veterans that are going to play around them you know they've gotten a lot of players who you know haven't fit for whatever reason the idea of Giroux I think is pretty exciting for them.

Speaking of veteran players, one of the things we wonder about heading into deadline was would Zidane O'Chara remain an Islander? Mm-hmm. And you mentioned that there was some interest in O'Chara. I want to get your thoughts on the Islanders, who are still, you know, it's a disappointing season, and it's not as if they have any expiring contracts here.

They've got a lot of players that are locked in on term. But starting with Chara, how much interest was there in Chara at deadline? I heard they were asked quite a bit how Chara would feel. Now, is that interest that goes into he was close to getting traded? I don't believe that was the case, but I do think they got a lot of questions. How does he feel about this? How does he feel about us? i think it was there there's a lot of teams are gonna have fascinating off seasons in this league this offseason has a chance to be one of the wildest oh that we've seen pick your team

lou lamorello coming out saying we've got to make hockey trades that that means he's going to be doing something that's a sign that a, we're open for business. We want to do some things. Well, they've got a lot of guys in on term. That's the thing. Like, it's not as if, you know, we've had a bad season and we've got all these expiring contracts. Sure. You know, Chara's up. He came in on the one-year deal and Andy Green's a UFA and, you know, Varlamov has the one more season at $5 million on the AAV.

And, you know, Varlamov has the one more season at $5 million on the AAV. But other than that, like you go to Cap Friendly and look at the Islanders and it's, you know, $6 million for three more years on a guy and four more years at five. Yeah, but some of those guys you're not touching. Like you're not touching Pellick. You're not touching Pulak. You're not touching Nelson. I don't think, you know, I don't think you're doing anything with Barzal unless there's some reason you don't think you can sign him, right? You know, who's left? Like some of those contracts are good contracts that you're not touching.

But at a certain point, if you want to make a deal and you want to change the composition of your team, you know, some of those names and maybe you throw in, you know, Jean-Gabriel Pajot there too. And maybe, you know, Derry even throw in someone like a young Anthony Bevilier too. Like at a certain point, if Lou Lamarillo wants to make quote unquote hockey trades, he's going to have to trade hockey players. I agree with that, but that's what... For hockey trades.

That's why I'm saying like, I can't imagine Pellock is one of those guys. I can't imagine Pulak is one of those guys. I can't imagine Barzal is one of those guys unless they don't think they can keep them. I can't imagine Dobson. That's the one guy for me that I keep coming back to. I'm talking about,

he's a bit younger. Like I think you want it. And Brock Nelson, like, you know, Brock Nelson is so good. If I had another team and you told me Brock Nelson was available, I'd be like,

what do I have to do to me? That guy's an Islander. I don't, you know, I don't see it, but you're right like you you are going to have to give up quality for quality you know you look up and down this league and you know you're looking at the islanders you're looking at philly you're looking at winnipeg

you're looking at vancouver you're looking at john gibson and anaheim and then you see who gets knocked out in the playoffs you know what's chicago going do? There's a lot of fascinating stuff that's going to happen this off season. Someone's going to say to this pod, listen to this podcast and say, you guys made up so much crap. What did Doug Armstrong say? We all hit 250 that we all were, we all just

finished hitting 250 and now we're starting to step up to the plate for the, uh, for the off season. I forgot about that one. That was always a good line by him. You just said it this week. The national guys all hit 250. It's so good.

That's so good. I was going to say like Reggie Jackson hit 250, but he also hit 45 home runs. I was going to say hit 40 home runs a season and bat 250. You're going to Cooperstown. Right now. Right now. That's that's major league baseball.

Like Joey Gallo hits like 083 and he's got 40 homers. Whatever. That's it. Swing for the fences. That's what the GMs want, Doug. That's what they are. They don't want to just put the ball in play.

They want tape measure home runs. That's what they want. Doug strike out or hit it somewhere. That's it. You know, one thing I also wanted to mention was, you know, NCAA, the playoffs are on right now. And so Harvard lost on Thursday.

