32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Draft Week

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

We’re in Nashville! Jeff and Elliotte kick off the podcast by discussing the latest news around the league and then get into their draft preview (24:05) with Sam Cosentino and Jason Bukala.They discuss Elliotte’s role during the NHL Awards on Monday (01:00), the talks between the Blues and Flyers (2:00), Carolina trades for Tony DeAngelo (9:00) and signs Jordan Staal (11:10), the Kings look to be in on Pierre-Luc Dubois (12:30), Predators made a trade (15:45), the latest on Alex DeBrincat (18:40) and Vegas close to a deal with Adin Hill (21:00).Email the podcast at [e-mail] or call The Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemailMusic Outro: Miki Fiki - ChaosListen to the full track HEREThis podcast was produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.The 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.

All eyes this week on Nashville, all eyes on the NHL draft. Welcome to 32 Thoughts, the podcast presented by the GMC Canyon AT4X. Lonely Jeff here in Stouffville, while Elliot and Emil are getting down in Nashville, home of this year's edition of the NHL draft. Coming up a little bit later on during this podcast, you will hear the roundtable we recorded last week, preview style for the NHL Draft with Sam Cosentino

and Jason Bukala. Draft Wednesday on Sportsnet, 7 o'clock Eastern. Also watch it on Sportsnet now. Elliot, before we get to our roundtable with these two gentlemen, before we get to trades and rumors, because that's been the call of the weekend let's talk a little bit about the nhl awards not the awards necessarily themselves but what exactly

you're doing and maybe more importantly who you're doing them with i don't know what i'm really allowed to say but we had a rehearsal uh sunday night this is gonna be so good i'm doing well don't tell anything that might not be true i'm doing some stuff with uh liam mckew and paul bissonette so we'll see how it all turns out and okay put it this way i think we all know who the star of this is going to be and it's not me and someone may get dragged into doing something he otherwise may not have wanted to do. So tune into the NHL Awards for that. Monday night.

Monday night, yes. Trades and rumors. This has been a wild weekend. You've always made the point that it's around this time where everyone, oh, lies is such a strong word. Let's just say deliberately deceives everybody. But it's been a big weekend of rumors and trades. I want to get to Colorado Nashville here in a couple of seconds,

but what's the very latest with the Philadelphia Flyers and the St. Louis Blues and names like Kevin Hayes, Travis Sandheim, and Torrey Krug. Look, Kevin Hayes, I think is going to get traded to St. Louis.

However, this goes, Hayes, I believe is going to be a blue. The question is, what's going with him and around him? And Travis Sanheim, you know, Philly tried to keep his name pretty quiet, and for a while they did, but his name got out there. He has a clause, protection, that clicks in July 1st.

And, you know, I think there were some teams that kind of kicked tires on him. But then I think St. Louis got really interested. And one of the things I think that St. Louis liked was the idea of pairing him with Colton Pareko. That he would be a good partner for him. And this kind of broke on Saturday. I don't know if it was when exactly it was, but about 24 to 48 hours before it broke, I think Torrey Krug was asked how he would feel about going to Philadelphia.

Now, Torrey Krug is a no-trade clause, so he has say. And he's also on vacation, I believe. So that added another layer to it. But obviously it got out and Philadelphia was hoping to convince him. Like, I know there were some reports that Philly was going to flip him. I don't think that's true initially. Now, I think it may have entered the picture picture but initially i think it was philly's goal to keep him that they would need a defenseman who could run their power play like krug is a

pretty respected hard-playing guy you want yeah like he was a long shot to make it had an extremely successful career and i think philly liked the idea of having that around their young players as they were rebuilding so I believe initially their goal was to keep him and obviously it got out and the reports were it was going to be Hayes and Sanheim for Krug and a first. I think there was possibly more to this, but that's kind of some of the major stuff. And I just don't think that Torrey Krug was ready to say yes. Now, as we taped this on Sunday night, I've heard everything from it's a hard no to right now it's a no and as of Sunday night I don't think anything had been presented to Krug that was going to get him to change his mind he was still in the same place now I think they've worked at him you know John LeClaire was hired by the Flyers John LeClaire's agent when he played was Louis Gross, who is Krug's agent. So I think

they've tried it that way. I think there are some Flyer players who've tried to talk him into it. The one guy I suspect, because he's a really respected and popular guy, would be Cam Atkinson. I don't know that for sure, but I would believe that Atkinson would be a guy who would be Cam Atkinson. I don't know that for sure, but I would believe that Atkinson would be a guy who would be dispatched to see if they could make this work. You know, first of all, the most important thing to say, Jeff, is that this is Torrey Crew's contractual right. He was given this contract. Thank you. I know that if I was in his shoes and I didn't want to go somewhere, I was in his shoes and I didn't want to go somewhere, I would say, look, I signed this contract in good faith and I am using this in good faith. So that's number one. I think that's the thing you have to remember. Now I haven't spoken to Krug, his agent's keeping a very low

profile. What I think has gone on here is there's a couple of things. It's been reported and put out there that they had a child recently. I think they have three kids and I'm not sure he wants to move them around very much. And the other thing is if he is traded to Philly and stays there, now the way it goes, you keep your claws, it travels with you, but how do you know that you aren't going to be asked to move it again in the future? And I don't think with a young family, he wants to move around very much.

I think the other thing too is he played on a team like Boston. He went to St. Louis. They were hoping to win. I don't know if he wants to go on a team like Boston. He went to St. Louis. They were hoping to win. I don't know if he wants to go to a team that's in a rebuild. This is probably the last contract he's ever going to sign. So I think that's a question too. Now, I believe one of the things that was brought up to him was,

you know, St. Louis, do you really think you're going to win there? Now, that's not going to make people in St. Louis very happy. But I think someone told me that was kind of brought up to him. Like, as of Sunday night when we taped this, and it's 925 Easterners, we're talking here, Jeff. I'm under the impression that nothing's been presented to him that's going to make him change his mind. That may not be the case eventually. Like, I got to tell you this, like David Posterdok retweeted, like this person said, bring Krug back to Boston, and Posterdok retweeted it. If it was Boston, I think he would wave,

but I don't know if that's serious. So I think what's going to happen is, unless all of this arm twisting works, they're going to have to present him an option he likes. And whenever I talk about this, Jeff, I think of's going to happen is unless all of this arm twisting works, they're going to have to present him an option he likes. And whenever I talk about this, Jeff, I think of Kelly Rudy, who always has said, if you sign this clause in good faith, you shouldn't even be asked. I'm warmer to Kelly. I always have been because sometimes these clauses are given in exchange for less salary, not always,

but generally I've always felt that if you ask a player to waive his no trade or no move after having negotiated it in good faith, that's akin to saying, give me something in exchange for nothing. And I know the Cba doesn't allow you to get anything else i know it's an idea that's been brought up before well you know for players that agree to waive their no trade could there be a one-time i don't know half million dollar payment for agreeing to waive a no that's not currently in the cba so you can't do that i know it's been coffee shopped before uh in, but I completely understand where

Kelly is coming from. Maybe they could give him free internet for life Comcast. Perhaps, but maybe somewhere down the road. Krug has also scrubbed like the blues from his social media. So that's leading people to think that he might do something here.

