The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 278: The Hangover Cure

Episode Date: February 22, 2019

Jesse Granger joins the show to discuss the Vegas Golden Knights, and their ups and downs in Year 2 in the NHL. Topics discussed include how the team is balancing expectations as they get weaned off last year's high (3:00), how George McPhee will approach the trade deadline (17:45), why Nate Schmidt is the picture perfect modern day defenseman (28:10), Marc-Andre Fleury's alarming usage (35:30), why Vegas is thriving as a hockey market (46:30), and the winners and losers of the recent Charlie Coyle trade (55:50).  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 $10 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. A reminder that we’re hosting a daily fantasy listener league contest over at FanDuel every Thursday this season. While you wait for the next opportunity to play to come around, go over to fanduel.com/PDO and tell them we’ve sent you. They’ll hook you up with a bonus $5 to play with after your first deposit, which will surely come in handy throughout the year. See you there! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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and joining me is my buddy Jesse Granger. Jesse, what's going on, man? Not much. How's everything up in Vancouver? It's good. Yeah, we just had a conversation about the weather before we went on the air, about snow and how our respective cities kind of shut down as soon as any of it hits the ground. It's pretty crazy. People always rag on Vegas for not being your traditional hockey town and mostly because of the weather and stuff like that. And so I guess now that you guys finally have some snow in February,

you're qualified to be considered a hockey town. I think this city sold. it's sold to the devil in order to get hockey to Vegas, and now we are being punished with real hockey weather. I've lived here 11 years, and it is never, snow has never stuck to the ground. So last night that happened during the game, we got out of the arena. And I think parts of town got like six inches of snow. But yeah, so that's, I think, I think that's the punishment. You get the hockey team, you get a Stanley Cup final, and now you get the cold weather to go along with it. I think it's a fair trade. I think based on how rabid some of the fans have been,

And the reception to the team, I think that's a trade a lot of people, a lot of locals there would take. So you and I are going to deep dive the gold nights today, and I'm really excited about it. We've been trying to get this done for weeks now, and finally we're getting around to it. And I promise to be as engaged as I possibly can be. I've got my tweet deck open in the background in case there's any breaking news or any breaking trades. We're recording this on a, what is it? It's a Thursday afternoon, late afternoon now. So maybe if something does break and comes down the pike, you and I will react to it live.

never really done that on this podcast before. But in the meantime, we're going to talk about the team you cover for the athletic, the Golden Knights. And they're a really fascinating team. You know, I was watching the game last night pretty closely on NBC against the Bruins

because I knew we were going to be recording this. And I've gotten a chance to watch them quite a bit here in the past couple weeks. And it's weird because I think after the type of year they had in their debut season last year, um, anything that happened this year,

short of replicating that, I guess, would be viewed from, through a slightly different prism. So the fact that, you know, they're not hitting the heights they were last year. I think some people might consider this a disappointment. But at the same time, you sort of look at the underlying numbers and you watch them play. And despite the fact that they're not having the same type of successes they had last year year, I'd actually argue this team is playing better hockey than they were last year in a weird way.

I don't know. Like, what's the general vibe there locally around the team and sort of how things are being received in year or two? Yeah, it's a lot of that. I mean, it seems like after every loss, we talk to coach Gerard Delon, and it's, he's, it's constantly, well, we played really well. We played good enough to win, but we didn't. And last year it was kind of the opposite. You hear the puck luck and variance. And last year, they were winning games they probably shouldn't have, and that's how they ended up with 109 points.

This year, it's kind of going the opposite way. They're controlling possession. They're controlling the course of all the advanced analytics show that the Golden Knights should be winning these games. and they're creating more high danger chances. And for whatever reason, whether they're just not as skilled and they're not putting them in the net or if it's a little bit of puck luck or whatever you want to call it, they're not getting the goals that they were last year. And that's really been the biggest drop off defensively.

They've still been good. It's more the goals aren't there. Yeah, I guess the first line and sort of their, the way their season's gone is the perfect living embodiment of the team as a whole, right? Like last year, you put William Carlson and Riley Smith and Jonathan Marshall Soe together, and right out of the gate, they stumble upon this amazing formula. You know, Will Carlson scores 40-plus goals? He has this ridiculous career season.

Marcia So and Riley Smith continue off some of the success they had in Florida together, and that line dominated as a whole. And then now this year, you know, some of the underlying numbers are still there. They're still dominating possession. They're still, you know, doing all out of the underlying things that you'd like to see from them. The shooting percentage, especially in particular, for those guys, has dried up quite a bit. And, you know, Marsh's so in particular, is fine. He's going to get his goals and get his point totals just because he's generating such an insane volume of shots.

But you're seeing with William Carlson and with Riley Smith in particular that once they're not converting at these sky high rates, all of a sudden we kind of talk about them differently. And it's weird. In 2019, you'd think that we'd still, we'd come around to the fact that, you know, shooting percentage is very, very ended. From year to year, you shouldn't get too high or too low on it. but you still see it based on how sometimes guys talk about, you know, Riley Smith is struggling. He's not scoring goals. And it's like, well, he's just maybe not being as lucky as he was last year. Yeah.

And Carlson, obviously, he had like 25% last year. Yeah, 23.4, yeah. Yeah, there's no way that's going to happen. And he's still pretty high this year at like 14%. More just because he's very picky and choosy with his shots. He shoots like half as many times as Jonathan Marcioso does because Marciussoe never met a shot he doesn't like. I mean, we're talking, if he retrieves a puck at the blue line facing his own goal, he will just spin 180 and fired at the net because that's just what he does.

And I actually think he needs to tone it down a little bit. And I think he has, I think this year he's almost been forcing it. And he went through a stretch over the last, I think about five games ago, he snapped out of it with a few goals, but he did go through a stretch this season where he could not score. And he began forcing things. And then he started trying to force passes that weren't there that ended up in the back of their own net on the other side. And I really do think that of all the three players, the struggles this year have really bothered Marcioso more than the other two, even though he does have more points than them. He's, his overall play has dipped more than Carlson and Smith, whereas Carlson Smith, I think, are both playing really good hockey, especially defensively.

They're both more 200-foot players than Marcioso is. But yeah, Marcioso's overall game when you watch play. He feels less impactful than he did last year. Yeah, I think people were, and I think Vegas sort of handled the William Carlson contract situation correctly the summer where they basically, you know, they paid him a handsome price this year, but they were like, let's see you do it for another year before we come into this long term. And this year, I think he's on pace for something around 24, 25 goals, 50-ish points. He's shooting 14.2%, which, as you alluded to, is still above league average, but much more in line with what we'd expect from him. And I think if he's going to be that type of player to go along

with the stuff he does defensively and what he contributes playing down in the middle. Like, that's a perfectly valuable player that's going to be paid nicely, but it's obviously not the 43-goal, 78-point guy that was shooting 25% as he was last year. So I think it's kind of more in line with what he is as a true talent level. I think the Riley Smith component of this equation is fascinating to me because I was looking at sort of his career arc, and he's really been kind of this yo-yo up-and-down player where, you know, in his first year in Boston, he scores 20 goals. he shoots 13.7%.

