The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 307: Offseason Leftovers

Episode Date: July 17, 2019

Rachel Doerrie joins the show to discuss a hodgepodge of offseason moves including: 1:30 Sabres completely rebuilding their blueline19:15 Blackhawks making series of ‘win now’ moves29:30 The Canucks have improved, but at what cost?52:00 The Oilers facing another potential wasted season1:01:00 The Hurricanes building off of last year1:07:15 How and why Vegas should make room for GusevSee 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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Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Philopovich and joining me for a... a off-season podcast where we're going to do some summer leftovers. It's my good buddy, Rachel Dory. Rachel, what's going on? Not much. I'm summertime, and there's a lot of yelling on Twitter, but I'm excited we're doing a podcast instead of yelling at each other on Twitter.

Well, we can yell at each other on the podcast if you want, but I feel like, you know, we've done three or four shows so far together, and I feel like it's been pretty cordial, so I don't think there's going to be a lot of yelling, but we'll see. We'll see how the show goes. I don't want to rule it out. Fair enough. I mean, I'm definitely, I mean, I think my podcast co-host, he does all the yelling for the two of us.

So today we're going to, I mentioned we're going to do kind of like some summer leftovers. There's a number of teams that I want to talk about that have been keeping pretty busy. And I wanted to go away from like sort of the obvious contenders and the obvious mainstream teams that have been capturing a lot of the attention so far this off season. And so I wanted to talk about teams like the Sabres and the Canucks and the Oilers. And that's usually a statement that's filled with dread and either sarcasm or irony. But I actually do, especially in the Sabres case, really want to get into it because they've been super busy. And they've actually done a lot of stuff that I'm intrigued by, at least, which, you know, based on their track record, a 10-game win streak aside for the past, like, seemingly half decade or whatever, we haven't been able to say too often.

So are you excited to deep dive the Sabres a little bit with me? Well, yeah, I mean, I'm like the president of the Marcus Johansson fan club, so anytime you can give me an excuse to talk about him, I'm all over it. But I would agree with you. I like some of the moves that they've done this summer, and so definitely let's dive right in. Okay, well, so here's the thing. We hear time and time again, kind of like a common trope in hockey circles. We hear it paraded by GMs all the time is like, you know, you have to draft defensemen because they're really hard to. come by. You either probably have to pay a premium in a trade or if they hit the open market, you're going to have to give out a ridiculous contract. And so we sometimes see teams reach for defensemen or really value them highly in the draft process. And there's certainly some of that.

I mean, you see sometimes in some of these trades and signings that there is a bit of a premium place on them, just because I feel like there is like a shortage of really good above average defensemen to go around for each team. So when a guy becomes available, teams generally jump at it. But the Sabres have kind of gone against that and done a lot of their damage through the trade market and kind of taken advantage of a couple guys that became available. And so all of a sudden, in the past whatever, a handful of months, dating back to the trade line, you know, they traded for Brandon Montour. They trade a second and a fifth, both future picks for Colin Miller a couple weeks ago.

And then most recently they trade for Henry Yokai, how are you? So, you know, in those three guys, and then you obviously pair them with winning the lottery, and hitting a home run with Rosas Dahlin first overall and signing, which obviously certainly helps. And then signing Lawrence Pilot, who I like quite a bit, is kind of an undrafted free agent from Sweden. All of a sudden, in those five guys, you have five defensemen that really blend perfectly into today's game in terms of their skating, their ability to move the puck up the ice, to play with tempo, to do a lot of the stuff. The people like you and I generally prioritize in skill sets from defensemen. And so I'm really fascinated to see both how this plays out and what they're next.

next steps are because in a really short period of time, they've done one of the more difficult tasks in today's game, and that's just like assemble this young, prolific blue line seemingly. Yeah, well, I think obviously the most prolific is the young man that they drafted last year. And Dahlene, and I mean, I think he's been sort of talked about ad nauseum, but just he's absolutely terrific. But the move with Yoki Haru really shocked me because, I mean, you young right-handed defensemen, those aren't exactly around all that often. And I feel like this is one of those kind of under the radar things because I think had some other teams known that maybe Chicago was willing to move Yoki Haryu, like they probably would

have been interested in giving up something probably better than Alex Neelander. And so the fact that Jason Barrel has kind of been able to find these sort of, of Colin Miller, Brandon Montour, Yoki Haru kind of trades, I mean, let's face it, he gave up way less

in every single one of those trades than anyone thought he should have. Right. And that's just incredible. To do that once is great. To do that three times in six months?

Just crazy. Well, and he took advantage of, you know, obviously kind of timing is everything and being opportunistic and sort of,

you know, with, with the Colin Miller example, you know, Vegas had a cap crunch and they had to get rid of them and stepped in and obviously that at that rate for what they had to give up. It's a no-brainer with Yogi Haru. I definitely kind of came out of nowhere, especially since he had looked so good for, especially for his age and kind of the position he was thrust into in his brief cameo with the Blackhawks last year and then obviously a winning goal that World Junior is with with Team Finland and then what he did in the HL afterwards. And so he was kind of viewed as this like,

core member of this blue line that the Blackhawks were going to eventually turn over from the Keiths and the Seabrooks and this next way for them. And what's really interesting to me is that, you know, with the Blackhawks at the draft, we were like, okay, at third overall, are they going to take Bowen, Byram? Is it kind of, are they going to go take a forward instead because they've invested so much draft capital in rebuilding their blue line in the past couple of years? And then they go away from Byron. They take Kirby Doc and then they trade Yogi Haru. And all of a sudden, it seems like we're kind of back to square o one where you know you still have adam bocquist there and you have ian michelin nicholas bodan and a couple of young players that are worth watching moving

forward but for the most part it's like the reasoning seemed to be like from a black hawks perspective oh we have a bunch of nchl ready players already filling those positions and we don't have room for yoki har you and that was just such a weird uh rationale for me because just from a sort of youth and a puck moving perspective they don't really have too many guys of his skill set. We don't want to prop this guy up because he has played in the NHL for so little. So far, I'm not necessarily saying that he's, you know, a can't miss stud that's going to be dominating in NHL and winning Norse trophies. But he seems like a reasonable bet to at least be a useful blue liner. That's something the Blackhawks could desperately use.

He seems like a reasonable bet to be a top four defenseman. I'm not saying he's a top pairing guy. Like, I'm certainly, please don't take this as me saying, oh, he's basically the second coming of Rasmus Delene. Like, that's not what I'm saying. but you can't look at the Chicago depth chart and tell me that he's not better than at least a few of the defensemen on their current roster, particularly some that are being paid a significant amount of money. But I think with Buffalo, the way that they've rebuilt that core, you've got Colin Miller and Montour, which will allow guys like Dahlene and Yoki Haru to really come into their own. I mean, Dahlin is, he's already a terrific defenseman,

but the fact that they have more to support him, so he's not just kind of on an island. I mean, I think I'm being kind of kind when I say that Rasmus Ristolin is not a top four defenseman. I mean, what do you mean? Look at the amount of minutes he played. I feel like, you know, in today's game, people cite, it's like, oh, this guy played top four minutes,

therefore he must be a top four defenseman. I see that all the time on Twitter. Oh, yes, I've seen a lot of. of things on Twitter. I'm like, hmm, I disagree with you, sir. And most of the time it is sir, not ma'am. But I think that you can kind of, you should be pushing West Alignan down their lineup. There is no excuse for him to be playing ahead of some of the players that we've talked about. I think Yoki Haru this this year would probably benefit from playing in the five, six role just to like let him develop, let him move up the lineup when necessary. But when you've got

guys like Montour and Dahlene and Colin Miller, there's no need to rush. And they do have Bogosian as well. And Marco Scandela for this year, I think their UFA is next year. And I would assume that at least one of them, if not both, will be gone. But that's something you can leverage, right? You don't have to be playing these guys 20 to 25 minutes at night. It's just not necessary. And so I think they've really done a really good job turning their decor around.