Again, as we record this, I was told there was nothing that had changed people are sure trying right but as we record this nothing had changed the other story involving the philadelphia flyers and this trade may take weeks to get done or it may not even happen tony d'angelo to the Carolina Hurricanes. There are some snags complicating this one, but these two parties. And you think you know what this is, right? I suspect that the issue is the reacquire

with retention issue. If you reacquire a player and the team trading him to you is holding money. You have to wait until one year after the initial trade was made. In this case, it would be July the 8th when the original Carolina Hurricanes Philadelphia Flyers trade was made. That's a good pickup. gets done at all. But if it is going to get done, it's not going to get done soon. It sounds like we'll be waiting into July for this thing to happen.

If the Philadelphia Flyers are going to retain salary on this one. Again, someone had indicated to me that it was going to happen. It was just going to happen eventually. So maybe that's where we are here. We'll see. Philly's out there and, you know, whether or

not Sanheim goes in the St. Louis deal, you know, the tough thing now is that, you know, whether or not Sanheim goes in the St. Louis deal, you know, the tough thing now is that, you know, your team wanted to move you, right? Yeah. So, you know, some people can put that behind them. Some people can't.

We'll see how everybody reacts here. But the one thing I'm learning right now, Jeff, is that the reason there's a lot of trade talk is people aren't crazy about the free agency group as a whole. So I think it's going to be an active week because teams see trades as a better way to fill their rosters rather than free agency. That's why I think there's going to be a lot of action.

Speaking of Carolina a second ago, there was other action involving the Carolina Hurricanes, most notably with Jordan Stahl, Elliott, and his contract extension. I don't think there's anybody who's surprised about this. I think we all believed it was going to get done. Maybe it was a little rockier than everyone

expected, but I don't think anyone ever believed that Jordan Stahl was going to hit the market. I wonder if a team like the Kraken had gone after him, but then he would have had to go across the country. I just think, though, that it was going to be Carolina at the end of the day. I'm expecting, I suspect you are as well, something to be announced on July 1st with Sebastian Ajo,

the long-rumored extension. Agree, disagree? I would agree with that. I mean, I think it's going to get done eventually too. So I don't know if I would say July 1st. I'll defer to you on that, but I think we all believe it's going to happen. The other thing, it sounds like Carolina has moved on.

Again, there's still time, so this could rekindle, but as of right now, it sounds like they've moved on from Max Pacioretty. We'll see where that situation ends up. Los Angeles Kings, Elliot, Pierre-Luc Dubois. Listen, I think you were the first to mention Los Angeles as having significant interest in Pierre-Luc Dubois. And as the days go on here, it looks like that interest is intensifying. What do you hear? What do you know?

I had heard a rumor that they had permission to talk to him that was flat out denied to me but i'd heard a rumor that they had permission to talk to him but like i said i was told no i believe that everybody like the jets the kings as representatives there were like coming into Nashville on Sunday. We'll see where this goes, but there's definitely traction. There's definitely movement. I think one of the most interesting things here is going to see if Dubois signs an eight-year deal or he signs a one-year deal to get LA through this season of cap gymnastics and

then extends sort of like Kotkaniemi did or Mikey Anderson did for the Kings last year I'm wondering about that I don't know if he's going to sign the big deal right away I would wonder before Colorado traded for Ryan Johansson I wonder if Colorado took a run at this I don't think it was ever close. I'm not convinced that at the end of the day it was going to work, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Colorado took a run at it. But I think at the end of the day, the places that Dubois was willing to go, there just weren't a lot of options that really worked. And LA has been aggressive, like we talked about.

And I think some people would be surprised if it doesn't happen, but nothing is done until it's done. For the Kings, what are we looking at here? I think we're all trying to figure that out. I think a lot of people wonder about Velarde. A lot of people wonder about one of Iafalo and Arvidsson to make it work. You know, Sean Dursey, they traded. You know, one thing about Dursey someone was mentioning to me is that he's got one more year under contract. He's going to have a big arb case because he puts up numbers, right? Oh, yeah. I think the Kings knew that.

They knew that they just would not be able to fit him in long-term because of his arb case how do you get paid in hockey you score you get points and that was a good deal for arizona and i think the kings knew that the arb case was one of the reasons they weren't going to be able to keep dersey we'll see where this goes here but look like i said i i think this is working towards something when it comes to the Kings and the Jets, there's a lot of questions about Byfield. Like these predictions can always end up exploding all over your face,

but I don't think Byfield's in this. I mean, I know there's been a lot of rumors about Byfield. I don't think so. One thing, by the way, that I do worry about, about Quentin Byfield with the Los Angeles Kings. What's that, Jeff? If they make the move for Pierre-Luc Dubois,

you have Kopitar, you have Deneau, then you have Pierre-Luc Dubois, and then what happens to Quentin Byfield? I get that he can play the wing, but he's the center. You know what? You say it yourself. Skill adapts. Skill adapts.

That would be the only one thing that I would be concerned about, though. Fair enough. We'll see where this one ends up. As we mentioned, this is a busy week coming up in Nashville. A couple of more things we're going to give way to the draft preview roundtable. You already referenced this earlier. Nashville and Colorado getting together to do a deal. Ryan Johansson moves from the Predators

to the Avalanche. Alex Galchenyuk goes the other way and Nashville retains 50% of the contract to make this one happen. Preds, by the way, now have a lot of cap space. Yeah, 20 million. We'll get there in a second. I have a couple of theories about that

and we'll see what happens this week. Your thoughts on the deal. Ryan Johansson, they find their second line center. Well, this goes to what we were talking about, Jeff, is that I think the teams like the trade market more than they like the free agent market. Yeah. Basically, if you were signing Ryan Johansson

to two years at 4 million per, would you take that gamble? And I think a lot of teams would. So, and don't forget, there's a lot of connections there. Chris McFarlane, the GM, was in Columbus when Johansson got drafted. Jared Bednar, the coach, was in Columbus as an assistant coach when Johansson was there early. He's a big body.

Colorado likes big bodies. You know what's interesting to me are the analytics there, Jeff, because I saw some analytics that absolutely trashed him. And I think his shooting percentage this year was like the worst of his career. So Colorado is a team that looks at that stuff. But the bottom line is he's a big body who can play behind McKinnon. We're all curious to see what happens with JT Comfer here. Yes.

This is one of those things where I kick myself, Jeff, and say I should have seen something like this coming. I think that Nashville was considering buying Johansson out. So the fact that they are going to pay him 50% for two years, I think Nashville is okay with that. I think they saw it as just like sometimes people need a fresh start, a break, a divorce, move on, get back on Tinder and start swiping right. I think Nashville was in that position, and it worked out, I think,

for everybody involved here. You know, I had a conversation with someone last night from another team, and we were talking about this trade, and I said, you know, because I think a lot of us wonder about the pace that Colorado plays at and can Ryan Johansson compliment that pace? Can he keep up with that pace? And the person that I talked to

brought up a really good point. It's further to your point as well. It's like, well, no, he's not Nathan McKinnon. He's not going to play at that pace. He's not Mikko Rantanen. He's not playing at that pace. But he said he's a really to play at that pace. He's not Miko Rantanen. He's not playing at that pace. But he said he's a really smart player with great hands and smart players with great hands.

Like, look, Mark Stone doesn't play with incredible pace, but he's one of the most effective players on the Stanley Cup champions. And he said, listen, it's the obvious conversation because of just how high a tempo Colorado plays at. But he said, look, he gets around the ice fine. He's a big body and his hands are ridiculous. He'll be fine in Colorado. I would tend to agree with that. One final note here, and we'll give way to the round table. The Alex DeBrinckit situation with

the Ottawa Senators and trying to find him a new home. I have a hard time believing that at the end of all of this, it's not going to be Detroit. I'll tell you this. I think I said at the beginning when we first, we first talked about it, that I was going with Detroit until I was proven wrong. So I stick with my predictions, no matter how bad they are until I'm proven wrong.

