The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 363: The Free Agent Frenzy

Episode Date: October 13, 2020

Alison Lukan and Dom Luszczyszyn join the show to discuss the results of this year's free agent frenzy. Who benefited the most from all of the player movement, and which moves we liked and didn't like. 2:00 The Avalanche keep getting better 13:00 Why Taylor Hall chose the Sabres 20:00 The Oilers shopping in the bargain bin 28:30 Different look for the Canucks 37:00 Bad teams taking advantage of their situation 45:00 Pietrangelo in Vegas, Krug taking his old spot 55:00 Sneaky moves we liked 1:00:00 What are the Blue Jackets up to? 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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With your host, Dimitri. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name's Dmitri Filipovich and joining me for a special free agency extravaganza. My first guest, it's my good buddy, Alison, Luca, and Allison, what's going on? Not much. How are you, my friend?

I'm good. And the reason I'm good is, obviously it's great to have you on the show, but also on the line, making this a special three-way episode, is my other good buddy, Dom-lustician, dumb. What's going on, man? Not much. I would appreciate if you don't call it a three-way episode.

Well, now I'm offended. It's a pre-agency extravaganza is what it is. And there's so much content to get into. I don't know if the two of you feel this way, but you know, you're kind of following everything and then news breaks and you want to like make a joke about our Twitter or a stat. And you're kind of following it all obsessively. And now I like finally relax for a little bit today. and my brain is just completely scrambled

where I'm like trying to remember who signed where and what teams did like 48 hours ago. It's all one big mess. It's been really fun to follow, but there's just so much movement and player analysis and everything that it's a pretty crazy time. Yeah, I've no idea what goalie is on what team anymore. I've just given up.

They all just live in goalie space. That's all I know. It's the ultimate goalies are very replaceable. Literally every team replace their goalies. So it's quite the time. So what we're going to do today is we're going to try to make sense of what happened by kind of working our way through it. We're going to talk about what we liked, what we didn't like, things to keep an eye on.

We're going to try to loop in trades and free agency where irrelevant, obviously, and sort of just player movement that's happened. Now, keep in mind we're recording this on a Monday evening. Stuff is subject to change. I've got my Twitter open. I feel like the Vegas Golden Knights are going to make some sort of a big trade involving Nate Schmidt at any moment here. So maybe we'll have a special P.D.O.cast,

a live reaction to it, so we'll see how that goes. But with all those caveats out of the way, I'll give you the floor here, Alison, to start us off, what's one signing or one team that's really impressed you or surprised you negatively or maybe kind of confirmed your negative beliefs about them to begin with? You can take this any way you want. The floor is yours. You're leading us off. Well, this is a little easy because they just made another move today. Again, it's Monday. But Colorado man I mean Joe Sackick is just

fleecing people it seems and they were already good so that's a team who I've really liked a team that I have not liked but for a nuanced reason like Detroit they're making good moves but what is the plan here what are we doing

we are we trying to get into the lottery are we not I don't know so that's my that's my one good and one bad right off the country All right, well, let's dig into Colorado because I had them at top of my list as well in terms of teams I liked. And I imagine Dom, you feel the same way as well. Yeah, definitely. I am a big fan of Devon Taves, and the fact they got him for what will probably be nothing is just amazing.

And it seems unfair because their defense is already really good. And they have Bowen Byron just waiting in the wings. and it's just it's not fair at all. I will counter with, I do understand what Allison is saying about Detroit, but I don't think a team has improved more than them this offseason just from the sheer virtue of playing actual NHL players into their lineup.

And I, oh. Oh, we got late breaking news, Nate Schmidt. For a third. Wow. For a third. Per Friedman, yes. Well, that changes my Vancouver section coming up here in a bit. Yeah, for sure.

Okay, let's let's let the... Sorry, Dom. Pivot? Let's pivot. Let's pivot. Do you guys want to do the Nate Schmidt stuff? Maybe we should save that when we talk about Vancouver and we talk about Vegas. Okay.

I'll take the lead here on Colorado because I do want to get into them a bit more before we move on in Detroit. I feel like I don't know what's happened there in terms of. of because out of the gate like joe sackick's first major move was basically trading ryan o'reilly for a bag of what ultimately amounted to not very much and i can't decide how much of that was the patrick waifact how much of it was kind of growing pains and learning on the fly on the job but it seems like ever since the mat duchesne trade and what they got back in return for it it's just been a steady um upward trajectory for the avalanche and for joe sackic in particular i don't know if it's maybe um you know they've obviously built a very great um

impressive analytics support staff around them and they're clearly looking at very valuable things, which made it even more hilarious that Pierre McGuire after they beat the Arizona Coyotes in round one was joking about, or I guess sort of lamenting the use of analytics and how the avalanche proved that you don't need it, which was high comedy. But, you know, for the avalanche, they basically so far retained Andre Barakovsky, Ryan Graves, and Val Nuchuchkin, which are their three main RFAs. They flipped Nikita Zedorov for Brandon Sade. and somehow got Chicago to retain $1 million on that salary facade. And then they pounced on the aisle's cap problems

by offering them those two seconds, as we alluded to for Devon Taves, who the Islanders really couldn't afford to pay whatever he's going to make on his next deal. And so they had this team that already was one of the best three to five teams in the league last season, you could argue, despite the fact that they lost in round two. And they basically just added to it without really ruining their future financial

flexibility, trading any of their top prospects, or giving away any of their first round picks, so they still have wiggle room there as well. So it's kind of hard to argue with the fact that Colorado got significantly better without sacrificing any future kind of ability to tinker with their team as well. So I don't know, they're just doing an amazing job. I don't know what to attribute it to, but Joe Sackick is just sort of in a similar Steve Eiserman in Tampa Bayway, just kind of stealthily and methodically just accumulating talent after talent. And not necessarily doing it in a quiet way, but like it's just a bunch of really solid moves and you look all of a sudden now and at every single position they're completely loaded. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

And when you say, you said they were a top three to five team and they just kept adding to it, I feel like right now they're top two or not two after the top season that they've had. The fact that they got one of those Rino Riley piles of garbage into that Brennan Saw trade was, I think, the best part of their off-season. Like, Nika Zorov isn't anything special, and Brand Sott is still a capable top six forward. I probably still like the Devon Tave's addition more, but just the fact that they turn Zadrub into a retained SAD is amazing to me.

Yeah, I'll be curious to see what Sade does because he's obviously not the player that he was during his first go with Chicago, but it'll be very interesting to see if he can bring his game back, but I agree. I think it's still an upgrade overall on terms of total impact to the team. And they're just fleecing, like I said, people that they're trading with. And it's, I will give a shout out like you were Dimitri to their analytics team. And also Chris McFarland is the assistant GM there. And he's a really, really smart too.

