The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 147: VP of Common Sense

Episode Date: February 28, 2017

Micah Blake McCurdy answers the bat signal for an emergency podcast to help break down what the Kevin Shattenkirk means for all parties involved, why every team needs a VP of Common Sense, and how we should evaluate decision-making. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 0:50 The Shattenkirk trade from the Blues perspective 4:52 .. and from the eyes of the Capitals 7:19 Kevin Shattenkirk's contributions as a player 10:15 Is this the best version of the Washington Capitals? 16:20 What were the motives for the Senators? 22:17 The VP of Common Sense 26:20 Jim Benning just made a smart move 30:00 The right time to evaluate a trade 35:40 Something for the Leafs fans out there Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 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.

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And joining me is Micah Blake McCurdy. Micah, what's going on, man? Not much. How are you doing? Thanks for having me. I'm good, man. It's my pleasure. The original plan was to, I did a podcast with Jonathan Willis yesterday, and it was sort of like a trade deadline preview. And the plan was to just let that marinate for a few days and then kind of do a trade deadline recap at the end of the week. But then a bunch of stuff happened, and the Kevin Chattonkirk trade kind of just, it was a really big deal. And I thought it was a good excuse to fire up the podcast machine and do an emergency podcast with you.

no worries i'm flattered uh so let's uh let's get right into it i mean let's get the blues perspective out of the way on this trade because i think it's pretty clear what their motivations were they saw you know they kind of kept their guys uh last year and went for it and made a nice low run but ultimately fell short of their goal and wound up losing guys like david bacchus and troy brower for nothing and they didn't want to go through that again so they just recouped as many asses as they could and getting a first and a second and whatever else. Like that seems like a pretty good return on a guy that clearly wasn't going to be there a few months from now.

Yeah, I don't mind it from St. Louis' point of view. I'm a little bit curious. I don't actually know who they're going to give all those minutes to. They weren't playing him especially high in their lineup. He's basically been a 20-minute guy for the whole season, pretty much. So he's been getting number four minutes, which I think he'll, I think he can do better than that, although he won't do it in Washington. I'm sure he can console himself with the Ws on the board instead of the minute.

Yes. But I don't know who they're going to give those minutes to. And of course, the blues are likely to make their playoffs this year. And so maybe there'll be some storymaking there where they'll have some new fresh blood to attack the playoffs with. And I'm not, I just don't know who it's going to be. Well, I guess you could make the argument that Colin Parake. hasn't shown us that he can't handle 40 minutes a night. Well, but Pareko is already playing above Chattonkirk in the depth chart.

Yeah. And I don't, you know, I don't mind that. I think Pareko is an unusual talent. Maybe part of the point is to you just drop Bowmeister down to a lower role and take relative unknowns and make them much more serious parts of your arsenal. I'm not sure. Yeah. Well, and there's going to be a little domino effect here because they're just barely

holding off a team like the Kings, for example, and I don't know, that's obviously one of the more interesting races to follow right now. And would you still take the blues over the Kings in that race? And I feel like your prediction model still has the Blues making it. Yeah, they do. My prediction model likes the Kings very, very much because they're traditionally weak at precisely the things that don't normally matter very much. Like the shooting percentage specifically is their chief weakness, and it's not the kind of thing which we've observed stick around for really long stretches. In fact, the kings are probably, probably the longest sustained, low-shooting percentage we've seen since the Panthers teams of a handful of years ago.

So there's always, I mean, there's every chance that my models are bad and that there are weaknesses there that are being picked up. But I still think I like the kings in that particular race. part of what makes the blue so safe, though, is that they face is that they face such a minor challenge in their own division. I mean, Nashville is the only one who's close to them, and there's really no threat from Winnipeg or Dallas. That makes it much easier for them to make the playoffs. Right.

And I think that, you know, you'd also agree that, well, there's about 20 games or so left, and one player, unless he's, like, a Crosby or McDavid, I feel like ultimately can only make so much of a difference in that short a period of time anyways? Well, exactly. And it depends a lot on sort of which of the youngsters the Blues have internally decided is going to take the chunk of those minutes or if they're going to try and do it by committee.

