The Hockey PDOcast - Bonus Pod: Ryan Johansen Trade Breakdown

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

AJ Haefele joins Dimitri for a bonus edition of the PDOcast to break down Colorado's acquisition of Ryan Johansen, how he'll fit in the Avalanche system, and what's next for the Predators after all of the cap space they've cleared out since the trade deadlineThis podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovic. Welcome to the Hockey-O-Cast. My name is Dimitri Filippovic, and joining me is my good buddy, AJ. Hey, Hey, J. Hafley. AJ, what's going on, man? How are you, sir? Good.

We're recording this. It's a Sunday evening here in Vancouver. We're doing a bonus podcast. We're going to run this as a separate show. We're going to run the usual programming of, like, ones that double as radio shows for the PEDOCast purposes. But this one's going to go on the feed. We're going to talk about the trade on Saturday afternoon, or I guess Saturday morning involving the abs. And we're going to kind of deep dive that

and discuss it. It's not necessarily a blockbuster by any means, but we've been waiting for a while now for the off season to really start in full force. And this one feels like it kicked it off. We saw the Sean Jersey trade afterwards. There's been a lot of speculation about the flyers making that mega trade with the blues and that's on hold for now. But the abs, the abs, the abs kicked it And hopefully we'll get a bit of a domino effect here. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. We had talked on my show about the abs needing to get a start on the center market so that they could kind of have their pick and try and keep the price down

versus a couple years ago when they needed a goaltender. And they kind of played chicken with the goalie market and ended up having to give up a first round pick. and Connard Timmons for Darcy Kemper. And I think that them getting out ahead of the market is the lesson that they learned from that experience where they said, sure, we have lots of options, but lots of options means lower prices.

And I think we saw that play out precisely in the situation. It did. And getting the Predators obviously to retain 50% of it, so they're essentially playing $4 million for each of the next two seasons for Randjo Hanson's age 31 and 32 seasons is very reasonable, right? There was no acquisition cost to facilitate it. If it was a free agent signing, everyone would be like, all right, that's pretty sensible. I guess my question for you here is initially I was a bit disappointed because I'm planning this mega show with Thomas Strance where we're going to like pitch each other on trades.

We want to see this offseason. And I had this like litany of trades involving Elias Linholm and Mark Schifley and all over the place trying to get a second line center to Colorado. And so when I saw this one, I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed just because I had to cross off a lot of those. But I guess, you know, we can talk more about this later on. Like we're going to talk about Johansen himself here first. But do you feel like this trade actually satisfies that need, right?

Because he's going to be positioned certainly as the, as filling the whole a second line center with JT. Com for leaving in free agency. But I don't necessarily, the more I think about it, I don't necessarily think this automatically crosses them off the list of getting creative to add another center who could potentially bump Johansson down even further down the peck in order so to answer your question i'll say i think it satisfies it for now yeah and i think that we're going to see 60 games of it and what the because because it costs them the ads are very limited in assets that they can give up and because this trade costs them none of those assets they are still in the position

where they've got just enough in the in the cupboard here that they could go and get aggressive, right? But I think they're going to see how Johansson does as 2C first. But it does keep the door open for, hey, they get to the deadline. The flames are out of it. They're going to, they're going to lose backland. They're going to lose Lindholm. You know, if Sheifley hasn't moved by then, you know, whatever, whatever the center market develops into by then, you know, maybe we revisit the Adam Henrique conversation again. Whatever it develops into by that point, they will still have the bullets in the gun,

you know, depending on what happens the next week, of course. But as of right now, when we're talking about it, they'll still have the ammunition that they would need in order to go and do something like that at the deadline. To make Johansen the 3C or to even include him in the deal and move him on as part of a return for an upgraded. 2C. So that is one of the things about the deal that I think makes a lot of sense is for the moment. Yeah, I think they're good because they can then turn around and spend Landis Gog's money filling in the wings around them. But it also does not preclude because they gave up zero assets in the deal. It does not keep them out of the market for one of those guys during the season. Well, they obviously had a desperate need to add scoring weapons in some form up front, right?

