The Hockey PDOcast - Draft Lottery Takeaways and Matchmaking

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Cam Robinson from EPRinkside joins Dimitri to talk about last night's draft lottery results, what the teams at the top of the board will most likely do, and some interesting names that could sneak up lists.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 HockeyPedocast. My name is Demetri Philpovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Cam Robinson, what's going on, man? Ah, not too much, Jim. How are you doing, bud? I'm good. I'm excited.

We're going to do our reaction show to yesterday's draft lottery. Now that we know the order of the top 16 picks, we're going to do a little bit of fallout, some matchmaking between prospects and teams, and have some fun. that obviously at very exciting times the broadcast itself which should start off with was uh was quite quite a spectacle right like the presentation of execution of it was one of the biggest bag fumblings i can remember shouldn't necessarily be surprised because it's an hl right at whenever they have the opportunity to make themselves look like a Mickey mouse operation they seem to do so but um man the uh i don't know what was your favorite was it the what they did to the blue jackets or was it bill daily flipping the ducks car at upside down. Oh man, given given a way that Columbus was landing at

three there was like I thought that something glitched like on my on my end because I was streaming it through the computer and I look at my son and look I'm like, wait, wait, wait, they just say Columbus at three? He's like, no, they didn't pull Columbus yet. No, I was like, oh no, they just screwed up. I think that that was, you know, at least having the duck foot backwards and upside down was one thing. It's a nice little kick right into the gut for them though, you know, first they lose the Crosby draft. Now they lose the Bidar draft. and they get the flipped over upside down duck foot. It's like, yeah, you guys are, you're definitely second place.

But yeah, they do a great job of kind of make themselves look Mickey Mouse, as you said at times here. Yeah, the upside down logo was the perfect symbolism for not only the year the ducks had, but also how I think everyone feels about that logo and how they need to change it. But, you know, for the blue jackets part, Aaron Portsline reported on the Athletic that it was like some sort of a production error, right, where they fed the wrong line through the teleprompter to Kevin Weeks and he sat in and if true I feel for Kevin Weeks because it was just it was brutal right I was like all right let's go to commercial break but first you could quickly say that the thing you've been waited to see I'll just sneak it in here

before we do so when it's like not even hit on the screen anymore they're showing pretty much the commercials and and what a gut punch yeah that's the best way to put it for Blue Jackets fans in particular right because I imagine there were a bunch of watch parties probably even a big one organized by the team, I'd imagine, and getting together with all your friends, and you're like, all right, we have a 13.5% chance of our lives changing for the next 10 to 15 years. And all of a sudden, not only does that not happen, but in just this kind of passing comment, you find out that you're not even getting a top two pick. And it was just absolutely, but it was going to be a better way. Like, I understand why they pre-record this stuff, right, or why they don't do it live,

because they're trying to sort of do it in a controlled environment where they avoid a worst-case scenario. but then something like this happens. I think it would also do wonders for all the people talking about how it's rigged and looking for transparency. If they did do some sort of a live draw, I feel like, I don't know. I understand the risk involved, but it feels like that would check so many more boxes from just like an entertainment event perspective. Yeah, I mean, people would love to see it.

I mean, it's very convoluted, right? There's a thousand different balls in the blender there. And then it's a four, four ball combination. So you're going to lose some people out of being like, what? Who, four, nine, 12, 10, they need these different balls. So we get a little, a little tough for some people to watch. But like you said, it would, you would be like, you'd be interested in watching. You'd be like, you'd be like playing bingo.

That's a good time. But at the same time, if you're going to, if you're going to record it, or if you're going to do the draw hours earlier and then you're going to sequester all the people that are in there seeing it, why not put the broadcast on even just like a two-minute tape delay so that you can make sure you don't have Kevin Weeks announce who's picking third when he shouldn't. And if he dies, be like, okay, let's go back. Let's, let's edit that out real quick here. It would be a pretty easy solution. So you already, you know, half a dozen people or more probably knew all the results anyways. Just, just lock it up. Just every, put everything on a tape

delay then if you're going to do it like that. But I tweeted it out during the day yesterday beforehand. It's that, you know, some team's going to have their fortunes changed here in an instant and everyone else is going to claim that it was rigged. And it's just the way nature intended it. And that's like all my notifications yesterday were just flooded with, it's rigged, it's rigged. It's like, well, I honestly don't believe it's rigged. It's just the worst case scenario for everybody outside of Chicago. Yeah. I mean, they really should like just milk it and squeeze every single drop of juice they can

out of it in terms of turning it into a whole TV event, right? Like just do the draw live with the layer or whatever. But like after each draw the balls or whatever, as teams get eliminated, you could do like an updated odds of who's still in the running and what they, what they, the likelihood is of it happening and then give the panels on time to to kind of talk about it or react to what just happened if someone did move up or down. So I don't know, there's a lot more from an entertainment perspective that I'm sure they could do. Let's start talking about the actual results themselves then. You know, the Blackhawks were, in my opinion, the team that most

shamelessly tanked this season, right? They didn't finish with the worst odds. They didn't finish with the worst record. That was the ducks. The blue jackets were ahead of them. that regard as well. But I would argue that both of those teams entered the season, not with playoff aspirations, right, but after the Blue Jackets signed on a good row in the summer, you know, the Ducks had had a relatively promising year, the year prior, and then they get feisty in free agency. They add a bunch of guys. They bring in Klingberg and Petrono and Strome, and they spent some money. I feel like both, neither of those teams necessarily went into the season with this in mind. They had some injuries. They played poorly. Things went off the rails, and that's

how they got there. But from day one, the Black, Black, Black, Black, Blacks here were just openly and shamelessly tanking with every single decision they made. And so that's how I wanted working out. And I don't know, I don't think it was rigged, but I think that the league was quite happy to benefit from this happening, right? They certainly didn't get in the way of this being the the outcome because there's a very fair case to be made that the Blackhawk should have never had this pick in the first place. It should have been taken away from them. And the league just that wasn't what happened. And this is this is the result. So it wasn't rigged, but the league isn't blameless here either. No. And I'm sure they are quite pleased with the result, right?