And presumably, you know, I try not to rely on the wisdom of general managers, you know, just as a thing. But presumably they wouldn't have made this trade unless they thought that they had somebody to take those minutes. You know, obviously it's a future-looking trade. You know, all those picks are not going to benefit them now. They're going to benefit them later. but they they won't be dealing from a playoff spot like they are not

they won't be completely blind to what they're going to do this year and they must have a backup plan of some sort yeah yeah um well let's unpack this from the eyes of the Washington capitals though because I think it's a pretty it's a pretty interesting little splash they made here I mean the past few years their big deadline upgrades

where guys like Mike Weber and Tim Gleason and um I guess you could say this is a bit of a bit of an upgrade from that but it's like it's also kind of just a gangster move on on brian on brian mcclellan's part because we kept hearing about you know all these ties with the rangers and how shankirk was probably going to sign there this summer and we heard that the penguins were all of a sudden involved in shankirk sweepstakes and the capitals kind of just came out and over in waltzed and just took him under their noses and those two are basically the team's biggest competitors in the east right and i think i think when you look at it from that point of view the tradehood makes a lot more

sense i think you know i mean it's a selling move from st louis's point of view but i don't think the animating sort of drive for the trade is St. Louis's desire to sell Shatton Kirk, even though they were shopping him to various teams. We heard about those deals that fell through to all those other teams that fell through based on those extensions. I think it's correct to look at this trade from the point of view of Washington, who are loading up to a degree that, I mean, much more than any other team. You know, all those other moves that we've seen, you know, Burroughs to Ottawa, the Hansel to Minnesota, they don't exactly count as like,

your division on notice maneuvers. And part of it too, of course, is that looking specifically in the division, the angle of denying the penguins, who are their only really strong competition. You know, hockey's hockey. You can still, like, the islanders could call up Halak and knock off the caps in the first round.

Again, you know, those old ghosts are lingering in the memories of fans for a reason. Like, those kinds of upsets do happen. But I think it's correct. You know, you don't plan for upsets. You plan for strength on strength. You plan for the 80% case. And then you get tripped up every now and again by the 20% case.

So I think it makes sense to say, you know, we are serious problem getting out of, I mean, the major impediment for the Washington cap is getting all the way to the Stanley Cup is Pittsburgh Penguins. And so I think if you know that they have this, or if you suspect, even that they have a specific weakness on defense, that you can stop them or mitigate. gate maybe then from fixing. That adds to the upside of the deal, especially when you look at it in the context of a pure rental, which I think is,

until we see otherwise, I think is the right way to look at this deal. Yeah. Well, I think the player that Shant Kirk is fascinating to me because there seems to be this misnomer about what he actually is, right? Like people just look at his high point totals and just kind of assume that he's,

you know, your prototypical offensive defenseman, who is a liability in his own zone, but having watched him pretty closely for years now, I just, I honestly don't see it. And I don't see anything in the data that necessarily backs that up. I mean, you know, the Blues weren't necessarily using him as a shutdown guy by any means, but I feel like that probably just has more to do with the fact that they rely on a guy like Alex Petrangelo would do that on their team. Like watching Shankirk, there's just nothing about his game that makes me think that he's a weakness

on D. I mean, he skates perfectly fine. He's in good position. he has great stickwork and knocks pucks away and defends at his own blue line. Like I just, I don't know, I just don't, other than the fact that it's kind of just like lazy analysis because people just assume that you can't as a defenseman have high point totals and also be reliable defensively or have a defensive impact. Other than that, I just don't see where it's coming from, really.

Yeah, I don't see it as well. I mean, I presumably watched less blues hockey than you have, and I don't have that coach's eye for skills. But if you just look numerically at what happens when he's on the area, there's nothing to answer the charge. There's no evidence to suggest that he's weak in his own zone. You look at shot locations, you look at shot volume, we look at all the neutral zone measures we can think of.

