The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 241: Can't Just Shake it Hoff

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

Alex Prewitt joins the show to discuss an eclectic medley of topics. A sampling of the things we get to in this episode include, but aren't limited to:  4:46 The 2018-19 Washington Capitals 14:44 Barry Trotz's departure 18:20 The Mike Hoffman trade(s) 33:31 Free Agent Pitches 43:30 NHL Burner Accounts 51:33 The Lou Lamoriello Effect 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.

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My name is Dimitri Filipovich. me fresh off a historic two-week bender is my good buddy, Alex Prueh. Alex, what's going on, man? I'm still very hungover. No, I'm fine. How are you? I'm good, man. I'm good. I'm excited to have you on. It's interesting. A lot of people around here have been asking, like, congratulating me, like friends and stuff as though I did something. You work hard for this. You earned it. I guess. But as though like, you know, my success is somehow tied to the team that is in the city where I live. But Antelam, it was fun to Chronicle.

It's fun to follow Ovechkin around as he was on his bender and they were doing snow angels and fountains. Yeah, it was great. So I'm curious about this because you've obviously, you have your finger on the pulse a little closer than I do. You know, living there and having covered Ovechkin and the capitals. Do you think this is one of those things where now that they finally won and sort of the past couple weeks have gone the way they have? like, is it all good now? Or are we, if the capitals come out of the gate struggling next year, are we going to be rehashing, you know, overly critical conversations about him as a player?

I was talking, this is more broadly than just specific on a betchen. I was talking to, I've been talking to a few folks in the organization in the wake of Barry Trots, obviously, resigning. And one person put it to me like, the organization, we, you know, we got our cookie, basically, that they've built up a lot of emotional equity now within the city. And no matter how the next few years go, obviously you want to keep making the playoffs and keep taking runs at it. But, I mean, my gosh, they delivered something to this town

that has never happened on the ice and has never happened in major pro sports and men's major pro sports in the past quarter century plus. So there was a lot of catharsis, a lot of release. You saw that in the parade and the way they celebrated. So, you know, a veteran told me that when, I was kind of trailing him around at Nat's Park because he was like throwing out the first pitch and such that his legacy is pretty much set.

You know, he can only build on it, but he's clearly crossed the threshold, and I think he's very aware of that. He's a guy who, I think, kind of quietly and secretly thinks about that stuff a lot. Well, I'm sure all the great ones do. Yeah, totally, totally. You know, he's brought up, like, not just hockey players to me, but, you know, guys like Kobe and LeBron and Jordan

and, you know, Messi, I know he admires a lot. And I think he thinks about himself in those contexts or he tries he wants to be thought in those contexts. And I mean, he knows, you know, fair or not, the presence of his name on the cup is going to go a long way into dictating what people think of him. And quite frankly, I think how he thinks of himself. No, but so after the caps won, you know, obviously there's always going to be sort of some sour grapes and some people who have interesting counter opinions. And, you know, there was obviously a bit of pushback about the celebration. And there was a bit of pushback. Like, oh, congrats.

Wow, he got his first one after 13 years or whatever. Like, oh, whoopty do. But I feel like for the most part, like, generally, it felt like the approval rating was, like, as high as you're really going to see in 2018 in the social media era. And it just felt like even people who were necessarily Caps fans, like maybe Penguins fans might feel differently or something like that. But for the most part, unbiased observers were like, you know what? Like seeing this much emotion and passion and just how much he, like, how happy he is about this and how much he cares.

Like, it's just cool to see and it's good for the league and like we're happy to, we're happy this finally happened. Yeah, I can even see Penguins fans being okay with it because they got theirs, right? They got theirs over the past two years. And they got it first and second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth, however many times they beat him. So, yeah, it really did seem like the hockey world kind of banded together on this. this one. And I don't know how it felt to you, but to me in retrospect, it was kind of like the only thing that could derail a force like Vegas was going to be a real big force. Like Alex Ovechkin and kind of the weight that he's been carrying over the past 13 years.

Right. Well, I mean, yeah, it was, it was, it was two conflicting things there, right? Because then it was like, oh, man, it would be, it will be such a tragically epic last chapter to this story for them to finally make the cup final and then lose to an expansion team. But obviously led by their all. old boss and, you know, net-minded by the guy who hadn't played great against them in the past, but was still a symbol in a way. Right. Well, so it's interesting now because kind of looking forward, um, as is our job.

Like, obviously you want to soak this in and enjoy it for what it is, but, you know, we're kind of thinking ahead, how what's going to happen in the future, what next season's going to look like. And now obviously with the news this week, um, you know, that they're going to have a new head coach, not that it's necessarily surprising, but we do sort of have to kind of look ahead and start prognosticating and projecting on what this team's going to look like. It just, it feels like a weird exercise because it's like, on the one hand, it just seems silly to be kind of thinking about this stuff too much when they just won the cup. But at the same time, it is kind of our job technically to do so.

Yeah, usually we have a little time to breathe though, right? Like, we don't have to rush right into it. But this news was kind of, they kind of brought this one themselves, I think. But I'm sure it, I'm sure internally it has to feel like this is dampening the celebration, no, that, you know, you didn't even get the cup days yet. And you know, you haven't gotten the rings for sure. banner is obviously not raised and um yeah i mean just the parade was the champagne had barely dried and on the streets of dc and all of a sudden the coach is out and we're kind of thinking ahead to a little bit of an uncertain future but you know then again it's not like they hadn't planned

for this with the past like 13 months either it's true well and then especially after round one that was that video that circulated with him you know looking like he told john turdrella that he was done and obviously after round one i'm sure if they lost again to the penguins in round two that would have been an easier transition now it's considering how things unfolded that it is a bit of a bigger story. But yeah, so you're talking about the cup days there. Do we know for sure that Ovechkin's actually like relinquish the cup? I was just under the impression that everyone was going to get their day with a cup with Alex Ovechkin,

and he was just going to kind of tag along and just be drunk the entire time. Yeah, I think the emotion that we saw on the ice with him was one thing, the way he reacted, you know, to the hope he save and took his netsov's goal and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. but it's really, really impressed upon me just how much it meant to him and the way he's handled this celebration with just, yeah, like you said, like how glued he is to this cup that he's like, my friend's dad, like, manages the W down in D.C. And, you know, there's, like, video circulating of him, you know,

serenading the cup and, like, waltzing around with it. He's the only one in the dance for it. He's dancing with a cup. And, like, he's spooning it on the ride home from Vegas. And, you know, he's sleeping with it in bed with his pregnant wife. It's a level of attachment that, you know, I don't think we often see it. And I think it's kind of the culmination, like we said, of, you know, but 13 years of frustration kind of pouring out and kind of the realization of what this all like means to him, what this all means to the city. And I think that's been the coolest part, right, is how they've actually shared it.

