The Athletic Hockey Show - It's a rough time for Flames fans, Nazem Kadri is still available, and redrafting for the Golden Knights and Kraken

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

With the Flames on the verge of losing Matthew Tkachuk on the heels of Johnny Gaudreau, what can be expected from this team next season? Also, they look back at other teams that have lost two superstars in one offseason, and it may make Flames fans feel better...or worse. Then, Nazem Kadri is still available, and how likely it is that Tkachuk will eventually end up with St. Louis Blues at some point.Then in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger joins the show to discuss a collaboration piece by the Thursday TAHS crew giving the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken a proper expansion draft. Did Jesse's Golden Knights or Ian's Seattle Kraken have a better draft?To wrap up the show, mailbag questions about goalie/skater family duos, future considerations, and offer sheets, "This Week in Hockey History", and Sean gets nostalgic about nachos.Have a question/comment for Ian & Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM: [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It is Ian Medes-Shawn McAdoe with you, as always, Thursday episode of the pod coming up. Jesse Granger is going to join us for Granger Things. We'll have some fun because we actually dropped the fun little expansion story today, kind of from the mad scientist's kitchen of Down Goes Brown. So we'll have some fun. We'll have some fun with that. We're going to talk about Matthew Kachuk now. It looks like he's got one foot and possibly two out the door.

in Calgary. Man, oh man, what a crazy summer in Calgary. We'll talk about what the impact there. We've got so many mailbag questions here. Wide range of things about, you know, brother combos in the NHL and free agency stuff, offers heating pier, Luke Dubois. Where does Johnny Goodrow signing land on the splashometer, all that stuff? Little this weekend hockey history involves Garth Snow, Wayne Gradsky. So we got a lot to get to. About the tell you what, Sean, like, I, what, what's happening in Calgary to me is one of the most fascinating stories that, like, I always figured Calgary's window to compete and contend was, you know, it was going to be short. I didn't realize it was this short. Like, like, Sean, they're going to go from,

you know, legitimate Stanley Cup contenders in 2022 to potentially being a, are we talking about like a lottery team here in 2023? Like, what a turn of events in Calgary. Yeah, it's, it is, and it's going to be very difficult to figure out what to expect from this flames team. Because, you know, they were not very good in the COVID season when they were, I mean, they missed the playoffs in that Canadian division that we all agreed was weak. And they kind of came, I wouldn't say they came out of nowhere last year, but I don't think any of us had them as a 110 point team. whatever they ended up being. It all clicks. They have the great season and now they've already lost one of their best players

and will be losing another. We don't know what they'll be getting back there. We don't know if it's going to be a package around futures or if they'll opt to get guys who help right away or if it's going to be some mix. But it's going to be fascinating to see where people end up putting them. I want to see, you know, I want to see Dom run this team. through his model and project what they come out as. I mean, one thing that has happened in the analytics era has been, in all sports,

we have found that the impact of one individual player is usually not as big as you think it is. So if you're looking at this team saying, well, you take Goderew, you get a 20-point team, I don't think so. They've still got a very good goaltender. They've still got some good pieces. And they will presumably be getting at least something in return. for Matthew Kuchuk that helps them in the short term.

Is that enough to make the playoffs in the Pacific? Yeah, it absolutely could still be. And in fact, this team could be, there's nothing better in sports than a nobody believes in a chip on their shoulder type team. And maybe this ends up being where this goes. But this is a devastating one-two punch for Flames fans. and it's, I don't think there's any way to spin this as anything other than a negative. It's just a question of how devastating a negative is it going to end up being.

So a lot of this, you know, is, is like, it's just mind blowing to Calgary fans to think that they would lose both of them in the same offseason. I think a lot of people a couple of weeks ago started to wrap their heads. Okay, you know what? We're getting into July. Goudreau hasn't signed. He's probably, he's probably out. To lose Kachuk, I just don't think anyone.

fathom that happening like this back to back. What I want to do with you is talk just to maybe give Flames fans a little bit of context and give our listeners a little bit of context. Like have we ever seen a team lose two players of this magnitude in such a short window of time? And listen, I cover the Ottawa Senators and I have watched them say, you know, goodbye to Carlson and Stone and Duchet and Paso. But there was always like, you know, six months, 12 months, 18 months, whatever in between those. help me out here.

Have we ever seen the team lose two players of this magnitude in the same offseason or in such a short window of time? So I'll give you the two scenarios that jump to mind for me. And they're not they're not direct comparisons to what just happened to Flames fans. But the two obvious ones are the Columbus Blue Jackets a few years ago, ironically, when they loaded up, had Artemi Panarin and Sergey Bobrovsky both ready for about to hit free agency, chose not to move either guy and in fact loaded up by going out and getting Matt Duchenne as well, and then lost all three of those guys in free agency.

A devastating reset. And yet, maybe not that devastating because I think everybody understood that those guys were going to go. You know, Douchain was a rental. Everybody already figured Panarin was going to wind up in probably in New York. Bobrovsky, you know, the Blue Jackets certainly weren't going to be given him a $10 million deal. So, you know, I feel like that was one where Blue Jackets fans sort of should have been prepared for what was coming and probably were. And at least that, that was also the year. Remember, they went up against the impossible to beat Juggernaut Lightning and beat the swept them in the first round.

So you had that. You could at least pin that and say, hey, we kept the band together for one swing and we knocked out the best team in the league with that swing. That was pretty cool. And then it was a reset from there. The other one that's maybe a little bit more comparable to what's happening in the flames right now would be the Buffalo Sabres in 2007. When they were coming off back-to-back trips to the conference final,

we're a very good team. You know, a Stanley Cup, I would say not even. a Stanley Cup contender, a Stanley Cup favorite. And they lose their two best players, their two captains, Danny Breyer and Chris Drury, both to Free Agency on the same day, I believe. Drury goes to the Rangers and Breyer goes to the Flyers. And that one, again, not out of nowhere because this is back when even in the cap world, the Sabres were a team that was not a high spending team back then.

So I think there was an expectation that they would lose at least one of those guys. And there was a good chance both. But still, to see it happen, to see both of them go to teams in the conference, I think they had actually beaten the Rangers in the playoffs that year. That was a real tough one. And it's also a terrible one to hold up to flames fans because, I mean, you could argue that the Sabres never recovered from that. and we're 15 years later and they're still,

you know, they're still trying to get back to the level they were at before. But that's the other one that jumps to mind as far as two legitimate superstars, both leaving at the same time. Man, and you look back, like the Sabres, like you're right, they went to the conference final in 06 and lost to Carolina,

went to conference final in 07, lost to Ottawa. They lose Breyer, they lose Drury, and then they don't make the playoffs for a couple of years. In fact, you could make that argument, argument that that is, that they've never really recovered from that. They made the playoffs a couple of times. They're, I think 2010, 2011.

They made the playoffs. They were won and done. They haven't won around since. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, you know, 2011 comes on. That's when Terry Pagula comes in and says, I'm going to spend money. And they go and they sign.

