The Hockey PDOcast - How Top Teams Should Be Thinking Ahead of the Trade Deadline

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by John Matisz to go through the top teams in the league and the conversations they should be having about how they can most meaningfully improve their team ahead of this year's trade deadline. 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.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey-Pedocast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich. And joining me as my good buddy, John Mattis, John, what's going on in? Not a whole lot. Just coming off the high of Thursday night's Carolina-Tampabay game. What a thrilling post-Olympic battle there for Eastern Conference supremacy. I did not expect that, you know, quickly out of the weekend.

gates after the Olympic break. Yeah, it was an incredibly fun game. We're going to certainly talk about it here right off the hop, but I wanted to, you know, we're going to do some mailbag questions from our listeners. I thought it would be a fun way to close out the week. We're getting back in a swing of things with the NHL post-Olympic break. And so I got a couple fun ones we're going to run through. And this is one that I think gives us an opportunity to really get into that from both sides of the ledger. And it's a question that asks, what's one trade that would make a meaningful improvement for each top contender. My fandom has me curious what the hurricane should do,

given their caps base, prospect and pick Arsenal, and probable inferiority to Tampa Bay in the east, but I'm also curious to hear about what other playoff teams should try to do before the deadline. Now, I don't want to step on the toes of Sunday's show too much because we're going to have our annual fake trades with Thomas Trance and Jack Fraser, and we're going to drop them then,

and it's going to be a really fun time, so we're going to dive into this in much greater detail then. But I've been in the lab, since the Olympics ended and I've had a bit of free time, cooking up as many different machinations of inspired deals as I can and we'll unveil them. Then the reason why I like this question, though, I think it really allows us to get a bit of a lay of the land, a week out from the deadline now and start thinking about what teams need.

And we'll start with the Hurricanes because they're tied for the East, for the first in the East with the aforementioned Tampa Bay Lightning. This question is also, as I read from a Hurricanes fan who is a Patreon subscriber of ours, and we will absolutely give them preferential treatment for it. And that Hurricane's Lightning game was such a banger of a game. Probably my favorite regular season game I've watched so far. I know it's reason C-by is just coming fresh off of it. But two top teams, trading haymakers.

I think the notes it hit along the way as well were really fun to unpack for us here. Carolina, if you missed it, comes out of the gates, scores three goals in the first seven minutes, jumps out to an early lead, all three of those goals, by the way. we talked about, off the rush and very high quality chances, which you love to see from them. They weren't your typical point shot off a body, although that's how they ultimately wound up winning on the power play in the third.

Tampa Bay, who's playing on the second leg of a back-to-back, no Vasilevsky, no Sorrelli, no Paul down the middle, comes to roaring back, starts creating all of these great high danger chances, really dissecting that wanted hurricanes in zone defense, ties it up, they trade goals in the third. Carolina scores on the power play to go up 5-4 in the third and holds off Tampa Bay for a really entertaining win in regulation. We'll get to what the hurricane should do in a second here, but I'm curious for your notes on

that game, just kind of watching it because I know there was a lot of games on the schedule on Thursday, and it was tough to keep track of all of it. I send you a message, I'm like, you have to watch this one, and so you got up early before we recorded, put a fresh pot of coffee on, and really dived into it, and I think you were grateful for my suggestion because you were messaging me about it. all you're watching and you're like, man, this was so good. Yeah. So Friday morning, I'm like, I guess I got to get into this. I mean, DIMS has one of the games of the year.

And, you know, kids are at daycare and school. My wife's working. I'm just sitting there with a coffee and just like blown away by those first seven minutes of pure adrenaline from Carolina. And then, you know, Tampa Bay roaring back. And my biggest takeaway is that it was like this perfect blend of sort of the weirdness of coming off a break where guys are a little rusty or just a little like a little, a little slower on their reeds.

But that mixed with like 10 guys having like signature moments. I mean, first of all, point was absolutely buzzing. And he was buzzing against the Leafs too. Like he didn't go over to Italy for Canada because of injury. And clearly the break helped him. But then you've got like, you know, Darren Radish teeing off with another, you know, bomb from the point. You've got Taylor Hall sort of turning back the clock in terms of some of those

rush chances with Stan Coven and Jackson Blake and just such a fun line. You've got both goalies making these sort of multi-safe sequences. Kutrov doing as usual, savant stuff in the offensive zone. But then there's like, you know, a little bit of sloppiness here and there. And, you know, as you noted, the amount of rush chances were off the charts. And that's super entertaining. But I'm sure there were a few coaches on the respective benches that weren't super happy with it. But just pure chaos.

