The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 411: The Open Market

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

Ryan Lambert and Jack Fraser join the show to discuss the start of free agency, the biggest themes from day one, and the way teams have been throwing around money. Topics include: The going rate for big defensemen right now The gap between how teams are valuing certain players Trying to figure out what Seattle's plan is at the moment The way they decided to ultimately spend their cap space The opportunities they've missed out on so far Edmonton's busy day The risk vs. reward of Zach Hyman's contract The opportunity cost of how the Oilers built their blueline The Lightning gaming the system expertly Brayden Point's new extension 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 P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Philip. Welcome to the Hockey Ptogast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Ryan Lambert. Ryan, what's going on? What's happening? A lot's happening. We're recording Wednesday, early evening. We just saw a million signings. I think Cap Friendly at this point has it approaching $800 million in terms of contract dollars that we're hanging out. I have cap-friendly open. 72, 925. There we go. By the time people listen, I have no doubt. I think they're still uploading some of the signings that have already actually been finalized.

They're just backlogging a bit. But also joining us is my good buddy, Jack Fraser. Jack, what's going on, fellow? Quite a lot. It's been a very long day. If I never see another hockey dad of his for the rest of my life, I think right now I feel pretty happy. But at least it was exciting. It wasn't like last year where we were just.

kind of sitting around awkwardly for, you know, an hour at a time without a signing happening. So I guess I'm grateful for that. Yeah, certainly. Even though we still reside in a flat cap environment, teams had no such limitations in terms of the money they were spending and we're going to work our way through it. We, the three of us did a show last week, which feels like months ago now talking about the expansion draft and what Seattle chose to do. And it was fun and people enjoyed it.

So I figured we'd bring back the team together for this one. And so the plan for today is we're going to work our way through a genuinely insane day of signings. I'm going to try to sort through the biggest themes, best and worst moves, whatever it is we think that was notable. And because so much happened, it's pretty easy to miss stuff. So I think it'll be a good exercise even for us. And so let's get right into it. Ryan, I'll let you start.

Give me your biggest story, whether it's a theme or whether it's a team or a player. you can take it any way you want. Yeah, I think the thing that is truly, truly amazing to me, and it's funny because I actually wrote about it for elite prospects over the weekend. I don't know how NHL defensemen are valued anymore. Like, it just doesn't make any kind of sense to me. I mean, you know, people would say that this is an apples to oranges as comparison, but like the fact that Seth Jones got eight years, nine and a half, and

Cal McCarr got six years nine, is wild. Dougie Hamilton just got seven years nine. And I, look, you know, I don't think we need to explain to the listeners of this show where we are as a group where all three of us are at, Seth Jones-wise, or Dougie Hamilton and Cal McCarra, honestly. Yeah. But like, you know, Seth Jones is a guy that's like,

you know, the numbers hate him, but here's the one weird trick that he uses to get NHL people to think he's good at his job. And I guess it's being tall, probably, playing a lot. And maybe that's two weird tricks. But the thing,

and I was just saying this to Dimitri before we started recording, to tell you how insane NHL defenseman valuation has gotten. The Boston Bruins, I think yesterday announced they re-signed Mike Riley three years, $3 million. And then today, Mike Riley, very good middle-payer defensemen really shined after being traded to the Bruins at the deadline. Today they give Derek Forber a bad bottom-payer defenseman, like defense-only offensive black hole, couldn't cut it on the Winnipeg Jets. And they give him three years, $3 million, the exact same contract.

And I don't know how, like, I don't know how if you're Don Sweeney, you're saying these two players are worth exactly the same to me. Yeah. Well, I just talked a lot, sorry. It was, no, I mean, listen, it was certainly, I think that is the biggest theme. It certainly was a good day to be a defenseman, especially if you are over six foot tall, especially if you're over six two. And if you shoot right, like, oh my God, you were, you were laughing today. I think here's a sampling of some of the contracts we saw for a variety defenseman.

Cody C.C. four years, 13 million. Derek Forbord, three years, nine million. Tucker Pullman, four years, 10 million. Travis Hamannick, two years, six million. David Savard, four years, 14.6 million. Ryan Suter, four years, 14.6 million. That obviously doesn't include the $76 million extension. Seth Jones got the contract for, I think, three years, 10.5 or so, the Brandon Montre got the day before from the Panthers, the premium that the flyers traded to acquire Rasmus and Stalin.

And so I guess in one sense, I'm surprised that that much money was given out to defensemen of varying levels. And obviously, I think all those guys shouldn't have been paid as much, especially in the term they got. But I guess we should have seen it coming just because it feels like this has been, it's a perfect storm for it, right? We just had a postseason where any broadcast you turned on, regardless of who was playing,

they were talking about how Montreal had four crisp prongers, who were these big defensemen who were carrying them in the postseason all the way to the stand the cup final. You had, and we entered the entry draft, or the expansion draft, you had Seattle taking guys like Carson Sousie and Jeremy Lozahn over objectively better candidates from their own teams.

You had the Leafs, protecting Justin Hull over Jared McCann. We saw the trades on day one with the Seth Jones and the rest of the line and stuff. So it seems like teams just talk themselves and kind of back themselves at this corner of thinking, like, all right, we need to fill a quota of this certain type of player because that's been proven to be successful in the league. And that's why you have off seasons like this one so far where it just seems like the valuations are so off from what you typically expect based on what the players have

actually provided in terms of their own ice results. Yeah, there was a lot of, is that per year or over the entire contract this time around, which I feel like we hadn't seen for a while, but I totally agree to be true. I think it's definitely part of a larger thing that we've been seeing. I mean, you know, we obviously saw it a lot at this playoffs, you know, like I think actually you predicted during our second round preview, you know, as soon as Vegas beat Colorado and, you know, Sam Gerard had a bad series, you know, that basically confirmed to you know,

31 or 32 GMs that the answer to your defense's problem is that they aren't big enough. And it basically gave them kind of a carte blanche to go to any depth defenseman that was available, especially if they were right-handed and give them a contract that seemed totally out of whack with what their actual ability is. So I think that was definitely the biggest theme for me was, was not only, you know, we knew Seth Jones was going to get a giant pile of money. You know, we knew teams were going to value harassment first the line. And, you know, the minute munchers are always going to get big piles of money because that's how they're getting evaluated.

It's the trust that, okay, if these guys are getting trusted in these big minutes, then presumably they must deserve it. They're big. We can, you know, project their physical gifts onto our lineup and dismiss any issues that they had with, it was their system. But it was the depth guys that really kind of surprised me of these guys that you haven't really heard of before or, you know, you kind of see them in a third pair role. and then suddenly they're getting paid as though they're these guys that needed to be locked up. So that was definitely strange. And it seems like the common defense of it, you typically see it from fans of the teams that just sign these players is, well, that's the market. What can you do, right?

