The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 95: This Summer's Free Agent Landscape

Episode Date: June 21, 2016

Jonathan Willis joins the show to help sort through which free agents you'd like to stay away from, which ones you'd like to target, and which ones could provide the best bang for your buck. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 0:50 The Pros vs. Cons of paying Steven Stamkos 4:40 Does Stamkos make sense for the Leafs? 6:41 Aging forwards with red flags 13:45 The glut of intriguing middle-6 wingers 22:40 The questionable crop of available defensemen 29:25 Searching high and low for right-handed shots 35:40 Finding your starting goalie outside of free agency 38:46 Shopping in the bargain bin section Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and can also be streamed right here on the website. Make sure subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new ones as they’re released, and also take a minute to leave a glowing review. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. 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.

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My name is Demetri Filipovich. And joining me is a familiar face. I guess a familiar voice for the podcast listeners. It's Jonathan, what's going on, man? Hey, Deming, you're always good to be here. So we're doing, today I enlisted your help in recording a free agency preview. We thought we'd bounce around to different positions and kind of toss some names out there that are interesting for our purposes, whether it's guys we kind of like or guys that we'd caution teams to stay away from.

Yeah, sounds like the plan. Let's start with the forwards because, okay, let's do, let's have the Stephen Stamco's discussion because he's obviously sort of the big fish in the pool this year. And I don't know, it seems like a no-brainer where you say obviously, you know, if you're a fan of a team where you're running a team, just adding Stephen Stamco's to the mix will, we'll certainly make your team better because he's going to score a lot of goals. And there's not that many guys these day, it seems, that can score whatever 40-something. goals that he's capable of when he's healthy. So I'm just kind of curious with the risk reward with him though, where it sounds like he's, of course, reasonably going to want a lot of money over a lot of years. And we know how goal scorers tend to age and what their relative peaks are, which is younger than we thought in the past. So I'm kind of curious, if you were running a team,

would you commit the max to Stephen Stamco's, or do you think there's better ways to spend your money? Well, the problem is that if you imagine the NHL talent pool as like this line chart, it's got a pretty steep descent. Like there is a very small number of players who are in that upper tier. I actually compile a list of sort of top free agents. And when I was looking at it, the guys who have averaged more than 25 goals per 82 games over the last three, years, there are four guys. So there's, there's Andrew Ladd, who's average 25, Kyle Okposa, who's average 26, David Backus, who's averaged 26, and Stephen Stamco's who's averaged 44.

So it's like a kind of a quantum leap between him and the rest of the draft class in that category. So the problem is if you need goal scoring, realistically, this guy is going to massively impact your lineup. And he is 26, which is young for a free agent. I, I, I know that's kind of past what we think of as the peak of goal scoring ability. And we've maybe even seen a little bit of a drop off with Stamco's already. But he's just, he's so good. And I'm kind of a subscriber to this belief that in a salary cap world, you can afford to pay your stars and then, you know, slash your budget a little bit on those sort

of mid-tier players, the kind of four or five million dollar guys. So if you can get Stephen Stamco's if he's interested in signing with you, you know, unless you're a team that's so good already that you're, you're looking. if Stanley Cup next year and you can't make it work cap-wise, I would have real trouble passing on him. Yeah, when you bring up the question of, well, it depends if you're looking for goal-dending. I think for goal scoring, sorry, I think every team other than maybe the Dallas Stars is looking for an influx in goals scoring. So he's definitely got a market there. Yeah, like, I mean, if you're Chicago, maybe you can make a case to pass on them, but very few teams

are in that category. Yeah. And like, that's a really good point you make about just how young he is for a guy to be hitting the open market like this and the market he's going to have. And I don't know. I think we did see a little bit of a drop off last year. The more worrisome thing to me is sort of how is his shot generation dropped a little bit. But, I mean, you look at it when we discuss aging curves for goal scurers and things like that, I think that a guy with Stamco's skill set will be able to age relatively gracefully, just in the sense that he does have that wicked shot.

And it feels like, I mean, you watch a guy like Jerome McGinla who, can barely move around the ice and he still, you know, finds a way to score seemingly 30 goals pretty much every year just because he has that shot. And, and you have these flashes where he's, you know, standing around the circle there and he gets, he gets an open look and he buries a top corner and you're like, oh, that looks like the Jerome McGillow old. And then you watch pretty much every other facet of his game and you're like, oh, yeah, he's approaching 40 years old. But I think like Stamco, there's no reason to believe that he won't be able to score a ton of goals pretty much every year for the entirety of that contract.