You know, it's not like they're having private clubs and, you know, parties every night and they're taking it for themselves that, you know, they're spraying champagne off the roofs of like CD bars in Arlington. And, you know, they're like, shut up. get out of it in the streets and like you know shotgunning beers of fans like it's it's kind of cool and this was all before the parade that's like normal parade stuff but right yeah it's very nchal like i'm i'm i've really i've really enjoyed how much uh sort of just personality they've been showing off and obviously i mean yakubranos instagram feed was uh with some next level stuff they should put that in in the portrait gallery across the street from capital one arena where all the fans congregate there's like a little modern art display upstairs that has a lot of um like

video displays, just friggin' stick that in there. Like, get the Joe B one where he's there doing the goal calls, get him, you know, getting his tattoo. I want to see like the Jacob Rana art exhibit upstairs. I'm really curious. So doing that a bit of a look ahead right now, I know it's premature. We'll see how the summer unfold still and there's a lot of stuff to happen. But I am really curious to see sort of what this team looks like heading into next season

and what the effect of this will be. because, you know, you could sort of, depending on which narrative you want to go with, that's the beauty of this gig. You could really just go either way. You could go like, oh, well, now the pressure's off with them and they've finally done this. Like, they're just going to be playing free and easy hockey and it'll be great. Or you could go like, oh, you know, I'll actually just going to be straight up drinking all summer and he's going to come out of shape and it's going to take him a while to get back into it.

And we'll see now that they've won how that goes. But also, like, from a personnel perspective, I mean, obviously there's going to be a new coach and we'll see whether there's going to be a different system or different philosophies. And then there's also, you know, John Carlson's a free agent. There's various other things for them to do. So it's really curious because I know, like, the past few years with the penguins, it felt like for the most part there was, like, very little moving pieces. And I felt like they were just bringing the teams back together.

And I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. You know, it's always good to kind of spice things up and have new voices and new faces in the room. But I'm just really fascinated to see with this Capitals team, you know, what they're going to look like heading into next season and what the effect of this is going to be moving forward. Yeah, because, I mean, they have cap space depending on how high it jumps, but they don't have a ton of cast space. And in order to reload, you have to do some things. And the obvious one is trading for help group hour. Yeah, I assume that's probably going to happen.

I think they're pretty comfortable with Copley coming up as their number three to be in their number two. Curious, one thought that I had was, you know, the Islander seemed to be mentioned a lot with Gruberauer. What happens if Trots ends up there? I wonder if they just say, you know, we don't want to trade them anymore. I'm sure we'll get to this later. We'll talk about Ottawa and their hesitants to trade in division. But like, do you really want to hand your old coach, the guy who left, you know, your backup goalie and have him become the starter and have him come back to Hachut? I don't know.

So wherever he goes, you know, that's going to shed expected money off the books, given that he's an RFA. I'm curious to see whether they actually have enough money and whether they have enough cash and whether they have to make another move if they really want to bring back Carlson and Kempty as their pair. because boy, they worked really well together at even strength. I mean, Kepney is, he's skilled enough, he's fast enough to receive bucks, and that kind of allows Carlson to beat a second man up, you know, after the retrieval from behind the net, and let him lead the rush and do what he does so well. But, you know, do you have the money?

And, you know, if Carlson says, you know, that eighth year is not going to be enough for me, and I want to see what's out there on the open market, I mean, you've got to imagine that some team, some GM's going to throw a whole bundle of cash at him. and, you know, what does that then do for your right side when you have Niskin and then the drop off from him is then, you know, probably to Madison Bowie or, you know, Brooks Orpick or Christian Jews playing on their offside. And then it goes right down to their bottom six. You know, you probably say goodbye to Jay Beagle. You know, Smith Pelley, I think is an RFA, so they could concede it would bring them back. And, you know, you have guys waiting in the wings. I don't think their forward core is going to look that much different. The question is, though, you know, do they, if they need to shed salary in order to take care of their blue,

line, do they have to kind of take someone out of that bottom six? And then who is that going to be? Well, yeah, what that finance, those financial implications sort of where they're currently at with their money is, is, you know, on the surface, it kind of seems like it's a curse, but it might actually be a bit of a blessing because we see time and time again, like when teams win the cup or have very successful seasons, like it's really tough for them to sort of emotionally detach themselves from the situation. And then often, you know, they're handing out contracts to these hard and soul guys that probably won't be able to live up to that just because of sort of the memories and what they meant to the team and all that.

And so in this case, I mean, obviously the Carlson thing is an entirely different conversation to be had. But like for the most part, even if they were going to make those mistakes, it just seems like their hands are kind of tied and will prevent them from doing so. So that might actually kind of, you know, we're a roundabout way via be a positive. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you look at it like how Pittsburgh repeated, for instance. I mean, the second year they have Jake Gensel come in and comes out of nowhere.

and becomes almost the cons smite winner. So I don't think the capitals might have that guy waiting in the wings, but I mean, they do have players who should be expected to take jumps like Stevenson, like Travis Boyd, like even Rana and Burakoski. Like these are young guys that, you know, quite frankly, they haven't had young forward prospects pan out in the way the shiris and the rusts and etc. of the world have for Pittsburgh. So, you know, if they get back, if they happen to get back in a position to contend again,

I would say it's largely because, well, not only the big guys kept doing what they're doing, but they were able to brown out their secondary scoring a little bit better than they have. Yeah, well, that's an interesting thing where it's like, you know, you want to, earlier on in the postseason and throughout the regular season, I was critical of Barry Trots in certain instances in the job he was doing and this Capitals team, it was like, oh, you know, compared to all the past incarnations of it, it's not nearly as good, but now it's like, how can you even be critical of those things considering they wound up winning the Cup?

But you're right. I mean, like, there is room for internal growth. I mean, what just we saw as the postseason went on when, and Rana got bumped up to that second line with Baxter Minoshi and got a bigger workload. And then Brokowski coming back from injury and we know what he's capable of. So there are certain guys like that where there is room for development and growth and they could get kind of a shot in the arm offensively from those in-house options already as opposed to needing to go out and spend money to bring guys in. Yeah. And where I think this year in particular will come in handy is they have the kind of internal knowledge that they can flip that switch, that they can go through stretches.

in the regular season where they're still trying to figure it out, where they're still trying to, you know, get the young guys to come along or where they're, you know, starting goalie doesn't play as well, and he needs a little bit of a rest. And they now have that in the memory bank where they can look back on this year and remember, you know, shutting out Pittsburgh, or shutting out Tampa Bay in game six and seven and getting by Pittsburgh in game six and overtime with essentially like a preseason lineup with all the rookies that they were dressing. And then, you know, doing what they did against Vegas. Like, it's, I think it can go a long way for them psychologically. But, you know, then again, you can also see they maybe they get into malaise like they have in the past with the president's trophies

and, you know, a little bit of complacency sets in. I don't know. But, uh, you know, going back to what we were saying earlier, they, they certainly build up a lot of capital, no pun intended around here. Um, well, a little bit pun intended. Yes. Yeah, that's that sport right, sports writer and you right there. Um, is, what was your take on the Trot situation? Because obviously it wasn't necessarily surprising based on what we knew, but just based on the fact they did wind up winning the cup? Like it's obviously a rarity for him because he's not like he's retiring.