they've done it without really giving up a whole lot and that's really difficult to do yeah no it's it's certainly impressive and you're right with yuki har you i mean he'll definitely pass the eye test in his time in chicago the numbers underlying numbers better necessarily we create but it's like when you're guys first sort of taste of nchl is just playing like top pairing minutes with duncan keith and getting hammered against other team's best player like i'm willing especially as a teenager to give him a free pass on that so i'm not worried about that at all you know you mentioned ristelainen and and i think that's kind of the interesting trickle-down effect here, or next Domino to fall for Botterill and the Sabres,

in that we'll still see sort of how they feel about him and whether they value more than we do. But I did think it was interesting, and obviously it's going to be a different coaching staff this coming season with Ralph Gruger, so it remains to be determined. But it was interesting to me that as the year went on last year, there was clearly like a transition in place

where Ristel Anan's minutes were dropping pretty steadily, month to month and Dalin's minutes were escalating and he was taking some of those power play minutes from him and the top usage and so now that they have all these guys all of a sudden you can look at it and be like okay well we can actually now deal Rist-aline in from a position of strength and still cash in his perceived value I'm sure there's a certain at least one team out there that's willing to view him as that top pair or top four guy at least and I could see Edmonton well well yes and I I I have a note on that.

I want to get into that because that does seem like a very interesting trade partner. But, you know, when I did like an Atlantic Division preview before the free agency period for ESPN, and I was writing about the Sabres, and I wrote basically a overriss line. It's like, I mean, on paper, you're talking about a 25-year-old Wright Shaw D.N. Who signed at a very reasonable price for three years. That seems to make him a tremendously valuable asset if he were actually good at hockey. But in this case, it doesn't. really matter. It's ultimately irrelevant whether he is or he isn't good at hockey because,

as you mentioned, the Oilers or any other team out there, do we just know from sort of following the NHL, there's going to be at least one team that's going to look at that sort of resume of his or that biography and go like, you know what, maybe we can bring him in here and we can channel those skills and channel that frame of his and some of the, you know, his ability to skate to that size and we're going to turn him into a better player than he's looked so far and look at his minutes and his usage and his point totals on the sabres, even though there were like the most empty calorie status possible and to go like there's something there and so i guarantee you they could get a valuable asset in return for him and it's much more easier to sort of reconcile

that now that you have all these other defensemen ahead of them on the depth chart so that it seems like it's kind of like a win-win for bottle roll where he can spin that positively even if there are some sabers fans out there they're still holding it hope that rislainen's going to be this amazing defenseman well yeah and the one thing that um the people in front offices like to consider is the fact that he's six foot four and shoots right. And the fact that he is six foot four and not six foot one makes him tremendously more valuable in their eyes. And the perception that he's difficult to play with or difficult to play against, which

I mean, I've heard that quantified a number of different ways and I still can't wrap my head around it. I think what makes him valuable to people who think certain ways. And because, like you said, Buffalo has this position. of strength now where he's at best their fourth defenseman and likely less than that, they can afford to either keep him or to move him. And so that is a position of strength, which is kind of interesting because maybe they do get an asset back for him that potentially another team sees tremendous value in him.

And they end up getting more than perhaps we think he should be traded for. Well, the added benefit of a lot of the guys that we mentioned, like the montours and the millers and the Yoki Har uses, is I think their ability to create offensively with their puck skills and they're skating because when you still look, project ahead and you look at the Sabres death chart, as much as we're talking glowingly about this blue line and how they've done a magnificent job of fixing it in a short period of time, up front, there's still a lot of black holes and there's still a lot of like, where is the offense going to come from beyond just the top one, two, two, punch of Skinner and Eichel. And it was really interesting last year. It's not necessarily groundbreaking material to be like, oh, the team was better with their best players on the ice. And then when you took those two guys off, they were much worse. But just like the disparity for the Sabres between how good they were when they had Eichl and Skinner out there where they were a plus and goals and shot share and pretty much every metric at 5-1-5. And then when you took them off, they were basically the worst team in the league. And so for them, just kind of being able to survive with their second and

third lines is going to be huge and Marcus Johansson certainly goes a long way especially in the neutral zone and kind of helping territorially with that. I'd still, if they could turn around and out sort of parlay Ristolinen into a forward that could step in, especially down the middle and give them a one-two punch behind Iko all of a sudden, I would like this team a lot more. I think that's what they should be targeting in a trade. And that's why when you bring up the Oilers, I'm like, man, like a Ristolinen for Ryan Eugen Hopkins trade just seems way too obvious. Oh, it just seems it's far too obvious. I think that Nugent Hopkins is probably better than a third-line center.

And he would play a second line behind Eichel. And I think that Edmonton is exactly the type of team that would value Rist the line in. Edmonton was using him as like a first-line winger last year, which was like so random. They were doing a lot of things last year that I was like, hmm, okay. First of all, I would be telling Leon Drysidal. I know you like playing with McIntyre. David, you can play with him on the power play, but you're playing center. I'm not paying you $8.5 million to do, to just ride shotgun.

That's not a thing. I'm not having $20 million on my top line. Like, it's just not happening. And if he pouts, he pouts, too bad. But with Ryan Nugent Hopkins for Ristola, and I think Ryan Nugent Hopkins on the second line with potentially somebody like Marcus Johansson and maybe a Connor Shiri would be very good. And then that allows Casey Middlestack to potentially, you can move him to the wing,

or you can have him as your third line center. That way he gets perhaps the easier matchup as he develops because he's still got a long way to go. I mean, he's terrifically skilled, but he's not quite where he needs to be in terms of the top six potential quite yet. And he's young, right? I think that there's got to be some. He literally looks like he's 11. Yeah. Like you could walk into a high school and be like, yeah,

that kid fits in. Yeah, unfortunately, he played like he was an 11-year-old last year, which he's not a big fan of contact. No, which is fine. You know, and he does certainly have the, you know, the puck skills, but yeah, there's still a lot of room for growth there, and you're right, I think, just sort of, especially, you know, we did this dance last summer, I think, because I believe towards the end of the year before he came on and final 10 games or whatever. He put up a bunch of points. And then people were like, oh, just penciling him. And he's going to take another big step. And his development, he's going to be our number two center behind Ikel and we're set. And it's like, that's sometimes, that's not often how development works with young players. And he certainly showed that there's a lot of room for growth there. And I think the more interesting name, honestly, down the middle for them is, is Dylan Cousins who fell to them in this year's entry draft. But he's obviously still being drafted at a major junior, still at least one or two years away from really being anything for them at the pro level. So, they kind of need to fill that gap. And as much as I love,

like when you have a guy like Marcus Johansson, he sort of basically is a center for you, even when he's not playing down the middle, just because he controls the puck so well, and possession does run through him. So I'm not necessarily worried about it from that perspective, but it's just they do need one or two more pieces up front for you to really feel more confident about this team

actually sustaining any sort of success moving forward. I would, yeah, I would agree. I think that Marcus Johanzenz sort of plays like a center in terms of his puck possession. I think now that the Sabers have Dylan Cousins sort of in their system, he is their center. And so their top two centers sort of going forward will be Eichol and Cousins. I think you might want to see what you have with middle stat on the wing because he's one of those terrifically skilled players. And he's a waterbug. So he's very difficult to hit.

You know he's going to be a magician on the power play. and if you want him playing in your top six, I mean, he's not going to be a better center than cousins, and he will not be better than Ikel in any facet. So maybe trying him on the wing is not a bad idea, right? See what you have. Of course. Yeah, no, I'm certainly not saying to just give up on him.

