The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 448: The First Wave of Free Agency

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

Dom Luszczyszyn and Jack Fraser join the show to discuss all of the big moves that happened on the first day of free agency. Topics include: A live reaction to Johnny Gaudreau signing with CBJ The Hurricanes adding Brent Burns and Max Pacioretty How the league still values big defensemen The approach by young teams like the Red Wings and Ducks The Lightning and Avalanche taking care of business All of Ottawa's Ws so far this offseason 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.

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

With your host, Dimitri... The Hockey-PedioCast. My name is Demetri Fulpovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Jack, Razor. Jack, what's going on in? A lot. I'm, like, waiting for a John Nigadro signing to drop midway through us talking about Nico Sturm. So, yeah, everything is happening. This episode is just going to be three dudes scrolling their tweet deck waiting for

waiting for news to drop. And the third dude of that is my good pal, Dom, Lusitian, Dom, what's going on, buddy? Not too much. I feel slightly refreshed after taking a nap before this podcast. And I'm ready for some takes about what we just witnessed over this day. It wasn't as wild as I think usual, but there was still some. there were some moments and choices on free agency day as there, as there always are.

Yeah, it wasn't as well. I think Cap Friendly tweeted out. There's been like 300 years worth of contract commitments given out already. Obviously, there's some certain minor league deals and stuff that are inflating that a little bit. But we're recording this. It's like,

whatever, 4 p.m. Pacific time on Wednesday. There's still some big names that we're waiting on, like Johnny Goddrow, Nazim Kadri, John Klingberg. But things are starting to slow down after the early flurry of

signing so I feel pretty safe about at least recording a show talking about what we've seen so far. So acknowledging that we still probably need more time to kind of fully absorb it and make sense of it. We're going to try to work through our initial thoughts here and just kind of sort through that first way of signings and kind of identify personal winners, losers, biggest takeaways. So with that said, Jack, I'll let you go first. Give me your first either actionable storyline or winner or loser or you can take any of those categories open us off. Well, you know, it's very hard to, you know, it's easy to miss the forest of the trees

when you're doing, like, when you have to have a take on every single thing that happens. So the biggest pattern that I picked up on was these big defensemen getting four-year contracts at around $4 million of varying quality players. Like, you could probably go down a list, like there could be a full ranking article of just the defenseman who got four times four points something contract. You know, Letty, God Branson, for God knows what reason, Josh Manson, Ben Chirot. The era of the big boy is not over in the NHL, apparently, including some just bizarre decisions, specifically coming out of Columbus.

Yeah, we often talk about how the league struggles to evaluate goalies. I find that for defensemen, especially for the bigger defensemen that provide that grit and jam and all that good stuff, the league still, at least some teams really seem to struggle. And we kind of, I think this was like a theme we brought up last year on night want of pre-agency. And similarly, you're right, Josh Manson, four by four point five, Ben Gerard four by four point seven five. Branson, when I saw that contract, I thought it was like four years, one million per.

I thought it was just four million total. And I was blown away by that one. You know, before that, we saw Jeremy Lozong get a four-year deal at a two million per from the Predators two weeks ago or whatever. Dom, it's, how do you feel about this in terms of, for as much as teams have improved in terms of their evaluation of skaters and kind of figuring it out and realizing that, you know, every time we hear one of these broadcasts, they talk about you got to be able to move the puck, you know, this and that, puck moving defenseman, blah, blah, blah, yeah, every time it comes down to either the trade deadline or night one of free agency teams kind of fall back into that trend of committing big money and big term to these guys who almost certainly aren't worth it. Yeah, it's extremely puzzling, to say the least. There's obviously an element to wanting more physicality in the playoffs. We all see it in the playoffs where bigger, stronger teams,

they do get a little extra boost or edge from the soft or whistles, and you do want an element of nastiness back there. But you also don't want to overpay for it because that's leaving you with less money to sign the actual skill that gets you there and gets you over the top. Ben Chirot, we all knew he would be overpaid immediately. And no matter how wrong you think the models are, I just don't see how you justify giving him almost $5 million. You're paying him like the number three defensemen.

And I just think there's a gap between what the numbers people see, which is one of the worst spends in the league, and what the, I guess, traditional people see, and that's a top pairing defense. I don't think number three is the midpoint. I think he's a third-paring defenseman. There's nothing wrong with finding that middle ground, but the problem now is he's not being paid that way.

And I liked a lot of what Detroit did today, but that one was a bit puzzling, and I feel for Mo Sider, who's going to have to drag a new bad defenseman around. And when I, like, I have a similar score thing, comps to like see how different players will age and it was hilarious that ben shirot's number one comp and number three comp were both jack johnson and i think it was like four or five years ago where jack johnson was signed for five years but for a lot less than this and it was still a

terrible contract from day one ben shirot is perhaps just as poor and getting even more money so and that wasn't even the worst one which is wild because i think the good branson one is even more ridiculous. That is Stanley Cup champion Jack Johnson to you, my friend. Be careful. Be careful. Yeah, it's ironic to me that, you know, Sherat and Brett Kulak were on the same Habs team, obviously, that made the cup final a couple years ago. And when I watch Brett Kulak play, like, he obviously doesn't have the same size as Ben Chirot, but functionally the way he plays in terms of the physicality and like standing up at the blue line and kind of like just not letting people push him over, it's very similar to me to what like I think that's what people think Ben Chorot is as a player

like his biggest advocates are like oh he does all this stuff and Brett Kulak meanwhile actually does that stuff like he was Edmonton's best left-hand defenseman this postseason they outscore teams 12 to seven with him on the ice controlled 54% of the high danger chances I think he was by my tracking like a top five defenseman in the entire league this postseason at defending the blue line and the Edmonton got him for four years two point six seven, five per. And out of all those players we just listed, I think he's pretty clearly the best of those,

of that bunch. And the league just doesn't value guys like him in that way. And it's frustrating, but obviously if you're, you know, Edmonton of all teams, funny enough was the one to benefit from it. Yeah.

One of the things with Brett Kulock and Ben Shrott specifically, because they played on the same team. And I've talked to people in Montreal, watch a lot of it. A lot of it is like the way people watch games. and what I heard specifically was that Ben Strott is absolutely unreal in front of the net and along the boards in the defensive zone. And Brett Kulak is not. And that's okay because he does so many other things.