I feel very confident. We're going to see him next season behind the bench somewhere. Yeah, I was surprised by a few things. Well, first being that they won the cup altogether, which was probably the one thing that I would have complicated this situation.

Like, if they, I think as the post has reported a couple times, if they lose certain games throughout the regular season, he's probably fired. If they lose in the second round against Pittsburgh, he's probably fired. maybe the Easter Conference final is a little bit of a tweener But then again he leaves him the first Stanley Cup final in 20 years And the first Stanley Cup in franchise history

Like you kind of you kind of have to bring him back or at least try But at the same time asking for you know five years and five million Surprised me a little bit Just no one bury the way I do It's probably but at the same time like this is this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for him to cash in So you can't fault him at all You know, I was thinking maybe he wants to stay. Maybe he's planted his roots with his family here, and he wants to keep it going.

But at the same time, I don't think you could fall on either side, honestly. I mean, Washington historically has not been a team that pays its coaches a ton. I mean, Barry, if we go back, his big draw, he was the first coach of the Ovetchan Air to actually have NHL experience. They never have gone out and hired a big name before and thrown a bucket load of cash at someone. And also from Barry's perspective, you know, if you wanted to see what else is out there, if Washington was indeed sticking to its guns and saying we want to hold you to this two-year extension, this trigger, this automatic coaches option that seemed to trigger, you know, in the event that they won the Stanley Cup, which is another fascinating wrinkle that I don't think anyone really knew about in there. If they wanted to pay him that amount, then that's probably below what he's worth. And, you know, it's well within his rights to go seek out. There's no coach's cap, right? So you can go out and get whatever the heck. he wants. Right. Yeah. Well, it'll be fascinating to see where he lands. I think he's a good coach. I

had some quibbles with, like I said, the job he did with the Capitals this year, but it all worked out. And it seems like Todd Reardon's going to be the guy that's going to sort of step up to the main gig, right? I would think so. I mean, barring some sort of like crazy breakdown in the interview, I don't know, maybe he shows up like his pants off or something. But, I mean, they've been, they've been grooming him ever since he, right, they made him associate head coach and basically barred him from talking to other teams because they were afraid he was going to get away and they were scared that things were going to

go south with Barry, which quite frankly looked like he was going to. I mean, there were a couple points early in the season where he could have very easily lost that locker and I think and they could have just punted and had moved on to the next guy. So, I mean, whether that's credit to him, whether that's credit of the players or the capital certainly seemed

to be banking on the fact that whatever kind of culture he's established is going to endure regardless of who's, you know, ultimately behind the bench. Right. yeah yeah um all right enough about i felt obligated to talk about the caps a bit there because obviously your background and also the fact that i haven't really done a podcast since uh since the stanley cup final ended but it does feel like it's so long ago i was like trying to remind myself of what happened i was like which game was that where it really does like a lot's happened i mean

they lost their coach and they drank themselves into a deep deep deep summer slumber so right um okay let's uh let's talk a bit about senators and the trades that happened today. Wow. We really buried the lead here. We only 20 minutes without talking about this, but you know, we're going in chronological order here. Wow. Where to start with this? The Hoffman trades. This is, there's so many factors here to consider, and it's tough to, without having, you know, the requisite inside knowledge and sort of knowing what those, you know, restrictions were or, you know, whether they could trade in division, how much of it was financial, which obviously seems like a lot of

it was involved. Obviously, all of the Hoffman rumors. Like, it just, everything in Ottawa right now is such a mess and it's, it's not, it's a pretty ominous sign for, you know, what's shaping up to be a big summer for them considering the, the, the, the Eric Carlson's eyes elephant in the room that's still waiting to be determined. Like, it's, yeah, except you're a senator's fan right now, you must be pretty uncomfortable. Yeah, let's start out and just say that, actually, we can agree on this that the things that his wife are accused of doing are horrific and have no place. Yeah, no, reprehensible.

Yeah, horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Should happen to no one and should be done by no one. And now we're going to talk about it from a purely hockey perspective. Yes, yes. What the heck are they doing? I mean, there is just so much to unpack here. So, okay, the first trade they make with the Sharper,

there. You know, you see it and it's like, you're taking aback a bit by how small the return is. And then, you know, there's a bit of a pushback where just you're thinking, okay, well, based on all the stories that we'd heard about what you just referenced there, like Hoffman's value around the league clearly took a massive hit and they weren't going to get full return or anything near it. I mean, it doesn't help obviously that he had a down season and that everything, you know, with a bad, with a team that has as bad of a year as the senators had, it's sometimes it's so tough to evaluate individual players because you don't know how much of it was the situation, how much of it was actually them potentially declining as a player or having a downturn

in production. But you know, you're thinking, okay, that explains it. But then like literally less than an hour later, the sharks get significantly more from the Panthers for him. And then you're like, okay, well, I guess that's it. That's a tough fill to swallow. And then you hear this report come out there it's like oh well you know peer to arian was told that he or maybe he and himself doesn't like to trade in division and that kind of muddled the water muddy the waters and it's just it's just such a mess yeah i mean the tough part i guess as you pointed out is um you know the allegations surrounding him and his family are kind of linked to what's going on right they're linked they're so clearly um they so clearly resulted in his value plummeting um but at the same time yeah if you were

Why wouldn't you look in your own division? I mean, that seems like such a backwards way of thinking. Maybe you really, really wanted McKell Bodker, in which case, let's quibble with that for a second. Well,

I think that would be an even more, more damage. That would even more damning, right? Yeah, so, I mean, you could have loaded the covers if you're indeed reloading here, if you're indeed only going to spend to the salary ceiling,

you need picks. And Florida gave San Jose a decent hall. What, a fourth, a fifth and a second. Yeah. So that was out there if you, if you bothered to look, and it was pretty clear they didn't even pick up the phone and call a GM who, whose own trade history is not exactly sparkling. Can we agree over the past, especially over the past year or so? You know, why would you, what is your corollary about GMs or your rule about GMs always call the dumb ones? Yeah, no, just figure out which ones are the worst GMs and just keep calling them until they give you a gift.

Like it's, it really is as simple as that. But like, yeah, so, okay, the sharks get those three picks. They get a bad con. So let's take this team by team. For the sharks, they're obviously the big winner here because just for being the middleman, they got a bunch of draft capital, which they can either use as trade pieces moving forward, considering they're kind of in win now mode or they can just make those picks themselves. They get a bad contract off their books and clear money.

And now that's huge. I mean. That's huge for them, given who's coming up this summer. Yeah. Well, I mean, their current projected cap hit is like $63.5 million, it looks like, based on what they have right now. And early reports, we'll find out a nice couple of days speculate that I think the cap's going to be around like $79 million or something total. So, I mean, that is, obviously they have Joe Thornt pending, you know, Tomas hurdle and Chris Tierney and Dylan DeMello to a lesser extent are all RFAs that they'll need to figure out. But for the most part, I mean, even after signing Amanda Kane, then now they have a really, you know,

realistic outlet for, I mean, they've been rumored for John Tabaris for a while now, but even a guy like Yalia Colchuk more recently. And that'll be sort of really interesting to see because it's clear that they're kind of gearing themselves up to be a massive player this summer. And if they do wind up hitting some home runs there, you know, a move like this is just a really savvy piece of business by Doug Wilson. Yeah, I was curious, what did you think in that very brief, you know, nap size window in which Mike Hoffman was a member of the San Jose Sharks? I thought that wouldn't have been the worst thing, I guess. This is clearly better. Yes. That they were able, like you said, to get draft picks and get cap space in order to take a run to some of those big fish. But I don't think it would have been the worst thing in the world. Right. Yeah, obviously we'll see what they do with that money.

