The Hockey PDOcast - Breaking Down the Flyers Flames Trade, and Impact of Projected Cap Spike

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Harman Dayal to unpack all of the most interesting components of Thursday night’s trade between the Flames and the Flyers, plus the news about the projected cap spike over the next three years and the impact it’ll have on the market. 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.

Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name's Dmitri Filippovich, and joining me here in studio to close out the week is my good buddy, Harmon Dile. Harm, what's going on, man? Big trade. Last night, I love trade season. A lot going around the league, so it's going to be fun to talk about it all. Yeah, our plans changed.

I knew you were coming in today, of course. We were going to talk about the salary cap in the league. league how that's going to affect future star contracts. We're still going to hopefully get to that, especially with today's news about the CBAs or the cap ceiling spike to come over the next three years. I want to talk a little about the Canucks as well, of course, as you cover them on a day-to-day basis for the athletic. But we're going to start with breaking down Thursday evenings trade between the flames and the flyers. If you somehow missed it, the flames got Joel Farabia and Morgan Frost. The flyers got a 2025 second, a 2028 seventh, Jacob Pellciet and André

Andre Kuzmenko. Now, for the purposes of the rest of this season, I think it's fair to say that the flame side of this trade is the one of more intrigue to us, considering they're getting the two players here. Let's break it down from their end, because they've played exactly 50 games so far. They're sitting 13th on the league in point percentage. They're one point ahead of the Canucks for the second wildcard spot in the west. They're all of a sudden, only one point behind L.A. as well for third in the Pacific, L.A. does have a game in hand. And they're also only three points behind the abs with two fewer games play than them. So they're very live at this point of the season for the playoffs. I know Dom's model has them

not that high. It's around 25% playoff probability. The market is much more bullish on them. It has them around 37 to 38% implied odds to make the playoffs. They went into the year and Thomas and I did a show at the start of the year where we did our watchability rankings that we referenced repeatedly where we made the argument that this flames team had an outside shot of being the worst team in the league because it felt like they were telegraphing that they were going to go full-on rebuild, right? And how could you not think that after the past year and a half heading in where they had traded away to Foley, Zedorov, Linholm, Tanev, Hanofin, Markstrom, Mangyipani for pretty much essentially futures?

But then Dustin Wolf comes in and I think completely accelerates and changes the timeline, at least for this season, because not only is he giving them a 9-17, say, percentage in net, but he started 29 games out of the 50, and in those 29, they're performing at 113 point pace as a team, so pretty much every time he's in net, they have a very good chance of either being in it or outright winning. And when you have that level of goaltending, it's almost impossible despite whatever wishes you had heading in

to bottom out in the standings, right? Like, we know that's going to keep you afloat. That's not to undersell everything else that happened in Calgary, because I think Ryan Husker's done a phenomenal job. They compete as hard as any team in the league. They've had very few nights where they just gave away two points, right? Every game they're hanging around. They're very tough to play against.

High effort, high puck battle wins, all of that. I think that's ultimately at the crux of this trade, right? Because if you told me at the start of the year that the flames were going to be giving away any draft picks for roster players this season, I'd be like, that's strange. Why would they do that? But 50 games in, I think it's a very reasonable sort of situation that they find themselves in. Yeah, they've got the goaltending. They have the compete, as you mentioned.

They've been more defensively structured than I figured. Now, they're not a defensive juggernaut by any means. But because of their effort, the pressure that they apply, they don't have many nights where they're just giving up a ton of grade A chances either, which you have that foundation. And the one thing that's been missing is a lack of offense, right? their 29th in the league and goal scored per game. What I also like about Farabian Frost is not only do they help immediately as far as

potentially injecting secondary scoring, but they're in that mid-20s age range that Craig Conroy has clearly been targeting when you look at past trades with Sharon Govich, Kevin Ball, to try and find guys in different situations and see if they can be part of the kind of like retooling core, and not that they're necessarily going to be, you know, game-breaking pieces, but crucial parts of the puzzle nonetheless. So I like that it's not just an upgrade for this season, but if these guys mesh, especially in Farabby's case, considering the contract that he's attached to, I think he's got plenty of term left at a $5 million cap.

You're talking about guys that can help for multiple seasons, and especially a second round pick in this year's draft where it's a below-average class, it's not expected to be very deep. The flames have excess picks. I don't think they gave up a lot to get that boost. And so I really like this as a low risk, modest upside swing for Calgary. Yeah, Frost is turning 26, Fairbys turning 25. I think in general, finding players in that sort of sweet pot of that prime mid-20s range

that have any semblance of real offensive skill, the way these two guys have demonstrated so far in their NHL careers, is really hard to do on the open market. Generally, those types of players aren't a very big. You're going to have to pay a premium to get them unless you drafted them and had them internally. And so from an upside perspective, I like it there, especially at the price they paid, right? Like you mentioned the draft capital. Even after this, Calgary still has two firsts this year and another second.

And then they have two firsts again next year. So it's not like they necessarily empty the treasure chest here to make this happen. And it is a team that is competing hanging around the playoff fringe. And as you mentioned, 28th in 5-on-5 goals per 60, all situations, 29th at 5-1-5. And I'm curious for your mileage on the two players then, right? Because I think certainly they've drawn the ire of John Chororella in the past coaching them. Both guys have been healthy scratches. At times, we've seen their production be very volatile.

