Puck Soup - Deals For Days

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about all the new contracts, potential trades, Marty Walsh, and more.   Sponsored by Factor (factormeals.com/puck50) and Bespoke Post (boxofawesome.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAdoo from The Athletic. And you know, this weekend I sit down to write something. I'm like, oh, not a lot happened this weekend because of the All-Star break.

And then like nine things happened. So I guess let's start with the headline. The big one here is the Horvett deal. Yes. The New York Islanders, eight years, 8.5 million. When last we left you, he had been traded. Yep. And we had our views on that.

Which included, I think, that it was pretty much baked in that the Islanders were going to sign him. to something long-term and probably pretty silly. And they did. Although, unfortunately, they didn't release the terms of the contract, so nobody knows what it is. And we'll never know. Yeah, it's just a silly. You know, you say it's pretty silly.

I don't really know if it is, honestly. It's not terrible. And usually when you sign a contract after you just trade for a guy and you can ask the Calgary Flames about this, You give him a terrible contract. That's just like how it works. And this is, I think, reasonable? It's not like I would say good value, but...

8.5, but he's... I'm a little bit surprised to hear you say this, because we're talking like a guy who's 27. He gets eight years. So he's signed until 35. Most of this contract is in his 30s. Mm-hmm. And I just...

I feel like that's not usually your... vibe is the older guys, the older extensions. Yeah. I mean, I guess the good news for that is as UFAs go, he's on the younger side.

You know, he'll be 28 in April. But like, it's not like this guy's 30 and signing an eight year deal, which you see kind of a lot, right? Yeah. He'll be 30 two years into his eight year deal. That's right. Yeah. But, you know, it's, I think, I think Jim Rutherford was right when he was like, yeah, he wants to be paid for, like, being a 50 goal score.

And he's not, I don't think he is that, which Jim Rutherford is right about that, right? In all likelihood, for the majority of this contract, you're not getting 50 goals a year out of Beau Horvette. You might get it for one or two more if you put him in the right circumstances. But I just, this is a player I've always liked. I think that a lot of what he does, and boy, if this isn't, you know, potentially like the kiss of death in a lot of ways. But like, I think this can age better. Again, I don't think he's going to be worth $8.5 million, but I was fully expecting like nine plus. And he didn't get that.

Like, if Dylan Larkins, like, I want nine, I would have said Bo Horvettes getting nine. Nine and a quarter, nine, you know, nine and a half. But at that point, it does, I guess I'm going back and forth on this. It feels like nine is kind of like, okay, let's slow down a little bit number for a lot of teams. Yeah. And it is, I mean, I guess we are also at the point where we have to get back into the habit of talking about the cap going up. And who knows what the salary cap's going to look like in 2030. 86 and a half million dollars.

That sounds about right. And Lula Amarillo is not going to be the GM in eight years. So does it even show? Now, did you think it was absolutely epic when he said it was for too long and too much money? Oh. So funny. I had to lay down. I was laughing so hard.

I mean, it wasn't as funny as Brad Marchand just being a dick to people on Twitter randomly, which was the funniest thing that has ever happened. but Lou Lamarillo was a very close second when he said that. Yeah, and, you know, like this does give them a very solid one-two punch up the middle. Obviously, they have a lot more problems on their roster than that, but if you have two guys who are like even low-end number one centers, which I think it's fair to say both of them are at the peak of their powers, and even if you have two good number two sets,

I think you're going to be in pretty good shape most seasons, you know. So, and obviously they have good defensemen. They have an elite goalie who they're going to have to pay a lot of money to very soon. Oh, no, he's not, no, I, I have it flipped. Varlamov is the guy who's up after this year. Sorokin, you got one more year. Sorokin, one more year. So, but then you're going to have to give that guy like, you know, Bobrovsky money.

basically. Right. And he'll be, you know, he'll be worth it for a while, I think. Let me frame it for you this way. Okay.

Is this not a little bit like the Canucks signing J.T. Miller last summer, where you go, okay, good player, coming off a great year. Yeah. But this team should not be making long-term commitments to veteran guys. They should be looking to. shed salary and get younger and all of that.

I mean, so one of the things that I saw a couple of people saying about this deal, and it hadn't really occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense once like someone said it to me out loud, you know, about like they cannot start tearing it down a year and a half into opening a new building. Yeah, that's a good point. And from that perspective, like, you know me, I feel like if you're not in the top eight in the league, you should be, like, aggressively rebuilding. Yeah. So, and the Islanders certainly are not, right? Like, it's still a deep long shot that they make the playoffs, although, you know, they look good last night, obviously.

Um, I don't know. I kind of feel like I can see it both ways. You know? With that having been said, again, this is a player that I've liked for a while. And, you know, the idea that he should have been the Canucks number one center until they were like, oh, no, Pedersen's the guy. Like, that always felt like that was overly optimistic about what Boorovac could do. But if you go Barzal one, Horvatt, two, or you can, you know, you can flip them as you need to, I like the flexibility that gives the islanders.

Again, I don't. And Bo Horvatt is, you know, he's not going to score 50 goals every year, but he doesn't need to be a good player. Like, this isn't, this isn't like a Jeff Skinner guy where he's, he, the scoring is pretty much the whole story. right yeah no yeah and and if you score 30 consistently which he i feel like can he scored 30 and 70 or 30 plus and 70 something last year he missed a good number of games and still hit 30 um and then like the lockout year he put up a good number of goals too like if you're again like you can kind of use him as a power play weapon if nothing else like i i think i just i like the player you know,

again, maybe not eight and a half, but like if they had said eight on the button, I don't think as many people are like, what are they doing? I think people say that's the cost of doing business and it's an extra half a million dollars.

It's not like a huge deal. And he would have got this contracting. Oh, he would have gotten more than that somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. And as you point, it out. Like, I've, I've written about the shiny new toy where teams acquire a guy and then immediately overpay him or within a year overpay significantly.

Right. And, I mean, I don't know if you give the Islanders credit for not making a horrific mistake, but maybe we do. Yeah. I mean, the thing with the Islanders, too, is they tend to overpay veterans. look at all the guys making five million bucks on their books right now. And you're like, oh, yeah, Pajot, Josh Bailey, like, that's not great, you know? Yep.

And so, like, if you're building in the, like, oh, the Islanders, the Islanders overpaid their veterans. Well, they only slightly overpaid Bo Horvettes. So, like, I don't know. If we're stepping outside of, like, Lou Lamarillo brain a little bit, like, I, I, I, I, I, I can't say I don't like this contract. Is it ideal? No, but... Having seen the contract now, do you revisit your view on the trade at all from an Islander's perspective?

Well, I think I said it last week. It depended on their ability to re-sign him at a reasonable number. And I think this is close to a reasonable number. I guess it ultimately depends on, you know, if they're... they if they use their protected pick this year and it's unprotected next year, it could get a little dicey, obviously. It gets a lot dicey if that happens. Yeah, but as we said, like, this is a bad, or we said it before, not like today. But this is a bad team that is only where it is in the standings, which is to say not in the playoffs.

Because they have elite goaltending, right? Yep. So if that goes away or, you know, a million different things could happen, and this ends up being a top, like, eight pick next year, who'd be surprised, you know? But I think Horvatt being signed and not like at a crazy number helps insulate you from that risk a little bit. You know, the risk was that they didn't resign Horvatt ended up in the top. top 12, et cetera, et cetera. Right.

Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah. So, I don't know. I can't be mad at this contract as much as I usually like to be. He's very disappointed. Yeah. Lou let me down by doing something that like, I wouldn't have done it myself, but I get it, you know. But yeah.

Do you have any other thoughts on this? No, I mean, that's, I guess that's it. I did think, I think any eight-year contract to somebody at this age who isn't like a Sydney Crosby-McDavid-level shirt. Of course. It's going to be bad down the road. And I don't like seeing teams, especially when it's a GM who's not going to be there to clean it up. I don't love seeing teams do things that they know are going to be bad down the line. Yeah.

And leave a mess for somebody else. Now, that said, this is how business gets done in the NHL, and you sometimes have to say, if I want something good now, I'm going to have to, you know, eat some dirt down the road. So I don't, I think I was primed to hate this more than I did. I think that's a great way to put it. Yeah. I don't love it, but it certainly, it certainly,

as you said, could have been worse. One last thing on the Islanders here, and you just mentioned it. Louis Amarillo, his contract is up this summer. What do you think? What do you think he gets one more kick at the can here for a team that is

about to, well, I mean, you know, they're going to be around the playoffs. It's a long road for him, but like, do you think that- He missed the playoffs two years in a row? I mean, they missed it by a fucking mile last year. Everybody in the East did. But like, they missed it by a mile last year. And like, I don't know, if you finish below the sabers, does you get fired? I don't know. Or not brought

back, I guess. He wouldn't. No, brought back. Yeah. He wouldn't, you know, he'll maybe move upstairs. Is his, is his kids still kicking around that front office? Has to be. How this always works, right? Is that the succession plan? What a crazy coincidence, A, if they're like, you'll never guess who we hired. After our extensive search, this is going to blow you away. Being GM of the Islanders is a patrilineal position. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if...