You know, purely from an on-ey's perspective, I'm still a supporter of Mike Hoffman's game. And I think that he can definitely contribute. And I think he's due for a bounce-back season, especially if, you know, he's in a better's situation playing with better players and that shooting percentage takes an upward, upward swing again. So yeah, I think like it's very plausible that he could be back to a 30 goal score next season and that's a very valuable player in today's NHL. So I would have liked that perfectly fine, but obviously this, assuming they use that money wisely, you know, considering all those other factors as well is a kind of a win-win for them. You know, from the Panthers

perspective, like, it's fine. They gave up a couple of picks. Obviously, the second rounder is in 2019, and, you know, it's a pretty small price to pay in the grand scheme of things for Mike Hoffman, although it is fascinating that, you know, after they gave up Jonathan Marshall, so, and Riley Smith, Dale Tallano was on the record saying that, you know, defense wins championships and sort of justified it as not being that big of a deal because those aren't the type of players you can win with, and then Vegas makes the cup final, and then all of a sudden, you know, their first move this summer is going after a goal scoring winger, which I find to be interesting. Yeah, I mean, who knows what's coming out of there.

That's why it's so fun, right? You don't really know what you're going to get out of Florida Panthers these days, but boy, they're fun to watch for me. I mean, now they have a top six of what, Hubertow, Barkov, Trocheck, Dadanov, Hoffman, one other winger. That's pretty good. Yeah. I put that up there with most others in that division, top sixes.

obviously they're going to have to round it out they need more depth they need a little more consistency on the back end to be a contender but um you know they're they're coming i think they're coming i'm not sure you know how putting two years of mike hoffman at like 5.2 million um before he becomes a ufa at age 30 is going to help but um i mean i don't know i guess i'm just adding as many good players as you can yeah exactly that's fair yeah right like he was out there his his cost was was low certainly lower than it would have been at the trade deadline no doubt um even though you have to go through San Jose to get them as opposed to Ottawa. Okay, so for Ottawa here.

Yeah, for Ottawa. So I'm assuming I'm going to give them the benefit of doubt here, even though they haven't given us much reason to do so. But I'm going to assume that this trade was not centered around the fact that they actually view Mikhail Bodker as a valuable piece of their team moving forward. You know, the financial implications here are sort of obvious where, especially if there's more trades coming down the pike with potentially Carlson and even Bobby Ryan's contract moving out. They're going to be, they're going to need contracts like this to hit the salary floor.

And I think his was a bit front loaded. So what it's actually appearing against the cap is lower than what they will be paying him in real dollars. And obviously the difference in his contract that's remaining versus Mike Hoffman saves them like four or five million, I believe, and cash over the duration of those contracts. So for a penny-pinching franchise like that, I guess that's a win. But it's, this is a really fascinating thing for me because it's tough to argue that their team is anything but worse today

than they were before this trade. And if they do move Eric Carlson in the next couple weeks, you presume that it's going to be for futures and picks and prospects and the like. And then that kind of ties us to the upcoming draft here and the pick because it looks like they're going to choose to keep that fourth overall pick this summer, which means that Colorado obviously gets their first rounder no matter what next season, which, you know, just looking at this depth chart. I mean, obviously the lottery is there for a reason, but it's very conceivable that without Eric Carlson, this Ottawa senator's team is going to wind up with the highest odds for the first overall pick heading into next year's draft lottery. and that must be such a sweet if you're Joe Sackick and the abs like that must be

the sweetest position I know that they overachieve the bit this season and maybe they'll come back to Earth a little bit next season but for the most part you know the abs are moving in the right direction they'll be competitive again next year and now they also have this beautiful asset that could be a very very high pick and most likely will and that's uh you know we've always seen in an NBA obviously with the trade between the Celtics and the Nets a couple years ago

but but and we saw how kind of that was the gift they kept on giving. Obviously, this is slightly different because it's just the one pick, but it's a pretty sweet spot for the abs. And they're kind of weirdly, like I joked about this on Twitter, but other than the sharks, they might be the second biggest winner of this trade, just because the senators get worse.

So it's, man, this is a, it was a fascinating sequence of events. Yeah, with the ultimate domino is going to be Carlson, right? For that to say, I assume you, if you're Ottawa, you have to go into the draft. You have to make that decision on the number four pick under the

assumption that you're not going to have him on your team. Because even if he's on your team, you're probably getting rid of him as some... If he's on your team past the draft, you're probably getting rid of him at some point. So ultimately, you're going to be, you know, Ottawa Senators minus Eric Carlson when you finish that season and, you know, enter the future lottery for 2019. So, yeah, I mean, their roster, as it looks right now is pretty dreadful, right? Especially when you subtract one of the best defensemen in the world from it and, you know,

maybe if you were somehow magically able to get out from under that Bobby Ryan contract, then, you know, yeah, you're going to have to take salary back. I mean, they're in a tough spot. I mean, not only does their current roster look worse after these trades, but I don't feel particularly optimistic about their future either, given what came back. Yeah, honestly, like, the biggest losers here are their fans. It sucks because I understand, like, I'm not the person writing these checks. So, like, it's an entirely different animal.

But, like, just when you, it sucks when teams all. operate this way where like they're just the idea that one of the biggest things they'd be after in an Eric Carlson trade giving away a top two to three defensemen in the world would be to get out from under a bad contract and not actually try to improve their team is just like indefensible to me if I was a fan of that team I would just be sick to my stomach just thinking about it yeah and really just everything that's surrounded them this year with you know the owner at the outdoor game and then go what's going on with Hoffman and you know so go how they so clearly had to just dump them in order to, you know,

what would they, Dorian comes out immediately after he was talking about a culture change. And it's, you know, it's so transparent about, you know, why they made this trade and why they got the value they didn't have returned. But,

I mean, even given that, you have to, um, you have to think that they could, they could have gotten a little more if they just open their eyes to look at the neighbors sitting right next to them. I'm kind of curious,

though, like if, if they actually didn't want to make, just make the trade straight up with the Panthers because they didn't want to trade in division. Like, what, Does that imply that they think they're going to be competitive next season?

