The Hockey PDOcast - Cap Space is King(s)

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Charlie O'Connor joins Dimitri to talk about Philadelphia's first big move under their new regime, and why it's an encouraging sign that they're finally going to do the right thing. Then Russell Morgan hops on the show to discuss the trade from LA's perspective, the price they paid to clear valuable cap space, and how they used it on Vladislav Gavrikov.This 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 Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich, and joining me as my good buddy Charlie O'Connor. Charlie, what's going on, man? Hey, Dimitri. I'm doing a fair amount more work

than I thought I was going to be due during the Stanley Cup finals, given the fact the flyers haven't played in two months. But I forgot doing quite well. Yeah, I did not wake up on Tuesday. expecting to see a trade, especially a three-teamer that I would classify as pretty spicy by NHL standards. But maybe I should have, because I do follow Charlie O'Connor on Twitter.

And you've been not hinting, but you kind of been laying the groundwork for an inevitable trade here. I think the timing of it is certainly a bit of a surprise, but I don't think anyone that's been following should be caught off guard by the fact that a trade did happen. It's just that the timing certainly is surprising, not only the fact that there are Stanley Cup finals games still going on. And I feel like I myself am like knee deep in the coverage of that, but also the fact that the team in questions president of hockey ops is literally calling the games on a national broadcast as well. I mean, you really can't almost like can't make this up, right? It's like it's a script that just writes itself.

I am fascinated to see how Keith Jones is going to discuss. a trade that he was very much involved in on the broadcast tomorrow while calling the game for TNT. I think that is, I don't know if we've ever seen anything quite like that. When we talked to the new GM Danny Breyer yesterday after the trade, he said, yeah, you know, in the entire lead up to the trade, I was talking with Keith Jones on the phone at least four to five times a day about, you know, who we wanted, the details, the planning everything. So Jonesy truly has been doing double duty here. And now we're going to get to see him as a still paid employee of TNT talking about a trade that he was pretty instrumental and actually executing.

So got to be fascinating to see how that plays out. Yeah. Is he just sitting between the benches? Like he's got out of you just like he's like texting Danny Breyer on his phone. Just a little takes little nuggets that he's found from watching the games and all their plans. I mean, yeah, there's a lot going on there. I'm, you know, let's break this down from the Flyers perspective and really just like hone in on on all the moving parts here, right? Because it feels like it's all started obviously what in May when, you know, the team or the organization took a page out of the Rangers playbook from a couple years ago, right?

They like released out that letter that really kind of tries to start repairing the relationship, I guess, with fans in terms of like at least openly communicating with them about the reality of the situation that every. everyone has been watching in watching this team over the past couple years and what they need to do where they're at and how they're going to accomplish it. Then they have this wholesale change that goes along with that in their front office. And it's a bunch of new names and faces. I thought your coverage of this was really good in sort of outlining the fact that there was reason for optimism, certainly. And everyone you talk to would say, listen, like Danny Breyer is a really thoughtful guy

who may not have necessarily this, the prototypical experience for this job, but isn't like it's going to come completely coming out of left field. It's not like he's unprepared for this. It's just, you know, it is his first time. At the same time, though, you know, you've got this organization that has all of this scar tissue from previous issues where it felt like they valued the person's affiliation to the team organization as opposed to like actual merit for this job. And so there was a lot of balls to kind of juggle there in the unveiling of this Danny Breyer, Keith Jones pairing in terms of how much of a change it really was representing versus sort of the status quo that's been the case for the Flyers for a higher many years now.

Yeah, I think, and I think this may have got lost in the coverage a little bit. I hope it didn't, but I think it did to a point just because I was pretty much the only person locally who was making that criticism of, you know, at least only person that covers the team as a writer. There were certainly people on radio, on podcasts, they were making the criticism. But I was kind of a lone wolf in terms of saying, well, you're just hiring a former player and your color commentator to run the team. This doesn't feel very new at all.

This feels very flyers. But really, the main criticism about it for me is it was never necessarily that like these guys were destined to be bad, that Danny Breyer was destined to be a bad GM, that Keith Jones is destined to do a bad job as president of hockey operations. It was more that, you know, if you're limiting your realistic scope of your hires to people we already know that probably played for the team, like, yeah, there's a chance you're going to find someone who's real, real good at their job, but presumably the chance would be significantly better if the pool were expanded to be everyone in hockey that could plausibly be good at this job.

Like, you're just cutting down the likelihood that you find a great GM because you're dealing with a sample size of 200 and other teams are dealing with a sample size of thousands because they're opening themselves up to the possibility of hiring someone who didn't play for the team. So that was more of my skepticism. My skepticism was more on the process. However, there's nothing to say that Danny Breyer might just be a real good GM. And maybe the fact that he played for the team is, he just so happens to play for the team, that they happen to find a really, really good GM who just so happened to be a former flyer.

And same thing with Keith Jones. And I think that's where this pro-for-off trade that went down yesterday went a long way towards kind of easing the concerns. because it's not necessarily that Jones of Breyer, Breyer in particular, like they had to hit a home run with their first trade. And while I think this was a good trade, I don't think this was a home run. Oh my God, they robbed everyone in this deal sort of trait, particularly on the Kings side.

But I do think it eases a lot of the concerns that Breyer is in over his head, that he was just given the job because he was in the organization, and he played for the team and Comcast, Spectacor knows him. Like, you don't pull off a trade like this, which is a three-team deal. It required some creativity. It required negotiating with two separate GMs. You don't pull off a trade like this if you just don't know how to do the job. So Breyer, at the very least, passed the test up.