Like him, him landing in Anaheim, but our landing in Anaheim would have been fine, you know, a Western team, but not a big market. Columbus wouldn't have been great for the NHL. Or even in a Canadian team because Canadians already love hockey. They already show up in droves, right? So him going to Chicago, an original 16, a huge market that needs that influx. Now it's it's perfect for league revenue moving forward for TV rights. It's going to be great for everything for them. So you're absolutely right.

And whether or not they should have had this first round pick, it can be a debate because we know how the NHL does things anyways. Like they could have given that punishment and been like, you have to sacrifice a first round pick. But they probably weren't going to say you have to have. to sacrifice your 23 first round pick. They probably have to say you'll have to give up one of your first round picks in the next three years like they did with the devils and the Kovilchuk contract. And then obviously Chicago's going to be like, okay, well, we'll pick the one in three years

from now when our team's going to be halfway decent. So, you know, it does. Like honestly, it was the one spot I didn't want to see Bidar end up. But I was like, why? They've got, they've got championships. They've had their first overall pick. They've had their superstars. Like, why not, why not send them somewhere where a fan base can really find some hope and find and rejoice there that they haven't experienced before. But this is how it is. He's going to be there for at least the next, you know, seven years, probably a lot longer. And it's going to change the face of their franchise in a heartbeat, right?

Like we saw, didn't they sell something like $3 million with a season tickets in the first like two and a half hours after the draft lottery? Like their fans are reinvigorated for next season and rightly so. Yeah. I mean, what was the punishment for the coyotes for their violating testing protocols of the combine? It was like the 49th overall pick in 2020 and then the 11th overall pick in 2021. Yeah, not cheap. The Black Hawk sanctions were a $2 million fine.

And I believe Emily Kaplan just reported right before we started recording that they've already sold like $5 plus million in new ticket sales in the less than 24 hours since this lottery. So yeah, that's certainly a choice. Okay, so from the Broward perspective here, I guess part of the problem for me when you do tank as aggressively as the Blackhawks did this season, right, is that you're ultimately left with pretty much nothing in the way of roster players to build around. Like, it's kind of a total start from square one approach. The positive is that they have, what, 40 million in cap space this summer, I believe that Seth, Jones and Connor Murphy are the only players that they have signed to NHL deals for 2024 or 2025 at this point. So if you want to take it through the lens of, all right, well, we've seen with expansion teams like the Cracken or the Golden Knights that not having any players, but having

a ton of cap space can sometimes be more valuable than being capped out with a kind of average to middling team. And it all depends on what you do with that flexibility. I'm kind of curious to see how this changes the timeline or what the approach is for Chicago here because there's so much work to do that regardless of what they do this summer, it's still going to be a bad team. But I imagine that there's going to be some sort of an incentive or push to use some of that money available to them to bring in like actual players off the open market that can kind of help Connor Bardard in year one so that he's not playing with Jason Dickinson and Tyler Johnson on the top line next season.

So I don't know what from from your perspective now that they do have badarde secured what's sort of what's the timeline not only a long term one but immediately now this summer in terms of like what the approach should be. I know what I would do. And yes, I would use I would use some of that massive amounts of cab space that they have to go and ink a bunch of one and two year deals. Kind of from that secondary market. Knock out and blow the budget on one or two good players and be like, okay, let's try to be good right now because those players. are going to be 2930, and by the time you're actually good, they're going to be overpaid and useless. So go and get these guys on one or two year deals. You can, you know, get quality NHLers for three to five million a year and then sell them at the deadline and do it all again

the next summer. Because if I'm Chicago, my plan is go get Mackin-Sellbrini or Cole Eiserman next year. And now you're talking, right? Now you've got bad dart and if you can add another super elite piece in 24, you got Frankie Nazar coming. You got Kevin Cochin's. ski in the system to, you know, Lucas Reichel. They have some pieces there, but they need to all come together. This isn't the NBA, right? You don't get badard and be like, all right, let's load up. And this one superstar can drive us all the way home. You need depth and you need a lot of it. So keep accruing assets. Get those guys on those one or two year deals. Move them at the deadline. Like, they have something like what, I think eight picks in the first three rounds this year.

And then they've got six more next year. Like they're doing it the right way. So keep that coming. go get prospects, go get more picks, keep loading it up, keep loaded up. And then when you have that surplus and all of a sudden, Badard's 21, start to take all those things, put them into packages, go trade for a big asset player, go sign that big ticket, 30-year-old, pay them too much money because it's time to make a move. So that's what I would be doing. And if they do that in, you know, four years, they could be a cup contender if they're smart about it.

If not, they might end up, you know, wasting the prime years of Connor Bardard, if they try to push in too early or they make some poor decisions. Yeah, that's going to be, you know, when we talk about Matt Vey Michigalb later, that's, that's clearly going to be a key theme here in terms of maximizing that window. And obviously we know that getting star, even potentially superstar level production from a player while they're on an ELC is about as big of a luxury as you can have when you're trying to kind of construct your roster and then go all in. It's going to take more to build this out, certainly.

I guess it's just, it's so unique because as much as I like, I love Lucas Reichel, right? Everything we've seen from him, he had 51 points and 55 AHL games. In his 23-game NHL cameo last year, he had 15 points. I think he's going to be awesome. I'm a huge Nazar guy. And there's pieces there, they have a ton of other draft capital as well, we should say, right? With another first, four seconds, I believe, and picks over the next couple of years as well.

