The Athletic Hockey Show - Golden Knights have the stones to go all-in every year

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

On the day before the NHL trade deadline, Hailey, Max and Sean discuss a flurry of transactions on Wednesday and Thursday, including Noah Hanifin being dealt to the Golden Knights, a true hockey trade between Buffalo and Colorado involving Casey Middelstadt and Bowen Byram and a change of address for Scott Walker, Alex Wenneberg, Vlad Tarasenko, Adam Henrique, Sam Carrick, Anthony Beauvillier and Joel Edmunson. Plus, the crew takes a look at who is left with Jake Guentzel, Tyler Toffoli Matt Dumba and David Savard leading the way.Take our listener survey here: http://theathletic.com/survey24 Get a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. What's up, everybody? It's another Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show with Haley, myself. That's so weird. Max and Sean, tons of trade action on Wednesday afternoon and into the evening. Five of the top ten names came off the Athletics Trade Board. Guys like Jake Gensel, Tyler Toffoli, maybe even Elias Linholm again, are still available. We're going to break it all down on this trade deadline Eve episode.

But first, Sean, how's it going? Going a lot better, Haley, if folks completed a little survey. That's right, Sean. You listen to us, and now we want to hear from you. We're asking our listeners to fill out a quick survey about you and your podcast habits by going to theathletic.com slash survey 24. Three lucky entries will win a $100 Amazon gift card too,

so whether you're a longtime listener or a new one, we want your feedback max it's very important wow what was that link again it's the athletic dot com slash survey 24 okay that's the athletic dot com survey 24 max the link is also in our episode description oh i'll just do that thank god yeah perfect housekeeping over guys it was a busy wednesday i stopped myself from making the stupid dad joke which was like was the trade deadline actually today at three. Hold on. You didn't stop yourself. You floated that as a way to open the show. And I said, no, thank you. Busy day yesterday? What's everyone been doing? When the, of the many deals that came down

Wednesday, one of the many was the Bowen Byron for Casey Middlestat one for one. And Allison and I were out running errands. And at this time of year, when that happens, I just like hand her my phone in the passenger seat. And I have, you know, the tweet notifications on for. for some of the insiders. And it had been, you know, five or ten minutes since she had looked. And I was like, hey, well, you check that again? And she was like, oh, there's a few things. Sabers intend to keep Bowen Byram.

And I was like, Sabers. Pardon? Do you mean Avalanche intend to keep Bowen Byram? And she was like, it says sabers. And I literally snatched the phone from her hand. Just scrolling to the notification. Alison, please, I need more information. Or Allison's complete lack of interest in the NHL is just like,

it's always great. but particularly so at this time of year. I really appreciate that from her. It's growing. I would say it's growing. Yeah. That's a shame.

But like she knows, she knows the Red Wings guys. Yes, for sure. And that is what's most important. So tons of trades. Yeah, tons of trades yesterday. There were six moves, plus a couple little things like Nick Seeler

signed a four-year extension in Philly 2.7 AAV. The first one, one of the day, Vladimir Tarasanko to Florida for a 2024 first round draft pick becomes a fourth round draft pick, excuse me, not first. That becomes a third if the Panthers win a cup. And then a 2025 third, that was from the Sends. They retained 50% of Tarasanko's salary. There was a three-way deal with the Oilers, Ducks, and Lightning that got Edmonton, Adam Henrique, Sean Walker to the abs, Ryan Johansson to the Flyers, and then swiftly to waivers. As Max mentioned, abs and sabers, one for one with Casey Bidlstadt, Bobiram, Alex Wenberg to the Rangers.

And of course, the big one, this is what we're going to start with, is Noah Hanifin to the Vegas Golden Knights. In exchange for Danil Miramanov, who signed an extension with the flames last night, a 2025 first round pick conditional on the year, if Vegas decides to trade one of those picks. There's also a top 10 protection in there as well. a 2025 third salary retention. The flyers retained another 25% for Vegas's 2024 fourth round pick. So we're not going to dive into every single trade because, again, that was a lot of them. But I think we can parse through some of the winners and losers of the fake trade deadline day, which was Wednesday afternoon slash evening. And I think the Golden Knights once again are winners.

Yeah, but the losers are anyone who is clinging to the idea that the salary cap is about competitive balance and not just, you know, giving owners an excuse to not spend when they don't want to. Oh, those folks, hold on. Those folks are already losers, my friend. If you are operating under that level of delusion, then you're too far guy. there's always so much consternation over LTIR already but I think what is going to joker five people I don't remember whose tweet it was it might have been Frank Saravalee there was something like it was when the conditions were I think coming out on the the Hanifan picket it was like uh I think the condition was something like it's a 2025 first but it becomes the 2026 first if Vegas trades the 2025 first

to someone else by Friday. And then he dropped in there, Alec Martinez could go on LTIR. And it really, I think that just sent people to, uh, to a dark place mentally. We even had Roberto Luongo tweeting about it.

We love it. He tweeted the like fake broken leg thing. It's like game one of the playoffs and he throws off the blanket and shows that the leg wasn't actually broken. That's a WWE thing, right? It was the Kevin, the Kevin Nash fake broke.

Was that the rock? No. I'm sorry. move on. Anyways, I think the problem with that inherently is like Mark Stone isn't faking a ruptured spleen. Like that is a series of injury. I don't think anyone ruptured his spleen on purpose. But I do understand because it's been almost every year the Vegas Golden Knights existence that we can expect someone to go on LTIR.

Maybe it's probably Mark Stone and that they're going to go and make a move. But also like there's a lot of teams who utilize LTIR and a lot of. of teams who aren't going out and making these swings. Like the Vegas Golden Knights every year are just like whatever like we'll give up a first round pick. We'll give up a guy. Like we're going to add the deadline and get better. I don't know. I've lost interest in the whole they're circumventing the cap thing because what they're doing is within the rules. And Mark Stone does in fact have a ruptured spleen. So there's also a risk element to what they're doing. There certainly was last year because the supposition is that Mark Stone is going to come back after sitting for months

and not playing in a real game and going to be able to step in and game one of the playoffs and be ready to roll. And that is a risk. There's risk inherent to that too, you know? And we've seen it. Like, of course, you know, Alec Martinez leaves practice yesterday, right? He'd been dealing with something on and off for a couple weeks, need missed time and blah, blah, blah, blah. Now it's like, you can see where this is ending. You can see, you can see where it'll end if, if that's where they want it to end.