And I always find that to be such a strange argument because the obvious answer seems to be what's the, like what's the rush to sign at that market price then? Like if that's the case, just hang out, just go on vacation for a couple days, wait for it to change. the market always changes for better or for worse. There will be better buying opportunities at some point. You don't need to build your team for October 13th on opening night or whatever it is in July, on July 27 or 28th, whatever it is today. I have a false track of the days. But you're basically like, you're just admitting like, all right, well, other people,

my friends are making mistakes. So I'm just going to make mistakes too because, hey, whatever, everyone's doing it. So we're going to just kind of fit in. It's so bizarre. It's kind of such an ass backwards logic, as logic, especially in a competitive setting like the NHL and a hard cap system where you really can't afford to make dumb mistakes on depth players like this and teams just time and time again basically see others doing it and they all just kind of have this pack mentality about it.

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at it right now. Like definitely there's not, there's nobody where you look and you go, oh my God, how this guy slipped through free agency, you know, like the first day of free agency. but like, I don't know, can you get Ryan Murray for less than three years, three million dollars? He's a much better defenseman than Derek Forward. Just, yeah, you're not a right shot, I guess. But, you know, he's a good player. You know, Sammy Voughton is a player, I think, that we would all agree, has some lower end of the lineup value, you know?

And it's like, yeah, nobody's calling these guys. Jack, have you seen anything quite like the Canucks defensive depth chart on the right side where it seems like right now it's Tyler Myers, Travis Amnick, Tucker Pullman, and Luke Chen, I guess. Yeah, I think Madison Bowie might also still be in there. I'm not sure if he's a free agent. Yeah, it's, I mean, look, it's not making me too many friends in Canuckland right now. I could tell you the truth. But, yeah, I mean, honestly, you know, I guess a good.

gauge of how much it seems like the attitude towards caps base and contracts has changed in the course of seemingly two weeks is, you know, if you look at down this list of contracts, how many of them, if they passed through waivers on January 12th, 2021 would have been claimed? You know, I think there's a couple of them that would be, and I think there's quite a few of them that wouldn't be. You know, there were good players all season long who were on contracts that just so happened, you know, there was two years instead of one year or three years instead of two years. And it was three million instead of two million and that were passing through waivers seemingly on a weekly basis. And suddenly it seems like, you know, I don't know if the owners and GMs got

all excited because they sent an ESPN logo in the corner of the screen for the first time. But suddenly it seemed like the purse strings were open and every team, I guess, just completely reverted to, you know, I guess in retrospect, probably what they were dying to do last for agency, which is get back to normal and, you know, start giving out $770 million. Much of it, as usual, is going to get regretted. Yeah, I think that is certainly true. All right, I'm going to give you guys my big takeaway, the Seattle Cracken. Yeah.

So I have to admit, I've spent a large chunk of the past week trying to come up with potential theories, talking to as many people as I can and Lee trying to sort of piece together what the vision and plan was here and sort of the sequence of events that led to all the decisions Seattle's made in terms of personnel they've acquired in various ways so far and kind of what their vision was for this roster in year one. And I was hoping, you know, leaving the expansion draft, which the three of us talked about at length on a recent podcast, we kind of came to the agreement that it made sense that they valued caps base and flexibility as much as they did. They didn't want to take on anyone

else's bad contracts, really, for the most part. And we figured that either via some sort of trades down the road, they would acquire assets for the future or maybe disgruntled players or players that other teams just couldn't afford anymore, or they were going to go big game hunting and free agency with either Dougie Hamilton or Gabriel Landiscagg or whoever else. And they were going to really bolster their team, which would have actually made sense. I think normally you'd say building through free agency is an ideal, but just based on the personnel they acquired in the expansion draft, they had this like interesting complementary group of low event defensive players. And if you added a couple sort of lynch pin offensive threats, it could really

make them an interesting team, especially in the Pacific Division. And I guess technically, like, they certainly spent here in day one. They got some interesting pieces, depending on your mileage on them. But I can't, I can't reasonably say it was an optimal use of their available resources. And it doesn't make me feel, it doesn't do anything to make me feel more confident in what their plan is moving forward because it feels like something weird happened in the meantime and they sort of had to readjust because this couldn't have been their number one game plan heading into it. It just seems so bizarre if that's the case. Yeah. The thing that I don't understand is they, you know, I think sensibly kind of went cheap on goalies in the expansion draft.

They got Vanichek and they got Treasurer and one other guy. I'm forgetting. Joey DeCord, who is a waiver exam so they could just send him up and down here. Yes, yeah. And like Joey DeCord, you know, his track record even before he got to pro hockey is solid. And so it was like, okay, they have like a, you know, they're getting their ducard. in a row in the crease. And then they were like, what if we gave a 29-year-old six years and almost $6 million, and then traded one of the goalies we drafted back to the team that

gave him up? What if we did that? And what if we let Gavin Beiruther, the only guy we took from the guy we took from Columbus? What if we let him just sign with Columbus after all this? Like, what was the point then? Like, just, I don't know, say pass. We're good. We're not going to take these guys. You know, it's kind of belaboring the point a little bit. But like when you go, oh, man, look at how much cab space they have.

They could go hog wild. They could, they could offer sheet Elias Pedersen. They could, you know, they could offer sheet any number of guys. And then they were like, yeah, we're going to give. Jayden Swartz five and a half million dollars. And like, I don't have anything against any of these players that I'm about to say, but we're going to give Alexander Wemberg four and a half million dollars. We're going to give Jamie Alexiak four and a half. We're going to give Adam Larson four. We're, you know, and then I said grubauer already. But it's like, oh, okay,

so you're just going to like spend money like a normal GM that feels like they're like, quote unquote going for it. But okay. I mean, because, you know, the thing, the thing that I, and I wrote about, again, I wrote about this, like, whatever, but right before the expansion draft, I think, I said, you know, there's no pressure on them to be, like, actually good because their division stinks, right? Like they could, we said it last week, they could totally back into the third place in the Pacific with the roster they had at the end of the expansion trend. We like, you know, that was totally a reasonable expectation. And they said, what if we barely improved but spent $20 million to do it?