And then even at the end, Jordan Stahl clears the puck in his own zone, which, and it looked like it should have been a delay of game penalty, but it was viewed or I guess declared not. And that obviously would have changed the whole complexion of those final two minutes. But it was still an electric two minutes where like Bjork Strand makes two saves with the empty net. He's back there, you know, as sort of the sixth attacker and putting a stick on puck when necessary. You've got Brandon Hagel like making this insane steel in the neutral zone. I feel like the game just had everything that you could ever want.

for a game that's coming out of a whatever two or three week break. And it's two sort of Titans colliding. They're not division rivals, but they're certainly conference rivals. And arguably the two best teams in the East by a decent margin. So I just, I had so much fun watching that. Like the pawn hockey aspect of it was super fun. And we not only got goals, but we got some pretty big moments from the goalies as well. Yeah, it's a bittersweet as a Canadian.

watching how Braden points looked in these two games out of the break, because he is back to just flying at that ratchet up pace that we associate with him. And you think about, you know, Team Canada, especially after losing Crosby towards the latter half of that Olympic tournament, how reliant they were on McGavid kind of pushing the pace down the middle and creating off the rush and point probably even with Crosby, I wouldn't have necessarily been centering his O line. Maybe he would have been playing on that top line.

But with him flying around, I mean, he was great in this game, scores a power play goal at a ton of chances with Coutherov. that game previously the night before against the Leafs where he was just shredding them with his north-south movement and really just flying around the ice. That's huge for the lightning to get him back. I love the Slaven versus Kuturov head-to-head in this one. And Kutraov burns him with one of those first period goals on a nice little kind of stop-up drag move that he beats Brandon Bussie with.

Slaven got his revenge later where he kind of separated him from the puck late in the game along the boards with a big hit and was just all over them throughout the game as you'd expect. And they were pretty much hard matched against each other. And so that's really fun. I mean, part of this is getting a viewing of this because it does feel like it's destined for an Eastern Conference final tilt in a couple months. And obviously a lot of work to be done for both sides. And the East is very wide open generally, as we've documented. But they certainly seem like the class of their own divisions and should get their presuming health.

For the hurricanes, to circle back to this question, you know, the listener astutely notes they've got so many resources to work with. They could pretty much facilitate any trade they want to because they don't need any sort of retention or cap management shenanigans because they can just absorb whatever salary they want. They also, other than Akkishan's RFA status this summer, have pretty much everything sorted out contractually for next year already because they were very proactive in extending Jackson Blake and Logan Stankov. And so everyone, even Brandon Bussie during the break. And so they've pretty much got everything sorted out. And now they can really scale this up. And I think in looking at their roster, the most obvious upgrade is going to be likely that 2C spot on their depth chart.

Right. And I know they've been using Stankovin there, playing him with Blake and Hall recently had Eelers on one of those wings previously. And they've been effective, as you'd expect. I do think, though, to optimize this team, it would probably be bringing in someone who could play that full time, bump stank over into the wing on that spot and allow him to kind of buzz around as a forjecter

with slightly less defensive responsibilities and then ideally take a bit of a workload off of 37-year-old install who keeps chugging along. I talked about before the break how, you know, he comes into the NHL as a teenager, scores 29 goals in his rookie season for the Panthers seemingly another lifetime ago.

Yeah. And had a couple other 20-ish, 25, goal seasons, I believe, but has not scored 20 goals in like a decade now. And they've put Niklai Ehlers with him. He's playing on the top unit power play because of his face off winning ability. And he looks like he's well on his way there. But I still would like to see them manage his minutes a little bit. And this game is a great example of that because at home, they have last change and the benefit of dictating matchups. And Rod Brindamore uses his top line in Aho Jarvis and Svechnikov with Slavin. Pretty much head to head full time.

time against Kuturov. And taking on that type of responsibility, you're going to be able to create on the counter when Kuturov's line is out there, but you're not going to have the puck as often as you'd ideally like, and you're probably going to be happy coming out of that matchup with a split as opposed to dominating it offensively. And so finding other secondary scores, whether it's a creator or ideally a finisher, that could really just take advantage of whatever secondary tertiary matchups they get against even other teams. I think he's probably the way to go. And there's certainly a number of names out there, whether it's a cadre or a Ryan O'Reilly.

