32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Thank God It's Over

Episode Date: March 4, 2023

We have reached the finish (dead)line! Jeff and Elliotte wrap up a wild trade deadline week (00:10) by giving some of their general thoughts, discuss the situation between Pittsburgh and Vancouver (7:50), the (lack of) deadline moves we saw from Philadelphia (13:30), wonder if the Flames could have done more (18:50), Coyotes finally trade Jakob Chychrun (23:45) to the Senators (30:45) and the guys give their final takeaway from the week (35:30).Email the podcast at [e-mail] or call The Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemailMusic Outro: Chase Ceglie - Off My MindListen to the full track HEREGET YOUR 32 THOUGHTS MERCH 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.

You there? Like, what the hell? Welcome to the podcast with three very sleep-deprived people. It's called 32 Thoughts. It's presented by GMC and the new Sierra AT4X. Hello, Elliot. How are you this evening after trade deadline, pause, week, not day. How are you hanging in there, bud?

Not bad, actually. I think I might really be draggy on Saturday night for the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. We got some big games, too. I know, some great ones. We have some really big games. So if I'm dragging on Saturday night, please understand. Your job from here until then, well, first get some sleep and then two, start caffeinating ASAP.

I know you're basically- Shoveling. Saturday morning, shoveling. As I told you today on the desk when the cameras were off, you shovel every day. But tonight you should do some shoveling and tomorrow you should do some shoveling as well. Okay. So before we get into some of the specific trades and the trades that didn't happen, I want you to sort of,

like I mentioned off the top, this isn't trade deadline day. This is trade deadline week. That's kind of what this whole thing is turning into. And you can make the argument, I think rightfully so, that the least active trade deadline day during trade deadline week was the actual trade deadline day of Friday. Describe the week, Elliot, as best you can. I think teams just decided that they were going to get into it as quickly as possible. We started early with Bo Horvat and then Tarasenko,

and then people just started coming off the board. And teams just said, you know what? We don board and teams just said you know what we don't want to be standing not getting what we want or we don't want to be in a situation where we're one team and there's a whole bunch of other teams squeezing us I did feel that there would be some teams that would be left without trade partner at the end because there was just much more supply than there was demand. But I think all of these teams kind of felt, I don't want to be the one waiting. And Minnesota waited.

They're one team that waited to do some business at the end. But other teams that kind of got squeezed, including Philadelphia a bit, there just was nothing available for them out there. And so I think that's why it was. I think Nashville to me changed the market. Nashville all of a sudden decided last weekend that they were selling and David Poyle was going to do some work for Barry Trotz to leave him a better canvas. And I think Nashville really forced some teams to act before they wanted to,

or said, we're doing business fast. And even though I think Nashville haggled in some ways, I think Nashville was also saying, look, if we get this target and it's there, we're making the deal. I think that changed the entire market. But one of the things that's interesting as well, because, you know, general managers used to sort of begin to have conversations about deals, have conversations about certain players. But then the sellers would always wait until the last possible minute, you know, drive prices up, create a bidding war, and then decide who they're going to trade the player to. Clearly, that didn't happen. Whether it's, you mentioned Bo Horvat, you can throw Orloff in there and Hathaway, Ryan O'Reilly and Timo Meier and Patrick Kane and Jacob Chikrin and Tyler Bertuzzi and Matthias

Ekholm and Tanner Jeannot. Something has changed here amongst general managers. It certainly feels that way. It's not like they're waiting until the last possible moment to make their deals. They're finding their price. When someone hits that target, they're making the deal. General managers never behave this way. The trade deadline, Elliot, for a lot of ways in a lot of years was always, I don't know, kind of a magnet for everybody.