It's a plan. Yeah, none of it made any sense to me at all. I was blown away when that Alex Wendberg contract came through. I mean, you know, you got to remember, like, Wenberg is a guy who got bought out of a contract that was essentially just this contract. Like last year, he was on 4.9 until 2023, and now he's at 4.3 until 2024. And the only difference between then and now is that he shot 20% this season, which, as always, you know, we know is a perfectly good measure of players. true talent, especially a guy like Alex Oneberg. The amazing thing is

from 2017 to 2020 and then obviously he got bought out by the end of that run, he scored 15 goals and 198 games combined. Last year, he scored 17 goals in just 56 games. He shot 20.7%. As you said, he played 400 plus minutes with Jonathan Hubert, O, which I'm sure helped his offensive

totals quite a bit. The closest comp by Dom's model is 2011-12, Villalino in his first year with the Buffalo Sabres. under what's remembered as a great contract that lived up to all the hype and certainly provided value for his team. Yeah, that one's wild. I think the shorts, I love his game. Wildly effective player.

No, no, like, I'm not trying to slight his game. I don't think he's a $5.5 million. No, well, for five years, he's a 29-year-old who's missed extended periods of time in four of the past six years and whose shot generation rates have been cratering progressively over the past three years. And his closest comp, I think, or one of the close comps is Louis Erickson when he signed his Canucks deal. Like, it's like, I, I'm just struggling to come to terms of the rationale here because we just, we praise them for understandably passing on bad contracts that other teams had signed. And then they just used that flexibility to go ahead and just sign their own bad contracts. Yeah.

A week later. It's, I mean, you know, use the same waiver's test. I mean, if these three contracts were available to Seattle in the expansion draft, would we have set? out last week and said that they should have taken them. I think probably not. Gru Bowers, like the one. Rubowers and maybe. We talked about,

and, you know, we would have had an argument about, like, locking out money and goaltending, and it could have been interesting. But, I mean, you know, Jayden Schwartz, you know,

like you said, like he fits this team. Like, he is exactly the kind of, like, low event, defensive-minded player that they need, and they don't have any left wings.

Like, like, considering the sheer amount of cast base they had, if their big move today was just, we're going to sign Jayden Schwartz, We're just going to round out this roster. We're going to keep the identity going. That would have been one thing.

But again, like this team seemed kind of set up to be either a, we're going to go for the big dogs. And then if we don't get the big dogs, then we're basically going to do what Arizona is doing. Like we're going to, you know, maybe get some cap dumps that actually improve our team, like Arizona did with Gosses Bear and Stroman. We're going to pick up picks in the process and we're going to lose respectively. And maybe we end up in the lottery and maybe we compete for a playoff spot.

but we're not, you know, going to have sacrificed any potential assets from cap space for that. And instead they kind of carved out this middle ground, which I feel like limits their options in both directions and probably cements them as a potential, you know, 95 point team next year that like Ryan said, is going to be competing with the more dysfunctional teams in the division. But I really don't see how this team is with the additions they made, you know, I don't think they're going to be competing for a Stanley Cup next year. Everyone seems to be in agreement that the coyotes are basically having the summer that Seattle should have had ideally. Yes. Right? Like the coyotes, I think, basically spent $22 million in terms of future salary and they bought the ninth overall pick, obviously. That was complicated because O'OEL's contract and Conradarland weren't there as well. But five seconds, one to third and one to seven. And it's not even like they took on these albatross contracts because pretty much all of that cap money is coming off the books after this one year.

except for, I guess, one more year of Andrew Ladd and one more year of Gostis Bear, who could conceivably become a positive asset at that point. And instead, they're basically left watching over the past week as players that they could have taken for free and flipped to other destinations, go for legitimate assets in Nikita Zedorov going for a third, and Brendan Dillon going for two seconds, and Jake Bean going for a second at the draft. Instead, they either just punted it by taking Gavin Bayruther and John Quinville.

And I think the Washington one is just, just a wild example to me. I understand that they probably didn't think that they were going to get Philip Grubauer, so that's why they took Vita-Chic, and then their plans kind of changed, but optically for them to take Vanichick and then send him back to Washington for a second, while they could have just taken Dylan and flipped him to Winnipeg for two seconds is like just a classic example of not, either not understanding the market or not doing your due diligence or just misplaying your hand. It's one of those for sure. And that's disappointing. Yeah, I mean, the thing that's wild is A, they're now spending an expansion team is spending $9.5 million on goal tending.

Nobody should do that. Like, it just shouldn't, unless, you know, it's a situation where you have a carry price and you're like, well, he's a $10.5 million goalie. And we also have to have this $2 million backup because carry price can't play a full season. You know, I kind of get that. Obviously, I would warn caution against that. But the other thing is, like, they had, What, how long have they had their full, or almost their full front office together,

like a year plus, right? So for them to go, oh, we had no idea. Well, Philip Gruber and like completely changed course a week after the franchise started. What do you believe as it like as an organization? And, you know, to your point earlier about Arizona, I just see it, it's official now. now, Darcy Kemper to Colorado for Connor Timens and a first round pick and a third round pick. You know, obviously Seattle's not in the position maybe to trade, to trade Dredger now for nothing. But like, you know, if they keep bandit, if it's a Vanitycheck-Rubauer tandem, then it's, you know, like, I just, they, they, they,

how do I want to put this? They gave up their position of power so easily, you know, like the power to be like, oh, we can take any player from any team almost, you know, at will. And they were like, yeah, we're not actually going to do that, but we could have. And boy, wasn't that a scary week or two for you guys. Yeah, I just intellectually, it's bugging me so much. I just, I want to know so badly what happened over the past week or, leading up to the expansion draft and how it played out this way.

It can't I refuse to believe that this was like they're sitting right now and like yeah, we nailed the past week. It went exactly according to. Yeah. Not to not that this league ever does. Of course, you know, there's 32 teams now. A lot of changes. You're kind of, you know, subject to the whims of other GMs.

But it's, you're right. Like the group hour thing kind of came out of nowhere, right? Like they weren't even linked to him heading into the day. And then all of a sudden it's like, ooh, uh, watch out for Seattle here. and then oh, Seattle's getting close to Grubauer, and then clearly them giving them the sixth year helped quite a bit. And I think all three of us like Grubauer. Like he's a good goalie.

But it just, it's kind of you have to lump it in with a bigger picture of sort of how they came around to getting all these players and what they valued and why they went the route they did. Yeah, the other thing to say, and again, I'm talking too much, I apologize. But, you know, I think back to when Ron Francis was running the hurricane, What was the problem all those teams had? A, Cam Ward. They don't, doesn't seem like they have a Cam Ward situation for now.