You know how to do this job. And you're not getting fleeced on your first try. And I think that's where, for me, the real positive response comes from from this trade is just the relief of, oh, good, Danny Breyer could be a good GM. Yeah. Well, I think the, I think the, you know, you've framed it as skepticism, I think like, or trepidation. I think it was totally warranted. Just because of the fact, like, I've spoken to executives with other teams that would say that the Flyers were one of their least favorite teams to deal with in trade negotiations over the past couple years because you would be speaking with someone on the other side of the phone from the flyers. and you wouldn't actually, it was almost like an empty calorie conversation because you wouldn't actually have confidence that they really had the authority or unilateral power to actually pull off whatever you were talking about, right? Like it had to run through so many people and

the lines of communication were so disoriented that it was just, it made for a mess in terms of actually trying to get anything done. Right. And so in this case, I think the trying to waiting for waiting for the first dominoer to fall to see whether we could actually confidently proclaim whether things in terms of the way they operate and run their business would be different was was fair to wait to see what that happens right and it's only one move but i i think that's correct i think it's fair to be legitimately optimistic that at least things could be different moving forward um not only because of what they accomplished in this trade we're going to get into the actual return and what they got back for prologov and the contracts they took back in return but also

So I think most importantly, the route or the tact they took to get there, right, involving a third team, weaponizing the cap space with the clear objective of doesn't matter that we're taking on this money on guys who probably won't help us for the next year or two because that doesn't matter. We don't really care. We're going to suck anyways. We may as well use that rather than filling it with a player who's going to marginally improve our chances of winning on a Tuesday night in January next year. instead of using our cap space on that, we're going to buy all of these future draft picks, which could theoretically help us quite a bit down the line when we're actually ready to cash in on them.

And so I think that's what this trade signaled and represented. And so if you view it from that lens, regardless of whether you think they could have gotten a bit more for all the money they took on or what have you, or your evaluation of Helgate Grounds as a prospect, ultimately just what they settled on has to be encouraging from my perspective. Oh, absolutely.

And I think the key underlying point here is that, look, the flyers, as you noted a few minutes ago, they've been pivoting towards this were rebuilding plan, this were rebuilding message, really dating back to February when John Tortorella sent the letter right after the All-Star break. Then in the lead up to the trade deadline, both Chuck Fletcher and John Torterlla came out and more or less said we're rebuilding without actually saying the word rebuild. Then Chuck Fletcher gets fired. Danny Breyer comes in as the first person to actually say the word rebuild. Then Dave Scott, who was the chairman and CEO of Comcastpectacore, the company that owns the flyers.

He retires. He's replaced by Dan Hilfordy, who I did an interview with in early April. And he reiterated that, yes, we're cool with rebuilding. I'm on board. Ownership is on board. And I think number one, that was probably a large part of why there was. as you mentioned, a feeling that like who's actually running the show here, because I think that from above, and don't get me wrong,

Chuck Fletcher had his, had his flaws in by all means. But I don't think he was ever going to be permitted to rebuild at the very least until February. Ownership was not on board with the idea of blowing it up. And they finally got on board in February, I think. Then Fletcher was decided that he wasn't the guy. which I think had to be done. I think a house cleaning had to be done.

And then Dave Scott leaves, and now you got all new people in. Now you have new people to sell this idea for rebuild. And that was good. That was a good thing. However, they still need to go out there and do something, something tangible,

rather than just saying we're rebuilding, to show that they're actually rebuilding. And I think that was also a big thing about this move, is that you trade Ivan Proveroff. That is as much of a sign as you can possibly, give that, yupp, we're in it for the long call. We're rebuilding.

We're giving away our 25 a minute a night, number one defenseman, whether he's good enough to be a number one defenseman or not. That's what he was being used as. And someone's going to have to take those minutes. And the flyers are probably going to be hurt by that because it's going to have a trickle-down effect in the short term to the rest of the defense core, guys who aren't good enough to be threes or going to be threes and whatnot. But what they're saying is the future assets because of rebuilding matter more than, as you put it,

winning a game in January on Tuesday. And to send that message, it meant a lot more than guys getting up in front of a podium and saying we're rebuilding. This is one of those actions speak louder than words. And there's no way you can look at this trade and really break down all the details of it and not think the Flyers are definitely rebuilding. And that's huge. Yeah, I was going to ask you about the timeline of that because obviously the Flyers were

a bad hockey team by any measure last season, right? But I think it's hard to, from the outside, it's easy to say that, but actions do speak louder the words, as you said. And based on the way they acted last off season, for example, right? None of those moves necessarily signaled an organization to me that was acknowledging and accepting its reality, right? And not they were necessarily like, oh, we're going all in and we're going to contend for a Stanley Cup.

But it certainly wasn't the way a rebuilding team acts properly. And I think there's a key delineation between. being bad and being bad on purpose, right? Like there's there's teams that that wind up falling into being bad and they wind up picking high in the lottery for consecutive years, but it's not because of anything they intentionally did. And that's almost like even more depressing, right? Because it's like, wow, at least we could have accumulated other draft picks or, you know,

use our cap space accordingly to buy future picks down the road or get cultivate young players as opposed to just kind of having this older group. that is taking up resources, but we're not actually earning anything from it. And if you look at this Flyers team, the last three drafts, they had five, six, and six draft picks in those three years. Right now, they were good in 2019, 20, but the past couple years, that's a tough thing to reconcile. And this came up in a mailback question, maybe a couple weeks ago or a couple months ago on the show that I did.

But someone asked me, like, okay, if you were taking over a team, what would be the least appealing team to take over, right? And I think the coyotes were, like, the easy pick just because you don't know how much money you're actually going to be able to spend. You don't know where you're playing in terms of rink or city, right? There's like so many other complications beyond all nice stuff. But if you're a smart hockey mind, like at least you're working with a ton of draft capital and a ton of high end prospects and very low expectations. There's no pressure at all. In this case, if you're Danny Breyer and you're stepping into this job, I really do think once he inherited it, it was the 32nd ranked organization in terms of current contracts, draft capital, and prospects

that are already in place. And so there's obviously a lot of work to be done. I've seen Flyers fans who are frustrated like, all right, well, it's good that this happened, but I really wish it had happened last year. I guess that's kind of crying over spilled milk at this point. Like there's nothing you can do other than move forward. But it does feel like this is an important first step, right? Like if you are really going to be serious about properly rebuilding and doing it the right way, you have to start somewhere. And there's going to be some difficult decisions along the way that are to come as well beyond just this trade. But this does really feel like it was, I mean, it was essential, and it was probably good to get it done sooner rather than later. Yeah. And the frustrating part about

the previous calendar year, and you hinted at this, was the flyers were in this weird half in, half out, which is the worst possible strategy for your team to have. Like, either you're trying to go for it or you're trying to position yourself to go for it a few years down the line by building up assets and whether you call it a rebuild, a retool, whatever. Well, the Flyers were like sort of trying to do both. Like, you trade away Claude Drew at the trade deadline last year. That, to me, I mean, this is your star player, your franchise player, forever a decade.

