The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 433: Trade Deadline Takeaways

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

Ryan Lambert and Jack Fraser join the show to discuss big takeaways and themes from the this year's trade deadline. Topics discussed include: The Atlantic Division loading up The price Boston paid for Hampus Lindholm Florida's competitive window What Toronto's blueline pairings will look like The Ducks rebuilding the right way The way the league evaluates defensemen How Marc-Andre Fleury fits on the Wild Any potential concerns about the Avalanche The Rangers improving their depth If you haven't done so yet, please take a minute to leave a rating and review for the show. Smash that 5-star button. If you're feeling extra generous, you can also leave a little note about why you recommend people check the PDOcast out. Thanks for the help, each one is much appreciated! 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 Pedioccast. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Mitya Povic and joining me is my buddy, Ryan Lambert. Ryan, what's going on, man? I'm tired.

Yes, yes, we're very tired. We're recording this a couple hours after the trade Atlanta's passed. I don't know, or I don't even know if all the trades are still in the queue or if they've been processed fully. I kind of at some point just had to check out because I just couldn't wait for any more details to come through. but I feel like we already know sort of the main players that were involved. And so we're just going to go off of that and see how it goes. And also joining us today for the pediogast is our colleague at EPIR ringside, Jack, what's going on then?

My eyes hurt. I've been looking at a screen for like 10 hours. We're so washed up. Like this intro is just like coming right out of the gate. I'm going to climb under my desk. Physical and mental pain from today. It's been a long day. It's been a long weekend in a long couple days following all of the trade-ed-on activity in the

NHL, but it is done. And we're going to do our best here today to sort through all the functionally important things, what people need to know what kind of matters and what doesn't, winners and losers, all that sort of stuff. And we're going to see how it goes. And hopefully our brains aren't too scrambled from trying to keep up with everything. So, Jack, I'll let you go first this time. I feel like I usually let Ryan go first.

So I'm going to change it up this time. You give me any big story you want to start off with, whether it is a winner, a loser, a notable takeaway from today. You can take it any direction you want. Well, I think one theme that we saw from a couple of teams was teams shoring up their strengths and not necessarily fully addressing their weaknesses. We saw Florida targeting, as their big acquisition, Clod Jeru, improving the offense of the team that is already the best offensive unit in the NHL and Boston going all out to acquire Hamphus Linholm

to improve the defense of what is already the best defensive unit in the NHL in Boston's case, leaving their center depth looking like the Providence Bruins. So I thought it was surprising to me, that, you know, especially in Boston's case, that, you know, and I think you kind of saw with Colorado, too, where they go after players like Lekinen and Nico Sturm and Andrew Cogliano, where teams kind of played into their strengths without necessarily directly addressing areas of weakness.

Yeah, there were a couple teams, I would say the Minnesota Wild probably, I guess the New York Rangers that kind of went against that a little bit and tried to address some of the weaknesses they have and we can kind of save those teams for for a second here. I don't know. Do you like you guys want to start off by just kind of breaking down the Atlantic division right off the top here? It feels like that's kind of in terms of like a league-wide significance basis. It feels like the fact that the top four teams of the Atlantic, which we'd all consider to be like four of the best six, seven, eight teams, whatever, nine teams you want to lump them in as a league-wide all made pretty significant acquisition.

Yeah, I think your mileage can vary on how much they actually improved based on the players they brought in, but they certainly were pretty aggressive about trying to kind of go all in for this season. And it feels like that's kind of like the big storyline from this deadline. Ryan, let's start with the Bruins. What are your feelings on the Hampus Linholm acquisition, factoring in both the acquisition costs for him and the extension that they would like immediately sign him to? Yeah, it's interesting because my initial reaction to it was, ooh, that's a lot to give up. But also they'll probably re-sign him and then they did.

And maybe the number's a little bit higher than I would have liked. And certainly there's more years than I would have liked if I were the Bruins. But it felt like it was all about right. I think that's a player who was, let's say, not put in a sense. a position to succeed in Anaheim the last few years. And, you know, at his age, I'm not exactly expecting him to round into the form where, you know, people like you and I, Dmitri, would have been like ringing a cowbell. Like, can you believe how good this guy is?

Oh, my God, he should be winning Norris's and all that kind of stuff. Like, he's not going to, I don't think, get back to that level. But he's an extremely competent defender. And the thing you said earlier about. about, you know, addressing a need that wasn't actually a need that much. I would have said coming into the season that the Bruins did have a need on defense. Obviously, the results kind of indicate that maybe they didn't necessarily, but never hurts to have an extra guy who, you know, can play on either of your top two pairs pretty comfortably.

So I like the player. They did give up a lot for them, but not, I guess what I would say is it doesn't matter because the second Petrie's version of RON retires, they're going to be in pretty stark disarray. So you might as well push every chip in that you possibly can while you can. Yeah, I guess my issue with that strategy is that, like, you're definitely right. Like in the way things stand right now and what their, you know, their prospects look like at the center position, they definitely are going to be in stark. disarray as soon as Bergeron retires or regresses.

But I mean, you look at the young core of the team of McAvoy, Pasternak, and now I guess Jeremy Swayman in net, you know, if managed properly, I don't think this team needs to completely fall apart once Bergeron is gone, if they can address the center of the ice and actually, you know, maybe build out a young core around those guys. The issue that I had, I guess, with Lindholm is not necessarily that I think he's a scrub or anything because I don't think that and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he bounces back. I guess it's more for me that, you know, they move these futures and some of these

futures are quite far in the future, you know, like these aren't only kind of their immediate futures, but they're ones that they would have been able to trade down the line. And, you know, I understand that they couldn't get Eichol. I understand that they couldn't get hurdle. I don't, you know, it's, I don't think either of those are their fault. But I do think maybe this and And Lynn Holmes cap hit maybe potentially as well could limit their ability to build out a core that allows this team to keep competing once Marshaan and Bergeron are no longer a big factor. I mean, the thing with the cap hit is so it's $6.5 million moving forward, right? Which I don't think is necessarily that egregious. It puts them at like around the 30th highest pay defensemen with guys like his former teammate Cam Fowler and Colton Braco.

Actually, like every defenseman on the blues, it seems like with Braco, Falk and Krugall being basically tied at $6.5 million. So it's not necessarily that prohibitive if he's going to bounce back. And if you're going to rely on him to this capacity, the eight years is obviously very alarming for a player who is, I guess, 28 years old now is going to take him into his mid-30s. And that's a concern for me. I think that's where the docs really handled this very well, where it seemed like they were pretty interested in retaining him.

And after he said, okay, I want more than five years, they were like, all right, we cannot justify that. And so they quickly moved to trading them and got these assets back in return. And the interesting thing for me here is it seems like the Bruins are in a bit of a logistical pickle with how they proceed moving forward with Linholm in the sense that if their plan is to use him with McAvoy on a top pair, I'm sure he's going to look good. But one of the benefits of having a player of McAvoy's caliber is that pretty much anyone that you pull with him is going to look good, right? Like we've seen Grislich succeed with him and I think Grisly is a good player. we've seen Mike Riley succeed with him. People seem to hate Mike Riley.