Two years from now, they very well could. And B, no high-end talent that can put the puck in the net. They still don't have high-end talent that can put the puck in the net. And so, like, let's put it this way. You know, Jordan Everly, he wasn't even a first-line player on the New York Islanders, a team that we think, like, collectively as an analytics community or whatever, we don't think they're really, you know, that deep of an offensive team, let's say. And even they were, like, kind of iffy on putting Jordan Everly up on the top line.

Oh, no, no, he was playing with bars out. Well, no, I know. But what I'm saying is, like, in their, like, in an ideal scenario, yeah, in an ideal scenario. Yeah. They wouldn't have been comfortable with that. Yeah. And it's like, okay. Well, I mean, one last thing that kind of seems strange to me is that you see

Wenberg go three years, 4.3. And then about an hour later, Mike Hoffman goes to Montreal, three years, 4.5. If you were looking at that Seattle roster and saying who is the guy that they should probably have in terms of, like, what their needs are, you'd probably say Mike Hoffman, like, you know, in terms of he can actually put the buck in the net and be a factor on the power plate, which isn't something that they really have. You know,

but it's just kind of a weird thing, you know, and maybe, you know, a year from now, it's all going to have played itself out perfectly and they'll have set themselves up perfectly for next year's free agency or something like that. But yeah,

it's strange. It's definitely a lot weird than I think, you know, even Vegas was when they were putting that team together. And the, the frustrating thing, for me, I guess it's not breast, like, I think they're going to be good. Like, in terms of like the both division, also the defensive identity, I think they're going

to win a fair number of games. But like a one satisfying argument of the direction they went would be if they were positioning themselves for the next two drafts, which are by all accounts loaded. And we're like, all right, we're going to get top picks and try to get franchise players and build offensively through that route. And these moves made them better, obviously not to a degree that lines up with how much they paid and how much future term they took on, but now they're kind of forcing themselves more and towards the middle. And yeah, as a team building philosophy, I hate that. So not ideal.

Let's take a quick break here. And then we're going to pick up with more of the themes and notable signings and all that after the break. Recognized employees with custom ink. Show customer appreciation with custom ink. Outfit your teams with custom ink. Easily add your logo to your favorite products and brands at custom ink.com. Make custom ink your custom gear partner with great customer service, quality products, and all in pricing, along with personalized help when you need it and an easy to use website when you don't. All backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

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All right, Jack, it's your turn. Give us your big theme or team you want to talk about. So if there's two things that GMs learned from the past two playoffs, the first one is obviously the big boys on defense. Second one is that the key to your success is a, or checking forward who can battle it out in the corners, dig out, pucks, recover them. And I think that this free agent class was pretty big on that kind of player. And they got some long contracts that I think that we can predict are probably not going to look too hot on the second half,

talking about specifically Blake Coleman being an obvious one, Zach Heimann being another. And I think you could even talk yourself into Gabriel Landiscaug being a third guy. that list in terms of three guys who play the type of game that we have learned in the past doesn't tend to age too well across the players 30s who nonetheless I think managed to get themselves some pretty long-term deals that that teams are probably thinking at a pretty win now perspective about yeah I mean the Oilers gave hymen 5.5 over 7 reportedly we're trying to get the eighth year by trading with the Leafs in a sign-and-trade the Leafs were down a fifth and a seven to make that happen and bring the AVA down a little bit.

I think there is an important distinction because on Hyman in terms of, I think he's going to be really good on next year's Oilers and he's actually going to help them quite a bit and he's sort of the right type of player. I wish that they would prioritize finding their own Zach Hyman before he gets paid and developing him the way Toronto did in terms of clearly he improved every year, added new skills got to this point rather than, you know, just going and paying a premium for the, for the finish made product when he is 29 years old. And the other thing is, you know, investing him the way they did. I don't think anyone listening to this podcast needs to tell them the issues with

investing a pricey seven-year deal and a 29-year-old that's going to take him into his mid-30s. But I do think that in this particular case, with Hyman's playing style even more so than I'd say Coleman and Landiscaug, we sort of saw in the post-eastern. season when he was a step slower because of the injury that he was coming back from. He was less effective. Now, he was hurt probably still. So I don't want to hold that against him too much. But it was kind of a sort of red flag in terms of what this player could potentially look like as a contributor and an impact player as he gets into the further into the aging process and slows down ever so slightly because he is so reliant on just causing havoc and getting to the puck faster than everyone else.

And so, you know, those are obviously legitimate concerns. but I think if you're Edmonton, you're probably, Ken Holland, and they notoriously doesn't care about this. I mean, just look at the offseason they had so far in terms of the ages of the players they brought in. But, you know, they're probably thinking we've got Trisidal on his deal for four more years. We've got McDavid on his deal for five more years. They're both in their mid-20s.

We can't afford to have any more wasted seasons. So, heck, if we can get a couple productive years out of Hyman playing with either of those guys at 5-1-5, we'll worry about the rest later. And I imagine that was, it's pretty as simple as that in terms of their, their rationale for the deal they gave out. Yeah, I mean, those players are, you know, like in the case of McDavid and Drysidal, the thing that always kind of gets me about the talk about, you know, the window is now we have to maximize the window as kind of a justification for these, you know, contracts that we

know are not going to age particularly well is that, you know, I think that one thing that we can take away from the past couple of years is that is how important it is to make sure that your window is as long as possible. like is that you have as many kicks of the can as you possibly can. You know, we saw Crosby and Malkin, you know, win back-to-back cups in their late 20s, early 30s. Ovechkin, obviously, he had to wait quite a while. I think he was 31 when he got his.

Same thing with Stamco's. And a big reason that they were kind of able to have so many kicks of the can is because I don't think any of those teams really made the kind of big July 1st, you know, acquisitions. Like they weren't the ones who signed the Loo Cheeches or, you know, know, the Clarksons or anything like that, you know, they gave themselves the flexibility that they could essentially have a 10-year window. And I think one of the issues that I have with what Edmonton did, especially, and you know, you could theoretically make the argument that even

Colorado kind of did this is that they emphasize so much kind of the next couple of years, like the short term that maximizing the statistical prime, that I feel like maybe they are limiting the chances that their stars are going to be able to have to actually kind of continue to contend for a cup if, you know, the bucks just don't bounce their way and they just, for no fault of their own, aren't able to win a cup in the first couple years. Well, also, I think anecdotally, Ryan, it feels like these deals where, um, you sign in knowing that the latter half of it is probably not going to look pretty, but you're hoping that the first couple years are going to give your team, they added boost they need. It feels like these deals,

uh, at an alarming rate become bad, much quicker than we probably anticipate. Like, it's like within a couple years or maybe even right out of the gate, all of a sudden it becomes clear that it was a mistake. Not that I think, like, I think Hyman, assuming health is going to be awesome, either riding shotgun and McDavid or playing with Dreisel and kind of, you know, capitalizing on his passing and trying to sort of help them defensively and improve their metrics there. But it does feel like in general with these deals where they seem very ill-advised on the surface, they wind up regretting them much sooner than you probably think the day you sign them. Yeah, sure. Um, With the oilers and Hyman specifically, like, you know, what was the knock on the oilers for a hundred years?