The last time we saw this team play, they were finishing off a playoff series against the Cracken. Sorry to remind you of this where they mustered three five-on-five goals in 210 minutes without Nathan McKinnon on the ice in those seven games. And so that was obviously going to be the focus ideally down the middle as well heading into this off-season. And, you know, whenever you have McKinnon and McCar playing at the level they are, I view it as you have to go for it, right? like you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your franchise and your organization to take as many swings and as aggressively as you can doing so and not taking any of it for granted. And so, you know, this brings up the conversation of kind of being the last year of Devon Taves on the sweetheart $4.1 million deal.

What you do with that, the $7 million, as you referenced, that Landis Cog's injury opens up. And so I don't know, let's talk about Ryan Johansson and kind of his strengths and weaknesses. You wrote up an accompanying piece kind of looking at that, the fit here. I think it's an interesting one because he's clearly, especially at the, this point of his career, not necessarily a one-dimensional player, but like a flawed one in the sense that I think he needs to be in the right position to succeed or get the most out of his skills and sort of hide or mask the weaknesses he has as a player. And I guess the avalanche are, the more I think about a pretty well positioned to do so, right? I think they have the personnel

to put him in some different combinations, whether you want to play him with Miko Rantonin, and have him distribute to him or whether you want to play them with some of their more kind of pock hunting wingers. They have many chess pieces that they can move around to get the most out of Johansson. So I do think, like, stylistically,

it actually makes quite a bit of sense. Yeah, it's, when the deal was first announced, just given Elias Lindholm, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Mark Schifley, you know, some of the guys,

some of the guys you could talk yourself into being in the market, or the talk yourself into the abs being into, it kind of felt like walking into a steakhouse and being told, hey, you're on a diet, you're allowed to eat the Caesar salad and watch everybody else, you know, go crazy and get whatever they want.

That's kind of what it felt like when the deal was announced. And the more that I looked at it, the more that I started trying to play with the different accommodations, put myself in Jared Bedner's shoes on opening night, you know, they don't, have a sixth top six forward right now assuming Alex New Hook's not going to be that guy right now so we there's still work to do over the next week of who they bring in to be that sixth forward in their top six but you mentioned you know putting him next to Miko Ranton in him

JT. Confer's about to get paid like he's about to get paid it might even be by Colorado to be regrettably so I think yeah I'm gonna I can tell you right now I'm going to dislike whatever contract JT. Comfort winds up signing for him. I'll tell you this. I'm going to, I'm going to like it for him. I will be happy for the man. Absolutely.

Wins the Stanley Cup cash in. This is the right time. He's going to be 28 years old. Like this is the time if you're JT. comfort to cash in. I'm not begrudging him by any means. I just think that, you know,

and it seems like it probably will be the Blackhawks. And on a scale of regret, it's going to be low for them because they just have this runaway here to just spend as much money freely as they want for the next couple of years. So it's fine. But especially if it comes attached with a term, taking him into his 30s, I will dislike it quite a bit. Yeah, and that's where, and again, this could even be a Colorado deal.

I know that they've stayed in touch with him and that the Johansson deal is cheap enough that they are going to stay in contact and there's a door open for him to come back. If he is willing to leave a little bit on the table, I think that B.EVs might give him, say a sixth year, something like that in order to get him to come back. But I think most likely you're right. I think he's probably, I've been saying for all year he's going to land in Chicago. It's just too easy. It's too obvious, right?

But my point is that that guy just had a career year. His most common linemate was Miko Ranton. That's not an accident. It's not a coincidence. Let's be real here. He's playing on that top unit next to Nathan McKinnon, Miko Rantan, and Kail McCarr. It's good living, man. It's good living.