I think there's a couple of things here. Number one, I've heard that Steve Iserman is not crazy about term. Now, he did for Larkin. It's a center. He was an original Red Wing draft pick that might be a little bit different, but some people have told me that Iserman is not crazy about term. So that's the number one thing here too. And the other thing is I was talking to somebody about the way Iserman does deals. He'll grind you and he'll grind you and he'll grind you and he's a grinder. But he gets to a point where he just says, stop, that's it. No matter what you do to me, I'm not going any farther.

So when I was listening to that i was saying is that going to be a match you know is that going to be enough for ottawa is that going to be a deal what that ottawa wants to do like another manager told me you get to that point with eiserman where he just says you know what i've had enough you're either doing the deal or you're not that puts you in a position where you have to decide. And so, you know, we'll see what happens here. Speaking of Iserman and his style is having a conversation this morning with an agent. And we were talking about Iserman and a couple of his, a couple of his players. And he kind of laughed and he said, you know, Iserman's a pretty interesting guy. He'll never tell you whether he likes your prospect or not.

And he said, I asked him about it once. And Iserman said, why would I tell you if I like this player or not? Other teams will find out. And I don't want anyone to think that I like some player only to watch them jump in front of me to grab them. So I'm not going to tell you if I like your player or not. I'm not surprised about that in the least. Nor am I that I ever bobblehead that conversation.

Other things to keep an eye out, Jeff. Aiden Hill. Yeah, good note. I think there's an extension coming in Vegas two times 4.9-ish. You know what? He gets paid and Vegas saves on term. I see that one as a win-win. I just think the next two days, two or three days are going to be, you know, really crazy.

All the teams get in. They really like the trade market. The one I'm watching, Toronto's got a lot of big decisions to make. Like we've mentioned it a couple of times. It's like tree living is like drinking from a fire hose. He's got so much to do. Well, now it's decision time. And I'm really curious to see where this is all going to go.

If they don't have an indication that Nylander is going to sign July 1st, I'm really curious to see what they're going to do here. Like, are they really going to go into a position where both Matthews and Nylander aren't signed by July 1st? Even though I think that Matthews, and I've said this a million times, I think he's going to sign for like four or five years. So that's one I'm watching is Toronto,

because Toronto has to make some decisions here. I'm not hearing a ton about Hellebuck. I think it's been a little bit. That'll change. Yeah, but there's just a lot of goalies out there, right? A lot of goalies out there. It's going to be a wild few days, no question about it. It will, and it culminates in Nashville at the draft.

Our draft roundtable coming up after the break with Sam Cosentino and Jason Bucala. Keep it here. Hey, Steve from Northern Colorado, Colorado Eagles country. Listening after the Bill Foley interview again. And it's one thing I've never quite understood about the big four, of course, American sports, is that when they talk expansion, they talk about adding teams, and everybody can see the Premier League model.

It only has 20 teams at the top, and when they expand, they expand the pyramid, not just the tip. And hockey, way more than basketball, way more than football. Baseball is a different argument, but hockey has that potential or network with relegation where you would not add more teams to the NHL family. You would add more to the base that supports moving up and moving down. I just wonder why North American businessmen are not smart or savvy enough to see the big distinction between the world's most successful sports entity

and their own and stop worrying about 33, 34, 35 teams. Listen to the 32 Thoughts podcast ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. Merrick, Friedman, Delich, alongside Jason Bukala, Sam Cosentino. Elliot is the yearly NHL 32 Thoughts draft preview. And on the last podcast, we talked about trade activity around the draft, how frisky is it, what the GMs are doing. But for the purposes of this show, we're going to drill down on the kids

and drill down on the prospects, the stars of the show. So we'll throw this one out on the table and whoever bites bites on this one. But is there a draft that you guys have either been part of or seen or thought about that this one compares to in terms of quality? I know it's hard because we're projecting out and I get that. But does this draft remind you of any other drafts or is it a standalone? You know what? I, I've really been looking forward to this draft class.

No question. I mean, it's a high end group. I find that the talent at the top is exceptionally elite and you can go back even in most recent years and you can see some of the, you know, the guys that are even on the wire sort of right now that are talking, that were high-end picks that are being floated out there to maybe be moving from one team to another. And that generally doesn't happen coming out of high-end drafts, right? This draft here, I love the depth of it.

I love the high-end talent of it. But full disclosure, I find myself every year splitting hairs with the draft classes and I really enjoy the kids every year. So I don't really, I don't project it to be that much different year over year. But the high end guy, like when you get a generational talent and then you get the guy at two and the guy at three. And, you know, it starts to remind me back when we drafted Barkoff in New Jersey back in the day when you had like McKinnon and Barkoff. And, you know, that group was supposed to be exceptionally. The draft was in New Jersey back in the day when you had like McKinnon and Barkoff and, you know, that group was supposed to be exceptionally. The draft was in New Jersey, not the New Jersey. People are going to be looking at their phone or their radio in their car and going to say, Barkoff was drafted by New Jersey?

You mean in New Jersey? Yes. The marathon draft in New Jersey, as we recall. Remember coming out of, that was a lockout year, was it? Or a strike? We remember it was a one day draft in New Jersey. Yeah. Guys had to grind it out.

So I love the high-end talent, Sammy, but I'm not going to suggest that the depth isn't as good as other years. It's unique for me for a couple of reasons. First of all, you have the generational thing with Bedard. Next, you have a lot of really high-end forwards who are a little bit on the smaller side.

So you're talking about six foot or under, and you're talking about, you know, 165 pounds to 185 pounds. Now, of course there's room for growth in those players, but typically when you talk about a draft class being so high end, you're getting, it's bigger guys. The other element for me that makes it unique is that you're probably looking at 3D that are going to go in the top half. Then there's a gap after that. And then it'll be a bit of a free for all for defensemen. Is it going to be, you know, the Simishevs and

the Bonks and those, those types of guys. So there's a lot of different elements to it. And I guess the last one I'd say that makes this unique is even going back to last year, especially in the first round, the breadth of where the talent's coming from. Really good Russian players, players from Czechia, Slovaks are really good again.

Canada, the US, Sweden had a great emergence, especially with what they did at the under 18s and losing in the final in overtime to the US. So you're seeing broadband breadth of talent, which I think is really cool. So in terms of the talent itself, I mean, it's so hard to project, but based on what we've seen and, you know, and the people that we're talking to, everyone wants to compare this favorably to some of the best draft classes we ever have. It's so difficult to make that decision. For me, a lot of people are making it a five years out.

For me, I think the real definition as to how high end it is, is when you get to three years out. How many guys have played how many games, how many guys have had an impact, especially high in a lineup, top six, top four. And then you can make that determination. So guys are a lot more prepared now.

They get there quicker. They're more prepared when they arrive. And so that three-year window that used to be five for me is back to three to make that determination. How many of these players that we're talking about here can walk into the NHL next season? Do you think Bedard can? Yeah. I was not expecting you to answer that seriously.

Breaking all the hearts in Regina just like that. Oh, Pats fans, sorry. Carlson could do it. Fantilli could do it. If you're looking at Will Smith, I don't think he's ready. I don't think Reimbacher's ready. Benson. Leonard. You'd have to go down the ready. I don't think Ryan Backer's ready. Benson. Leonard.

You'd have to go down the list. Leonard would be right on the edge for me. Leonard's going to get games. He'll get games this year. Jason's nodding. You think Leonard. Yeah, Leonard's one of my favorites. He's a bulldog, right?

