The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 407: Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

Harman Dayal joins the show to discuss the mega trade between the Canucks and Coyotes that involved Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Conor Garland, draft picks, and cap dumps. Topics include: The offensive value Garland provides OEL's decline and what's caused it Whether he can bounce back in new environment Short term gain of being better next season Long term pain of taking on added financial risk Kicking can down road rather than waiting a year Trying to make playoffs vs. win Stanley Cup Arizona fulling tearing it down and purchasing draft picks 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.

On a beautiful run through the park, on a pleasant day, you can easily get lost. No, no, no. She didn't kill him. Huh? In your true crime podcast. It was the pool guy. So obvious. Whatever motivates you works for us. It's all about letting your run be your run. And Brooks is here for every runner.

Doing the research and sweating the details to create gear that works for you. It's your run. Brooks, run happy. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey Pediocast. With your host, Dimitri Phil. Welcome to the Hockeepio cast. My name is Yadry Pooch and join the new. My good buddy, Harman Dile Haram.

What's going on, man? I'm doing well, aside from the fact that my brain is just hard at work trying to process everything that's happened around the National Hockey League. It's been an absolutely wild day. So nothing short of... pure excitement. So at least you have stuff to talk about. We do. Well, we're going to focus on the, on the Canucks Coyotes trade here because obviously you cover the Vancouver Canucks, but also I think you know, the Seth Jones transaction was obviously very interesting in terms of the commitment

the Blackhawks made with the contract and everything. And the rest of the line and trade was crazy in terms of the return the Sabres were able to get for him. But I think just, you know, in terms of bang for your buck with moving parts and stuff to consider and layers to it, I think this trade was a fascinating one. And I guess this is a good starting point for us here because it's pretty clear that the Canucks are better on paper and figure to be on the ice heading into next season after this trade than they were before it, adding these two pieces in Oliver Ekman Larsson and Connor Garland and essentially subtracting three players that either wouldn't

have been playing for them or shouldn't be playing for an HL team at this point of their careers in Antoine, Roussel, J. Beagle, and Louis Erickson. So they're clearly going to be better now. acknowledging that it was a bizarre, crazy 56 game season with a COVID outbreak for them in particular and having key players out of the lineup and all of that. They finished the year 24th and point percentage that Canucks did in 25th and goal differential. And so it's one thing to say, okay, they're going to be better next year after this. It's an entirely different thing to say how much better. And is it enough to justify the clear long-term risk they took financial

here, especially in terms of taking on the Oliver, Ekman-Larsan contract. So I guess that's a good starting point for us here in terms of differentiating between those two thoughts and kind of trying to reconcile the decision to do so and how much better it actually made their team. Yeah, well, I think due to a combination of factors that they're going to be significantly better than they were last season and not just because of, you know, some of the factors you mentioned in terms of having healthy guys back, but, you know, in terms of Vancouver's top end. Peders and Hughes are going to bounce back. The power play is going to bounce back.

You add even someone like Jason Dickinson to kind of stabilize the third line and just the way the top nine is shaping up. And you also look at how weak the Pacific Division is. Like at this point, definitely I expect the Canucks to be a playoff team. But to me, this trade kind of mirrors the acceleration phase of the 2019 off season where I look at the team and I say, yeah, you're significantly better. But I'm not sure that you're. still at the point where you can contend for a Stanley Cup. And so in light of that context, it feels like this is a tad premature in terms of how aggressive they have been.

And in terms of the parallels between this trade and the 2019 off season, it's like you add a high-end top six forward, right? That was J.T. Miller then, Connor Garland now. And a defenseman who helps you now but comes with a really risky contract. Then it was Myers now. OEL. And to me, when I look at the fact that you only had to tolerate one more year of pain when you looked at the Erickson, Beagle, and Roussel contracts, I would have much preferred that, you know, obviously the Canucks weren't going to punt on next season, but if they had taken a more calculated

disciplined approach, kind of found a middle ground between being conservative and aggressive, that they could have made short-term gains while also preserving their long-term flexibility. because I looked at that 20, 22, 23 year, you know, last year of Horvatt and Miller's contracts before they hit unrestricted for agency, you have all this cap space opening up. And that to me would have been the perfect time to, all right, let's be aggressive now. Let's use our cap space to find win now trades, let's, and even signings. And, you know, that would have been an opportunity, I think the perfect timing to, okay, maybe we can now trade a future first round pick.

