The Hockey PDOcast - Changes in Nashville, and the Kings making their move

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Sean Shapiro joins Dimitri to talk about the changes the Predators have made both on and off the ice, the Kings trading Jonathan Quick, and what the Stars need to do by Friday.This podcast is produced by Lina Setaghian and 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 P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dmitra Filipovich. And joining me here about 48 hours or so from the trade deadline is my good buddy, Sean Schioreau. What's going on, man? And wait, before you answer that, if you lie to me and say not much, I'm going to be furious. A lot is going on.

A lot is going on. I actually I on a physical front I'm lower body week to week I uh who are you an LTIR stash

I may I may be we'll see we'll see how it goes but the league put up memos about this so we're not supposed to do that but uh I rolled I rolled the ankle

and uh it's I'm icing it right now as we're speaking and uh you know what though there couldn't have been a better time to be in a spot where you were told just to sit on sit lay down put your foot up and well they said relax which is clearly not what happened it's clearly been it's been trying to

keep up with the whirlwind but the foot relaxed so yeah i think they meant well physically you're relaxing emotionally and mentally it's entirely different story but it's a good position for you to be uh yeah in and back got your tweet deck open win for win for the news to roll in it's a it's a good time um yeah and i mean my head's just been spinning it's been a bonkers week, right? Like, you're coming off. I had a good grasp of everything I was just telling you before we went on air. I had a good grasp of everything on like Sunday night, got the Timel Meyer trade, had a few other smaller ones heading into Monday morning. I'm like, you know what? I'm ready to tackle trade deadline week. Take it in stride. I'm on top of it. And then yesterday, Tuesday afternoon comes

and there's like, what was it? There's 11 trades. I think nine of them. You argue have like legitimate implications for the rest of the season to some degree or capacity. And at that point, I was like, you know what, this is pure survival mode at this point. Like, can I do my best here? Not going to be able to get to everything. We'll see what happens by Friday. But I think we're all sort of in a similar boat at this point. Okay.

Let's get into it. Let's start. I want to talk about the predators with you because I would say that for my money, aside from the Leafs, who have been the busiest team, but I don't really want to talk about the Leafs yet. I'm going to save it for Friday because I still suspect with that 2023, first they acquired from the Capitals. and with all the defensemen they have,

I suspect there's other moves coming from them. So I'm going to save that in my back pocket for later in the week. I think the Predators, on a more pressing note, have been the busiest team in the league, right? On Sunday, they announced this big change

in terms of like their organizational hierarchy, they're restructuring, David Poil stepping down or stepping back into a consulting role. Barry Troth is taking over as the GM and the president of hockey ops. Now, I don't know if you have any clarity on this.

I've been doing some digging and trying to figure it out. seems like they're kind of like working together quote unquote until june 30th and then at that point barry trots will officially take over the titles but it really feels like if you're hiring barry trots to take over he's involved right now right i think they're keeping well around as kind of like a figurehead for the draft which is in nashville this year going to be neatly enough on june 28th and 29 and then on june 30th he officially loses his title so take that for for what it's worth so i imagine you bring in very trots and you're kind of given the keys to them already at this point.

And we've seen them be very active. They made a number of trades already that have been really fascinating, I think, worth kind of unpacking for us. So let's start with the poyle trots element of this and kind of like your initial takeaways on that and kind of hearing that news because it did sort of come a little bit out of nowhere. Yeah, it will be interesting. And so the first thought on this is it's not really that. honestly it's not really that

not that it came out of not not surprising but the fact if I told you the predators were an organization there's only had one GM in the history of the franchise and he was going to be kind of part of the succession plan and everything like that it makes too much sense for to be barry trots now with as much as

and this would be a fascinating thing with what barry trots does and it's hard to give credit or take credit away or whatever but it's just we've never seen him in this role. It's one thing to break down a power play and set up a penalty kill and be an individual motivator. It's another thing to be a GM. Like,

those are two different things. So just because someone's a good coach doesn't mean they're a good GM and vice versa. It's the same. It's the reason that essentially after the ECHL, those jobs basically split, right? Like if you're as a good coach, you either go the management route or the coaching route. It's kind of the way you go. Well, let me build off that point. Yeah.

I'm totally with you because on the one hand, as a coach, part of your job is player evaluation, right? Like you're making decisions in terms of who should play, how much they should play and all of that. But the delineation comes from like a timeline perspective or an agenda perspective because as a coach, every single coach, all they care about is winning that night's game.

Like they have no foresight. That's why a lot of these coaches struggle with developing young players because they don't care what they look like two weeks from now or two years from now. They care about whether they can win tonight, right? That's kind of what they're going to be judged on. that's the way they're wired. As a GM,

you know, unless you're totally just tanking or rebuilding, you do care about that night's results, but you also need to like, you have your hand in a bunch of different pots in terms of like managing those timelines and also you're dealing with ownership. You're dealing with the assistant GM,

coaches, players, like everything, you're kind of, you know, have multiple tasks. And so you're right. That is interesting because Trots goes from being a guy, especially with his coaching style

and what he got out of his teams, most recently from the Islanders, it was kind of like a max effort, just go for it all right now, totally locked down defensively and like very one-track mind in that capacity. And I think it's pretty tough to take that sort of a viewpoint into being a GM and constructing a team for the long term. Now, Trots has been very successful in hockey. Everyone that's talked to him speaks very highly in terms of like what a thoughtful dude he is and like how he thinks, how he approaches the game.

and so, you know, selfishly, just following him from afar, total badass as well, right, as a coach? So I'm excited to have him back in my life, even if it's in a different capacity. But I'm very curious to see how he goes in that transition in terms of like managing all these different components. Yeah, it's because it's some of the moves that it's easy right now for, it's easy to sell right now, right?

