The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 182: This Kind of Thing Never Happens on Marek vs. Wyshynski

Episode Date: July 6, 2017

Tyler Dellow joins the show to discuss the most notable free agent signings, and highlight the biggest winners and losers of the offseason. The list of topics covered include: a disappointing series of moves by the Capitals (5:28), the Carey Price mega contract and whether it was the right bet for the Canadiens to make (16:36), the Stars going for it now and worrying about the contracts they've given out later (24:34), the Leafs underwhelming pair of acquisitions (29:25), whether this is the year the Hurricanes finally live up to the hype (36:17), Jason Botterill's impressive first showing in Buffalo (43:14), what the Canucks endgame is (51:25), and whether the Sharks should start thinking more about the future (55:04).  Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. 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.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl defensive end, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and of course the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

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So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Before we start today's fun offseason winners and losers P.D.O. cast with Tyler Delo, I wanted to get around to a couple of housekeeping things first. First off, I thought we'd do a little state of the union. for the show.

For those of you to follow me on Twitter, you already know this, but I know there's some people that just listen to the show. And I wanted to give you a heads up that we, despite the fact that the offseason is kind of kicking into full gear now and there's going to be less news and activity in the NHL, that doesn't mean, you know, the PDOCats are going to slow down. We're going to stick with our regular schedule programming, try to do two to three shows a week.

You know, the summer is going to be a good opportunity for us to get back, into the adopt a team program where we're going to pick one team for each show and do a little deep dive on them and preview sort of you know the season they just had this off season they had and what to expect them from them heading into next year. The other thing I wanted to get into is I know a few of you out there have been complaining a little bit about the sound quality of the show in recent weeks and that's completely my bad. You know generally a little peak point. behind the scenes in terms of how things go for the show. You know, we record the show, and then I send her over to my producer, and he works on it,

he works his magic, makes it sound as good as possible, and then we run it the next morning, and there's plenty of time there for him to do his thing and not necessarily rush it. But with the, you know, time-sensitive nature of the off-season so far with free agency and expansion draft and even dating back to their playoffs, we've been trying to record these shows and post them immediately. So the sound quality is dipped a little bit because we haven't had the opportunity to edit them and do the usual thing. And now that it's the offseason, it's far less time sensitive content. We'll get back to that.

So hopefully there's going to be less disparity between the volume of my voice and the guests. And you'll be able to listen to it smoothly in whichever manner you choose to do so. And finally, I wanted to give some love to Seekek, who's sponsoring today's show. and, you know, they're both helping deliver this product to you and helping pay the bills, but they're also helping save time and money on tickets for whatever type of event you could possibly want to go to this summer. Obviously, no hockey on the schedule right now, and that sucks, but that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to entertain yourself in helping pass the time until the fall gets here.

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after you made your first ticket purchase download the seekie cap and enter into the promo code pdo today to get started with all that out of the way let's hear the music and let's get to the show regressing to the mean since 2015 it's the hockey pdio cast with your host dmitri philipovitch welcome to the hockey pdio cast my name's demetri philipovic and joining me as my good buddy tyler delo tyler what's going on man i'm unhappy demetri why are you unhappy Peter Sagan got kicked out of the tour We're not doing this We're not doing any cycling talk

Just a little cycling talk I don't I don't know any of these names Or anything that's going on I think you should You should pitch Jimmy James Myrtle On a cycling podcast for the athletic You should all be watching the tour

To France Let's talk about hockey If we have to It's not called the cycling PEDO guys It's called the hockey PEDAO guys Tyler That's because PEDAO probably has no application of cycling. Yeah, is there like a luck-based metric in cycling?

Yeah, if you're trying to do a sprint up the outside and Peter Sagan pops his elbow out and you get hammered into the side barrier at 70 kilometers an hour, that seems like bad luck to me. Yeah, what he said. So a lot of stuff's happened over the past week or so since I last recorded a show. And there's obviously been plenty of player movement with unrestricted free agency getting underway. So I thought the best way to go about getting,

getting a lay of the new land and highlighting some of the most notable transactions would be to just kind of get into a little bit of a, maybe not necessarily binning it into winners and losers per se, but more so just kind of the most interesting teams, with their new configuration and the new players they've gotten or guys they've lost. And I'll start us off because I think that

the natural starting point for the discussion is the Washington Capitals because I'm very disappointed with the summer they've had so far. It's been a little bit rough, eh? Well, the disappointing part, and I'm not mad. I'm disappointed with Brian McClellan is, you know, I've talked about him pretty glowingly over the past year or so here, and he obviously inherited a pretty good situation by, you know, taking over a team that already had of Etchen, Baxter, Knitz of Huxnetsov, and so on and so forth.

But I also thought that he did a really admirable job of rounding out the roster and surrounding those players with a good supporting cast that could help them finally get over the hump, and it obviously hasn't happened yet, but I feel like, I don't know, maybe they just had one too many early defeats for Quinn wins because it feels like this past one just kind of broke them and they haven't been able to regroup in time and make calculated decisions like they have in the past. Yeah, it was interesting. So for people who don't know what they do, they traded Johansson, they signed, like in fairness

to them, they had some lousy spots, right? Because Kuznetsov had the option to go back to Russia, which creates, you know, so he gets the eight-year deal for big dollars, which requires. them to move some other guys out. So, you know, I get that. What I found interesting was, you know, they didn't buy out Orpick. And if you read what McClellan was said when he was kind of asked about this, he was like, well, you know, we like what he can do with our third pair, et cetera, et cetera. I'd love to know how many contracts that they signed GMs like buy out as opposed to contracts that the guy before them signed. Because to me, like, you know, and, you know, he's right.

Like Orpick had a really good year last year on the third pair, but he was really sheltered. And if you're going to expect him to play a bigger role this year, boy, I'm not so sure about that. So it's, but I always wonder if, you know, like going to your owner and saying, hey, you know, that decision I made three years ago. Right. That's right. I'm a check for not playing hockey. I always think that that might be, you know, like maybe subconsciously it's difficult when, you know, when it's a guy you signed. as opposed to a guy the last guy signed. Right.

Well, just like with any other job, there's a certain self-preservation component to it, and I imagine that definitely plays into it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, McClellan had this bizarre quote about, you know, how they went all in and it didn't work out and now they're paying sort of the consequences for it. And there's some truth in that for sure.

You know, especially when you have a bunch of good players, you eventually have to reward them by paying them, and so you get yourself into these financial binds. But at the same time, the reason why I'm not necessarily going to, I'm not willing to give him that much sympathy is because it seems like at least some of this was avoidable and it just kind of reeks of poor planning and a lack of foresight because like if you go on down the line it seems like each this each decision they made had a bit of a cascading effect right so they decide they choose to protect seven forwards and three defensemen uh in that expansion draft

rather than four forwards for defensemen and they lose nate schmidt and i imagine that i'm higher on them than you are because i know um how much you look at quality of competition stuff for a defenseman and you know you mentioned with with orpick who he spent a lot of time with this season they were deployed in a very favorable manner and uh so you don't want to buy necessarily too much into it but at the same time i think worst case he's showed that you know he's a young cheap awesome third pairing guy they can crush it in those soft minutes which definitely has value and so they lose him and that's fine they protect you know a guy like marcus johansson instead but then like they should have realized that they'd have to pay fvgeny kuznetsov which would probably mean they'd have to shed

money, which would seem like the logical fit would have been Marcus Johansen. So then they dump him in a salary dump for what, like 25 cents in the dollar, getting only a second and a third back. And then that means that they either, A, miscalculated what they'd be able to get for Johansson in the trade market and it just dried up on them. Or B, they essentially thought that those picks were worth more than Nate Schmidt. Like, I can't even decide which one would be a worse line of thinking. And like it's tough.

