The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 404: Wild Decisions

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

Thomas Drance joins the show to discuss the Minnesota Wild buying out the rest of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise's contracts. Topics include: Why they chose to do it now The pros and cons of buying out the contracts The one year of financial flexibility they created Why the Wild find themselves at a crossroads this offseason Kirill Kaprizov's next contract The future dead cap charges that are coming Are they more or less likely to go after Eichel now? Going for it and worrying after vs. planning ahead The looming concerns about the recapture penalty Making trades ahead of the expansion draft Teams trying to learn from mistakes they made last time What Suter and Parise have left in the tank Potential landing spots for them this offseason If you haven't yet, please go take a minute to leave a rating and review for the show. If you're busy and don't feel like writing anything, it's all good. Just hit the 5-star button. Each one counts, and helps us out. If you're feeling extra generous, you can also leave a note about why you recommend people check the show out. Thanks for the help! 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.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl Defensive Inn, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athlete, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and of course the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey P-D-O-Cast with your host, Dmitri

Philipovic. Welcome to the hockey p-dial-gast. My name is Dimitri Vlpovich, and joining me from the comforts of his own living room. It's my good buddy, Thomas Drenz. Thomas, what's going on, buddy? Nice to be hanging out inside with you, and if Wallace makes a special appearance, that's my dog, so be it. he might bark here and there.

But he's got good takes. Like he was really, really surprised by what the Minnesota Wild did today. He wouldn't shut up about it. Yeah, I'm sure we'll be hearing. He's like those buyouts are rough. All right. I was going to do a big intro for you

where I teed you up as the man who's trade deadline appearance in the PDO cast still has people talking. About Maxime Mammin? Maxi Mammin, a three-way involving Mike Hoffman with salary retention involved. There was a lot of stuff going on there. I did predict the triple retentions though, right?

Like the double retentions? I was all over that. You were an early adopter. I was an early adopter for sure. Yeah. So I actually this week, well, so first off, I was a bit rock. I always tell people to leave ratings and reviews for the PDO cast and they're generally very positive, really have the best listeners in the world.

But one person, T. ML 708 left the most reason of you said best hockey podcast around four stars only because of a rather erratic upload schedule, which is fair because sometimes I'll go two weeks without a show and then I'll just do like three straight days. And I guess that's what happens when I'm kind of answered to only myself in terms of first thing. But I did a show yesterday. We did a deep dive on the Duncan Keith trade and now we're doing another one back to back days.

So there you go, TML 708. We're going to do multiple shows back to back. And it's such a crazy time of year, right? Because I remember you and I have spent the past couple months. We take our puppies for trail walks. We're in the forest. We're pitching trade ideas to each other. And they're like straight up degenerate trade ideas.

Oh, we'll leave the Ross Colton, Alex Barre, Boulay double offer sheet for later on in the show. It is coming. But the reason why I brought that up was I feel like you and I were sort of preparing ourselves, especially throughout the postseason, we were talking, okay, we think there's going to be fireworks, there's going to be a lot of movement. We're expecting a lot of unused teams, especially in this week leading up to the expansion draft,

are going to feel some sort of a strain to kind of avoid what happened last time with Vegas in terms of like gift wrapping them assets. And so they'll kind of like cut their own nose off despite their face. And like, I'd rather, I don't care if I'd make my team worse, but I'm not going to get embarrassed by this expansion team again, right? And so I think we're going to see a lot more moves

between now and the expansion draft or just this offseason in general in terms of teams trying to move the pieces around and whatnot. But we saw that with the Minnesota Wild and that's what we're going to talk about most here today. So we've now seen like an expansion or protected list related trade with Arvinson. That national predators got out well ahead of the market

to make that deal. And you'd think that on the surface, what they got a second and a third and a future third. Like you'd think that obviously he has injury concerns. He didn't score a lot of goals the past year and a half or whatever. But you'd think that in a regular work, old, a player of his caliber with his contract. It's a sense on the dollar return.