There's really nothing there. And even look at all the various contextual factors, he certainly was used offensively by the Blues this year. He had about 5% more offensive zone shift starts than defense's own shift starts, which is not small, but it's not large either, really. And he doesn't draw penalties. he draws penalties maybe three or four times

less often as he takes them and so there's you know it's not like he's sort of totally without flaw somehow right that those those stats are both from just this year but but given his deployment you know there's there's nothing there that says you know oh he's a weakness or something

I mean he hasn't been given that sort of shutdown rule and I don't think they'll give that kind of role to him in Washington in fact if anything I think in Washington and they'll use his acquisition as an excuse to be less role-driven, where they'll be able to just say, look, we're going to roll all of our defenders. They're all great. We're stacked absolutely from top to bottom now on defense.

We don't have to optimize exactly who goes out. He can play the first unit of power play if we feel like changing things up, or we can just enjoy him on the second unit of power play, and then five-on-five, we don't have to worry about that, and we can optimize our efforts into other parts of the game. And that kind of flexibility to think, you know, we can just play whichever. defense we want and we know there are no weaknesses there.

That, even just that one area of your team, that's something that hardly any other teams, maybe no other teams can say this year. Well, I hope you're right because the optimist in me would like to think that you're right that they'll just broil their six best guys and just not have any worries about, you know, having liabilities out there. But at the same time, I've watched enough NHL hockey to know that coaches sometimes think in weird ways. And I feel like, you know, it would be a bad look for that.

them if this addition all of a sudden makes Trots think, hmm, maybe as our sixth defensemen, instead of a guy like Nate Schmidt, we'll just use Brooks Orpick because, you know, he's big and physical and he blocks shots and he's going to the penalty kill. And it's just like, I can also see that happening. And I feel like that would be pretty disappointing because if they do go with their top six guys, which are Niskin and Carlson, Shann, Kirk, Olsner, Orlob, and Schmidt, that's as good of a defense combination as there really is in the league. I know. So I agree with that. And I, the only kind of point to that is that I don't even see Brooks Orpick as the liability that people think he's. When you look at his stats, he's also getting, you know, like, you don't see the defensive

liability aspect there too. It's part of what I mean about them having so few weaknesses. I think he's, like, I don't disagree with you. I think he's probably the weakest of that bunch. And so if you're going to roll, if you're going to say, you know, these are our top six guys, these are our top six guys. That's fine. But, you know, but then there's weaknesses like Brooks Thorpeck, then there's weaknesses, you know, like a handful of guys in the name of the league, I won't be mean enough to name. And that's sort of part of the point, right, is that weaknesses are not all created equal. And that some teams, you know, you say, oh, what is this team's weaknesses?

And you say, well, you know, there's sixth defenders or seventh defenders, not quite who he might be. Well, that's fine. And it's, but it's not necessarily the same problem for that team as it is for some other team who might have the, quote, unquote, same weakness. Yeah. You've got to be quantitative about those things. Yeah, that's fair. And I mean, if, you know, they can't really go wrong. And I think that this is why spinning it forward.

Like, I know that the whole is it the cap year is kind of like a running joke online. It's become a meme. But it's, we've, you mentioned the earlier playoff defeats and the kind of the ghosts that are hanging around. And I understand that people will always be skeptical and it'll be the easy joke to make. But like, I mean, first of all, I don't really buy that any of those past playoff failures necessarily have any sort of predictive ability moving forward. But also, I think you can make the argument that this is probably. the best Capitals team we've seen. I mean, last year they were obviously amazing and incredibly successful in the regular season. And that 0-9-10 team was, the ran into Halak was also

incredibly dominant. But I mean, I just looking at this team, I don't see any of those weaknesses, whereas with pretty much every other team, you could at least point to one or two things and be like, I could see how this would eventually trip them up. Right. And I, so I, you know, there was a time when I was really against all these, like, people bringing up old tropes and old ghosts and old memories and, you know, it's easy to be a killjoy and say, correctly, however correctly, you can say, well, you know, there's no statistical rules to all that and, you know, past performance does not guarantee future success, or past failures do not guarantee future failures and all this stuff. But there's something intrinsically fun and intrinsically fanish about that that I

really like. On the other hand, you know, I agree with your point about weaknesses, but I also think that even more, sort of even more basically that you can't sort of flawless your, way to the Stanley Cop, you need to actually overpower your way to get that. You need to have bullets in your gun to take a violent metaphor. You really have to have the kinds of resources that will actually, not

just fail to lose your games, but actually go out and win you games. And in terms of, if you look at its ally, also, I think the capitals are about as good as I've ever seen them. You know, you look at what they can put out on all four

lines, on all three pairings, on the penalty kill as well as on both of their power play units. And then you've got somebody like Hopi, and then, of course, if Hopi is hurt or has a rough game or two and they want to pull him, then you have to go to Grubauer, who's playing almost as well. The embarrassment of Riches there is really embarrassing at every position.

