The Athletic Hockey Show - Free Agency Frenzy: Marc-Andre Fleury to the Blackhawks, Alex Ovechkin's 5-year extension with the Capitals, Tony DeAngelo, and more

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss Alex Ovechkin's 5-year extension with the Washington Capitals, the Hurricanes reportedly closing in on a deal with Tony DeAngelo, and what kind of contract to expect for Dougie Hamilton as he hits the market. Also, who has the biggest potential to be overpaid this free agent period, and a discussion about the worst free agency signing of all time.Then in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger stops by to discuss the Golden Knights sending Marc-Andre Fleury, the face of their franchise, to the Chicago Blackhawks.Ian and Sean dig into the pros and cons of getting rid of the NHL Draft, and in "This Week in Hockey History", a look at the one-for-one trade of Brendan Shanahan for Chris Pronger, and Luc Robitaille being traded to Pittsburgh.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on an annual subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to it. It is a free agency frenzy edition of the Athletic Hockey show. Ian Mendez Shaw and McIndoo. With you for this edition of the podcast ahead in the next hour or so. We'll connect with Jesse Granger from Vegas, and it's not the usual Granger things. This time, Jesse's going to try and explain the shocking trade on Tuesday that sent Mark Andre Fleury to Chicago with Vegas seemingly getting nothing in return. We'll also hit on Alex Ovechkin's new contract and whether it means.

he's going to break Wayne Gretzky's all-time goal record. Tony DiAngelo appears to be on the cusp of joining the Carolina Hurricanes will discuss how he fits in with those bunch of jerks. And is it time to eliminate the NHL draft altogether? We'll debate that topic after Josh Cloak's column this week in the Athletic, which certainly gave us pause for thought. We'll open up the mailbag. And this week in hockey history looks at Brendan Shanahan's unique trade.

trade tree and Luke Robatai's cameo in the Steel City. We'll get to all of that coming up in the next hour or so. Sean, as we kick off this show, we often say the NHL offseason is boring. I wish I was an NBA fan. We don't get enough trades. We don't get enough jaw-dropping moments. Over the last five days, we'll go back to Friday, draft day, right through Tuesday, right into the start of free agency.

Have you had enough excitement in the last? the NHL world to satisfy you? I'd say it's been pretty good. I don't think we got to the NBA level. We haven't had any four-team deals involving sure thing, Hall of Famers or any of that sort of drama. But by NHL standards, it's been pretty fun. And I don't know if it's the expansion draft or the flat cap or the condensed offseason

or maybe just all three of them. But there has been a lot of. of intrigue. There's been a lot of real interesting moves. And it has been fun. It's been a while since we've had one of those days or weeks where it feels like you don't want to put Twitter down for an hour because you come back from your lunch break and all hell's going to have broken loose somewhere. So it's been good. This is fun. Probably not fun for the players or the GMs or anyone, but for fans, this is this is the sort of stuff we look forward to in the offseason and for once the NHL seems to be delivering.

Yeah. And look, we'll get into the seismic news from Tuesday involving Mark Andre Fleur. We'll save that for a chat with Jesse Granger because, you know what? He covers the Vegas Golden Knights. That'll be good. But some other news that has come down on Tuesday that includes Alex Ovechkin, Sean. And I got to tell you, when I saw that Ovechkin was resigning, I thought, okay, is this a one-year deal? Is it maybe like a two-year-old?

It's a five-year deal. And to me, that seems to signal I'm going to take a run at Wayne Gradsky's all-time record of goals. And he's 164 goals away from tying it, 165 to break it, which means he needs to average 33 goals a season in the life of this contract, the five-year deal. Were you surprised that it's a five-year deal for Alex Ovechkin? I was. And in fact, I'll kind of walk you through my thought process on this because when I first saw the news and I saw that it was five years. I thought, oh boy, that's going to be a problem because Alexander Ovechkin is over the age of 35. And remember, in the NHL, if you're over 35 and you sign a multi-year deal, there are some special rules that come into play,

depending on how the contract is structured as far as bonuses and backloading, that sort of thing. And this contract falls under those rules, which means if Alexander Ovechkin retires at any point in this contract, the full cap hit stays with the Washington Capitals. If he gets bought out at any point in this contract, the full cap hit stays with the Capitals. Basically, there is no way for Washington to get out of this, out of the cap hit of this, aside from the long-term Injure Reserve, which is still out there.

But other than that, they're locked in. And generally speaking, that's a real bad idea. This is the rule that's in place because this was the part of the response to team signing backdiving deals and giving guys contracts that expired when they were 43. And we all knew they weren't going to play the whole thing. But they were keeping the cap hit low. So my first thought is, boy, this is this is high risk for the Washington Capitals. But I thought it over. I kind of chewed on it a bit.

I'm not actually sure that it is all that high at risk because this is Alexander Ovechkin we're talking about. This guy has been a horse his whole career. Does anybody really see a scenario where he walks away early? Where he says, you know what, I'm done. I think I've had enough for the NHL, especially if he's still chasing that record. Can anybody imagine him three years into this deal saying, yeah, you know what? I think that's enough. I'm going to retire and stick in the capitol's with a cap it.

Now, could he get hurt? Yeah. Any player could get hurt. But again, that's when the long-term injured reserve kicks in and you don't really have to carry that cap hit if you're Washington. I don't see this guy retiring. The only scenario I can see it happening and a few people raises to me is if he breaks the record in four years and then says, you know what, I don't need to stick around for a fifth year. I'm already the all-time goals king. And yeah, I suppose that's a risk. You know what? If he does that, if he pulls it off,

there's nobody in Washington can say that they're upset about carrying a cap hit for an extra year. I mean, you will have just seen one of the greatest careers in the history of hockey. Uh, if he wants to go out under those circumstances, you've got to smile on your face for your Capitals fan. So I don't really see this as a risk, even though I would say it would be under pretty much any other set of circumstances for any other player in the league. You know what? And if he breaks it in four years, that means he's averaged 40 goals a year for four years. So yeah, listen, if he does it in four years, it's been a remarkable run. I saw a lot of people say like, oh, wow, like Alex Ovechkin really didn't take a,