That, to me, should have been the moment where you say to yourself, okay. we're rebuilding. This is the end of an era. We're starting over. But then two weeks before that, they signed Rassas for Saline into a massive extension. Then a few weeks after that,

in the offseason, they trade three draft picks for Tony DeAngelo. Then before the puck's drop for game one, they signed Travis Sannheim, who I like a lot as a player, but you sign him to an eight-year extension with a massive cap hit. And like he had a bad year last year.

I still think he's a good player. But like, that's not what you do if you're trying to rebuild. Like Travis Anheim's in his late 20s. You don't, if you're, if you're as bad as the flyers were the previous two years, you don't sign a guy in his late 20s to an eight-year contract extension that is always going to get worse as it goes on. Like the whole point of signing a guy to a long-term extension is if you're competing now, you're getting good years in the beginning and you're going to take your medicine to the end. When the flyers are bad now and presumably if they're,

if they ultimately choose to rebuild when they get good, that's going to be when Sanheim's contract is real bad. It made zero sense. And they just kept making moves like that where, you know, it just, it showcased very little. It just didn't showcase a plan. There was no cohesive plan.

It was like, well, we're not going to go for Johnny Guedrode because we're not ready. But we are going to give away draft picks for Tony DeAngelo and signed Travis Sandin I'm doing an eight-year contract. None of it actually made any sense. it seems like now at the very least the moves they are making, the direction they're making makes sense.

Now, whether those moves will ultimately be correct, whether they ultimately draft well enough to execute and rebuild, that remains to be seen. But at least now we're judging them on a coherent plan, whereas before over the past year, we were judging them on a plan that made literally no sense at all. Yeah, you forgot the, obviously on a smaller scale than a lot of those, but giving Nick Deloree a four-year deal with two years' worth of modified no trade clauses in there. Now, obviously, once you give Nick Deloree a four-year deal, the no trade clause is kind of implied because that's probably a contract that's not going to be moving those first two years. But, you know,

I don't, I don't know about that. Like, you look at guys like Ryan Reeves, I feel like there's, look, I'm not saying that Nick Deloree should have value around the NHL, but fighters like that who are tough and when teams decide they need grit, like, I think if they really, wanted to, they could probably get like a fifth or six for Deloree. Now, that's more a commentary on the NHL than it is about Delore's value. But yeah, the Deloree contract, it's funny, I will say about the Deliria contract that we can get back to Perraub. I actually think that like that contract to me makes more sense, like with where the flyers are now than it did with where the flyers were last summer. Because like, if you sign a Nick Deloria, you're basically saying we value

toughness over actually having a viable Ford line. Because if he's going to play every game, Ford line's not going to drive play, it's not going to score much. That's just the way it is. However, if you're rebuilding and like, I'm a, look, I'm a stack guy,

but I do believe that there's an element of, like, young kids who are developing probably feel a little bit tougher and a little bit more willing to be flashy if they've got Nick DeLurio on the bench who's willing to beat the crap out of a guy. If, if, you know, he gets challenged for being a little cocky out there.

Like, I'm fine for the Flyers have Nick DeLorei for another three years being the policemen to maybe help the kids feel a little bit better in their development. Because having a good fourth line, who cares? Flyers aren't winning a cup anyway. It doesn't matter. No, I'm with you. It actually makes a lot more sense now because it's like, otherwise you're like, all right, we think we're a good team. This is going to be like a nice finishing touch for our roster. It's like, oh, my God. I mean, you know, you mentioned there's a line and one just based on the timing of last summer. If you stretched the timeline back, though, we should mention. And I think this was actually sadly now that I think about the last time I've had you

on the show. And it was part of the incentive of having you back on here under these circumstances was it feels like, you know, we finally have a chance to praise the flyers a little bit because it feels like the tenor of most of the conversations in the past couple years has been awfully bleak. But at that time, you know, this is an organization that completely unironically gave up the 14th and 39th overall picks for a wristline and so that they could have the right to give him that $25 million extension similar to what they obviously is smart scale for DeAngelo in terms of dollars given up. But man, I don't know. What do you think was the final straw here in terms of like, well, just to kind of put a ball in the timeline before we talk about the actual trade return

itself here to close out. Because obviously, you know, the flyers were ridiculed quite a bit at the trade deadline for not being able to get anything for James Van Ramesek at the time and letting an unrestricted free agent essentially walk without even if it's a third round pick or something with money retained at least you have something to show for it instead all they got was what like a fifth and a sixth for Zach McEwen and Patrick Brown at the trade deadline like was it was it already an eventuality regardless or do you feel like that was sort of like the final straw based on just the general reaction to that that it was like all right we cannot be openly ridiculed and like the laughing stock of the league anymore we have to actually make

serious widespread changes here? Or do you think that was already going to be kind of happening anyways? And it was just an organization that was waiting for the season to end to finally pull the trigger on that. So I think it's a little bit more of the latter. What I will say is I think they were already going down the road of rebuilding before the JBR debacle, the deadline. I do think that was the final straw for Chuck Fletcher.

I don't, like, I think, you know, he, and look, the thing with the JVR situation, is that it's very possible that he just couldn't have been moved, given the fact that he had the massive cap pit. I talked to people around the league. He really didn't have a lot of interest. Most of the teams that, like, most of the teams that would have had interest in adding a guy like that either didn't want to have to deal with all the maneuvering that would have, you know, had to clear the space to get a guy with that large of capit

or just didn't think he was fast enough to play in their system in the playoffs, which fair, he's not a very good skater and he's only gotten slower. that said, I think that Chuck Fletcher was going to be let go at the end of the season, regardless. Like, I think that was going to happen. I just think that the response to his inability to trade JBR, fair or not, kind of was the, all right, everyone's this angry. We're going to be getting rid of him at the end of the year anyway. We might as well just cut the court now because, like, why have him hang around for a month and a half? Let's get Danny on the job because they'd already pretty much decided that he was going to be the guy.