Matt Coronado, Calgary's pick, I think he stays in school. Uh-oh. What's that? Well, the last time the Flames had a player in Harvard. No, I don't think so. That's a joke.

That is a very inside joke. I'm talking about Adam Fox. Way to go there. I don't think they have to worry about that i don't think so either there was also uh you know sean farrell is a montreal guy and it sounds like the belief is he's staying in school yeah but the one i think is going to be interesting is nick abruzzese from toronto i think that i'm hearing there's some chance he could be coming out to join toronto so that's one and uh you know, you know, Matt Kessel, uh, he plays at

UMass and there's a chance that he could be with St. Louis if UMass gets knocked out. We're expecting Owen Power next month in Buffalo. There's a lot of talk about what's going to happen in with Michigan, their guys. Uh, Matthew Nyes, you know, I think he'll have a chance to go to Toronto if he wants to go once he's done his NCAA.

Sometimes some of the players, people say they aren't that sexy. There are some really sexy players. And the one that I talked about on Thursday, Cale Stevenson from BC, he joined the Capitals. So his Dartmouth team was not very good this year, but he had an unbelievable season. He got on my radar a few weeks ago. Someone just said to me, watch this guy,

because there's going to be a big fight over him. And someone said to me, this kid can play. This kid is a real potential steal for whoever can get him. And I heard the Rangers really liked him too, but Washington got him, and there's going to be some interesting players available here. All right. On that, we'll take a pause. We'll come back.

Some really interesting questions we got this week. A lot of business-y questions. Back with your calls. Back with your emails. Keep it here. Okay. Welcome back to the podcast. Emails at 32thoughts.sportsnet.ca. The thought line always open, 1-866-311-3232.

1-866, as I was always told on radio, don't say the phone number too fast. So I'll slow it down. 1-866-311-3232. We'll start with a voicemail. Amel, what do we have? Hey, Jeff. Hey, Elliot. This is Paul from California. And after the trade deadline today, I was on Twitter, as many of us were, and I'm reading from Chris Johnston saying nearly two and a half hours post-deadline and there are still teams on hold with the NHL Central Registry.

And so that got me curious. Could a general manager theoretically accept a deal, and while on hold, to officially confirm their trade back out of it? Could they change it? What are the rules regarding that? Has there ever been in a scenario where something like this might have happened? Thanks so much, guys. Have a good day. Bye bye. Well, you can always back out of it until it's official. It's not official. Now that might not

make other people very happy, but you could always back out of it. Basically, you know, what you're supposed to do is send in your email before three o'clock with the idea of what the trade is supposed to be and then they'll say okay here's your spot in line and they'll call you when it's your turn to do your trade call but you're supposed to have the details in before three o'clock so this is kind of like when you're lining up at a roller coaster and you think you're tough enough to go on the roller coaster and you get closer and closer and you realize this isn't for me and you duck out of line. That's what it's like for each. You can do that. Yes, absolutely.

You can do that. I mean, a trade's not official until it's official. Correct. One of the things that happened was the Max Domi trade on Monday between Carolina, Florida and Columbus. Yeah. was the Max Domi trade on Monday between Carolina, Florida, and Columbus. I don't think it was rejected, but I think they were told actually that if they submitted it as such, they weren't going to be able to do it.

So they had to fidget around and get it done. And that one came really close. But to have a lot of trades in the queue, I would assume 33 is a high number but i remember a few years ago when calgary traded with minnesota for nicholas backstrom the goalie we'd all kind of forgotten i remember we were all like i think i had a beer in my hand and we were kind of having a post show beer because we were saying okay this is all done and someone sent me a text saying hang on there's one coming in.

And I had to pretend I hadn't had a beer when I went on air and reported it. Elliot reports, trades drunk. That's the name of the podcast this week. You know, it's not unusual for it to come a few hours later. It's happened before. I think as a matter of fact, I think the one where Philip Forsberg was traded from Washington to Nashville, I think that one also came quite a bit late.

