The Athletic Hockey Show - Rumours swirl in Vegas as the NHL draft and free agency set to commence

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoe record a 'Vegas Nights' edition of the pod ahead of the first round of the NHL draft and the opening of free agency, discussing an active Thursday with the Capitals acquiring Andrew Mangiapane from Calgary, Juuse Saros signing an extension with the Predators, Tyler Myers returning to the Canucks and they stick tap Nathan MacKinnon for winning the Hart Trophy. Plus the guys take a look at some of the names on the trade market including Tristan Jarry, Patrik Laine, Mitch Marner and Jacob Trouba. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the athletic hockey show. Vegas Knights Edition. No. No. We're not doing that? That's an absolute no.

Non-starter. The sun hasn't even gone down yet here. I don't know what time it is. I don't know what day it is. The two of us have had very long travel days to get here. They're only barely over. Sean McIndoo, Sean Gentilly. Coming at you from Las Vegas.

Vegas, the site of the NHL draft, the site of, this is going to shock everybody, some player movement. Also, we're at producer Jeff's hotel room right now. It's at one of the funnier resorts in Vegas. I'm not going to get specific here, but think of the silly ones, and that's where we are. It's one of the Frencher silly ones, and that's as much information as we're going to give you. There's a niece-themed resort that nobody knows about. All right. Andrew Maggiapani traded to the Washington Capitals today, second round pick, had it back to Calgary.

The Flames lost another trade. I think that's my big takeaway here. It sure feels like the Flames keep trading guys for a little less than you would have thought, a little quicker than you would have thought. Because it's a second round pick in 2025, if I'm correct. Which means there was no reason to need to have it done before the draft gets going. But took what they can get. They free up some cap space, move a guy that. I guess wasn't on his way back.

Are we, like, can we just say it's a rebuilding Calgary? I don't know how many more guys they have to move before it officially gets a designation. Like, like, does it take them moving cadre before we're allowed to say it? We're allowed to say it. We're allowed to say whatever we want. Yeah, that's true.

We're in Vegas, baby. Yep. And this is, this is the Vegas Knights Edition. Like I said. I like this for the Caps a lot. I like what they've done over the last couple days or over the last week, I suppose. They're not very good.

They're not going to be very good. They're not going to win the Eastern Conference next year. But with the situation that they found themselves in, where you've got two more years left, hopefully, of the Alex Ovechkin goal chase. The organization is locked in some kind of stasis until that happens. So you might as well try to win as many games as possible until then. Is that crazy?

If you're trying to get Alexander Revechkin to the goals record, you definitely want to go trade for a guy who's famous for having like 24 goals and two assists every time you look at the stat line. I mean, that's the question, right? Why are the capitals doing this? And I think you've hit on it. I mean, you want to at least be competitive. Again, like, when we all sit down in two months or whenever it is to do our predictions,

nobody's going to pick the Washington Capitals to make the playoffs. Just like nobody picked them last time. Correct. And but there's not going, we said, are the Flames doing a rebuild. Washington's not doing a rebuild until Hobiechkin does or doesn't get this record. So. Three years from now. Three.

We're going to know. Three and a half. Four years from now. We've all seen the photos of off-season Ovi. Four years, five years. Like, how else? ever long it takes, I think the clock is moving north here. That's right. He's going to do whatever it takes to get within three goals just in time for the next lockout to push him on.

But it's fine. The other big extension of the day, UC Soros, eight years worth a term with Nashville, 7.74 million average annual value. we got a very cute jersey number worked in there, buddy. 7.74. Guess what jersey number U.C. Soros wears? It's funny. It's adorable, isn't it, when they do this? So, I mean, this is a way more term.

Mm-hmm. And I would say way less cap hit than I would have thought, which maybe balances out. I mean, when Schisturkin signs his deal, whenever that comes, July 1st or shortly after the numbers being thrown around are eight figures plus. This deal almost immediately probably looks like a bargain. You'd never know with goalies.

And that's what makes it scary to do eight years. But cap going up, all this stuff. It's going to be, like clearly UC Starves wanted to stay in Nashville. And he said, okay, so I will drop down to a number that makes it possible for you to do that. Now, the fascinating thing here is now what happens with Ascarov, who has no path to the starter's job in Nashville now. And apparently not even is in, according to some of the reports that are out there won't even be in the NHL next year. They want them to do another full year in the HL. That was a surprising bit for me, honestly.