Let's get him on the job for a month and a half. Let him evaluate as the interim GM to decide what he wants to do, get used to it. And then in the summer, we'll restructure the organization the way we see fit. So I think they were going to rebuild regardless. I think that expedited Chuck Fletcher's exit. But I think the rebuild was coming, you know, whether the JVR debacle happened or did. Yeah. Okay.

All right. So we both agree like unanimously. it was just the idea behind the trade was obviously smart. This is something they should have done. Do you feel like what's the feeling around the league in terms of whether it was enough? Because I've seen, that's one area where I've seen some conflicting opinions just because cap space is such a valuable asset, in particular with the Cal Peterson deal, because of his $4 million signing bonus for this coming summer.

if there's a feeling around the league that like basically his market was limited to either the Flyers or the Blackhawks in terms of teams that would actually be willing to acquire him and foot the bill for that, even some of these other rebuilding teams with theoretical cap space wouldn't have actually been willing to take on that type of money and actually pay him out for what he was owed. So in that sense, you know, you can compare it certainly to past kind of cap dumps. There's the pro-vroved trade. I think you did a good job of delineating in your analysis on it.

on the athletic, there's the Provov trade, which you can be like, okay, that's a first and a second, which kind of falls in line with other defensemen that have been traded recently, and then the cap-down portion of it, which is the prospect and the other seconds. Do you feel like that was enough? Do you feel like the execution from Beers' perspective could have been drawing an even harder line and being even more aggressive in squeezing more juice out of the orange, or do you feel like that was kind of all that they were going to get, and you just have to jump at that opportunity because you don't know if someone else is going to get in the way in the meantime and you wind up with nothing.

Yeah. I mean, I would say that in an ideal world, Breer would have squeezed a little bit more out of, you know, out of the Kings. I don't think maybe that was executed quite as well as it could have been. That said,

I think what you noted is very fair is that, look, Ivan Provovro for the last three years has not been very good. Everyone around the league knew dating back to last year that Ivan Proverup was not popular in the Flyers room. Everyone around the league knew that Ivan Proverup did not particularly like the idea of being involved in a rebuild or playing for John Torterella. So you're talking about a guy who in my mind, in my mind, Danny Breyer did not have a ton

of leverage in trading Ivan Proveroff. There were teams interested, but it wasn't everybody. There were going to be a bunch of teams that are like, nah, let's not. Or, hey, I'm in, but like, I'll give you a third. Breyer basically was looking at it as I'm getting a first round pickback for this guy. That's the only way I'm going to trade him. Once he had a team willing to do it, but only willing to do it if he cut down on the cap hit, then it became, okay, well, I could retain money, but I know I'm going to have to retain money to trade Kevin Hayes,

which I think he's going to trade Kevin Hayes this summer, and that's going to be retaining money for three years. And you want to probably leave yourself open to having more than one remaining retention slot for the next two seasons, and since Haze will be retained for three, Grovo will be retained for two. So then you say, okay, we've got to get another team and if I want to keep that flexibility. You get the Kings involved. I actually think that the addition of Sean Walker in this trade

is somewhat more important than people think, especially if the flyers have designs on maybe moving off of Tone DeAngelo this summer. Because is Walker anything special? No, but he's a right-handed shooting body who can take minutes in a top four role. He's done it before in LA, and it gives you the flexibility to move DeAngelo if you decide to go that route and still have, I'm not saying it's going to be a good defense because it won't be, but it'll at least be functional. And that means you don't have to shoehorn Ronnie Adder or Emil Andre, Igor, Igor Zamol, into your top four and screw up their development as prospects just because you don't have anybody else.

So I think Breyer looked at it as, you know, yeah, maybe if I play hard ball, could I squeeze, you know, to turn. that second into two seconds or something like that. But why risk it? I'm getting something here. I'm getting a decent prospect. I'm getting, you know, a defenseman who I can probably get some use out of.

And I'm not risking the possibility of Columbus getting cold feet, pulling out on the deal, and then ending up not being able to first round pick for pro at all. So yeah, maybe he could have squeezed out a little bit more. But I also think that there's enough good things going on in this deal. to justify just saying, you know what?

Yeah, we probably got more than we should have gotten for pro for up from Columbus. We're probably getting less than we should be getting from the Kings for taking on the salary. In the end, it works out. And we're getting an overall fair return on the whole. Well, especially with Helga Grant's piece, right? I was waiting because I saw some reports that he was included in this.

Then I saw some that didn't include him and just had them getting that extra second. And I was like, oh, I don't know. I think that's actually a very important piece of this puzzle because it seems like he's being sort of taken for granted a little bit from LA side of things, right? Because they're one of the few teams in the league that just have this absolute embarrassment of riches on the right side where it's like, all right, well, we have, you know, Doughty, Roy, Dersy, Brand Clark coming, Jordan Spence is stuck in the H.L. We can't even find minutes for him.

We have all of these guys. So we don't really necessarily need this guy. Now, a 21-year-old right-shot defenseman who's 6-3 moves well, has some skill is a former high prospect. I mean, at EP rings out of the start of the year, we had him as the 99th ranked prospect in the entire league that was affiliated with the team. Like, that is a valuable piece here, especially when you're talking about an organization, as I said, in the flyers, that doesn't necessarily have a massive treasure chest of young up-and-coming players to begin with. So I think that was an important piece of this. And I think there was desperation from all sides, which is what makes this such like a fascinating trade, right?

Sometimes teams make trades just for, not necessarily just for the sake of making trades, but it's like, They don't necessarily, they're not under the gun or incentivized to do so. They just do it because something becomes available and they talk themselves into it. In this case, it feels like all three of these teams went into this with like a very clear agenda and motive for getting this done as soon as possible. And so in that sense, it's a fascinating trade and one that actually makes sense forever and involved. Yeah. I mean, the one side of the deal that I don't love is Columbus because I just don't know. I don't know if they're really ready to be.

spending assets on a player like Peruvrov, and I'm unconvinced that ProVrop was actually going to bounce back to previous levels in Columbus, particularly given the fact that, you know, he didn't really click under John Turderell. I'm quite curious to see how he's going to click under Mike Babcock. But I can at least understand where they're coming from and that they think that, hey, we turn Ivan Peroveroff into a number three making less than $5 million in the cap. He can provide real value to us there.