Yep, Chris Lamarillo, it says here, is still the assistant general managers, a general manager of the... That's crazy. It's such an uncommon last name and they have two guys. I know. Yeah, I don't think he comes. I mean, it's Lou. And first of all, like, I wouldn't want to be the one to fire him because he's a legend

and, you know, and all of this stuff. But I also, I wouldn't want to be the one to fire him. Like, I just don't want to do that job. I got to do like the, if I'm the Islander's owner, I do like the Donald Trump thing and get the limo driver to go and deliver the news or something because that would be a fun conversation. but I think I think he moved on

and I get the feeling Islander fans are eager for the team to move on maybe eager's not quite yeah no shit they're like they're not going to be broken hard at that Lou is not no it's the same like you know okay we get it you're like a hard ass guy you know like

it's just a thing that obviously he could do it with the devils because he won all those cups right but if you're not winning and putting up with all the bullshit that comes with like having Lou Lamarillo as your GM. That's tough. You know what I mean?

Like you can excuse the nobody's allowed to get a haircut or to grow their hair long rather. Like he's he's at the rink with a pair of scissors every day, you know? Yeah. You can put up with that when you're winning. When you're losing a lot and the Islanders have been for two years, you know, it's a whole different. It's a whole different story. Yes. I don't know.

I'll be really interested to see if he's like, oh, a great decision I made for your extension for Lou Lamarillo, you know. Yeah. Wouldn't be the first time a GM did that in this league. Certainly wouldn't shock me, but, yeah, I mean, that's it. Your GM in this league, you've got an audience of one that you need to convince. Yeah. It's not the fans. It's not the media.

It's not some podcaster. It's your owner. Although, you know, you think's cool. If you want to start pandering directly to me, that would be pretty cool. That would be fine. Yeah, it would be. I'd actually love that, personally. I would like it if they just basically ran every decision by me.

I think probably would work out better for them, too. I was going to say, I'd be doing them a big fucking favor. Oh, don't sign that contract. Thanks. Two other new contracts. Well, I guess there were three other new contracts, but two others that were over the weekend, let's say. The Washington Capitals, continuing their effort to have 70 forwards on the roster and no defensemen, extend Dylan Strom and Sonny Milano for multi-year deals.

Let's see if I can do this off the top of my head here. Strom 5 by 5, Milano 3 by 1.9. That sounds right. Yeah. What did you think? I mean, when things are going well, you've got to keep the group together. I mean, Sonny Milano, I don't really care. It's unusual to see a guy like that get that kind of term, but the number is.

I don't, here's the thing. I don't think so. I don't think that's true, actually, because. Okay, aside from Jim Benning, giving four years to every fourth liner. Well, no, what I'm saying is. Milano was a guy that, like, yeah, he had to, like, try out with the flames this year, and the ducks just kind of, like, let him go. But I don't know, he's, he's like an effective score, you know, scoring forward who can do some other stuff for you, you know.

Okay. So you like the deal then. You're... I do. Yeah. I mean, you know, he had 34 points in 66 games last year. He's got 22 and 4. like he's like a half a point of game maybe a little more kind of a player he's never going to score like

25 goals or anything for you but like if he's a 15 goal guy who can who can play a little bit of defense and that kind of stuff like 1.9 yeah for for a what is he 25 you know like that young guy yeah yeah like yeah so that term totally works for me you know um he'll be 30 when this contract is up. The odds that, like, he's going to, you know, hit a wall or something like that? I don't, what kind of wall could he hit where 1.9 is a problem for you all of a sudden, you know? And it's, yeah, I'm looking at the contract on cap friendly. No bonuses.

And the base salary goes down. So it's also pretty straightforward to trade or even buyout. Yep. Fairly low risk. Okay. Yeah. And I like the player. Yeah.

All right. Like I said, is Sonny Milano like, like the, because playing with Trevor Zegra's last year, everybody's like, oh, Sonny Malano. He's not that, right? But like, he's a good player. And if you're getting them under $2 million, bucks, let's put it this way. There are many worse players making more money than that in the league. A lot more.

I like this new positive Ryan. It's just like. Love all the signings and the all-star break was so good that how could I not be in a good mood? It is. Now let's talk about the Dylan Strom contract though, because this one just seems like it's kind of right down the middle, you know? It felt like he took a little bit of a discount to play this year, much like Milano did. Milano is making the league minimum. Yeah.

Dylan Strom, like, again, is he an unbelievable player who's like, oh, you got to have guys like Dylan Strom on your team? No, not really, you know, but. But you do need to have guys like this on your team. Well, sure, but like, yeah, I guess I guess what I'm saying is like he's not the difference between the capitals being good or bad next year is what I guess what I'm saying. And the philosophical question is, you know, you have to have guys like this on your team because there has to be somebody in between the superstars and the pluggers. But do you pay those guys or do you scrounge around and try to find bargains and treat them sort of interchangeably? Or do you make long-term commitments at decent, although not crazy numbers? Again, cap will start going up.

Five million for a third-line center is, I mean, it's not outrageous today. It's not going to be too bad a few years down the line. Well, so here's the thing. You say he's a third-line center. At what point on this team does he become a second-line center? Yep. You know. That is the question.

And if he's a good one, then they've got a great bargain. But if he's one just because they don't have, they don't have anyone. else and now they also don't have you know maybe don't have the cap flexibility to go and get them yeah the numbers to me suggest he's like a like a very high end third line

center like a guy who you know he's punching below his weight basically when he's playing that kind of competition he's also really good on the power play like he's a weapon for them on the power play right so even if he is your third line center who you also play on the power play and he's good at that, I think that's a net positive, you know?

Again, is that worth $5 million to me? Probably not. Is it worth $4 million to me? Probably. And at that point, again, like, okay, I guess you're, like, marginally you're overpaying him by 25% in theory. but a million dollars again a million dollars isn't going to make or break you what's going to make or break you is like nine point two million dollars for nick backstrom and and seven point eight for kuznetsov it's not going to make or break you but carlson you can only have so many i mean those million dollar overpays add up oh no that's what i'm saying right they have a they have they have a bunch of guys who are overpaid by more than a million dollars right but but then again much like the islanders you're going to kind of look at it through the lens of, well, look, this is all in service of getting Ovechkin the goals record.

Yeah. And so, and so, like, are they going to be competitive for the five years of this deal? Probably not, right? Like, the odds are that they're going to keep getting worse before they eventually decide to rebuild when the Ovechkin contract is up three years after this current season, right? So at that point, you've got, you've got Strom signed for another three years, two years, something like that. And like, he's your transition guy.

Or you can fucking trade him because I don't think he has any trade protection. And the cap will be up a significant amount by then. Yeah. So. I don't know. We said with Horvatt, we both agreed that he would have got at least that in the summer. Dylan Strom, I'm not sure. If he gets to unrestricted free agency,

I'm not sure he's getting five by five somewhere. It sounds more or less right, though, doesn't it? Yeah. The thing that's tough with him is it's always going to be tough with him to separate the player from the draft pedigree. The fact that this guy was a third overall thing.

This was the guy who went in between McDavid Eichael Marner. And at this point, he's about to turn 26. Like he's not, he's not magically going to find another level of his game and become that guy. Sure. But also he should be far enough past the draft that we can stop talking about, always a bust.

He's never going to be what we wanted him to be and just, he is what he is, and that's what you pay for. So, I mean, again, I don't hate it. Five million bucks for a middle six center is, not far off the going great. So I guess it's fine. Yeah, and again, like, because the capitals are just like, no, we exist for the goal scoring record thing.

You just, like, need guys who are fine and who, again, can, like, help you on the power play, which is where it feels like Ovechkin's going to really be eaten a lot of minutes the next few years, you know? Yep. And again, that's what Strom kind of does and all the other stuff, you know, you can kind of, you can kind of write off as it doesn't matter so much. But I don't know, like I have a hard time getting worked up about it, except to say,

and I kind of alluded to this earlier, they have one forward, or a defenseman sign for next year. Oof. One. And it's John Carlson. right yeah who's uh well you know tide's gone out on that guy i guess they yeah uh they have a couple of rfas um that they got to resign so but like they have to basically completely remake their blue line and the amount of cap space they're going to have to do it is not great um looks like uh let's see about about 18 million bucks about 18 million

bucks and they have to sign, I don't know, four forwards, four defensemen. Carlson's on the LTIR, so you go to their CAF friendly page, and it is seven defensemen with little red and blue blocks right after this season. It's actually kind of, I don't know why. I find that calming. Yeah, they've got a ton of free agents. Yeah, I don't know what they do. Just like...