We can dance around it. That's a low, low price, a low, low acquisition cost for Victor Arvinson in my book. And then now we have some expansion or protected list related buyouts, although I do think what's going on with Ryan Souter and Zach Perise is complicated. There's a lot of factors at play here. And I think that's very clear. You don't make a move this dramatic if it's not partly cultural, right? you know the Minnesota Wild sort of turned a corner this year they have obvious

obvious protection issues they've got this new exciting group of players they signed yolek Erickson Act to an eight-year deal right like they clearly have their guys Garon has his guys the guys who are doing it the right way for him and it's sort of a new guard it's not Ryan Suter and Zach Brise anymore who've been the face of the wild for nine years yep so I do think part of this is turning the page I think that's been at the center of a lot that Bill Garon has done to this point. I think clearly the recapture liability is a big part of it too, right? If those guys were to retire over their remaining four years of term, the Minnesota Wilde were staring down the barrel of something that would have fundamentally

like 14 million in dead space for multiple years when Caprizov's in his mid-20s, not ideal, but like 25 million in shared dead cap space for one year. Like that's the type of penalty that can fundamentally inhibit your ability to operate. Like that's an existential threat that they were facing. I don't think you can divorce this move from that. And then, of course, now you get to keep Matt Dumba. Right now, now there's a variety of other things that open up as a result of these moves. So this is a more complicated one than just being expansion motivated.

But clearly, the expansion draft did play a factor. I don't think it did with Duncan Keith, though, right? Like the Keith trade, that's a D for a D. So that was, that was Ken Holland thinking that that was the right move to get his team over the hum. I don't know. I'm torn on this one. I know you've already done your Keith cast though. So, but, uh, but to what extent does a GM like Ken Holland and an owner, uh, look, look at Daryl Katz or Kate's, excuse me, look at 30 million in available cap space that you can carve out with buyouts of Koskin and James Neal and say that's an awful lot of money to spend

there, Kenny. And, and we haven't sold a ticket in 15 months and, you know, find some of that money anyway. where the actual salary figures an awful lot lower than that cap hit. I'm really curious how big a factor that played in it, especially since there's no other way to make sense of the timing from Edmonton's perspective. Like, that deal didn't have to be made this week. Like on Monday, it could have waited.

And that's going to tie into the suitor stuff here. Okay, let's break this down bit by bed. The reason why I want to do a full show on this was because I do feel like from the expansion draft ramifications to the financials to like just what's next for Minnesota because I do think this opens up some interesting player personnel or transactional options for them moving forward over the next year here. Let's start with this.

And this is kind of an open-ended one and you've already hinted at it. Why did the while choose to do it now? And I'm going to give you some numbers. So it affords them quite a bit of interesting financial flexibility for next season. I don't think this is necessarily motivated by that entirely. But it's good timing because this is a huge off-season for them. They're kind of at this crossroads organizationally. they already signed Joel Erickson Eckett at eight-year deal,

which was great value, tiny piece of business. They still have to sign Kevin Fiala and Carol Caprizov. And I was thinking about this. I was talking about this with someone in the league earlier. I can't remember the last time an RFA like Kiro Kuprizov had as much leverage as he does right now. I'm kidding. I really don't buy that he's just going to go back to the KHL.

It just seems too crazy based on the season he just had and what we saw from him. but he does have that in his back pocket as an option. And so he can kind of just like flaunt it over them. And at that point it's like you basically have to just kind of succumb to a blank check in terms of like just take whatever you want because we can't afford for you to leave. And how much does the pressure mount as we get closer and closer to training camp? Like, you know, he's not far. The KHL season starts in August.

He's probably a week out from being able to take the ice with ska. You know what I'm saying? Right. And like, and like be photographed by Russian reporters being like, Caprizov skating, you know what I mean? And it's just him staying fit. Like it's, we'd never react that way if a guy in Oshua skated with the generals. You know what I'm saying?