The next year, he dips down to 13 goals and 9.1% and he gets dealt for Jimmy Hayes. Then he goes to Florida. He has 25 goals. He's back up to 14%. Then when his shooting percentage comes down, he gets salary dumped to Vegas. Last year, he has that nice little season

where he scores 22 goals. And then this year you look and he's shooting 7.6% again. And I don't think Vegas is going to be in any rush to part ways with him or move on. But I think if he has a bounce back, whether it's in the latter stages of this season or whether it's next year and he gets back to being at that 25 goal guy,

I wouldn't be shocked at all. Yeah, we were actually just talking about that this morning. It seems like every other year he has a big year, and this year is one of his down years. With him, and like Riley Smith is Gerard Glant's favorite player on the team. He trusts him. He puts him out there in every situation, penalty kill. And Carlson and Smith, you alluded to it, Carlson's, his goals aren't there, but the rest of what he brings, those two are the most complete forwards on the team for the Golden Knights.

I mean, they play, they're on the number one penalty killing unit, they're on the number one power play unit. They create a ton of chances short-handed, especially this year they have. It seems like they create chances better short-handed than they do it five-on-five almost. But, yeah, they've been fantastic. And those are the guys that, and like every team has players like this. Even when the numbers aren't there, you still want them out there because they do so much for your team. It'd be nice if Carlson scored 43 goals, but he's not on Jopatar. are so yeah well and you see last night against the bruin's he i believe there was one

play where he either hit the crossbar of the post and then he had another breakaway that was stopped by a miraculous uh yarohalak save so it's like it's not there for a lack of effort or or the fact that they're completely ineffective it's just um you know it's just obviously the pucks aren't going in the way they were last year and that's sort of true for this entire team um i'm fascinated how sort of this year they're having um affects george macfee's decision-making process in these next couple of days and I know you talked to him about this and you wrote about and I recommend all the listeners after listening to this podcast go and read your work at the athletic about it but he's in an interesting spot here where they're basically essentially locked in to their

current playoff position right there I think they're nine points back of san Jose for second in the pacific and they're 10 points up on the coyotes who are fighting for a wildcard spot so it looks like they're going to be in that third pacific division spot and they're going to play either either San Jose or Calgary. And so you kind of know where you stand and you know who you're going to play. Now, the unfortunate part of that is either of those two teams look like they're, you know, pretty lethal Goliaths who are going to be really tough to take down. So I'm not sure what the calculus is there if you're George McPhee from the perspective of

especially how things went last year with their big acquisition being Thomas Sattard and not working out and whether that affects the decision-making process at all. I don't know. Like in your gauge of talking to him and also following the team closely, do you think weighing all of those things. How do you think that Vegas is going to approach this trade deadline from the perspective of potentially being a buyer or more so standing, Pat? I think George McPhee is going to be making phone calls on every single player that's available

because it's just how he is. I mean, if you go back to his days in Washington, there's pretty much never been a season where he thought his team had a chance at winning the cup that he didn't buy at the deadline. Now, sometimes they were huge deals to bring in big name players. Sometimes they were just smaller moves for depth scoring or whatever to add a little defense. But he added goalies a couple times, but he always adds. And last night I talked to him, and he's maybe better than anyone I've ever spoken to it, saying words without saying anything.

But I did get the sense of he believes this team is good. They've been going through a rough stretch lately. And I asked him, I'm like, this rough stretch that you're going through, they're three, eight, and one. last 12 games, which is bad. There's two ways to look at that. Is it we're not playing well so I need to add something so that we can start playing well again? Or is it maybe we're not as close as I thought we were? Let's not waste future assets and go all in. And he basically said it has no effect on him. He believes when this team plays the way that they can, they can beat anyone. And I mean, they've shown that this year and they showed last year that when they're playing

well, they can beat someone. So I think that he really does believe this team has a chance in the playoffs, and therefore he is going to make him move, or at least try. I think last year, he wanted Eric Carlson badly. I think he tried really, really hard to get that deal done, didn't want to give up Cody Glass, ended up not getting it. And then I think he panicked. I think it was the last few minutes before the deadline, and he fell back to his secondary option, which was Tatar, which is not what he originally wanted, and then it ended up backfiring. He didn't fit. Tatar's a great player. You see him go to Montreal. He's still the same player. He was in Detroit. He just didn't fit in Vegas for whatever reason. But yeah, so I think the lesson learned from that is

only do the move that you want. And if you don't get it, just stand pat. But I do expect him to be active over the next few days. Yeah, I definitely agree with that rationale. Sometimes we see teams kind of, you know, make moves just for the sake of making moves or just so you have some of a point to your fan base and go, like, look, we're trying. We're a buyer. We're a contender, and that's not necessarily the right way to do business. But I think it's pretty clear, as you mentioned, I think they can definitely compete with those teams. And I'd say, unless San Jose or Calgary go out and get a goal in these next couple of days,

they'll at least be able to skate with these teams and potentially also have a goalie advantage in that. So that's kind of the ultimate equalizer, right? Yeah. To me, if I'm San Jose or Calgary, I don't know how comfortable I feel going into a playoff series with the Golden Knights, considering. Flurry's playoff pedigree, and he was unbelievable last year in the playoffs. And he started this season really good. He's been a little, he's been dipping a little bit this, the last few

stretch just with the rest of the team. But, I mean, Calgary's goalie situation, you don't know if Ridditch is really what he is. He can, I mean, at any point, he could fall off, and I don't think it would surprise anyone. And obviously San Jose is looking to maybe acquire a goalie. They're not super satisfied with what they have. Martin Jones has great games, then he's, has bad games. So if I'm one of those two teams, I don't know how thrilled I am to play Vegas, even if you do have a better overall lineup, just because goalies in the playoffs, we all know, are so important. And there aren't many teams that go into a series feeling confident

their goalies going to outplay Mark Andre Fleury. Yeah. I mean, obviously the Sharks team is better and different than the one that Vegas played last year in the postseason. But I really love watching that series, and the pace and the tempo that both teams were playing out was remarkable, and I think it would be more of the same. So if we get treated to that as a first show,

round matchup, I would be all for that. And I completely agree with what you said about how, I don't, if I was Calgary or San Jose, I would not feel comfortable with that being as a first round series. But I guess that sort of incentivizes doing better in the regular season and sort of like Vegas got treated to that cake first round matchup against Los Angeles last year when they ran away with the Pacific. The team that wins the Pacific this year will be rewarded with a much easier first round series against whoever comes out of that jumble of wildcar teams that are crawling into a mix. Yep. Yeah, no, it does make a big difference. Last year, Vegas had a really easy run, and then they let Nashville and Winnipeg beat up on each other, and it looks like that's probably

going to happen again this year. It's going to be fun. I would love a San Jose series. Other than the fact that San Jose, have you covered games in San Jose? I've never been to a game there, no. Oh, my goodness. It's the worst setup for, like, the press in the history of sports. It's bad. They forgot to build a press box in San Jose. So you're not in a press box. You're actually in the rafters, just like on scaffolding, where they have like tables and chairs set up. It's pretty bad.