Well, he doesn't put himself in those positions as much. But it's a lot easier to notice things that are happening in the offensive zone, the defensive zone, rather than the neutral zone where someone like Brett Kulak thrives. Yeah. He doesn't also take a million freaking penalties like that does, including in the playoffs. It's useful. Yeah, it's, you know, my kind of first takeaway here was just tying into this. It applies more sort of forwards, obviously, but it feels like we've kind of seen, this has been happening for a few years now, but there's a shift in the in the pay scale for forwards where it really feels like that middle class is kind of getting squeezed out where teams are almost going with a bit of a, you know, stars and scrubs approach in terms of how they're paying out these contracts where you're either paying your top guys or you're paying young players on ELCs or kind of bar. bottom six guys for one, one, 1.5 million per something. You're not devoting serious resources

in that middle range. Like, I think there was only a couple guys today that upfront were paid between that, like, $2.5 and $5 million Aavie range. And a bunch of them were like RFAs or like Andreas Athenis, you know, the Blackhawks for $3 million. And, you know, the Blackhawks at this point are operating in their own universe pretty much. So we can't even compare it to the rest of the league. But it's that was kind of an interesting takeaway for me. I guess we saw the start of it on Monday or whatever when so many of these guys that were RFAs didn't get qualified, didn't get qualifying offers from their teams. But it feels like that's becoming a big time area where teams can benefit because there's

a lot of forwards that are available that probably in a previous era would have been getting paid more. Yeah. Well, it's almost like NHL teams, like read Dom's article on how badly unrestricted for agent contracts go, but then they stopped when they got to the part about a defenseman. Because like you said, like they're really, you know, I saw somebody actually like referencing that article. I think he said, oh, this is like a 78 percenter contract. I can't remember exactly what the number was, Dom, that was the contracts that don't pan out.

It's like, oh, this is a 78 percenter for sure. And like there were a couple of those today. Like, you know, we can talk about truck check. We can talk about cop, you know, contracts that fit that like classic unrestricted free agent forward contract. like middle class thing. But like you said, there weren't that many of them. But for the defensemen specifically, there were quite a few of that, like, okay, this is like top four money and we're going to pay it to a guy who's 30 years old or so, who's maybe

arguably worth it now. But we just have so many examples to look on of why these contracts always go south and why, you know, people like us keep saying they shouldn't be signing them. Yeah. I mean, I guess it should alleviate a lot of your fears that. it's been proven that regardless of what happens, you can dump any of these deals on Arizona at some point for a couple of draft picks. So I guess Arizona was really busy, whatever, they signed.

Nick Bukes said they traded for Patrick Nemuth, but also I imagine a handful of these guys that were assigned today will wind up on the coyotes at some point over the next three to four years. So a busy day for the Arizona coyotes. Dom, hit us with one of your big takeaways or winners or losers. Yeah, so I mentioned it before when we talk about Ben Shrodd, I thought that Detroit and Ottawa did really well this off season overall. They weren't perfect, but they are clearly taking these big swings to go from rebuilding

team to playoff there. And I think both of those teams can be probably in the mix. And the East is looking extremely loaded with all these teams that are looking competitive. And I think the big problem with Detroit in the past has been depth. and they signed several players for their middle six who support that, that top line. And obviously, he'd want a few more defensemen. And I think speaking to Jack's point about how teams haven't figured it out yet with defense been for agent contracts, I think part of the thing we do underrate is the supply and demand, unfortunately,

where teams feel like they need something, and so do other teams. And that just naturally and unfortunately drives up the price and someone's left holding the bag. but yeah, I like what Detroit and Ottawa have done. I think that's the biggest takeaway for me, and especially as someone who is a fan of a team in the Atlantic, it's suddenly looking like a very scary division. Well, Jack, let's take them one at a time here with the wings. I agree with Dom.

Like, I don't mind they spent a bunch of money. They had a lot available to them, and they went after it. And they got real NHLers to help fill out their lineup and give their young players an opportunity to succeed and have like a competitive environment around them over these like developmental years. The thing that I don't love is like the David Prawn contract was awesome. I'm surprised they were able to get him for such a low commitment. You know, the only amount of one or whatever, Dominic Kubalik, two years, two point five, it's fine.

But like the cop one with the additional years and then the Ben Chirot one going four years on him as well, that's where I get into kind of riskier waters for me where I think the part of the beauty of being a bad team that's at this point of your of your curve in the league is you have, have a ton of cap space, right? And you have a ton of money available to you. So assuming your owner signs off on it, it provides you with a unique buying opportunity where you can all a sudden flex it in a league where very few teams have cap space. You can just basically pay guys more than they're possibly worth on the open market upfront and go shorter term and kind of satisfy that first or second year and then leave wiggle room down the road. What they did here, though,

is they inherited some risk in the future because all of a sudden now in years where you have to pay Mo Cider and you have to pay Lucas Raymond and Simon Edvinson and Dylan Arkin's getting an extension, you don't really want to be tying up money on players that probably aren't going to be part of that team by the time the Red Wings are really good again.

And we saw the Canucks kind of get into this problem with Hughes and Pedersen last off season where all of a sudden they had to kind of finagle carefully even though they weren't a good team on their two most important players because they'd mismanaged their caps so badly around. them. And so not that Detroit did that here by any means, but some of those contracts were a bit rich for me in terms of the term, but they clearly got better and they're going to be more fun to

watch. And so I can't fault them too much for it. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I couldn't help get a bit of a Seattle vibe from what they did today. Like it did remind me a lot of like when you're playing franchise mode in the NHL games and you realize you have $50 million in cap space. so you just have to buy a bunch of free agent fill. You know, I'm with you. I think it makes sense for them to try to, you know, if not transition to competing, you know, as quickly as I think the Sends are trying to do,

but at least to get some solid players around their young guys. I'm with you in questioning whether, you know, giving all that money to cop was the right way to go. And especially the term, you know, I think maybe there might have been some players who could have, you know, parallel pair on, you know, maybe Ryan Strom is going to be available a little bit shorter and a little bit cheaper. I guess that remains to be seen. And then with Chirot, you know, I'm with you. We described this guy as a guy who's like kind of a good third pairing guy who always gets thrust in these roles that are too demanding for him. And so his metrics go way down. And by all accounts, it really seems like he's going to be at least a medium term pairing mate for Moritz cider, which means he's going to be on that top pair for a good amount of time. which is not a role that really fits him.

So, you know, I'm not jumping off the Eiser plan by any means right now, but I think this was kind of the first time that we've seen him with Detroit try to build this team back up. And I do think the results are a little bit mixed. But obviously, we'll see, you know, what he does in the next couple of years because I think we're still a decent ways away from this team actually being a properly competitive team in the Atlantic. Certainly.