I'm less enthused about Trocheque because I don't think offensively, he necessarily adds that gear to them. That's probably what I'd identify. I'm curious for your take though on what your one move for the hurricanes would be at this year's deadline. Yeah, I had a similar view on the hurricanes, but

you know, this might be recency bias, but I was thinking more, leave the top six alone, and you just want someone that I can cook with Eilers. And maybe it's Eilers stall, and someone else in Martinuk's on the fourth line, or maybe it's Eelers, Martinuk, and a different center,

and stall can be used very, not sparingly necessarily, but in a very, yeah, in a very, yeah, situational defensive role. You know, I mean, I think if we're putting stuff out there as ideal fits, like Alex Tuck, assuming he's available, would be fantastic on that wing with stall and Eelers. Like, could you imagine the speed on that line? I guess on the wing, it's not necessarily stall.

And I don't know, I just look at the complexion of how they have their forward group right now. I love the balance of the top three lines except for that sort of, you know, third line right wing where Martinook is. And I think Martinuk is a pretty good player overall, but in a very sort of depth, fourth line role. So that was sort of where my mind went. And if it ends up being a center, like I said, install goes elsewhere, that's fine too.

But it just seems like there's a lot of Eilers magic. that's being wasted on the sticks of guys like Stahl and Martinoke, although like you mentioned, Stahl has finished a lot of passes from Eilers this year. Yeah, I think it's ultimately about like, if you just add another guy who could play high in the lineup, it kind of bumps everyone into a spot where there may be even a bit more overqualified,

and then you could leverage those minutes even further to your advantage. And that's the way to go about it, because obviously pretty much everyone they have right now because of their system and the way they play and how they execute is going to be effective and have great underlying numbers. So you look at it and it's like you bring in a guy from a different environment. On paper it doesn't look like as big of an upgrade as you'd think. But then in practice for them, I do think it would be pretty meaningful.

And, you know, especially someone like the reason why in O'Reilly and he doesn't have no movement clause, the predators are still hanging around the wildcard race in the West. We'll see how that shakes out, whether he'd even want to go there because the predators are going to treat him essentially as he does have say of where he goes if he winds up being moved. he'd obviously be ideal for pretty much any team that needs a center because he could fit that spot on the Jordan Stahl role in the power play where he's out there to win the draws, but then also as a facilitator down low on the goal line, has offensive juice. It doesn't have the foot speed that you associate with the hurricanes defensively, but is always on the right side of the puck and I'm sure would endear himself to Rod Brindamore and allow them to play the way they still do, despite the fact that he doesn't move as fast himself individually. So guys like that, I think, would be the way to go. And as we've talked about for the past couple years, and to their credit, they've done so.

First with the Gensel acquisition and then trying with Miko Randinen last year, like for a team that's really trying to kind of break this glass ceiling and get to the next level and compete for a Stanley Cup and win it, hopefully, they need to be ambitious, right? Like, it's not going to be your typical deadline acquisition of a third pair of defenseman or, you know, a bottom six grinder. They have plenty of those already. it's going to be someone who really moves the needle in one facet or another, and that's the way they need to approach it. And the past couple of years, they've done so. And so I think there's no reason to believe they won't approach it the same way again this year. Well, and we got to give their management group credit in terms of setting themselves up for these situations

where there's a lot of teams in the league where I don't know if it's a lack of foresight or just getting sort of caught up in the moment with their core. But next thing, you know, they're up against the cap. They have no wiggle room. and they need to add that one extra guy. I feel like Carolina, every year around the deadline, we're like, look at all that space, look at all their picks, look at all their prospects.

Yet you look at their roster, and it keeps getting slightly better every year. It keeps moving in the right direction in terms of more finishing. And a lot of that comes down to when they like a guy, even if he's a debt player, they throw some money at him and hope that he signs it and they get them under market value

if they waited even longer. So they clearly, they clearly like to identify their core pieces and, you know, put that contract in front of them and hope that they sign them to hope that that player signs that contract. And I feel like it's paying off. And obviously, you know, the drafting and developing is a whole other arm of this where considering where they pick in the draft every year, they have hit a bunch of home runs. They have.

Okay, the lightning. Whose need is less obvious, but I'd argue if they went this route even more impactful. And listen, like you look at their team and they've navigated. so many injuries throughout the year and are still working their way to back towards full health, but assuming they have their full assortment of players available to them on day one of the playoffs, they definitely have 12 forwards, and I'd argue nine defensemen who deserve regular minutes on this team. And unfortunately, you know, we know how the Olympics played out for Victor Headman and he wasn't able to go by the end in their final loss against USA in the quarterfinal.