But I think you need some, like, teams need contingency plans in cases like this, right? Like, it's always just kind of like hopeless optimism where it's like, oh, our young players are all going to get a certain, percentage better a year over a year and we just got pencil that in it's like uh well if you don't have a fallback plan it seems like you're setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment and we see that time and time again with these rebuilding teams so um but you know now they have they have many more assets now i guess in the moral of this than they had at this time last year and so that's a step into right direction and yeah i think this is probably the most like optimistic uh 15 minutes on a non sabers fan

podcast that anyone has ever talked about this team. So kudos to us. You know, I want to talk about Blackhawks a little bit here as we sort of pivot from that Yoki Haru trade. And they've also been, they've arguably been the busiest team this summer. I mean, you know, they're clearly, Stan Bowman is sort of telegraphing the fact that Jonathan Taves had a bit of a, you know, a throwback, more productive season last year. Patrick Kane was obviously exceptional for them offensively and so all of a sudden with those two guys still playing at a high level they pretty clearly want to squeeze as much as much juice out of that orange as they can and kind of go for another run with those guys and so a lot of these moves they made this summer are very um sort of

win now moves for a team that was as bad as they were last year in the past couple years and i don't know like i i think they got better i guess the question is sort of how much and how much some of these players they acquired are actually going to be able to do for a lot of their defensive deficiencies last year, which was, you know, they were abhorrently bad. There's no other way to play. I think there were 30 in goals against and shots against. Basically, only the Ottawa senators were worse than them in those categories and they were actively not trying to win games or caring or fielding NHL lineup. So for the Blackhawks, that's clearly alarming. And I think, you know, from their perspective, they're probably looking at it and going like, okay, well,

you know, we get Robin Lennar on this amazing one-year deal. If Cory Crawford is going to still battle a lot of these injuries, and, you know, he's played by like 27 and 39 games or something. In the past two seasons, I don't think we can expect at this point that he's going to give you 55 to 60 games. Now they are going at it at least with, like, okay, we have a backup option there that can be a starter for us, so we're not going to rely on 30-plus games of Cam Ward at this point of his career.

And maybe they're thinking that, you know, Jeremy Collin, was kind of put in a tough position last year where they hired him in season. He's replacing Clay Glenville. He hasn't had a full off season or a full preseason in training camp to really instill any of his systems or do anything. He's kind of trying to adjust on the fly with this kind of veteran team. And so I think if you look at it from that perspective, I guess there's a reason for optimism that this won't be like literally the worst team in the league defensively. But I'm curious to see how it plays out and just how much better they actually are heading into next season. Yeah, like I like the acquisition of Calvin Dahan.

I think that is an improvement. I think Olimata, even though people don't think all that highly of him, is again another improvement over what they had. And I like Eric Gustafsson. I think he should be getting top four minutes routinely. I think he can be effective in that role. I'm not the biggest Brent Seabrook fan. out there, I don't think he can play in today's game.

When the Blackhawks were very good, that pairing of him and Keith, it was terrific for them. It held the fort. But the way that Cibroke plays is just not conducive to success in today's game. So I think that even- Very generous evaluation. I'm trying, okay? I think even though he makes six, eight, seven, five or something like that, he makes close to seven million.

He still has to play on your bottom pairing. And if you want to play him on the penalty kill, okay, so be it. But I think that you need to be able to sort of use guys like Oli Mading, Dahon, and you can still use Duncan Keith. But you really should be looking at giving Eric Gustafson a bigger role in terms of what he can do because I really liked what I've seen from him. I know some other people have sort of thought the same way. And then you brought up that they have some defensive prospects.

next nine. Ian Mitchell is going back to Denver, but I think he'll end up being someone for the future. But for this season specifically, oh, it's their top four is basically Keith Dahon, Mata, and what should be Eric Gustafson. Well, I mean, I guess the positive thing is they basically doubled their total of NHL defense center from last year to this year with acquired those guys. And so that's obviously a step into right direction. You know, it's interesting because I think when you watch a guy like Olimata, it's weird because he's young, and I feel like when he came into the league,

people were expecting him to be kind of this modern day defenseman, just like the guys we were talking about that the Sabres acquired, they would be able to move around and do a lot of stuff with the puck. And whether it's because of the injuries he's had or maybe he just never developed in that type of player, it's weird to watch him play, and he gets burnt a lot out wide. And it isn't a very good skater at all,

but I did notice that he has very good in-zone numbers from all the player tracking data that I've seen defensively in terms of his activity and kind of breaking stuff up. And I think that's what makes it an interesting fit with him and DeHan, who's a similar player in that this team was such a bad defensive team in their own zone last year. It was very reminiscent of like the Patrick Wahavs and the Doug Wade Islanders where it's one thing. Those are not good. It's one thing to have bad defensemen, but it's another. thing to be as bad as those teams were defensively and it's because they just there was like no plan and it was just a lot of guys kind of just like running around and chasing the puck and so at least they acquired a couple guys who know what they're doing in their own zone it literally looked like a fire

drill at a lot of points last year i mean there was like you could have put a peewee game on and i would have been like yeah that's about right in terms of like obviously they're better quality hockey players but the level of running around and puck watching and losing your man, it was very reminiscent of sort of minor hockey. And I was like, oh my goodness, as a coaching staff, this must drive you nuts. Well, there was that one game against the center is actually where it was like 7-6 or something. And they played a couple of those games. They played a couple against the Leafs, I believe.

And there was probably way too many of them for any NHL coach to keep their sanity just watching that. But, you know, it made for fun viewing. And I enjoyed watching them. But obviously from an actual sort of with loss perspective, and ability to compete in today's game. There was a lot left to be desired there. And so for them, they haven't necessarily completely mortgages their future to do this.

Like a lot of these trades they made were sort of minimal risks and they were just basically taking on salaries. The Neelander trade for Yoki Haru is a fascinating one for me because it definitely feels like it's like after how big of a home run the Dillon-Straim trade was for them, it seems very reminiscent of that where Stan Bowman's like, oh, well, that worked for us. So I'm going to take this another forward who was sort of underwhelming and underproducing in his first stop with the team that drafted him and kind of bank on all that potential

and draft hype that he had and hope he figures it out for us. I'm just not sure in this case. I know we were sort of saying similar things about Stroman and like, oh, will his skating ever translate? Will he ever be able to produce offense leave the way he did if it doesn't? And he obviously turned his game up a notch in better circumstances, playing for the Blackhawks last year. But with Neelander, it's, I don't know.

I haven't seen anything to this point to suggest that they're going to hit that untapped potential with him. It seems like they're kind of banking on something that's not too likely to turn out in their favor with this one. Yeah, I mean, I remember when it was Alex's draft year and people were saying, oh, he's better than William. And to me, if you watched carefully, there were certain. red flags. Like his body language was a big concern for me in his draft year. His just will to not go to

the middle of the ice was another one. It was always to the outside. It was always around the net. Well, the ice is a lot smaller on this side. And when he was playing in Mississauga, he was still a perimeter player. And that was a really, really big concern. And at least with Strome, you can say what you want about his skating, but he has other qualities. He reads the game very well. He's got a great release and ability to find players. He had chemistry with the Brinket and Erie. But he was able to sort of find his way.

With Strom, I don't think his work ethic and will to actually want to do the things was ever in question, whereas to with Nylander, since I'm getting, that is very much in question. and when someone's questioning your will to want to play hockey at a higher level, that's kind of concerning for me. I don't want to say that, oh, it's true and this, that, and the other. But to me, questioning someone skating is significantly different than questioning someone's work ethic. It is.

I'm also questioning his productivity because... It's not very good. No, and I think that's what it boils down. And I don't think he's going to get, like, here's a difference with a player. like that, they need to be put in positions where they are playing with skill, right? He's not going to play on the top line with Patrick King. He's not going to be playing with that skill. He's probably not even going to be playing with Stroman to Brinkett on the second line, right?