But this isn't a Vegas golden nights problem. Like, there's this weird, I think, I think this is a product of seeing so many mediocre teams in so many gutless teams who don't have the stones

to push their chips into the middle of the table every single year. And people are accustomed fans of almost every team are accustomed we'll eliminate whatever the Jim Rutherford run franchises over the last few years and Vegas,

whatever, breezebois, you know, dubus to an extent, especially the last couple years ago. It's a short list, though. So there's prospect hugging and pick hoarding that has been baked into the mindset of the hockey fan globally. Like people just assume

that it's better, like, I saw people online. You can't trade our first round pick. What do you mean? Some people online like carping about what the oilers gave up for Adam Henrique. It's like what cares? What are we talking about? Like you have Connor McDave, Leon Drysidal, whose contract is like on the way to being up.

The clock is taking on on these guys. And you're really going to worry about a first round pick in 2025. about some dude who's playing in the Western League and won't be heard from until Connor McDavid is 33 or whatever. And you're going to sit there and worry about that? No. And that's not the harp on Oilers fans either. I think that's just a mindset that's taken root in way,

way, way too many fans worldwide. And it manifests itself at this time of year in people being pissed off at the Vegas Golden Knights because that is what a team that wants to win looks like and people don't know how to deal with it. It's a league problem. Complain about the rule. Complain about how they use the mechanism.

Fine. Write letters to the league office and ask them to change it. Like, don't complain about Kelly McCriman and Mark Stone and whoever else. It's crazy. But that's what I mean is I feel like people treat this like Vegas and, you know, these other examples that we can think of like it are using some example that's like not in the spirit of the rule.

I don't, I don't really believe that's the case. I think that the salary cap, I think people were sold on the salary cap by the promise of competitive balance, but I don't think that that's what the owners really need it for. What the owners need it for is an assurance that they can't be expected to pay a certain amount of money. But when they really want to, when a billionaire really wants to spend $100 million on his payroll instead of 83.5, they're not going to tell him, no, you can't do that.

And there's other systems out there that restrict this a little differently, Sean. I know you've got the NBA. What is the NBA example? The NBA's rule is that the salary cap applies during the playoffs, but if you are allowed to exceed it, but you can only exceed it by adding players who make the league minimum to the back year bench. I know that like hockey and in hoops aren't a one for one comparison

because a guy who's the 12th man on the Lakers or whatever is not necessarily going to play at all, let alone nine minutes on a fourth line, right? It's not quite a one-for-one comparison. But that is the fix. That's the fix of this situation. It's going to take 32 teams agreeing on it and moving ahead with it. It's never going to happen, right?

It's going to take the Vegas Golden Knights winning again this year and like winning two more Stanley Cups in eight years of existence. And people being like, maybe we should change this rule. Don't you think they would rather have Mark Stone play? That team is tied for a wild card spot right now. They need to get their stuff together. or else, like, like my God, they're going to end up, they can, they get into playing Dallas in the first round. You think Vegas wants that?

Would the players, would the players even go for that? Like, I mean, like, you're, you restricted to being league minimum. Like, why, why would the players prefer that to the current setup? Right. It's never going to happen. And we've had teams in, like, people are acting Vegas is the team that invented exceeding the salary cap during the playoffs and winning a cap because of it. Guess what?

Ain't true. The Penguins did it. I know that. There's plenty of teams. in the past that have done it too. Maybe not with the theatricality of Mark Stone, you know, descending from the rafters in time for game

one of the playoffs. Like that doesn't happen every year. But like, this is how the system's supposed to work. If you want to change it, then complain, whatever. But don't sit there and spam reply, you know, Vegas Golden Knights rumors on Twitter complaining about them being cheaters. It's crazy. They're following the rules.

Yeah. Okay, let's get to the actual trade. Noah Hanofin to the Vegas Golden Knights. They add another, like they add that what the second best defender, arguably the first. I think most people would say Hanofin would be on a top pair. And Chris Tanna, if you're a winner, he'd probably be on your second. But either way, they get either the number one or number two defender, one of the top players on the board to a blue line that already had success in the postseason,

literally last year. I think it's an easy win for the Vegas Golden Knights. And yeah, we're talking about Mark Stone and where they're at in the wild card, but they just beefed up

in a really meaningful way. And we talk about the NHL being a copycat league. And there were so many conversations heading into this year's deadline of like, what did we learn from Vegas last year? It's like have a big tough to play against Blue Line.

But the difference with Vegas is they're not just like big hockey men, like they can actually move the puck and play well, right? they're not just big man stands in front of net. And they just added another guy who's pretty well-rounded in Noah Hannafin. It's an obvious win for Vegas. Yeah, it's the best blue line in the league.

And I thought Jesse Granger made a great point in his column after the trade that this is probably not just, they paid a rental price. So no matter what, they come out fine on this. But in a world where they do sign Noah Hannafin, this is an unbelievable trade. Alec Martinez's contract is up. Noah Hanoffin looks like a very obvious. Air apparent Alec Martinez there. And if they keep him, which like their history pretty much says they do. They pretty much keep these guys when they trade for them.

This is going to be a heist. I think you look at the depth of their blue line and the pairings that they can create. It's the best blue line in the league, I think. Completely. And Max, I think you said it. Like, Hina Finn is a fun fit for Vegas because he's a left side guy, right? It's the rare situation where maybe he has more value to, where a left-handed stud has more value to a given team than a right-handed stud because they have Petrangelo and because they have Shea Theodore who is a lefty who has played on his offhand for the last like several years. So now moving forward, if they let Martinez go, you're like, okay, this is interesting.

Do we put Hina Finn with Petrangelo and just have him do some of the heavy-duty pocket? because Petrangelo, like, God bless him. His minutes are insane, and he's tasked with much more than even the average number one guy, right? You put Aniffin with him, and you say, like, all right, you're the guy that lugs the puck out of the zone because Hanifin is good at that. You pair him with Shea Theodore, who's more of, you know, an offensively minded or an unoffensively, you know, situated guy. Like on the right side, do you move Shea Theodore back to the left? Like, there's so many interesting combinations, you know, moving forward. you know, with this roster.

But for the meantime, today, tomorrow a week from now, you know, he's now like Martinez replacement, like for the stretch run. And all of a sudden, like, it seems like they needed one. I think what makes the Vegas Golden Knights even more interesting is not only do they take the big swing on Noah Hanifin, but they already added Anthony Mantha, who we talked about last week on the show as somebody who Sean, you specifically said, like a team should go out and get this guy. and they've managed to carve out cap space for potential further deals, obviously with the salary retention that they've gotten it again, as we talk about them just going for it and giving up assets to third teams to retain salary.