He's played so little hockey over the past three months or or so that I'd like to think that at this age it's kind of slow playing it and that over the next couple months he'll work his way back into some version of whatever for me had previously. It's a pretty tough watch right now and they're using him pretty sparingly for the most part, trying to keep him under 15 minutes. But even in this game, one of those goals, and I think it was the first one, the dynamic Eelers rush, which was so fun to watch from him, comes on a play where Blighting are theoretically in good position and all of a sudden Victor Hedman just cannot keep up with him.

coming down the wing and he just blows right by him and scores off the rush and is probably not at this point one of their best six defensemen maybe even not one of their best eight defensemen because I actually like what I've seen from guys like Crozier and Carlisle and I feel like they're safer at this point so that'll be a huge storyline to watch for them I think the highest leverage upgrade though is improving on all of your brooks fans front and right now because they're going 11 forward seven defensemen they've got this kind of makeshift for fine where they put kuturab out there with him. They mix and match their forwards, certainly quite a bit. But he's been a staple on the power play because he's one of their few right shot forwards that can play on the opposite flank of

Kuturov. And he's done a lot of his scoring this year on the power play. I believe he's got eight goals, which is second behind just Darren Radish on the team. But that's on 81 attempts. And I guess that like 60 plus of those are great A looks that Kuturov set up with a cross-scene pass where he had the goalie scrambling to move laterally to come. across and he just did not bury it and he's flubbed a lot of those opportunities throughout the year this power play is 12th or 13th in the league and that's fine and it's certainly looked dangerous recently but i feel like with the level kutrovs playing at it especially now the points back in that bumper and radish up top it should probably be a top three to five unit moving forward and so if they

can hammer that out that really is like the last missing piece for me because the penalty kills good the five one plays obviously great there's a ton of depth, the goal tending with the way Vasilevsky's playing is on point. And if they can get that to an elite level as well, then there's very few blemishes on their resume and their statistical

sheet right now. So I don't know if you had any other suggestions, but that would be one for me, like adding a right shot that could play on the top unit power play. And it would probably be using Bjork Strand's salary to upgrade on that because for the purposes of this year, they can't really bring in another

high paid guy. They're going to have to wait until the offseason to do that. So it would probably take a creative like three team trade where Purok Strand gets moved to another playoff team and the team that's sending the player to the lightning gets an extra traffic or two from them. But I feel like there should be plenty of buyers because Burekstrand is still a useful player. I just think they could do better in that spot. Yeah, my take on the forward group because I think that's the area where you would look, given gold tending is short up obviously with Vasselowski and then as you mentioned, the depth on defense is legit. With the fours,

you know you've got the point kutra of gensel haggleteer and then you've got guys like sirelli and paul and a couple of other guys who are you know going to really boost that top nine and i really like you know what holmberg's done but that and then you get a couple of dogs in there in terms of like the dominic james of the world and you know those types but i feel like you know this is kind of along the same lines as you i feel like they're missing one extra finisher and i don't know like there was a report the other day about Stephen Stamcoast being open to returning to Tampa, one of a handful of teams that he's interested in going to. You know, if you get him on 50% retained, I know we're not doing mock trades right now,

but I wonder if that's of interest. I know that Stamcoast was pretty hurt by the exit there. But if the report is true that he is interested in going back, I mean, I don't hate the idea. And obviously from a narrative perspective, it would be amazing. another core member coming back after McDonough came back and I feel like I'm missing someone else that came back. Oh, Yanny Gord, like that's kind of a fun little side plot is the championship team largely being intact four or five years later.

So there's other snipers out there. My mind just goes to Stamcoast right away given we're talking with the power play and we're talking about Kutrov setting up right-handed shot guys. Yeah, the retention on Stamco's would be interesting because it's for two more years after this one, which is a bit rich at $4 million per for the length of that deal. The predators still do have Matthew Shane and Kyle Turris as buyout cap charges against them, now especially Duchesins like drops pretty significantly heading its next year. So it's less onerous and some of the retentions they have on at Coleman Sizzins expire after this year.

So I think it's doable assuming the predators want to go that direction. I'm still in including a lot of these guys, whether it's him or Ryan O'Reilly unsure, they're actually going to go that direction between now and the deadline. It might be more of an offseason move, if at all. What's fascinating about that, though, is like, on the one hand, the Lightning had this window right now where they're clearly one of the best two, three teams in the league, and so they should be trying to go for a Stanley Cup this year. But things really do open up with them this off season because they have,

similar to what we said about Carolina, everyone signed pretty much. And so they're essentially going to be able to retain this entire team, add one high salary forward if they choose to and then still retain Darren Radish if they want to if he hasn't priced himself out long term and so they're going to have much more flexibility to add meaningfully this offseason as opposed to right now but using Bjork Strand's salary if they choose to upgrade it