Like with what the predators are doing right now and whether it's, David Poyle or Barry Trott's whoever's on the phone. And from my understanding, it's basically Poyle doing it with Tim and Barry are just working hand in hand on all this. So it's easy to be like, yo, let's let's get me 21 draft picks in the first four rounds over the next three years. Let's do that. Like it's really easy to sell right now when one guy's out the door and everything. It's going to be very interesting to see because as you said, as a coach's job every night is to try to win. and for the predators, the job is going to be to not try to win every single night.

It's going to be to try to build a franchise that can win a Stanley Cup. And that is not a coaching mindset. That is a GM mindset. And like, for example, trading Tanner Genome to Nashville for, to Tampa, Tampa Bay for six assets, that's a, that's a move that's someone who, that's not a move a coach makes. that's a move of GM mix. And so I don't know if like where I don't know if that's maybe maybe Barry had a lot of

hands on that and we learned that later and then good for Barry and is on the right track. But that still feels very much like David Poyle finally being like, okay, I know where I know what the reality of the situation is. I can do all of this and I'm going to move it on. I'm just very interested to see what way Trots goes. And I just go back to the fact where I've talked to people who are either assistant GMs or minor league coaches who basically they, as they were coming up, they eventually hit that that, that collision point where it's like, okay, are you a manager or are you a coach? And we see,

and there are two different skill sets. So I hope it works with Trots because honestly, it's a great personality. I think it's better for everything if all of us and it all works together. But I just, it's going to be fascinating to see how it shakes up. And it's going to be really interesting to see like, it'll be really interesting to see kind of what his move is on July 1st. I mean, I already, I put this on Twitter. Like, on when the coyotes or whoever are selecting number one in Nashville, it'll be like, congrats to the Boston Bruins,

I winning the Stanley Cup. We'd like to thank the city of Nashville and David Poyle for hosting and David on a great career. And from the Western Hockey League's Regina Pats, like we already know the David Poyle parade is going to be at the podium is going to be on June 20th and 9th in Nashville. Yeah. Well, the reason why I want to start with us and talk about them beyond just like the quantity of moves they made,

I think the specific details of them is interesting to me, just from the note of if you've been following the National Predators over the past one, two, five, ten years, basically. This does represent a significant change into the way the organization is being run, like fundamentally shifting their approach. Because for years, we've been wondering, like, when are this, when is this organization going to take a necessary step back, sort of restructure their roster in a meaningful way, get younger, get more talented, instead of just like sort of blindly plowing ahead and digging deeper and deeper towards like the core of mediocrity for lack of a better way of putting it. And, you know, they peak in 2017, right?

They make the cup final that year. They lose the penguins. The following year, actually, they win the president's trophy. They have a remarkable year. They lose in round two, but, you know, that might, like, that was an epic series against the Jets, where it was just a bloodbath between two awesome teams. After that, 2019, they lose in round one. 2020, they lose in the qualifying round of the bubble to the coyotes. 2021, they lose in round one to hurricanes and like just a really ugly series to watch, even though it was very tight. Twenty-22, they get swept by the abs after UC Soros gets hurt at the end of the regular season. And now, 23, they're about to miss the playoffs, right? It's like about as clear of a downward trajectory from the mountaintop

as you're going to see in this sport. And I think it's important that they're kind of doing this, especially at a time where you look, and like technically they're not similar to what the capitals did out east, right? Like they're not mathematically eliminated. I think they probably have somewhere between like a 10% shot to make in the playoffs. But like there's 17th in the league in point percentage,

which is for my money, the worst place you can be in in the entire league's power structure. Like I would much rather be 27th than 17th. And so it's interesting that even though they're not technically out of it, they have all this money committed in the future to like aging players. UC Soros is one of the three best goalies in the league. And we're going to talk about him more in a minute here. And he gives you a chance to win every single night, even when you're outclassed. It is interesting to me that whether it's poils kind of last, last effort to sort of give the new management team some more parts to work with or whether and kind of clearing the deck or whether it is trots coming in with like a fresh voice, this does represent.

a significant departure from everything they've done over the past however many years. Yeah. The other interesting thing, the other Trots thing, that's going to be really interesting, is I just wonder, have you like it happened two or three times where Lou Lamarillo, when he was to the GM of the Devils felt like, you know what? I could step down there and I could coach this team better if he did it. And he just fired his coach and he decided to put himself behind the bench. And I'm not saying Barry will do that.

But I do wonder where it is an interesting kind of outlayer, like, factor out there where if things are going poorly for the coach, whether it's the current guy who's there or the next guy or whatever, and all of a sudden you go, you lose eight games in a row in December when you're supposed to be on the upswing and you're not, do you start getting the all well as Barry? I mean, Barry could still coach. It's just another thing that's just laying out there with the, Barry Trots thing. And it's just, I'm not saying it will happen or it's just an interesting thing.

To go to your point of where this team is and where they're kind of finally embracing, I've covered Dallas, right? I covered a untraditional hockey market, quote unquote, where they had to be, and they felt winning the Stanley Cup was obviously a great thing, but being in the playoffs every year is more important than anything because you're trying to keep people in there. And I think one of the reasons, Nashville never really embraced the rebuild was from a management and ownership perspective was they were thinking like they weren't a traditional hockey market. They were thinking like we have to be in the playoffs every year to be relevant. And you may have some less season ticket sales over the next door with this little rebuild and everything like that. But I think it's also a vote of confidence in the market that you're still going to matter in that market because of what you've built and everything like that. So I think that's another part of this other outside factor of it. wasn't just David Poyle not being willing to rebuild. It also comes from basically the ownership top.