So I would expect to see his name start to be popping up in the future for openings potentially. So that's that is a stacked front office. that's building a stacked roster right now for sure. Well, the thing with SOT and the fit there, if you just kind of project it, it's he can kind of play the role he played. I don't know if he's the same player he was because obviously he's later in his career,

but what he did in those early Chicago teams when they were winning Stanley Cups, where he's sort of the secondary, like, maybe second line winger for them, but he's just basically focusing on kind of being a menace, just puck retrievals, getting them more opportunities in the offensive zone, on four checks and all that.

Colorado already has a ton of guys who are going to convert a high percentage of their shots into goals. So getting someone who can get them more of those opportunities is huge. And he's going to think he's going to fit in perfectly with that pace. And similar with caves, I mean, going from the Islanders to the avalanche for a puck-moving defenseman seems like a dream. So I'm sure he's excited about that as well. And you look at that blue line with McCar, Gerard, Byram, down the road. I mean, this is going to be, it's hockey. So I'm not going to be one of those people that's like, oh, just give them the Stanley Cup already

because you can build the best team possible, as we've seen in the. past and things happening goalies get in the way but at the very least it's going to be just appointment viewing television every time they play dom agrees dom i think dom is still rattled by the nage smit news he hasn't been the same since then dom's out there probably trying to share his jsvaa um i didn't i tweet on the on the weekend because someone said you went to florida and that just didn't happen i guess right i just need to quote tweet that tweet and just put Vancouver asterisk and then I'm good to go. That's that's a content veteran right there.

I think the most common pushback that I've seen about the avalanche, and I tweeted about this earlier, kind of commending the summer, the offseason they've had and all the moves they made. And it's the goaltending. And obviously I think the lasting image in our heads is Palo Fransu's struggling after Philip Grubauer went out and then them relying on Michael Hutchinson and what a mess that was.

And I get it. Like they're not like sort of brand names, but it's important to remember that they were, I think like third or fourth in the league and save percentage this season, and Philip Gruberra was playing very well before he got hurt. He was awesome the year before in the playoffs against Calgary, so I don't think there's any reason to believe that Philip Grubauer can't be the starting goalie on a high caliber playoff team.

And so I commend him, if anything, for not overreacting to six, seven bad games against the stars and going out and panicking and signing Jacob Markstrom to a six-by-six deal. Like, you can always go and get a goalie if you need it. But I think having Grubauer and France, who's for, what, 5.3 million combined or something, like that's just good business and and alison you cover a team in in columbus that has a similar situation with two sort of less handled maybe now they're sort of bigger brand names after the postseason they had but when you're paying your goalies that little and you can just count on them and you realize that maybe having the defensive system and just having the puck more often in front of them matters

more than who your goalie actually is it allows you to be so much more flexible with the rest of your roster yeah i totally completely agree and and coming into this postseason with how crazy it was goal tendening was what had my eye because I thought that was the position most susceptible to injury. Columbus had an injury. Lots of teams had injuries in net. And so I agree with you. I like the not panicking here. I don't think it's necessary. I think that you have two on the whole. I mean, it's easy for me to sit here and say this right when they miss their chance to run for the cup. But I wouldn't panic after that. I think that's freakish stuff. I think they're fine. I think any team that has their two guys go down

is going to be in the exact same situation. And a trade now doesn't fix that. And if in theory we get back to a regular rhythm, this is a good tandem. And in this cap world, the price is right. And like you said, there's going to, I mean, my goodness, one of Columbus, Columbus could move one of their goaltenders if they need another guy and that's a cheap guy too.

So yeah, I like not touching that at all. I wouldn't have made a single move there. Yeah, I think in general, no one should overreact by what a team does in front of Michael Hutchinson. I mean, it's not even that it was Michael Hutchinson. Like, they Landis Gog was out, right? Eric Johnson was out. Like, they were basically hanging on by the end of that.

And so I don't think there's any shame in the performance they put together and how close they were to making it at the Western Conference final. And I think they're also well aware of, like, they're pretty lucky to have Nathan McKinnon on the deal they have, but they're going to have to pay McCar and Landiscag next off season, and then McKinnon quite a bit, a few years. years after that. And so they seem to be aware of like let's, we obviously want to compete for a cup now and give ourselves a chance, but we don't want to just take on a bunch of money that's going to hamstring us two, three years down the road. So I commend them for the way they're kind

of finding that balancing act. All right, Dom, give me, give me one of your teams that you either really like what they've done or really don't. Well, we can still talk about Colorado then segue to this because the team, I think, improved a lot is the buffering. Sabres and I'm not sure how the avalanche didn't offer the same deal Buffalo did like they had the space to do it and I think if I am talking between Hall and Saad with a difference of 3 million I'm taking Hall every single time so I'm not sure about that but I do love that Buffalo somehow some way managed to get the best Ford available and probably got a deal out of it because if Hall can be the player that most of us think he can be,

eight million is nothing for him. That's what Nashville paid Matt Duchesne last year. And Hall is a much better player than Matt Duchesne is. He is. So let's talk about the fit with Hall and the Sabres then because I think the natural reaction to that is to go, wow, him and him and Jack Eichler are going to be so fun together. I can't wait to watch them just play off the rush and use their speed and just be physical forces. But, you know, both guys are, I think their biggest strength is sort of their puck carrying ability, especially through the neutral zone and how they can transition from defense to offense and get the puck there successfully.

So do you think if you were mapping it out, it makes the most sense to play those two guys together? Or do you stick with Eichel and Olofson or some combination of what they did last year and then spread it out and get Hall maybe on a second line with Eric Stahl, who can discuss as well and maybe kind of spread the lineup out that much more? because the problem hasn't been Jack Eichol's line, right? Like last year, when Jack Eichael was on the ice at 5-on-5, the Sabres were a net positive team. It's basically whenever he's not on there,

they were a complete tire fire and disaster. And so I think getting a second and third line that can keep their head above water is much more important than boosting Jack Eichol's line to a kind of point of diminishing returns, I guess. I don't know if it would be diminishing returns because I think there's still room for that Eichol line to create surplus value.

They were obviously a net positive last year with Eichl on the ice, but it wasn't to an insane degree that you see with some of the other elite teams. It's definitely an interesting philosophical question, whether you want to spread the offense or go with a put all your best players on one top line because I think as good as Eichl is, that top line hasn't been overwhelming. And you have two weapons like Hall and Eichl on the same line. You can, yes, they both like carrying the puck, but if they both, if the other team knows both players are elite at carrying the puck, it gives them more space as you have to worry about one or the other. I see Allison nodding her head.

She likes it. Okay. Yeah, I do. Yes. I also, here's my thing, what I'm curious about. And, you know, Dom, you raise the point of could other teams have paid it? We don't necessarily know that he took the most money, right? So, like, I mean, we've seen that.