I guess the difference between them. I get the point where you're making about the crunch. and like they do have, you know, the young stars, I guess, in terms of Lark and then Raymond and Sider already in place where they're not bringing in Jaden Schwartz and hoping he's their best player. Like, you know, if Andrew Kopp is just a serviceable second center or second line winger for them, it might be a bit of an overpay here, but it'll clearly improve what they already have. But it's interesting to kind of parallel that to what the Ducks did, who are, I guess, you know, behind them in terms of their readiness to take this leap in terms of trying to be at least relevant in next season's

standings, but like they pretty much didn't do anything today. And I was expecting it to be very active. They brought in Frank Petrono for three years of 3.65, but they've got all this valuable real estate in the top six beside Troy Terry and Trevor Zegris. And Dom, I believe last I checked, they've got about 14 million left just to hit the cap floor. So I'm really curious to see whether they're just going to kind of scoop up some of these guys like Strome and whoever else on short term deals and overpay them just to get that

a cap floor or whether they're going to try to go to trade it out and absorb some of these, you know, desperate teams who are up against the cap and take their bad contracts for sweeteners. Like we saw them do that in Pat for Beaks for his trade headline, you know, especially whether he did not off, it would have been nice if they would have been able to complete that and get an extra second for him. But, you know, the process was obviously very promising that they were already thinking that way. So maybe they're going to go that route. But it's interesting to kind of compare that and that level of activity compared to what Detroit did. Yeah. To me, I think the two teams are sort of in a different.

headspace. Detroit has been rebuilding for what feels like attorney now. And I don't think you want to create a culture of losing where the team doesn't try to make any meaningful moves towards actually going for it. They had a pretty like okay start last year. They had a strong top line. Their core is starting to round down. I think even if some of the moves were missteps, I think it's admirable that they are trying. And there's always the Arizona factor where if, something doesn't work out, you can figure out your way out of it. I don't think Anheim's quite there yet because their top guys, their core are still a bit green and they have time to build things out properly and have the patience that I think Detroit can't really, Detroit and

Ottawa can't really afford as much because they've been at the bond for so much longer. As much as I want to talk about Sunny Milano, have you guys seen the fact that Johnny Goodrow just signed with the Columbus Blue Jackets? What? I just thought. Seven years, 9.8 million per Johnny Goddrow, according to Elliot Friedman, live here on the PDOC. Seven times 9.8, that's all he got. Hometown discount, kind of, not really.

Ohio boy, Johnny Goddrow. There we go. What? He grew up a big guy. He had the Andrew Castle's jersey when he was a kid. Oh, my God. That is, wow. that throws a wrench in my topics here.

You're telling me the devil's couldn't give him 10 million. They were supposed to. They offered that for sure. I think the Islander is probably offered it as well. How was he taking 9.8? Wow. That is per year. Hold on.

Yeah. All right. Elliot Friedman, yeah. He says, I think it is seven. And I haven't seen anyone tweeted yet. But wow, that is, okay, what are our initial takes on that then? That's a decision. Yeah.

What? Yeah, first off, good for Columbus. Good for Columbus. I mean, you know, you're happy for Columbus. Like, as, you know, Dom's a fan of a team in the Atlantic. I'm a fan of a team in the Metro. He was going somewhere there anyway, so I can't be too upset about this. So of the available options, I'd much rather be Columbus.

than anybody else. Wow. So I guess I wonder what they're doing with Linae. Are they going to play them together, I guess? Well, Linae's an RFA, and I don't even know. I mean, I guess they could try to salary Jake Boracek here to someone, but I believe they're going to be up against the cap. Yeah, because they were talking about Linae as being a guy that was going to get like

an eight times eight offer or something like that. Yeah. I'm not, you know, I didn't occur to me to familiarize myself with the cap structure of the Columbus blue jackets before today for whatever reason. Jesus. Yeah, they've got, I mean, Cap Friendly has about like $13 million in cap space right now without looking at any potential burials or trades or whatever. Well, I mean, when you have the chance to build around Eric and Branson, you got to pay up

no matter anything. Well, here's the thing. They clearly scouted last year as Calgary Flames, right? And so you're building from the back out. You get Eric and Branson in place. as a foundational piece. And then, of course, who's he going to be passing the Pock to? Johnny Goddrow.

So I think from that perspective, it's nice to see those two guys reunited. I wasn't under the impression that they were a package deal, but apparently they were. This is baffling. Maybe this is like one of those things where the Brooklyn Mets like paid D'Andre Jordan a bunch of money because he was friends with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Maybe part of the deal for Johnny Goddrow taking less was so that Eric and Branson would also get paid. I think you might be around it something.

Holy smokes. I think, yeah, I think listeners can tell we're, we're pretty, we're pretty blown away. Dom, I think two years ago or whatever, we were doing a podcast with Allison, Luke and when, like, Nate Schmidt got traded to the Canucks from Vegas or something. And at that time, we were like, wow, this is, this is a bombshell during our podcast. This is on an entirely different scale. I wish this was a video podcast now. Okay, well, I feel like just the, because there's a lot of silence here, but a lot of eye. movement. No, no, I think it's fair. Because he's not unbeat. Yeah, my stony expression.

I actually have my video on. It's, I just, I'm stone-faced right now. Okay, here's a good, here's a good way for us to wait into this conversation on a serious note. Johnny Goddreuse of seven years, which will take him into his mid-30s, right? How do we feel about that type of an investment for a player of his profile? Because obviously he's so unique in terms of like his size and the way he plays. So there's not necessarily.

that many comparables. Obviously, based on what we know on ageing curves, we should expect for him to decline at some point or at least have some sort of a regression for what he had last year in particular. But am I wrong on thinking that he's going to age pretty gracefully just in terms of the way he plays and kind of, you know, he's a smaller player,

but he doesn't necessarily take too much punishment, especially now that referees have started calling those slashes that are hands and defensemen aren't just teeing off on him anymore. Well, and because he has Erica Branson to protect. him in Columbus. That's true. That's a good point. So how do we feel about his sort of aging curve and what he's going to look like three, four years from now? I feel pretty good about it. I have literally no comps for Johnny Goodrow because he had such a unique season that I had to use a standard aging curve for him. But it's really just a matter of how much of last year's value he can

maintain. Item worth six wins. I don't know what Jack had him as. But I, with that and with his previous years being somewhere around like 2.5 by having a midpoint of like around 4.3 and there's a lot of leeway for him to be very valuable in this contract because 9.8 million or you're asking for like 2.6 wins and he should be able to comfortably clear that for most of the contract if he can even just come close to what he did last year. I think I have him down as like a 90 point player and drive play. And that doesn't seem like a lot to ask for. And 2.6 wins per season is even less than that.