So it's more than just skill with him. We're talking about a 200-foot game and interior compete that I feel that no matter what level that kid plays next year, whether it be college or if he was a major junior guy, whatever, he's going to thrive. He's just one of those guys that's going to find a way earlier than later. So his floor, if you will, we already know what the ceiling could be. Like we project the ceiling, but his floor, his entry level floor is already ready to go. Like he could do it in my estimation. Elliot and I were talking about this on the

podcast that there's a Kachuk factor considering what Kachuk did all season long and into the playoffs. Every manager is out there screaming, find me a Kachuk, find me a Kachuk, find me a Kachuk. In this year's draft is Leonard. That's the guy, right? And because of that, do you wonder if he goes even higher than maybe projected? Listen, you guys know this. Everybody skates. Everybody shoots. Like skill is elite all around. What else can you give me?

And Leonard gives you what a lot of other kids can't. Is that fair to say? He gives you some of that hit factor. When it comes to that element, and I heard you guys talking about it, like a Bertruzzi type of guy where you're talking about Kachuk late. I was just listening to you clowns on the way in here. So, and I, and we're going to go and find that guy. So he is probably the closest to that in that he can skate. He's got really good skill, 50 goals type of guy.

He can move pucks. He can get in on the forecheck. He can move pucks. He can get in on the forecheck. And he's got like that cockiness, arrogance, confidence, you know, that he's in that tri-state area. And sometimes it's cocky. Sometimes it's arrogance.

And sometimes it's just self-confidence. I think he sits in that tri-state zone. But I got to say, like for Leonard, I've loved him since we went to Plymouth in November. I'm like, I love this guy. I've had him high up on my list all year. I think talked six or seven. And I believe that he's going to have that type of impact. He can have it early on.

So many factors go into that. Where you want to slot your guys, what you project for the future in terms of your salary cap and all those other things. I think all those things play a piece. But I think he could play next year. I think he'll get games. The one thing I'll double down on there is he's not the type of player you have to insulate as much as some other guys earlier in their career because of the way he plays. Like Smith,

if he plays next year, you have to insulate him because he's a motion guy. He's always in motion. You know, he's not a stop and go guy and he's always got the puck. He wants the puck on his stick, but he needs guys around him to do some of the other lifting where Leonard, you don't have to insulate him. Like he can play a variety of roles, you know? So that's why I say the floor is higher for him. Yeah. The ceiling could end up being higher for Smith,

but full disclosure, like I've got Leonard ahead of Smith on my draft list, right? And part of the reason is because I want to win games in April and May. Most people I've talked to seem to think, and I'll get to Mishkov in a second, but they seem to think that it will be some combination of Bedard. I'm doing an alphabetical order. You sure about him?

Yeah, I'm sure about him. Bedard, Carlson, Fantilli, Smith in the top four. And the draft really starts at five. Do you guys agree with that? I agree totally. Montreal is a bit of a wild card there. But do you think those four guys will go one, two, three, four in some order? I think about Mike Greer, right?

He's got Boston connections too. Will Smith's a Boston area guy. There's nothing really that you don't like about the player. I know you've had, in your deep dive, JB, you've had some concerns, but those I think are concerns that can be eradicated once you get to the pro level. But it's going to take a little bit of developmental time for that to happen.

But I think connections run strong. Yes. You're talking to backgrounds. You're betting millions. You really got to do, it's not just, hey, what a great hockey player anymore. There's way more that goes into it than that. What was he like at the program?

They're living with Will Vogt and Ryan Leonard in the same house. And Smith's mom's coming in to cook sometimes. And Vogt's mom's coming in to cook sometimes. And, you know, none of the moms that they live with are going to throw the kid onto the bus. So now you've got to do a deeper dive. What's the equipment manager saying over at the U.S. Under 18 program? What are they saying back? And he's a hard guy to get a hold of.

They insulate that equipment guy at the program. Oh, they do.? And he's a hard guy to get a hold of. They insulate that equipment guy at the program. That's what they do. So you guys are revealing your tricks. You're telling us the equipment guys are all your great sources. If you want the real goods, you go to the equipment guy, the trainer.

Absolutely. I used to be one. So I know. Right, of course. I know about it. And if you, you know, just on a sidebar, if you talk to Alex Anthopoulos in his time with the Blue Jays, he would do a lot of work.

He'd go talk to the visiting clubhouse guy, talk to the home clubhouse guy, you know, the trainers, how are people being treated, you know. Are you A-Rod when there's a laundry basket right there and you drop your dirty clothes right beside it, or are you someone different than that? So I think that work's important. You know, it's funny you mentioned that to me because I was talking to someone yesterday and they said there was a player who dropped in the draft a couple of years ago because they were a leader on their junior team. And there were a bunch of people at a game. There was a scrum in the corner and his teammate got knocked down and the guy

skated right by it. There was a lot of people watching and those kinds of little things. Like I'm like you, I like, I'm a slobby person, but generally I prefer to clean up after myself when I'm in a work environment or something like that. I find those stories very interesting. Ask the scout. Ask the scout when he goes to watch. There's a prospect in this draft projected to go in the first round.

And I was at two games this year in relatively empty arenas. At least where I was standing, it wasn't flush with a crowd. So two different occasions, not the first time. You go back the second time, as you know, Jeff, you know, you don't want to see a guy one time on a weekend, go back.

And I heard him bark out some horrible things to his teammates. He comes into our draft combine meeting and gloats about his leadership and team guy and all this other stuff. Of course, I don't propose the question because the form isn't, you know, it's not proper. But I know what I heard. I know what I saw.

And I think that's a wise message for people to listen, that scouts watch everything. The kid slamming his stick on the bench. The kid giving it to the coach. The kid yelling at his teammates. As he gets bumped down the hallway. And what Freeze just said, I mean, your guy's getting accosted and you're going to skate right by it.

Like, come on. Well, let me ask you this. If you're doing your NHL interviews, you're going right after that. Absolutely. I'm putting him on the spot for what I heard. Not in the media stuff that we're doing. No. I don't want to kill the kid, for sure.

Okay. We've gone, I don't know, kill a kid for sure okay we have we've gone I don't know 15 minutes we haven't mentioned Mishkov yet Merrick threw out a scenario on the pod yes last week he said that okay you should explain why am I talking okay so I got a note Tuesday morning from someone saying I hated your take on Anaheim and I said why'd you hate my take on Anaheim? And he said, who's the general manager of the Anaheim Ducks? I said, Pat Verbeek.

He said, where did Pat Verbeek come from? I said, the Detroit Red Wings. He said, who's the GM of the Detroit Red Wings? I said, Steve Eisenman. He said, he's been there with the guy that doesn't listen to anybody else. He makes up his mind. He doesn't get on the train tracks of what anyone else thinks or common wisdom or consensus feels that and he makes his

pick and he said it wouldn't surprise any of us if pat forbeak took mitch coffett too would that surprise either of you guys? Yeah, it would surprise me. And I'm not, the premise, I think, is bang on, to be honest with you. I think that that's exactly how Pat's going to run that franchise. He definitely wants to put his personality stamp on that group. I don't disagree with that. But I also, where I'm torn with it is there's some unknowns and Fantilli is a known.

That's who I have it to. And by the way, Elliot, I think the draft starts at two, not five, because the draft list will get, depending on who goes, two, three, four. Like, trust me, there's going to be a lot of momentum there. So I would be surprised, but I see the reason why you're thinking that way and suggesting it because I absolutely believe that Pat Verbeek, the little ball of hate, is going to put his own stamp. He's going to think outside the box.