I think he's perfectly fine. Probably obviously not a top pair of defensemen, but that's kind of one of the benefits. If you have Charlie McAvoy and you're going to pay him a premium, he's going to make whoever he plays with better. So you don't need to pay his partner as the 30th highest paid defenseman. But then if they don't play him with McAvoy and they said try to kind of float a second pair with Lynn Holman and whoever else,

I'm not sure at this point of his career if he is good enough to kind of draw positive results out of whoever he plays with. Like we just saw in Anaheim that, you know, we're saying, all right, we're not sure if it's fair to evaluate his numbers because of the situation. Well, if he's put in an adverse situation in Boston, it's kind of kind of be the same story again. And then at that point, what did you really accomplish? So I think they're in a bit of a tricky spot.

I think certainly in a playoff series, like let's say they're protecting a lead or they're really worried about one specific matchup and they do want to kind of shore up their in zone defending. You can put Lynn home with McVoy for like short spur. and really maximize those shifts. But as a long-term strategy, I'm not sure it totally makes sense as an argument to say, we're going to go out and pay a first and two seconds and then sign this guy to an eight-year extension to play with Charlie McAvoy for the next eight years.

You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. No, that makes. I don't know. It kind of, it's a weird spot. They basically paid a premium for something they don't need. One thing that was, oh, go ahead.

Like one final thing that I was thinking about in terms of this, because, it feels like, you know, one of our complaints with McAvoy has been, or I guess one of the concerns of why he's not constantly considered to be like a Norris finals during that echelon is, all right, his 5-15 impacts are amazing. He's obviously a phenomenal player. He doesn't put up the points. Now, a lot of that has been, there's been other defensemen who have played ahead of him on the power play, right? I think he certainly got like all of the physical tools to, he's not going to be Kel McCar,

but I think he's got more sort of offensive ability. creativity that he hasn't fully channeled yet. And I wonder how much of that is he's played with partners who maybe he felt like he had to kind of play a more sort of traditional defensive role and kind of be a bit more responsible and reserved. And if you're going to make the argument that, all right, you put a guy like Lynn home with him and that's really just going to unleash McAvoy to kind of freelance a bit more and get involved in the offensive zone and kind of play that role of another offensive

creator that's going to help address his team's needs, which is turning shots the goals, then all of a sudden, I'd be willing to listen to that argument. I'm not sure if it necessarily works that way, but at least that is kind of an interesting thought exercise. Yeah, I guess one thing that also kind of concerns me a little bit with Linholm. And the thing is, we haven't seen him in Boston yet. So, you know, we really can't have an accurate view of how he's going to play or how he's going to adjust this game. And that's a risk of the decision that the Bruins made to give him the full eight-year extension without knowing if he even has chemistry with McAvoy or if he even is going to be able to turn the clock back to what he was a couple of years

ago, is that, you know, when you hear scouts talk about him, like when you hear, you know, the hockey men talk about him. They always describe him as, you know, he's pretty good at everything, but he's not like excellent at any one thing, which, you know, when you combine that, I think, with the way that his general, you know, the impact metrics and everything like that have gone downhill in the past couple of years, you know, it would make me feel a lot better about him if there was kind of one specific excellent skill that you could really point to with him, as opposed to, yeah, he's kind of good at everything. And also he's maybe declined a little bit since his prime.

Well, that would probably be his rush defense, right? Which is still pretty good. Yeah, it's been up and down. I was looking at it. You know, it's been strong this year. And actually, a couple of players on the ducks have had been strong on it this year, which makes me think that there may be with some kind of coaching adjustment. Who knows?

And the ruins, obviously, play a pretty aggressive rush defense game. So, again, it'll be really interesting to see. how he adapts to Boston. I guess with any of these situations, you do get a little nervous when you, when you have a full eight year contract coming and you have no idea what the player actually looks like on the team. You know what's interesting,

like when I've watched him play the past couple years, he hasn't really looked physically the same to me in terms of his movement. Like he moves fine, but in 2016 to 2018, which was kind of like his prime years, like he could keep up step for step with Connor McDavid when he tried to carry the puck in against him. No problem.

He'd just like stick to him. And I haven't really seen that level of just like freakish level of movement from him. And it's not like he's necessarily like this like at a geriatric age, right? He's only 28 years old. But he has played a lot of minutes. He's had a lot of injuries. He's had a bunch of surgeries. And I'm kind of curious about it.

And the reason why I bring that up is because I don't know if either of you caught this. But Frank Sarvelli was doing like a radio hit or something. and he had this kind of like a bit of like a throwaway report, but I caught people in Ducks Twitter talking about it where he was suggesting that teams he talked to were using some of the puck tracking or player tracking data they have to sort of identify that the Lynn Holmes movement was actually still really good, like that he was like a prolific skater and one of the better skaters in the league. And I thought that was interesting.

I don't necessarily even know how you would like functionally qualify that or the validity of that. Like it seems like it doesn't really pass this. out of us to me, but I thought that was interesting because it doesn't really line up necessarily with what I've been seeing with my untrained eyes, admittedly. So who knows, maybe the Bruins do feel like they can get more out of them in that regard. Yeah, that reminds me of several years ago back when Deadspin was good Deadspin. They ran a story about the player in ball tracking technology in the NBA. They had it simmed out so that they just were like, oh, here's the most efficient possible defense against this kind of play and this kind of play and this kind of play.

And LeBron was beating the computer-generated, like, most efficient defensive coverages and stuff like that. Like, LeBron was just better than a computer ever could be, basically. And that's kind of, like, I just remember reading that and going, well, how do they know? You know what I mean? Like, how do they know that's the most efficient? Like, yeah, obviously, LeBron's a freak. But that's what that reminds me of. But the other thing I wanted to say is,

I think the guy that it makes the most sense to pair with Lindholm, not that we should talk about Hamas Lindhol this much, I guess, but is Brandon Carlo, like elite defensively, you know, does almost nothing offensively. I don't know, Carlo and Mike Riley are perfectly fine together. That's true, yeah, no problems there, but. People really seem to, I know, Jack, I know you were talking about this on Twitter recently.

but people really seem to, I think these guys just kind of fall into a bit of a blind spot for people who just like maybe see them mess up once where they miss an assignment in front of the net or maybe like they kind of get out muscled by a bigger forward in front of the crease and it leads to a goal against. And then that's their lasting memory of them. And they're like, oh, Mike Riley sucks. And then meanwhile, like I tracked every single one of those playoff games last year. And he was like one of the most efficient defensemen in the entire playoffs.