So this is, it's, I could, I can imagine going to Columbus if it meant getting $12 million, as was previously rumored. For this deal, I am still stunned that this, this happened. Yeah, there's, there's going to be, it need to be like a full, like, episode of 32 thoughts where we get walked through absolutely. everything that happened today, that led to him taking less money than anybody thought that he would take to go to the team that everyone assumed would have to pay him a couple million extra to get him to go there. Like, there must be something going on. Yeah. I mean, like, the thing, you know, like the obvious comparable that people always make to him is Patrick Kane. And it's not, it's not a perfect one-to-one, but in terms of just being skilled, smaller playmaking wingers.

and you know, Kane is still kind of doing his thing. Obviously, there's debate about what exactly his thing is and, you know, what kind of value we bring to the table. But in terms of the offense, at least, he's still roughly doing what he's been doing for the past couple years. And he's, I think, five years older than Godreau, four years older than Goddrow. Yeah. So, you know, and I don't think he's showing any immediate signs of losing his playmaking

ability, for example. The only thing is that, you know, there's a couple of years. after that. And who knows, I mean, you know, when it was New Jersey or the Islanders, at least it was pretty easy to say, okay, well, here's Jack Hughes, he's going to play an X-2. You know, we understand what their window is going to look like with that. With the Islanders, it was here's Barzell. We know, you know, we know what's going on there. With the Jack, it's just all such a question mark because the franchise players that they, I guess, had, you know, from this kind of new half rebuild they were doing, we haven't really seen anything from them yet.

we know who Zach Werensky is. We know who Elvis Merzleekins is, I guess. But, you know, the team that they were starting to slowly build up was very much a work in progress and very much, you know, didn't have proof of concept. And now you throw in potentially the best left wing in the NHL under that team entering his 30s. I mean, God knows what this team's trajectory is or what their window is,

whether it's open now, whether it's going to be open in the next three years or so. It's all just such a wild card. Yeah, I just checked. And I still have them as a bottom 10 team with Godreau, who I love and adore and have rated extremely highly. I think the rest of the team is quite bad. I think it'll be interesting what prospects roll in and fill gaps and what else they do, not that they have Godreau,

but this was, I don't understand at all why he would go to Columbus over the other two teams. Yeah, not that this would factor into his decision, of course, because he's clearly wants to compete now. Like I think most draft analysts would tell you that the past two years, they've done remarkably well, right? Like they use that Seth Jones trade to kind of stockpile very intriguing prospects, especially in the blue line. Now those guys are years away, which is why I say, I think,

from Goodrow's perspective, that doesn't necessarily help him here. You know, what I'm interested about with Goodrow is, like, listen, he led the league in 515 scoring last year. He had 115 points. You know, he was a remarkable as a playmaker. I thought actually, I know Jack, your model gave most of the defensive credit to Matthew Kachuk, actually. And then we know that Alias Lennholm finished as a Selky finalist.

I actually thought that Goodrow, you know, I know that the most, his last play in a Flames uniform was a kind of a lazy flyby along the boards where he left the Andre Settle Y Open. But I thought throughout the year, he really seemed to kind of buy into that Daryl Sutter system and was playing much better in terms of an effort level with like backchecking and stuff. And so he was actually a pretty complete player, on just the playmaking with the puck.

So I wanted to bring that up, but obviously from Columbus's perspective, like what you're interested in here is you just got a superstar offensive player and that's obviously going to give your fans something to cheer for and kind of build around. I'm really curious to see what he looks like because clearly, as you said,

it's going to be an entirely different environment where regardless of who he plays with, going from Matthew Kachuk and Elias Lane home to whichever two forwards he plays with here is going to be a massive change. in terms of quality of teammates. Yeah, undoubtedly. I mean, with the defensive impacts,

like, I don't think that you can really discount the influence of the Sutter system. I mean, we saw so many players on the flames take a big leap forward, and I think that that played a huge part in it. You also have the contract year bump that I don't think we can totally dismiss out of hand for both him and for Matthew Kuchuk. Yeah, I mean, just off the top of my head. I don't even know who I'm envisioning him playing with. If it's going to be like Boone Jenner,

is that going to be his, his, Elias Linholm replacement? Because, you know, I don't think he's a, he's a bad player, but he's certainly not,

he's certainly not Lindholm. Yeah, it's going to take me a while to wrap my head around this. I know we only have six minutes left of, of Dom, so I'll let him work this out. And then we can pick up the pieces. I have nothing to work out.

I, there's nothing. Make this make sense because I can't, I can't make it make sense. I mean, we always talk about how the NHL is boring and how we wish fun things would happen. I would classify this. I'm sure Flames fans don't feel this way. I guess, okay, let's quickly end this conversation on Goodrow and then we're going to take a break from the Flames perspective. Because I was talking to a high-ranking executive for a West team, and they were pretty good.

It wasn't anyone on the Flames, but they were confident in the Flames ability, even with a loss, Goodro, and they didn't necessarily replace them with Cadre or whichever. big name free agent forward with that available cap space, the flames would be just fine next season, that the structure and the kind of system that they have with the Daryl Sutter team and the depth they have, assuming that Matthew Kuchukuk is still on the team and they're able to retain him as an RFA,

that they're going to be good enough to not necessarily be as dominant as they were last regular season, but it's not like they're completely crater here and have to sell everything off and rebuild. How do we feel about that perspective? Like, I assume they're going to add here because the planes didn't do anything of note today. like they brought back Trevor Lewis and that's pretty much it.

So they're going to have resources available to them to improve this team. I'm just curious about what that's going to look like and what the appetite is going to be, like whether they're going to be motivated now to use that cap space to try to actually improve or whether they're going to take a more kind of patient methodical approach and kind of how they're going to handle that. Yeah, they're in on Cadreary, I think. That was one of the rumors. So I think he's not, Cadreys know Johnny Goodrell, but he's still pretty valid. and probably the best forward out there right now.

And you hope that last year wasn't a complete mirage. And you can at least be like a 70 point center for a little bit. But I think the foundation of this Flames team is still quite strong. And as long as they have Matthew Kachuk and Elias Linholm was still a strong top line. Just won't be the same as it as it was with with Kedro. I still think they're a strong team in the West despite how last year ended. And despite losing two key guys, Johnny Goddrow and Eric Branson.

But yeah, it's going to be a tougher hill to climb for sure. Yeah, I'm not going to let that Brad Richardson disrespect fly. They lost a lot more than just those two guys. No, I mean, you know,

like I ran the roster builder yesterday, like the projection thing. The classic like pre-free agency when there are just none of the UFAs are in the league at all. And they still came out as a solid playoffs team even without Kudrow. I mean, you know, Kachuk, Manjipani,

Tafoli, Coleman, like you could do a lot worse in terms of your top six wingers than that group. I guess the question just becomes what is going to happen with Kachuk. You know, is he going to want out? Is he going to just try to file off? I'm not sure exactly what the rules are

in terms of what he's able to do if he's able to just file for arbitration and then try to walk after that. But in any event, I think that pretty much just ties the direction of the franchise because even if you can just kind of Darrell study your way into a playoff spot after losing Johnny Godrow.