in that direction I feel like you could certainly do a lot of fun stuff so we'll see on that do you want to get into the west a little bit in terms of some of the contenders and kind of keep rattling through as many as we can here before we go to break. Let's start with the apps. Let's work our way from top down. They made a trade earlier this week,

sending out Sam Gerard in a second to get Brett Kulak back. I talked about it a little bit with our pal Jean Shapiro on a Patreon show at the time. But part of the logic certainly was carving out this extra $2.25 million against the cap for this season and then Gerard's $5 million next year as well to make one more addition for this. year's roster to push for a Stanley Cup as the number one team in the league. And it'll likely be a forward because with this Kulak acquisition, their three pairs make a lot more sense now in terms of stylistic fit.

And I think they're going to be more comfortable playing them the way they're lined up right now. They have enough salary at this point to add a big ticket center if they choose to. And then that allows them to bump Jack Drury down to the fourth line where he's overqualified, kind of like what we said about the hurricanes, keep Ross Colton on the wing, where I think he's more effective, they could also just choose to add another weapon on the wing that could play in the middle six to give them more optionality with guys like Lekinen

and Landisog and Achushkin and really solidify the third line and add another scoring threat. What do you think their biggest need is now? Because obviously they've been remarkable this year despite more pedestrian results recently after another loss to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. But it's a loaded offense,

especially a 5-15, and I'm curious to see how they choose to use this new found cap space they have available to them. Yeah, even though the league is caught up to them in a lot of ways in terms of how far ahead they were in the standings, I still think that there are, you know, the team to be in the NHL this season. So this is very much a nitpick on my end, but I feel like they need someone to spice up the power play.

And, you know, it only makes sense that that would come from the forward group. So, you know, to sort of fall in line with your perspective in terms of, you know, whether it's a winger or center, but just someone who, you know, honestly, Ryan O'Reilly, a guy you brought up before, kind of comes to mind, obviously, a reunion there, and also just someone who can work the power play down low and just, it doesn't make a ton of sense why their power play has struggled. So I feel like you need someone who is going to be a facilitator and someone who's going to mix things up, get a lot of touches.

And then also, you know, the net front part of that is helpful too, because, because, you know, I haven't done a deep dive on the avalanche powerplay, but I would imagine that they're not getting enough sort of screens and tips on their long range shots on the powerplay. I would just assume. So I do like the O'Reilly fit there, although that's just one of many directions they could go. But my mind, you know, this is kind of a theme of the show so far,

but my mind goes to the forward group and specifically to some sort of powerplay utility. Yeah, it's a similar thing to what's been going on in Buffalo. obviously to a greater extent because the avalanche power play has been less effective and their 5-1-5 has been so good by comparison. But there's a layer of predictability to when the other team can get set defensively. They kind of know that most of the shots are going to come either from that one time with McKinnon standing at the left flank or a shot from up high with McCarra kind of trying to work the middle of the ice and get moving downhill. And so you can kind of prepare for it in a way there's not a lot of variability to it or I guess unpredictability. whether it's a guy down low who could facilitate a bit more or someone in the interior who could be more effective. O'Reilly would be the former another reunion, Nazim Kadri, who after this deal, they now have enough salary to take on cleanly moving forward, although his contract for the years beyond this one might be a bit of a complication for them.

He would fit that bill more so in terms of an interior finisher, and we certainly saw him be very effective in his final year for Colorado there. So I've got a lot of fun trades for them on Sunday, both at center and wings. So I'll just leave it at that. The Minnesota Wild, who beat them on Thursday, we got another Discord question that I'm going to lump in here because it applies to them. And it asks, how important is the center position in today's NHL, especially come to postseason? Minnesota will be a great test for that based on the way their roster is constructed. Now, I think people are sometimes maybe making a mistake of just pulling up their depth chart on daily face off and seeing Caprizov's. on the top line and will be listed as such. And so the guy playing with him is Ryan Hardman down

the middle. And people view that as Ryan Hartman being the team's number one center when obviously if you watch them play or just think about it logically, their number one center really is Joel Erickson Eck and does everything that you'd associate with the number one center for them. I'd argue their second best center is Matt Boldie, who just happens to play on the wing with Joel Ericksonek. So maybe that's a bit of a roster construction flaw for them, but a lot of the tendencies he has are that of an elite center in terms of what he does on the ice. So I'm not as worried about it. I think Del Nile you're all is fine in the role he's in now. And I'm kind of on record as saying it'd be nice for them to add a center just to have another option. But given the acquisition cost, it typically

comes with some of these bigger name centers, I would be more curious to see them explore adding a winger, which might seem odd on the surface. but then you think about this a little bit more. And beyond Caprizaub and Boldi, you look at a lot of the guys who are going to be playing in the top six on the wing for them. It's 30-year-old Matt Zuccarello who's already missed, a 38-year-old Matt Zagrelloo's already missed a bunch of time this year. 35-year-old Marcus Johansson, 34-year-old Blatt Tarasenko.