And Nashville, obviously, it's been very, it feels very shadowy just because it's like a conglomerate of like, obviously until the Haslam sale goes through. Just a conglomerate of like 16 people. No, no, you're right. I would say, though, like, I get that argument. But then you watch last year's playoff series against the avalanche. And it's like that team is playing a different sport than we are. Oh, yes.

It's like, I don't. 100, 100%. All the people you brought into the building for those games, I'm not sure they left with a pleasant experience in mind, right? So, yeah, no, but I get all that. So they trade, they trade Nino-Need Ryder for a second, right? He has one year left on his deal. They trade Tanner Geno, as you mentioned, for five draft picks. And as an aside on that deal, I don't know about you if you feel this way, but I, you know, I've been doing this job for a while now.

I can't really remember like a funnier event in terms of something that happened that led to more messages being sent to me by people in the industry at various levels being like, what on earth is going on, right? And for me, it's right up there with like 2014 or whatever when Derek England signed his deal. And then Bob McKenzie tweeted it's like $2.9 million per year as opposed to his like total salary. and that was like a really funny one. Yeah.

This was almost there. Now listen, like Julian Breezebaw comes out after and, you know, I totally understand his framing of it in terms of like we have a certain evaluation. We put on draft picks and we felt like they don't really matter to us in the grand scheme of thing for where we're at organizationally. And this is just like a good piece of business for us. And I get that and I actually agree with it. I just, I think lost in that line of thinking is, well, if you look around,

the league, there's other organizations that clearly disagree because they greatly value these draft picks. And so if that's the case and you feel like they're not very valuable to you, that presents a unique opportunity to go out and use them to get a significantly better player than Tanner. Genoa, in my opinion, and I understand there's like contractual limitations. Like, they had like no room to fit any, you know, contract of significance in. But I just, you know, you look at that and it's like, all right, I understand what you're saying, but for five picks, it feels like you should probably be able to improve your team more. Now, with that said, I'm very worried about openly ridiculing the trade because I can totally

envision a scenario where Danor's no has a big playoff moment for them and we all wind up looking silly, right? That's just kind of how this works. But I think it's kind of an important sort of thought process to juggle between like what these picks are worth and then what you can get for them because it's a clear opportunity cost assigned to it. I love the concept. I hate the execution.

Exactly. Right? Like, like, I love the idea of going for it. It's like, like, I've always,

that's one of the reasons I've always liked, I've always respected what Kekhalinan has done in Columbus, where he may not have had the results, but I at least respect that he goes for it, right? And so I respect going for it. It's just that I have a hard time justifying five picks and, and not like just a slub player,

like a guy who actually has some potential in foot for, for, for for for tanner genoa i just it's i don't that that is the issue for me with the deal where and now once again it's the whole thing where it's you win you win you win you win back-to-back cups you go to three cup finals you get the benefit of the doubt right like how many a bunch of other gms make this trade all of a sudden it's everyone's up in arms and saying this person's job this should be fired tomorrow because it's Julian brees's ball and it's the lightning they're like hey he saw something we didn't and that becomes the narrative and and we're all as you said we're all

scared to criticize it because like we're like maybe he did see something we did it but that's what you get when you get the benefit of the doubt and I still don't like as I said I like I hope more GMs look at the look at the thought process but then just the execution is not yeah I don't think anyone would disagree that yeah and as you know makes their team better than a 2025 first rounder does for this postseason right like it's that's that's that's not an argument but But it's what else could you get for those picks is the question to me. And part of this is I'm totally with you. When a team aggressively identifies their window to win and just mortgages,

any number of picks they want to improve their team in a significant manner, I'm all for it. And that's a good segue to the next trade the Predators made, which is Matthias Hickholme in a sixth for Tyson-Berry, Riechiefer, who the Oilers recently took at end of the first round, a 2023 first and a 2024-fourth. And that's a slam dunk trade for the Oilers because they're improving from Tyson Berry to Mitya Sechholm, which is a significant leap, especially for what they need as a team. And these picks mean, that price in particular, I thought it would have cost them more to make such a significant upgrade.

But that's a no-brainer. So I similarly get it from Nashville's perspective where they're kind of looking around and they're like, all right, well, Mitea Sikholm is, what, 33 years old? He's got three years left on his deal after this one. we don't want to wait until it gets to a point where we have to trade assets to get out from under his contract so let's kind of cash in now and get a first and get a prospect while we still can so I get it but I just view that one as like all right this is something the oilers absolutely should be doing given their organizational

place and kind of like in the hierarchy of the cycle so and I agree with that and it's and one of the my favorite reaction to that trade was the occasional discourse of like oh no what about the Edmonton power play using losing losing Tyson Barry and I'm like uh you could stand anyone it's it's not exactly that's not exactly where the power play strength is coming from in Edmonton well also statistically if you look at when he hasn't been on the ice up for the power play it has not suffered at all so I think it matches the eye test as well in that capacity um yeah you know the one final thing on the

at home trade because I think it's like it's not that interesting of a trade to break down because it's like I understand why the predators did it the oilers very good trade especially like when some of the alternatives bandied about were Vladislav Gav Gavrikov, who we're going to talk about in a minute here, and Joel Edmondson, I much prefer Matthias Ekholm. From the predator's perspective, the one thing I will say that I absolutely hate about this trade is the salary retention that they did where they're keeping,

oh my gosh, yes. $250K per year for the next three years, just out of principle because you get three of them. It's so dumb. And just wasting one on $250K like that, where I do not think it was a deal breaker by any means. is upsetting because if you are going to fully go in this direction and make a bunch of future moves where you sell off your players, especially they have a bunch of guys with like high cap hits.