I think in seeing the reception from Flyers fans, they weren't necessarily too upset to see them go, I think, reflective of that sort of inconsistency. yet I think we've seen, especially in Fairbys case, right, the spike where, especially at the start of last year, he was scoring so much off the rush. The past four years since 2020, he's had 24, 18, 15, and 18, 5-on-5 goals per 82 games played, which was like 42nd in the league or something last year. And so that type of skill level and offensive ability from those guys, I think provides such a much-needed boost to the slames team, especially while Conner's area. out, right? Because even though they've been winning these games, a lot of it has been on the back of goal tending or kind of winning, low scoring, one goal games. And so all of a sudden getting a couple guys in who can actually create chances and potentially turn those chances into goals, I feel like it's such a boon for this flames team. Yeah, I'm a believer in Ferreby especially.

I think he's got a higher chance in my mind of being a long-term fit, even though Frost fits a bigger positional need for the flames down the middle. Ferreby, too, this year, I know his production has cratered, but looking at his underlying data, he's still generating shots and chances at a pretty healthy clip. He's only converting on 8% of his shots, which is far below his 12% career average. So in my mind, I think there is a case, especially with the change of scenery. I'm a believer in his talent. I think he will bounce back and be closer to the player that he has been in previous seasons, which is a guy that you can sort of move up and down your top 9 will give you much needed offense.

In Frost's case, it's interesting because you definitely see the flashes of skill of playmaking. He can be a slick talent. The issue has been, A, he is not a very, like, hard competitive player. B, he's been pretty heavily sheltered in Philadelphia when you look at his matchup, so I know some of his underlying, like, play driving metrics sort of look positive on paper. But the context there is he's been. been pretty sheltered and has had a tough time gaining the trust of the coaching staff over Philadelphia over multiple seasons. And I think it's telling too that Philadelphia team that's desperately

starved for top six centers is moving on from Morgan Frost. That's not to say he can't work out in Calgary. I still like it as, again, it's a low risk roll of the dice because he's an RFA at the end of the season, so there's no contractual risk. If it goes sideways, it's worthwhile as a reclamation project, but there are clearly warts in Frost's game beyond the point production, which honestly looks pretty solid on paper. He's a guy that in previous seasons has been in that 40 to 45 point range. Yeah, on Farabee's note, as you mentioned, his shooting percentage of 5-on-5 in particular dipped below 7% this season after being kind of in the mid-teens for those previous years, I outlined. So that is a very good bounce-back candidate. Frost is so tantalizing.

Because if you watch him on the right night, the combination of passing ability, but also the creativity down the middle at that age is so hard to find and makes him such an intriguing player. But then you watch enough games and you come away thinking, I wish I had seen that idealistic version of him more in that sample than I had. And at this point of his career, he's going to be 26. This offseason, I think it's fair to wonder if that's just who he is as a player, the inability to kind of stack it together over a long stretch of time. He's kind of like, I'm not saying they're exactly similar, but when Roslavik was in Columbus and he would play down the middle, kind of see some similarities there where it's like you watch those players on a given night and you're like, wow, the skill, the creativity, the playmaking talent.

But there are like the consistency has been a big issue and there are other warts in the players games that have prevented them from gaining defensive trust and they're kind of tweeners, right? there, in an ideal situation, you probably use them on a sheltered sort of third, third scoring line, but teams often are reluctant to find the right, or have a tough time finding the right fit for those types of players where they go, you're not quite skilled enough to be a consistent top six difference maker, and oftentimes these teams want a different identity in their bottom six as well. So I'm curious to see how Frost will look with a change of scenery. Yeah, what I'll say about that is obviously beyond the sort of cliched, like, fresh start, change of scenery thing. I think if you look at the way the flames are positioned, and I mention how I've been such a fan of what Huska's done this year and the way he has them playing, they already have a lot of that infrastructure of like that hardworking effort, puck-winning mentality.

And so just getting guys who can turn all of that stuff into offensive gains is an intriguing dice role for me. I'm curious to see it. You also look at this forward group, and at least for the foreseeable future, you've got that line of Backland with Coleman and Coronado that's been phenomenal for them this year. Then you've got Cadrian Huberto. Zeri will come back hopefully at some point.

And then you add Sharon Govich with those two guys. I think that's actually a pretty compelling top nine forward group in terms of combination of skills and utility and interchangeable parts and stuff that a good coach can probably mine into pretty good results, right? So I like that. I think ultimately for me, and I think this is the main point, the dice role of kind of taking a shot, a calculated risk at such a low price for them at two guys in this age range is well worth it for me. I don't think this necessarily signifies some sort of fundamental organizational direction shift, right, in terms of like, all right, the rebuild's over.

We're all of a sudden fully formed. I don't think even Craig Conroy would pretend that's the case, right? I think an opportunity opened up here for them to take a shot like this. they're doing it. They're going to ride out this season. They're probably not even going to keep their own first, right? Because I think it's like top ten protected or something. It's probably going to go to Montreal from the Sean Monaghan trade a couple years ago.