But he's like literally like a week out from being able to apply that type of media pressure on the wild. That's tough. Well, and there's also no, there's like, I guess there are some, but there's very huge historical comps in the sense that it's a 24 year old RFA with one NHL season, which was a great season. Yeah, that season being lights out. But then it's like, all right, like, it's a very,

tricky spot. But the reason I bring that up, so these two buyouts afford them 10.3 million in cap flexibility for this season. And it's kind of this like very short term gain, long term pain situation where it's like, yeah, they get this flexibility now. The following season, 22, 23, 12.7 million in dead cap charges. Yikes. The following year, 14.7 and the third year after that, 14.7 before it comes down to 1.7 in dead cap charges. And I'm curious if we're a take on this because we've sort of seen some kind of initial reporting or speculation. We've heard Gary Bettman talk about it. But it seems like generally the consensus is that we're not going to see the cap rise over the next couple of seasons.

Or at least at least not to a significant degree. So if it stays at 81.5 million, that 14.7 represents 18% of their available cap resources on two players who are not playing on your team. Yeah. I mean, like, I cover the Vancouver Canucks and, you know, Roussel, like I talk a lot about Rousel Holpe, Erickson and Rousel hope be, Erickson and Beagle plus the Luongo recapture penalty. That's 19.5. I call that, you know, almost 25% of your cap, like almost 20% of your cap space. Only almost a quarter. And it's just like, it kills you. It just kills you. Now with it being actual dead money, like the one thing about all those contracts that I just listed, other than the

Luongo Recapture deal, you can do something with it. You might have to pay an awful, but like the problem with bought out money is it's the stickiest thing you can have on your books. Like there's, you can't move it, you can't problem solve with it, you can't sell it, you can't trade for a good expensive LTI guy. Like it's there. It's there. It's immovable.

Okay, so this ties into, and you dealt with this, oh, you, you've just mentioned it right now with the Luongo recapture penalty for the Canucks. It does tie into that because as soon, if you're in the wild, as soon as you, if you trade one of them while they're still in their current contract, you sort of lose, you become even more powerless to their whims of retiring

when they're making $1 million in 20, 23 or whatever, at which point you're facing the recapture penalty. And then, because that was a whole Lwango thing. I know, I know. Why are the Canucks not trying to acquire Luongo before he retires and do some sort of, you know, shenanigans where they don't allow this recapture penalty to happen?

Instead, he just retires as a member of the, Florida Panthers. Right. And the clocks are left with putting the bill. Yeah. And so if you trade one of these guys now, regardless of their cap hit and no one's taking on that 7.5 or whatever, they're making, I think they're supposed to make $6 million in real cash next year as well.

You really become powerless to them potentially retiring. And you did mention, I think they amended the recapture penalties, right? But it's still brutal. I think it can't go over the actual cap. Okay. So they were. But it would be for a number of years to basically make up for all the benefit they gained. And yeah, totally.

I still think, I mean, it was still punitive. They did amend it, and it is insane to me that when they amended it, they didn't get rid of recapture penalties, period. Like, we see the way that teams are making impossible decisions right now, and that's inevitable. When you impose a multi-year flat cap onto a system built around the concept of growth. And you impose it after teams have already made contractual decisions, you know, long-term financial decisions. long-term contractual commitments based on the idea that the cap was going up to not have provided to not have provided relief in the form of eliminating recapture penalties or, or at least a compliance buyout per team is insane.

And we're going to be feeling it in terms of boring, pretty grinding off seasons for years to come. I really, I really can't believe it. The recapture penalty remains the single worst piece of sports administration in the history of North American professional sports and everyone involved in recommending it should be ashamed. Well, I remember this came up, it's come up with a show you,

but it came up like, was it two trade deadlines ago? Because we were talking about potentially the islanders acquiring Parise and flipping them and glad and trying to make that work. And then it came out that if Parize retired after that season,

the wild would be stuck with like a $19.5 million cap charge. And it's like, you can't run. You literally cannot feel the team. There was a point where Weber's would have been like 20 plus. Yeah. You know, and then you're right,

they did amend it and I think now it maxes out at their like at their at their cap but but you have to pay it off for years it'll take until they basically give back all the benefit they gain in terms of the fluctuation and I mean it's insane it's based on an insane post-talk idea of cheating it's not it was not designed with reality in mind it was designed with uh short-term leverage by self-interested parties and also punitive like it took advantage of every punitive bone in Gary Betman's body truly truly a disaster. One of the dumbest things we've ever seen designed.