playoffs just because like he does very simple stuff. I actually tracked all the data and he was like the most efficient guy in terms of exiting the zone with possession through passing. And then I went back and specifically watched his shift again because I was like, is that true? And then I couldn't even put together like a highlight reel of impressive passes because they were all like very short like eight foot passes to a forward who was kind of in an optimal position to then skated out himself.

and it was like nothing that would blow you away, but it was always the right play. And so that's a pretty good defenseman and a good guy to have. But for whatever reason, I guess people just stylistically hate the way he plays because when he messes up, it looks really bad. Yeah. And you see it over and over and over again,

and you see it fan base after fan base where there's a player who plays a relatively low-key game, you know, doesn't pile up the points. You know, it's almost always a matter of points because, you know, fans will find a reason to hate Chris LaTang and John Carlson, Eric Carlson, et cetera, et cetera. You know, but because they put up the points,

at least that's something. But, I mean, I remember talking about Devon Taves back in 2020 and Islanders fans telling me he was trash and that, you know, they were lucky to get, you know, second round pick or two second round picks for him. And then, of course, you know, he starts looking like a superstar. And, you know, Ethan Bear last year with Edmonton is another example. You just go down the list of all these smallish defenders who don't hit and don't pile up points. and, you know, they get undervalued.

And I think Mike Riley is a good example. All right. Well, let's talk about the Panders next on the list of, uh, of Atlantic team. So I don't necessarily want to spend that much time on Drew because if people go back and listen to the show, Jack and I did with, with our pal Thomas Drans. Um, last week kind of previewing the trade deadline. We did like a full 15 to 20 minute thing about like, I really like the idea of Drew the Panthers. And so we kind of outlined how he'd help them. And even though they're such an elite offense.

team the ways he could kind of improve their performance regardless. So people can just go back and listen to that. I guess my question for the Panthers here is I've seen them kind of characterized as quote unquote being all in because they moved a bunch of futures here, right? Like they moved whatever, a prospect in a second to get Sam Bennett last year. Then they moved Devon Levi and a first to get Sam Ryan heard in the offseason. And they traded a first and another pick and a prospect for Ben Chirot. And then they traded a future first as well.

no and tippet and another pick for for claude drew and so they certainly have mortgaged a ton of future capital but at the same time the more i think about it i feel like this this organization is generally set up pretty well here to be competitive for at least the next couple seasons right like if you look at their entire skaters it's every like literally everyone is right now between the age of 25 and 28 and under contract for at least the next couple seasons Hubert O's kind of on the edge of that. I believe he's going to be turning 29 here soon, and he's got one year left,

and then they're going to have to extend them, similar with Weger. But they're going to have, like, Keith Yandel, buy out money coming off the books by then. And so they're going to be able to retain those guys, assuming they want to. And so, like, it's pretty much going to be this team, which is all theoretically in its prime right now.

So they're all in in the sense that they don't have a ton of draft capital anymore. So they don't have that kind of next wave coming down the road. but at the same time, it's a good team that's going to be able to retain this good team for the next couple years. So I don't necessarily view it as kind of an all-in season for them. Yeah, it is only because, like, you know, you want to go to the draft and see your team get a guy 27th overall and talk yourself into, you know, this guy, if a couple things break right, this guy could be a borderline all-star, you know. and yeah to your point like the panthers don't need to do that and and a thing that we increasingly see is like guys like like uh like drew hellison in colorado right going well i'm not going to sign with you guys i don't have a chance to make the nchel and it's the same thing with the panthers it's like okay

they draft all these guys who are they bumping out of the lineup exactly you know like unless you're Anton lundell and you're so good right away that you're just like the third lines center. Right, exactly. And you don't get those guys where the Panthers are going to be picking the next few years. So, yeah. So like, yeah, you can get Nola Chari's spot, I guess, but they might just give that to some veteran they get for nothing on July 1st. Yeah. I mean, this might be the, you know, that classic, like, has only seen the movie Boss Baby, so he thinks every movie is Boss Baby. But I got some Penguins vibes from what the Panthers did this year. so I think their outlook because, you know, what the Panthers have done so far in adding Giroux and Sherrott as well as those extra little depth moves reminds me a lot of what

the Penguins did back in 2013 when they got Jerome McGinla, Brendan Morrow, and Douglas Murray. You know, they paid a lot of future assets. You know, I was shocked and felt elderly to find out that Claude Drew was only one year younger than Jerome McGillow was when the Penguins traded for him back in 2013. You know, they made a run to the conference finals. It didn't work out. You know, that was their all-in year. I remember all the talk being that.

And then, you know, three years later, they go back to back and win the Stanley Cup because the fundamental pieces were there for them to build off of. The other thing, and I guess one thing where I think maybe the Panthers let me down a little bit, or I was a little disappointed with them. And I think the Avalanche did this is, you know, if there's one thing the Panthers have proven in the past two years, it's that they are the new generation Mark Donk team.

Like they can just take any prospect that has any modicum or not even prospect, just project player that has any modicum of fundamental talent, even if their underlying numbers in another situation weren't necessarily that good. And as long as there's some kind of talent that you can point to or physical skill, they can turn that player into an impact player. And they did that big time at last year's deadline. They did it in the summer. I obviously did it in the summer that they got for Haggy and DeClaer.

I would have liked to see them maybe take off the avalanche a little bit. You know, avalanche went and got Nico Sturm. They obviously got Lekinen, you know, even Coghwey. I kind of would have liked to see the Panthers take a stab at maybe one or two more, you know, players like that instead of just kind of going, you know, they got the big guys and then they got Robert Hag, who I don't think is a very high upside player. So that's the only thing that really let me down. But, I mean, I agree.

I think this is an all-in-year quote-unquote, but they have a couple more all-in years left in them. Okay, well, so here's my follow-up question on that. Is the idea of if they had not traded for Sherrod and Drew, right? And if they had just consolidated everything they used to get those two guys, which was Tippett's, Melanick, a 20-23 first, a 20-24 first, a 22-fourth, and a 20-23 third. and then they use like a six rounder or whatever to get Robert Hague. How far off is that from whatever it's going to take to get Jacob Chikrin from the Coyotes? Because I feel like they're saying that, well, we're not in a rush to trade for it. Right now.

We're looking for three premium assets. All right. Well, I'm pretty sure the Coyotes would view two future first as pretty premium assets at this point. I think you'd probably still need to add to that. But I don't think it's necessarily that far off. And beyond the fact that Chircran is from Florida and would certainly fill out the defensive need for them. He would fit very perfectly with what I just said in the fact that he is a 24-year-old

that's under contract at a very reasonable price. And it would have been like the perfect type of sort of player profile for the next three or four years with this current group. And I think that's maybe a disappointing part. I'm not sure if they ever consider that or ever they thought that was possible. Maybe they thought chicken wasn't realistically available. And so they went a different route. Maybe they were just so infatuated with Sherrod and Drew that they decided to do that

instead. But that's kind of disappointing because I'd be curious about that potential for them. Yeah, I definitely recall like, you know, January or so, uh, Chickren Panthers rumors. His dad is like on their broadcast. Is he really? Yeah. And that's, that's the thing where I wonder how much it was like, yeah, look, if you like knock our socks

like really just drop a treasure chest on the desk in front of me here. Yeah, you can have Jacob Chikrin, but we're not like super inclined to just do it for two 28th overall picks and Ty Smilanic.