And then next year, it's kind of not a clean slate, but you look, they have so much, such a massive amount of cast space that they're almost certainly not even going to spend to its full potential anyways. And so from that perspective, it's like, it's almost why not. I don't think it's necessarily some sort of groundbreaking. needle mover for them, but I think for a group that's been competing the way it has, I think it's worthwhile to kind of throw them a bone and see if you can get even more out of it this year. Yeah, and I imagine a player like Farabee, it's the contract that sort of hindered his value, because let's say he was a $2 million winger. I bet there'd be a lot more interest

in him as a potential bounceback guy, but with significant term left and a $5 million cap hit, we've seen you and I were discussing before the show that it's been hard for teams to extract value for sort of mid-range wingers in that four to five million dollar price range, but you look at how much cap

flexibility the flames have. That's exactly the type of team that should be willing to roll the dice on that type of opportunity because they have so much flexibility that even if it doesn't pan out perfectly, it's not going to hinder their books or limit what else they can do. So

like you said, I really like the bet given how low the price was. Yeah, if it was a team that had very limited cap flexibility and was like, all right, we're using our last remaining resources here and this is the finishing touch, I'd be like, I'm not sold on that. But in this case, I feel like there's so much runway for them. I think Craig Conroy even said as much in his presser last night with that flexibility and two open retention slots. and we know how valuable cap space is this time of year,

I think there's a scenario where they recoup, whatever, 50 to 60% of that draft capital they gave in this trade on just brokering future deals for other teams. And so I think it's eminently reasonable. One final note on the flame is then we can get to this from the flyer's side, kind of keep talking and harping about how they've played this year in terms of that competitiveness and effort. And you look at their home road splits,

and I know that that's kind of, you know, volatile and sometimes random. but in this case at home they're 16, 7, and 3 on the road, they're 9, 11, and 4. And I think when you think about it from the profile of like an overachieving team that's so like just max effort and heart and all that stuff, it makes sense that that's one that would probably do better at home and as an endeared itself to its fan base. And now you look at their upcoming schedule and kind of trying to consolidate this, sandwiching the four nations, five of their next six games are at home. So I think it's interesting to kind of track them, especially after this trade, to see if they can, and keep building on that and actually once we get into the 60 game mark, still be hanging around

the playoffs. So I'm interested. I really enjoyed watching this flames team all year. And I was pretty quick to pivot off of my preseason take because I just watched them and I'm like, they're just not going to be bad enough to fully bottom out. Like they work way too hard. Like to be truly that bad at the bottom of the standings, you've got to have a couple nights a week where you're just like, yeah, we don't have it. We're outclassed and we're just going to fade away into the night quietly and they haven't done that at all. So kudos to the coaching staff, kudos to the players involved.

And I think this is a nice little sort of like injection, I guess, of potential offensive juice, which is exactly what they've been craving. Yeah, my podcast partner on Kanox Conversation, David Kaudrelli and I, around like two, three weeks into the season, we made a bet that, around the flames because he looked at, you know,

how hardworking they were and all those sorts of things. And the bet is he thinks they're going to make the playoffs. like at that point and I was like no way I don't expect them to to last this long they're too relying on goaltending and yet they're still here yeah and I'm not going to lie I'm starting to sweat just a little bit yeah I would have our in your position from the flames perspective or sorry from the flyers perspective I think the selling point here is obviously buying the second rounder I love that as news started trickling out about this and we were finding about like all right these players might be involved. These players are being pulled from the games because both teams were playing

on Thursday night. The initial report was like, there's multiple picks involved here. And then you actually see the details. And it is that 20, 25 second, which is a nice little piece for the flyers. But then it's also a 2028 second. And I was like, man, that's the ultimate sort of like portrayal of like, all right, we're actually getting multiple picks back here. Just don't look at the details of what that second pick is here. But it does add this treasure chest that the flyers are building of a pick capital that includes three firsts and four seconds in this upcoming class. Beyond Torts's well-documented displeasure with especially Frost, over the past couple years, I think what this signifies to me in terms of looking at the return and being like, why would the flyers do this?

I've had this theory for a while now that I think Danny Breyer very clearly wants to fully rebuild and just have this team be bad. And I think that's probably the right angle for him to take because he's been on the job for less than two years. He inherited a franchise that's historically been very careless or reckless in terms of the way they've gone about a lot of these transactions. They have a very well-ingrained and well-built-up fan base that's certainly not going to be like, all right, well, we suck for a couple years. We're not, we're going to stop caring about this team and risk losing them. And they have such deep pockets being owned by Comcast that you can leverage that rebuild to its full potential. And so I think he wants them to be bad. And we

saw him trade away Sean Walker at the deadline last year. I still think we'll probably see them trade Rasmus Sittalainen at this deadline. We'll see about Scott Lodden. But this certainly, I think, helps push them in that direction. Because even if you're a Flyers fan and you're not a fan of these players, you clearly took a bit of a step back here in terms of your personnel. And so if that's a direction they're going in here and we're going to talk more about what the future looks like for the Flyers, then I think it is kind of justifiable from that case. Even though like when you see the full trade in its entirety. I don't know if you agree to this.

I thought it was kind of underwhelming from the perspective of like, oh, you would have thought that, you know, those two players would have gone for more on the open market. And all they really got was ultimately the second as like the main return. Yeah. Initially, I'm glad you added that context because it makes it a bit easier to understand. I think when I first saw the return, I thought it was a little bit light. Again, it's not to say that we know the situation for Frost and Farabee in Philadelphia.