a pay cut here. He's basically signing again for nine and a half. But I do think it's important. And the folks that Cap Friendly pointed out, his percentage of the cap that he's taking up for Washington is far different. You know, when he signed that first deal, the 13 year deal, it was about 19.5% of the cap. So he was almost taken up a one fifth of Washington's cap space by himself. Now it's 11%. So I think it's significantly different. While it may not look like Alex Ovechkin necessarily, necessarily took a pick at he did take a lesser part of the pie if that makes sense, right? I often wonder how the hockey world and the NHL world and the fans in the media would be different if when the cap came in, if we had started using percentage as the number that we

hit on when somebody signed and somebody would sign and we'd say, yeah, it's this many dollars. It's 10% of the cap because that way as the cap went up over time and changed over time, we'd still be comparing apples to apples. And I feel like we'd have a really different outlook on a lot of this stuff. Look, I understand that maybe on some level, if you're a Capitals fan, you're sitting there going, boy, it would have been nice. After all these years, he's already made so much money. Boy, it would have been great if he had taken less money. And that way the Capitals could use that extra cap space, those extra dollars to surround him with more talent, take another run at a title, all of this stuff.

It's always so easy for us to say that sitting at home when it's someone. somebody else's money and somebody else's paycheck that we're talking about. At the end of the day, Alexander Ovechkin is going to have earned every dollar he made in the NHL. There's a lot of guys out there, a lot of guys where you might look back and say, boy, you know, this last contract, I don't know, or they signed this deal. And gosh, that didn't work out. When Alexander Ovechkin is, his career is all said and done,

nobody's going to look back on him and say, yeah, that guy made two. much. So you know what? Good for him. It's a fair price. It does carry some risk for Washington, but at this point when you're chasing history and you got a guy who's been easily the greatest player in franchise history by a mile, you know what? You're happy to pay it. I can't imagine anybody out there is gritting their teeth over paying Alexander Ovechkin what he's owed. Yeah, that's certainly you're right. And when you explain it, it's a low risk, contract, given his productivity, even though he's at his age. A high-risk contract, though, Sean, might be the one that the Carolina Hurricanes are about

to sign with Tony DiAngelo. And Frank Sarvelli deserves the full credit. He was, I believe, the first to report is that the Carolina Hurricanes are on the verge of signing controversial defensemen Tony DeAngelo to a one-year contract. Now, to kind of walk our listeners through this, Tony DeAngel is a guy that was sent home by the New York Rangers early in this past season, has had a couple of missteps. will call it on social media, has had a falling out with a couple of teammates, just didn't seem to particularly fit in in New York. And what's really interesting to me in all of this, Sean,

is, you know, the Carolina Hurricanes are sometimes viewed as this fun and at times progressive hockey team. And I'm wondering within the context of that, is this a surprising juxtaposition? You have the Carolina Hurricanes, a bunch of jerks, the guys that do the postgame cellies, that seem to embrace the lighter side of hockey have now reportedly brought in a very, very polarizing young man in Tony DiAngelo. I think it's a really interesting, it's a really interesting story here that's developed.

Yeah, yeah, it is. And look, we knew that Tony DeAngelo was going to get another chance somewhere. It was somewhat surprising that a young up-and-coming team in New York had washed their hands of this guy because it it takes a lot when when you're somebody who can contribute on the ice you got a lot of chances in this league and uh the fact that the rangers eventually said enough is enough kind of tells you all you need to know um but we knew that somebody else was was going to was going to give him another chance and you know we we don't know the deal as we're recording this it's it's not signed and sealed and we don't know the details

So I guess we'll have to wait and see. And we'll have to wait and see how the Hurricanes organization handles it and handles him and how much rope he's given, so to speak. We'll see. But at the end of the day, I mean, if you have a certain set of values and you're hoping that your favorite team will always live up to them, I think we've learned over the last week. yet another reminder that eventually they will probably let you down.

Let's see where it goes. Maybe this is the start of a second chance that actually works out. And we see a young player turn things around and become a better player and a better person and get at least some sense of a happy ending. We'll see. It could also go very badly for the Carolina Hurricanes. And hopefully they've weighed that risk. And I guess at some point and at some level in the organization, they've decided that it's worth it.

Yeah. And listen, I think I'm all in favor of second opportunities for people. And at the very least, I think on this case, you could make an argument that enough time is elapsed where maybe, as you suggest, Tony DeAngelo has a different view of things or feels like I know where I made some mistakes or I think I could be a better team. So there's been some time. So again, sometimes we, in the world of hot takery, we rush to, you know, condemn and judge. And I don't feel like there was enough time in the Logan Mayhew story. But I do think that there might be enough time here with Tony DeAngel.

So again, like you said, we'll have to see how that plays out. But he goes in. It looks like he's going to go into Carolina. It looks like Sean Dougie Hamilton's going to leave the hurricanes. And so let me ask you this as we open up free agency here on this, on this Wednesday. Seth Jones got a higher A-AV than Kail McCar, which I don't know that I would have predicted a week ago,

but this is where we're at. Seth Jones at nine and a half, Kail McCar at nine. Where does Dougie Hamilton come in? Does Dougie Hamilton get nine, close to nine, eight on the free agent market? Like, I don't know about the term, but just about the dollar value. Yeah.

If I head to bet, I don't think he gets to a number that starts with a nine. But I wouldn't be completely shocked if he did. I mean, he's the best defenseman who's out there. We just saw a lot of movement with defensemen, which in some cases will remove certain teams from the bidding, but also means in certain cases that there may be teams that had a list of guys, and now that list is looking a lot smaller than it did a week ago. And it only takes one team to go to a high number, and it only takes a few teams for a bidding war that pushes it to that high number.