And that job now goes to Ryan Johansen because the abs have a dirt. of right-handed forwards between Johansson's ability to win face-offs, which is something that the abs were not very good at and asked J.T. Comfer to do the majority of last year, even though he was under 50%. Johansson's much better at that. He's also right-handed. He's going to take Comfer's spot either next to Val Nitchewski or next to Miko Ranted and maybe next to both. And he's going to be on that top power play. You put him there and you say, okay, I think he's a more naturally gifted offensive player than J.T. Comfer is. Comfer finished last year with 52 points. I don't feel like assuming good health, because this is a big thing for both the

avalanche and Johansson. Assuming good health, I think Johansson's golden in terms of asking him to put up a 50 point season in Colorado next year. If you're trying to get him much beyond that, you're going to try and get him into 60-70. I think you're probably talking best case scenario. everything went right. But I do think that a 50-point season's completely reasonable. It is. I mean, if you look at Corey Schneider's tracking and his data that he has on Johan, it's not very flattering.

The two categories that pop off the page that are good are passing categories, right? He's in the 83rd percentile in both primary shot assists and in-zone shot assists. And so the idea of having those assists going to Miko Ranton and with his shooting talent, and especially what he showed this past season as a trigger man, that is obviously highly enticing, right? I actually think, though, that Jared Bednar, I think Jared Bednar, knowing him,

he's going to be frustrated with Ryan Johanson because of some of his deficiencies in terms of how hot or unhot his motor runs for large majorities of the game. And so in that case, I do think they will experiment with putting in with either a Valenichikin or Arturi-Lecanin on one of his flanks because what those guys do really well compensates for a lot of his deficiencies, right? They're going to go out.

They're going to disrupt. They're going to retrieve the puck. They're going to forecheck. And so all of a sudden, if you have Johansen kind of like straggling back high in the zone on those four-check sequences, all of a sudden, puck comes to him. You turn some of those turnovers into quick chances. All of a sudden, the vision starts to make sense. Yeah, I definitely, if I'm penciling in. the opening night lineup, I have Natchewski, Johansson, and Ranton together with Lekhinen,

and then the question mark of TBD there. Because I just think with Lekan, Lekan has been an unbelievably good fit next to McKinnon. What he does well, just vibes with what McKinnon kind of needs alongside him. And we saw a great deal of success when Evan Rodriguez played that job, played in that role last year. Look, no offense to Evan Rodriguez. He's a quality player. I think he's probably also about to get paid. But if Evan Rodriguez can fit into that role,

you can certainly find a dynamic wing to go play next to a Nathan McKinnon and maybe get a 40 or 50 point season out of that guy that you otherwise would not be able to. You know, I'm even swinging for the fences and saying, give a million dollars, a million and a half dollars to Danton Hinen and see what he does next to that guy. You know, with Arturi Lekan and doing all the dirty work, you might be able to get great value out of something like that.

And that's where I think Colorado has the advantage where the Raijo deal makes a lot of sense for the avalanches, just that it opens up the possibility that they're going to be able to get really good value around those spots. Yeah, well, in positioning yourself as being the landing spot for those fringe tweener, middle six wingers to come in on a one-year deal, put up points, look good, and then wind up turning it into a payday is a pretty smart. position for the abs to put themselves given in the cornerstones that they have. You know, Jack Hahn had a really interesting piece on his substack about Joe Hansen kind of looking at some of the video to explain why some of his underlying numbers look so poor and why he struggles in transition and such, right? Because you think like he's such a, he's so gifted with a puck on a stick that he would be able to sort of maneuver in the neutral zone, even though he's not necessarily fleet of foot,

make people miss, get the puck into the zone. and he really struggles in terms of like his as Jack highlights more eloquently than I can. He struggles with how he like exposes the puck and defenders can just take it so cleanly from him. He doesn't necessarily like to like he's not involved in defensive zone at all in terms of taking the puck from one zone to the other. On the topic of how the abs are positioned to cover for that, not only the wingers, but based on the way they use their defensemen, right? And we'll see what other moves come, what the Byram contract looks like, whether Sam Girard is dangled in some sort of a company in trade or whether he's back as well. Regardless, they have the horses on the blue line to do a lot of that puck transport and activation themselves.