And at that point, I think they would have had enough flexibility to really field a genuine cup contender. But in taking that step, I think a little bit prematurely, again, the team's going to be way better, but it's just a matter of in three, four years, are you still, you know, the risk is are you compressing your window? Because the way I kind of, you know, look at it is it's not just Pedersen and Hughes that have their contracts up this season and of course garland's not going to be cheap to resign either but next summer you have best. The year after you have Horvatt, Miller and even Holglenner comes off

his ELC. So the point I'm trying to make is your core is going to become pretty expensive and you know my question if you're the Canoxone you have this expensive core is how are you going to then build a championship caliber supporting CASA with that limited cap space? And normally that's where prospects come into the equation, right? And you know, the problem there is now, Now, the Canucks had no picks in the first two rounds last year. They have one pick in the first four rounds projected this year. Next year, second and third round pick are already gone. So like trading all these picks is going to eventually catch up to you.

And the point I'm trying to make is, again, as your core becomes more expensive, how are you going to build out a credible supporting cast and have this great depth if you don't have young prospects that can play on your ELCs in three or four years? Yeah, no, that's clearly. And I think the financial consideration here that's kind of, you can't, you need to consider it when talking about this trade and we're going to. I want to shop that for a little bit and actually talk about the two key pieces in Garland and Ekman-Larsen kind of individually here and deep-dive them a little bit and what they're going to bring to the table because I think that's sort of a natural, you know, launching pad for us here. And let's start with Garland because I think, you know, he's been a personal favorite of mine for the past year and a half or so. I think watching him play, he's tremendously fun with the puck.

He's so slippery and elusive. And it translated to really impressive, you know, penalty differential numbers, for example, where this past season he was able to draw the third most penalties behind only Connor McDavid and Brady Kachuk. And he had the sixth best penalty differential, which was tied right with Nicola Euler's and Johnny Goodrow. And that provides tremendous value to this Canucks team and that figures that it's going to have a strong power play again and puts him in some pretty elite company.

He was 36th, I believe. been five on five points per 60 this past year. And honestly, would have been even higher and maybe even cracked that top 25 to 30 or so bona fide scorers, if not for a slight shooting percentage dip and only five secondary assist to his name. So I think it was a no doubt about her in terms of targeting him as an asset that can slide into a top six wing role for you and pretty much play with whoever and produce. And I think he's going to be awesome for the Knox. And he was a player that I had on my list of pretty much anyone that needed a wing helper was looking to improve. the team should have been targeting, especially after it became clear that he wasn't going to be

on the coyotes moving forward for whatever reason. You mentioned the top nine, and I do think if you kind of map it out, you go, all right, Patterson probably play with Besser and Miller. You've got Horvatt playing with, let's say, Garland and Hoglander. You've got Dickinson and kind of a more sort of defensive shutdown role playing with Prozzen and Pearson. All of a sudden, that is the makings of a very logically thought out in deep top nine. and you can do a lot of damage with that.

It's ignoring the defense, which we're going to get to in a bit here, and obviously he's a big concern. But at least that's a legitimately formidable group, and especially, as you mentioned in that weak Pacific Division, like you can see the logic and thought process there of going, all right, like, Connor Garland is a very key piece for us here that unlocks a lot for us. And so kind of identifying him and targeting him is something that I can definitely

kind of sign off on. Yeah, and it's not just what Garland himself brings. but as you kind of mentioned, the trickle-down effect of where, I mean, for starters, you insert a player like that. And I love Garland in the sense where, you know, we know he's undersized, but he still got that nose for the net. And it's fascinating because when I think of kind of some of the inefficiencies for player evaluation, you know, Garland went to the fifth round.

A lot of times it's players that are undersized and aren't exactly burners in a straight line. And that's where even a guy like Adam Fox, as a defenseman, became undervalued, where I think some teams looked at player like him or a player like Garland and said, these guys aren't big and they don't exactly skate. They're not explosive in a straight line. And so, you know, but clearly players like Garland have kind of found a way to map out success. And when you look at the impact that's going to have on the lineup, I mean, for starters, Bo Horvats finally going to have consistent top six.

wing help, whether it's, I mean, I really like the idea of having both Garland and Hoganer on his wings. And I think when you bump Pearson down and you also have Dickinson as a defensively oriented center, you have Pot Colson where his attention to detail is excellent. Like I think that third line could start to take on some of the tougher matchups that Horvatt was responsible for. And I think that's huge for him because despite Horvatt being good on face-offs and despite him being an excellent offensive driver, I think he's kind of been miscast as a two-way presence where when you isolate his defensive results, I don't think that's his forte or his strength. So if you kind of allow that third line to play in a more defensive

checking role and you give him the help of a player like Connor Garland and now he's got Holglander as well, I think this is going to be huge for building a second line that can be a lot more dominant offensively. Because if you look at the the results of the Horvat line over the past couple of years, they were just thrown to the walls. He didn't really have a ton of consistent help on his wings. And as a result, that line in terms of controlling play and even, you know, five and five goals, wasn't exactly lighting it up. So now with kind of bringing in Garland and the trickle-down effect of that,