Villalino. Some awful free agents. And then, you know, 10 years later, haven't even been back to the playoffs. And the thing is, man, like, that Sabre's team, it's a long time ago. That team was so good. I mean, that team, you could absolutely argue that they should have beaten the Carolina Hurricanes in the conference final in 2006. They should have been the team going up against the Oilers because they had all their

defensemen were hurt and they got screwed by the stupid puck over glass penalty in game seven. You could absolutely argue they should have won that series. They should have been in the Stanley Cup final date and they should have been the team that would have gone head to head with the Oilers and quite possibly beaten them. They would have been the favorites in that matchup. Real good team, real likable team. And then it all falls apart. And that was so frustrating because, you know, when we first got the salary cap,

we lose the whole season, 2006 rolls around, and nobody knows what to expect. And then, like, you know, for example, the Oilers go out and trade for Chris Pronger. Wait a second. The Edmonton Oilers, who have been a minor league farm club for everyone else for the last decade, you're trading for superstars. Oh, this is great. Like, this is, we have really reset the. playing field and these smaller teams, you know, Ottawa is good, you know, finally is, you know,

really showing that all of these small market teams are succeeding. And then Buffalo goes and loses their two key guys to free agency. And it was like, oh, man, some things never changed. That was probably the most painful off season I can remember. And again, you kind of knew it was coming as a Sabres fan, but you never really know it's, you know, much like the Flames with Johnny Gros. You never really know what's happening until you see that, that news come across the wire. You know, it's funny you mentioned because in that window, remember the first year that the NHL came back, 0506, like the salary cap number, it seems absurd now, but it was 39 million, right?

Like the ceiling. And the great irony is the Ottawa senators were one of the first teams to get really pinched by the cap. Like, you know, they had a great collection of players and Zudino Chara had to leave. And, you know, they had to make some tough decisions. And they were one of the first teams. but you're right, Buffalo and Ottawa, who had a great rivalry. They met in 05, oh, sorry, 06 and 07 in the playoffs. You felt like this was going to be, like, the path to the Eastern Conference

was going to go through Buffalo or Ottawa for years to come. And really, since 07, both of those teams, I mean, Ottawa's had a little bit of success, you know, and they've won some playoff rounds, but boy, oh boy, like, I feel for Buffalo fans. Yeah. We thought it, we thought this was the new NHL, right? Because both of those teams had gone bankrupt a few years prior. I mean, the senators famously had missed paychecks to their players. These were teams that were on death store, as we were told.

And now they're in the conference final. They got exciting teams. You know, it's a great series. And it just, the sabres were not able to hold it together. And, you know, frustrating. And look, you could argue that both of those signings, Perrier and Drury, didn't work out for the teams that made them. That the Rangers overpaid for Chris Drury, that Flyers overpaid.

for Danny Breyer. I know Flyers fans especially would push back on that. They, you know, he played well for them for a few years there. Obviously, Krista is a GM in New York now. But, boy, it was, it was pretty devastating for that Sabres team. I remember this is the Ryan Miller team. Like, they've got the pieces in place to be good for a long time and just couldn't do it. And then, you know, that was the same day Scotty Gomez signs with the Rangers as well.

Goes from the Devils, the arch rival jumps over to the Rangers. very strange a and everyone just kind of rolls her eyes and goes, here we go again. It's the Rangers buying up all the players from the small market teams.

Yeah, it's funny. You know, Breyer was so good for Philly in the playoffs, especially 2010, right? Like he was money. We got to go back and talk about how, how tough it would have been

to be a Sabres fan to watch the 2010 playoffs because not only do you see Danny Breyer doing that for Philly. Villy Lano has his coming out party. Little do you know that this is about to come back

and bite you. you, right? Like, like, Billy Lano's coming out party was that 2010 playoffs. And then a couple years later, he signs the, the splashy deal in, uh, in Buffalo. And then it's just kind of never really heard from again, right? Yep. No, no, it was just, I mean, nobody, nobody said a worst decade ever than the Sabres have just gone through. I mean, we've never seen an NHL team go this long without making the playoffs. And this is, you, you can trace it right back to that one day or those couple of days in July 2007. So sorry flames fans. I, I, we, We've just probably made a bad situation feel a lot worse for you.

Well, if you're Calgary, though, I mean, is there anything you can do to sort of mitigate this? Like, like, as we record this year on Thursday morning, Natham Cadry is still on the market. And listen, now if you're Nazim, you did turn down, if I'm not mistaken, a trade to Calgary years ago that maybe that gives you some, you know, sets a little light on his thoughts on Calgary. But, you know, maybe if I'm Cadry, I don't go to Calgary. because I don't know where they're going. And if I'm Calgary, maybe I don't sign Cadry because I don't, like, is there a fit?

Like, if you're Calgary, like, is there anything you can do to satiate the fan base? Or do you hope that you hit a little bit of a home run on the Kachuk return? And that's, you know, that's, that's enough to kind of move the needle. I think that's what you've got to do. I mean, there are, it's unusual that there are two big free agents still out there, Cadre and Klingberg. It's quite rare for them to be around, guys of that level to be around this lane.

You really wonder what's happening behind the scenes there, that those guys are still out there. I don't know if you're the flames that, I mean, you certainly can't panic here and make a big commitment to somebody that is going to potentially, that you're going to regret. I think step one is maximize the return on Matthew Kachuk.

I think that's the obvious one. If you can hit a home run on that and their hands will be tied to some extent. But much like the Jack Eichael situation, as long as they can get a few teams in the bidding, get a nice package there. And then the other piece that you wonder about is, okay, when they make this trade, how much of it is going to be guys that are going to help right away and how much of it is going to be futures, how much if it's going to be picks and prospects. And then, assuming that at least some of the return is picks and prospects, do you hold on to those guys or do you turn around and flip them for more help right away? I mean, you could, there is probably a way to do this that, you know, you could, you get a good player and some picks and prospects for Matthew Kuch.

So you get a good player who slots in the lineup right now. And then you flip some of those picks and you get more good player. And now suddenly you'd say, hey, we turned one great player into two or three good players, at least. You know, we don't have the star power, but we've got at least as much depth. We've still got a good team that, again, in this specific division, yeah, we can contend for a playoff spot in this division. I think that can be done.

And that is the one benefit, unlike what we just described with Columbus, with Buffalo, where it's free agents walking. It's a trade situation here. You're going to get something. You're not going to be left with nothing at all. But it's really up to them. I'm curious to see because, you know, there's a strong argument that you start over here. You take this as a hint that, you know, Godreau and Kachuk are both gone.

Let's hit reset. Let's get a first round pick. Let's get some prospects. Let's get future assets. And we reload. But then you look at this organization. You got Brad Trillivings been there forever. Is he really going to be able to sell a big, long, you know, rebuild?

And you got Daryl Sutter as a coach. That's not a coach that you have for a patient three to five year rebuild process. That's a guy you bring in when it's time to win. And he's done it. He's won with this team. So I don't know. It's going to be fascinating to see what they do. I think they're probably still trying to win right now.

And if that's the case, then that's going to impact what it is that you're asking for for Matthew Kuch. And then you see if you can go out and get it. They need their, you know, Calgary needs their kind of new and dyke for a gindla deal here, right? Like the, we trade a superstar, but we're going to get someone back that we can solve the fan base and be the foundation. But do you wait, you know, how long are you willing to wait for that againla to be,

to be ready? I mean, that is the, that is the tough thing. I mean, what you really need, and this is, I mean, I'm, it's, it's, I'm not trying to get flames fans hopes up, but what you really need is like the, your forsberg for Lindross here, where, I mean, Even there, Forksbury didn't come over for a year or two, but at least, you know, as soon as he did, you had a star. You know, it wasn't, you didn't have to sit around patiently. Wait, you had a guy, a new franchise player that you were able to get.