I just wonder that say you're a team like the Leafs, who pretty clearly has a lot of holes they need to fill, and a lot of those will be filled with prospects they've already drafted or accumulated in different ways that will be coming in the pipeline in the next few years. I'm wondering whether that seems like the right fit, though, just based on the trajectory of where the rest of their players are compared to where he is in his respective career. Yeah, that's a great question.

and I share some of your concerns about shot generation. He fell to his lowest rate of shots per hour and shot attempts per hour at five on five, the lowest rate of his career actually last year. So that is a bit of a concern. And particularly if you're a team like the Leafs with your window sort of in the future, the problem I have there is, you know,

as you know, I work for the Edmonton Journal and Oilers Nation. So I've seen sort of a rebuild up close before. And to me, Stamco's is such a good player that if you can kind of take that quantum leap forward right now, you're almost obligated to do it. He's going to give you so much immediately and he's going to provide coverage for people coming in.

He's going to provide somebody else for opposition scores to focus on. He's going to, especially for these sort of young, highly touted players that have all this pressure on them, Stamcoast is the kind of guy that is going to allow them to mature at maybe a more reasoned, balanced pace, just because he will carry a lot of the load for the next probably five years if he's healthy. So I think I'd probably still take the chance on him if I was Toronto. Yeah.

No, I mean, guys like this, as we said, come around very infrequently. And if he legitimately wants to come play for your team, you probably, you have a certain obligation to be like, yes, we will let you play for our team, Stephen Stamco's. Yeah, he can, he's maybe the one. guy, I think he's probably the only guy in free agency, you can basically say, okay, he's going to be able to pick where he goes and plays. So, okay, so the rest of this forward group that's available beyond Stamco's is, I sort of listed them into two tiers.

One of them is, I was going to save it to later, but we can just do it right now. It's sort of the stayaway class in the sense that whether it's guys like Eric Stahl or David Backus or Andrew Ladd, where I think there's still good players that have a lot to contribute to whatever team they're going to sign with in the immediate kind of present here moving into next year and maybe even the year after that and maybe even the third year. But I'm kind of worried about the actual contracts they're going to receive because it seems like they should be trying to get that one last big payday because it seems like guys like that who are already in their early 30s probably won't have more than this one big contract left

to sign. And I look at, you know, especially for a guy like Bacchus, the comparable for me is what Kessler got from Anaheim. recently that extension where it's six years, six point six seven five per. And we're already talking about that as one of the worst contracts in the league. And I think the extension hasn't even really kicked in yet. So I'm kind of curious. Like I think there's going to be a lot of buyers or more as for whichever team signs up for these guys long term. Yeah. To me it's very interesting that we're in sort of a flat cap world. And with all those guys, to me, the real question is

term because I think you can afford to pay David Backus a fair bit of money next year. year and probably even the year after that. But you start getting into a five, six, seven year deal. And I mean, he's a six foot three, two hundred twenty pound right shot center who can contribute in all three disciplines. So you know somebody's going to pay the man. All of these guys, you start getting into that crazy money. It's going to be deeply concerning. Like, I mean, if you're looking at Andrew Ladd as an example and you give him a six year deal, well, you're paying him from, you know, age 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, and 36. like these are not the prime years of of the man's career.

So all of those older guys are kind of red flagged to me. And then the one guy I would add to those names is Mickle Bodker, because he's actually relatively young for a free agent, and he's one of the better point producers in this draft class. But he's a guy who is, to me, a pretty one-dimensional player, a guy who mostly gets the job done on the power play. And if you look at his five-on-five scoring, it's not very good compared to even some of the bargain bin guys in this draft class. And you look at his shot metrics, they're abysmal compared to pretty much everybody in this draft class.

So he's maybe the one younger guy that I'd put a star next to his name and go, you've got to be careful here. Yeah, no, with Bodkar, I remember at the trade deadline, he was generating a lot of buzz as a guy that contenders would be interested in because he did have some good counting stats. And then I remember, like, while I was doing a little bit of research, I found, this amazing. It just blew my mind that I think he led the league in power play time and in total power play time for forwards. Like even beyond guys like Ovechkin, which was crazy to me. And then you look at all the rate stats and he was like a middling guy that wasn't really moving the needle at all. So he's definitely, you know, he's going to warrant a lot of

buzz because he's, what, 26 years old. And he's, he had a really nice year from sort of superficially looking last year. But I'd be pretty worried about lock him up long term and thinking he's going to all of a sudden, you know, be anything that's going to actually be moving the needle for my team as a winger. Well, the other thing with Bodker is he's got kind of what I like to think of as Jack Johnson disease. You know, like he's, he's six foot two 11. So he's, he's got good NHL size and he's a really good skater. So you combine those two things and you combine, you know, these strong counting stats. And it's very easy to fall in love with a player like that. But he is, I mean, at even strength for me, he is maybe a third line forward,

and he's a guy who can really kill on the power play. But, you know, like you pointed out, he's played an incredible amount of minutes in Arizona where they don't really have a lot of other options. So if you're not going to play him, or sorry, play him, three and a half minutes a game on the power play, he's not going to put up those numbers for you in all likelihood. Yeah, and then you're going to be wondering what gives,

and it's, well, you should have seen this coming. I think, yeah, and back to the group of, of guys like Stahl, Bacchus and Ladd, we mentioned that they're 31 years old or so, and these are already past their prime years. But I feel like with guys like that, especially Bacchus and Lad, like it's not even just that the actual age. It's sort of the way they play. And I feel like it's a pretty laborious manner, right? Like I don't see it being a very graceful aging process. Yeah, it's not just the age you're worried about. It's the miles. And that's sort of something I always flag with these kind of physical players.