I don't know how anyone agreed to it. Yeah. Unconscionable. We talked about the financial. Financial flexibility is a key part of this. I want to save the expansion draft stuff because we're going to kind of lump that into other league-wide stuff. I have a question for you here that ties in this conversation.

Does this set of transactions, the two buyouts and what I just said, freeing up the $10 million in cap space for this coming season, but then having those future dead cap charges looming, Does it make it more or less likely than Minnesota Wilder in on Jack Eichael? I mean, I say more. I say more because it frees up their short-term cap space. Well, it literally creates a Jack Eichael

cap-hit to slide in without any other concerns. I mean, for one season. I mean, how fun would the Wild be with Eichol and Caprizov and Fiala? I mean, it would be great. And they have some defenders. Right. At least you have Victor Rask, I guess, expiring after next season, right? So you've got some money coming off.

It'll be tough. The reason why do you think the Wild are interesting, though, is a lot of these teams that have been linked to Ikel, like the Ducks, for example. Right. You trade away all your good young players to get Jack Iql. You're just the Buffalo Sabres, right? Like the Wild are one of the very few examples of a team

that is good and competitive as currently constructed, but that has such an obvious, like every team could use Jack Ikel. Totally. But they could so desperately use a top flight center to play with their star winger that they just don't have right now. Well, and you bundle one of those defenders. You bundle one of those four really good defenders that are still there post-suter, right?

Are you throwing Carson-Susie into court- He's got value? Really good defenders? Okay, boom. The three that are really good, plus the guy with value. And Thomas Rance is leaving the athletic to announce that he is representing Carson-Susie.

Hey, Carson-Sucy scores, and he's big. He's going to have trade value. No, he's trade value. But I don't... He's going to have value. Okay, fine. but you bundle one of those guys with Greenway with one of their big prospects. If you're Buffalo, though, you have to get at least one of Rossi or Boldie.

Oh, no, no, of course. And then like an NHL car probably. Honestly, what about the Russian center, Kusnadinov, too? Like, that's a really good prospect. Well, that's the other thing that makes the wild and interesting team. They crushed last year's draft so much in terms of, and the past couple years, they have like five or six pretty high level forward prospects in different levels, right? Yeah.

So the reason why I say it's more unlikely They're going to crush They're going to crush again probably too I mean they do they have invested in Judd Brackett Their head scout they have they know what they're doing I don't think there's much question about that The reason why I like how you threw that in there The reason why I have to piss off any connects

It might make them a bit less likely to make a trade like that Beyond the fact that Adding a 10 million dollar cap hit for that 20 22 23 season when you are already so up against it. Like, you'd make it work because Jack Eichael's such a star player and such a rare opportunity for them to get a player of his caliber. But you do it. I think you just do it.

And then if you have to trade your defenders, like, but if you have to trade your defenders, if you have to trade Fiala, if you have to, you like, you do it. You just do it and you make it work after. Here's the thing, though.

Jack Eichols is a shoot first, ask questions later acquisition. I agree. But if you're the wild right now, if you're projecting ahead, which you wouldn't be because you're just going for next season. The exact type of players you need are young players on ELCs that are cost-controlled

because you literally have 18% of your cap not available to you. Yeah, no, I mean, you're literally going to be able to pay like seven guys. Yeah. And everyone else is going to have to be. Yeah. Vets or whomever. But you know what? The Wild probably feel like the Nick Bukstad experience is instructive, right?

Because the Nick Bukestad experiences a guy who's, you know, uncle played in the NHL for the North Stars, Minnesota Kid, Golden Gophers. He was like Mr. Minnesota State hockey, right? Comes back, has the type of season where he rebuilt enough value and he is still six, seven, and he's still a guy who could shoot. Like, how much does he get if he's willing to go to UFA? He definitely can get Alex Gouchin Yuck money. No, like he's definitely going to get...