But it's not a magnet anymore. Jim Rutherford was always, I don't know, kind of a magnet for everybody, but it's not a magnet anymore. Jim Rutherford was always a guy, get your business done when you're ready to go. So there were some guys who were like that, but I think there's definitely a new way of thinking of let's not drag it out. I do think that this year was unique in the sense that there weren't as many buyers. Like look at the playoff races. Unless Calgary gets hot and somebody else gets cold, the West is decided. If you look at

the East, there is a race here. There's no question about that. But I generally think there are fewer buyers than there are in a normal year. And I think the sellers saw that. And I think the buyers saw that. I think the buyers said, if we can get this price, we're going to make the deal. And I think some of the sellers realized that we better make the deal or we're going to get stuck. And that's what I think it came down to, Jeff You know, this was a, um, a trade deadline where we saw a lot of teams holding money, uh, in order to facilitate trades, a lot of third parties, the banker, we just talked to Bill Guerin last week and joke that, Hey, your nickname now is, you know, the banker after retaining on a couple here. Do you think that's a reflection of flat

cap? Do you think it's a reflection of teams trying to use whatever means are available to them to facilitate deals? Again, I don't want to make too much of it because it might just be a one-off and things may just go back to quote unquote normal next year for trade deadline. But do you have a thought on why so many teams ended up using third parties to hold money. It was cap. I know there were a lot of Kerfoot rumors. Yeah. Toronto did that deal with St. Louis through Minnesota to keep Kerfoot. And that's why I wasn't surprised that Kerfoot wasn't traded. Toronto could have done that deal with St. Louis themselves,

but they asked Minnesota to retain an extra 25% on O'Reilly and paid the pick to keep Kerfoot. I'll tell you something I did hear that was really interesting, Jeff. I did hear from a couple people Friday after the deadline that they're wondering if the three-team deals might get changed somehow. Hmm? Whether it's the process or the ability to do them. Because apparently there was one of them at this deadline, I don't know which one it was, that was a real pain in the ass. I don't know who complained, but apparently it was a big problem.

Because the way it works is when you have a three-team trade, there's like three different trade calls that have to happen. Yep. And what happens is if you do the first trade call and it's okay, and then the second trade call, someone says, no, no, no, this is a problem. Well, everyone's mad because they said, well, we already approved the first deal and he can't say there's a problem now. And if there's a problem with the third call, they say, wait a second, we already did the first two calls and we approved them.

We're not going backwards. More than one person was saying to me on Friday night, they think there's going to be a conversation about how these all work. Like, does it have to be a different process? I don't think we're going to get to, we're not going to allow them at all. I can't imagine that. No way. But I did hear that some of the GMs and the league are not thrilled about the overall process. Because if you get through a one phase or two, and then someone says, no, this isn't what we agreed to, it's a big pain in the butt. So I'm curious to see where it goes from here. Let's get to some of the deals. Actually, let's talk about Vancouver and Pittsburgh before we get to some of the deals. Well, here's the question, the obvious one. What happened? Pittsburgh Penguins, Vancouver Canucks,

all kinds of rumors floating around this week. So Patrick Alvin came out in his post-deadline media scrum and said, we never got an offer on JT Miller. And I've told you before, Jeff, that if I had not become a reporter, I was going to be a lawyer and I would have been miserable. But that was going to be my career. And as a lawyer, I can going to be a lawyer and I would have been miserable, but that was going to be my career. And as a lawyer, I can tell you that I believe that Patrick Alvin is telling the

truth. However, as a lawyer, could have been one, there's a lot of semantics involved here. It's a wordsmithing. It's a wordsmith. Is a conversation an offer? An offer, if you ask any lawyer and offer is, do you have something on paper that says this was presented to you? Yes.

Oh, that's an offer. No, that's not an offer. And you've got Jack squat for on and off over the past few months, the Pittsburgh penguins and the Vancouver Canucks have had

conversations, conceptual conversations about JT Miller, about if they were going to do something, this is what it would look like. Now, I was on 650, our Sportsnet station in Vancouver, on Friday morning, and I relayed about how somebody complained to me that there's more misinformation around the Canucks than there is around any other team. And he said, all of you guys are insane.

You're an echo chamber in Vancouver and nobody really knows anything is what he says. And all the reporters copy each other information to sound smart. And it's just one person talking and everybody echoes it. It was quite an epic rant for 6 a.m. Eastern time on a Friday morning of the trade deadline. That's before a coffee. That's not right. That was just after I woke up. That's definitely true.

Anyway, whatever the case is, I think this. I think they talked about it. Here's the problem. I think Vancouver wanted a young center, and Pittsburgh doesn't have one of those. Was Vancouver willing to deal with Pittsburgh? Yes, I think they were. Was Pittsburgh willing to deal with Vancouver?