I think that is just such a boost and such a game changer for that second line and really kind of helping to complete that top nine. no certainly and i think it i wanted to get out of the way here just because i did want to give garner garland his love and obviously he was a key component of why the canucks made this trade i think generally anyone that's been paying attention agrees with that and sees the value of him and it's a it's a big addition for them um the ecumen larsen thing is so fascinating to me because you can kind of lump him in obviously different set of circumstances but with the two other big sort of defensemen with a name brand value and reputation and were former high picks in

the league, despite the fact that that that was a long time ago, that seemed to be held in much higher regard in league circles and by NHL teams based on the discourse today that we've seen on Twitter based on the prices that were paid in these trades for the teams acquiring them and their willingness to acquire them in, I'm talking about Ritzman, and Seth Jones, and you can add Oliver Ekmalarsen into that group. And it was such a sort of fascinating day on a hockey Twitter to see that just the valuations, I guess, between sort of how we publicly rate them in the public sphere and how these teams seem to value them were clearly very polar opposite and led to some of these fascinating

trades that we saw today. Yeah, the divergence was honestly pretty shocking. And I mean, we heard obviously Jim Benning at his media availability, not just talk about all of our Ekman Larson and believing that he's top-haring defenseman, but he even referred to Ekman Larson as, well, he's our number one defenseman now. And now we can use Quinn Hughes in different ways. And when I look at Ekman-Larsons profile, it's fascinating because, you know, when these rumors of Ekman-Larsen to Vancouver percolated last year, and, you know, that's when I did a deep dive initially, it was interesting because his numbers were starting to, obviously,

to appreciate before this past season. And it wasn't just the numbers, right? I remember reaching out to an NHL scout who had watched the Western Conference really closely. And he too was saying, like, Ekman Larson really isn't a bona fide top pair guy anymore. He's more of a second pair option in his eyes. And so it's interesting that this year, Arizona seemed to kind of recognize that they demoted him to the second pair.

They played him less minutes, right? Ekman Larson, before that was consistently logging 23 to 25 minutes a night. This year he was a couple of takes below 21 minutes a night. And this is the other key was he wasn't asked to take on the tough matchups assignment to play against the other team's top players anymore. And so he faced league average competition. And all of that extra burden responsibility went to Jacob Chikrin, who obviously had a breakout year.

And, you know, you'd expect that in that kind of, you know, environment where Ekman Larson has now expected to do less, that he might bounce back. And, you know, obviously that was far from it, right? He had a 41.2% expected goal differential. Arizona was outscored by 14 goals when he was on the ice at 5 on 5. It just, you know, Ekman Larson's 5 and 5% hit a new low, in fact. And, you know, a lot of people will scoff at the numbers and just straight up attribute that to him being on a poor team.

But I think Chickren is proof of concept that it's not impossible for defensemen to succeed in Arizona, right? He was a two-way force for them last season. He was above, above 50% in both expected and actual goal differential. It was plus four at five and five. It scored 18 goals and 41 points in 56 games and manage all of that while logging more minutes and tougher matchups in Ekman-Larsen. So it's like if a player like that can find, you know, that level of success in Arizona playing the exact same role that Ekman Larsen was as this bona fide number one defenseman,

it kind of undermines the argument that the environment is solely to blame for Ekman Larson's underwhelming results. Now, and having said all that, I do think a fresh start will genuinely benefit him. I think it's pretty clear that he didn't get along well with the head coach Rick Tockeet. You know, there was all the organizational dysfunction and also the context of he's playing for a team that very clearly didn't want him anymore. And all of those factors have to affect the guy's confidence. And in reaching out to

people in a couple of talent evaluators, they genuinely do believe that he'll bounce back in Vancouver. And I can definitely foresee a scenario where he can be a decent top for defense for maybe another two, three years. It's just a matter of how long before the bottom kind of falls out. And that's really, I think, the crux of the issue here. Like this is fundamentally what's going to impact the outcome of this trade, right? because Garland's a known commodity.

We know how much of a boost he's going to give Vancouver. It's just about how long can Ekman-Larsen still be a top-for defenseman? And that's where the Canucks are incurring a ton of risk. Yeah, they are. I'm kind of divided on it because I really don't see a plausible roadmap for him to, to deliver value on the $7.26 million cap that he's going to have over the next six years. I think he was catastrophically bad. I guess even maybe the past two years,

especially this past year in Arizona, there were a bunch of factors to consider many which you already discussed there. I think for me, the concerning part is normally when you talk about, especially it seems like the defensemen where they're playing extremely heavy minutes on these bad teams, whenever they get moved or they get a fresh start, I think people are very lenient in terms of just, assuming that it was a environment or surroundings-based thing in terms of their metrics, and that all of a sudden in a new role and a new team, they're going to be used better