But there's also the wrinkle of the condition that we mentioned on this pick, right? You don't have to read into it too much here. So the condition for the Calgary first rounder, it's a 2025 first rounder. The condition is if Vegas trades their 2025 first round pick by March 10th or if the pick is top 10, Calgary will instead receive Vegas's 2026 first round pick. Maybe that's a standard thing when you've got multiple firsts, but I feel like that's pretty intentional by the Vegas Golden Knights to say, yeah, we might be using this other one. So we'll let you know which one you get. That's the first time I've seen that condition, certainly. And it's especially with a ticking clock, 48 hours.

hours if we move this in the next 48 hours. Also, like, it's worth doing a quick little reset of Vegas's cap situation here because we keep talking about them having money. And I don't think people are aware maybe that at the moment, they can add it, according to Cap friendly, they can add almost $4 million on deadline day. That is without. Salary retention. That is without retention.

And that is without the possibility of Alec Martinez who makes $5.25 million a year going on long-term injured reserve. So you look at it, Haley, like you said it. They have a bunch of first round picks. They have a couple high-end prospects, you know, certainly one who's like NHL ready and Brennan, like that's going to appeal to a lot of teams. You know, that is, and we'll talk about Jake Gensel down the line, but that is like, if they want to go get them, like they have the assets to do it and they have the space.

And it's crazy, but it's true. let's go to the other side of this trade and it's the calgary flames as we kind of go through what happened on wednesday in a winners and losers standpoint it's really hard for me to look at the flames as a winner or even like a middle ground person i just i you look at all the players that have gone out the door elias lynn home noah aniffin chris tannove even tyler tofolia if we're thinking earlier on. These are the biggest and most important players for the most part on that roster outside of like Blake Coleman

and the captain Michael Backlin and Jacob Markstrom. And not only that, but like the top two players on the board and the best center on the board. And the flames have two first round picks. Arguably no blue chip prospects. The guy who they got for Linholm is not even a year younger than Elias Linholm. I saw a tweet that he's six months younger than,

or sorry, not Elias Linholm. Noah Hanifan. He is six months younger than Noah Hanifin. That's the prospect you got in return. Who's like flip positions recently? Like, this is not. Yeah. It's just underwhelming once again for the Calgary Flames.

And instead of looking at a successful retool, I feel like I'm looking at a team that is still in no man's land. That's the only way to salvage. this in my opinion is that you have to trade Jacob Markstrom. And I think you have to, I know they've talked about retool. They're in this playoff race in theory. I think you have to go all the way at this point because you're going to get, you didn't get enough to retool, to be honest. Like you have the four first round picks in the next two years unless the Vegas

one kicks at 2026, which honestly you might prefer if you're Calgary because. Especially if the other one's top tent protected. Yeah. And there's at least a prayer that Vegas falls off by 2026. I doubt it. but maybe there's a chance. But beyond that, like, you just didn't get enough to retool around what you have, I don't think.

So at this point, I think you have to go full rebuild. And that's the way to salvage it is that you give yourself this long runway and you do it full on. But we all like Craig Conroy. We're all, I think, you know, kind of pulling for Craig Conroy here. Totally. It just, you know, it's been a really, he's in a tough situation. I don't think that should go unnoticed. But a lot of underwhelming returns beyond the Lindholm deal in this collection.

And I think you absolutely have to trade Jacob Markstrom now. I don't know what you're doing with Jacob Markstrom with this group in front of him otherwise. You're trying to scrape into the playoffs and make money once you get there. That's it. That's the way we need to view everything that the Calgary Flames do. It all may agree with it, disagree with it. It all makes way more sense if you're like, okay, this team needs playoff revenue. They've got a new building.

allegedly. Allegedly. They're low-key. That's a train wreck of a franchise. There's train wreck potential there. What? Come on. Like what is the point of playing

of playing hockey games if you don't have a chance of winning eventually? Yeah. It's a tough. It's a tough core. And it's one of those things where like I've defended it too. I remember going on.

the radio and someone being like, why, why is Calgary such a terrible place? Like, why does no one want to sign there? And I've always pushed back on that and said, like, have you ever been to Calgary? It's a great place. It's not that people don't want to be in that city, but it's a real, it's definitely, it's a tough time for the, why is why are American players specifically or why are top guys not wanting to stay? I don't know if I'm saying they have train wreck potential, but I definitely feel like this is a franchise who has been stuck in the mushy middle. And I feel like if you're a fan, you'd probably almost rather them steer into the skin and become a train wreck for a couple of years if it means that you end up becoming relevant

when it matters in the end, right? Like they haven't done anything meaningful in the postseason since Jerome Gindler. That was what, 2004, 2006 that it was in year? Like they have not done anything important in the playoffs since then. They want a playoff round against Adela Star is when I was still covering the team. And then like, that's it. And then guess what? Johnny Goddrow and Matthew Chuck left and Daryl Sutter got fired a year later and everything

that was like super rosy and fun. And it was like, finally, like the plan has worked. This core that Bradtree Living wanted to keep together has finally clipped. Like this was his vision. And then it fell apart immediately. And they haven't been able to. I think they, I think the biggest mistake they made was not steering into the skid then. I think you go and get Hubert O and Codry.

and now they're stuck, right? Because you have these guys who are being paid a lot. You're not going to be, those aren't tradable assets. You're not trading that Jonathan Huberto contract. And you have Jacob Markstrom, who was too elite to make a rebuilding team work. And they're just, once again, they're stuck. And all these returns they're getting isn't steering them in one direction or the other. What?

You're going to try to win a cup with Kuzmanko. And we're saying that they need to trade, this is true. they need to trade marks from them. They need to, Ray Jacob Markstrom, send him to New Jersey or whoever, right? Get your bag of picks

and your bag of assets coming back for him. You're still paying... Do you hear him take a shot? Yeah. You pissed him off already, which is something else entirely. But even if you do move Jacob Marks from,

Haley, you said it. You're paying Jonathan Eberdough a gazillion dollars for a billion years. You're paying cadre too much for too long. Like, what do you do with those guys? It's a mess. Yeah. It's a mess.

And they don't, on some level, like, I think this is like, I think we're going to, the narrative around them as like an actual, have, having an actual problem is going to coagulate a lot more here because of the way things have gone at this deadline. Because they always had that ace in their sleep. Craig Conroy could always, or you could always say like, you know, it can move Hanifin. It can move in this. You can do that. And, you know, maybe we get the godfather offering.

and everything's fine, and then we can do a soft reset around, Yubrido, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hasn't happen. Isn't going to happen. And they're what? They're the 11th best team in the West. To what end?

And they're going to continue to get the 16th overall pick in the draft. Go ahead, Max, I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I think the comp here, funny enough, is Columbus, who have Johnny Goddrow in the role of Jonathan Huberdow.