He's probably going to find himself on the third line if he makes the team at all. And you're just, you're not, you can't be relying on only your skill when you're playing in the bottom half of the lineup. That's just not how it works. You have to be able to have as fertile skills to be an effective player in the bottom six. And from what I see, he doesn't have those

right now. Not saying he can't acquire them because he certainly has a talent. But if he wants to play in the top six, he's got a long way to go. And if he wants to play in the bottom six, he's got to acquire some new skills in terms of what he can bring to a team. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I definitely agree with that. I think it's a, it's obviously to be determined, but I'm not overly optimistic about it. Let's, okay, let's talk about the Canucks. Enough about the Blackhawks. So this is Jim Benning's sixth offseason with the team. Seems like times really, really flattened by. They missed the playoffs for a straight years.

This summer, they go into it and they trade a first round pick for J.T. Miller. Can I ask you a question about the Canucks? Yeah, go for. Okay. So you could make the argument that about the only positive thing that they've done in Jim Benning's tenure is draft. Because they've drafted tremendously well, I would argue. Well, let's pump the brakes on tremendously well. Alias Patterson was a home run.

Polaris Patterson was certainly a home run. Yeah, I would say with their first round picks, they've nailed it. Quinn Hughes, great pick. Aaliyos, great pick. Obviously, to be determined with their later round picks, but we've sat here and we've said, in terms of the way the salary cap is right now, you want to be good,

you have to hit home runs with your first round picks. And you could definitely say in the last two seasons that they've done that, right? I'm a fan of Pod Coles in. So they've drafted well. Right. If I'm there like head of scouting or whatever, the director of scouting,

you just traded my first round pick for J.T. Miller when that's about the only positive thing that we've done as an organization in the past, three or four seasons, like I'd be tearing my hair out, right? If that's like one thing that's going really well and your trading record is not great to say the least, I'd probably be leaving my first round picks alone, wouldn't you? Yeah, but if they don't, if they don't make the playoffs over the next two years, Jim Benning's not going to be running this team. And so he doesn't care, obviously, if they don't have their 2021 first overall, first round pick, which could be the first

overall pick if they don't have the playoffs and his lottery selection. So, you know, for him, his perspective is like, what do I have to lose? I'm just going to go for it. And so that's a kind of, that's been the theme of their moves. They go out, spend a ton of money on Tyler Myers. They go out and they sign Michael Furlin to a very reasonable deal. But still, you know, inheriting some risk there with his concussion history and the fact that they gave him that fourth year, which reportedly no other team in the league was willing to offer. And I think for good reason. And so that's that's the issue for me here where it's like in a vacuum a lot of Jim Benning's tenure can be sort of described as like, oh, like, you know, the talent evaluation is reasonable.

Like they got better in this summer. But you can't view this stuff in a vacuum because it's salary cap world. You have a finite amount of resources. And so I guess the question for me, because the tenor here in Vancouver from Kodok's fans is that this team is finally on the right track. they're trending towards being a playoff team it's like there's no doubt that they improve this summer by adding all those guys that we just listed but at what cost and how much would we reasonably expect them to improve from where they've been the past couple years well let's start by saying um i don't think it's a model of success to be paying um your fourth line like a combined eight and a half million dollars um that's probably not great um as far at i like that i like

the Edler contract. I like its term. The fact of the matter is they probably weren't going to get him for less than $6 million. At least you know what you're getting with him, right? I didn't really have an issue. I thought that Tyler Myers contract was very reminiscent of the Brent Seabrook contract in terms of the fact that it's not going to be good. You know what's really funny about the Edler one? I agree. Like on a two-year deal, it's completely reasonable. The discussion around a lot of that was, you know, the past couple years, they wanted to trade him at the trade line. And he had negotiated a no-move clause into his deal. And so it was his right as a player to decide to not waive that because he didn't want to leave Vancouver.

And so this summer, which is perfectly fine, completely reasonable, it's his right, it's in his contract. He took less money on his previous deal so that he could have that choice. But then this summer, a lot of the discussion was like, I don't know, we're going to see what happens because we're unwilling to give Edler the term. and the no move clause because then we're going to have to protect him in the expansion draft, and we're not sure we're going to be willing to do that at that point of his career. And so he wants this security that he's going to stay in Vancouver, and we're not willing to give it to him. And then it's like, well, you kind of, as the team, being in Vancouver,

where Alex Sedler clearly wants to stay, and I know that because I see him walking his dog all the time around here on the seawall. He loves Vancouver. Like, you have the leverage. You're negotiating against yourself. He clearly does not want to go sign with another team. So the fact that you get him to sign this team-friendly deal, people are like, oh, this is just bang up negotiating. Look at the Canucks, like, pull on executing this.

It's like, new, yeah. He literally was not going to go anywhere else. He wants to end his career here and live in Vancouver. Like, great. This is a rocket science. Yeah, awesome. Like, what's interesting to me is they have Louis Erickson on $6 million, right? Brock Bessor's an RFA.

I would say he probably gets bridged. And then he'll have some good. years and he'll get paid. Elias has two more years and that he's getting double digits and you can sign seal and deliver that one. They're going to be in deep trouble when this all happens because Erickson will still be on the books if he hasn't been moved. J.T. Miller will be on the books.

Tyler Myers will be on the books. Roussel and Beagle will be on the books. That's a big problem in 2021. Right. What's really funny was, like the previous GM, Mike Gillis, one of the main complaints Canucks fans have had about his tenure and sort of the position he left the team in was, while those Canucks teams were competing,

they were getting players to take less than their market value by giving them these sort of restricting no move and no trade clauses, right? And similar to what we were just talking about with Edler. And so that's kind of the price of doing business sometimes when you're a contender and you're trying to make it all work under the cap. with this Canucks team, they're obviously not all full no-move clauses, so it doesn't completely tie your hands. But at this point, Jim Benning has given out at least some sort of modification of a no-trade clause to Louis Erickson, Brandon Sutter, Michael Furland, Antoine Roussel, J. Beagle, and Tyler Myers. Wait a minute.

Roussel and Beagle have no trade clauses? Yeah, I believe it's like either 10 or 15 teams or something. like it's some sort of a modified one. Oh, I didn't know that. Or I forgot about it. Well, I mean, when you're a free agent of Jay Beagle's caliber, I mean, you sort of have all the leverage and I mean, paying him $3 million in change per season is not enough.

I mean, you also have to throw away that type of leverage. I mean, it's just, unfortunately. I mean, but you're Jim Benny. What else could you do? Probably walk away. I don't know. Wow. That makes those contracts even.

worse than I originally taught. Okay. So how wild is this? And this is like this is unobjectively like a factual statement. I'm not making any of this up. This is, it's, you can't even really quibble with it.

Like this is just like a pure fact. So the Canucks in their current state, you've been following the NHL, you're aware of their position in the fact they haven't made the playoffs in four years. They basically at this point have to move out contracts to have enough. money to sign Brock Besser, who is why, like, their third or fourth best player. Okay, that's

interesting that they've, they're in this position, I guess. They are basically capped out, like let's say they move a couple of those contracts, whatever, figure it out, and they sign Brock Besser, even out of bridge. He scores a lot of goals. He'll make a decent chunk of change. They're going to be capped out. They're going to be down to future first over the next two years. And what is a realistic projection for this team as currently constituted? assuming there aren't some sort of catastrophic injuries for other teams or like every single one of their players gets 30% better next season like they're going to be fighting for fifth in the worst division in hockey with the oilers maybe get up to fourth battle the coyotes for fourth in the

Pacific like what because I don't think is it reasonable to suggest that they're going to be ahead of Calgary Vegas or San Jose that seems completely implausible to me yes it is completely unacceptable that a team with the best player on earth is in the current state that the Oilers are in. There should be no excuse. They should be challenging for the Pacific Division every single year and that's that. We'll get into the Oilers. I have them tab for later. With the Canucks, I mean, realistically, like, it would be reasonable to expect Olias to continue to develop.