I don't know if you can do the same thing after losing him and having to trade Kachuk. So it's really unfortunate for them, first of all, that the Vegas Golden Knights are in the Pacific Division. Otherwise, they could have done a lot worse than just adding Max Patch ready to this team for free. But, you know, if they are able to just kind of move forward with this thing, I could see them still remaining competitive. But it's all going to come down to what Kachuk wants and what they're going to. they feel like they're going to be able to do with Kachuk long term. Because if they can just give him $9 million, then that will be one thing.

But if he's dead set on going to Columbus or what have you, then that's going to completely change what they can do. All right. Well, let's take that break. Jack, you and I are going to try to cobble our brains back together here during that break. Dom, we're going to let you go. I'm going to get some drinks. I need them after how this day ended.

Plug some stuff here quick. where can people check you out and what have you been up to? The entire day I spent writing signings grades with Sean Gentile and Sheena Goldman on the athletics. So you can go there and see all our thoughts and analysis on every single deal that happened. I'm about to quickly write up something on Godreau and I'll try not to say what the hell 17 times and leave out that because I'm losing my mind here of how a person can come to decision that they would take less money to live in Columbus and play for Columbus. Over a devil's team on the rise, over the Islanders who were previously a conference finalist in back-to-back years, I feel like I'm melting down.

Yeah, it's certainly... It's melting my brain. Yeah. I don't know what else I wrote. I'm going to write some off-season stuff as usual in terms of best and worst contracts. And this contract might be up there with one of the best. Just based on the fact that my model likes Johnny Goodrow a lot, but playing for Columbus, that is,

it's going to be interesting to see how much of his value he retains in terms of modeling and whatnot. But yeah, that's, that's it for me. Okay. All right, John. Thank you for your service. Hope you feel better. Hope you enjoy a couple of drinks and get back on track.

Jack, we're going to be back after this break. Every deep playoff run starts with building an amazing team. Doing the same for your business doesn't take a room full of scouts. You just need Indeed. Don't spend hours on multiple job sites looking for candidates with the right skills when you can do it all with Indeed. Hate waiting? Indeed's US data shows over 80% of Indeed employees find quality candidates

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Sign up for a free trial at Shopify.com slash bluewire, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash bluewire to start selling online today. Shopify.com slash bluewire. All right, we're back. Was there anything else on Goodrow, Jack, that you feel like we should get to while we're here? I mean, obviously, as we said, it's going to take us a while to kind of get our head around this. And there's multiple different pieces. And I'm sure there's other stuff to come from Columbus's perspective.

Do you have any other kind of thoughts, quick-hitting thoughts on either from the flames or Goodro or Columbus's perspective regarding this deal? I think that we're just not going to be able to really fully think. this one out until we have more information on what exactly went on because we were told all day that oh he's going to go for 10 and a half for you know even over that and oh Columbus is offering 12 million and then suddenly we get this curveball that he's under 10 mil in the destination we didn't think so I'm sure we're going to learn all about what's going on here but until then I feel like we're just flying blind I mean how just you know speculating here I wonder if Philadelphia is just bizarre inability to clear the cap space requisite to make a deal like this work.

Might have thrown a wrench into things. I wonder if he went into this thinking that he was going to go there. And then when that wasn't an option, kind of all hell broke loose. I don't know. It seems that seems too far-fetched almost in a way to be just making a decision on the fly like that. But it seems by all accounts that he. He at least was interested in going back to Philly to play there. And we all would have presumed that for a team that was as bad as they were,

they would have been able to fit in a player of his caliber. But that kind of fell apart today when teams are just asking for so much for taking on James and Reims likes last year of a $7 million cap hit. And they just couldn't do it. And so I wonder if that kind of fell through and that just threw everything for a loop. Yeah. That's like one of those things. I mean, Philadelphia's whole direction or lack thereof is, I mean, that's a whole episode in and of itself.

I'm sure that you'll be talking about that when Chuck Fletcher and I believe gets fired in a couple months. But I guess to move to another Metro team, which we didn't get the chance to talk about with Tom, I mean, the Carolina Hurricanes are like the other headliner, eh? Like, they made one extremely risky trade and then maybe literally the least risky trade of the past, like 15 years or so, like with Brent Burns and Max Patch Ready respectively. I certainly was not expecting Burns. I even had a little blurb written up for him going to Dallas under the assumption that that was what was happening. The Patcherity thing is, you know, talk about teams making inexplicable cap decisions. We hear that they're resigning Riley Smith long term in the morning, or at least for a couple of years in the morning.

And then they're trading one of the best scores in the league for negative value a couple hours later. Okay, let's start with the Burns one and then get their patch ready. So the hurricanes over the past week at three of their top six defensemen leave. Now they're probably their fourth, fifth, and six most important guys in last year's rotation. but Tony DeAngelo, Ian Cole and Brendan Smith all left and Ethan Bear, who was out of the shuffle by the time the playoffs came around anyway, seems to be leaving Carolina as well at some point here. So there was clearly a need for them to do something in terms of adding the defensive blue line talent. There was a lot of noise around them being the most likely destination for John Klingberg. And from a fit perspective, it certainly made sense.

Where that kind of fell short for me was we presume we'll see what is inevitable contract looks like. But that would have required them to pay top price on the open market. market and that's something they simply don't willingly do or at least have not made a habit of doing. So I just never really saw that as like a logical fit in terms of actually executing the transaction like that. So all things considered, I don't mind the investment on Burns here. Like there's obviously risk. He's 37 years old. He's played. I checked over 30,000 combined minutes in the NHL when you add up the regular season and postseason. But I'm kind of optimistic that this could work out just because of how low the acquisition cost for them was.

Like they basically gave up a future third. And after their retention, he's not only soaking up 5.28 million in cap space for the next three years, but I think they're only on the hook for 13 million total in real dollars because his signing bonus has already been paid out by San Jose. So it seems to kind of check a lot of boxes from like at least a financial perspective where I don't think it's nearly as massive of an undertaking as we probably would have thought initially. Yeah. And I mean from a fit perspective, you really couldn't ask. for a veteran defenseman that fits the way that Carolina likes to play

more than Burns. I mean, he was always the comparable used for Dougie Hamilton a couple years ago. And, you know, even if you know, I was going through his stats the other day, he doesn't shoot the puck as much as he used to. And I, you know, maybe part of that is just

pure environment in San Jose, where his team just doesn't have the puck as much as they used to. But I can't imagine that when he sees how the hurricane's play that he is not going to immediately snap back to his full, you know, Joe Pavelsky style, you know, like back in the day when Pavelsky would recover rebounds, send them back up to the point, Burns will throw them on net, you know, repeat, repeat, repeat.