Or, you know, going back to even when Taylor Hall was there, it's like, oh, they have like four NHL winners on the roster at any one time, right? That's not the case anymore. Their problem is very clearly on defense. I think they probably have a bottom three, bottom five defense in the league. with how everything is set up right now, obviously, we're not done with the free agency period. There can be more trades, that sort of thing. But it seems like this is the group they're going to go with.

And it's bad. But with that having been said, you know, I think that this is a thing we talk about on Puck Soup a lot, is what is Ken Holland care of, like, year four of the Heimann deal? sucks. He's going to not have a job anymore. McDavid and Drys-Eythel might have asked for a trade by then. You know, like if they can't, if they can't like kind of put something together with this like, you know, duct tape and chewing gum approach to adding talent up front and adding maybe the perception of talent, you would say, on the back end. It's not going to, it's not going to It's not going to matter.

It's the same principle that you're seeing now in Chicago where Stan Bowman's like, oh, I'm going to get fired for sure if we don't make the playoffs, and maybe even if they do. L.A., where they're going, well, we got to accelerate the rebuild. We got to power out of it. We've got to sign a Philip to know. We got to trade for an Arvids. and because if we don't do that, uh,

Drew Doughty and Anse Coppatar are going to are going to want out. And, you know, like at least with Chicago and, uh, oh, and Vancouver is the other team that's like this, uh, where it's like,

oh yeah, we're just trying to sign everybody we possibly can't. We got to get aggressive. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, you can't leave out the flames out of this conversation. You're,

you're right. But like, honestly, I feel like the flames are like, this is what we do every summer. We just kind of signed like the seventh best guy to the, you know, seventh biggest contract. And we hope that's going to sort out all our problems.

And it never will. But like this is, this is just GMs kind of going, I need to protect my job here. And if these contracts don't work out, well, they, you know,

that's fine because they only need to work once. Well. I, yeah, I think, you know, I mean, obviously I wanted to agree with you on the motivations here. And I think that they're pretty clear in, in Edmonton. The one thing I would push back on a little bit is on the Hyman piece. You know, I, I agree with you. Like, I think Hyman is a great complimentary player.

I'd especially like to see him with Drysidal. I think that that would be a really good fit. I think you could probably improve Drysidal's defense quite a bit because I think we already saw McDavid take a couple leaps this year. But the thing for me is that, you know, the problem with Edmonton hasn't necessarily been that they haven't had complementary pieces on Conner-McDavid's line. Like they've had Eugene Hopkins and Yamavoto and even Pulliervy this year, I think basically played the Zach Heiman role. And he did a quite good job of it. You know, the problem with the Edmonton Oilers offensively is that they can't score when Connor McDavid and Leon Dreissel aren't on the ice.

and I would question what Zach Hyman does to solve that. You know, like he might help them be a little bit better when those two players are on the ice, which is great. But, you know, again, they're two of the most productive players in hockey. How much better do you want them to be, right? Exactly. You know, is Connor McDavid going to score, you know, 130 points next year instead of 125? And meanwhile, you know, that bottom of the lineup, you know, I really like some of the acquisitions that they made at forward. Like I think that they actually, they went about it the right way. And I think that they, in a way that they've kind of gone about it the wrong way in the past.

You know, I like Warren Fogle quite a bit. You know, even Derek Ryan, I think was a very savvy acquisition for the fourth line center role. But, you know, those aren't guys who are going to go out and score 20 goals for you. You know, and I just, I really like Zach Hyman, but I just feel like he is kind of a luxury in terms of what they actually need. And he sets themselves up, he sets them up in a position like you alluded to, Dmiti, where if that thing does go south super quickly, like if the knee injuries start to pile up, if he slows down, you know, he's expanded his skill set quite a bit. Like they developed him really well in Toronto.

But, you know, and this applies to Coleman as well. Like if the legs start to go, he's not exactly the most kind of cerebral player out there. Like he, I feel like is going to lose quite a bit of his value when and if that happens. And they might find themselves in a position where, you know, this kind of once in a window opportunity to really reset the team with a giant pile of cap space might come and go without them having really addressed their biggest need of forward, which is, you know, tertiary scoring, I guess you could say. And the crazy part is you don't even have to spend a lot of money to get those players.

You just have to get them, you know. Thomas Chatar is right there. You know, he's probably going to be $3 million because he was scratching two playoff runs for having an on-eye shooting percentage of 6%. Yep. But now they're full up on forwards. Well, that's what I was going to say. I think their forward group actually projects very well.

Yeah. I like their forwards and the way they're constructed. The bottom six obviously needs more of a scoring punch, but it makes sense. There's much fewer holes. The blue line for me, like Jack, and when you,

I knew you were going to take it to the Oilers, and I thought you were going to bring up that. Like, I think for me, um, I just find what they did genuinely mind blowing. Like I think the opportunity cost of everything they did on the blue line was showed a stunning lack of,

of business savvy, right? Like Cody C.C. is a meme, deservedly so, because he does funny stuff. And I think the unintentional comedy factor of his game is uncharted. But he provided value to the Penguins last year defensively because he was making $1.25 million and because they basically used him as like their fifth most frequently used defenseman against the other team's bottom six. And they got respectable numbers out of them.

And that's great. now the Oilers are basically signing him and I assume based on how their depths start shaking out right now, we'll use him and Duncan Keith as essentially their shutdown pair against other teams' best players. And that brings up a variety of issues from the fact that they're going to get just eaten alive off the rush to how many times are we going to see just possessions and in the offensive zone for the Oilers because McDavid or just said he'll pass it back to one of these guys and they just fired into the other team. shin pads or missed the net wildly. Like it's just in terms of constructing complementary players to how this team should be playing and what they should be, they should be doing. I can't come up with the justification for why they did what they did on the blue line.