Yeah, that too. It's like, Hoffman has two years left on his deal. And just based on how this past year went and sort of you're kind of looking at the writing on the wall, it's like this senator's team is going to suck for a long time, especially if they trade Air Carlson. So it's like, why does it matter if your division rival gets Mike Hoffman? It's just such a bizarre line of thinking. And it also kind of immediately you're just kind of confessing that you're, you're just kind of

confessing that you're losing the trade because otherwise if you thought you were getting the better end of it why wouldn't you want to try and swindle your divisional rival and make them worse like all of it none of it just adds up it's all just so confusing and the mental gymnastics is something else it's almost like uh this team is not really sure what it's doing yes that's right um okay let's uh let's take a quick little break here to hear from a sponsor and we will answer some some mailback questions on the other end of things i think this is going to be fun Let's chat a little bit with C-Kkeek, today's sponsor the HockeyPedioCast. Anyone that's had to go through the process of buying tickets online before knows how complicated, confusing, and time-consuming it can be. You know, you're going through a bunch of different websites. You don't really even know what you're looking at.

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All right. Alex, here's an interesting question I got from a listener. He asked, what are, like, what do you think the biggest free agent draws are in 2018 in this current landscape? Like, obviously, I understand guys have, it's kind of a case-by-case basis because different people have different priorities and different interests. but it's an interesting question to me. I mean, this is going to come up with John Tavares quite a bit over the next few weeks, but it's like, is it trying to win a Stanley Cup? Is it market size?

Is it sort of playing for one of these old school teams that has a lot of history to it, that you might have grown up watching and cheering for? Like, what? Is it hometown? Like, I don't know. You're kind of around rinks a lot and you're talking to some of these guys and kind of picking their brains. It's like what do you think like the Your typical NHL star is looking for when he's hitting the free agent market?

Maybe let's spend this in a way that we can like focus a little bit What do you think are places that have become better? You know more high profile draws in recent years like for me Winnipeg comes to mind Well let's talk the breaks on that What's that? We haven't necessarily seen anyone sign in Winni. I mean the only thing we've really seen is that Paul Stasney waived is no trade

but that was for like a couple months worth of hockey. No, but say if I'm a UFA and I'm looking at the market, that's a spot that, I mean, they're pretty well positioned, right, for the next couple years to make a run at it. Yeah, I mean, I would look at Vegas for sure. Oh, yeah. I mean, they check a lot of boxes as far as having a ton of cash, having a lot of sunshine.

Yeah, I'm curious. Maybe not if you're like a 32-year-old family man. No, but even the suburbs there are pretty good from what I've heard. I think guys like living there with family. families because it is that kind of tight-knit community of folks who actually, you know, live there and are not just visiting the strip. So, you know, like not bad schools and, you know, it's obviously great for kids because they get to be outside all the time. Yeah, I'm kind of curious to see, you know, to your Winnipeg point, you know, so far we've only really seen like, what, Dmitri Kulakov is like their biggest free agent signing and they kind of overpaid to make that happen. You know, this summer and moving forward, it'll be interested to see if something comes to first.

because you're right, obviously, just based on the talent there and sort of how fun to watch they were this year. Like, if you're, especially if you're kind of a speedier, more offensively minded player, like that seems like it would be a pretty fun spot to play. And especially there's like a playmaker getting to play with Patrick Lainey or something. Like, it seems like an easy way to get a bunch of assists and get your, see how yourself paid on a future contract as well.

Yeah, they have a lot of guys under restricted who they have to lock up. But it seems like they'll have a decent bit of cap space if they want, they want to do something or they have some flexibility if they want to ship one of those guys out. What do you think about, like, I guess like Tampa Bay? I mean, the thing is, is like, they haven't really necessarily had, just because they've had so many good players making a bunch of money over the past handful of years. Like, they haven't really been massive players in the phaget market.

But, you know, places like that, like, I don't really think, because, you know, this listener sort of cited kind of, like, teams that have been around for a while and have that tradition. Like, I don't really think people really care about that anymore. Like, I think, like, some of these kind of non-traditional markets that are in warmer cities. Like that seems pretty appealing to me. I don't know. Yeah. And, you know, no state tax, for instance. I mean, I think that's appealing from a financial point. I'm sure there are certain guys for whom, you know, playing under the bright lights of Madison

Square Garden or at the Bell Center every night is, you know, 42 nights a year or whatever, or 41 nights is going to be somewhat of a draw. But, I mean, if you're a smart, you know, business man in this day and age, if you're a hockey player, I think you have to look at the totality. Even a lot of that includes finances. A lot of that includes quality of life. And, you know as as we've seen more and more of these you know so-called sunbelt teams take leaps and you know they gain more revenue they're able to spend more money they become more and more attractive mm-hmm i guess oh the obvious answer here that we're missing is Nashville yeah i would i mean yeah of course that seems like a wonderful place to go yes i'm sure

karl terrace is very very happy right now that he's signed long term and not in ottawa yeah you know you know absolutely i really okay one last thing on the centers i really i really I don't want to beat a dead horse at this point. But, you know, one of the other things that's going to be interesting to see moving forward is, you know, Mark Stone as well, coming up with this RFA deal. And he's obviously a fantastic player that's going to cash in. And, like, you know, it's been brought up the,

how kind of cruel it would be if Colorado, for example, sign him to an offer sheet just because they have the cap space. And, you know, they have Ottawa's pick coming in so they could easily sacrifice their own if Ottawa didn't match. But the point that I necessarily haven't seen raised is like if you're Mark Stone, are you signing a long-term offer sheet, risking the fact that the senators as currently constructed actually match and just keep you there for like the rest of your career? Ooh, that's a really good question.

No. Yeah, that's that's pretty risky. Like I'd be pretty scared about that just because like, you know, just with this current ownership you can't necessarily expect it's going to change any time soon and this team clearly isn't going to compete and put yourself in a position to succeed so it's like i understand the money is one thing but man if there's like any competitive drive in you it seems like you're just like pretty much just you know putting a bow on your career at that point yeah i mean i could definitely see them saying like we want this guy to be one of our core members for the long term which

you know rightfully so he's a wonderful player right he had a great year in limited time so um yeah that is a big risk right there um i assume he's old enough to have arbitration rights, right? Right. Yeah, everyone else is leaving. Mark Stone's just like trying to sneak out the door. They're like, hey, Mark, where do you think you're going? Get back here. Get back here, yeah. I wrote them back in. Hey, yeah, we're going to sign you this massive offer sheets and lock you in for the rest of your life. No. Yeah, that's a really, that's a really interesting question. I am curious to see, though, if a team with throw an offer sheet and try to take advantage of what's apparently become a pretty tumultuous situation there and at least try to force their hand.

I just want to see one big offer sheet this summer. I don't care who it is, but after like all the dry-sidal stuff last summer and various other guys we've seen in the past that haven't even though they were just ripe they're ripe for the picking i hope we uh we see anything but with the nchl we know guys uh in the old boys club never want to upset their friends um there was a follow-up here about um you know in the NBA for example we often hear maybe after the fact about sort of these pitches in free agency that teams put together for players and one of the most recent examples was like i know when blake riffin was uh re-signing with the clippers this past summer, like, they put together this, like, video of, you know, him winning a title with them

and them hanging his jersey in the rafters and so on and so forth. We don't really, like, hear that much about that happening in NHL. Although I do know that it was reported recently that, like, if Tavares does hit the open market, that the Leafs will have some sort of creative, quote-unquote, presentation for him. I'm not sure what that implies, but. Yeah, I remember, well, two examples come to mind. One is when Toronto evidently brought out the farm for David Clarkson? No, for Stamco's.