And I don't know, you know, I think Codry's a little bit better than Boone Jenner. Maybe Blake Coleman's in the role of Boone Jenner. But I think that's kind of the comp here of where you're going to go. And that even might be optimistic for Calgary, not in the sense of the standings, but in the sense of at least Columbus, I think, is still going to get their top 10 picks here. I just think that it's really hard to, you know, we can go back to the Kachuk trade

infinity times here. But that was like one of the biggest value opportunities. of this like last five to six years in the NHL and they got what was a big value return in terms of players. But imagine if they had gotten a 20 year old or the equivalent number of picks that Hubertow and Uyghur would have been worth. And I don't know. It's not fair to hold that against Craig Conner. That's not his trade. But that's the spot that put them in or that's the deal that put them in this spot. UBerdo going in the tank last year was like the uh-oh moment. Like I was on board, I think, conceptually for them trying to make one last run of it.

Him signing that contract and then plan like do-do for the duration of the 22, 23 season. I'm a child. It's true. It wasn't good. He's been better this year. But still, you know, the dude's like 30 and he signed forever. Not a good situation. I think for Max's comp, like the unfortunate part and I guess the good thing for Columbus is at least the bluejacket's

have Adam Fantilli. Like they actually have some of the good prospects, right? The flames have Matt Coronado, who's solid. He's good. Scottie seems to like him. Yeah. Yeah, it's

there's the thing that people have always said when I covered the team. There's so much fan frustration all the time of just like the middle is death and that's where we've been forever. you know who I was funny last night was watching the flame social team tweet through it like during games and stuff and they're dropping like all these like silly you know standard funny tweets and whatever and people are just in their replies like losing their mind over like first announced the the the hand of in return and then being getting then after that getting pissed off of the hand of in return yeah you know what team we can can consider a winner in the way that they're approaching this rebuild slash retool, it's the Philadelphia Flyers. I think they were absolute winners on Wednesday.

They'll end up being winners of the deadline. Sean and I had this conversation as we were kind of lining up the show and it's so funny to see a team that's what third in the metro selling right now because yeah, the team's been good, but they're not veering off track. They know what they want to do. Everyone's in lockstep. That was the whole point. Keith Jones was on the show. I think maybe with you, Sean, Keith Jones, Danny Breyer and John Tortorella, they are all on the same page. Tortorella is going to coach this team to like have good habits and the John Tortorale thing play the right way, da-da-da. But the front office is still going to be doing the job at hand, which is retooling and like fixing this roster for the long run. And the deals we saw yesterday from them,

they trade Sean Walker to the abs for a 2025 first round pick that's top 10 protected and Ryan Johansson and then they swiftly wave Ryan Johansson he's about to be a very very expensive HL player I love it like it's another it's another round of Daniel Breyer being pretty creative and right and like he's he's creative and he's uh And he's fearless because Sean Walker and Kevin, our, Kevin Kerr's are, our Flyers beat reporter reported this that

Sean Walker wanted around five, whatever, over $5 million a year for five years. And the flyers were like, no. We're going to trade you. That doesn't work for us long term. We will take a first round pick for you. I love what Breyer does with, with salary retention,

with like he's he's always down to serve as a broker he had an interesting deal that the pro vrov deal over the summer was kind of the signal i think that he was going to maybe think about asset management a little bit differently than the standard than the standard than the standard uh and hl general manager just kind of continued continued from there right he got like they barely got think of it this way calgary barely got more than billy did for sean walker for for no Haniff. And it's a wild state of affairs. Yeah.

Well, so, and the other thing is, I think when we talk about the competitive balance idea around the salary cap and why we shouldn't be killing Vegas on this, is there are a lot of ways to do this that have nothing to do with LTIR.

The way that Philly's using their cap space has nothing to do with competitive balance. And it is brilliant, right? The way that Danny Breyer is leveraging, taking on a contract of a player, he has no intention of putting into his lineup to juice the return on Sean Walker. to take money in the Hanifin trade, right? These are all the ways that it works on the other side of the coin, too.

You can do it on the LTIR side of things when you're a contender. You can do it on the retention and the bad money side of things when you are not a, when you're a rebuilder. They have two first round picks in 2025. They added that first rounder in 2020, or two first rounds in 24, excuse me. They added one in 25. They have eight first and second round picks over the next two years. like spread out pretty evenly like round around like what are what more do you want from that honestly

and then on top of it they're in a playoff spot right now like the vibes are great as they should they extend sealer right so they can give the locker room that juice that hey we didn't completely got you we did what we had to do we got the first for walker nobody in that locker room is going to think it's um i'm sure they're going to miss sean walker but i think everyone's going to understand that they got a first round pick for him right like those guys are smart guys they're going to realize that that, you know, okay, well, they weren't going to be able to say no to that. And the front office can save face on that. The flyers are strategically open for business.

In their, again, playoff spot in the Metro Division, and they're being chased by teams that are, A, crappy to begin with and about to sell off every piece that they have in the Islanders who just can't keep it together for more than a week or two at the time. It is a very, very real possibility that this team does. Despite selling Sean Walker at the deadline, if not more, ends up in the playoffs. I love it. I'm a little fun fact for our listeners here.

Ryan Johansson played half a season with the Flyers coach, John Tortorella in Columbus in 2015-16, and Tortorella made him a healthy scratch at several moments before he was dealt to Nashville and that one-for-one trade for Seth Jones back in 2016. Similar kind of trade happened. the deadline. We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to break down the Casey Middle stat for Bo Byram one for one because it's super fun and we love the aves. All right. We're back and there's a little bit of news as we're recording this show. The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Washington Capitals have completed a trade. We have a trade to

announce folks. If so when you're listening to this, it's not being announced. It's been like hours. But the Toronto Maple Leafs have acquired Joel Edmondson from the Washington Capitals for a 2024 third round pick and a 2025 fifth and the caps are retaining. 50% salary. I saw our friend, Dom Lus Chishin, friend of the show, said, oh, great. That was the analysis.

We have a Slack channel where we coordinate who's going to write what trade grades around this time of year. And obviously couldn't do it because I'm going to record, but I just checked it to say that, you know, I'm out because I'm otherwise occupied. And Dom within six, of the trade being announced. I was like, like, please let me have this one.

Uh-huh. God only knows what he, what he's right. So he posted the player card and said Joel Edmondson is six foot five, 221 pounds every time he steps on the ice. Absolutely. This one reminds me of like,

like imagining Brad Trillivings, uh, reaction to making this trade is, is the Tim Robinson, uh, yeah, that'll do it. Yeah. That'll do it.

