32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Quick Expansion Chat

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

The Seattle Kraken has chosen their roster. Jeff and Elliotte talk about the day leading up to the expansion draft, why the Kraken didn’t pick up Carey Price (4:00), if Mark Giordano will be on the 2021-22 Seattle Kraken roster, and some thoughts on the overall team. They also discuss Adam Larrson’s time in Edmonton […]

Please welcome the Commissioner of the NHL, Gary Bettman. The booing is okay. It just means you're hockey ready. Welcome to a quickie Seattle Expansion Draft edition of 31 Thoughts to Podcast presented by the GMC Sierra AT4. Elliot, we have a lot to get to, a lot to get through. We're going to cram as much in as we can. Hopefully, we'll see how it works out, a short amount of time. But before we get to the specifics of the draft

and what's going to happen on Thursday and the deals, and in some cases, lack of deals and the surprises. How would you describe Wednesday? It was a whirlwind. There's no question about that. If the NHL wants to stop all this from getting out, they have to move the submission time closer to the actual draft. And I realize that sometimes that's a challenge because you've got to make sure that they've

made all these picks that are legal and you've got to make sure they've done, they followed the rules. But if you'll remember in 2017, we knew all the Vegas picks. I think the only one that was late was Chris Thorburn, who was Vegas's picked from the Jets. I think that was the last one to get out. But we knew all of those picks earlier. You know, the other thing about that one was

it was the night after the NHL Awards, right? Yeah. So we knew all the picks, but all the media was there. The hockey world was there. I think Seattle and the NHL did the best they could considering just the overall restrictions of life right now. That Vegas thing was a huge party and everybody was there. I think that's what everybody's forgotten

is that we knew everybody who was going to be taken. The surprise was just who showed up. Right. You know, when Fleury walked out and things like that, just remember the big ovation, how excited the crowd was. So, I mean, the only way the NHL is going to stop this is they're going to somehow, well, first of all, I hope we don't have another expansion anytime soon. But secondly, you're going to have to find a different way of approving. Like maybe what you don't do is you say okay we're gonna find five players who we find out

well in advance are being taken or they're geographically close to being taken or we say you guys are the only ones who are gonna know and then maybe 30 minutes before the show you get a situation where everybody else is told you know this is the second time. In 2017, I remember players complaining to me that it was all getting out. And the same thing happened today. Some people don't care. Some people were really disappointed. I got more DMs.

You know, obviously, you know, Frank was the guy who broke most of the picks, but I got more DMs than ever today from people telling me to shut the bleep up because they didn't want it ruined. It was a lot. So the NHL has to find a better way to do this. But I'll tell you something. Seattle started calling teams about an hour after the deadline,

which was 10 a.m. Eastern, and saying, this is who we've taken from your team. And it was getting out. It's that simple. If you give people eight hours lead time, they're going to find out. To the expansion draft itself and going into it, one of the big questions, the big question was, would Seattle take Carey Price from Montreal? The answer, no. Kale Fleury, come on down. What did the Price thing ultimately come down to? I think ultimately it came down to that Seattle didn't feel they had a great picture of what

his health is or potentially could be. There's a lot of frustration between Seattle and Montreal. I know Seattle complained about it. They felt Montreal avoided the true spirit of the expansion draft. They felt that they didn't really get a clear picture of what price is potentially facing. And I don't know if they would have taken them. I think it was quite simply,

it's pretty obvious by what they did that they wanted financial flexibility. Look at the lot of the deals. There's not a lot of term there. They went to five years to get Alexiak. And I think that's because teams like Dallas and potentially Winnipeg and Colorado were all over him. If he got to the market, Dallas to resign those other teams to keep them or to go get them. And I just think that

Seattle knew if they wanted them, they had to get there. Other than that, they didn't take a lot of term. And the thing with Price is, I just think at the end of the day, with the limited amount that they knew, they felt they didn't feel comfortable enough in taking that contract because they weren't sure what his injury status is. And I know that bothered them. I think they really felt they weren't given true fairness on Price's medical situation uh other big names at the expansion draft let's uh let's pause and have a conversation about mark giordano this was an obvious one this was the layup this was the you know polite put it for par applause

after you make the pick because we all saw this coming a mile away. The only question I think that people have about Giordano in Seattle is, how long will he be a member of the Kraken? All the rumors about the Rangers and there was the Oilers. Do you have a sense of the plan for Giordano here? Do you think they're bringing him in if they're flipping him? Yes. No. Could you not see that?