Yeah. And this is the thing I've been saying about Carmen McDavid since maybe his second or third season, which is like they don't have any defensemen who go and get the puck. Like we love watching Carmen David get the puck and go 200. But if a team was actually supporting him, they would have defensemen who get him maybe like 120 feet of the way, maybe 80 feet of the way, something like that. But the fact that Connor McDavid has to go up and down the ice, up and down the ice, up and down the ice, like he's going to run out of steam. You know, he could do it for 56 games this year and look really good doing it. And, you know, I'm not saying like he's, he's out of shape or anything like that.

But, like, it's just, it takes a physical toll. And you can't, you can't do what Carm McDavid did this season every single night in an 82 game season. It's just impossible. So, you know, like, to your point about, okay, you know, I think we all like Darnell Nurse pretty good. He's a good player. I'm interested to see who they put next to him. but I think he himself is a good player who kind of does that thing that I was just talking about. Now, when Darnell nurses off the ice, what happens?

Well, here's what they're going to do. They're going to give Tyson Berry premium offensive minutes because he scored a lot of points last year, which is in turn going to block Evan Bouchard, who probably could do a very similar act to that for a fraction of the price. And then because they signed Cody CZ, they felt in power. to trade Ethan Bear, who was also a good player making peanuts, who was a good asset moving forward. And so, like, that's what I want to say, the opportunity cost, they basically, the players they acquired or the players they signed here, just like, like, it was like kind of this domino effect

of, oh, we're going to make one questionable move here, and it's going to lead to a series of bad ones. And now they come out of this with this blue line where, Jack, like, do you have them as the 30-second ranked blue line in terms of your roster builder? Yeah, yeah. It's not pretty. And like it's like a sub replacement level blue line, which is not something that was was a thing last year. Like even with the worst teams. Yeah.

I mean, it's a nightmare. And Ryan, like what you're alluding to the McDavid going up and down the ice and dry saw going up and down the ice, like that's why their defensive numbers have always been so bad is because they are carrying the buck into end because they have so much speed. They end up behind the net. The rush goes the other way. and who are they facing, it's Tyson Barry and Darnell Nurse and et cetera, et cetera. And so, and they get preyed on that way. And if the boilers were going to do an expensive renovation of their blue line this year, it would have made sense for them to specifically target players who can defend the rush.

Like in recognition of, okay, this is the way that McDavid and Drysaddle's score points is by counterattacking. We need to make sure that when the puck goes the other way, we're going to be all set. And instead of thinking towards that, you know, now they have, I think, Demetri, you're right to say that C.C. and Keith are going to be the shutdown pair because, you know, we saw Nurse and Barry get fed essentially all the minutes with McDavid last year. Like that was, you know, like I think Barry literally played something like 84% of his minutes with McDavid or dry saddle last year. I think he scored one point without either of them on the ice. So I think it would be unrealistic to suggest that there. they're going to be used in the matchups, which means that you end up with Duncan Keith, who can't defend his blue line to save his life anymore, and Cody Cici, who maybe has taken some positive steps in that regard, but I wouldn't really want to, you know, see things going downhill towards him too often. And that's, I think, a recipe for disaster. And like you said, with the opportunity cost, can you confidently say that the Oilers would are better off right now

than they would be if their top four was Arnold Ners and Ethan Bear? and Caleb Jones and Evan Bouchard. You know, and that's $15 million cheaper. And if you say, you know, that probably doesn't look like too good at the blue line, there are much better ways to spend $15 million than on the collection of guys that they got. So it is baffling. And I hate that we have to keep ragging on the Oilers because it seems like every time I'm on the podcast, it always lines up with some inexplicable transaction they've made.

Well, right. They make it easy. Yeah. And the other thing to say is, on top of everything we just said about their defense, their goalies are still Mike Smith and Miko Koskin. Like, how do you defend that as a GM where it's like, oh, look, nobody's saying Mike Smith didn't have a good season last year. But this guy's, what, he's 39 now? This guy's older than me.

And we're like, oh, yeah, no, look, if we don't, if he doesn't work out with him, who, by the way, he's signed for too much. more years. We can just always fall back on Miko Koskin. And the guy that everybody in Edmonton is like, oh, this guy's a bum. Like, do you know how bad you have to be for the Edmonton media to rightfully land on the idea that you're no good? Like, it's amazing. Yeah, it happens very rarely. Very rarely. They're usually like, I'm furious with how badly Ryan Nugent Hopkins is playing. And it's like he's not the problem here. You know that that's the case. Yeah.

All right. Well, Ryan, it's your turn. Give me another team or a theme that you want to talk about. Yeah. I alluded to it earlier. What's Jim Benning doing exactly? I like, you know, I made a couple of passing references to it on Twitter today. And a few Canucks fans were like,

Well, look, you can't say the forward group's not better, and it's like, you got me. The defense, though, somehow it's worse. I don't, you know, are we going to, are we going to be in year 10 of the rebuild, like come next March or April? Yeah, I mean, we're getting there. Yeah, I mean, I thought they had a series of logical moves in terms of the shedding, the salary that they did. And I like the bet on Halak.

It was very low risk, even though you had a bad year last year. Sure, why not as a backup for that price? Yes. Only one year. From under Holtby, too. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And then they turn around and then just spend a good chunk of those savings on

Hamannick and Pullman and just are like, like, white, like kind of just, wipe their hands. They're like, all right, we're set on the right side here. And I just, I, yeah, it's, it's mystifying. I did a full podcast recently with Harmon Dial about it. So I don't, I don't have any other Kinnock's thoughts. Do you, um, do you just? or do you want to just move on to a different team? I think the parallel with the Oilers is very interesting

because, you know, like we alluded to, like the projection has the Oilers forward group at sixth in the league and their defense at 32nd. It has the Canucks at the ninth best forward group in the 31st defense corps. Like it really is kind of an interesting parallel of how the Canucks made interesting acquisitions like Dickinson and Garland that I think plug in really nicely and then just matched it by taking a defense that was all really, already, you know, arguably the worst in the league last year and somehow making it project worse. And the sense that I'm getting from every single angry Canucks fan who bombards

me with messages whenever I point any of this out is that they have hired a new assistant coach to focus on the defense next year, Bradshaw from Columbus, who from what I've been informed is going to wave a magic wand in Vancouver and turn all of their bad defensemen into good defensemen again. So I mean, it's possible. And I would certainly hope that Quinn Hughes isn't going to have like a 43% expected gold share this year. But it just seemed like a weird decision to go such a route of, okay,

we're going to bring the band back together in terms of having a Hammondick Hughes pairing again. And then we're also going to have Ekman Larson and Myers as a pairing. And then Pullman is the guy that we're going to put on our bottom pair. Like just none of it makes any sense to me. Yeah, like two things. Brad Hunt coming out of Columbus Bradshaw Bradshaw Brad Hunt did sign with the Canucks though

He did, yes, that's why I'm literally looking at their cap-friendly page And I saw his name as I was saying that Bradshaw Okay, he's coming and he's going to fix the defense Yeah, how'd that work out for Columbus last year Seth Jones was just doing the media rounds going Oh, I was terrible. I was really bad this year

I don't know what happened. You know, like everybody in Columbus had like a career worst year last year. So that guy's going to fix this group. And then the other thing, and this really, I mean, if you need, if you ever needed a quote to sum up the Jim Benning experience, right? When they say, you know, what's the plan for Oliver Ekman-Larsen? You know, you just acquired this, you gave up quite a bit to acquire this defenseman. What do you think?