You know, it can be done. We have seen situations in the past where teams have traded away star players and what they got back was more than enough to, you know, to build around. but it is tough. Most of the time, you're trading a dollar for three quarters. That's usually how this works out. Are you, like, if you had the guess here, and I'm not talking about this year,

but starting next season, because look, Matthew Kichick has one more year left on his deal, and then he's potentially a free agent, unrestricted free agent. If you had the guess, does Matthew Kuchuk end up in St. Louis in some way, shape, or form when next season starts?

not this season coming up, but the following season is Matthew Kuchukuk, a member of the St. Louis Blues. I think that's certainly the most likely scenario, but I'll say this. Whoever he gets traded to is who he's playing for on opening night, 2003. Like I think the odds of him being,

I just don't see a scenario where he gets traded somewhere, plays there for a year, and then leaves. And in fact, I think that, because any team that's only going to have him for a year, not going to pay the price that the flames are looking for. So the two scenarios are he gets traded somewhere where he signs a long-term deal, probably St. Louis, although fingers crossed, if you're a flames fan, the list is longer than that. I mean, that's the nightmare scenario. Zamathic Chuk comes on and says, oh, by the way, I will not sign with any team other in the blues.

Or gives you one team, whatever that one team is, and says that's the only team I'm signing for. Because then you're screwed. Now there's no bidding war. Now you've got no leverage. now you're really in trouble. If it's even two or three or four teams, now you can get some pushback between those teams and the bidding. I think he gets traded, he signs a long-term deal there. St. Louis is the most likely destination? Or if there's just nothing there, I mean,

is there a scenario worth of flames? You just bring him back and say, you know what? One year of this dynamic star player in his prime is worth more to us than the handful of magic beings. that were being offered somewhere else. And so you'd run it back for one more year with them. I mean, that would be a really hard sell, certainly, to Flames fans.

But it is an option, I suppose. Well, like, I think, look, they just watched that play out with Johnny Goodrow, right? Like last year at this time, they couldn't get something done with Goodrow. And they figured, okay, we got one year left. We'll try to convince him. It didn't work out. I wonder, like, if you're a Flames fan, are you, and happy is not the right term,

but are you at least thankful that Kachuk has expressed the fact that he's not going to sign your long term allows you to move him this year versus last year, you know, with Goudreau, it didn't seem like there was that indication, right? Like there was certainly, you know, maybe I'll sign, maybe I won't sign,

and then you were left holding the bag at the end of the year. You didn't get anything for him. Is there something to be said? And maybe we'll see this in the reaction from the crowd when these guys come back for the first time. Like, I wonder who's more vilified

in the minds of Flames fans? The guy who went right to free agency and didn't give you a chance to get anything in return or the guy who said a year out, I'm not signing here and I'm out of here. Like, I'm curious how Flames fans are. I think it's going to be Kachuk who takes it worse because the perception will be that he wanted out

as opposed to, you know, Johnny Goodrow, obviously there was, there were a lot of bad feelings and with Flames fans in that scenario as well. I think the fact that he sort of came out and explained himself a little bit better yesterday with that Player's Tribune thing that somebody wrote for him where he talked about his family

and being around missing his grandfather's funeral and stuff like that where I think that humanized it to the point where people maybe understand better. I'm not saying he won't get booed. The other thing with Goodrow, it's not like a John Tavares situation where that team, that Islander's team that he left was not a very good team.

So they could have traded him at any point, even during the season. He could have gone at the deadline. They could have got something for him. Yep. And Islander fans will tell you that they got bait and switch by John DeBarris. He said, no, no, don't trade me. I'm going to stick around. And then he didn't.

The flames weren't going to trade Johnny Goodro. Once that season started and they were as good as they were and they were the favorites in the Pacific, they weren't going to trade the guy anyway. So it's not like he cost them the opportunity to do that. And, you know, the way with Matthew Kuchuk, the perception is going to be, this is him saying, I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to be in Calgary. It's not that I want to be closer to home. It's not that I want to be this or that.

I just don't want to be here. And I think he's going to take it harder. Plus, the fact that, look, let's be honest, if you're looking for a villain, Matthew Kuchuk is a far better villain. Like, he's right out of central casting. Oh, my God. The only good news for the flames. The only good news for the flames is you are now going to, Flames fans. you're now going to get to enjoy the experience of hating Matthew Kuchuk, which the other 31

fan bases have already had a chance to do. And it's fun. You know, I don't know. How do you hate Johnny Goddrow? He seems like a tough player to really fully turn on, whereas Matthew Kuchuk, I don't think it's going to take very long before he'll be the full heel mode for Flames fans. You know, I think it's interesting, too. I've seen this narrative floated out there that, look, Johnny Goddrow's America.

he wants out. Matt Kachuk is American. He wants out. American guys don't want to play in Canada anymore. COVID was hardly reason for that. As a Maple Leafs fan, I want to opt out of the rest of this conversation right now. I want to give you a little bit of a hope here because I think, you know, it's very easy for people to say, look, these guys, they don't want the. And I think in the case of Goudreau and I'm sure with Kach, a lot of guys felt like logistically the last two years have been hard. Right? If you have family in another country to try to bring them over and that. So I completely understand that. But I look at Ottawa, for example, I see Brady Kachach's re-uped long term.

Josh Norris re-upped long term. These are American guys. This is, these are deals signed in and around COVID. Like, I want to just kind of put a little bit of that narrative to bed because, look, if Brady Kachuk didn't sign here and Josh Nors didn't sign here, I would say, you know what? we might have something here. Like, there might be a legitimate story that American players don't want to play in Canada post-COVID. Like, but I think that that narrative is somewhat, you know, parallel. I just don't know how much stock to put into it because, okay, yeah, Cachuk and Goudreau wanted out of Calgary.

But Norris and Cachukuk just signed in Ottawa, right? And that, and that does bring me to Austin Matthews. And I don't know. I just feel like the idea that Americans don't want to play here. I would point to the situation in Ottawa and say not so fast. That's all. Yeah. Well, we're going to find out with us, Matthews, a year from now because that's going to be the big story of next offseason, which is great.

I think we can all agree that the Toronto Maple Leafs aren't front and center enough when we talk about NHL storyline. So it'll be, it'll be nice to have them there. Yeah, we will see. I mean, the one thing with us and Matthews, I've heard for years people going, he's going to go back to Arizona. I really have a hard time. You know, Austin Matthews is one of the few NHL players who seems to like the spotlight, seems to embrace it.

He seems to like being, you know, doing the fashion shoots and the hanging out with Justin Bieber and all of that stuff. I have a hard time thinking that he's going to say, I want to go play in front of 3,000 fans a night in Arizona for a few years. But would he want to go to a bigger U.S. market? I guess I guess we will see. And by the way, I absolutely reserve the right to change all my opinions about players hidden free agency and all of that. I will, you know, you check back in a year and I'll be on here, this turncoat, this Benedict Arnold has betrayed the Canadian fans.

And you'll be like, where was all this for Johnny Goodrow? Yeah. Yeah, I'm just picturing Austin Matthews social media posts sleeping in a coyote's bedspread and, you know, whatever. But, and the old Michael Scott, oh, how the turntables have, you know, up. I feel like Islander fans would raise a goal fund me to like help some other team sign Austin Matthews away from the Leafs. 100%. The one thing I'll say though on Matthews is I could see him wanting to go back and play in Arizona at some point. Not unlike Claude Drew came to Ottawa, but like kind of at the end, like at the end when it was, you know what, maybe it felt like it was trending in the right direction.

Arizona is not trending in the right direction right now. I just, I don't see it. I could be wrong. I could be totally wrong. I don't think the appeal of playing at home would be so great that you would take the prime years of your life. I think Austin Matthews to Arizona makes sense when he's 34. 35. And look, there are NHL players where, you know, we joke about 3,000 fans.

There's some NHL players who would absolutely love that. Like, wait a second. You mean, I make NHL money. I get to go live somewhere where it's warm, I'll live on a golf course. Yeah. And no one's going to care. No one's going to recognize me. I got no media to deal with.

