Puck Soup - Vegas Goes All In Again

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Sean Gentille subs in for the regular Sean to talk with Ryan about the trade deadline fallout, John Tortorella, and more. Sponsored by Hatch (hatch.co/puck) and ExpressVPN (expressvpn.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean Jantilly from the Athletic. We had to trade one, Sean, for another. I was just going to say I'm Sean from the Athletic and see how long it took. Well, only one Sean I know has a fucking Pulitzer Prize. You know what I'm saying, brother? So. Yeah, he got one for the Oak Wack series.

More deserved than mine, that's for sure. The Pulitzer people cannot get enough of stories about Joe Thornton. You believe it? This guy was at the league this long. He's a former MVP. Never won a Stanley Cup. It's beard. This guy, sometimes he goes tarps off.

I don't know if you know about that. And the Pulitzer people hitting them, hitting themselves over the head with a shoe. I love it. I can't believe it. But yeah, regular Sean's on vacation. So we got different Sean. Just in case people had not had enough exposure to my opinion on various trade deadline items.

That, yeah, no, exactly. It's not like I wrote this all last week and then we'll be writing it again in like two days or anything. Oh, I really, you know, wow, you see what Vegas did? There's not that much other stuff going on, too. So it's stuff that it's stuff that we all talked about last week and it's stuff that we're going to talk about for the rest of this week as well because. You got it. Not that much other stuff going on, folks. No, it's funny.

I was like, okay, let's see, putting together the outline for this. episode, I guess John Tortorella got suspended. That's like the only other thing to talk about that isn't like trade related stuff and like trade adjacent stuff. Can make it happen. Rumpy. I gave my big Rampy opinion last week. I don't give a shit. Who cares?

Guess what? Wheel line on that one. Shocking. Can you believe it? This guy does fighting. Whoa. Shut up. I thought we moved past it though and now we have another round because of what happened on Monday night.

It turns out this guy who's like a career AHLer. He's not so good at like playing hockey at the NHL level. He makes a mistake sometimes. One trick pony perhaps. Huh. Interesting. Again. Ryan, this pony, it has but one trick. And surely that trick is being insanely good at hockey, right?

I mean, why else would he be in that? the NHL. But like I said it last week, you have to say this. I'm not mad at the kid. They're putting him in a situation where it's like, well, do you want to keep making like 10 grand a game or whatever? And he's like, well, I was making like 8.50 an hour down in Hartford. So I guess I'll take the NHL on.

Do you want me to clean up the dressing, the locker room too? Yeah. I'll mop the concourses, like whatever. Just keep giving me this money. Yeah. I can't get mad at the kid about it. that. I think that's actually, we might have seen the pivot yesterday on that, by the way. I think people are going to start getting mad at the kid.

I think that's, I think that's the takeaway because of the elbow on Seagenthaler on Monday in New York and with the way the devil's reacted to it. As I'm reading, I'm reading a pretty solid write-up on this on ESPN.com from some guy named Gord Kabluski. And I think, I think the worm has turned. Yeah, and the crazy thing is, totally unforeseeable outcome. Isn't that wild? It's hard to believe that NHL teams or players or coaches

wouldn't get sick of this kid's shit after a certain amount of time. Huh, that's crazy. Wild. Yeah, anyway, yeah, let's talk about something that's not that. Let's talk about, let's do the trade deadline wrap-up kind of thing, I guess. Let's start with this question. What was like the big takeaway you had from the overarching trade deadline? That there aren't enough good centers in the NHL?

There is that, huh? That was still, that was something that I came into the deadline thinking. And despite all the, you know, the deadline, I'm sure we'll talk about this in a little bit greater depth, but I think it was more interesting than I anticipated it being because of hurdle. Oh, it was crazy. And because of, you know, a handful of other things. but man it was part of the reason

I think it was shaping up to be so boring was because they're just A, aren't, there are no tradable centers. Like all the good ones are locked up or completely, or completely off limits.

And then the end result is like, Nick Dowd? No, the caps are going to hold on to him because he's actually important. You simply must. Yeah. And so we're sitting there talking about, you know,

wingers getting moved. and second pair of defensemen getting moved. And that's just not as, it's not as fun. I feel like that's part of the reason that despite Vegas swooping in and rescuing the trade deadline as an entertainment, you know, event, I think that's part of the reason why it seemed like it was shaping up to be boring because we love centers. They're the most relevant player in the game outside of goal tenders, obviously.

And, you know, they're just, they weren't. Goalies aren't tradable either, right? That's, but only further's my point, right? Everyone knows that, though, right? That's the Everyone knows that And yet all of us still talk about Coming into the trade deadline

Like oh, Markstrom and Charlie Lindgren And maybe UC Soros And all these guys Like who knows Maybe it'll happen And it never does You can't even swing a deal

For Alex Landalkovich You know, it's just the way it goes Or you can get your Jake Allen's And who's the other guy The devil's Kacking it

And get you can get those guys we're just in a situation now too where capocococcanin is going to get traded two out of every three years and deli's out of the league at the deadline like he's just the guy he's the guy that moves i just feel like there's something to unlock with this guy that the sharks didn't you know it's true that the sharks didn't in the wild didn't and we're about to say that in a two year a year now it'd be what the devils didn't and then he'll be the blues couldn't do it i see i didn't even but then then then that Did you know I had forgotten offhand that he played for St. Louis?

He did. That he was in their system. Okay. Oh, there you go. I'm saying when the devil's traded to the blues. Right. And then when the blues inevitably trade him to the Montreal Canadians, you know, the cycle goes on forever. He's not going to get traded to the blues, though, because we're going to keep having this conversation about Jordan Bennington for the next five or seven years or however long.

It's never going to end. No. How could it? You see this? It's not his fault, though. No, no, no, no. Look at the guys in front of them. They're on the St. Louis Blues.

That's how you know they're bad. Yeah, my big takeaway, I guess, was like, prices were way lower than I thought they would be for everybody. The number of, like, solid NHL players that were like, yeah, a 2027 fifth round pick, conditional. How does that sound? Yeah, sure, no problem. See you out there. That's Zooker for me. Like when Zooker got moved, I was like, I know he was expensive and whatever else.

But I'm like, man, you, it's conditional sixth or whatever. Yeah. From Nashville. Jason Zucker is a good hockey player. He's, he's overpaid and he's not having a great season. But dude scored 27 goals for Pittsburgh last year, right? Like he's, if you need a guy on your third line, like, go get him. And the fact that, you know, that was all, that was all he swung was wild.

And there's, and there's mitigating facts. factors, right? Like, whether it's the Teresenko no trade, the no movement clause that he swung to only land in Florida or whatever, there's mitigating factors that make the prices drop, but at the same time, that's what the prices are. And I think we definitely saw a solid amount of that. Well, the trade that kind of stands out like this for me is the To Foley deal. Oh, absolutely. 50% retained. You only get a 2024 third and a 2025 second. Like, for a guaranteed 30 goal score at this point.

Yeah, a guy who is just like, oh, I'm going to be asleep. You can, you can write that in pen. Yeah, that's exactly right. And yeah, they just, like, that was what all the devils were going to get for them, you know? Which, like, rightfully, that's got, that's a big part of what made Canucks fans lose their mind. It's best particularly about to full it, because the price check, this is this not, this isn't beatable? This isn't beatable for. Yeah.

for anybody. All these players that are looking, that's why the Jets, not that it was a surprise to see the Jets pull the trigger on it, right? But they had to at that price? They, like, they didn't have a loss. Absolutely. It would have been,

imagine if the Jets wouldn't have done the deal that they did and Tophily went for even less. Yeah. It's just like fired shovel day off the next day. Yeah. he's so good he's so like well I mean there are obviously holes in his game but he's so good at

putting the puck in the net and totally and he's talking about a kind of guy the jets need the guy that scores is helpful they needed a scoring winger really really badly multiple times throughout throughout the season you know whether you're looking at their stats

or you're watching their game or you're just looking at their lineup you're like is this is this it this is what we're talking about here. And they needed a guy like that for sure. And then on top of all of it, to fully, he's won cups and he's a good teammate and all this stuff.