It just seems like a miscalculation on their part. Yeah. it's one of those things where you'd like to see kind of a timeline of what they were thinking and when. Yeah, I don't really have a good explanation for it beyond, beyond sort of, it does kind of seem like, you're right, cascading is kind of the word. Like, you know, like it seemed like step by step. It was like, okay, okay, well, this is the price of that, and that doesn't seem good,

and then the next one would come. So, no, I don't think it's been a particularly good couple of weeks for them. But I don't know, at the same time, you know, I guess I wonder a little bit about their top four now if they're going to slide Orphick back in there, which is what McCloan was talking about. And that, that to me will be the big thing to watch next year. Yeah,

I mean, we haven't even gone into the fact that they gave a 30-year-old TGi-Oci $46 million, which seems like a problem as well. I mean, I don't want to pile on to the capitals here, but all this stuff is related. And it's, you know,

I don't want to have a, the sky's falling attitude on them here, because there's still going to be a real. good team next year they're going to win a lot of games and they'll once again be on the list of contenders in the league but it's like it just feels like they actively made themselves whereas the summer and some of it could have been avoided or at least the damage could have been limited and that's why i i have them as one of the big losers so far in free agency yep no i don't disagree with that i think the oshi thing's interesting right because it's kind of like how much

of tj oshy is circumstance and how much of it is you know the innate greatness of tj oshi and boy like that uh that bumper spot on that capital's first power play unit. It's just like if you're a player, it's like, okay, we're going to put you alone in a bank vault for two hours and you take whatever you want. Like it is a great spot to be in to put up numbers. Yeah, I think one of my favorite stats is that, you know, he played eight seasons in NHL prior to last year.

And if he shot at his career average, he would have scored 17 or 18 goals last season, but instead, you know, he shoots like nearly 25% and scores 33 goals. And then all of a sudden it's much easier to talk yourself into him being, sort of this core piece that you have to retain versus kind of like a luxury card that you can ultimately replace by just putting whoever to play next to Nicholas Baxter and having them benefit with those prime scoring opportunities.

Yeah, and it's kind of interesting too about the caps. Like, you know, I wasn't surprised that they had a hard time with the Leafs last year because they were really a PDO team in the regular season, eh? Like, they shot some crazy number. And it was both their top six and their bottom six doing it. And I'm always a little bit leery when I see

that like you know there's a long history of teams doing that and then coming back to earth the next year so we'll see what happens with washington next year but um but yeah i don't think they're as much the powerhouse as uh as they might have might have appeared to be and then obviously this year's uh this summer's moves don't help yeah that's fair um okay let's let's move on from the caps uh what other team uh caught your eye so far in free agency in terms of either from a positive of our negative perspective. Winnipeg kind of disappointed me. Like, you know, I guess anybody who signed kind of one of those like $4 million

non-descript sort of quote unquote top four defensemen. So I'm thinking about teams like Winnipeg, Montreal, you know, Detroit did it to a lesser extent. Dallas kind of traded for one. Like there's a lot of those guys on, you know, fairly large tickets. and I don't know how much they make your team better. And so if you're, you know, like, I don't know, it seems sometimes like teams just do something to do something, right?

And like Detroit in particular, like I just don't see how daily moves the needle for them. And like last year, if you look at, you know, why they were bad, basically they got caved in when their top, top three defensemen were on the ice. And, you know, so we're going to do, you know, they're going to stick daily in there, who doesn't really move the possession needle, even though he's been okay by goals for most of his career. But he's not a difference maker. And it's just like, you look at it and you're like, man, what's the point? Yeah, I mean, so I made the point on July 1st that I think NHL teams still really struggle with a valuating defenseman.

And a fair counterpoint that I had thrown at me was, well, it might just be kind of a supply and demand thing where there's just not, especially like in free agency this year, they're just weren't enough good guys available. and if you needed to improve your team on the on the back end you needed to bring one of these guys in but i just don't as you mentioned think you know a dmitri kulikov or or a trevor daly just move the needle for you so it's like you're kind of just throwing money at this situation to try and fix a problem but you're ultimately not even actually accomplishing that yeah and it's interesting too like i wonder if we aren't starting to see the salary sort of landscape change a little bit um like you look at the money that Johan, like, because the other thing I'll say is like, there weren't any deals where you're like, holy cow, right?

Like there weren't any like, oh, seven million for, you know, eight years. Like there weren't a lot of those kind of deals where it's like, you know, a good player gets money just bombed on them. And so maybe, you know, maybe the ceiling is coming down a little bit that way. But, you know, one of the things I've been sort of noticing is the amount of players who like sort of high end young players and the dollars seem to be going up so I'm thinking of you know dry sidel everyone at evansompson seems to be talking about him making 9 million uh johansson's reportedly after 8 and a

half and you know like if if the if the ceiling moves on those guys it has to come from somewhere so maybe it comes from those defense men and maybe you don't want to be in the position where you are you are paying a bunch of them well I wonder about

it seems like a lot of NHL teams operate under this uh like they don't understand that having salary cap space is an asset. Like we saw, you know, how it can work out in your, in your favor with the New Jersey Devils where you look around the league and you realize,

you know, a team like the Washington Capitals has to sell off an asset that they surely wouldn't want to and, you know, if they could spend as much money as possible. And so you get a Marcus Johansson for a second and a third round pick where you otherwise probably wouldn't be able to. So it's,

that's why every time on July 1st, when teams just spend just for the sake of spending just so they can have this shiny new toy that they can have a press conference about and sell their fans on as dramatically improving their team. I just think that might not be the best way to operate for a lot of teams in this league. Yeah, well, I don't know.

You look, yeah, like, I agree with that. I just, you know, like, I don't know what Winnipeg is hoping to get at a Kulikov. And three years at big dollars for a guy who, had all sorts of health problems last year. I just, it's hard for me to understand how they're hoping it works out. Well, I would love to hear that rationale as well. I mean, so another defense when they got a lot of money this summer was Carl Ellsner, and I think that I have the Montreal Canadians on my list of interesting teams to discuss

because they've been pretty active and they've been in the headlines. And I mean, is there, like, is there a case to be made that they're going to be better heading into next season as currently constructed than they were this past year? Well, I don't know. It's hard to see it. Like, Radulov left. Aldner came in. I don't see what they did, but...

Well, I mean, they basically swapped out Radulov for Jonathan Druin. I like the Alice Hemsky roll of the dice, the one year a $1 million deal. It seems like that could be a really good bargain if he's able to stay healthy. the Allsner contract is very, I'm very skeptical of it. And I don't know, do you want to talk about the Kerry Price contract? Because I tweeted some stuff out about how I wasn't a huge fan of it. And I got a lot of pushback from Canadians fans, you know, saying, well, what other choice did they had? Price had all the leverage here and they had to pay them or risk losing them.