It clearly wasn't working out. They needed to change the scenery. I don't think any Flyers fans are upset about losing these two guys. But it's more that it just felt like they could have gotten more or should have gotten more. And I think the other thing that they'll gain here is with Farabee's contract off the books, now it's going to be what do you do with that extra cap space, right? And this is where I think organizationally, if I was in Philadelphia's shoes, I know they don't have the best assets necessarily,

but I'd be taking a run at Elias Pedersen, for example. Yeah, it's interesting because I mentioned how I think B.R. wants them to be bad, and the team hasn't really cooperated. Like last year, they were hanging around the playoffs. They missed on the final day. They finished 21st in point percentage this year. Even after losing four of their past five games, they're still 24th. And that's probably the worst place to be in the league and kind of like low to mid-20s in

point percentage. The Farabee point, and I know you head on this, but I think that's in contextualizing this. It's important. And you saw this firsthand covering the Canucks at the start of last season when there was so much talk about Besser and Garland and them being available. And they're really not being that much of a market for them, despite them being perfectly usable and very, you know, useful players with high utility. And obviously both guys have played really well since then. But there's this awkward blind spot of player type where it's like a winger that has more than two years left on their deal that's in that 4 to 5 million range and Farabee qualifies here, 5 million AAB for the next three years after this one.

It's just not a lot of teams are very willing to acquire that even if that player's available for free. And so there is a bit of contractual risk here from the Flames perspective, I'd say, because not only the Farabee thing, but Morgan Frost is going to be a 26-year-old RFA with arbitration rights this summer and he's one year away from UFA. so it's not necessarily like it's this amazing asset that you have complete control over moving forward. The Flyers part of this is they clear out of that $5 million, right? Because Kuzmanko is coming off the books this summer.

And I think that was purely, I've seen it sort of speculated as like, oh, he played 13 games with Mitch God for St. Petersburg so you can kind of help and be there as a bit of a communicator and all that. I'm very curious to watch Andre Kuzmanko play for John Turderella and see how that turns out on the ice, but he's obviously off the books this summer, so I don't think that's that big of a deal. The most interesting component of this for them, they have 57 million in Cap Cup movements next year on nine forwards, five defensemen, two goalies. That doesn't include Rasmus Olin's contract. That's nearly 40 million in Cap Space.

And they have York and Forster as RFA's, but we all know that they're clearly craving. not only high-end talent, but especially down the middle. And so I think the what's next question of what the flyers choose to do, and it will probably be more so around the draft, right? Because it's a team with that cap space, seven picks in the top two rounds, and a desire, I think, to not be good, but get a legitimate high-end piece in place. All of a sudden opens so many doors for them. And I'm very curious whether it is Pettersen,

if he's still on the Canucks by then, and before his NMC kicks in, or whatever other sort of mid-20s center shakes looser becomes available, I feel like they should be on the forefront of whatever that conversation is. Yeah, and specifically looking at those seven picks in the first two rounds, just in having conversations with people around the league, it seems like this year's draft class is viewed as being below average and not being particularly deep. So in my mind, if I'm the flyers, I think it's essential to find a way to,

monetize that in some sense and one way to do that would be trying to acquire mid-20s talent that can be part of your core long term but the other angle too is if the right opportunity doesn't open up then I'd be looking at trying to consolidate some of those picks

so that you can maybe move up and of course I'm not necessarily saying into like the top five or anything because that's just unrealistic stick those picks rarely get moved. But if, you know, some of their later firsts, for example, or if they've got early seconds, like finding a way to take those and maybe move into, into the mid-part of the first round, I think they should be trying to find a creative way

to leverage that because in a normal draft class, you may look at that and go seven picks in the first two rounds. Like, this is going to be amazing for your prospect pool. And those picks are still valuable, but I think there are, better ways to capitalize on all that draft capital beyond just drafting seven prospects. Yeah, they just need high-in talent. I mean, you look at the power play and even adding Mitch got this year, they've been near the bottom of the league for three straight years.

Now, I believe, in terms of power play efficiency, and that's where you generally see high-end talent move the needle. I was somewhat surprised, like, when the terms of this deal were kind of trickling out, I expected, or at least I thought that maybe Danville Dar. would be part of it. Now he's a UFA this summer. So I think from the Flyers perspective, if you're pulling the shoot on this season

and being like, all right, we are going to be bad. It doesn't ultimately matter. Just the goaltending situation there has been so bleak this year where, like, there's so far behind everyone else in terms of T's safe percentage that just getting a better sense of like where you're at and a bit of hope. Not the Vlodar has been amazing this year,

but just kind of like a different body to throw a net and see what happens. I thought that might be an interesting angle here. obviously they didn't go that route. But yeah, I thought it was an interesting trade. It was certainly, it kind of came out of left field, but it's awesome that we've had two straight weeks now of deals like this near the end of the week to break down.

So that was fun stuff. Do you got any other notes here on either of the pieces involved or either these two teams? No. All right. Yeah, I think we covered it from every angle. Let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back into it, and we're getting to get into other fun stuff that we have planned.