So there's going to be a lot of infusion of talent into the system. But I was trying to think of, like, other prospects of this caliber in the past 10 to 15 years that have come into the lead, right? And it's a short list, but it's your Matthews, McKinnon, McDavid, Crosby, Stamcos, I guess. Pretty much all of those guys, the common denominator was that their teams had already been at the bottom of the league for a while. It wasn't kind of like the first year that they were at this point. And so when the abs draft McKinnon, they've already had Landiscaug and Dushane high in recent

drafts. The Oilers, Dreisaitle, R&H, Nurse, even Taylor, Hall, you know, Crosby had Malkin and Flurry there. I guess with St.mco's, that was kind of the first year. They wound up getting headman after, but at least that team still already had Marty St. Louis and Vinula Cavalier and, you know, they were bad, but at least they had like good veterans to insulate him and kind of help with that transition just so that he wasn't immediately fending for himself. And so that is going to be an interesting kind of needle to thread here, I guess, for Chicago, right, where you don't want to necessarily box yourself in by taking on a bunch of

bad future money just for the sake of being competent right away, but you also don't want to just do what they did this year and just have like a shell of an NHL team essentially. I do think it does it does lead you to be a bit more aggressive from a roster building approach just to make sure that you have at least, at least good players to like grow with Bajar so that he's not alone. No, I think you're absolutely right. And I hear you loud and clear that you think that they should move their first round pick and Frankie Nazar for J.T. Miller. And that's the clear, the clear, the clear movement that they need to do let's insulate this kid right uh no i think you're right i think that that's that they definitely need to get a whole bunch of nchl players added to this roster that they

don't need to go bare bones and they'll still be bad right especially if they sell them off ahead of the deadline even if they start getting into the market early um that they'll still be bad enough to fall into that top five and then maybe they'll get lucky again you can only win two drafts in five years so maybe maybe maybe they do it again too right and that'll really set the world on fire but uh but no you're ron to insulate them because everyone's going to be coming for dart, right? The little world has been watching them. And the NHL players, they've been hearing all of it too, right? The kids got maybe the best dragon release in the world over Austin Matthews, you know, look at all this crazy stuff he's doing. But what they see is a 17 year old kid who's

5 foot 10 and isn't a crazy elite skater and they're like, I bet you some defensemen are like, I'm a show this kid what's up. Welcome to the NHL. And if you don't have support around him, if you have to play him 20 minutes a night as a rookie night in, night out, getting beaten down like that, that's not going to be good for his development either. Yeah, I was going to say just having guys who can ensure that he actually gets to play with the puck sometimes. It isn't just like, it'll be good for him to develop his game off the puck more certainly and be put in those spots. You're not necessarily going to, regardless of what you do, step in and just be like, all right, like, it's going to be fun and puck possession time the entire game. Like, there's going to

be bumps along the way. But just making sure that you at least have guys who can go retrieve, who can win battles who can get him into some of those spots to succeed. I'm I'm excited to watch him at this level certainly. I think the shot is going to draw a lot of the attention. I put out like a mixed tape of some of my favorite goals he scored last year and the first like 20 of them are pretty much carbon copies of each other. Our colleague Mitch Brown put up a really interesting piece on EPRink side right before the lottery sort of talking and highlighting about Bidar's progression this season and I think that's kind of been a slightly under-talked-about part of this story for all the goals he's put up and the production he's had.

There was some advancement that we saw in terms of like his playoff of Pock, right, finding you creative ways to score those goals when the walk into the zone and just pick a corner wasn't working. Like he was getting to the inside. He was playing off Puck by winning battles in front of the net and scoring some of those greasy ones. He was forechecking and a winning battle. battles that way. And so if that is a sign of things to come in terms of his development as a

player, then the transition should be a lot smoother beyond. Like I have no concerns about him scoring 30 goals from day one next season, regardless of who else is on this roster. But in terms of all the other stuff, the inklings and kind of like little sprinklings he's shown so far have to be encouraging that this is something that's going to be more in his game in the future beyond, like beyond just the goals. Yeah. And Mitch was right about it too, is that, you know, he early on in the season, he could be complacent a little bit because he was everything, right? And it's still flashed throughout the year. It's like, he can't ask him to do everything. And that includes back check sometimes, right? Like, he's just going to cough it up because he's being so creative

out there. But that isn't going to, that isn't going to fly so much at the NHL level. He'll still get that grace because he's going to be the best player on the team and one of the best players in the world pretty soon here. So, but you're right. He's going to have to learn some, some hard habits in his first couple years in Chicago as, as he finds his way in the league against NHLers, it's not going to be an easy league for him, even though he might make it look easy from time to time too. Yeah, I've definitely, when I first saw him live, I was a bit nervous because he mentioned the 510.

That's a very generous 510, certainly a little smaller than that to my eye. But then when you watch him play and the more you think about it, like it seems like he, while the NHL is just an entirely different animal in this regard, I think he'll be better suited to handle the physical rigors of it than you might think at first blush, right? Like just his strength on the puck that I've seen and sort of like his abilities I mentioned to get to the inside and score in different ways. And what a ferocious competitor he is as well, right? It seems like he, and this might be a bit of a learning lesson for him earlier in his career

because he might try to like seek out some of those altercations that he has been doing in the W.HL and it might go a bit differently for him against grizzled NHL veterans compared to how it went in the WHL, but he's certainly not someone who shies away from that either. And so I'm pretty encouraged that right from day one, it's not going to be nearly as big of its transition as we might think. Now, we'll see what is around him, and maybe the team results won't come with that.

But, man, I can't wait to watch this guy play 82 games next season. It's going to be a blast. It is, absolutely. It's been a long time coming, too. We've been watching for a while, so it'll be fun to see him finally step on to the NHL rank. Any other notes you got on Bredd here that you think are relevant before we talk about the ducks and the second pick and kind of move on with some of the other stuff from the lottery? Yeah, I think we've glowed on them enough here.