Sign me up. That's absolutely what I mean. This is the, it's the Phil Kessel experience. You know, he seems to love it down there. I just don't think Austin Matthews is that guy. But we'll see. You never know. All right.

Time for us to bring in our pal Jesse Granger. A little segment we like to call Granger. It's brought to by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with us at the athletic and you know what the three of us jesse granger in medley sean macadou uh we actually collabed on a little piece uh with the athletic that uh that dropped earlier today and i think i said this in the intro it's like from the the mad scientist kitchen of down goes brown and anytime uh jesse i don't know about you uh but when you know you get you know Sean reaches out and says i got a quirky fun idea i'm like i'm in like i don't even i don't even need to read the

pitch i'm like i'm in um this was uh this was a fun one for us wasn't it yes 100% agree with that. You're in on any crazy idea Sean has. And it's something I've thought about for a while, not in terms of putting them together this way, but just in terms of those expansion drafts were fun, but they weren't like actually drafts. And I did wonder, I remember when the Golden Knights made their picks way back in 2017 thinking, like if they had to prioritize this list, like, I wonder what order it would have gone in. Right. And listen, this is the perfect point for Sean to kind of just jump in, take a couple of minutes. And, And just, you know, explain the idea, the premise of this mock draft and, and, you know, how it,

how it kind of came into your mind. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is something. This has been, this has bothered me for, for years. Even going back before Vegas, because, you know, this was the case with Atlanta and Nashville as well, is that the NHL tells us, it's an expansion draft. No, it's not. If there's only one team, it's not a draft.

A draft, by definition, is to, were more teams taking turns, selecting eligible players. That's what the entry draft is. That's what expansion drafts are. And any other types of drafts that have ever existed and waiver drafts and all that sort of stuff, there's got to be more than one team. If it's only one team, it's not a draft. It's just a team handing in a list. And that's what we got with Vegas. That's what we got with Seattle. It was just them saying, here's our list in the NHL going, okay, that's your team. And so I thought, what if there actually was a draft? What if we had Seattle versus Vegas, and we take the eligible players list from 2017 and 2021.

We mix them all together, and that's your draft pool. And you guys have full benefit of hindsight. So you're very, very smart. You will know which 2017 players five years later have turned into stars and which ones haven't. We give you a salary cap. We give you position limits and all of that. And we do what we did, for example, with Columbus and Minnesota or with Ottawa, Tampa, Anaheim, Florida. Head to head, two teams actually going back and forth in drafting.

And so that's what we ended up doing. I was very curious to see where you guys would go. I was curious to see what big names, big salaries might get taken that weren't taken before. And then how the final result would compare to what Vegas wound up with and what Seattle wound up with. And it was a lot of fun. The results were interesting. And it was, you know, you guys talk about my ideas. This is my favorite type of idea, which is when I come up with an idea and I go to other people and say, here's my idea.

You guys do the work. And you did. And then I slapped my name on it. Yeah. Listen, it was. It was fun. It was a,

it was a neat idea. It's, again, it's a great premise for something, because I think a lot of people thought that Ron Francis outthought himself, right, in the draft in 2021, that he just,

you know, just for whatever reason, didn't ice the type of team that probably could have been iced. And, you know, Teresenko was passed over and some, you know, some other,

you know, look, let's talk about Kerry Price. I legitimately thought about taking Kerry Price early in the draft. And I thought, you know what? I just don't know about where he's at with his game. And I thought, you know, I'm going to leave Kerry Price off. And I'm going to go with Darcy Kemper and Jonathan Quick. I'm going to be happy with that.

And then Granger comes in from the top ropes at the end. He's like, I'm taking Kerry Price, which we said is the most vaguest pick of all time. I was so excited when he started teasing it. When he started saying, how much cap room do I have left? And then, you know, he's like, I got an idea. This is a, you know, I got a Vegas. And I was just like tingling with excitement that he was going to drop Kerry Price and he came through. It's funny because Ian was planning on Kerry Price.

I clearly had no plans of drafting him because I had Flurry and Jack Campbell. I mean, I had two NHL goalies. And I'm sitting there and you're like, you're barely over the cap floor. It's like, well, that. can't be. This is Vegas, as you guys said. Not only do they make big moves, but they're nowhere near the cap floor. So I just felt like at that, like, I would not have taken price earlier because I was worried about the cap space. I knew that we were drafting a bunch of players. I'll be honest with you. One of the things that surprised me the most is looking back at the 2017 guys and seeing

what their cap hits were then. Early on, I was very afraid of going over because I was like, okay, we have hindsight. We're not going to draft bad players. We're not going to have a bunch of bad contracts, but I feel like we're going to draft so many stars because we have that hindsight of knowing how good they are. The salary cap is going to be insane to manage. And I was kind of worried about that early. And then as it went on, that was kind of the thing that surprised me is like, oh, wow. Ian got Marsha. So at 900,000. I'm getting Carlson at a million. And it was just, there was so much cap space. I couldn't help myself. I had to go after Carrie Price. Yeah. You guys both finished with lots of room.

I mean, nobody, the cap did not end up being a factor as far as anybody being up against it at the end. And part of it was just there are so many guys that you look back. And again, this is full benefit of hindsight. But you could grab guys under a million dollars. You know, the, so you both have, you know, five, six, eight guys that are, you know, making close to the league minimum. That gives you all sorts of room to work with the big contracts. Yeah, like I took Matt Dushain with my first pick, and I knew that taking Dushain's gonna,

people are gonna be like, what are you doing? But, you know, guys off a 43 goal season, right? Like, there's not that many guys available that 40 goals, I'm taking him. And a little later, I'm going through the draft. I'm like, ah, you know what, screw it. I'm gonna take Jeff Skinner. Guy can still score, you know.

And then I'm like, yeah, I probably have room for James Van Rheemesdyke. And then, like, I'm just adding all these guys. You are not trying to get Ryan Johansson at the end. I did. The predators were off the board by that. Yeah. And then Sean's like,

yeah, by the way, you guys are, you're having a hard time getting to the floor. I'm like, the floor. Like,

how is that possible? Like, yeah, there's so many bargains out there. Yes. And so, yeah, let's get into,

have you guys gone into the comments? Because we're, this has only been up for about an hour as we're recording this. But we ask people in the comments to weigh in, you know, who's, which of these teams wins a seven game series?

Have you guys been checking that out? Fortunately for me, It's all Gringer. It's all Granger. It is pretty one-sided right now. I don't, that is a little bit surprising, but. What do you think, Sean? I'm going to Andrew D. in the comment section. He says, I'm the outlier here.

I think Seattle's second to fourth lines are better. The defense is better. Goleys are close enough. They should win easily. Vegas might have three great goals. You can only play one at a time. Give me Seattle in five. in five wow see i i will go there the defense ean kicked my butt on defense and and it was because

every single time i had a defenseman i was going to take ian took him matt dumba elixiac larsson it was it seemed like every time i wanted to go defense he would take that guy and then i'd look at i had a little like list that i just wrote down before and i'm like well the next seven guys on my list are forward i'm not going to skip over seven better players to take a defenseman so i ended up with a week defense. I will say, Ian, his defensive court looks a lot better than mine does, but I think the forwards are pretty heavily in my favor. Can I ask a question? I think that's fair. Yep. We have one, somebody in the comment section, are you guys telling me if I'm wrong here? Hey, guys, enjoyed this, but some of these, you guys taking some of these defensemen over McKenzie Wigger,

those are certainly some choices. I don't, McKenzie Wigar was never available, was he? Yes, he was 2017. He's on the 2017 list. Oh my gosh. Okay. And that was what I expected that because. Oh my gosh. I never saw him. For people to understand this, like we're, we dug up the eligible player lists from 2017,

and both guys could look at them. But I mean, it's just a list from 2017. So you've got to go through all of these, you know, all of these different lists and, you know, figure what into these names or. And there's hundreds and hundreds of eligible players. players. So I'm not surprised that maybe a few guys got missed. And the other thing is, you know, that's the Florida Panthers.