If you are going to use them to get more picks down the road, you're going to need that over the next three years presumably. And so boxing yourself in that way is just, it's tough to, tough to sort of like, tough to reconcile in my opinion. It's tough to justify that because like what if, what if there's enough, what if there's two, I don't know, you're in the sell-off mode, right? what if there's two moves before Friday where teams are or there's two teams of a deal and like for example like jonathan quick is maybe moved by the end of this podcast who knows but jonathan quick has moved one time and columbus probably that one's probably more simple Columbus will probably be able to retain but say they're looking for a partner to retain something and okay we can do that and then there's another retention deal and all of a sudden you do two things over the next couple days and you're like well damn we've now completely boxed ourselves into this because we felt the need to hold 4% of Mitya Seckholm's contract.

I know. It's wild. Okay, I do want to talk, we can move on to different teams, but before we go to break here, do I talk about while we're on the Predators, talk about Yars La Ascarov, because you just wrote a fantastic piece about him, and I greatly enjoyed it. So I kind of want you to tell the listeners a little bit about it. And you close the loop here on the Predators, good discussion. Yes. Yes. I actually worked out really well about he, I posted the story, and then he started at 10.30 a.m. School day game today and had a shutout against, against, who's the wild goalie? Yes, for Walsden. Yeah, and in a matchup of the two best, two of the best goalie

practice in the world, he shut one-nothing shut out for Ascaroff. But over on the, on the substack my Shapshot's website, I talked to Yaroslav Ascarov yesterday. We were actually supposed to talk last week, but because of the delay, things got pushed around. And legitimately interesting goalie from a prospect perspective, but for me, one of the things that put him on, hey, let me reach out and I'd love to talk to this guy was back earlier February, he's in a shootout. It is like a 45 save night. They went in the shootout, and afterwards, he turned to celebrate, he flips the net over

and starts bench pressing the crossbar. It's great. Just the actual personality celebration and everything like that. And I just wanted to talk to him about that and using the fellow Predators prospect, Igor Efesaniov, and I'm probably, yep, who basically came on to the Zoom with us as an informal interpreter and basically just talked. It was a great conversation with this 20-year-old goalie who, he gets it. Like, it's one of those things where, like, it's so refreshing. You and I've talked before about hockey players get put in these boxes and they're boring and everything like that.

And it's just so refreshing to talk to someone who, A, gets it. He talks about, hey, this is entertainment. I want to be, when I'm bench pressing the crossbar, someone who's never watched a hockey game before all of a sudden is entertained, and they have a reason to watch it. He talked about it from a perspective of being someone who had no idea where in the world Milwaukee was. He gets drafted by Nashville.

He's got an idea what the predators are, but no idea where Milwaukee is, Wisconsin. And now he's gone to a couple bucks games there, has become like, and feels the entertainment. He's like, oh, you go and you watch an NBA game. It's entertainment. The people have fun. Games are supposed to be fun. And just the combination of just, it's such a refreshing personality to see.

And especially in a goal tent, in a goalie in a position where as much as we like to say, goalies are weird, they're actually not weird. They're just overly insulated in many cases. It's, well, we can't talk to them on game day. They have their own coach. They all, especially now, and we talked about, I think it was either last week of before when you and I talked about doing the Michigan story, they become so robotic and everything like that. Goleys aren't necessarily weird. They just become so much more and more of just a

production line and we use the weird label to protect them. And Ascarov is actually, and I don't want to say weird, but is actually his own person. It is actually willing to say, hey, I am my own brand. I am a person who when I'm bench, punch pressing crossbars and celebrating, people realize who I am and people realize who my team is. And so, was great. And I also, I just, it's, it's so refreshing to have those conversations and then also be able to talk analytically and analysis wise with a guy as well. Just the concept of like, we always hear about the concept of like, oh, bigger ice, bigger ice. Like how many times do you hear that about a guy coming over? And just to, through broken English, just him breaking it down for me. And it's

something that I wish I could have applied a little bit better to the story, which is kind of hard because he was explaining with hand motions and broken English, but explaining how just using the dots would be like, you would never like let someone who would flown planes one way forever using one type of runway. And then all of a sudden be like, okay, we changed the runways, go ahead without using a flight simulator. Like I just such a great example where I'm like, oh, this came from a hockey player.

That's awesome. Yeah, I really like the point you made in there that was coming from him about like, there's certain areas on the HL ice surface that just players aren't a threat to score from. And then you come over North America and because of the different dimensions and because of the different skill level, even in the AHL, all of a sudden, it's just like an entirely different calculus as a goalie in terms of like what you need to be prepared for, how you need to play certain angles and all that stuff. I thought, I thought that was really insightful on his part and kind of cool to see. And he's up to a 9-14 percentage now. And the HL after kind of a slow start, as you mentioned, he just had the shutout. It's been like otherworldly in shootout settings, which is interesting to me, not that's necessarily reflective of like goal-tending ability. But, you know, one-on-one. It is kind of cool to see. him acquit himself so well. And I was thinking about this. If you just map out the Predators organization, the goalies they've had, right? Yeah.