I'm a little bit less worried about them than I would be just thinking a few years back to somebody like Ryan Callahan, who, you know, is already sort of breaking down when he signs his deal. And you look at like he's a 5 foot 11, 195 pound player who plays that 6 foot 3, 220 pound game. I don't have any numbers in front of me, but my intuition and basically just what sort of the trend that I've seen without digging into it and doing it really methodically is that those smaller players who play that game tend to break down earlier and you can maybe get away with it a little bit longer if you're a bigger player having said that you know anybody who's 32 years old if you're signing him to a five six year deal you should really um be careful there's very few instances where it's a good

idea yeah like that's just it you know he's 32 you know we've we've all seen these NHL aging curves where the guy's peak as scores at 24, 25, 26, you're going to get into very few players are able to maintain that production into their mid-30s. Well, I mean, we're seeing a prime example of that, like right now

with Dustin Brown, right? It's, I think his extension kicked in when he was like 29 years old or so, and now he's 31, and he's still got six years left on this deal, which is paying him nearly six million per, and the Kings just stripped him of his captaincy, and he's a, you know, a hot candidate for them to either buy him out or hope,

that a potential expansion team takes him in the draft. It's like one of these things where we're seeing this play out before our very eyes. And if you're ignoring what past history has taught us, then you're doing yourself a disservice. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, history is littered with these guys. You've got somebody, I'm thinking of David Clarkson right now. You know, he had a 30-goal year at 28.

He was pretty good at 29, and he was done at 30. Yeah. And that realistically is the kind of curve you have, where guys, even guys who are productive in their late 20s, can just hit a wall and disappear one summer. And you'll never get them back and you're committed to them forever. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely that's, that's what the track record tells us. That's generally how it goes.

And then I think the other group that we're going to bunch them together in terms of UFA forwards is this sort of mix of guys that are very intriguing top six wingers where they're going to be really good second line guys and potentially if you have the right center. You can even conceivably play them on that top line wing spot and they'll help boost your team's offense. And I'm looking at guys like, okay, I have a question for you. So a guy like Yuri Huddler, what do you make of the year he had this past season where, like, if we were talking about him last summer, he would have been making quite a bit more money, I feel like, based on the disparity in production that he had. Yeah, Yuri Hoodler is one of those players that

I'm always a little leery to apply kind of your traditional analytic filter to because he's so dependent on shooting percentage. He's not a guy. Like if you're looking at him and you're going, okay, well, I'm looking at his possession numbers and I'm calibrating my approach to him that way, you're going to underrate him

because he is an elite finisher of the NHL level. He's, and the same thing with, pretty much any part of his game that you look at. But the thing with Hoogler is he falls into kind of the same category as a Bacchus or a lad age-wise. He's, I believe he's 32 now. He's a guy who this summer, you know, he can produce for you, but he's not a legitimate two-way guy.

He's sort of a one-dimensional player, a very, very good one-dimensional player, but he's only really got that one, one gear, and he is older. And with all these players, there's probably a dozen of them in this draft class that are sort of higher profile guys in their early to mid-30s. to me with all of them, and I'd throw Franz Nielsen in there too, who I just love as a player and have deep respect for. With all of them, to me, it's going to be about term and dollars. There are contracts out there that make sense for Huddler, for Bacchus, for

Nielsen, for all of these guys. And you just want to be the team that gets him on a three or four year deal, even if you have to pay a little bit more. Yeah, I wonder, I'm looking at Huddler's numbers right now, and I wonder how many articles have been written over the years being like, this guy is a regression candidate and then every year he was just like like from 2011 to 2015 he basically shot between 16 and 20 percent every year right and it's like one of those things where eventually you got to be like hmm i wonder you know the alex tangay syndrome where this guy just

for whatever reason is is a higher caliber finisher than most guys but then of course i mean even last year he he shot like what 13 or 14 percent and we're talking about it as uh as a as a down year for him which is pretty remarkable yeah he's a He's an elite finisher at 13 or 14% at even strength. Or, sorry, just overall. And I'm just looking at his even strength numbers. And he shot 16% at even strength. Like, this guy is a one-shot scorer.

And some of that is, of course, because unlike Stamco's, he's quite a bit more picky with his shots. But even so, he's a guy who can deliver there. Yeah. Yeah. And then, I don't know. I mean, a guy I really like that fits into his camp. And maybe he's even, he's definitely a higher echelon player than a guy like Yuri Houdler is, Kyle Okhoso, who looks like he's going to be on his way out.