But other than that, the actual play on the ice should be fantastic. Yeah, they have these weird vantage points for the cameras, I feel like, too, for the TV setup. And the lighting's always off. And I'm not sure how much of it is intentional and how much of it is, you know, out of necessity. But yeah, you're right. It does feel like there's some weird going on there. But I would love to watch that series. these are all nitpicks of ours as media members.

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and enter the promo code PDO. That's promo code PDO for $10 off your first Seek purchase. Now let's get back to the show. So we're talking about George McPhee's, you know, decision making is sort of how he's going to approach this trade deadline. And I think, you know, you're always balancing out building this farm system versus competing in the present day

and trying to go for a Stanley Cup. And last year they went for it and they gave up three picks and it didn't wind up working out for them. And I think they're in a unique spot here where on the one hand, they've only been in the league for two drafts now. So you'd think they wouldn't be that loaded. But first off, I think they completely nailed their first inaugural draft with the 12 picks they had.

And they're set up pretty well here in the future. I think they have nine picks in the first five rounds this year. And then they have their first and three second round picks in 2020. So if they are going to get feisty here, I think they have plenty of draft capital to do so. But it's pretty clear. it seems like guys like Cody Glass and Eric Brandstrom are no-goes. And I imagine if there was any sort of blockbuster trader, you're bringing in a player

that was really going to move the needle in either direction, those guys would kind of have to be involved. Yeah. And you mentioned only two drafts, so their prospect pool is a lot more shallow than most teams. But when George McPhee went into that expansion draft, if you go back and look, I mean, he made so many side deals. I think like one out of every four teams sent a pitch. his way. Like Columbus, he got William Carlson and a first round pick. They paid him a first round pick to take William Carlson. And a lot of, I think he ended up with three extra first round

picks out of that. So he was able to kind of accelerate that process. And you mentioned Cody Glass, where they're really thin is forward. And they didn't want to give up Cody Glass in that trade to Ottawa last offseason and last trade deadline because Cody Glass is really their only prospect as far as forwards go that's even close to making the NHL right now. The rest are really far out, whereas defense, they are stacked. I think they can rival any team in the league as far as their defensive prospect pool. From Eric Brantstrom to Nick Haig to White Cloud to Bischoff to Duggan, they've got so many defensemen.

In Chicago, their NHL team, they're playing basically all 20-year-olds. And they're one of the better teams in the HL. So I think if you're going to dip into that pool of prospects for a trade, it's got to be on the defensive side. So my editors at ESPN, that was a nice little humble brag. You want me to do sort of like a little preview thing where I look at all the contenders and identify their biggest need and sort of look for a logical trade partner that could fit that. It could plausibly happen.

And with Vegas, I was kind of struggling because I think it's pretty clear. I do like their defense and I don't think they're going to do anything drastic there. I think it comes on the forward group. And I was trying to, you know, what do you think? Do you think a bigger need would be going after a center, acknowledging that there's so few of them are available? I think it basically comes down to Matthew Shane and Kevin Hayes and then maybe a guy like Eric Stahl.

Or do you think it would be make more sense to get another potential winger and then split things up and roll with three scorelines and keep that fourth line intact? Yeah, I think winger is a lot more likely. I wouldn't be shocked if they went with center, but the Golden Knights are pretty solid at center. I mean, Paul Stasney missed a huge part of the season when he got injured early, but since he's come back, you could argue, he's been the best forward on the team.

He's been phenomenal. And William Carlson still, he's, you got that 200-foot game. He's, you're still happy with him up there. The third-line center, Cody Ekin, is having one of his best scoring years of the season. And Pierre-Ir-Belmar, the fourth-line center, has pretty much done exactly what you want out of a fourth-line center, and he kills a ton of penalties. It's the wingers where they're having their issues. And I mean, Mark Stone, you're going to have to give up a lot to bring him in.

But he fits Gerard Galant's, the way he wants his players to play with tight floor checking, really high energy, 200-foot game. Whereas too much to Tar was clearly not. Like, the style of play is almost opposite of what Galant wants. Mark Stone would be a perfect fit. You're obviously going to have to give up a lot to bring him in. I think a cheaper version would be like Wayne Simmons is probably not going to cost as much as, Mark Stone. I think he would also be a good net front presence that kind of fits what Gerard wants out of his wingers. As for what you're going to give up to do that, my proposition when I

did my trade deadline primer, I don't know, a week and a half, two weeks ago was basically give them an NHL ready defenseman, which would probably be Colin Miller or Shea Theodore, both of whom are young, offensively minded defensemen who are locked up long term under pretty good contracts. I think it'd probably take one of those two. One of the prospects in the H.L. Whether it's Nick Haig, who won Canadian Defensivement of the Year and junior last year, and now is playing phenomenal in the HL. He's 20, and he's 6'7, has a lot of potential.

Or maybe a white cloud who's a little closer to, he's a little older. I think he's 22, and he's another good defensive prospect, and then probably a pick. Right. Yeah, I'd be pretty reluctant to move on from Shea, Theodore, unless there was a Mark Stone type and you even had an inkling that he was going to want to resign, right? Like I think for any binger kept below that caliber, I'd be pretty hesitant to move a guy who's under contract and whose apex is still yet to come and who's already such a valuable

contributor for a rental like that just because I'm not sure how that fits into this team's plans in terms of actually moving the needle for them. But I think, you know, you mentioned Paul Stasney there and I think it's fair to say that their best forward trio this season has been the combination of. him, Patcheretti, and Alex Tuck, right? Oh, for sure. They, they, especially offensively. They're not nearly as good defensively as the top line is.

And they get a break because of that. The top line takes the, they basically match up with the opposing top line almost every night. And that allows that second line of Stasney, Tuck, and Patcheretti to just go all out offensively. And they have been really, really good together. Patcheretti does what he does. He doesn't do a whole lot of forechecking.

he's mostly just find soft spots in the offensive zone and get the puck to him. Stazni obviously is the calming presence. He slows the game down. And Alex Tuck, who was good as a rookie last year and showed flashes, he just, it seemed like the game was a little fast for him. He would deak through the entire defense and then would be going so fast at the goalie. He would just fire it wide or not know what to do with the puck. This year, the game is slowing down a little bit.

