The Hockey PDOcast - Draft Combine Chatter and Offseason Storylines

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

Harman Dayal joins Dimitri to discuss his experience at this year's draft combine, and what people were talking about in Buffalo. Then they take a look at some offseason storylines and teams that could be active this summer.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.

Lessing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich and joining me here in studios, my good buddy, Harmon Dile. What's going on, man? A lot. It's been a crazy time. June's always so many things going on.

It feels like the new cycle doesn't stop. And I honestly kind of like the pace. It's a nice sprint right into mid-July. Well, you've been sprinting the entire time. I mean, you've been churning articles left, right and center as you've been kind of, you've been moving away from just purely connect stuff to kind of a more of a national scope, and I've been enjoying all your work on it. So we're going to discuss that today. I thought a good starting point for us, though, would be, you've had a week or so now, I guess, to unwind since being in Buffalo for the draft common. But I thought I'd kind of get your takes on that and sort of what the buzz was on, I guess not on the floor, maybe in the suites.

I don't know. I don't know what the setup was like there, but I'm sure it's like a nice congregation of the hockey world, right? everyone comes. I'm sure you're hearing a lot of stuff, chat, or rumors, stuff like that. So I thought we could try about that a little bit. Yeah. So right off the bat, it's fascinating that, as you mentioned, I think the congregation aspect, especially with a lot of top agents being there, is by far the most important part of the combine. Like the actual physical testing, because it was my first combine. So look, I know you don't put a ton of stock into that. But I still figured combine week, like the physical testing must be an important component, must be smack in the middle of the

week. No, it's legitimately an afterthought. It's on the Saturday and teams are there for the whole week. You see all these general managers, all these agents, most of them are like, okay, Friday, combine's next day, we're flying out. Legitimately on Saturday, the day of the physical testing, you have maybe five general managers left and what they basically have is on the ground floor sort of level of the combine. Each team just has their strength and conditioning personnel. So first of all, I thought that was really interesting to where for these teams, I think the biggest takeaway is actually getting to meet these prospects in person, the interview process, if you really like somebody, take them out for dinner, also get a chance to meet with agents like that week.

For example, there's a little restaurant on the seventh floor where all, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, kind of just, like, chill there. And so, like, that's a restaurant where Brasanne and Cheval, Shevillel have sat down early in the week and, you know, they were basically like, yeah, Dubois's not signing here, right? Right. It's a lot of that sort of thing going on. And I mean, in terms of draft-related chatter, I think the most interesting thing for me was with Mitchkov.

Now, of course, this is my first time at the combine, so I don't know how much I should read into some of the chatter and the buzz. So an important qualify there, I'm not reporting anything. But right off the bat, it seemed interesting that based off of what people were just kind of talking about there, I'd be surprised if Mitchcoff goes top five at this point. I think there's a good chance that it'll slide out of the top five. Now, with that said, I don't think he'll slide a whole lot beyond that. Like people, you know, a team like Vancouver at 11 being like,

ooh, could Mitchcoff slide there? I wouldn't get your hopes up. But it was sort of interesting to hear a lot of, you know, hear a lot of buzz that, you know, all the chatter around him was just around the negatives, right? And I don't know if that part of it's, if you're a team that's drafting later in the top 10 trying to get in. You're like, oh, I would never draft this guy. I stay away from him. So, of course, I'm taking it with a grain of salt.

But, man, there were a lot of sort of question marks and uncertainty around Michkov. And that's just a continued theme of what we've sort of heard going into the combine even. Well, I think a big sort of piece of context there, right, is there was initial concern about like the lack of obviously in person viewings on this season in terms of actually playing. Then there was concern that, oh, you wouldn't actually even get to talk to him at all in this pre-draft. process. I think part of that has been alleviated at least a little bit because I think since then it's been reported that he's actually going to come to Nashville and he's going to meet with at least a handful of these teams before the draft, which I wonder if that'll sort of alleviate some of those concerns. It's interesting you bring up that top five though because Bob McKenzie just released

his big board. And I believe he has Mitchkov fifth on his list. And generally he is pretty good accuracy with those things. And if you look at the betting markets, which are generally, really pretty indicative of how things are trending, Michkov is still the favorite to be the fifth overall pick, according to the odds. So there's a lot to consider that I'm sure he easily could slide a couple picks there. I think any sort of possibility of, you know, there was some buzz there where when Columbus got the third pick,

he was like, oh, Yarmos a bit of a loose cannon. He's not afraid to do something against convention. I think that ship has sort of sailed in terms of that third or even maybe a bit too risky for San Jose at four. but I think as soon as you get to Montreal at five, I think it becomes seriously in play. Yeah, and that's where interestingly, for me, it was after those big centers,

like initially that was my thought was, okay, Montreal seems to make a lot of sense in that spot. But again, you actually heard Montreal, like not a lot of buzz with them in Mitchcove. And again, who knows, right? This time of year, you don't know, you know, what you can trust, what you can't. Part of me wonders if, also just generally speaking,

And this isn't specifically related to Montreal at 5. But when we have this Mitch Cove discussion, now I think the conversation has almost started shifting to people are kind of picking apart his game a little bit. And oh, the lack of competitiveness and the defensive concerns and all those things. I think there are two factors that play there. Number one, I think he's been in the limelight for so long

that I think his game is starting to get picked apart to a degree that Will Smith, for example, his game would not get picked apart. Right. Second, for the teams that have concerns about, let's say, the contract, right? Let's say you're a general manager and you don't have the longest rope. Yes. In your own mind, you're thinking.