You go from 98 to 2007, they have Tomas Bakun, who is, from my money, like one of the most underrated, underappreciated goalies. Oh, I agree. Like you look. You ended like 700 games in the NHL, 9, 17, say a percentage in them, just so good at various stops, especially late in his career. Yeah. That, they have one gap before they get to Pecorane, and it's the season where Dan

Ellis plays 44 games and gives them a 924 say percentage. Then they go to Pecorinae and they go from 2008 to 2019 with him. And then UC Soros comes in and it takes over. And now he's like a top three to five goalie in his absolute prime. And they're going to, I'm kind of curious to see how this next succession plan takes course because there is a big adjustment curve for Ascarov in his first year coming over in North America. But you go out, you spend what, the 11th overall pick on this guy.

He's kind of like a goalie prodigy. coming up heading into his draft year. He's performing now. And I'm very curious to see how the NHL adapts in terms of like they've already come so far in terms of letting skaters start playing meaningful roles in the NHL at a younger age, acknowledging how aging curves work. And we've been so slow to incorporate that with goalies. It feels like you have to be wait until you're 24 years old, get some seasoning in the minors

or whatever in Europe. And then finally you get to play. And they have sorrows, obviously, for at least the next couple seasons. But I think they should be, like, incentivized to get Ascarob into the NHL sooner sooner rather than later because you don't want to waste, like, very useful years, right? Like, if he's already physically capable and able and he's performing in the minors, it's why wait? You know what I mean?

Like, I understand kind of pushing the financial curve back in terms of waiting to pay him, kind of extending that ELC as much as you can. But I do think that we're going to see him sooner rather than later. And then what that means for Uzi Soros' future in Nashville is an entirely different thing that we could probably do a full podcast on. But a very interesting kind of trickle-down effect to consider how that's going to play out. Oh, and it's the other thing too about it is like we talk about this team that is, end of the day, this team is going to be, they're going to rebuild.

We've been talking about that. And you talk about a personality and you talk about something where it's like, hey, what is it, you have something like, you're going to have a built-in reason and personality of a guy who's going to face a ton of shots over the next couple of years when he's there. And he's going to have personality. It just makes so much sense to find a way. And especially in the – and I know Soros is – he's the top three goal in the league. I'm not trying to take minutes away from Saros.

But as we – as Soros gets older, as he ages, everything like that. I mean, is the long-term plan probably one more year for Ascarov in the H. probably, but in reality, you look at like, okay, 24, 25 season. If him and Saros are their 1A, 1B, I mean, maybe that's, maybe that's the way you play. It'll be, it's certainly an interesting development, but it's something where you don't take him number 11 overall, you don't take a goalie in that spot and not make sure you do everything the right way to make sure that he's going to deliver because that is a spot you have to, You have to deliver on it.

And I think he's got the ability to do it. It's also just something that I like about him. And I made this point in the story. I'm not comparing him to style-wise. He is very reminiscent of Andrei Vasilesky. Not success. I want to be very clear on that. I'm not going and saying this is the next Andre Vaselowski,

but style-wise. And I said it is because last Thursday I was in, I was in Detroit. And I watched Andre Vaselowski play an absolutely incredible game. game against Detroit. And it's one of those games you're watching throughout and it's everything scrambling. And it's just like, he's just kind of like so in the spot and controlling things, even when the chaos is going on. And you watch Askarov play. And when he's on, that's how he plays stylistically. He's a very like, he's big and he's athletic. So you don't think of him as the quote

unquote calm goalie, but that's really what he is. And he just plays that way into it. And it's, I don't know, I just, it would be good for hockey. As he talked about Ben, Ben, pressing crossbars being good for hockey, it would be good for hockey if he's a starting goalie in the NHL soon. Well, yeah, what a time for goalies. I mean, you've got Linus L. Mark scoring a goal than having 54 save performance or whatever against Calgary. On Tuesday, you've got Baselowski's performance against the Red Wings, which you mentioned,

which was like one of the best individual goalie performances I've seen in some time. Yeah. I was mentioning Kevin Woodley, this, our resident goalie expert here at the PDOC. I was like, what a time for it. What a time for the goalie union? Like, you must be thrilled. And he was like, yep, it's a good time. It's a good time.

It's a good time in a year where safe percentages have dropped. Yes, I know five at this point. We're taking it back for a night. Yeah. Okay, Sean, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll wrap up with a couple other topics I have in mind for us. You were listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Discussing the biggest stories that matter to Vancouver sports fans.

Halford and Brough in the morning. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Back here in the Hunky Pidioc guest with Sean, Sean, we were talking before we went to break about goalies. We were talking about Yarslav Ascaro, UC Soros. Let's stick with the theme here and talk about the Kings who made a big move involving a goalie. And one of the perks of being out of the West Coast here in Vancouver is that I was up last night to follow live. And they show reactions in real time to the Kings trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets, which saw them trade. Jonathan Quickaway, a franchise icon for them for Unis Corpusalo and Vladizab Gavarikov and

other pick compensation along the way to make it work. And let's quickly touch on this from Columbus's perspective because I actually think I'm generally, I don't know about you, but I think this is shrewd by them because I'm generally a fan, the more I think of it, of teams packaging together a couple of their like smaller, lesser valued, unrestricted free agents and the kind of guys are going to move at the deadline that are expiring deals. to maximize their return, right? Rather than trading one guy for a second

and another guy for a fourth and here and there, what they did is they're like, well, no one really wants Savasathe Gapagreb anymore because the two teams that might have otherwise in the Bruins and the Oilers, both went out and made-bate trades for defensemen. And so we got a team that's interested in Amir. Well, they also need a goalie.