When I think they had, they brought in some local politician or maybe the mayor of Toronto or someone like that. Forgive me, I don't really know Canadian politics that well, but I should know because I think I wrote about it. But anyway, and that, I think from what I remember, kind of turned him off a little bit. It was a little bit more of a spectacle than he wanted that he kind of appreciated the way Tampa Bay just kind of went about, you know, letting him make his decision and doing his research and he asked questions and it wasn't this big welcome you know kind of almost seen stamp

ghost ask a level of spectacle that he felt like he got from them then the other that comes to mind was when uh gologoski and yandall ended up um i think in arizona and and florida respectfully at very at very least goagoski in um Arizona they they had a very elaborate thing where like a car rolled into the the ice rink they had like a red carpet rolled out and they drove to center ice and He got out and he walked around the arena and they had like a video playing for him. Then they went to a dinner where like Shane Doan was and they all talked about Arizona and signing with the coyotes. And I think this was when they had acquired his rights and a trade like right before. He was a UFA.

So it was right before free agency open. And then they had that window. And it worked. I think my favorite little detail about it was they had like a gift basket, like an Arizona theme gift basket of like little, you know, local goods and stuff. So, you know, I've talked to Chike about this. You know, it's one thing where you, you know, you might as well try it, right? You might as well see if this is a method that can work. But yeah, yeah, I did see that, what was it, that Toronto was, you know, they've laid a

fresh sheet of ice down at Air Canada Center because they were shooting some video. That'll be interesting to see what that. I wonder if we'll hear more about that. Yeah, no, I mean, it definitely makes sense, obviously, like you, and there's a human element to it. And if you're one of these free agents, like, you want to feel wanted. and you want to kind of, you want teams to jump through hoops

to try and impress you, so that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, if you're Edmonton, how are you not trying Wayne Gretzky out and having him sit down with guys and talk to him about it? I don't know what he's going to say, but... Yeah, about signing with the Oilers. After the Milan Lutcher's debacle,

I think they should stay away from all free agent signings going forward for the foreseeable future. Yeah, but you get creative with it, right? Like, I mean, you're trying to woo them. It's a process. It's a bidding war. So why wouldn't you try to find advantages wherever you can. Why wouldn't you try to tap into that human element? You know, talk to them about the family, about the, you know, stuff you can do for the kids.

Like, I would love to see them get creative with it. Hopefully as we see, you know, more fresh faces and management coming in. You know, guys like Chico will get there. Oh, speaking of fresh faces, we'll talk a bit about burner accounts. Do you have one? No, no, no, no. I mean, have you seen my Twitter feed? I say there's some pretty crazy stuff on there.

I mean, what do I? What do I need a burner account? before I say everything I'm thinking on there. But I do know that there, I know of various NHL executives that do have burner accounts. Oh, yeah? I mean, obviously, okay, so the conangelo thing in the NBA, like,

that was to the extreme and that was, I mean, there's a bunch of incredibly unprofessional things going on there and all that. Like, for the most part, from what I know of, most of these accounts I'm referencing are just like, they just follow people just to keep up with what's going on on Twitter. They're not necessarily actually tweeting themselves. But yeah, no, there's plenty out there.

I think like Tim Murray, for example, obviously while he was with the Sabres, was most notoriously behind the scenes, had a really good one going. Yeah, Brian McClellan, when I covered the team, would occasionally reference things I tweeted. He has like an officially team sanctioned Twitter account now that has like one tweet from 2015, but it certainly seems, and it doesn't follow anyone. So he definitely has another one where he follows. people secretly.

And I'm pretty sure I got him to admit it once. It wouldn't surprise me, though. I mean, yeah, as long as you're responsible with it, as long as you're not an idiot and starts, like, getting angry and using it to lash out, then, I mean, I would want to follow. I would want to secretly keep up to date what's going on. Now, that can probably, I don't know, maybe it can be instructive, you know, the Twitter hockey Twitter does seem to have some better ideas than GMs do these days.

Yeah, I mean, it's your job to be kind of, of in touch with what's going on and there's such you know relevant insightful stuff going on in the public domain even you as as hockey minds get snatched up by teams there's still a lot of cool stuff out there so it's like yeah if you're not exploring all of that and keeping up to date with what people are talking about and saying like you're

it just seems like you're being kind of negligent and doing your duties even if you don't you should have someone who does like you should have someone at least just give you a check in yeah yeah definitely um Artemi Panarin Today it was reported that you know he might be on the market because he has one year left on his deal and apparently he doesn't want to

talk about a contract extension yet that doesn't necessarily mean that he will be traded or that he won't sign a long-term extension with the Blue Jackets but obviously you know if you're them playing in a smaller market the idea of a star like that just walking in free agency and you having nothing to show for it is a pretty tough pill

to swallow. So it makes sense that they would try to kind of recoup some value on that if they really felt like it wasn't going to happen moving forward with him. But man, it's crazy to think about because, you know, we're just talking about the Capitals and their Stanley Cup victory. But, like, after two games of the playoffs, you know, he was just absolutely eviscerating them. And he was like the best player on the Ice Net series. And obviously the Blue Jackets can finish the job. But it's crazy that how quickly things have changed in such a short period of time. Yeah, really curious is why this is coming out now. Like, it wouldn't surprise me that someone wouldn't want to negotiate a contract at this point in time, right?

When you're going into your UFA, you're going to be, what, 27 years old, like, that's peak UFA period. Like, you can lock up an eight-year deal if you're staying or a seven-year deal for a good chunk of change if he continues what he's been doing. So it wouldn't surprise me that he would want to wait and evaluate his options. I understand the bind that it's putting Columbus in, and I understand why the news got out when it did. But I don't know. What kind of package do you think you could get for them if they actually went shopping for him this summer? Oh, a lot. I mean, I understand, like, you know, just the fact that he has only the one year left.

Like Brandon Sade? I think they could probably make that happen. I mean, so he's turning 27 in October. He just had an awesome season where he was a point of game. And, you know, he was really just the driving force offensive. for the Blue Jackets and really kind of had, I mean, he set a franchise record for points in a season, which seems crazy considering only had 82 points, but also speaks to what that franchise has gone through over the years. But, you know, his value is really high right now. And if you're a team,

like let's say the Carolina Hurricanes, for example, where you don't really have, with all due respect to a guy like Sebastian Ajo, you don't necessarily have sort of that front line, just guy that's going to completely just drag everyone along for the ride with him and be a complete difference maker up front and you do have a ton of really interesting assets and draft capital and prospects and young guys in your lineup. The point is, guys like Artini Panarin very rarely become available and the fact that this could be the second time in as many years that he has been is kind of seems like a weird aberration historically.