We can take a step to the next one. All right. Well, so the ducks get the second pick. And I would assume that is going to be Adam Ventilly. I've seen some people make the case for Leo Carlson. I would be very surprised. And if it is Fantilli, it seems like it's going to be a pretty decent consolation prize, right? it is it is it's that you know i was trying to tell people that it's it's it's not the end of the world

if you don't win the lottery but it's a significant downgrade even even as good as adam fan tilly leo carlson mcalfe will smith whoever you want to talk about um very good players but they're not conor padard they're not going to change your franchise like he will um but if it is fantili which i expect it to be um he's going to be a good player and he's going to he's going to be a plug in play, right? He's, I think I would go ahead and say it's about 95% that he's coming out of school. He just won the Hobie Baker. He led the league in the nation's scoring as a draft eligible. I'm not sure there's anything left for him to prove at the NCAA level. So it's time to come out. And they have the luxury in Anaheim, which is a funny thing to sentence to put together

this time, of having a lot of centers. So they can start them on the wing, right? They can, they can start them on the wing and they can they can ease them in a little bit. He doesn't have to be as defensively responsible right off the hop as maybe he would need to in a different situation. Like, but Darb will be playing in the middle as a first year. So he's big. He's got skill. He's got jam.

He's got a good release. He can score from distance. He can get into the dirty. He is what you look for in a guy that you're hoping is going to be a number one center. And that is exactly what they have. And so, you know, having Zegress, having Mason McCavish, having Ryanstrom there to support these guys, too, for a couple more years is it's all going to bleed together nicely. and I imagine long term it's going to be Fantilia and McTavish down the, down the middle,

Zegris with the more freedom to create off of the wing, and then, you know, plug this and that young prospect that they're going to be, that they're going to be getting over the next few years into the mix. And then that blue line, right? They have the top defensive pipeline coming on the back end too, right? So I actually, I actually, if it wasn't going to be Vancouver, I was kind of open it was going to be Anaheim who landed Bajard, because keep him on the West Coast.

I think that would be good for him. and I think that would be pretty good for hockey too, but also all that skill coming up in Anaheim, I think that would be a lot of fun. But Fantelli's going to add a lot to that group as well. Yeah, I mean, with the blue line in particular, right, Drivesdale's going to be coming back ever since missing this entire year. I would assume, like, Zellweger probably should have been in NHL

this season based on what we saw in the preseason from him, Minkicob, Jackson Lecombe, like, there's so much skill on that blue line. And I wouldn't be surprised to see them take a massive step at least in terms of like competence and how fun they were right like there was that stretch uh two seasons ago when they started the year and they were winning a bunch of games but they were also just like catching a lot of people's attention by what a fun style they were playing and then they made a bunch of trades at the deadline to sell off veterans and they fell off and then last year it was just

almost a complete right off they it didn't look anything like that and it was a really miserable experience both for the players playing those games and also for the viewers having to have to watch them I think they need to nail this coaching hire here, right? I imagine it's a spot where a lot, if you're a smart coach and you're available right now, you should be lining up for this because it seems like a pretty cool opportunity to build something special from the ground floor, but while also not inheriting just a completely barren roster either, right? It's a lot of young, high-scale players who you can mold into something special. And so I'm not sure which direction the ducks are looking.

in that regard, but I hope it's an ambitious hire. Like, I hope it's someone who can actually work with this group and try to do something creative as opposed to just some sort of, you know, recycled retrib that's already been with seven other NHL teams and is going to just kind of be doing more of the same. So I'm not sure what they're going to do there, but I really, I have high hopes that this could quickly turn around just with the amount of skill they're infusing into the lineup pretty much from day one next season. Yeah, for sure.

And I think you're right. I think they need to go someone fresh, someone young, maybe someone who hasn't been out, you know, for so long, out of the game for so long, is that he's someone who can kind of connect with some of these guys. So, you know, I look at marks of art, you know, with Windsor, is that maybe he's someone. We've seen what Marty St. Louis is doing in Montreal, that you don't need to have this decades long rap sheet, this resume of coaching pros to be a valid candidate nowadays. I think you want to look for someone who can communicate, who can tap into some of these young players, upsides and their skill relate to them and put them in positions to succeed.

And while at the same time teaching them how to play at the NHL level. And, you know, so I like the idea of them getting someone of maybe a former pro likes of art or something like that or someone who just has that in them. So like you said, an ambitious hire, I think would be really strong. If they go out and they hire Jargallant or Daryl Sutter or something like that. And, you know, it's eye rolling if that's what they decide to do. But I have higher hopes for them for that because I, I think that they have made some wise decisions in this rebuild.

It hasn't, not all their moves have worked out for them. You know, they signed John Klingberg to that one year, thinking that he was going to have a great year and they were going to really cash in and it didn't work, but you take those chances. So I'm with you in there and that I'm hopeful that they make a smart hire here. And they bring someone along that can then make some moves quickly because I don't think they want to be at the bottom of the league again and have another season where they lose their whatever last 13 games of the year and fans lose interest. And it's really tough to watch and to swallow and to play for surely too. You don't want to be bad for too, too long, right?

You don't want your kids living in that toxic environment for too long because they get complacent. They forget what it's like to win. And, you know, they stop hating winning and loving or hating losing and we're thinking and loving. Yeah. You know what I'm saying. Yes. Yes.

They, they learn bad habits. So you want to get them out of that. Yeah. What do you? So thinking of some of the names, I mean, it speaks to where, uh, it speaks the NHL's hiring practices that I'm kind of like, I'm like, hmm, who would be an interesting name for us? You mentioned Mark Savar. What about, I know it's kind of rare to see someone jump from from Major Junior like this without the experience, but man, I'm, I'm very fascinated

at what the Saginaw spirit are doing in the OHL with, with their like offensive tactics and their high puck possession game and sort of the way they play. And obviously Chris Lazarie had the connection with top prospect, Powell Minchikov there as well. I don't know. I would love to see someone. I know they kind of went that route with Dallas Aiken's, right? Like he had coached the Oilers, but it was a very limited stint. And obviously that did not go well. And I was very highly critical of the job he did, especially this season. But I also don't necessarily want to see them just go with someone who's going to sort of be like a defensively minded old school guy either. I want him to swing for the fences a little bit because

it's a unique opportunity where I think Anaheim can kind of get a way. way with experimenting in a way that maybe some other NHL organizations wouldn't be or would be under more pressure to kind of try to avoid. Yeah. Yeah, I think you nailed it. It's, is they got a, I think all teams should start looking outside the box to, to, to really start to explore some of these, these coaches elsewhere. It's not easy to go straight from major junior into the NHL.