When I heard that the extension was done, the logical move, the ideal move for Nashville. Phil is you bring on Ascarov and you start him for 28 games next year or whatever. See what you have in them. And then hope he plays well enough to juice up his stock and get something legit and meaningful for him at this time next year. But if he's at risk of not coming over again this season, then I don't know what you do. It feels like you have to move him, doesn't it? because for sure. Especially in Nashville situation, too, they have a ton of cap space,

which is something that I knew they had, I knew intellectually that they had a good amount, but to see the real number thrown around, it's like, okay. When you did your rankings, they were, what, two? They were two. Two in the entire league. Did you know, like, I... Behind only Utah who famously have no players.

Right. Nashville made the playoffs last year, and they have guys making real money and still have so little salary on the books. Again, they pop up at two on the capitalist. I mean, Harmon did. So that's shocking. But it's also a team that made the playoffs last year. So you're like, they have money to spend.

They have the guts of a team, I suppose. I know they got rid of Ryan McDonough, but there's good pieces there where they're at least capable of winning games. We think that Andrew Brunette is a plus coach in the NHL. I think that's fair to say at this point. So I get the logic. you're saying we have an elite goalie. We have a certain, we have a pencil

fill of Forsberg in for 40 goals or 45 goals as long as he's healthy. And then you try to improve around the margins. And the easiest route to that now is to find something meaningful for Scarov and in a trade, for sure. It seems like that's the route that, you know.

Like the dream scenario is what Florida did with Devin Levin, right? Where it was, Sergey Barovsky's locked in big number, you know, he's going to be the starter. They move him to Buffalo with a pick,

get somebody named Sam Reinhardt, turned out okay. So I've heard. So, I mean, I guess that's what you're like. I would love to know how far down the path

of talking to teams about UC Saras. You know the phone was ringing. according to what we've heard, they weren't really interested in that. That wasn't something they were pursuing. But that's what you would expect them to say. Given what we saw for Markstrom, given that all mark went, both deals where, you know, I don't think anybody thought the price paid was all that impressive.

I mean, maybe the market just wasn't there. Or maybe they just never explored it. Maybe that's part of why the market wasn't there for those other two guys is that we're all talking U.C. Saros being available for trade and maybe he just never was. I mean, the big variable with Allmark 2, and part of the reason the package that Boston Realt InFORM was, you know, underwhelming for so many people is he wasn't going to sign an extension. So you can connect dots here, right? Like if UC Soros wanted to stay in Nashville, A, you know, you're already moving a player to a destination that's not, not his preferred one. And if he's going to say, yeah, I'm not ready to sign an extension, actually right now. we're going to play out the season and see what happens.

That immediately drops it down to low first round pick, roster player and whatever. And if you're in Nashville, you're saying, we don't need this. Like, let's keep the elite goaltender that we already have in the fold and it's easy to say you've got the can't miss prospect and, you know, but you never know with goaltenders. I mean, Spencer Knight was a can't miss prospect when the Panthers signed Sergei

Brovsky. And obviously he could still get there and there's been the off-eye stuff. But you just, you never really know. Explain me, since we're on goaltending, the goaltending market, please give me the Pittsburgh perspective on Tristan Jari being available now. Now that everyone who needs a goalie has a goalie. I think the contract that they signed him to last year was understandable, given the context of the goalie market.

Like the carousel was spinning, and they were truly at risk of being, you know, left holding the bag there. So there was some amount of trepidation, I think, when they signed me to that, but it was also like kind of justifiable. If you squint, you're like, this guy's an above average goalie, maybe. This is the thought last year, at least. And now after a year of what he brought to the table, you know, after post-extension, losing his job legitimately to Alex Nadelcovic. To the point where signing Alex Nadelcovich for next season was priority number one for this team in the off-season, and I think that kind of tells you

everything you need to know. How many years does he have left, Jari? Four. They signed him for five, so he's got four left. Who's out there right now? Like, yes, this is the guy that we've been waiting for. I said this on Pittsburgh Radio earlier today. People are like, oh, they're going to trade Jari.

Like, what would the market be like, what are the teams? I'm like, I don't, like, do you want a guy who makes that much money for that much time to be your backup goalie and give up a meaningful package to him? that dude is a cap dump, if that for them at this point. Like, he's just, he just hasn't shown enough on the ice when he's been healthy. And also, like, he's consistently had two or three injuries each year where, you know, he's out for a protracted amount of time.

They're in a bad spot. And whether they move him or not. And I think if you, there are a lot of people in that organization who would, you know, given their druthers, they would go with Alex Nadelcovic and Joel Blomkvist and take whatever they can get for Tris and Jari. So it's wild to see how stuff has swung, even though there was, like I said, some amount of trepidation going in the off season last year. It's wild to see how hard the pendulum swung back in almost literally 365 days. I'm just glad I cheer for a team that's got their goaltending all sorted out and didn't have to be in on any of these guys.