Yeah. And I mean, this blue line, you know, goes in the saying, is not good now. So it's not like you go, wow, you just sign all those, all those guys and you're all set. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I, you know, uh, Fairavari is like a, a good, is, like, a good-ish young defenseman. And he makes almost nothing now.

He makes under 800K. And does he, is he going to get more than like two? Probably not. But again, like, if you got to sign. eight plus guys and you only have 65 million or you're spending more than 65 million against the cap already. You've got to go bargain hunting. And I don't know that the cap is that not an argument to say that maybe you don't commit

$5 million to Dillon Strom and you put that $5 million on the blue line shopping list? Sure. Yeah. No. But like, I don't know. I guess I'm just like, if I'm the capitals, I'm just kind of like, yeah, but you do really want to retire, right, Nick? You're feeling, you know, that hip's really, you know, on cold, rainy days, like, that hip's really bugging you. Yeah.

Yeah, you know? Like, it's tough. It's really tough just because, again, like, they're really clinging on to something that isn't going to work out for them in the long term. and as I've said before when I say the capitals are orienting the entire franchise around getting Ovechkin the goals record don't get me wrong

that's cool I think I think spending a few years being like really bad and you know maybe getting some not really I don't think they'll ever be really bad but like getting some top 10 top 12 picks that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for them Hold on to your first rounders.

Play a little bargain hunting. Maybe you can, you know, work out a trade to get a blue liner in for next season. I don't know, you know, but it'll just be interesting to see where they go from here just because they don't, they don't have any defensemen. Right. I have no idea how they're going to approach it. And I wonder what their plan is, like what they would say their plan is. Like if I, you know, the truth serum thing.

Yeah. Brian McClellan, what's your plan on the blue line? What's he going to say? Yeah. I'd love to know. But yeah, that's, so that's the Capitals. And then one more deal announced yesterday. This is the fun one.

This is definitely the fun one. No two ways about that. Let's see. It's Dylan Cousins seven years. It's 7-1. Yep. Yeah, 7-1. What do you think?

I continue to not understand why 22-year-old players are locking in on close to max-length deals as the cap is about to start going on. I did not understand it for Jack Hughes. I didn't understand it for Tim Stutzel or any number of other guys who have done it recently. And I don't understand it here. But I also get that this is just how it works in the NHL. The players have spoken and virtually all of them want the security in the years. And so I think this is an excellent gamble for the Sabres to make, let's just say. I'm not going to sit here and say it's a bad deal for Dylan Cousins,

because every time I do that, people are like, oh, yeah, how terrible, 50 million, you know, what a poor guy. He gets his 50 million and the Sabres, I think, very likely get a very good contract going forward. No guarantees. I mean, he's having his breakout year this year. And even his breakout is not crazy. Like, he's not a point of game player yet. but he's the signs to me point towards this guy being certainly a guy who's worth seven million in a 90 plus 90 to 100 million dollar cap world I think the sabers are

they've got the odds behind them as they as they roll the dice here yeah I'm I'm not as optimistic about this as you I think this is there's some potential here for people to look at this contract in like three or four. four years and go like, yikes. What were they thinking? And a lot of it, I think, does have to do with, like, Tage Thompson is going psycho mode this year, right? And so, like, is, is Cousins just kind of a long for the ride on that?

Or is that because Cousins is doing more himself? Like, I just kind of find it hard to separate, if that makes a lot. sense. And so, like, I don't think it's telling tales out of school here to say that with, with Thompson, like, as much fun as it is, it does kind of feel a little unsustainable, right? And with cousins, I know they don't like play together at five on five, but they're getting a lot of power play time together, you know? And I'm always a little

wary, I guess, of paying for power play production. Because that's just one of those things where, like, it could just stop tomorrow. It probably won't, but it could, you know? Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, I mean, a pretty good chunk of his total production this year is on the power.

play. And that's not a, that's not necessarily a problem, you know, but it's not a, it's not a, uh, a risk factor to take into consideration. Now again, like, I, I think it's totally plausible that, like, Tage Thompson just does keep this up for another three or four years or whatever. Yeah. I guess we, we should say, like, keep this up, not necessarily, like, wins the rocket richard, but. Yeah, be an MVP candidate. But like, again, 30 plus goals a year, like the way he's scoring right now, that does kind of feel plausible. I don't know. I, it does feel a little, they're buying at the absolute peak of his value for me a little bit.

And maybe I'm wrong about that because he's only like 21, 22 years old. Yeah. But. And again, another high. draft pick and unlike with Strom recently enough that maybe you bake a little of that in that that pedigree of

the odds of him and obviously given his age you know the odds of him being significantly more than he is today down the road are quite high so I like this for the sabres and again like with risk

you know there's no there's no seven year deal you can give to any anyone who's not Connor Bedard at that age that isn't risky. But I like the, you know, I think this is what teams should be doing. I mean, this is, if if he is willing to lock in long and doesn't want to bet on himself, then for sure. You bet on them for them.

I think that's, you know, you're going to hit more than you miss. Yeah. And I guess it's also a better idea to spend. whatever, $14.25 million on two forwards who are in their mid to early to mid-20s versus your Kyle Locke Postos and Jeff Skinner's. Yes, correct. So like every dollar, every dollar they give a guy who's like under the age of 25 is a dollar they can't give to a guy who's over the age of 25.

That's smart. That's how you should want to go through life. But, you know, it does make you wonder about, like, well, God, if they're giving cousins and Thompson that kind of money, like, what are they going to give Rasmus Dahlene? They're just going to, like, give them the keys to the building, I guess. Like, you own this now. You know, the way, again, just the way things are going this year. I know he's signed for next year. But that means he's eligible to sign an extension on July.

lie one and it feels like, you know, if he ends up in the Norris conversation, I don't know who that even benefits. Like, does that benefit the Sabres just because they're like, oh, we can sign this guy? Or does, and he's a Norris guy? Or does it benefit Dahlene because he's like, I'm a Norris guy. Give me $9 million. Yep. I don't know.

They're an interesting team now, for sure, just because it feels like. A lot of optimism. A lot of optimism. in Buffalo right now. Yeah, it feels like the train's pulling into the station. Feels like that football is not going to move this time. But yeah, no, it's, I think, I, I am surprised that at the job Kevin Adams has done so far. I was not hugely, so I don't think too many people were hugely sold on that.

No, how could you be? But, yeah, he's done well for a guy that, you know, we all kind of. and went, ah, the owner likes them. That's the only reason he got the job. Maybe there's more to that. We should mention, by the, did you see the story on Kim Pugulu? Yes. Yeah, I did. Health situation, apparently was far more serious than had been publicly known. So I guess best wishes to her in the Sabres group. I guess she's cardiac arrest in the last summer. She hadn't been seen since the summer. And there had been obviously speculation as to what was going on.

But now we know, and it was a very serious situation. Yeah, it sounded very scary for the Pekula family. I don't, you know, I don't have much more to say about it, I guess. No, I mean, scary. Yeah, there's no hot takes on that other than that. No. That's a frightening situation. Yep.

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We're back. And let's talk about the new executive director or pending. I don't know if it's like officially official yet, but it seems like it's, you know, inches from the finish line. If not. I think this is a done deal. Yeah, it certainly seems that way. Marty Walsh, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor, former mayor of Boston, Massachusetts. Yes.

Former guy that used to live like three blocks from me. Well, I guess he's a current guy who used to live three blocks from me. True. Yeah. But. So this is, this is why you've got to give the scouting report here, because first of all, we should say Marty Walsh, not Alan Walsh, who is apparently also. in the running and every time I see a tweet about Walsh being the new NHLPA guy, my mind goes to the chaos. The Photoshop's going to be crazy.

Yeah, exactly. Who is this guy? As a Canadian, I have never heard of this guy. Yeah. Give me the scouting report. So he is, so this was my impression when, They said they were announcing that he was like in the running to be the number one guy. I was like, oh, they're getting a pit bull.

Marty Walsh, like, when he was the mayor of Boston, did he do a lot of stuff that I as a Boston resident didn't like? You bet he did. Yeah. But one of the things that he did that I did like and that kind of like was his thing that swept him into office was he was he was a big, union guy. Okay? And, um,

like, so much so that there were multiple scandals of him being like, well, look, you, uh, you want to build this building. If you don't use union labor,

I don't know if you could get, uh, approved your, your permits, you know, uh, maybe it would be tough. Who,

who's to say, you know, which is apparently like you're not supposed to do that if you're the mayor. But, uh, to me, it's cool. to do that if you're the mayor, right?