We saw that with Panarin last year. we've seen other players in theory be taking less than what is being said to be the highest offer. I almost wonder too if this one year commitment, and I like the way Hall outlined it when he talked about it, you have more freedom to not so go for the top dollar. And so I'm curious, because there are plenty of teams that could have paid in that, but, well, not plenty, but you know what I'm saying. Like, did he go to the team that offered him the most? Or was it Eichol, was it the coach?

Was it more than that? Who's to say? I don't know. I'd be curious. I don't know if I'll know, but I'd love to know if that's the case. And I wonder in their pitch, I imagine the allure of playing with Jack Eichel was probably a big part of it, right? And we'll see whether they stick with it.

And it's ultimately up to the coach and Ralph Kruger and we'll see what he does there. But like it is worth noting it's interesting to me what Buffalo's done. And I don't think it's been necessarily good business on their end because two years ago, they just strapped Jeff Skinner to Jack Eichel in his pre-agency year and he scored a ton of goals. then they paid him because of it. And then this year, they just split those two guys apart. And Skinner clearly had a much more difficult time scoring goals. And then this season, instead of Skinner, they played Oliveson and Sam Ryanhart, both who are restricted free agents who need new contracts. And they both had awesome seasons as well. So if you're, if you're Taylor Hall,

you're probably looking at this and going, man, if I can be with Jack Eichol full time at 5-1-5 and on this pretty thin team, maybe even get by minutes around the 20-minute mark per game, all of a sudden, and my number is going to be looking pretty good next off season and hopefully there's going to be more money and more suitors available. So beyond, I know it's easy to kind of poke fun at the situations he's been in, the teams he's played at, how little postseason success he's had. But like from an individual counting stats and prospect of getting paid again perspective, taking these $8 million from Buffalo Sabres now,

and then maybe even having a playoff run next season if they're out of it and they flip him to some other contender at the deadline, makes a lot of sense for Hall. So I kind of get it from that perspective. It'll be interesting to see how they play them, though, because the two of them, like Dom said, I think Hall in his MEP season played for most of his time with Nico Hishier, I believe, and Hissure is similarly a neutral zone monster

who excels at carrying the puck, and both those guys had success. So there's no reason to believe that Eichlin Hall can't make it work, but I'm curious to see what the sort of axes and those of that are going to be. I agree. All right. Well, do you want to stick with the Sabres then? because, you know, they made a couple other moves. They clearly needed help down the middle, and I really like the, it seems like,

forever ago now. I mean, hockey was still going on when they made this move, but they flipped Marcus Johansson for Eric Stahl. And they also, in a much less positive move, in my opinion, for whatever reason, decided to let Jacob Larson go or, yeah, Larson go and replaced him with Cody Eakin, who did not really show me much last year in his time between Vegas and Winnius. and Winnipeg and looks like he's on the other side of his career. So I'm not really sure why they did that.

It would have made a lot of sense, in my opinion, to just keep Larson and just give him all the defensive assignments, which he's excelled at, and allow Hall and Eichel more freedom to create offensively. I'm not, I don't know what the logic was there, because it's not like Arizona paid him some sort of exorbitant amount of money. They paid him less than Buffalo paid Egan, which is the strangest thing. Larson was a revelation for the Sabres last year.

It was a defensive monster. They actually had decent results with their fourth line centered by him, and it's strange that they think Eakin will replicate that because he's not nearly the same type of player at 5-0-5. He's been caved in for most of his career, and was one of the – I think he was one of the few Vegas Gold Knights last year who's actually below 50% by XG, which is insane. I feel like I could put up a 50%.

I'd like to see that, please. Maybe an exaggeration, but I'm just saying, I don't love the idea of Econ. Maybe Casey middling stats is ready for that third line center role, and Eiken goes in the fourth line. But I love the stall move. The Ekin one was, was possible. was like yeah it was it was strange to say the least all right well how about i'll give you guys one one move that i really or one sort of situation that i really like and i can't believe i'm saying

this but the edmonton oilers just just shopping in the bargain bin and improving the outlook of the minutes that they're going to spend without uh leandre sidle and connor mac david on the ice next season which was obviously their uh their most glaring need or their biggest concern They bring back Yassi Puli R.V. On a two-year, uh, prove-a-deal coming back from Finland. They retain Tyler Ennis at just one million dollars. They scoop up Kyle Terris after he was bought out by the predators. They get Tyson Barry to come over for a one year, uh, below market value deal to hopefully

just pat his stats and get paid similar role which is on all, uh, especially with Oscar Klefbaum out there on the top power play. Um, and I would have given the Oilers a slam dunk grade here if they had landed Thomas Grice or any of these other available goalies to work in a time share with Miko Koskin. But instead, with every single goalie available in the free agent and trade market this offseason, they looked at what happened last year and they said, let's just roll it back with Mike Smith. We like what we saw with his 902 save percentage or whatever last year, including his last

appearance being getting pulled after giving up five goals in like 20 minutes against the Chicago Blackhawks. What a mess to do that? Otherwise, like I said, I really like all their depth moves, and that's exactly what this team needed. But it's just so puzzling to me that at the end of the day, they would circle back to Mike Smith after everything else was available. Maybe they expect Mike Smith to skate out. Sorry, that's me. No, yeah, I agree.

I can't, particularly when you have, and everyone talks about, you know, the talent up front, obviously, and with this flush, flush, flush market, and with guys who would have been willing to take less. I have no understanding at all while Mike, why Mike Smith is still on this roster. It just makes zero sense to me. Yeah, I love their offseason. I wrote a Winners and Losers article that had Edmonton prominently featured among the winners, and then how do they repay me?

The very next day, they sign Mike Smith. Because they saw Mike Smith and were like, this is okay with us. I think the interesting thing for me, with the goalie market is Ryan Miller is still out there and he was really good for the ducks over the last few years

and if Edmonton wanted an old veteran goalie they could have got someone who can actually stop the puck every once in a while assuming Miller wanted to go to Edmonton that's always an important caveat well and you can't

like one of the arguments that I go back and it's every time a team like Winnipeg or Edmontons involve people like well someone actually needs to want to sign there and I'm not buying that argument after we literally just saw Tyson Barry take less than he could have gotten elsewhere to come play. Obviously, it's a different situation for Hamby's eye and playing with Connor McDavid and Leandro Seidel and just basically passing them the puck and getting cheap assists. But I don't buy

the idea that they couldn't have gotten something better than Mike Smith at this point of his career with those two million dollars. So that's just puzzling to me. It seems like one of those moves where there's like familiarity there and they're just like, all right, whatever. Let's just do it as opposed to kind of thinking bigger and getting creative and maybe even not signing a goalie but trading for a goalie that's available in a timeshare like Columbus or whoever else. So that was kind of disappointing to me. But otherwise, you have to like what Edmonton's skitter group looks like now. And Dom, what do you think about the fit there with Tyson Barry after the season he had

and obviously how much money he probably cost himself after the year he had with the league? I actually really like the fit, especially considering Kletbom is going to be out for a while. That's probably the best power play in the league. and Tyson Barry. He was rude to go to Vancouver and he was traded last year, Toronto. It just didn't make sense considering his primary skill set

is manning a top power play and being that shooting threat that can still move the puck to either flank. And he struggles a bit with getting pucks through sometimes, but I still think the presence of having a hard shot as ability to move the puck will be a huge asset on that power play. What do you think, Allison? It's always tough for me because in theory, like it makes sense.