And I think that the writing is in the wall after the money, the islanders devoted to a guy like Casey Sazikis, which I don't know. Have we, have we understood, have we like gotten reasoning for what happened there beyond Garth Snow thinking, well, someone else would have paid him if we didn't. So we had to do it, which seems like the most flawed line of thinking you can possibly have in this sort of thing. well yeah i kind of broke out laughing there because you think about the idea of losing kyle occioso because you had to pay casey's azikas and it's there aren't words for that kind of thought process like this is a guy who's a you know 15 to 20 point score most years i know he had a had a good season this year but uh if you're losing ocposo for that for for that contract that's that's brutal um ocoposo might actually be the best free agent forward on the model

market after Stamco's he's younger. He is big. He's going to get paid. And I do worry a little bit about the effect that, you know, playing with John Tavares has had on his numbers because the last two years, he has not been that great away from Tavares in terms of scoring. But, yeah, I love the player. I think he's fantastic.

And the other thing about him, too, is he's a right shot, which is something that a lot of teams are going to be looking for this summer. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. He's a heck of a player, man. He's a good kind of case study in being patient with prospects, because I remember he was a very high pick and he started off well, but then he had injuries and he was disappointing and people were writing him off. And then the past few years, I think it started with that. I remember

he had that awesome playoff series against Pittsburgh where they lost in six games or so, and he sort of burst onto the scene and he's been really good since. So I really like him as a player. I think, what do you think about these other guys, whether it's guys like David Perron, who you saw pretty up close or even a Teddy Purcell, who you also saw in Edmonton quite a bit, like or PA Parento or Jamie McGinn. It seems like there's a lot of these tweener guys that could conceivably play on your second line wing or third line wing and have differing skills but are sort of similar producers. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of players in that category.

David Prawn is maybe the highest end example, but there are, I'm just trying to count here, maybe 15 guys, maybe topping out at David Perron and bottoming out at Chris Stewart, who are decent second third line bets who can play a complimentary role. And history to me is kind of shown with those guys. The trick is get them on a short-term deal, get them at low dollars, and don't be too picky about who you get. I mean, realistically, the difference between signing Teddy Purcell and Lee Stemniak and Chris Verstieg, there's very little gap there. They're all basically the same age, basically the same production, basically the same role on your team, and just pick the one who is is most willing to sign a reasonable contract because in free agency, there are bargains to be found

if you're willing to be, you know, if you're willing to pick whichever guy fits your slot that makes it to July 20th and is still on the market. But before we get to those guys, there's a pretty big name we haven't touched on, who's Milan Lu Cheech, who I've been pretty critical of from Edmonton's, just from Edmonton's perspective, because Edmonton is, so loaded at left wing. But if I'm a team other than Edmonton, that's a pretty interesting player to me. I'm a little concerned about the year he just had in LA, but he's only 28, and he is a pretty elite, even strength score. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, if you're Milan Luchich and his agent, you're probably, like, you have to be realistic in thinking that this is going to be your one massive

payday, and I'm wondering how many years, like, we come back to that term concept, but, like, he should be asking for five or six years because I won like I don't think he's going to be worth nearly as much by the time he's 32 or 33 years old if he's back on the market right so it's like one of those things where I'm very worried about a player like him who already struggles moving around on the ice who carries around a lot of that weight just how he's gonna age into his early 30s yeah and you put you put you put you hit the nail on the head there all of these guys who were in sort of their mid to late 20s stampcoe sockposo Lucchich, Baudker, which is one of the reasons I flagged Bodker, these are guys who you can kind of convince yourself to give term to. And particularly Lu Cheach, I think, if he makes it a free agency, are there not general manager out there who will do seven years and $42 million? Oh, absolutely. We see it every year, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And do you want to pay him to least 35? I'd rather not. Well, and I don't, has there, has anybody done a real study on how sort of slower players have aged compared to

fleet or foot players because on the one hand you go well they're already not that fast I don't want to see them when they lose a step but on the other hand you go well their games not really tooled around speed so if they lose a step maybe it's not such a big deal right yeah and and I mean you can make the argument if you're if you're pro lutridge that you know he'll still be able to be that sort of guy around the net that uses his frame and and you know be the be the kind of net front presence on the power play and stuff like that and and all these things that it should conceivably be skills that he'll maintain for a few years.

But I don't know. I'd be wary of kind of committing to a guy like him long term, just because I'm not sure how much he really moves the needle for you, right? Yeah, that's a legitimate concern. But to me, at least with Loochich, it's a different situation than it is with Bodker, where with Bodker, you're concerned that he's really not a good player. With Luchich, it's just the aging curve in the term. Yep, no, for sure.

I agree with that. All right, let's move over to this, to the class of defensemen. And I honestly don't know how much time we're going to spend on this because I was looking at the list. And it's not a great class. I mean, you have a guy like Brian Campbell, who is an exceptional player. But the problem is he's 36 or 37 years old. And I'm kind of curious, like, are you really going to be paying him into his 40s?