So it's not unusual. You can always back out. But from what I understand, the details, you send an email and they say, okay, we got this before 3 o'clock, but it's going to be a little bit until we have the call. That's what happens. We had a lot of questions about trades, obviously, coming off trade love trades so from jay hey guys quick question about no movement clauses can a player with say an eight-year contract change their list as their priorities change or are they stuck with their original list for all eight years if so how often can this happen uh you generally change your list i don't know of any player who's got a list that was sent in once

and it can never change. Now, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but I don't know of any case like that. As we talked about with the Dodonov thing, his contract had three dates because it's a three-year deal. His contract had a certain date. It was January 15thth 2021 for year one because we started the season in the middle of january last year then it was july 1st 2021 for this year and july 1st 2022 for next year like there are specific dates that's the way it is

for most contracts now there are some players and I believe Mark Giordano was one I think he was one where it's team submitted upon request so his protection will be you have a certain no trade to a certain amount of teams and I believe at one time one of the stall brothers had a deal like this too where it's a certain amount of teams but you don't have to tell us who's on your list until we ask for it there's a few of those like that I don't know if there are many still more like that but there used to be a few like that I believe one of the Stahls had that oh you know who i think had that was um who was the uh defenseman he played in vancouver and then buffalo erhoff i believe he had one like that too did danny heatley have that one

i always wondered about the the ottawa edmonton trade that he next after brian murray put it together that was just his list i understand that but, but Brian Murray wouldn't have put that trade together knowing that Edmonton would have been on that list. I wondered if it was available on request. Murray went and did the deal and then asked him for the list and he said, Edmonton, I'm not sure about that one.

I'm just wondering if that's how that happened. He watches. He still watches a lot of games. Once in a while, I'll get a random text from him just saying how something was stupid that I just said. Well, next time he does it, say, would you like to share this thought on our podcast?

Thank you so much for that question, Jay. Chris in New Jersey. With the recent trade of Jack McBain's signing rights to Arizona, I wondered why it is that players coming out of the NCAA seem to have the ability to choose where they play regardless of the team by which they were drafted. Do players or prospects coming out of the CHL have the power to do this? Or are college players treated differently in this aspect? If so, why is that?

It's a CBA issue. It's the way it was negotiated. So NCAA players have four years and then they become free agents. CHL players have two. and then they become free agents. CHL players have two and then they go back into the draft or they can be signed. If they go undrafted, they become free agents, right? Correct.

And that is why when you look at the later stages of the NHL draft, a lot of teams, when you're looking at players that might be long shots or projects, you might not take a CHL player because he's only got two years of development while you have his rights, as opposed to someone in NCAA where you have four. So generally the way it was always told to me is later on in the draft, you might want to look at taking more NCAA players and CHL players if they're going to be development projects. That's the way it was always explained to me. Or what happens is, you remember Matthew Swinard? Yeah.

So Ottawa drafted him. He didn't sign. They drafted him again. Yeah, and usually they'll do that when a player goes back in the... That happens a couple of times, yes. That's happened a couple of times. Do you generally notice what happens there and how it works? I don't know if it's still this way,

but there used to be almost this quasi- A gentleman's agreement, yes. A gentleman's agreement that no one will draft that player until at least a round later in order to send the message, if you know what I mean. Like if he's a second rounder, no one's going to touch him until the third. Well, it used to happen a lot more.

It doesn't happen as much now. True. And also in Europe, I think they keep them for four years after they're drafted. When the 2013 lockout ended, that was one of the things that showed up at the absolute last minute of negotiations. I think at the time, if you were in Europe, you kept them for two years, and they said, we want to keep them for four after they're drafted. And they got that. That was one of the last things before 2013 was ended. From Kenneth in White Court, Alberta.