The league minimum? No, like what Gouchon Yerick is going to sign for this next season if he doesn't go back to Toronto. Okay. Like, he definitely could have got... 1.5 times 2. Right. At least,

at least, he probably could have got more. Right. Because he's catnip for, you know, like he's catnip for hockey jams, especially as UFC. Right.

But he loves, like good fit, had a good time. Like, if there's one team that's going to be able to attract a pretty steady flow of,

you know, opportunistic veterans, especially if they're competitive and you have a chance to win. Yeah. It's going to be Minnesota. Yeah. I agree.

I think I could definitely, Definitely listen to both sides of argument as Wallace prances around with this bully stick of his. I could go either way on it. I just think that's what makes this such an interesting transaction in terms of the buyouts because it does, they really are at a crossroads this season in terms of what they can do financially. Yeah, I mean, it opens up some really good short-term possibilities, but you do wonder, I mean, look, I think you got to go for Eichl if you can get them. If you're the wild, like, you got to do it.

You're the Minnesota Wild. You get Jack Eichael. Yeah, you got to do it. But, man, what a, what a, what a tough. situation this is going to be. I do think they're going to have a massively difficult time navigating this. And yeah, obviously, obviously. It's just so much money for such a crucial stage of their build in terms of the ages that Fiala, Ericksonac, and obviously. And you don't know what Caprizo is making yet. I think you probably need to sign that contract

first before you commit to another 10 million. Well, so here's a good one. Do you try and bridge him now? do you try and bridge him so that you can hurdle that three years of really annoying money? Yeah, I guess that that would be interesting if he has an appetite for that. I feel like he doesn't. He's only like three years away from UFA though. Right, but he has the leverage of being a UFA in the sense that he has another bidder. Right. But they don't pay as much in the K.

I know you get other benefits, but come on. No, no, of course. But if he's even open to the idea of it, then it's not your, It's not like Matt Barzow where it's like, okay, you're getting three times seven because no one's scared to mess with Lou. You're kind of beholden to him. Yeah. No, you're right. And so, no, it's a really tricky one. And you know what a fascinating one? It's a fascinating gamble by the wild. Like, it's ballsy. At the very least, you got to give them that. Like, this is a ballsy play.

Okay. And I'm curious to know, one thing I'd be curious to know is how much of this was ownership driven based on the liability fear and how much of this was a hockey ops decision to turn the page and roll the dice. If it's the former, I think that is a really difficult situation for Bill, Garron, and manage. If it's the latter, like standing ovation, this is as ballsy as it gets. Yep. Okay, well, we're going to get a, we'll take a quick break here, and then we're going to get into the hockey office inside.

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I want to talk about Souter, Paris A, what they have left in the tank, what the interest is going to be like for them on the open market come July 28th, all that stuff. Because obviously there are different stages of their career in terms of the value they provide, but this we've hinted at the capture penalty we've kept it at hinted at the expansion draft the flexibility financially for next season so this isn't purely oh these two guys suck and we want to get them off the team there's other elements involved so I want to talk about them as players before we move on from this conversation yeah I mean I left the last segment a little bit open-ended

like my big question is how much of this was ownership driven and how much was Bill garren and I do think the latter like I do think it was mostly Bill garren having big brass ones I also think a big part of it was cultural. Like, I do think a big part of it was turning the page for the wild. Um, like, I think that's the lion's share of it, to be totally honest with you. Also, we almost made it through the entire first segment without hearing from Wallace, but then he just couldn't take the caprize off to the KHL speculation. He'd just miss him so much on, you know, game center live. Um, Souter, you know, I get, I get that a lot of people will want to see him go play on a contending team, like play second pair for a really, really good.

good team. Personally, I want to see him go to a bad team. I want to go see Ryan Suter go play 26 minutes again. Like, I want to see him conserve energy and just only work when he has a chance to eliminate plays like he used to do when he played a million minutes. Like it was a latter day, Adrian of coin. I want to see Ryan Suter wear the C for the Detroit Red Wings. That's my take here.

Ryan Suter, Troy Stetcher, top pair, let's go. I think that Suter made. They both did. They both made $88 million over the past nine years. And another $8333K to come for how many years? Yes. Yeah. I think they're okay financially.