So it's not just that, you know, that the flaws are more minor, but that the overall positives are really, really strong. Yeah. And as, you know, the other thing is you just need, some good luck and unfortunately they haven't had those balances go their way or anything like that and that luck can manifest to solve in different ways i mean one of those is matchups and then looking ahead like it's i don't know it looks like we're destined for another penguin's capital second round matchup which just infuriates me to no end because i'm a strong believer that you should like the capital should be rewarded for having this dominant season that they're having and instead

they're going to go up against probably like the second best team of the eastern conference in the second round and it just i don't know i don't know why we have to keep doing this dance? Well, but it happens every year. The two best teams in the West Coast played each other in the first round last year. Yep. And so there was no, you know,

and, I mean, they had a hell of a series. That was tremendous hockey, an incredible drama. And by the time this time the cup rolled around, you know, people had forgotten all about the Kings because they had been knocked out so long ago. And that's, you know, that's life with, you know, I'm no supporter of the format.

I think, I think Travis's idea about letting the people, people who come, first of all, in the regular season, letting them publicly pick their opponents is my new preferred strategy. Yes. Travel dollars be damned. The pure drama of it alone is too enticing for me. And also, you would have your reward for winning.

And I think that regular season winning is underappreciated, both by fans and by the league generally. And part of why is because, you know, it doesn't matter. Winning a tremendous number of regular season games doesn't actually get you any benefit in terms of your playoffs, not enough, not nearly enough. And so I think the way to do it is just to give people bigger incentives to win in the regular season.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a strong believer in that. Okay, let's move on and talk about the other trade, the big trade that happened yesterday. And I have to be honest, I selfishly wanted to get you on this podcast just so I could hear your thoughts on the Ottawa senators and the move they made. Do you want to hear my anguished screams?

Yes. I mean, it's a disaster. There's no getting around it. I don't see any, you know, I've looked about it from a handful of different angles. Incidentally, I think Burroughs is probably on the ice, is probably a fair bit better than he's painted. But he is old, and what remaining value is there will probably, will probably vanish reasonably fast,

especially if he continues to play Chipoli, as I think he has no other way of doing. And, you know, and of course, you know, if you want to make moves that sacrifice the future in exchange for today, you know, you have to balance those tradeoffs. And I think they did a terrible job of balancing them. Yeah, it's bizarre on so many levels because I've gotten a pretty up-close view of boroughs here in Vancouver. And it's nice, it's actually been nice to see him have a little bit of a revitalization

this year where he stayed healthier and actually contributed it and they put him in a nice position to succeed playing with guys like horavad and berci as opposed to playing with more kind of traditional bottom six guys but like listen he's basically an average 30 an average surliner who's turning 36 years old and maybe the most bizarre move of all was that the senators thought it was necessary to lock up his 37 and 38 year old seasons as well without even seeing necessarily how he looked up close or how he'd perform on this team and I just think like doubling down like that was just an equally bizarre thing. Like just taking outside, like forgetting the prospect that was involved or anything like that,

I think that wrinkle to it was also just crazy to me. So presumably, you know, presumably the extension was part and parcel of the deal. Right. Just like the Shattonk stuff that didn't go through from the last few weeks. So that, you know, which explains it, it doesn't excuse it. And, you know, if you like this, I agree with your assessment that he's essentially, you know, ordinary to decent third liner. And the senators could actually use a fair bit of those

because their body picks have been atrocious. Right. You know, and for the, like, I mean, it's easy to evaluate the players in that kind of glibly like we both just did. But when you're trying to slot guys in, you want to say, well, whose ice time does he take? You know, where do you see improvement?