All three of those guys are off the books as free agents after this season. And they kind of have this two-year window both this year and next year, while Quinn Hughes is still in the deal. he's on after they acquired him to really kind of push for a Stanley Cup. And so I'd almost like to see them go that route at a cheaper cost to add an impactful winger that could play beyond this year for them and give them a bit more insulation if one of those older guys gets hurt at some point between now and whenever they lose in the playoffs. I'm curious for your take on sort of what you see the while doing or what you think the biggest need for them is given what they've

got now after everything they spent to acquire David Yerechek last year and then Quinn Hughes now in season this year. I thought it was a terrific question. And I think Minnesota is such a great test case for do you need, you know, high in centers in the modern NHL to succeed or to contend? Because Caprizov and Boldy are two of the best play driving wingers in the league. And they just happen to have both and they're on different lines. So that eliminates some of the need.

And then, of course, after they acquire Quinn Hughes, it's patently obvious that, you know, he's obviously not a center he doesn't do a lot of the center duties because he is a defenseman but he controls the flow of shifts in a way that centers can and he carries the puck yeah and there's so much interchangeability in hockey today now all that said considering the wilds path you mentioned this playoff run and next playoff run are guaranteed years of Quinn Hughes given that and sort of the trajectory in terms of how good Quinn has looked on the team I think that they should explore and upgrade at center. Now, I think Ericksonac is, you know, an average first-line center or an elite second-line center.

Like, he's underrated. We talked about it when we recap Finland, Sweden, during the Olympics. I'm just always blown away when I actually, like, focus in on what he's doing shift-to-shift. You're off Hartman-Sturm as a two, three, four. You know, that's sort of where the concern comes in. And I understand when people are throwing out Vincent Trocheck going to the wild. Obviously, there's a connection with Bill Garen, the guy who picked him for the Olympic team and was ultimately vindicated in terms of what Trochak brought to the table. And so you think about it from the wilds perspective, okay, what are you getting with Trochak?

You're getting face off wins. You're getting a guy that doesn't have to transport the puck. So he could play easily with Boldie and Caprizov. And it's not like you're taking something off his plate that he's usually dealing with. He's got, you know, a high work rate, the penalty kill utility. So I like it. like in theory, but then you start getting into like, as you mentioned, how much is this going to cost? If Trocheck is one of the top centers on the market, it's going to be a hefty package,

especially coming off the sort of the buzz around the Olympics and that improving his stock. And, you know, I'm going to throw it back to you, Dimitri, in terms of like this idea of them dangling Jesper Walsstadt for a potential top six center upgrade. I feel like that's, again, like I like, I like, you know, GM's being bold. I like the idea of like, okay, you've got this window, you know, get after it. But it feels kind of like an Ascarov situation that we saw in Nashville where it's like, oh, we have two good goalies. We got to get rid of one.

We have one under contract. The others, you know, in his RFA years, let's move the younger guy out. That has not worked out for Nashville, obviously. And I just feel like it's really playing with fire when you've got this goalie that is such a high ceiling who has proven that he's at the very least a starter in this league moving forward and maybe even a star. So moving that type of player, it's got to be a real big return, in my opinion. But then again, I also get Garen going like, I'm already all in with like the Caprizov extension with the Quinnieu's trade. Like let's just every single chip possible in the middle of the table.

So I just find that really interesting, the idea of like a guy with the pedigree of Walshatt and of the Calder trophy down-ballot season of Walsdat being dangled out there. And teams, obviously, I would assume, being super interested in a player like him. Oh, undoubtedly. And, you know, this would have seemed like such a far-fetched conversation if we talked about it, whatever, start of December when he was on that heater he was on, and then his play regresses a little bit and this starts popping up.

And Gustafson extension kicks in next year as well. He goes up from 3.75 per to 6.8. and so I get it. I would be open to it. I mean, I'm probably the wrong person to ask because I generally think goalies for the most part are interchangeable, and I think Gustafsson's totally fine.

And so you could get some sort of a premium player at a skater position that was on a good deal and gave you meaningful reps long term as well beyond just this here and next. I'd entertain it certainly. I think it's a bit rich for a player of Trojic's caliber, certainly given his age. So I'm curious to see what they do there.