Let's find a way to send Tristanjari to the Toronto Maple Leafs. He'd be a great time split with our buddy Joseph Wall. It's making it happen. Yeah. Kyle Dubas knows the Leif's prospects well because there's some. three of them. One of which he drafted. It's nice.

It's Kowen. Who's the other one? Yeah, you know what? I may have been over. Are we still counting Nick Robertson? Is that? It's RFA Nick Robertson. The other big bit of news coming out of tonight in Vegas, we're not going to spend a ton of time on this because I don't think anybody is all that shocked about this.

But we did have NHL awards. McKinnon Hart, Hughes Norris. Helibuck, Vezina, Baderd, called her and there's one other one

that I'm missing, I think. Lindsay, also, that was also, that was also, that was also, that was also,

yeah, wasn't? So weird choices about, like, which awards they saved for tonight

and then which they did. What, which one should we add to the, if you could add one award to the,

to the, always just entertaining, fun, really, professionally produced, endeavor known as the NHL Awards. Which one would you add to the broadcast?

All right. So first of all, I'm not going to sit here and let you talk down the NHL Awards. I love these things. I love that the bits don't work. I love that the hosts bomb. It's all part of it. It's really great. They truly brought on like a TikTok impressionist kid to host this thing.

Like, who is this for? I had no idea who this was, but hey, the magic tricks worked. it's it's a it's it we're moving the needle up I would have moved

the Jack Adams yeah Jack Adams and or the Selkey I think I think either flip a coin between Adams

and Selkey for me yeah and or or do more of them like it was a weird in between where if you're going

to do a show no no if you're going to do the whole show if you're going to put it on and you know

sell tickets and then I don't know why you limit it to four or five awards? Other than that you just don't have time in the 72-hour off-season that we're getting this year. This is truly, too. I think between that and between just the total foregone conclusion that all the big

awards seem like, the awards had even less juice this year, I feel like than they normally do, which is kind of amazing. I feel like we are now at a point where... I think we all talk about the awards and who we're voting for. Like, we being the media, I didn't have a vote. I don't know if you do. No. But, you know, someday.

Someday I'm going to work my way back up to the rotation of... Call Frank. Yeah, of who gets to vote in these things. I feel like we all discuss it so much throughout the season that, like, Connor Halbach, that's the GMs. But, I mean, he deserved it. Connor Bardard was going to win the Calder. I mean, you look at the heart trophy.

That should have been a real, like, who knows who's going to win? I mean, there were not just three great candidates this year. There were four or five or six. I mean, there were five forwards that you could easily vote for, let alone remembering that other positions were eligible. And yet, it was like, yeah, Nathan McKinns going to win. We all just, we all knew because everybody had, you know, already teased it out and figured it out. And so I guess what I'm saying is we need to.

stop talking about this stuff. I'd be fine with that. And stop conveying information. Either that. Yeah. And then we can just watch a 25-year-old do Howard Stern impressions or whatever. Well, what about this?

Hear me out. Hear me out. Instead of all of us voting and all that, we get 18 people on a secret committee. And they just go behind closed doors. And they just pick the awards and they don't tell us why or they don't answer to anybody. And they get to, and they can also vote for themselves.

And then five years later, 10 years later, Eric Trujaheach is forced to speak in riddles about... My absolute favorite thing, where you got to see, like, what name is Eric blinking in Morse code? Eric, Eric blink out, you know, McGilney in Morse code. Like, we'll figure it out. All right, let's get to a break.

But before we do that, I wanted to tell you folks about the athletics coverage of the NBA and NHL drafts this week. On the hoop side, we got Zach Harper. Andrew Schleck. We got a big cast of friends that have you cover for the NBA draft with analysis of all the big picks on the athletic NBA show. I hear the Los Angeles Lakers made a controversial selection this afternoon. And over on the Athletic Hockey Show, we are in Las Vegas all week. We're covering the draft from the sphere.

Both of us will be there. Tune in for preview content. Tune in for full recaps. Tune in for analysis from each round with Max and Corey and a bunch of other folks. All right, we're back, and we're in Vegas for 48 more hours or thereabouts. A bunch more stuff can happen. I assume some of it is going to involve higher profile players than Andrew Mangi Apani. You would hope.

You would hope. It's going to be a long weekend if... If that's the peak, the blog from the sphere tomorrow is going to be must-see coverage. Oh, I forgot. We're doing that. It's going to be blood from a stone, my man. Who were you watching over the next couple days? Like, who do you hope gets in on this?