I don't know. Like, it's weird because he plays such a, like, masterful game that he doesn't really take a lot of punishment and he moves around so smoothly on the ice that I don't know it's quite possible that he will be able to play for pretty much as long as he he wants to mentally but I'm just like I'm curious what that contract for him is going to wind up looking like yeah Brian Campbell's an interesting guy and and again I'm going to be very unscientific here and go away from sort of proven fact and veer into speculation but there is kind of the history of this sort of finesse two-way defensemen who can handle the puck, aging pretty gracefully. Nicholas Lidsdram is obviously the

prime example, and Campbell is not in that class. But there are a lot of these guys who are able to contribute maybe in a reduced role, even up to 38, 39, 40. Merrick Zedlicki is still in the league. And he's not Brian Campbell by any stretch, but he's two years older. Nicholas Lidstrom than Merrick Zalitsky. I think that's right. Yeah. I think that's legitimate. Yeah, Campbell's a very, very interesting player to me. And, you know, that's the kind of guy that even on a two-year deal, I could see going maybe $4 million, maybe even a little bit higher.

He's going to go more than $4 million. I mean, if he's willing to sign a contract for just two years, like I'd be willing to go up into the sixes, honestly, just based on how impactful he's. Like, look at his numbers. Pretty much everyone that plays with him, is significantly better than when they're playing with anyone other than Brian Campbell. Yeah, no, I can't argue with that.

Well, he was, I'm just pulled up his counting numbers. He was plus 31 this year, which I mean, you know, we're going to frown on plus minus and do that thing. But that's sort of supported by his shot metrics. Like his shot metrics every year are through the roof. And to me, you can make a really compelling argument that Aaron Eckblad is not, Aaron Eckblad as we know him if he isn't playing with Brian Campbell. And I mean, you can make the same argument for, I mean, look at a guy like Eric Goodbranson where I think at the start of the year he was playing with Willie Mitchell and that was arguably

the worst defensive pairing in the league. And then they put Good Branson with Campbell and he looked serviceable enough that they were able to get a pretty nice little package from the Canucks there this summer. So I think guys like Campbell are just so, so valuable because he can eat a lot of minutes and he's very efficient. with them and he there's very few players in this league that you always talk about the bus drivers and the passengers right and a lot of these guys we talked about in terms of the wingers or passengers where if you put them with a good center they're going to produce but you don't really want to pay a premium for them because you don't know how much they're going to make other guys better whereas

Campbell is in that truly elite here where i feel like he's going to just make everyone look like in such a more positive light than than pretty much all the other minutes they spend without him. yeah it's you're right um i think with a two-year deal i'd be nervous but on a one-year deal six million is totally reasonable and just give them a blank show you're whatever you want brian yeah because if you if you need somebody of that position you know if you're if you're a team that can win the cup next year and you have the money and you have a hole on the left side of your defensive depth chart i it's hard to find a much better short-term fit in free agency than campbell well i mean so you look at the rest of this class and

I don't know, it's pretty rough, right? Like, I love Keith Yandel. I might be one of his biggest fans, and he's definitely someone that also fits into that camp of moving the needle. And it's amazing seeing the discourse about him as a player during his time in New York, where people were so eager with trying to find warts in his game and latching on things. And players that play the style of game that he does generally get a lot of criticism

because they make these glaring mistakes. every once in a while that people can latch on to and point to as a reason for why this guy's a liability defensively while overlooking the 15 other things he's done in the meantime that made everyone look awesome and contributed to scoring goals for his team. So I would love Keith Yandel on my team. I'm just kind of curious. He seems like he's going to get a lot of money because he's in that perfect combination of skill set like a guy like Campbell, but also age where you're not necessarily that worried about paying him for many years. Yeah, and the one thing that Yandel can do, which nobody else, yeah, I'm just looking at

the list here, nobody else in free agency this year can do is run your power play and be a bona fide difference maker. Like there is nobody else out there on the market who is going to bring that skill set to your team. And the other thing with him, which you sort of touched on already, is there's a massive drop-off. Like, after Yandel, who are your next best? defensemen, maybe Gologosky and Demairs. This is a very shallow free agent class and Yandall's one of the few guys worth paying.

Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you bring up Gagoski and Demers, because Dallas is in a very interesting spot here where there's those two guys, but there's also Chris Russell, who I imagine they won't be bringing back, and then there's Jordy Ben as well. So they have pretty much four guys that were in their, what, top seven defensemen towards the end of the year that are going to be hitting the open market. It would be fascinating to see how they act in terms of which guys they prioritize bringing back and how much they pay them. And I know they have a couple of really intriguing defensive prospects that they can probably call up from Texas that can instantly slot into our lineup, kind of like Stephen Johns did this year.

But I'm just, I'm very curious to see what that blue line winds up looking like heading into next year. Yeah, Gologoski is an excellent player and one they're going to struggle if they lose. Jason Demaris is probably the best right shot defenseman on the market. The right side, if you're looking for a right shot defenseman this year, it's a total disaster. And that's the one thing that I wonder if maybe keeps him alive in Dallas is he's going to be very, you know, you might be better off trying to replace Gologoski than you are trying to replace Demaris just because of the position that he plays. Yeah, no, there's very few right-handed defensemen in this class. I mean, you have guys like Luke Shenan, Roman Polack, but I think that if you're barking up that tree, you're probably doing it wrong.