Yeah, totally. I mean, granted, a weird set of circumstances given how old he was when he came over and all that. but yeah, I mean, it's hard to imagine that I'm getting rid of them. But if you're going to get a return, yeah, Carolina's probably not a bad place to start, right, with the glut of defense would they have? And if you were to find someone who could really anchor a second pairing below Seth and Seth Jones and Zacharensky, I mean, you could craft one of the better decors out there for the foreseeable future, assuming, you know, they all get locked down to long-term deals.

But like you said, then you're kind of regressing. I mean, you're really going back, really going back offensively. terms of what you have scoring wise. I mean, Panarin proved, I think everything people wanted him to prove when he was playing away from Patrick Kane. And especially how, yeah,

you're right, how he looked in the, especially that early half of that Washington series. You know, I don't fault him for saying that he doesn't want to talk to him, and I certainly don't fault Columbus for panicking a little bit because the, like you said,

the prospect of losing him for nothing is pretty bleak. Yeah, I think at all costs, they need to try and make that work because they, as I said, they've never really, in their franchise history, had a player like that and why I love other guys they have up front and they're very interesting players. Like, at the end of the day, he is their most impactful guy and it would be a massive step back for them after the year they had. I don't know. Is there anything else we want to talk about? Is there, am I missing some? It's a pretty dry period.

I know, you know, the draft's coming up here and then free agency and there's going to be a ton of rumors and stuff. But for the most, like, for the most part, it just seems like kind of pure speculation at this point. So I don't know if there's anything we really want to dive into. It doesn't seem like a heck of a lot of noise, right? I mean, we'll probably hear more once the draft passes and some traits happen and teams start meeting with their UFAs and, you know, that interview window opens. Do you have any thoughts on awards or you've knocked those out on previous podcasts? Yeah, I've talked about it a bunch. And also, I don't find them to be very interesting.

I'll watch the show, but I'm long past the point of becoming indignant about this stuff I've sort of realized, and you just got to take it for what it is. You don't have your popcorn ready now that the PHWA is revealing its ballots, and you can go deep diving into those and get angry all over again. It's going to be pretty fun. I don't know. Are they going to release them immediately after? I don't know. Did you vote? I did not.

I'm detached enough. I think. I don't watch it. You know, I kind of float in and out, depending on the time of the year and write features here or there. I personally don't think it's fair for me to vote. That's kind of where I'm at. I don't feel qualified enough at this point. What are you doing on this podcast, then? Hey, that's on you, bud.

Wow, this is 50 minutes. No one's going to get back? I'm like a Pierre Dorian trade. I come around every like three months and leave everybody super disappointed. There we go. Okay. here's a someone asked about the islanders and you know we touched on them briefly there just because they've been linked to berry trots and obviously philip grubauer would feel a need for them um they're a team to watch obviously with john tiberis is a pending free agency but also they have those two

uh mid-range first round picks and i imagine you know with luther now it seems like they're at least being like legitimately considered in every discussion basically by the sounder of it. So it's like, I feel like something has to give there after years of, um, of sort of of empty promises and, and Garth Snow just kind of sitting on his hands. It really seems like we're poised for the Islanders to do something of significance, which I'm sure their fans are very excited about. Yeah, it feels like everything's on the table. Um, from, you know, bringing Tavares back. I could easily see Tavaris leaving. I could see him coming back. Um, you know, the coach is obviously a big, stick and point. I'm curious how Barry will, we'll, work with Lou, if indeed he'll have to shave, for one. But how that, how that partnership will work.

You know, Barrett Trots is kind of known as a good soldier, does what he's told, et cetera. But then, he also is, you know, a very chatty guy and very friendly with reporters. And that's not necessarily how Lou runs his operation there. But, you know, on the ice, yeah, I mean, they have, and that lad contract's not great. The Bailey contract will see if he can sustain what he did last year. It's going to be a lot harder if he's not playing next to Tavares. But at the same time, you get two years of Matthew Barzell at below league minimum, or around league minimum, or whatever. It's still on his entry level, I mean to say. So, yeah, I mean, there's talent there.

There's talent in the pipeline with him in Bavillier, and there's pieces to build around. But, yeah, I mean, a lot depends on what you get Tavares at and how much you lock him down for. But there's a lot of moves I think they have to make, right, before they can actually become a legit condender. I think, like, Lou quite literally has John Tibera's lock down. like in shackles, just not letting him leave. He's just like, you're going to be here till July 1st, and then I'm going to get you the sign. He's a mythical dragon.

Yeah, he's in shackles and some dark dungeon underneath Barclay Center. So you mentioned, you know, Barry Trots is kind of openness and willingness to talk and communicate and how that goes against Lou. Just generally speaking, like, have you, here's an article idea for you, have you considered writing about, like, the people behind the social media accounts for teams? Is that something you've done? The people behind the social media accounts for teams. Like the people that are running like the social media accounts, like the official ones for.

No, I mean, I know this year, like Dan Marazza got a lot of pub for running the Vegas account and starting it off at least. Yeah, I don't know. That's interesting. Why do you ask? I mean, certainly some of them seem to have developed their own kinds of personalities, right? It's, you know, a little bit par for the course in this day and age where, like, brands themselves try to be, you know, hip and have, you know, use emojis and stuff. like that. Well, I just think it's interesting because it does seem like a bit of a thankless job. Like if you ever click on the replies or the mentions for like, let's say like the Minnesota Wilds, like Twitter account, if they tweet something, they're like people like like legitimately like asking for trades and like I feel like they think that like the GM is some people like legitimately believe that the GM is running that account. It's like, oh, you're like, why did you do this?

It's like that poor person's probably like, I do not get paid nearly enough to put up with this. And obviously you have to be incredibly professional because you're representing the team. And I'm sure you see a bunch of crazy stuff that must be very tempting to reply to. But then we have seen over the past couple years, it does feel like, you know, Vegas is a bit of an extreme there. But there are other teams as well that sort of have fun with it a little bit and sometimes even kind of roast their fans a little bit or other analysts or, you know, do kind of, don't take it too seriously and kind of just have a bit of fun with it. And obviously, I mean, at the end of the day, there might not necessarily be that much to gain from it. from a risk reward perspective because you could say something and really put your foot in your mouth. But for the most part, I think fans do appreciate those team accounts kind of being a bit more lighthearted, generally speaking.

I would agree. Everyone loves a good burn every now and then a good slam. I think the big takeaway, though, would be hug a social media manager if you see him or her. You see them at some point because they are probably putting up with a lot behind the scenes that you do not know. And they do have to read all that stuff. I don't think you can just punt on every little. reply you probably it's probably part of your job right to have to go through with that and to have to wait through that kind of quagmire especially after a loss or especially in times like like how would you how would you enjoy being the senator's social media manager right now not great not great oh the

the Colorado avalanche one last year after that historically abysmal season where they were like tweeting out fun facts about their players that was a really good one yeah yeah so i mean you you can say face that there must be a certain degree of just be in on the joke and just sort of don't take yourself too seriously i think is it it's a level of creativity yeah I know nothing about because, yeah, you got to be pithy, you got to be deprecate, self-deprecating, and you got to be able to handle a ton of crap. So you spent a bunch of time around George McPhee in the past, and obviously this year, you spent a bunch of time covering and writing about the Golden Knights.