But I don't think he ultimately gets there. Something starting with an eight wouldn't surprise me, though. And it's going to be interesting to see where he goes. You know, you mentioned the term. Obviously, that's key. This is a guy who, for whatever reason, has moved around the league a fair amount already. There have been, you know, there's some talk about, you know, he has a fit in in this room or that room and it's and it's always for weird reasons or you're kind of

scratching your head going, this is a great player. You figure there's going to be some teams that are going to say, we absolutely want to be the front of the line on this guy. It's just a question of what the number is going to be. But I think it's going to be a big number and I think it's both in terms of the years and the dollars. Kail McCar numbers, no, probably not. Seth Jonesy, you could argue that this is a better player right now today than

then Seth Jones, but I think we also know that when a team goes out and trades for a guy, they're under all sorts of pressure to give him a big contract. And I think Chicago sort of box themselves into a situation there where they had to hand out a deal that there's a good chance that they may ultimately wish that they hadn't. But we'll see. And we'll see on Dougie Hamilton. Don't think he quite gets to the nine, but I think he gets close. But do you think we get back to silly season? You remember pre-pandemic, it was like you would hope that your general manager, somebody would take their phone away from them June 30th through July 3rd inclusive so that they wouldn't reach out and make some sort of silly deal. We saw that kind of evaporate during the

pandemic, right? And that was more of an external circumstance that seemed to influence the market. And we didn't see the seven times seven deals last summer. We might see them this summer. We may see it with Dougie Hamilton. I'm going to throw three names at you here, Sean. And these are the typical kind of, and maybe Zach Hyman's not your typical middle six forward, but he might have a little bit more upside. But these are guys who are going to get paid at some point in the next 24 hours. I'm asking you, which of these forwards is going to sign one of those contracts that in 24 hours you're like, oh, damn, that's a mistake. Okay. So there's Zach Hyman, there's Philip DeNoe, and there's Blake Coleman. And they're all really good, effective.

kind of blue-collar, that kind of that rule. But they might all get paid like they're legit top six guys. There's one of those three guys that you're like, uh-oh, someone's going to overpay for them. And then like 18 months from now, they're going to have buyers regret. Yeah, I mean, there's certainly potential with all three of them. I guess the guy that would make me a little bit more nervous than others is Blake Coleman. Not in the sense that if I'm a GM, that I'd be nervous to bring him on. None of these three guys has that David Clarkson,

Milan Lu Cheech vibe to them as far as I see. I just see some GM out there talking themselves into not just, hey, do we want this hardworking guy, the middle six, all of the things that Zach Heim and Philip Dono can do. But Blake Coleman, boy, you also get those rings. and GMs love the rings, the rings in the room. Here's a guy with that, now he's got that championship pedigree. Oh, I could probably talk myself into maybe going a little out of my comfort zone to get a winner like that.

And, you know, that's maybe the one that I think doesn't necessarily age well. You know, I'll say this, Zach Hyman, we almost know what the deal is already. It feels like there's no suspense there. We know that barring something really unforeseen, he's going to Edmonton. the deal's already agreed to. The Leafs did give him permission to talk to other teams. So there's no tampering here. It's all been above the board. There was some talk. There might be a sign and trade so he could get the eighth year. It doesn't sound like that's going to happen.

That is a deal where, you know, frankly, if Edmonton goes seven years at a number in north of five, which it sounds like they will, that that is a deal that's going to age badly. That is a deal that by year six and seven is not going to look great, very likely, just given Zach Hyman and his style of play and how players like that usually age out. But even having said that, I don't hate that deal for Edmonton because you've got Connor McDavid and Leander's Saitle right now. And at some point, you know, I cringed when Dave Nona said he wasn't worried about year six and seven when it came to David Clarkson.

But I think Edmonton could make an excuse or make the argument that they don't need to worry about year six and seven right now. Go get a good player. So I think he's going to be a great fit there. Philippe Daniel made himself a lot of money in the playoffs because he looked great. That's one that could potentially go self relatively quickly. But the numbers that have been reported don't sound crazy for him.

And you're talking about a guy I can play center. That's big. Coleman's the one that worries me a little bit. Just in the sense that I could see some GM out there overpaying and talking themselves and their owner into this idea that we're going to get a guy I was a proven winner, and he's going to come in with those flashing those Stanley Cup rings, and he's going to teach the rest of us how to get it done. Like, it's funny.

You brought up David Clarkson's name unprompted there. Yeah, I do that a lot. Yeah. I'm told that I do that in at least 50% of the conversations I have day to day. Yeah. Is he the all-time worst? And I know that you, you know, obviously the Leafs are your team, so maybe you sometimes you do look through that lens. But is there an argument on Bobrovsky, the Florida?

Is there anybody else who you look at and you're like, that's the worst free agent signing of all time? There's definitely some. I mean, Clarkson gets maybe a little more attention because it was Toronto and because, not just that it's the Leafs, but this was back in the era where the Leafs were the dumb team that was convinced it was the smart team. and this was just kind of the culmination of that way of thinking. But there have been a lot of others.

I mean, the Luchich deal, James Neal, Andrew Ladd, you go down the list of all the, just 2016, I think it was alone, just all the wingers that were signing six and seven year deals and almost none of them have worked out. But Brodsky, we need to see, but two years in, that one is not looking good at all. And I'll throw one more at you. And this one comes with an asterisk because technically this wasn't a free.

agent deal. But the Philadelphia Flyers in Ilya Briss Gallov. Remember when they gave him 11 years at something? I mean, it was close to 60 million. I mean, it was just an absolute albatross of a deal. And not only did they give him that money, but in order to clear the space, they went and traded Jeff Carter and Mike Richards. That wasn't the only reason they traded them, but that,

Both of those guys dealt on the same day. I remember that being one of the, those legendary Twitter days where you saw both those deals hit the wire at the same time to make room for a guy. And then you talk about Sergei Birovsky. Sergei Birovsky was on the Flyers roster at that point. He was their backup. He was ready to go. Let me have a chance at starting. And they go inside Brze Gallup.

So a year later, they trade Bavrovsky for next to nothing and see him go on to win Vezanas. The reason I say it technically wasn't a free agency deal was because he was a pending free agent and they traded for his rights and signed him a few days beforehand. So in theory, it wasn't a pure UFA acquisition. But I think other than that technicality, I think that's the one that has to stand out as the worst of the worst. Didn't make any sense, even when they did it. And then, of course, the fact that he didn't play well. and within a couple years, he's getting bought out. And I mean, that buyout, I think, is on their cap for a while now.