I, I think that'll do the truth. It also just we need to remember that the GM that made this trait is the GM who was like sitting in his seat so happy when Ryan Reeves was introduced on the first day of the season and that home opener. Just remember the reaction. You feel like Brad True Living is upset to be the GM in a world where Joel Edmondson is only worth a third round back. Like he's like, man, it would be great. It would be great if I could give up a first rounder for this guy. pretty clear

black shots it's pretty clear that there's a pattern they get Lubushkin too who's also big hockey defender man and to be clear I don't disagree

that is that was a small blue line that looked pretty easy to forecheck to me sure I just don't see this is like the kind of needle moving that the Toronto Maple Leafs

listen man it's tough to find it's tough to find guys who can big strong guys who are cheap and and and and in also can play hockey at this point. Like, like, there's not, there's not a ton of them, right? So it's like, it's like the old thing about food. Like, you can have, you know, it can be,

it can be fast, it can be good, it can be cheap. You can pick two, but like, you're not, you're not going to get all four. So yeah, if you want a guy who's cheap in whatever, skilled with the puck on his stick and also heavy and hard, like, that dude does not count 875 grand against your salary cap on March 7th. The guy just the guy just doesn't exist. It's not a terrible move for the least, but as Max said, it just doesn't really move the needle.

And now they've spent, you know, three picks now, four. I forget the exact return for Lubushan, but they've spent three, four middle round draft picks on, you know, big bodied blue liners. And I just think when we looked at the Leafs roster

and we looked at the Leafs needs, it was like Tanev, Hanofin, get maybe an upgrading goal, maybe try to get a good middle six forward, get Adam Henrique. And I just think so far what they've spent their assets on hasn't been what people like us. And to be fair,

like the internal trade board is always going to be different than what the fans or the media people want. But I think what the Leafs have done, versus what people have said, this is what the leaf should do has been a little bit skewed. But I also think like Craig Conroy slash flames ownership was never going to trade their top assets to Bradtree Living in Toronto. Like there was no way that was ever going to happen unless they said like,

here's the farm. Like here's Matthew Nyes and three first round picks or whatever. Like there's just no way they were going to do that. And then Joel Edmondson has a seventh or eighth defenseman like a guy who's an option and a playoff series. He's like, it's fine. Like, now if he comes in and they're like, and you think Sheldon Keyes going to be like, Simone Benoit, actually, you're sitting down consistently.

Yeah. Or we're going to, or whatever, we're going to play Joel Edmondson for 19 minutes a night against second line competition. If that's what happens, then they're going to have a, they're going to have a bad time. But for the role, it seems like they acquired them to fit. Like, it's tough to get all that, all that upset about. No, I mean, I think on the third pair, you're perfectly content. I mean, this is the thing with that Canadians blue line that went to the Stanley Cup final is everyone wanted to take shots at every single player on that blue line like Ben Chirot, Joel Edmondson.

And at a certain point, they're in the Stanley Cup final guys. They can't all be bad. You have to give a little more credit than you're giving these guys. It's just that at this point, you know, the leaves, I guess to like make the point more finely. I want to see the Leafs do the kind of thing that Vegas is doing, not necessarily with LTIR, but just with the like, hey, we have all these guys that we believe are good enough to give $11 million contracts to. but yet we don't feel like they're good enough to go all in for. I don't know how to square that. Yeah.

No. It's also just like the issue to me, it's like if you want to get back to what makes this deal sort of shaky for Toronto is like, there is an opportunity cost issue because cap space is not finite. You only have so much to spend. You have glaring needs. You look at it. The right side of their defense right now is Lilligreen, Lubbushkin, and William Laggason.

like that's what their right side is at the moment and you're going and acquiring a big, strong, slow left shot when that's what you're working with on the right side, like that's what's tough. But I mean, in a vacuum,

like would I be fine if I were a cup contender that I had Joel Edmondson is my eighth defenseman during a playoff? That's fine. I'll take that. I'm just worried that that's not. If I release fan, I would be very,

very worried that that's not what he's going to end up being for them. Well, that blue line has been the biggest question mark since the beginning of the season. I feel like we've been talking about it all year is like if there's going to be a downfall to the Leafs this year, is that they're going to be top heavy with a bad blue line and questionable goaltending. And that's kind of what's happened. And I don't think that they've corrected in those areas. I think if the blue line's going to be better in the playoffs, Timothy Lilligrin's going to need

to have top four minutes in which he's. being a puck retriever and a puck mover and, you know, has better expected goal rate. So we'll see. I can at least appreciate that they're trying to do it a little differently than they've done in the past by saying, like, let's go and get the pieces. Like we just talked about the Golden Knights. They've got big, big blue line hard to play against the Leafs are trying to copy that. But there's a big difference between Joel Edmondson and Cheyodor.

So. I would say so. They might be the opposite, actually. The other piece of news that just came in, and we want to get to the abs because we tease the Bo Byram trade, but some things have been happening. The Panthers announced an eight-year, $46 million extension for Gustav Forseling, which is a pretty great contract for him. And then there was also a trade here, Anthony Bovillier to the Preds for a 2024 fifth round pick to the Blackhawks. And that was a moment where I totally forgot that Anthony Bovillier was on the Blackhawks. It's just your obligatory, like, hey, we're in Nashville. We're going to try to add somebody because we're playing better than anybody thought.

And, you know, Anthony Bavillier can score 15 goals in season or whatever. There's nothing to see there. Yeah. Max, Bo Byron, Casey Middlestadt. Yeah, this was my favorite trade of the day. I think we kind of tease it in the intro. This is like, this is what you live for at trade deadline time is the one that no one really saw coming. Maybe I think people kind of knew Middlestadt.

It was possible. but probably not likely to move. I hadn't really seriously considered Bo and Byron moving. And to get it one for one like this, this is the fun one, right? I mean, this is probably why GMs don't make them because we get to track these two guys against each other for the next five years

and declare a winner and all that. But Haley, going into the break, you teased it as like, could this be kind of the next Ryan Johansson for Seth Jones? I really like that because I think in that one, you get kind of the platonic, ideal of these two premium positions, the young center who's breaking through and being really

productive and this high-end D who I think has the higher ceiling ultimately and what wins out, right? Long term, I think I prefer it for the Sabres because they don't have a left side entirely of top five picks. All of them can move the puck. All of them can defend transition. I think it's going to be really fun. But in the short term, I think you could actually make a case that this made the avalanche better

because they already kind of had a bunch of mobile puck moving D. And I think they get a glaring hole, obviously, Sean, as you put in the trade grade at second line center. I love this trade. I think it's maybe double A's, but at minimum double B pluses. Colorado got 11 points combined from Ryan Johansen and Ross Colton since the start of February. Oh. How about that? I hate that.