Like he checks a lot of the other intangible boxes too, which is always relevant when you're talking about price or market or what have you. Sure. Yeah. It said that, I don't, pound for pound, that might be my favorite day. My favorite trade of the day. Now, there was one that made me laugh out loud. and it was the Thomas

Herald trait. Yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess because they're like, oh, they got one more thing in the hopper, and you're like, oh, okay, you know, they're going to go get like, you know, a third string goal or something like that because those

guys they can turn into superstars, right? They're just like, oh, yeah, that guy, he won a Stanley Cup. Was he any good before that? I'm mad. I'm mad that I didn't see it coming. You're like, oh, of course. How could you have? Honestly, how could you have? Because San Jose is actively trying

to lose games and that contract could look bad in three years. Yeah, but it's the, it's the retain, like, they would have needed to retain money if they traded him anywhere, you know, and... We disagree on the San Jose end of this trade, so it might be a good thing to talk about. All right, let's just... You gave it an F-minus, and I thought, I thought San Jose did a pretty good job. I think, I thought it made sense for them. It makes sense in so forth, like, okay, here's why I think it makes, it doesn't make sense.

and it's it's pretty straightforward they took they got almost nothing back for him Edstrom is like not really a guy that is gonna like make it in the NHL

by all accounts I don't know is that I don't I mean he's a kind of a lower end roster guy like he's not gonna be

a game change I'm not gonna pretend to know like what oh I'm going by what I've read totally what I've read from Scott Wheeler

and Pranman was that they think he can be a second line center. Oh, okay. That's a higher projection. Which, like, affected. And I know, you know, I don't want to get into that whole thing because, like, who really, who really knows about these guys? But if I see enough, if I, I got a, I got to go by their assessment, I think. In a lot of ways, I'm like, yeah, they could, he should, he has a, he could end up being a second line center.

Definitely will be a good third line. center. That's kind of was the consensus that I saw at least. I'm like, okay, it's fine. Hmm, okay. But you also work for elite prospects and people's opinions can differ. As far as I can tell, oh, wait, no, I'm looking at the wrong team. That's funny, because I typed in sharks, pipeline rankings and then was like, hey, wait a second. Let's see, Ed Strom. He was the fourth-pick, or the fourth-rated prospect and the 29th-rated, like, prospect pool. To translate to the NHL, Edstrom must improve his edgework and off-the-pass shooting. That seems doable.

He's unlikely to become a play driver. Maybe he sneaks into the top six in the right situation. Now, so the thing is, with the way the Sharks' rebuild is going, he could be in the top six next year. They're not going to have any fucking guys. Someone, where is he right now? Is he on a... That's exactly right. He's, you know, he might maybe bought him in the lineup for them.

But yeah, like as a going concern, I guess, is the, you know, he seems like a third line guy. But then they get an, then they only also get a pick for the Vegas's first round pick, which now you're looking at it. You're like, okay, 28th maybe. Like at the latest. And they send back three or two third round picks in addition to hurdle. And this is the thing that I was just like, I can't believe this happened. Yeah. They retained 17%.

Right? Like, they retained 17% for six years. Which is about $8 million over the course of that deal. Right. But right, it's a year's worth of his money. They're just like, oh, we'll take that. And this is the crucial part for that, though. That means they have no salary retention spots for next season.

And they only have one. every year till 2027. That's probably, that's honestly probably something. That's something I should have thought about more. I think that's an element that I didn't consider enough when I was writing about this. I get it.

And to do it in the division against the team that is, you know, allegedly your arch rival or whatever. I care less about that. I'm sort of, I'm of the mindset that you do the best deal regardless of where it is, except in very, in very rare circumstances. To me, it's like you don't want If they had traded them without salary retention, I'm with you, I don't give a shit But the fact that they're retaining salary for a team that, you know, in theory by 2030, they should be competing with

You know? Yeah. Because that's when the salary retention on this end, folks. And also a thing I didn't consider. 2030. A thing I didn't consider it too. This has to be part. This usually is part of the calculus or whatever, the arithmetic, whenever I'm thinking about this sort of stuff is, I don't think I can

how much sharks fans would hate this deal. Like truly, truly angry and like, it was, it seems like they alienated people with this one, which I guess I didn't, I didn't really, I didn't really see it coming. But where I, like my, where I land on it, I think, is that he has a uniquely, uh, a uniquely high amount of value for the Vegas Golden Knights

and a uniquely low amount of value for the San Jose sharks, which is why moving on from him now made sense to me. and why Vegas trading firm made so much sense to me. Like I think the letters I might have screwed up. Like I if I would have, you know, thought about it for more than 15 minutes. Like while I was writing, I probably wouldn't have thrown an A minus on the shark's deal. But I still do think it, I still do think that it's like, I think there's a chance that three years from now that deals a catastrophe. I totally agree with that.

But Vegas, you know, say what you want about them. They're like, oh, we'll launch these guys into the fucking sun. Well, that's why I'm saying that with regards to the sharks. I have Vegas. Give them, who cares? Even if they can't. Try to win fucking championships in the next few years. That's all that matters.

Who cares if they suck in four years? The only thing that matters is for them, as it should be, is what happens from now until, you know, Petrangelo completely ages out or whatever. Or Eichol gets hurt again. Like, they're either going to be terrible or find some other way to get out of it whenever shit hits the fan in 2027 or whatever. In the meantime, you know, go trying to win three out of four or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it just when they when they said this trade, I literally like was like, holy fuck, like out loud in my basement alone. Just like, whoa.

Totally. And part of the reason is Edstrom, I guess I'm like I said, my coworkers like him more and I'd asked around about him more. More in context with Vegas trying to get Jake Gensel just to see if he would have, see what he would have looked like as a piece coming back to Pittsburgh. And like I heard some decent things about him. So I guess I came into it thinking like, oh, this guy's pretty legit. Like if he's not going to be, you know, a franchise center. But if he's like a pretty good second line guy with a floor of third liner, then like it's relevant. Yeah.

Probably more than it. Probably more than they would have gotten in three years when I hurdle really starts to decline. And then that contract becomes completely immovable. Well, the other thing that you have to say about this, and this is all sharks related, I guess. but like they just shouldn't have fucking re-signed him and I know my career wasn't the guy who did it. I know that. And interim GM did that.

Is that right? It wasn't even Doug Wilson. Yeah, I guess that's true, huh? That's tough. That's, you know, but the one thing that I am encouraged by for the sharks is that this means they're going full tear down mode. They're like, okay, we tried it with the like, let's keep Logan Couture and all these guys around. And it didn't work out due to how bad we are.

And, you know, again, some of that's Doug Wilson and some of that's just ownership going like, well, you're not allowed to trade these guys. Right. You know. And I guess it started with Tim O'Meer last year, but like that return was a little underwhelming. It was. And the Eric Carlson return was a little underwhelming. And the Tomas Hurdle return is a little underwhelming. And it's like, oh, I guess this is the thing I wrote over the weekend.

Like they go, oh, tearing it down is the easy part. And my career's like, I don't agree with you. I think it's actually pretty hard. I think a lot of it has to do with just the degree to which those, like, there is so much money in so many years. Absolutely. And onerous, like, no movement clauses across the board. Like, that, you know, combined. And I'm not, I don't want to overly defend my.

career here because, you know, if you take 75 cents on the dollar three separate times, then, you know, whatever. That's a you problem. That's it. That indicates something. But I, the situation was truly catastrophic. And by the way, he's still, we got two more years left of Mark Edward Vlasic. It's $7 million.

Without. Any deal they can trade, they can swing to make that. I guess that. Maybe that's part of the reason you saw them use their last retention slot for next year on. Don't try to bully me. On hurdle because they're like there's no sense and even and even keeping one open for this guy because it ain't happening. Yeah. I know that Vlasic has a couple bonuses built into his contract, but I just wonder if they still just go like, fuck it.

We're buying them out. I can't sit here and keep doing this. I think once you get into the two years remaining range, that becomes a very, that the odds of it happening go up significantly. Yeah. Or go down significantly, I should say. The other guy is Logan Couture. Like he over the, like in the past week announced he's done for the year.

Mm-hmm. And he had a lot of like kind of frank conversations about, or, you know, quotes rather, about like, yeah, this might be it for me. I might not be playing here next year. I'm 30, I'm going to be 35 or whatever. Yeah, he's 35 in a couple of weeks. Look at that. 35 in a couple weeks makes $8 million against the cap for the three seasons after this one. He has a modified no trade.

Yeah. And that modified only three teams he can be traded. Heavily modified, yes. Aye, aye, aye, man. Oh, boy. Oh, boy indeed. Yeah. The thing, he sounded like a guy who was like, I might have to open my, I might have to open my scope.

Yeah, I don't think he's... Yeah, I don't think he's like... Trade me to Toronto or nothing else, right? Well, even beyond that, it's just like, I don't think he's going like, I need to be precious about this one. You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. He's like, I think it's time to go and I should...