You need to have something sooner rather than later to show for your efforts. Exactly. So that aspect and whatever your concerns are, I almost wonder if now some of these teams are trying to almost look at his game and there's an element of confirmation bias of like, creating more justification not to want to take him. So I find all those dynamics really interesting because again for me I think on peer talent that he absolutely unequivocally should be top five player in this draft class. So I'm like that to me is still by far the biggest wild card.

And I don't think coming out of the combine there was any more certainty around what's going to happen with that situation. And honestly like having had discussions with. other teams beforehand too like other teams don't know either other teams don't have a sense of it right a lot of times with some of these prospects if you you know have conversations with scouts or or whatever teams will at least maybe have an idea of what others are thinking and they hear a lot of the buzz before people on the outside do like i'll give you a great example um when barit hayton got drafted really early by arizona and it was a big shock for us it wasn't a shock for teams right i had a chance

to talk to kennel holland after and he's like yeah we we heard that buzz but just generally speaking with Mitchcock people don't really know what's going to happen they like even internally there's a sense of we don't know where he's going to go so i thought that mystery that uncertainty was still a really interesting takeaway what other what other things were because we're going to have a lot of time to talk about michchkov here especially once the draft comes we kind of actually have more clarity on where he goes um what other sort of stuff were people talking about it i find that you know because you wrote up an article about it in terms of sort of like a sample of some of some of the interview questions and kind of what teams are trying to glean from that. Obviously,

it's fraught with a ton of error in terms of like you're doing a 15 to 20 minute meeting with an 18 year old who's like level of confidence on that in that setting might wildly vary and might also not be indicative of all of their character or their personality or what they're going to be like as a player, of course, right? So you get this wide range of outcomes there and obviously teams are trying to accomplish different things as well. I don't know. Like what were there any sort of like interesting takeaways or potentially like people who were getting a lot of attention for good or bad reasons stemming from that interview process. Yeah, I think generally when it comes to the interview process, every team takes something

different away. Every team approaches it differently. And it's so interesting because some teams will have, for example, a room with all their scouts, GMs. And it's like an intimidating sort of when you're just surrounded by all of these people. and look, sometimes they might want to grill you straight up because they know these kids are well coached by their agents. And so a lot of times it can be about throwing guys off. But other teams might take an opposite approach and go,

our best shot at actually getting to know this kid and getting him to open up might be to just have maybe two people in the room, casual, informal conversation, have a warm sort of back and forth and try to open the guy up that way. And there are really strange sort of differences that you hear, even in terms of like the legit takeaways from those interactions because like one story that came up was, so Nick Suzuki in his draft year, there was at least one team that walked away from the interview process thinking this guy, we don't think he has what it takes

to be a leader at the next level in the NHL, despite all his teammates obviously raving about him. and I think like it's just like wow that's a crazy conclusion to draw and it's just because in that sort of setting Suzuki maybe didn't fit the mold of like the strong eye contact right right the firm handshake the loud personality that you expect in a typical captain or whatever and I think that was honestly one of my biggest takeaways especially talking to people in the industry is a lot a lot of times teams go in to this interview process having a guy in mind that they really like.

And then they just draw the wrong conclusion about him, take him off the board, take somebody else. And that player that they passed up on because of the interview ends up becoming a really good NHL player. Yeah. Well, I guess the most classic example of that that I can think of is the Matt Barzal story, right? Where he was like very off putting the teams that interviewed him because they were straight

up asking him like, all right, should we take you or this guy that was in his draft class and he's like me, right? And then people were like, oh, this guy is way too cocky for like. our taste, he's not going to fit in in our room or whatever. And then I believe the team that obviously traded up to get him at 16th overall, New York Islanders didn't even interview him in that entire process because they obviously didn't have that pick. They traded Griffin-Rinehart.

Well, that's a classic example of so much of it comes down to interpretation because some team might look at that as cocky. Another team might look at that is this kid's got such a high level of self-belief. That's a level of belief you'll need to overcome the adversity in the NHL and you want players with that type of swagger. Of course. Right? So it's like total pole opposites.

I think it's necessary. Yeah. For this profession, right? Like you're going to overcome a lot. You're going to need to face a lot of adversity, but also like a lot of self-doubt, but also like doubt from the outside, right? If you're going through a slump, like there's all sorts of scenarios you're replaced in and you need almost like an unreasonable level of self-confidence to be successful

in a lot of cases, right? In a lot, like, and this isn't just even hockey, but any industry, whether it's music, whether it's, you know, UFC, like, whatever it is, if you look at the people that are at the top, a lot of times they just have an almost irrational level of self-confidence and belief, and that's what has driven them to becoming the best at what they are. So 100%, I think you have to be careful not to read too much into the process because another sort of example that came up is the classic,

if a prospect comes from, you know, either his father or his uncle or somebody related to him, played in the NHL, and some of the stories you hear is, you know, that that prospect might walk into the room and his family members might be, you know, have played with a scout or... Of course, yeah. There's always some sort of connection.

And so the prospect comes in and first of all, coming up, he's used to the hockey industry, so he's not going to be nervous and he's going to have the strong handshake and the good eye contact. And then the first couple questions might even be like, oh, like tell your dad, I say hi.