I get it. I certainly understand it from L.A.'s perspective. just trying to clear, clear space to assign Gavrikov and do whatever they, whatever else they want to do, you know, this offseason with extra space. And I understand it for the Flyers perspective in that they were trying to get a first round pick for Ivan Proveroff. They got that. And they accumulated a bunch of assets and launched their rebuild.

So, yeah, you know, I don't love Columbus's side of it because I'm not really sold on Proveroff anymore. But I can see all three sides. And I can see how all three sides come out of this trade thinking they did pretty well. Yeah. I think a player, what, for them, he's going to cost $4.725 million for the next two seasons. I think the price they paid is reasonable assuming your evaluation of the player is better than maybe the one you're or I have.

But it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I guess, okay, let's end on this note. So this was the first domino. You mentioned the kind of the Kevin Hayes trade potential. There's Travis Keneckney as well. There was a lot of rumblings around Carter Hart and sort of the timeline on a potential move there as well, what do you think the next shoot-a-drop is and kind of do you have a sense of what that could actually like look like?

Yeah, I mean, I think this one may have been a little bit of an anomaly in the sense of how early it happened. I'm not necessarily expecting the flyers to be making trades every other day up until the draft. That said, you know, I'm expecting Kevin Hayes to be moved. I'm from a lot of different people I've heard that Kevin Hayes expects to be moved. I do think that the rumors about him ending up at Columbus probably aren't going to happen now, not just because they add a prover off, but because I don't think that Kevin Hayes loves the idea of playing for Mike Babcock. So Kevin Hayes does have a modified no trade.

I wouldn't be surprised if Columbus is now on that modified no trade list. But I do think that Hayes will ultimately be moved. Hart is really the wild card here. Now, what's interesting about Hart is that obviously in the immediate way of the prover off trade, everybody starts going on Twitter like, oh my God, Carter Hart's going to get moved. There were some reports out there from people that sometimes break stories that are saying, you know, flyers are discussing a heart trade. Everyone I talked to close to the situation on all sides basically was like, I don't know where you're here in this, but nothing's imminent. And I don't think that anything was ever imminent. I don't think that there was ever any intention to immediately follow up a pro

rough trade with a hard trade and then something felt through. That said, the flyers are absolutely listening. And the people I talk to in the industry, not people that are necessarily affiliated with teams, but people who, you know, generally are good to gossip with because they give you good information. The general feeling seems to be that a heart trade is more likely than not to happen this summer. That said, I don't think it's a certainty.

And I think it's going to require a team really, honing up to get Carter Hart. Because the hard truth is, like, Carter Hart's 24 years old. He's not an elite goalie, but I think aside from that one disastrous post-pandemic year where he was very clearly dealing with mental health issues, like, he's a solidly average to above-average goalie who is just 24. So there really isn't a lot of, like, there aren't a lot of comparables out here to say what, a solidly average to above-average 24-year-old goalie on a reasonable cap-it for the next

year is worth on the open market. So Breyer kind of has to figure out what he's worth on the open market. And if Breyer turns out to be worth a lot on the, or Hart turns out to be worth a lot on the open market, then Breyer probably should strongly consider moving him. And if he turns out to be worth not that much, then I think Breyer can justify saying, hey, he's 24 years old. We can keep him. We can see if the rebuild, we can execute the rebuild in two to three years rather than four to five. And if it's the former, then Hart can be part of it. If he's not, if it's not, then we can maybe try to trade him next offseason and

see if the offers are better if he has a good year. So at this point, I would probably put it like 60, 40, Hart gets moved. I don't think it's a certainty, but it does sure seem like the winds are blowing in that direction over the next, let's say, two, three, four weeks. Yeah, I would say it makes a lot of sense. Not that there's necessarily should feel itch like, oh, we got to move him now. but he's got the 3.979 or whatever his cap hit is next year and then he's an arbitration eligible RFA after that.

It gives an added timeline to an acquiring team. And I think, you know, we saw L.A. speculated. We saw Toronto thrown out. I think Buffalo makes a low key amount of sense here, right? We've seen them kind of linked to potentially Soros or Hellabuck in a monster trade. I think from like an age core perspective and also splitting a net with the Dev and Levi, that would make a very interesting option as a landing spot for me. And I think he's pretty good. Like, I think last year he ends with a 907. First off, league average was 904. So that's important for

context. But the second is he started off really well. And then whenever a goalie drops off the way he did as the year went along on a team like the Flyers, I'm very curious how much of that is kind of like an accumulation effect of just every single night having to play behind a really bad team where you know that you have to be perfect. Otherwise, things are going to go south. And so if I was a better team than the Flyers, which there are many of in the league right now. It would make sense for me. And from the Flyers, the best way to tank is to have bad goal tending. So if I were them, I would have no interest in having Carter Hardin net next season. I'd much rather roll the dice with now. Let's get Cal Peterson, 65 starts. See if he can bounce back next season. So yeah,

I think that makes a lot of sense for everyone involved. All right, Charlie, you've been crushing it on this beat. I'll give you a chance here to let the listeners know where they can check you out and what you've got in the works moving forward. Yeah, um, obviously. I write for the athletic. I cover the Flyers. So hopefully we'll be covering the Flyers for quite a long time and leading into them eventually getting better. Who knows how long that's going to take, but we'll see.

You can find me on Twitter at Charlie O underscore Khan. And I'm also a co-host on Broad Street Hockey Radio. We have a flagship show once a week and then a bunch of other shows. So if you're a Flyers fan, definitely check that out if you haven't. If you're not a Flyers fan, but just like to hear good fun hockey talk. Also worth a listen. We have a bunch of shows that might have interest in.

And that's pretty much where I'm at. Just plug it along and ready for the busy part of the off season. All right, buddy. Well, enjoy the off season. Keep up the great work. It was good to have you on under some slightly more encouraging circumstances and we'll hopefully chat with you again soon. Thank you to everyone for listening to the Hockey Ptiocast streaming

on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Catch up on what happened in Vancouver Sports with Halford and Brough in the morning. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple. Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here in the Hockey PEOCast. We've let Charlie O'Connor go. He did his job on the Flyers part of this trade.