So you take Marsha's O, and then you've only got, we made a limit. You can only lose each team, can only lose two players. It was Marches zone and Riley Smith. Yeah, two studs. And the other name that you guys didn't take from that Florida Panthers, 2017 team, you got had Yarmory Jagger. He was a free agent. He was technically available.

I mean, that one, I will tell you, man, I'm going to give both of you a little hint for future on this. Anything that is voted on by the public, you always got to find that one guy that everybody loves. And you just throw, you throw a yager on your fourth line and you got guaranteed. You're like, that'll, that'll, that'll sway the car up about 30% of the vote. I do, I feel like the consensus right now is being captured by commenter Craig N. who says, Jesse wins over Ian, but Ian easily wins over 2021, Ron Fran. Francis. Ron Francis is catching some strays in the comments here.

Like, he is getting hammered here. And look, like, this is part of the fun of all this. But I, you know, the history here is 2017, Vegas does their non-draft draft. And a lot of us look at that team and go, that's not very good. This team's going to stink. And then they're great. They go to the Stanley Cup final. And we all go, ooh, okay, we all whiffed on that one.

And then the Seattle draft comes along, and they pick their players. And we all go, oof, that doesn't look great. But we all got burned four years ago by Vegas. So we're not falling for that again. Oh, yeah. This will be a playoff team. This is a 95 point team. And then they stunk.

And we're all kind of looking at it going, yeah, they did look like they stunk. And like, I feel like even just looking back, I mean, 2017, it's so much, it's so long ago. there's so much easy hindsight that, you know, we had fun with it, but I don't think anyone is actually pointing at some of those players saying Vegas should have taken those guys. He had no way of knowing. But 2021, even a year ago, you're looking at the team that could have been built here and you're looking at what Seattle wound up with. And, oh, man, especially with no trades, no draft picks that they added, nothing. Like, are we getting close to the point where we can say Seattle screwed up their expansion list? I said at the day it came out and it wasn't because of the players and I wrote this. It's not because of the players on the roster because again, we didn't know how it was going to turn out. And again, I was kind of same way like, let's not crush this. And then they go to the Stanley Cup final and we all look like idiots again.

But I said it was a, they messed up because they came away with no assets. To me, Vegas, even if they had sucked, they still came out with like three extra first round picks, three extra second round picks. They were loaded from a now. They've used all those in five years. but it's to me Seattle, if you, like, they didn't need to build a good team, but if you weren't going to build, if you weren't going to take the Teresankos and all those guys, you had to come out with assets. The fact that they came out with none, I was ready to say they screwed it up the

day it happened. Yep, that's, that's fair. And I would love to know what went on behind the scenes because Vegas gave them the blueprint. And I know everyone said, well, you know, the other teams aren't going to fall for it twice. And I don't doubt that Ron Francis had a harder job after Vegas made everyone look like, look foolish. But the fact that they made, I mean, I think they made one trade, right? Like one minor deal. Boy, that's, and we heard, what did we hear at the time? Yeah, yeah, but the cap space, they're going to weaponize this cap space.

And it's a year and a half later. We're still waiting for them to weaponize this precious cap space. Yeah. And like, if I'm not mistaken, no, so today, today the 21st of July, this is the one year anniversary of the draft. Is that right? I think so. Yeah, I believe. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy to think that a year ago at this time, you know,

the Kerry Price storyline was great. One thing I realized, and I don't think we talked about this enough last year, like Alex Ovechkin was not protected by the capitals on their expansion list. Like, in theory,

Seattle could have claimed Alex Ovechkin. Now, Ovechkin was a free agent, right? And free agency was going to open the next week. This is exactly it. It was the free agents, they would have claimed his rights. Yeah,

but it's kind of weird that, like Seattle could have claimed Alex Ovechkin and just had them for a week. Do you think they would have forced it? They claimed, hey, you got to fly out here, come throw some fish in the type market.

Sell some jerseys. And then you go back inside. Yeah. That's, that's possible. Now, okay, now who,

so who did they take from Washington? Now I got to, that was the, did they take the goalie and then trade the goalie back? They, they did. Yeah. That's what they should have done

with Ovechkin. Might as well, might as well have done Ovechkin. Maybe they should have done that. Yeah, we did have to make that. That was the one outlier rule that we made. We said we'd no take an Ovechkin because, I mean, there was just no chance that he was going to sign with Seattle. Same with Landisg. Well, I think Landisg, we at least, you know, left him eligible. Because didn't we take, we also did a year ago, we did the big mock draft with all the athletic writers. And I feel like we took Landiscaug in that. one and tried to sign him for Seattle. So he was available to you guys in theory, but I think you both figured. Oh, I need. I want to read names. You just had too much talent up front. Yeah. Couldn't fit him in. I will say the hardest thing for me was the two players per team rule because especially as it got deeper and like that McKenzie Weger, someone pointing that out is a good way of like showing it, I guess. Like, I don't know, there were so many good players that we couldn't take because there were two guys already taken. That Florida team's an example. For me, like Washington, I had Chandler Stevenson and Nate Schmidt, but like T.J. Oshie was still on that team. That would have been a

great defenseman. I was going to take you, uh, Ian, you mentioned, or sorry, Sean, you mentioned, like taking a, uh, like quirky guy towards the end to by you. So I was taking, I was going to take Justin Williams, 100%. Um, just so that when that joke at the end, when you said who would win in a gave it seven game series. It's like, all right, I got all I got to do is get to seven. game seven. But I couldn't because once we got to the end, I'm like, ah, well, that's ruined because I've already taken them. Um, that Islanders 2017, their list, I mean, they had Josh Bailey, Calcutterbuck, Brock Nelson, Ryan Strom and Calvin DeHan were all, um, draftable. I guess Calcutterbuck's a little stretch, but the other three, uh, four, it was to me, I, I had this like list and then as

it gone, as the draft went on, I'm like, oh, man, this is way harder because these teams are already eliminated. I have to pick someone off a team that hasn't had two players pick. The tough one, the one that was the big one for me was St. Louis. Because you guys took Teresenko early. I think Jesse, you took, you took him. And then you took David Perron from 2017, which two great picks, impossible to argue with, but that takes St. Louis right off the board. And the name, the really interesting name with St. Louis, in 2017, you could have had their fifth Stringoly, a kid by the name of Jordan Bittington. And again, full benefit of hindsight,

that's a very interesting name. Nobody in a million years thinks Vegas was going to take Jordan Bittington in 2017, but he would have been there. And yet, you know, and again, Ron Francis takes the negotiation rights to Vince Dunn over Vladimir Tarasenko. Or you could have had to Villahueso, right, last year.

I imagine you probably could have. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was absolutely on the year. Like there were a lot of guys that, uh, that, uh, that you absolutely could have had. So, um, yeah, it, it was, it was really a fun, uh, you know, a fun, uh, fun one to go through and just sort of figure out like where, where actually is the value here. Um, and, uh, and how many teams dodged bullets of saying, you know, hey, we, we had this guy exposed and somebody could have taken them. I mean, the ultimate one, always. is you go back to the, it was the, which one was it, Ian?