How's your uncle doing? played with him back in the day in 89, like all these things. And so the prospect naturally feels comfortable as opposed to a guy who, you know, comes from a different socioeconomic background, maybe didn't even anticipate having a shot to play in the NHL until very recently and knows how much is at stake. He might be nervous and that, again, might not be indicative of his actual ability at all. So I think that's one of the biggest realizations,

especially in a 15 to 20 minute setting. there might be more mistakes made in the process. Right, than positive gains from it. And I'm just, I would just be curious to know how much teams have started to learn from getting burned. And, um, and, and some,

you know, some teams have evolved and they just use it as like a, we're going to get to at least see this guy. And so that way, if we end up drafting them, at least we've met him in person and had a conversation before. So, um,

every team approaches differently. And some of the draft interview questions, too, Like Montreal has by far the, the strangest reputation when it comes to this. You talk to a couple of their prospects. First of all, they ask every prospect what animal they'd be. What's your answer for that? Sorry?

What's your answer for that? The funniest one I heard from the prospects is a mama bear because mama bear is protective of her cubs. Right. You're going to stick up for your teammates. Of course. Heard a lot of wolves because I think Kobe Barlow said a wolf because he's comfortable both hunting at a pack and on his own. Interesting. Like some of these were also just straight up weird.

There was one where it was like from Montreal, you have a mission to shoot down, it might be slightly butching this, but something of the effective, you have a mission to shoot down like a submarine or something and you're sort of on the ocean or whatever and your friends are in trouble. They might be drowning.

What are you going to do? Are you going to shoot down the submarine to finish the mission or are you going to save your friends? It's like, or like, Or like another one was you are in line at the ATM and there are a couple of old old ladies in front of you. And some guy just cuts the line. What are you going to do? I'm scared to think what NHL teams would think is the right answer for that.

Yeah. Oh, the one Kail O'Delius got asked last year was, would you rather, again, by Montreal, would you rather pick up $10 off the seat of the toilet bowl or $50? like literally in the toilet and I guess the right answer is $50 because you're willing to go to the dirty areas I guess like legitimately I think that's what they would have been looking for

you know I don't think it's necessarily actionable one way or another because he's been so firmly entrenched it feels like in the third slot throughout this entire process behind Bedard and Ventili of course but I've heard very rave reviews about Leo Carlson throughout this process purely in terms of like how

committed for like a young player he is to his craft in terms of getting better and obviously I don't think it's necessarily a negative to be the other way right like as as an 18 year old it's okay to have other interests there's stuff beyond look at Nicola Yoakish perfect example absolutely how many this guy does not care about like basketball is not his main priority at all and it's like how many teams would meet a guy a prospect like that and go And be off put by that, of course.

Yeah, the whole Dougie Hamilton thing, right? Like, instead of going to Moxies with his teammates, he's interested in going to the museum and stuff like that. Like, there's, of course, it doesn't necessarily matter. But just purely, like, I think something that pretty much every player is going to come across is a lot of the stuff that's worked for you to get you to this point. Once you come to the NHL will no longer be as effective, right? Like, you still might be able to get by with it, but you won't be the star player that you were previously

just doing that one thing. And so there's going to need to be. be a certain level of commitment to the craft in terms of like not only working on your game physically but also like tape study and and being willing to take on different roles and integrate different skills into your arsenal and so everything I've heard about Carlson is like all he does is hockey essentially and like I find that very enticing he's going to go third I assume regardless but that's just something that I've heard throughout this process in terms of him specifically I'm sure that applies to others as well.

But I just thought that was an interesting. Another one other prospect that I think sort of of recently and he's had a lot of momentum going even into the combine is Tom Wolander because he had a strong performance for Sweden at the U-18s. There's obviously some recent to bias with that. I think for most of the year he was projected middle to late first round. But obviously he has that momentum.

And then you meet him at the combine. And this guy, first of all, it always helps when you're well built. look strong, look lean, especially as a right shot defenseman. I'm sure a lot of teams are automatically sort of salivating at that prospect, but also his confidence level, like when you speak to him, this is a player who seems very laser-focused, very charismatic, and that's not always the case with who speeds coming over

just because their English might be something that they're working at, but Will Anders was amazing, very light-hard. And on top of that, I think one thing that sort of stood out about him is most defensemen that developed from Sweden stay in Sweden, but he's made the commitment to go to Boston University and playing the NCAA this fall. His reasoning, first of all, that's a very sort of interesting decision, right? And secondly, I think teams, like when I spoke to Wendland, he said teams like that when they had that conversation about him going to the NCAA right away because his logic was alex, get more development reps playing big minutes. I will get a chance to get accustomed to the smaller ring size quicker. And just in general, the cultural sort of differences with North America, I'll be able to adjust

a lot faster. I think teams like that decision that he had to go to the NCAA and just knowing his persona, I'm sure he left a really positive impression, which in combination with the momentum that he has coming out of the U-18s, I really really, think that'll boost his draft stock. Where do you think amongst the other defensemen that he ranks? It's a really interesting one. Because it seems like Ryan Bacher's like entrenched as number one on a lot of