No. if they're flipping them yes no could you not see that i know now first of all i think this was a very emotional period for giordano and he kind of admitted that when he spoke to the media after the event on wednesday night i think he was hoping that somehow the flames and the kraken would reach a deal to keep him there. You were right. They were asking for a first and a third. You nailed that last week in our podcast. Calgary was not willing to pay that. You know, I think Calgary hoped that maybe that would change, that maybe it was a bluff.

And in the last minute it would change. It never did. I think the Flames also, like some teams made deals in advance, like Arvidsson and things like that, or Graves or McCann. I believe Calgary talked about moving Giordano. If he wasn't comfortable in Seattle, is there somewhere else he wanted to go?

And, you know, other teams just weren't willing to make those deals because of their own expansion issues. And I think up until really Tuesday night, late slash early Wednesday morning, I think Jordana was hoping somehow it might change. And it's not that he doesn't want to go to Seattle. It's just that he's obviously so connected to Calgary.

I just don't think, Jeff, if you're bringing a guy there and putting him through that, are you really flipping him? I'd be shocked. And secondly, I do think the Rangers are looking for a left-hand D. There's another guy that Seattle drafted who I wonder fits a bit better, and that's Carson Soucy because his cap hit isn't as high. You know, the Rangers really have some tough negotiations going on right now. There's Shesterkin and Fox next year. I know Jordanianos only got one year left on his deal, but, you know, Soucy kind of fits a lower number.

I'm not convinced Jordanianos is getting traded. I think the Rangers are looking for a guy who fits his profile, but I don't know. Are you bringing that guy all the way in there to flip him? I'm not convinced of that. And Francis said tonight what a player had bet me, and that is that he's a good chance to be their first captain. Were you surprised that there were no deals before this draft?

There's one at least. It's Tyler Pitlick. No, no, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No trades heading into this draft. Yeah. Pitlick will be a no, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No trades heading into this draft. Yeah. Pitlick will be a trade, but after the selection has already been made and we'll find out about that

Thursday afternoon after one o'clock Eastern. And Pitlick is probably Calgary, but I think Philly's in there too. But yeah, I mean, I am. I think we all thought that there would be some, well, first of all, Francis said the teams were better prepared for it this time, but I'm curious to see where this goes. I'm also still wondering about free agents. Like, I wonder if there's like the one guy, as you know, I've been on for a week now is

Jaden Schwartz. I think Seattle really had interest in him and they had a pretty serious negotiation with them. I wonder if that still turns up to be the case down the road. We'll see. But I was surprised there weren't more trades. We'll see. Does that see,

I, I was surprised at it and I have two questions about it. One, is that a reflection of how general managers felt coming off the Vegas expansion where they were much more aligned with just take the player that you want. We're not making any more deals. We already handed you a Stanley Cup finalist once. We're not going to do it twice. Or as you mentioned, the first and the third, were prices just too high? Well, I think there's probably a combination of both,

but also if you don't think you can make trades you can't walk yourself into a cap problem if you look at some of the expansion selections there are guys who are not going to get you into cap trouble cole lind from vancouver for example alexander true He's not going to get you into a cap problem from San Jose. Gavin Bayreuther from Columbus. Nathan Bastian from New Jersey. Carson Twarinski. Philly had a lot of guys that could get you into cap trouble. Yeah.

Carson Twarinski, no. Vanacek from the Capitals, I think a really good pick, but they stayed away from Dylan and Schultz, for example. So that's what i think it was some of those picks were about too is if we can't make deals make sure we don't lock ourselves into a problem well that that's an interesting point that we should get to here it seemed as if listen ron francis talked a lot about having cap flexibility and even though he's been given the green light to let the salary cap act as a magnet and suck as much money upwards as possible you know 52.6 million dollars is what these players today cost uh 29 million dollars in cap space remaining this all according to cap friendly this is ron francis true to his word is it, it is. We cannot call him a liar.