It's not easy for NCAA coaches to make the transition because it is a different world, but in a specific situation like Anaheim where it's like, half your team is going to be guys that were a junior 15 minutes ago. It's not going to be that different. As long as they understand and are, you know, insulated with some maybe some veteran assistants, some guys who really some tacticians who know the pro game a little bit better, that I think you can make that work.

You want forward thinking, creative people in your organization, and you want to get them however you can. And so if that's your head coach and you can make that work and you can have some guys to support him, then I think that that's a terrific idea because we are getting all tired of the retreads And when they fail after two years, it's like, oh, big surprise. It didn't, it didn't work with this new age NHLer. Yeah.

Well, I'm watching the Ducks closely. I know that they were, they were a laughing stock this season, and, you know, they finished with the worst odds and they don't win Boudard here. But like I said, I think Fantilli is a very solid consolation prize. And I think the upside is really there. And this could be a quick turnaround. So I will be watching closely. All right, Cam, let's take our break here.

And then when we come back, we'll talk about some other draft lottery stuff and do some other matchmaking between players and teams. You're listening to the Hockey Pedyo guest streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Breaking down the top stories in hockey and Elliot Friedman every day. The Jeff Merrick Show. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here on the Hockeypedo guest, join the Cam Robinson. Cam, let's talk about the Blue Jackets next.

So we talked about the gut bunch of their fan base god just purely from a presentation and delivery perspective from the league. now they still do get this third overall pick and there's going to be an awesome prospect for them to pick from for a long time it felt like the consensus was you may as well just you know write leoble carlson in with with a sharpie there at that spot um i know like will smith's gotten a lot of traction i'm curious for your take on sort of that debate and whether it's something that is going to pick up even more steam as we get closer to to the draft in late june or do you feel like it is just going to be the consensus that we have kind of become used to at this point and it will

be Carlson for them for the Blue Jackets of third overall. It might pick up some steam just because of some of the big publications that are kind of running with it. So there are some big, big outlets they're saying, you know, mocking Will Smith at three or, you know, some some pretty prominent people ranking Will Smith at three, ranking Matt v. Mishkoff at three. Personally, I've, I've, I've long said that if you can't win this draft, the best spot to be is number three because you don't have a decision to make. If you're at number two, you actually have to think about it. Do I want Fantilia or do I want Carlson?

When you're at three, you just take whoever's left between those two. And I think that Columbus is a really smart organization. They have some guys there that we know well that that makes some pretty nice decisions. And they've been doing really calling the draft. I loved their draft last year. And I think that they're going to be very happy to walk up there and get Leo Carlson at number three if he's, if he doesn't get snapped up at number two, which, you know, talking with Jeff Merricko at the year, he knows that some teams liked Carlson at two for much of the year. I've heard the same thing. Those teams aren't in the lottery or weren't in the lottery, though.

So it's a lot easier to say that you like someone at two and you're not going to be picking anywhere near two. So I, I'm not going to bet my mortgage payment, but, but I'd feel pretty confident on putting some. some coin down that if Carlson's sitting there at three, that Columbus will be quite happy to walk up and pick him because honestly, like, if you want to, if you want to bet on pure offensive upside, then sure, maybe you could look at Mishkoff. I don't think Will Smith actually supersedes him on pure upside alone. And then when you look at everything else that he brings to the table, he has the size, he has a power game, he plays the middle of the ice. He's been really, really good against pros all season long. He just made the World Championship team for the Swede. And he's

going to play the middle of the ice with Lucas Raymond. He's looked great in pre-tournament action there with them to get onto that roster. He looks like a guy who could be your number one setter. And that's going to be pretty darn good for Columbus. That's exactly what they need. And he's close, right? He could play on your team next year. And whether or not he does, he might spend another year in the SHL and then jump over. But he's not far off. Whereas if you take Will Smith, you're going to wait. You take Matthew Mishkoff. We know you're going to wait a few years. So for me, you know, they obviously it was a tough night for them, but they didn't fall to four. So at least there's that.

And they can take solace and knowing that they're adding a very, very good piece, borderline elite piece to their cupboards. And that's going to help them a lot. And I'm really interested to see what CBJ does this summer because, you know, looking at their cap sheet, right? They've got some guys that are in the prime of their careers getting paid a whole bucket load of money. it's time to move up, right? This is a team I think that they could go out there and spend some cash this summer and try to make some moves. You know,

I think that they have a whole bunch of kids that are coming up for RFA the year after next. You know, they got Ken Johnson. They got Cole Cillinger. I think Mark Chanko's up for contract all at the end of next year. So they'll want to watch their cap sheet, you know, little close.

They don't want to blow too much money. But I do think that this is a team that's going to look to start to take some steps. And they have some good prospects coming up as well, too. So they're a fun team, and I think Columbus, you know, it's disappointing for them and their fans, but, you know, I think there's a bright future there. Yeah, Leo Carlson is a beast and everything that I've heard especially is like, you know, his appetite for improvement in terms of like how he works in his games and what his priorities are in terms of just like his trading and he just, all he does is hockey would be

like highly encouraging about bringing in a young player who's just going to keep consistently getting better and adding elements to his game. it's I feel like guys like with that profile of kind of especially when you compare them to maybe like flashier sort of like winger skill sets right we just like associate that with like massive offensive upside and goal scoring potential whereas if you are kind of like a bigger center you get almost pigeonhole in this way of being like viewed as too safe so it's interesting to hear you say that you actually feel like he has similar if not even higher offensive upside than a guy like will smith because I feel like that's not necessarily the way it's portrayed and a lot of lot of these prospect rados. No, because Will Smith has spent his season playing against USHL competition, right? Yeah, yeah, he saw some NCAA games to those friendlies and then playing at the U-18s and stuff. Carlson was playing against men all season long and, and he's playing in a middle six role. He's not going to get the opportunity. He's not going to get the puck touches. You slide him onto that national team development program and let him run around with Ryan Leonard

and Gabe Roe and Oliver Moore and all these guys, like, he's going to put up monster points and he's going to physically dominate everybody too. So it's apples and oranges. I think that, you know, people kind of expect, it doesn't matter what league you're playing and you better put up 120 points if you want to be considered an elite offensive upside kid. That's not going to be the case when these guys are playing pro, right? So I think that he has very, very high upside.