Yeah, I don't think there's a consensus on the second. To be totally honest, because I know a lot of, I know there's a lot of buzz around Sandine Pelica, but of course he's an undersized offensive guy, so, you know, that could throw a wrench into it. Demetri Simishap, on talent should be, in my opinion, the second best defenseman because he's a six-foot four guy that could skate, defend. I guess it it it and this will varies a lot not only from organization organization but like analysts to analysts in terms of how you weigh uh like tools or projectible skills versus like actual

present day production and I think that I mean I don't think there's necessarily a right answer obviously if you're producing right now like that that's a good thing but I also don't think it precludes you like I understand why you'd be like all right well if there's tools here for us to work with we can mold this player into something that can eventually produce the way other. there's are right now. Yeah, and so, I mean, it could be Simashev. It could be Willander in the eyes of some teams. Because for him, at this point, I, you know, I'd expect him to go top 15,

especially because he's a right shot guy. I mean, those types of players, teams always reach for them. And it's really interesting because this is a draft class where, you know, when you spoke to scouts around the time of the draft lottery, because of how forward heavy it was, a lot of them went, I wouldn't even be defensivement taking or I wouldn't even be comfortable

taking any defensemen in the top 10 just based off pure talent but I did sort of you know some digging into it and it's it's rare I think you'd have to go back to like the 70s for the last time you had a draft class where or the early 80s for the last time

you had a draft class where a defenseman did not go in the top 10 and I think teams just have the positional need and they'll sort of reach and overdraft for them but it is interesting because overall, I think next year's crop of defensemen is a lot more talented. And I wonder how many teams will forego potentially best player available and leave talent on the board, especially with some of these wingers and might end up regretting it.

That's a legit thing I think about. What if you extend that top 10 framework to top 11 with no team at 11th in mind that is obviously in need of a defenseman within their organization? Yeah, I mean, and that's where there's, been a lot of buzz around Vancouver and in Willander. They obviously took him out for dinner that week. It fits an organizational need. But there's so many different ways this class could play out. The one thing, if you're Vancouver and Zach Benson falls to you.

I'm sorry, but if you take Willander head of Benson, that'd be tough. Well, Benson's ninth on Bob McKenzie's Big Board, as I said. And that's, I think that's like fair. Like, I would even have him even higher. that but I've also seen certain rankings that have them like in the mid and late teens right and I think that's that's way too late because what's one big takeaway that we saw I mean all year if you just been watching hockey but especially this postseason like the value of being able to carry the puck into the zone and then turn that into a scoring chance is is such a rare

commodity that's so valuable and like Benson is right up there with anyone in this class at doing exactly that I just I don't in terms of the upside of that talent acknowledging all the because of his frame and everything like that, I just do not understand how you could, once you get into that 10 range, how you could justify passing that out. Well, especially with the tenaciousness he has, also being one of the best four checkers in the WHL.

This isn't just a guy who is the typical, skilled, undersized winger. He's got all that skill, all that hockey IQ, but he's also got an insane level of competitiveness, the ability to win battles. This is a guy with legit all-around value. He's really good defensively. And so to me, that level of skill set to be able to get it, you know, towards the end of the top 10 or at 11 even, that would be a home run sort of cut in terms of the potential upside there, especially because it is interesting that, you know, I was thinking back to the 2019 class.

And of course, it's different because they're totally different player stylistically. But you also look at Cole Cawfield at the time, you know, people looked at. him as undersized guy that doesn't skate very well. And so despite him typically being ranked in the top 10, like consensus there, some even had him as high as 5, 6. He ended up going to 15th to Montreal, right? So that's why I wonder with these crop of wingers, especially in a loaded class,

whether he's the type of player that just based off profile is someone that could be available to a team like Vancouver were, you know, 11. Not only did Caulfield that year, I remember fall to 15, but there were a couple of defensemen that were taken right ahead of them that it felt like it was purely like, all right, you don't actually think this is the best player available. You're just drafting for either need or for the fact that you think a defenseman is more

valuable in this draft slot, and that's why he fell, right? Like, otherwise, if all positions being equal, I imagine even those teams would have taken him ahead of those players. So I think that might be a good sort of lesson to learn in terms of thinking about where Benson might go in this year. class and the value that could present to a team like the Canucks. Anything else before we go to break here on the combine or conversations you had around there? No, I think we covered it pretty well.

Yeah. Okay. Harm, let's go to break here. And then when we come back, we're going to switch gears a little bit and talk about some off-season stuff to get people ready for that. You're listening to the Hockey Pediocast, as always streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Big guests and bigger opinions on everything happening in Leifeland. Real Gipper and Born.

be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're in the Hockypdio cast, Scott Harmon and Dial here in Studio Harm. We talked a bit about sort of the combine and the draft process in part one of the show. Let's move on to some more off-season stuff as we get ready here for what should be a fun couple weeks of player movement and stuff. You also recently put out a piece that was kind of looking at the most interesting storylines for this off-season to get ready for. I'll give you the floor here. You can pick anyone you want. and we can kind of go back and forth in terms of whether it's player or whether it's team

situation, something to kind of be like, hmm, what this team decides to do or what this happens with this player could really have a domino effect on the rest of the moves. Yeah, I think right off the bat, there's so many different directions we can go. For me, Colorado is interesting. Yeah. Because they now have certainty that Landis Cog is going to be on LTIR for next season. So that gives them an extra $7 million to play with. I think after you count for potential RFA deals,

they'll still have a decent chunk of cap space to work with. How do you even account for RFA deals considering the uncertainty around Byram's deal in particular there, right? It's almost impossible to account for because you could go in two wildly different extreme directions with it. Yeah, and that's part of what's so interesting about Colorado's offseason is like how do you approach a guy that has so much promise and potential and if he's healthy is a legit top pair defenseman,