Just a mess all the way around. You know, with the Bobrovsky deal, I believe that happened in the, in the 2011 at the draft, because I was in Minnesota for the draft. And I'm in a hotel. I just have this distinct memory. I'm in a hotel lobby. And Rich Winter, long-time agent, who was Bobrovsky's agent, actually flagged me down. He says, hey, you'll be a little.

want a scoop? I'm like, yeah, of course I'll take a scoop. He says, hey, the Bobrovsky deal is, I think at that point the Barbarovsky deal had been done to Philly. But he said, Sergey Bobrovsky is going to be the highest paid player in the NHL next year. You can have that. I said, what? He said, Sergey Barbarov. You mean, right? Brzgalov. Sorry, I'm getting my overpaid Russian net minders confused. Sorry, Ilya Brezgalov. He calls me over and he's like, I got something for you. Ilya Brees Gallowav is going to be the highest paid goalie. I was like, wait, what?

And he's like, yeah, I'm telling you. He's going to be the highest paid player in the game next year. And I was like, wow. Because I feel like it was like right around the time Carter and Richard, if it wasn't the 2011 draft in Minnesota that I'm something is completely off. But I feel like it was. It was 2011 and it was. And I feel like I got called over.

Yeah. Yeah. And it would have been right around the time of the draft because like I said, they trade it for them so they didn't have to wait until. July 1st and they get in fact I'm looking it up right now. Yeah, the signing date was June 23rd, 2011. So that would have been right around there. And yeah, he made 10 million in year one. Even though the deal, because it was so long, the average that the cap hit was like five and a half. But he made $10 million between bonuses and salary. Just a super expensive. And I, and I, guess the only good thing is as I'm looking at it, I said that it's still on the flyers cap. It was a compliance buyout. So they didn't have to eat the cap hit. But in terms of they're still sending him checks. a good bit of work if you can get it, I guess,

but just a total misfire all the way around. The only other piece of good news, though, you could say at least, and I know there were a lot of Flyers fans that were furious that day when they traded Carter and Richards, but both of those trades worked out pretty well. So, you know, it's one of those things where you could maybe look back and say, well, you know, this flap of a butterfly wing led to, you know, us getting these other guys, but the signing itself,

I can't imagine how you could even start to defend it. Just awful. Yeah, the flyers need to lean into paying Bobrovsky like the Mets do with Bobby Bonilla. Just make it a day, turn it in anything. Today's the day, Bob gets his check. And away we go. I'll tell you what. You know, it's funny when I think of I believe of Breedgalov,

I think if there was a great playoff series, I think in 2012, Philly in Pittsburgh, it was Breez Gallov. And it was just a complete meltdown for Mark Andre Fleury. of people thought, you know what, Mark Andre Fleury will never get it back. And then sure enough, now almost a decade later, he's the reigning Vesna Trophy winner, but he just got traded on Tuesday to help us break this one down because Sean and I am sure we're perplexed. It is time for Granger Things, which is brought to you by our exclusive betting partner, Bet MGM, but we're not going to be setting any lines or odds or anything like that. We're just going to be straight up, Jesse,

talking with you about Mark Andre Fleury. So give us a sense. I think for people like Sean and I surprised that, you know, he got traded. There's nothing in return, like literally nothing in return. What went through your mind, walk us, walk our listeners through how Tuesday played out is Mark Andre Fleury got traded to Chicago. Yeah, from a, from a number standpoint and just looking at the contracts of the two goalies, Mark Andre Fleury and Robin Leonard and the Golden Knights cap space and their ability or inability to improve their team this offseason because they have none, I don't think it's

that's surprising that they traded a goalie in that context. But then when you factor in the human element, the fact that Mark Andre Fleury has been the face of this franchise, the anchor of the locker room, the backbone of this team, his teammates use all of these phrases on a daily basis when talking about him when it's that guy who's coming off of his best season as a pro, just winning the Vesanit Trophy. And I had to go back and look, since they changed the criteria for the Vesina trophy in 1981. Only one Vezina Trophy winner has been traded, and that was Dominic Hachshik from Buffalo after

his Vezina in 01, and he went to Detroit and won his Stanley Cup the following season. But I think once you add in all those things and just what Flurry meant to this team and what he meant to this city, I've seen it on Twitter, the reaction, the fans are obviously not thrilled, but

a GM and a front office can't make decisions based off of the fans' feelings. I think when you look at things, you can see why Kelly McCrimmon made this trade. I don't know how it's going to work out. They're putting a lot of faith in Robin Lennar, a lot of faith that other GMs around the league

haven't made to this point. I mean, Robin Lennar was a free agent in three consecutive off seasons and couldn't get a long-term deal. And despite playing very, very well. So maybe he finally found a team that believes in him in the Golden Knights and he can reciprocate that and pay them back with franchise goaltending. If not, then obviously that's a huge issue

because that's a position that this team has not had to worry about from opening night, 2017 as an expansion. They have had Mark Andre Fleury in net, and they have not had to worry about it even once in this entire four seasons. So suddenly, I think Robin Leonard is a good enough goalie. I think most people think Robin Leonard is a good enough goalie to handle that load, but I think it does, while it does open you up to improve, and certainly the Golden Knights are in a better spot to make moves to improve their team now

than they were this morning, it also, there's a risk to this. As good as Robin Leonard has been, moving on from Mark Andre Fleury, we see in Pittsburgh. They felt really good when they moved on from Mark Andre Fleury in 2017 when they let him go to Vegas. They felt great about that. So great that they gave Vegas a second round pick to take him. And four years later, their goaltending is in disarray. So I think there is a bit of a risk here. But when you look at the age of the player, the contract left, and you see that Robin Leonard is seven years younger and has four years left on his deal, there are reasons to that this didn't come out of left field. This wasn't just completely out of nowhere. Just to keep the focus on the Knights for a minute, to state the obvious, this wasn't a case of a team looking at its goaltending and saying our goaltending is not good enough. We're not satisfied with what we've got there. This is a team that wants to improve elsewhere and needs cap space in order to do it. And so they rather than continue to spend $12 million on two goalies, they moved one of the guys out. I know I'm not the only one as soon as I saw this come across the feed.

who was thinking, this is the space for Jack Eichael. Now, Kelly McCriman seemed to throw a little bit of cold water on that when he was asked about acquiring a center and he sort of said, we're not as eager to do that as some seem to think or something to that extent. But is this the Golden Knights clearing the space for Jack Eichael? Yeah, I mean, I think that's certainly, there's a chance of that. So this is my read, and I'm actually writing this. I'm in the middle of writing this right now.