And that leads me to wonder what still could happen in free agency. Mention Schwartz, you know, what else could be there? You know where they're really thin is they're thin at center. They are. You know, Renault reported tonight that Yanni Gord is going to be out for the start of the season. You know, I'm not convinced about this Giordano deal, but I do think they've talked to the Rangers about Strong. I do think that's a guy they've talked about.

Does that mean Philip Deneau or something like that? Are they thinking about offer sheets? I mean, I doubt it, but you never know. I think it's going to be interesting. They've got a lot of room to do a lot of things. And that's the position that really stood out for me is center. Of all the positions I think they're thin at, it's that one. Well, we've talked about this being the goofiest and perhaps richest free agent

situation that the NHL has seen in quite some time in the off season if you're gonna hit into a summer like this whether you're an expansion team or not you want to have the most salary cap space possible like did you not look at these picks and say and i guess you're sort of already winking at this you know what let's get this over with let's make this as as painless as possible from a salary cap point of view and then let's get this over with let's make this as as painless as possible from a salary cap point of view and then let's go shopping and there's some big names out there we can go shopping to try to get in our basket having looked at all the players that got picked it seemed as if that was a deliberate strategy no question i like their d their D. Yep, D looks good.

I actually don't mind their goaltending if they're all staying. You know, one thing about Decord that's really interesting is he's waiver exempt. So they've got some flexibility there in their third position. I like that pick, by the way.

Yeah. I think you and I talked about this last year at the beginning of the season. Someone in the organization at the beginning of the year said, don't be surprised if ultimately Joey Decord is the best goaltender in the Ottawa Senators organization. And I think I kind of chuckled a little bit and he said, no, I'm serious.

This guy is good. To me, that's a sneaky good pick by Seattle. That's not going to get a lot of headlines. Was there one, and perhaps the answer for me is Carolina, was there one team that you were surprised by the pick from Seattle? Because Morgan Geeky over players like Jake Bean to me is more than an eyebrow raiser. Was there one team out there for you that

you said, hmm, that's an interesting choice. I didn't know they'd go that direction. Well, when I heard Bayreuther, that was one of them just because I definitely didn't know they were going to go in that direction. Did you have Kevin Stenland? Yes. So you did.

Okay. Yeah. That's what I thought. John Quenville, I thought they might take Zdorov. So Quenville from the Blackhawks was another guy that kind of surprised me a little bit. Hayden Fleury didn't surprise me. I wasn't shocked there at all. I know with the Kings, I really liked the Curtis McDermott pick,

but some people thought they'd pick Kel Clegg. So I was, I was kind of zeroed in on that, but I like McDermott a lot. Like you saw Dave Haxtell talk about team, you know, McDermott's a pretty good team guy.

He's very tough, Elliot. Yes, he is. He's a really, really tough hockey player. Yes, he is. What's a really, really tough hockey player. Yes, he is. What did you make of the Jordan Eberle

selection? I think they really wrestled with that one. He could have gone Bailey, could have gone Bellows. Yeah. I thought they really wrestled with it. You know, Bailey and, and, and Eberle have the same term.

There's a little bit more money on Eberle as opposed to Bailey, I think. But I heard they really wrestled that one just to figure out, okay, which of these two do we want? You know, I think the Alleners are going to be interesting. I know how much Lou Lamorello loves rumors about his deal, about his guys, but, you know, there's, there's some teams wondering if they're going to be able to fit Beauvillier there with everything

else that he's going to try and do. That's going to be a situation to watch. I think, I think the other big surprise is Larson. Again, Jeff, I've said a couple of times that it really looked like this deal was going to get done. And I spoke to another player there today after that got announced that he was going to Seattle at basically the same money that Edmonton's been through a lot. His father passed away and how emotional that was for him. You know, Clefbaum leaving. They said that was a bit of a factor too. But, you know, one of the players said to me that they just wondered if he ever felt comfortable there. Like going to Edmonton and that whole maelstrom of the Taylor Hall deal

and all of the one for one jokes and things like that. They said to me that Adam Larson never felt comfortable in Edmonton because of the way he got there. And they just think that with the way it started and, and Clef Bomb and the family challenges he went through, that it was just like, you know what, it's time to go do something else. That would make sense. That's one thing that we don't talk about enough.