And I don't know. Like that's definitely true. But at this, at the same time, now they're sort of really locking themselves into this core that they have. it's going to be tough for them to dramatically improve their team moving forward, which is you obviously want to maintain as much flexibility as you can. And so I don't like it from that perspective purely. Yeah, I don't know. I have less of a problem with it.

Like, he's, you know, if you think he's a high-end goalie, he's going to get paid. And if he goes unrestricted, someone's going to cough up for him. And I appreciate that that's not really a rationale for doing it if it's a dumb idea. But the thing is, like he does seem like, he does seem like, a pretty big difference maker. So, you know, down the road does it look as good? Maybe not. But I think it's one of those things where, you know, you're trying to win now. And, you know, like, I don't know, if you look at, like, the really great goalies, like, there's room for them to decline without being awful. You know what the game? So, like, like, you look at Luongo, right?

Like, he's 38 this year. You know, he's not Roberto Luongo 10 years ago, but he's still a competent an NHL goalie. And, you know, same with Lundfus. He might be declining a little bit, but he's, you know, he's still playing very high level late in his career. So, you know, like I think that there's an element of if you're really truly high end, you've got a ways to decline before you're, you know, really not valuable. And so I don't hate the bet from from that perspective. You know, and I, you know, I do have some sympathy for, you know, What are you going to do? Like he's, he's an impossible player to replace. Well, from an on-ice perspective or from a selling it to your fan-based perspective? From an on-ice perspective.

How are you going to replace him? I mean, it's all in terms of relative value, though, right? Like, if you took a slight hit or even a sizable hit in net, but you dramatically improve your team in a bunch of other areas. It depends, obviously. what his trademark would have been like and what you could get for him in return and how you could spend that money that you'd save. But then so what?

You're going to trade him for three guys and like those trades ever work out? Yeah, they generally don't, although I'm also very skeptical on betting on, even though you, you know, you laid out the case for him aging more gracefully than maybe some other players might, you know, betting on a goalie who's going to be in his 30s for that length of term at that price is always something that kind of, I'm just. just wary of, I guess. Yeah, no, that's fair. And actually, you know what?

I just looked, I didn't realize that. I thought he was a few years younger. So that is going to be an old goalie contract. So I don't know. I can see it, but it's, you know, it goes back to something that I think everybody's kind of recognized, which is that Montreal is in win now mode. And, you know, five years from now, it's not the problem. Yeah, that's fair.

I mean, that seems like it's a common thread for a, lot of these teams when you're discussing the moves they made in free agency it's a lot of uh you know especially for team depending on their timeline if they're more of a competitive win now team uh the moves reek of the GM being like well we're going to try to win a cup in the next few years and if things go south horribly uh my successor can deal with it I guess yeah no and and but like you know even beyond that like I think if you look at how people you know who follow the game sort of worry about what happens five years down the road it's pretty clear to me that they worry about it a lot more than GMs worry about it.

Like, do you disagree with that? Well, especially, I mean, if you're a fan of a team for sure, because you're probably, unless something horrible happens or maybe you just grow out of it, you're going to be a lifelong fan and observe with that team. So you're kind of more invested in the big picture, whereas if you're the GM running the team, all that really matters is how your team is going to do in the following season.

Otherwise, you might be out of a job. Yeah, no, fair enough, fair enough. But, you know, I guess my point is, is that, you know, I almost wonder sometimes if fans are too, you know, like, not all fans, but sort of like the ones that we know are maybe too cautious, like, worried about, like, I don't know, go back to that T.J.OCHI deal, right? Like, how many of those long deals like that have really, truly ended up biting the team, right? Like, it's, it's, there's been an out, there's been so many outs found from those contracts. Right. And, you know, like, that's, when I look at it, I'm kind of like,

well, you know, I can appreciate that maybe this doesn't look good, but there's a, there just seems to be an element of, I don't know, there's like a, I think it's like an old Irish folk story about two boys who come up to a wall and they throw their, you know what, it's not really applicable to the point. It's like, it's like sending a man to the moon and being like, all right, we're going to figure out how to get him back once he gets there. And for NHLGM, that actually seems to have worked out more often than, than you would have guessed, right?

Like to look at, you know, Hosa, like, you know, it's unfortunate. that he's got an illness, but they found a way out. And, you know, like, it seems to happen a lot that teams find these ways out. So I'm kind of, I'm almost numb now to these deals where they're like, wow, that's a lot of money for a long time. And then you're, you know, and then, and then five years down the road, you know, they find a way to get the guy back off the moon a lot. And the player goes into retirement and he gets his money and there's no cap consequences. So, you know, it does seem to me like these deals haven't been as crippling as kind of the people screaming that the sky is falling at the time would have thought. True.

Well, especially with, it seems like a lot of fans or teams might be banking on potential compliance buyouts being available after the next CBA comes up. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, that's certainly one thing. and, you know, I was listening to another podcast, and they made the point that, you know, Ted Leonis is pretty plugged in with the NHL, and he probably knows what the plan is going forward. And if he's signing off on that contract,

does that suggest that he thinks there's going to be around a compliance buyout? So, you know, it's, yeah, like I say, I'm just kind of numb to these arguments about length at this point just because, like, I don't know, like the David Clarkson deal, you know, like what ended up happening to it? You know, he gets straight. He goes on LTIR and, you know, now he's fine, right?

Like, and the Leafs got out of that because they managed to get a guy who, you know, they could hide in LTR. Like, it's just all of these deals, like teams seem to find ways out of. Right. Well, I think the one of the best case examples of this topic in terms of, you know, going for it now and worrying about these contracts later is the Dallas Stars. And when I look at how they stack up in, you know, heading into 2017, 2014, 20, 18 versus the future like there's a you know they add radgellov they add marty hansel they

add mark mothot they add ben bishop and a lot of those guys have some serious term on those deals and they definitely could be a mess financially in like 2021 or something like that but at the same time it's it's it's tough to argue they haven't markedly improved their team just through the prism of looking ahead the next next season so i guess if that was jim nils um you know that was on his agenda of what to do this summer then he's I guess you have to view it as a success. Yeah, yeah, no, that's, yeah, no, I think you can look at it from that perspective. I'm maybe less sold on Dallas than a lot of people, just because I look at their, boy,

I don't know about that defense, right? Yeah, this is the problem we run into where it's very easy to just assume that young players will follow this sort of stepwise improvement in their progression year over year. And sometimes it's not necessarily that neat. And then you run into the problems where some of these guys might not be on the trajectory. You'd hope they'd be. And then all of a sudden you're kind of looking around being like, well, we don't have six guys we can rely upon here.

And I feel like that's kind of what they ran into last year, right? When they let Ghaligowski walk and Demers. And all of a sudden, you know, they're banking on Essel Lindell and Julius Honka and some of these other guys, and it just didn't come together for them, and last year was really just a complete mess in Dallas. Yeah, yeah, and so, you know, I don't know, I kind of do that as an issue,

and I don't know, I'm sort of, I'm maybe not as wild about Ben Bishop as a lot of people. Like, he's, you know, I don't know, he's big, but, I don't know, so they kind of make me, and it's funny, like, people used to talk about them being a bad defensive team, right? When they were, like, those 2014-15 stars.