and you'll be able to get better results out of them. And I'm willing to acknowledge that that's possible. Like he's going to play with more talented players on this team. Up front, I just think, though, that you mentioned that he was fifth in terms of quality of competition this past year amongst Coyote's defensemen. So it's not like he was being asked to do this ridiculously. hard role. And if he plays in a softer matchup opportunity, he's going to do better. And he's going to a team that isn't all necessarily, you know, the Tampa Bay Lightning in terms of their system and

their structure and being able to put someone in and just let them kind of get the most out of their talent. Like you're talking about a Canucks team here that last season was 29th in high danger shot attempts conceded. 31st and expected goals against 29th and shots against in 26th and in goals against. They were worse than the coyotes. defensively. They were one of the worst defensive teams in the league. And so that argument doesn't really hold much stock for me. I'm willing to believe that, you know, psychologically, a fresh start will help just being reinvigorated by a change of scenery and a team that that wants him there. And I'm totally willing to acknowledge all of that. But just in terms of actual on ice

structural stuff of it's going to be way different for him here, just in a new role. I don't see that because he already kind of had a lot of that stuff going for him in Arizona and he wasn't able to get good results out of it. Yeah, and the other thing to keep in mind is, you know, people point to the environment and just the overall, you know, how weak Arizona is. But the fact of the matter is the coyotes have like as a team, their performance has more or less been constant throughout Ekman Larson's entire career. Like they've been mostly out of the playoffs for his entire prime. And so really the quality around Ekman Larson hasn't changed. It's just been his individual performance.

And I think especially coming to Vancouver, as Jim Benning alluded to, he's going to, like it's not as if he's now going to nestle into a second-parent role and he's going to be sheltered and he's going to have a great partner to play with. And they're going to lean on him as a number one defenseman and they're going to give him tough assignments. And the thing about Vancouver's system is when you kind of watch them play, they do expect a lot out of their defensemen because. They play this heavy forechecking style where you commit three forwards below the hash marks,

aggressively pursuing the puck. And then what tends to happen is, you know, that helps Vancouver create a ton of offense. And it's part of the reason why in 2019-20, they were the NHL's most improved offensive team. But that can create issues where if a team is skilled and fast enough to beat them on the breakout, there ends up being big gaps between the forwards and defensemen. And when that happens, you don't have the back pressure from the forwards. And then all of a sudden, the defenseman can't gap up. And so it makes it really difficult for them to defend the rush.

And even on breakouts, you know, Vancouver is a team that flees the zone really early, that wants to just play dump and chase and play really quickly north-south. So as a defenseman, that means less Pock support and less options when you're trying to lead the breakout. And so all of these elements, I think transitionally both way puts a lot of burden. on defensemen. And so, I mean, even when you look at a player like Nate Schmidt, right, he had a tough transition in year one. And even when you look at a player like Tyler Myers and how his own exit results compared

to earlier in his career have depreciated, I mean, I look at Chris Tanna, going from Vancouver and Calgary. And maybe that was just an anomaly of, I mean, I don't want to call it a fluke, but maybe it was an anomaly, but he had a renaissance season in Calgary moving to a new team. it is going to be, I think, an interesting adjustment period for Ekman-Larsen where again, I think the psychological factors, you know, all the elements of a fresh start are definitely going to help him. He's going to have more talented teammates. And, you know, just getting out of that toxic environment in Arizona is going to do wonders for him. But yeah, I think

from a pure honest perspective, it's not going to be necessarily a seamless, extremely easy adjustment where he's going to fit like a glove and it's going to, you know, all of a sudden he's going to be the prime Ekman-Larsen that we saw in the mid-2010s. Every deep playoff run starts with building an amazing team. Doing the same for your business doesn't take a room full of scouts. You just need Indeed. Don't spend hours on multiple job sites looking for candidates with the right skills when you can do it all with Indeed. Hate waiting? Indeed's U.S. data shows over 80% of Indeede employers find quality candidates whose resumes on Indeed matches their job description the moment they sponsor a job.

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online today. Shopify. dot com slash blue wire. Well, it's so fascinating you bring up that transitional and sort of the way you're asked to play in the system component of it because I was looking at some of the underlying numbers, not just the actual results on, but in terms

of his micro stats. And it was pretty alarming to see how his ability to break the puck out successfully with control, both in terms of the rate he did it at on a permanent basis, but also the efficiency in terms of as a percentage. Basically, since 2017, it's been kind of this precipitous decline where each year from 2017 to 2021, he got markedly worse at both and to the point where, like, he was shockingly bad this past season at it. And I'm sure it led directly to the bad 5-1-5 metrics that he had on the ice as well. But that's always alarming to me

to see, especially for a player who just turned 30, now that that's some sort of an ancient age, but when you see a downward trajectory, especially in terms of like a very easily identifiable skill set like that, for a player that relies on his skill, obviously, to move the puck and has been heralded as a premier puck-moving offenseman, that's alarming to me. And that's something where when you think about, okay, what are the next six years going to look like or whatever, it's not very encouraging to believe that that's going to be something that's all of a sudden going to be rejuvenated barring some sort of either either them asking him to do different stuff than he's been doing so far or or if it was like a health thing in question but just in terms