I think that kid's going to be an absolute superstar in this league. Um, shocking the Canucks have a superstar suite. Hmm. I think Quinn Hughes is their number one D of the future. I really, really am high on this kid. Um, maybe a little bit higher than most. Um, I love all the tools that he has. I love the way he carries the puck and his confidence to make plays,

whether they're in the offensive zone or in the danger zones, in his own D zone. Like, I really like how he plays. And so obviously reasonable. for him to have maybe not the best year this year because it'll be his first full year in the NHL. You would expect him to take steps forward, but man, like they've got to get rid of some of these contracts because otherwise, I mean,

you're just not going to be able to keep some of these young players. And could you imagine trying to explain to your fan base why you're going to lose one of your young players, maybe even like a Cole Lind or a Jonah Gajewicz, let's say? because you have to trade a bad contract that you could have avoided signing. It's insane to me. It's crazy. You don't have to give up.

I don't know how many times this needs to be said, but like stop giving non-star players term. Stop. Just don't do it. Yeah, it's insane. It's like literally just don't do it. The argument you hear all the time, it's like, well, it's a unrestricted for agent market. That's just how it would it cost.

It's like, okay, you don't have to sign these players. just let someone else do it then. No. It's fine. Oh, that's cool. It's all right. Someone else can have J.B. Eagle. That's great.

Someone else can have Antoine Roosevelt. Someone else could have had Louis Erickson. Like, I'm of the mindset, and I might be a little extreme with this, but like, unless you are in the top five players on your team, there should be relatively no term on your contract. You know what I'm saying? So, like, when you look at Vancouver. right let's say a couple years down the road unless your name's leas peterson brock besser quinn hughes um bo horvatt i'll probably leave it there um your contract should not be longer than three years i mean yeah especially if you're a bad team like if you're like the ninth

best player on a horrible team that easily missed the playoffs that's like if you're if you're the ninth of us player on the Tampa Bay Lightning, you're like, Alex Colorn, like, you're a good player. Still wouldn't give you a massive term, but at least like, you're a solid player. This is just, it's outrageous to me. And it's like, Canucks fans have just kind of work this into their head that it's like, oh, well, you know, drafted all these guys. Now we're realizing some of this potential.

Now we added a bunch of NHL players. We got Michael Furland, we got Tyler Myers. We've shorted up our defense. We're set. We're moving in the right direction. And it's like, oh, man, this is unfortunately. It's not how. the league works and then it's like you hear a lot of oh well you know we can just move out some of

these contracts you can trade us van bergirche you can trade some of these other guys you can attach a prospect or a pick to brandon sutter and move his contract but the issue is that this is also a regime that's done a really bad job of just accumulating future assets and extra picks over the years so if you're all you're all kind of already working um as a kind of uphill battle just because you don't have that high volume of assets like the rangers for example have had the past couple years And so you can't really afford to be attaching more future assets to get rid of some of these contracts that you easily could have avoided just by not signing them in the first place. And that's kind of what it ultimately boils down to. And so it's, I mean, the Kinex is going to be better.

But what do you just like, what are you trying to accomplish is, I guess, the ultimate question I have for people. It's like, are you trying? Because people get sick of rebuilding, especially if your team's been bad for a long time. But it's like, okay, if you make the playoffs and you lose in five games in round one, what did that ultimately accomplish? are you trying to make the playoffs or are you trying to one day win a Stanley Cup? And I think there's a massive difference for teams. And the sooner you answer that question, the better off you're going to be. Exactly.

And I think that Vancouver is one of those things where they've signed these contracts. And it wasn't like, oh, like, this is a good contract. And then something happened with a player and it turned out to be a really bad contract. I can say with certainty that on July 1st when Tyler Meyer signed, everyone went, boom, that's a bad contract. contract today right now. When Antoine Roussel and Jay Beagle signed, everyone went, oh my God, those are terrible contracts today right now, which means what are they going to be down the road like when you said when you're trying to contend for a cup? Because I'm sorry, but Jay Beagle won

in Washington, he wouldn't make it $3 million playing on their fourth line. Like he's a fourth line guy on a cup team when they won. In no world should you be paying your fourth line guy $3 million, like none, zero. Your fourth line guy should be either coming up for the minors or their like your veterans that are getting paid, the veteran minimum, that kind of thing. It's just, it's insane to me. When you talk about building a cup team, you want to make the playoffs and have playoff revenue and whatever.

Like, okay, I get it. But if the ultimate goal is to win a cup, you just can't be signing these contracts. You can't do it. Well, especially with, like, we're both equally high on as Pedersen, obviously, and also Quinn Hughes. And so they have two years left on their entry-level deals when they're making peanuts compared to how productive they're going to be. And so this is sort of your time to flex that financial might by getting creative and adding more talent and trying to sort of figure out the next steps, acknowledging that

hopefully these guys are going to continue to produce and develop in two years from now, you're going to face the good problem of having to pay them a ton of money. And in the highest Patterson's case, maybe even approaching or above 10 million if he keeps producing the way he was last year. And so in that case, all of a sudden, you're going to be more up against it financially, which is a good problem because that means you have a great player. But then you can't afford to make these types of mistakes. Otherwise, you're going to basically be the Edmonton Oilers.

Like my question for the Canucks and their fans is you talk about how this foundation that Jim Benning's built out, right? It's like, yeah, you have your kind of cornerstone Lynchpin star and Elias Pedersen who's going to make everyone better. You have a guy who scores a bunch of goals in Brock Bester, and you have like a very reliable, awesome two-way center and Bo Horvatt who does a lot of the little things. It's like that's basically like Edmonton's model right now, right? Like you have McDavid, right, Cynel, Lionelhoon Hopkins, and if you mismanage everything else and you don't fully take advantage of the rest of the your resources and instead you have a bunch of bad contracts, that's only going to take you so far.

That's a team that's missed the playoffs two straight years with the best player in the world, as you mentioned. And so obviously, there's still time before the Canucks have to sort of answer some of those questions and really figure it out with those guys two years from now. But man, it's tough that this is the route they've taken and sort of a Band-Aid fix to try to expedite this rebuild process as much as possible just to get a couple games of playoff revenue and sort of, for the game. the management team to be able to go into the ownership's office and be like, well, look, we are on the right track. It's just, it's so short-sighted, and we see this time and time again, and fans just often get fooled by it because they're just sort of hopeful that it's going to be a

best-case scenario for all these players, and once the team gets in, look, we saw the St. Louis Blue, all you have to do is get in and you could win the cup. It could be you. It's like, uh. Yeah, that's like literally the first time that's ever happened in what, 103 years of NHL history. I'm not exactly banking on the point 9%. You know what I mean? Yeah. Also, it just drives me nuts. The blues cited as, oh, they were in last place in the NHL. Okay, they were also the best team in the NHL from that point on by like any underlying metric.

Yeah, exactly. This isn't exactly like a crappy team making the playoffs and just getting a bunch of bounces going in their way. Like they did a couple things well. Like, you know, they were. Yeah. I don't know. It wasn't as a, big of a flu as people seem to be making it out to be at this point. No, they were actually like a look, they didn't luck their way. They were legitimately a force for half of the season. They were. That's not insignificant.

They were. The other thing you get a lot of on Twitter and just from people in general is like, if you're negative, I don't know if you've experienced this, but if you're negative about a signing or a move, there's a lot of like, well, before we jump to conclude, Why don't we just let this play out and see how it goes? And then after the fact when it inevitably doesn't wind up working out, it's like, oh, well, yeah, obviously in hindsight, it didn't work out. It's like, no, we were talking about this at the start. It's like, what you mentioned with the Tyler Myers contract, it's like two years for now when it's an albatross and people are like, oh, my God, I can't believe the Canucks have this on their books.

People are going to be like, oh, well, sure, now it's not looking good. It's like, no, like literally at the time, everyone was paying attention was talking about how this was a very bad decision. yeah it's literally like we said day one we said before the contract was signed this is going to be a bad contract and it was signed anyways like it's just it's incredible my favorite way my favorite they you have the option now because of this like tamp I'll call it the tampering period um this tampering period where you could leak contracts and take the temperature of what people think and the Tyler Meyer's stuff got out, right? And everyone to a man was like, oh my God, this is awful. This is an awful idea. And yet, here we are. Right. So what's that contract going to look like in four years?