So, so that, like, that seemed to me like, oh, the next labor battle is going to be contentious. And the next labor battle is due in 2026, I believe. I think the current CBA runs through the end of the 25-26 season. So the thing that has come out more recently, and I guess it came out at the time, But in 2017, the Jacobs family gave Marty Walsh a shitload, well, a shitload.

He gave him like $13,000. Yeah, $13,000. And when was that? For his reelection in 2017, I believe. Yeah. I feel like he's probably not going to torpedo an entire players association to pay back, like, a few weeks worth of salary for him. And especially because, like, Look, again, this is just kind of how politics work.

Like Delaware North, the company that Jacobs own, got like a three-year contract to do like city events. A little prior to that donation. And then, oh, you know what? We actually really like this guy, Marty Walsh. We're going to cut him a check. Like, yeah, that's how it works, you know? I'm not, let's put it this way. Like, the way it was being covered by the hockey media was like, can you believe it?

And it's like, yeah, I bet if you went to like look at the mayor of Tampa or whatever, like lightning owners have given that guy money for his reelection campaign before. It's just like everybody, like all these guys are, you know, greasing the skids for their for their companies with relatively small political donations, right? Yeah. Probably also gave to his opponent and everybody else. This is a total non. Well, so interestingly, they had never given, there was this guy, the mayor of Boston, Tom Minino, basically like my entire life right up until he died. It was just like mayor for life of Boston, basically. And the Jacobs and him didn't have a good relationship.

So there you go. And part of the reason. Turns out I don't know as much about Boston politics as I thought I did. Interesting. Well, I think part of the reason why is the TD Garden was built with private money, you know, as opposed to the city gave them a bunch of money to build it. Are you allowed to do that? In Boston, you are. That's why the Patriots still play in Foxborough.

They want they and in fact They threatened when they were building the new stadium in like the late 90s. I guess it might have been They were like we're going to move to Hartford if you guys don't give us a bunch of money and everybody was like well have fun in Hartford then and they were like okay, we'll stay in Foxborough. That's fine. You called our bluff. We got it. But yeah.

So like I think that's probably why you know again when all this happened I was like like 12 years old. So what do I know? But I think that's probably why there was a bit more of an icy relationship between them and the, uh, the, uh, Manino. Yep. And then Marty Walsh played a little bit more ball than Manino did. And so here we are. And, but yeah, like, like you say, is that going to like blow up the like, are they, is he going to be like, yes, Mr. Jacobs. I'll make sure that it's a 40, 60 split on player revenue. Yeah. Like on revenues for, no, I don't think so. I think, like I said, I think in all likelihood, I think this guy's like, they're bringing him in because he's a fucking pit bull, you know? And hey, if he wants to get out of the politics game, like who's going to blame him if he's going to be making three million bucks and he gets to live at home, you know?

So what do we think this is going to mean for hockey fans, right? I mean, this is the average hockey fan is just like, look, are we getting a lockout? Are we going to get cooperation? Because, I mean, you say that he's a pit bull. But everyone who comes in to lead a players association, almost everyone is a pit bull at first. Well, again, I... Like Bob Goodnow was, that Alan Eelson wasn't, but...

That's true, yeah. Donald Fair was, I mean, maybe you say Paul Kelly was in Saskin, but that was after Bettman, it just really essentially broke in the union. Broke. Yeah. I mean, you can be, is he the sort of pit bull who's going to come in and say, we're going to battle, or is he the kind of guy who's going to come in and say, hey, man, I can be a pit bull. I can, I'll go, I'll go toe to toe with Gary Bettman if you want me to.

But, hey, Gary, you know, wouldn't it, a nice league you got here. Wouldn't it be a shame if something happened and maybe we can sit down and work together, which has almost never happened in the 30 years of Gary Bedman. Right. So I guess more recently, when there was talk of like rail strikes in the U.S., Marty Walsh came out and said, Congress needs to pass a law that, like, they're not allowed to do that. Not allowed to strike? Yeah. Like, for some reason, Congress can just like make that a law, which is insane, but like they can do that.

And Walsh supported the calls for them to do that and added to the calls or whatever you want to say. So, like, that's bad, right? But also, like, he's the fucking labor secretary. And, like, as much as you would say, oh, he's a union guy or whatever, like, the political realities of the job kind of make it where I don't, like, it's not good that he did that. And, in fact, it's actually very bad. But, you know, you see why he did it, I guess, is my point. Um, and, like, I don't want to sound like I'm excusing that too much because I, like I said, I think it sucks that he did that. But again, this is, this is the Joe Brandon White House, you know, you're, you're not allowed to, like, do any actual good stuff.

Right. You're allowed to say, you're supposed to just say the good stuff and then not do it. Yeah. And so, like, to not even say the good stuff like that, again, that sucks, but like, whatever, you know. I'm not putting a lot of faith in, you know, the, the gears working in workers' favors on this one. But again, when he was mayor of Boston, there were multiple scandals of him like, oh, you're not using the union deal? I don't know if we're going to be able to accommodate what you're looking for, you know? And like, to see the mayor of any city do that, but like, especially a major American city where, like, developers hold a lot of power.

in the city of Boston. This is one of the, much like San Francisco and New York, Boston is like sneakiest, one of the most expensive cities to live in in the U.S. And probably all of North America, now that I say that. And so, like, for him to just, on more than one occasion, be like, yeah, I can't help you if you don't use union people. Like, that kind of demonstrates to me a commitment to labor that he's willing to bend a few rules for it, you know? Again, do I think that maybe results in, like, in fact, there's going to be a strike in 26? I wouldn't go that far, but I think that this is a signal that the people.

We'll never have a strike, I don't think, in the NHL or even at all in pro sports, because the owners now will just lock out at the, like, they will get you first. right? If there is not a CBA, the moment the CBA expires, the owners lockout. And honestly, as much as I'm pro player, that is what the owners should do. Because if you don't, you get into the 1992 situation where you play without a CBA and then the players go on strike right before the playoffs and you're screwed. So, but yeah, you're right. I mean, it wouldn't be a strike, but he could very well say, yeah, you know what? We're... We're not going to, you know, we're expecting to miss a season because we want, I guess, I'm not sure what they would want because he's still, you know, the players will decide. And I don't feel like there's any great appetite for an Armageddon type scenario where like the players try to break the hard salary cap or something like that. I think it's more likely that the owners go after guaranteed contracts. and certainly it sounds like he'd be the, you would want a pit bull if the owners would wish for that.

So, yeah, it's interesting. This is, again, this is not a guy that I had any familiarity with. What do you think of just the fact that they went outside hockey and outside sports even? You know, I wonder because, like, I think, I'm trying to remember. I think it was Kevin Hayes, who's who like, Marty Walsh is from Dorchester in Boston was like, oh yeah, I know that guy's nice, or

whatever, you know, like, basically, like, so I wonder how much of that is, like, if you look at, um, the, just the guys who are like on the committee, it's just like a shitload of college hockey guys and then like two guys who played Canadian junior, you know? And, um, and I wonder how much of that is just like, uh, guys who, played in and around Boston, know who Marty Walsh is.

Maybe Kevin Hayes or somebody like that has a personal relationship with him and was like, you know, maybe Mario Walsh would be a good choice for, again, like, this guy's the U.S. Secretary of Labor, you know, he was the designated survivor during the State of the Union last night. So if anything had happened, Batman was going to be in fucking trouble. Yeah, just our luck in the hockey world. You know, Gary, it'd be a shame if a drone strike took out NHL headquarters. We have compromised to a permanent end. Jeremy Jacobs.

Just him coming out in front of all the players. Ladies and gentlemen, we got them. Rapid cheers. But, yeah, it didn't work out that way. The state of the union, as usual, went off. without a hitch. I did see a TV show about this once, though. But yeah, anyway, I don't know.

Like I said, I think that they don't, they don't make this call to go outside hockey and get like a guy who has a cabinet level position in the fucking U.S. government without being like, we need to do something kind of splashy here and, um, kind of like,

say, hey, we're not going to get pushed around in the next CBA negotiation. Like we have the last, what is it, 17, something like that, you know? Because, I mean, I, you know, you're a pet guy. Have you ever, like, just had a miscommunication? And for whatever reason, you miss feeding the pet one time when they're used to, you know, a set schedule, they get to eat. And then, and then you miss it. and then you get to the next schedule feeding time,

and the poor animal is just absolutely going out of its mind. It's just, it's losing it. That's Gary Betman having missed the last lockout because of the pandemic. Right. Like, 2020 was supposed to be lockout time, maybe, and then he couldn't because the league would have shut down permanently. He's doing the thing Bulls do right before they're going to charge a Matador. Exactly.

he is so scraping his foot in the dirt yeah he's got every day he's got a little poster on his wall and he scratches off one more day until that's right um yeah i like i said i think marty walsh is a guy where again let's put it this way you know uh the the the marty walsh backstory is long and and he's let a colorful life let's say uh kicked out of like the he used to it well i guess he still is an alcoholic, but he is in recovery. And the, the, like, rock bottom incident for him, he says, is he got

kicked out of a Bruins game for being too drunk. Right? So, like, and, like, he's been shot, like, he, he survived a gunshot wound. Like, Marty Walsh is, if nothing else, like, a guy who has not spent a lot

of time in boardrooms in his, in a lot of his life, you know? Sounds like he and Gary are going to get along great. Get along great. But let me just say this. You say you're not familiar with him. Have you ever heard this man speak?