Right. and or sorry 2015 16 and it's like yeah okay like they do give up a lot but they had a bunch of d who could move the puck and create right and i don't i don't think they have that right now like they got john clingberg and then they got a bunch of guys and you know so i'm i'm not convinced that they're where they were in 15 16 and i think it's also going to be really interesting to see how how that team works with ken hitchcock because it doesn't seem like a team that is sort of a bunch of players who, you know, kind of fit his brand of hockey. Right. So it's, it's, yeah, you know, I don't know.

They're one of the big boomer bus teams for me next year just because I can see it going a bunch of different ways. Yeah, there is a lot of volatility there, but I guess, you know, from the optimist side of things, like the ceiling is relatively high. I mean, they did add quite a few legitimate players and all that. You can see, you can sort of see the blueprint for if everything. comes together and some of these young guys develop and, you know, the players mesh with Ken Hitchcock's system and Ben Bishop is fine, which would be a nice improvement for them in net from the past few years,

all of a sudden they're going to be cooking. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And, yeah, like, you can see how it could work out, but you could also see how to go really wrong. So it's going to be, they're going to be a fasting team to watch. And that's Central Division next year, I think it's going to be tough. Like it's going to be, I think it'll be a better division than it was this year. So, boy, it's going to be tough for Winnipeg and Colorado to get any traction. What kind of traction is Colorado looking for next season?

I don't know. They want to stop the uncontrolled slide down first. I don't know. That's, you know, it's maybe not fair. I assume that they would like to kind of get back to being a real NHL team after what they went through last year. Like it's, you know, it's hard to overstate how hard that is on a team and the people involved. And, you know, I'm sure that they would like to be competitive every night. Right.

And hopefully start turning things around. Well, a lot of that is just going to, if they get anything resembling even like slightly below league average goaltending, I feel like that's going to drag their performance up quite a bit, right? Because they weren't as bad as those tanking Buffalo. Sabres teams, it was mostly just the fact that they really couldn't buy a save and that just made them look a lot worse than they actually were in terms of goal differential and standings points. Yeah, yeah, no, certainly not being able to get a save didn't help. And boy, yeah, that's, that's, that's not a good thing. So hopefully they can get some next year.

Okay, what do you think of, what do you thought of the Leafs summer so far? Because people seem to be pretty divided on it as with everything that, you know, the Toronto Maple Leafs are up to. I wasn't wild about it. I'm not a big, you know, I'm not a big Marlow fan. I'm just not. Well, I'm not at this point in his career. I should clarify that. Like, you look at the last three years, there's nothing special five on five.

And, you know, like, I know, I know Babcock's like, well, he still skates great, and that's great. But, you know, he doesn't do as much as he used to. And that's a real issue to me. And, you know, similarly, on the power play. he really kind of if you look at San Jose's power play and why it's sort of stopped being what it was one of the issues is he and Thornton don't shoot nearly

as much as they used to and like Thornton was never a shooter on that power play so you know him his shot rate falling in half doesn't really matter but for Marlowe like that's kind of how you justify his existence there and it's it's like it'll be fascinating to see because like San Jose's power play has kind of evolved into the you know

watch Brent Burns shoot the puck 80 times in our power play. And I don't think that's necessarily all that efficient. Now, Toronto's power play is much different. So, you know, Will Marlow bounce back if he's put into a power play where, you know, it's not, oh, we're just going to try and get it up to the point so we can shoot from 55 feet away. And that may well make a difference for him. But you come back to, like, you know, what are you paying for? Like, you know, like, will Marlow produce X, you know, more goals than, you know, a $2 million or $1 million option in that slot?

And that's harder for me to, that's harder for me to think is necessarily the case. And I don't think he's going to be killing penalties. And so, so, I don't know, it just seems like a strange signing to me. Like, it's sort of like, well, we got money. Better spend it. And I don't like that point of view. Like, I agree that there wasn't a ton out there that would help them right now. Right.

But, you know, the money doesn't disappear. It'll still be good in February, right? When some teams, when some other teams are like, okay, we're out. We're ready to start moving people. Right. Well, that's my issue with it where, you know, it's been brought up that, Tyler, can actually hold on a second? My dog is freaking out, so I got to go check what's going on.

All right. Just give me one second. Okay. kind of thing never happens when I'm on Merrick v. Wachinsky. All right. So, so, yeah, I'll dive back into it. So, yeah, the problem with the Marvel deal is, you know, it's been brought up that you don't have to worry about the third year of that contract

because, you know, he's not going to be on the Leafs or they'll figure out a way to get out of it. And that's fine, but that sort of assumes that he's going to be worth the 6.25 million he's making against the cap in years one and two. And I think there's, there isn't really, much of an argument to be made that that's true based on his trajectory as a player and what he's looked like the past year or two. And then you kind of get into, well, listen, they have this money to spend right now. So why not just improve their team by adding a Patrick Marlowe? But that assumes

that it's either spend this money on Patrick Marlowe or don't spend the money at all, which it's not that binary. Like you can something else will come up or you could use it on a different player and maximize that cap space more. And that's kind of my issue with it. Like I think, He could have a productive year next year, I mean, especially if he's playing in that role with, like, Matthews and Nealander and taking that Zach Hyman spot on the left wing. Like, he's going to score a lot of goals. He's going to be put in a great position. But I don't think you need to be paying a premium for that. And that's the issue with the contract for me.

Yep. No, I completely, I completely agree with that. It's very much, you know, the issue from my perspective. So, so, you know, it's, yeah, I really, I didn't really get the contract. contract from from that perspective. It's just spending money to spend money. Yeah. And then, you know, they bring in Ron Hainsey and basically replace Matt Hunwick.

And I think I'm okay with Ron Hainsey. Like, he was obviously being asked to do way too much on that Penguins team this postseason. And I think if you slide him back into a more lesser used role, all of a sudden he could be more effective and definitely retains utility as a player. So I'm fine with that. I don't know. like do you with these moves do you think they're doing enough right now to take advantage of the luxury they have with all the money they're saving on on guy on young guys like matthews kneelander

and marner or or do you think they're kind of missing the boat here a little bit um well i would have like this and like i say i i would i would i rather they sat tight than marlowe hansy i have less of an issue with you know um he's pretty cheap uh which i think is important like it's not a huge contract and and i think he's going to be in their top four I don't know, you're talking about him being pushed down the lineup. I'm not as sure that that's going to be the case. Like, I suspect he'll be partnered with Gardner or Riley. Now, I don't necessarily think that's such a bad thing, right?

Like, I'm a little skeptical on the right side of least defense. So I don't have a huge problem with that. He's also a real NHL defenseman who, if Gardner gets hurt or Riley gets heard, like it's not ideal but it gives you a guy who can you know run a pairing up there so for a bunch of reasons i i like that i i i like that hansy signing or i don't have a huge problem with it like uh but it's not a that to me isn't a deal that you make oh we're going to take advantage of our cap space that's just you know spending you know appropriately so no i i if there's critics of that i don't really get that you know he is what he is uh and there weren't any right-handed defenseman out there

And what he does is he buys the Leap's time, right? Like he buys them time to find like a real high-end right-hand guy. Now, you know, that would be easier if they weren't spending six and a quarter on Marlowe, but it is what it is. Right. Well, I guess the devil's advocate, like the reason why I think you could view it as a bit of a disappointing series of moves is like, you know, you mentioned there weren't necessarily too many right-hand defensemen available, but maybe. whether it was via trade or something, like it seems like they could have gone for a more creative home run swing here. And instead they just kind of settled for this kind of more conservative.