You're listening to the Hockey, Hockey, Ocast, streaming on the Sportsnet radio. network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey PEOCast, joined by Harmon Dyle. So, Harmon, the other news today, and we're recording this on a Friday late morning, is this agreement between the league and the NHLPA for the cap to be 95.5 million next year, up to 104 million in 26, 27, and then all the way up to potentially 1.13.5 million in 27, 28. Now, based on, and that's in US dollars, based on where the Canadian dollar is at right now, that comes out to, in 27, 28, 163 million dollar cap in terms of Canadian dollars. And we've already seen posturing, I think, from teams that have been in the ear of someone like Elliot Friedman, because last Saturday he went on Hockey Net in Canada and he was talking about how teams have already expressed angst or concern about where this is headed because they're not going to be potentially.

willing to spend more than like an internal $100 million cap, for example. And so that dynamic that that's going to create, I think, is such a fascinating one for us to talk about not only today, but moving forward, because you could certainly argue there's a gap already in the league that exists in terms of how teams like pay out players in terms of the way they format their contracts, the utility of signing bonuses, and all that sort of stuff in terms of upfront expenditures versus kind of like backlogging it. but this is just going to blow that door wide open, right? If there's like a slight gap right now, I think it's going to be a full-on chasm between

certain teams in this league. And I think as it relates to upcoming UFA classes and the contracts of star players that are going to come up for new deals over this time, it's a really interesting conversation. I know that you wrote about the Miko-Ranton angle of this after his trade and his UFA status. And this year's UFA class is relatively weak, I think. Like you look at the headliners and obviously rant and Marner are going to attract a ton of attention and deservedly so. But beyond that, there's nice players but not necessarily, you know, franchise altering superstars.

But this first wave of like how these contracts turn out and then the precedent that sets and what this is going to look like over these next two, three years as the cap continues to skyrocket, I think is endlessly fascinating. Like, I can't wait to see how it turns out. And I think there's so many moving parts. Do you want to talk a little bit about kind of what you broke down and what you looked into when you were discussing the ranting inside of things? Yeah, the rantan contract is going to be really fascinating. I sort of tried to find some contract comparables and kind of project where his next deal might land. And, you know, I was obviously using cap percentage. And I was even using the $97 million estimate at the time that,

Alan Walsh had sort of been throwing out there. What's interesting based off cap percentage and trying to look at Rantin's next deal is, I think right off the bat, Neelander, of course, raised the kind of bar. And when you look at the percentage of the cap that he ate up and what that would translate to a $95.5 million ceiling, it's the equivalent of around a $12.5 million cap it. Now, Rantan, I think we can all agree, his statistical track record has been. superior to Nealander's, he's going to earn more. And so right off the bat kind of sits the floor to me at around 13 million as far as

Ranton's next deal. I know there's been a lot of conversation around him potentially eyeing the $14 million range that Dry Settle signed for in Edmonton. And it is also an interesting wrinkle that both of them are represented by the same agent. But looking at Dry Settle, he's outproduceded Rantan in seven consecutive seasons. he plays center, which is a premium position. He's a better individual play driver. I know a lot of people will point out that

Drysettle plays with McDavid. Drysettle's proven that he can drive his own line at 5-150. And the level he's been at this year. Exactly. He's been the MVP, in my opinion. He's one of the front runners for the Hart Trophy. So to me, Drysettle for all those reasons,

is still in a higher tier echelon than Rantan. And so because of that, I sort of when I look at Rantan's market value in that $13 to $14 million range, I think he should be worth closer to $13. And I look at Posternock as a really fair comparable because I know that deal,

I know that extension was hammered out in 2023, so a couple of years ago. But again, based off cap percentage, it translates to around 13-ish million. I think that, it's interesting because I think Rantan should be worth about 13, but because of all the leverage that he's going to have, because teams have a bunch of cap space to spend, and because I think it speaks volumes

that the Aves got to a point where they thought the price is going to be too high and we're going to move on from him, that if he wants, he's going to have the leverage to get to 14, even though I think he's probably worth closer to 13. Yeah, that's why this is front of mind and why it's so interesting, right? Because we just saw him dealt,

and almost entirely the logic behind it was a line being drawn in the sand between a player and team, right? I've seen it's kind of speculated that because Nathan McKinnon makes 12.6 that they had some sort of a mutual understanding previously that it was going to be just below that in the low 12 to up to 12.5 A.AV range and then the dry side old deal came in and then it was like, all right, well, the cap's going to go up. I'm going to kind of leverage this to my full potential and I want more. And then that's when the abs decided to pivot off of it. The Kane's position here is interesting to me, right? because I think they certainly have pole position because he's on the team right now. They have the ability to give him the eighth year. They have nearly 40 million in Capspace, which is incredibly rare for a team that's already as good as they are with Burns, Orlov, and Freddie Anderson coming off the book. Now, I'm not sure if you agree with this, but I don't think the eighth year is that big of a chipper deal breaker because one, we already saw that when Jake Ansel wanted to go to Tampa Bay, Carolina traded up. him to Tampa Bay for a third or whatever and allowed him to get that eighth year from Tampa

Bay. I also had a cat personally reach out and be like, and this might be too complicated and exotic for the NHL. We typically see a lot of these deals be much more vanilla, but like the possibility of signing with someone for a really high AV for one year and then as soon as you're extension eligible, you can just sign with them again and essentially get your eight years that way and you can ensure that deal and all that stuff in your 30s. There's a lot of moving parts there.