And so I imagine regardless of who he plays with up front, they'll be pretty smart to not really ask Johansson to do any of that stuff that he struggles at. And they actually have the players to do so. Whereas in the past couple years, Nashville for the most part, if Roman Yosey wasn't out there, didn't necessarily have the guys that could do that. it's it's true and honestly we saw kind of a really downgraded version of this with larzeller in this brief colorado tenure where that's larzalers never really been a very very like high end transition guy and you saw his offense in the way that he played really kind of popped when in the very few games where he got to play the role that he was brought into play as more of a depth guy and just lean into how colorado wants to play a guy who's not very natural in transition but watched his wings, you know, watched the speed around him with Cogliano and Logan O'Connor in Colorado's defense transporting pucks up the ice. He didn't have to do any of that. And so he didn't look like a misfit.

He got to just go in, win puck battles along the wall and work. If you take what they got out of Larsauer and you put him in Ryan Johansson's body, it's not hard to see at all exactly what you're talking about in the way that he's going to be, he's going to have pathways to success because his weaknesses are covered by the guys who are going to be employed around him. Well, one thing that I think stylistically is appealing about this fit for the abs is, you know,

for better or for worse, so much of their offense has been concentrated like high in the offensive zone, right? We think of whether it's McCar kind of walking the line and then making someone miss and then getting to the middle and shooting or obviously, you know, that high three, two where McKinnon works way up and then and then he funneled shots from there.

if you look at their like shot chart and heat maps, so much of their offense in zone at 5-on-5 comes from high in the zone. And something Johansson has been really good at is making plays down low, whether it's getting to the net himself or whether it's sort of, you know, down low in the cycle game, beating his defender one-on-one, attracting attention and then distributing it to someone else for an open shot. And so in this case, I actually do think it kind of helps move them in the right direction to diversifying their offensive attack a little bit because as sort of high octane as it can be when it's fully

fully functional and everyone's healthy and it's flowing at times especially last year we saw it can kind of become not predictable because like you can still know what Nathan McKinnon and Kilmacar are going to do but good luck stopping it but at least it gives you different avenues to beat opposing defenses rather than just like one one area of the ice and that's about it yeah

his size you know the lack of game land is called glass year and the in and out nature of Val Natchewski in the lineup. And then obviously him leaving the team in the playoff series. You want to talk about your talk. You talked about five on five goals without Nathan McKinnon on the ice. That's where they struggled was that they did not have, they did, they just couldn't score an easy goal. They couldn't score a rebound goal.

They couldn't score a garbage goal. They had to work too hard for everything. They had to get lucky. Something just fortunate had to take place, right? And where they really miss Gabe Landisog was having a guy with a big butt, he'll put it right in the goalie's face, and he'll just outwork and out muscle somebody in front of the net. You know, and this is where I do want to go back to your point that

Johansson's going to drive Jared Bedner crazy because he's going to be a passenger on some nights. And it's going to, it's, Benner's just going to be very frustrated by that. the other guy that I think is going to get frustrated by that is Nathan McKinn. And I'm curious to see how that relationship evolves. And to see the impact, does that give Ryan Johansson that little extra gear? Does it kick him into a gear that nobody's ever really been able to get out of him before? Or is he just is who he is and the abs are just going to have to deal with the maddening inconsistency of his effort,

which can wax and wane like a cycle of the moon. You know, so I do think that there's that concern. But in terms of him being able to just stand in front of the net and pick up rebounds, tip pucks in, find a rebound, and then make a slick pass to a guy that's open on the back door. Those are all things that he's going to bring that the odds just didn't have last year. And that was largely because no game Landiscag. So as much as this is a deal. for a guy that can replace J.T. Comper as the 2C. It's also a pseudo deal to replace some of the elements that they've been missing

with no Landisg who they obviously will not have next season as well. And so it's a double dip. And again, no assets, $4 million. I think it's going to be overall a positive fit. I'm tempering expectations. I'm saying 50 points. But knowing the way that the guys have come into Colorado and just seen things change for them.