Let's package together Corpusalo and we'll get a premium asset in a 20-23 first out of it. And that pick might be in the teens for all we know, depending on how the Kings do in this upcoming postseason. and they also get a third next year. And so I think it's a slam dunk for them. But I just, I wanted to note that I really like that approach

as opposed to trying to go for quantity. I really like that they got at least one quality piece back in return for them. I think it's, yeah, no, I think it's great. It's just a perfect example of like some of the other moves that, like,

you had, oh, just, it's funny, there was, just popped up in my Twitter feed, Ascarov flipped the net over to celebrate it after the shutout today, just going back.

Oh, again. Nice. I don't know. No bench press, just a flip on it. That's this time. Anywho, to get back to what the Columbus Blue Jackets did. We saw, like, for example, and I thought they did, there was a couple shrewd moves involving the Blue Jackets.

For one, I thought Columbus, the deal what they made with Minnesota, sending Night Nightquist for basically a fifth to Minnesota. I thought, I'm surprised more teams didn't do that, because I know the Blue Jackets came out earlier in the year, and we're like, oh, he's done for the year, but Nyquist has been saying he's going to play this year. Like, to me, he was pretty much, pretty much cleared. Like, it's almost a free asset.

So I thought that was a sneaky good pickup by Minnesota. But it also shows an example of what is, you trade off one piece that's worth a fifth, and you could have tried to trade off Corpus Salao in one piece. You could try to trade off Gavricob in one piece, and maybe you come back with a fifth and a third and a third or whatever. You're not coming away with a first round pick. And so I thought that you're right.

I love the way they did that where you package it, you move it that way. And honestly, it's something that other teams should look into more often when they have these pieces. Like, I mean, so Chicago is right, when they're selling some stuff off and everything like that and probably anything that's not nailed down is obviously available, if you can package two things and you can get more for it, why don't you do it? Like, it's a lesson that team should do. I think they tried to do that with McCabe and Lafferty with the leaves, right? Yeah, it's unique where like not that many teams are in the market for a goalie.

So in this case, it really worked out because these are kind of things that a left shot defenseman and a goalie, the Kings were like actively looking for those two exact things. And those are the two assets the Blue Jackets had. So in a way, it was like a match made in heaven just on paper. But listen, for the Kings, I get it. Like they needed to make a move like this at the same time. I will say I don't really love it. And not because they did wrong by Jonathan Quaker.

like that. I just think they were in a position where they could have reasonably paid a premium to swing for the fences and like meaningfully improve their team not only this year, but in years to come with a young player under contract, whether that was on the blue line or a net. And they could have done it in like one move. And instead, they sort of chose to, all right, we're going to give away our first here, but we're not getting away any of our top prospects. And we're going to try to improve a little bit and hope that that makes a big enough difference for us this postseason and then we'll revisit in the summer. And I just think like they could have been a bit more ambitious there without knowing anything

about the asking prices or what the conversations were like. But, you know, their 31st in team save percentage. Evolving hockey has Jonathan Quick and Phoenix Copley combining for minus 14 goals of above expected. Here's the thing. And Phoenix Cople is the savior there. Well, here's the thing. Those numbers are probably not accurate because sport logic has those guys combining for

negative 37. so far, which is just so wildly off. And Phoenix Caupley as well is not been a net positive based on some of the private models and the public ones do have him such because I think they're underrating how good the kings are defensively. But I think there's a decent case to be made

that Jonathan Quick has been the worst goalie in the NHL this season, especially one that's played regular minutes. And it's weird because he was solid last year clearly, right? And he had this kind of like resurgence season. And then maybe this is just what happens when you're 37. like sometimes things go off the rails expeditiously and you just don't really see it coming. But so I don't mind them addressing that and fixing it. I don't know.

What do you think about the decision to go for like Corpusallo and sort of how they handled all of it? I mean, I think Corpus off the goalie market, you probably went and got the, like I know, I know for example, one of the things that one of the other goalies that was going into this season, and this is just knowing for my stars connections on things. The stars were hoping that Anton Houdobin would be a piece that would get moved. And obviously his play is not necessitated that. But one thing they went into this season going on after like November or October it was, the stars were basically just hoping that Corpus Sala would be moved before this time of year

because otherwise there would be no way to trade Kudovin. And that's just kind of it's so looking at kind of how things have shaken out and where things are going. like the Kings needed the King the teams in the Pacific needed better goaltending the Kings Seattle like they needed better goaltending and we'll see what Corpusato does but I think it I think it's the right move I mean they were bold like they went early in the year right they come into the air with Jonathan Quick and Cal Peterson and they're willing to bite the bullet and wave to Cal Peterson the way they did if you're going to be bold like that and you're going to revamp your goaltending go all in and do it this way

So I'm happy with, I think, you know what, they're a better team with Corpusallo. So that's great. I don't like moving. I don't know if they need. I mean, I know Gavikov may make their team better. But I like, I don't like it's, I don't, for me, like, as we said, I like what Columbus did in this. And I like to, I just, I'm not sure the Gavrokov part is one where I, I, it's not

that Gavikov won't help them. It's what else could have been done. Yeah. I mean, I think he's going to be better than its underlying number of, so far just because he was in a different role right like it's not he was in a very compromising position playing on that blue jackets team but you know with corpus hall is interesting because he's up to a 913 say percentage this here when league average is 9 05 his goal save above expected is in the positives he was playing behind one of like the two worst defensive environments in

the league for my money between the blue jackets and the ducks this season and you know you look at it's like all right well literally anyone would have been an upgrade over what they were getting from jonathan quick this season. So there's that. Now, whether they could have done more, I think, is up for debate because I'm a little wary of, like, betting too heavily on what Corpusallo's done this season, just because for the majority of his NHL career previously, he hadn't been that good. He was sort of riding the reputation of what he did in the bubble, particularly against the leaves. And then that epic long overtime game against the lightning in that postseason. I had Kevin Woodley on the podcast recently. I think people really, if they're interested in this topic, should go back and listen.

and it was the February 15th episode of the Hockeypedo guest. And he was sort of wondering about the impact that, especially for goalies, moving in season to a new team when it's like the first time they've ever done it, whether that adjustment is possible in such a short runway like this at the deadline because there's so much that goes into like understanding your defensive system and everything. I guess you could argue that Blue Jackets didn't have a defensive system and he was still doing okay.