It's obviously the biggest trade chip they have. I wouldn't, you know, a player, if they're making some sort of a deal like that that teams are going to be asking about as a Del Nell-Yarov, I would be very hesitant to do that and probably more so than Walshead because I think he's going to be very valuable moving forward and he's still got two more years on his ELCA and I think it's only going to get better as he transitions to North America. And so I would almost view him as an intonchable in this,

but then you get into the lack of draft capital they have at this point and how they've already dipped into their prospect pool and how you facilitate a deal of that magnitude. So a lot to consider there. I think there's other ways to ultimately be successful in today's game, right? Like, I think it's nice to have strength down the middle, and we typically think of that as being the premium way to build out a Stanley Cup contender and Stanley Cup winner.

But as you noted, I think very correctly, a lot of the guys they have playing different positions already fill a lot of the actual on-ice characteristics that those centers would be asked to do. and now it's just about, I guess, optimizing the minutes when those guys are out there when you have your top players, who's going to be playing with them and really kind of leveraging that to its full effect. And so, Ryan Harmon certainly is not that moving forward. But I think you can patch it together if you've got enough strength at other positions and they look that way right now.

So it'll be fun to watch. Let's take our break here, John, quickly. And then when we come back, we'll close out with some of the other teams. Got a couple other mailback questions as well. You're listening to the Hockey, Ocast Streaming. on the SportsNet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockeyedio cast, joined by John Mattis closing out the week with,

you know, we said we're going to do a couple of mail-back questions, and I still want to do two or three more on the back end, but we've really sunk our teeth into this one big one and we're covering as much ground as we can, looking at all the top teams in the league, some of the stuff they should be thinking about between now and the trade deadline. We've covered four or five teams already.

Let's rattle through some of the other more interesting ones. You know, I want to throw out the Red Wings here, who aren't necessarily the caliber of team of some of the ones we've talked about so far, but are sitting in a playoff spot, looking to end this near-decade-long drought, their top players, their core players, and Lark and Raymond Insider,

all really showed out at the Olympics, and I think inspire a lot of confidence that there's something impactful to build around here. Very identifiable needs as well. They've been associated or linked to Tyler Myers, who has been sitting out, recently contemplating whether he wants to move and it seems like based on all accounts the red wings are the team who has at least floated an offer the Canucks way and made them think about it.

A second right shot defenseman is probably the way to go here for them, even though they have other needs that I think would make them better because I love Axel Sanis Pelica's outlook moving forward but you look at his usage and just think about how coaches typically operate in the playoffs. It's tough to see a guy like Todd McClellan trusting him in like high leverage big minutes beyond the cider Edvinson pair. And so if you're going to have Ben Shrodd out there for a good chunk of that other time, I think you really got to be thoughtful about adding a guy who could handle a lot of the retrieval and puck moving duties to get yourself out of his own so you're not just drowning and defending the entire time and setting your team back. I don't think Tyler Myers is that.

I'd like to see them be more ambitious. They have a bunch of cap space moving forward beyond this year and a ton of prospects that they haven't traded yet that they could entertain packaging. And so we'll see what they do. It might be more of an off-season one in terms of finding the long-term fit there as opposed to over the next week.

But I'm curious if you think that's the most logical upgrade for them and then what that would look like or if you have some other suggestion. I had second or third-payer defenseman on my mind with the sort of like prevailing thought that whatever pushes Travis Hammondick further down the depth truck is helpful. I don't know why, but well, I shouldn't put it that way.

But one guy who comes to mind is Zach Whitecloud. I know he just got traded to Calgary, but for some reason, I like the idea of him being inserted into that Detroit lineup in terms of his age, his handedness, and just kind of a steady guy who has proven during his... time in Vegas that he can play a pretty, you know, put on tape, you know, pretty good third pair of minutes and I suppose elevate to the second pair if necessary. The reason why I suggest that it might be more of an offseason move is I'm not sure if you

saw this after last night's Rangers lost in overtime to the Flyers, but a very ominous quote to the media from Adam Fox in terms of his future in New York and how he's approaching the rest of this season, but is something he's going to have to really. revisit with management internally this offseason. And I think if you're mapping out, I mean, a guy with his ability as a puck mover and a creator as a one-two bunch with Mo Sider on the right side would obviously be a dream fit in situation. And the Red Wings are one of the few teams that has enough intriguing former first-round talent