You know, like, I don't know how much more they would have had to add. Obviously, they've used a bit of draft capital even before this season. And I feel like the elephant in the room is the Sherrod trade because I think it's kind of hard to get too upset at them for trading like a 15 year old for Claude Giroux. He fell in their

laps. He wanted to go there. There wasn't really a bidding war. And so they got him for super cheap without having to give up that much. I guess the question for me is just, you know, what could they have done instead of paying an absolute premium for Ben Chirot, who, you know, that's not to say that I think Chirot will be completely useless. for them or that he's, you know, the worst player in the league or, you know, how his metrics look after a season where he was basically Montreal's number one defenseman. But I don't think there's any doubt that they paid an absolute premium to get him. And the question for me, I guess, would be, you know, how much do you have to pay or you

have to add to what they gave up for Chirot to get a better player who's a better fit, including, you know, Lynn Holm would be an example. But Jacob Chikering, if you're willing to explore the. you know, the Spencer Knight conversation or things like that. Well, Leon equivocally overpaid. I'm paralyzed with fear to hate on Ben Chirot here because every player they brought in, as you mentioned, has looked amazing since coming to the Panthers. And I'm willing to leave the door open to the possibility that he's going to look like

his best self playing on this team as well. So, but they paid a premium to do so. And that's entirely your point that based on the sort of environment. they've established they don't need to be in the business of doing that because they can just plug guys in and get more out of them so I mean how far away is you know the panthers version of robert hagg potentially going to be to what ben charott is currently like based on their track record yeah um okay uh I guess we have the leafs here still maybe we should take a break here real quick um and then we're gonna pick up with we'll do the leaves and then we'll bounce around and do a bunch of other teams I like how I guess we're like 30 minutes in here and we've done we've done hampas linholm and the panthers. Okay, let's take a break and then we'll pick it back up. Champions aren't born.

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want to get into the fun, just go to hellofresh.com slash PDOCast 16 and use the promo code PDOCast 16 for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts. That's hellofresh.com slash PtioCast 16 and make sure you let them know we send you by using the code PDOCAS 16 to redeem the offer they've currently got going on. Now let's get back to the show. All right, we're back. All right, let's do the Leafs real quick then, just to kind of put a bow on this Atlantic Division. Jack, what did you think about the moves to basically, I'm not even worried about the acquisition cost and the picks they moved because obviously they seem to prioritize keeping their first

and not trading any of their more highly regarded prospects and they accomplished that with the trade they made, but they basically had kind of one shot here to improve their team based on the caps base they'd carved out for themselves, and they used it to get Mark Giordano and Colin Blackwell from the Cracken. How do you feel about that? And do you think that it was the right usage of those resources? And do you think that it kind of accomplished enough of an improvement for them moving forward? Yeah, I think they addressed the right thing. A big issue for them this year has been the left side of that defense not looking quite as tidy as it did last year, especially Jake Mazin, I think, you know, right now he's injured, but even before that, it seemed like

he had lost the step. And, you know, that second pair being steady was a huge part of what made the Leafs an actually competent defensive team last year. And that had fallen apart. So I was on board with the idea that they weren't necessarily going to overpay for, you know, a top line left wing, which I think would have been a bit of a luxury with how they're playing right now, or whether they would go out and get like a big Josh Manson kind of guy for the right side. It really did seem to me like the left side was the weakness they needed to address. And, you know, Mark Giordano, he fits their style to a T. You know, last year they obviously had Folino.

They love bringing in these ex-captains who are veterans. But I think the way he plays actually does check a lot of boxes that they needed to fit. And, you know, the picks they gave up, I don't think they're really going to miss them that much. and they didn't even have to give up a future first to do it. And they had a player in Blackwell who I think just adds to their roster of solid bottom six players that you can't really complain about who just kind of do their job for less than a million dollars. Yeah, I think they were smart to identify trading for a defenseman as opposed to panicking

and wildly overpaying for any goalie because I'm not sure that would have given them what they were looking for at this point, especially over a 10 to 15, 20 game sample. I guess for me, the question here with whether blue line is, okay, let's kind of map out entering the postseason, everyone is healthy. And that includes Jake Muzin, who it sounds like he will probably be cleared. Rasmus Sandin's out now, but I imagine he'll be back as well. So how are we constructing their defense pairs? Because I assume they're going to want to, or envision putting Giordano back with T.J.

Brody, they stylistically compliment each other. We've seen them have success together. Then I guess that leaves you with Morgan Riley, playing with Ilyel Lubushkin, which they've been doing recently. And then that third pair, I think they're going to be, they're going to feel obligated to play muzzin with Hall because of sort of name brand value

or kind of they've done that in the past. And that's been a complete mess every time they've gone to that pairing this season. And initially it was very easy to be like, all right, Justin Hull's not that good. But then we've seen him play very well with T.J. Brody And with Rasmus Sandy and his partners. And realistically, it's probably more of a, case of Jake Muzin hasn't really looked right all year and physically might just not be the

player he used to be. And so if they're feeling like they need to play those guys, I think that really hurts them in the sense that I think they really need Rasmus Sandine and Timothy Lilligran out there to help kind of transition the puck and create off the rush because this has become a team that's kind of quietly not that dangerous off the rush anymore. Like I think we think of them as this kind of explosive, high-powered running gun team and they still create a lot in the OZo. but their ability to actually get the puck there quickly and attack off the rush hasn't been that elite this season. And in the postseason, if they really kind of grind to a halt and I've struggled to struggle to break through offensively, I do worry about not having kind of that extra outlet to create.

And so if they're not playing those young guys because they feel like they need to play muslin and hole, I think they kind of work themselves into a bit of a problem. Yeah, I think that's right. And this is a thing that, you know, you see this every once in a while where it's like, well, we have this guy who maybe he's breaking down a little bit or whatever you want to say. But we do pay him $5.5 million. And so we could never, in a million years, justify healthy scratching them or saying like we're, you know, we're not going to put you in the lineup until we know you're back to 100% healthy. and like I can also see a situation where look I you know as a guy who watched the ESPN trade deadline show today instead of TSN we got a healthy dose of you know the leaps just don't play the right way when they get into the playoffs like they got to get more buy-in from Austin Matthews he's going to play hard down low and all this shit and so like you know you're Jake Muzin, I can see them.