He's starting to, his brain is starting to process things as fast as his skates move. And he's a huge guy. He skates way too fast for how big he is. It doesn't even seem possible. I think he catches defensemen off guard because they see him coming and he's the same size as them or bigger and they don't realize that he just blows right by him. So I think the biggest part of that line has been the progression of Alex Tuck. He's been the most consistent player on the team all year. Even when Stasney was out with his injury, when Cody Eakin moved up, that was when Cody Eakin got the bulk of his goals this season was when he was playing with Alex Tuck.

and the majority of them were one-timers off of plays that were basically all Alex Tuck, and then he just dishes it to Cody Eakin for a wide open net. He's been phenomenal as a second-year player. Yeah, no, yes. I was going to say that I would think that Stasi, just based on his player type and sort of what he brings to the table, and his unselfishness would be the most valuable member of that group. But then I remember that Alex Tuck did most of his work the season actually in the early going when Paul Stasney was out, and he was kind of this singular force that was sort of driving that online himself.

So I think all three of those guys, fit together perfectly. I love the combination of having Stazni with a shooter like Patraterty and a net driver like Tuck. And you constantly read, you know, evaluators, especially prospect evaluators like a Corey Pradman and they talk about a player's hockey sentence. And I never kind of am able to sort of quantify, wrap my head around what that means. But then you watch a guy like Paul Stazzy and he's not the fastest player by any means. He's not the most skilled guy out there. But for whatever reason, it seems like the puck just kind of follows him around and he's always on it. And I imagine that's what evaluators are

talking about hockey sense when you watch a guy like Paul Staz and he just constantly doing things, even though he might not have the physical attributes to be the best guy in the game. Yeah, I've gotten to watch him a lot at practice this year, and it's amazing. And then you see it in the game. And when you watch a guy in practice and you notice things, then you notice them in a game that you wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't, like, if you weren't already looking for him. And just, he just, everything, he looks so slow for him. His head's not jerking back and forth real quick.

he's so comfortable and knows where everyone is on the ice that when he gets the puck, he's confident, he's not worried about a guy coming behind him because he already knows that there's no one there. He just has such a good sense for everyone where they are and where they're going. And he just makes it look really easy. And like I talked to Nate Schmidt a couple weeks ago and he was telling me, he's seen Stasney playing on other teams throughout the league for his whole career. He knows him pretty well, but he didn't realize how good he was until he got out on the ice and practiced them every day and he's amazed by it yeah i mean he's so unsolvish i miss maybe you could even argue sometimes to a fault but i imagine he's just so fun to play with right

like you watch um sort of what he meant to patrick liney and and nick lailer's last year and how they made that run and when he was their second line center and now how line in particular has had a miserable go of it without him and you know when you have a guy like that who's just constantly out there looking to get the puck to you and in the spots you want to shoot him like i imagine that's probably the most fun player type you could play with. Yeah, he, I made a joke last night. I tweeted, like, you can tell when Paul Stazni is going to pass when he has, when he has the puck.

I think he passed on a shootout, on a breakaway earlier this season, actually. He had a breakaway with the guy chasing, and he deeked and then left the puck for the trailer on a breakaway. So that pretty much paints the picture of how unselfish he is. And it's partially because he doesn't have a great shot, and he's very self-aware. Like, he knows he doesn't have great moves. His hands aren't the best.

He's not going to beat a goalie with a big shot. So let me do what I can do and hopefully set someone else up for something. Well, the joke in Vancouver during Henrik Siddeen's heyday was even when he'd score goals, it would be passing it to the back of the net. And it feels like there's a little bit of that going on with Taz as well. Yes, definitely.

You know, the other thing that stuck out to me watching that game and watching the goal nights lately is I think, and this is a weird thing, to say about a defenseman and especially one who doesn't put up huge point totals like when it makes sense that a guy like carlinson would be on the list of most fun players to watch but i think if i had to pick like five or ten players that i could only exclusively watch nage smit would have to be on that list his skating is phenomenal it's insane he makes it look very easy um he he leads the team in ice time and galant basically told us like he tries to keep line restriction or uh shift restrictions

on everybody. He wants everybody to take short shifts, except for Nate Schmidt. He has full reign to stay out there as long as he wants because he can skate for days. He never gets tired because his skating is so efficient. And because of that, he's able to kind of jump into the play. And you saw it last night, he jumped into the play quite a few times, including the goal that he scored right after the goal that they gave up. And he does that while not sacrificing defensive responsibility because he's the shutdown defenseman on this team. A guy like Eric Carlson or Brent Burns or whoever you want to pick, they don't have as much defensive responsibility because their team is counting on them to go score goals and put up points. And if you're not as, if you're not back as much as you

should be, it's not that big a deal because that's not what we're relying on you for. Whereas Nate Schmidt, he plays that top pairing defenseman and his job every night is to shut down the opposing top line. And that's part of why he probably doesn't have as many points as you'd think by watching him play. But yeah, his skating ability is phenomenal. And on the rare occasion, he does jump into the play. fun to watch. Well, in the league now where pretty much everyone is a good skater, like the fact that he sticks out as much as he does for his skating is a testament to him, right? Like maybe back in the day in the 90s, if a guy was a good skater and he'd pop off the page, you'd be like, okay, well, makes sense. No one else around him can skate. So it's pretty obvious with him. It's like everyone

around him is a good, great skater in their own right, and he's just leaps and bounds better than all them and just watching him cover a ground and sort of, I wonder, I mean, he's already well enough into his career now that I don't think he's necessarily going to change much as a player. But Yeah, I feel like sometimes you could probably even get away with being more active offensively or taking more risks just because he can cover ground so much more easier that sometimes I would love to see him unleashed a little bit more freed up because you see that like that goal he's scored against Boston where he just has this end-to-end rush and shows off the physical skills to pull off a goal like that. Like I feel like that's something we should see more often from him just based on what he's capable of. Yeah, in the last three games, he's actually done it more since Gerard Gallant switched up the defense. pairings. He's been paired with Braden McNabb on that top pairing

basically since the Golden Knights started as a team dating all the way back to the beginning of last season until three games ago and he put Derek England up on that top pairing which I did not agree with at the time because Derek England has not been great and he's getting older and slower but I think

putting him with England with McNabb is a more stay-at-home defenseman also but he does jump in occasionally whereas Derek England never jumps into the rush so I think it's kind of given Schmidt more of a green light, he knows he always has Derek England back there. And usually he's on the ice with the top forward unit of Carlson and Smith, and he knows those guys are going to reload really well behind him. So he's not afraid to jump up.