Well, the best is, my working theory is that, because remember we, we heard all those reports that it was going to be like $7 million for seven or eight years or something. And it was like a, it was a punchline. And then he comes in at six by six or something like that. And it's like, oh, well, it was actually, you know, it could have been worse. my favorite working theory is that like those fake numbers were leaked just to make it look better by comparison though like I I'd love that to uh to be the case yeah that's it's it's rough and you know there's also like the kinnocks like a lot of there was optimism towards the end of last year because it's like oh you know jacob markstrom has figured it out and it's like what are

we what are we banking on here um a 29 year old who had a 920 save percentage over 23 games or like the 200 games and nearly decades worth of sample that came before that to suggest that he was like a nine 10 goalie like sometimes a hot stretch from a goalie can be the worst thing to end a season for a rebuilding team because it's sort of like built this false hope that your team's actually a lot closer than it is and if that goalie comes back crashing down to earth similar to what happened with the way it was actually with camtale but that one year he was remarkable and he played like 70 plus games and as soon as you stop having that it exposes a lot of your other flaws and then you're like oh crap maybe we

weren't as good as we thought we were all along Well, like, I had more than one person tell me that Jordan Bendington was a better option than Carrie Price. And I was like, you are out of your mind. Like, oh my God, you're taking a half season for a goaltender for me. Like, in talking to everyone in terms of evaluating goalies, I need to see two consistent seasons for me to even, like, remotely consider the fact that this is what you could be. And we're taking a sample size of a half season and a stand, like a run to the cup. to say he's better than Kerry Price and deserves. Oh, St. Louis should lock him up, like,

eight years, seven and a half or eight million dollars. I'm like, you're out of your mind. Like, and this is the thing with goalies where you talk about Jacob Marksham. Kay, he has a great season where he's like 9-20, he plays 23-odd games. I'm still, if you're smart, you still take that sample size of the two, 200, 210 games where he was the 9-10, right? That's still what I'm going to bank on. maybe you bank on him being 913 or 914 so maybe you bank on him falling somewhere in the middle right

but if you think you're going to bank on a goaltender who once in 10 years is a 920 like that's not a very good way to go about building a team i mean certainly not how i would do it yeah all of it is upsetting it's it's i get one fan just like want to be excited and you just kind of want to be sort of not clueless, but just like bury your head in the sand and just hope everything works out. But from like an ownership and a management perspective, it just really does sometimes feel like it's like the ultimate con job where it's like you're sort of taking advantage of that desperation and just that need for some bit of hope and you do just enough to like suck people in and convince them that it's going to be different next season. But when you sort of look under the hood

of that car, it's like, oh, it's kind of the same crap we were dealing with before. And none of the issues have been fixed. And this is a great segue to talk about Edmonton Oilers because, I mean, there's something. The fact that, to be fair, Ken Holland deserves at least more than a month and a half of leeway. No, certainly. And financially, you know, Peter Shirelli left them with so little in the way of flexibility that even like realistically heading it this summer, I think if people were expecting some sort of fireworks from the loyalers to suddenly dramatically improve their team. Like there weren't very many avenues for them to do so.

But I still will say all of that acknowledged. The fact that basically their summer moves so far as of July 16th have amounted to bringing in Marcus Grantland, who like literally couldn't play on that for mentioned Canucks and Mike Smith as their backup in net. And otherwise just rolling it back with the team they had last year that was just so shockingly underwhelming and disappointing beyond their two best players or I guess three if you include

Nugent Hopkins. That's just like it's such a tough pill to swallow for not even or just Oilers fans but for just fans of hockey in general that we're going to have to do this dance all over again where it's like all Connor McDavid is so amazing. Look at all these crazy things he's doing and then they're still losing five

two because everything else around him sucks. Well I think it's a crime that we don't get to watch him in the playoffs. I think if he could go back and do that contract again, he probably doesn't sign for eight years. You probably do what some of the other players are doing in terms of taking that shorter deal so you can cash in twice as opposed to just once. And in McDavid situation, I take the shorter deal because I can walk if it's still a disaster

in five or six years time kind of thing, right? and the fact that they had a player of McDavid-Zilk and then Leon Dreisdell who scored 50 goals how bad is the rest of your team where you have arguably two superstar like top 10 players in the league and you are picking eighth overall because you are that abysmal like that's offensive I know you got a new job that we're going to talk about recently, but are you also Leon Dreis Heidel's agent? Top 10 player in the world. Yeah, I think he, when he

plays to his potential, I think he's top 10. Could I see him carry his own line and be an above-average player for more than 10 games at a time? Is that too much to ask for my for a top-10 player in the world? No, that's not too much. Okay, maybe top 20. He's a really good player. I mean, he scored 50. 50 goals and he had 100 points last year.

Like there's not, I'm not, I'm not trying to poopoo on. Okay, well, this is a very good player. He's a very, very good player. McDavid's number one. And that I don't. That's the point here, yeah. The fact that you have someone who is in the discussion for a top echelon player, maybe not top 10, that was a bit generous.

It's probably the German in me. But you have a, the number one player in the world and another 50 goal score. And that is the type of. behavior the rest of your team exhibits not acceptable not acceptable you have to do something about it and blue cheech like that contract was another one of those contracts that we just talked about where it was like day one we

were like that's not great which hilariously jim benning really wanted to sign him to there were so many people in vancouver that were literally going to tear their eyes out if that would have happened and it would have been a total disaster. Could you imagine if they had Luchich, Erickson, Beagle, and Roussel? Yeah. I mean, obviously, yeah. I mean, the contract's admitted a good disaster. I mean, he's got the no move. At least, I guess, the one positive is you can convince him to waive it.

He's only actually owed $13 million in real cash over the next four years after the signing bonus was paid out this summer. So, you know. Ottawa. Exactly. I mean, like a shell company, like Ottawa, we see just doesn't care about actual cap They just want to know how much they're going to be willing to having to pay them would be an appealing option. But that's what I give Holland, while I say, like, it's fair to be patient and wait to see a bit more before we get overly critical about how enacted they've been this summer. The fact that, you know, there still seems to be no resolution to this Jesse Polly Arby situation, which I can't imagine getting better or more palatable for the Oilers as time goes on. The fact that we haven't really heard anything about them exploring avenues to dump that Lutridge contract and clear up that.

cap space. Like a lot of that stuff is I'd like to at least like get the feeling that something was happening there. And when we talk about them, obviously I think the biggest need is just like having more functional wingers so that you can't afford to bump a dry saddle down and have three top centers actually play their natural positions as opposed to playing one of your highest paid players alongside of Connor McDavid unnecessarily. But the issue is like there's so many interesting cheap wingers that are out there. It's the easiest position to acquire talent, and they really haven't done anything in that regard this summer.

I think that is sort of the disappointing thing for me, and the market is drying up where there are fewer options now, and the fact that obviously the player needs to be willing to sign there, but they weren't in on the Zingles or the Markets Johansans or some of these guys that went for less than we would have thought they would. Like, that's a disappointing part to me because they could have very easily improved their team there with one smart move,

and instead they haven't really had anything to show for it. yet. Well, yeah, and I think that when you look at, don't get me wrong, like I like Philip Broberg, but let's face it, like Cole Caulfield's sitting there. Dylan Cousins was sitting there, was he not? He was, yeah, because Berlberg went eight and then Cousins went nine and then put goals and went 10. Exactly. Like any one of those players, to be quite honest, would have helped McDavid because let's say you draft cousins in a fantasy world, right? right? Well, you make cousins your number two center at some point, and then you can play dry-sidal with McDavid. I mean, I would prefer that dry-siddle drive his own line. I think he's capable of doing it.