I think for both of them, the motivating factor is going to be trying to win a cup. I think, especially with Souter, we can talk about Prezie more here in a minute. I think Suter is going to have no shortage of teams lining up, especially, like, I talked about this a lot on the Keith episode,

but people are going to talk themselves into, all right, this guy was playing too much of this stage of his career. His previous team wasn't able to insulate him. If we can bring this guy in, we have a much better team. We're going to play him less and get more out of those minutes. I buy it, especially like for Souter was for such a long period of his career when he was playing 28, 29 minutes. It'd be like he makes it look effortless, but almost in a bad way because it looks like he's literally not putting an effort on some shifts because he knows he's going to play 33 minutes tonight. Right.

And if he was playing 24 minutes, would he exert more effort on those? shifts because I know he's capable of it. And it was always one of those great questions where you'd ask because we don't, we still haven't figured out what the point of diminishing returns is, price time for defensemen. Where do you want to see him go then? What's your ideal Ryan Suter fit?

I mean, it's hilarious that if Edmonton had waited one day. Oh, it's incredible. They could have just gotten him for no assets. But would he go to, well, that's the thing, yeah. But I'm sure whatever contract he signs is going to be less than 5.75, or whatever Duncan Keith is making per year over the next two years. Yeah,

I don't know. I've heard Montreal link to him bring him back with Shea Weber. Oh God. That would not be that's one of those you can't go home again. Like that would not be the experience that it was the first time when they were both like plus skaters. That would not be what I want to see.

Yeah. A pass on that. Could he be an instant replacement for Adam Graves if Graves goes to the crankham? Ryan Graves. What did I say? Adam Graves. Is that his dad? I don't think it was. Ryan Graves, could he be an exact replacement for Ryan Graves in the event that Graves goes to the Cracken, Souter becomes the avalanche, becomes the avalanche, like, you know, second pair lefty?

Yeah, yeah. Well, that would be a good chance for him to try to win a cup, for sure. Right. I could see that. What about Dallas? Jamie Alexiak leaves. Right. He fills in with Heiskenen.

Yeah. That would be good. Yeah. I mean, he, so he played 20. to 11 this year, which was the first time since 0708 that he hasn't played at least 24 minutes. Right. And some of those seasons were in. Yeah. And, uh, but it's tough to know because I do think he's a superior player at this stage of his career to, um, Duncan Keith. I think he has more left in the tank. I think that playing 22 to 22 minutes, 20 to 22 minutes a night, a team could

get more out of him. At the same time, though, um, he was in a good spot with Minnesota in terms of defense partners and system. And I'm not sure. It's tough to. to evaluate how much he actually has left in the tank because I feel like especially going to a different team that's going to put him in a different spot. I don't know what he has left. Well, that's kind of why I like the Detroit fit, mostly because I like him with Stetcher. Like, I like him with a defensive oriented righty. Like I do think you need to put him in a matchup spot, like a matchup-ish top four spot to get the most out of him because one of the things that he's for sure going to bring you is still like that high-end brain in terms of decision-making.

Right. But I do think he needs to play with a like a, a, like, a, a, Huck-moving shutdown guy. Yeah. And I mean, you're not going to find a ton of those who are right-handed in the NHL.

No, I mean, if you look at it, he's crushing it for a long time with like Jared Spurgeon and then now it's like, well, how unique is Spurgeon?

Yeah. Right? So, I mean, how many situations can we really manufacture where you're going to put him in a spot like that for a low-tempo shutdown-ish team

that has the right, right-handed guy for him? You know, I mean, maybe the Rangers, maybe you could play with Fox, But again, like you're not, I don't think the list is long of like really good fits. And quietly, I kind of think Detroit might be one of them.

I love this take. So I was not expecting it. I was like, I was thinking of like cup contenders that could use them and, but still play a meaningful role. I don't think he wants to go somewhere, play 16 minutes on a third pair where he's getting healthy scratched. Like I think he gets more left than a tank than that. Right. But go play. I mean, if I'm Detroit, I'm offering them like a big, a big two-year deal.