Yeah, he sees the... Right. It's the knowing it's time to go thing that is not always what you see in the NHL, let's say. because he because he due to his age and injury status and decline in play over the previous couple seasons he doesn't have the leverage of in his contract for that matter he doesn't have the leverage of we're not talking Patrick Kane Noah Hanofin you know where you can swing it around and say like I'm here here are the actual the actual one team or three teams or five teams that I want to end up on like he needs to just get the hell out of Dodge absolutely yeah

And who could, like I said, I'm glad the sharks are doing like a blow it up rebuild, but. And they were never going to be able to do that with hurdle on the roster. For sure, yeah, too good. True negative value because it is within the realm of possibility that he would drag them to six extra points next season. And then boom, if he's healthy, then you're, then what? You got the fourth, your fourth in lottery odds rather than one. Right. No, thank you.

Yeah. Yeah, it just sucks that they have to do the full tear it down rebuild after trying to rebuild on the fly and having it blow up in their face. And now it's like, oh, yeah, we have Michael Granland on the team. Like, oh, no, man. Michael, you know what's funny is that Granlin hasn't been that bad and that is 100%. Them taking him on was not like, oh, maybe we can maybe we can. win some games with this guy. It was like

Pittsburgh sending back a short-term problem for them. And then he ended up being like, you know, the best forward on one of the worst teams in the league. Yeah, he's just not a $5 million player. They weren't deluding themselves and I think they were going to win games with Michael Granland. It was just a necessary return on the Pittsburgh and it thinks to make the Carlson trade happen.

For sure. But yeah, I mean, just like, they, they, I get what is it? Even if you're being like as bad as possible you can't have like no good players on your roster and like not that Michael Granland is like a good player

he's just a fine player Yeah because there's a salary floor Like if without guys like especially Moving forward too Depending on what happened with Flassic Like in in Coutor We're looking at a year or two from now They're going to have to take on

salary to scrape by the scrape buy up the salary floor yeah i think that's right yeah anyway let's talk about it uh the vagus part of it well they got thomas hurdle for almost nothing like nothing that affects them in any real way pretty sweet pretty sweet yeah yep yep yep it's just it's such a perfect fit too because hurdle you know much as everyone loves him if he's your best player, you're probably not, you're not going to be a real contender, right? Yeah. Like he's a 1C on a mediocre to bad team.

But as a 2C, oh, baby. On any team. On any team. And on top of it, they're paying him like a second line center as well by virtue of the 17% that Vegas retained. He might not even be their second line center. He might be their third center. Isn't that interesting?

Wow. I think he'll be their second line center. Yeah, well, it's just like, oh, yeah. They also have William Carlson and Chandler Stevenson down the middle. Oh, I guess that's pretty good. Can I move Chandler Stevenson to the wing for the playoffs? Oh, yeah, I would put it to move. I love it, man.

This is the point. This is why teams play hockey is to be able to load up like this and really make a run for it. another one. Like the stakes are high. They're looking at this roster and being like, we can win three straight or whatever. We can be this decade's quasi-dynasty. And they're right to do it.

People like also, they trade it for Anthony Mantha too. Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Noah Hannafin. Aside from Hanna. Aside and forget about Hannafin. But like you look at that group of forwards now. It just couldn't make more sense.

I love it. It's so funny. that like yeah you're just like oh their seventh best forward is Anthony Manta a guy who scored 30 goals

like two years ago or whatever yeah and it was like you know like I said this whenever it happened too like would I sign that would I sign that guy to an extension absolutely not

no for sure not send him to market let him take whatever you can get he was really really good for Washington like some of it was a shooting percentage heater, but not all of it.

Just a really efficient 5-on-five score. His play-driving numbers were a whole lot better than they had been in the past. And you just say like, all right, great. You can play on a third line or a second line and go and try to port that over. And if it doesn't work, whether it doesn't work or whether it works really well,

like good luck with your new team come July. Yeah. Yeah, he has 20 goals this year. Pretty good. Pretty good. And they got them for, again, not very much at all. Okay. So there's this, like, debate now about not just the fucking, uh, they're doing LTIR.

That's not fair. But like, fans are like, I'm not saying it because I'm jealous. It's the principle of the thing or whatever. It's okay to be jealous about this. Just recognize that you're jealous. Like fans, like, that's just, that's all it is. They're, yeah, no, like, they're mad that they don't have an owner that's willing to do this, and they don't have a front office that's, that's willing to execute the plan.

Like, you can be, you'd be salty about it. It's like, it would be like people being mad about the Rangers, like, or the, or the wings during the, during the no salary cap air. I'd be mad about it, too, but, you know, tough shit. Yeah. So, this is the argument that, that, uh, someone put on the, on the puck soup. discord today. It's that they're always miraculously healed for game one of the playoffs. Yeah. That's because that's an NHL problem. That's a failure by the league.

Here's the thing. I don't think it is. I think there, look, I think we said this when Tampa did it with Kuturov, right? Where it's like, is he injured enough to play or to be out of the lineup? Yes. so what they're doing is, but he's not so injured that he couldn't play if he didn't have to, right? And what they're doing is they are making the calculated risk. We have enough good players here

that we will get into the playoffs. Yeah, I said this on the athletic show last week. Like there's an element of risk management for Vegas too, because you're assuming that, or Tampa or whoever does it. saying like, okay, we are, we are accepting the fact that we're going to be without Mark

Stone and Alec Martinez or Nikita Kutrov in Tampa's case or whoever until the start of the playoffs. If you want to roll the dice on that and say like, we got to make the, we're going to have to perform in these guys' absence. Like, that's a choice. And that's, and there's a payoff for that. And it compels you if you're going to do that to make these kinds of wild ass trades, right? where it's just like, you know what, let's just get like three of the four biggest names on the market. Let's do it. Or maybe six or whatever, you know,

depending on where you slot Anthony Mantha. It's just like, yeah, let's fucking do it then. You know, like, the issue is that like there's only one, I mean, insofar as people are, the issue insofar as people are upset about this is that there aren't that many teams that are willing to exploit it as aggressively

as Vegas and Tampa are. Or able to, because that's the thing. Vegas has horrible injury history, right? Like going back, I think even to like their first year. Remember, they were like, oh, yeah, we're just like we're down to our fourth string goalie for like a week and a half or whatever in that first season. And those guys were winning too, right? But this is like a problem for Vegas, I would argue, that like, oh, we can't keep any of our guys healthy for, you know, You know, look at their, look at their, you know, games played leaders among their best players.

It's always like 70 games, 68 games, right? Like, it's rare that a guy's just, like, in the lineup every single night. It's because their two best forwards are, like, to some extent, chronically injured. Yeah, well, right. Stone and Eichol and whatever else. Other teams could do this, though. Other teams could do it. You gotta say that.

because, I mean, look at Pittsburgh, right? If Pittsburgh were good this season, which they're certainly not, they could have stashed Jay cancel on long-term injury reserve until the end of the regular season if they wanted to. He broke his wrist. Like, just whatever. He had a setback. And then he's magically okay for game one.

That was never going to happen. Just like, every, most teams, most good teams have a star player who makes a bunch of money that goes on short, or what normal I are. time during the season. If they wanted to extend it to its, to its, you know, max out and take it to its logical end, like most teams could do this. They just don't want to. And that's fine.

That's a choice, that's a choice too. And part of that is just like not having the same amount of confidence, I guess you would say, that Vegas does, where it's like, well, we'll just make the playoffs without these guys. Right. And that's what people are mad about is that, and also there's a level of, you know, propriety and politeness, I think that a lot of front offices just don't want to cross, or a line that they don't want to cross, despite it being a legal mechanism, you know, within the rule of the leads. And you can say the rules fucked up, but can you come up with a better one?

I think this is a Drance take word. You can, yeah. You can come up with a better, what would the rule adjustment be for you? that you're allowed to that you that you're allowed to um overshoot the salary cap

during the the only way you're allowed to exceed the salary cap during the playoffs is by having or whatever is by having uh players signed to league minimum deals which is what the NBA does. Hmm.

Yeah. Okay. It's it. And it's a, it's something, it's a button that the league does. want to push for whatever reason and that's and that's on them we've seen too like we've seen the league act unilaterally on this kind of shit with regard to going back to backdiving contracts in the

olia covo truck thing like they can they can they're they have no problems making this shit up as they go along sure and they're choosing on to here so whatever i think the issue with that is that players aren't paid during the playoffs right and so So to be like, well, of course, the thing, I guess I don't know. I'm assuming NBA players aren't getting game checks for making postseason runs, right? So it's not an unsolvable problem. And to act like it is is disingenuous. They're choosing not to solve it, which is fine.

This is the system that they've created. And ultimately what it comes down to is like one, there's a. couple teams that are comfortable and willing to exploit it and other ones aren't to live with it or don't like be be mad about it but it's not I think where where I have problems is that it's it's it turns in the the argument takes on this weird like moral quality that like this is something that Vegas shouldn't be doing it's like what are you talking about they're making they're making choices here just like everybody else is and it ultimately just really seems like sour grapes from teams that don't have,

that are fans of teams that aren't willing to pull these levers. So that's just the way it goes. Right. Okay, let's talk very quickly, and then we'll take a break about Calgary and how their whole letting everybody go thing went. I probably wish it would have gone better. Oh, I bet they do.