Oh, that's the jam and the leadership we need. And it's like, well, I mean, if he stinks, like, I don't care how leadershipy he is. You know, he can be leadershipy in the dressing room before the game and between periods and stuff. So I don't see a universe where the Leafs actually do that. But I think you are correct, Dmitri, in that they should. you know, throttle back on muzzan here. Yeah, I mean, and it's not out of the question that maybe he'll come back and he'll look a lot better after he's had a time to recover.

The thing for me, and I guess this isn't necessarily super satisfying answers that I think there's every chance that they wouldn't trust Sandine and Lilligrin in the playoffs that much anyway, and they would end up over-leaning on that top four and, you know, probably to their detriment. So it might be, you know, obviously Sandine and Lilligran have. put up excellent numbers in those relatively small minutes. But if they're not really giving them a huge role right now, I can't imagine that that's going to change in a first round series

against the Tampa Bay Lightning. So if that is the case, then I guess better to have a player of Giordano's caliber that they can fall back on, then have to rely, say, on a Jake Muslin who's not playing at 100%. Well, and I'll say, I think I wonder if part of the motivation for adding Giordano now, they're obviously focused on finally trying to get over the hump in the postseason and finally has some success this year. But I wonder if part of the motivation is getting him in to kind of help

set up his next contract this summer. Like I really wouldn't, something, I guess something to watch for this off season is I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him kind of get converted to that Jason Spets up financial plan. Like I think he'll be able to get more money if he wants to elsewhere, certainly. But I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him take a bit of a discount, stay with the leaves. And then if he does, that really opens the door for them to get creative with Muzin's contract where he carries this $5.625 million capet for two more years. But after they pay his next signing bonus, the actual dollar figure on that is very low. And I know he has a no trade clause or whatever, but there's always ways to work around that. And I wouldn't be surprised to see them, assuming he doesn't

come back and turn it around and look like the Jake Muzon, we grew to know and love in the past, if they kind of explore basically trying to replace Muzin fully with Giordano at a fraction of the cost, and then using those savings elsewhere to improve the team. So that's something to watch for me. All right, let's let's kind of keep it going here. Ryan, give me another team or player story that Carrier Eye, you wrote all the trade grades for literally every single trade for us at E.B. Rinkside.

Pretty much. I think I might have missed an AHL trade or two in there. What's on the, did you get that Anthony Potato trade? I did, yeah. I sure did. Good. All right. Just for the sake of thoroughness.

We couldn't miss that on a former northeastern husky like Anthony. Certainly. Give me a team. I love what the Anaheim ducks did. We talked about them a little bit with Hamas Lindholm, obviously. But they did a thing that I always say teams that aren't in the playoffs and have a bunch of guys who are approaching UFA should do,

which is trade all of them. Just get as many futures as you possible. can. And I'm looking at it now. In the first two rounds of the next three drafts, they have four first round picks and eight second round picks. That rules. That's so cool. And, you know, like they did Vegas a favor where they took the Donov's deal, but also gave up John Moore, who obviously they had no interest in. And I don't know if you saw the Donov thing, but the issue was that he,

his no trade list was never submitted to the league in the first place. And so he effectively did not have one. That was what the issue was. We need a 30 for 30 on this entire sequence of events with the Donoff because this past off season, they got rid of Mark Andre Fleury because they wanted to carve out cap space, right? they filled that entire cap space they created with laurent brossois who is a worse version of a goalie than mark and jane de dana's contract from yes senators they gave them a third round pick to do so 50 games later of that of guinea to donov relatively underwhelming performance they paid the ducks a future second to take that contract off their hands and i believe they don't even have enough room now to actually

activate Mark Stone. I think this is a move to potentially activate Alec Martinez here down the road before the regular season. It's a situation where they took back Kessler's contract, who actually makes more than Doddanov does. But he's on LTIR. Right, but they can use that LTIR. Exactly. Yes. So yeah. Like, you know, this is one of those things where I think they one of two things is true with Mark Stone. Either they were just

doing the thing where it's like, oh yeah, he's not healthy. And then the day one of the players. I think he's hurt. No, that's what I mean. Or they're like, oh, shit, we got to, we got to, we got to get this guy back in the lineup, even at 85% like Mark Stone helps us in a way that nobody else can. Vegas is fascinating for a bunch of reasons here. But, yeah, I just like that Anaheim just did the thing that people like us always say

they should do. They were like, yeah, we'll do that for sure. No problem. Well, Jack, they turned Manson, Linholm, Raquel, Delori, and one year of absorbing the Donno's contract to get a first this year, a second this year, a second in 2023, two seconds in 2024, and a third in 2023. And I believe at EPRink side, we had them already as the fourth highest-ranked

prospect pool or something heading to the season. Now that it did include Trevor. Ziegress and Jamie Grosdale, who are obviously playing on their main roster, so they're not technically prospects. But they have a team that we've kind of traditionally over the past couple years, at least, like what they've done with the draft, they've kind of taken high upside swings and went for skill and talented players, especially outside of the first round. And so if you're giving that scouting department additional lottery tickets basically to add to that, they don't have to make all those picks. Obviously, they can trade them down the road and get ready-made players

in the moment. But yeah, I completely agree with Ryan. Like, I, they, They did a remarkable job of decisively and ruthlessly treating this like a business as opposed to letting motions get in the way in trying to retain some of these guys just because they've been ducks for the past seven years. Yeah. And, you know, they got some players back in return. You know, I mean, Dadaunov, I think he's an on-ice shooting percentage victim this year. His underlying numbers are fine.

Aston Reese is a UFA. You know, he'd be smart for them to keep around, but who knows if they will. Vacanin and maybe a player, hell is. might be a player. And, you know, like you said, at first five second round picks, some extras as well. I mean, it does give you that tantalizing thought of what if they did this last year or what if they even did this the year before, you know, with, you know, no playoff games since, you know, how much could they have cleaned up with Hampus Linholm and Josh