but he gets hurt a lot and has concussion histories with Byron. It's tough. So, yeah, I mean, right off the bat, that's a really fascinating question mark in terms of do you go bridge or long term and that's going to dictate how much cap flexibility you have. And then beyond that, you also have Devon Taves, who's a UFA at the end of next season. I think part of Colorado's decision-making process for this summer should begin with, okay, what are we going to do with Taves or do we feel comfortable being able to extend him because I look at Colorado now and you're going to have to resign Byron presumably

at a significant race from his ELC. And then if you're keeping Taves because he's been such an essential piece, his cap has been 4.1 to this point. Like that's going to be a significant bump and you already have a lot of blue line talent. So it's like, is one of your defensemen like Sam Dward expendable, especially because you need help up front but you can only then you don't want to move Gerard

before you know that you have Tay's locked up long term and the other side of it too is there's also the side of the argument where it's like Gerard is cost controlled now he's not nearly as good as Taves but with Taves can you afford to pay him what he's going to be worth on his next

deal and if not is he a chip that you might have to monitor monetized instead of losing him for for nothing. So it's like a lot of uncertainty you're on the back end. And I think the domino effect of that sort of then impacts how much cap and trade flexibility you have to upgrade your forward group,

which I think is their biggest need. It is certainly. It's a very tricky thing to try to navigate because, you know, McKinnon's extension is kicking in this year, right, as well as going up to 12.6. I don't see a scenario where as scary as it is to say, all right, we're going to potentially trade Sam Girard to improve our forwards and then maybe

lose Devon Taves next year. I don't see a scenario where, and I would think they would view themselves, even though they've already won that cup two years ago now, they're firmly in their Stanley Cup window here, right? Like when you have Nathan McKinnon and Kail McCar, you're obviously, you should be taking a bit of a longer term view because you're hopefully going to be trying to win a Stanley Cup for the next four to six years at least as opposed to just a one-year deal. but also like once you have those two guys you owe it to yourself to give yourself a best chance you can win a cup and i don't see any scenario where you trade away devon taves and come out better for it next season because i mean not only the four the four one he's playing at but he's just such a valuable player to them that i don't you can't really fill those minutes like it's one thing as they are well we have sam gerard but they're just such different players that it's almost it's almost irrelevant yeah in that case and so as scary as it is it is

is if I were them, I would almost have to view it from the lens of we're just going to try to feel the best team we can next season and then sort of deal with it after that. And whether that means retaining Taves on a long-term extension, that's a different conversation. But I almost like, I think that's the only way you can look at it. Because otherwise, if you're trading him and trying to get too cute with it, I don't love the scenario you kind of box yourself into doing that. Yeah.

No, that's totally fair. The other side of it, too, is when it comes to the cap, situation. You're going to have some money to play with this summer, but how do you weigh a scenario where, like with Landiscag, are you operating as if he's going to return and be healthy again and his money is going to come off of LTIR for the 20, 24, 25 season? In which case, how does it approach the types of players and the contracts you sign in terms of would you then prefer to add guys that have big salary, but only a year of term left? so that you can potentially navigate it,

or is it a scenario where it's like, we don't even know if Landis Cog is going to be back for the 20, 24, 25 season, we'll cross that bridge and deal with that situation when we get there, especially because we're a team that has attractive contracts, and if we have to, we can move pieces around and clear cap that way.

But that's an interesting sort of sidebar too, is you know you're going to have the flexibility for next season, but what are you assuming is going to happen with Landis Cog and his contract beyond that? Yes. Yeah, I think having won the 2020 Cup also buys them a lot of leeway here as well, right? If it was a continuation of losing in the second round every year and then losing in the first round this year,

I think it would be kind of a different tone of conversation, whereas this way you've at least bought yourself a bit of leech that way. But I don't know. I think they'll be aggressive, certainly. I think there's a bunch of things they can do. I'm planning on doing hopefully a show with our pal Thomas Drans here next week, hopefully kind of trades we'd like to see. And I imagine the abs are going to be very friendly centered around a lot of those packages and interesting things that they could do. But, you know, they were weirdly quiet at the deadline.

I think part of it was still a bit of that lingering uncertainty about whether Landisog was going to be back and whether they could use that full seven or not. And they ultimately just basically wound up kind of, you know, all they did was acquire Lars Eller essentially, right? And that was the gist of their trade deadline moves. In hindsight, probably should have been a bit more aggressive in terms of trying to improve their forearms. I actually wonder if that was intentional. I wonder if they looked at that.

and went, we've had so many injuries, we've been so banged up, our team doesn't quite look the same, so much uncertainty around Landiscag, like this might just not be our year, especially because we went so aggressively all in the year before that we don't have many assets, this might not be our year. Let's restock so that we can go aggressively

at things in the offseason and at next year's deadline. I wonder how much of that was maybe strategic. Yeah, and they did keep their first in this year's draft. Which I expect they'll be able to use. I doubt they'll be drafting a player and then go to the other team. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Let's keep this draft going. I'm going to give you a team. Let's go back and forth. Sure. Yeah. Okay. The Seattle Cracken. So they were one win this year away from a Western Conference finals appearance.