When you're, those two and their performance were married for a long time. Who's going to win this deal? How is Larson playing? Measure that off against Taylor Hall. As ridiculous as that might be because one's a defenseman and one's a left winger it did happen right and listen we've seen it we saw with Subban and Weber like the high profile ones this is what happens and we never consider what that does to the player who's considered the inferior of the two We never talk about what type of mental grind that puts

you through. Like I always wondered, you know, what happened, you know, what went through the mind of, uh, of Tom Curvers in Toronto after that deal. And after, you know, it looked, it turned into, um, you know, Tom Curvers, uh, for the draft pick that turned into Scott Niedermeier. Tom Krovers for the draft pick that turned into Scott Niedermeier. That could not have been easy for the late Tom Krovers at all. That must have been awful. And we never consider that.

We never consider it. I remember when I covered the Montreal Expos at spring training one year, it was the year after they traded Pedro Martinez. And one of the pictures they traded him for was Tony Armas Jr. Good luck. I did an interview with him. And I just remember him looking at me during the

interview saying, am I going to have to deal with this all the time? Yeah. Other deals around the NHL, other stories around the NHL right now. Well, we should start with Hall. Taylor Hall. We just mentioned him with that, that trade. And now Adam Larson has left. He's a member of the Seattle.

We should get the compensation here as well. Seattle Kraken, Adam Larson, Seattle Kraken, Jamie Oleksiak, Larson four years, four million AAV Oleksiak five years 4.6. By the way do you not get the feeling that Oleksiak leaving

almost, and I know you're a general manager, you don't want to take things personally, but do you feel like this one might personally hurt Jim Nill? I always got the sense that he really loved Jamie Oleksiak. They brought him back, remember, after he went to Pittsburgh? Brought him back, had great success, held on to him at deadline. Winnipeg was pushing hard, thought it was going to get done. Loved the guy, off to Seattle.

You ever thought on that one? They almost traded him at the deadline. There was a lot of interest. Like I said, Winnipeg, Colorado, Dallas themselves. They obviously really liked him. If you're going to get outbid, you're going to get outbid. It wasn't like Dallas didn't try here. They got beat by a big offer.

Yeah, that is a big offer. Okay, Taylor Hall and the Boston Bruins. What's the latest? Okay, so at 1 p.m. Eastern, the freeze lifts. I think the first deal we could see done is Barkley Goodrow. That one should be announced on Thursday. Taylor Hall in Boston,

they're working towards it. I think there's a hope that that one gets announced on Thursday, four times six-ish. Zach Hyman, I think that's going to come down to does Toronto make a trade? At least don't have a ton of picks. They've traded a lot of picks. They might want to get one back from Edmonton but Hyman was in

Edmonton on Wednesday like to me if they're going to make a deal with the Maple Leafs it's an eight-year deal and it could be announced as soon as Thursday if it's not it's a seven-year deal that probably gets announced on the 28th. That's kind of what we're looking at here. And I think it's going to come in, the total dollar amount, I think is probably going to come in somewhere around 40 million, give or take a little bit. If it's an eight-year deal? I think it's going to be 40-ish, regardless of whether it's eight or seven.

That's a whopper of a deal for Zach Hyman. And we said last week, I think Toronto went to eight years, but I don't think the AAV is where it's going to be here. at the career and time in the nhl like he'll go from playing with austin matthews to playing with connor mcdavid whatever he did in a previous life elliot bless him he must have done a lot of good things to deserve that in this life also mike, Mike Smith. I believe Chris said it is a two-year deal. Chris said around $2 million. I'd heard maybe $2.25 million, but I tend to believe Chris.