of like the actual skills you typically don't see players at this stage of their careers all of a sudden bounce back into in terms of skills like that absolutely and that's a skill set in terms of of pock moving ability that the canox need more of right that they're going to be counting on Ekman-Larsen for, I think, especially we've heard, I think, Jim Benning mentioned that he wants to add more size and strength on the back-end. So that would lend one to believe that they're not exactly going to, in terms of as they construct the rest of their back-end, they're probably not going to be bringing in any other puck movers. And so they're definitely going to be relying on Ekman-Larsen as the primary pock-transporter on a pair, unless they keep Nate Schmidt,

which I think is another fascinating point is what exactly are they going to do. with their other personnel, given that you now have three big contracts in Schmidt, Myers, and Ekman Larson. But again, I'm going to be curious to see exactly what kind of role and position they put him in, who's his partner going to be, is he going to, at this stage in his career, still be up to play against the Connor McDavid's of the world? Because, again, in my opinion, as you kind of see these defensemen that are maybe declining, sometimes it is kind of of a more prescribed role that allows them to maybe retain their form for a little bit longer, whereas coming to Vancouver, you know, you'd hope that there would be insulation around him

and that he wouldn't be asked to do everything, but it sounds as if that's the expectation. And so it again comes to the diverging kind of perception and kind of valuation of the player, where I think quite clearly the Canucks kind of perceive him to still be this bonafide top pairing defenseman who can chew tough minutes, do it all, be the primary POC transporter. And, you know, the results show that that's probably not what he's capable of doing at this stage in his career. No doubt still that he's, I think, I still think that he's going to help the blue line for the next two, three years. Again, not relative to his contract, not at anywhere near the level of where he was at, at, at the prime of his career.

But I still think, like, relative to, say, Nate Schmidt or, you know, or Tyler Myers, and, in obviously the caveat that those are pretty low bars, I think he's still an upgrade for the top four. And, you know, especially having lost Alex Sedler, he is going to be a useful piece for the next year. And for a couple of years, probably, two, three years.

It, but again, all those factors that you mentioned, the depreciating micros stats, the on-ice results that have kind of fallen off. And again, just when you watch him play, I think when you talk to people and you kind of break down some of the tape, you know, Echman Larson's a pretty good one-on-one defender with a stick, but I think we saw a lot of mental lapses defensively in terms of some of his decision-making and even when he was pinching and getting caught positionally.

And so it's just a lot of those elements, you know, you wonder how that's going to age. And again, I think this is one of those traits that really compresses Vancouver's kind of window where you're really emphasizing that now's the time to win because you've got that Ekman-Larsen clock ticking for, okay, how long is he still going to be a tough for a defenseman for you? And you hit the nail on the head there. I think that fans sometimes, and obviously not just Knoch's fans, I think I incur this with fans of every team.

Like, it's tough separating yourself from the question of, did the team get better here? and the question of, was this the best route to go in terms of the opportunity cost, in terms of what they could have done with either this cap space or these assets? And that's such a big key when considering this trade here, because they really did enter this kind of crossroads period where if they had chose to be more patient and waited out a year and wait for the three contracts that they just shed to come off the books, it would have opened up quite a bit of cap space for them

and provided them with different opportunities to potentially kind of look around the league and add players in creative ways and line things up more efficiently, I think. So they're going to be better here. But in terms of limiting their ability to grow as a group in terms of adding talent down the road, in terms of lining up the timeline where it makes sense for all the players involved in terms of their own career arcs and trajectories, that's where this trade falls short for me a little bit. it feels like they inherited just needless amounts of risk in terms of limiting and capping

their future upside organizationally with this trade. And the reward is, I guess, making the playoffs in a weak Pacific division, but not necessarily actually being a credible cup contender. And for me, that lack of ambition and kind of building your team that way is something that I do take issue with. Absolutely. I 100% agree with that. And I think, you know, a lot of people, again, it's, they just look at, okay, wow, this team is a lot better next year and we're going to make the playoffs and maybe we can win a round or two. But again, to me, and maybe this is kind of different from other people's perspective, but I'm always thinking about things in terms of what moves can you make to win a Stanley Cup.