My read on the whole situation is Bill Foley, the owner of the Golden Knights, absolutely adores Mark Andre Fleury. He told Flurry personally, you will retire a Golden Knight. He, from what we heard last offseason, was a big reason Flurry was on this team last season for the Vezna Trophy. So to me, you have an owner who loves a player and did not want to trade him. The only way Kelly McCriman and George McPhee in the front office could have convinced Bill Foley to trade Mark Andre Fleury is if they had some kind of plan set up, right? There is no way Bill Foley sat in his office and they said, hey, we're going to trade Florida to open up $7 million in cab space the day before free agency opens and then we'll figure it out, right?

Like there's no chance Bill Foley signs off on that. This is just my read. This isn't, I haven't talked to Bill Foley. This is just my read. And the way the Golden Knights have swung big in free agency and trades leads you to believe that they're going to be aggressive. Kelly McCriman did say, like you said, he threw some cold water on it saying we like our centers.

William Carlson's one of the best two-way centers in the league. is a very good center, but Chandler Stevenson, when you compare him to other top centers around the league is not elite. And so I think he threw some water on it. But he also said, things don't always unfold the way you want to, basically saying, I'm not going to tell you guys why we traded him, because there are a lot of moving parts, especially with trades and free agency. And maybe if I tell you guys our plan, that could not happen tomorrow. Other things could happen. So I do think that by saying that, McCrimand kind of lets us into his mind a little bit, they do have an idea. And they have to have a plan, whether it's Jack Eichel or Teresenko or Gabriel Landisog or there has to be, there's no way

Bill Foley signed off trading the face of this franchise for them to add a couple depth, third line wingers that are going to help them score in the playoff. Like, I just don't see how that's possible. So, yes, I expect the Golden Knights to make a big move here. Jack Eichol is the obvious one because he's available. He's the best player available in the league right now. And he fits exactly what they need, which is the top center. I don't know if that trade's going to happen.

but I do expect the Golden Knights to be very aggressive. And it's worth remembering, right, that if we're talking about free agents, at least in theory, the Golden Knights can't have spoken to anybody yet until the market opens tomorrow. But if we're talking trades, Jack Eichol or Teresanko or somebody else, those conversations may have already happened. They could be further down that road than any of us think. Right.

I think they have to have something in mind. It might not be set, whether it's a free agent, it's definitely not set. But there has to be, like I said, knowing Bill Foley, the way I know him and how much he liked Flurry and then how much he wanted to keep him on that team. There was no way that this was just a, we're going to clear some cap space and then we'll see what we do after that. Okay, so explain to me, and you've said this a couple of times, Jesse, that the owner, Bill Foley has a ton of respect and admiration for Mark Andre Fleury. We have seen the narrative. You are I believe the first to actually report that Mark Andre

Fleury found out about this trade via Twitter. Alan Walsh's agent confirmed that. And it doesn't seem like Mark Andre Fleury was necessarily treated with a ton of respect and transparency during this process. So have we learned anything as to why that played out the way it did? Because if you're saying they love Fleury, they know he's the face of the franchise, why did they do Mark Andre Fleury like this? Yeah, and we just spoke to Kelly McCrimman, and he did provide a little more clarity. And he said that they have been in conversations with Mark Andre. He said that they spoke to him June 29th, the exit meetings. They told him, we're not sure what we're going to do with our goalies. McCriman said that they have approached him a couple times since then saying, hey, we're having talks with

this team. He said that they did mention Chicago. From what I hear, those conversations did happen, but every time they happened, Mark Andre Fleury basically told them, I want to remain in Vegas. If you trade me to Chicago, I don't want to play there. And it has nothing to do with Chicago. Just for Blackhawks fans, listen out there. Mark Andre Fleury has nothing against Chicago. It's the fact that he wanted to retire in Vegas. And McCrimand kind of confirmed that saying, when he was asked if Fleury gave him any indication that he wouldn't, play for Chicago, McCriman answered. Mark Andre Fleury wanted to play in Vegas. So I don't think that part can, like he, Flurry clearly told McCriman, don't trade me. I don't want to be traded.

There's a chance I could retire. As far as today, yeah, Mark Andre Fleury found out through Twitter. McCriman said that that was because they don't inform players about trades until their trade call has gone through. And Frank Sarvali and Elliott and those guys, they broke the trade before their trade call finished. According to McCrimon, it was before their trade call with the Central Registry had even begun. So that was McCriman's answer for that. And I think on the surface, if this was the only time this had ever happened, I think it's fair to say, okay, that was a lack of communication. Probably not the best way. The guy who's been the franchise for the last four years probably should have found out from the team. For me, the reason I'm a little more hesitant to give the Golden Knights

a pass on this is just because this seems to be a trend with players. When Gerard Gallant was fired, when Nate Schmidt was traded last offseason, he found out in ways that he would have preferred not to have. This has been a trend with this team. And I think that while I do understand from Kelly McCriman's perspective, like I don't want to announce anything until it's official. I don't want to tell the player. I think other teams are handling things differently.

And I think Mark Andre Fleury has spoken multiple times about how it ended in Pittsburgh and how he really liked the way that the penguins handled that. And it was a similar situation where they brought in another. a goalie and they decided he was their guy. So I just think, I think it's not as clean cut as the Golden Knights screwed this up or they handled it perfectly. I think there's some gray area here, but I think there are reasons to believe that the

Golden Knights and the communication between the Golden Knights and Mark Andre Fleury has not been great for some time. Yeah, I don't know. I have a real tough time with that. This wasn't some complicated four-player or four-team deal with 10 guys and salary-retained. This was one-for-one where, the one guy is a minor leader who's not even switching teams. So I have a hard time thinking that they were too concerned the league was going to put a stop to this deal.

Okay, so Mark Andre Fleury, now he's, he is a Chicago Blackhawk, does not want to be, has said that he is considering whether retirement may be an option. That would certainly be pretty close to unprecedented for a reigning Vezna guy to hang him up when he's just had his best season. So everybody's looking at this, and we're all, I think, doing the same math and two plus two equals four. So does Mark Andre Fleury now wind up being traded again from Chicago to somewhere else? And is that somewhere else anywhere other than the Pittsburgh Penguins reunion?