Their HL team came one win away from winning the Calder Cup, right? They lost yesterday. They only have 60.5 million in cap commitments. if they choose to buy out Chris Drieger this year. Now they have a bunch of RFAs to deal with, right, Daniel Sprong, who had an awesome year for them, Morgan Geeky, Vince Dunn, who's going to be due for a massive pay raise,

Will Borgon. But there's a lot of flexibility there to add. Over the next two years, next summer, they're going to be clearing $13 million in Eberley, Wendberg and Justin Schultz. The following year, they're going to clear 13 again

in terms of existing contracts they have. And so I'm very curious to see how aggressive they are in trying to build off the success they had this year and potentially improving their team, right? They have their first, they have three second rounders in this year's class. I imagine they're not too eager about trading away a bunch of draft picks for a roster player because they're still trying to kind of like build out their organization. And also by all accounts, their draft last year was phenomenal, especially with the four second rounders they had.

And so, you know, they probably feel good about infusing their system with talent with those picks. So I don't think they're going to all of a sudden be like, oh, we're going to package all three of these seconds for some players. can help us now. But the point I'm trying to make is they have a lot of different ways that they can pretty much be in on any single player that's available on the trade market this year. And so I'm very fascinated to see how aggressively they pursue any of those guys. Yeah. And this is where I think one potential sort of, I mean, there are a couple of needs you could sort of address. My initial thought was maybe the back end because when you look at this past season, I think it was around.

mid-March when I did a statistical look at every team's top pair and Seattle's ranked number second in the NHL in terms of goal differential. Now, a lot of that was PEO-driven. So I'm expecting regression there because as much as I like Don and Larson, do I expect them to be the second or third-best top pair in the NHL? Year after year, no, I don't. And then beyond that, you also have Carson Sussi presumably walking. He played on the third pair. and you and with Alexiak Borgon that's a fine second pair but it's not amazing right so and this is where you and I were sort of talking about talking about it the other day like a Matt Grizzlic

would make a lot of sense in terms of if you're trying to find a left shot defenseman with riker Evans sort of coming into the fold and having such a great year in the AHA like my initial thought had been what if they go after a guy like a Hanifin but then you know you know I talked about it when we're like, uh, probably doesn't make sense. And I looked at Evans and I was like, man,

he's promising he's 21. He could, he could make an impact soon and you're already paying big money to Alexiac to done as well. Probably don't need to spend big on another lefty, but this is where, you know, whether it's Grizzlick or,

you know, forebort, probably more so Grizzlick in Boston as a cap dump D. They need to ship salary out. It wouldn't cost you a lot to, um, to acquire. And one of those defensemen could come in there,

give you more depth on the left side. side and be legitimately impactful. It just sort of depends on what skill set you're looking for. If you want more of a dynamic puck mover, somebody who can drive 5 and 5 results, the Grizzly is perfect for that. If you're looking for more of a big body, shot blocking, penalty kill type,

then for a board could be a fit. Either one of those guys would be cheap and the biggest advantage of those guys is only have one year left on their deals. This isn't a case of you're having to go sign a free agent and you're going to be worried about how that contract's going to age long term. Right. Yeah, it'll be a very like Carolina West approach, right?

To use some of that flexibility to just be like, all right, we'll take this good player and just use them and then not worry about the long-term applications of it because there'll be a UFA again and then we'll just keep doing it. Yeah, especially because it didn't cost us a lot. We're just sort of, this is our way of using our cap space as a weapon. You know, something we saw with them this year, I think your natural inclination would be to say,

all right, the most logical area of improvement for them would be to add some sort of like high level game breaking offensive talent up front, right? Because it was a great story that they had so much scoring depth and they were like rolling their four lines and we saw them use that to their advantage in round one against Colorado in particular where they're like polar opposite teams. But in the postseason you kind of bump into a bit of a ceiling at some point where you don't have like someone who can just create effortlessly for others against any competition. Right. And so you'd say, all right, well, whether it's, you know, whether it's a center or whether it's one of these wingers that's going to be available

theoretically on the trade market this year, Seattle would be interested in that. Their barrier to entry in their forward group is so high though, right? Like it's, and that's kind of the problem they bummed into with Shane Wright this year where there was a lot of talk like, how can you not get this guy a lineup spot on the Seattle Cracken? And then it's like, well, you look at their actual forward group and it's like, they have 12 really good NHL players we're playing there. Like it's really tough to carve out a spot for yourself. And so I'd be curious.

is to see whether they'd be interested in potentially consolidating a few of those into a higher level player and then trying to fill the depth elsewhere. And actually what they do with Shane Wright, whether they use him as a potential bargaining chip or whether they play the long game because I believe he, unless he makes the crack in next year, he has to go back to the OHL, which is just absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, what a season he had. He played 24 AHL games for them this year in the playoffs.

In the regular season, he played eight AHL games, eight NHL games, 20 OHL games. What a mess of a system that he can't just play full time in the age. At least he got these postseason reps for Coachella. But yeah, I mean, I think they can go any number of directions. And that's an exciting reason for why I have them on my list here. What's the next storyline to watch for you? One thing I just wanted to quickly out about Seattle is if they add somebody in terms of their forward group, it has to be somebody you look at and go, this guy could potentially revamp or power play.

Because their power play, I believe it ranked 22nd in the league. this year. Like that's, they're amazing five on five scoring, but power play because they don't have that elite weapon. That's where that shows.