Let's just say that. He's not just going to go with the flow. So I see it. I don't see it happening, but I see the reasoning behind it. Let's not overthink it. Stop it with that kind of talk. It would be my opinion. There are too many question marks. Yeah, you tell them. You tell them, Sam. There's too many question marks.

What are your major questions about Michikov? You know, you want to put your stamp. Well, there's a lot of questions. A, are you really happy with the player when he doesn't have the puck? What he does defensively. Are you happy and convinced that he's a really good teammate?

There's been a lot of question marks about that. You have to be more than concerned with the contract. The contract to me is the least of the worries. We've seen contracts be bought out and stopped earlier than they should have. That's the easiest part to figure it out. The next element is as a young man who just lost his father. Yeah, very. I think that can't be forgotten.

You can't forget it. And I hate talking about it. And I feel really bad for the kid because this is supposed to be the best year of your life. Where you're in your draft year showing off your stuff. You're going head to head against Bedard, all these tournaments. And none of that really bad for the kid because this is supposed to be the best year of your life where you're in your draft year showing off your stuff. You're going head to head against Bedard, all these tournaments. And none of that really happened for him.

So I, I really feel for the young man. But now you're in a situation where you're at home, you have a good contract, you still have, and forgive me, I don't know his sibling situation, but his mother's in the fold. You've lost your father who he was very close with from everything

that I can understand. And you're going to leave that situation. I would have a hard time thinking that that's going to be a possibility within the next couple of years. So getting back to trying to answer all those questions and trying to be the smartest guy in the room and try and put your stamp on the organization. When you have an Adam Fantilli or a Leo Carlson waiting right there, size down the middle of the ice, dynamic ability, especially when it comes to Fantilli, success right in front of your own eyes at the University of Michigan as a freshman, the third guy to win the Hobie Baker Award, you have to ask yourself the question, are you really losing that much from a player perspective to not have to be concerned about all of the other

elements that come along with drafting matvey mitchkoff okay so keeping all of that in mind books i want your thoughts on this too because we're looking at mitchkoff and we're saying okay that's going to be the guy where wherever he goes we're going to have the gasp right that moment of the draft for sure we're going to have that. How far down does he get? And is there a line? Who's taking him? Washington. Well, yeah, so.

Now, does he get to eight? Yes. Well. God, Jason's not so sure. Good, I love it. Let's, let's. I'm not so sure. Not only does he disagree with you,

but he rolled his eyes at you. Oh. I think it's a tick. I think it was a tick because I don't roll my eyes at sammy unless we're somewhere at 1 30 in the morning on the tour so let's start with montreal okay so for me from my background where i come from you have to be very confident in your contractual situation the support of your ownership group the long road ahead if you will okay so if i'm a general manager

and i've got a year plus left on my contract, it's going to take a lot of cahoolies for me to draft Mitchkoff because I'm not likely going to see the player unless our team takes a leap and we have a lot of success. Okay. So that factors into the back of their mind, I

believe, you know, they're all going to roll out there and say, I want to do what's best for the organization. But we also know that they, they want to do what's best in short order to, you know, build momentum for themselves. So I look at Montreal and they're flush with prospects guys. We know that already, right?

We also know that they're going to be there a while, like the management group, the team there, I believe they're going to be there a while. So you can take that risk because you don't have to have that player drop into your system tomorrow. Like they can wait that out three years. I'm kind of curious on Arizona and it's going to

muddy the waters, but they have six and 12. Okay. And they have an absolute boatload of prospects. So they can wait forever on this guy. So from an asset management perspective, if you draft him and he never comes over to you and he's that elite in Europe, you move them later on. You make a great point.

And I've said that too publicly before. With picks 6 and 12, you're still going to get a really good player at 12. Plus, they don't even have a home probably for three years. But you know what I'm saying? It does fit the timeline contractually for sure and having to deal with the numerous issues that go along with it. Yeah, I think you manage the asset that way. I think it's a strategy that I would employ.

I would at least think about it. Does he get past Washington, though? I don't think so. I don't think so. As a matter of fact, the politics of the game will take over there. That kid will be over in Washington playing sooner than later because Ovi will be involved. And the people in Russia, the Capitals, they have a long history there.

We all know that. He'll be over here sooner than later. That contract in Sky, I'm with you. It doesn't matter. It won't matter for the right team. I shouldn't say that. It doesn't matter for the right team. But the other part of it that, you know,

think about Bill Armstrong and you guys know him as probably better than both JB and I do. But you want to talk about a guy who walks around the room and is not afraid to do some things. He fits a profile for that too. In an equal world, if this was just based on talent and there were none of these other things that people had to consider,

Jeff says Mishkov goes too. Do you guys agree? I am quoting you accurately. That's fine. No, if you just look at skill. No, if you, best player available. Absolutely. For me, best player available.

And I want people to understand too, like when we start hearing about, and I think everybody in this room recognizes that I speak to my people in Russia that I've worked with over the last 20 years or so as well. And like where you come from in the world and the way that your personality, makeup is, and the type of person you are, it also is a byproduct of where you've grown up, okay? So like when you see a moody Russian player and you see that he's got to be broken here

or he does this really well and we have concerns about his character, the way that a Russian, somebody in Russia views character of their own player compared to the way we look at it in North America, there's a difference. For sure. Culture has to enter into it. So then I double down on that and say he's 18 years old. Okay. So I like imagine everybody in this room when we were all 18 years old,

like, come on. So best player available, Mitch Goff. He's over here playing for the London Knights last year. He's going number two for me. I think three for me. I think Anaheim needs to address the center position in size. I mean, you saw what Ryan Getslap did for the organization. I think Fantilli can do a lot of those same

things. You know, I think their D is pretty much short up, you know, all three CHL leagues defensemen of the year. And then Yarmou, I think he's a guy that he'd go down that road. Let me pause on Columbus at three here. Because we've already talked about Verbeek and

going his own way, doing his own thing. Yarmou has showed this how many different times? Right? You remember the Buffalo draft with Pierre-Luc Dubois. This wouldn't be new territory for Kekulainen. It wouldn't be, but he's been pretty public and I don't think you go away from it saying he's going to take a center.

So I think I'm going to stick with him. Is Anaheim making his pick for him? Interesting. Yeah. I think so. I mean, Fantilli and Carlsen are going to be the Is Anaheim making his pick for him? Interesting, yeah. I think so. I mean, Fantilli and Carlson are going to be the next two guys. I strongly believe that. So Anaheim makes the pick.

They go Fantilli. Columbus goes Carlson. Vice versa. Okay. Who's your player drafted late that you're both looking at saying, in five years, we're going to look at a player taken, I'm talking third round or later, that makes an impact and people are saying,

why wasn't this guy taken earlier? I got Kai Uchaz, plays for the Red Deer Rebels. Okay. Former first round. Are you trying to get like Ron McLean brownie points here or what's the story? Yeah, I'm trying. The Rebs.

A former Seattle Thunderbird got into some off-ice trouble there. It's been pretty public. You can look it up if you want. Got a second life, if you will, by being moved over to Red Deer. I think Steve Konowalczuk would have been familiar with the player.