So since Goa, made that switch three games ago, Schmidt has been significantly more noticeable offensively. Yeah. I mean, the success that he's had so far in his career speaks to sort of all those little things he does. I know, you know, on high school metrics can be sometimes filled with noise and might not necessarily capture a player's ability and sort of might speak more to his situation or what minutes he plays, but pretty much since he came into the league as a regular in 2015-16, whenever he's been on the ice, his team seemed to outscore opposition by a massive margin. I imagine he plays a big role in that. And I think he's as a defenseman and we sort of, I know everyone has their own personal preferences and maybe it's a subjective thing in terms of what

you want, whether you want a more stay-at-home defensively responsible conservative type or if you want a more free-flowing, smooth skating defenseman. But he's the person. He's the person to defenseman for me in the sense that he doesn't take a lot of penalties and he doesn't necessarily force the puck by just shooting it from the point just to get it on net and he's sort of he's very methodical and calculated and when he takes his chances they seem to be pretty good ones so i don't know if i was like creating a defensive in the lab i think i would i would just want six natchmits and we talk about his skating offensively to me it's it's so much fun to watch him defensively because i mean we we we all know the guy's trying to go around you

You try to stay skating backwards, but once he closes that gap, at some point, you have to turn around and skate forwards. You're going to get beat. And Schmidt skates so well that that pretty much never happens to him. Like, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times that's happened to him in two seasons in Vegas. Because his skating is so well, he keeps his gaps and maintains his spacing better than anyone on the team. And that's part of the reason he has so few penalties because he never gets caught out of position and doesn't have to hold or trip or hook. Right, that's the thing. I remember, I think there's still probably some old school people that believe that a low penalty minute total means you're playing soft or you're not being physical. But with him, it's like he's just never out of position because you can cover ground so easily. So he's not hooking, he's not holding. He's not taking guys down just to prevent them from scoring on them. So yeah, I mean, he's the prototypical defenseman. And he's had a very interesting career path because obviously he played a while in college. And then when he came up with Washington, he wasn't necessarily held a prospect. And he was a playing on sheltered third-paring minutes, but it's clear with guys like him and Colin Miller

and Shay Theodore that Vegas preferred a certain type of defensemen and valued their skating and sort of identify them as guys who could do more, given more opportunity on an expansion team, and clearly they've been rewarded for it. Yeah, and me personally, Eric Brandstrom skates better than all of them. He may be the best skater on the team the day he joins the team. So I'm super excited for that. And Nick Hague, he's, like I said, he's 6-7, so he's a little clunky air out there, but he's no Braden McNabb, who's like kind of a stiffer player who can't really skate as much. For being 6-7, he skates tremendously well. So the future is probably going to be more of the same, if not even more offensive and skater-driven defenseman. Yeah, I honestly thought that he could

make the team out of camp. And I think for a while there before Shay Theodore was signed to his DLA in the game, it looked like he might actually, and H. Schmidt, obviously, suspended as well to start the season, I thought we might get at least a sneak peek or a cup of coffee with Eric Brandstrom. I was excited about it, but we'll have to wait a little while longer. Yeah, we were even surprised in town. We thought for sure he was going to get, during that 20-game suspension for Nate Schmidt, we thought he'd get four or five games just to see. I think George McPhee is afraid that, because Brandstrom, obviously, he's a really flashy guy. He does a lot of flashy moves. He's your prototypical Swedish defenseman that's super offensive-minded.

he does crazy things and I think McPhee is worried that he can build bad habits very quickly in the NHL and he really, really wants to take it slow with him and they put him in the HL and now he's dominating down there and he played really, really well for Sweden and World Junior. So I think he's going to be ready for that step, but more than any other prospect, I think McPhee is afraid to ruin him, for lack of a better term,

by letting him out there and letting him get himself into trouble. Yeah. Okay. How worried should we be about Mark Andre Fleury's usage this season? Very worried. I've been the driver of that train. I think I wrote a story in December, like December 15th, way back when the season first started, saying that they're playing him too much. Especially at his age, if you look, I am a goalie nerd. I play goalie four or five nights a week, and that's my main focus every game is the goalies. And, um, You look at the goalies that have won the Stanley Cup over the last half decade, and they're all, whether it was an injury, whether it was last year,

Holbe was almost getting his job taken by Grubaugh, whatever the reason is. The last bunch of goalies that have won the Stanley Cup have done so with a fresh body because they didn't play as many games in the regular season. And in Pittsburgh, you saw it with Flurry and Murray going back and forth, and they were both fresh, and they played amazing in the playoffs. and I just, I think if the Golden Knights are going to win the Stanley Cup, it's going to be because of Mark Andre Fleury. I just don't see him winning it just like in spite of him. He's going to be the reason they win. In order for that to happen, he's got to be on his A game. And I just don't think he can be after playing 69, 70 games in the regular season.

Yeah, he's on pace for just under 70 now. And I, he hasn't hit 60 since 2014-15. And obviously part of that was because he got usurped there by by Matt Murray. but I think, yeah, expecting a guy who is 34 years old with, what, approaching 800 games of an HL experience to play this much is alarming. And I think even more so, like they've invested in them long term, right? I guess medium term with that three-year, $21 million extension that hasn't kicked in yet. So wearing him out is obviously an alarm at the same time. Like this was kind of out of necessity. Like I feel like based on how they started off the season, they really needed that dependable presence of. his and net. And I don't know, I'd like to see them, especially now that they are kind of locked in

in this third spot in the Pacific Division and can't really move up or down much, I'd love to see them spell him a bit more with Malcolm Sub-Ben, and we saw that with back-to-back games last week, and I imagine we're going to see more of that in the final 20 or so games. Yeah, definitely. Like you said, the fact that they're locked in, I mean, there's nothing to lose. At this point for the Golden Knights, they're not going to come out and say it because, you know, they're going to say, oh, we want to win every point, blah, blah, blah. But, I mean, the real goal is, be the best we can be April 7th when the season ends so that we can win in the playoffs. And part of that should be playing Malcolm Suban a healthy amount.

I said 50-50. I think they should play him 10 of the last 22 games if I was them. And then let Flurry play two or three down this at the end of the season to get back into a rhythm, start trying to simulate playoff games and be ready for that. But I think Sub-Ban's been phenomenal. I think part of the reason Flurie got up there so high in those game totals was at one point, They didn't play Suban for about a month, and that was after a seven-two beat down up in Calgary, in which I, no, I'll admit, I'm biased towards the goal.