That is exactly the kind of thing that he's going to be doing. And, you know, I think he adds other elements of his game that the hurricanes can benefit from. I think he's a, he's other than maybe Slavin, and I think he's a better breakout past than anybody on their blue line. I think he can help the rush game in that respect. And yeah, I mean, like you said, like he literally led the NHL in time on ice this past season as a 36-year-old.

And I'm not using that in the way that, you know, people who say hype up Ben Chirot to say, oh, because he played all these minutes, he's good. But at the very least, it does show that he's not so horribly hobbled that we can expect him to immediately fall off a cliff despite his age, which we obviously. They can't roll that out either, which is where I think the place comes in.

Well, I was actually going to use that as a positive, but from a different perspective. Like he played, as you mentioned, 2608 overall and 1907 at 515 per game. Like that was kind of out of necessity, though, right? Like, I think the hurricanes are a better position here. Just like how they've historically divvied out their minutes, they kind of just roll at least those top two pairings. And they use Pesci and Brady Shea as kind of like their matchup pair at time. And so if he's paired up with Jacob Slavin here, like Slavin led the hurricanes 1732 at 5-on-5 and 23-31 overall.

And he was their only blue liner to play over 22 minutes a game. So, you know, we're going to see Burns, I imagine, eat up a lot of power play minutes the way Tony DiAngelo was last year for them. But in a way, like, he might even be served better in this situation because if he's all of a sudden not going to play 21 and a half or 22 minutes a game, you'd presume that at this point of his career, he would be able to max out those minutes from an efficiency perspective more than when

he goes into a game knowing that, okay, I might have to play 31 minutes tonight and kind of like the Ryan Suter thing for all those years where he's inevitably it's human nature to kind of coast on certain shifts just because you know that you're going to have to expend a certain amount of energy on that night. And in this case,

he's not going to really have to do that for the hurricanes, I imagine. I don't think we're going to see him playing 25 minutes a game for this team. Yeah, I agree. And I, you know, this isn't the situation like with, you know, say Duncan Keith last summer, where Burns has been god-awful, like no redeeming qualities for a couple of years before this trade happening. And now he's, you know, 37 and we're expecting him to fall off even more. You know, he's, he obviously hasn't been his, his old, you know,

Norris nominated itself. But he's at least kind of kept it looking okay with some, you know, some decent kind of positives in his game still over the past couple of years. So while the risk does exist that he's going to just completely fall off like many defensemen in their late 30s tend to do. At the very least, I think that we have a track record that is encouraging that, you know, the hurricanes kind of gracefully lowering his minutes in his role are going to be able to get at least kind of a calm standard of performance from him, at least in the short term. Yeah, I can see why he waived. There's no move to, uh, to go to Carolina.

He is going to have a green light to shoot anytime. you want. Yeah, you mentioned that shot volume. It has come down. You're right. But man, there were years where he was like almost at 800 shot attempts for the year. It's just obscene. Well, I mean, him and him and Dougie were one and two pretty much, yeah, like the three years before Dougie left Carolina, I'm pretty sure. So like, yeah, I do feel bad for his movers who have to move like, you know, metric tons of exotic animals across the country. But other than that, I think it's a great move for him.

Yeah. Okay, on the patcher ready one, so it pretty much wound up being nothing more than a a pure cap dump here, right, where the Carolina just absorbed him until in Coglin's deals. And when I was prepping for the show, because I was making my notes before the trade happened, and then it kind of trickled out right before we started recording, at the time, I was looking at it and I was like, okay, if you account for the 5.2 million or whatever, the reported Riley Smith extension will be that they're waiting to file, they'd be up

to like 77 million in cap commitments on eight forwards five defensemen and robin lennar and so that would have left them with pretty much no wiggle room whatsoever to retain nick law and nick hague both rfas who play big roles for them and are highly intriguing young players i still think they're pretty prone here even after shedding that near eight million or whatever in commitments to an offer sheet if any team can you know build up the courage to do so because you know, if you sign either of these guys to that threshold under 4.2 million, all you have to give up in compensation is the second round pick. And it would be a pretty intriguing proposition for a lot of teams.

And I still imagine it would be a very difficult situation for Vegas to really match without completely gutting their team in other capacities. So like they're not even out of the woods here yet. And they just lost Max Petruetti, who was one of the few players they have that could consistently score goals. So for a team that is all in on trying to make sure they only miss the playoffs once and doesn't become a recurring theme and they try to get back on track next season and with presumed health, taking Patch Ready off this roster is a pretty massive blow for their chances. Yeah, I mean, absolutely like the Riley Smith extension was very surprising. And I like Riley Smith. Like I think he's a perfectly good second line right wing.

You know, he does a lot of, he's one of those guys who does kind of like everything at and above. average level and he's been very useful to them but you know like you said like when you even with patch already out of the equations still have cap troubles the the luxury of signing a guy like riley smith to a five million dollar deal just doesn't seem like something that they got said afford themselves to and it's kind of interesting that like you know of all the players to be loyal to you know that was the uFA that they chose like they they move everybody for nothing they get future considerations for, you know, it was Flurry last year and now it's Patcher Ready this year essentially. Yeah, I mean, Patcher Ready, you know, Vegas has lost there is obviously

Carolina's massive gain. You know, you talk about addressing the shortcomings of a team. We were talking, you know, all this time about, oh, you know, where's Carolina going to find goals scoring? Where are they going to find this kind of high-end talent, you know, speculating on all these dramatic trades that they might make and, you know, all these young players or prospects that they were going to have to give up? And then ultimately, it turned out, that all they needed was pretty much $7 million in gas-based. And they get a guy who, even despite being, you know, I think he's 32, 33 at this point, his track record is still, you know, exceptionally.

He's still, I think he was like 99th percentile in five-on-five goals the past three years. You know, he's a strong chance creator and he finishes those chances, which is a combination that Carolina does not exactly have an excess of. he can do things off the cycle in the forecheck, which is obviously Carolina's MO, but he also, like Burns, I think brings a bit more of a rush element that they've been lacking.

I mean, it's a home run, and they didn't have to even really swing at it. It was basically like a walk that they got. And, yeah, I mean, just strange for Vegas, but Carolina, like, in the course of one day, I think, has answered a lot of concerns that people had about them coming into the season. Yeah, the only real limiting factor I see for Patruetti is his health, right?

Like he played all 71 games in that shortened 1920 season, but in the four years sandwiching it, he's missed 17, 15, 8, 43 games as most recent season. But, yeah, one year left on his deal, it's such a worthwhile risk. And when he was on the ice last season, I think it kind of gets lost in the shuffle a little bit because he did miss so much time. So his, like, counting stats at the end of the day aren't as high when you're, you know, searching by league leaders or whatever. But on a permanent basis, he was 16th in goals, 36 and points, and sixth in shots generated.