If I had to make a big guess, that would be my guess, is that they got very little back for all their big guys and all to talk about the whole season about what are they going to do with these guys. They did next to nothing to drum up the price, I guess you would say. And also these are good players that have no trade,

that have no movement clauses, and they were willing to use them. Yeah. You know, and you have a rookie GM who was probably very cognizant of, of not looking like a jackass throughout throughout the course of it and it made it be overly cautious. It seems a mess. A mess, my friend.

You are correct. Yeah, I made the point last week with the TANF deal where, you know, they were like, oh, this guy, this guy that we're going to trade it. We really don't want to trade. But you know what? For you, we'll throw them in there, you know? And Craig Conroy was like, oh, I was really happy with that. And then you read about him and it's like, okay, well, I mean, they, they weren't like dying to keep him around in Dallas, you know, like they, they didn't, the comparison I made was, was Tom Sawyer being like, oh, you wouldn't want to faint this fence though. I mean, come on.

You want to? I don't think. I'm having too much fun over here. Go fun. It's the same idea. Got my big brush. No, it's true. I'm probably going to be real mad if I let you.

But, I mean, if you really want to, you know, this is the same. thing. And I feel like that happened to a lesser extent with the Hanifan trade. Also, like, yeah, we really don't want to trade this guy. We're going to, we'll throw him in, and you should probably extend him immediately for two years, right? He's that good. What's the player you want to keep around? Definitely, we all love 26-year-olds who recently changed positions. This is, to me, this is the number one, the number one. The number. one thing of how you know Craig Conroy wasn't ready to be sitting at the big table was, uh, Vegas was like, we'll give you our first round pick for Hanofin. And he's like, great.

And they're like, but we get to decide when you get it because we're going to, uh, we're probably actually trade for too much. Yeah. We're actually, we're actually going to, we get to decide what the condition is that you get. Because usually it's just like, oh, it's top 10 protected. That's kind of out of the team's hand. And they were just like, no, what if we want to keep the pick though? And Craig Conroy was. like, well, no problem. That sounds great. Very funny.

Very funny. And yeah, they then use that on Thomas Hurtle. And it's like, oh, shit, okay. Well, that was why they wanted to keep it so bad. I wonder, I do wonder when they got that iron in the fire, the hurdle iron. But. I think probably once they realized that Gensel wasn't, or that they would, that was more feasible than Gensel. Yeah, maybe.

Maybe. But, yeah. Yeah, they got that Nikita O'Hootyuk guy back from San Jose in a separate trade. That's almost like... Yeah. Now, Nikito O'HUKUK is a guy that the sharks had to look at in the AHAL. We'll take a fifth for him. Can you imagine that?

But he's only like 22 or whatever. So you can talk yourself into. Actually, it was a pretty good trade for Calgary. There's a lot of talking folks sell. into things over the next few years there. They've been doing it for probably a decade at this point, man. Actually, you know... Chase that playoff money, brother.

Yep, that's all they do. Okay, why don't we finally take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about more stuff? This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Hatch. And folks, we just went through daylight savings time. I don't know if we're in daylight savings time now or out of it. I don't know how that works. but I do know this. It disrupts your sleep schedule.

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They get Sean Walker. They get Casey Middlestad. They get Brandon Newheim. They get Yakov-Trennan. Maybe another guy that I'm forgetting, but I think those are the big ones. Yeah, I think those are, that's about right? You said, do-hame, right? I did say, Duham.

How about those abs loading up? I love it. So what was the first try? It was Sean Walker. They made the Sean Walker trade. And I made the foolish rookie mistake of starting to write the trade grade before. A, I knew what the return was, which wasn't that big of a deal. But also with the presupposition that that took them, that they just said,

all right, we can't acquire a second line center. So we're just going to get better in other areas. Yep. And by the time I was like almost done writing it, they had pulled off or there had been, you know, rumbles of middle stead for Bo Byram. So I had to go back and rewrite it. Because my assumption at that point was like, yeah, the center market is what it is. They're certainly not going to do any kind of future focus hockey trade that involves, you know,

a kind of fallen top prospect for someone from an Atlantic division team. So I wrote it up as if, you know, this is it. And it's like, okay, this is the best they can do. They figured, we're not going to be able to fix our middle six in season for a variety of reasons so we might as well try to get better you know along along the right side of our defense and that wasn't the case they go out and get middle stett which is just in a normal in a normal trade deadline year or on a normal trade deadline that would be you know the headline a one most interesting deal of of the day and I think it's still pretty close I love it yeah awesome

just uh you know not one that anybody really saw coming. And that's what's cool about it. Because it was such a glaring hole for them, too. Mm-hmm. You know, I get why they tried Johansen didn't work. Did not work. Ross Colton's a useful player, but, you know, having him as your two-see on a good team is courting disaster.

Yeah. And the end result was that between those two guys who had split time in that spot since the start of March, they had 11 points between them on the day of the trade deadline, which like, never going to work. There's going to be, they would, they would have played Dallas, Hayskinnan, in, and, in some combination of, of Dallas's top forward lines, would have neutralized, in them alive, would have neutralized the McKinnon line. Like, they, they would have, they would have canceled them out in one way or another.

And then the end result is like, you're trying to, you're trying to roll Ross Colton and Jonathan Duran out there against against one of the deepest teams in the league. It just, it wasn't going to work. So the fact that they pulled it off, man, I just, all points.

I love it. Yeah, it's really cool. And again, it's just, you just didn't see them trading Bo Byron. And they did. And it takes, I think it takes

big balls to make a, to make that. kind of a trade just given how everybody has talked about bo byrum including me for years it's the rare i the rare case of of really liking a trade for both teams because i know i know bo byrums you know the numbers are ugly and who knows but middle stat just wasn't going to work on on that in in their salary structure presently in the future like it just they they they were going to need to address the mix that they had it forward, even if only for cap purposes. And they went out and got a player that they didn't have in their system. You know, like, there's no, say what you all about

Bo Byronham, but there wasn't any version of him coming up for the Sabres that would have made sense. So I don't know. I fully realized that the blooms off the rows for Byronham, but I still really do like it on the Buffalo and things as well. Yeah, I think, I think it's a kind of a big risk for Buffalo, just a guy who can't stay healthy. And it's, you know, if we're being honest about the savers, it's not exactly an organization known for getting the most out of its defensemen. Totally. So that's, um, there, there's a lot of risk there for, for me, but like I think it, I agree that I think it's worth the risk.

Um, just because, you know, they didn't really, like you said, they didn't really have any other options. They were going to have to pay middle stead more. Right. He was always going to be the third line center there. They have a bunch of guys coming up that they're going to, in a perfect world, they're going to need to pay at some point over the next few years. So I don't know. And like I said, I'm fully aware that the way the last few years have gone for Bo Byram,

but it's fun. I think maybe that might be, I might be conflating, like thinking it's a good deal for both teams. Yeah. With it being a cool deal for both teams and a fun deal for both teams. Yep. So, yeah, to me, I like that deal to varying extends for both teams. But when you add in, okay, now they've gotten Walker and Middle Stad.

And what is basically kind of one trade, you know, kind of like a three-way deal. Okay, I like that, yeah. And then they go out and add Brandon Du Hame, who I'm a big fan of. I saw him play plenty of. Totally. He played a Providence, so I saw him a decent amount in his college days. And, you know, he's translated to being exactly the same kind of player in the NFL. He is a huge pain in the ass to play against.

He's a shit disturber who also can play hockey. And those are my favorite types of guys. Same here, yeah. I love guys like that. And so for them to get him and, you know, he's a good, he's a good PK guy and all that kind of stuff. It's just adding up a little bit more, uh, whatever, like forward depth, you know, he's, and then, yeah, yeah, he's, he's, he's an okay player. That's fine.

Yeah, Dune's the kind of guy who, who they had a few years ago and that they've lacked since, which is like that bottom six guy who just gives you, who gives you some juice, right? Like, he can, he can play hockey and he seems like a dude who you can easily imagine. imagine him scoring some huge goal during the Western Conference finals or something. He just profiles as that kind of guy. Yeah. One short-handed goal in the playoffs in this trade has paid for itself, you know? It's that simple.

And again, that's just a player. I'm trying to remember, I don't have their cap-friendly page open. I guess I could just click on it. They actually have some money left over because I was wondering if they would be. No, so what I was going to ask is if he's a pending UFA and he is. Oh, do him? Yeah, he is. Yeah.