No. Oh, Sean, you were in for quite a treat, my friend. The thickness on this Boston accent is, as a guy who, like I said, I used to live in his neighborhood. I know from guys with like this kind of accent is insane. Like, you know, those, like, your cousin from Boston, like those, those commercials. Yeah. Like all the, all the, like the Casey Affleck S&L sketch about Dunkin' Donuts. Uh-huh.

This guy, this guy has a way thicker accent than that. It's truly insane. And I just, I cannot wait for, like, the first time a Canadian hears Marty Walsh speak. An entire country is going to melt down. I look, okay, so should I, should I, like, go Google, list now or should I wait until like you know what yeah do it now

I gotta prepare myself yeah and then I'll tell my the other Marty Walsh thing real quick is I used to see him in Walgreens on occasion just like the Walgreens down the street from my house and you'd just be wearing like sweatpants and a Patriots

So this is all feeling like this is actually the PA's way to get a foot in the door with you personally like what more do they need to do? Yeah I'm a pro-labor guy. Who's more vocally pro-labor than me? Can't think of anyone.

Yeah. So, like, again, like, do me and Marty Wallace, do we want to sit down, chop it up about McKenna's? Hell, let's go to McKenna's. Although I do think your policy of banning long-term contracts for anyone over the age of 32 might not play well with the PA. Well, like I always say, you know, if you're like a player and someone's like, Hey, you're 32 years old. What if I gave you $40 million? I'd be like, oh, yeah, that sounds sick, actually.

You know, like, I never blame a player for taking that money. I just think it's insane that, like, a GM would think it's a good idea. Yep. Have you queued up a Marty Wall Street? No, no, I'm going to wait. I'm going to, I'm going to win until after this. The break? Yeah, okay.

Great. And then, so let's quickly talk, then, about the letter that John Tortorella sent to season ticket holders in Philadelphia. Yeah. Basically said, hey, like, I know we suck. Pretty much. And I'm not going to lie to you. We're going to continue to suck for some time.

With that having been said, you should still buy season tickets. Yeah. And I think at one point, didn't you, like, stop and say, like, and I want to be really clear on this. Yeah. I'm not going to lie to you, dash. And I want to be clear about this. We're not there yet.

Because we are complete and utter garbage. I'm reading. Yeah, everybody watching the Flyers this year is like, no shit, dude. Yeah. What are you, yeah. You didn't need to be clear about this. We were on the same page. I do think this is a good thing.

This is. Yeah, I totally agree. If I'm a Flyers fan, I'm happy to see this because the Flyers, maybe more than any other team, have seemed like they were in denial. and in denial from the top down on where they were at. And so to have... Tortorilla is the biggest personality in the organization, as far as public face.

So for him to, you know, and obviously he doesn't do this just on his own. This is something that was... No, they put a gun to his head and said, you have to say we're going to be bad next year. Some PR person wrote this. They passed it around. everyone in the organization got to make little changes

and this is what they came up with. So this does now set the expectations that the flyers are, I don't think the letter ever uses the term rebuild, but that they are focused on the future. And it's similar to what the Rangers did a few years ago. I think that's a positive for me. If I'm a Flyers fan going like, Are these guys still living in denial?

Apparently. Yeah, they're like, I think, 20th or 21st, something like that in attendance this year. And I think, honestly, that's just because people are kind of like, I wish they'd fucking just rebuild all. It's the Canucks thing, right? Where everybody's like, we know you suck. And they're like, we're actually competing. And everybody's like, no, you're not. What are you talking about?

I'm not going to go. because, like, you're, you know, it's, in a way, it's, like, fun to root for a loser. Yeah. Like, like, the Sabres didn't have, like, a ton of problems selling tickets when they were, like, tanking all the time, right? They didn't sell as many as they would have wanted. Sure, they didn't sell out every night.

But it's not like, you know, there were 8,000 people at the game. You know, it never looked like a coyotes game in, in, Buffalo. Well, I mean, it did in, like, the early 2000s. But since the Bakula's bought the team, it hasn't really looked like that. Very many nights at all. And with the Flyers being in 20th, like, you know, that's not unclose to a full building for them.

But it's just, like, people want a direction, and people don't want to have smoke blown up their asses about, No, we went out and got a bunch of guys who suck this summer. You don't understand. You know, like, they're just like, no, don't sign the veteran. Like, again, maybe this is just me projecting what I would be thinking if I was a Flyers fan. But from what I read online, I don't see people going like, yeah, no, they're like one player away. You know?

And so to just, like, come out and say it, like you said, instead of just kind of pretending like, oh, it's actually. going great for us. Like, I think people prefer that to not having that, you know? Yep. No, I agree. It's so, you know, to add the obvious, of course, what you put in a letter doesn't matter if you don't follow through on it, but it's a positive sign. And, you know, it's, I just picture John Tortorella sitting down with like a pen and paper

by the fire and penning a letter. better. It's lovely. Yeah. Again, I think that probably killed him to say that, you know. I think for him to be like, oh, we're going to be bad next year. Well, so two things. One, that says to me, I don't know how much longer is left in the hourglass on old Chuck Fletcher. Yeah. I think that is certainly bad. And I mean, this is, boy, isn't this just classic?

you know, owner slash chairman slash whatever behavior, right? Like you don't let the guy do the rebuild. And then when you realize finally years after everyone else that you need a rebuild, you fire the guy because you're like, well, we need a visionary to handle this rebuild that we should be doing. How come you didn't?

I mean, Chuck Fletcher, not exactly a long track record of success in the NHL, right? Like, he just, I said it when they hired him, this guy, you know what this guy's really good at is making teams

really mediocre. Mission accomplished in Philadelphia as well. You did it. And then look what happened in Minnesota as soon as he left, right? Like, they were like,

oh, what if we got a bunch of good young players? How would that be? Oh, that would be good? Hmm. Well, we'll try it then. I don't know I guess my oh and the other thing I wanted to say is like this letter also is

John Tortorella being like I have two years left in this job and then I'm not coming back you know like you don't write this letter as a coach and then be the coach who's there through the whole rebuild and then when the team's good again it just doesn't fucking happen that way yep um but this is the other thing I wanted to say And again, this is like, oh, the flyers will never rebuild. We'll never do it. What city was it again where like the team would be losing by their team would be losing by like 40 and fans are chanting? Trust the process.

Yep. Like the buy in on tanking in Philadelphia is maybe the highest I've ever seen in any sports city. So just fucking do it already. And they're like, oh, okay, I guess we'll do it. smart, yes, good job. So that's all, I don't have a lot more to say about that, except I am interested to see how they handle like this coming trade deadline and then like this summer. Because again, we've just never seen the flyers in rebuild mode, really, you know? Yeah, that, yeah, I guess I'm trying to remember the one year that they bottomed it out.

I don't think they made a ton of moves. No. That was sort of a one year. The Van Riem-Sike year? Yeah. Like the year they were driving? Okay. Yeah.

Because that was sort of a temporary fall. Oh, yeah. It'll be interesting. But again, if you're a Flyers fan like this is, I mean, you didn't, you weren't sitting around like, oh, I hope somebody writes a letter. You want to see action. Sure. But the letter helps more than it's.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I'm looking at their cap-friendly page. They don't have a lot of guys coming off the books. Van Reimsdike and Justin Braun are... Justin Braun. Jesus Christ, man. Are the only two UFAs coming off the... Well, Patrick Brown as well, but I don't think anybody knows who Patrick Brown is.

Played at Boston College. We don't need to get into it. But that's really it. Like, a few RFAs know what? Kate's, Kiefer Bellow, Zach McEwen, Morgan Frost, and Cam York. Those are your RFAs. And that's it for coming off the book. So I wonder how aggressive.

The deadline goes through. Well, I wonder if they're like, yeah, we'd trade Travis Kineckney. That's been rumored for, his name has been out there. We trade, we trade, well, I guess Travis Sandheim has a new contract kicking in soon. Like, will they trade prover? Will anybody want prover of? Who knows? You know?

But, like, it'll be interesting to see how aggressive they want to get with it or if they just kind of, like, let things decay over the next three years, which they totally could, you know? I can see it going either way. I don't know. Interesting to keep an eye on. All right. Why don't we take another break and Sean will wash the Marty Walsh clip? Yes.