And with the hopes that I'm going to get a get something out of. him have him pass along some like veteran leadership stuff and then and then trade him with double retention yeah yeah that's like my goal yeah well i think he's gonna have enough of a market where he's definitely going to be able to curate whatever he wants i don't think he'll he's going to be like just jumping at the first offer he gets but paris is almost a less interesting conversation for me i do think he surprisingly i think he scored seven goals in like 46 games last year he's also a a move from a two-year stretch where he scored 28 goals and 74 games, three years ago, two years ago, 25 and 69, which is a nice, nice total.

He can definitely still score. He scored 22 power play goals over those two years. He scored zero this past season. His usage was cut. His shooting percentage was cut in half. He fell out of favor. He was being healthy scratched. That speaks to like the culture thing you were saying, a resetting where it was a tough

situation for everyone involved, given his stature. I just think it's boring in terms of fit because it's like he's going to the islanders, right like Lou is all over. He wanted to trade for him while he was making 7.5 for her. I know. How unfortunate for the Minnesota Wilde that that deal fell apart, right? I mean, they'd be in a much better spot if that had gone through. Would Lou have still beat Breezebois twice for GM of the year?

Probably. Anyway, the- Preje is going to go to the islanders and score like 20 goals next season. Totally. Like 13 minutes a night. No, no, no. I disagree with that. He would have scored 13 goals, but he would have been great in the playoffs.

Yeah. But the, yeah, I mean, for me, Perise is, a pure bottom six guy but a bottom six guy who if you can play him on PP1 like if you've got a spot on PP1 I think that he can help you for sure yeah but that that's an

that's Islanders all day all day right like has to be especially if he's willing to play for you know bargain basement because I don't think we're making enough of just how fucked the the New York Islanders are like yeah I mean I saw everyone was excited

that Arthur Staples reported that Nick Letty could be available, right? Nick Letty making 5.5 for one more year. It's like Nick Letty could be available on the secondary market after he's bought out. Yeah. Right? Like that's how dire this is.

I mean, I don't think, you know, I saw too my athletic colleague, Pierre LeBron, tweet and it had like 400 retweets, people very excited by the news that Matt Dushain could be left exposed in the expansion draft. Yeah, I think people just don't follow the league. Right. I was like, is not the most obvious. Like, this is obvious. This is, I, it's not, I would be surprised if Ryan,

Johansson wasn't also exposed in the expansion process. Yeah, because Seattle's not going to take either those guys. No, exactly. Why would you, why would you protect them? And so, you know, I don't know that people have paid close enough attention to the islanders to realize, like, they're at the cap. Tito Bovillier and Ilya Sorokin and Adam Pelich. No. Yeah, Adam Pelick are all up.

They're all RFAs. So how are they getting those guys resigned? Well, they're going to have to clear some space. Like, don't be shocked if Varlamov is exposed to the Kraken, right? There's going to be big names available on big hits. And so, yeah, I mean, Perizze would fit the bill for them as like a rebuild your value bet, like a low-end version of Komarov effectively. Yeah.

Okay, well, let's bring this home then with- Low end in terms of price, not in terms of quality of player. Let's bring us home then talking about the expansion draft because it's a perfect tie-in to what we've been talking about. But also, you know, in 2017, the Wilde basically gift-wrapped Alex Tuck to Vegas. because they didn't want them around any of their defensemen. And then this year, I wonder how much of a motor manufacturer was, but also they just didn't want Matt Dunbar to go.

But if they retain four of their defensemen, then they're going to let a decent forward that they view as an asset go. This way, at least now they open the two protection slots, a very comfortable 7-3-1 in terms of who they're going to protect. No issues there. But it does make me kind of think about other moves we're going to see like that to get ahead of it, what we're talking about with Arvinson as well. like the abs for example it came out today

I remember for a while people were like oh they're going to lose Devon dave's because they're going to have to protect Eric Johnson it's like yeah like they've already figured this out I think I don't think they traded two seconds and then signed Devon Taves thinking it was a one year thing totally it's so and then I guess

we can talk about the Canucks here as well because I was looking at I was playing around on Cap Friendly with their protection list and then I was like this is embarrassing that this is an NHL team there are not there's like four maybe five five skaters that are worth protecting, depending on your mileage of Tanner Pearson.