Beyond that, St. Louis is really interesting to me because that's a team that when I look at their blue line situation and you go through Nick Letty, Torrey Krug,

Paraco, Falk, all of them had really bad seasons last year. They're all signed with a, I think at least three years of turn left and they,

I believe all four of those guys have no trade clause. So because of that back-end contract situation, I would look at that and go, that's a team that should be looking to retool. Shouldn't be too aggressive about wanting to turn things around quickly. But on the other hand, it doesn't seem like Dogger Armstrong is just going to sit idly by. I mean,

around the deadline, we've already heard about them, potentially using the two extra, two extra first round picks that they had and there were sort of buzz around them and could they go after a Meyer or a Chickren and at this point I would be surprised if they kept

all of their first rounders I'm really curious to see how they approach it because I could see a scenario where they look at what went wrong last year and go well we're still only a year removed from taking Colorado deep in round two and giving them a tough fight.

We sure our blue line and goaltending had a down year, but we've brought in a new defensive coach, Mike Weber, to hopefully revamp things, and that could problem solve things, and we know Justin Falk can play way better than he has, and we know Colton Perico can play way better than he has, and if we make an addition here, and I'm like, I could see how they look at themselves and might be, aggressive in how quickly they want to retool things and try and win in this window with

with thomas and kairu i'm fascinated to see how aggressive or patient they are yeah i mean they have picks 10 25 and 29 as you said i i'd be pretty surprised if they make and then keep all three of those picks uh they were aggressively in unmyre and chikrin it's the blue line's a big problem like having 27 million committed next season in the in five guys if you include scandella he expires after next year and then the four other guys who are obviously going to be much tougher to shed their salary if you choose to um that's a problem because their forward group is already highly intriguing at the very least right with thomas kairu they got ran on a one year deal still buchnevich like i like the forwards a lot but it's going to be tough with that blue line

unless you get a taker on one of those contracts to kind of work around that and build a team that's more than just sort of like a exciting high scoring team and actually get them back to being a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. Now, I know people around the league are very interested in the state of the central division next season and are viewing that as like every team there is almost going to, I wonder if they're going to be a bit more aggressive because they're going to talk themselves into, all right, well, the quality around us isn't that high. This is an opportunity for us, especially if the Jets become big sellers, right? All of a sudden, that's going to open up another playoff spot there. So I don't know, I'm very curious. I think they will be aggressive And that makes them a great pick

So this was a solid choice by you But I'm not sure what the actual moves are there Beyond getting out from under one of those defensemen contracts Yeah, and for me, I My honest belief is they should just stick with the process Stay patient user picks, restock their system And I just think the back end situation is insurmountable I think that's

You can't win with that in my opinion But look, I could be wrong again they're bringing a new defense coach. I mean... Yeah, we'll see about that. We'll see. Okay, my next pick, the New York Rangers. So right now, by my account,

they have 66.5 million committed to seven forwards for a defenseman and one goalie. They have Keondry Miller and Alexis Lefringer as RFAs. That the following summer, Kako, Lindgren, and Schneider are AFAs. And how they navigate this will be interesting because I am the number one leader of the Keondre Miller fan club.

And so I think it's almost necessary to get him signed for as long of a term as you possibly can. That's going to bump up his AAV, obviously, especially since you're buying peak seasons. And anything, I think any contract that's signed that's longer than two years this offseason is going to come with a bit of a bump there as well because I think everyone's sort of aiming for that summer of 2025 as like a massive cap jump as we've seen with some of these contracts. So if you're getting a Keandre Miller to sign for a seven or eight year deal, I assume that's going to come with a. pretty high salary as well. And so whether they're able to sort of finagle that and how they build out the rest of the team will be something to watch for me. And it's the same situation in Edmonton with Evan Bouchard with like, man, I, part of me,

like, I don't know if worries is the right word, but I just don't think they have the cap space to sign them long term. And they're in even more dire situation than the New York in terms of their lack of flexibility. So if you can only go short term, especially the difference between Miller and Bouchard is Bouchard's going to play PPP one. And he could rack up a ton of points. He just had 17 points at 12 playoff games.

And so his counting stats could be juiced. And if you only sign him for a year or two, you could end up with a darnel nurse situation again where it's like we bridge this guy when it would have been more ideal to lock him up at a more reasonable long term. And now we're staring at a potentially massive contract what are we going to do?

So that kind of, it's interesting parallel sort of situations there for both teams that are in a window to win now and at least in Edmonton situation, especially the timeline of dry settlement McDavid's deals. I'm sure they'll just go, like, we just have to, we have to grind him down and go for a bridge and deal with that problem later. I'm curious what approach New York takes because I'm sure at this point, Chris Jury is starting to feel of pressure. There's a lot of riding on next season. You make the coaching change. You know the ownership group isn't a patient one. Sure, the Eastern Conference final run the year before was great, but you had a first run exit.

And again, it's funny because when a team sort of exceeds expectations and has a final four appearance, it's great on the one hand, but it also resets the bar, resets expectations. Everything else below that is unacceptable. Yeah, exactly. So I worry about the Rangers in terms of, especially with how strong the East is in general

and some of the holes that they have on the roster. The biggest thing is they're buying out Barkley-Gudrow, right? I haven't checked the math on that. Okay, well, is it... A buyout the next two years actually saves them, like beyond just his money, saves him $200K as a surplus next year and then $100K the following year

because of the way his contract was structured. So you save 3.84 million this year, 3.74 the next year. Then in 2627 is the only real top year where it's 3.65 of dead cap charges. But the thing is, he's got what, four years left on his deal at like 3.6. He's 30. And the next two years are the most expensive ones of the bunch in terms of base salary. I just, unless you could talk someone into thinking that he was actually an asset for them, which I guess is possible because people around the money.