We've all been waiting for it for the last few years. Yeah, I mean, it definitely makes sense to connect those dots. One thing we haven't really mentioned that's part of this trade that I think is a big part of this trade. I mean, the Golden Knights just traded the best goalie in the entire NHL last year for absolutely nothing. And this isn't a hypothetical nothing. It's literally nothing. They traded him for a minor leaguer who will remain in Chicago's organization and play for their HL team. They literally traded him for nothing. So they traded him for cap space. You could argue that they're not able to make that next move without doing that. So they did trade him for cap space. But to get, this is not a

a good pattern. They traded Nate Schmidt for absolutely nothing last off season because they had to after signing Petrangelo. They did the same thing with Paul Stasney to Winnipeg. They constantly trading really talented players for nothing is, is not ideal. And now Chicago may be able to turn around and maybe get something for him if they were to trade him to Pittsburgh. I don't know. What I will say about Flurie's playing or not playing or retiring, I think the the side of him that's saying retire is purely, his family loves Las Vegas. His wife, his kids, they absolutely love this city. They did not want to move. That was a big motivating factor in him saying he wanted to stay in Vegas. I think Mark Andre Fleury, the hockey player, is not done. Speaking to him several times

this offseason after he won the Vezina and just having conversations with him about his future, he always says, as long as I'm having fun, I want to keep playing. And he had about as much fun as he could have this year playing the best hockey of his life. I do not expect him to be done, whether he plays in Chicago or Pittsburgh or wherever. I don't expect Mark Andre Fleurie to retire. Okay, final question. is actually this is probably something I think the both of you can answer. And this is something that I think is on the minds of a lot of hockey fans. And you mentioned this, Jesse, that Chicago Blackhawks did the Vegas Golden Knights a little bit of a favor and that now Vegas can improve their team.

So what's in it for Chicago, guys? Can somebody walk me through Chicago's mindset here because, okay, well, maybe if they get Mark Andre Fleurney plays, I can understand. You're getting the reigning Vezer Trophy winning goalie. But it's clear that he may not want to go there. So why would Chicago do such a huge favor for Vegas and really give nothing back in return? Yeah, I mean, my read on Chicago is if you get Mark Andre Fleur, clearly the thing is, like, everyone outside of Chicago seems to be saying, like, you need to rebuild.

Meanwhile, the Blackhawks within are saying, like, no, we don't. We've got Kane and we're going for it now. We're trading for Seth Jones. We're giving him a bazillion dollars. We're trading for a 37-year-old Mark Andre Fleury. They're going for it. And I think at the end of the day, like, let's just assume Flurry does show up in Chicago and plays. and plays well, which we should expect him to the way he's played the last few seasons.

I think if you're Chicago, even if this season doesn't go as you expect, if it's bad, I think at the trade deadline, a Mark Andre Fleury, who you can retain salary on, and you can deal to a team that needs a goalie at the deadline, I think they could end up flipping him for good future picks. Like, that would be my read on Chicago. Yeah, I think it, I mean, Chicago has got the cap space. They need the goaltending. Their goaltending was we went into last year thinking it was going to be a disaster.

year because they had three guys nobody had ever heard of. And it was pretty good for about a month. And then it was an issue the rest of the way. And my guess is even if you hook Stan Bowman up to a lie detector and say, where do you really think you are as far as contending, rebuilding? And he might say, you know what, this is another rebuilding year. At some point, when you got young players out there, you don't want to have a young team in front of lousy goaltending because then every mistake ends up in the back of the net.

There's just no margin for error and everyone's hanging their heads and it's just you're waiting for for the puck to end up in your net. So I could see that, this idea that like, hey, let's bring in this guy. We talk about earlier in the show about bringing in somebody with rings. Well, here's a proven winner. He's going to be great. He's going to be the veteran in the room. The kids are all learned from him. He's going to be fantastic.

Great personality. Yeah, I mean, it makes all sorts of sense. If you got the cap room in, you can get a. Bezina winner for nothing, absolutely go out and do it. And like Jesse says, even if it doesn't work, you could flip them at the deadline for assets. You could probably flip them right now for ads. I mean, if Chicago were just put up a sign and say, we'll retain half the salary. Who wants Mark Andre Fleury for $3.5?

They'll get something real nice for him, assuming it's someplace that he wants to go. Just rooting for chaos, how great would it be if they flip into Colorado and Flurrie's playing against the avalanche. Oh, man. I never even thought of that. All right. I'm on board with that one. Now, now we got to make that happen.

The Mark Andre Fleury Revenge Tour. I want to see this guy, the guy who's been the biggest baby face in the whole league for 15 years, go full heel turn for his final year and just hunt down the Golden Knights like he's the Terminator and knock him out of the playoffs. That would be brilliant. I love it. All right. Hey, Jesse, we'll leave it there.

Remember last week I had you on the live show and I said, what's it like being the only writer that can kind of sit back and, you know, kick your heels up and relax around the expansion draft? Well, hockey gods have made sure that you made up for that with this seismic trade on the Tuesday. So listen, thanks for doing this. Look forward to reading all of your analysis around the Flurry Trade on the Athletic, and we'll do this again next week. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, Jesse.

All right, always great to get Jesse Granger on, and certainly when the Vegas Golden Knights are at the top of the news cycle, it's great to get Jesse's analysis here. Look, I wanted to bring up one other thing because I thought this was going to be right in your wheelhouse. Josh Cloak, who does a great job, mostly covers the Toronto Maple Leafs and writes about Toronto things. did a really interesting column this week at the athletic, Sean, in which he openly mused about, hey, what if we got rid of the draft?

What if every 18-year-old kid was essentially a free agent and got to handpick their spot? And at first glance, people would be like, oh, it's stupid, only the best teams will get it. But look, that's the way they do soccer in Europe. And there's other sports. It's very much a North American thing where teenagers don't get to kind of choose their place of employment. And I'm wondering, because, you know, you've always got such great sort of opinionated takes on all things hockey. What did you think of that idea? Well, like, do you think that there's any merit in getting rid of the draft as we know it and replacing it with a system where maybe the top 20 prospects get to handpick their destination?

And then after that, there is a draft for maybe the lesser known prospects. But hey, if you're at the very top of the heap, if you're Owen power, maybe you're like, you know, I don't want to go to Buffalo, but I'd, you know what, I'd like to go play in Colorado. I'd like to go play in Seattle. Or, like, is there any merit to that? Yeah, I mean, let's preface this by saying, and Josh addresses this in the piece, there's virtually no chance it's ever going to happen. There's no movement for this to happen in the NHL.