But the fact that you went into this summer and did absolutely nothing to add or subtract some of the nonsense that's currently on the roster and to add some other stuff, like it's, it's, It's inexcusable. I mean, Ken Holland came in in a really, really tough spot. But like you said, we haven't really heard anything about them moving Luchich and the Puyi Yerbe stuff. Personally, I think that Pooie Yerbe should give Holland a chance because Holland clearly, if there's one thing he did in Detroit, relatively successfully up until the last couple years, it was develop. right they they develop some some pretty good they have a pretty good development system so exactly and so I think that if he brings that same mentality to edmonton a player like puy yari who's kind of in this vicious

cycle of he gets hurt and his skating gets worse and he gets hurt and his skating gets worse and he gets hurt because his skating gets worse and it's just round and round and round we go i think with a proper development system, he could really benefit from that. So I think Puyiorei probably should give the Oilers another chance. I don't know how much there is to Marcus Lato's claim that he is going to play in Europe next year. I'm kind of super interested to see how that plays out. But even then, like you can move a loose-hich contract. Ottawa's got to hit the floor.

There's one other team, actually, that has to hit the floor. I cannot remember it off the top of my head. So you can move that salary. And if you have to move one of your draft assets to do that, then so be it. But at the end of the day, you are wasting McDavid's prime. And that's not acceptable. So you have to do whatever you can to capitalize on his prime because you're only going to get him once. Yeah.

Yeah. It sucks to be wasting those years. It's as good as he's been. I just wanted to be clear with the listeners. The sirens in the background are on your end for once. it's not on that. Yeah, I actually moved downtown Toronto, and there are sirens in everywhere now,

and there's, there's so much going on. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Well, listeners of the PDA cast are very familiar with that, so. Sirens, dogs construction. Yeah. Okay, let's, we've been a bit overly negative. Let's talk about a summer that I have liked so far

with the, uh, with the Carolina hurricanes. It's kind of a bit sneaky because they're having necessarily been many like sort of big splashes from them but you know they bring back better and razzik on a much more reasonable deal than I thought he was going to get from someone they get rid of that Scott darling contract and bring in rhymer who I think is much more salvageable and could very reasonably be an above average backup for them behind razzic um they get ryan or even a 50 50 split yeah which basically what they did last year i think you know going from mackalini marzik to mrazick rhyme are perfectly reasonable um yeah they get the zingle two-year deal

at a very minimal cap hit. They trade for Eric Hala, take advantage of Vegas' cap bind. And, you know, they're going to reasonably expect to bump up Andre Setchnikov and give him more of a workload and maybe even get him up on that top line. We'll see what happens with Justin Williams and whether he comes back. But all of a sudden, for this Kane's team, they brought in a bunch of guys, especially up front now,

who give them more of a scoring punch, can play with the sort of trademark speed that the Hurricanes played with last year. And I think there's a lot of reason to be excited that I don't know if they're going to make it to conference finals again, but that it's not going to be sort of a one and done. We're going to take two steps back next year. Like I think this is a lot of positive momentum and a lot of stuff going in the right direction to expect that they can only build off of last year. Yeah, like I don't think it's reasonable to say that they're going to go to the conference finals again this year. But it's absolutely reasonable to say that they're going to make the playoffs and that they're going to

be a good team. Sebastian Aho's cap hit is. very reasonable. I think he's worth north of 10. So the fact that they have him for a little less than 8.5 is pretty nice. And you've got Tara Vine and very reasonable. Nino Nieder Rider, he was great for them last year. You talked about the single. I think Martin Nietzschas probably gets a look at the lineup this year,

and that's another kind of skill injection. Warren Fogel is everything you could ask for. out of, I think he was like a fifth round pick or something like that. They've got some really, really neat sort of pieces. And they did trade Dahan. But at the end of the day, when you have defensemen with the names Dougie Hamilton, Jacob Slavin, Brett Pesci, Justin Falk, Hayden, Flurry, like, you have that luxury. You can do it.

Yeah. Because those top three defensemen, probably number one defensemen on most other teams. Like if I were to pluck up any one of the three Hamilton, Slavin, or Peschi, their number one defensemen on a lot of teams. Like, their number one defensemen, if you just do the Canadian teams, number one defensemen in Vancouver, any one of them, yep, definitely in Edmonton, maybe not in Calgary, potentially even in Winnipeg, because Bufflin's kind of slowed down a little bit.

Yeah. they're definitely number two in Toronto. They're number one in Ottawa. And they're, I mean, hard to say with Weber because he's injured. But you could make the argument. Definitely more reliable. Yeah, so they'd be number one in Montreal. And that's just the Canadian team.

Right? Like, they have three excellent, excellent defensemen. And then you have Fulk who, when you're playing in number four spot, like, that's he's solid number four defense yeah they need to sell high on fault like yesterday i that's that's one thing that i would really love for them to see and that could you know it's not a similar i guess it's different because they're not like fully all in relying on martinich has to step in and be that second center for them like what we're talking about with middle stat in buffalo where it's like if you don't have a fallback plan you're going to be screwed because sometimes

young players take longer to develop so if he doesn't like they still have jordan stall there from like a best case scenario, what's going to get this team to the next level, getting Natchez in there, giving that talent infusion, and then sort of bumping all the other guys down a peg to a more reasonable spot for their skill sets, with Jordan Stahl going into that prototypical shutdown third line center role, and then a guy like Lucas Mallmark or whatever being their fourth line center, instead of each guy kind of playing a bit higher than he probably should be. Like, that's when everything really falls into place for them.

And, you know, I think they're 20 to 1, to win the Eastern Conference right now and the most recent odds, which was behind teams that made big splash moves, like the Panthers and the Rangers and the Flyers and even the Devils. And we'll see,

obviously, the fact that they had a good summer doesn't necessarily mean they're going to repeat their success, as we said, but they've certainly given themselves at least an opportunity here to do so. And I really like the summer they've had,

and especially if they're bringing in Justin Williams as well, you can never have enough wing depth. And it's going to be a good team again. And I think most importantly for us, they're going to be really fun to watch again because a lot of these guys can skate. And I hope that they continue the storm surge because it was awesome. And it kind of bucked the trend. And I'm all here for that.

Like make hockey fun. Oh my God. Yeah. It's been so boring in terms of fan experience for so long. And it's like the first fun thing that happens. Everyone's up and yelling and screaming about it. Like, relax. So...

So I hope they win Like, I hope they win 41 home games next year. Like, I literally hope they win every home game Because I want to see it. I agree. Just do it. I don't think they're going to do it though. No, they won't win 41 home games, but if they won 30, like...

No, I mean, I don't think they're going to, I don't think they're going to do it again. I hope they come up with something new and creative. I believe it. But why not? Make it their thing. Make the Storm Search their thing in the same way that I'm trying to think of like how another team in another sport has something. that they do no matter what, and it's their thing.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, listen, I'm all for it. I mean, then HL needs more of it for sure. I'm with you. Yeah. So this is going to be super random where I'm going to pivot to Vegas a little bit because just in terms of like, I was looking at the list of free agents that are still

available. And obviously, I don't want to get into all the RFAs that are still available because you can just turn on any radio program or whatever and hear people yelling about Mitch Martin. I'm really not interested in that at all. I'm so, I don't even want to hear his name until he signed. Like, do not. He's not signed until September, October.

Stop talking about it. Stop giving Paul Martin at the time of day. And here's the thing. We also, as we just saw with the sharks, like, I get that we saw the Aho offer sheet. That was like the fakesest, phoniest attempt at trying to actually steal a star player from another team. It was never going to happen. I'm not even going to count that as an offer sheet. And like the sharks were the one team that was incredibly plausible that, you know,

even if you didn't do a double-over-shoe, you could have just swooped in and stolen Kevin LeBank. You could have potentially made them at least think for Timo Meyer. Instead, they got both guys, Meyer on a really reasonable deal, LeBank on an absolute, laughable one year, one million dollar deal. That was a joke. Like, he's a fire his agent. Unless there's a deal in the top drawer for January 1st, like, I'm sorry, but, like, what is going on there?