Yes, I think they were. Were the two of them able to make a deal together? No, I don't think they were. But were they trying to think of ways that they could possibly make it happen? Yes. I think it was incredibly complicated. I think it might have had to involve two other processes. Number one was finding a young center that the Canucks would be happy with.

So would Pittsburgh have to trade for this young player and then trade him to Vancouver? Or would it have to be a three-way deal? And also, and this wasn't necessarily Vancouver's business, it was Pittsburgh's. If Pittsburgh traded for a guy with JT Miller's contract, what would they have to do to their roster? Would they have to call other teams and

say, can you take this player or that player? Because if Vancouver wasn't willing to take the player, who would have been? So I don't believe there was an actual offer made because I don't think either side could get there. I think you had two partners willing to dance. Do you want to dance? Yes, I want to dance. But then they realized they couldn't agree on what dance step to use. Or what song. Or what song to dance to.

I like this song. I don't like that song. Let's wait for the next song. That's what I think it was. I think it was incredibly complicated. I think Vancouver was willing. I think it was. I think it was incredibly complicated. I think Vancouver was willing. I think Pittsburgh was willing, but they didn't have exactly what each other wanted. And if that was the case,

what else would Pittsburgh have to do to get a player with Miller's salary on their roster? Now, I don't think this is over. I think it could potentially be discussed in the offseason. I just heard right now it was incredibly complicated, but it doesn't mean if there's a will, they can't go back to this. But as someone said to me, it's going to be really hard to do. It probably needs one more team, maybe two, and we'll see.

As you're saying this, I'm saying to myself, well, if the Vancouver Canucks are looking for a young center, why are they calling Pittsburgh? Like this one has multi-layers to it, or Pittsburgh doing some homework first and then coming back to Vancouver with a presentation before they do anything like I wouldn't be surprised if the two teams discussed who's the young player around the league that you like like I don't know this for sure I want to stress this

but if you told me the two teams like said okay who's the young center of Vancouver would want and they both kind of looked at it and said, can we do this? Like the way I think this really went crazy in the last few days is because I think one, if not both of those teams were talking to other teams about what else would have to happen. If we wanted to get this deal done,

that makes a hundred percent sense to me. That's what I think now on Friday me. That's what I think now. On Friday night, that's what I think. Okay, so there's that. Yep. Philadelphia Flyers and the almost James Van Riemsdyk deal. Because there was a deal pending Detroit making another move. That didn't happen, and it scotched the James Van Riemsdyk deal.

And I thought that chuck fletcher's comments were interesting as well nothing of significance until about 140 eastern on trade deadline day for james van reams like well first of all i have to eat a bit of a shit sandwich here and this is on me like this is nobody else's fault this is my fault and i want to say that very clearly they had something as, as Fletcher said, potentially with a team and that team was Detroit, but it was contingent on Detroit doing something else. And I had thought that thing was done. And so I reported it. And then very quickly, I realized it wasn't done and the deal fell apart. And that's on me.

Like that's no one else's fault but my own. And so I eat that. Fletcher was really blunt, really blunt. And the thing I feel about that is I think he knew he was going to face an avalanche of criticism for not getting Van Riemsdyk traded. And, you know, one thing about Fletcher is, regardless of how you feel about the job he's doing,

he's a pretty decent guy. And if there's one thing that really shocked everybody about that is how blunt he was about his comments. You don't normally hear that kind of stuff in the NHL. thing that really shocked everybody about that is how blunt he was about his comments like you don't normally hear that kind of stuff in the nhl and what i think happened is he knew he was going to get criticized for not being able to trade jvr and he wanted to make everybody know that all of this talk about the big market for JVR, it didn't exist. And I can't imagine that's easy for the player.

I think what happened was, if not this, then that exactly has happened with Detroit. Like there were a bunch of teams that said to him, if this doesn't work out, then we may do this. And then you look at Winnipeg, they go out and they get Namesnikov. And you look at Vegas up front, they added players like Teddy Bluger.

And Minnesota, they went out and they got Sundqvist. And Minnesota was a tough one because I heard they weren't interested, then I heard they were interested. But they went out and they got another player. And all of a sudden it just shrunk. And that's what happened. And we came down to Detroit.

Like I had someone who disputed to me that Seattle was ever really in it. I don't know, but that's what someone said to me. And then I'm sure Iserman's mad because he's probably thinking here and saying, wait, now someone on my roster thinks they were getting traded because this all got out that it was contingent on another deal. So it was just overall like a big mess and a really unfortunate situation.