And so if you put a guy like Burroughs on your fourth line, then the improvement is enormous, especially in Ottawa, where the fourth line is terrible. and if you look at the extension as the price that you pay in the future in order for results now, then it still feels like an overpayment, but you can get yourself in the mindset of why the senators made the deal the way that they did. I mean, they don't have very strong chances ever because of the way that they don't spend. So when they have faint chances,

they don't really have any alternative if they want to have any chance at all of, winning and something cup. They don't have any much choice but to load up such as they can on the chances such as they have them. So from that point of view, I see it, you know, they're not operating in the weight class as the capitals, and so they're not going to make moves that make sense in the same level. And by weight class, I mean monetary weight class. So they don't, they don't have those options, you know, but within the sort of envelope that they operate in, this is the kind of move that you can get. The other hand, of course, is that I, I just personally, and sort of taps into all of my personal biases,

was extremely fond of Dahl and the prospect that they gave up. The, you know, smallish, Swedish scores a lot. You know, that's sort of, you know, if I have a type for hockey fanishness, that would be it. But, you know, you try to separate those sort of fan things from evaluation things. It's also extremely difficult, and prospect evaluation is a weakness of mine. and the graveyards are filled

with the bodies of of irreplaceable men and hockey trades are absolutely littered lousy with amazing prospects who were sure to turn out you know you can't let yourself get trapped that way

well I mean you're watching Curtis Lazare right now and I feel like if you read some of the articles about him a few years ago even it's like and then you watch the player today and how he's producing

there's a massive difference between those two but I think that like the elephant in the room you're right in terms of like I think a week ago or maybe even more recently than that where you got this report that came out that Eugene Melanchic had sort of made it the club's mandate to try and make the playoffs this season and go for a run and it's like I guess that's where this moves coming from but it's just like it's tough to wrap your head around the fact that

beyond maybe just getting a few extra bucks from a home playoff game or two or maybe even potentially winning a playoff round like I just don't see in terms of the big picture what this move does in terms of moving the needle for the senators. Like, if you look at the team they were before this trade and the team they are after, it's a pretty comparable thing. Like, I just don't see it being that big of a difference. I think there's a, you know, I'm not sure that the difference is big, but I think it's an improvement.

I think, I think, Burroughs, you know, if he takes Kelly's minutes, for instance, and also, you know, permits extra minutes to flow to the bottom six that haven't been coming there. I think there's a, there's a perceptible improvement there. I'm not quite sure how high, how large it is numerically. I think, and it's kind of sad and humbling in a way, but I think if you want to look at senators' moves, you just take all of the same logic that you apply to any other move in the league

and just scale it all down a little bit. They're just because of the money that they operate. You know, you're talking about a $2.5 million guy. You know, that's what's flashing out is at the deadline for the senators. Okay, but so let's include, the Dahlin component to this now and say that, you know, just purely from a value perspective, it seems like a bizarre move. And I think that, you know, let's say pure Dorian for a second, viewed this trade and thought, you know what? This is a smart idea. We should do it.

What were the other people in his staff that are surrounding him saying at the time? Like, were they also in favor of it? Were they scared to say something because they don't have that type of working relationship and maybe they're just there to be yes, man? Like, I just don't understand how a move like this passes through the eyes of so many people and everyone just, okays it. Like, it seems like, you know, we've talked about this in the past, but just how much value there'd be for teams to hire people for a relatively and measly sum of money to just basically be ready for when something like this gets kind of brought up to their attention, just be the voice of reason and just be like, no, I think you need to put your phone down, log off and go

for a walk. And I think you'd go a long way and save a lot of money and a lot of heartbreak. Well, I mean, the joke, of course, is that if you were trusted to make overwrite, calls like that, you could be put to use doing a great deal more than just the occasional, you know, son, I think it's time to stop posting kind of, kind of role. Right. You know, it's, it's, you know, it makes for a cute sound bike, but, but it's not, like, it's sort of the eminence behind the throne job description, which hasn't been available since the revolution.