We've seen him have success before and he clearly has offensive skills. But something I've really kind of changed my tune on or I guess have thought differently about is the effect defensemen can have just penciling them into a rotation like that because ultimately if I'm getting a defenseman to man the top power play unit with the Edmonton-Oilers, I don't want them shooting the puck. I want them to just be constantly passing it to the flanks to McDavid and Dreisito because clearly they're going to convert it a much higher rate. So just in terms of penciling in a guy like Barry onto that top power play,

how do you like that fit and sort of his ability to actually realize that idea of, hey, I'm going to put up a bunch of points this season and revisit the market next summer or next off season when I can make more. You mean the contradiction between the two kind of. Yeah, exactly. Because on paper in theory, it makes a ton of sense. But, I mean, if you told me that Tyson Barry was going to be on the Leafs and he was going to have the offensive output he had this year,

that also would have seemed like a contradiction. Yeah, I mean, I think on one hand, we have to hope that front offices are getting smarter. And, you know, if you are getting – and if he's getting helpers on the power play versus the goals. I think that that should still count when you look at the talent that he's potentially on the ice with.

So I think that I hope that teams are getting smarter in terms of how they evaluate the point production. And I think that as a player, you have to want to adapt when you're on the ice with that kind of talent.

I don't think he's, I don't know much about him off what he has done on the ice, but I don't, he doesn't strike me as a selfish kind of player. And if he is on there with those guys, I mean, I feel like he's going to go for the points and go for the win before he's going to go for just the individual padding, particularly when we know this is a guy who took less money. He's got some team-oriented goals here too.

I think that we'll balance out maybe an ask to be different than what we might presume he's going to do. Yeah, I think with Toronto, one of the things is that the fans blew a lot of things out of proportion and even though his not and not you dom no no no not me not me uh but even with something like berry's shooting presence i think a lot of people remember the shin pads he hits but not the actual goals he scores from there which i mean there weren't that many but he still got it through at times and they most leaps fans didn't realize that he was shooting it literally just as often as Morgan Riley used to. He was just more threatening with his actual shot because it was much harder. And that gave more space to the guys on the flanks. And I know that the way power plays are going,

you don't want your defense been shooting as much, but you still want that threat because you look at Boston with their top power play and Tori Gruby. He has that shot. And if you put a top player who doesn't shoot at all, they know that he's not going to shoot. So they, they know that he's not going to shoot. just give Boston that lane and they're a lot less effective with McAvoy than there instead of crew yeah no I buy that it'll be interesting to see how it works out for them I think it was kind of a season from hell this year and certainly cost them a lot of money so it can only go upwards I think at this point for for Tyson Barry let's take a quick break here and I run some ads and then we're going to keep going with our our free agency winners and losers sponsoring today's

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I'm going to open the floor to you here. I want to you to step up, which give me another team or another signing or another situation. Let's just get into it. Let's talk about Vancouver. Yeah, let's do it. Finally. I mean, so now we know that Nate Schmidt has gone there. So previous to this, my Twitter, at least the people I was following was melting down because Vancouver was losing their mind over what had happened.

What, Vancouver? Oh, please, please, please, please. But yeah, I mean, Nate Smith for, what is it? It's a third round pick. In 2022, no less. Oh, that is a fleecing. Yeah. That is a fleecing.

So, Dom, how does he, and I mean, when you have to get rid of Nate Schmidt, like, that's a, wow. I'm trying to pull up. Dom, what are your thoughts here on Vancouver now? Have they salvaged enough with this move? I think so. I feel like up until now, they've mostly done the right thing, which is not get into the craziness. I think if they gave Chris Tanna of the same contract Calgary did, they would be not a great spot if they gave the same contract as Markstrom got, not a great idea. If they

traded all these assets for Ekman Larson, who was probably at this point not as good as Nate Schmidt, not a good idea. And I think their patience paid off because they paid absolutely nothing to get a guy who's probably still a top-paring defenseman and is paid pretty fairly. I mean, I think the framing of this or the discussion about the Canucks off season, like, so dramatically changes after this news because I was ready to come on here and not necessarily wonder what they were doing because it's pretty clear that their hands were tied from a financial flexibility perspective. And also, as Dom said, like, I'm perfectly okay with not giving Jacob Markstrom a six-year deal because he's a goalie, regardless of how good and how important he was for them last year. with Chris Hannave, who's a fan favorite here in Vancouver, his body is really falling apart, and he basically just had his first healthy season in forever, and expecting him to live up to four years at $4.5 million seems like not a great bet. So I'm perfectly cool with that. I think where

it really started to shift, and it's amazing how much the discourse changes in like a six-hour span or whatever. It's when Tyler Tofoli got his below market four-year, 4.25 per, especially after they gave up a second and a top prospect in Tyler Madden to get him for like 15 games last year people were kind of losing their minds and pulling their hair out about it and I agree like it's I think in a normal offseason Tyler to Foley could have reasonably got a six by six or something similar because he's that caliber of player and he's thought of that highly around the league and it's crazy that the Canucks weren't able to step up to that but I think similar to what happened with Troy Stetcher where Detroit got him at a at a really good bargain it seems like the Canucks were sort of fixation

on certain players and just weren't circling back to some of these guys. And so they were just like, well, we feel kind of underappreciated and undervalued. And there is a human element to this as well. And so they just went elsewhere for money the Canucks probably could have them at. But it's fascinating to me with Jim Benning because basically the past whatever three years or so, his record in unrestricted free agency is as bad as it can humanly get in terms of how much money he's given out to players who they're still paying for. regrettably. And then this offseason, he's like sitting patiently and not signing contracts that

he shouldn't sign. And it's like, oh my God, what is he doing? And obviously part of it is the season that they just had and heightened expectations. But sort of the dichotomy between those two was pretty fascinating to follow. And I tried to stay out of it because I didn't want to get yelled at from either side, but it was funny to follow. Let me ask you this, though. And I agree with your points. And I am a pro-Braid and Holt B person, but circling back to what we were talking about before, in the context of everything you just said, do you find the Holtby signing curious?