We're now going to tag in my buddy, Russell Morgan, to talk about it from a King's perspective. Russell, what's going on, man? What's going on, Demetri? Thanks for having me. Yeah, no, I'm excited. So on the first half of the show, we had Charlie O'Connor on.

We talked about the big Ivan Provarov trade from, I guess, Tuesday afternoon, from the Flyers perspective, right? I wanted to get into it now. with you from the King's perspective because I know that they technically all they have to show for it in terms of like personnel coming in is Hayden Hodgson and former Canucks legend Kevin Conodden but you can make a very fair argument that their side of this trade is the most interesting one and certainly the one that's going to be the most consequential for short-term

impact just because of the money they were able to clear out how they were able to do it and then what they're going to turn around and already have used it on in the meantime. So I kind of wanted to get into that with you in terms of all the parts that they moved out and sort of how it's all going to fit. So they give up Helga Grounds. They give up the 2024 second. They take on 2.025 million of ProBrov's cap hit over the next two seasons, which is a 30% salary retention. And in doing so, they move off of Sean Walker's contract, right, that had one year left at

2.65. And most importantly, Cal Peterson's contract. Now, I'm not sure how much you've sort of spoken about this or what you've heard. But from my intel that I've gathered, it seems like not too many teams are understandably interested in taking on Cal Peterson's contract, but the fact that he also had the $4 million signing bonus that's due to him this summer precluded most of the sort of teams we typically associate with these types of deals and taking on these contracts like the Arizona's or even potentially in Anaheim.

they didn't really have much appetite in trading per guy that they had to sign a $4 million check to immediately. So that really left teams like the Flyers or maybe the Blackhawks as like big market teams with deep pockets that could conceivably be interested in a trade like that. So with the market so limited, the general consensus around the league is that while LA did give up a little bit, certainly it's not nothing, they got off pretty easy for the most part just because they didn't have that much leverage. Everyone knew they were desperate to do this type of trade.

And so to be able to facilitate it, people are viewing that as a win for Rob Lake. Yeah, I mean, right now in this day and age in the NHL, salary cap or cap space in general is probably one of a big assets a team could have. And for the Kings, in order to address a lot of the other issues that they want and to build onto this contender status that they're looking to become, I mean,

they had to find a way to get rid of Calpenter. contract. I mean, it's easier said the done to trade away a goalie that was arguably one of, if not the worst goaltender in the NHL last year and then got sent to the AHL and didn't do much better down there. And then also you didn't even mention the modified no trade clause he had tied to his contract too. So yeah, I mean, it's it was something you kind of look at the King's roster as a whole and everybody looked at Cal Peterson's contract as being the main deal that they had to try to move. But the fact that Rob Blake found a partner in order to get it done,

it almost surprised myself. I mean, you kind of, as soon as I saw Elliot Freeman tweeted out, I was like, oh, wow, Rob Blake actually figured it out. But we were all kind of waiting to see how expensive this would be. And I give a little bit of praise to Rob Blake here by, I think the cost wasn't as high as many anticipated it to be to trade away a gold center with that contract of $5 million. And not to mention, you mentioned the signing bonus too,

only to give out a second round pick. And I guess kind of a mid-tiered, maybe high-tier prospect in Helgaard Grants, who really was kind of limited in terms of his path to the NHL on the Kings with Brian Clark and Jordan Spence ahead of him. I think it's a good win for Rob Blake. It is. Yeah, Cal Peterson, for those scoring at home, 10 games last year in the NHL, Sport Logic had him at negative 12.5 goals save above expected in those 10 games,

which seems almost impossible to believe now a lot of that is inflated by that one, particularly catastrophic performance against Seattle, right, in that game that we all enjoyed watching. I'm sure Cal Peterson did not enjoy it as much. Oh, man. Yeah, losing, you know, losing, Grands here is in the eye of the beholder, right? Because for the Kings,

they're one of the few teams who are positioned to make a trade like this without really losing sleep over it, right? They, as you mentioned, the path to NHL, whether it's Dowdy, Matt Roy, Dersie, Brand Clark, Jordan Spence, like they have enough options on the right side where you couldn't really even see him factoring into their plans anytime soon, regardless of what he did. Now, you don't necessarily want to be in the business of just giving away

cost controlled, right shot defensemen just because you have a lot of them, because eventually you're going to run dry on that. And it's a very valuable resource to have a lot of. But at the same time, to facilitate a deal like this, right? Like the reason why people feel like it, they got out relatively easy was they save, what, 5.6.25 million this year. You save about three million next year as well. And I don't want to give Blake, Rob Blake, too much credit just because,

because he is technically the one who did sign Cal Peterson, not that anyone expected at the time of signing for it to go this south, this quickly, but the fact that he was able to then in a timely manner get off of it, the way that he did does deserve praise. And so it's interesting to consider kind of how all of this came together, because pretty much within the next 24 hours, right, the Vladislav Gadrokov extension comes into place,

and it essentially slides very neatly into that exact amount of money that they cleared for next season. And so I don't know, is there anything else from this side of the trade from the Kings that you think is worth noting here? Do you want to just segue into the Gavakov part of it? Yeah, I think the Helga Gronz situation is kind of interesting because he came in. There were some draft guys who had Gronz as a first round pick in his draft class. And that was also a draft class in the same round the Kings took Brock Faber in. So you're looking at two pretty high-profile prospects at the time that are now not on the King's roster anymore or in the organization with favor being included in the Fiala trade just last year.

So that's an interesting aspect of it. So I'm not to, in terms of Helga Granz, I think there's still a player there, an NHL caliber player there. He had a little bit of a down year last year with the Ontario rain. But I think if he can be put in the right system and with the right coaching, I mean, you, you're looking at a 6'4 defenseman who can skate really well. So I think the flyers, if they're able to develop him a little bit more, they can find a good player in there. And then then Cal Peterson situation, again, just kind of looking back on that contract.

Yeah, it's hard to kind of separate the two in terms of the contract signed at the time. I look back at some of the stats. I mean, it's not like he kind of had eye-popping stats, but his contract was signed just a few months after his stint at the World Championship. in 2021, where he was named the best goaltender in the world championships. And I think he had two shutouts. Led the USA team to the bronze medal there. So there was a lot of hype coming up from the Calcuton train there.