There absolutely is. I mean, it's very transparent. but, you know, from his, like, from his angle, I mean, obviously he could have gotten more, but I think he's probably also just betting on that. Like, you know, he had 17 goals and 56 points last year and certainly could have cashed in for more than he got. But if he looks at the landscape now, he's like, hmm, okay, Pavelski and Don Square are both gone. There's, uh, there's some rule in the wing with San Jose. You're either going to be playing with Couture, or Hurdle, Meyer, Kane.

Like, you're going to be on one of those top lines and you're probably going to be playing on the top powerplay. and I bet Kevin LeBank's going to get another, hopefully, knock on wood, stays healthy and has another monster season, and he'll probably get paid pretty handsomely and probably buy the sharks after they're able to do so. But anyways, though, the whole point of this, I was looking at ways for teams to improve and players that are available. And Jake Gardner is obviously a name that's still out there on the open market.

But another name that has been floated around a lot is Nikita Gusev, as he's obviously an RFA, but he seems like he's available, and we'll see what happens with Vegas there. but I was looking at Vegas' daily face-off page. And these are their first three lines that Daily Face Off currently has in some order for them. So they have Marcia So, William Carlson, and Mark Stone is their top line. Line 2, Max Patchretti, Paul Stasney, Alex Tuck.

Third line, Riley Smith, Nikita Gusev, Cody Glass. And now all I want in this world is for them to actually just resign Nikita Gusev and have that top nine because that is absolutely insane. and that's probably the best nine-man combination definitely in the west i think even if you compare to tampa like tampa has the higher-end talent obviously but just in terms of like one through nine projecting cody glass to obviously step into the league and produce at some high level like man that is a frightening combination of forwards yeah i mean i still think that one of those forwards has to go um in order to be cap compliant but i've cody glass

Cody Glass steps in next year. That I have zero doubt at all in my mind. And I'm talking steps in makes an impact. Like he's not going to be step in and get 10 points kind of thing. He's going to step in and actually do some stuff. And that is a frightening top nine. Well, here's my question for you, Rachel. I think Markstone probably should have won the cell key.

So here's my question for you. This is a thought exercise. So, Vegas has 6.6.6. million combined in Cody Ekin and Ryan Reeves. If you're another team, obviously you need to have Capspace yourself, but let's just think like realistically here in a vacuum. There's NHL teams out there that probably view each of those guys as like an actual

asset, right? Oh, for sure. Like I think there's a couple like there's a couple guys that I think that apart from obviously they're not going to trade marks still and they're probably not going to trade patch ready. Probably not trade. Carlson Marshall Smith

Or Cody Glasses. Or yeah, okay. Well, he's untouchable. I would say a huge value in Alex Tuck. There's value in Cody Eakin. He's a pending UFA and he can penalty kill very effectively.

So team is kind of looking for that. It can be your third line center of 3.8. Where was he at Game 7 in the Western Conference Final? Oh, that's right. He was in the penalty box. Oh, he was in the dressing room. Oh, yeah, he was. He wasn't even in the box. Yeah, he probably shouldn't have been in the dressing room. Yeah.

And you could tell that their penalty kill went up in flames, well, quite literally. But no, anyways, here's, okay, here's, my point was, it's not even the type of situation where it's like, oh, we have to attach some sort of a premium asset like the Leafs did for someone take on this contract. No, they're value in these players. You're totally right. So they probably can. I don't think they have to get rid of one of these top forwards. Like, I think they could probably very easily without even attaching, especially since, Ekin and Reeves are both, I only have one year left on their deal.

I'm pretty sure there's teams out there that would just take them straight up for nothing. The Vegas might even be able to get some sort of like random late picks back in return and then just sign Gusev to what he's looking for, which is apparently a very reasonable like two-year deal at $4 million per or something like that, just so he proves that he can play in the NHL. Like, just that seems like such a better alternative to me than keeping Eken and Reeves and then trading Gusev for like a second. a fifth, like for some reason, like just, why not just have that insane top nine and figure it out

after and just go for it this season since, you know, they lost in round one last year, but it took an absolute travestee of a call to a team that was very, very good. And I think Vegas has every right to believe that they should once again be a legitimate contender heading into the season. So I just kind of want to see them go for that and go with a high upside approach as to kind of playing it safe and just selling Gusef for cents on the dollar, as you mentioned. Yeah, I think you definitely, you could move Eakin for an asset. I, I, I think there are some teams that you could move Reeves to. There are other teams that just don't have interest in that type of player.

And, I mean, they're probably very obvious. But Egan, I think, definitely has some value. You could definitely move that contract. I would keep Gusef. I mean, he's, from what I've seen overseas, insane talent. Like, insane talent. Does that translate over here? We don't know.

So that's very sort of. That's up in the air. But it's a smart bet on a two-year deal. Like, I probably wouldn't, you know what you have with Eakin and Reeves, right? And you know that they're not going to be top nine forwards that produce. The fact that Gusef has the potential, to me, your decision is made. You have to try and keep him, right? You shouldn't be trying to sell that kind of player.

So the fact that I haven't heard names like Eiken and Reeves. Reeves, Thomas Nosek sort of brought up. I mean, I feel like I should be hearing those names because I feel like those are the names that sort of have to move to make it work. That's kind of my thoughts, because if you can move that $6 million out, that goes a long way to sort of helping your cap scenario. All right, Rachel, let's get out of here. Plug some stuff.

of your podcast and don't talk a little bit about what you're going to be doing your job? Yeah, so I got the Staff and Graff podcast. To me and Ian Tulloch, ironically, we live in the same city yet we've never actually recorded a podcast

together in the same room, so that's fun. But that runs sort of weekly. We might take a bit of a break in the summer. I've got some vacation that I'm going on because it's for anyone that kind of knows me. It's been an interesting two years for me. So I'm taking some time off.

And then I'm kind of already jumped full swing into my new job with York University, but I'm also going to school there too. So I'm going to have that to balance. Basically trying to build a sports science slash analytics department so that I can do sort of my own research. It can be a research ground for other students, but also for people to gain experience. And then hopefully it works and the school wants to roll it out across. other sports like soccer and football and basketball because that would be kind of cool.

It would be a model type thing. And so I'm pretty excited that that's happening. I mean, the fact that the deans are fully on board tells me that I'm probably picked a pretty good place. And for me, it's close to home. And that matters right now to me. It definitely, it does. there's a lot sort of

to be said about being able to be at home and what's interesting is people made a lot of like Tavares going home or people made a lot of Kauai Leonard going home or just athletes in general wanting to play where they're from having been someone who lived somewhere

else it is different when you get to live at home. I'm not saying that I don't want to work in other cities but just the chance to be able to work close to home, like, it's, it matters. That was the best, that was the best guest side of on the PTO guys. You just subtly compare yourself to Kauai Leonard and John Tavares.

No, no, no. I was specifically talking about one of the work at home. Yeah, just like, you know, just like my car, just like, you know, fellow stars. You know what I'm saying where like people make such a big deal about like, oh, playing at home this doesn't really mean anything. Well, obviously I'm not on that scale, but like working at home. Yeah. It means something to me. Right? I mean, obviously for me, I've got two places where I can call home.

Like, I've got Toronto and then I've got Germany. So if I'm in either one of those places, that's home. And so I don't blame players for wanting to play at home. That's what I'm saying. Before, I didn't really see it. But now I'm kind of like, no, I get it. I get it. Because home is home.

Yeah. No, definitely. And obviously, it depends on where you're out in your life and what you prioritize. Yeah. All right, Rachel, well, this was a blast. I'm glad we got to do this. Enjoy the rest of your summer. And we'll check in with you sometime down the road. Sounds good. Thanks for having me on. Cheers.