Manson and Ricard Raquel? But given what Pat Verbeek inherited, I think he did about as well as possible. And, yeah, set them up. And it's not just about, you know, being able to pick these prospects and put that scouting, that amateur scouting team to work. But, you know, this is a team that wants to be competitive. I'm, I'm pretty sure as soon as possible with Zegaris and Drysdale and John Gibson as long as he's still there. And that is a lot of assets that can get you pretty far in terms of actually, you know, trading them in the summer for some proper NHL talent. So,

yeah, excellent work by Anaheim for sure. Well, they don't have a lot of financial commitments kind of weighing them down, especially beyond like two years out right now. So like they, inheriting a pretty clean slate financially. I guess not the elephant in the room, but the big question for me is whether they really get creative this summer potentially exploring a John Gibson trade. I guess that would kind of fly in the face of the idea of, all right, well, we have Zegris and Terry right now

who are still pretty cheap and we want to be pretty good. And so having kind of a prolific goalie would certainly help expedite that as opposed to if we trade them. We don't know what we're going to have at the position. but this is the third straight year where he's been kind of hovering around 900 save percentage and I've been a Gibson defender because when I watch him I think athletically he still looks like he's at his prime and I don't know he's not old by any means so like it's very easy to be like all right the environment in front of him sucks and that's why he hasn't been as good but he has

a negative goal save above expected and Anthony Stolars apparently has not had those same problems because in his 20 or so games he's been perfectly fine this year and he has five more years it's 6.4 per, which is very sort of palatable for any team that would acquire him. He turns 29 this summer. And I do still believe that his reputation around the league is enough where you wouldn't be like shedding a contract by any means. It would be like, all right, we're going to pay a premium to get one of the best five goalies in the world or how we review him into our lineup and kind of address a big need for

us. So I don't know, especially with how Lucas Dostal has looked in the HL, maybe they'd be smart to bring him up for the rest of this season and kind of see how he acquits himself against NHL talent and see if he could be their goalie moving forward. But I'd be pretty interested in the idea of at least entertaining what I could get for him just because it feels like there's, you could still get quite a bit, especially based on the fact that his performance hasn't been that good. Yeah. I've always heard with him from Ducks fans that he always starts out pretty strong and then around January, he starts to really fall apart. So, you know, maybe the right move would, in fact,

B, if, you know, they decide that they do want to at least kind of give things a go next year and see if maybe the young core is ready to do what the L.A. Kings are doing this year, you know, maybe they run into next season with him. And if things aren't going super well, but his numbers are okay, then maybe they could explore a trade in season next year. Because I think it's kind of 50-50 to me, whether or not it makes sense for him to really be a part of this core moving forward or if it is just time to reset. All right. What was the most ridiculous trade?

The Travis Hamanick one or the Jeremy Lozahn one with a common denominator that it really feels like an HLDM still do not truly understand how to evaluate a defenseman? It's got to be the Hamnick one. Yeah. I just he's not good. And yet they're apparently bringing him in with an eye toward. like, oh, he should play with Jake Sanderson? What? I've heard so many Vancouver fans saying,

oh, you know, Hughes would be so good if he wasn't playing with Travis Hamannick. So it'll be great to hear that about Jake Sanderson for the next five years. People genuinely dislike Travis Hamannick. It does seem that way. Did you see the Mark Mathot tweet about him? I did, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'll just say that's not coming from nowhere. Yeah, I guess with the lows on one, it's wild because a second round pick for a player with his profile is staggering. I guess you can make the argument that like, all right, well, David Poil is 72 years old. The national predators are a playoff team. And I guess they feel like, all right, we bring this guy in. Ben Harper doesn't have to play it for us, which, sure. None of those things are true for the senators, right? Like Hamannick passed through waivers at the start of the season is 31 years old,

actually makes more money next year than his cap hit. So it's not in a situation where the senators are being cheap. Like they're going to be- That blew my mind. That was the thing I know because I was like, well, surely he must be making like $2 million next year or something. No, he makes like an extra $250 grand or something like that over what his cap hit is. I genuinely, when I saw the news, I had to text some people just to make sure that the reporting wasn't wrong because I thought that the Canucks would have to give away a third-round pick to clear that cap space.

they were like really intent on, decreasing their financial liability moving forward. And so I was like, well, no one's going to take Hamanick. So yeah, third round pick. All right.

Like that makes sense. Get him off the books for next year. And no, it was the senators paying for the right to have Travis Hammondick next season. And how about this? I forgot about this until I just pulled it up on a cap friendly. They owe him $1.25 million as a signing bonus. So like even if they want to bail out at some point,

they've already paid him $1.25 million. Yeah. Well, it's like the three things piled up. It's the fact that he passed through waivers and they could have had him for free. It's that earlier that day, Philippe Myers passed through waivers, who is an equally crummy defenseman, but at least is young and has some potential upside. And then literally like what, 15 minutes later, Travis Dermott gets traded for like an identical third round pick, who is also younger and has some upside. So, yeah, it's just, it was head scratch. Clearly they must just really love the player.

I don't know if like the only like DVD they have of his games is from 2050 and or something. But. Oh, well, yeah, that's literally it. Jack Apriano vouch for him. Right. So yeah, that's a good times. All right. I think we're just talking about the wild a bit because they obviously acquired Mark

Andreo Fleury today and then they in a kind of corresponding move moved Capo Kacken for Jacob Middleton. Jack, you were high or I guess like. You drew the link between those two and that aforementioned podcast where we preview trades we'd like to see. So beyond just, you know, feeling like you should pat yourself in the back for being right. What do you like about this fit? And do you think it kind of makes sense from a risk-award perspective for the wild? Yeah, I think it does for sure.

It really was the only fit that made sense for me with Florey because, you know, Edmonton, Toronto, those teams, like, I just couldn't envision Florey wanting to go there. and it really seemed like Chicago was going to do right by them. And the thing about Minnesota is that, you know, if we were to go up and down and list our list of teams that we think can win a Stanley Cup this year, I don't think any of us would really have Minnesota super high up that list, which means that, but there's still a playoff team, which means that they're not going to sell or rebuild or anything like that.

So, you know, you look at their biggest weakness so far, which I think is probably goal-tending, especially down the stretch here. I really think that kind of a boom-bust type of, move like bringing in a guy like Mark Andre Fleury makes a lot of sense. You know, it's a second round pick. It's only going to be a first if they make the conference finals,

which I think would be considered a pretty successful playoff run by any standard. And, you know, everyone who's played with Flurry always talks about how much they loved him and how much he brought the room together and how much the goal he's learned from him and all that stuff. So, yeah, honestly, it's a kind of similar situation to Giroux where, you know, the asset maybe was, you know, somewhat substantial. But it really seemed like, you know, it was just kind of the one fit that made sense. And I don't think they're really realistically going to regret it.

Yeah, Ryan, I'd say, you know, if you look at their realistic playoff roadmap, in round one, they're probably going to pay, depending on where they finish, one of Colorado, St. Louis or Calgary. And those are three of the top six scoring teams. And they're going to be, I guess, we'll see what would happen in the St. Louis series, but definitely against Colorado or Calgary, if they fell into either of those matchups,

they would be considered a pretty heavy underdog. And for all of Flurry's flaws, like his ceiling performance that we've seen is still very high, especially on a single game basis. And you could stretch that out, I'd say, for a playoff series as well, if he gets hot and really just starts doing Mark Andreo Flurry things,

flying around and stopping 47 shots in a row or whatever and just mystifying opposing shooters. And I think it is within his range of outcomes to potentially out of nowhere steal a playoff series, whereas at this point I don't think that's true for either Cantalbot or Capulacconin, or as much like any goalie, I guess, could, but it seems like it is more attainable of an outcome for Flurry,

not to mention that I think stylistically, like I was thinking a lot about this. I thought he didn't make any sense for Edmonton. I thought he made sense for Minnesota because what's Mark, Mara, Flurry's strengths and weaknesses? He's insanely aggressive, and he basically just like sprints out and tries to cut off the angle and greet every single shooter as soon as they have the puck.