Oh, yeah. Well, you can make a case that Luke Shen might be the second best right shot in free agency this year. I don't even think you need to make that case. I think it's pretty abundantly good. Well, unless you're a big Ben Lovejoy fan. Yeah, maybe a guy like Tom Gilbert. I don't know necessarily how much he has left and he's dealt with a lot of injuries here.

But I like him as a friend. I've always been a fan of Gilbert. Gilbert terrifies me this year, the season he just had. And given his age, like we talk about these guys who might fall off a cliff. If it's possible, we saw Tom Gilbert fall off the cliff last year. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're looking at it at this rate, like Merritt Zildlitsky, I mean, we mentioned them earlier.

He could, uh, if things keep going this way with this few right-handed defensemen available, he could, we could be having this discussion about him still being in the league 10 years from now. Yeah, it's, uh, well, Edmonton, who I, you know, I write a lot about the Oilers, and they need an offensive defenseman and they need kind of a right-shot guy for, for the third pair. Eric Griba's going to free agency and maybe they bring him back.

But to me, he's not an ideal fit because they need more of an offensive dimension. And I found myself looking at people like Merrick Zedlicki and Dan Boyle and going, huh, I wonder if there's anything left, which is just crazy to me. I know you probably want to save the bargains for later, but this is a year where,

well, this is just a year where the depth is so bad, especially on the right side, that a guy like maybe Zach Redmond actually becomes attractive for a team just because there aren't any other options out there. Yeah, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel there. Oh, I know. It's bad. It's bad.

Yeah. But I mean, realistically, if you're looking for a puck-moving right-shot defenseman, it's Zach Redmond, Jamie McBain, Yannick-Weber, these are your options. Yeah. Well, a guy I've always been partial to it, and it seems like he, I don't know, I should probably just let it go because it's probably not going to. to happen at this point, but he's still not even 30 yet. So a guy like Rafael Diaz, who is a puck moving right-handed defenseman who just for whatever reason can seem to land a permanent NHL gig,

even though guys that I'm 100% sure are significantly worse players than him are getting spots ahead of him. So I don't know what's going on there, but I would be looking at him ahead of a guy like maybe Zach Redman, I think. Yeah, it's bad. It's so bad that if you're if you're in NHL team, maybe you just kind of bite the bullet and go, okay, I'm going to employ two lefties in my third pair. Although even if you do that, the left side on defense this year is pretty awful too. The players we've talked about, Chris Russell, by the way, is one of those guys who I would stay away from, stay far, far away from. But you're looking at players like Dan Ham Hughes, hoping to try and get something more from him, maybe trying to try and get something more from him, maybe

be trying to keep Kyle Quincy in the league, Matt Bartkowski, like, the left defense is almost as bad. Yeah, it is. It's definitely not great. And I don't know, I guess we should talk a little bit about Justin Schultz because it's weird. I know that you were in the camp of he could be a very interesting, kind of like what Pittsburgh did, right, where you play him in the right role for his skills and you don't rely on him too much. And he can be pretty useful, particularly considering some of the other defensemen we just named that are going to be having NHL roster. spots. He can definitely do more than a lot of these guys. But I'm kind of curious whether he's going to get that Stanley Cump up now, where there

was all these stories coming out about how well him and Ian Cole were playing and how this unsung group for Pittsburgh on the Blue Line was playing well over their heads and doing a great job and they win the cup. And now I'm kind of curious whether it's going to go too far the other way where he's going to go from being an undervalued asset to being overvalued once again. well I think we're both assuming here that Pittsburgh is not going to qualify him not at almost four million bucks yeah oh it's more than that it's I think it's three

three point nine oh that's bad but in free agency he's very attractive like if I'm Edmonton and Justin Schultz has never donned an oiler's sweater in free agency this year Schultz has maybe number one on my list because he's he's a right shot puck mover who is not going to cost a fortune in all likelihood.

And even with the Stanley Cup bump this year, it's one thing for, you know, if you're a Pittsburgh columnist or a Pittsburgh radio guy, but to put out a, oh man, Ian Cole and Justin Schultz, they sure look good. If you're actually an NHL executive,

you're very aware of what Mike Sullivan was doing with Justin Schultz. You're aware that he's playing him, you know, 13 odd minutes per game, and he's getting him off the ice whenever good players come off, or, you know, come on for the other team. And if you're looking at what Peter DeBoer did, you know that he's targeting Justin Schultz

and doing his best to get good players out there against him because he knows that's sort of the soft underbelly of the Pittsburgh defense. This is not a guy you want to pay real money to. He is a very useful third pair defenseman who can run your second unit power play and brings an element that is in short supply and free agency. And the nice thing about Schultz is he's young enough, you can give him term. But you do not want him to get up in terms of dollar figures. Like, at two million bucks a year, I think I probably walk away.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think you're giving way too much credit to NHL executives when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, you know, just like, oh, look, he, you know, he's, he's totally changes the player. He's got that winning mentality all of a sudden. Like, if we put him in our system kind of like Pittsburgh did, we can like, you know, turn him into a great player here. Like, like, I think that there's going to be a lot of bad money thrown around at defensemen. this summer and we're going to wind. We should just put a pin in this conversation and kind of circle back to it because I think it'll be an interesting thing to look back at in hindsight.