I don't know how we'd handicap it. I think certainly it's going to depend a lot on how the rest of the season goes, I guess, in terms of the fit and how the hurricanes do and all that stuff. But yeah, the player versus team angle to this. And with the cap going up so much, we saw this in the NBA with like the realization that if you sign now, you're going to miss out on future earnings and you're going to watch with each passing year players that you probably probably think you're better than signing for more than you and how, like, frustrating that can be from a, a competitiveness angle.

I don't know. I'm curious to see where it goes, but I know there's going to be, if it's not the hurricanes, a bunch of teams have a ton of cap space and will in the future. And then there's going to be teams that are always involved in this stuff that might not on the surface look like it, but a team like the Rangers who has enough moving parts where if there's a will, there's a way and they can get involved. Teams like that in Vegas, I think the market here is going to be immense. It's so interesting to me because, first of all, I like the idea of Ranton in as a potential long-term fit in Carolina. Like you said, they're one of the few contending teams because of their favorable internal cap structure where it's a lot harder for a team of Colorado that already has a massive ticket that they're paying to McKinnon and has to be caught coming up soon, where it's like adding another big contract to the mix, you're creating an environment where your cap structure is potentially too top-heavy, and now you're not going to be able to build out a formidable enough. supporting cast for your stars, whereas

Carolina, they only have one forward in Sebastian Ajo who makes $8 million or higher, and he's under the $10 million mark. Jacob Slavin for next season is their only defenseman who's under contract for more than $4 million. And he's around the $6.5

million range, a really favorable contract there. So they're uniquely positioned to be able to give rent in a really big contract and not let it detrimentally impact their ability to flesh out the rest of their roster. Plus, they've got a centerman in Sebastian Ajo, where obviously he's known Nathan McKinnon,

but I am a big fan of Aho. I think he's a fringe top 10 center in the league, and I could see them being a good fit together. I like the possibility of Ranton being there. And just generally speaking with the cap going up, there are a couple of things that kind of come to mind is, number one, given how quickly and how explosively it's expected to now climb over the next two, three seasons. The first thought that came into my mind was

over the last few years we've seen pretty much every team spend to the cap. And my initial thought was, I wonder if that dynamic is going to change. No, yeah, it will. Especially in 27, 28, when it's in the 110 to 115 range. Exactly. And number two, it's going to be, I'm so fascinated to see and I want to have conversations with different

execs around lead to get their take on. there's going to be a whole lot more money to go around in the system. And now you're going to have a lot of teams that are presumably kind of licking their chops at what kind of cap space. They might have this summer. But you're all competing against each other. And it's not as if the pool of available players has expanded. Has expanded. So I wonder how many teams may be caught in a position where they look at their cap situation and go,

we've got these grand ambitions and plans of, chasing after these needle movers, but because the supply, like unless the supply of these actual needle movers, these top six forwards, these top four defensemen, these starting goaltenders, expands, then what's going to be the fallback plan? Are we going to see a bunch of mid-range players overpaid, or are we going to see a bunch of teams that had these grand ambitions and plans sort of strike out on guys and then go, well, we're disappointed and this kind of derails or off-season plans, but we're not going to make the mistake of overpaying for mediocre players on the Frasian or trade market. I'm so interested to see how that's going to play out.

Yeah, and what we've talked about before as well in terms of the structuring, like you've seen what Florida has done to leverage its newfound financial might in this current version of the team and the way they're on where so much of the emphasis has been placed on the benefits of playing in Florida and the tax gains and everything. But you look at the recent deal they've signed Barkov, Kachuk, Forzling, even Verhege this year, and every one of those deals is leveraged to its full potential from a player perspective. Ryan Hart as well, of course, where it's a $1 million salary every single year of that seven, eight year deal, and then it's full signing bonuses every year along the way.

And that's another way for yourself to sort of get a leg up, I guess, as a team, assuming you have an owner that's willing to do so. We got a question in the PDRCAST Discord. kind of relating to this. And I want to hear your take on it. It was from Shin Kicker, and they ask, how long do we think that the quote unquote internal cap or benchmark salary players like McKinnon in Colorado or Barkov in Florida last as the cap sky rockets? Because we've seen this, right? It's not a new concept. We saw it in Boston for years as well where your best face of the franchise star player makes a certain amount and then everyone falls in line. We kind of

saw that here with Colorado, right, where 12.6 for McKinnon. and would have to take less to fit in in Florida as well during all the talk last year as Ryan Hart was well on his way to cashing in and free agency. He was like, oh, he's going to go for $11 million on the open market and then he comes in at 8.6 or whatever and he was never going to get more than Barkov's 10 there. Do you think that's going to like fundamentally and culturally shift here as the piece of pie available just becomes so much more vast when you compare it? like there being, what, a $20 plus million

gain in terms of potential money you can spend as an organization over the next three years? I think for contending teams and really solid organizations that have a lot to offer to players, I don't think that concept or philosophy of internal... Like a hierarchy. A hierarchy is necessarily going to completely dissipate. But I do think there's going to be like a period

over the next two, three years, where those bars, start to reset. And what I mean by that is I think because of how explosively the cap is climbing, I don't think players are necessarily when we saw this with Renton are going to necessarily agree

to this idea of the McKinning contract. That was signed a while ago, right? And I think if the contracts for these like franchise players predate this cap expansion, then I think they're going to quickly

become outdated. Um, And so my shorter answer is I think those comps are going to become less and less relevant. But over the next two, three years, once the cap growth kind of settles down, I don't think this idea or philosophy of an internal cap hierarchy is necessarily going to be, it's going to be gone forever. It's just it's going to take two or three years, in my opinion, for like dry settle. He just got his new deal. For McDavid to get his new deal.