And again, it's one of those things where, especially because of the state of the back end, I mean, you can look at the top nine group and you can say, wow, that's really formidable and you've got great goaltending. But defensively, this team is, I think, still way too suspect and too permissive to contend for a cup, especially next year. And, you know, the risk you run into is when you look at teams like Tampa that obviously won back to back and you look at St. Louis and Washington before them, these teams year in and year out were consistent. among the elite teams in the NHL. And it took them so many cracks in such a long runway of like six, seven, eight years for them to finally break through. And so even if you are able to,

you know, let's say next year this team is a playoff one. And then in the next offseason, they do a bunch of work. And then let's say they do reconstruct the back end. And they're a cup contender for 2020, 22, 23. There's still the question of,

have you left yourself enough run? way to take enough cracks to actually win. Because we've seen, again, with the examples that I noted, that it's not always a case of, well, when, and Kinnock's fans should know this with the 2011 team. You can be this dominant juggernaut and just things happen in the playoffs, injuries, you know, bad timing, bad, you run into a hot goalie, whatever. And so it's just, this is one of those deals, again, that I think compresses the window. And, you know, when you look at, I think specifically it's not just the cap ramifications. Again, what I talked about kind of at the top of it,

it's about even, you know, people say, wow, the Canucks have graduated all these prospects, and so they have their young core. Like, what do they need more picks and prospects for? The problem, again, is like three or four years down the road, any team that's contending, they need ELC contributors. And, you know, Tampa this year was the exception because they had Kutrov and they did all these,

you know, LTIR shenanigans, but even the year before, when they won it legit, and they didn't invoke LTIR with a player like Kuchrov, they had Surgichov, Churnak, and Sirelli on ELCs, right? So that's two top 4D and Sirelli is your 2C. And it's just once Pod Colson and Rathbone graduate this year, who's your top prospect? And again, all these lack of draft picks, in three or four years down the road, you may just run into a situation where you look at the core group of players and you say, wow, we've got this exciting nucleus, but we don't have a ton of cap space. We have a couple of players that are on inefficient contracts now when you look at a player

like OEL and Tyler Myers. And it becomes a question of we need to flesh out the supporting cast, but we don't have a lot of money. And because we mortgaged our picks and prospects, we don't have that next wave, the next wrong of prospects coming to play crucial roles in support. supporting capacities on their ELCs. And so that's ultimately one of those things where that is one of those challenges that would ultimately put you either in that purgatory of being stuck

in that, in that you're a good playoff team, but you can't take that next step as an elite contender, either that or it's going to at a certain point, your window is going to close, close sooner. So that's again where you have to weigh the short term gain against the long-term opportunity cost.

Well, they've been involved in, a big elaborate game of kicking the can down the road for for years now, right? And we've been talking about this is in the hindsight thing. It's just a matter of, you know, not necessarily having a ton of foresight or planning ahead and instead sort of being reactionary. So when they signed a bunch of these bad deals like Roussel and Beagle and Erickson and Sutter and so on and so forth, when it became clear those are going to be bad. I think the common refrain was, oh, well, I'm not too worried about it because they're going to come off the books here at some point. And then now, instead of waiting that out and letting that happen, there's an air of desperation

because whether it is Jim Benning feeling like he doesn't have the rope or the leash to do so, because if he has another disastrous season, he's going to be out of a job or whether it's because of the ownership group feeling like they just don't have an appetite to have another miserable season, like the one they just had. And like they've had many of in the past, except for basically one. There just wasn't an appetite for this organization to do so. So, in instead, they're going, okay, well, we're just going to and kind of take on this other pretty owners contract. And yeah, it's going to be a problem probably in a couple of years.

But that's kind of a future problem for us as opposed to a present day one. And so that type of thinking, I think, really gets you in trouble, especially as you look ahead to this flat cap environment where there won't be the benefit of even maybe over the next two or three years, the escalation. So you're going to kind of be stuck with this. And just when you look at the fact that they already have so much money tied up before where they've even paid their two best players at this point, it becomes a pretty alarming numbers game

in terms of trying to make all the numbers fit and every, all the pieces fit together when you consider how far away this group was as recently as this past season. Yeah, and I think it really comes down to, you know, you mentioned the kicking the can down the road. It's been happening since day one, really, since 2014 when Jim Benny first took over.

And to be clear, and I'm sure I've talked about this lot before, this vision issue of them kind of cutting corners and, you know, not properly rebuilding from day one and stocking up those assets at the time. You know, a lot of that does, I think, fall under ownership as well and kind of the impatience that they've had. But that's, you know, the issue where they, you know, I think a couple years ago in 2019, they ran into kind of a catch-22 where you looked at the roster and you looked at kind of the prospect pipeline and you said, okay, they've got some exciting young pieces. You've got

Pedersen coming. You've got Hughes coming. The issue, though, was, you know, it was one of those cases where you still got to be a little bit patient, kind of wait things out. And that's where you had kind of the whole Trevor Lyndon debate, too, where, you know, it was rumored at the time that he wanted a slower, more methodical approach. But because the team had kind of, you know, despite its efforts to remain competitive, they still did the losing of rebuilding team. And, and And so I think even amongst the fan base and even amongst kind of, you know, the existing players when you look at someone like Beau Horvett and the fact that he's been there since day one, you, like, you're stuck in a spot where it's tough to kind of say, well, we want to continue to ride things out and be patient. And I mean, even, you know, this offseason with how often, you know, with how much the Canucks have lost of the past six or seven seasons, you know, optically, it is even tough to say, well, let's ride it out for one more year.