And then we'll come back. and we'll do a few more bits of news and that kind of thing. This week's episode is brought to you by our friends at Beespoke Post, home of the Box of Awesome, the best box, that you'll open all month. One of the cool things about the Box of Awesome from the Beespoke Post is that each item is unique, and it's hand curated from a small business he probably wouldn't have never heard of otherwise. This isn't one of those monthly boxes where you're just basically paying somebody to mail you stuff that you could get anywhere. This is stuff from cozy essentials to travel to must-haves and cocktail kits.

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that's boxofossom.com, and the code is Puck. For 20% off, your first month, you're first box. Box of awesome.com code puck. All right, Sean, what did you think of hearing Marty Walsh speak for the first time? I enjoyed it a lot. Did not hear the letter R one single time. That was fantastic. Nothing even approaching the letter R, quite frankly. No, not even like, yeah, not even in the ballpark. There was, no. I cannot wait to hear that guy announce a lockout or respond to the cancellation of a season. Yeah, just to hear this guy say Gary Betman's going to be a blast.

Yeah, that's right. You know, players association is going to be a fun one for him. You know? But yeah, he, he, again, you just don't, you just do not get accents like that. Like, he was created in a lab. Yeah. Like, that's like if he was famous enough that they did like a parody of him on Saturday Night Live and got someone who wasn't.

from Boston to do the accent, that's what it would sound like. It would come across as mean. Yeah, you'd be like how thick the accent was, yeah. All right, let's talk about some trade rumors that have bubbled up in the last few days. We'll start with the big name on everybody's board in, I guess, 2014 or whatever. Patrick Kane. You're hearing now, I think Pierre LeBron yesterday was the, one reporting this, basically saying

like teams that are on his list of approved destinations if he decides to get traded will learn that they are on his list and have time to work out a deal about a week week and a half before the deadline.

Huh. Okay. So that's about a week and a half away. I guess two weeks away. Yeah. Interesting. I'm not, I'm just thinking, obviously that's Kyle Davidson figuring that that maximizes his, his bargaining window. Well, so from what I, from what I understood from Pierre's like tweets or whatever is it's more like it's up to Patrick Kane because he has the no move.

Okay. And like he, he's going to spend the next two weeks, like you say, thinking about do I really want to get traded at which point he'll tell Chicago and they'll, tell the teams. Okay. So I don't know that, I don't know that where Kyle Davidson really enters into that. Okay. But the other.

It does feel like it's, you know, the right amount of time. Because you want teams to have, sure. God knows, we always hear from these GMs how complicated this stuff is. And if you, you can't go to them two days before the deadline and get a deal done, even though every other sport can do that. NHL GMs cannot.

But also, you don't want to give them a month to go around and around. and feel like they have exact knowledge of the market and everything like that. You want them to be flailing a little bit. Interesting. Yeah. Well, the other thing about him is it is widely understood that he has a hip problem that has limited him this year. And there's been a rumor, I think it was an Elliot Friedman rumor that was basically like he might just choose to, you know, not get traded this year, sign a one-year deal with Chicago in the summer, and then, you know, try to do it all over again next year, maybe.

I don't know. That seems like would Chicago want to get involved with all that? I don't know, you know. If you're Chicago, you want to get that one-year extension done, then you don't want to go into the summer. Yes, that's right. You know, I've seen that movie before with the franchise player who says, don't trade me all. sign in the summer and then in the summer it's like, whoops, I'm going to go somewhere else. Yeah, you can't think of like a direct example though, right?

No, absolutely. No, of course. So, yeah, again, like if we're saying, oh, Patrick Kane has like a hip problem, and that's why he's been horrible this year, you know? He's been horrible? Like, by his standards. He's been pretty bad, man. I don't have the numbers in front of me. I guess I can look them up very quick.

but like anytime I watch Chicago I'm like is he like dying or something like what are we what's going on you know um like he to me he has been noticeably bad negative 1.1 war it says on uh on evolving hockey um he just it looks like he looks like he can't fucking skate out there you know and like when when he's a player who wears so much of his, his talent comes from his, like, ability to move his feet and, you know, make plays happen at full speed and stuff like that. When he,

when he can't move at full speed, the bottom drops out, you know? So, like, if I'm one of the teams on the list, like, I'm one of the five teams that Patrick Kane would accept a trade to. I'm really letting the other four make my decision for me. If it turns out I can get him for a fifth round pick, okay, maybe we can talk about it or something like that. But this is a classic situation where it's a name brand player who,

you know, maybe if he comes back fully healthy next year, he's really good or really good is probably overstating it. But like he's useful to you again at the right price. but unless you're getting like five teams to retain salary on this guy, I can't imagine giving up absolutely anything of any serious value for him based on what we know. You're really bumming out the Oxfans right now. This has been their one thing.

I didn't make him play injured all year. Did you? What about Jonathan Taves? You're right. Is that? I haven't really seen. So, boy, the one thing I have really seen is, lot of people in Manitoba being like, you know,

uh, you know, it would be really good for the jets to trade for. And here's me going, they shouldn't do that. No. Um, let's see here. This is, uh, where was this report from? Um, she, it was from Shana. Sheena said, uh, Colorado, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Carolina, Washington and Dallas have kicked the tires on a Jonathan Taves trade.

Okay. Now, those are all playoff teams. But what's interesting to me about that is that all of those teams are pretty good down the middle, honestly. Maybe like you would say Carolina, not so much. But, like, they do need a center. They were, you know, supposed to be in on the Horvette thing. whatever. But like

this seems to me to be everybody saying you know what, why don't we figure out where we can find a spot for Jonathan Taves in our bottom six. Which is tough to do with

even at that price point and also for you know, again, the name brand of the player. You're going to play Jonathan Taves 14 minutes a night or whatever.

I mean, I mean, I think that's the smart thing to do, but like, is that a hockey man thing to do? I don't think it really is very much, you know? So that's who's around Jonathan Taves, I guess. I had, you know, I don't have a ton of optimism again that, like, Chicago is going to be able to get a ton for him. But, like, if there are six teams involved, maybe, you know. It's just a kind of. minious end for Jonathan Taves and Patrick Kane in Chicago, if that's the way it goes.

But if you're Chicago, why do you want to bring them back other than like, hey, remember these guys? I wonder if you're, I mean, it's hard to even think this way. But if you're like a Patrick Kane or Jonathan Taves and you're like on the fence and maybe you're willing to go, is there a part of you that's like going to Kyle Davidson going like, dude, if it's, if you're going to trade me for like a third round pair, then I don't want to go. Like, I don't want to be that guy. Like, you know, if it's a big trade, if it's something like that, then okay. But I don't want to be, yeah, that's, and, you know, at that point, Kyle Davidson probably goes, yeah, you know, I don't.

Everyone will be mad at me for doing this anyway. And, you know, it's, it's, it's nice to have that player who played his entire season and, or sorry, his entire career at the team. And also, everybody kind of got mad at Brian Burke when he did this a few years ago with, I think it was Mike Camilleri. But there is value, especially if you're a new GM in saying, like, at a certain point, my price is my price. And if no one meets it, I'm not trading the guy. Yeah. And people will freak out and go like, oh, my God, how did you not trade? But if you're like, look, I was getting low-balled, and now next time I tell teams, you're low-balling me, you've got to meet my price, they will actually maybe believe.

believe me. Right. That's going to, Chicago is definitely the most interesting team among several. Like, give me this. I have been over the last week or two cautiously getting myself pretty hyped for the trade deadline. Just given, because I've been writing about like past deadlines and stuff, and seeing how, like, the level of talent that was available at a typical deadline compared to this. year. And not every single guy on the trade board is going to get traded.

But does it not feel like this year's deadline could be like a very, very good one? Cap era. Yeah, it's interesting. Just because, excuse me, I just feel like a lot of the guys who are, like, Tim O'Meyer and Jacob Chikrin are obviously like the two big names. And now the, now the Bo Horvats off the board. But what's interesting to me is that, like, a lot of the guys that are getting talked about as, like, oh, they, you know, the two guys in Chicago, what will St. Louis do with O'Reilly and Tarasanko? Those are guys that are just more, again, like, kind of, oh, wow, that guy, that, I remember when that guy was insanely good. Like, they're all kind of having not great years, honestly.

and so I wonder it's exciting in terms of the star the star power of the names but like in terms of actual like is that guy any good? Well I mean, not really. You know? Like let's put it this way.

Like Luke Shen is a guy where they're like oh he might fetch like a late first from someone and if like Luke Shen is in that conversation like it's going to be a weird deadline. I don't know if it's necessarily going to be like a good one. But just like let me, let me read down the list. This is from the athletics.