And his quote, I don't have it in front of me, but paraphrasing was, yeah, I don't really know why plus minus was so bad last year. But I think we'll figure it out. And it's like that, that to me is just exactly what Jim Benning is all about, where it's like, you know what? I have these preconceived notions. Something doesn't line up with them. It's mystifying to me. I don't have an answer. But, hey, it's all going to work out for me, baby.

I'm Jim Benning. And it's like, well, you're not getting fired. So I guess on some level, it is all working out for you. Yeah. Can I make a quick comment on the Bradshaw? Just because we brought it up, I just had to look it up really quickly. It just occurred to me that, like, while he was the assistant coach of the Blue Jaggats, they had exactly one season where they were in above average expected goals

against his team. and it was the last season, like the 19-20 year. So, you know, that really is not, you know, maybe he's a really great defensive coach. Like that's obviously not evidence in and of itself. But if you're expecting him to turn around, you know, I think it's fair to say that the Connux. I think you could fairly say the Canucks word

have been the worst events in the league, at least last year and arguably the year before in terms of just the sheer amount of quality they allowed and the rush chances and the high-danger opportunities and everything. And, you know, if you're going to turn this thing around at a year with no substantial difference in personnel except that you've added a guy in Ekman-Larsen, who the entire prayer on him turning around is that he's going to be happier in Vancouver than he was in Arizona, because none of the physical, you know, indicators of somebody turning

around their game are really present. That's a lot of hope to pit on a guy. And I feel like we could see a lot of six-five, seven-six games between the Oilers and the Caducs. unless the Canucks goaltending coach is able to continue to work the miracles that he has for the past few seasons. Yeah, and then they're going to play the Crackin, and it's going to be like negative two to one. Like there's, it's going to be such a wild disparity between the defensive metrics of those teams. I can't wait. All right. We've been, I feel like we've been pretty pretty negative for the most part.

And I feel like this, the first day of free agency typically leads to those reactions because a lot of nonsensical. decisions are made and panic moves. I want to give the lightning some love because I joked on Twitter about how the salary gap is kind of just like, it's mostly a suggestion. And it was obviously partly in jest, but I do believe that it only really limits you as much as your own sort of creativity or ambition does. And so the lightning just every year, it seems like we're wondering what's going to happen. Oh, they're going to be up against it this time. And a lot of times it is, for whatever reason, them finding a way to talk a team into helping them out. And most recently, they get the Black Oaks to take Tyler Johnson's $5 million

salary over the next three years off their hands, are going to be fine now, pretty comfortable. And also, you know, they go, whatever, they add Pierre-Edward Belmar, they add Brian Elliott, they add Zach Begoge, whatever, all for cheap, nice little depth pieces. But then also kind of somewhat quietly, I guess, just turn around and one year ahead of time, just sign Braden Point to a massive extension that matches Kutrov and Vasselowski. And I'm like, all right, well, this isn't going to be an issue for us moving forward because now we have them on a great value deal all of a sudden. Well, always they had the entire time, but in terms of not worrying about what's going to

happen with him in the future. And so just in terms of the way they're connected business, I feel like we just spend an hour talking about kind of mistakes. And that's more interesting for our purposes here to talk about. But the Lightning are a team that really seems to take advantage of all. the resources available to them and just get it done through creative ways. And I wanted to give them some love here because it feels like we have been very negative so far. Yeah. Oh, go ahead, Ryan. Well, I was just going to say, like, for them, a team that is going to spend above the

cap because they get to, like for them to have an almost $12 million swing in cap space by trading for or by trading for the Seabrook deal and trading away Tyler Johnson masterstroke. Like if you're the Tampa Bay Lightning, giving away a player for nothing, and a good player, like a solid middle of the lineup forward, giving him away for nothing,

except a dead contract, one of the worst contracts signed in recent memory, that all works out great for you. That's incredible to me. And they're just doing it every year. Like I would not be shocked if they figured out how to get somebody else who's just like LTIR retired. Because why not? And then they can go out and they can get Thomas Tatar or whoever.

God, they're going to get Thomas Tatar. I mean, I think it's crazy to me that Tyler Johnson, I understand it was a season ago. So he had an extra year of term. And it was a different time in terms of how teams were spending. But we just like, Jack, you're a waivers test, right? We just talked about how Tyler Johnson literally passed through waivers without a taker. And then because they're a really good team, they won a cup. He performed well himself in a fourth line role, scored some key goals.

But now all of a sudden, they're able to flip him without retaining any salary. All they give up is a second. So they get to keep their first for future use as well. And it's just, yeah, once again, they just wriggle the way out of it. we're all too willing to help them out. And it's a good piece of work. And so, yeah, it's, what are you going to say about them, Jack? Yeah, I guess the two things is, first of all, it's always amusing with the Tampa

cap stuff is that every time they make a transaction that's related to cap space, there's always the immediate reaction of, okay, this shouldn't be allowed. And I'm not saying that that's like a bitter thing or anything like that. I'm just saying it's always the entertaining thing to me is that they they are able to kind of bend but not break the rules so much that when they do the LTIR thing, you know, it's totally, you know, it's, that's how the rules go. They're able to do the Kuturoff thing. You know, then, you know, this time they acquire a player who has for all intents of purposes retired and now they have them on their books and they're able to do the swing that way. You know, both situations where people can make fair arguments that it shouldn't be allowed, but you know, Tampa doesn't care about that. They just they make a way. They just, they make a way. work. And then the second quick thing was that I just thought it was amusing that, you know, according to the projection model, you know, that Brayden Point contract projects, including the last year on his current deal, projects to be the best contract in the league. Like, it just goes through his entire prime. He's an excellent player. He's making less than 10 million bucks. And he's

not really going to decline that much over the course of it. And I just found it amusing that it is, was signed a couple days later and is the exact same term and cap hit as what is projected as the worst contract in the league, which is the Seth Jones contract. So a lot of respect to Tampa Bay for having such a quick turnaround on that one. Yeah. All right. Well, is there any other teams or players or themes that either you wanted to get to while we're still here?