Was it the Tampa, Ottawa draft or the Florida. Anaheim? Anaheim or Dominic Hacicacic was left exposed. I think Florida, was it not Florida? It was 93. You know what? It was 93 because it was the Sabres. They had just traded for Grant Fier.

And so they protected Grant Fierer and they exposed Dominic Hasek, who was their, like, weird, gangly, old backup. and either Florida or Anaheim could have started their franchise with Dominic Hasick. And he literally wins the Vesna of the very next year. Yep. Yeah. No, it's again, the benefit of hindsight is great. We're all so smart as long as we can do it with hindsight. As long as you just give me a few years and I'll give you the right answer on most of this stuff.

Right. Well, at one point, Ian's like, Jesse, are you going to draft anyone that wasn't taken in 2017? I'm like, man, I have like, I don't know. I honestly, I was surprised. with how many 20-21s I ended up with on my team because going in, I'm like, you give me five years. I know what I'm getting at the next five years. That's who I want.

Like I want the guys I know they're going to be great. Yep. Exactly. No, listen, it was a ton of fun and invite our listeners to, you know, head over to the comment section of the athletic. Let us know who you think put our rosters up head-to-head. Let us know who you think would win in a seven-game series. Granger certainly has the public's, you know, support here early.

So far, I don't know, man. The day is young. The day is young. This is your chance to lobby a little bit here and have people weigh in. As long as I'm viewed more favorably than Ron Francis at the expansion draft, I'll take that as a win. I think you're safe. I'm looking at it.

Hey, Jesse, listen, this was a ton of fun. It was fun collabing on that piece as well. Have a great week. And we'd love to hit you up again next Thursday. Definitely. Thanks for having me, guys. All right, that was a lot of fun with Jesse Granger. Let's move along and open up the mailbag.

Always a popular segment with us here. You can always reach us at the athletic. hockey show at gmail.com if you want to get us on email or leave a voicemail. At 845-4-4-5-8, 459. Let's open up the email back here. Sousa has a question for us and says, hey, we all love a good brother or father-son's story line or family playing together in the line, etc., etc. Every duo I can think of, though, seems to be a pair of skaters.

So I want to know how many goalie-slash-skater brother combos or father-son duos have there have been. And maybe there's a great story of a defenseman backing up his brother to make a big save or an overtime goal scored by a brother on his sibling, or maybe even, even rarer, two siblings playing against each other in the same game. What can you do as it comes to skater goalie family relations? Guys, what do you got? That comes in from Susa. Yeah. It's a tough one because you're right. You don't typically see, and I remember looking at this a while ago because I had an assumption, I had a theory, a hypothesis, if you will, that when you find brothers and one of them is a goalie, that it's going to be the young one, right? Like doesn't that just feel like, you know,

you slap the younger brother, you want to play? Absolutely. You're going to put the pads on. We're going to wail. And I actually was surprised. It didn't turn out that way. It turned out, I was really stunned at that. But the most famous pair

of brother goaltenders is the Dryden brothers. Ken Dryden and his brother Dave were both goaltenders and they faced each other a few times in the 70s. That was probably the biggest as far as one guy being a goalie and one knot. There was Ryan Miller and his brother Drew. Henrik Lunkwis famously has a twin brother who was a forward and was drafted and I think played in the league, but may not. Yeah, yeah. Joel Lundquist played with Dallas, right? Yeah, I was really disappointed. I missed when I was originally sending you some names.

I missed the most obvious one, which I think is the Esposito brothers, Phil and Tony. Yeah. There's your, and then from there, you know, you had a few others where guys had brothers who played. And then the other one would be the Hextels, where Ron Hextel's father and uncle and I think grandfather all played in the NHL as escapes. And then Ron Hextel comes a lot. And the other one that's funny is Bobby Hall's grandson, Brett Hall's son, became a goalie. And it never made it in the NHL. And I remember seeing a tweet once from him where somebody was like, how come you never made it in the NHL?

And he was like, because my dad and my granddad scored like 1,500 combined goals. And I was dumb enough to become a goaltender. So I thought that was quite funny too. Yeah. Yeah, some of the other skater brother combos, I looked this up. So P.K. Subban and his brother Malcolm, right? Obviously, they're kind of current. And Jordan is the defenseman, right?

So that's, yeah. They got a defense pair. They had it covered. Marty B. Ron's brother, Matthew B.ron, played. Even scored a goal against him. Matthew B. Ron, I think when he was playing with the Islanders, scored against Marty when he was with the Sabres. I had no idea about this.

Did you know that Tuka Rask had a brother, Jonas, who played two games in the NHL? That sounds familiar, but. But that's, I certainly didn't come up with it off. Yeah. No, okay. Billy Smith, four-time Stanley Cup winning goalie for the Islanders, had a brother named Gord Smith who played.

Yeah, Gord Smith. That sounds fair. Canadian player. That's every hockey name ever. Yeah. Gord Smith. Yeah. Brother, your brother named Gord, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Here's a weird fact about Billy Smith and his brother Gord that I just stumbled upon when I was looking up this question, okay? who are looking for the answer here. Billy Smith and Gord Smith were at, I believe this was in back-to-back years, were drafted, and they were both drafted

in the fifth round, and they were both drafted 59th overall. Doesn't that seem weird? Oh, well, okay, cool. Like, your both brothers are drafted 59th overall. Like, I can understand, hey, both brothers went third overall, fourth, to have two brothers both go 59th overall. Seems rather win. They did the Shen brother trick there.

But yeah, that's pretty cool. Billy Smith obviously famously drafted by the LA Kings and played five games for them and then went on to the Islanders. My question is, how many times did Billy Smith like hack Gord's ankles like that? Imagine playing in the driveway? Yeah, in the driveway or in the NHL or even just like at the Thanksgiving table. Like I don't, just a little quick butt end to the eye. Yeah. I looked at us up to Mark LaForest, who played in the 80s and early 90s.

He had a brother named Bob. Mark LaForest. Bob LaForest, who played five games with the NHL. See, I went really deep on this. I'm like, I... Yeah, you went, man, you went hard. Okay. When Mark LaForest is the famous one.

Wow. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And then the earliest instance I could ever find where siblings played and one of them was a goalie. Takes us back to our pal that we've brought up on the podcast before Tiny Thompson. First time in NHL history where there was a incident or a case where a brothers scored a goal against his sibling was Paul Thompson scoring on his brother Tiny in December of 1937. And so we haven't gotten to the Genesis, have we of Tiny Thompson's nickname?

Or is it because he had a low goals against average? Is that what it was? No, no, it was because it was ironic because he was five foot 10 and that was so big for a goaltender. Yeah, he was such a big guy back in the 20s and 30s that they called him tiny as, you. you know, it's an ironic nickname and, uh, yeah, whereas now five, 10, geez, you really would be tiny in today's NHL. I would love to go, like as speaking as a proud member of the five foot nine club. Like I'd love to just travel back in time, you know, and just have people be like, man, this guy's five foot nine, just be dunking on people.

Look at this giant. He's, wow. You help us get this off the top shelf, sir. That's right. Five foot nine. You've got another email here from Sean who writes in And maybe this kind of goes back to a little bit of what we were talking about With American players playing in Canada and Gudrow and Kachuk and all that

Sean wants to know Why is it that everybody talks about the benefit players get when they sign with a team In a tax-free state like a Florida or whatever Nobody seems to talk about the flip side of this Of signing with a Canadian team, but you're getting paid in US dollars While living in Canada That comes in from Sean. Yep.

And it's a great point. And it is, you know, people who follow me know that it's very easy to set me off on a rant by talking about taxes and, you know, the fact that we have, you know, look, are tax rates a factor? Sure. They can be. But at some point, we went from never talking about it to acting like this is the only reason that anyone signs anywhere. And every time somebody signs with like a Florida team or something, it's like, oh, yes.