I think their times would have crossed from his Bantam draft year to when Steve was coach in Seattle and then moved to Red Deer. But 6'1", 190 pound center, 50 goals this year. It's hard to turn your back on someone who scores 50 goals, especially in the Western Hockey League. It was a really talented year this year. So he's gone through it a couple of times already. He's older. Now this is somewhat

dependent on if you feel that he's done the work off ice because you don't want to make that kind of mistake where you're bringing that person into your organization and all of a sudden that's where the attention goes, Mitchell Miller, and have to worry about that. But I have a lot of faith in Steve Konowalczuk, his ability to develop players, his ability to get players on the right track. And when I think about Kai Uchaz coming into the league

as a top man and pick and a guy who scored 50 goals, and a guy who I think has grown up, he's a guy to me that people might be saying, plus at 6'1", 190, we've just seen what size can do in the playoffs. He's probably a guy that I think five years down the road people might be saying, how did he get there? Can I throw out two? Sure.

This is fine. I think this kid's going to be a second round pick, but depending on how things fall, he might fall to the beginning of the third. Like Easton Cowan in London really impressed me in the second half of the season. Like really impressed me. Earned the trust.

We've all been around the London Knights long enough to recognize that you have to earn the trust of the coach there, Dale, obviously. He took off in the second half of the season. So it was a slow burn in the first half. More of a tenacious depth guy in their lineup. Come playoff time, the hardest time of year, a coach who values guys that go through the wall

at the hardest time of the year, he elevated. He scored the majority of his goals in the back half, went to all the hard areas, played fast, played smart, was involved all the time. Really attractive elements to his game. And I think he's just starting to take off. The other guy I want to talk about, though, is out of Kingston, Quinton Burns.

Yes. I love this kid. I love this kid. He's Radko Gudis, but he's not Radko Gudis heavy. This guy is an absolute terror on the back end. Over 100 pims, hard to play against, capable enough with the puck, but he never goes away. Kaelin Lynn might go in the second round

out of Red Deer. Yeah. Okay. If some team drafts both these guys on the roster, I'm going to tell you, it's a tire fire every time they're out there on the ice for the right reasons. Like they are relentless.

So I really liked the way the kid plays. I get a chuckle sometimes actually, because he's so aggressive. He needs weight. He's not heavy enough right now to play the way he plays, but keep an eye on that name because I think he's got a lot of momentum. Can I throw one more at you?

Sure. And then I want to ask you about one player who I think might fit that criteria that Elliot's talking about, but go ahead. Long range-y, big physical defenseman, right? That's the talk of the town. That's what we're talking about. Vegas Golden Knights.

Terrell Goldsmith's a former band of first round pick to Prince Albert. And he skates pretty well, but this guy's a nasty piece of business. Six, four, 223 pounds D man. I think he's going to get some love, but he's, he's probably going to get like the Luke Shen thing where not saying where Luke was drafted

fifth overall, but he goes late in the draft and he takes his three to four years to develop. And then he shows up and he's probably a guy who's going to be able to extend his career because he can do the good Branson thing. He can do the Luke Shen thing where he'll be able to maintain his ability to keep the pace, play heavy, be relied on to play defensively,

block shots. You know, the one area of the game that he needs to work on is his puck skills aren't great. And so that's an area that, you know, you got to get that short up. You have to be able to get back, retrieve, move a puck quickly. So he'd be another guy at a Prince Albert that I'd

be paying attention to that'll go late in the draft. No one will even think about this guy. I think he had maybe 11 points this year that people are going to look at 10 years down the road and say, oh, wow, did we just get a first round pick for Terrell Goldsmith? I like his name. I love that name, Terrell Goldsmith? I like his name.

I love that name, Terrell Goldsmith. Can I just make a scouting statement on what we just talked about right there? And it's interesting. Every player that we talk about that has deficiencies moving the puck, you know, guys that, you know, you're concerned about it. What I look for as a scout, anybody can move a puck

on their forehand, okay? You can. You can go window and outboards and all. Like, it's a natural type thing. But NHL coaches and teams are calculating, and if they see a deficiency and they dump it to your corner as a defenseman, which makes you move a puck on your backhand side,

and some of these kids, we've seen some, right? Oh, yeah, you showed it to me. We've seen some. That is something that when I talk about puck skill on the backhand, I start to identify that because there's a process there. And if you can't make a little chip play or a stick to stick on your backhand side under duress

because I know you can go window and out on your forehand side, then I really discount the prospect. You know what though? That's hugely important. So I talked to Luke Shen at the end of the year and he said Adam Oates saved his career. Yeah. Adam Oates simply saved his career. Listen, at this age, you're not getting any faster.

Your skating style is not going to change. What's going to change? Your ability to recognize how it is that you're going to have to move pucks. Yeah, I know you can play defense. I know you can fight, play heavy, do all that stuff. How is it that you're going to move the puck? And what's wrong? Oh, yeah, we need to, what's a great first pass?

Is it a five-foot pass to the guy who can move it a little quicker? Is it a, you know, a bomb through the middle of the ice where he sends someone a breakaway? So Luke really credits Oates for his ability to, his stick skills and puck moving skills, to extend his career to now the point where he might be at a point where he signs two or three years making more money than he's made in the last two or three years. So I think that's important.

But I also think that that's an element that can be approved upon. Let me pick up on, and again, this is using Elliott Friedman's criteria of someone you're getting a little bit later that you look back and you say, whoa, I can't believe we got this guy. And we'll pick up on the theme of defensemen as well. Bo Akey of the Barry Colts. I had to take a little bit of a step back when Brant Clark came back to junior hockey, but do you put Bo Akey in that category? So Bo Akey is an under the radar guy for me that you have to watch him very closely

to appreciate all the little things that he does exceptionally well. And I mean, exceptionally well. So I'll give you an example. I'm in a game in Hamilton and pucks, you know, he's the right shot, right? So he's in the offensive zone and the pucks in to his left side and the play kind of moves over and he cheats to the middle of the ice, but then it goes angle out. So chip to the neutral zone by Hamilton and they're busting up the ice. And I can't remember the player, let's just say

Lardis, for example, because he was, it was a burner, whoever it was going. This kid, his ability, Jeff, to jump, pivot, uses agility to angle away space. He's got fantastic feet, like really good feet. So understated value in terms of being able to get from A to B very efficiently, very quickly. On the offensive side, he's a distributor more than a shooter. It's kind of muffins from distance for me, for him.

Okay. But I value this kid a lot. He was a riser on my draft list at the end of the year. More for all the little intangibles that I saw. And there's going to be some people that are going to say, well, he's not a great defender. He's not that. All I need him to do in his zone is get there quicker than the opponent.

I don't even need him to bump that much. He can be an area defender, be active with your stick, but jump to it. Jump to it quicker than your opponent and move it somewhere. You know what I mean? Like move it somewhere. That's a good name to keep an eye on. Yeah. Is he a second?

Well, he's a. A late second. He could go in the second. You know, I think that a lot of teams are going to shy away and think that he can't defend at the NHL level and that his element offensively isn't quite elite enough. Okay.

To run your first power play. Yeah. For sure. Or whatever, but don't discount it. I think this kid's... You know what? There's good lessons there, though, because when Clark came back, he had to acquiesce.

He was taking a lot of Clark's minutes before Clark came back, and oddly enough, Clark was a mentor to him, and some people are going to find that strange based on Grant's history, but a lot of growing up happened with L.A. this year, and I think that was super important. By all accounts, when he comes back to Barry, he's locked in, he's focused.

We know that the offensive production is there for Brandt. But a guy who I think took the lessons of growing up and maturing quickly that he helped pass along to Bo. And that helped Bo get over the fact that he wasn't going to get all the prime time minutes because Brandt was back. So it'll be interesting to see if teams take that as a positive, knowing that Brandt's grown up a little bit, or a negative knowing the history of Brandt going back a couple years ago.