It's never their fault. But I didn't think of the seven goals, I think maybe one was Suban's fault. They were one-timers from the back door that he had no chance on, and I think they've kind of lost confidence in him, and now that's, they're starting to gain that back. I think Suban's been phenomenal. His safe percentage is higher than Mark Andre Fleury's, obviously a lot smaller. sample size, but in his last few games, the team's not giving him much goal support. I think he has, yeah, so he's three and six this year. In his six losses, the team has scored, the Golden Knights

have a total of six goals. It's tough to win when their team's averaging one goal a game. And the last two losses, his team's been shut out in. So the team doesn't play as well in front of him for whatever reason. If they can start giving him some more goal support, it's, it's, I don't think it's that much of a drop-off in a regular season game to go from Flurry to Sub-Ben. I think he's in the top half of the NHL when it comes to backup goalies, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, he's obviously got the pedigree heading in, and I think in his limited time in Vegas, he's certainly shown or I guess flashed the talent. And I think it would also behooved them.

I mean, I know they're kind of committed now to Flurry as their start-up for the next couple seasons at least, but it would behoove them to get a longer look and see what Sub-Bang can actually be in whether moving into next year or the year after, where there can be more of a 50-50 split because especially with Flurry's age, but also with where the leagues headed, we're seeing time and time again that these teams that are successful and have long play off runs typically aren't relying upon their goalies to play 65, 70 games in the regular season anymore like they were back during Mika Keprosov and Marty Broder's hey days. Exactly. And everyone wonders why Kerry Price and Babrovsky are so bad in the playoffs.

It's because they're exhausted from carrying their team for 70 games throughout the season. And yeah, and like you said, you mentioned, that's a good point. Suban is an RFA at the end of this year. You can tender him, but eventually you're going to have to make a decision of whether you want to keep him long term. And he's going to have to make a decision of whether he wants to stay here long term. And obviously, the more you play him, the better both sides can make that decision. Are there any other storylines of this team? Like, I feel like we've kind of rattled through some of the main stuff that I had here on my checklist.

I don't know. You cover the team more closely. You're more aware of what's going on there. Like, is there any other sort of pressing topics or things that people are talking about locally that we should get into? Yeah, I mean, the biggest issue with this team has been the third line and their lack of scoring. And we've talked about Cody Eakin and how well he's played 15 goals, 17 assists. That's pretty high for his normal totals about this time of the year. But almost all of that came when he was filling it on the second line and he hasn't done much since he went back down to the third line.

And it's not, I'm not going to pin it on Cody Eakin. and he still plays good defensive hockey, but the problem is he's not a guy that can elevate lesser wingers and make like a Paul Stasny can. He needs some talent around him in order to do stuff. And the wingers on the third line have been not good. Ryan Carpenter is someone they picked up off waivers. Last year from San Jose, he's got four goals and nine assists.

He's a minus eight on the season. And then the other winger on that side has been a rotation of Tomash Nosek, who's been a really big disappointment, and he's a minus 14 on the season. Brandon Peary was phenomenal on the second line when he came up, and obviously that was a national story because he was scoring every game. Then as soon as Pat already comes back and Peary goes down to the third line, he's completely invisible. So anyway, so the biggest issue on the Golden Knights is getting that third line to do something,

anything, just anything at all. That way on Knights, when that top line isn't producing on the, on the rare occasion that the patcher ready tuxedazany line doesn't do something, you have someone else to pick you up and they just haven't so far. So I don't know what the answer is, but that's the issue. I mean, they're still hoping that Eric Kala is going to come back and give them something, right?

Yeah, that would be phenomenal. I mean, that would completely change the outlook of that line because Brandon Peary is a guy that, obviously, if he's on the ice with talented players, he's going to get in good positions and he's got a great shot, he can score. If all of a sudden that line is Ekin Hall of Peary, it completely changes the way you view that line. I don't know if Eric Hall is coming back.

I just asked George McPhee last night. He wouldn't tell me much. I know he had major surgery on his knee. The scar is a huge scar down his knee. And he's walking around. He was in a full leg brace for a while on crushes. Just recently he's gotten off that. And he's walking around kind of with a limp.

I don't, I mean, the playoffs are coming up so quick. It would be, if I had to be, bet right now, I'd say he probably isn't ready. So the next option would be bringing someone in. And if you bring a Mark Stone or Wayne Simmons, and he's probably going to fit into the top six, and that allows you to move maybe a Riley Smith or a Marsha or somebody down into that third line to help Ekin and Peary. Yeah, I mean, especially since Halla's main attribute or his calling card is his speed, right, and his skating. And obviously that lower body injury would zap him of that quite a bit, I imagine. And it's tough because I don't think anyone was

necessarily expecting that he replicate his 30 goal pace or whatever he did last year, but essentially getting a zero from him this year because of the injury and the slow start is, uh, is, it hurts them quite a bit. It hurts that depth scoring that was such a pivotal, uh, ingredient to their success last year. I, I, we haven't really talked about him much in the terms of the names that you've been thrown out there, but like a guy like Chris Kreider, for example, um, is a name I keep coming back to for them because he's got another year in his deal. So he's not necessarily a pure rental and maybe you give up a bit more for him. But also just like, I, think what made this Vegas team special last year was that relentless, tenacious for checking and

and speed and how you could never take a break for any sequence of shifts because whoever was coming across the boards would be giving you fits and causing you to make mistakes. And I'm not sure how much a guy like Wayne Simmons necessarily contributes to that, whereas maybe a guy like Chris Kreider can bring that speed element as well and make it just incredibly difficult for you to play against it and all of a sudden a playoff series against Calgary or San Jose, you could spread out spread out those lines and move O'Reilly Smith down to the third line, and all of a sudden you're rolling those three scoring lines without a worry, really. Yeah, no, you just hit the nail on the head.

That was Gallant played his lines a lot more evenly than most coaches. He liked to pretend like it was four even lines, but that's obviously not the case. But more evenly than most coaches do, and it was because he had lines that he could do that with, and this year he hasn't. That third line has been, at this, right now, the way it's currently constructed with No Sick Piri, Eakin, Carpenter,

whoever, Daniel Carr came up from the H.L. For a little bit, Oscar Lindbergh has been up there. Whoever it is, it's basically just go out there and if you can make it a stalemate, that's a win. Just don't get scored on.

And obviously, that's not ideal, especially if you want to run all four lines. The fourth line hasn't produced a ton with Ryan Reeves, William Carrier, and Pierre Barbilla. They haven't produced a ton of points, but they're constantly in the offensive zone and they're just beating the hell out of the other team with with forechecking.