That's the same thing applies as what we said of, is what we said of, is what we said about Vegas. Like, if you have a team that can win it, it has whatever, someone gets hurt, or you have one big hole, go out and figure it out and chase, and chase the thing, right? Like, Colorado as constituted, especially after the off season they had when, granted, like, trying for Johansson, not a bad idea. He's done. It seems like he's cooked. Ross Colton is a good player, but he's overextended as a second line center. and Drin, Thomas Tatar, like they had a, they, they went for a bunch of stuff to remake their middle six. It all made enough sense, but none of the lottery tickets came up. Fine. Recognize

that fact, accept it, and go out and get a player that can be a fit there long term. And sometimes it hurts. Sometimes you give up a player who maybe you wouldn't, you wouldn't otherwise want to give up, but Casey Middlestead makes this team capable of winning another cup right now. And they weren't before because you just can't, again, ain't going to happen with Ryan Johansen and Ross Colton is your 2C. Casey Meadowssted, he was leading the leading the sabres and scoring. He's

like turned into an unbelievable playmaker. His passing numbers last year were out of control. His track stats for passing were unbelievably great. And he was stuck as a 3C long term in Buffalo behind those behind Thompson and cousins, right? So everything made sense. He's a player that they can win with right now. I loved every bit of it.

And I do want to say one thing, one more thing about this. Like Matthew Fairburn has written a couple really good pieces about the, you know, outlook from the Buffalo end of things, why they did what they did, why it makes sense, what they want from Bowen Byron, how they're going to use them. Like he laid it out pretty plainly over the last couple of days. So I would suggest anybody who wants more of, you know, a Buffalo-centric look at this, to go check it out because I love what he wrote this morning. I've just got to say too, not to backtrack into the Toronto conversation,

but Bertel, James Myrtle, we just call him Myrtle around here. They are at 377,000 in Capspace after acquiring Edmondson. And placing Conor Timmons on LTIAR. So. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy Joel Edmondson and Ilyle-Buschkin. when you're losing games 4 to 2 in the second round of the playoffs

what's crazy about the abs to me sorry to just go one more thing I've done I don't want to talk about the leaves I watched him play the Red Wings Wednesday night right so I'm just kind of fresh off this yeah what was the final score seven to two and the degree to which that was driven by

unbelievable first line unbelievable first D pair right like this is just straight up all McKinney McCar rant in them. You can't waste that, right? Like that team, I think, can go into a series and their top line and top pair can win them the whole series. It's just really hard to do that four times in a row. And they owed it to that whole group to give themselves a secondary option, Casey Middlestadt. We'll see what it is long term.

It's only really been two years of a breakthrough for him. We'll also see what Bowen Byram's health is, for that matter. I mean, the concussions there are a real risk. But to give this team for however long Casey Middlestat is an ab, a second line that can hurt you and you can't just throw every like they're going to see Dallas or Winnipeg at some point right if you see Dallas and and you can just throw Miro Heiskin into those two guys you might win the series off just being able to go to that matchup this is their counter to that you have to consider how are you going to stop the

middle set every every great team and I always the fault of talking about the penguins here but it's been true it was true for the lightning and any team that's good in wins cups multiple over the course of any amount of time, they're going to be series where your best players, like, are bottled up. That's just, that's just the way it goes.

So it's a mat. And Max, I think you said it in Dallas. That's the one for Colorado is like, as a one-line team, as great as those guys are, they're going to need more. They're going to need somebody to go out there and produce,

and they didn't have a second line that was capable of, of doing much of anything. And now they do. Like, you need, you need to be able to, offload some of that responsibility at some point over the playoffs. Even if only for five games in the second round, you need somebody to be able to step in and be

like, all right, I got it. I got this game because you guys are having a tough time with Miro Haskinen or, you know, whoever it might be. And you get out of that too, Sean Walker to replace Bowen Byram on your decor. You still get the incredibly mobile, you know, puck moving. I think transition defending is going to be something that he excels at with avalanche. He just fits their game so well. I think you upgrade. I don't know if

you upgrade from Byron to Walker, but at least you're neutral and you might be an upgrade because of the health. You can play him on the right side and also sit Jack Johnson. Because I'm not trying to relitigate the Jack Johnson thing. Like that's been done a zillion times. But he is

playing on their third pair right now or was. And now you can put him back on the bench. Like their whole depth chart makes so much more sense now than it did. We're a relative to what it looked like, you know, 24 hours ago. Did the West just get way more interesting? It feels like these are all in the West, doesn't it?

I mean, the Rangers, the Rangers get Wenberg. Obviously, the Flyers did some moving, but they weren't exactly adding. Panthers get Teresenko. Yeah, Panthers get Teresanko. He's playing, he was skating on that top line today with Barkoff and Ryan. For nothing, by the way. Yeah. And so the Panthers stay at the top, right? Like they're already first in the east.

First in the league? First in the league. But I think the Pacific just got a little bit more spicy. Obviously the Canucks and we can talk about whether or not they might be trying to get Gensel in the next segment. But the Oilers, they get Henrique and the Oilers are already good because, you know, Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisidal. and then the Vegas Golden Knights beef up. And then, I mean, we haven't really talked about the Jets because it's not like they've been particularly active.

Obviously, they get Sean Monag. But we can't forget about Winnipeg. They're sandwiched between the stars and the abs. But the Western Conference playoffs are going to be freaking fun. I'm excited. We can thank all those teams for the moves that they made already, right? Yeah. Even going back to Elias, even go back to Elias Lindelham and Monaghan down to Tanev.

Like the deadline in the West started, this sounds corny, it started weeks ago, right? It's like that Doge meme where there's the little one who's just sitting there and then there's the really strong one and like the big beefy one is the West and then the East is just sitting there. I saw Elon Musk tweet about that one time. That's pretty cool. Oh no. Did he? He uses that Doge meme? Two jokes.