Okay. What team sets the draft on its ear? Either with a wild pick or a trade or something. Who's the team you're watching to drop the biggest bomb? Well, a couple of teams for me. I think the Winnipeg Jets, we have to keep an eye on them.

I just think that not even reading things or anything, I just, my gut tells me that that NHL group is in flux. And what that's going to mean is that they're going to have to start to develop another layer. Like the thing with the Winnipeg Jets guys is that they need to draft and develop and they have to hope the kids stay there, right? They're not a high end destination for free agents. So when you get the hella bucks of the world and some of these guys were entering, you know, whatever their status

is as free agents in short order, I think that they're going to be aggressive and that could change the trajectory of their group, not at the NHL level necessarily. I think they want to retool, but the underbelly, I think that there could be some momentum there. The other one I'm going to be interested in, they got a lot of picks is Nashville. Like I think Trotsky coming in, I have a history in Nashville when I was first there and we had a lot of, they drafted great. Jeff Kelty and those guys have done a fantastic job there. But I think that if they were to look in the rear view mirror, they would say that we took some safer picks over the years than we took good NHL players.

I'll go back to the floor. You always drafted from the West. It was like, okay, best player available from the Western Hockey League. That was what we used to always say about Nashville. I guess it could have been made too that sometimes we didn't draft the best player, but it was like, again, I go back to that floor scenario. You know, like guys that were going to be steady eddies, right? Yeah.

Sissons, he'd be one in that group. Oh, the Dan Ham uses of the world, had great careers. You know, there's a bunch of guys there. And then in that, they did a nice job. Like Peck and Rene was obviously a ninth round pick. This is going back. I don't want to bore everybody here, but I mean, it took him forever, two contracts, two deals to get to the NHL.

Nashville, keep an eye on them. They got two firsts. They got, I think they have the most picks in the draft. 13 picks in the draft. And I know that Trotsky's indicated to that group that he wants to take more risk, get more aggressive. So that'll be interesting. I'm looking at Perot in the first round potentially to Nash Vegas.

Where are they, 17 or something like that? to, uh, Nash Vegas, uh, where are they? 17 or something like that. Yeah. 17, 18. Sorry. Seems like that's in his range. Yeah. They love going to the program. They love going to the program.

Yeah. I think St. Louis is the team. I think Doug Armstrong is just looking at this thing and saying, I hated to do what I had to do the last couple of years. Hang on. You think he's making all three picks? No chance.

No chance. He'll be moving and grooving for sure. So I think he's 10, 25, 28, somewhere, something like that. Yeah. So the 10th, I'm quite certain he's going to keep. I don't know if adding those other two would bump him up any further if he was really excited

about a player inside that top five or six. But I think they're going to be an interesting team to watch. You know, Montreal, like they think outside the box, you think about that deal they swung last year to get Kirby Dock. I think they're at a point now where the prospect pool is good.

Ownership has a lot of confidence in the program, the, the, you know, the Gorton Hughes program, and they have, I think a pick that people are going to be really dying to get to once they see what happens with the four picks in front of them. So I think there could be some action there with Montreal. And again, they think outside the box. They're not afraid to take a shot at the title.

They know that they've got guys coming and they have confidence in ownership. The one team that, and I'll talk for you here, Elliot, the one team that we've been talking a lot about as being a team to watch at the draft is Philadelphia. With Daniel Breer, we all know who's available. We all know what, you know, Breer and Jones want to do here with this thing. And they're looking to, to build up that pipeline. Could they be the ones in your estimation? I mean, last year was Cutter Gauthier. We're moving on. What about this year though? Like this year is the first year where they

really said, we're going for it. We're not afraid to use the R word, rebuild, and this is how we're going to do it. For the first time in my career, they're in that mode. Like, forever, it's always been Philadelphia's going to challenge to do something, right? Like, they just had, like, going back to the

Snyder days and whatever. And I'm lukewarm on some of the noise out there. Like if I'm part of Philadelphia's brass, I'm not really looking to trade a Konekne. Like I'm not looking to do some of these things. So they're caught in the muddy middle. It's interesting the guys are bringing in as advisors, right? So I think that it's going to be fascinating

to see where they go. I'd be making the pick, not trading the pick and looking to acquire more picks. I think they will. They desperately need

to get some traction coming through the system. and, you know, it's going to be fascinating in the next couple of years too to see when the honeymoon

stage wears off for Breer and his group because, you know, Philly's Philly. Yeah. Tough decisions. Like Lawton is a, heilly's Philly. Yeah. Tough decisions. Like Lawton is a, he's a good player.

Any team would take Scott Lawton right now. At the price he's at, the deal he's on. So I think he's going to be a coveted guy, you know, and probably this year more so than ever when you expect the cap to go up next year and teams are looking to fit those barbachev type of guys into your, in your lineup. And Konechny is a really interesting guy too.

I think he has an opportunity to really flourish under Tortorella. I think there were some really hard lessons learned last year, but I think he's a guy you want to be careful about moving to because maybe given a new situation, a fresh situation, maybe he's the type of guy that ends up going off for some teams.

I would say Carter Hart's the guy though. Like it's going to be what they do in net, right? And I know there's a lot of moving parts there. There it's, it's going to be what they do in net, right? It's, it's, and I know there's, there's a lot of moving parts there. There's a lot of stuff going on, but whatever they decide to do, uh, with that situation is going to be interesting because that, that will bring back some draft capital for them.

All three of those guys, I think bring back, bring back a lot of. But then the waiting game starts. So, um, the one thing I would say too, is that in the first round, guys, there's a lot of European players and there's some college players or guys going to college even. So the timeline for arrival is different, right?

So you're drafting the Swede and you're looking at like four years. You're drafting a college guy. You know, there's a little bit of risk reward in there. You know, timeline's different than a CHL player, as we all know. So you have to factor that in. Like, yeah, you want to get the best player, but we also don't want to be terrible for too long. And then the last thing I'll say with that is that next year's draft

looks really good too. It's funny because if he walks in there and says, yeah, I like a lot of our pieces. Look what just happened with Florida. They snuck in in the last couple of days. Maybe we can be that team in the East this year. The reason why, and again, like Elliot and I have talked about this plenty, the reason why I'm really, I mean, as confident as you can be

before the first round of the draft where anything can really happen about the Philadelphia Flyers really trying to add as many picks as possible. Before he was named interim general manager, I mean, Daniel Breer was scouting. He was everywhere. You saw him plenty, right? The day before he was named, he was in Barrie. He spent a lot of time all season on the road

looking at a lot of guys. This isn't a situation where the GM shows up and has maybe seen the kids once or twice. This is someone that's seen a lot of these kids for a couple of years too, like even going back to last season. That's really important. That's like, trust me, that's really important because I've been in rooms where the GM has come in later on

or where there's been things in flux. And it's really dangerous when they think they know, but they don't know the entire landscape. It's a dangerous proposition to be in. So he's been everywhere. Yeah. Let me ask you about an NHL player, but I want to ask what you thought of him in his draft year.

So the Vegas Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup. There's one drafted and developed player on that team, and it's Nick Hague. The defenseman played with James Richmond with the Steelheads. What did you think of him then? He was a second-round pick of Vegas. What did you think of him then, and did you think that he would get to this place right now

as a Stanley Cup champion? I did. If I go back, I might have had him in my first round. You know, Mississauga's pretty close for me to get to go see games. And one thing that really struck, I brought my son one afternoon and he was engaged. Hey, do you want a stick? Here's a puck.