And for a team that just lost Benit Trocheck and will presumably also have, you know, need a rider walk, getting a scorer like this is nice. You know, his shot is a weapon. And that was my question for this Carolina team, because once again, we saw that their offensive approach has its limitations when they bump into a team that is either defensively stingy or has an elite goaltender where. this kind of volume approach and shooting from distance and from weird angles can, you know, lead to great success throughout the regular season, but becomes slightly trickier to navigate in a playoff setting. And not that Patcher Ready is all of a sudden going to single-handedly make that difference or even Patcheretti and Burns, but at least it gives them different avenues for creating offense and kind of throws in a different dynamic for a team that already

has good players and has had a lot of success. So I'm really curious as how they fit in, but it's clear that, you know, this was by design and it certainly, at least if these guys can hold up physically, should help vault them to an entirely different level offensively. Yeah, absolutely. You know, anytime that you can address those issues while paying like a third round pick, you know, a prospect I hadn't heard of, and nothing for two players that address the biggest holes in your lineup, you're feeling pretty good. This is why we always say cap spaces.

is so valuable. Like they, uh, in a time where so few teams have it, Carolina, because they're so diligent about the way they spend, sometimes to a fault, they were able to,

to squeeze two really good players with like, no acquisition costs. So, um, I've got a couple other talking points here. I've got top teams taking care of their business. So the lightning and abs both, um,

you know, they're both going to lose some contributors, but for the most part, um, have been able to, lock up key players for a long period of time here. Obviously, to different degrees, like Tampa Bay made eight-year commitments, the Sirelli Chernag and Surgachev that'll kick in after next season.

And it's like a bit of a relief that we're not going to have to go through this song and dance next summer in terms of like, oh, are they going to get offered sheeted and what's going to happen here? Now they do have 79 million in cap commitments on 14 players for the 20, 23, 24 season. So either they're betting that the cap is going to skyrocket significantly or most likely. they're going to have to make some tough decisions and cuts at that point. But other than losing Andre Palat, like they bring in to Vladim Snikov.

They retain Nick Paul. They've got Brandon Hagel for another year as a cheap contributor. And so they're pretty much going to roll back a very similar version to the team that just made the cup finals again. And so, you know, there's going to be eventually they're going to have to pay a price, but they've done a pretty remarkable job of finding creative ways to retain a lot of talent when I think other teams in a similar spot wouldn't have been as effective doing so.

Yeah, you know, having their core locked up for that long is pretty huge and they've shown themselves to be pretty deft at finding the missing pieces for relatively cheap or at least cheap in terms of cap cost. Obviously, it often costs them quite a bit in assets to fill those holes with the players they identify. You know, there are some issues I think that could be taken with some of the cap numbers or term that they gave some of those players today. I mean, the Sergachev contract, I think, could be one that that doesn't age particularly well. I mean, you know, they're paying him 8.5 times 8

8 for contracts starting next year. You know, I don't know what your take on Sergachev is. I think that he's a good player. I think that he's, you know, maybe a top pair defenseman, you could say, even though he hasn't necessarily had to really play that role. But I certainly don't think. think he's a slam dunk to become a elite number one defenseman or even, you know, maybe like a high, high end number two guy. And, you know, they're certainly going to be paying him like one starting next year. And that might cause some, some issues on the blue line moving forward. I mean, I prefer Eric Chernak as a player to Sirka Chav. You know, maybe over the eight-year term, he won't age as well just because of his body type and kind of how physically he plays.

already this post season. I know it came mostly on block shots and that's kind of a bit more of a random thing. But like just, you know, he was his body was basically being held together by duct tape by the end of that that run. So from that perspective, like over the eight year bet, Sircachev might wind up being better. But in terms of right now, I think I would prefer Chernak as a contributor to my team. So I was a bit surprised to see that their cap figures were so spread apart. Like I if you had told me, that they were both going to sign eight year deals, I would have thought that those numbers would have been much closer heading into the day. Yeah. And I mean, with these, with these extensions, you know, I mean, it was the same thing with the Nick Suzuki one last year. And I guess with the Robert Thomas one this season is that you're essentially betting on the idea that this player by the time you actually, you know, by the time next year rolls around if you want to try to assign them for the eight years, that they're going to be worth that much more. And, you know, I don't necessarily see Sergeyev as a guy who next season certainly is going to be a number one defenseman. I could see Chernaq being a player who, you know, once kind of interest came around on him, that, you know, he might be an offer sheet target that some people might have, or he might be a player that demands even more. Same thing with Sorrelli, obviously. But, yeah, you know, when it comes down to it,

I'm sure the Lightning are happy to pay maybe a little bit extra just for the certainty of having all of their guys, essentially, that they care about, locked up long term and just to give this as many kicks of the can as possible. And I mean, once you've won two Stanley caps, you kind of give yourself a bit of flexibility to take those kinds of risks.

And this is what they've made a habit of in terms of their team building approach. You know, you can cite the tax perks or whatever you want as a reason that helps for this. But they get these young players to help them out by taking a team-friendly deal on that second contract and then they reward them pretty well

on the big long-term third one. And so they've done it time and time again, and this is another example of that. So given the success they've had, it's hard to fault them for it. I did want to quickly, you know, we mentioned the senators in passing

in terms of like Atlantic teams that got better. Just if we're doing a early off-season roundup in terms of winners and losers, like we have to talk about them a bit more because they've sort of been the star of the off-season so far, right? Like they've been accruing a show shocking a number of wins along the way from basically stealing Alex the brink at and making a very

calculated bet at the draft, you know, getting Claudeau to finally come home and sign for three years with them. You know, they got out of a mistake by getting the leaves to take Matt Murray while retaining just 25% and giving up only a third and seventh, which I thought they'd have to pay significantly more to do so. Like they're finally, after all these years of us bemoaning how they don't spend money, how they don't take on salary, how they're basically focusing on the bottom line above actually improving their team. This offseason, they've clearly entered it with a mandate of we're going to try to get better and be serious about actually supplementing some of these young players who drafted

recently. And they've done a pretty good job of it. I still have my concerns about their defense. And I think there has to be another big trade along the way in terms of consolidating futures to get, whether it's McKenzie Wiegar or John Marino or Jacob Chikrin, like, they need a right shot defenseman that's actually good. and preferably get Nikita Zaitsef out as well so that DJ Smith can't play him

and that would help a lot and I'd be really high on them then at least relatively speaking but so far so good and it's really kind of tough to quibble with a lot of what they've done. Yeah, I think he hit it on the head. I mean, it's evident that they are done