Oh, I love that. meme. Sorry. Oh, shit. All right. Let's take a break. When we come back, we'll talk a bit about who's left because, yeah, the deadline hasn't passed yet. Sorry, James Duffy. It's going to be a tough

tough Friday. We're going to try to wrap this up before five more trades happen. So the trade deadline is Friday. Three o'clock? So we've got in 27 hours.

until the trade deadline as we are speaking now. Jake Gensel is the biggest trade chip left on the board, the biggest name on the board. Sean, talk about Jake Gensel, please. This is set up. Well, Pierre LeBron reported this morning that six or seven teams are still in on them, which is interesting because it was easy to watch yesterday

and think like, all right, there goes the Panthers. There goes the Vegas Golden Knights. There goes the New York Rangers or whoever. teams that we'd seen connected to them, whether directly or a little more tangentially, making moves, adding players, adding cap space, and subtracting assets. And it's, it would be easy to think that it rules a bunch of teams out. But I don't think that's the case. I think when you look at, look, Vancouver is going to have to move out salary. I think we've made that clear earlier, right? But they're probably going to send out roster players to meet

Pittsburgh's ask anyways, right? Florida gets a little bit more complicated. Vegas could do it in 10 minutes if they wanted to. It's really, really interesting. And I think that, you know, I've gone back and forth in the last 24 hours over whether, over whether this is going to work out the way Kyle Dumas wants it to or not. But I think, I think it still has the potential for one reason. The rental market on Wingers is deep. there's a lot of players out there that you can that you can you know pick off depending depending on what your needs might be jake gansel still far and away is the best of them right so ultimately when you're holding the best player at the deadline that matters now is Kyle dubus going to be

able to flip say Riley smith who's in the mushy middle of rental wingerers like maybe not i think those are the kind of guys that are that are going to that maybe teams are left kind of holding the bag on because there are a lot of them. But ultimately, I think there's still a lot of currency in being able to say Jake Gensel is a no doubt first line winger who can score 40 goals in this league, like come and get them. Do we believe, though, when you say six or seven teams, do we believe that those six or seven teams have the assets to do something

that's satisfied? You mentioned Florida. People who are like, I would love to get them. Unless they're going to give up Anton Lindell, which I do not see. happening. Like, what is this like? Who do you, how do you replace Anton?

Right. So I just don't see that, right? So it's like, there's this idea that Pittsburgh wants, there's reports that Pittsburgh wants prospects, young players over picks. Not that Florida has picks anyway, but who's their top prospect? Mackie Samiskevich. I don't think that gets you, Jake Gensel. I don't know who that man is.

Vegas. Yeah, right. So, so like, he's a first round pick a couple years ago, but I don't think he's a, yeah, right, he went to Michigan, uh, won some games there, no big deal. But, um, you. You look at Vegas, right? Sean mentioned Brasson. I don't think Brasson gets you Jake Gensel.

David Edstrom might, the first round pick from last year. Someone's going to get you Jake Gensel because Jake Gensel is getting traded. And I think like the idea, I think part of it, I think at some point we're going to meet in the middle here, right?

Where it's going to cost these teams something, but is it going to be, you know, the three prime assets, whether it's two picks and whatever. The idea of like roster player, first round pick, high-end prospect like probably not but i still think there's a deal out there to be made because it is

here's the other thing that we need to remember it is increasingly clear that jake gansel is done as a pittsburgh penguin like that whole pipe dream of trading him and then bring them back and resigning that is not going to happen right so if you accept that is fact and you know that pittsburgh needs to trade this guy like there's deals out there to be made and i think what kyle dubus is hoping at this point or what he should be hoping is even if it only comes out of Vancouver and Vegas that having those two teams going back and forth is is enough to get just 90% of what you would have wanted otherwise. Is there a team who should be landing Jake Gensel more than the Carolina Hurricanes?

Like if there's a team that I saw ended up doing it, that would make me be like, yeah, thank you. It would be the Keynes. I think there is an issue with the, I think Carolina is the one team that Pittsburgh shouldn't want to trade Jake Gensel to because then you have to play them a million times a year. So I think they're exhausting other options.

It makes sense for a bunch of reasons. Carolina's got prospects. They have some roster players who are interesting. But they play the Panthers all the time too. They're not in the same division, so they don't play them that often. They play Carolina a zillion times a year. I think that is them in the Rangers,

I think those would be the teams where you're like, do we really want to do this? Which is a shame. You're cutting off your nose despite your face. I think there's a deal there to be made with Carolina, but I don't think Pittsburgh in a perfect world would, like they'd much rather send them out west and get something they want from one of the Pacific Division teams.

But like what? What's Edmonton? Like, I'm just like, I'm going to these teams that are linked to. What's Edmonton giving you? Right. You're going to get Philip Roberg. Like, that's nice. I like that.

But, you know. I mean, maybe. I think, but I think you need to be relit. like, you need to be realistic about what, I think there are pieces out there, right? Like, I think, I think some, some version of either Vegas's first round pick last year, the Swedish player, whose name I'm continually forgetting Edstrom, some combination of Edstrom, Brennan Brasson, and a pick.

Like, does, I like that. I do like that. Do you get all three? Like, maybe, maybe not. No, I don't think so. If you get Edstrom, you should be really happy. That's a solid middle stick center with a little upside. And why would Vegas care about their first round pick from last year's draft, frankly?

you can get they've shown that they don't no it doesn't it doesn't matter and then you can get the future pick that they don't want to give the flames like i think that's fine i think that's fine at this point you know that the the the die's been cast jac cancel is done in pittsburg they're not gonna hold on to him he is going to get traded and if he doesn't get traded it would represent a catastrophic mistake yeah and they jake gensel's cap hit is six million and we've won't already established that the Vegas Golden Knights have around 3.8, like just under 4 million in space. So if there's a retention, whether it's the penguins or a third party. And this has been truly a deadline of a lot of like third party brokers getting involved and getting a fourth or

a fifth round pick. We know the flyers have already done it. Lots of teams been active. And getting that extra depth pick for retaining 25% or what have you. So in terms of the money, it's definitely doable. and I think it's frightening to think that Vegas could be one of the teams involved. Let's move on to some of the other players that are available, though, before you wrap the show, because again, instead of this being a deadline-eve setup of the trade deadline, it's been mostly a recap of the things that have already happened. But Jake Gensel's the top player for sure. Tyler Tofoli is still on the board.

He's number two on CJ's Big Board 6.0. one of the bright spots of what's been a really disappointing season in New Jersey, it's probably disappointing that they can't keep him because Tyler Tofoli is a naturally gifted goal scorer. He's been a 20 goal guarantee for almost the entirety of his career. He's 31, so he's not too old, but he's still been productive in Jersey. So I'm curious to see who might add a top six goal scorer in Tafoli. I think he's definitely someone that I don't know. I think the Devils will get something good in return for Tyler Tofoli.

The train wreck of a season for New Jersey. Like we're sitting here talking about them selling. Tyler Tofoli who looked like the missing piece at the start of the season. And now it's like, they can't figure out an extension. But like that's a bad, bad, bad, bad scene. It's not great. Matt Dumbah's number three on CJ's board. But he's also wanted to do not trade for guys.

on Dom's list. There's also Jacob Chikrin. Again, we'll see what the Sends can do. And it's another weird one. Like, that was one of the summer of Pierre things. You know, look at how exciting it is that they got Jacob Chikrin. And now he's back on a trade bait board. Riley Smith.