Who do you hope we're talking about next week? I mean, I'm watching Mitch Marner, the most important player in the NHL. That's... In the best. Yeah, and the best. And also somehow the worst. And now, so that's who I'm watching. Now, if we're talking about guys where something might actually happen,

then it's probably... Well, I mean, you've got Jake Gensel as the big name, who looks like he's actually going to market. Also, there's some whispers, I guess, that here, not whispers, but reports. I think Pierre was in on this that it's not a done deal that he's leaving Carolina. It seems like they've moved a bit closer together over the last couple of days, which is interesting because I think we were treating it as a foregone conclusion that Jake Gensel.

It sounded like it, yeah. Jake Gensel's going up in Vancouver, Detroit, or the Rangers or whatever. It seems like there's maybe a little bit more common ground to be found. between the sides, which is interesting. I just sort of had moved on, I feel like. And, you know, we're watching all these teams clear caps space. Detroit's doing weird stuff to clear up cat space. Vancouver clear up cap space, but then they kind of spent it on their own guys.

So I don't know if they're back to be in players on this, but they're a team that was linked to Gensel quite a bit. It may be more wishful thinking than anything, but that was certainly the fan base is pointing at him as somebody that likes to see him go out and get. you know those are the big ones you do have like the the other trade pieces like nicaylars and that going around do any of these need to happen for the draft do they involve picks in in this draft and then i guess the other thing is these we've now seen two of these i would say you know kind of weird deals of teams moving up in the first round a couple of spots we saw santa

Jose do it using Pittsburgh's pick. I love the San Jose move. Okay, explain it to me. Because they go from what, 14 to 11? Yeah, because there's 12 good players in the draft. Okay. That's it. Because that's, there's nothing unusual about moving up a few spots to get your

guy. That is something we see on the draft floor all the time. I should say, I'm being a little, I'm being a little facetious there. Obviously, there's more than 12 good players, but like that's where the defenseman tier kind of drops off. And if you're at 11, or like in that area where the sharks are,

you're going to get one of those guys. They went up three spots. They gave up a second round pick to do it. Value-wise, you know, we don't really have like the pick chart quite to the same extent in the NFL, but it's, you know, that's a high price to pay.

Now, if you're on the draft floor and 11 is on the clock and you go, that's our guy sitting there, I totally get making that deal. to do it in advance having there's a level of risk to it and it also just

I don't know I like it because it just adds because we can just sit here and try to like people were connecting dots between the Jake Wallman trade in San Jose

like the big conspiracy theory was that the sharks are gonna take are gonna take a player for the red wings like there's all sorts of it's obviously obviously false

I love I love any move I love any move where the fan base is like maybe there's a secret second shoe to drop. Maybe there's a part two that they haven't told us about. Steve Eiserman is somehow still secretly playing checkers while

playing chess while everybody else is playing checkers. He's still the smartest guy in the room. Just ask a certain quadrant of Red Wings fans. The guy I'm watching is Jacob Truba. We know now that there's a report that he had to submit his acceptable trade destination list in New York makes $8 million a year.

plays at the level of like a half decent third pair guy at this point. We know that if the Rangers want to meaningfully change their team and Chris Jury has said that much, they're going to need to clear out space. Like if, like, you can, they have enough to do some work around the edges at this point, but if they really want to do an actual faceliff, they need more money, whether that's Gensel, whether it's like, whatever, throw a dart at the, at the player of the day.

And that, you know, making that happen, I think, starts with moving out Truba. So I'm interested to see what that means for the Rangers. And I'm interested in what it means for whichever team is acquiring Jacob Trouba. Yeah. What does that even look like at this point? Because here's the thing. This is the captain of the president's trophy, best, you know, winning best team in the league in the league during the regular season.

Big guy, hard hitter, you know, I mean, I could see some GM out there talking them. themselves into this is the guy that we need to drop in our blue line. And I could also see it being a case where the Rangers have to pay to move them off the books. I'm really not sure. But I mean, look, man, like full credit to Christopher. He's playing hardball here. They're not messing around. The Goodrow thing was, yeah, the player got ticked off. He said what he was going to do and then he went and did it. Like that seems like that's what we're in the process of watching from him. It's really, really interesting. So we'll close on a question. It's also about Jacob Trubo. What number do you think he's going to wear for the Maple Leafs?

Oh, God. Oh, good night, everybody. This has been the Vegas Night's edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Next edition of the show is on Friday night. It's Bolton and it's Prondman. They're going to have the recap of the first round, of course, right here on the Athletic Podcast Network. Stick with us. Stick with the site. We're going to have all sorts of stuff from Vegas over the next few days. Enjoy the weekend.