Well, maybe I'm being a little too optimistic. I'm just, because we've seen NHL executives throw money at bad bets before. I was just thinking the most diffusive praise I read of Justin Schultz was probably from Mark Madden in Pittsburgh and I just went, wow, okay. Hopefully nobody's taking your advice. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about goalies here quickly just because I think if you're in the position where you're looking for your starter and free agency, you're in trouble. Because other than James Reimer, I don't really see a guy here that if he's starting more than like 30 or 35

games for you, I don't think there's anyone else on this list that really kind of fits into that tier. Yeah, James Reimer is far in a way the best player. To me, Chad Johnson is number two with a bullet, which says a lot, and then probably Jonas Enroth, number three. Yeah, I like Jonas Enroth. I think that the interesting thing with Reimer is, I think for a while there, just based on how well he played towards the end of the season in San Jose, it seemed like, and sort of just with his personality and how everything went in Toronto,

it feels like, you know, there was a line of thought that he could come back to San Jose and sort of split starts with Martin Jones, particularly the way NHL teams are going with their goalies where you don't really want to ride a guy for 65, 70, games anymore, you kind of like to split it more evenly. But just based on how well Jones played during the Stanley Cup final run, I feel like it makes it much less likely the Rimer's going to come back there just because I don't know how many starts he's feasibly going to get. So it seems like he's probably going to go somewhere where he has a better chance of actually stealing that starter's gig and playing the majority of the games. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I think the big

complicating factor with all of these goldenders in free agency is the looming expansion draft. because to me this is a year where you can go out and get a goalie who you never could get before. Like Pittsburgh's a good example. Tampa Bay is a good example where players who are extremely attractive and impossible to acquire and trade most years are going to be available. Like if you're Pittsburgh, Mark Andre Fleury, trading Mark Andre Fleury is very sensible. If you're Tampa Bay and you're choosing between Ben Bishop and Andre Vasselowski, which of the two you're going to protect it, the expansion draft, you know, obviously you're going to trade one of them because you don't want to lose. one of those players for nothing. So there's, you know, every year there's three or four teams that go into free agency looking for starters.

This year there might be one. To me, trade is a much better route if you're looking for goalies. Right. Particularly with a guy like Frederick Anderson presumably being available. Yeah. So like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense where you're going to go that route. And I don't think you, I mean, we've seen in the past, you don't necessarily really want to be throwing big money in the open market on goalies anyways to begin with. Yeah, goalies, we don't do a great job predicting them with analytics.

NHL executives, if you look at any chart of save percentage versus dollars spent, they don't do a very good job of it. And, you know, Rimer's probably, he's sort of a 1A, 1B goalie, Chad Johnson and Enroth. The other guys in this class at best are backups who can play. And in some cases, I'm thinking of Cam Ward here, there are players out there with sort of formidable reputations who you probably don't want on your roster. Yeah, I think that's fair to say.

Okay, let's wrap up this discussion with the thing we've been teasing for pretty much the entire of the show, the bargain bin guys, because when we plan this show, I asked you to think up a few names so that we weren't kind of just throwing stuff up against the wall. And every year we have these sort of guys that hang around until either the end of the summer or maybe even into early fall where they have to go to a camp with a team on a player tryout. I mean, I'm thinking of a guy like Lee Stemperniak this past year, and they're obviously going to provide immense value because they can still play and you're going to get him for the bare minimum. And then even if you're a team that's not competing, it's, I mean, we see this with Lee Stemniak pretty much every year where teams just keep recouping assets from signing him because he's traded every deadline. And I think smart teams are paying attention to stuff like that and will be pursuing that this summer.

So are there any names out there that you think? And you're not allowed to use Lee Stepniak as an example here. Who are some bargain bin guys that you like the summer? Well, fingers crossed that Lee Stampniak gets a good contract this year because he's earned it. So players sort of in that camp this year. Brad Boys comes to mind. Mike Santorelli, Yuri Tolusi, who was in this camp last year, had an abysmal season. I'd still have time for him on, you know, a training camp tryout deal.

Riley Nash and Carolina is a name. And Michael Grabner is another guy who, kind of interests me. And all of these are guys. I've tried to try to pick guys who are plausibly going to be available three weeks into free agency and might be forced to even take a pro camp tryout. And historically, it's a class that's undervalued. NHL teams go, well, you know, that kind of depth veteran, I've got a kid who can play on the farm and he'll outperform him. And a lot of years, we find that these players who have kind of hung around the fringes of the league and are, you know, one or two

bad years away from having their careers and they can provide pretty good minutes for you. Stampniak being this year's great example. Yeah. No, he's definitely. So are there any other names that you like on this list other than the guys you mentioned? Yeah, there are. I'm trying to find some under the radar guys here. You know, like as a defenseman?