You know, you've had a track record, you know, Jonas Donskoy, Nazim Kadry, Andre Burekofsky, even guys like Nicholas Abe Kubell, Dennis Malgan last year, they get into Colorado system, they find a comfort zone, and they produce in a way that they don't,

anywhere else in the league. And you're, I think that there's a fair reason to believe that you'll see the same thing out of Ryan Johansson, where if he puts up a 65 or 70, 70 point season. Again, everything went their way. But I also don't think that it's out of the realm of a high-end, realistic end-game possibility. I agree with you from a productivity and production perspective, from an aesthetic perspective of how it looks and whether it looks different than it has previously and whether it drives Nathan McKinnon and Jared Benner are crazy.

I don't know about that, not only because he's going to be 31 or whatever and probably is who he is at this point of his career, but also even when he was younger and more mobile and more involved because of like his frame and kind of how wiry he is at times. it looks like he's not really trying and putting in max effort, even though he's probably doing everything he can to his max capability, right? And so it's just gonna, it's gonna bug them regardless of how productive it is and that's fine.

But you know what? Anyone you bring in is probably gonna bug Nathan McKinnon. So as long as he's producing, it's okay. I'm not that worried about that. The only two guys that have ever, that the aves have ever brought in that Nathan McKinnon has never been bothered by our Tori Lackin and Andrew Cogliano.

Yeah. Nary a bad word. Yeah. Well, I mean, Arturiken, and it certainly never bothered me either. What a, what a player.

You know, do I want to talk about this quickly? I have a couple trades that I think would make sense as follow-ups to this. I kind of want to just save them for that show that I mentioned I'm going to do with Trans

because I want to, I want to pitch him fresh. I don't want to double dip for the PDO guest listeners, but you already know them. You liked one of them. You pushed back on another one of them. We'll deal with that later.

Do you want to talk about this quickly from the Predators perspective, just because I think it is interesting that they wanted to get off of this contract, right? Like, it makes sense regardless of what their direction is just because they're like, you know what, it's time to move on. We save our ownership, whatever, $8 million over the next two seasons. We clear some cap space. Now, they're going to be purely a rebuilding team that's going to entertain a UC Soros trade at

some point and actually keep, you know, selling off players for future picks. And finally, essentially rebuilding properly for the first time in franchise history. almost, it feels like, that cap space is kind of a mood point or not necessarily that relevant because they already have so much of it to begin with. So that makes me think that there probably is at least one or two kind of trickle down moves for them as well that might not necessarily be kind of win now moves but are going to be, all right, let's go out and acquire players that cost a lot, right? Like it feels like that's kind of part of the logic for this beyond just kind of moving on from a player that you were done with in their case.

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, the first thing I thought about was Eric Carlson, where, hey, it's easier to absorb $10 million when you have 19 million of space, right? And they don't have a ton of money on their books moving forward, like high-end money on their books moving forward. And so I wondered if Barry Trotz was like, hey, we're going to go, we're going to go and get another high-end puck mover and we're going to have Rome. Roman Yosie and Eric Carlson and we're going to lean into the modern day game of let's transport pucks and then I will get I will get the guys I'll sign to Scott Mayfield along the way to try and lock it down next to Yose and

you know kind of go from there like I that's kind of what I wondered is maybe instead of going to the proper rebuild route that they try to on the fly reallocate that money and and the the assets you know the UC Soros with Escarov coming up. They turn UC Soros into a defenseman, and Barry Trots gets back that Nashville Predators' defenseman factory feel to it that it had for 15 years. So that's my curiosity, just speculating as a, I'm curious if they actually do lean into the rebuild,

or if they went and cleared a bunch of money because it's going to make it easier for them to take on bigger money elsewhere from guys that they think could help them win. I mean, since the trade deadline in trading, Nino-Needer-Rider-Rider, Tanner-Jeno, Matias Eccl, Michael Granland, and Ryan Johansson, not only have they acquired a bunch of draft capital, but also they cleared $19 million, as you mentioned, in those players' loan in terms of commitments for this year.