Around $2 million. I wonder if they're going to do something that we're not seeing on defense yet. Free agent or trade? I don't know. Well, they've made the one move. I could be totally wrong about this but someone said to me that they think they could be up to something

the draft is on the horizon uh round one on friday two through seven on saturday and then next week of course is uh the free agent extravaganza the signing season on the 28th how much activity do you expect around the draft i mean we've had we've we've had a lot of gms talking aggressively for a long time here now and And normally when that happens, you get action at the draft. What do you expect? Well, I think that there will be, I mean, Seth Jones, Jack Eichel, those are a couple of names. And, you know, someone said to me, you know, normally at the draft, it's the last minute, it's the deal at the last minute.

But he felt that there might be some teams that want to go early just because this year's draft is such a crapshoot, as you know, that they might want to give themselves a bit more time to adjust if they have to move positions. You know, Seth Jones, I still wonder about Seattle. Somebody was saying to me that they think Chicago is still in there and they're trying to find ways to do it without including like a doctor brinkhead. Like, is there anything else they can do? Not including those two particular players.

But I think that'll be big over 24 to 48 hours. And so will be Eichel. that'll be big over 24 to 48 hours and so will be eichel like you know last week i said that you know i i thought or whatever the last day we was we did the podcast that some of the teams were out well someone said to me today that maybe a couple of those teams might be edging back in the other thing too is calgary's got a lot of cap room now you know what are they going to do with that see i always wonder about the market i wonder about that marketplace and um you look at brad treliving how listen we understand that giordano was upset brad treliving was upset as well you would imagine calgary flames fans uh could use a good news story right about now they just lost their captain their top defenseman north trophy winner etc set the tone

culture conversation all of it i would feel that if i'm brad true living i need to do something here i think that's the most dangerous thing time you're in when you feel you need to do something do you agree with that by the way i wouldn't no i hate that feeling that feeling of i need to do something that's when you walk into a disaster that's when you take yourself and you know you flood your own basement because you think you can fix things uh so calgary an interesting team uh seattle interesting as well plenty of cap space plenty of opportunity We have not heard the last this summer From the Seattle Kraken thank you very much Any other teams as we wrap up this

Quickie post expansion pod Any other teams to keep our eyes On Other teams to keep our eyes on Minnesota Definite one I think they want to do things still Surprised Kakanen didn't go.

I was, but they must really like Susie. Florida. I think Florida is trying to get some extensions done. Wenberg, Bennett, Verhage, and possibly even Barkov. I think they're trying to get a lot of their business done. Lamorello, no question about it. We talked briefly about Beauvilliers. I think those are the teams that really stand.

Oh, Vancouver. I mean, they're trying to make some moves. No question about it. We'll see what happens. Okay, so we're going to finish up the pod there. There are more things on the horizon in the NHL. We just mentioned the NHL draft. We'll join you after that at some point

on the weekend. But wanted to keep this one brief, keep this one quick. A lot of things will change on Thursday after 1 o'clock Eastern and the trade freeze lifts. This might be a record. 26 minutes I think this podcast clocks in at.

That is a record for these two wordy gentlemen, but I'm pretty sure that Amel is happy he doesn't have to edit another 90-minute monstrosity. Taking us out today, a Victoria, BC-based drummer and songwriter, best known as the drummer for Old Soul Rebel, Michael Wilford's upcoming single, Rattle My Bones, will be released in the fall of 2021 and with live music beginning to make a return, you can find him touring all over Canada with a variety of bands.

With Scotch, a song about reflections of life on the road and a recognition of those who helped him along the way, here's Michael Wilford on 31 Thoughts, The Podcast. those who helped them along the way. Here's Michael Wilford on 31 Thoughts, the podcast. We'd sing songs we forgot in existing Old songs that once meant so much to us Satisfaction before salvation

But you can always get what you want I try to sing my way home Melodies won't bring me there Just know you're in every word I choose to write And everyone I've ever met I remember every word you once said to me I memorized the fling of your whiny tongue You told me that someday you'd be proud of me and proud of everything I've done. Chase of shadows closing around me.

Coming with my bag against the wall. Cut through haze, a shot of clarity. You'll never fly if you don't fall. Thank you.