And then Jacob Markstrom is still on the board here. Another conversation with the Devils. But I wonder, like, what the Devils... trade Tyler to Foley and then trade for Jacob Markstrom in the same 27 hour span. It feels weird unless you're just doing it to set yourself up for next year. But then why do it now? Just try to figure out the conversation in the summer with the flames. I don't know. The New Jersey Devils are like... They confound me. They're eight points behind the flyers. They're in a position now where

like you'd love to be able to say, screw it, trade for Jacob Markstrom, right? And try to go on the run now. The fact that the flyers have put so much space in between them where it seems like it's impossible to catch is a joke. Eight points? Yes. Eight points of the deadline when the flyers are probably going to drop off a bit once they sell a bit more. I don't think that's crazy.

I don't think it's what they should do, but like we're sitting here talking about trains and if you get marks from that, if you get marks from that eight points is easier to bridge because you can actually save. But you also got to catch the islanders. You got to pass. You know, the capitals have been okay lately. I don't, I agree. I think the devils are out.

And I was, I was the last guy on that bandwagon, I think. I loved, I was team devils. I was team devils and stars. And at least I still have my sweet Dallas stars. And it's just crazy. They're at a point now where it's like you can't, you can't justify them buying is wild. What if you're the flames. And if you're Craig Conroy, you probably should wait till the summer because there's

going to be more teams interested. Like if you, if you say like, Jacob, do you want to leave? Because think of, think of the situation that Jacob Markstrom was going into when he signed as a UFA to Calgary. There was Johnny Goddrow, Mark Giordano, Matthew Kachuk. They had signed Chris Tannab.

Like, that was a team that was trying to go all in. And now he's looking around like Tanev's gone. Hanifin's gone. All like, there are still good players in Calgary. I want to be clear. Like Blake Coleman's been very good. back lends a captain, like there's pieces there.

But if you're Jacob Markstrom, it's like, this is not the team that I signed with. And so I wonder if there's going to be a time where he's like, this is not what I wanted to do. Maybe he's just like, I love Calgary. I've got a wife and a kid. I'm good here. But you would think if you're the flames, you want to wait for the summer to see if he's interested in leaving and then see how many teams are going to be interested in his services. It seems like you'll be able to leverage a better return in the summer. And also like the job that Craig Connolly's done over the last few days and it doesn't reflect well on New Jersey.

Because everybody else was borderline fleece Craig Conroy. The devil's like you can't like he's he's tough on the devils but nobody else. And you have you have Vegas getting every bit that they every bit that they want from him regarding Noah Hanofin. You have Chris Tenev can't get a flag on and on and on. Yeah. Right. Like you can't. the worst look where it feels like this is cruising is that the devils do the marks from an identical marks from

trade at like the draft or something and it's like you couldn't have done that in February like this is it feels like a waste of chance right you lop one more playoff run off the value calculator and the price only goes down right since what happened with chikrin for what felt like four years right right we should probably be careful though because like I don't think we really know exactly what they ask from the Devils was. I think it's really only been Frank who's but no, no, no, like, listen, like there's, we haven't heard that from a lot of people. And I

even heard like Eric Francis who on, on the radio being like, let's be careful with the, with the Jersey Markstrom thing. Because we've only heard that from, from one place. And, but not to say that it's incorrect because it was Frank, like he gets a lot of stuff

completely and truly accurate. But we haven't heard a ton outside of, opportunity no matter what, no matter what. Like regardless of how the marks. Yeah, like even if it's not, even if it was just a rumor, they probably should have.

A Metro division, it's a joke. Like I, we, I know we keep by reinforcing it. But like, again, the third team in that division is openly, like, selling and brokering other trades and doing all sorts of stuff. Like,

in the teams that, that do want to win and should want to win are too incompetent to go to, to buy. God. It's crazy. You're being so mean today. It's a joke.

It's a joke. You have, you have, you have a brain wreck. Pittsburgh. My God. Pittsburgh in New Jersey in, in the islanders, none of them should be, are capable of, of overtaking the flyers who just traded Sean Walker.

It's pathetic. And whose next 10 games are as tough as it can possibly be. Yeah. National Oculus. Have you looked at their next 10 games? Yep. No. Bananas.

You may read it to you or is that bad radio? I think it's bad radio and we've been talking for too long. Everyone just go look it up. Yeah. Everyone go Google it. Some other names Max Petretti, somebody to watch for too, right? He's been reasonably productive since returning from a second surgery to repair his Achilles, 15 points and 25 games with the Caps.

Caps seem pretty smart in terms of their asset management. So maybe keep an eye, Max Patsready. And then Elias Lindholm and Jake DeBrusk are on the trade board right now. There was some kind of spicy tweets. I think Kevin Weeks was the first one to say like, and I appreciated him not saying like this is what's going to happen. It was like kind of a funny tweet of like tons of things being thrown out there, but the most interesting one was a three-way deal,

which would land Gensel to the Canucks, Debrusk to the penguins and Linholm to the Bruins. And I just hope and pray that we see something like, that because I just think that'd be fun. Breaks and brains, Pittsburgh sending their own rental winger for another rental winger. Yeah, why does Debrisksin's there?

He doesn't, but I... He doesn't, but it's just fun. As the headliner of a package, maybe where he gets something else, then it's like, if you want to extend Jake Debrusk, I don't know. It's, if you squint, you can see it, but I think that would cause some nosebleeds here.

Any other players that you got? Oh, Pavel Bouchnevich. He's kind of the... He's fun. He's fun and he'll probably be the like, okay, we missed on Gensel. Let's go get. If the Gensel deal happens today, tomorrow's going to be all about Pavel Bucenevich for better or worse. We're going to, if there isn't a Pavell Bucenevich trade to be made, people will invent one tomorrow. Frankly, that's the one that if you want to say like, okay, Gensel as a rental as a Carolina's type,

then they need to go heavy on Pavel Bucenevich, who has the term. You could probably get them to retain a little bit. Let's do it. If you're Carolina and you're not going to go on Gensel full out because as a rental, then you owe it to this core that is not going to be intact forever. I still think it'll be a fun deadline day. I guess it depends what happens the rest of the afternoon. But as we said in our little intro, five of the top 10 names that were left on the board went on Wednesday. So there's a little bit of quality left, but it's going to be a bit more quality. Lots of depth guys.

Jordan Eberle sounds like the Oilers are keeping an eye on that situation. if the Crack and want to reassign him or if they're going to flip them. Thanks, everyone for listening, though. We appreciate you. Please leave us a five-star reading and review if you're enjoying the show. And right now you can get a one-year subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month when you visit the athletic.com slash hockey show. If something interesting and juicy happens on the deadline tomorrow,

there could be a recap pod with me and Sean. But if it is indeed a snooze, you won't be hearing from us. you'll know. Yeah. Thanks, everybody.