For, you know, when Quinn Hughes signs a new deal. And then when those. comparables are sort of reset for these franchise stars in the current cap climate, that's, I think, when those internal hierarchical forces will be relevant again. And until that happens, I think players are kind of going to have the upper hand, in my opinion. I wonder if it's going to lead to a situation where getting young players on ELCs becomes even more necessary, right? Like, I think teams certainly around the league value it, especially if you're a contender already,

just getting a good, useful player. We're not even talking about someone that's a, you know, franchise changing top five pick, but just someone who can come in on an ELC and contributors, obviously very valuable as you try to piece together the rest of your roster if you have high-end stars. But just, as you mentioned, when you were talking about how, like, the pool of players available isn't expanding,

but the money available is for every team around the league, not just your own team. And so the competition is going to become so fierce for trying to land players. on the open market and how much you pay them and retaining your own guys, that just like having that security of not only the three years of the ELC, but then the RFA years as well is going to become, I can think, an even bigger competitive advantage, right?

Yeah, that's a really good point. And yeah, I mean, especially because we've seen it already where it's difficult for contending teams who are up against a cap to once you pay your stars full market value and you don't have as many bargain contracts, it's difficult to fill out your third lines, your fourth lines with actual impact difference makers. And that's why just favorable contracts in general, not just ELC guys, but when you're able to sort of sign a player or young guy to favorable long-term deal

and it starts to age well, it is such a massive competitive advantage. And I wonder how that'll even affect the posture that organizations will take where a lot of times when there's, let's say, a young player that has promise or potential, but maybe hasn't fully realized their potential, we'll see teams kind of bridge them. I wonder if we'll see teams kind of take the leap and roll the dice and kind of gamble on young players early

on contracts that may seem expensive at first, but, you know, the idea that, oh, this young player will grow into it. And to a certain extent, that's always kind of been the case. But I wonder if teams are going to maybe even be more incentivized to take that risk on. And that's not to say it always works, right? Because, I mean, out in Buffalo, we're seeing, you know, Sabres fans complain about how early the Sabres sort of roll the dice on, you know, cousins and power and how those guys haven't quite lived up to those contracts yet. But I wonder if teams will take, will be more willing to take on that risk tolerance and bet early with the idea of catching a guy before he fully breaks out. and hoping that over the long run

that that can lead to favorable team-friendly deals. Probably, although I'd argue that from the player perspective, then it's going to become less appealing to bite on those offers, right? Obviously, if someone's offering you a seven-year deal with a bunch of money that you can just have, acknowledging the risk of not only your own performance but potential injury down the road, like there is some safety and security in that,

but also if you keep seeing the salary cap rise like this and keep seeing players benefiting from it as they time out their deals and hit the market accordingly, I think it's going to become less desirable, I guess, if you're a young player to tie yourself up for this with the cap going up and with your potential earnings, like skyrocketing almost doubling in some cases over the next three, four years.

True, but it's when you haven't fully proven yourself as an NHL player, it is tough to turn down. like a seven, eight-year deal with a lot of guaranteed money. I mean, look at even the contract that Jack Hughes signed, right? You're talking about a number one overall pick. A guy who on paper you would think would have every incentive to bet on himself, bent on his talent, and the Devils years ago signed him to that long-term deal. And initially there was sticker shock of, what was it,

the $8 million cap it or something? He hadn't really broken out as a number one center yet. And the idea was, whoa, look at that. Like New Jersey's taking a risk here. but, you know, Jack was still, despite his talent, wanting to sign that because he hadn't fully proved himself. And now look at the benefits the Devils are reaping, where that's a great contract for a franchise centerman. So while I agree with your sentiment and while if a player's already proven as, you know, I'm a top six forward, I'm a top pair defenseman, then they're going to be less incentivized. but if a player is on the cusp of breaking out and hasn't fully realized their potential,

I think oftentimes it's really tough to turn down the security of that massive ticket contract. Well, and it's also interesting to compare the team dynamics. Like, obviously they're in wildly different spots as an organization based on how much they've accomplished already and everything. But you take a – I was thinking about this, a team like Tampa Bay, right, where they have Kutrov Point, Gensel, Hegel, Sorrelli, Paul, if you want to throw them in there, and then Hedman and Vasselowski all already at these cap figures for the next whatever, four, five, six, seven years down the line. And then with the potential openings, the ability to get sort of a second wave or a new life in terms of actually adding more talent to that already in place,

whereas a team like Dallas, for example, where over the next two summers, they're going to have to pay big on Thomas Harley, Jason Roberts, and Wyatt Johnson, and all of a sudden what those contracts look like, I imagine have dramatically and fundamentally shifted from where they maybe were this past summer, for example. Although I know for a while, teams have been sort of planning for this possibility that this is going to happen,

so it's not like this kind of came out of nowhere. But as our pal, Drenz likes to keep noting, there's been so many markers in past history where everyone's always ambitious about the cap going up and then certain things happen and it doesn't actually wind up fulfilling. Now it feels like we're actually on the point. precipice of it actually finally being a reality.