That's the taxes right there. And it's such an overstated factor at this point, partly because as Sean points out, there's a whole bunch of others. If we're going to get into it, yeah, what about the fact that you're getting paid in US dollars, but your expenses are in Canadian?

What about the fact that you have much greater endorsement opportunities in different markets than you would in others? Or after your career, I mean, you play for the Maple Leafs. You play one season for the Maple Leafs, score one memorable goal. And you're making $20,000 a night on the banquet circuit for the rest of your life. There's all sorts of things.

And look, I mean, taxes matter, but it's when people get into, you know, we need to adjust the salary cap. So the teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs have more room than the lightning. No,

we don't. Because there's a million factors that go into how much actual money goes into someone's pocket. And taxes is just one of them. And yeah, the fact that your expenses. And look, I mean,

do we factor in the fact that it's much, cheaper to buy a home in Ottawa than it is in Toronto or Vancouver? Do we factor that into the salary cap somehow or do we just go, you know what? A lot of this comes out of the wash. Charles has a question for us here. And I know you like some good

offer sheet talk. Charles is like, hey, with the rumors that Pierre-Luc Dubois wants out of Winnipeg and maybe wants to play from Montreal, do you see the HABs and Ken Hughes potentially offer-sheeting him for two years? That would take him non-restricted free agency. You give him a low dollar amount

so you don't lose your first round pick, and then you would be free to extend him after that. Do you think that there's a threat of an offer sheet on PLD? I think at this point, it seems like there is so much smoke here that he wants to play for Montreal. I almost wonder if we're past the offer sheet, and these two teams are just going to work out a trade, where, you know, why even bother with an offer sheet?

If you know the guy wants it, this is where he's going to wind up, there's sort of, If anything, the debate almost in Montreal is if you want this guy, do you trade for him now or do you just wait two years and say we're going to get him in two years? Because he's going to, you know, it sounds like Dubois is willing to follow kind of the Matthew Kachuk blueprint of manipulating his signing time to get himself right up to free agency. And then he has the freedom to go where he wants. And if where he wants is to go to Montreal, then, you know, if I'm Kent Hughes, I'm not necessarily giving up a ton of picks on an offer sheet or even a trade right now to. to get a guy that I can have for free in a couple of years.

So I think this is probably going to end up in a trade, but not necessarily an offer sheet. Because as soon as he go to an offer sheet, then that gives some power to Winnipeg, right? Winnipeg can say, okay, we match. We've got the guy for two years now. And, you know, he's got no choice but to play here. And then who knows, maybe in two years his outlook is different.

Okay, Jeff has a question for us, and we've kind of touched on this a little bit. In response to Ian and Sean asking last week about the most surprising free agent signings, I'll take you guys back to July 1st, 2007. Maybe not as shocking as Johnny Goodrode, Columbus, but those Rangers and Glenn Say,

they're signing Chris Drury, Scott Gomez, two of the biggest names on the market, day one, grabbing a couple of centermen. For me, they both got them on the same day. Gomez leaving to go to his arch rival after he won a couple of cups. They were kind of in the prime of their careers, jury coming off a career high in points.

This all happened in the salary cap era. Where would you guys say that that ranked in the splash factor, what the Rangers did in 2007? Big splash. I don't know if I'd say surprise, because again, it was the Rangers. And this is back when this is what they did is when I unsigned big free agents.

But as far as a splash, yeah, I mean, that was kind of the early equivalent, I guess, to the Souter Paris Day, where it was, you know, like yours two of arguably the top free agents, maybe just the two top agents, period, and they're both signing with the same team at the same time, which is, it's funny because even like now that feels unimaginable just because what team would possibly have the cap space to sign two big free agents at the same time. It feels like everyone is so used to being right up against the cap at all times that it's hard to find that room. But back then was a little bit more all over the map. Their contracts were much shorter, so teams were freeing up space, churning

through it much more. And you could see a team like the Rangers suddenly step up and say, we're not taking a big swing. We're taking two at the same time. Okay, one more. Let's sneak one more in here. This is from Daniel. Okay. And Daniel has a question about future considerations and he's like, listen, I want to know what future considerations could potentially mean, you know, players have been traded for cash, other things. It seems that, Common trade chips are draft picks. And look, patch are ready to Carolina would be a great example, right? Yeah, Patrated Carolina for futures, right?

Like, what does that entail? So Daniel wants to know, look, can teams provide specific stipulations for draft picks? I mean, let's say Edmonton trades Connor McDavid, for example. Could they ask for a team that they would like the next time that they have a top three pick, that's when they want the draft pick rather than just a random year's number one pick. And look, I can think of reasons why teams wouldn't do that, etc, etc. But I want to know what kind of limitations could there be on trades and futures. Are there things that teams cannot trade?

For example, could a team include something ridiculous in a trade, i.e. a recipe for food they serve in their concession stands, or are there actually rules that govern the limits on trades, especially when we're talking futures, because that could just mean about anything. That comes in from Daniel. Yeah. So two questions here.

And I'm fairly sure on these answers, although not completely sure. Because unlike the NHL rulebook and even the CBA, a lot of these sort of other rules that float around are not necessarily as easy to find publicly. Second question first, are there limits to what you can trade? Yes. When you're making a trade, you know, you can trade players in contracts. and picks and that sort of thing. But you can't get too creative. You can't be trading recipes and that sort of thing.

Much like you can't be trading cash, that's the big piece that was eliminated because, previously you could do that. A team like the Maple Leafs could call up a smaller market. So we'll give you $10 million. We'll write you a check right now for this player. And the league decided they didn't want that anymore. And clearly you can't trade cap space and beyond retention and that sort of thing as well. So yeah, most of those creative things that you're thinking of would be a no.

Now, as far as being creative around draft picks and, you know, that scenario, we want your next top three pick. I believe you could do that through the mechanism of conditional picks. My understanding is there are not really any significant limits on what you can do with conditional picks and what those conditions are. Again, they have to be based on where the pick is and, you know, or things like how much a player plays or his production, what have you. You know, it can't be based on the weather, you know, some weird thing like that. But yeah, you, I believe could say, you know, we want your next first round pick that's in the top three whenever that is.

And that would be a fascinating move to see a team make because, you know, some GM might say, oh, by the time my team's bad enough to have a top three pick. I'm not going to be the GM. I don't care. So I'm getting this guy for free pretty much. Make my team good right now. I think it would be fascinating to watch some team, like, hold another team's pick for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. You're sitting there going, oh, yeah, I remember from that, you know, the time they picked up, you know, whoever this old timer was.

And then it finally comes through and you finally get that pick. That'd be fascinating to me. I believe they could do it. I don't think they ever would. That's not how GMs operate. but I believe that the mechanism of conditional picks allows you to get pretty creative. And then finally to answer this first question,

future considerations almost always means nothing these days. It's a polite way of saying somebody got traded for nothing. Man, now I'm starting to think if you could trade for one, like one food recipe in the NHL, I don't even know what you're taking. Like, you know, baseball stadiums are famous, right, for their, you know, different culinary items. They're crickets in Seattle.