Sorry, but he's a lefty, so he doesn't necessarily fit the discussion we were having earlier. But like a guy like David Schlemko, who he's 29, so, you know, you're not necessarily going to be, you know, he's not a guy that you're going to be paying for a lot of years to come. But if you can get him on like a one or two year deal for very little, like he's just one of those guys that he does a lot of things well and he, he moves nicely and he can move the puck as well. And, uh, no one's going to, when you sign David Schlamko, no one, you know, that no one's going to be like, ooh, what a, what a, what a, what a flashy signing. I can't wait to buy my Schlemco jersey and go watch him 41 times this year.

but he's just going to do a lot of these things that he's probably going to wind up earning for you a lot more money than you actually wind up paying him. When he was in this camp, I think he cleared waivers, not this season, but the previous season. He was one of these, New Jersey was actually really good

at kind of going around and sweeping up all the leftovers two weeks after July 1. And he was in that camp last year. To me, he's a very good third pair of defensemen and he can do a lot of things for you. one of the shocking revelations that I had in researching for this podcast was that David Schlemko can play on the power play a little bit. Which just shocked me because it's not something I ever thought of as his skill set.

Actually, if you look at all the free agent defensemen this year and you sort them by their three year scoring average, the last three seasons, and you limit it to guys who have played more than one minute per game, yeah, averaged more than one minute per game on. the power play. David Schlemko is the second best point producer by scoring rate among defensemen and free agency. Hmm. Yeah, I wouldn't have four point six. No, four point six points per hour at five on four over the last three years. Now, to me, this is more of one of those, that's kind of an interesting tidbit than it is, you know, we'd better sign Schlemco and put him on our first unit power play. But just the fact that he can do that for you in a pinch where he can step in on your second

and it is kind of an interesting thing that you might not expect. Yeah. Oh, we missed out on Keith Yandel, so we're going to bring in David Schlemko to quarterback our power of it. Yeah, maybe not, maybe not the best plan. The guy who I was going to mention before you, you know,

so rudely interrupted me with Shlemko. Oh, yes. Is Jonathan. Oh, yeah, yeah. Jonathan Marchesso in Tampa Bay. He's a guy who's been mentioned by a few people. Alan Hull in the oilogosphere sort of turned me on to him. him and he's he's the kind of guy who might slip through because he's so small but he's a very

very effective score over a small sample and um he's young he is i believe he's the youngest forward in free agency this year and he's the kind of guy you might get for peanuts who can play on your power play and can play uh maybe even fill in in a top six role at times yeah you're right he's a he's a he's a december birthday and he just turned 25 and yeah he's one of these guys that has always produced he like here's a thing he's very undersized and you wonder how his game will transit to the NHL level we've only seen short bursts of it but like at a certain point when a guy just produces at a high level at every single level he plays at whether it's in the queue or the hL or in small bursts in the NHL like eventually you should be like hmm maybe this guy's just

a really good player and we should give give him the benefit of the doubt and he's he's done that throughout his career and he sort of fits that uh that Tampa Bay pipeline of believing or giving a shot to these smaller guys than most other teams wouldn't and they just wind up showing you that they can play hockey regardless of their size yeah and i think there's two things in his favor uh the first being that he's a right shooting center which is always hard to find and the second being that pittsburgh just won the cup with brian rust and conner shiri playing top nine roles yeah yeah and i know i mean if you're looking at people to follow you on twitter know that you've been uh banging this uh this height and weight drum for for for quite a while

Well, it's one of these things. I don't know how many times we have to see teams like Pittsburgh, teams like Chicago, teams like Tampa Bay, that are real contenders who get major mileage out of players that nobody else will touch because they happen to be 5-9 or 5-10. Like it's one of those places where you can go into free agency right now. You can probably, if you look at, if you scan the AHL rosters, you can probably find a half dozen guys who might be able to play a scoring line role for you in sort of a, you know, a Connor Sherey sense. where he's the third wheel of a good line and he's playing with two good players and who can do it for you for six or $700,000 and in a salary cap world, being able to fill a scoring line role for $700 grand, even if it's only a complimentary player, that's huge. You can do so much more with that money if you have that guy plugging up that one slot. Yeah, I completely agree.

And Jonathan, I think it's safe to say that you're much more than a complimentary player based on the fine showing you had on today's HockeyPedogast. Well, it's always a pleasure to be here, and thanks for having me once again. Absolutely, man. Everyone can follow you on Twitter at Jonathan Wallace. Jonathan Willis, sorry, not Jonathan Wallace. I don't know who Jonathan Wallace is, but don't follow that guy. And check out all the great work you do for the various sites you write for,

and I'm sure we'll have you back on sometime in the near future. I'm looking forward to it already. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com. Hockey PDOCast.