But as soon as that contract was signed, man, I mean, he just hasn't looked good. So we'll see what happens there within Philly. But yeah, the Capsby's maneuver from Rob Licks perspective is just one of the good moves to kind of lead into the Gavik extension. Yeah, I mean, in this flat cap environment, we're only expecting the cap to go up by another $1 million for next season. You're kind of at the mercy of the market or of how hard of aligned the other GMs that do have cap space. And there's very few of them and have owners who are willing to also take on money to help

facilitate trades like this are willing to draw, right? Or essentially how easily they're allowed to get you off the hook. And so in this case, it's not a nothing price. And certainly, as we talked about in part, part one of today's show from the flyers perspective, I really like the logic of going this route the way that they did. But for the Kings, I think it was a reasonable price to pay to free up what they did.

And so they turn around and they give Vladislav Gavikov a $5.875 million deal for two seasons, which slides neatly into that cap space opened up. And, you know, at first blush for me, Russell, I was surprised, right? Because before the contract even came out, Kevin Weeks, I believe, put out that report that Garikov's camp was a really pushing for a two-year term, right? And I think we're so programmed to when players like this around that 27, 28-year-old range who are coming off of, you know, their most recent sample

of games is strong. So they're coming into free agency with leverage and like coming on a high note, we're used to those players immediately turning around and then just trying to squeeze out every single dollar they can to maximize their earning power, right? And to get that security and get that long-term deal acknowledging that it might be the last time they have a chance like this to cash in. And so we're used to seeing that. And so hearing a guy like Abercroft be like, no, I'd actually prefer it to your deal was a bit surprising.

Now you give it a bit more thought. You look at the actual details of the contract and it starts to make a lot more sense in terms of what him and his agent were thinking. Yeah. I mean, he's trying to cash in and that you have another UFA situation where salary cap goes up a little bit more. The TV deals starts kicking and teams have a lot more money to spend. So if he can hit that UFA window again when he's what, I think he'll be 29 again. He'll be 30 in the first month. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, going into his age 30 season. I mean,

he can cash in once again and get even probably a higher number than what he got now. I'm really excited for this contract between the player he got what he wanted. And I think the team did really well here too. I mean, a five-year deal for a player like Gavikov scared. me, to be honest with you. I mean, especially at the money he was looking for. So when you're able to get, I mean, just to kind of go back to the trade itself, I think myself and my colleagues over at Hockey Royalty, too, we were a little bit skeptical of the trade. I think you had sent me a compilation of some of the Jacob Chikrin highlights from his defensive prowess, I guess, in Arizona. So when the Chikrin rumors were all tied to the Kings,

everyone was excited with, oh, man, we can get a player like Jacob Chikrin. And then when that didn't come to fruition, and all of a sudden, Gavrochoff comes over. Everyone's like, oh, man, we get a player like Gavroft. You've got to see his underlying numbers with Columbus. And you almost get a little disappointed. But, I mean, that wasn't the case. I had to eat a lot of crow for that. He played out of his mind, I think, in his short time with L.A.,

and he fit right in on that pairing with Matt Roy. It was pretty much one of the best King's defenders going into the playoff series against Edminson. And so, yeah, to have a two-year deal, it just feels right in terms of helping out the player to get the situation he wants to hit that UFA window again. And then also from a king's perspective, you get a player pretty much in his prime who's going to be looking to play well and try to cash in once again in order to get that high contracts he's looking for hitting UFA. So I think it works well. And I think both the Kings and the player did good here. Yeah, I mean, from the King's perspective, I'd love to have heard or seen Rob Blake's reaction when he found out that all they wanted was a two-year deal, right? It's like, oh, we don't have to come into the 30s.

And, you know, if this next few years go well and he doesn't show signs of regression or decline, then we can kind of revisit that, I'm sure. And we'll see what the cap looks like at that point. But the fact that you don't have to make that decision now is, seems like an absolute slam dunk from the team perspective. For the player, he gets a full no move, right? 87% of his contract money is tied up in signing bonuses, including a pretty hefty, I think, like, 5.725 this summer in terms of the signing bonus that'll be paid out. So that's very alluring. And he enters the market, as you said, before he turns 30 in the summer of 2025. And there is a lot of optimism that the cap will legitimately spike by then. I know it's kind of like, this is that recurring character in sitcoms, right? We keep referring to it, but it never actually shows up. This, this heralded cap spike. that we keep expecting will hopefully happen eventually. It seems like it'll happen by then. And, you know, Gavrokov's agent, Dan Milstein, certainly seems to have a lot invested in that

happening because he'd made a nearly carbon copy deal with his client, Andreikuzmanko and the Canucks this season as well. I believe it was a $5.5 million deal. But for two years and at the time, people were like, huh, I would have expected him to look for longer term and cash in on his immediate success. And instead, he similarly will be an unrestricted free agent around 30 years old in that exact same summer. So it's interesting that Millstein himself is positioning himself as potentially a huge winner in the summer of 2025 if things play out that way. You know,

on Gabrikov, I'm with you. I thought I was, I was wary because I generally his player type, especially like guy who eats a lot of minutes on a bad team and is considered to be defensively responsible, but that's just because they block a lot of shots. That to me is always like a very concerning skill set or archetype of player to rely on, especially be like, oh, well, if we put him on a better team,

he's magically going to get better. But that's almost what happened here, right? Like it was such a seamless fit. He improved so much in every respect to the point where, you know, in the 20 regular season games he played in L.A. He was behind only Drew Doughty in usage on the team.

So they relied on him quite a bit. And he got to play with Matt Roy, which I think was a big improvement from previously playing with guys like Andrew Pek and Anders Bjork and whoever else he was playing with in Columbus, and all of his underlying numbers skyrocketed. He looked at eye significantly better as a player. And so I understand the excitement of like, nice, we get to just keep this guy for two more years at this price.

Like that seems like it is truly a win-win, both for the team, as I mentioned, and for the player. Yeah, his play style fits perfectly for the Kings. I mean, they play that one-three-one system, they're really system dedicated. and to have his, I mean, I think his real strengths are his ability to utilize his stick in the defensive zone or at the blue line. And we saw that time and time again in the short time he was with L.A., just constantly breaking up zone entries. And it was really a lot of stuff that we had seen things he didn't do well in Columbus, just do so well in L.A., which was kind of strange.