Even if that is the most pragmatic and the best possible route to building a cup contender, it's still tough to kind of what the way things shaped up, the kind of miserable season there was, you look at these core group of players. It would have been still tough. And that's where, again, you ran into that dilemma. And, you know, personally, I still think there would have been a reasonable middle ground where you could have taken that road between being conservative and being aggressive and you could have still made incremental calculated upgrades for next season

whilst still maintaining long-term flexibility in terms of your draft pick capital and your cap flexibility. But clearly the team felt that, you know, and I think a lot of it was fueled by, you know, clearly Jim Benning needs to make the playoffs, I think. otherwise he's going to be under a lot of heat. So this is a kind of wind now move where you've got a GM with polluted incentives, right? Where, you know, his biggest thing is I don't, you know, any GM in his shoes. And I'm not trying to blame Benning specifically, but he's not worried about what Eckner Larson's

contract looks like in three, four years. He's just thinking, how do I get this to become a playoff team? And then we can figure things out later. And if it doesn't work out, well, I'm not going to be there to worry about that issue anyway. that's the next GM's problem. So I think there's a lot of, you know, a lot of different factors and layers to this. And ultimately it just comes back to from day one, the lack of clear vision and the lack of commitment to building a rebuild and doing it kind of the more methodical proper way. And that's why you kind of end up in this middle ground of, you know, you don't have a ton of rope left and you can't really afford to be patient for too much longer because you've done all the losing of rebuilding.

team, but you haven't, you haven't built things up to the point where you are a couple pieces away from being a contender. Especially if it seems like they're at least considering what the talk is that at least one of, if not both Hughes and Pedersen are probably going to take a bridge at this point and try to make it all work that way. Like, that's conceivably going to be one of their cheaper years than before they sign whatever the mega contract is going to be down the road. And so wasting another year of that after what's happened, the past.

couple years is especially unpalatable. So I completely agree with you there. And it's certainly not just the Jim Benning problem or a Canucks problem. Like you see it all around the league. We're having conversations now whether Ken Holland's going to give Zach Hyman seven or eight years. And it's like, who in their right mind thinks that this is a good idea? But if it helps them next year, I'm sure he's going to take that and worry about it afterwards. So it's a real thing. But I felt like we needed to mention it. Do you want to talk quickly about the, the coyote side of this?

Because I do think that's kind of a fascinating element as well. Yeah, I mean, you know, from Arizona's perspective, they shed that massive liability, massive liability with the OAL contract. And, you know, even with a player like Conner Girl, and, you know, I don't think they valued him properly. He's one of the kind of the last, you know, holdovers from the John Chica era.

And clearly with new management in place, Like we heard Connor Garland talking to Craig Morgan and saying he had barely heard from Arizona. So clearly they weren't willing to pay him as an RFA and they felt he was an expendable piece. So I like kind of the future assets they've compiled. And I, you know, I do like what they've done in terms of, you know, taking on some of the other bad contracts and compiling draft picks. Almost in kind of the way the Seattle Cracken should have been stockpiling assets. But, you know, overall with Arizona, it's, it's, it's. it's, they're clearly in a mode of, they're, they're trying to sell everything.

Darcy Kemper's probably going to go and they're trying this rebuild thing again. But, I mean, it's just all really fascinating to me under the backdrop of such a dysfunctional organization. And I think this is their kind of, you know, attempt at trying to hit the reset button. They're going to have a new head coach. And this just feels like, you know, moving on from your captain, they're trying to kind of reset the franchise. hopefully try and move in a better direction.

Yeah, well, it certainly continues a string of offseason moves for them now with a very clear agenda where I do give them credit for at least, like, they have a clear, defined plan, and every move is helping push it forward unapologetically. So in the past week, they've traded, they traded Aidan Haleway, they traded O'EL and Garland here, and a bunch of future considerations and took back Gostis Bearer, they took back Andrew Ladd, they took back the three Canucks in this trade. And they got in return the ninth overall pick in this draft, which wound up being Dylan Gunther for them. They got a 20-21 second from Colorado, a 22-second for San Josea, a 22-second from the Islanders,

a 22-second from Vancouver, and a 22-second from Philadelphia, not to mention two more sevens and a third in 2023 from the Islanders. And so that's really, when we talk about weaponizing cap, like that is taking it to the extreme there. And in their case, and this is an. a new thing in terms of the way they've operated, but most of those deals as well, the actual salary they'll be paying out those players is significantly below what the cap space is. And so they've essentially bought eight picks here for $17 million or so in real cash while also sending out.