I've got them at about $22 million in cap space right now with Alexander Carrier and Cody Glass as RFA's. Yeah, that would be an interesting idea. I kind of thought more so they might be, because they've kind of been listed on Alex de Brinkett's list of preferred destinations, whether they would all of a sudden use some of that cap space to facilitate a side in trade or trading brand and then extending them, potentially even dipping into the center market in free agency, whether it's like Orion O'Reilly or something.

I don't know. They could pretty much use help anywhere, right? Because the last time we saw them and part of this was guys like Kiosi and Forsbrook were out. But they made that late season push on the back of U.C. Soros with this like rag tag group of A.HLers. young players that John Hines had previously refused to use. And now they're presumably healthier. And we should mention going from John Hines to Andrew Brunette and what we know about him is

his tendencies as a coach, it would be interesting to kind of really hand over the keys to him and try to turn this into a more of a fast pace run and gun type of team. And so any of these players essentially would help facilitate that. Yeah, I mean, sticking with Duchenne and, you know, I don't know when he'd be became Tommy, but going into, you know, Novak, Philip Tomasino, obviously, Roman Yossi, you're Tyson-Berry's on that back end too. Like, you're talking about, you're talking about some, the potential to be higher octane here and to play at a pace that we're not accustomed to the Fred's playing at. So, um, I do wonder, you know, DeBrin Cat would make sense there.

I wondered about PLD before it looked like this LA thing was coming, uh, into focus. Um, I'm going to continue to wonder about my. Mark Sheifley, like that's, if you're clearing out that much cap space, the next question is, what are you doing with it? Yeah. Right. Because if the answer is nothing, it's not, it's not of that much value. Obviously, having flexibility is fine. And you're saving actual dollars.

You're owing these players. But generally, when we see teams clearing out caps space, it's with the intention of turning around and using it for something, right? Rather than just kind of keeping it free. So. Absolutely. And with a guy like Ryan Johansson, if they, would have just kept him. And if they were already willing to eat this money, if they would have just kept him even until the deadline a year, you know, two years from now in the, when his

deal was expiring, they eat half of that. They're guaranteed to get more than they just got from him. Oh, yeah. So, you know, it's, what is the plan? What's the next thing here? Because if they, if they really do lean into a rebuild, color me really surprised. Because I think that with, with Forsberg and Yossi signed long term. Dushan for three more years at $8 million. I guess I think they owe it to those guys to give it a world. Two franchise icons too in Yosey and Forsberg. I think they're going to try and fancy themselves the next L.A. Kings,

who did this around Kopitar and Dowdy, and I think they're going to try and do the same thing. I like it. All right. Is there anything else on this trade or maybe the app's perspective that you think we should touch on while we're here before we sign? out or do you think we kind of covered most of the important stuff? I feel good about it.

Feel great about it. All right, AJ, I'll let you plug some stuff, let the listeners know what you've got in the works, what the content plan is moving forward, where they can check you out, all that good stuff. Yeah, per usual. I'm over at DNVR Avalanche, DNVR Sports. We've got a podcast written content, a bunch of video stuff. We have content that goes across all the different socials. We do a little bit of everything for a little bit of everyone.

on. So if anybody has any interest in anything avalanche related, you know where to find us. And we'll have all angles of pretty much everything covered. All right, buddy. Well, this is a blast. It's always fun to catch up with you and have something fun to talk about, especially from a trade perspective. We'll be back with plenty more on the PDOCAST feed this week as we keep the offseason content moving. So thank you for listening to us. And we'll be back soon. Until then.