Don't you think they could have gotten someone equivalent, given what it's been my interpretation of what they're going to do there, but for a little less money? Well, I would say that the key to the Holti signing, and I do think the part of it is he's braided Holti in capital letters. And I think people who have not been involved, People who have not been following hockey as closely or maybe just weren't following the capitals probably think that, oh, this guy is still a Stanley Cup winning goalie who has had awesome numbers in the past. And the reality is that for the majority of the past three years, he has not been that goalie.

And I don't think it's fair to assume that he will be that goalie moving forward. But the two-year term there is huge for me where, you know, they clearly view Thatcher Demko as their goalie of the future. And so it wouldn't have made sense to sign Jacob Markstrom to this movement. with like a no move clause where all of a sudden now they're having to try to finagle the goalending situation and not give away demko to seattle so it seems like the writing on the wall here is split 50-50 or so between demico and holpey next year hope holtby's league average and then he'll probably just go to seattle the following year that seems like the most likely outcome here and it makes sense but i i i don't worry some but you could have gone cheaper no i mean you could

have found an equivalent role player for everything you just described for cheaper i would suggest Well, I agree. And here's the other kind of complicating issue. Expectations are so high for the Canucks right now because they were basically one goal away from making the Western Conference final. And we all agree rationally looking from the outside that they were going to be a very obvious regression candidate, regardless of what happened this offseason. And relying on their goaltending to do what they did in that Vegas series was not a very realistic proposal to do moving forward. but when you have Elias Peders and you have Quinn Hughes, like people are going to talk themselves into,

oh, every year we're going to get better and better and better on our way to the Stanley Cup. And unfortunately, that's not how it works. And I think people don't realize how good Jacob Markstrom was last year or even the past two years because his raw save percentage isn't particularly amazing. But if you talk to anyone with, you know, tracking information and we still don't know the validity completely of that,

but like ClearSight Analytics had him as the most. valuable goalie in the league last year. And there's a middle ground where he might not be that good and that important, but he's also better than whatever his Ross A percentage was. And in that case, with this blue line, even though it does look a lot better with Nate Schmidt and his mobility, I think there's still a lot of flaws and a lot of question marks. And if they're getting league average goaltending next season, the results are going to look

dramatically different than what they got this year with amazing goaltending. Fair. What do you think about them, Dom, moving forward as, uh, as their outlook based on the offseason they've had the expectations with Hughes and Pedersen and sort of how you manage all that because I do think there is a belief that it's like, wow, look at the age of Hughes and Pedersen. They're going to get so much better every year. And in hockey, it's really tough for one player to have that big of an impact and they were

already amazing when both guys were on ice this year. So unless the supporting cast improves, it's really tough for me to see kind of balance those two ideas of how this team is going to get better unless they literally. get better players. Yeah, I think when I write my season preview for the Vancouver Canucks, I'm going to have a lot of people from Vancouver very angry with me because I currently don't see it. I think the Schmidt acquisition changes things a lot, and I think they'll be in the mix, but I don't think they're a bona fide playoff team with the way they're currently constructed

right now. I personally didn't mind the Holby signing. when you are talking about goalies, if you have a goalie who was elite once, like, why not? Well, the dicey might get there again. Who really knows? Higher Dom is your GM right there. Yeah. You're good once, you're a goalie? All right. Here's some money. Only two years, though. Only two years. We need that cap flexibility. I think that's the biggest thing with acquiring goaling. I think the only goalie I saw that would have been a lot.

better was the Crawford deal with the Devils where he went for less money for three years and he's probably one of the best goalies the last really of the past decade and he hasn't really had any many off years. I'm glad you mentioned Crawford and the Devils. We need to talk this out because I'm traumatized from the events of last off season where I think it was impossible to look at what the devils did and then the sheer volume of capable players they added and them kind of being highlighted and championed as the winners of last off season and then the disastrous year they had and clearly you know it was this like avalanche of like just compounding things and then at some point they were like okay let's just let's just pull the parachute on this season and recalibrate and I think

they're going to be better for it but once again they sort of show that we're a team that just has cap space and has capital. And so we're going to absorb contracts of good players. We're going to give a fifth for Ryan Murray. We're going to just take on Andreas Johnson. We're going to inexplicably assign Cory Crawford to this really kind of appetizing deal that he probably should have got from a better team that would have made more sense for Cory Crawford. And so you look at this team and in a metro division that's going to be loaded, I don't want to say, oh, the devils are going to be amazing, but they just added a bunch of above average NHL players. without sacrificing anything.

And so it's tough not to commend that. At the same time, I had this nagging idea in back of my head of don't talk up the devils because it happened last year and it turned out very, very poorly. Yeah, they're still not good. Let's not make any mistakes there. They had a very, very low floor going into this offseason

compared to last year where you can make the argument that they were probably a bit unlucky. And then they added all that talent and you maybe expect Jack Hughes to have a much bigger impact as a first overall pick. And you can sort of sense a potential playoff berth, and then it sort of all came crashing down. I think part of that was goal-ending. They were just completely awful in any game that McKenzie Blackwood didn't play last year. And with Crawford, that should be something that's fixed, and they'll, they won't be having those games where they're up for,

one early on the season and lose 5-4, which they did. I'm pretty sure like five times last October. Well, but I think to, I mean, and I don't mean to pile on, but, and I have been one of Ryan Murray's biggest fans, his entire career, but it was kind of entertaining to me when everyone was talking about that trade. And look, it still tilts towards the devils, but the number no one was mentioning was games played. So you're getting basically a half of a defenseman here.

and I wish you could get more, but he has a chronic back issue that he has to manage. If you get a half a season out of him, I think that's success for him. And I do worry about Cory Crawford's health issues too. So, you know, there's talent that they brought in for sure, but I hate speaking so cavalierly about people's health, but it's not necessarily durable talent that they brought in. Especially when the track record is this long. It's not one unlucky injury or something. It's fair to set the games played mark over under for Ryan Murray at something well below a full season.

But at the same time, though, and, you know, perspective is important here. We're not saying that adding Ryan Murray for a fifth round pick is going to make the difference between you being a lottery team and you being a cup contender. But when teams have the cap space and the extra picks and they at least take a shot on, oh well Ryan Murray at least is a skilled player and if for whatever reason our medical staff can figure something out he could become a useful asset right whereas you look at a team like the Ottawa senators and they're giving up similar capital for Eric Good Branson and Austin Watson and all these moves that ultimately I get it like we shouldn't get too worked up because it's not

like the Ottawa senators believe that they're going to be good next season so they're just kind of filling their roster and trying to get to the cap floor but it's still a tough for me to look at the moves they make and giving $25 million to Matt Murray and just how they're kind of throwing away all these extra picks and just bringing in literal bodies and being like, all right, well, why didn't they do something more with that? Why didn't they aim for a higher ceiling and try to get better players with that? Because we're just seeing with the devils, they're just like taking Andreas Yonson and being like, okay, well, he is skill. We're just going to take him. You know, you're seeing players available because of the flat cap and because teams are up against it financially.