But you know what I think happened with Philly? Like Braun, UFA, he didn't go anywhere. Hayes still has term. He didn't go anywhere Hayes still has term he didn't go anywhere well they traded Braun last year and then brought him back but I'm sure they were hoping to get a pick for him this year yep I'll get to Hayes in a second because I have a theory on him but would people have been interested in connecting yeah but they're they don't want to trade him right now was there some interest in sealer yes but they see't want to trade him right now. Was there some interest in Seeler? Yes, but they see value in him. I think Philly was kind of disappointed and surprised at the lack of a market on some of their free agents.

The other thing I would like to say is someone told me that Philly was scouting Ottawa's AHL team in Belleville pretty hard, and they wonder if Chikrin hadn't gone to Ottawa, was there another Philly defenseman going to Ottawa? Well, listen, we've all wondered about Proveroff. I don't know who it was. We talked about this on television. I had mentioned, I think there's another,

the next window for the Philadelphia Flyers to get their business done. And I think there is an appetite to do business there is at the draft and whether it's prover off, I don't know. I get mixed messages on Travis Sanheim. Um,

you mentioned Kevin Hayes a couple of seconds ago. I think that there's probably something there. They have another window and it's probably the draft. I think there's a few teams like that for me with Hayes. I look at Columbus and the reason I look at Columbus is who are like that. For me with Hayes, I look at Columbus. And the reason I look at Columbus is who are his friends? Some of his friends. He's got a lot of friends.

Kevin Hayes is a really popular guy. Johnny Goudreau. And Rick Nash. Yeah. To me, that's potential draft at Columbus or after the season with Columbus. I think that's a possibility. There were some talks between the Philadelphia Flyers and Columbus.

Okay, well, there you go. They were described to me as soft talks, but there were conversations between the two sides. So I wouldn't be surprised if that happened in and around the draft.

Like Carolina, I don't think that went very far, but I have heard Columbus and Columbus is going to look for a center with some more experience. There are people in that organization who think very highly of Kevin Hayes. Okay, let's bounce around a couple of teams here.

Calgary Flames, a couple of really tough losses this week. One to the Boston Bruins where, I'll be blunt, they got all marked. He was fantastic. One of the best performances we've seen of any goaltender all season long. Calgary dominated the game for three periods plus and all Mark said, no way. And then they dropped the tough one of the Toronto Maple Leafs, got out to the quick lead,

Blake Coleman with a shorthanded goal to watch it evaporate. Afterwards, Coleman says, yeah, we, and I'm paraphrasing here, something along the lines of, you know,

we play good games, but find a way to lose. Your thoughts on Brad Treliving not doing anything really either way with the Calgary Flames at deadline. So someone told me before the deadline that both Richie brothers might get traded. I don't think anybody was expecting they were going to be traded for each other. History history making we should add this is like when one murray brother was fired in washington and the other murray brother replaced them i think the only thing that was kind of annoying was that they didn't give them the same number you know they wouldn't even have to change the jerseys right i think they can live

in each other's houses though i believe could do Could do that. May end up happening here. Could do that. I'm not sure if they rented or owned in their two specific markets. I think Calgary punted. Basically what I think they did was punted to the summer. Or do you think they're looking at this and saying, these types of season happen sometimes. We're better than this.

This is just quote, one of those years. The problem with that is and yes i would say yes that i think in general does happen in general they do think that the team is trying to find its regain its identity but the thing is is that sometimes you get to say we have we're going to have a do-over want to try again and sometimes the calendar or your cap situation doesn't allow for that. And if you take a look at Calgary's cap situation, look at the quality of players they're going to be up after next year. Backlund, Lindholm, Toffoli, Hannafin, Tanev, Zdorov.

So they're going to be in a situation, Calgary is, where they're going to have to decide on some of these players next summer. Are we going to be able to sign them or are we going to just risk it or what are we going to do? So I think the contract calendar could determine that as much as anyone else. And I don't know that they considered anything very seriously on Friday. I have no reason to believe that they did. I heard that they had no interest in moving Lindholm, almost no interest in moving Backlund, like basically no interest.