So literally anything in front of him is going to represent. and not a massive improvement that it can't get, it'll only get better. I'm really curious as you, right? Because I think for all of our efforts to quantify like goals, say we're expected to qualify or quantify shot quality, shot volume, everything that's happening in front of you, when you're on a team that's as bad as the blue jackets or the ducks, I think sometimes it becomes like distorted.

It's kind of almost impossible to evaluate it, right? There's certain nights where like you're just facing 50-something shots and it's like it's not representative of what's going to happen in most NHL games on other teams and it's like how do we evaluate that stuff compared to everything else going on and so I'm really curious to see how he does I think it was a reasonable upgrade

I'm just I'm not sure how much better it makes them but flipping over to the Jonathan Quickside I think is almost as fascinating of a component of this conversation right at the time of recording it seems like he might go to the Golden Knights which would be that would be that would be something

well it would be something I mean they are significant I mean, they're a good defensive team clearly and I understand why they would be sort of interested in that. At the same time, though, you're positing this idea of like if he retired right now and I just didn't want to report to the Blue Jackets and they weren't able to trade them,

it would cost the Kings a, what, 785K recapture penalty on the cap next season. Now that would also cost him nearly $600,000 in salary. And while I'm here for the pettiness, that doesn't seem like the best strategy business perspective for old Jonathan? No, no. And also if he wants to get his statue next to Dustin Brown, he's not going to He's got he's going to he's going to sit he's going to see he's going to be angry at this for a little bit.

And after then he's going to remember they gave a statue to Dustin Brown. And then he's going to remember, okay, Dustin Brown got a statue. I'm getting a statue too. So as long as I don't as long as I don't go and retire and cost them seven. as long as I don't cost myself some money and don't cost him some cap recapture. I mean, like, listen, it sounds like he was very upset after the trade and I understand it. I'm sure he probably thought that it wasn't going to go this way and he was going to retire as a king and I understand all that.

It's a business, right? Like if the kings succeed and win and Corpus Hallow plays well for them, no one's going to really care about this. Yeah, but also on top of like, you know, the whole just, he's said before, like, oh, he'd like to play past this season. If he wanted to play past this season, he wasn't going to retire as a king anyway. Yeah, you should play better then, right? Exactly. Like, that's kind of, like, I think at the end of it, like, you can be angry and upset or whatever and be blindsided by something. But at the end of the day, it's, you signed a 10-year deal and you got a ton of money for it, and you made it

nine and three-quarters of the way through it. Yeah, it was a hell of the run. I mean, I'm sure the kings would have preferred to trade Calvin Peterson in a trade like this, but he has two years left on his deal and no one was taking that on, right? And so that's why a deal like this was sort of the only recourse they had. I was also bringing this up to you. I think a fascinating part of this is just reflecting on like what a relic from a different era that Jonathan Quicks contract is, right? A 10-year deal, which is obviously like legally impossible now under the currency, but a 10-year deal that had zero trade protection baked into it at any point in the deal. And, you know, this, And then this is the, the king's have every right to do a trade like this because he had no

protection against it. But it's fascinating during the time now where seemingly everyone gets at least some sort of a modified no move or no trade or a 10 team, five team list or whatever, or at least like a window where for a couple of years it kicks in. I can't remember the last time I almost saw like a four or five year deal, let alone a longer term one that had no trade protection of any kind. So this truly is like a, it's from a just a completely bygone. there on. Yeah, I mean, it's the nothingness of it too. Like even the, even now it'll be like

a weak trade protection contract will be like, oh, they've got a little bit of no trade calls where they can pick 10 teams they can go to or whatever. Like just like the fact that matter, there's not, there wasn't even anything even minor in there. It's just like, not here's 10 years. Like, well, no, no, not even that. It's like five teams. It's like generally, like five or 10 teams that you can't go to and the blue jackets probably if that were the case. I mean, you know, people weren't expecting it to be this bad at the start of the year, which is when you file those lists. But yeah, yeah, okay, let's end. We've got a couple more minutes here. I do want to quickly before I let you go talk about the stars, because I'm wondering if you still have old Jim Nill's phone number, if you can call him and wake him up from the nap he seems to be taking. Yeah. I do have Jim Nills phone number. Jim's a good man. He's also been incredibly, so they made the trade.