You want pictures? Whatever you need. Like, I thought that was really cool that he kind of took that. Got to know his dad a little bit. Saw him in Jersey earlier this year and listened to Jeff Krasakos, the assistant coach there to James Richmond. And both of those guys were like, oh yeah, this

guy's, he's going to be, he's going to be a really, really good NHL player. So the size right away is going to click. You know, he's going to play somewhere at some point, but the identification for him having the Hager bomb, you know, his big shot from the point, that hasn't left him at all. And, you know, like the idea that he was going to be able

to defend with some nastiness, stick up for teammates. There was a lot of things about Nick Hague that I liked. And honestly, I'd have to go back. I might've had him in my first round mock. So not completely surprised. But a lot of it for me is based on person. I say've had him in the, in my first round mock. So not completely surprised, but a lot of it for me is based on person. I say this to JB all the time.

Like I love when we get out to watch games together because, Hey, did you see that guy in the back end? You see what happened? And I'm sitting there. I'm like, no, what do you mean? Oh yeah. He just turned to the middle and then he flipped

this puck over and he recognized the line chain. I'm like, Whoa, how the hell do you process all that? And I'm like, no, but I saw him before the game and he, know he came over and he said hello and or he was locked in dialed in so we have that that kind of the ying and the yang thing going on um when it comes to to evaluating but for me cop bad cop he's a good cop by far i lean heavily on on person and personality because that to me says i'm gonna work hard to get better i'm gonna be a good teammate and i'm gonna accept

whatever role is given to me and try and improve upon that role. And I saw all those things with Nick. It's funny. You know, Brian Burke told us this a number of different times when he's going into the draft. He says, the first thing I do is I identify with my eyes. And then I check with the analytics to make sure my eyes aren't lying to me. And then I meet the family. And equal value on all of them, to your point, Sammy.

So I got to give you a Nick Hegg. Yeah. Just so we're on the same page here. The beautiful thing about what they do in Mississauga with James Richmond is that he is one of the, I don't want to say he's an outside-the-box snooker, but he appreciates input from the NHL community with the prospects that have already been drafted.

We had Intel on HEG because we had drafted Tippett out of there. This is with Florida Panthers. This is with Florida Panthers. So Caber, Brian McCabe, was our director of player personnel, but he would obviously make the tour. And he would go on the ice with Mississauga, with the Steelheads, and practice with them, run drills with them and stuff like that.

So it was easy for me to ask an ex-Toronto Maple Leaf defenseman what he thought of Haig because, uh, he saw him live and he could see his practice habits and all these things. So I always liked Haig. Was the intel good coming back? It's great. It's great. Because he's a, he's a handler. Like, you know, like there's guys that came through the league at that time, the Logan Stanleys and that, that were big bodies.

Nick Haag always had the puck on his stick. He's making plays. He can rush the puck. He can make little plays. He's long, right? But he can make plays on the offensive blue line. And I'm not the least bit surprised. He's got a little bit of an ass.

He's got a little bit of offense. He's got it all. That guy, it's going to make a lot of money. He'll have a long career. Oh, yeah. Last one for me me and this is for you jason biggest fight you ever saw at a draft table whether your team or someone else's this is going way back this was a war in nashville the columbus draft the gordon lee i don't know if you remember well i bet you he won a lot of those arguments got a lot of penalty minutes let's just say he was, the table above his kneecaps

was shaking. It was reverberating. Like he was, it was intense. But for whatever reason, Paul Fenton and Jeff Kelty absolutely had a disdain for PK Subban at the time. And we're at our May meetings in Nashville and they had him in the sixth round and we're like, you know, this can't

be, and Gordy and I are going at him a little bit and Jeff was not happy with us, definitely not happy with us, but we didn't want to give it up. So we get to Columbus and we got, I think we got him to the fourth round by the end of the May meeting. And by the time we were in Columbus, we might

have marginally got him up to like the late third or the fourth. And then we just, we tapped out. We had a way, like it was like, we did everything. It was like razor blades on a chalkboard. Like we tried everything, but they just, they weren't buying in. And then of course. They traded for them years later.

They traded for them years later. Which was much more costly. Much more costly. Much more costly. I got to give you another one real quick though. Jake Muzzin. We brought Jake Muzzin to camp in Nashville back in the day as a free agent, Joe Resnick, client. And he was coming off back surgery when we had him.

I was in the Sioux originally with Jake, so there's a history there. We brought him to camp as a free agent. Pittsburgh didn't sign him, right? And we went on the road to Atlanta for some exhibition games and we had our staff meeting after and I said, we got to sign this guy, you know, and I was, I was an entry level guy. I was still a puppy, right? But I was pretty aggressive about it. And, uh, they came up with every reason not to

sign him, including this back injury. And, um, Jake would have signed, like he wanted to sign. He had a heck of a training camp and then, you know, the rest is history. What a, what a great career he's had. I love those stories. Uh, especially the ones that work out.

All right. Last one to you then, Sam. Going to give you a chance to shine your own apple here a little bit. Who was, in your history of making mock drafts, who was the one that you really stuck your neck out on and with

and were right? Conor McDavid. You got it again. Pierre-Luc Dubois. I had him going third. I'm not on social media, but sometimes the comments after the mock draft, I think Sportsnet allows some

of that stuff to happen. Sorry about that. I looked through some of that, which honestly, I never, ever, ever look at that stuff. But for that reason, I thought, well, this is a little polarizing. Let me just see what happens here. John Shannon, I work with John Shannon. We're in the combine, and we're in the interview room.

We get access to the players to do our interviews. And Jarmo, for whatever reason, he came into the room to do an interview too. And now we're off camera, off mic, and John has a bit of a history with him. And we're talking. And I'm not saying anything. I never met the guy before other than to shake his hand. So I'm just listening. I'm observing.

And I just got the sense that line A wasn't going to be his cup of tea. And I thought, all right, well, I know Dubois really well. I did a lot of games in Cape Breton and watched him and followed him, and I knew he could fight, he could play the wing, he could play center, he could shoot. Like, he could do a lot of things. And I thought all those things were translatable. So, you know, he was still going to go in the top 10,

but putting him at three in the mock draft is probably the one that I remember the most. That was a home run pick. I know that was a big peacock moment for you. He's a bit to get paid. And Lion-A's in Columbus now. Yeah, yeah, go figure, right? I know, that was a big peacock moment for you. He's about to get paid. And Lion-A's in Columbus now. Yeah, go figure, right?

I'd like about 10% on his next deal. Guys, it's been great. I very much look forward to the draft in Nashville and seeing you both there as part of our company. Working together again, the one time of year. The band is back together in Nashville. Thanks, gentlemen. Thanks, man. Sammy Books, you guys are the goods.

Thanks so much for that. Really enjoyed it. Looking forward to Nashville. Speaking of Nashville, Nashville is home to a lot of great music. And this week, we'll feature some artists from Music City. Ted Hartog, also known as Mickey Ficky, started as an alt-pop project in 2017 in this ranch-style house in West Nashville. A mix of jazz and funk instrumentals combining with lyric-heavy verses creates a sonic landscape that's easy to get down to.

With Chaos, here's Mickey Ficky on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. I'm young man, I'm telling it all before I die Maybe you're gone, gone, gone Maybe you're somewhere else Maybe I'm wrong, wrong, wrong Maybe I'm something else Maybe you're gone, gone, gone Maybe you're somewhere else Maybe I'm wrong, wrong, wrong Maybe I'm something else Bye.