Like I think teams like those kinds of players, but I just don't think Calgary was in a position where they really wanted to consider anything like that. You know, it's like you talked about, like, I have no doubt they know now, okay, like here's our list of teams that called us about these guys and we'll re-deal with this in the summer or the draft if we have to. And I do think you're right, Jeff. I think there's a little bit of, we can't be as bad as this team was this year. I'm sure they're going to go to a bunch of these guys and say, look, we'd like to extend you. And if those players say yes, then they get deals done. But if those players say no, then they're going to kind of have to figure it out.

And I think that's where they're going to be, you know, in the summer. The wildest one I actually heard, and it obviously didn't happen, was Lucic in Boston about the possibility about him and going and having one last ride with the Bruins. But I don't know that it even happened. Someone said to me they heard that rumor,

but I don't know that that even happened. That was like me trying to will Phil Kessel to Boston last year for one more Stanley Cup hurrah, trying to manifest that trade. But look, they made the one deal. They're going to see if they can make a late season run. The math is not on their side. Like look at all the great players who moved or were traded last year that aren't going to the playoffs this year.

You know, the Flames guys probably aren't going to the playoffs. Kachuk probably isn't going to the playoffs. Johnny Goudreau isn't going to the playoffs. Like, everybody involved here is not going to the playoffs. So I do wonder about what you said, but I think the clock is going to say to the Flames, you have to decide, you know, where you're going. Listen to 32 Thoughts, the podcast, ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime.

okay i want to ask you about jacob chickering yeah because this saga finally came to an end and one thing i should mention as well really nice uh letter of thanks by jacob trickering that he put up on his social media and really nice video a collage of his career with the Arizona Coyotes, which features his draft floor interview from 2016 in Buffalo, featuring a dashingly handsome reporter in a lovely blue suit. I don't know who that was, but looked beautiful nonetheless. Your thoughts on the Chikrin deal finally closing this week? Well, I thought you asked Bill Armstrong a great question on your radio show when you asked him if that deal was one he would have taken months ago. Yes.

Like, honestly, Jeff, that may be the best question that you've ever asked. I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or not. Take it as a compliment. Because he said no. Yeah. But he also said, and the reason he said no was because he didn't know how high the draft pick was going to be and that was key for him i'll write more about this uh next week but i spent a lot of time doing research into the value of picks and how much certain picks are worth. And I had a few people who did say to me that, yes, Bill Armstrong has a point. A higher draft pick is better than two

late first round draft picks. He's absolutely right about that. Here's where the issues come in. Number one, he's made Ottawa a better team. By putting Jacob Chikrin on the Ottawa roster, he actually increases the percentage that that Ottawa pick decreases in value because the Senators are better. And the other thing I think that's, and this is my own opinion, I don't think Ottawa's going to take the gas off the pedal. Number one, they have no margin for error. Number two, they have young players who are getting their first test of a playoff race, so they're going hard. I think that Arizona might have put a situation here where by making this deal, the theory is good, but they have a chance to make the practice of the actual pick worse.

We'll see where it goes. the other thing too is it's just like after everything we heard about what this deal was going to be or they were asking for this deal to be it seems like a letdown and i think for the coyotes what they got in terms of what the reported ask was combined with everything else that's going on around their organization right now it just doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good at all. And I think now that the deadline's over, I think this is going to become a bigger story. You know, sometime in March, Marty Walsh is supposed to have his first media conference as head of the NHLPA. I think this is now going to be an issue for him.

I think he's got two immediate issues. Number one, the trade-related sit-outs, and number two, Arizona. I do think there are players and there are agents who think this is really wrong. We've all understood it to a certain degree before, but it's going way, way way way off the other side now pausing that for one second because yeah bill armstrong has been asked about that and in his defense he says we are not doing anything that contravenes the cba everything we now hang on a second i know we can argue because listen i'm with you

i lived through the ilia kovachuk new jersey devils saga and heard things about the spirit of the cba yes and the spirit of the salary cap so i get that and i think that's what we're talking about here are the arizona coyotes doing anything that contravenes the CBA or the salary cap? No. But does it violate a certain spirit of what the salary cap is trying to achieve? I think that's what you're getting at. I don't think they're violating the salary cap, no. But in the same week a memo goes out about not using the salary cap to your advantage,

it's really difficult to watch this. To put players on LTIR to allow more players to come in to go above the salary cap. Or use insurance money to go above the salary cap as in the case with Voracek. It's impossible to reconcile the two things about don't use LTIR at the trade deadline to take advantage, but we're going to allow this. And the other thing too is it's because this has happened before with Arizona. Like they've used it before and we thought this was supposed to go away, right? And now it's back again and it's really blatant now.