Now, you know, is it a hundred point upside? Maybe not. But point a game, you know, point a game guy who can match up and he can drive play and he can play in all situations for you. I think that that's a very reasonable expectation for the peak of his career. and with all, like you said, all the intangibles that he can bring on top of that, yeah, sign me up. He's, he's, he's, he's been flip-flopping right around two for me all season long.

Like, I've lost sleep over where I want Fantilly and Carlson ranked. But for me, those are the two, three players in this draft. And then it's everybody else. And the most interesting thing for me after this, right, if we just assume that it goes, according to chalk, where it goes, Baddard, Ventilly, Carlson, one, two, three is obviously then the conversation about where Mitchcoff goes, which team finally full his there and how far he falls. I remember what you and I did our show after the day after the CHL top prospects right when we were in studio we were talking about it and I was like oh man like the

capitals if they if they totally fall and get high in their lottery this seems like a no brainer in terms of like a transition plan and just and just keeping that going now there at eight it feels like that's probably it feels like someone ahead of them will jump at the opportunity to take him I guess just the question is who I think the blue jackets are interesting from the perspective of, right? One thing we know about Yarmalke-Kleiden is that he doesn't necessarily care about consensus and that he is viewed to be as a GM with kind of an expanded risk profile, I guess, in terms of what he's willing to do and kind of shots he's willing to take. But with a guy like Carlson, it might just be such a slam-down no-brainer that you just have

to go that because he does have legitimate upside beyond just being kind of viewed as the safe consensus third pick. But if it's not that, then we get into the, like the sharks and sharks at four, halves at five. And I think you can make a realistic case for either of those teams for why Mitch Cove's contract status in particular would be appealing to them. And so I'm really fascinated about where that's going to go, how that's going to play out and sort of what you think or what you're hearing right now in terms of like where teams are leading. Because I know that and there's going to be teams outside of the lottery, right, who aren't involved in this that are like sending out smoke screens and they're just basically doing it because

they've got the free time and they're bored and they're not. actually invested in it at all, but I'm from the teams that actually could be factored into this kind of how this is going to shake out. Matt, like you said, I have some connections throughout the league and I, and I like to try to pick their brain and it's all off the record, obviously, and so I'm not going to share what they say, but it's, it's a mixed bank. Like, it's, it's some teams fully believe that he's going to go in the top five for sure, that they wouldn't be surprised if he ended up number two.

Like, that wouldn't shock some people. To be honest, it wouldn't shock me either if a team really, really, you know, that's not. took that that big deep swing on him it'd be a little surprising but it wouldn't be shocking um but then you know i'd say more than half of the people i talked to on the team side think he's going outside the top 10 that the the risk isn't there or the the appetite for the risk just isn't there for a lot of these teams i would be a little more surprised if that happened i mocked him up to washington for the ep rings i mock draft there i gave him to washington because they're not afraid of taking russians um and they know how to handle a generational goal scoring russian um so

If they have to wait three years, they have to wait three years. But like you said, I could make that case for San Jose. I could make that case for Montreal, especially because, you know, they have a couple of first-round picks. And, you know, probably in the top 20 year, the looks like the Panthers are going to go for a bit of a run. So we'll see how late that one is. But, you know, San Jose's got two first-rounders. It's these teams that have multiple first-round picks, it's like, why wouldn't you really take a good long look at that and make a decision like, you know, plan it out, game plan that whole situation. if you're San Jose, okay, what are we going to be in three years?

How can we make, put ourselves in a position that we can slide this 21 year old, 22 year old kid into our lineup that should be a plug and play like 35 plus goals score on an ELC? How can we make the most of this? Montreal, the same thing, right? Like how can we do this? Arizona, right? They all have the option to do this and make it work.

You know, I, if he slips and he gets past eight and if he gets past Washington, then like all bets are off, I'd say. Like, who knows where he's going to fall to? because then the stink starts to get on it where teams are going to be picking it 9, 10, 11, 12, and they're going to be like, why isn't he gone? Let's just keep this trend going on going. We'll take the guy that we know we're going to have next year

that we can roll out in front of our fan bases, the new shiny toy, bring him to camp and have all that good publicity. So, you know, it's going to be the most interesting thing to watch on day one in Nashville there is, where's Matt B. Mishkoff? Is he in the stands? And how long does he sit in there?

I mean, I think once you get out of that first, what three guys essentially pretty much all these prospects you're talking about are probably going to take at least two or three years before they're making an impact on your NHL team anyways right so i understand part of the logic is especially if you're a GM who might not necessarily have the longest longest leash left in terms of being able to play the long game and waiting for some of the some of this to come to the NHL roster so you can show off your fan to your fans and be like see this is what we've been working towards this is why you should buy tickets and jerseys and be excited um I just think that his upside is so tantalizing, and especially in 2023, where, like, it's not

like maybe it used to be from a selling excitement perspective to fans, right? Fans are smart. They have access to the internet. You can YouTube, Matt DeMichkov goals, you can keep track of what's going on with his team while he's playing for his club. It's not like a necessary one of those things where you're like, oh, I'm going to have to go pick up the paper and kind of try to catch up and maybe see what's happening or hear from a friend. Like it's, it's all accessible and available there. And so if you're a fan of a team that's in this position and your team is going to stink anyways for the next couple of years, I don't really buy that as an argument, the immediacy of it. And I think it, and if anything, we've to discuss this as well, but it's a