So I don't, like, as for the actual makeup of the organization, I don't know. What little I know about them suggests that they have a small front office, perhaps smaller than they should. Every NHL team that I've ever run across has a smaller front office than I think they ought to, except possibly the Maple Leafs. Although that's, again, not my area of expertise. So I expect that probably the way the decisions were made rests on the shoulders, the mental shoulders of considerably fewer people than you might think. and so the number of people to be convinced the number of people who would have to say yes to a mistake is quite small yeah i mean you watch some of these like behind the scenes looks

i mean the the best example is the that bruin's video that came out when they traded away tyler sagan and it's basically just like a small room of guys that are all just agreeing on everything and i think that's the way that a lot of these guys would want it to be like you don't want to have this disdending opinion and have this you know this kind of confusion in place like i i for myself personally, I think that every team should have a number of different people involved because asking these types of questions is something that every team should be doing rather than kind of just being like, oh, I kind of like this player.

Yeah, let's just do it and not worry about it. Like it seems like given how much is that the line on the line and how much money is involved, there should be much more back and forth is happening than there really are, I feel like. Well, there's a natural instinct towards team formation, especially when you're running a team sport. the number one virtue that you drill into your players is being on the same team we're all together we all work for one another and that that mentality

moves very easily into a we all think the way the same way about hockey we all we all see the same virtues and we all hate the same vices and that you know the line between teamwork and group think I think is really small mentally and so yeah well like you said I think you have to put

policy in place to deliberately combat it, and that's extremely difficult. And that kind of organizational capacity, you know, most businesses, and people love to talk about hockey teams as businesses, you know, obviously social institutions much more important than just businesses, but even as businesses, that's an extremely difficult problem to solve where you get, you get management C-sweets where people all agree with one another, and that's why they got those positions, and then you find that dissenting positions are almost impossible to take. And you get sort of figurehead almost call-like aspects that develop. I mean, that's just natural human organization. Those are problems that people in management consulting have been working, struggling with forever.

I don't think we're ever going to say, oh, you know, we're solved that. We're free of that. It's not like a data science problem that you can just say, look, we know the methods here just fall in line. Yeah, yeah. From the Connick's perspective, Jim Benning made a smart calculated move, and I honestly, I don't even know what to believe it anymore. I mean, listen, he got a lot of flack and a lot of it was from from myself included last year at the deadline where he kind of just sat on his hands and did nothing. And you got to give credit where it's due now because this is the type of really smart gamble that people have been clamoring for where, you know, you look at Dahl and he's 19. He's dominating in the league he's playing at right now.

He's nearly a point of game playing in a pro-Swedish league. And he looked fantastic in the up-close viewings we got of him at the World Juniors back in December. And there's a lot to like here. And he sort of just provides the type of upside that I think that we haven't seen. the Canucks really go for in their prospects? I know you're not a big prospect guy, but it's just like, this is a very, like, very different move from what we've seen Jim Benning do in the past.

And I think that's a positive change for the Canucks. Yeah, I like it from the Kinnock's point of view. You know, they, they get the problem, though, that everybody who's relying on prospects does is that, you know, now you have to sell hope for the future based on somebody that all you get about is a handful of YouTube clips. And, and that's, you know, that's great.

I mean, that's a necessary part of the stage of the franchise that Benning is in. And this is the first, this is the first concrete action out of Vancouver that makes me feel like they recognize the sort of the place in their business cycle where they are. It's been clear for a while, you know, possibly, like everybody has their own taste and rebuilds. You know, there's always that leading edge of the fan base that says tear it down maybe a year or two before you should. And there's also equally the people who say, oh, no, no, no, we're going to, you know, we still have the Siddines, we got to go for it one more time, you know, like two years after they're clearly, clearly past it. So that, like that, it's, it's, those people, like that distribution of voices is

interesting and where the people in charge actually fall on that distribution is especially interesting. So this is the first sign I've seen out of, out of Vancouver that the, that the organization is, is actually on the right page about, not just the move itself, but about making the right kinds of moves. So, you know, now they just have to help you panes out.