That's a really good point on teams like Tampa where you have, let's say, your stars locked up and your issue has been, you haven't had the cap space to fill out your supporting cash, your depth, and now you've got flexibility to add those reinforcements

versus other teams that haven't locked up their stars and don't have that cost certainty at the top of their lineup. As a side tangent, kind of similar to this conversation of the cap going up and market dynamic is kind of changing, what have you thought of the changing goalie market where I've been having conversations with some people around the league

and it's been so interesting like obviously Logan Thompson has been outstanding in Washington this year but doesn't have the longest track record of being an operational on starter I mean Vegas this past summer was happy to let him go and he was kind of out of favor there he got nearly six million dollars per year on a six year deal you know, McKenzie Blackwood off a relatively small sample size of success first in San Jose and in Colorado got 5.25 million per year

for five years. So it's not just like in the beginning it was all right, Shistercans getting paid, Allmark is getting paid, onjur is getting paid, like you expect the upper echelon, the like really proven high end starters to get paid. But now the mid-market sort of goaltenders

in the tier below that, they're also getting these big contracts which is so interesting to me because over the last number of seasons, I think we've seen so many examples of goalie comes out of nowhere for a year or two looks really promising. Team goes out and gives them that commitment and then it blows up in their face. Whether you look at Philip Grubauer, Jack Campbell, initially Darcy Kemper in Washington, Tristan Jari, Vili Huso, the examples just sort of go on and on. What do you make of the changing goalie market in that sense?

And do you think how teams handle their cap investments in net could start to really diverge where some teams are really willing to roll the dice on that? And some teams are going to take a very different approach. Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, it's certainly rife with risk, right? For all the reasons you listed and just the unpredictability and volatility and performance and all the, like the laundering list of examples that where it's gone south, I wonder if it is a reflection of exactly what we've talked about here over the past 20 minutes, though, where the idea of, If you do like your goalie, you're marking him for this certain salary, which, you know, in the mid-fives is still not nothing, certainly. And if he's not performing to what he has right now or somewhere close to it, it's going to wind up kind of looking bad and hamstringing you.

At least you have that already in place as a salary slot. And then you don't have to worry about two years from now when it explodes, whoever becomes available, all of a sudden maybe that becomes more expensive. So you're kind of, it's risk worse or reward. certainly, I mean, even with Washington, they gave Thompson the six-year extension. I think they're going to give Charlie Lingren like kind of half that almost. It seems like 3.5 to 4 for at least a handful of years. I'm curious to see what Vegas does here talking about Thompson, right? Because Aidan Hill is a UFA, I believe.

They're not paying Samson off much. If a guy like Ranton and hits the market, I imagine they're going to be looking at adding a player of that caliber. That's probably going to have to come with compensating in net. and I'm curious to see what a team like that does where it's like if you just go all in on the skaters and just try to kind of patch it together in net or whether you do what the rest of the league is doing there's going to be a bit of a zag I guess where a lot of teams are zinging yeah and this is where like i've seen a lot of the debate in for example like Vancouver with Kevin lankton right comes out of nowhere he's arguably outside of Quinn hew's been their second most valuable player this year

but before the season he's never really been a one a despite you know he's shown some talents and flashes, but his first year as a starter showing something. And when I ask people around the league, like how would you handle this goal-tending situation, especially with the uncertainty around Demko, where he's only got one year left at $5 million after this season, there's been a lot of split opinion where some people are of the mindset that, you know, given the uncertainty around Demko and injuries and not knowing exactly what he is, like you should be willing to pay Lankinan and have that sense of certainty in net

whereas others look at it and go there are too many stories of committing big term and dollars to a goalie that kind of comes out of nowhere and you bet on him on a small sample size and it blows up in your face and so yeah that's I think it feels like there's split opinion around the league around how situations like the one with Vancouver and Kevin Lankin should be handled.

Yeah, it's going to come out on the risk tolerance. I do think there's going to be a lot of organizations that really value that cost certainty of just getting someone signed for the next five years and not having to worry about the inflation and what's going to come with that. And then sort of taking on the risk of if that doesn't work out, then kind of trying to pivot off of it. Harmon, we got to get out of here. We didn't have time to talk about the Canucks.

I was thinking as we were talking, I was like, all right, should we pivot here and move on it, but then I was like, I don't know. I feel like eight minutes or whatever we had left is not going to do justice to break in all this down. So we're going to have to have you back in here in studio shortly to talk more about the Canucks, and I'm sure there's going to be more news along the way as well for us to break down. Plug some stuff here. Let the listeners know where they can check you on and the stuff you've written about recently.

Yeah, they can check my workout at the athletic. I've had a bunch of stuff lately. I recently pulled exacts on a lot of the hot button issues in Vancouver around how would you handle Miller and Petters? Re-signer and Brock Besser, what do you do with Net, Demko and Lankanin? Even just like touching on how much blamed is management and the coaching staff deserve for the dysfunction.

So that's a lot of fun and going to have a lot of deadline-related coverage coming up. So exciting times. Awesome, buddy. Keep up the great work. That's all from us this week. We'll be at Back Sunday with Thomas Trans for a Sunday special. Hope everyone has a great weekend. And thank you for listening to the Hockey, Ocast, streaming, on the Sportsnet Radio Network.