Yeah, we'll improve our team a little bit. But I'm underwhelmed by it, I guess, is the best way to put it. Yeah, no, that's certainly fair. Okay, the Carolina Hurricanes. So they add Scott Darling, you know, a while back. They add Justin Williams, who I was surprised he went for as little as, as he did, especially term-wise, with the two years, although I guess I was equally surprised when he did that a few years ago when he signed with the Capitals, I thought he could have

probably squeezed out a bit more value for himself, but clearly wanted to go back to Carolina, and they add Marcus Kruger, who will help on their fourth line on the penalty kill. And I guess the question with them is, is this finally the year they're actually going to live up to the title of everyone's trendy preseason breakout pick, or is something else going they get in the way that we're not necessarily seeing on the surface right now um i i hope they take a step right like uh you know they're they're they're a fun team to watch and i think they're well coached and um the analytics guy is okay i guess um he's fine he's okay so yeah i'd like to see them make a step it wouldn't surprise me if they would like i think a big problem for them last

year they're one of their problems like they just they couldn't get a save right so so they're trying something we'll see if they got to say. I didn't think that their depth was that great last year. And, you know, like, it's funny. Like, when I first, Marcus Kruger, someone mentioned him online. That's kind of like, eh. And then I went to look. I was like, actually, you know what? You know, he's maybe overpaid, but I can see the argument that he's a real good player. So, you know, I like that addition for them. Obviously, Justin Williams, really good player. So, I don't know, like, is this the year? That's a, that's a tough division. But it's going to be interesting, right? Like, I think there might be a surprise in that division as far

is somebody missing it or making it who you wouldn't expect. And it's crazy. Like you look at that division, right? You've got the penguins and the caps. And then you've got the blue jackets. So there's three. And then, you know, the Rangers, you know, they're well coached and they always seem to find a way in.

The islanders are going for it. You know, obviously Carolina is going for it. Philly, you know, I don't know what Philly is particularly up to, but they're generally, you know, trying to get in. so, you know, tough year for New Jersey. But other than that, that division is going to be a real brawl, I think, to make the playoffs. Yes. And then you look at the Atlantic and all of a sudden, I mean, it's very wide open.

I feel like you can make the argument for a bunch of different teams. And obviously how optimistic you are that the lightning, you know, last year was just an aberration. They're going to bounce back to the contender status they had prior to that. All of a sudden, you know, they could become a favorite. there but it's pretty wide open atlantic one of my predictions for next year if dan gerardi plays in uh tampa's top four all year is that um Anton strongman leads the league in course you rel well i mean do you think they're gonna he's probably going to be like attached to poor victor headman's hips and they're going to be like all right yeah you think you're so good victor headman well let's see

how good you really are right now playing with with dan gerardy for for pretty much full time all year It's a fascinating, like, I don't understand why they would do that. It was interesting, right? Because Izerman, and it's unfortunate because, like, the people doing the press conferences, they maybe know a little bit about, you know, like, they know that Gerardi has horrific numbers from a, from a numbers perspective, right? But they don't know enough about why or how. And this isn't a knock on media guys, right?

Like, they're, you know, they're focused on different stuff. But, you know, someone did ask them about it, and good for whoever that was, I don't know, Eric Erlinson, or someone in that Tampa press conference brought it up. up but you know and eisen, oh, you know, we have secret analytics and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, I don't know, like, the obvious follow up was, well, does Ryan McDonough suck? Like, like, you know, why do you think McDonough did better away from Gerardy than Gerardy did away from, you know, McDonough? And, like, I don't know, you know, like, there's lots of knowledge out there about hockey that is just waiting for someone to figure it out and maybe the lightning it figured something out. but it just it doesn't look good to me like it's hard to see how how that's going to work out well

and and that's you know like I'm like you just got rid of Jason Garrison and this is what you do and so like you know to bring it back to the lease for a second you're kind of like oh Ron Hensy boring and it's like man it could have been worse yes well yeah it definitely could have um yeah maybe should this podcast be called let's bring it back to the least for a second I think that's all of Canadian hockey media to me too. I imagine my bosses would be very happy with that title. Yes, yes. Let's bring it back to the least for a second.

Killing that SEO game. No, like, that's, so when the lightning say something like that or when teams in general say stuff like that, like that seems like it's just something you're saying so that you're kind of dodging the question, but also giving like your diehard fans who might, might not necessarily be willing to think critically for themselves, something to point to him and be like,

well, I trust Steve Eisenman. He, you know, he must know something because he works for his team. I'm sure all these, uh, all these numbers nerds online are missing something with Dan Girardy and he's actually better than they think. Like, that's kind of as simple as it is, right? Because I just don't, like, it's one thing where the numbers. I've also watched enough Dan Gerardy to just like, you can, with the human eye, you can just clearly tell that he's not good at hockey.

So I just don't understand what metric they could be looking at, regardless of how proprietary it is, that would show them that he's, you know, a good player that they should be actively seeking in free agency. Yeah, well, it's a mystery to me. Like, I remember in that 2014 Stanley Cup final, and I hadn't been watching the Rangers a lot that year, but I remember I was watching,

and I kind of got interested in watching them because, like, Anton Straulman's numbers were, like, popping off the page, right? And so I was like, all right, well, you know, I'm trying to keep my out for this. And, like, part of it was, like, I just couldn't get over Dan Gerardi. and that was three years ago.

He has not sped up since then. Yeah, well, then, you know, like it's, it's difficult for me to see. Like, I agree with you. Like, and you know what, like, it's funny. There's a saying in politics, you know, in Canada, we have, you know, question period where the prime minister and his cabinet have to answer questions and with their government. And there's a cynical old saying that it's called question period, not answer period. And the point is, is that, you know, if you're the government of the government of the

minister, you're not there to answer questions. You're there to, you know, let the other guy yell out his question at you and then you say something that, you know, lets you sit down. And so I think there's a lot more of that in NHL press conferences than people perhaps realize. Like, it's just, you know, the GM is trying to manage the public. And, you know, but the only way you can kind of really get a strong sense of that is if you're able to ask a follow-up question. And that's where I think that would have been helpful, you know, in terms of understanding where the lightning are coming from on Gerardi. Okay, pick a team. I have the Buffalo Sabres and the Florida Panthers on my list of teams we should talk about.