I think somebody said they got $43 million in actual cash on their payroll. Now, the other thing Armstrong apparently told people, and I can see this, is that they didn't take money back from Ottawa. And apparently his argument was, look, people wanted us to take money back of players who couldn't play. Now, I don't think that's true in every case, but I think it was potentially true in some cases. But the fact is, you can't make the argument that we didn't want to take money back of guys who weren't good players or couldn't play and then do this. Now that the deadline's over, I think this is going to become a thing. I just think people are horribly frustrated. And a lot of the active players

aren't necessarily going to say anything, except for Brad Marchand, who's not afraid to say anything. How about anybody? Hello, Edmonton. I think they feel that way. And I don't know where this is going to go, but I think it's a really tough situation. And the other thing too is, Jeff, those guys have played hard this year. You know who I really think doesn't get enough credit? Well, a lot of people in Arizona specifically, and most notably the players.

Yeah. You know who doesn't get enough credit? The coach? Andre Tournier. I think he's got those guys playing hard. They've played hard. Like, you know what?

I said to Clayton Keller at the all-star game, Clayton Keller has suffered a really traumatic injury last year yeah and he had every excuse to take as long as he could to get ready and he was ready at the beginning of the year and he was a very deserving representative like i really admire that i just don't think it's easy and i think those players deserve a lot of credit because i think they play really hard. Okay. Well, what about the chicken deal then,

Elliot, from the Ottawa point of view? This is a nice little bit of business by Pierre Dorian here. It's a really good bit of business. And we talk about you have to reward your players, right? And he did. He admitted it about Claude Giroux, Broussard coming out.

It says a lot to me that Ottawa, chicken flies overnight or early in the morning or whatever it was. It's clearly not the ideal way to play a game. You're facing the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Patrick Kane debut night. So you know you're walking into a lion's den and you win that game. It's a great, great sign for that team. What did you think when he got injured? Or it looked like he got injured. I was like, oh my God.

First game. What a nightmare. But I have to tell you, I haven't asked anyone about Ottawa on this, and it's always really safe to say something without asking anybody there. But I'm convinced the Sanders thought when they made that offer, they didn't think they were necessarily going to get them. Because every previous attempt

that Sanders had tried to talk to them, it was Pinto or Greg or Sanderson or someone else. And they kept on saying, no, no, no, we're not doing that. Like I had a couple of teams that said to me, there's no way that anybody would have thought at that point that that was the offer that Arizona was going to say yes to. Now they've got a few too many lefties. You know, they'll sort that out.

They'll deal with it. They weren't in any hurry to do anything now, and I don't think they're necessarily going to be in any hurry to do it this summer, but they'll just work on it and see how everything plays itself out. But that was a huge get for Ottawa in the market. It was a huge get for Ottawa in the dressing room. As that team gets better and better and better,

it just buys you credibility. This whole year has been about reestablishing credibility in the market, and that goes a long way to do it. Now, it's going to be wild to watch them over the last 20 or so games.

They've got no room for error, but they've got a shot at this. They wanted to play meaningful games in March. They're going to play meaningful games in March. You know, they didn't trade Talbot. You can't say we're trading Chikrin because our players deserve it and then move out Talbot without getting another goalie. Like it, it makes no sense. Or move Broussard.

Or move Broussard a thousand games. And that was, that was a tremendous game for him. And, and a really, some really nice behind the scenes stuff for the Sanders. You know, the other thing that I wanted to talk about quickly,

Jeff was Brady Kachok. And, you know, Matthew Kachok was kind of like the Kachok that we'd all, like when you hear that last name, you understand you're getting a certain kind of player, right? Yep. And we'd seen that from Matthew Kachok,

but we hadn't seen that from Brady. Brady was like the fun-loving guy doing the dances, going and crushing beers in the crowd while Matthew played playoff games. Brady was kind of like the nice Kachuk. Well, you know what he didn't have before were meaningful games late in the year. And now we see them and we're learning, and I say this as a compliment, he's just as much of a prick-a-chuck as the rest of them.