One of the big off-season questions I do have, and then we'll get out of here after this, is how they approach this summer, because it does seem like it's a very, sort of potentially it's a big crossroads for them, right? Because they obviously had this unexpected, miraculous inaugural season. And now I'm sure there's some temptation to sort of consolidate that and show that it's not, we're just kind of a blip on the radar and have another great season to follow it up. Maybe not necessarily make the cup final, but not completely fall back down earth and regress. But at the same time, you know, it is a new franchise and they are trying to build up a bit of depth

through their organizational ranks. So it's like they're obviously linked based on how much money they have and the market there to guys at Carlson or even in pre-agency to Tavares. How much of an incentive do you think there is there to capitalize on this year they had and really go all in as opposed to sort of taking a step back and remaining level-headed and keeping that four or five-year plan that they had heading into this thing? I wondered though what that does look like, stepping back and being level-headed. You know, they don't have a first round pick this year.

they traded that away for Tatar. And, you know, a lot of their picks that they've stocked up, either come in the later rounds this year or in the early rounds over the next couple years. So I'm kind of the opinion that they have a free summer to play with almost. That, you know, the guys, I mean, they did a great job loading up last summer and getting prospects and such. And those guys are still a little bit of ways away.

And obviously, you kind of are playing with house money here, so to speak, given, you know, what you did in your inaugural season. So, yeah, like you said, I mean, they have cap space. they have players who they could conceivably take runs at, and whether it's they're trying to make a run for Eric Carlson or Tavares or Kovac or whoever, I'm kind of the opinion that because you had so many guys overplay or outplay what people expected of them

and outplay what they've historically done, that you could stand to try and get some higher-end guys and have those players like Eric Hala get bumped down to a little bit more of a manageable role, so there's not as much pressure on him or even William Carlson, is he really your number one center of the future? maybe he's more suited to a 2C role,

and that's take a little bit of pressure off him to sustain, you know, a 25% shooting percentage in 40 goals or wherever he had. So, yeah, I mean, there's certainly way more, a lot of areas they can improve upon, I think, and, I mean, they have the flexibility, they have the picks, they have the prospects. If they really want to take another run at this, they can. But at the same time, I mean, couldn't you just see,

I mean, if shooting percentages dip off, if the magic isn't recapture it. I mean, I can see them as a fringe team next year, and, you know, like you said, kind of looking more long-term as opposed to, you know, thinking about, yeah, let's keep going. Let's be a, you know, let's try to make the cup final every single year. Right. Well, especially in that Pacific Division, obviously, like, you know, Arizona coyotes are considered to be this trendy sleeper pick heading into next season. You know, the sharks, we just talked about how they could really load up and add a bunch of big names this summer.

You know, the Kings and the Ducks obviously have their own flaws, but I don't think they're necessarily, you know, just completely. you know, fall apart next year. They're going to be a kind of fringe playoff teams again. Obviously, Calgary and Edmonton have the talent there and just had inexplicably bad seasons and you expect that they're going to be better next year. So, like, it's going to be pretty hotly contested there. And I'm really curious to see just sort of what they're thinking is. I mean, I think the worst thing they could do is just, like, throw a bunch of money at sort of that middle tier, right? Like going after like Paul Stasney and bringing back James Neal on a big ticket. and stuff like that. Like, I'm all for, like, the big game hunting, like, go after Eric Carlson in a trade,

even if it means taking Bobby Ryan's contract, like, try to sign John Tavares. But I think sort of that middle tier stuff doesn't necessarily, ultimately really move the needle for them. No, I don't think there's much sense in doing that. I mean, maybe you sign a couple guys to cheap, you know, like two years at $3 million-dollar type deals, you know? Maybe you round out your roster with, like, a Patrick Maroon type of guy who's not going to be commanding, you know, a lot of money or a long term.

but yeah I don't think there's sense in throwing you know four or five years at a guy that you're going to keep around who's you know you hope you outgrow him right you hope you're better than him by the time that that contract ends so yeah I'm in the camp that you know you either go big or you just kind of stay put and and still look long term if something comes along where you can get a franchise changer that's awesome but you know definitely be patient and stay the course because I mean that's been the plan all along and you know obviously this this first year did more than anyone there could have expected, both in the city and in the front office. So, yeah, and I don't think there's a sense, you know, kind of tinkering with it too much,

unless that tinkering is going to land you someone who's going to be part of your team for the next, you know, seven or eight years. Well, yeah, because it's one of those things are obviously one of the big benefits of being an expansion team is you sort of get a clean slate, right? And you're not starting with all these albatross contracts unless that's the path you wanted to take in the expansion draft and it's very quick you could very quickly go down a slippery slope there and we've already seen like with a guy like thomas tatar now as son they've attached themselves to him for three more years of five point three million which isn't looking that great so it's like one or two more of those and all of a sudden sort of that benefit that you had there is

quickly washed away yeah exactly or or if you know guys regress if guys who like we said had career years just you know fall back a little bit towards the mean a little bit towards what we expect to them then all of a sudden in the in totality they're they're not nearly as good as a team and so that's why yeah that's why it's important to keep loading up on picks to keep looking to the future but um yeah i'm with you i mean i would love to see tavarison carlson in a Vegas uniform next year how fun would that be yeah let's do a get a cobalchuk there too just bring every big name sure shibbushab doing anything these days can he come back it'd be so NHL and just just pure insanity like they actually bring a bunch of those guys in

and don't even make the playoffs. Here's my one wish. No Slava Voinov. Yes. Yes. I feel that way for all 31 NHL teams. Oh, that's what I meant. Just none period.

If we can get through July 1 without having his name come up at all, that'd be great. Yeah, unfortunately, I guess like, yeah. For covering this league long enough, you realize that NHL teams will disappoint you with their decision making. All right. Alex. That's going to be a great name. name for this one is just disappointing decision making. Yes, teams will disappoint you.

Plug some stuff. What are you working on? Hopefully we did not. Hopefully we do not. I don't really care at this point if you're still listening. We got your download. We've been listening for an hour. Hopefully that means good things. So whatever. What are you working on? Plug some stuff. Where can people follow you? S.I.com. Twitter is Alex underscore Pruitt, P-R-E-W-I-T-T. Kind of in non-hockey mode. we wrapped up our cover story on Ovechkin, and maybe we'll nibble around the fringes on free agency and the draft and such, but probably not going to have a big NHL feature until next season comes. So in the meantime, just doing some other stuff,

doing a CFL story that you can look for in a little bit, doing an NFL story, doing a couple. We have a true crime series that's pretty self-explanatory, you know, dealing in, you know, real crime events that I'm looking into a couple stories for. So, yeah, just trying to stay busy until we, until we get back at it again next season. All right, man.

Well, enjoy your summer. It was a blast having you on, and I think you were on like three or four times this season. So let's enjoy this summer, and let's get you back on just as many times next year, if not more. I can't believe it took you three or four times to realize that I don't have expertise. Yeah, I'm just going to start ignoring your calls from now on.

Sounds good. All right, cheers, man. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash HockeyPedioCast.