And what happened in Chicago this year was they stink in the defensive zone in terms of their coverage. I know their expected goals rates haven't been that bad under Derek King, but there's a lot of blown assignments and not boxing people out and stuff. And so he kind of goes for that shooter. And then that shooter instead of firing it into his pads basically does a cross-hice pass or shoots for a rebound. And the other team gets a very easy cap in because Mark Andre Fleury, similar to what we've seen from like Jonathan Quick at his prime is wildly out of position. And Minnesota is a pretty well-structured defensive team in terms of kind of limiting those sorts of things. So if there's a team that kind of provide support for him, I actually think Minnesota makes quite a bit of sense in that regard.

So yeah, I think it's a very logical fit, especially considering how bad it can't have it's been this season. Yeah, and that's the big thing, right? is because the wild, you know, I think they set a record on the various broadcast today. They're facing Cap Hell next year. I don't know if you guys have heard about this. And like their team's pretty good with the exception of their goaltending isn't very good. So this is the only chance they're really going to have to like fully stretch their legs. and ice.

Like, I think the stuff about cap hell is a little overblown, quite frankly. I think it's underblown. It's 15% of their cap next season. I under, no, I'm not,

okay, I won't get into it, but like I looked at it and I was like, it certainly is not as bad as 15% of their cap has been nuked for next year, makes it sound. Let's put it that way. Well,

it helps boldies on an ELCI. I assume Rossi's going to contribute for them. Yeah, that was part of it. and also, yeah, I mean, like, they just have a lot of guys signed for next year or under reasonable control. But anyway, point is, like, yeah, now's the time to empty the tanks. And then, you know, you kind of find out what you can find out with this team.

And like you say, Flurry's style, I think the one thing you would say about the Wild is they're, they're not a team that blows a lot of assignments, right? So, like, they're going to have it, they're going to have it relatively easier for him than, say, Chicago. So he can maybe round back into form. And like Jack said, the price really isn't, like, totally outrageous. Jack, I want to cover the Rangers and the Aves here before we get out of here. Do you feel like the Aves did enough? Yeah, I'd say so.

I mean, the abs are a great team. The abs were a great team last year. You know, they had a couple things that I think that they wanted to address. You know, like I said, I think that they were already things that they had in their lineup, but I think they just got better versions of them. You know, Arturie Lekinen, you know, earlier today I called him the Finnish Philary Nitchushkin. You know, I think that that's a great acquisition. I don't think they paid too much.

You know, Barron was, I think, by our websites ranking their ninth ranked prospect. that second round pick, I don't think they're going to miss it too much. And they have team control for Lekinen. Nico Sturham, I think, is another analytical darling player. Huge surprise. Andrew Cogliano has a strong track record. If he hasn't lost a step, I guess we'll find out, but I don't think, again, he's going to kill them. And, you know, Josh Manson, I guess, you know, obviously the stats aren't insanely high on

him, but I don't think anyone is going to deny that he's absolutely an upgrade on Jack Johnson or Curtis McDermid. and maybe even there's some kind of upside where in that Colorado system he can settle in nicely and come back like we hope with Linholm to a little bit more of his contending ducks form because he's not super super old. So I'm kind of, you know, obviously would have liked to see them get a big player like Juru, but I think that they did certainly enough to remain very, very high on that list of cup contenders and I mean maybe even at the top depending on how you feel about them relative

to Florida. Yeah, Ryan, obviously, Lekinen was a great acquisition for them, especially like he's kind of nice, Natushkin insurance moving forward because I believe Matushkin is a UFA this summer. And so if he decides to, if he prices himself out and gets a payday from someone else, they still retain Lekinen's RFA rights and it seems like a very logical kind of, all right, we're just going to plug this guy into basically that role and just have him moving forward. So I'm all for that and I love the player. the reason why I framed it through the lens of did they do enough was because, you know, obviously

Josh Manson was the first move they made and they felt like they needed to add a defenseman. And I guess they have a lot riding on the health of Bowen Byron the rest of the way, in my opinion, because even with Josh Manson, unless you feel like he's going to, you're going to be able to pair Sam Gerard with him when he comes back because he's injured right now. and I guess maybe, yeah, he could because we've seen Josh Manson have success with like Cam Fowler, for example, in the past. I'm worried about that because Sam Gerard this year has uncharacteristically very much so struggled. And I think they desperately need to throw him a bit of a life raft in terms of a defensive partner because he's basically been just kind of drowning all here with, you know, the two Johnsons or Ryan Murray.

Like he just, his defense pairing has not been good enough. And so they haven't put him in a position to succeed. And the reason why that's important is because to be on that top pairing, if you're not going to get a very good performance out of Sam Gerard and if Bowen Byram is going to be unhealthy or unable to play in the playoffs, you have a lot of guys who aren't necessarily very good at what Colorado needs to do to be successful, which is transition hyper-efficiently and get the puck up as fast as possible so that their forward is going to attack downhill.

And if you have Eric Johnson just kind of slamming the puck off the boards and Jack Johnson throwing kind of passes in the middle of the ice to no one in particular, that kind of defeats the purpose of the way this team has been constructed. I know that now you add Lekinen, it gives you kind of guys that can win puck battles and retrieve the puck more efficiently. But I still worry, as weird as it is to say, because this is a team that we praise their blue line construction so much, there are some questions there that kind of concern me in terms of like when you're nitpicking Stanley Cup contenders.

Yeah, when you look at the list of defensemen they have under contract, or like, what is this, an all-star team? Exactly, yeah. Right? But then, like you say, like, in actual practice, it's a little flimsyer. Like, I guess what you might say is that first pair is so good that it makes you worry less about the other pairs. But, of course, you know, those other pairs are still on the ice for whatever, like, more than a, yeah, like 40% of a game, like, you know, at five on five, like at the absolute minimum. So I don't know.

It's a 60% I should say. It's a tough, it's a tough situation for them. I wasn't sure that Josh Manson was the guy that I would have been personally excited to go out and acquire. But, you know, they didn't pay a ton for them, as you say. And yeah, like I think that if you're adding insurance for guys like, you know, should they have been like I didn't really think they needed Drew let me put it that way well I mean just similar with Florida they don't need them but he would certainly help of course

yeah of course but like if if you're getting into a bidding war overclough Juru you go well in Florida why don't you just take them that you know what I mean yeah um so yeah I you know I I like the Lekin and bet quite a bit for that reason but you know they're the outage Jack did you know what I mean

though in the sense that like this is like when we've seen this team kind of struggle like Vegas did a really good job of kind of turning the neutral zone into a bit of a no-fly zone for them where they really did a good job of slowing down their speed and then countering and the way they're built I just feel like for them to be at their best like when we're watching those games where they just have these blow-up performances where they're out shooting teams 50 to 18 and scoring five goals within a 12-minute stretch it usually comes in these like sequences where they're just able to just consistently, like, get the puck from point A to point B so efficiently. And, yeah, having Devon Taves and Kail McCar certainly helps.