Like the way he tortured Detroit for two games and his performance in that game in New York, the only reason we didn't realize that Brady was just as nasty as the rest of them was because he didn't have meaningful high-profile games to show us. You heard what Pierre Dorian said about him in his press. He put the Ottawa Senators on his back. That's what we've seen out of Brady Kachuk that we haven't seen before. It's get on.

These are meaningful games. I'm going to make sure we win these things. That's been Brady Kachuk this week. Phenomenal performance. Phenomenal performance. Phenomenal performance. And I still remember when they drafted him, first of all, there were rumors that they shouldn't because he didn't want to go there

and they made the pick anyway. And then when they made the pick, there were fans that ripped that pick. Everybody who didn't like it, they were wrong. He's legit. And as we said, we're learning learning he's the same mold as the rest of them and that's great news for the senators okay didn't want to do a lengthy one we did a huge podcast the other day we're going to do another podcast on sunday night for a monday morning

release but just a couple of thoughts here i don't necessarily like doing the the winners and losers at trade deadline because you know who knows like there's necessarily like doing the winners and losers at trade deadline because who knows, there's a sprint to the playoffs and then there are actually the playoffs. But are there one or two teams that really impressed you? One or two teams that you looked at and you went, we thought they were going to do something, but even this is more impressive than what I thought. Boston. Does that include the Pasternak deal? Yes.

Someday there's going to be a really good book about those negotiations because, and I've said it a couple of times, Boston's used to players saying, okay. I'll take less. This guy didn't bend. Yeah. He did not bend. I don't think that was very easy for the Bruins to deal with that.

But they went through it with McAvoy, though. McAvoy, yes, but this was an even bigger stratosphere than McAvoy. That is true. Like, I think if you would have asked the Bruins at the beginning of this process, would they get to 11.25 on Pasternak? They would have said, no, we're not doing that. No one's ever going to make that here. And then when the player made it very clear that it was going to be that

or there were going to be consequences, I think they really had to come to grips with are we really going to trade this guy away or let him walk? And the answer was no. If you read about the Aaron Judge negotiations, at the end of it, like the Yankees weren't sure they wanted to go with Aaron Judge. And then finally,

the owner of the Yankees called Aaron Judge himself and said, do you really want to be here? Do you want to be a Yankee? And he said, yes, I do. And he said, fine. And they went to where they had to go

and they got the deal done. I don't know if it was the same with Pasternak, but I do think that they were making progress. They were making progress. They were driving the football down the field and it stalled. And I think finally on some level, everybody involved, I think there was like a summit at some point in time. And they all just said, okay, do we all want to keep this marriage going? And everybody said yes. And they got it back on track and they got it done. Like, I don't know if it was an owner phone call or they all got together.

Maybe it was a steak dinner. I don't know what it was. But I heard there was like a big get-together, and they got it back on, just like happened with Aaron Judge. And finally, everybody said, do we want this marriage to continue? Everybody said yes, and they got it done. And I do think Bertuzzi and Orlov was off to a hot start in Hathaway. The best team in the NHL.

I don't know if anyone's going to argue that anyone else had a better week. It's a great point, and we'll end on top then. Thanks for joining us either on television for trade deadline on Friday morning and Friday afternoon. And thanks for listening to this podcast. Your next. Oh, and by the way, thanks to everyone for both listening to and watching the Bill Guerin interview. You watched it on our Sportsnet YouTube channel. Thank you.

Thank you. And yes, Guerin was excellent. Next podcast comes out Monday morning. Taking us out today, an award winning saxophone player from Rhode Island. Monday morning. Taking us out today, an award-winning saxophone player from Rhode Island, Chase Segley mixes pop melodies and jazz harmonies and has been known to play every instrument on his albums. That's awesome.

The Berkeley College grad has dropped three full-length records over the last six years, and you'll rarely hear him play the same show twice. With his latest single, here's Chase Segley with Off My Mind on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Happy trade deadline. Every time, every time They go watching All night, chasing love Off my mind Wasting time

Close enough But was it worth it? Of my mind Facing time I don't want it But I know I gotta keep Of my mind Thinking of me

Want your love, but this is hurting Off my mind Off my mind Off my mind Bye.