Okay. Tradeboard, okay? Yeah. Tim O'Meier. Yeah. Jacob Chirke. Yeah. Awesome player.

Kane. John Klingberg, who we've kind of all forgotten about, but who knows. Ryan O'Reilly. Oh, he is having an awful year. Yeah, he's been, yeah. Jonathan Taves. Tarcenko, Brock Besser. Oh, sure.

Yeah. Besser. Gavricov from the Blue Jackets, who is this year's, I had a piece of, today about like okay players who suddenly become like way overhyped at the deadline every year for no readily apparent reason like he's that guy this year I think a hundred percent he's that guy this year it's unbelievable like had you ever heard the name vladislav Gavrikov like no as this is a guy that like teams are all about yeah never in your life and I love that Columbus is going like yeah David Savard is the starting point because David Savard was that guy like two years ago

He was... Yeah. All right. Matt Dumbah, Shane Gospair, Sean Monaghan, James Van Riebstike. Like, I think we're now getting into... Well, Tyler Bertuzi's a decent name. And then, yeah, it's not a lot after that. Max Stomi.

But, I mean, in a typical year where you might see two or three big names moved, especially if we count Horvatt as a deadline move, Like, we have the potential to have five, six. I would say legitimate star names being moved. You're right that they're not necessarily all playing at the level. But, I mean, I don't know. Seems pretty exciting to me. Yeah.

Well, okay, let's talk the Besser thing real quick, because it does seem like the Canucks are like, we're all set. We're done with this shit. We're just going to trade them. And again, sorry to fucking talk about the, Canucks again, but like Jesus Christ, you know, what do you want from us? Cinnuck soup.

Canucks soup. But it's interesting just because it's like, oh, it feels like this guy's never going to put it together. He's good, but he's never going to, he's never going to be what everybody kind of thinks he can be, or thought at least. And like, what does that then mean for them in a trade? Because, like, again, if you look at, oh, who's the number of? one guy on the Canucks trade board right now. It's Luke Shen. It's not Brock Besser.

And yet it does feel like Besser is going to be traded. So like, what's the market for him? I have no idea. And it's fascinating because unlike most of the guys we just talked about, he's not on an expiring deal. In fact, he's on a deal. He just signed last year. So two more years, it's 6.6.

That's a big number. Unless the Canucks are eaten money on that, that's. And apparently they are, they're willing to or to take a bad contract back. Yeah. Which, again, if you're rebuilding, that's how it should be. It should be. And I, and I, and I mean, you'd rather take a back, like, give me an expiring $6 million

dollar terrible deal. Uh, and let me clear this off my books. For sure. Absolutely. As a put like, but I mean, they're not, you would assume, they're not going to, for example, retain 50% on a contract that goes two more years after this one. Well, why? Well, okay.

So the thing is, they can only retain. salary on one other deal this year because they're retaining on Horvatt. Okay. Is it two is the limit? I thought it's two is the limit. I thought it was three, but it's, but, oh, we can. I'm looking it up now. Well, we'll.

It was three at one point, but maybe they, maybe they nudged it back down. I thought it was two. Let's see here. No, you're right. It is three. Never question me again. But, and it, okay. An individual contract can only pass through two teams.

Yes. So that's right. That's what it is. So I don't know. I mean, I guess the argument is if you're going to be, quote, unquote, paying $3.2 million to this guy for the next two years to do nothing, why not pay him $6 million to score 20 goals for you or $25, which is. Now, what if you're trying to be bad? Yeah. Then you're like, oh, I'm happy that we have this dead cap money.

Then I'm kind of wishing I had done that in the Connor Bedard year. Well, again, like, the horse is out of the barn on that one. I don't know what to tell you. But the other thing about the Canucks is maybe they trade Thatcher Demko. He's going to be coming back from injury soon. Yeah. Just in time for his little month-long audition. That's a tough one to move.

I mean, talk about selling low. And yet at the same time It's selling at the absolute lowest. It's selling low, but also that's the only time anyone would ever sell on a guy like that. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Probably, it's going to depend on how he plays, right?

If he comes back and he stands on his head for a month, then you would absolutely have some teams that would talk themselves into it. But then you run into the problem that you always run into in the middle of the season, which is the good contending teams generally already have a goalie and the bad teams that don't have a goalie. are happy being bad until the last season. Have you heard about this team, the Los Angeles Kings? I have, yes. Yeah. Are you training Thatcher Demko in the division?

Well, I was on the PDO cast last week, and we were talking about, like, what do the kings do? And what we arrived at was the best idea for them is get Chickren and Vamilka at the same time. Yeah. And that's a better idea for me. I think I bounce that out there in one of my, that Arizona should try to package those two guys. And I think there's a few teams that could use both guys at the same time.

For sure. To pay up for it. If you're L.A., it's probably worth it, you know. I mean, but anyway. The Leifes might be a few weeks away from being back in the goaltending market. One other guy I want to. I wanted to... Sorry.

One other guy I wanted to talk about here. Eric Carlson. There are... There have been suggestions that it is not impossible that this deal gets done in season. Again, that would obviously require San Jose and maybe someone else eating money from that, or certainly the Sharks taking back like three bad contracts, you know? but that has been the suggestion in a couple of times and I don't know how it uh how it works financially just because the guy makes fucking 11 and a half million dollars against the cap for the next

I think it's four years after this one yeah four years after this one um I don't know I don't know how it worked I would hope so just because he's one of my favorite players of all time. I would love to see him in a position where he can be competitive, you know, but. Yeah, there is literally no precedent in the cap era for a guy with this sort of salary being traded mid-season. I don't think there's one for a guy like this being traded at all. But certainly, at this salary with term left, we have never seen this before. And I keep seeing mentions whenever somebody talks about this, they'd say, it probably makes more sense to do it in the offseason. And I get that from the, in the sense of, hey, this is going to be a complicated deal.

This is, you know, there's all sorts of cap space issues and what have you. But if I'm a team trading for Eric Carlson, I mean, Eric Carlson for the last few years has been good when he plays, but he's been injured a lot. He's been hampered by injuries. And even when he does play, he hasn't looked like old Eric Carlson. He's looked like old as in ageed Eric Carlson, but he has not looked like the Eric Carlson of the past. And this year he looks like that guy. If I'm trading for any part of that contract and that commitment, I want to do it now and make sure I get the playoff run from what will almost certainly be the best season. in this entire contract.

Like, I don't, I don't want to run the risk that this is the, not career year, but this is the absolute peak of this contract and I sit out and don't get it for a playoff run. I wouldn't go anywhere near this. And I've said before, like, I know there's some sharks, fans, media, whatever, are looking at this going, hey, this guy might win the Norris. You've got to be able to get a lot for this. I would honestly, I would give Eric Carlson away if it came to that.

If I had the opportunity without retaining significant salary to move him, I would do it for just about anything to get out from that deal. Because as amazing as he is and as great a year as he's having four more years, the highest cap hit, not just for any defenseman ever. I mean, the market has reset itself since. Dowdy and Carlson signed to the point where defensemen now get like 9.5 is the going rate for a Norris caliber defenseman. So, I mean, it's a massive overpay. I would, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm my career, I'm, I'm doing exactly what he's doing, which is playing this whole, oh, we don't

know if we wouldn't want to move him. He's so good. But I'll, I'm trying to get people to make me offers and then I'm taking whichever one's the best one and getting getting out of here on this, this contract. Like I said, it's really interesting to me. I hope he ends up, you know, in a position where he can actually be competitive. But who knows? It's just so much money, you know. One last thing.

Speaking of Eric Carlson, he was an all-star this past weekend. Do you have any thoughts on how bad the all-star weekend was? Because it was really bad. I didn't watch the skills event other than I had it on. for a couple of minutes. And it was only because I know, you know what, at the end of the day, this stuff isn't for me.

I knew I wasn't going to like it. I wasn't going to spend a Friday night watching it. And if I was watching it, I would have been complaining about it, which means I'm potentially ruining the fun of the people who do enjoy it. I like that the NHL tries new things. Gentile was exactly right. It was a two-hour show spread into three hours.

which is just makes it so hard to watch. It's torture. You flip it on. You watch Monday Night Raw? I mean, Jesus Christ. They're just standing around, you know, waiting for something to happen. So I didn't watch the skills. I did watch the All-Star Games because I was a lot blogging it with Sean at the Athletic.

My thoughts in the All-Star game are well-known. I can't stand it. The lack of effort, the lack of any sort of. intensity. Again, I'm not asking for block shots and body checks and fights and stuff. I'm just asking for like, you know, skate hard, look happy when you score maybe. And the interesting thing was you had the first game, the Central and Pacific, neither team cared. It stunk. It was awful. Then you had the Atlantic and the Metro, and it feels like the Atlantic was the only team that, and I don't know if it was because it was the whole mice, if it was the Cuchuk brothers, whatever,

that actually gave a crap. Wait a minute, hold on, hold on. The Kachucks, those guys are brothers? They are. And did you know one of them plays in Florida? Is that true? Yeah. I feel like they would have mentioned that on the broadcast at least once.