So, but like a guy that easily can see them bringing him back. He's only 26, 27, you know, like he's got a few more years of being useful and he's not going to cost him a ton. Like, he could sign the kind of regrettable like Miles Wood deal. that, you know, like, maybe you don't go give me the full eight years or whatever wood got. But, you know, four years at two million bucks a pop, you're happy with that one for Brandon Du Hame, I think. Definitely. He's like a, he's like, they're, you can, their shared DNA, I think, between that in the, in Tainter Geno where like this guy, and Tanger Geno may stink, which is the problem for Tampa Bay.

But like, right. You're like, this guy in some way, how much money is, is he going to make really? after this season, then you sign them long term and you're like, all right, this guy is going to be part of our middle six for as long as we're good. Or bottom six, rather. Yep. And also we are,

the Gabriel Landisog may be coming back at some point during the playoff stuff has officially begun. I saw LeBron just publish something, you know, where he talked to Chris McFarland talking about Landiscaug's rehab and like where he's at and saying like, yeah, it might happen. You never know. And that's where we are.

It should be illegal for them to do it. I agree. They shouldn't be allowed. No, they should have to go before the Hague for doing this. It's the principle of the thing, you know? There's just no way that, you know, that every injury has different timelines and stuff actually happens that, you know, causes, causes players to, you know, come back more quickly than anticipated or sit longer than we thought. That's right.

Yeah. My response to all that, of course, grow up. Get a life. I didn't say that. No, I did. That's me. Were you surprised that Philly sold a little bit, actually, at the deadline? No.

Not at all. I was a little bit. I didn't, I guess I'm not surprised they sold Walker. Nope. But like they, just because like that's how it went. But like they replaced him with Eric Johnson, which was really funny to me. That's just throwing a bone to the locker room. You're like, all right.

Like sorry. To John Tortorella specifically. He's in the locker. Yeah. And also, yeah, torts and the players, right? They're like, yeah, sorry. We didn't, you know, kind of had to do this. Like here's a good guy who you can con yourself into thinking is like a meaningful ad for the stretch run.

If you're a player. Right. Like, and I'm to back to the original question, I'm not surprised it happened because I don't, I think Daniel Breyer has shown signs of being pretty good at his job. I agree. I think he's, I think he's making some tough decisions. I think he's showing some creativity, relatively speaking, when it comes to getting involved in three-way deals and retaining, in retaining salary or whatever, that you don't see from a lot of other general. managers, honestly. The job was tough to begin with, and it only got more complicated when it turned out that they're not a terrible hockey team, right? That was a minefield for him to navigate.

And I think moving Walker, once you realize that he was just looking for more than they could have done, and then kind of softening the blow by Breening and Johnson, I think that's a really good move. I liked what they did, but I'm also at this point, like, not super surprised that's the way it played out, because I think he's pretty good at his job. Yeah. Did you see what Elliot Friedman said yesterday on 32 thoughts about why the flyers traded for him and then immediately waived him. Because him and Tortorale hated each other, I assume. Yep.

And this is the funny part to me. Hard feelings towards a shared agent with Cutter Gautier. Not surprised by that one either. I mean, I'm surprised by that. Are you really? Like with the shit that they said whenever the Cutter Gautier thing, you know, really hit the fan earlier this season. I'm not surprised to see that they

wouldn't want them to do with anybody. That you'd be mad at the agent is kind of surprising to me. I, you know. Yes, because NHL front offices, they're typically populated by guys that aren't weirdos who hold grudges. Sure, but I, to me,

again, we're, we're just talking about like, um, all this has made a lot more, like, that's, that's all well and good. And I'm not saying that that didn't play a part. but it's all made a whole lot easier by the fact that Johansson's done. Oh, yeah, for sure. If he was still a relevant NHL player who was capable of helping more than he is,

or maybe it was a guy who you could have conceivably flipped to another team that wanted them, like, I don't think we hear about all this. But now it's like, well, okay, this is the way I went down. I'm just doing some sort of after the fact. analysis of of why I went down the way it did. Even if it's coming

from the front office. It's yeah, well, there's hard feelings because it's cut or go to his agent and da, da, da, da, da, da. Like, ultimately what it comes down to is that Ryan Joannson ain't good no more. That's the problem.

Yeah, for sure. I don't know. I just think it's, I, when it's like, ah, we're mad at the agent so this player can go fuck himself. It's like, huh? I don't, I just don't,

I don't totally, I believe that, I believe that they believe that that's that played a part. I'm not saying it didn't, but like, again, if Ryan Johanton is a little bit better, I think the conversation might be, might be different.

Yeah. But again, at that point, it's like, why trade for them? Because you had to. Other than, you got to make the salary. Yeah, sure. But, yep,

I was just really laughing about that yesterday. I had nothing to say about it. It's funny. It's funny. And that's in, from an entertainment. It's funny. That's why this phase of this era of the Flyers organization is a lot of fun because we could easily see more of that. Yeah.

Just like kind of petty stuff that happens around the margins. I'm down for it. Sure, yeah. The Edmonton Oilers make a couple of trades. The most notable are Adam Henrique and Troy Stetcher. That's it, though. They were in. a tough spot. Tough spot. All their guys are healthy. Henrique's kind of a two for one too because he's played more, he's more of a wing at this point in his career.

Sure. Which I feel like maybe he got kind of lost and whenever they acquired him, like he wasn't really playing center for Anheim anymore, but he still can. Allegedly. Allegedly. So you get some positional versatility there. It seems like they're. would maybe have a use for Sam Carrick, which isn't, you know, good for them, I suppose.

I think they were in a tough, I think they were in a tough spot. I, I disliked what they did, I think, less than other people because Henry Kinstetcher are useful and they didn't have much in the way of cap space or assets or whatever else to offer. Anybody else. Yeah, I just, you want to talk about getting creative. I just thought they might have done something a little more creative than they ultimately did. I agree. I think that's like a standard. It's like a standard job done by an NHL front office at the trade deadline. Like that's boilerplate stuff.

I think it's fine. I don't think they got like significantly better, but they improved a bit. Yeah. They went about doing it in a very traditional way, which is what you'd expect. I don't remember now. Well, wasn't there like we couldn't get someone to take Cody C.C. and we had a trade done otherwise or something like that. Am I remembering that wrong?

I know all of the dialogue around them kind of centered around Cody Cici, which just seemed, I don't know. He's like, he's not, like, he's not that bad. Yeah, he's just not a three and a quarter million dollar player. If you trade Cody Cici, you have to replace Cody Cici in that lineup, and I think that was always going to be a problem for them. Yeah. And again, like, just the perception around Cody CC is probably such that it was just like no one was going to, like, unless you're retaining money at which point, why you want?

In a weird way, he had more value to them than anybody else. Yeah, that's right. If you're a GM, you're like, I don't want Cody CC at three and a half, no thanks. But at the same time. If I do that, everyone's going to scream at me. Exactly. I don't want to get yelled at. One of the big motivating factors in all our lives, I feel like.

That's it. That's all. That's all anybody. looks for is ways to avoid getting yelled out. Yeah, that's what it's all about. And then, yeah, like people were thinking they might trade for a goalie, but it's like, I don't, have you seen how Stu Skinner's playing lately? That's not a guy they're going to try to, God, I heard people going, and they might break

Jack Campbell back for the play. Don't do that. Here's a bit of advice to you. Don't let him anywhere near your net. that would be a mistake. If Jack Campbell's playing meaningful minutes for them at any point, then that will have meant something catastrophic is going wrong. Yeah, he is up to 915 down in Bakersfield.

Probably better than he'd expect. Better than he was playing initially. Not even probably. No, and right, that's with a like legitimately embarrassing start. Yeah. To the start of the Jack King. Campbell Baker's Field era. Yep.

But with that, all having been said, but like this discussion is just such an indication of, you know, it hints at something much more negative about the Edminton Oilers is we're like, well,

they could maybe use a goalie and they could probably use some help on the right side and Henrique's good because he gives him help in multiple positions. Like, there's holes all over the place and they just didn't have,

they didn't have the resources necessary to plug any of them on, and, you know, all that meaningfully, even though I do, like I said, I do like the Henry condition well enough. Yeah, no, like, their problem is, once again, going to be who's going to score when Connor and Leon are off the ice. Yep. But the thing is, all they need to do is not give up goals when they're, when those two are off the ice. Because those who are going to score plenty of goals themselves, right? and you know like if your fifth best forward is like Ryan Newgen Hopkins you're a pretty good shape

you just need to be able to wrestle these people to a draw and they've never been able to do that and you know could they could they with these additions I mean their chances of doing it are certainly better than they were a week ago so yeah they add and they added like I said a blandly blandly decent guy in Henry great where he's fine he's like fine at everything not great at anything he's not going to kill you

really in any element of the game he's a good guy to have riding shotgun with better players which I feel like you know that could be useful for them certainly more so than other teams but yeah it's a tough tough deal

yeah that's just especially because Vegas was like oh we'll just get like four all stars how's that sound I think Edmonton is one of those teams too where you said it dude like it just it looks if the deadline would have ended on if the deadline would have been Thursday and we wouldn't have seen anything that we saw you know down the stretch there the last day or two. Edmonton would have come out of it looking a lot better but like they suffer by comparison because you really do see a lack of a lack of creativity there. One of the peg went out and did something big. Dallas, not so much, but of course they did add TANF. Colorado, we just talked about the only other team that really, two teams, I guess, that didn't really do anything were L.A. and Vancouver, who happened to be in their division, but I have a theory about what's going on in the Pacific.

Everyone is trying to avoid that two, three matchup. Because you're like, oh, one of the teams we have to play in that two three matchup is a huge pain in the ass to play against. I don't want to play. I don't want to draw L.A. in the first round. I don't want to draw Edmond. in the first round. I want to draw Vegas in the first round. And now Vegas is like, okay, one of the all-stars we traded for

is hurt until two weeks before the regular season ends or whatever. You know? So that helps keep them out of that. But I don't know. It gets to a point where it's like, would you rather play Dallas, Edmonton,

or L.A. or Vegas? I don't know which one of those I'd want to play. That should, that alone should stop teams from trying to get cute. because it's like you'd start to outthink yourself there. You're going to have to play a pretty good team no matter what, right?

Like there's no, there's no particularly easy route. In the King's cap situation was a total disaster too. Like I think that I think that stopped them from doing some stuff that they otherwise probably would have been in on. Vancouver though. It's a bummer. Didn't do anything. Rarely say it about a Jim Rutherford.

a team. They missed opportunity, it feels like. Yeah, and again, their hands were kind of tied and they already made their big trade in a lot of ways. But boy,

you want to talk about something that would have been interesting if it had happened. Flipping Lindholm, that was a rumor that came out. Just like, oh, we tried it, didn't fucking work.

Try something else. I'd be interested in how far along they got with that kind of discussion or who brought up the point. It brought, like which front of has brought up the idea of them flipping, of them flipping Lentholm.

I don't, I'm not sure I think it was the Canucks. Oh, I would be a little surprised. I think, you know, that's one of those like, oh, you know, now you mention it, it's a pretty good idea. There's still first in the West, you know? I love them. It slipped a little bit there, but they're still first in the West.

It's been the story of their season, man, just when you think that, It's going to fall apart. They rattle off four straight winds, and then they're back. And that's where they are right now. Yep. Another big adder, I guess you'd say. Jake Gensel and Hvgeny Kuznetsov to Carolina.

I love it. Yeah. Gensel in particular is a guy where it's like, oh, the hurricanes have needed a player like that for 15 years. Absolutely. He's a perfect fit in a lot of different ways. I just go back to the fact that, you know, generates a lot of chances, yes, but also is involved with them leading to real-life goals.

He's good at that. And it's not just a Crosby creation. I know people maybe there is an understandable impulse to say like just how good is this dude, right? But I love it. And I'm not going to say that I like Kiznetsov as much as much either because he's just been so catastrophically bad. they needed to do something down the middle. You need to have some other skill element

like in your top is your second or third line center and they had none of that. So that one's fun. I don't, I think the odds about working out or maybe not great, but whatever, it's still, it's still an interesting, interesting thought. It's worth the gamble. Him, you know, obviously a lot of stuff going on personally

for him that would have affected his on-ice play. but if he's coming out of the player treatment program or whatever it's called, feeling good. In a better spot, and if that translates into, you know, he's motivated? He was not that bad last year. No. It wasn't great, but he was certainly, he's got some solid play or solid production in his recent history, right? And I think if you're, if you're, uh, Carolina, that's a decent gamble to make us.

especially when you look at the fact that Jack Drury was their second line center coming into deadline day. And you're like, okay, this is, it's similar to that's not going to fly. Similar to the Colorado discussion where you're like, something's got to be done here. And there's no easy fit on the market for middle six centers who can push the pace offensively. So what do we do? And in Colorado's case, it was getting creative with the sabers and flipping Byron from Elstet. And in Carolina's case, it was, you know, taken on a pretty high risk. a high risk project in the form of his netsov.

Yep. Let me ask you this, because people have been asking me, you know, what do you think? Like who are the best teams in the Eastern Conference? And to me for weeks, the answer has been Florida and then nobody really. I don't trust the Rangers in the postseason. I don't know how you can't trust the Bruins. They're a team that doesn't win a lot lately. The leaves, how are you ever going to?

trust the Leafs. Yeah. And I think now it's Panthers by themselves and Carolina by themselves and then another tier below that. Yes. I think that's about what.

I think there's still a pretty, for me, there's a defined line between Florida and the rest of the of the conference. But man, either by themselves as the second group or at the very tippy top is Carolina. It's either them or the Rangers.

and the Rangers did make some, I'd say, small additions, maybe. They added guys at the bottom six. You're like, okay, this is fine. Winberg, yeah, he could help. I think Roslovick is, you know, better than nothing. Sure, yeah. He'd been, weirdly, not weirdly, but Columbus had showcased him for a couple weeks ahead of the deadline,

and he was put together, like, he was a point per game player over his last 10 or 12 games, which is hilarious. But, you know, we're talking about a team that is adding bottom six pieces. Like, that's nothing to get super excited about. Yeah. But, you know, again, the Rangers, it's kind of the same thing with Edmonton where it's like, as long as those top guys are on the ice. Like, you're going to score the opponent.

You have the elite goaltending in theory, not always an actual practice this season. And then, again, like, if you can just get the bottom. six to like 50-50. It's a lot easier to see a path through the playoffs for the Rangers than, especially if they remain the number one seed in that division and they draw. We'll talk about the East Wild Card in a minute because, yeah, that's a mess. But if they can hold on to that top spot in the division, their path forward is like so obvious. Totally.

I'm just taking Carolina's roster over theirs at this point. That's really what it boils down to. Yeah, again, with Carolina, it's like how far can you trust the goaltending, right? And can't stay healthy. When they do stay healthy, the best of the bunch is Freddie Anderson, probably, with all due respect to Kachetkov. But, you know, at least as a proven commodity. but I think it's maybe more of a push for me, Carolina and the Rangers. It's fair.

Yeah. But I'd rather have the top end guys on the Rangers than the hurricanes, especially because of the goaltending. But yeah, anyway, one through 20, I think you'd say probably Carolina. Anyway, let's talk about those Panthers. They had Teresanko. They had Anthony Duclair. They added Kyle Loposo. They did not add.

Kyle Okposo, yeah. Yep. And again, Ocposo is just like a depth. Good in the room guy. Yeah. Nothing to get upset about there or whatever. Yeah, they gave up nothing for him.

Like, I'll take Kyle Okposo for free on my team. For sure. Yep. Um. So, yeah, just the rich get richer in the, in the Easter conference at the top of it anyway. That's,

you can't fault them, man. They, they are the benefits. fisheries of you know playing in playing in Florida in a variety of ways and that helped Tarasenko that that is why they got Tarasenko

for 100% for different reasons and it that didn't have all that much to do with the on ice you know with the on ice fit but he's exactly what they needed they needed some dude to mix in there that didn't force them to play Nick Cousins on a line with Matthew Kachuk

and they went out and got it. Yeah and like Tarasenko you know to me, the reason I was a little iffy on this trade is it just seems like the vibes are bad. You know what I mean? He's a decent enough player, but it just seems like the vibe is a bucked up. I think he would have been a potentially bad acquisition for a lot of other teams,

just not this one. Yeah, they have enough to surround. I can imagine some other. If the situations were, if, say, if he could just end up wherever Ottawa could get the best package for him, I think someone probably would have made a mistake. But as it stands playing in Florida,

it makes a little more sense to me. Yeah, they just have the roster and the veterans or whatever to absorb a bad vibes can only do one thing guy. Totally. Absolutely. That was never going to work in Ottawa. Ottawa can't afford just having a guy who's, you know, a shooter, basically. Right. A kind of one-dimensional player, yeah.

Florida can, though. That's what they needed. Yep. absolutely. And I like the Duclair ad, especially, you know, they know them. Duclair went to Tampa. Oh, that's right. Yes. You're right about that. Well, they don't know them then. Never mind. It doesn't play for Florida at all. I wrote down Florida. But I think the reason why I wrote that down is because Tampa is in the state of Florida. It is. And also because I'm very stupid. A lot of people don't know that Tampa is in Florida. I'm mentioning this and people are like, I don't think so, man. And then like,

South Carolina, I'm like, no, no, no. It's in Florida. Here's other point. Orlando is in Florida. St. Petersburg is in Florida. No, I know that. Kissimmee is in Florida. Gainesville is in Florida.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Good song. That's all I got. That's true. It's true. I don't know why that was number number one. Why is that not the first Florida city I think of it?

So yeah, you're right. It's not too clear. It's, uh, yep, that's a little stupid mistake by me. Um, yeah, that was Tampa's only big ad, though, if I'm not mistaken. Depends on what you think about Matt Dunba. No, I, I stick by what I said that. Understandable. Yeah.

I mean, Dumba, Dumba, Dumba's a classic guy where it's just like, uh, he wasn't on good teams the last couple of years. could Tampa, in theory a good team, put him in a better position to succeed than, say, Arizona or last year's Minnesota Wilde did? I just, I think Arizona wants a first round pick for Matt Dunb was maybe my favorite deadline subplot. The sea to its logical end was a lot of fun. You know, I was looking at stats the other day. I might have said this on the show last week, but I guess it bears repeating. Five on five. what do you want to guess the the league average or uh where Tampa is in the league rankings

in save percentage five on five they're still very low um because I looked at that recently too and I was surprised by by by how uh by how far down they they were abysmal I think is the word you're looking I don't I'm going to say third from the bottom second from the bottom even worse than the flyers and the devils and the flames in Chicago. The only team worse than them. They spent a little bit of money on goaltending this year. Crazy it didn't work out for them.

The Ottawa senators. We got Tampa. Tampa is actually second from the bottom in five-on-five, say, a percentage at the moment. That's what I said. Oh, I thought you said there were, I'm sorry, I thought you said there were two teams ahead of them. Nope. Overall. Or I might have done that, but I didn't need to.

Overall, they're 30th at five-on-five, they're 31st. Big thumbs up. Oops. To me, you know, cost to doing business. They're like, hey, Andrew Vasilisky, we need to play you 89 games every single year forever. And he's like, okay, no problem. And it worked until it didn't. And then they started the season with a couple months of Jonas Johansson.

He wasn't even that bad, though. He was not that, well, he was not bad at the start, but now he's normalized. at 888 on the season. So now he's been Jonas Johan. Yes. So yeah, let's actually talk about where Tampa's at in the standings. Because I think looking at the standings, the West playoff picture is basically sewn up.

St. Louis is a mile back of Vegas for the last wild card spot. they would have to win a lot of games and have Vegas continue losing a lot to, and I just don't see that happening. I think we're at the point where it's like you're talking six points in the Blues. I played 64 games to the Golden Knights, 64. Right. Or 65 to 64, rather. Yeah, it's not happening.

Nope. But in the East, it's very interesting. Sure is. You're in a race with the Philadelphia Flyers, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Detroit Red Wings, and the New York Islanders. Some people will say the capitals, I will not be among them. I have steadfastly ignored them as anything other than one of the few worst teams in the league for the entire season. And I still will continue to do that. Yeah, MoneyPuck has them at like 18% to make the playoffs, which feels right.

to me, like, things could go really bad for four teams ahead of them and they sneak in. But, yeah, it's very interesting because the Flyers all of a sudden are playing like a sub-playoff team. Maybe not like as bad as everybody thought they would be, but not a playoff team, let's say. Tampa, kind of the same thing, but again, maybe that's just a goaltending thing. things are kind of catching up with the Detroit Red Wings, it looks like, to me. I think, I don't, and you got, I guess you got to be careful to read all that much into what a GM does or doesn't do. Yeah. But when Izer men.

Especially one like this. Especially one like him. But my man did nothing. I was like, okay. No, Radick, Shamek. I don't know. Shemak. Shemak.

Shemak. I don't know. I don't think I bought. them as like a legit as a legit playoff team for a variety of reasons but mostly coming down the fact that they were egregiously outchanced and they were

for the duration of the season and had just been converting on those chances so good for them but that's not necessarily a sustainable way to go about doing business um man five straight it was like right but right when I was like

Dom and I had this had this discussion I was like I think they just, I think they've just built up enough of a cushion where we can not write them in pen, but start treating them as like a team that's probably going to make the playoffs. And they promptly went out, started a five game losing streak and did nothing at the deadline. And it's like, oh, okay. Probably, probably, I probably amended my thinking a little bit too early as far as they're concerned. Yeah, I mean, so I got in trouble a couple of weeks ago for being like,

all these people go, well, look, the expected goals numbers, they don't account for pre-shot movement and everything. And it's like, yeah, when a team shoots 80% for two weeks or whatever they did, you're going to start looking at, like naturally you're going to start looking for reasons that they're outperforming, frankly, abysmal underlying numbers. And they do have plenty of talent at the top of that lineup, right? Yeah, but the problem is if you're in a spot, because of top end talent in a shooting heater,

when one of those top end pieces gets hurt, like Dylan Larkin has, and if you start to come back a little bit to Earth, you're going to come back really hard. Yeah. Yeah, it's not going to go the way you want it to. No, and I think the thing is that, again, people started being like the things that the Detroit Red Wings do well,

you know, all that shit. And it's like, you know, If you watch the Red Wings a lot, it was mostly Red Wings people, like media people and fans saying this. But if you watch the Red Wings a lot, again, you're just going to be like, well, they're this good. Again, totally natural. But once you start doing the, you know, the PDO is actually sustainable bullshit, you should know by now that that that isn't so. You know what I mean? Like, you should have an understanding.

out of 20 cases, yeah. 99 out of 100 cases. Yeah, I was going to say, like, the first team that sustains this forever, or the next team that does it, will be the first one. Isn't that why we watch, though, for the hope that the Detroit Red Wings are the team

that bucks the trend? I sincerely believe that. I'm like, it's going to happen at some point. I don't think it is, man. Maybe this is them. But that's part of the, that's part of the fun, though, is recognizing that intellectually and continuing to watch regardless. For me, it is.

Well, no, I guess what I'm saying is this. It's the same thing we were saying about the Canucks early in the season. Enjoy this fucking heater. This is great. And you got a good team there. And, like, you know, I don't think anybody's going to mistake Detroit's Cup chances going into the year for Vancouver's. even before they both of them went on to hear i don't know about that yeah yeah you're right there's over has the high in town is just it's just impossible to argue with in Vancouver yeah

yes um and so like if you're Vancouver you're like oh okay we can fucking really uh we can really rely on on Demko being good all year and Hughes being good all year and and Pedersen being good all year. Can you really say that for all the guys in Detroit? Not to the same degree, no. Not even close, right? Like, it's, we're talking about two, and for me, what, what I, what I've said all along about Detroit is, you know, they, they, they improved their roster such that maybe their, they're, their ceiling for this year is like seventh or eighth place team. I agree with that.

And that, you know, I think you would have said, if everything went right for Vancouver, They could have been like fourth or fifth in the West. And they've outperformed that. Vancouver or Detroit's outperformed that as well. Vancouver's outperformed that and Detroit has too. And we're talking, you know, there are different levels to what outperformance means. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

I just, for me, the variable for Detroit up until the last week has been the conference. Like I just look at the teams that they're, that they're in. competition with and I'm just like this is not a serious group of teams the flyers who we just talked about selling off wisely selling off Tampa who's just just seems disorganized this season in a variety of ways the islanders the caps like what are we what are we talking about here so so a week ago or 10 days ago I'm like yeah the red wings have banked enough and they have a high enough floor where they can at least outrun those teams, at least outrun three of those teams.

And you're talking about the flyers, the Islanders, the Caps, and in some combination. For sure. And it might not happen. Yeah. No, I mean, again, the ceiling is seven, right.

The Islanders are playing well and all the, and they have the Sorokin Trump card. That dude could go into Sickle mode for two weeks. Yep. And then before you know it, they're in third in the metro and the flyers or whatever are a point or two ahead of the Red Wings. Yeah.

And the, possibly possible. The other thing is, Patrick Wa had the bright idea of what if I actually play like all the best players on my team like their style? Imagine that. Crazy. He's a disruptor, Patrick Waugh. That's right.

Yeah. He's like, I'll pull the goalie with 23 minutes left in the game. And also I'll, uh, I'll put, uh, the good players on the power play together.

Lane Lambert's, uh, solution to this was what if I put Matt Martin out there a little bit more? Might go my way. Is it possible to play Casey Zizquez for 25 minutes a night? I'd like to see how that works out. We need to give him McDavid minutes. Yeah.

Yeah, that's, that's, I think that's all we have to talk about this. Great. Oh, and not a moment too soon. Mm-hmm. That's right. Oh, I guess we forgot about the Torrella getting suspended. Do we have any big thoughts on that? No, I don't.

I very officially have no thoughts on that. I was like, I don't feel like writing about this. What do you think about it? I think that if you tell the reps you're not going to leave after they kick you out of the game, you're going to get in trouble. Totally. He knew it. I don't think there is any, like, he had to know.

Yeah, of course, obviously. All right. I'm getting suspended for this. But you know what? It's going to be worth it. It's going to be worth it because fuck these guys. That's what you're saying. It's like when a baseball manager gets kicked out of the game, he doesn't just like go back to the dugout.

He turns his hat around and he kicks some dirt at the guy. You know, like it's the same idea. If you're going to get fucking tossed, get tossed for a really good reason. You know? I think that's, you know what? To me, that's the most relatable thing to get tossed for, though. Telling the rest to go fuck themselves? Absolutely.

No, just be like, I'm not. You know what? I'm just going to stay here. Yeah, he went, he went, uh, he went fucking ape shit. Like, again, could I have used him throwing some sticks on the ice or something to? Yeah, absolutely. Instead of just going like, I'm not fucking leaving. Fuck you.

Get the fuck over here and explain something to me. I think that's funnier than throwing sticks. I mean, the visual, though, you know? Who, who was the guy, was it, um, Jim Playfair? Chucking sticks on the ice? Awesome. one of the grades. Yeah.

At least in terms of throwing stuff on the ice, that's one of the great coaching moments of all time. I just didn't, I guess I didn't really understand the torts discourse, honestly. Like, I'm like, yeah, okay. He got pissed and did something funny and got suspended. Like, are we, what was this? What else do we need?

Well, I saw a bunch of people going like, or like Elliot Friedman was like, oh, the league wasn't happy about this. and people were like, what aren't they happy about it? It's like, oh, I guess it's when he yelled at the officials and refused to leave the bench after being ejected. That's what the league was probably mad about, in my opinion. And then was there like a contingent of people that were like, they shouldn't have suspended him? Like, yeah, of course they should have.

He, if you're John Tortorello, you don't do that going, well, surely I'll never, I'll never have further discipline for this. It ends tonight. I'm sure I won't hear about this. in the morning from from whoever. It rocks. I'm, I'm, I'm,

I'm a fan of, uh, John Tortorella said ACAB, you know, and, uh, that's what it boils down to for me. I don't,

I don't trust these rats. No, I, but, and I, and I, and I, and I,

and I like John Tortarella. I do. Not me so much. Cancel, cancel me, I say. Can I say this? It's like,

what's your cancel little hockey opinion? I'm like, uh, probably the John Tortarrella rules. Can I say this, though? This is going to have, if I can bring up another Calgary Flames-related incident, this is going to have a Dennis Wideman effect on the Philadelphia Flyers, where it's like, oh, no, every game for the rest of the year,

the power players are going to be five-two for their opponents. Dennis Wideman, man. Remember that? He maybe didn't mean to shove that linesmen and the rest of the year. The flames are like at the red line and the lines was like that was offside, my friend. That doesn't count. Sorry. It really is funny.

And that's still Dennis Wyden, pretty long, pretty solid career. That's still the first thing I think of. And anytime he rang up his name. Yeah. I think he did it on purpose. I kind of think so too. Although, now I'm trying to remember, wasn't it a situation where he maybe had gotten his bell rung a little bit?

That was it. That was, and that is obviously understandable. That's a pretty decent defense if you got to come up with one for that because he'd, he'd gotten, here's the thing though. They didn't buy it. Nope. You know what?

That's not true. Because you can't check the rev, just like you can't refuse to leave the bench after you get thrown out. It's the way it goes. In my opinion, you're not allowed to knock over a linesman. It's probably not a great, I, you know, call me crazy. I just don't think that's a precedent that the NHL wants to set is that is that it's actually okay to, to,

to elbow linesmen or blindside linesman. However, they will, of course, allow you to say anything you want to the refs no matter what happens. I guess so. Yeah, I guess our take on it is, it was funny. That's the big. I, again, over the weekend, because I, I, I, I, Me and we have a, like me and Sean and Frankie Corrado have like a just like, we've started texting about shit since we're supposed to have a show together and should have an idea of, of, you know, the way the winds are blown on that stuff. So I did, we talked about that and Frank, Frankie kind of loved it.

But I was just like, yeah, I mean, whatever. Do we have to do this about this while? Like, like he'd be freaked out and did something funny and he's going to get to spend it two games for it. Like, who cares? There's a, there's a coach in college hockey who, if he ever feels like he got fucked by the refs in a given game, and you're not going to believe this. Every coach of college hockey is like, these reps are terrible. And they're right.

They're right more often than not. But there's a coach in college hockey where first thing he does when he comes into the room after a game, like the press conference room after a game where he gets fucked by the refs, he goes, do not ask me about the refs. Don't even get me starting. You're going to get me in trouble. It's my favorite recurring bit in the college hockey world. Buy a lot.

It's so good. Every time. Because you always know when it's going to happen. And then he comes in and, you know, it's the, it's the I didn't do it boy. Like, I'm just like, yeah, he said it. Let's go. Yeah, I just love, I love that the league and of things. I was like, we just can't.

This mustn't continue to happen. Of course not. Of course. the hand-wringing, I guess, on some level is funny because they did the Judd Apatow, like, he could have killed him a bit after the Oscar slap. But, like, of course that's what the least can say. We don't have to take it all that seriously. Well, I mean, I do. It's the most serious thing.

To disrespect the officials like that? Oh, man. I don't think you're allowed to. Officials, officials and comedians, they're truly, they're the real front line. They're the last first responders. It's true. Nobody says the truth more than a stand-up comedian. Why don't you hit them with the plugs?

We'll get the hell out of here. All right. Like I said, my name is Sean Jensili. I am a writer for The Athletic. And me and Mackin do have a podcast. As I said, the two of us every week and Frankie Carrado on alternating weeks. And we just started that a couple, about a month. month or so ago, and it's going well.

Frank is a good dude. I can't really speak to Macon do necessarily. The jury's still out of him. The name of that podcast, by the way, backstabbers, Inc. The traitors. It's true. I'm one of the most betrayed podcasters that you're ever going to meet, and no one talks about it. The betrayers.

Yeah, that's you guys. And then for me, EP Ringsside, we're doing a whole bunch of, like, free agent stuff as college and junior seasons end and your team signs a guy. We have big write-ups on all the best players that will get that treatment who are undrafted. Drafted players, it's a different story. But head over there, and then I'm really ramping up my NCAA coverage because the playoffs in some conferences began this past weekend. And everybody else, they start Friday. it's a good

it's like your shit's always such a good resource for me because I don't pay attention to college hockey at all until around this time of year so I'm like all right what did I what did I miss thing to say wow I just love it man this is this is like my favorite shit in the world is I get it college hockey

I can only watch so much you know I do know yeah of course now for me it's you know infinite resource time I have for college hockey all of it. Thank you. I'm going to, I think it's at least three playoff games

between Friday and Saturday. And then if there are any anything else on Sunday, I'll go to that too. Why not? But yeah. Good for you. And then, thanks, brother.

BC and BU playing, you know, whatever, like a mile apart. One game is at four and one game is at seven. 30 perfect for me. It's like they scheduled with you in mind. It's for the sickos out there. Is there any other kind of college hockey fan?

Not really, no. I mean, these are people who were like, when Cutter Goatee refused to go to the ducks, like people, Flyers fans were going to BC games just to boo him. I missed that. Is that true? That's awesome. Like, they had brought signs like Cutter the traitor or whatever.

And look, if anybody knows about getting betrayed, it's me, right? So, like, I get it from those. But, like, they had signs that people were very mad that BC was like, yeah, you can't bring that into the game dog. What are you talking about? Going up to Flyers fans in the concourse and saying, I was betrayed once. Very recently, in fact. You wouldn't believe it. And they were like, oh, your betrayal is 10 times worse than anything I've ever experienced.

I'm saying. I agree. I'm the most betrayed man in podcasting. And then the other podcast speaking of is the PuckSoup Patreon. Patreon. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup. All kinds of bonus content over there, including later this week. It'll be me. It'll be S.G.

And it'll be the aforementioned grund, Grimpe. Kind of fumbled my words on that one. Oh, well. It's too late now. Grunde, Wishabimpe? I think that's his name. Yeah. we'll be talking about anything that isn't related to hockey on a little podcast called Stick to Soup.

In fact, no sports at all. Love it. Best kind of show. Try his Greg might, quite frankly. I have to keep going. No, no, no, sir. That's a different show. Stiff arming amid every turn.

You got to, man. I mean, we're going to be talking about a Weezer tour on that show. You sure? I think it might come up. Anyway, thanks so much for listening, everybody. and we'll talk to you next week when presumably Sean McIndoo will be back. Bye-bye.