point that I think is worth hammering. It's actually a contractual advantage, in my opinion, where you have a very specific and defined timeline now for, all right, by 2026, which, we have time to maybe stink for another couple more years, pick high, kind of curate our cap sheet so that we don't have any inefficient bad money on it anymore and time this so that when he is ready to come over, we're adding, as you said, a 21-year-old goal score who's going to be making 950K for the next two years after he burns the first year of his ELC. And that's a massive competitive advantage for you. And so if you play it right, there are going to be some lumps along the way, ones that

you would probably incur anyways, and the potential gain of it is just so much higher than a lot of these other players, in my opinion, that might be playing NHL games or, you know, closer geographically sooner than him. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right on all points. I think that maybe the biggest knock, and this, and this unfortunately goes for all the Russians, is that you don't have a firm grip on their development. Is that we know how they do things in Russia, is that they don't care what your draft slot is. they care about winning games in the KHL and they care about rewarding players who are going to be there long term.

And so, you know, yes, Mishkoff is signed up for three years with Scott. But we saw what happened to him, right? He got shipped out this year because there wasn't room for him. They didn't care about, you know, developing this super young prospect on their team. They cared about winning games. So they sent him out. And he had to go work elsewhere. And, you know, he shone brightly there, but he's going to go back to Scott and we'll see.

Is he going to be getting top minutes? Is he going to be getting reigned the way that an NHL team wants him to learn the game. When you draft a kid out of North America or Sweden, like you have a little bit more control over what they're doing. You get to talk to them. You get to get your guys over there and, you know, develop weight training programs and all these things.

And it's going to be more of a black box. And then, of course, the uncertainty with the geopolitical stuff. Is that like, we don't know, is it going to get better? Is it going to get worse? Is there going to be further sanctions? Are, you know, our kid's going to be allowed to get visas in three years? So there's, there's a lot of things that, like you said, if you're an HLGM who doesn't think you're going to be around in three years. If you don't have that long of a leash,

you know, you're going to be, there's going to be a lot of things to pause you to, to think about taking him. And, you know, that's just kind of the world that we live in. And I think that we're going to see some other Russians slip down the board too. Purely because of that is that it's just the developmental model over there isn't set up to really improve young players unless they're long term Russian players. And it's like, yeah, we're going to hold on to this guy for a while because we can slowly bring them up our lineup, looking to win games, looking to win games, and then when he's 24, he's going to be our first liner, and he's going to be Andre Kuzmanko, and then fine, he can go to the NHL 27 when he's

figured things out fully. Those are the guys who really get the good development in Russia. The young guys, not so much. Yes, but I feel like once we get into four, five and six here, like the sharks, if you look, they have, regardless of who they pick here, they have, I would say, at least two or three more years of pain because, like, they just have so much inefficient spending on their books and it feels like they're still going to have to dig out or that before they finally start moving in the bright direction as an organization. The HABs, it feels like their front office has very, very long runway here to kind of take a longer term view of this. And they also have the extra draft capital, as you said. And then the coyotes have picked six

and 12 and no organization loves deferring payments more than them. And so the idea of not even have to worry about paying this top pick for years down the road, that seems great. and who knows where they'll be playing by then. Maybe it's in a new fancy rank and that's awesome. And so I don't know, I just feel like, especially if he gets to the coyotes at six for them to forego the opportunity of what that upside could be with some of the players they already have.

And, you know, if he's already off the board there and they want to go with someone like a Zach Benson, I would be okay with that too just because I'm like, all right, you guys already have Keller and Kooley. Just give me all of the small skill that you can. I love this. But I just, like, those are the teams that really need to be taking some of these home run cuts

and swinging for the fences. And if he gets past six, I have to admit, I will be pretty surprised, but you're, yeah, you're right, anything can happen.

And there is a bit of a group think as well, where if he starts sliding down the board, it could kind of like, it could just make, kind of snowball it in a way. And it does. We've seen it. And it happens,

fully happens where teams like, hmm, this guy's fallen. We didn't think he was going to be here. We had our eyes on this guy because we didn't even think it was going to be an option. Well, let's just keep our safe pick.

But like you said, with Arizona, you imagine, in three years having a power play unit with Eller Cooley, Gunther, and Mishkoff. Oh my God. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. That does sound like a lot of fun.

I want to see that happen. Okay. Any other, so what do you think are the interesting? So we've kind of done like those top six teams now. I don't know, we haven't talked about any defensemen yet. I'm very curious to see when the first one is going to go off the board. And then how soon the second one comes after that. It's very, I know you kind of noted this in your mock.

is very rare for this to happen, right? Because it feels like we all just, even if it's not necessarily worth it from a talent perspective, defensemen just get pushed up people's boards because of the perceived value of that position, especially if it's a right shot defensive prospect, which the top two ones in this class are. It feels like that those are the guys that typically go higher than you'd even expect or prognostic age is based purely on their skill set or value as a prospect. I'm curious fear of take on when that's going to happen in this year.

year's class and maybe any other sort of final takeaways or kind of matchmaking things you'd like to see now that we do know the draft order. Yeah, like you said, and I mentioned in the mock, is that you'd have to go back almost 40 years to see the first 10 picks come and go without a defenseman being selected. And I don't expect it to change this year. It's a teams just can't help themselves. They don't care. They'll look at it and be like, okay, here's a really good winger that we think is going to be a better player and going to be a legit top six score, like a Ryan Leonard or something like that. But we need a D-Man, so we're going to take a D-Man.

And we've seen it. I went through all the draft list to find out that it was 1985 last time it happened. And you can see all these defensemen sprinkled in at six and eight and seven. They're like, oh, my God, like he clearly shouldn't have been taken there with all these great forwards left, but it seems like we need a defenseman. So I imagine David Reinhbacher will go. It will be the first one off the board. And if he goes by pick seven, I won't be surprised.