with the rebuild and I think that nominally they've been, you know, in terms of having like top three picks and totally tanking out that they, like they feel like they have their core set. And we can maybe take some issue with whether that's going to be a championship core. It all depends on what you think of Stuttall's future and Norris and Kachuk and Jake Sanderson, et cetera, et cetera. But it's been evident for, you know, I think two or three years now that that is the core

that they settle on and that they're just going to roll with it and they're not going to be bottoming out again. And with that in mind, you know, once you have the core, I think it is time to try to make those moves to the future. And, you know, we did kind of compare them to Detroit a little bit. And I think I prefer what Ottawa is done here. You know, they're not stacking the middle of their lineup with these, you know, big contracts or big long contracts. And, you know, that's more about Cop and Scherrat than it is maybe the two-year deals that they, that Detroit sent out. But I mean, De Brinket is pretty similar age to the core. You know, I think he's one year younger than than Shabbat

or when you're older than Shabbat. He's 24, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, so he was the draft after Shabbat. Yeah, you know, you have Clos Jou, who I think, you know, I think like Joe Povellsky is pretty much the model for what they're bringing in Jiru to do. Similar kind of contract.

He's on the three years. I think he plays kind of a similar type of game to Povilski at this point, maybe with more playmaking than shooting. but still the same kind of like facilitator like two-way play like very few mistakes kind of game. You know, I really like the fit there and they had the cast base to make it happen. Like you said, it all comes down to what happens with the blue line. This team is going nowhere with the blue line the way it is.

Like they have been a very poor defensive team, you know, for the past couple of years, even as their offense has improved in fits and starts and they've had some decent goaltending from time to time. Like the defense is a huge issue. And, you know, even Shabbat's pairings, I mean, because Shabbat is not a good defensive player. He's an exceptional offensive player. He's not a good defensive player. You need to put him with somebody who can address those issues.

I think they had it for like a second with Dylan DeMello before they traded him away. If you can get a right shot guy, like, you know, Uighur is obviously the best option. Like if they get McKenzie Weger, then I'm ready to sing Pure Dorian's praises from the rooftop. Marino, I mean, I'll be sad if they get Marino. But I would also admire that move quite a bit. Yeah, that's the move that's missing here. And if they can make, again, that kind of sustainable move that somewhat fits with the age of the core, where you kind of see that they're opening up a window rather than just totally patching a hole,

then that would just kind of be the cherry on top of what I think has been an encouraging offseason for a team that has struggled hugely with pro scouting in the past couple of years, where every time they brought in a player, it seemed like it was a overpriced player, a veteran who wasn't actually contributing, who was bringing things in the locker room and not on the ice. You know, the fact that they've identified De Brink and Drew, obviously, you know, not exactly diamonds in the rough, but at least that those are the guys they identified is, I think, a good sign. And the fact that Uighur is in their conversation, too, I think just speaks to an actually encouraging direction that the organization is taking. Well, and even when they historically, when they do get good players, which they've had quite a few of over the years, they tend to leave because they cheaped out and didn't want to pay them, right?

And so the fact that they're actually spending money now is a highly encouraging sign, at least from like a, you know, future optimism and sort of a PR perspective that they're going out and actually adding talent and being serious about this. So, yeah, I think there's no way to, you know, you can quibble about how much better they actually got, but it's clear that they're making the right moves. And I was actually a bit surprised. I would have thought, you know, we think of them like their blue lines bad and thought of them as a really bad coverage team in terms of defensively.

and, you know, they gave up, they were 23rd in goals against, so they weren't good by any means. But they wound up being 26th and goals four and 29th had five-on-five goal generation, which kind of surprised me a little bit because I know those things are kind of tied together. And when you're a bad team, you're going to struggle with both. But for some reason, I kind of envisioned them being a better offensive team last year. It felt like they were kind of, you know, frisky playing these high-scoring games every once in a while. But in totality, they clearly had work to do offensively as well. So while I wouldn't have gone into this.

offseason being like, all right, they should just invest all their resources and forwards and totally skip the defense position. It does make sense that they've added offensive talent to supplement Norris and Kachuk and Stutzla and Batherson because they clearly needed it. And so at least there's something to kind of build out from here, assuming that there are a future additions to the blue line coming. Yep. Yep. And again, can't say enough good things is about to brink it. Yeah. All right. Jack, we got to get out of here. I'm exhausted. I need to take a break, I think I need to have a cold beer and gather my thoughts before I write about today at EP ringside and people can check that out as well tonight. But this is a blast. I appreciate

you coming on here to take the time to chat during a crazy day as we wind down. I'll let you plug some stuff. Where can people check you out? What have you been working on? Give the listeners all that good stuff. Well, if you would like to hear a take on pretty much everything that happened today from John In Goddrault to I'm trying to think of the most obscure possible player who got signed. Andre Kosh is the one on the top of my head, but I'm sure that Austin Zarnik. Are you going to write about Austin Zarnik? You know what? I think I might have to write about Austin Zarnik. I don't know if he has a player card. I'll have to find that out. Anyway, I'm going to be writing a bit of a recap,

kind of winners and losers type of thing for EP Ringsside. God willing, I'll do it tomorrow morning and not tonight because I think my brain is about to implode. But, I mean, you could also go through my Twitter feed, Atche Fresh Hockey, and you will find like 100 posts from today from this very exhausting day, breaking down all these signings.

Yeah, and then if you like the player cards that you see on there, you can subscribe to my Patreon and access every single one of them. All right, man. Well, I love it. Get some rest here. Gather your thoughts. I'm looking forward to reading you on E.P.

Rings side. And we're certainly going to have you back on the P.D.O. cast, sometimes down the road. So until then, take care of yourself. Sounds good. All right. Well, that is going to be it for today's episode of the Hockey PEOCast. It was certainly an eventful one.

So hopefully you enjoy our candid, live in the moment reactions to finding out about the Johnny Goddron. news going into the blue jackets and our analysis of all the other big uh signings and stories to come from a day one of free agency so we're going to be back soon with more on this feed this isn't it uh this won't be our last show of the season we will be back soon with another episode i think to end the week and then we'll be um back maybe next week with a couple more before we finally wind down and and go away for the summer so really appreciate you sticking with us uh listening to all the show supporting us. As always, if you did enjoy the show and you want to kind of give back

some of the love and show support, you can certainly do so by hitting us with a five-star rating and review wherever you listen to the PDOCAS. So, appreciate you for doing so. Thank you in advance. Thank you to those of you that have done so already. And we're going to be back soon with more. So enjoy these fun times in the NHL with all the player movement. And we'll be back soon. with Dimitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovic and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedeocast.