The Athletic Hockey Show - For Mitch Marner, Jonathan Toews, what does the future hold?

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

It’s been two years since Jonathan Toews last played a game for the Chicago Blackhawks, but now Captain Serious is feeling healthy again and is looking to make an NHL return. First, Max, Laz, and The Athletic’s NHL insider Pierre LeBrun wrap-up a wild NHL trade deadline including how the Mikko Rantanen-to-Dallas deal finally got done, the fallout in Toronto after the Leafs tried to trade Mitch Marner, and how close to the deadline Brad Marchand was dealt to the Panthers. Plus, the guys take a look at the post-trade deadline Stanley Cup odds to close the show.Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusWith: Pierre LeBrunExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody, Max Boltman here alongside Mark Lazarus and Pierre Lebrun for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show, this episode, presented by E-Trade from Morgan Stanley. And I want to start Pierre with the deal that I think is going to go down to kind of define this deadline, or should I say the deals that are going to go on to define this deadline? It's the Miko Rantan saga, the first one from Colorado to Carolina. And then, of course, the real news of March 7 was Miko Ratton ending up a Dallas Star. extends there. And as you wrote on Monday morning here, it sets up right now a fascinating potential first round matchup in the Central. The Miko-Ranton-Bowl, Dallas, Colorado, and I think it's pretty much locked in. I don't see Minnesota with all its injuries being able to

stave off Colorado. Colorado's already added them by a couple points as we take this on Monday, and I think they're on their way. So, yeah, Dallas, Colorado, two against three, should be a conference final, but it's going to be a first-round matchup. And, you know, as I joke with Chris McFarland on Sunday when we chatted, the last thing on his mind that he ever thought when he traded Miko Ranton in the Carolina was that he'd be playing him in the first round in a Dallas-Colrida series. You know, players of that caliber rarely in the cap era get dealt at the deadline. They move in the off-season, sure.

But at the deadline, it's become more rare. And for him to move twice in six weeks before the deadline is even wilder. So what else can he say? It's one of the biggest stories in years than the end. NHL. So everybody should obviously go read your story. It kind of touches on Rantingtonin from all angles, all three teams. But the thing that I keep coming back to is couldn't Colorado have just signed him? Do you think that if they had just not traded him that they would have gotten to the same contract offer that Dallas or Carolina did and that he would have signed him to stay in Colorado?

Yeah, it's a good question, Mark. I mean, you know, I think Chris McFarland, the first time I interviewed after the ranted it trade on January 25th. He had a quote, I think we talked about it on the show, but he had a quote that was pretty revealing. You kind of stopped himself because I think you realized that he was bringing himself somewhere. What that quote, if you go back and look at it, he was starting to go down the path of it's not that we didn't think

we could ultimately sign him. It's that we have to sign the car in a couple years and having three players at, and then he kind of, his voice drilled out. But I think it was revealed. feeling. I think what he's saying is they made a determination that at a certain number it no longer made that much sense to sign Rattan and when you consider what McCar's number is going to be in two years. And with Nate McKinnon and then being so top heavy with three players,

that's one of the most underrated parts of all this that I think people have slept on. It's not that they didn't think they could ultimately sign him. Everyone can get signed if you give the player what he wants, but it doesn't make sense for them. And you can argue that maybe they still should have. I'm not saying that, you know. But they did offer, what you said, 11.65, is that right? I mean, it's, I was their, was their final offer.

They weren't far off. No. And, and, you know, I think the, the, the Ranton camp, age 90 Scott, I mean, part of their surprise and being blindsided by that trade is they thought they would keep going and go back and forth, go back and forth and get to some number. And that's where the story gets a little,

depending on who you talk to, about some hurt feelings is that, well, you know, we didn't know, from their side, the player, they didn't know the negotiations were supposed to end there. You know, they thought they had until July 1st to figure out a solution with Colorado. But the Amalanche made a decision and, you know, they made a pretty good trade. I mean, Martin Nietzsche's and Jack Dury and now when you look at it globally, as I did in this piece Monday, when you add Brock Nelson and Charlie Coil, revamp their goaltending.

I mean, no team has been busier than Colorado Abilanche since the fall. I mean, they've remade a third of their roster and with some significant pieces. So it's pretty fascinating stuff. But yeah, I mean, it's, I go through all three negotiations in the piece. So 11, 6, 5 times 8 was Colorado's last offer. 12.5 times 8 was Carolina's offering. Carolina was willing to move upward from that. But Grant didn't and never engage with them.

That was never a financial discussion with Carolina. He just didn't want to stay. And then, of course, Dallas 12 times 8, but, you know, my colleague Darren Drugger was all over this on Friday morning during our Trade Center show on TSN. That thing went sideways. I mean, the stars were adamant and they were going to pay more than 12. And for the longest time that day, one of the reasons the trade nearly didn't happen is because, you know, the Ranton camp won the 13 million a year. So that got really tense. And, you know, everyone's trying to give it a better spin now in the aftermath.

But, you know, it's just part of negotiating. But boy, boy, I mean, it's the player that basically said I'll take 12. Players save the trade. One of the things that fascinates me about the deal in general is Dallas is one of these teams that's been around it forever. And one thing I liked about Carolina going and getting rant in was, hey, it's a team in a similar spot. They're making a real run at it. Good for them. Well, Dallas does this.

And now they get him signed here. Like Dallas feels like they're going to be around knocking on this door for a while longer. Now certainly I think they're one of the favorites this. year, but they're also set up so well not with Harley Johnson, these young guys they have coming. Yeah. And that was part of the conversation I have of Jim the GM, was that they're not making this trade without him being signed, that that was made clear to everyone on Friday. But they want to take multiple shots at it, not just this year. That's why it was so important. So now they got why Johnston signed, you know, rantan and signed. So much of their core is signed that they should be

in the thick of it for a good five years, barring injuries and other strange things he can't control, but, you know, they should be a top five team in the league quite a while here, the way they're set up. And that's a big part of it. You know, Ottinger was signed earlier this year. Someone had their young guys

signed, so yeah, they're in great shape. And that was important because the league is so close that all you can do as a contender, I always hear this from GMs, but it's true, I think, in this, in the modern game, is you set yourself up to have multiple shots, knowing that there's so much luck and the bounce of the

puck within that. But as long as you have multiple shots, hopefully you come through. And that's what Dallas is trying to do. So, Rantanin being off the board leaves Mitch Marner as the bell of the ball this summer. He's the one really great prize. It's a pretty steep drop off to Brock Bester after that. Yeah. You know, it's a little hinky right now in Toronto. You had Brad Trilliving, how to do like an emergency pressure to kind of spin things. How dicey are things right now between the Leafs in Marner, and do you expect Mitch Marner to reach unrestricted free agency? So I'll reveal a bit here that, you know, how the sausage is made because obviously in the lead up to the deadline, I worked very closely with Chris Johnson.

He was a colleague of ours here at the athletic, but also there in Drecker, we're the insider trading team at TSM. And we spent a lot of time together in the lead up to the deadline, including Wednesday, Thursday, Friday in studio, and a lot of time in the green room and work on our sources. And, you know, we started hearing some of the martyr stuff on Wednesday, especially Chris did. And, uh, and dregs as well. And, you know, you can't. That's not something you blurred out because you got to dot your eyes and crack your teeth and make sure this is actually what you're hearing from the right people. But we started hearing whispers of it on Wednesday. We're like, what is going on?

And, of course, now we know. Chris wrote a fabulous story on Saturday detailing it. It is wild. I mean, they tried to trade Mitch Marner. And I think for a very specific reason, I think the Leafs are irritated that they haven't been able to get into some meaningful discussions on an extension with Martin and his agent there in Ferris.

So the real question now is, and he invoked his no move, as he absolutely has the right. And by the way, he also has the right not to meaningfully negotiate till after the year. All part of the Cockton Barg Agreement. I mean, the players have rights and they should exercise them whatever they want.

But I understand why the lease are frustrated. And so I'll tell you a little story. A couple of years ago when David Pasternak signed his extension, the day before the trade airline, I think it was with Boston, part of what I was told in the aftermath of that signing, because I didn't understand the timing of it. Like, why does it matter?

The Bruins were in first place, I think, at the time. And I was told, well, you know, there were hints there that you didn't sign. I was like, what? And so you never know what happens with players of this magnitude when their deal is up, how teams will react to the specter of potential losing them for nothing on July 1st, as we saw with Nico Anthony. So from that perspective, I guess I'm not shocked at the Leafs made a play here. But I feel like part of it was just to rattle the cage and they get Mitch Marner's attention so that they can get him to the table and get this done. And all he's always said, he loves playing in Toronto and it's his hometown team. Then like the leash are like, well, then let's get this done.

So we'll see. This can go one of two ways. It can either, you know, sour the relationship to the point where Marner will just walk himself to the market because they tried to trade him. Or it might remind Marner how scary that whole thing was and say, boy, I better sign. I don't want to go anywhere. It can go either way. And so let's see where it goes.

Do you have a sense for like, do you think getting to market is more about, hey, I want to establish what the league would pay me here. I mean, we just saw Ranton and get 12. I don't know if it's crazy to say Marner probably ends up in a similar ballpark.

Does he want to be able to point to and say, I have this kind of offer on the table? I guess what do you think is this all just a big negotiation deal? How do you see that? Well, you know what's interesting is, you know, I remember talking about this back in November that there were so many parallels between the Rantanin and Marner situations, not even contemplating for a second

that their respective teams would try to trade both. And in Colorado's case, actually do it. And at the time, the point I was trying to make between Rantin and Marner, aside of the fact they were voiced to be the two biggest UFAs on the market this summer, was that they were both. Facing internal caps on their own teams and their negotiations. You know, the avalanche made it very clear when they still hadn't rented in that they didn't want to pay more than Nathan McKinnon's, 12 and a half a million a year. Well, I believe that's been communicated in the Leafs, from the Leif's perspective as well, or at least before the new gap numbers that, you know, that it would be hard to pay Mitch Marner more than Austin Matthews.

And that's where it gets interesting because, you know, the counter to that is that the cap is going up drastically. And it's not about the AQE from the agent's perspective. It's about the percentage of the cow. And so there's a world in which, and I hope my math isn't wrong, but there's a world in which, you know, Marner's percentage of the cap could still be a bit lower than Matthews, but as AEB is higher because the cap is going up. So these are all things that are part. this. And, you know, and not to mention now that Marner is the one marquee name, there's lots of good players there July 1st. But now that Rantan is gone,

Marner has the whole market to himself as far as the best player available in July 1st. So all these things are interesting. And of course, to make a final point on the Ransan and Marner parallel, there's only one major difference from the two of them. One had a full no move and one didn't. It's such a ridiculous argument that these teams are making about, you know, you can't make more money than this guy. That guy signed his contract two or three years ago. The cap is going up exponentially too bad, man. They're not going to be able to artificially suppress these salaries forever.

Mitch Marner on the open market is going to get $14 million. Kyle Davidson will throw $14 million. I feel absolutely confident that they are desperate enough that they would do that. And he'd be worth it with the cap going to where it is. These guys got to get themselves a free agency. Miko Ranton could have made $14 million. That money's out there. McDavid signed his contract with a lower cap.

I will tell you this, to your point, there are a few owners that I think were pretty happy that Rantanin and signed for 12 million a year. I bet. So that was a little silver lining for a lot of other teams who are trying to, you know, they're going to try and control these escalating salaries. But yeah, it's interesting. And, you know, the other thing, by the way, going back and ran it in from the thing that surprised me as I dug into more detail and it's in the piece. But, you know, we know that the Florida Panthers were in there hard, not surprisingly. Toronto well documented. My colleague Ryan Rashog at TSN Emmington, reported out the Oilers were in there.

L.A. had interest. Vegas. Then I got to another line of teams that really surprised me that I confirmed also tried. Calgary Flames, Anaheim Ducks, Utah Hockey Club, among the other teams that tried on Renton in last week. Wow. And obviously in those three cases, you know, they would have wanted them signed. And they were looking at it as July 1st as opposed to March 7th in those cases, right? They moved July 1st to March 7th through those teams.

But yeah, it's kind of neat. I mean, you always wonder if the team's going to. And again, I don't think those teams were in the main event with it, but they never was. And that's how it should be, right? Everybody should want to get a player of that caliber. Everybody should at least be kicking tires. Yeah, exactly. Why not?

So, yeah, and you'll hear other stories come out, I think, from the deadline period that way. But, yeah, that was fascinating. The other one that I think caught, you know, that I look back on, I'm still, I don't quite get why the Sabres felt in the need to trade Dillon Cousins now. I think there was a bigger market for him this summer. And I don't know, that's just the pressure maybe for Kevin Adams. and I kind of feel for him that way, but I think he felt he had to do something. There's so much criticism again

of where this franchise is and where they are. But I just don't know that that's the... Listen, I'm always happy to say when I'm wrong and we'll talk about it in the year maybe, but I don't know that that's the best you could have done. I don't know. I could be wrong. Yeah, it felt like they maybe boxed themselves in by needing a player that was going to help them right now,

or at least in the very near future here. So you get the 25-year-old center. I get what they're getting at that. Norris is a really good goal score, but he hasn't been that healthy. And I think you can argue the upside on Norris is no higher than the upside on Dylan Cousins, right? Yeah. Yeah, no. So that's, like I said, I'm wrong just as often as I'm right. So I'll apologize to Kevin Adams in the year if I was wrong. I just saw you note there, Mark. Yeah, let's talk about Brad Marchant, a deal that literally went to the wire. I believe the Florida Panthers and Boston Bruins filed, you know, the paperwork or whatever to the league at 258 Eastern on the Brian Marchand trade.

So two minutes under the wire. And, you know, Brad Marchant has come out now. I think it said it. Florida was a stock twice if he was going to get traded. But I'll share a few things on there that I subsequently found out. One is that Brian Marchant himself physically, directly. went into the Bruins offices on Wednesday and spoke with Camille and Don Swee directly and tried to bridge the gap and find a way to get an extension done and they couldn't get it done.

And I'm sure there's some hurt feelings over that to some degree. And once it was clear he wasn't getting signed. And they basically ended up $1 million apart for a year on the salary. So they were that far apart. It's tough. You know, I can understand that from Marchand's perspective. He's been so underpaid for so long. that he probably feels like,

you know, you're supposed to be paying for, like from the ruin side, you're paying for future work. But Brad Marchand's probably like, again, you guys owe me tens of millions of dollars given what I gave you on a $6 million dollar Aave, right? Yeah.

And the other, I tweeted this out today, but just kind of a nerdy little sidekick part to do it all. But because Brad Marchand, the way this deal is structured, it was a front-loaded deal. And so this year is, even though the cap number is always the same,

the actual cash on Marchand this year was $4 million from his 6.125 cap number. Of that $4 million, 3 million of that $4 million, it was paid last summer in the signing bonus. So Brad Marchand's cash this year was $1 million once a bonus was paid. And because there was 50% salary retention on Friday, basically the Florida Panthers are paying him $125 grand for the rest of the season. And even the old Florida Panthers would have liked that. I don't even know.

He's still blinding. He should just be dying. No, I'm just kidding. For a few more years, that's for sure. But, yeah, that's a little cherry on top of the Sunday for the Florida Panthers. Great stuff from Pierre LeBron, who hopefully has blocked off some time for a well-deserved nap sometime this week as March 7 is now in the rear view. Thanks so much for joining us. Pierre, we'll take a quick break.

We'll be right back. All right, we are back. And at the end of that last segment, last we were talking about the Mitch Marner. saga, which I think is always one of the most interesting parts of the trade deadline, is something that hasn't happened yet, but it kind of takes us into what the next big story lens are going to be. Marner certainly is going to be one of them. Maybe Elias Patterson's going to be one of them.

One of them that increasingly looks like is going to be one of those next sagas to watch. It's something you did a long feature on Monday morning. You talked to the elusive Jonathan Taves, who it sounds like is getting pretty serious about trying to make a comeback. He's missed the last two seasons of NHL hockey. He's been battling chronic inflammatory response syndrome and symptoms of long COVID. He's missed a lot of time. But he's taken up surfing.

That's great. And crucially, he's back on the ice now. So where do you see this going for Jonathan Thames? You know, it's pretty wild. He's missed three of the last five seasons. If you go back to the COVID season that he missed for these, you know, these same symptoms where his body just betrayed him, there were days he couldn't get out of bed and walk to the refrigerator. I mean, it was so bad then. He sounds like he's in a great place.

He spent the last two years basically traveling the globe. He spent months in Costa Rica, months in Bali, months in India. There's that long GQ article, which you could read if you want about just how incredible detail about all his healing journey in India. Like, he's gone through great lengths to feel better. I mean, he's only 36 years old. He turns 37 next month. He's got this whole life ahead of him. And he's trying to get healthy, which is great.

And he's feeling great. He sounds great. And sometime in the last several months, he kind of got the hockey bug again, where he started feeling good. and thinking, you know what? There's a whole bunch of 37-year-olds in the league. I think I counted like 20-37-year-olds in league. Why can't he, right? He's a young 37, if anything, because he's missed three seasons now recently.

And he wants to give it another go. He's not happy with how things ended in Chicago. He was a shell of himself, that last season in Chicago. He could barely get in shape. He was, you know, the Blackhawks were unhappy with his fitness, but it was because he literally couldn't get in shape. He could barely get himself going to get into a game. He was missing morning skates.

It was really tough. and he's just not happy. All the things he's accomplished with the three Stanley Cups, a Con Smyth, a Selke, the Olympic Old Medals, he doesn't like the way things ended and he wants to give it another try. And I wasn't sure how serious he was.

He kind of casually mentioned it at the end of the GQ piece back in December and I spent the last few months trying to get a hold of him and he's finally back stateside. And he is 100% serious. He wants to do this. He believes he can do this and he believes he will do this.

I'm curious, like, what kind of fit does Jonathan Tate need at this point in his career. I'm sure the guy who's won at the level that he's won, wants to, if he's going to come back, he wants to feel the full competitive juices, right,

which in Chicago may be difficult. So what kind of teams are you, but at the same time, those contending teams are maybe the ones least able to kind of take a big risk on a guy who hasn't played in two years. Like, how do you see that playing out?

What kind of market could Jonathan Taves expect? Well, Chicago's out of the picture. Like, he made that abundantly clear. Kyle Davidson has made that abundantly clear when they didn't bring him back. They have cut ties with Kane and Taves and they just don't have the interest in bringing the back. Taves gets it and he doesn't want to come back to Chicago because he doesn't want all the pressure that comes with being Jonathan Taves in Chicago. He says, I just want to go play hockey.

I don't want it to be a thing, you know? And so he does. It's going to be a thing. Oh, it's going to be a thing. But, you know, he's going to be cheap. He's not doing this for money. He's made $123 million in his career, I think. He doesn't need the cash.

That's how he can go spend three months in Bali. you, it must be nice, right? He needs a team that, you know, needs like a third line center, right? He's not going to be a top six guy. Nobody's expecting that. But maybe he could play 10, 12 minutes a night and kind of a defensive role, give you a little bit of pop on offense. I mean, this is all speculation, right?

Because he is so far away from being ready for this. He's been on the ice for a week and a half after basically not skating for two years. His gear was locked up in Chicago this whole time. He did not get on the ice in Costa Rica. So it's a long road ahead. He's determined to do it, but he's got a long way to go. But somebody is going to give him a chance. He's Jonathan Freaking Taves, right?

He rings in the room, you know, one of the all-time character guys, leader of men, yada, yada, yada, yada. He's going to get a, you have to think about a team like Winnipeg, his hometown, right? That's a good team. You could slot him in in the bottom six. He'd love to play in front of his home time. We always used to speculate he was going to end his career in Winnipeg anyway. So I think that's got to be a team you think about, but that won't be the only team. It's not going to be just, you know, there'll be a lot of good teams that want Jonathan Taze as a piece of the puzzle going forward.

You know, will it be on a PTO? Will he be able to be able to get an actual contract? Probably be able to get a one-year contract, right? There's no harm in signing Jonathan Taves to a one-year incentive-laden one-million-dollar contract. He can do that, and it won't really harm anybody if he's not going to be in the way. Well, that is true. When you thought, I hadn't really considered that because of how cheapy is, it's not actually that much of a risk for a team to take a shot on him, right? You can bring him in as if you're one of the Florida teams or something,

and these are the kind of teams that make moves like this, I feel like, you bring him in and you're like, yeah, this guy's going to be awesome to have around whether he produces for us or not. And then for those teams, it just seems to work out that they also end up being pretty good players. So maybe that is a little bit less of a complicated market than I'm giving it credit for. And if it doesn't work out, if it's just not working and he's not happy, he could just walk, right? It's not, there's, there's no harm, no foul. Like this isn't, it's, that's why he's going to get signed.

because it's tantalizing to have Jonathan Taves on your team, not knowing what you're going to get. But if you have a healthy Jonathan Taves, he was a point to game guy just a few seasons ago. Like, there's still a good player there whose career was derailed because his body just betrayed him. Like he didn't just fall off the aging curve. His body collapsed.

It was a whole thing. And if he's feeling better and he sure sounds like he's feeling better, he's in great shape, you know, there's no harm to trying to add Jonathan Taves. So he'll have no shortage of suitors. Yeah, put it this way. I mean, his last season that he played, which was in 22, 23, he had 31 points in 53 games. If he gave you 31 points in 82 games on like a $1 million deal,

that's better than you're getting for most guys on a $1 million deal. And he's, by the way, one of the best leaders of the modern era of hockey. So, yeah, that is a good sales pitch for Jonathan Taves. How does he seem? I mean, just talking to him. How does he seem like he's doing? You know, he sounds great. He's really upbeat and positive.

I mean, I remember talking to him at the end of that last season, and he was just, he had nothing left to give. He was so, you know, he was upset about how things were ending. He was just sad that he didn't, wasn't playing the way he wanted. He was angry. He was trying to soak in every moment because he knew it was just about to be over. But it was, it was really, really hard on him. And he just, he sounds like he's in such a good place now. After it's been, what, 44, five years of dealing with these symptoms that he's been dealing with.

and not really getting firm answers, right? Like, I asked him, like, did you get a doctor's approval for this? Or are you defying doctor's orders? And he said, there's not any expert that really has a beat on what's happening to me. Like, it's one thing to be sick. It's another thing when you don't know why you're sick. That's a really, really difficult place for any human to be, let alone a world-class athlete who's supposed to have the, you know, his whole thing at the prime of his career was

total human optimization, right? He was one of those guys who was trying to maximize every little thing. the man never had anything but grilled chicken and sweet potatoes and brown rice. Like he did everything he could. And then his body just betrayed him. And he never got an answer. He's still to this day. He doesn't have a absolutely this is what happened to you and this is how we treat it.

So he's gone and he sought alternatives and all kinds of stuff to try to feel better. And he's in such a better space mentally now because he feels in such a better place physically. Will playing hockey trigger that again? It very well could. We don't know. And he has to understand that that's entirely possible. that playing hockey again, which is just so demanding on the body, could trigger this all over again.

So he has to be ready to walk away again. And I hope he has his mind wrapped around that. But he sounds like he's in a great place. It was the most upbeat I've heard from him in literally years. But I can see, you know, as you're saying that, you know, it might not work out. Body could betray him again. Couldn't you see it, though, for someone like that to just want to know for sure

that like, hey, I gave it the comeback. And the body said, no, that that's all I needed was to know that it wasn't even an option, right? Well, I asked him that flat out at the end of our talk, I said, what happens if this doesn't work? What if you can't do it? Will you still have that unfinished business and will you still be wondering what if? Or will you, in my head, I couldn't put this in the story because it's such a stupid reference.

But if anyone's seen Rocky Balboa, you know, Rocky Six, that's the whole point. He's got a little bit of fire left in me that I got to get out. The monster's in the basin, I think he calls it. And then as he's walking off the, you know, he tells Pauly, the beast is gone. He did it. He got rid of it. That's all he needed. Maybe that's all Jonathan Taze needs is, like, one more, like, great moment in the sun.

And then he'll be able to walk away with his held, held high. Obviously, his career, he's a first ballot hall of famer whenever he does officially retire. But I think he's kind of like Rocky Balboa, where he's just like, I need to know. I need to just prove it to myself. He said, I got nothing to prove to anybody. But he feels like he has to prove it to himself that he might still have something left in him. Let's take a quick break right there. We'll be right back.

All right, we're back. And last thing I wanted to do today, Laz, is as a way to kind of close the book on the trade-down, I want to revisit the Stanley Cup odds from our friends over at BetMGM. And there's a couple things that really stand out right away. I think it's not going to surprise you that the one two here tied for number one, actually, are the stars in the Florida Panthers, both at plus 600. I think after their respective deadlines, these were probably the two teams that best solidified themselves.

But I'm going to go through this list, and I want to ask you what you haven't noticed. Oilers plus 650, Avs plus 850, Hurricanes plus 1,000, Vegas and Washington plus 1,100. What are you not hearing in that group of six teams I just named? Where the hell are the Tampa Bay Lightning?

Yes, they are close. I mean, it's plus 1,200, but Tampa Bay, and I thought their deadline move of Gord and Bjork Strand, that one is going to be fascinating to watch age. Gord is pending UFA.

Bjork Strand is a really good player, but to give up two first-round picks, it's going to be a fascinating one. That's what Julia Breeswa hates draft picks. I love it. I love how just callous disregard for draft picks. I wish more Gns would be that way. When you look at their lineup now,

it looks all of a sudden really Tampa-E. And at the start of the year, you would look at this and you would go, wow, this is not the Tampa of old. And now it pretty much is again, you know, their first line, Gensel Point, Bjork Strand,

then the second line is amazing. Hagel Sorelli Kuturov. Third line, you got a third line anchored by Gordon and Nick Paul. And in the fourth line, I think, Glendon, Gorgensen, these are the Tampa type of fourth line players. And obviously you get the Tampa Blue Line. And of course, Andre Vasselowski, all of a sudden, this looks like a Tampa Lightning team

that can be a force to be reckoned with once again. Yeah. And they what? They won like 10 out of 11 games here. And Vasilevsky, like that's the biggest thing to me is he looks like Andre Vasselowski again. He's got like a 920 something save percentage. And when he's on, he's still the best goalie in the world. All due respect to Connor Hellebuck, all due respect to Igor Chesterkin, Vasilevsky in the playoffs, when on his game, that's the last guy you want to see.

When you have a team that's got Nikita Kutraoff on the second line, good God. And here's the thing. They are going to play the Florida Panthers, either in the first round or the second round. So I guess that could affect your way you perceive either of those teams as one of them, one of them's not making it to the conference final, which is a shame and another sign that we should go to 1-8 instead of the divisional setup.

But that's going to be just an absolute, that's a Stanley Cup final caliber series. So one of these teams is going to be real. That has really gone for it at this deadline is going to come up short. I just don't, I can't get behind the Panthers being twice as likely. If that's the way to do this, I knock on the best odds. That's a toss up series. It absolutely is.

I like what the Panthers did. I think in getting Jones and deploying him in the way they're going to deploy him, that's going to maximize him. I really like that for them. I really like getting Brad Marchion. who fits the Panther identity, possibly even better than some of their standbys now. They have to do. It's got to be Bennett, Kachuk, and Marchand.

At least sometimes. Like Bill Zito should be put in jail or Paul Marie should be thrown in jail if he doesn't put that line together. The most irritating line in hockey that would have to be immediately. In the history of hockey? Yeah. And you can split it up so that you have a little bit of that on both of your top six lines, but for at least one game, we're going to need the whole thing assembled together. and Dallas, I think it's going to be fascinating

because we've all loved Dallas for three or four years. I think we've been picking them to win the Stanley Cup most years. At least one of the two of us is picking them. Yeah, I mean, I've been the last two as well. But to add Miko Ratten into the mix now, it just gives them that little extra. Again, similar, like we said with Pierce, similar spot to where Carolina's been over the last couple of years.

Dallas made it a little closer. They made it to the Stanley Cup final. But they were still in that spot where you're going, who's their like true super superstar. Now there's not that question. And you got Miro Heiskenen probably returning by the playoffs. Tyler Sagan could be back in that lineup too. That line, I mean, yeah, Logan Stankhoven is a great young player.

I love the player. I love the addition for Carolina in the long term. But Stankovin wasn't, he's not like an irreplaceable guy yet. If you're putting a Miko Ranthen and that's an upgrade. And when you get all the guys, they still have some youth in in Wyatt Johnston and Maverick Fork and Thomas Harley. They've got the veterans, the proof. guys in Matthew Shane and Jason Robertson, you add Miko Ranton in, you bring in Sagan,

you still got Jamie Ben. I mean, this is just a perfectly constructed team. Like, we've been saying that about Dallas for years, that this is like the most perfect, the most whole team, like the best lineup top to bottom. And then you add a megastar in Miko Ranton. I mean, come on. I mean, Dallas, this has got to be the year because, you know, who knows how long they're going to be able to keep this group together. The only flaw, I think, is the right side of the blue line. And hopefully some of that is fixed when Hayskinen comes back and they, you know, bump somebody over to the right side and their left side looks pretty good.

But that is, I think, the one flaw, it's just not that big of a flaw. And we saw Tampa do this in their heyday. They would run a stacked left side and you pretty much just had Ternack and you would rotate pieces to make the rest of it work. But Hedman was so good. You could kind of play anyone with him. I do think Hayskin and is that same level of player. So I have pretty much at this point decided Dallas is going to be the team that I

I pick, but. I didn't even mention Michael Grandland, who was a great addition, too. He's a point-to-game guy this year. And Cody Cici, you know, on that right side, gives you a little bit of stability on the depth underneath Heiskenen. Like, they're just so well put together. Jim Mill, year after year after year, just seems to be better at this than almost anybody else. It's been a clinic by him. And we talked about the dollars going Colorado to Dallas.

And that was my first reaction. This was how does Dallas get this stuff? down. How could Colorado have not gotten this done? But I think there's other factors. You know, we know the tax side of this. We know that there's probably something to the shock of being traded and it making you realize like, okay, I got to be careful how much I hold out for, how hard I negotiate. If there's a place I want to be, maybe I do it. I'm sure all those are factors. But I kind of still stand by that first reaction of how does Jim Nill get this done at $12 million? Because when that first started to leak out there, you know, stars and, you know, will he do 12?

I'm thinking, why would they even try to make this trade if they're only going to offer him 12 million, at least come big, come 13 and give him something easier to really say no to. Well, he said yes to that. That's why Jim Nill is one of the best general managers in the NHL. Obviously, the tax-free aspect of Texas helps in that regard. There's no two ways around that. But do you get the sense that Miko Randen was just like, you know what? Fine.

I'm tired of this crap. Like the last two months have been awful. I'll take 12. You get the, he just, maybe he was just defeated by everything that went down and he just was fine. I'll take it. Well, and you think about, we always do in those player polls, like who's on your no trade list. Have you ever, has anyone ever said Dallas to you for that one, Mark? No, me either.

Playing in Dallas is great, because, you know, it's a great building to play. And it's like, people joke down there. I have joke to me that like, oh, we've got 18,000 fans, but they're in the building every night. That's what we used to talk about the New Jersey Devils back in the 90s. We had 18,000 fans, but they're in the building every night. It's a great place to play. You're totally anonymous. Nobody knows who you are.

There's no pressure. Sports talk. radio does not talk about you in the slightest. So nobody's ever mad at you. You can you can live your life. The weather's usually nice. It's warmer down there. There's no taxes. You know, a lot of us might have some issues with Texas, but hockey players love it down there. Yeah. So you could be a $12 million player. You're very well compensated. But I think most importantly, you know you're in a place where you're pretty happy to be and where you're going to be chasing Stanley Cups for pretty close to the duration of that contract. That's why I think it just makes sense for me go random to do it,

even having not spent any time there on like, you know, at least a few weeks in Carolina. Other than the taxes, in North Carolina is a pretty low tax date. You can say the same thing. They've been in contention year after year after year. It's a well-run organization. You have the anonymity. You have pretty good weather. It's still, it's still weird to me that he was not willing to sign in Carolina because he didn't know it well enough. And then he signed sight unseen in Dallas. It's such, it's the strangest contract negotiations I can remember, just because I can't think of any time a player of his caliber was treated twice in the month. But that's kind of what I mean is that players always seem to be down for Dallas.

I don't think that's unique to rant. And I think it's Dallas is just a team that players seem to gravitate toward it. It's on seemingly everyone's, if you're going to send me somewhere, send me to Tampa, Florida, Dallas, Vegas, right? And maybe that is a simple. Everyone I just said are no state tax states and in North Carolina notably is not. And they're warm. But I don't know. Just Dallas seems to be in that tier of team.

that almost everyone could envision themselves spending seven or eight years out. It seems that way. This is what drives me nuts about Arizona. Arizona Coyotes could have been this team. Should have. Should have been that. Every player, that was their number one place to live. Like Jonathan Taves right now, he's in Arizona.

That's where hockey players love because they love to golf. You can golf all year round. It's a really cheap state. So you are, if you're rich in Arizona, you're like a god. Like, that's the state. And the Arizona coyotes, if they just have, had any kind of decent management and ownership could have been, they could have been the Florida Panthers.

They could have been Dallas. They could have been Vegas. That was such a wasted opportunity. Well, I suspect they'll get another one, but I guess we'll just leave it. So will Atlanta, because, you know, what is old as new again.

That's right. And I think Arizona better case than Atlanta, though, right? Like, I think the number of players who would be interested in seeing a team go back to Arizona is at least my read on it. I don't know if you. And with the coyotes, it was purely an ownership thing every single time. It always came down.

If you get a Ryan Smith, but just in Arizona, Gary Bettman will run barefoot across the, you know, burning hot coals to hand them the deed to a team. And maybe he should. For your consideration, Laz, can I interest you with the sharks or the Blackhawks at plus 100,000 to win the Stanley Cup? How are they still on the board?

Aren't they mathematically eliminated yet? Like, who, is that, that's just Vegas going, like, we want to make an extra two bucks and some schmuck fan is going to walk up and hand us $2 and say, put it all on the sharks. Unfortunately, I think that may indeed be the case. Is that how tight Vegas's profit margins are these days that they need to coax somebody to putting five bucks down on the sharks and the black hogs? I think it's more just they're not in the business to turning down free money from someone who wants to give it to them. So I guess I can't begrudge that. Like, like I would get that as like a joke almost.

Like two, two, what is it? It would be the bet is $5 to win $500,000. I would frame that and put it on my desk. Like that would be so funny. And everyone would walk by and go, wow, last one, 500,000. Did you see that bet slip on his desk? Like, that's all it's good for is like gag gifts for your buddies.

That would actually be a very funny. If you had a friend whose birthday was like this week, you should get them a $5 bet slip on the Hawks for the sharks to win the Stanley. It's a good gag gift, right? I do really like that. It's like the new giving a lottery ticket is a Christmas present or something like that. Except your lottery ticket has a much better chance of paying. Oh, by far.

All right. That's going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. Please, if you're enjoying the show, leave us a five-star rating and a review. Another episode of Oops All Shons coming at you Wednesday. They'll be joined by Frankie Carrado, but his name will be Sean. Talk to you then.