Reeves and Carrier one and two in the league and hits, at least they were before Carrier's injury. He might have dropped down now. But they're just pummeling guys. So they're doing their job, even though they're not scoring. Yeah, no, they are. And I'm just kind of pivoting forward and sort of taking a bigger picture of view of things. We've talked about potential transactions they can make here at the deadline and improving the team. But even beyond this trade deadline, like I know it makes sense versus discuss it because they are, at least in the discussion, if not a pure contender, so they should be looking to get better now. But I'm very fascinating to see how they approach this summer because they've pretty much got all their foundational cornerstones locked up

on very reasonable contracts in the couple of years. I guess William Carlson's the only exception there, but they've also got some, just because they have taken care of that business, they've got some extra space now to operate with. And with the cap rising, I'm very curious to see, I mean, I think coming into it, we wondered, you know, how willing players, would be to come here, whether they'd want to sign long-term deals, and then all of a sudden, with the tax considerations, we see a guy like Paul Stasney maybe take less than he would have otherwise to come play for the Golden Knights, and I'll be fascinated to see if that trend carries into the future and whether they can land another big free agent or two this summer to potentially

address some of these depth concerns that we've alluded to earlier. Yeah, in my trade deadline primer, I did a ton of math and figured out that they're going to have about 18.3 million in cap space. With Carlson really being the only big one that they've got to resign, the other two unrestricted free agents are not major pieces. We're talking Pierre-Egward Belmar, Oscar Lindberg, Ryan Carpenter type of guys that aren't going to, if you do want to keep them, it's only a million or two here. It's not going to be much.

And you mentioned the tax break in Vegas. Obviously, that's phenomenal, especially if you're trying to get a guy that's coming from California or Canada where the taxes are really high compared to here. You can give him 20% less money and he still ends up making more in the end. The other thing that Vegas has going for it is, I mean, it's a great setup here for these players. Like these guys are spoiled rotten. I talked to him all the time. I was talking to Nate Schmidt for a story I'm writing a couple days ago about how they all get their cars washed every day at practice.

Bill Foley, one guy one day was like, oh man, I got to get out of practice. I got to get out of the lunch early because I got to go wash my car and Foley's like, oh, okay. The next day he has a car wash service that's there. They just leave their keys and they wash and detail the insides of all of their cars like twice a week or whatever. But anyways, these guys have a brand new practice facility that's obviously state of the art. Any practice facility that gets built is the new best one in North America. And that's what this is for them. They all live in this really nice area of Vegas called Summerland that's they're all basically

within walking distance of the practice facility. There's no traffic here because it's only two million people. There's hardly any traffic. They've got a brand new arena, a brand new practice facility. They make more money than they ever have because of the taxes. It's obviously the weather is great other than today when it snowed, but usually it's awesome weather. There's basically nothing to complain about with this city,

and it's going to make it super attractive. Assuming you keep the, now, if all of a sudden, the franchise is acting like Ottawa and it's in disarray and there's all that, then all of a sudden maybe it's not as attractive. But as long as it's a functioning franchise that appears to treat the players well, they're going to get pretty much whoever they want. I mean, obviously it helps that I mean, there's kind of that honeymoon period, but also the fact that the team has been as good as it's been and the fact that they've assembled this team that's really fun to watch and plays a fun, exciting uptempo brand of hockey certainly helps. But I was kind of curious, I wanted to see

this year because now a bit of that sort of new shine rubs off. And after the first year, and you see whether it's going to be consolidated or how it's going to shape up in year or two. And there hasn't been any drop off, in my opinion, and you look at it and I think that intendant's number is their top ten right there with all the Canadian markets and all the capitals and penguins. So, I mean, the support is clearly there. And I've really enjoyed watching the games just from the sort of atmosphere you see from it. I'm sure you feel that covering it as well. So yeah, I imagine in terms of the market itself, it must be a very appealing one for a lot of guys to common play in. Yeah, that's another thing that I didn't even mention is the fan support has been

phenomenal. I mean, they've, they've never had anything but overcapacity sell out at T-Mobile Arena. And between the standing room only sections and the nightclub that they have that hangs out over the, they've got hide nightclub out there that kind of, it's like a triangle-shaped balcony that hangs out over the rink. Between those spots, I think they're at like 105% capacity pretty much every game. The practices are open to the public at their facility where they've got stands that hold about 800. The stands hold about 800 people. There's usually about 1,000 people there every single day for practice, whether it's a weekday, a weekend, even morning skates that are only about 30 minutes long. They still get five, six, 700 people out there watching them. It's been

pretty wild. I have yet to talk to a player on any team that says T-Mobile Arena is not the best atmosphere they've played in in the NHL. So like you said, we'll see if in 10 years it's still that way, but for now and for the foreseeable future, Vegas is an awesome place to play hockey because of that atmosphere. And they've got, I think, so the place

the building holds 18,000. 14,000 are season ticket holders and they've got a 6,000 person waiting list for season tickets. So let's just say the team has a couple bad seasons and some season ticket holders drop off. They've got people waiting to fill those spots.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I was going to say when you were mentioning the sellouts, like I remember here in Vancouver for a while, they'd announce that the Canucks had this sellout streak, and then you'd actually watch the games or go to them, and there'd be so many empty seats, and it was clear. You know, they were, they were fudging the numbers a little bit, and there was some of those, like, corporate seats

that were being bought out but not actually filled, and I feel like everyone that's in attendance that those games is doing their part to the atmosphere and get involved and engaged, and it's been really fun to watch. And I guess the big loser here is probably Seattle, right? because I think everything they do with their new organization and their new franchise there is going to be compared to what's gone on in Vegas.

And I think that's probably going to be unfair to them just because this is sort of the type of smash success that I think even the most optimistic people probably couldn't have envisioned. Yeah, you want to talk about unrealistic expectations. The GM of Seattle is not a job I want. I'm going to, I feel bad for whoever gets that job. Hopefully the people in charge are smart enough to see that. that that's not the expectations, but, man, after what Vegas has done, I mean, obviously you don't need to go to a cup final, but they're going to expect a legit team right out of the gates.

And if you're one of the bottom teams, there's going to be questions. And I don't think that's fair, especially with teams having this new expansion rules, having one under their belt, these GMs are not going to get baited into these deals that they've made with Vegas. They're probably going to be a lot more conservative. And it's going to make it tough on Seattle. Speaking of Seattle, if they don't hire Kelly McCrimmon, I will be shocked. Yeah, you think he's gone?

Assistant GM here in Vegas, he's been phenomenal. He is basically, George McPhee handles more of the pro-scouting stuff, where McCriman does most of the amateur scouting stuff. I mean, McPhee does part of the other stuff too, but that's really McCriman's realm. He's been, obviously with the Brandon Wheat Kings, he's been coach, GM owner, everything up there. He has a lot of experience over in that West Coast just because of Seattle Thunderbirds. he fits the mold perfectly, and he was right there step by step watching George McPhee do all of what he did to make Vegas what it is.