the league seemed to like him. And I guess he has that championship pedigree. But beyond that, we've seen how expensive the price can be of shedding a one or two-year deal. Now, with all that in mind, four years, with the actual salary, the team, like a team like Arizona would obviously never be interested because they'd have to pay him so much the next two years. I just don't, I shudder to think what the actual like compensation would be to just get

off that contract via trade. So I think you almost have to buy him out now. maybe New York still views them as a net positive. So maybe they would be like, oh, well, we can't justify doing that and they would keep them. But they have to clear money somehow to accommodate what I think Yandre Miller is worth and what they should be signing him to. Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, I had thought of the good draw a possibility more so as like if a team somehow still views him as an asset and therefore it wouldn't be a pure cap dump. Like that's probably like I hadn't really considered the buyout option seriously.

I'd be curious with Lavellet coming in. Like one thing that he stressed about in his press conference, introductory one was this idea that they need to be way harder to play against. Yeah. That they, you know, like all of those talking points, they don't have a lot of that on their roster and Barkley-Gudra would be the poster child of that. So does that change something?

I don't know. So I'm going to watch for. Okay, one more. Do you have one more team that you're interested in? Yeah. I think in general, though, like three rising powers in the Atlantic Division as a group of like who comes out ahead in terms of Buffalo, Detroit and Ottawa. I think Buffalo's obviously on paper the closest to taking that next step. I think they're probably only a top, one top for defensemen and stable goaltending away from taking that jump.

All three teams have a ton of assets. All three teams have a ton of cat flexibility. And it's funny because Detroit is probably the team with them. most needs and the furthest away on paper right now, but they have the most cap space. And, you know, I think they have four first round picks over the next two years. And I think they have three second rounders this year that are all consecutive. Yeah.

So they have a lot of draft capital at play here. And there's so many different needs they could address. So, and then Ottawa as well, if Pierre d'Orion is still here, I mean, he needs to make the playoffs next season, right? Like, it's been a long time of this. especially when you go out and you the year before trade for Alex to break it now you make the chicken trade it's like all right you're clearly pushing to win now and this is a new ownership group this better this better freaking work i like i like how you made it sound like pierre d'orion's life is in jeopardy it's like if he's still

with us uh curious to see what he's going to do yeah i mean no especially with detroit like steveyserman took that calculated step back at last year's deadline in trading late philopronic trading way Tyler Badoosie trying to get as many picks as he could for them. And then the press conference he gave after where he was like, yeah, we're, we've looked around and we're actually behind these two teams that we're sort of trying to measure ourselves up against. Now they were very aggressive last off season. I imagine there's going to be the same amount of incentive to kind of try to add players

that can help them now. So any number of directions they could go. I think Buffalo is obviously the most intriguing of that bunch just because their ceiling is so high and also their needs are so much more like well-defined. find, right? And it doesn't even necessarily, like a Chris Hannave if he's available or Dylan de Mello or that type of profile of defensemen that can play sort of second pair right shot minutes next to O one power is enough. I don't think they need to go out and add like a star defenseman necessarily and a goalie just they can play 30 to 40 like average games and they can split the net

with Dev and Levi. These are very attainable tasks and they have the flexibility in the assets to get whoever they want. So I mean, Buffalo, I've been talking about it all year, but if you're not on the bandwagon yet, this is the last, we're about to leave the station here. Like this is the last few weeks before, before it's too late to jump on.

One of the interesting things with Detroit, just in general, and this applies for a lot of teams, is, you know, I looked at them in O-Lent, they should be the team that is, like, really aggressive about trying to find whatever star talent,

you know, shakes loose as inevitably it often does. The problem is when you look at the likes of, of, and this is more generally speaking to, you know, the top players available on the trade market. When you look at Dubois, when you look at DeBronk, when you look at Hellebuck, it's like, I like, I really like all those players. I don't like them at whatever next contract they're going to sign, right? When you look at Debrinket's $9 million qualifying offer, when you look at Dubois, now I don't think he'll actually get $9 million, but him reportedly seeking that figure. And at the very least, because of the Barzell comp wanting north of $8 million, that immediately sort of turns me off. And so it's like, man, it's, it's a tough spot to be in because you have the pieces necessary to go after like a de brinket.

And a lot of people have connected the, connected the two. But I'm like, man, I don't love whatever contract you might sign next. Right. So it's, it's an interesting spot to be in for a lot of teams. And especially from the seller's point of view and trying to maximize the value of these, you know, players that you might ship out. their next contracts are, you know, they worry me. Yeah. Well, Haram, I'm excited for it all.

This is a nice little primer for us as we move forward. I'll let you quickly plug some stuff, let the listeners know what you've been working on because you've been very busy, as you mentioned, and where they can find you. Yeah, I've been crushing a lot of off-season coverage lately. You know, just did something the other day on ranking every team's cap situation,

teams that can weaponize cap space, a lot of stuff on like contracts that could get moved moved out just did today did something today on uh you know five chargers or signings that max bolton and i would like to see so a lot of offseason activity related questions also something on the n hl's 10 biggest offseason questions even related to like peterson matthews's future and whatnot so it's really interesting off season and uh you guys can obviously check my work out there at the athletic looking forward to a man we'll have you on again soon uh thank you to everyone for listening to us we'll be back tomorrow with one more show to close out the week here on the SportsNet Radio Network.