It's just teams will value that. does a guy like ASP, Sandeem Pelica, does he go that early? That would surprise me a little bit more because, you know, he's, he's not that defensive, big body type, that hybrid two-way guy. He's more of an offensive defenseman who doesn't have elite skills. He actually scares me the most, even though I like him. I think of a team jumps on him a little early, like in the top 12. That would be, I think, a red flag is that you're betting too much that this guy's going to be

a top power play defender and someone who can play regular minutes and shut down guys on a second pair. So I'm like that because that's, that's really like really best case scenario for him. I think much more likely that he's a second power play type guy and that his defensive game comes to the point where he can play, but not really stand out. So, you know,

I made the comparison to Nils Lundquist or at a Boatquist or Victor Silderstrom, a lot of really nice junior players and guys that we liked and had really good co-careers over in Europe before they came over. Not Boatquist, but, you know, and they haven't been able to translate their game to the NHL as we'd expected. And I get a lot of those kind of tingly feeling things from ASP, too. So it'll be really interesting. Another kid to meet to Simasheb.

I'm really, really interested to see where he goes because he's got the Russian factor. My goodness, six foot four. Skates so, so well. He's elusive. He can shake the pressure. He can move the buck out. He just doesn't have counting stats. And I don't really care if he has counting stats, especially as a draft eligible

playing most of his year in the KHL. To me, he looks like Kandre Miller did, where he's a little raw, but just an athletic, great mover, great size. and if that offense comes along like, holy smokes, you've got yourself a Kjadre Miller, who I love. And if it doesn't, you still got someone who could probably be like a legit, like number three, four stopper who can still skate and move it. But I expect he's going to be there in the late teens. So some team who got bounced early or maybe just missed the playoffs, they're going to have an opportunity to maybe get the best defenseman on the board and someone who I really, really like. He's the top rated guy for me on my list.

But, you know, if I have three of those guys go in the top 15 or Tomer Lander goes in the top. top 15. None of those things will surprise me. And it just means that the teams behind them are going to get a really good forward because of it. And that's typically what we do see in these drafts. What, uh, yeah, you know, the one thing I will say to sign, before we sign out here, um, watching these playoffs, you always kind of thinking of like, all right, what's, what's happening in these games in terms of like skill sets that you sort of need, right? Like, which players could, could step into this type of a game environment. And it feels like an added emphasis in these playoffs games are watching these days has been on, like, like, like,

like just having a high motor, right? Like players who just like constantly can keep moving, giving multiple efforts, winning battles in all three zones. And so you don't necessarily want to be sacrificing pure skill entirely just for a guy who kind of grits and grinds his way in the bottom six. But if you can combine those two, those are highly intriguing players to be adding in today's game. And especially for teams that are picking maybe kind of in that middle lottery,

let's say, between like 12 and 20 or whatever, they might not actually be that far away as a team. Maybe they had bad luck and they could all of a sudden be very competitive next year or a couple years down the road. Are there any players in this year's class that kind of fit that bill for you in terms of like very high motor while also having intriguing skills? Yeah, Ryan Leonard, you know, who used to play the middle of the ice and now he's moved over to the wing and he's kind of this like driving pop shooter who gets into hard areas and he can finish at the net front. But he's also smart enough and he has. that's good distribution skills that he worked so well with Smith and pro.

I think he definitely fits that mold. I think, you know, Braden Yeager, who's got great wheels. He plays the middle of the ice. He's got that great shot, too. I think he can play a little bit harder, and he showed in the playoffs that he can play a bit of a harder game. Matthew Wood, you know, the feet aren't where you want, but they've taken a step forward. You know, he's still being listed at six foot three.

I think he's six foot four now when still growing. You hope he doesn't go too much because too much size can actually be a hindrance. Nate Danielson. Another guy who I expect is going to go earlier in the top half, probably top 20 anyways. One of the older kids for this class. Another center has a pro body, really great speed coming off the arc on the rush,

good defensive habits. These type of guys are players you can imagine at 23, 24, 25 are going to be really impactful playoff performers because they can play that gritty two-way style and also chipping with some goals and be physical. Riley height, not the biggest guy, but my God, he's got great hands and he's got some nasty to him too.

you know, he's mean, he's, he's ferocious, he's got a great motor. So yeah, there's something even called Colby Barlow, too, right? I like him too. He's a future goal score. I love his dragon release too. Like, my goodness, can he get it off in a hurry? That guy's going to score 30 goals in the NHL. And he's already, you know, he's already got a beard like you and I.

He's a man already. And he still probably has some filling out to do. You know, he's probably going to pack on another 20, 25 pounds and be a real low to handle. So there's going to be a whole lot of interesting pieces in that kind of meaty part, that mushy middle of that first round, where it's upside time at that point too, right? You want to, you want to swing big when you're getting into that, into that zone. And there's going to be a lot of guys there with some really big upsides that have some decent, decent floors too.

All right. Well, that was a nice little primer for fans. I'm really looking for myself to diving deep into this stuff once the playoff game slow down a little bit so that I get ready for our third or fourth annual mock trap with me, you and Chris Peters this year in particular because of the format here on the Daily Show on 650. maybe we're even going to split it into like a full week extravagance. We'll workshop what we're going to do, but it's going to be a fun one. Cam, I'll let you quickly plug some stuff on the way out and let the listeners know where they can check out your work.

Yeah, for sure. Obviously, hockey underscore Robinson on Twitter. Do all my stuff with EP Ringsside of lead prospects there. I dropped them off draft recently. I had a Dalboard of Orski film room. I've got a Will Smith film room that I'm working on right now. Loads and loads of Will Smith tape and we'll be breaking down in his game. Yeah, it's going to be a.

ton of stuff coming up on EP ringside. Obviously, you got the playoffs covered there, dim, and we're working the prospect side, and we'll spread to Nashville and free agency, and then see if we can't take a break for the summer here. Awesome, man. We'll keep up the great work. Looking forward to our next conversation here on the show, and thank you to the listeners for checking us out. We'll be back tomorrow with another episode of the Hockeypedio cast, as always streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.