And for Ottawa, with how much money they had available, it's just like, I know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things next season or the year after, even the year after that. But you could do something more and strive for something better than what they ultimately accomplished. How do you not even qualify Anthony DeClair? Seriously. I mean, even if you know that the relationship's going to terminate in some way, shape, or form, how do you not even qualify the player?

They could have traded him, too, if they qualified him if they didn't want him. So I just don't easily valuable asset makes no sense. That floored me. I mean, there's no explanation you can give that makes that make sense. Like, like Dom said, that's just throwing away currency. There's one explanation, and it's their Ottawa. It's, it's Eugene. I love it.

My new favorite thing is whenever the Ottawa senators make a move, you can just take it right to the bank that the player is actually getting paid less than their cap it suggests. And it was like, as soon as they acquired good brands, and I'm like, what? And I'm like, oh, he only makes three million, but his cap hits four, obviously. It's like, they like, he tells Peerador and Pierre.

Just open up cap-friendly, filter by actual salary, and then subtract it from cap hit and tell me who the league leaders in that are, and let's go after those guys. And it's been like three or four years now running of that, and it continues, and they're going to be laughed at on podcast,

podcasts until that changes, regardless of how good their drafts are. So let's leave it to that. But you know, like you mentioned the Red Wings earlier, and then Dom was talking about how much they improved. And I think, you know, if you look at it now, they probably should not be projected as the 31st team in the league, considering they have actual NHL players now. What I do like, and it's very easy to see what Steve Eiserman is doing,

and he's doing it in a very calculated way. And one is kind of getting players for one or two years that can fill roster spots until their prospects, are ready to go, but they're going to flip all of those guys for second, third, fourth, fifth round picks. And the Red Wings are going to be league leaders in draft capital over the next couple years. And I think if you're a fan of a rebuilding team, that's exactly what I want my GM doing. So I give them kudos for that because they're basically just taking guys and being like, sure, we'll take Vlad and Mesnikov. And in a year, he'll probably fetch us a second or third round

pick at the deadline. So why not do that? Yeah, Dom, I think we cut you off before. So finish on your Red Wings Joy? Yeah, I just, I think there's something to playing on an actually respectable team that isn't on pace for 45 points. And I think that's the big thing with what the devil or the Red Wings did this offseason is they brought in actual energy of talent that they can, in the future, turn to draft picks. And that's the big thing for them. There's still probably one of the two worst teams in the league.

And that'll play well for getting another high pick next. year but I think there's a difference between playing for a team that is around 70 points where you still win sometimes and a team that is at 45 points where you feel utter dread every time you lace up the skates like if you're Dylan Larkin I don't think you want to play for a 45 point team and I don't think you want to play for a 70 point team either but one's better than the other at least right at least you're not like a historical punchline so yeah I agree with that um okay there's a couple signings I wanted to get to that are the bigger picture ones before we get out of here. Let's talk about the Blues basically swapping Alex Petrangelo out for Tori Krug.

And now we know that Petrangelo signed in Vegas and he got quite a lucrative deal. Tori Krug similarly, I think the cap hit was very reasonable. But the fact that he got that extra seventh year was maybe a bit surprising. What are the two of you? We'll start with you, Don. What do you think about that sort of move from the Blues perspective in terms of their outlook moving forward, the fit for Krug in St. Louis? And then we can talk about Petrangelo and Vegas spinning off that as well.

I love Krug a lot. I think he's an underrated player where he brings the table. I still think it's kind of amazing that the Blues paid $13 million to Krug and Justin Falk instead of paying their captain. That's just, I don't know why. they would do that. I think everything boils down to the Falk deal because I think maybe they thought they could internally replace Petro-Angelo if things went south with Falk, but Falk is not a very good defenseman, and he's not a capable power play guy either. And the thing with Krug is he's one of

the best in the league at quarterbacking of power play, and that he's probably better than Petro-Angelo is in that regard. And that's an asset on the Blues. where I think they had a decent power play, but they can maybe get better with Kroo back there. And you have Perrako who can naturally step in and provide those shutdown minutes. And you're not expecting Krooom to do that. So I think it's a good fit for the Blues.

And I don't think the salary is a big deal at all, but it'll be interesting to see how Kroog ages as well when you have such a long deal. I think you are underselling, what a catastrophe, Justin Falk's contract, and just decision to do that was, I mean, not only that, they gave up Dominic Bach

to accomplish it, who was a very highly regarded prospect. Justin Falk is 28 years old. His foot speed is non-existent at this point. He hasn't started his seven-year $45.5 million deal yet. Oh. It literally kicks in, and he's making $9 million-based salary this year.

Like, how, as the GARY, GM, I get you win the Stanley Cup so you can just walk in and do and say whatever you want. But if I was the owner, I would be like, ouch, that is, that's a tough one. And I, it, it opens them up now because Vince Dunn is still an RFA and I'm curious how they value him and whether he's going to get traded as a cap casualty. And that would be a very appealing thing for any team that needs a defenseman. But I agree with you with Krug and, you know, Petrangelo, I thought, deserved to be nominated as a Norris finalist this year.

I thought his season was remarkable. I thought he used to be overrated, and then he got better, and then that's strange to see at this point of his career, but that very nicely lines up with the quality of competition truthers because Colton Pereco is a kind of ascension first playing with Bowmeister, and then most recently playing with Marco Scandella, basically eating up all those tough minutes and doing so so effectively, freed up Petrangelo to be much more.

more of a weapon offensively, and now he got paid accordingly. So I think if they just stick with that formula and basically subtract Petrangelo and bring in Krug and just give him all those offensive minutes, it makes a lot of sense. And I actually think it'll be a very effective strategy. I think Krug's going to put up a lot of points and be really good for the Blues. So I certainly don't mind it at all. What do you think about the decision to do so and go that route for St. Louis with Krug and Petrangelo?

Yeah, I don't mind it either. academically. I'm with Dom. I mean, I thought the decision from Boston as well was interesting. We're seeing some interesting separations here that down the road, you know, this is going to be the kind of stuff that when players decide to move on and everyone gets all up in arms, they're going to say, well, you know, this is how the business is becoming even more of the business, if you will. But yeah, I like the move. Otherwise, I think that Vegas runs a bigger risk with the pretangelo contract, you know, in terms of term here. And just overall cap situation and the fact that they're, they're really still trying to look to open that. I mean, this doesn't make it right,

but St. Louis has their cup and Vegas is still trying to get theirs and the tighter and tighter things clench. I think we're going to see, it's going to be an interesting case study, Vegas, I think, because I think they got better, much quicker than they originally presumed when they built this roster. And they're having to counter against that now. So, yeah, Overall, I do not mind this. And I'll be interested to see what Kroog does there. There's the whole proverbial change conferences as well to see if that flips up anything. And I think with Dom's projections, like you believe that Petrangelo should still be near or kind of at the level he's been at for the next couple of seasons as he ages here.

But I do wonder, like, we just talked about how part of his success recently has been softer usage than he was eating up earlier in his career because of Parake. and with Shea Theodore already in Vegas and how they like to utilize him. I'm really curious to see how those minutes are dibbyed up, and especially on the power play as well, if Petrangelo's not getting top power play and getting softer usage at 515, what is his effectiveness going to be like even to start this deal? And you're right, you can't just view this in a vacuum. They just, as we talked about, gave away Nate Schmidt,

who was an awesome defenseman for a future throw-in a third-round pick just because they literally cannot afford to keep them on the roster for until tomorrow. Literally. Literally until tomorrow. Literally the league was like you have to trade Nate Schmidt. Before 5 p.m. tomorrow, yeah. I think what Vegas does with Schmidt eating up all the tough minutes and Theodore sort of doing his thing on the second pair,

I think that Petro Angelo is basically an upgrade over Schmidt in that regard. I don't know how much Colmprayette. was freeing up his tough minutes. I'm literally in the process of checking it right now. He certainly was when they won the cup. I remember like Perico was playing against every other team's top forward unit. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I looked it up right now, and by my measurement of quality of competition,

it was Perrako, Beaumester, first, Petro Angelo third, but they were all pretty equal, where I would assume that it would depend on a night-to-night basis who got what match-up, depending. on probably their skill sets as well. But I think Petro Angelo can still play those tough minutes and do a better job than Schmidt did. And I think it would be effective in that regard. One of the things I looked at a couple weeks ago, a month ago, I don't know, it's been

it's been a year. It's all blended together. Time is irrelevant. Time is irrelevant. But I looked at how older defensemen aged when they hit 30, how they performed over their next seven seasons to see what the case would be for Petro Angelo. And you see these big money contracts not really working out lately like Suban, Carlson, Dowdy. And I think Dowdy is the interesting one because he signed for 11 million and immediately just went into the gutter. I don't

know if this is a hot take, but I don't think Dowdy was as good as Petralangelo is now when he signed that deal. And I think that's the big thing is Petralangelo is kind of a season where he probably should have been nominated for a Norris trophy. He was providing elite level value. And those guys, even at the age of 30s, still usually perform at that level for a few more years and can be a top pairing defense than for up until their mid 30s. Right. Yeah. I mean, and just anecdotally watching Petrangelo, like with his skill set and.

how he's effective. Like he'll be able to manage being a top defenseman for at least a couple of years. I'd be surprised if he completely fell off the map. But it'll be interesting to see. I mean, it's not often you see, and I guess it's a testament to the way Vegas has been operating, but a team that makes the conference final and then just makes like such a drastic change.

And I don't fault them for it. Like I get the loyalty angle. And we heard today that there were people in the Golden Knights room that were unnerved or uneasy. They trade post-dust. Azni out as a cap dump. They're wondering who's next, but there's a human element, certainly, and you don't want to burn bridges and you want to be loyal and there's contracts in place. But at the same time, a GM's job is to improve his team and try to do so at all times. And if they had the opportunity to sign Alex Petrangelo and go from Nate Schmidt to him,

like, I'm not going to fault them for doing so. So it looks bad, just giving away Schmidt for a third, but it's important to remember that they literally just added Alex Petrangelo. Well, and it's hilarious because if we were in Vegas their inaugural year and that whole room, their whole thing was they were like delighting and being castoffs, right? Like they were delighting and reveling in like the anti-loyalty world and now here we are. So that's all things come full circle. Yes.

Yeah. How quickly they had become the villains of the league. Okay. Let's get out of here with some lightning around kind of rapid fire style. Is there a move we haven't talked about yet that you really like? just in terms of like a value or a player you were you like interested in that they moved from from one team to another and the money they got like uh i think like craig smith is sort of the obvious one it's an analytics podcast i think everyone's like these they just went 55 minutes without

talking about craig smith going for for under four million but you know that one obviously makes a lot of sense for boston is there anything in that elk or you can uh one or you can just go on craig smith if you want to if you want to steal that one from me yeah i'd love to talk about kreggs smith i'll talk about kregg smith all day um i i i'm amazed that that he only signed for $3.1 million. He has been so effective in Nashville's middle six, and I get that there was a squeeze during this off-season, but what he brings the table is so quietly effective,

and I think in Boston's top nine, he's going to be a revelation. When I was doing my free agency preview, I looked at comparables, and a lot of the ones for Craig Smith were these guys who were on previous cup winning teams that just rode shotgun with like an elite star and Smith managed those numbers

playing on like the third line just doing it himself. Like I think his biggest comparable was Chris Kunitz who around the same age just became a superstar with Crosby. So I was really hoping he'd go to Edmonton and just play with McDavid and finally people would know

the glory that is Craig Smith but I'll settle for Boston, I guess. Yeah, Boston's tricky because they did lose Torrey Kroog and they haven't replaced them yet. And there's been such weird rumors flying around about them just randomly looking to get rid of Jake DeBrask and all this. But I love this stat from Jayfresh on Jayfresh Hockey tweeted the right wing group for the

Bruins, so Pastor Nack, Andre Kasha, and Craig Smith is projected to provide $32 million worth of wins next season and they're making $12.4 million combined. And so for all the flaws with the Bruins roster and we'll still see like what's going to happen with Chara, how they're going to fill out their blue line. what's happening in net at the end of the day like their forwards still look like a juggernaut and they're probably going to be amongst the league leaders in shot share and expected goals and they're going to have a lethal power play again and so it sucks losing krug for and not having anything to show for it but when you get a guy like craig smith like that just look at their top

nine up front and it still looks like a pretty scary boss and bruin's team yeah that's probably the best forward group in the league and probably one of the lesser defense group in the league now so it'll be a very interesting dichotomy okay i'll give you one signing that i don't know if i necessarily loved it i'm fine with it it was just so the fit was so weird to me and we certainly saw various moves were like a player like cora crawford just ghost new jersey and you're wondering with the timeline of that team why he would take that offer for me it happened at the start so it might have flown a bit under the radar but kevin shaddenkirk signing a three-year deal with the anaheim ducks at 3.9 per

was literally on my list. Yeah, I wasn't showing us her neat notes. Was really weird to me. It was almost like I made, it felt like,

all right, listen, I'm still getting paid by the Rangers. I just want a Stanley Cup. I'm just going to go 10 in California. Because like,

it's just such a, I don't think the ducks would even lie and pretend that they're going to be competing over the next two years or whatever based on what their team is looking like right now. So that's such a weird

fit and the fact that no one else would have offered similar and, you know, the ability to compete for another Stanley Cup. Like maybe he was just happy with it. And I think sometimes that goes into it as well, like with T.J. Brody where Calgary basically goes like, oh, we're not going to pay the extra 500K. We're going to swap Brody for TANev. Like maybe they did offer T.J. Brody, the exact offer that the Leafs offered him. And T.J. Brody was like, I'm just going to go play for the Leafs.