Pick one first for us to get into. Let's do Buffalo. So I really like the summer they've had so far. I think Jason Bottero has done a pretty fine, fine job on his first couple of weeks running the team. I mean, you know, they make the trade with the wild and they bring in Marco Scandella and Jason impomitable and I'm not a huge Marco Scandela fan by any means but I mean it's all about sort of relative value here and and you know them bringing in guys like Scandela and boy you all of a sudden even if they're not necessarily great players in their own right just what they're replacing on that

was playing on that team last year is such a noticeable upgrade that I like it from that perspective and then you know they take low risk gambols on on Benoit Pouliot and Jacob Josephson and all of a sudden like you know you're starting to see the makings of a of a team that makes more sense and isn't necessarily just purely top heavy like they were last year yeah no i i i agree with you i think i think buffalo's had a really good summer it's um you know like they haven't tried to do what what you know they haven't sort of pushed for moves that aren't there but they they have tried you know what i mean like signing you know patrick marlowe right and sort of thinking that if you pay him enough he'll be patrick marlowe from 2008 um you know they haven't done that and and i think that they've

added a bunch of useful players. And it's fascinating, right? Like, you mentioned Puglia. Like, there's kind of a group of veteran wingers out there who sort of signed for a million bucks who I think will be very useful players. And somebody's going to hit big on one of those guys, whether it's Poolyot or Hanski or Sharp or, you know, there's a couple other names. So I, I, you know, and it's, you know, the other funny thing with Pooleyot is that, like,

you know, he was horrific five on five last year. He had a really bad year by his standard. But I think he was like two points an hour for the two years before that and that's consistent with his career to date and Obviously, you know, he was getting nicked up a bit in Edmonton and Like he had some injuries his first two years, but one thing that's interesting is he kind of became a penalty killer when he went to Edmonton Right, and he's a really good penalty killer And Buffalo has the worst penalty kill in the NHL So you know or amongst the worst penalty kills in the NHL

So you know I like the move from that perspective for them. Like, you know, if he can still kill penalties, which he was able to do last year, even though his five-on-five game wasn't so good, they get value from them. Like, that's a useful contract. If his five-on-five game comes back, you know, that's a home run. So, so that's, you know, I like deals like that for GMs. And I wonder if that's not going to be, you know, the way the league goes a little bit with more of the money being devoted to the high-end guys and less of the money going to the middle-end guys. Right. Well, there's going to need to be some sort of recalibration from a pay structure there because like the salaries are going up, but the cap isn't going up nearly as fast as people would have hoped or projected. So like something needs to give there, right? And it makes sense that that's where we'd see those effects take place. I mean, another guy amongst that list of cheap kind of veteran wingers that you mentioned was Scarrett Hartner, which I really liked for the predators, if only.

from the perspective that, you know, his biggest impact could be on the power play where, you know, you've discussed plenty on this podcast and written about how dreadful their powerplay was last season and especially in the playoffs. And he's historically been a guy that's been very useful there around the net. So that could add an interesting dynamic for them as well. Yeah, although you get into, you know, you get into, with that, you get into, you know, a player's power play results are in large part a product of kind of how the power play function. Right.

And I, you know, I don't know off the top of my head how he's had success on the power play. Like, how has the power play been set up? Like, where do you have success? Was it in Philly? Was he playing with that Juru unit? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, I was joking that that's another place in the NHL where, you know, if you get to go play with Wayne Simmons and Claude Juree on that power play unit, it's like getting a blank check. So we'll see about that. But, you know, it's funny about Buffalo. I'm really interested to see how their power play works this year because they had an unreal power play last year. And I'll be interested to see if, you know, because I think Phil Housley was running the powerplay in Nashville. And it was very point shot heavy.

And I'll be interested to see if he tinkers with what Buffalo was doing or just kind of gets out of the way and says, hey, this works, keep doing it. There's going to be a lot of Rasmusers to line in. Yeah, but, you know, he's, He's really produced on the power play, and he's part of a high-end power play unit. So, you know, I know he's a bit of an analytics punching bag, but he produces there. So, you know, let him go produce. Yes, yeah, for sure.

Okay, so the Panthers, who are the next team on my list, I just have, you know, for most of these teams, I have, like, a few bullet points in terms of stuff they've done or angles I want to hit it from. The Panthers, I just have, like, a series of question marks. Yeah. It's, you know, there's, there's, there were reports that sort of the mandate for Dale Tallon was to, uh, the shed salaries. So I guess that would explain some of it. But it's like, you know, outdoor, Marsha So Riley Smith, they bought out UC Okina. They're letting Jagger walk.

And they're replacing them with, you know, Radeem Verbatta, uh, Evgeny Dattanov, who had good KHL numbers. But we'll see how he does in NHL. And it's kind of disappointing that he didn't go to Vegas. play with Nikita Gusev and Vadim Shepachov, who they had great chemistry together, the KHL, so that's kind of disappointing. And then they bring in like Michael Haley, for example. It seems like a lot of scoring went out the door, and not much of it came back in. So I just don't understand what their plan is for how they're going to bridge that gap

and make up for that. Yeah, they're going to be interesting to see how they do next year. I think when you look at that Atlantic division, they're going to be in tough. And, you know, they, coming into last year, right, like, there was probably a bit of an overrating of them just off the fact of what did they get the year before, like 103 points or something. Yep. And there was a lot of signs that they had some good luck in that season. And then last year, it just, you know, it never clicked for them. and it seems like there is a belief there that they got,

you know, that they weren't tough enough last year, and that's why they couldn't score. And they're going to try and get tougher. Well, that'll certainly help them score more. Yeah, yeah. I wonder if, so if they struggle next year, is it going to be another, are people going to retract some other statements

and maybe critique Dale Tallon, or do you think it's going to be, well, the analytics guys did this team in so deep that it's going to take them a few years to dig out of that hole they dug for themselves. Oh, I found that if you're cynical, you're rarely disappointed. So I've got, you know,

I suspect that the analytics guys will get blamed if they're bad next year. But, you know, we'll see what happens there. Like, it's, you know, I don't know. I think people forget that, like, Florida did a lot of goofies. stuff before the analytics guys took over. Yeah.

And, you know, like that Dave Bowling contract was nuts. So, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, how they, how they do next year. Like, you know, everybody wanted the analytics guys out while they seem to have that and we'll see how they do. Yeah, I just hope, uh, I just want Thomas Drenz to be happy. So, hopefully. Oh, you know, whatever happens, I'm sure Thomas will spin it as a glorious victory. Yes, he will.

Okay, so, yeah, speaking of Thomas Rance, let's discuss the Vancouver Canucks a little bit here. You know, they're pretty busy. They add Sam Gagne, Michael Delzado, Alex Bermistrov, Patrick Weirchotch, Andrews Nielsen. And I think in a vacuum, I'm perfectly fine with all the moves. Like, they're, you know, they're definitely defensible,

and it seems like the Canucks are going to be. maybe more respectable next season and I guess that was the end goal here but I just it seems weird kind of reconciling like what the plan is for this franchise like I would have rather seen them give give a Michael Dozot or a Sam Gagne more more money and maybe on a one-year deal like I'm not sure if they would have gone for that but it seems like and then then you can flip them at the deadline and all of a sudden they become a much more useful asset for the Canucks who aren't really going anywhere next season. Instead, they give them two or three years on these deals and it's going to take them a while to reap the rewards of them on the trade market. So I just, that's, that's, that's,

that's kind of my issue with it. But, you know, it's tough. They didn't make any catastrophic Louis Erickson types of moves. So I guess if you're viewing it on that scale for Jim Benning, it was a pretty successful offseason so far. Yeah, no, it's, I don't know, like, like you can't, you know, they didn't do anything crazy, which is good. Um, yeah, I, I completely agree with that. I, I think that that's a good, a good point about, you know, why not go out and get guys on one-year deals who you can, you know, move at the deadline? Because, you know, like, say they get to 80 points next year, like, they're still not going to be in it. So, so, you know, why do you want to be, why do you want to be committed to guys long term? I think there's a lot of, I think that's a

very good point. And, you know, from a big picture perspective, that's probably a legitimate and criticism of what they did. I mean, so like Michael Lozato gets two years, six million, so averaging three per season. Like if you pitched him on a one year $6 million deal and then you can trade them at the deadline and retain some of that salary to make it work cap-wise with other team, like it seems like that's a win-win for both parties. So I definitely would have liked to see them be a bit more creative in that regard, but yeah.