I'm trying to think, like, is there like one signature dish in hockey even? Like, you're like, oh, you got to go to,

okay, so I guess, yeah, you're trying to sucker me in here. I know exactly what's happening. You're trying to sucker me in to once again pointing out that the hot dogs in Montreal are overrated,

that the little steemies, the shant shows are not as good as, uh, we've all been led to believe. It's just a hot dog with a piece of bread folded around it. You're trying to get me to say that. Now I have said it. And now I'm going to have all Montreal fans.

in my mentions screaming at me all week. Thank you. There you go. But no, but like, okay, outside of the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, other, like, other food. Like, I know, like, in Carolina, I've had the, um, uh, the bar, there's, like a barbecue pull pork and it's really good, but like, I, I'm having, like, hockey dishes. There are, like, local dishes that are good.

I'll tell you, the greatest food I've ever had. If I'm, man, they put me on death row and I get one meal. I want to go back in time and I want maple leaf gardens and nachos which are not nachos they are maple leaf gardens nachos they would give you

a cardboard container with some chips in it they would pour molten hot fake cheese over them okay they didn't give you a little bag that you had to like cut and like squeeze it yourself

on it like they with a ladle would pour hot lava cheese which would then immediately leak through the cardboard container onto your hand Yeah. You on your own would have to go to this like communal area and scoop up the salsa and as many halpinos as you wanted. Dump them on.

Somebody had spilled the beer in the in the salsa. So that gave it. And you would go back and you had to eat them quick because like the that lava cheese was like melting, congealing. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. It was the best meal I've ever had. Like literally the gray and you're sitting up in the grays at Maple Leaf Gardens and watching the least lose eight to one.

absolutely the best food I've ever had and I would give one of my children easily to have it one more time and maybe if you twist a arm you might get both kids but you can easily replicate this this is no you couldn't you can't if you go to any movie theater you can get the same

no it's not these days they give you this cold little cheat like it's you need a ladle it's got to be boiling hot Don Chirry has to be on in the background there have to be people smoking right next to you for some reason Like it's just, it's the whole thing. Alan Bester needs to be in goal.

Yeah. Yes, exactly. You got it. You got to be like wondering. You got to be able to hear John Brophy like, you know, breaking a stick over somebody's head in from the dressing room. It's all, it was, it had to be the perfect mix. You've never recreated it today. Man.

Yeah. Like those nachos, you're right. Because you could get the nachos that they have. There's a little like almost like a little side part of it where they put the cheese in there. Then you have to dip. Those nachos are abomination. They are an abomination when you give you the cold little cheese and I'm supposed to dip in.

Get out of here with that. That's absolutely, don't even, don't even put that in the same group of food as maple leaf gardens, nachos. If I don't need a skin graft on my hand at the end of the meal, it's not a real. It wasn't,

yeah. It wasn't, yeah. Listen, I'd love to hear from our listeners about, like a potential signature dish that you've had at an NHL day. I know there are some old school leaf fans that will back me up on this. I want to hear from them. I'm trying to think, like in Philadelphia, like, because I've only been, like, I usually just go to the press box.

Like, do they sell cheese steaks? I'm sure they do. In the concourse? And they're probably not good and they probably cost $18. Yeah. Now I'm curious about that stuff. Anyway, listen, love to hear from our listeners on that. Let's wrap up this show, shall we, like we always do, with a little this week in hockey history.

I'm going to get two of them here real quick. We're talking about splashy surprise moves in the offseason. Take our listeners back to this week in 2006. July 18, 2006, Islanders goal tenor, Garth Snow, announces his retirement. You're like, okay, that's not a huge deal. Garth Snow, been in the league about 10 years, whatever. By the way, he's the new general manager. Like, I don't, what's weird is I don't remember this being a summer announcement,

but I guess it was July 18, 2006, Garth Snow retires, takes over his GM. This has to be on the list of the most stunning. We were talking about stunning, splashy, offseason moves. This has to be near the top, no? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And hadn't that been the same year?

Like, hadn't they just, like, brought on, like, Neil Smith or something? Wasn't that? And then he left right away. Absolutely. I mean, this is one of those moments where you go,

man, I wish we had Twitter back then. You know, that was kind of back before those days. Do we have, was my space around in 2006? Yeah, right? I feel, yeah. We should probably be able

to search up some My space post. I had some spicy takes on my GeoCities page about this. Yeah, that's right. Didn't quite draw the numbers that. Yeah, this was absolutely stunning. And here's the crazy part. Gar Snow was a pretty good GM.

Gar Snow did all right. Like for a guy to come out of nowhere like that. And I mean, everybody just said this. You know, this was the islanders and their crazy owner picking the one guy that they liked. And being like, you're, you're in charge. And everybody was like, oh, Oh, classic Islanders, right? We just finished the Millbury era.

Oh, this will be a disaster. Garst Snow did a pretty good job with that team for a long time. Was snow the one? Who gave DiPietro the 15-year deal? Milbury or Snow? Why am I blanket on this? That might be, well, I mean, DiPietro, DiPetro had been around for five.

You know what? That might have been, but I mean, that was the owner, right? Like, that was a... Yeah, that was Charles Wong and... Charles Wang, where... But, yeah, I mean, DiPetro had been in the league for five or six years by then. But, yeah, no, I don't think that was a Garth Snow decision. But, you know, he made a lot of good moves.

Like, you know, for somebody, I'm not saying he was a great GM, but certainly as a guy that was, we're all expecting disaster. You know, we're expecting him to just be, you know, Lucy at the chocolate factory, just running around completely overwhelmed. No, he still didn't. He did a pretty darn good job. Okay. One other one here, July 21st, 1996.

Wayne Gretzky signs a free agent contract with the New York Rangers three-year deal. Here's my question. I don't remember this. But, you know, July 1st was always the big free agency day. So you're telling me Wayne Gretzky was on the market for three weeks? Like, we're talking about, man, I can't believe Nassim Cadre hasn't signed and John Klingberg. Wayne Gretzky was on the market for three weeks.

I have no recollection of this. Yeah. I don't remember it being that long, but yeah, it's, I mean, it was Wayne Gretzky. And remember, this is before the salary cap. So, you know, not a case where teams are using upcap space. They have to set aside. And I think it was just a question of what was the best fit, what teams wanted him, where did he want to go? Obviously, this is, you know, if you're a Leafs fan, you remember.

This was the summer that Wayne Gretzky wanted to play for the Maple Leafs. And he made that pretty clear to them. But the ownership group, you know, Steve Stavros and Nob Bill Farms and all of this stuff, decided that they ran the numbers and decided it wasn't going to be profitable to bring in Wayne Gretzky. So he ended up going to New York. I know there was, he was always linked with Vancouver to some extent. There was always, you know, talking of him. Detroit had always been mentioned.

You know, there was, it was, this was one of those cases where it was like, hey, man, Wayne Gretzky, you take your time, you pick your destination. And ultimately he did. And he went to the Rangers and go play with Mark Messier and they stayed together forever and ever after that, the end. Yeah, that's right. Nothing else. That's my little, that's my little gift to Canucks fans. We're just going to say that they played out the remainder of their careers together. And it all went great.

you know, I'm now picturing Steve Stavreau in the summer of 96 trying to see like, will this work, will this not work? And somebody brings him the nacho cheese budget from the Maple Leaf Garden. Look, look at this. We're ladling this thing out. We'll never be able to make it work. Just labeling out cheese here. That's possible.

Well, you know what? Honestly, if that was my choice was the nachos versus Wayne Gretzky playing for my Maple Leafs, I might take the nachos. I might have to do it. My God, I'd love to hear from people that see if anybody else loves that fake cheese. Some old leaf and. Yeah. So good.

Ken Regget 33 is going to, yeah, now, exactly. We better cut you loose so you can go have your nachos. Listen, this was a ton of fun. I want to thank everybody for joining us for this latest in the Athletic Hockey Show. As always, email us any questions. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. Voicemail is 845, 444-584-559. Not a subscriber with us.

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