And in the playoffs, we might even see their usage bump up closer to 30 minutes than it is right now. But at the same time, they need the rest of those minutes. Like, I know they kind of want to be more versatile and diverse in terms of the players they have and be able to play kind of traditional tougher playoff hockey with their defensemen. But I do worry a little bit. Like, I guess that, listen, like a lot of teams, if you take out. Sam, Gerard and Bowen Byron from their debt chart, you're going to have questions about their blue line. So maybe this is kind of nitpicking to the extreme.

But I guess they've been so good and kind of so deep that when you're trying to kind of try to find a fine doyment, this is what I find with them. Well, I mean, Colorado falls into the same category, I think is Toronto and Florida, where I think that they looked at the way that they played in the playoffs and decided that they wanted to make a bit of a stylistic change. Like you alluded to, Toronto is the leading a lot more heavy on dumping Jason Forecheck. Florida goes out and spends a first round pick for Ben Chirot. And I think Colorado looks at what happened with Vegas last year and found that their game was able to get shut down and that once they were getting hemmed in their own zone, you know, especially that Gerard Nemith pairing last year, it just got eaten alive.

You know, I think Gerard's skills as a defenseman are so geared towards transition play and, you know, rush defense. and kind of making sure that people don't come into the zone, that he got exposed quite a bit, I think, in last year's playoffs in terms of his in-zone defense. And obviously part of that was due to Nemith. But, you know, I do kind of think you talked about Gerard's struggles. I think that a lot of that is just pure Jack Johnsonitis.

You know, there really is a kind of thing that we've seen in the past. They happened to Chris LaTang a couple years ago where, you know, Jack Johnson, when he's playing with a skilled defenseman, will just do so specifically horribly with them. Like I think their expected goals rate is like sub 40% together. And then Jack Johnson does better away from them. So all their metrics go completely awry. You know, I think you put him with a guy and Josh Manson who,

at least theoretically, is supposed to be a strong end zone defender and net front presence and all that kind of stuff that maybe that will give Gerard a bit more leeway to do what he does best, instead of maybe having a cover for a guy like Johnson or, you know, just be a complete mess out there. So I think it makes sense. And I think it does address issues that they had last year against Vegas in terms of, you know, if we can't do the transition fun against Vegas or a team that is going to play like Vegas because obviously it is not certain for sure that Vegas is going to be in the playoffs in the first place. You know, I think this does give them options to diversify.

And even if it doesn't, at least it's better than what they would have done or what they would have had out there if they had just done nothing. All right. We got like two minutes left here. Ryan, so you were writing the trade grades. It felt like after I likened and went off the board to the avalanche, I was a bit worried that the Rangers were going to come out of this empty-handed except for Justin Brown for a third. And then pretty much simultaneously, like right before the deadline, they landed Andrew Cobb and Tyler Mott. what do we what do we think about those acquisitions because it certainly seems like at the very least they improved their depth and kind of limited the number of just like oh no these minutes are

going to go disastrously for us when they don't have their best players on the ice yeah i i wrote in the trade grades i'm not like i know a lot of people like andrew cop i'm a little less high on him than others i think um but you know what he's does well is kind of he's a guy who carries the puck into the attacking zone. He's a guy who plays a little on the rush and the Rangers don't

do a ton of that especially when that top line is off the ice. So, you know, he gives them that extra, that extra little, I don't know, like we said earlier, I guess, downhill play. Yeah, a dynamic.

Yeah, that's right. And so you know, is he the best in the world at that kind of stuff? No, but do they need someone to be the, they just need someone to do it. They don't need someone to be the best at it. So, you know, they gave up a fair amount to acquire him. I was a little surprised that he got two second round picks, a fifth,

and I wanted to say Justin Barron, but I think it was Morgan. Because Justin was a Rangers guy, right? Yeah, so, yeah, so it's, whatever, Tyler Mott's whatever. You know, I know he was a big of home. When you're comparing the minutes that he's going to be replacing, like I think he is a fair bit of an upgrade. Yeah, sure.

No. And I mean, this is why the Canucks were so desperate to keep him right up until they realized they weren't going to make the playoffs. He was so good in that bubble playoffs. He was like one of the best offensive players in the world on the penalty. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, I think, like, I don't love what the Rangers did,

but like they addressed a lot of their needs in a real way. I guess what I would say is like, you know, we've been hearing, oh, they're a little ahead of schedule and I'm kind of sitting here going, not really. Yeah. I mean, their bottom six and their bottom pair this season for the most part have basically looked like the list of players that get waived on the last day of the preseason. Right.

So the fact that they get, you know, a proper good defensive defenseman in Justin Braun and a good, I think, versatile player in cop who really can play either the high-flying rush offensive player role or the bottom six board checking player role, depending on what's asked of him. And then Tyler Mott, who, again, he's better than Kevin Rooney or Dryden Hunt or whoever HL or they were going to play on the fourth line anyway. So, you know, I think they really did what they needed to do and they didn't go absolutely crazy spending all their assets on a guy who didn't really address anything they need. needed to. Yep. I like that. All right. Jack, I'll go for his plug some stuff. Where can people check you out and what have you been doing around the trade deadline? And then Ryan, you go after that. Well, if they want to read about 250 tweets, they can go back and look at what I posted today following every single trade. Probably a lot of typos in there, I would have to imagine. That's on Twitter at

J. Fresh Hockey. They can read my writing at EPRinkside. That's right. They can. They sure can. including a full 32 team rundown, which should be up tomorrow. And then they can subscribe to my Patreon to get my visualizations of stats, patreon.com slash Jafresh hockey. Ryan, what are you? Yeah. So as we mentioned earlier, I wrote the trade grades for every trade, pretty much every trade, I guess.

Not every, every trade. But almost all of them between the, to Foley deal and, you know, the end of the deadline today. Yeah. And total amount of words I checked just now, 7,651. So that's a lot. That's a lot. That was, it was a long day for me.

But, you know, I also will soon have a NCAA hockey tournament preview, the tournament starts on Thursday. On Wednesday, I will publish one that probably runs around 4,500 words. So even more, a lot, writing. Check that out. Yeah. Basically, every team is represented in the tournament this year with at least one prospect. So your favorite team will have a guy you can root for.

So check it out. All right. It's a blast. It's good hockey. Guys, get some rest. Take care of yourselves. And we'll have you back on some around the road. All right.

Have a good one, but thanks for inviting us on. Sounds good. The hockey Pediocast, Dimitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovic and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.