Yes. And if you know what, they can just sort of speed, try to be quiet about it. Yeah, but I mean, it's one of those things where, yeah, it's only like a few YouTube clips, but honestly, there has been so little for Canucks fans to get excited about

in the past few years that even, even a couple of grainy YouTube clips will probably go a long way towards getting people excited about the future. Like, I think that this idea that Canucks fans wouldn't support a rebuild has always been so flawed because you look right now and as this team has been trying to quote unquote compete the past two years and failing miserably at it like no one's going to the games people are watching their games on tv way less frequently like merchandise sales

are down like it's just like it's it's pretty clear that fans want something different so i think that this is like the first step in what a series of steps that need to happen but at least you know you got to start somewhere yeah and you'll see you'll see the i mean the trade itself is one but you'll see exactly how far the connects organization. We want to take that point of view by whether or not they suddenly start some sort of blitz around Dahlin or around similar prospects of, you know, similarly aged prospects who are going to come into the team at around the same time. If you get that kind of buzz from the team, then you'll know for sure that the corner has been

turned organizationally and not just, you know, oh, we see a convenient trade. We're just going to do it even though it's not part of the master plan. Yeah. One final point on this trade. I know that a lot of people are going to be like, oh, it's, it's too early to evaluate this trade. We just don't know anything about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, about, and we hear that often when picks or prospects are traded. And there is some uncertainty in it, of course. But I know that you had a pretty great Twitter rant other day about when is the right time to evaluate a trade. So I just kind of want to give you a platform here to talk about that. Well, the point is that every, every trade is always about the future. That's incredibly banal thing to say, but it's still true. And so you can tell interesting stories about trades long after they haven't, and trades that turned out in extremely weird ways make for incredible stories. And journalists especially, but anybody who can tell those stories in a way that's interesting

that are extremely valuable. But if you're talking about judging or evaluating a trade, you know, normally people want to say, was the trade wise? That's a specific judgment that I think is a judgment, not of the trade kind of as a non-living entity, but a judgment about the decisions of the people who made the trade. Did they choose wisely?

So you're judging the judges, which is much more interesting. And when you look at that, I don't think there's any justification for looking at anything that you didn't know when you made the trade. some of those rumors are really fascinating. We're like, oh, it turns out actually that the Jim Benning knew something about Alex Burroughs that nobody else did that the public didn't know.

That might change your opinion about some trade. Actually, they dealt very, very cleverly when they looked really stupid and they just wore the public flag. There are angles of that that come out of trades all the time. So for instance, that, like you're talking about that Sagan video that came out, I'm sure that there were some people who probably thought, oh, you know, now what we've indicated in the eyes of the public. because they'll see the way we made

we made our decisions. And maybe some people did think that. And other people would say, well, you know, now you not only did you make a bad choice, you made it for bad reasons. Yes. That's just what you wear when you do stuff. And you want to, you know,

you want to engage with the public and release your work for public opinion. But if you want to evaluate a trade, I think you have to say, is the person who, or persons who made the trade, were they using correct ideas about the probabilities they were dealing?

with. You know, so Darwin is a prospect, and the prospect are all about probability. Just, what is he going to turn into? But even Burroughs, who's a well-known commodity, you know, his antics and well-documented, his own-eye stats go back for years, is still a question about prediction, right? All of the things that are swirling about burrows are all, you know, in an online sense, are all about the future. You know, he's 35. Will he decline? I mean, obviously he'll decline. Will he decline quickly or will we decline slowly, how quickly, how much, how, you know, what's the, what's the floor there? But the questions are still the same questions as you ask about Dahlin.