You know, we see that time and time again. So we never really know what the actual offers are out there and what. why the player chose what they did. But the Shaddenkirk one really stuck out to me as kind of, this is a bizarre fit between player and team. Yeah, that was on my list for sure. As you said, when you look at this roster, this is not, you talk about absence of a plan.

This is all over the place. And the ages of some of these guys, too, in particular. Like, it's, I'm with you. It just seems to be the money grab. And, I mean, by God, he's earned it. But it's just such a strange choice. I was like trying to read up to see was it just all cliches when he got interviewed about it. But that one was strange to me.

I think the what's going to be interesting while it's still undecided and what I'm watching for is we just watched by their own design. Vegas get squeezed. What's going to happen in Tampa? Right? Because, I mean, it doesn't look like at least first pass any team is going to be willingly helping Tampa Bay. and now, I mean, are they going to go back to Tyler Johnson and basically say, well, you can play in the HL or you can expand your no trade list? This is such an interesting organization because they're not out of the woods. And I think there's teams, and honestly, Columbus is probably one of them that's lying in wait to see where does the sweet, sweet Nate Schmidt-esque deal come up that we can potentially capitalize on.

Well, I had the blue jackets. I'm going to tee you up here as we're getting out of it. So the Blue Jackets are my team to watch because they were so busy before the start of free agency, shedding the contract, buying out Wenberg, trading Ryan and Murray, trading Marcus Nudivara. And you're looking at the cap space they have afforded themselves and you're thinking, yes, obviously Pierlupe d'A is in for a massive pay raise. But there's still some wiggle room there. And with this roster, the way it's shaped out, you would think they could certainly use another creator offensively, someone who can not only score themselves. but create for others and you know hall would have been interesting all of a sudden he's off the board and i don't i think that might have been a bit too rich for their blood but tyler to foley would

have been interesting he's off the board now and the list is dwindling there's still certainly offensive players names available but maybe they're looking at the trade market instead and thinking we want to get someone with term already on their deal that their current team can't afford them so i really think columbus is going to do something here too because it wouldn't make sense for me with the season they just had and the money they cleared up for them to do all the moves they made and then kind of just stand pat and go back the next season with the roster they currently have. Yeah, I agree. I mean, the current line coming out of the front office is that they're clearing space to protect against an offer sheet for Dubois.

But I don't buy that 100%. Watch me get in trouble for this. But I was with you the whole time. I'm like, they're gunning for something. And while they still have to sign Dubois, they have to sign Gabrikov. They have room. And they do need offense. So I think they're watching for a squeeze trade like what we just saw and even if it's not Columbus though

Whatever Tampa does is going to be fascinating because I don't know that this league is is as willing to help Tampa As maybe they are willing to help other teams for whatever reason. So it's going to be interesting to see what what deal they strike and with whom I guess the one final takeaway for me. I don't know if both of you agree, but It was a very like eminently reasonable free agency period so far. I think the One true, like, sticker shock moment for me was Matt Murray getting 25 million. But, like we talked about, it could literally be a $25 million AAB for him. And the senators would still be flush with cap space. So that's like a unique, they're in their own universe when it comes to contracts.

So you kind of have to just view that in isolation. I think otherwise it's been a lot of one and two year deals with obviously the caveats of expansions coming, new TV deal with NBC's national deal expiring. you know, who knows what the future is going to look like with gate revenue, when that's going to come back, when the season's going to start again. So everyone's kind of in limbo and the result has been. And I wonder how much of it was owner mandated where they just basically took away the car keys for a lot of their GMs, but there just hasn't been your usual crazy spending spree. It's been a lot of very reasonable deal. So I think the general outlook is pretty positive for a lot of people just because there haven't been any real kind of head scratchers

or significant overpays. And I think, Don, this would be something fun to watch with your metric, with two, is, is there a new bump with these newer, shorter term deals later in players' careers, right? Because the way that players are going for term was already changing with the younger guys. But now we see a Taylor Hall, we see some of these guys, like you said, taking one, two-year deals. Is there going to be some sort of new, like, short-term boost that comes out of this because they're still playing for another contract? that they haven't necessarily had to in previous years, even though it wasn't overpay, it was bad for the organization. It'll be interesting to see what the impact of this is two, three years from now.

Yeah, and I think this time around it wasn't really up to the players. Right, for sure. I'd like to see the RFA market go a similar route. I'm still shocked Connor McDavid signed for eight years. I think that was one of the silliest things a player has done in terms of tying yourself up. for so long. I guess it worked out for him because I don't think it would be that much money for a huge

rage considering the pandemic. But I've always been, like I've looked at basketball and see LeBron just take one or two year deals and just always get the max. And I wonder if the contract market is shifting. But it was very interesting to see it be so reasonable this year for unrestricted free agents compared to prior years where literally 80% were terrible. deals from day one. I agree.

All right, well, that's a good note to end this on. Thanks for taking the time both of you. I know it's a pretty crazy time of year, and we're just trying to survive right now. Allison, I'll go with you first, and then Dommy can go after, let the listeners know where they can check out your work and what you've got going on these days.

Yep, you can find everything I'm doing on my Twitter, which is at Allison L. And you can, of course, in addition, check out the Too Many Men podcast, The only man we've had on it so far is Dom. There we go. But that's it. The number two underscore much underscore man on Twitter,

and we try and record weekly, but we're having fun there. Did my guest appearance really count, considering we spent most of it talking about The Bachelor? Yes, of course, and we're going to have you back. It's starting up again. Yeah, I canceled my cable, so I'm going to have to find a way to watch it. I will send you my login just so you can watch. I have to watch.

to watch. Beautiful. I want to watch. It's going to be the craziest season yet. Yeah. Clayshaw. Yeah, you can find everything I write at my Twitter account as well, Dom Lushishin, spelled as it sounds.

Allison L. Also similarly, Don Losh. And I will be writing a off-season retrospective sometime this week, outlining basically everything we talk about on this show, which teams have improved the most and which teams are looking a lot worse. Awesome. Well, I'm glad we got to do this. Guys, enjoy the rest of this offseason, try to relax a little bit,

and we'll check in with both of you down the road. Take care. Traveler. The Hockey P.D.O.cast with Dimpilipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud. dot com slash hockey p-diocast