I did want to talk about the Bruins a little bit. I alluded to it earlier with the forward Riley comparison. But like, I should say, they've done a really good job. of adding talent that without like breaking the bank or anything like Linus Allmark is going to cost them a bit of money and they just traded Dan Blasch for a third round pick I think it was. But Taylor Hall, six million bucks. And only four years. That seems like it's going to be a really good value for them.

Go ahead. Well, I was just sorry to cut you all. I was just going to say, and I'm sure you're going to get to this. But I agree with you. The Riley one and the, and the Hall extensions are both fantastic. I wish they would have just, and maybe this wasn't an option, maybe they offered it. And for every reason, Blake Coleman picked Calgary, but they were the other team linked to them. And I understand the risk involved in the six-year deal or whatever, if you're the Bruins, whatever.

I would have taken that money they gave. They gave, what, 3.8 to Folino, 1.75 to Nozek, 2.375 to Hala. Like, Blake would have been such a good player on this team. a perfect winger and maybe it wasn't available to them or maybe they were too scared off by the six-year term but I wish they like if they would have gone that route instead then I would have said it was like the best off-season yeah like that's that's a thing right where it's like I made a joke on Twitter earlier where I said like how many bottom six forwards does one team need because they also have it should be said like a fair number of pretty good bottom six forwards already on the

roster. And so, you know, like, Felino helps, NoSec helps, Hala helps. And what Don Sweeney said was that he likes, they can all play multiple positions, they can all play up or down in the lineup as, as need be. And like, a lot of this kind of seems like David Crachie doesn't resign insurance. I saw that there was a rumor going around that that was going to happen at some point. It hasn't happened yet. I'm sure that if he does sign somewhere, Boston will be the only team he really considers.

And it won't be for a lot of money because he just made a whole lot of money on this last contract. So, you know, like if we're looking at what Boston needed to do to shore up the defense, we talked about Edmonton's problem was always that they didn't do anything good when McDavid and, and dry saddle were off the ice.

That was also the knock on the Bruins up until the, the haul trade with, when the, when the Bergeron line came off the ice, they were just terrible, you know? So this settles that problem for them. And I guess now the only thing you say is like,

boy, they could have used that for-bort money a little bit better, huh? Like, you know, like I said, if you're using him as a bottom-payer guy, and he's going to be the Kevin Miller punching people replacement. I guess that's fine.

But, you know, I just think that the Bruins really solidified their spot for me, like right near the top of that division. Yeah, I agree with Demetri. I really would have liked to see Coleman go there. Or even, like, I had the Islanders as kind of an interesting fit for him. I thought he would have done really well there. I think it is just disappointing to see Coleman go to Calgary

I think just you know he's such kind of a playoff type player we saw him kind of exhaled in that situation where he was you know I think arguably the missing piece on those Tampa teams that really kind of helped everything click into place and I am a little disappointed that he's not going to be filling that role whether it was on like the the hall line or or in New York if he was kind of

adding some scoring depth to that team that he's going to be kind of on this Calgary team that is kind of in a similar situation we alluded to earlier, where we just kind of don't really know what they're doing. I agree with Ryan. You know, I like some of the pieces that Boston added in the bottom six. Some of them, I thought, were a bit of a stretch. That Felino's second year might be a little dicey. But, you know, overall, I think Boston did what they had to to keep up with a pack because

they were at risk of being left behind. And even if maybe that old mark deal is a little. risky. I think that considering what Florida has done and then obviously Tampa Bay and Toronto are still kind of trending to be strong contenders. I don't think Boston really had a choice, but to push in all their chips

while the Marsha and Bergeron pasture Nack line is still the best in the league. Yeah, no, I agree with that. On the Coleman thing, it's funny. Like everyone, the flames added has good like defensive impact,

but it's such a Daryl Sutter thing. They're just like doubling and quadrupling down on it. And I guess like the one saving grace is I'm really interested. If they do play like Coleman and Mungiopana in Backlund or something as a line like that, that's going to be one buzz saw of a line. So I'm, I love Coleman the player, but yeah, you're right. Well, we'll see on the Islanders.

They would have been an interesting fit for them. They've been in very Lulamerala fashion, very, very quiet, just lurking in the shadows. And it seems like they're going to bring back Palmieri and probably do a bunch of other stuff. So we will see on that. All right. Let's get out of here. I need to lay down. I need to have a couple beers.

It's been a very, very long day over here. We don't have to do the modesty where we're like, oh, people should go check out EPRinkside. People have to go check out of E. If they listen to this podcast, they should do so. We have an unreal amount of great content up there. And if you're interested in signing up and you want a promo code for it, feel free to hit any of us up and we'll help get you sorted on that.

So, guys, it was a blast. I'm glad we got to do this. Thanks for taking the time at the end of a very crazy day. And we're going to check back in at some point with both you. All right. That was good. A good one, bud. All right, that's going to be for today's episode of the Hockey-Pediocast.

Thanks, as always, for listening. Hopefully you enjoyed our conversation about day one of the free agent spending period. There was obviously a ton to get to and a bunch of different moves to discuss. And we tried our best to balance around and cover as much of it as we could. But you know, here on the PDO cast, sometimes we get a, bog down with one topic and we wind up spending way too long with it and hopefully that's part of the charm but it doesn't serve us the best for shows like this where there is just so much to get around to so I promise the plan is over the next couple days we will do another show all

about free agency with another pair of guests where we try to cover the stuff we haven't yet so far and put a bow on all the moves that we've been seeing it has been a crazy week in the NHL there has been so much to discuss in terms of player movement and trades and and analysis and with all the drafts and stuff as well. So we have done six shows, I believe now, or the past seven days, and hopefully you've enjoyed them. If you haven't listened yet, certainly go back into the feed and check them out. Hopefully, they're still timely and a hold up.

We will be back in the next couple days, as I said, so look forward to that. In the meantime, if you have been enjoying all the new PDOCAST, please consider helping us out by leaving a quick little rating and review. Just smash that five-star button, leave a quick little burb. if you have time about what you enjoy about the show or why you recommend people check it out if they haven't done so yet, thank you to those of you that have left the rating and review so far. It's all greatly appreciated.

And thank you to those of you that will do so moving forward. We'll be back in a couple days here. Thanks for listening. And until then. Videocast with Dim Philipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. At soundcloud.com slash hockey p.deocast.