What are we going to get in the next, however many years? And that, you know, those estimates are the ones that are being made now by the people making the decisions now. And when you talk about judging a trade, that's what you want to do. So you have to be a little bit careful, though. You know, if you, like, boroughs could easily have two more productive years, roughly the level that he's at now. We see that from 35-year-olds all the time.

and then some people will say, oh, well, that shows clearly that they could tell that he had lots of life left him. Or he could be horrific in a couple years, and people would say, well, he was 35, and we know what people are like at 35. These points of you are equally insufferable. It has to be some sort of, you can't roll with Dyson

and say, well, we knew it was going to come up that way the whole time. This is the sort of thing which makes me start to, you know, Rad and Raven use big words on Twitter. And there's a very big possibility that Burroughs very well could have a couple productive seasons here for the senators and we still won't have like dollen will still be kind of this like dream or this idea playing in sweden and then all of a sudden burroughs is done

playing for the senators and dollen comes over and you know either pans out or doesn't like it's like obviously you need to you're allowed to readjust your thoughts on a trade and how you feel about it in hindsight but when you're evaluating especially GMs on these trades or teams that are making these trades like you do as you said have to evaluate them based on what they knew at the time and whether it was a smart decision to pull the trigger on that trade, I feel like. Yeah, if you want to, like, trades go bad all the time. And if you want to crow in public about how it pleases you that some trade went badly for a team that you hate, you know, go to town.

But that's like, those sorts of like, you know, I'm going to get my knives in stuff. I don't mind. Even if it's petty, just one way of being a fan. And I've definitely done that myself at times. But then there's sort of another angle you, you know, I have this weird, this weird double thing where I, you know, I work professionally in hockey. All of my income comes from hockey. And so, so on the one hand, I, I sort of have a hat that I wear, which is my, you know, Dr. McCurdy, fancy analyst hat where you, where I look crocos with data. And then

there's the, you know, the drinking beer and yelling at the TV, then my team scores had. And you, but, and to a lesser degree, you do the same thing all the time when you're, even when you're talking hockey with your friends. Sometimes you're happy because you're team won, other teams you delight in the sadness of your enemies, and other times you try to look dispassionately at the people who made decisions, you know, without letting, well, hopefully without letting too much

of your obvious biases about fan bases color those decision-making things. It's a problem. It's not easy, but you kind of have to try anyway. Right. Yeah, that's completely agree. One final thing before we get out of here. Let's talk about the Brian Boyle to the Leafs trade because I feel like I'm sure we have a bunch of Leaves fans who have been listening up until this point just waiting for us to talk about it. And I don't know.

Do you have any big takeaways? I think it's a perfectly reasonable trade for both teams. And I'm cool just leaving it at that. But I don't know. Do you see any sort of interesting nuggets here that aren't meeting the eye at first glance? I think it's pretty ordinary all up. I think it's fine for a lease fan to make a big deal about the only. trade that seriously affects the team.

But I don't think it makes a great deal a difference. I don't think there are any real mistakes made. I think Boyle is a capable player who will play in a spot where it'll be useful. And I don't think they give up too much. You know, it's a, like, they can't all be incredibly dramatic.

It's considerably more minor, even than the Burroughs trade, which I don't consider to be an especially major trade. You know, one prospect for one bottom sixer. Yes. I think it's correct to start with Shaddenkirk and then proceed to Burroughs and then finish up with Boyle. But I don't mind it, actually.

I don't mind it for Tampa, you know, who ought to sell and get what they can. And I don't mind it for the Leafs, who, you know, who have a problem at Fourth Line Center. And I think they just fixed it. Yeah. No, I completely agree. Yeah, the Ben Smith, Freddie Goethe combination wasn't doing anything for them. And Boyle's a nice upgrade and he seems like a guy Mike Babcock's really going to like. And they didn't pay.

I approve of mustaches, too. Yes. Yeah, great mustache. and they had another second round pick, so they're not completely milking themselves dry here. So it seems like it's a very reasonable trade. So let's leave it. A tidy bit of business. Yes, tidy bit of business.

Micah, where can people follow your work online? So the easy place to find me is on Twitter. So I'm at Inefective Math. I still never got that math job I talk about. The ineffective math was two ends. You can also find some of my data viz at HockeyViz.com. But if you want to yell at me and people do these days, Twitter is the place. Yes.

Well, thanks for answering the bat signal on such short notice, man. That was a lot of fun. No worries. Thanks for having me. Yes, and I look forward to seeing you at the Vancouver Hockey Analytics Conference, and hopefully we'll be able to do an in-person podcast at that time. Excellent. See you then. All right, chat soon, man. The Hockey P.D.Ocast with Dmitri Filipovich.

Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.