So if I'm Seattle, he's at the top of my list. I mean, they might have to act fast because it sounds like Edmonton might scoop him up before that. But, yeah, no, he's going to be in hot demand. Yeah, definitely. And Edmonton, too. I think he's a future GM for sure, and I think he's going to be great. I'm going to hate it when he leaves because he's great to talk to. but he deserves it.

Yeah, such is life. All right, Jesse, let's get out of here. Plug some stuff. What are you working on these days? What can people expect from you? Well, I am going to be working on a ton of trade deadline stuff coming up. Like I said, I expect them to be pretty active. If not, there's going to be a story that they didn't make a move.

So either way, there's going to be a lot of trade deadline stuff. I'm working on a really cool story with Alex Tuck right now. I'm talking to a lot of his childhood friends that should be coming out here in a few weeks. Pretty crazy thing. He grew up in like rural northern Buffalo on this street and he would play hockey and lacrosse and football and everything with all of his buddies. Well, there's like eight of them and they all eight of them ended up becoming professional athletes. It's like the craziest thing. In all different sports, we got sled hockey players, we got skiers, we got lacrosse players. Obviously Alex is in the NHL and his little brother is going to be you. So he's going to be in the

NHL soon, assuming. But yeah, really cool story about just a bunch of kids that ended up becoming pro athletes. That's my favorite thing to do at the athletic. Obviously, I'm pretty new. I'm only four or five months in at the athletic. But my favorite thing that they've allowed me to do is kind of tell the stories behind the players, the human side of things. And that's always been my favorite type of journalism. And I get to do some really cool stuff over there.

Well, I've really enjoyed your coverage of the team, man. You've definitely added a nice little dynamic that it's made it more enjoyable to follow them. and I'm looking forward to seeing how the trade deadline unfolds and whether they are a buyer like we expect them to be and sort of looking forward to how the rest of this specific division shakes out and what that first round matchups going to look like and hopefully we can get you back on to help dissect it and preview it when the time comes.

Yeah, for sure, man. Can't wait. All right, have a good one. You too. Before we get out of here, I wanted to quickly touch on the recent trade we saw between the Bruins and the Wild that saw Charlie Coyle going to the Bruins and Ryan Donato going to the wild.

I don't know how I feel about this trade, to be honest, because on the one hand, I think that Charlie Coyle, especially at this point of his career, has proven himself to be a more valuable NHL player than Ryan Donato. But at the same time, from the Bruins perspective, it seems like a bit of a weird fit. I get that they're going after him to shore up their third-line center role and not necessarily put so much on the plate of a young player like Trent Frederick.

But I think if you're looking at this Bruins team, what they need more so than anything, is more secondary scoring. And for all the things Charlie Coil brings at a table, I think he's not necessarily going to move the needle in a very tangible, noticeable fashion for them, at least in that regard. So I think they got the better player. I'm not sure they necessarily got better as a team

or enough to justify giving up on a player like Ryan Donato. I think even when David Bassett comes back, they're still going to need to do something. And I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them be in the market for your Marcus Johansson's, Madzu Corrello's, Gustav Nyquist types to potentially give another second-line winger for David Creachy to play with. For the Wild, I certainly think this is a better trade than the Nino-neider rider Victor Rask swap, but that's obviously not saying much because that was pretty much as bad as you can get. Donato's interesting because he's turning 23 years

old, but at the same time, we've only seen him play under 50 NHL games and around 600. or so minutes at this level, so we don't necessarily know what he is at this point for a guy that's as old as he is. And I think at the worst case, he'll be a useful NHLer just because he does have that plus shot. And if you're using him in a sheltered scoring role and relying upon him on your power play, I think he can certainly add value there. But hopefully you can turn into a little bit more. I think the Bruins have certainly given up on young players or have had a track record of doing so in the past before they should have. And I think it's quite plausible. that Donato turns into a Frank Vitrono type, who they gave up for a third or fourth round pick last year.

And he's had a great year with Florida and has a similar skill set. And I could certainly see that happening. And I think for the Minnesota Wild, I know Charlie Quill carries some more name brand value and he's under contract and all that. But I think this is a worthwhile bet for them to take because they're clearly not going anywhere this year. And at the very least, Donato has the potential to open the door to be something more down the road. Whereas with Coil, you watch him play and he's one of those prototypical guys where if you catch him on the right night or catch him in the right week, you look at him and you go, this guy can do everything physically. He's one of the best players on the ice. He must be one of the better players in the league, right? And then you take a step back and you look at his overall numbers for the season and something doesn't add up there for whatever reason. And I think at this point, considering he's turning 27, he sort of is what he is. I think I've fallen victim to us certainly in the past. And I think a lot of us have you watch a guy like, that and you bet on the talent and you expect that eventually he'll put it all together and hopefully become that player you want him to be based on how good he looked at on that one given night but at this

point he sort of is what he is and i wouldn't expect much more from him and that's a valuable third-line player but not someone that you're going to be making a point of going to watch or writing home about or a guy who's really going to ultimately swing a playoff series for them so i'd expect the bruin's to still be active and the wild um whether it's potentially selling high or a guy like Michael Granland or shipping off Eric Stahl, a feel wave is no move. I think there are certain things for them. They'll make sense for them to do,

even though they are currently in the wildcard race, just because that's a team that's trending downwards and isn't very good and certainly needs to do something to sort of increase their risk profile and potentially add some more variance in an equation to give them a higher ceiling because they are what they are at this point. Anyways, I just wanted to get that out of the way

because I'm not sure when the next show is going to be, and I'm sure with all the trades that are coming down between now and then, this would be a trade that got lost in the shuffle a little bit, so I wanted to give a quick little bit of analysis on that. We're going to be certainly doing a bunch of shows after the trade deadline, recapping it, taking stock of the New Look League, and recalibrating our expectations and trying to figure out who won and who lost and how teams are shaping up for the postseason.

So look forward to that. There's a bunch of fun news coming down the pike. with regards to the PDO cast that I can't wait to share with you guys. So look for that as well. And in the meantime, I just want to remind everyone that they can help the show by going on iTunes and rating and review. Give us five stars. Leave a nice comment. All that stuff helps keep us up high on the charts and keep us in the discussion.

And the show is also available on Spotify now. So if iTunes isn't your cup of tea or Google Player or what have you, feel free to go on Spotify. and at the very least, even if that's not your preferred source for listening to podcasts, but you do have it. I'd appreciate you going and subscribing anyways because that goes a long way to helping support the show. So with that said, we're going to get out of here. We're going to play the outro music. And we will be back sometime early next week after the traded line to take stock of everything that went down.

Until then. Videocast with Dim Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud. com slash Hockeypedocast.