Yeah, I, it may be more like 800 times. God, that was honestly. Did you see enough pictures of them as kids? I got to say, man, I admire Brady Kachuk's commitment to looking exactly the same throughout his entire. entire life. I mean, that dude got to three years old. It was like, no, this is it. This is going to be my face forever. Not since Oliokinen, have we seen somebody commit like that. Yeah. But yeah, it was, it was a little much on the, on the Chuck talks. Yes. But, but the Atlantic came out. They, there was. It was a two out of ten. But, you know, and that lifted like the Atlantic up too, or sorry, the Metro up. that game was good.

That middle game was entertaining. I was sports entertained. And then because it was the All-Star weekend, we had to have like a hour-long break and Fall Out Boy came out and sang songs from 10 years ago. And then it came, and you're like, all right, here we're like, now the Central's got a ram. And the Central was just like, no, thank you.

We are still going to not remotely give a crap. even and so you had the Atlantic like you know like Dylan Larkin is like forechecking and stuff and and the Central just did not care at all and so the last game yeah what I liked about about all that was um like how little the care the the level of caring was or whatever the frickin uh US Olymp remember that the like circle of caring or whatever very small in this game to the point where like there were people at the game tweeting like

oh yeah Sydney Crosby just passed me in the hallway leaving the building one second after he got out of the shower like bye bye yeah did you you wouldn't have but because you're not a football fan

but did you did you catch any of the highlights of the pro bowl I did not no because the pro ball for you know that's the NFL Allster game and it is traditionally been played the week before the Super Bowl because there's that gap. And they had the same problem, which is their players clearly just didn't care about actually putting on pads and playing football.

Yeah. And football like hockey is completely terrible if the effort level isn't there. So they just like scrapped the gate and they just turned it into a bunch of weird skills events and flag football. And I thought it looked actually kind of fun. Like the players were in it. They were having fun. They were like jumping around and stuff.

Other people who sat and watched the whole thing told me it wasn't all that great either. So I don't know. But they at least like kind of did what I guess the NHL to some extent has done. But it's painful to watch these guys. Like guys, celebrate a goal. Please. I'm spending my Saturday afternoon watching you guys. Can you look like this matters even a little bit?

Like again, nobody's saying. dive in front of a shot. But maybe take a shot, maybe not do like 16 passes on a 2-0 and then like tap it in and look like you just fart it in church. Like it's, it's like I'm, and as somebody who blames the NHL for everything, the league, this is 100% on the players. There is nothing the NHL can do to rescue the All-Star game. if the players just don't care. And I know, like, I mean, I'd say just cancel the whole thing and just don't interrupt the season,

but, you know, the sponsors and the, you know, it's a big local, big local deal. Especially for the smaller markets. Like, they're going to Toronto next year. That'll be a nice chance to introduce some Toronto fans to the world of the NHL. Probably a good idea. Yeah.

It's impossible. It's unwatchable. And like the prop comedy at the skills competition, like... Sucks. And I guess like on the one hand, like, was it, was it you or, or, uh, or, or Sean who was saying, like, everybody who's always saying, like, why don't NHL players show more personality? Like, careful what you wish for. Because this is kind of what you get. Yeah, and that's like saying, oh, I just wish I got to see more beige paint in my life.

Yeah. Oh, it's just... It's painful. Anyways, so thank you to the Kachukes and Dylan Larkin for being like the Dylan Larkin. I hope you get your $9. Whatever million dollars now from some team. That's right. You almost single-handedly, you didn't save the All-Star game, but you single-handedly made some of the All-Star game palatable. Yeah. One out of three is not bad.

It's the old Bart Simpson quote of, I can't promise I'll try, but I'll try to try. Yes. You know, that's, that's where we're at with that. It's tough. I know, I think someone said on that on 32 thoughts, they were like, there's a chance that they go back to, like, the player draft. Because the NBA has done it for a few years now. And that, like, gives them the excuse. Like, that gives the league the excuse to really, like, lean on the players about it a little bit, you know?

Just like, look, like, I know, because they'd say, oh, it like hurts Sky's feelings or whatever the fuck, right? But it's like, yeah, but like if LeBron and Kevin Durant can do it. Hockey players are the toughest players in the world unless. But they will frown it if someone picks them last. Unless you embarrass them or trade their best friend and then they will cry and not play anymore. But like, it is just a thing of like, oh, you can't do it, but like fucking Steph Curry. can. Steph Curry just out for multiple weeks they announced. So he will not be participating in the All-Star game. But like, if he could, you know, that's Steph Curry. He's one of the best players

ever. And you're just going to like, be like, well, you know, fucking Clayton Keller can't get the Steph Curry treatment grow up, you know? I almost feel like the only way to save the All-Star game is when you're picking the teams, you got to find like, you got to have like guys on each team that hate each other a little bit? Like, can you imagine if, like, let's just say one of these, it's two minutes into the game, everyone's floating around, and then somebody, like, just did something. I'm not saying took a run at somebody, but, you know, just like a little questionable bump or something, and someone else got mad, and then both teams got mad and we're like, screw it,

we're going to actually try it. Like, how good would that be? Yeah. Three on three, like, All-Stars actually trying and everything. Like, it would be absolute must-see TV. It would be the best thing anyone would see, but we will never, ever, ever get it. because the players have been crystal clear that they do not care and they will never remotely care. Here's my thing.

You know how they get a million bucks if they win the game? That number goes up $50,000 for every hit delivered over the course of the All-Star game. Because then you're like, oh, shit, like I'll go bump into someone for an extra 50K? No problem, you know? This is an easy solution. But or like for every goal that's like a one timer every one timer the number goes up a hundred grand. Like you you just got to like have a way to juice to juice that prize money a little bit. And it's just like a big like squid game style bowl over the ice filling up with money.

I was just going to say like a telethon like the tote board on the telethon, you know? just like oh there was a check it's like again like behind both benches so so you just like go back to the bench you're like oh i threw two hits out there it's up to 1.65 million dollars that's sick you know that's the way to do it um Sean that's it we're done why you hit him with your plugs find me on the athletic uh that's where my writing is as well as my podcast with Ian Mendez I have a post that's just gone up today, Wednesday, that we referenced earlier on the guys who are okay, they're fine, and then suddenly you hear about them everywhere on the deadline and sort of the history and reliving some of those. And yeah, I got to say some of them you look back, like I've got quotes from the time that I found people talking about them, and it's all very confusing because you're looking back like, who the hell thought Paul Gostad was a good player?

But there was a time. We do it every year. Wow. And then on Friday, well, I should say the NHL 99 series has wrapped up this week. I believe today was the day we're unveiling our number one pick. It is Wendell Clark. So it's a very well-written piece. Oh, it says here it's Paul Gostad.

Look at that. Oh, damn. Damn, okay. Tomorrow, Thursday, we are publishing sort of a roundtable where everyone who had a vote is going to discuss how they voted and reveal our ballot. So if you want to get very specific over who I had 78th, over 77th, you can come yell at me about that. And then on Friday, I will have a follow up to that, which I won't reveal quite yet, except to say it is very on brand for me and that I was the only one out of the group who was willing to even consider doing it. Wow. Look at that.

And like six people are going to read it. Sure. And then for me, EPRinkside did a little bit of extra college hockey coverage this week because the bean pot, now, Sean, you know the bean pot, right? Okay, this is a tournament they've been doing for 70 years. It's only four teams are in it every year. It's the same four teams. Until this year, there had never been a northeastern Harvard beanpot final. And now there will be one.

This is exciting. It's, I mean, it's crazy. And especially because I had written a story that was like, do I think it's the most likely outcome? No, but it's never been more possible than it is right now. And then here we are, you know? I thought B, you should have been the favorite against Northeastern.

But hey, Northeastern has one of the best goalsies in the country. So what can you do? You know, it happens. But yeah, so I wrote about that. I'm doing all my regular stuff over there. and then there's the PuckSoup Patreon, Patreon.com slash Puck Soup. I did a bonus episode this week with Sean and Sean Gentilly

where I tried out a new game show that I invented, that people like the game shows. And it was well received. I don't want to say too much about it, but... Rave reviews, I would say. Wow. See, I wouldn't say that, but I'm happy to let you do it. but yeah, no, people, people like the game and, you know, we did it.

It's an in-depth game, we'll put it that way. Tests your knowledge of all kinds of old and current hockey things. Current is maybe overstating it, but relatively contemporary. So check that out and then all the other bonus stuff we do over there. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week. Bye-bye. Bye. shouts and goons. We've got

sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nancet. Bork Su.