But, yeah, there's all sorts of merit to the argument, starting with the fact that we've just sort of internalized this idea that the very best in the world at a sort of, certain job, just get told where to go. And that doesn't happen anywhere outside of sports. You know, if you spend your youth trying to train up and become good at something, you go off to college, or you go to an apprenticeship or something, and you're ready to finally go and do this for a living, you know, you don't submit your name and then get a phone call saying, pack up, you're headed to to Winnipeg and you don't have any choice on the matter. That's where you're going to go. You get to choose. You get to weigh the pros and cons of different places you could go to work. And there's,

I think, just almost a moral argument that that same courtesy should be extended to professional athletes. Now, beyond that, financially, probably makes a lot of sense, both for the athletes themselves and for the league. Look, I'm sorry, Oilers fans, I know you're sick of hearing about the Conradivoc. McDavid draft. He made one face on TV and every Leafs and Rangers and blah The Rockhawks fan has been using that to try to pry them away from you. But the reality is, Connor McDavid, going to the Edmonton Oilers, cost the NHL tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars just based on what they could have done if he had wound up in a bigger market. And he could say that for other guys as well. So there are those arguments.

Now, the counter argument is the flip side of what I just said, which is, your league isn't just big markets. smaller markets, too, they've got to be competitive. So what are we doing here? If every year, every time there's a Connor McDavid or an Austin Matthews or even in Owen Power, if they're all going to New York or Toronto or Montreal or wherever, what's the rest of this league even supposed to do? And that is, you know, there's something to be said for that. I don't know that you'd necessarily see it that way.

I mean, you and I, we're both here in Ottawa. And Ottawa was a team. A lot of people would say, hey, if you didn't have the. draft the way it is. Connor McDavid's never come in Ottawa on his own. But we do kind of have a bit of a test case for this, and it's college free agents. They get to pick and choose where they're going to go. And actually, Ottawa has been a pretty attractive destination over the years for college

free agents, partly because there's opportunity here and there's a development system. And they can feel like, yeah, you know what? I'm going to get my NHL career off to a good start if I go there. So it would put an incentive on teams to make sure that they had opportunities. make sure they were well run, an attractive destination. I think that's the best argument as a fan is that we shouldn't be rewarding failure. We shouldn't be rewarding teams that screw up and finish last every year. We should be pushing teams to build the best organization on and off the ice that they can and make themselves attractive to these guys. I do still think that, yeah, you probably

do run into an issue where the top markets are the most attractive destinations for the very top guys. Is that fair? No, I'm not sure that it is. Is it fair that we decide where these guys have to play based on some ping pong balls? I don't think that's fair either. So I'm happy to have the conversation. And as Josh, as Josh makes clear, there's a lot of people in the league who think that

actually there'd be some merit to it, even though virtually everyone acknowledges that it's never actually going to happen. Yeah. It's one of those great debates to have with a friend over a beer, right? Like, and there's some pros and cons, but I like the fact that there's some, there's some merits to it. And I think that you're right. Like in, in no other circumstance. And imagine you're a grade 12 student or you're in the 12th grade and you're graduating high school and you're going to university and you don't get to pick your institution.

They pick you. Yeah. You're like, well, okay, I guess. I'm going there. Like, you're right. It doesn't happen in any other field. And so it's, it's, again, it's all collectively bargained that I'm sure this will never happen. but it was a really cool article, a neat premise,

and I would encourage our listeners to check it out that Josh did that. All right. Sean, we're almost out of time on this free agency frenzy edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. So why don't we just jump ahead and do a couple of this week in hockey history? Because surprisingly, we do have some pretty juicy tidbits here for a late July this week in hockey history. You would think it wouldn't be full of interesting tidbits. We got a couple. Let's start with this one.

I got two things from July 27. 1995. Okay. So July 27th, 1995, Brendan Shanahan gets traded from St. Louis to Hartford for Chris Pronger. Shanahan for Pronger. Here's part one of my question to you. Sean, is they both end up in the Hall of Fame, both arguably, you know, in their generation, Pronger was arguably best defenseman. Shanahan arguably best power forward. Is this the greatest one-for-one trade in hockey history? You know what? I think there's a real good case for that, especially if you get really strict on one for one. If you're saying no draft picks, no nothing on either side, because there's been a lot of famous trades that we remember as one for ones, but they had picks thrown in on the side.

Like Denny Savard for Chris Chelyos comes to mind. There's been a few other ones like that. If you're just looking straight one for one, this absolutely might be there because you had, Brennan-Shan was absolutely in his prime. Chris Pronger wasn't even there yet. He was just entering his prime. And it was a real fantastic deal. I mean, if I was going to go way back, maybe Johnny Busek for Terry Sautchuk would be the one that I would put on the leaderboard.

And it might take some time before we can really judge kind of the careers of Shanahan and Pronger historically the way we can do those other guys. But in the modern era, yeah, that might with all apologies to Taylor Hall and Adam Larson and Bob McKenzie's famous tweet, I think pronger for Shanahan might be the greatest. The trade was one for one of all time. Okay. So then the other part of this is if you look at Brennan Shanahan's transaction page, okay? Now, granted, the first, when he moved from New Jersey to St. Louis, that was part of the Scott Stevens compensation.

But when you look at the career of Brendan Shenahan, Sean, he was technically traded for three Hall of Fame defensemen in Scott Stevens. Chris Pronger and then later Paul Coffey. Like, has there ever been a player in hockey history that was involved in three separate trades with three players that were that good as Brennan-Shannahan? Yeah, you know what? I've been looking down my list and I'm not sure that I can find anyone. Again, if we're counting the Scott Stevens thing as a trade, and I know some people will say that shouldn't count, then that I'm not sure that anyone can have three guys who

were that good. There's some that are close. Mark Recky has been traded a bunch of times for a bunch of guys, including some real good players. Rick Wamsley was involved in the Brett Hull trade, of course, but also in a deal of Stefan Reesha and Shane Corson with Pick

and Peter Nedved's another guy, but I'm going to throw one at you that is to my mind, one of my favorites. Because this is two Two Hall of Famers and a guy who was pretty darn good, even though he wasn't a Hall of Fame caliber. It's three separate deals. And I'll give you the players. I want to know if you can tell me the player who was traded for them. Okay.