they they they very part of my heart died seeing a daddy garyanov not pan out yeah speaking speaking of an end of an era i mean my goodness no and like it was uh yeah it was kind of one of those where it's like the the final trade of it wasn't the wasn't the like you could see the writing on the wall coming but i guess when it finally happens you get sad and you miss that what could have been with denis garyanov and it's kind of funny like they trade for dad anov and dadanov comes in and actually scores a really pretty goal right away and it's one of the few guys that actually played well in that game against Vancouver. They need to do something, right? Like you look at the stars need to do something right now. They have, there's the whole like, ah, well, trading for Dadanov really was

all about trading Gurionov away and bringing a piece in where the coach, Pete Dabwe trusts Dadaanov, he didn't trust Geryonov. And he, and, he, and, you traded away a guy you weren't going to qualify anyway so it was just and you saved a little bit of cash base that's what it was and so the the stars need to do something honestly like we like they need whether it's swing super big and go for jacob chickren whether they need to get another forward whether they need to do something i definitely don't think they need to quote unquote become tougher to play against which is what i've seen the rationale for tyler bettuzzi when i watch this dallas stars team play i that's not the first thought that it comes to mind

You know, you mentioned the saving the cap space. I'm going to put on my Brian Windhorst cap here. Why would the Dallas Stars make this trade where they get the Canadians to retain salary when they didn't need it to facilitate this trade? Why have the Dallas Stars sent down the two Fredericks roughly 40,000 times over the past couple weeks? I got the folks from Cap Friendly to give me the math on it that they had saved. I call them the FredX transactions.

So between the FredX transactions, they have saved 54K in cap space. There we go. Between 34 on Carlstrom, Fred Karlstrom, and 20K on Frederick Olson, moving Fred's back and forth and save the half a half. Why would the Dallas Stars be doing these things? It's funny because I'm not sure. I don't have faith that they're going to do this. I really, if I was already stars, I would though. and I wrote this up.

When we did the trades we'd like to see on the podcast earlier this week, I linked Nick Schmalt to them because I thought it made sense from like a playmaking perspective. The more I thought about it by the time I wrote up that piece for our website, E.P. Ringside. I talk myself fully into Jacob Chirker and as like the thing they needed to do. Yeah. If they sent away Anton Hood-Obin's expiring deal in this trade,

they have roughly $5 million in cap space, which very, very neatly slides in one Jacob Chikrin into their roster. And I don't know. I know you wrote about this as well in terms of like what they should be doing. I know we also did talk about, I think last time I had you on briefly, but just watching this team play, I know it seems kind of counterintuitive to be like,

well, they need more, they need more offensive pop so they should bring in a defenseman. But I just looking at the way they play, and watching them, I can't help but think that just entirely replacing Ryan Suter's minutes with Jacob Chikrin would instantly make them such a better team. And it's pretty much the one thing they could do that could actually give me faith that they can make a long run. I don't really see anything else on the board that would really kind of convince me of that.

Even just adding Tyler Bertuzi, I don't think that's what this team needs. Yeah. No, yeah. Yeah, for me, Chikrin's the ad if you're Dallas. And that's the space you go down. And the other thing, if you're Dallas, just from a benefit of, moving of a moving chickering if you get chikron and all of a sudden you may be now i know jim's philosophy is you can never have too many defensemen so it probably wouldn't happen but then you could

start looking like okay how many people want to get tougher to play against and because you don't want a yanni hockey pop or just like just it just you just talk about like if you if you start going down the if you do this then you can do this things of possibilities that would be that would be nice. Yeah, I mean, he has two more years, which are very cheap. And then at that point, he's 27. And at that point, Ryan Suter and S. Lendell's deals come off the book. And all of a sudden, you have $9.45 million to reinvest in a left shot defenseman that might be available.

So, yeah, it's, I mean, listen, 24 first, Thomas Harley, Hoodobin's expiring, and then take your pick between, like, Riley, Demyani, Antonio Strangelo, any forward prospect they have, basically other than Stancovin and Bork. just call it in right now. Like I've seen people be like, well, the coyotes are Bill Armstrong's overreaching here. He's overplaying his hand. It's like he seems to want two first round picks or an equivalent to it. And I feel like a first and Thomas Harley and then another forward prospect is what he's going to get. I don't know. And that's and the other thing, the other thing that people keep forgetting is he doesn't have to trade like, everyone's like, oh, he's overplaying his hand.

He's like, he doesn't have to trade him now. He can trade him at the draft. So if you, if you, like that's the. I know. but I want this to happen now, Sean. So, no, my point is not to you. My point is you're making a fair offer. The amount of people who are like, oh, you can,

you can low ball the coyotes because he asks to get something. He doesn't have to get anything done. Chickren can not play the rest of this week. And I'm like, okay, well, now we can just trade him. We'll just trade him at the draft. So the offer you said is a fair offer that should be made. And I hope it gets made because it would be great. Yeah, I would like it.

All right, Sean, this was fun. it's always tough recording these shows during these like peak hours of of craziness in that hl trade deadline and waiting for something to happen but um i'm happy with with what we were able to cover here uh i'll let you quickly on the way out let the listeners know where they can check you out and uh give you 30 seconds to uh to plug some stuff yep check out the uh the substack it's a shapshot it's sean shapiro that subsec and uh check that i get the thing on yarslav askura that we have today. I have some stuff coming this week. I'll write something off that Dylan Larkins signing tomorrow probably. And as always, check us out over at EP Rinks. We've got a lot of stuff there. And we've been

running a million miles a minute. Okay. Well, this is a blast man. Thanks for coming on for the listeners. If they enjoyed this, we'll be back tomorrow. We'll do a we're doing Tim Omeyer to the New Jersey Devils Deep Die, which will be really fun. And then on Friday, we're stretching this thing out and doing a two-hour show of the PDO cast covering everything that happened at the national trade deadlines. Look forward to that. In the meantime, thank you for listening. Thank you for coming along for the ride. And we'll be back soon with more of the Hockey PTO cast on the SportsNay Radio Network.