And I think this is a very important component of it, not only a $50 million commitment to OEL through the next six years of his deal, but 31.5 of which are spread over the next three years. And so if you think about the way they operate, that is quite a bit of money. And I'm sure the ownership group is probably pretty happy about the ability to do so. Even if, you know, it is a big loss having a part with essentially your best forward to facilitate this. But at the same time, considering where they're headed, I think, you know, from their end of it, it was a pretty savvy trade. Yeah.

And the thing with Arizona, too, is, you know, you grab all this draft capital. And now because you've got all these excess second round picks, you know, maybe in next year's draft, that's an opportunity to kind of move up in the draft and get more first round cracks at it. And, you know, the fundamental issue, I think, with Arizona's, you know, attempt at rebuilding was, you know, they never really were able to draft star talent. And when you look at the way the coyotes operate in terms of how budget conscious they are, they're never going to be able to acquire those kinds of, you know, high. and franchise cornerstone pieces through trade or free agency, just because by that point they're going to be expensive and demand a lot of money. And so from that perspective, you know,

if you're not getting those kinds of core pieces from the trade market or in free agency, then you've got to draft and develop them. And I think this is, you know, an opportunity to do so. Hopefully they've invested in their scouting department and they aren't kind of cutting corners there because that does tend to be when you look at a team like Buffalo and an area where they kind of cut corners

where they probably shouldn't. But, you know, Arizona's now, I think, really got to leverage all this draft picks and really make use of it because, you know, you always love the idea of restocking assets as a rebuilding team, but you've got to actually be able to turn it into something. And I remember, you know, thinking back to even Buffalo in the Murray years.

And, you know, they'd acquire all these picks, but their first round drafting was so bad that they never really turned that into core pieces. So that's really going to be the next key for Arizona as they kind of look to hit the reset button. Yeah, well, I was thinking of it just from like a emotional perspective, whether it's being a player there or an employee or part of the coaching staff. Like on the one hand, I think it's certainly hardly ideal that they have been and continue to be essentially the league's disposal site for bad contracts. Like it's bad optics. It also just must be kind of like a soul-crushing work environment where, You've basically, you're kind of like we're operating as a shell company where you've got these big price tags, but you're not actually paying them out and they're not really contributing to their team.

And sometimes they're an LTIR and so they probably aren't even around. And it's kind of a mess. But at the same time, with that being said, I think the alternative of being just perennially the 22nd to 25th best team in the league year on end with no real chance to move up in any discernible way is also a pretty depressing thing. And so at least in this case, if you're going to be bad, you're going to be really, really bad, but you have this sort of opportunity to sell at least kind of a glimber of hope in the sense that you're going to have a bunch of cheap cost-controlled assets moving forward that are all going to be on the same timeline. And so this is the easy part of the job. Anyone can do this in terms of tearing it down, building it up is significantly harder.

But in terms of comparing this to the alternative of just being sort of stuck in the middle, I do think I still prefer this, acknowledging that it has its limitations. and obviously if you go too far, it can kind of reach a point of no return, as the Tim Murray, Buffalo Sabres did. Absolutely. I think especially when you look at the next couple of draft years, they're the best years to tank as opposed to obviously the 2021 draft.

There wasn't a clear elite superstar kind of talent. So that's going to be an opportunity. Hopefully they get some lottery luck there. And as you mentioned, I mean, it was kind of depressing. I mean, I remember, you know, them going out and acquiring Taylor Hall and, you know, kind of trying their hand that trying to spend money and really push their chips all in.

And then I remember, you know, the bubble, just them getting dispatched by Colorado and not even being close. And, you know, I just thought to myself what a depressing life that must be as a coyotes fan where you barely sniff the playoffs. And when you do finally get in, it's only to get wrecked in the first round. And, you know, at least now they're committed to a real direction. and by tanking, they'll hopefully have a shot at landing some star talent here. And so that's at least got to be some sign for hope if you're the coyotes. Yes, I agree with that. All right, Harmon.

Well, let's get out of here. I think we did this trade. It's our due diligence. I think we covered it from every angle. Plug some stuff. What are you working on these days? Where can people check it out? Give us all the goods.

Yeah, you guys can check me out at Twitter at Harmon Dial 2. H-A-R-M-A-N-D-A-L-2. Obviously, my work is at the athletic and recently just plugging away tonight on a OEL deep dive, seeing how much he has left in the tank and try and break down video numbers, all that stuff. So that'll be, I think, really fascinating for Kinex fans to see exactly where his game is at because that's, I think, ultimately going to be the key to whether this trade works out for them or not. Yeah, well, I'm looking forward to checking that out. I appreciate you taking the time to come chat.

We're going to certainly have you back on sometime on the road. So I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime, enjoy the offseason, the silly season of free agency that's to come. And hopefully some other trades here down the road. And we'll check it back in with you sometime shortly. Thanks for having me. The Hockey P.Diocast, Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com

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