But I don't know, I mean, when you have a player like that, and I think a lot of it has to go. to do with people in Los Angeles. They're just so accustomed to that Daryl Sutter type of play that we were used to seeing during the Stanley Cup years, where it's just so focused on defensive-oriented and just try to limit those zone entries and then that one-three-one system. But I'm starting to get to the point where when you have players like Brandt Clark and George Spence coming up in the system, I'd like to see a little bit more excitement, a little bit more dynamic playmaking ability. So that's why I'm so happy that they weren't able to, they weren't tied. to Gavarkoff such long term because that seems like he's he's only really fit for that defensive

style, although we saw a little bit more of a hybrid offensive style come to come to him a little bit more in the short time with L.A. So I wonder if if the Kings will stick to that one three one system. Maybe we see a little bit more fluidity in that maybe they add a little bit more creativity from the defensive playmakers with the young stars coming up. Yeah. Well, he can you can keep him with Matt Roy, who he had a lot of success with on that kind of second pair last year, or if you're trying to sort of transition some of these younger and more skilled defensemen to the league, coaches generally like to attach those types of players to guys like Gabriqa, right, who provide a bit of a safety blanket. And so there's certainly options there for them to explore.

Yeah, it was interesting because, you know, like, certainly his quality of partner and teammates improved. One of the concerns in Columbus was like, oh, they're just relying on him too much. He's playing too many minutes. That's why he's struggling. He actually was used more at 5 on 5 in L.A. than he had been in Columbus. The big difference was they cut down on his penalty kill minutes quite a bit. And maybe that helped sort of preserve him a little bit more.

And they cut down on his defensive zone starts as well, right? And so you got to play in a bit more of a favorable environment, certainly. But the number is just skyrocketed about as extremely as you're going to see in season for a player switching teams. And in the playoffs, they were relying on him in the McDavid matchup. minutes where he did quite well as well, right? So there's certainly a lot to like there. I don't know. Is there anything else on Gavrokov that you think is, is notable or interesting here? Or do you want to kind of just quickly look ahead to maybe what's next for the Kings now, now that they have him in place, now that they made this move to clear up the money to facilitate it,

kind of what the rest of the off season looks like for them and sort of what the agenda should be? Yeah, just real quick on Gavikov. I think one thing we haven't mentioned is that he was able to acclimate himself into the locker room really quickly. I mean, his personality just fits so well. Pretty, I mean, his type of personality could fit pretty well with any team. So the fact that he was able to come over with Corpusallo and those two kind of became so friendly with a lot of King's players and a lot of the families, I think, kind of helped make his welcome to L.A. a little bit easier.

I'm sure, I'm sure that helps a little bit. But just kind of looking ahead to the King's offseason as a whole, I mean, there's obviously a hole in net. You only have Phoenix Copley as the only goaltender with NHL experience. So I'm curious to see what happens there whether they want to just kind of go value signing, looking at the free agent poll because there's plenty of goaltenders are probably going to be available. Or you go after that big name, maybe like a Connor Hellebuck, and we've heard maybe even UC Soros's name floating out

there. But the kings are still pretty much cap-tied. So I don't know if they'd have to move more money out. I've seen Victor Arvinson's name floated out there. You have a player like Alex Iafalo who's at that $4 million cap hit for two more years. So those could be two more names that you hear maybe floated out there in rumors. But if I've known Rob Blake, his time as GM, he likes to really get as much value as he can and try to hold on to his assets. And from the trades that he's made, just as Phil Duffia trade alone, he's had to give up some assets and to kind of make up for his mistake in the Cal Peterson signing already. So I wonder if maybe he goes a little bit more of the value route in gold. tending maybe pick up a player like varlamoff or freddie anderson or ranta some one of those names

as opposed to one of the big names well similar to what we're seeing with Vegas I think they had the luxury of what the defensive environment they have in place that you know I know they I know they had goleys that struggled in the start of last year before the group is solid trade but it's still a situation where I wouldn't necessarily invest heavy resources in trying to get a brand name goalie because I feel like you can you can draw pretty good results out of players who might be those value signings that you're mentioning yeah I mean they've got 76 million in cabbets for next year on 11 forwards five defensemen and a goalie. So it still will be pretty tight with the Volardi and Kupari RFA deals to come as well.

They need that goalie. I still keep, I'm so fascinated to see, I still think they are a big threat in the trade market to add another scoring forward and potentially consolidate some of these like prospects they've drafted over the past couple years and sort of cost controlled young players into one more big star. that's still in an age range that makes sense for this team, right? It's not necessarily an all-in move on like a veteran, but it's something that I'd like to see them explore. And given the market, given the trajectory of this organization and the team,

similar to what we saw, how they were able to accommodate and execute the Kevin Fiala move last summer, right? I think keeping your powder dry for a potential star who becomes available, who wants to come and play on this team is something that should be a big point of emphasis for Blake and the Kings moving forward. So I'm kind of curious to see how they navigate all that. Russell, it was fun to finally have you on the show and talk about this trade. I'll let you quickly on the way out, plug some stuff and let the listeners know where they can check you out. Yeah, you can check out my work at Hockey Royalty.com.

We have a Hockey Royalty podcast, YouTube show, all that fun stuff. Find me on Twitter at NHL Russell. But, Dimitri, I just want to say, I mean, I listen to the HockeyPedio podcast quite a bit. you do such a good job at describing and almost illustrating a player's impacts to the fact that when I'm listening, I could almost see the highlight of the player in front of me or even just in my mind. So I love the work that you do. And we also, me and my colleague, Joe Paderino, we appreciate the Blake Lazot phrase too

out here in L.A. So looking forward to some more fun work from you in the offseason here. Awesome, man. Well, thank you for the kind words. I love Blake Lazzat, big fan. And we'll keep up. that praise coming as well. Enjoy the rest of the offseason here.

Looking forward to your coverage. We'll have you back on the show. Thank you to the listeners for checking us out today. We'll be back tomorrow with more regularly scheduled programming on the Stanley Cup final. We'll talk about game three and all that good stuff. You're listening to the Hockey PEO cast on the Sportsnet Radio Network.