Just have a question about LTIR. Here we go. I'm not exactly sure how it works. Some teams use it to get to the cap floor, i.e. Chris Pronger's contract with Arizona. Others use it to win Stanley Cups in brackets Tampa Bay. How do contracts get chosen if the salary counts against the cap or cap relief well basically the teams pick which contract goes on to ltir you know obviously vancouver was very good at this when lawrence

gilman was their agm toronto brand Brandon Pridham, who runs their cap, basically helped draft the CBA, so he knows how to use it. Steve Pellegrini, who was Lou Lamorello's capologist in the island, was also one of the architects of the CBA, so he knows how to use it. And I mentioned Barry Hammerhand's name a few weeks ago on Tim & Friends. He was a guy with the flyers who really was one of the first if not the first to exploit it and the best way to do it is it's quite simple so let's just say you're at the cap and you need lti and jeff gets injured

and jeff is a 10 million dollar player okay makes sense yeah well you know absolutely like you because we all know that he's not a 10 million dollar broadcaster this has got a better chance of being a tell me another player if you're three million shy of the cap and you put jeff on ltir you have to use up the three million to get to the cap and then you get seven million in space You have to use up the 3 million to get to the cap and then you get 7 million of space. So what people like those individuals I mentioned just did was they call up players to take them as close to the cap as possible. And then they put Jeff on LTIR. So if you're 3 million shy of the cap and you really want to maximize your LTIR, call up some players that get you within like $3 of the cap.

Yeah. Then put Jeff on LTIR and then you can use $9,999,997. Tampa has been really good at that the last couple of years. And Julian Breezewald got his start doing that kind of thing. Tampa's gotten within like $5,000 of the cap and then maximized it. That's how you do it. It's a real art with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Great question, Kenneth. We'll finish off with this one, Freach.

This one's from Brayden. Maybe a dumb question. There are no dumb questions. There are no. There's only dumb statements that Jeff and I make. There are no dumb questions, only dumb people asking questions like me and Elliot. This may be a dumb question, but with Philly retaining 50% of Giroux's salary and Florida paying the other half,

does he pay state tax on the 50% from Philly and not on the other 50% from the Panthers? Jeff, you got the answer? I got the answer. So about an hour before the podcast, I called an agent who really likes me and who's listening right now. And he really loves hearing from me. So he was thrilled that I called him on this Thursday evening with this question, just to get clarification on it. And what he said was, it works like this in this example. So for the purposes of this, the NHL likes to keep this thing really simple. So the Florida Panthers will pay pay 100 of claude geroux's contract he will enjoy

the benefit of the tax situation in florida then it gets settled with philadelphia at the end of the season so basically that doesn't affect Giroux's taxes. Not at all. So basically, what you're saying, what you're saying is that he gets the Florida taxes and then Philly gives back the money to Florida

that's owed to them, which has nothing to do with Giroux. Correct. They pay back the 50%. That's the way it works. It keeps it nice and simple and tidy. And that's all apparently done

at the end of the season. Nice. Nice podcast. I think that was quick. I'm not sure. and tidy. And that's all apparently done at the end of the season. Nice. Uh, nice podcast. I think that was quick. I'm not sure. Now we should let everybody know that we're going to the GM meetings on Monday.

Uh, so we're not going to do a regular news podcast Monday morning, but we've got a really good interview coming and interview. We didn't know what to expect, but turned out to be one of the better ones we did.

Look forward to that one. Trust me, it's from a very unexpected player because while this player was in the NHL, even though he was one of the more upbeat and friendly and positive players in the entire NHL, Elliot, this guy never really spoke. Didn't like talking to anybody. As a matter of fact, as we say in the interview,

when I told people we were going to be interviewing him, they were laughing. They said, really? He consented to an interview? We did over an hour with him, and it was great. We had to chop it down for time. We think you're going to enjoy this one. In the meantime, we hope you're going to enjoy this as well.

Taking us out, a four-piece band from LA. Dirty Honey released their debut single, When I'm Gone, just over three years ago. And it became the first song by an unsigned artist to reach number one on the Billboard mainstream rock charts. Coming off the success of their 2019 EP, the guys are back with their first full length record. They're hitting a number of

hockey cities across the US over the next three months. Check them out if you can. From their debut album, here's Dirty Honey with Take My Hand on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. I have to pay But I wanted all your love And I needed all your love And I keep getting burned in your fire Take my hand

You'll understand I'm just a sinner too There's no way out We're headed south I'm lonely just like you Caught in the lies Stories that you told