The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 360: Bubble Adjacent

Episode Date: October 1, 2020

Emily Kaplan joins the show to help put a bow on the playoffs by discussing what we can learn from the Tampa Bay Lightning now that they've finally broken through, and previewing the biggest questions we have heading into the offseason. The topics we cover include:2:30 Takeaways from the playoffs11:00 The goalie market this summer19:30 Learning from Tampa Bay's success33:40 Conn Smythe voting42:00 The Price of Pain48:30 The Bubble ExperienceEvery episode of the show is available on iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, and wherever else you may typically get your podcasts. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated, especially the ones of the 5-star variety!See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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My name is Dimitri Filipovich. any of me, I was like, good buddy, reporting live from her bubble adjacent view of what was the Stanley Cup final. It's, it's Emily Kaplan. Emily, what's going on? How much? I think bubble adjacent is my new favorite phrase of 2020, but like the words, Zoom and bubble, I hope to never hear it again. Yes. Did the promotional tourism video that Edmonton put out live up to the hype? That's the best part about it. You know what's funny, too, is in the arena and games, they were showing the same, like Alberta,

must have taken out a bunch of money to put these videos up. And it almost felt like trolling the players because they're like, travel to beautiful Alberta and its pictures of Bamp and Jasper and the mountains. And as many players have pointed out, that's a drive from Edmonton. That's not exactly within reach of where they were staying. Yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of visit Alberta images that they were flashing.

It was funny. Some of them were actually good and I kind of like the idea of the messages they were flashing. They do like stats and stuff. but then sometimes they would do these depressing stats where it's like Dennis Gariana have led the stars with 20 goals this season. It's like, is that a positive note or a negative one? I can't tell.

That's amazing. And you know what? I feel embarrassed to say this, but I've totally been influenced because as we're recording this, I have visited Alberta and I'm staring at the Rocky Mountains in Banff right now. You're in.

They hooked you. They hooked me. They totally hooked me. And you know what? I buy it that Dennis Gariano scoring 20 goals is a good thing. There you go. Marketing works, folks. So what we're going to do today, the season ended on Monday night.

We're recording this Thursday morning. It's kind of crazy to think that it's basically the normal regular season would be starting right about now, but instead we don't know when the next hockey game we're going to watch is, but we're going to get into all that. So I thought a useful exercise for us today would be to kind of put a bow on both the playoffs and that cup final itself and sort of work our way through main take. So I kind of open the floor, main takeaways, observations, winners, losers, lingering big picture questions we can take in any number of ways i gave you a bit of homework before we

started so i know this is all stuff that you've been kind of thinking about and writing about so i'll give you uh the floor here and let you go first and uh you can hit any of those topics you want ah where do i begin um let's talk about play in the bubble just in general of what teams we were impressed with and what teams kind of came and floundered i like that as a jumping off point yeah what do you have well what impressed you the most You know, I was impressed by the stars. I think this is a team that I viewed as needing to blow things up. I thought Jim Nell needed to go because he kept swinging for the fences

and he got a Corey Perry and Joe Pavelsky passed their prime. And Tyler Sagan, Radjelov, and Ben just weren't working as a top pairing. Like you said, when Dennis Gerionov is leading your team with 20 goals, something's a little bit broken with your offense. But they came into this tournament and they improved in every single round. and Perry and Pavelski specifically, I cannot believe how much they were impacting the game and actually were useful in the playoffs

and everything that was billed in their free agent pitch where these are guys that can grind it out when it comes to postseason hockey, like, came true. So they're the team that to me is right there on the cusp. Now, I think like so many teams we're about to talk about, we don't really know a lot of the external factors. And by that I mean they're owners in the hospitality business. Do they now have an internal cap?

Does that prevent them from paying Rick bonus of fair market value? Does that shift the way they address their RFA this summer? And they've got a couple important ones. So those are all things in the background. But the fact that the Dallas Star is made to the Stanley Cup final, like, good on them. Yeah, I mean, it's a remarkable story. I think if you were pitching someone on just the details of what it would sort of take or what would get them to this point, it would be very unbelievable.

It's like, yeah, they're going to start the year without a win in their first-hand games. They're going to fire their coach. Like, they're just going to have the most up-and-down roller coaster results throughout the regular season. Then they're going to make it into the bubble. They'd be playing this postseason in a bubble during a pandemic, and they're going to look completely listless for the first couple games there and look like they don't even belong.

And then they're going to, their starting goalie is going to get hurt, and they're going to ride their backup who's never played more than 30 games. And he's basically going to play that much in this postseason. And they're going to make it all the way to the cup final. and give the eventual champion quite a fight, it would be, I would not believe you if you said that, and that's exactly what happened with Dallas Star's team. So you're right.

I think what's interesting for them is, for the most part, they're probably going to roll it back next season, right? Like, I think they're going to tinker on the margins. It'll be interesting to see if Anton Hood Obin did price themselves, himself out of Dallas with this postseason. I'm not entirely sure that's the case, just because I think they're going to prioritize having someone reliable

to play behind Ben Bishop. Now, that might just be, Godinger, but I think they clearly know the value of having a 1B there. And with the goalie market, and we're going to touch on this more later, there's so many names involved in guys that will probably be higher priority for teams than Hudobin. So I'm not entirely sure whether he will be able to fully cash in the way he would in a typical offseason. So if they bring back Hudobin, for the most part, like, yeah, you're right. It'll be interesting to see what happens with guys like Perry and so on.

But for the most part, the core will come back together. What's interesting is the next season, though, because that's when Mayor Haisman's ELC expires and God knows how much they're going to have to pay him. John Klingberg will be kind of on a ticking clock because he'll be on the last year of his long-term extension. He's only making 4.25 right now, so you imagine that that's going to be quite a bit of a pay raise for him as well.

So there's going to be a lot of questions for them to answer the following off. So maybe it's a good thing that they don't have to deal with all of those financial concerns right now. So I don't know. You're right. They're an interesting team. I have no idea what to expect them heading into the next season because it feels like while their formula of playing great defense, opportunistic score and relying on goaltending and sort of using that quality versus over quantity approach when it comes to shots and chances is a replicable formula for them because they've been doing it for a couple years now, riding it to this sort of success might seem like it won't be the case again next season. For sure. And, you know, the RFAs aren't insignificant. It's Fosca, Hintz, and Geryanov, three players that were really important in this playoff run. And you mentioned next summer, like, yeah, we're all going to be focusing on this He's skin-in extension. And he's due for a mega-superstar deal. He seemed to lose a little bit of steam when he came to the Stanley Cup final. But man, what a part run for him. But then they've got guys like Jamie Alexiak, who I'm curious what you think of him. I thought he had a glow up this summer. I was like, wow, this guy can play. He's a good fit with his team. team. They've got to recite him. He's only making a shade over two million, but becomes a

UFA after the season. And then Stephen Johns, which is going to be a tricky situation, considering his lingering health issues. He's also a UFA next season. So you're right. They're kind of in this weird afterglow of making the Stanley Cup final. They can probably bring the band back together next year. But a year after that, when again, the cap is probably going to be flat, a lot more uncertainty. Maybe I'm saying the same things about Jim Mill must go 12 months now. Well, timing is everything, right? And for a Alexeac, it's like, on the one hand, he'll still probably get paid next summer because he'll still be what, like 28 years old or something. And teams value size, and he certainly has that. And if he can

show anything resembling the scoring touch, you show this postseason, you imagine that there's going to be teams just lining up, salivating the idea of adding him. But if he was a free agent this summer, it's like, I feel like he would really cash it because there's so much recency bias involved. And then they just have that lasting image in your head of him just roaming around the offensive zone and scoring breakaway goals and scoring goals in the cup final. And he had one of the most sort of surprising postseason runs. And you definitely didn't see that scoring touch coming from him. So yeah, you're right.

That would be a fascinating case to follow if you were a free agent this summer. All right. I totally love that you used recency bias there because I feel like it's the underrated part of the NHL. I've talked about it being a copycat league. But a piece of bias is real. We mentioned the goalies, though, and I feel like this, you know, there's no reason delaying the big topic of the,

offseason. I'm like, let's have a holy carous. Holy cow. I was making a list of the teams that are in the market for either a starter or a 1B. Here's the list that came up with. Sabres, flames, hurricanes, Blackhawks, Avalanche, Stars, Oilers, Wild, Devils, Senators, Flyers, Sharks, Lightning, Canucks, Knights, Capitals, Holy Cow. Then the guy's available. There's a guy for every team, but like, who matches where? We've got the situation now where we understand. understand Kadobin is a poster boy for this. You need two goaltenders, especially with what's likely to be a compressed schedule next year. You need to be able to toggle between two guys.

But then the salary caps staying flat, preparing for Seattle expansion. Like all of these factors are going to these GMs mind. Like, how do you choose from who's available? Yeah. It's, I mean, what we saw, it's been a kind of recurring or growing theme in the NHL, but it feels like this postseason, especially hammered home, the value of having that kind of time share, that second reliable goalie, especially heading forward with the uncertainty where who knows what the logistics the next season are going to be, but it's quite possible that'll be kind of

this condensed schedule where there's going to be a lot of back-to-backs and a lot of times where you're going to need that second goalie. And so just the performances we saw, I mean, I was thinking of this when I was prepping for this. It seems like so long ago now, but I mean, you had, you know, for Columbus, like everyone talks about Uniscorpa Salo's amazing performance and what he did in the 5-O-T and whatnot. But there was a time back in the Leaf Series in round one or in the qualifier where they relied on Elvis Mersliggins to come in and he gave them a heck of a performance as well before he got hurt. You got Remrazic versus Rimer.

You had Jake Allen coming in for Jordan Bennington and then getting traded. You've got Thatcher Demko. And so with so many sort of backup goleys all of a sudden having to come in and play big roles this postseason, I think it really did hammer home that point to teams that were kind of still holding out and just relying on that one workhorse goalie that know they need to go out. and get a second guy that can reasonably play 30 to 35 games in a given regular season without sort of limiting their chances to win those games. And so I don't know, maybe a good business would be running a goalie matchmaker service now

where you link up goalies and prospective teams. Yeah, I'm not going to volunteer myself for that because I don't think I have the vision for it. That said, you know, there's Freddie Anderson who I feel like has just been the periphery of the trade block the last few years. He's on the last. He makes $5 million this year, then becomes a UFA. And, you know, if Kyle Dubus doesn't see this is a guy he wants to commit too long term,

maybe he moves him now and recoups some value. There's the Mark Andre Fleury situation where, you know, he's making $7 million against the cap for two years. He is the franchise, the face of the franchise, but of falling out this off season, it's clear that they're turning to Robin Lanner. There's that rumor that he has a five-year handshake deal to the table. He's got to get traded. But the other guys on the trade block, and the reason that I brought those two guys up first, they're all tandem.

It's Trisesson, or Matt Murray. Matt Murray is probably going to go. Corpusello or Mirrors Leakins, you know, the blue jackets are looking to make some kind of splash. They obviously are always looking for forwards. Why not deal from a position of strength? Unfortunately, the market's a little too saturated. They probably wouldn't get what they typically could for one of these two guys. But I've heard both of them were in play.

Ront or Kemper, like that's fascinating because Bill Armstrong comes in. and there's, you know, a total need to refurbish the entire roster. There might be an internal salary cap he has to adhere to. I think Kemper is going to be too rich for a lot of teams, but Ranta really could be in the move. And then there's Reimer and Merazek. And I want to talk about the hurricanes, so that's why I mentioned them last.

The Keynes are comfortable going with both of these guys. That's what they did last year. They're both roughly making around $3 million, like they're budget players. And if you think of the Carolina hurricanes and recency bias on what they typically do, they don't spend where they don't need to. So if they have two goalies under contract, you would think they wouldn't go out and get someone. That said, this is a team that's on the cusp.

They have shown like and hang with the heavyweights in the Eastern Conference. Coltending feels like the one thing that's kind of holding them back. So if they're able to trade one of these guys, and again, they're pretty tradable contracts, given how little they're making and upgrade for one of the big names that we mentioned, I feel like there are hurricanes

could be an unstoppable team next year. Yeah, they're both really tradable just because of the salary. It also they each only have one year left on the dealer expiring contracts. So it's not like a big time commitment if someone were trading for them. I think the only thing that would sort of give me pause about that is they are such a analytically friendly organization, let's say. And it's tough to see them like fully investing a ton of resources into a goalie. But just maybe because of how many names are available, there might be opportunities

to pounds where you can get someone for less than they're probably worth. I think the only name that I've really seen linked to potential big money. money is Jacob Markstrom. I think Robin Lennar, there was that report during the playoffs that there was a kind of like a handshake, wink, wink deal with the Golden Knights already in place. And we'll see if anything comes to fruition for that. I think the reported terms were a pretty reasonable deal. But for Markstrom, it seems like especially like he's been linked to a team like the Flames

as a Pacific Division rival for the Canucks. And they, I guess, are so desperate for a goalie after how their season ended that you could see them going out and making a mega splash on Markstrom in the free agent market. So it is interesting that with all those names, he's been the only one that's been linked for me, at least that I've seen, to a lot of money. Whereas a lot of the other names, and maybe this works out perfectly because they are veterans who would look like to go to a situation where they might not necessarily be the startup, where they have a chance to compete for a job and compete for a Stanley Cup,

and they might take sort of a one-year deal considering how much money they've already made in their careers. You've got Henner Conkos who just got bought out. You've got Corey Crawford. You've got Brayden Holby, whose stock is at an all-time low, and he's probably looking to kind of regain some of that value on a one-year deal. And so you can go any number of ways in terms of age range, in terms of accomplishments in the league, in terms of how much you think they have left in the tank, how much you think they'd want on the market. And so it is such a sort of unpredictable but kind of like volatile and in a fun situation I'll look at because I do think there will be a lot of movement and a lot of kind of musical chairs. Yeah, when you look at the goal is via free agency, I'm glad you mentioned that Markstrom's really the only guy that realistically could get a long-term deal with a high cap hit.

Because the rest of these guys, like Camp Talbot is probably kind of in the middle group. But then it's a Mike Smith, Ryan Biller, Jimmy Howard, Brian Elliott, Craig Anderson, all guys who are at the tail end of their career. and really at this stage our best used with a veterans minimum backing up a younger guy and just offering their compliment there. One guy, you know, there's two guys that I'm fascinated where I end up.

One is Thomas Grice. Nobody's talking about him. You know, he's already proven, he's 34 years old, but he's proven that he can play in that platoon split situation and thrive in it. And that's what he did the last two years

of the Islanders. And everybody can do that situation. So I think he's a fantastic fit and teams that are especially needy, like the oilers or flame, should really consider him as, you know, more moderate or reasonable option. And then there's Hopi. And my, oh my, what do you do with Brayton Hopi? Because he's 30 years old and still probably has some in the tank, but he's coming off the worst season in, you know, a decade. He had an 8-9-8-save percentage. He didn't get a chance to help his reputation in the playoffs because the capitals flamed out early.

You know, he wants a situation where he can get playing time. I think the Western Canadian teams, the oilers and the flames are definitely juicy fits. My personal pet theory for Hopi, and I've been floating this, and it literally has no merit. I think he should sit out the season and then just go sign with a Seattle crack and be their inaugural goaltender. Sit out the season? Yeah, well not. Who knows what the season's going to look like? He's a guy that thinks differently.

Like, go rehab your body, get your mind right. go on like a hiking retreat to Alberta, and then come and, you know, go beat a Seattle guy. Man, what a cultural fit he would be there. Man, yeah, one thing about professional athletes is as we hear all the time, creatures have it, I think the idea of sitting out of full season willfully sounds like something that would be a nightmare field to them.

But I mean... Like I said, there are credence to this theory. I'm just trying to float it out there. No, I like it. I like it. This is going to be an off-season where both teams and players need to think creatively and innovatively and try to maximize value.

I mean, listen, with, like, it's interesting you mentioned Grice because during the season and before, maybe like five or six months ago, I would have said and lumped together Grice, Hood Obin and Halak is sort of these one-beat goalies that were in great situations where they were playing in such defensively friendly, goalie-friendly environments where they could have nice numbers not be relied upon to do too much and still get comfortably paid. And we saw Halak definitely value that because he took a pretty team-friendly to your deal from the Bruins a couple months ago. So we'll see what Houdobin is going to make and whether he's priced himself up into a higher tax bracket after this postseason run. But for Grice, it's not really an option because with Sorokin coming over from the KHL, they don't really have space for him anymore in that crease.

So it's kind of like, oh, thank you for your service. You can look for employment elsewhere. And he is a guy who I don't think anyone is going necessarily like, ooh, we got Thomas Grice. We're set this season. But he's just a guy who year in and year out, aside from that weird Doug Weight Run, where he just completely tanked.

one's numbers defensively for the Islanders, he's been just a rock solid goalie. And I think if you're bringing him in with the idea that he's going to play 40 games for you, like you could do a lot worse than Thomas Grace. You totally could. And you know, I think in a deal situation, the Islanders would bring him back and have Serocahn and try to trade Varlamas contract just because they're in such a cap crunch this summer. That would probably be the more economical route.

And I think we say this every time it's a free agency or a trade deadline cycle. But like nobody knows what Lou Lamarillo is thinking. He's kind of lurking in the background, won't tip his hand. But maybe something big is out there. So I wouldn't rule that out. That said, what is the market for Varumov right now considering all these other guys that are available? Yeah, that'll be tough, especially after the postseason he had where I think they would probably like to rely on him heading into next year. Okay.

I'll give you my sort of first big takeaway. that you took us on us like 20 minute right around the league because a lot of my talking points were about the Tampa Bay Lightning and we haven't really discussed them yet. So I'll get into my first one here. So what can we learn from Tampa Bay's success slash kind of find a breakthrough here after years and years of failing to get over the hump? Because I always joke that the playoffs are sort of this sports brorshack test where anyone can sort of look at it and then there's going to be so many differing opinions or takeaways from why certain things happen, why a team was successful, you can point to any different number of factors and be like,

oh, this was actually the driving force. And with this Tampa Bay Lightning team, part of what I kind of was worried about heading into this postseason and what's already started to take place with some of the takes that have been flying around is, oh, look, they got so much grittier this past season. They got so much tougher. They brought in Zach Bogosian and Luke Shen and Patrick Maroon. and that's ultimately why they won the cup and completely overlooking all of the

just world-class skill and players that they already had in place that allowed that kind of marginal pieces to come in and help them out. So I think for me, like what do you, when you look at the lightning, what do you see in terms of either kind of like a replicable thing where it's like

if you're an opposing team and we joke about how it is a copycat league when you're looking at the lightning, how can you repeat their emulate their success or it just kind of watching that? during this postseason run and watching them closer live in the cup final, what kind of stuck out to you as sort of driving forces or catalysts or reasons behind the success that they finally had after years of failing to do so? Two things.

There's two definite takeaways here. One, and this is a little bit of a longer trend because it dates back to the last three Stanley Cup champions now. But we look at the Washington Capitals, the St. Louis Blues, and the Tampa Bay Lightning. They're all teams that had some sustained regular season success. weren't able to get over the playoff hump. And with each team, the GM was considering a major surgery to the roster of detonating it, blowing it up, changing it, and they decided to stay in the course and it paid off. So I think patience is the one takeaway there, where the lightning easily could have after

last year you lose to Columbus, fire John Cooper, get rid of some of, you know, the bigger names on this contract and change the complexion. But they didn't do that. And the second takeaway I have is have trust in your. own evaluations. And that's what Julian Breesbaud did. I mean, he should have been the GM of the year. This year, and I almost believe, like, this year, more than any other year, that this

award should be decided and voted on after off-season performance. And maybe it would always go to the Stanley Cup winner. But here's a guy who's always been in Eiserman's shadow, right? He's been the assistant GM. He's had a big influence on this roster, but never got the chance to really put a stamp on it. And when he gets his first opportunity to do so, some of the first moves he makes are moves that most other teams might not make.

You know, he gets Kevin Chatton Kirk after he was bought out from the Rangers. He picks up Bogosian after we're talking about this guy, potentially, you know, not even being an NHL player anymore. He wouldn't report to the H.L. In Buffalo, we thought he was washed up. But the two big ones are Good Row and Coleman. And when you look at the values that were, you know, given in those trades at the trade deadline, I'm giving up a first round pick for both of them.

A lot of teams would be like, heck no, well, I'm not doing that for a role player. But Julian B. Brie Sbois had confidence in, you know, his roster. He had confidence in his evaluation. And he saw the missing piece for his team with those two type of guys that could play on that third line with Gianny Gord. And as I was watching this team in the playoffs, specifically in the later rounds, I was watching Goodrow and Coleman being like, I can't imagine their life not on the lightning. They were born to be Tampa Bay Lightning players. They were both so damn effective for that team.

And so I think we're going to start seeing, you know, if we're looking at recency bias, trades like that were at the trade deadline. There were guys that were a little lower profile, had term left on their deal, which was a big reason why Bruce Boisw brought them in. And it might not be the sexiest names or the biggest names, but were the right names for the lightning right now. I think you nailed it and you said it so well because I saw people saying that, you know, oh, well, we're saying that, you know, oh, well, we're saying that they were good moves, but if they had lost, we'd say that they were overreactions and that they overpaid for Coleman and Goodrow. And I view it the exact opposite. I view it as sort of Breezebaugh and the Lightning kind of fully going all in with this team and realizing that trading for those two players gave them a shot not only this postseason,

but next year as well with their contracts already in place. It's such great cap hits. And they fit in perfectly with the team. And so I thought, I viewed it as them kind of, doubling down on this team and sort of adding where they felt like they needed to as opposed to an overreaction, which would have been either trading a core player at some point or, as you said, changing coaches and replacing John Cooper was someone that would have instilled kind of the more just polar opposite sort of defensive approach and try to grind it out completely. And so, yeah, they added to the team on the margins for sure and they made moves. But ultimately, I do think this core is what took them all the way.

And when I look at the lightning, I see a team that was rewarded for that patience, as you mentioned, as some past cup champions have. And that's sort of the takeaway here for me, where if you're a team like the Toronto Maple Leafs or, you know, whoever else that has fallen short the past couple years and now you're suddenly feeling the pressure to make drastic widespread moves to finally get over the hump, you know, there's certain occasions where, yeah, like there's something fundamentally flawed and you need to make changes. but if you believe in your core and you believe that you just have been unlucky in a bunch of seven game series, like there's something to be said for having that patience and sort of tuning out the outside noise and sticking with the process you believe in. And man, like, the lightning are so spoiled to have gone from Steve Eisenman to Julian Breiswark because, like, both those guys just have complete nerves of steel and just have this unwavering belief. And so they were well suited to kind of handle these rocky past couple years in terms of playoff,

So that's ultimately when I see the Tampa Bay Lightning, that's what I think of that kind of patience of being rewarded for building a good team finally. And I'm glad kind of common sense prevailed because it would have been really annoying to have to deal with another full off season of questions about what the Tampa Bay Lightning needed to do to turn regular season success into postseason success.

Totally. And there's something about Bree Squad too. It's conviction, like you said. Like that's what I think is most impressive about him. but he's never really looking for the credit or the spotlight. Like, you know, even at the end of the bubble, people were like, is he even here in Edmonton? Because we didn't see him at all.

When they, you know, are passing around the Stanley Cup. I kind of, he was like the 30th someone, something person to hoist it. Like he let everybody go ahead of him. So he's kind of just there in the background, but he's a really confident voice. And I think he's getting a lot of respect in the league for, like you said, stepping up out of Eisenman's shadow and acting. decisively.

But damn, also running Stanley Cup. All right. So the second question, what's next for Tampa Bay then? We kind of talked about the goalie market and how unpredictable it is and all the moving parts that are going to happen this off season. I mean, the lightning are right up there if you were listing teams that have the most sort of intrigue around them this off season because they have, as you'd expect from a Stanley Cup champion, a lot of good players on their team.

And a lot of them are making a bunch of money. And with the salary cap, not increasing the way. we would have thought of because of the pandemic and sticking at 81.5 million, they're going to have to make some tough decisions here. And maybe it was made a bit easier for them because as kind of having that glow-up of a cup champion, all of a sudden, there's probably a lot of teams out there. They're like, yeah, we'd love to add Alex Kolo and or Tyler Johnson. They just won the cup.

They can kind of come in here and help our young players and show what it takes. And they're still obviously productive middle six forwards. so they add actual like tangible attributes on the ice as well. But it'll be really interesting to see what they do and how they navigate that because it's pretty clear that they're going to have to make a couple similar trades to the one they made last off season where they traded J.T. Miller for a pick just because they needed the clear cap space. And so if there's someone that can pull it off, it's certainly Julianne Breesbaugh,

but I'm very curious to see the route they take and what the value they'll be able to get for those guys is. with everyone around the league, obviously not being clueless and looking at their cap-friendly page and knowing that they kind of are dealing from a position where they don't have much leverage because they have to make trades this off season. For sure. Like, if you look at their blue line alone, there's like three guys under contract. It's headman and McDonough, who are obviously two huge parts of what they do and Braden Cobert. But after that, you know, you've got Sergachev and Cernak, where both RFAs.

And both of those guys, if I'm an opposing GM, I'm just. targeting for an offer sheet, especially surrogate that thing. Maybe you want a bigger role. Like, you know, maybe we can give it to you. But then Jan Ruda, Luke Shen, Shatt and Kirk and Bogosian all become UFAs. You know, the latter three, Shenz, Shed and Shatt and Kirk and Bogosian, because they are veterans, like maybe would take less to stay, you know, do the whole Tom Brady, oh, it's funny. It was the Patriot thing, but probably the Tampa Bay thing now.

Yeah. But then Sirelli is the big one, right? He's the RFA. We're talking about offer sheets. What Chiam wouldn't go after Anthony Sirelli? Well, I guess the other 30 or 31 GMs have you clued Ron Francis because the NHL GMs are cowards when it comes to these offerships? Yeah, I guess that is the correct answer. And you know what's funny is I've been asking around because I'm curious. You know, this is an unusual offseason like we've never seen.

The timing of it's weird, the condensed, you know, schedule is going to be weird, the salary cap staying flat. I'm like, will all of this all lead to offer sheets finally happening? and the resounding answer of God is no. Yeah, I mean, listen, I get the argument that the player actually has to sign the offer sheet and sometimes they just want to stay with the team they're with. And because, by all accounts, it sounds like Mitch Marner was offered offer sheets last summer and decided to just wade out the Leafs and it worked out for him, obviously, with the contract he got.

But there's been countless examples over the past couple summers where I talked myself into this is going to be the time we're going to see an offer sheet. And last summer, I drew the line in the sand and I was like, if Tim O'Meier is allowed to go back to the sharks, considering the amount of money they have left and how little power they have to match anything of substance. And this doesn't happen. I'm just going to give up on offer sheets forever.

And sure enough, he's back on the sharks. And obviously it didn't work out for the sharks in terms of their season and everything around them. But, you know, just the point of teams kind of letting them off the hook and not striking an opportunity to get a quality top liner in the prime of his career. It gives me little confidence that someone's going to take advantage of the lightning here. Maybe the fact that they won the cup, there's going to be a little bit of sort of jealousy or extra competitiveness to sort of knock them off and bring them down a peg.

And maybe just because of how it is sort of this unique offseason, it'll lend itself to teams having to kind of finally think outside the box and attack an opportunity of weakness for the lightning. But yeah, I mean, if they get offer shooter here, especially, like, I think they're going to do everything in their power to keep Sorrelli. And I imagine even Cirquechiav, they're going to fight for that one. But a guy like Eric Chernak, who could very easily, maybe not be a top fair guy, but a reliable top four player for pretty much any team out there, like if you just hit them with that offer anywhere up to 4.3 million or whatever where the compensation is only a second round pick, like it's hard to imagine there aren't at least 10 teams out there that should be. jumping at that opportunity to get Eric Cheranak at a reasonable contract for just the second round pick.

For sure. And the other thing with the lightning, and this kind of ties into our other conversation, but they're an anomaly in the sense. They're one of the few teams that's still using a workload goaltender. Like Vaselowski started every single game in the bubble. Just think about that. He played every single minute.

Every single minute. 50 to 60 starts a season consistently. You know, he is making 9.5 million, which is a good amount for a goaltender, and you'd expect that. But it's still pretty fascinating when you see the way the rest of the league is trending. And they've got McElhaney under contract for next season. It's pretty cheap $1.3 million. But as long as Vasilevsky is still in his prime,

that's an area where they can save money on the number two position. Yeah. I'm counting, I was kind of on the fence of what they would do before the Spos season. I think after the playoffs that both Andre Pallad, again, Igor had, they kind of work themselves into pretty much untradable territory or at least in terms of like I think they would prioritize keeping those two and trading calorin and tyleron and tyler Johnson instead now maybe if the offer they get is sizable enough they'll they'll rethink that but based on my math they've got so the cap is 81.5 million they've got 62 million committed to kuturov stamp goes point

palat gourd Coleman goodrow so that's seven forwards and then headman mcdana and vasilevsky so seven forward's two defensemen and a goalie and they basically got 18 and a half million or so to fill out the rest but listen if if they retain sirelli and they come into next season rolling with point sorelli gore down the middle and then headman vasilevsky and kutrov like i'll still like their chances pretty much they could just call up all young players around those guys and sign veterans for the minimum and potentially target guys that have been bought out kind of like they did with shatton kirk and bogus in this year and i think they'll ultimately be fine but It'll just be interesting to see how much of a different or a new look team it is heading into next season.

Absolutely. All right. Do you have any others? No, I was going to let you take the next topic. All right. The Kant's Mike. Hmm. And you voted for this?

I did. And I struggled immensely. Okay, give me the process of the voting because it happens like halfway through the third period of the potential clincher, right? It does. And what's so weird. about it is you do it no matter what. So we voted twice. We voted in game five.

Yeah, to submit your votes, you never know what's going to happen in those last 10 minutes. And then, of course, that game went to double overtime. And then you also vote, you know, in the next potential for a clincher. So in my mind, there was four candidates that, honestly, if any of them won, I could have justified the case. It was clear out, point, headman, and Vasilevsky. And honestly, I left Vaselowski off my ballot. And I felt weird about it because as we meant,

and every single minute in the bubble. Like in a time where goal-tending is at such a premium and teams are relying on more than one guy, the fact that one man should do the load for this team is damn impressive and put up good numbers. That said, what Kutrov and Point were doing offensively and the way that top line was dominating, like I just couldn't overlook that.

And then there's the headman thing where, yes, he has 10 goals, which is the most in the defenseman in the postseason ever, purpose-eyed leach and coffee, which, you know, pretty good company to be in. But just playing monster minutes, really just driving what that team does. I ended up going with point first, Kutrov, second, headman, third. I probably, in hindsight, would have flipped Hedman and Kutjarov. But, man, I wrestled with it. And I honestly could have done 10 different combinations.

Well, I don't like to hear you say that you would have flipped them because I was going to commend you for having Kutraub as high as you did. and he was just so dominant he was wild this postseason he was on a mission yeah he got one first place vote from our from our good buddy thomas trance and i commend them because is it certainly an uninvial position just because you're right you could make a case for any of those guys i think i would have picked nikita kutrov if i had a vote um i'm gonna list i haven't first in one iteration of my ballot i would have been very curious to see what version 1.0 versus version 2.0 they should they should they should uh release version version 1.0 1.0 they were submitted just to see how many changes there were based on that one game. I'm actually fascinated to see that. I think mine actually stayed the same. And the reason that I ended up putting a point over Kuturov, it was just the game-winning goal.

Then when he scored in Game 5, was just such a big goal for that team. That didn't he put him over the edge. But, like, man, those two guys, I mean, you can't separate what they did on the ice. They were like a tandem unit and both just insane. I'm going to give you, since this is the PDO cast, I'll give you a couple of Kuturov stats. to Marvel at the postseason he had. And all these stats are not including the three round robin games they played, because those are complete bogus, and I don't want those inflating the totals.

Still, 26 assists, 32 points. So, I mean, that's right only behind the 2009 round of Guinea Malkin had in terms of in the 2000s for points. And he's right there with, like, Mario and Wayne for assists all time in post seasons. 183 shot attempts in those 20 games is just obscene and shows how much he had the puck on a stick and it's crazy that he was able to combine that shot volume with the amount of playmaking and assist he had goals with him on the ice at 5-15 were 27 to 8 for the Tampa Bay Lightning. They had 65% of the shots and the high danger chances when he was out there.

And the thing that I like the most is he drew 11 penalties and he only took four. And I know he kind of walked a fine line there. He got the misconduct at the end of that lost at Islanders where he definitely cheap shot at J.G. Pajot from behind. and you really don't like to see that. But I do think for the most part this postseason that he did a much better job of kind of walking that tightrope of mixing it up and sort of standing up for himself and not allowing himself to be pushed around, but at the same time being disciplined and more mature and kind of picking his spots wisely

so that he didn't put his team down. And, you know, the past, when he came into the league, he was one of the better players at drawing penalties and not taking them in the past couple years for whatever reason. and he's kind of been like a net neutral in terms of his penalty differential. So the fact that he drew so many more that he took this postseason really kind of ties into what you saw out there that he was sort of this more refined version of himself. And just he reached that kind of transcendent offensive player level where when he was out there,

he had the puck, the lightning were sort of running their offense through him and asking him to make the decisions of where it was going to go. He was making the right decision pretty much like 99% of the time. And you just couldn't look away. And honestly, there were times in that Stanley Cup final where it was like surprising the puck didn't wind up in the back of the net when him and point were out there because they were just flinging it around and sort of making such sweet music together. So he just kind of transcended what it is to be an offensive hockey player with the puck. He was just, it was art more than anything. And so I don't know, just as their offensive sort of driving force and their engine, I would have given much stronger consideration to him as the Khan's mife than it seems that the voters did.

But listen, like, it's, headman also had a pretty unassailable case himself, and so did point. So it's not like a complete travesty. I was just a bit surprised that he didn't get a bit more allowed. But he was ultimately overshadowed by sort of the narrative of what those two guys did. Yeah. I wonder. Sometimes I wonder about the Russian factor. There's like a little bitophobia that still exists.

I don't know. And there's just something, maybe it's the Canadian exceptionalism. Maybe it's American exceptionalism. But we always seem to raise the guys. they're born in North America, just a little higher. And with Kudraub, you know, he's not as personable in Zoom calls, English as a second language. I don't know, there's just all these factors that I wonder how much go into people's minds when they're making these decisions. You certainly see that.

If a North American player did some of the stuff he did, it would be commended as, you know, playoff hockey and being tough. And then when he does it, it's dirty. And it probably is, when anyone does it, regardless of their nationality, it is probably dirty. you should not be, you know, two-handing someone from behind and the legs when the game's over. But it's just the talking points. It just, like, the way it's framed is you can tell that it would be different if it were someone else. Yes. And I think with the headman thing, it did seem like people, for the most part, had made their minds up because he actually struggled towards the end of that

something cup final, I thought, a little bit. And maybe just the totality of the ridiculous volume of minutes he was playing was sort of adding up a little bit and having to play that back to back, certainly didn't help. but I think like he won the one Norris trophy he's finished third as a finalist in the other years I think in three of the final past four years and as we're entering this interesting place in the NHL sort of hierarchy for defensemen where guys like Carlson, Dowdy and Keith have either because of age or because of injuries sort of phase themselves out of that conversation as like the quote unquote number one best defensemen in the world and this next crop of heiskenen mccar quin hughes maybe rasmus daly and down the road still isn't really fully uh ready yet to take that mantle so we're kind

in this middle period and i do think that roman yose i'm glad uh the voters got it right because i do think he was the deserving choice this year and he was the best defenseman in the regular season but i think people just generally think of right now after this postseason if you poll people they they would say that Victor Headman is the best defenseman in the world. And so I think part of this was also sort of that storytelling or narrative thing where people just believe that he's the best defenseman in the world, and he hasn't gotten the Norris love for it.

So he got credited with the MVP of this postseason because of that. It's always the like he's due conversation, which it was Giordano last year, which, look, Giordano is due, and it had a great season and deserved the Doris. but again, that's what it kind of felt like the conversation again this year, and I'm sure will happen for years to come. Do you want me to get another topic here?

I've got two more that I really want to get into. Yeah, let's go. Goodbye. All right. I've titled this one, the price of pain. Ooh, yeah. So do you have a chance to watch the TSA feature that Rick West had did?

I did. Luckily, I'm in Canada, so it wasn't Tiobah. Yeah, it was pretty, it was a, I mean, it certainly didn't cover content that should be surprising to people that followed NHL and follow sports, but I think just sort of seeing that detail was kind of harrowing. I think especially seeing the trainer who used to work for the Anaheim Ducks organization. Some of the stuff he said was pretty alarming and eye-opening. And I think it gave some added perspective when you watch a postseason like this where the league tends to mark. market players playing through pain and injury as kind of playoff warriors and it's what it takes to win the Stanley Cup. And then when you see stuff like that, you can't help but kind of have

that human element kick in and sort of wonder whether we should be glorifying stuff like that, whether it is ultimately worth it and how that changes because it's so like deeply rooted in the sport and the way we think and talk about it. For sure. So we had Ryan Tessler come on our podcast. He has pain on ice, me and Greg Wischensky. And he was I wouldn't say whistleblower, but he was one of the main subjects in that. And it was really alarming

to hear some of the details of what Ryan Kessler is going through now. He said he was using all of these painkillers and opioids and all this stuff, you know, to manage pain and to keep playing and putting off

surgery. And now it has affected him in a way where he essentially is Crohn's disease. He says that he decides where he goes out now based off of restroom facilities. He's in great discomfort every day. And the reason he said he spoke out is because he wanted to make sure

that the next generation had it better than him and were educated on these issues. I think the trouble is who is ultimately responsible and what can we do? I'm asking Ryan, what do you want to come out of this? And he's saying, education for guys. And yeah, there's so much we can do

with putting out, you know, pamphlets and videos for, you know, the rookies coming into the league. But it's kind of a wild, wild west out there. And part of it is hockey mentality where you sacrifice anything to be part of the team. It's a hockey player never wants to make the story about themselves. It's always how they can help the greater good of the roster. And that probably leads to this warrior mentality where you're playing through a lot and maybe taking, you know, some painkillers to help you do it. But the other aspect is, okay.

It's the trainers administering them. Do we put regulations there? It's the NHL overseeing it. And then it's, you know, the FDA and drug companies in the U.S. and Canada and all over the world. So there's so many different parties who are at fault here. It's a systematic problem and it's one that deserves to be shown light on. But also it's a little disheartening because I'm like, where can we go from here? Yeah.

I mean, listen, they're adults. And so if you want to play it, it's your job. And you feel like you want to get out there and help. team. That's one thing. I think just based on the way hockey tends to operate and the culture around it, sometimes maybe those players don't really feel like they ultimately have a decision because it's like you don't want to be the player who's labeled as soft or not team first because

people feel like you could be out there helping the team, but you're choosing to protect yourself and play the long game and think ahead to your quality of life after your career is over. And so that's where it's really tricky. And I think like, I don't know if you felt this way. I certainly did with both Sagan and Stamco's in the Stanley Cup final where, you know, with Siga and it's pretty clear that he was not 100 percent and he was not himself. And you could see that in his production at the same time, like he's playing his ass off the past couple games. He's got had five points in games four and five combined. They were relying on him to play north of 21 minutes in games two to six he was i thought playing really well like he was around the puck

they were creating and he just wasn't scoring himself but then after the postseason come after the postseason ends you know that report comes out where he's basically every single body part he has is injured and we'll see how many surgeries he's going to have and and who knows what what he was taking and what he was needing just to to get himself ready to go for those games and so that's like a really tough thing to reconcile with as a fan where you certainly as the fan element you want to to see the player out there, especially the top players playing and scoring the goal that Stamcoast did and what a moment that was and how exciting it is. But at the same time, there's a human element of sort of thinking about what it takes to get there and whether it's ultimately

worth it and just seeing the despair with Stamcoast when he had to walk back from the locker room late in the second period of that game he tried to come back in and when he was obviously told he couldn't play anymore and realize that. And it's like really tough to watch as well. So I don't know there's no sort of right answer or no ultimate takeaway from this. It was just something that you always kind of knew about and you thought about in the back of your mind. But just after watching that feature and then it kind of clashing with this Stanley Cup final, it really kind of made me think about it a little bit differently. Absolutely.

And, you know, it's one of those things, we fetishize it. Like always the day after a team is eliminated and we had that press conference for the guys like, yeah, I was playing on, you know, a blown MCSA. C.L and a broken ankle, you know, or whatever, punctured lung. All these. Right. It's kind of like a competition of like seeing who had the most gruesome injuries and like, oh, wow.

Like this is remarkable that you had this and you still played through it. And it's like, well, should you have been playing in the first place? Right. Exactly. And then, you know, you see it on Twitter and everyone's like hockey players, man. The best. The best. It's like, is it?

Like, why are we, why is this a good thing? Exactly. And, you know, so to that end, we're at fault as well. like we're a party that's complicit, the media, the fans who help fetishize it and promote that message. But like I said, it's just a whole systematic culture thing that will need to change eventually and hopefully will as we start to view these guys as human beings and fathers and brothers and husbands and everything they do off the ice. But on the ice, we still look at them as, you know, these guys behind the masks that need to be warriors.

Yeah. All right. So one final thing that I had here and kind of, wanted to touch on the reporting that you and Greg did on ESPN because you had that awesome piece that I'm sure anyone listening to their show probably checked out with the input from anonymous players about sort of their experience in the bubble. And now we kind of, now that the Stanley Cup vinyl is done and the postseason is over, I'm still not looking that far ahead because I'm getting so ready for my draft prep now and there's going to be so

much movement with trades and sidings and free agency. And that'll kind of keep us busy and wet our appetite for the next couple weeks and months. But just kind of looking at ahead to when the next time we're going to get to watch NHL hockey is going to be and what that's going to look like and what shape it's going to be in. And after, you know, being able to kind of look back in hindsight at the bubble and the full experience and the pros and cons of it, I kind of wanted to have a little bit of a discussion just in terms of sort of what that was like and then kind of the logistics of looking ahead and trying to figure out what what form NHL games are going to take at least coming out of the gate next season.

Quite frankly, it's overwhelming and a little depressing. to start thinking about the next time we're going to see hockey as we know it again, regular schedule fans in the arena, all of that jazz. When it comes to the bubble, I think, as it came to this bubble, all the players understood the financial situation they were in. The league was in serious jeopardy if it did not figure out a way to complete this season. The players' salaries are directly tied to that because of the escrow system. They will be financially affected.

hockey needs to be played visibly and we're in a global pandemic and we need to make some sacrifices in efforts doing the best they can. So they went, they signed up and agreed to this. And while largely it was a success, everyone was kept safe, there was zero positive confirmed tests.

It wasn't perfect, and a lot of guys struggled when it came to the mental health aspect of it, of the grind of living in a hotel room for two months. There was a lot of things NHEL just didn't really think of. Like in Edmonton, the common area, they called it the prison yard because it's like a prison yard. It was a bunch of socially distanced picnic tables of basketball hoops and black fencing, a bright spotlight, and a Timmy Horton's truck. And, you know, this situation was where guys, because the hotel was connected to the ring, didn't have to go outside if they didn't want to.

And when days were out seeing sunlight and people were like, how do we just put plants out there? Like, why don't you just do a couple things to make these guys happier? The biggest issue is family, though, and the guys felt like they were told their families could join them by the conference finals. The NHL and NHLPA, they felt like kind of just misled them with moving the gold post and ultimately didn't fight for them. And they knew it was an issue with the Canadian government, but they just felt like that entire thing was handled poorly. And the reason I bring all this up is because next season, we don't know what it's going to look like. And we know the NHL is a league more so than the other major professional sports leagues in North America that is gate driven and gate dependent.

They don't have that mega TV deal like the NFL or NBA has. They need fans in the arena. We might not be able to get that at first. But the bubble isn't going to happen at first, especially not like what we've seen without some compromises because there's going to be big pushback from players because of their experience this summer. This is a long-winded way of saying, I don't know what next season looks like. I do think we're going to have some kind of progression where whenever we begin and I'm

convince it's not happening before January. It could be an empty arenas. It could be a hybrid bubble situation. Maybe we go into a city for two weeks, then leave it, and that satisfies the family component of it. And then eventually they will gradually add fans into the building

in markets that will allow it. I don't think that's happening in any Canadian markets anytime soon in a couple of U.S. states until we can resume normalcy. There's also a situation, Dom, which is crazy, Dimitri. I don't want to call you Dom. I always want to call you Dom. That's a cool name too.

Dom's great, but it is dim. You're a dim. You're a dim. Dimit. That we could just have one season next year. That's just an expanded playoffs. Like one big tournament. And then we resume normalcy for 2021,

which is such an important year for the league, because Seattle's coming in, got that expansion draft, a new US TV deal. So all of these are things that are Gary Bettman's plate. So, well, he could breathe a sigh of relief that he did award a Stanley Cup. it's a challenging couple weeks, months, years ahead.

Yeah, and with how reliant NHL is compared to some of its peers in terms of gate and ticket sales for revenue, I think they're going to be waiting to the last possible moment to roll that out. And I wouldn't be surprised if they just started with that hybrid bubble that I think Frank Server really did some good reporting on this week just to kind of bridge the gap. But yeah, we'll see. It was interesting seeing and kind of lining up the piece that yourself and Greg did with the anonymous players talking about their experience with watching the quest for the cup series

that they've been releasing because they're making such a point of like showing the players just having a good time during their off days like going golfing and the most recent episode the stars are out there and like they're showing the lightning going fishing and stuff and then you see the players being like yeah none of that is actually happening we like went once and it's the cameras made a point of capturing that and making it seem like it's a it was a regular thing yeah i don't want to go on my high force about the importance of media but there is something about transparency in the league that is severely lacking. The fact that they didn't allow any independent journalists in the bubble.

And, you know, the NHL's putting up the messaging that it wants out there. You know, and you see that no further than as we're recording this, it's the day after the Tampa Bay Lightning go party in Florida, like partying in Florida is always existed. Alex Porn gets up there and, like, thanks Governor for opening the bars just in time. Random fans are drinking out of the cup. Nobody's wearing masks, but the videos you see the NHL put out from the parade are like socially distanced votes in the lagoon and you're like, that doesn't quite jibe up from reality. So I think that's just indicative of kind of the situation we're in with the NHL where they want to promote one thing and it's typically a bit old-fashioned or quaint or limiting.

And the reality is something else. Yep, yep, yep, yep. All right, Emily, I think that was about it. Do you have any other things you wanted to touch on? talk about i've been watching that quest for the cup series i i do have to say like obviously it is kind of propaganda in the sense that like the nchl is very carefully curating what they put out there but it has been kind of cool just seeing um because they haven't done a good job of doing like the 24-7 style series since they initially started it years ago so it's it's been

like someone like john cooper for example like they show him in um like his intermission speeches and he's giving like actionable stats from either the postseason or from like the first period before the second and he's like, listen, like we're getting like these shots from the point. Like this is like we need to keep doing this or we need to keep doing that. And so seeing stuff like that is like I think that's something especially for a nerdy hockey fan like myself where I love seeing that so much. But so I actually have enjoyed it in a sense. But yeah, when you compare it to sort of the reality of what was probably happening, it's tough to kind of keep your head buried in the sand for it. It's hard to reconcile, but you left me on a great note to end on, which is to chill for my company.

You can watch Quest for the Cup on ESPN Plus. Beautiful. Look at that. That was very professionally done. Thank you. So what are you going to be doing now that the season is over and we're kind of heading into this off-season stretch? How many times are we going to mess up and call it the summer? Because we're programmed to think of the off-season in summer, whereas it's like it's October.

I'm putting the over-under at like every time. I mean, I just told you Dominic on your own podcast, so yeah, I do not have confidence in my ability to keep it straight and say off-season every time or fall. Yeah, we'll be covering this crazy period next week, which is the draft and free agency. And then I'll just be pursuing some feature stories. And, you know, I don't think there's going to be any off time. We all want to know what next season is going to look like. There's going to be a lot of moving parts, a lot of it's fluid, and just trying to stay on track with all that and shed some like. to fans. All right. Well, this was a blast. I'm glad we got to do this. Thanks for taking the time.

Enjoy the offseason as much as you can. I'm looking forward to seeing some of those features. I feel like that's some of my favorite hockey writing that I see out there. So, Emily, this is a blast and we'll chat soon. My pleasure, Dimitri. Thank you so much for having me. Before we get out of here and in today's episode, I wanted to thank everyone for not only listening to this particular episode, but just following along and supporting my work throughout the season, whether it was on Twitter, listening to the podcast, reading my articles on ESPN. I really appreciate it, and I'm fully aware that without the support of you, none of that would be possible.

I'd basically just be yelling into an empty abyss. So I'm really grateful for that, and I'm really humbled every time, you know, I see the people are engaging in that work and reaching out to me. So it's been quite the season. Nothing really could have prepped us for it, tried to make the most of it. I am really excited about the next couple weeks here. I'm not even, as we talked about Emily, thinking about next season yet.

We can deal with that down the road. I'm kind of got tunnel vision now for the offseason and all the movement that's going to happen. So the current content plan is to get a mock draft up and out there, version 2.0 to prep you for Tuesday's draft. And then we're going to have tons of agency content. We're going to try to do some. previews and sort of outline some good fits and landing spots for players and teams. And then

as stuff happens, we will be doing analysis as well. And then we're going to get into some more sort of conventional off-season stuff and do some big picture conversations. I've already got a couple really interesting first-time guests lined up that I'm looking forward to chatting with. So really appreciate everyone that's taking the time to listen to the show. And like I said last time, It would go a long way for those of you that haven't yet. If you just take a minute to go rate and review the show, it helps us a lot. It's really easy for you. It only takes a couple of minutes.

Since I mentioned that at the end of last episode, a handful of you went and left really sweet and thoughtful messages on the iTunes reviews. And it really meant a lot. So hopefully those you that have still been holding out, go and do that. and we'll be back in a couple days with the mock draft design. So until then, here's the outro music. Videocast with Dimitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey p.docast.