Well, I think there's also an issue of players don't necessarily want to move every summer. That's true. Yeah. If you're, you know, so, you know, it's going to limit who you can get a little bit. But, you know, I do think that you make a good point about if you're Vancouver, you know, why do you want to be committing to sort of so-so players who you can't turn into draft picks at the deadline? I think from a rebuild perspective, that's a very legitimate observation. Yeah, I don't really have any sort of other, uh, noteworthy teams from either good or bad perspective.

Like, is there anyone we haven't really gotten into yet that you think we should? I mean, most other teams were, it seems like it was a pretty underwhelming free agency. I mean, obviously the class itself wasn't that great and not that many teams had that much money to blow and spend. So it was pretty tame, I thought, for the most part. Yeah, it seemed really, you know, reasonable. And that's, you know, that to me was sort of the word of the day.

like there wasn't a lot of stuff done where you're like, oh boy, like David Clarkson. And so it was just kind of, you know, roll along. And I don't know that it really reset the power balance in the league too much. But, yeah, pretty blah day. Well, okay, now here's one final team. The San Jose Sharks.

And they didn't bring in any new guys. But, you know, they brought back Joe Thornton. They lose Patrick Marlowe, which I'm fine with. They bring back Joe Thornton on just that one-year deal. and I guess they're going to see how next season goes and go from there. And, you know, they invest a lot of money in Mark Edward Vlasic and Martin Jones. And I mean, I guess they're another one of those examples that we were discussing earlier to kind of come full circle with this of a team that is going to try its best to be as competitive as it can next year and the year after and maybe a few years down the road. But all of a sudden, I mean, you can envision how this is going to go horribly wrong when they're paying Brent Burns and Mark Edward Vlasic, 15 million combined when they're, you know,

in that 35 to 40 year old range, and it could get pretty rough there, but I imagine Doug Wilson isn't too worried about that at this point in time. Yeah, I kind of would have liked to have seen the shark, especially with like the lack of right-handed defensemen on the market. Like, you know, what would they get if they trade of Brent Burns? Right.

And they sort of need to refresh the bottom end of their team, or not the bottom end, the younger half of their team. Like, like, you know, and so like your point there about, geez, they're paying a lot of big money to a lot older players for a long time. You know, that to me is something that, you know, you look at Vlasic, you look at Burns, and you go, well, what happens if, you know, what do they get if they turn one of these guys into younger players? Right.

And does that make sense from the bigger picture just in terms of managing, you know, your team's age and whatnot? And, you know, I can see an argument that that really would have made sense for them. just because like I I really think Thornton's the guy who stirs the drink there and I wonder

what's going to happen to them you know if and when while he is going to go eventually and it will likely be sooner than later

but when he decides to leave San Jose you know what happens to the sharks and that's a case where because then all of a sudden you might have

two defensemen who are say 33 34 and you know aren't quite what they were and if Joe Thornton leaves and all of a sudden

a bunch of people look a little look a lot worse than you're really in a in a tough spot so just from a kind of you know and and like again like i guess i i've kind of been thinking about burns as i do this but his value is never going to be higher than it is right now yeah especially coming off that norris well yeah that's that's exactly it right so so if they had turned him into you know some guys in their you know early 20s because i you know i have to think people would pay to get brent burns um you know that to me might have been a better big picture situation for them.

Like, it's crazy, but, like, I don't think people realize how old that Shark's team is. Yep. Like, it's, it's like, and it's like, I feel like if you did a poll of people, and they're like, how old is Joe Pavelsky? He's young Joe Pavelsky. Yeah, little Joe. If you were like, oh, he's like 25. No, he's 32.

Yeah. And, you know, and so it's, and even like, like, Couture, Couture's 27, you know, So there's there's there's they're an old team and that to me would have probably been something worth exploring for them. Well counterpoint, you know, with the one year deal on Thornton and, you know, I agree that Burns's value is probably at an all time high, but barring some sort of a catastrophic injury, it seems reasonable to posit that next year he'll once again be pretty productive from a counting stats perspective. Like you might not approach 30 goals, but just with a shot volume and how heavily relied upon. he is in all facets of their game, especially on the power play. It seems like, I don't know, 20 points and something in the 60s for 20 goals and something in the 60s were points seems reasonable. And that'll retain quite a bit of value.

And, you know, he's a name at this point. And maybe you bring it all, you bring the band back together for one more season, just looking around at the Pacific. And there isn't really any other teams that scare you. So it's pretty wide open. And you see if you can make any noise. And then all of a sudden, maybe you make some of these tough decisions next summer instead. and I you know it is kind of sort of delaying the problem and pushing it back but at the same time I'm all for you know seeing if you can do one make make one more long run with this core and then

all of a sudden not necessarily blowing it up but maybe retooling on the fly and trading some of these older players for for younger assets to rejuvenate the rest of it next summer instead yeah I don't know like look at the California teams right now where do you think San Jose ranks amongst them they're definitely better than the Kings oh really you think so eh let's let's not do this a whole dance with the Kings again I understand that

listen that they control the puck a lot no but there's more to it than that though like I'm really interested to see like L.A you know L.A seems to really understand what their issue is and like they've talked a lot about you know we need to stop like it's funny like I usually

hate, you know, coaches, oh, we're shooting from the outside, shooting from the outside. In LA's position, I do think that they have an issue with they don't create, you know, higher quality shots. And they seem like they're going to try and fix that this summer in terms of how they play. And, you know, if they're successful, man, they, like, they do have a lot of good players. Okay, but if they do that, what are the repercussions on their possession numbers then? Well, yeah, they may well fall, but what were they last year? Like 56? Yeah, there's obviously a lot of wiggle room there, but if they do become much more selective, like they could score on a higher percentage of goals, but it's not even an issue to me of becoming selective. It's an issue of how are you

creating, you know, shots where the puck is moving in such a fashion beforehand that the goal he's opening up holes as he responds to the puck's movement. And like, I don't think LA does that well, or they haven't done it well historically. And it's funny, like, I do wonder if it's kind of a coaching trait with Daryl Sutter. Like, you go back to his Calgary teams, and they couldn't score goals. And, you know, like, obviously you can win like that because he's got a couple cup rings. But, you know, I think L.A. is really interesting for next year just because they seem to kind of recognize what their issue is.