Yeah, well, once you get to the Canucks, you start to be like, well, I don't think they'd take Cole in. They'd probably take Jonah Gajovic because he's waiver exempt next year. And it's like, by the time you get into that level of discussion, it's like this team, this team's not, has no concerns.

They have zero defensemen currently worth protecting. I know. So they should be adding. They should be adding, right? Like, they should be finding a team. And they're trying. But I don't think they're happy with the prices. And I don't think they're not happy with the prices.

They think that the idea that there's teams poised to lose a player for nothing in expansion and happy to monetize if they can, like they think that hasn't come to pass. And so in terms of where they're at, I mean, I think they're trying. Like I still think they're trying to add a piece, but they really have to. Like they really have to. This is such a unique opportunity. And right now they're poised to protect Tyler Mott, Matthew Highmore, Yulevi, Myers, and maybe Nate Schmidt, who they also might trade this week.

And it's just like, yikes. Like you have to be able to use an opportunity like this to, and honestly, to do more than just add a piece from a team with an expansion crunch, but also to offload money. Yeah. Like those are sort of the two priorities. They really have to get one of them done in the next little bit here. Like they really have to at least, if they can't add a guy,

if they can't spend their second round pick to add a guy before the free. then they definitely have to spend that second round pick to get off some bad money. Yeah, at the very least. Otherwise, what do we even do here? A peek behind the curve. For literally six weeks now, you've been like pitching me on Mason Appleton ideas. I'm contractually obligated at this point to mention Mason Appleton in every radio hit I do. Yeah.

Warren Fogel, I don't even think Warren Fogel would be expensive. Like, Warren Fogel might be a secondary market guy. So, like, I think you can get him for nothing because they might not qualify. Well, they might not even qualify. Not only is he not going to be protected, even if he's left unprotected and Seattle prefers Jake Bean, and he still might go unqualified.

Yeah. Like there's, it's, it's wild. I mean, that's exactly. And he'll instantly become the fifth best player that Canucks can protect. Yeah. I mean, you're not, you're not all the way wrong there. Like, you're joking, but you're not.

No, I'm joking, but it's funny because it's true. Yeah, it's funny because, and if it's not, quite true. It has the virtue. No, it's true. Come on, man. Like, Tanner Pearson is not in terms of protection as an asset. As an asset, no. But, but if I have to win a game tomorrow, I probably take Tanner Pearson. Why are you trying to win a game tomorrow? I'm not. No, obviously I'm not. So, so you, for sure. I'm just saying, that's the type of take I can just see like old hockey guys snarling at. So I figured I'd come in and I don't know why I'm assuaging them. All right. Well, I think that's it. I think that was a good, uh, we tied in it. It wasn't necessarily

just about the while we got to talk about the league as well. Plug some stuff. What are you working on? We talked about the Kodakson, the expansion draft. You've got a lot of good stuff cooking up. Yeah, got an agent's poll at the athletic on the subject of Quinn Hughes and Elias Pedersen's second contract. A good hearty debate between five veteran contract negotiators for the purposes of entertaining and, you know, informing our VIPs. Tomorrow I've got a piece on side deals coming at the athletic.

some concepts from the last time out that the Canucks might consider, especially as they look to move off some money. And then I've got a Kent Johnson feature for later this week on the Michigan. The Port Moody, Michigan-based player, definitely going to go in the top 10, might go even higher. I mean, one of the most unique players in the draft and a really interesting kid with a really interesting story. So looking forward to running that one.

Well, this is a blast man. I'm glad we got to basically just click record on the conversations we're having a daily basis. Now let's go to the beach. We're going to go to the beach. We're going to have a great time, and we'll have you back on the show sometime of your soon. I look forward to it. Enjoy, man.

Cheers. Thanks, Brett. Hockey P.D.Ocast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. At soundcloud.com slash hockey pdocast.