Yari Curry, Doug Gilmore, and Vincent Dampus. This guy was involved in trades that saw all three of those guys going the other way. Wow. Three separate deals. And I'll throw a hint in. All these deals were just a few months apart. Wow. So this, you know what? Well, I'm thinking of that Vincent Domfuss. Is it the Edmonton Toronto trade? Mm-hmm. It is? Yeah, it is. Yep. Wow, well, it can't be fewer.

He went to Edmonton, to Toronto, and then on to Calgary in the Doug Gilmore trade. And I'll throw one more hint out there just for the listeners who might be trying to get this. Not a great player, but still a guy whose name you hear quite a bit these days. Is it Craig Barube? Yeah, it's Craig Barou. It is. Yeah. Wow. The early 90s tough guy. And in fact, it was, he played in the NHL for 17 years. And these were the only three player trades that he was involved in. And it was rapid fire. He was traded in the, I want to say, 91 offseason in the Yari Curry trade to Edmonton. They flipped him to Toronto right away. And then he plays in Toronto for two months. I go out and get his jersey for Christmas. And a week later, he's on to Calgary in the Doug Gilmore. trade. Three of the biggest trades of the era, same guy involved in all three of them within a few months. And don't you feel like Vincent Domfus is the type of guy that all of a sudden randomly he's just going to be in the Hall of Fame? And you're like, well, he's got 1,200 points

or whatever he has. If Guy Carbono can do it, then, yeah, Danfus would be the guy that, that you might sneak in there. Okay. One other thing I am going to sneak into this show. July 20, this week in hockey history, July 29, 1994, involves another trade. The L.A. Kings trade Luke Robatai to Pittsburgh for Rick Tocet, which, hey, again, on this surface, pretty good one-for-one train. But here's my, here's my question. I mean, like, I barely remember Luke Robatai stint in Pittsburgh. It's like one of those fever dreams. I'm like, oh, yeah, that happened. But I don't really remember much of it. But here's my question. How many Hall of Famers, and Luke Robitize a Hall of Famer, would have spent one season with a team in the prime of their

career. So Luke Robatai was 28 in Pittsburgh. It's not like, you know, at the end, you see like Zedano Chara goes to Washington or you see, you know, guys bounce around. There's a million of them, a million guys. It's usually the Red Wings or the Rangers, but it's at the end of their career. Madano and Alpherson and whoever else you want to put on the list. How many guys have pulled a Luke Robitai, which is like, oh yeah, damn, I forgot that guy played there. And then, wait a minute, that was in his prime. Who else is like a Luke Robitai that in their 20s in a Hall of Fame career just had a can. And cameo with a team and then moved on. I'll give you a few.

Hosa? And well, host is a good one. Yeah. Hoss is up there. But I got three four. I got three Hall of Famers. First of all, honorable mention again,

second question in row, Vincent Dampus, that one year in Edmonton. Yeah, that's right. He just dropped in and then it was on to Montreal. But the three that come to mind for me, um, one guy,

this was a, this was a bit over one season. It was about a year and a half, but Mike Gartner had a stop with the Minnesota North Stars. And I just can't picture Mike Gardner in a North Star's uniform. I can picture him on a whole bunch of different teams, Washington for sure, the Leifes, the Rangers, we certainly remember.

But he was on the Minnesota North Stars for a year and a bit. So that one's weird to me. A guy who was there on a team for much less than a full season, but Ed Belfour, the San Jose Sharks era, that's a weird one where he was, that was close to the deadline, I want to say. He gets traded from Chicago to San Jose and then goes on and signs with Dallas in the offseason. But he played 10 or 15 games for the San Jose Sharks. And then the other one that's maybe the most memorable, but Paul Korea going to the Colorado Avalanche for one year after the year after he leads the Anaheim Ducks to within a game of the Stanley Cup and then has a falling out with the organization and goes in signs with Colorado along with Tim Mussalani. He was a little bit older and stuck around.

And remember, we all thought like, oh, my gosh, Korean Salani in Colorado, they're going to be unstoppable. And it just didn't work out. But that to me would be maybe the closest comparable of a guy who was really well established with one team. Hall of Fame credentials already on the resume. And then he goes and does a one-year stopover somewhere else. Yeah. No, it's pretty rare. Again, like I said, Robitae, I don't really remember much of his time with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

And then went to the Rangers, which people don't remember either. That's right. This guy bounced all over. He had, I think, three or even four separate stints with the Kings. Yeah. We blend them all together. We just go, yeah, Lifetime, L.A. King. And, yeah, he bounced around a lot more than that.

Oh, yeah, because he was Detroit, too, and Pittsburgh and. Got his cup in Detroit. Yeah, exactly. All right. Hey, listen, we'll leave it there. Now, what can we expect on the print side from you later this week? Because I think, you know, your loyal readers are probably going to be wondering, are we getting it down goes brown?

like free agency, early recap, anything like that this week? Or what's the plan on the print side for you? So I already had on Monday, I had my reaction to everything that had happened in the last week. So that was expansion, the entry draft, my thoughts on the Logan Mayuse situation, all the trades. So that went up earlier in the week. You can find that there now. And on Wednesday, so today, hopefully as you're listening to this, I'm, going to be doing a live blog all day long with Sean Jett Tilly.

So we're going to be kind of holding down the fort there reacting to fingers crossed, a bunch of really big signings and big breaking news throughout the course of the day. So you get all my reactions through the live blog there. And if nothing happens, then Sean and I'll have to get creative. And maybe that will be fun too. All right. Well, we'll look forward to that. And speaking to live things, Haley Salveit and I later on Wednesday,

we're going to be doing a live edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. streaming it live on our YouTube channel as well. Three o'clock Eastern time is the plan for that. So we got a lot to coming your way. All right, Sean, this was a lot of fun. We'll leave it there. Thanks, everybody, for listening to this latest edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. We'll get you again next week.

As always, you can drop us an email with any questions you have for us, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. You can also leave us a voicemail at 845-445-845-85. And if you're not a subscriber with us already, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show. and get 33% off an annual subscription.