And, you know, I don't know, I think hockey people are pretty smart. Like, when they recognize an issue, and then they're, like, particularly coaches, when they recognize an issue and they're trying to figure out a way to solve it, they might come up with something. So I'm, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if it next year it was L.A. Anaheim, San Jose, or Anaheim, L.A. San Jose, like, it wouldn't surprise me if San Jose is the third best team in the Pacific next year, or in California. And then I put them in tough to make the playoffs because, you know, I don't know that there's going to be five teams coming out of the Pacific. There won't. There won't. I'll give you a spoiler. There won't be.

Well, but it sounds like you think it's going to be San Jose, Anaheim, Evanton, Calgary. Yes. Yeah, I'm not sure yet. I haven't necessarily projected how I think next season is going to play out yet, but I would agree with that. I don't know who's going to get bumped out from the Central then, though. That's pretty tough. Yeah.

Oh, so you think it's, what, going to be three or four? Like, you think it might be three teams from the Pacific? Yeah, I mean, that Central is looking really good. I guess obviously it depends on what your beliefs are on the Dallas stars, right? Like if you think if they have their best case scenario, then it's going to get pretty tight for the Pacific. But if they kind of struggle, then all of a sudden it opens up a spot there. Like, I don't know, it also depends on how bold you're willing to be with your projections for the Blackhawks, right? Because there's so many red flags and warning signs and reasons to believe that things could crater really badly.

but at the same time, I feel like we've been saying that for a few years, and they just, at least in the regular season, they keep winning a bunch of games because the top of their roster is so good. So I'd be like wary of being the idiot that projects the Blackhawks to miss the playoffs next season. I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far, although it seems like it certainly there's a case to be made for it. Yeah, it seems like it's more possible than it's been any time since. Yes, they're vulnerable for sure.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I, I don't know. I guess I really do think, though, like San Jose, I don't know, man, next year might be the year when it kind of pops for them. And that will be, because we haven't talked about Calgary at all, but I think they've had a pretty good summer. And so, you know, to me, they're really going to solidify their position next year. And then that leaves, you know, you figure everything gets back.

And Anaheim gets in. boy you know that's that's going to be that's going to be tight for for san Jose if they're trying to get in there yeah i mean if they're struggling though i guess uh all of a sudden like a guy like joe thornt on an expiring deal becomes a pretty premium trade asset at the deadline wouldn't it be cool if the leaps had a bunch of money to spend then oh man but then yeah it's uh yeah yeah that's uh always bringing it back to the leaves tyler always bringing it back to you're a media professional I know you're out of the game for a while, but you've jumped back into it very seamlessly. Yeah, no, I know.

I know. Talk about the least. Talk about the Leafs. Yeah. I don't know. Do you want to talk about the Flames? I mean... Yeah, I'm happy to talk about the Flames. I, you know, I really like their defense.

And it's funny. Like, okay, here you go. Fourth best defense on the Flames. Go. It's Travis Harmonic. No. Oh, come on. He's not better than T.J. Brody.

I think he might be. I know what you're saying about worrying about Brody's numbers the past few years, especially away from Giordano. Especially away from Giordano. I guess, you know, you could be right. It might just be one of those things where the eyes are deceiving you because Brody looks like such a smooth player when he's out there, and maybe there's something else going on that's not leading to good results.

So we're getting kind of tricked, like kind of the camp foulor situation all over again. but yeah I'm willing to I mean it's a good problem to have if you're discussing whether T.J. Brody or Travis Hammondack or your fourth best defenseman. Yeah and you know like it's going to be really interesting to see what Calgary does but like I do think they're in a position to put Hamannock with Girovano and then

put Hamilton with Brody and you know that's going to be a pretty solid defense pair. I wasn't as wild you know you can add Michael Stone to the list of guys you know the defense with contracts are like what? But you know I

I don't hate teams sort of paying a fifth defenseman because the odds are over the course of your year you're going to need somebody. You know, who can slide into your top four. I'm just not sure that Michael Stone three years, three and a half is the guy to do that for. But I really like what Calgary has done. Like I think they're going to be a really tough team to be. And like if they can just find a way to somehow get over the edge against Anaheim, it would be tremendous for them. Yeah, I mean, the annoying thing with them is like, and, you know, I'm not privy to how the negotiations went. So it's quite possible that a guy like Justin Williams, for example, just wanted to go back to Carolina and took less to go there.

But, you know, a guy like him on this team and all of a sudden you put them up in that premium scoring role with Monaghan and Goodrow. Like instead of Troy Brower, all of a sudden, I'd like this team's outlook so much more. So that's kind of the issue with the Michael Stone signing where it's like, yeah, I mean, it's nice to have the luxury. of having a bunch of different defensemen, but just in terms of optimizing how you're using that money, I thought that maybe getting another scoring winger would have been a bigger need for this team. Yeah, yeah, no, that's fair.

That's certainly fair. And, you know, yeah, no, I don't disagree with that, but assuming Mike Smith plays well, I think Calgary's in a pretty good position. Yeah, yeah, I like them. I mean, it's going to be a fun season, man. There's a lot of, you know, you have this idea of how, the standings are going to shake out or how many teams from each division are going to make it,

but then all of a sudden you can very easily start to talk yourself into other teams, and then you realize that, well, someone's going to have to miss out here. You can't have like 10 teams in each conference making the playoffs. So it's going to be fun. I think that Pacific Division, while there isn't necessarily like a runaway dominant team, there's a bunch of good teams, and it'll be fascinating to see how that plays out and whether one of them can sort of take that next step and establish themselves as the cream of the crop. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.

And it's going to be an interesting, it's going to be an interesting thing to see this year. It's going to be an interesting thing to see this year just how the, you know, the playoffs do end up shaking out because you're right. Like there's so many divisions where there's just too many teams that sort of seem like they're in it. And, you know, that's one thing. Like for all the criticism of the NHL, I remember 25 years ago what the regular season was like. And it wasn't nearly as significant as it is now. Like, teams need to be, you know, full gas right from the start now. You can't, you know, blow them on because you get so far behind, you can't make it up.

And I think that's good for the league that the games are so, so important. Yeah, I mean, the league loves that. Like, what? If you're looking right now in early July, just at the landscape, there's what, like maybe 24 teams that you could conceivably talk yourself into being a playoff team if a bunch of things break, right? Like there's only a handful that are really just completely out of it and looking forward instead. So that type of parity is something that the league values very highly and will gladly tell you about. Even then, though, even then, like the teams that, you know, you think have no shot, historically, you know, every couple of years, one of them does come through. So it's, you know, it really is something where, where, you know, going in the NHL regular season, there's a lot of,

uncertainty. And, you know, I think that's good from entertainment perspective. So, you know, looking forward to it for next year. Yeah, me too. All right, Tyler, you've fulfilled your obligation here. Enjoy your summer. And people can follow you online for all of your cycling takes. Yes, and occasionally about hockey at fellow hockey and on the athletic.

How much writing are you going to be doing this summer? We'll see. We'll see. I guess that's the answer is. I don't know. Probably a bunch. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see.

Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to linking up with you sometime down the road. So enjoy your summer and we'll talk soon. Sounds good, Dimitri. Get in front of the TV for the tour, bud. Cheers, buddy. The hockey P.D.O.cast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.