that isn't necessarily stapled to the roster as core members that they could compile and package together to just blow the Rangers away with an offer. And so if the Rangers really do tear this thing down meaningfully this offseason, beyond what they've already done, that would be a very obvious fit. But that's probably more of an offseason thing than in season at this point with how close we are to the deadline. But those are the types of moves that I'd like to see them entertaining as meaningful upgrades

as opposed to Logan Stanley or Tyler Myers or whatever Patrick defenseman that's going to help them lose in six games as opposed to five this postseason. And I think there's reasons to be excited and let's scale this thing up in a more appropriate fashion. I've got the sabers, the penguins, and the Oilers left on my list. Do you want to rattle through those in terms of your order of intrigue based on the way I just listed them? Yeah, sure. I mean, with Edmonton, I mean, goalie is the obvious answer here, but they've already taken their cut with acquiring Tristan Jari and also sending a second round pick with Stuart Skinner.

a deal that was, you know, a little more multi-layered than that, but nevertheless, they've sort of already, you know, spent an asset on bringing a goalie and it just has not worked out. And at the time, it was an obvious lateral move and not, you know, not to say that it wasn't worth doing because at least it's change. It's trying something after Skinner was clearly not the guy. But nevertheless, they're in the situation where they're not getting saves. And then so if you look at more of a realistic situation where, you know, given the

lack of assets they have and that they've already tried the whole goalie thing. Scoring on the wing, you know, 10 goals from Yanmark, Frederick, Manjiapani. You know, I could have included more guys than that and it probably would have only gotten to 20, 25, but things really thinn out quickly on the wings at Eminton. Yeah, I mean, that's always going to be an obvious one. I'd argue figuring out the second pair to play with Jake Wallman is probably the. the way to go. And I'm not sure if they're ready to really have that conversation internally because of how committed they are to darn on theirs and have been historically and still are financially moving forward. But it's been really tough. And obviously he was under quite a bit of fire

after their loss to the ducks where he was on the ice for four or five on five goals against, including the backbreaker at the end to lose six five. And what a, what a chaotic back to back for the oilers as you'd expect from them always, right? They come out of the Olympic break. they have this game where they blow it late to the ducks, including Jari being pulled, late in a tied 4-4 game, I believe, at the time, and then come right back and absolutely just detonate the LA Kings, who, after the Panarin trade, have now lost back-to-back games in regulation at home, including this 8-1 lost to Oilers and losing the night before to a team that I can only describe

as the Henderson Silver Knights as opposed to the Vegas Golden Knights based on who they had available. I included the penguins here because they are near the top of the standings when you store by point percentage, and also because they're fascinating with the news that Crosby's going to be out for about a month or so. They bank the win against the devils coming out of the break. They play the Rangers on Saturday in a matinee game,

which should be a good spot for them to bank a couple extra points, and then they start this gauntlet of a schedule all the way through March where they're going to play 18 games through 33 days, essentially, bleeding into April, 15 of those are going to be against teams in playoff position, and everyone keeps waiting for the other shoot-a-drop. Yet I watch them, and every time I come away more impressed with the job Dan Hughes is doing, and that game against the devil is another great example, where he's just optimizing everything to such an extreme fashion right now.

You look at the zone deployment, for example, and he pretty much is exclusively using Chinikov, Malkin, and Novak for offensive zone draws, keeping them entirely sheltered out of any defensive responsibilities. Unsurprisingly, Chinokov is absolutely cooking off the rush, playing with Malkin in that unit, and then leaning on that Dura-Achari-Lezot pair or a trio for defensive zone starts to facilitate that mixing and matching so effectively. They're playing such a fun style, creating so much offensively,

splitting the ice time very evenly, which I think is going to help them during this exhausting stretch because they're not really leaning on any one guy to play significant minutes. and so that'll keep everyone fresher theoretically, which is important given the age of this roster. And they have so many assets, John, which was only created to a greater extent after the Kulak trade where they add another second in the process,

add Sam Gerard, have a ton of cast base, have about every second round pick moving forward that is available in the league and third round pick. And so they can make any trade they want, and we've seen Kyle Dubus already over the past year. So take this arbitrage round. out of essentially treating this stuff like stocks where he's buying at a low point,

rehabbing the value and then selling it at a higher point and coming out ahead from a value perspective. And between the deadline and this offseason, it's probably another opportunity to do so where I think he can reward this group for hanging around the playoffs right now, try to improve it, get another playoff run out of this core, and then revisit in the off season and potentially sell at a higher value and recoup a lot of those assets and come out ahead. And so I imagine that's what he's going to do. I'm very curious to see what that looks like in practice

in terms of how aggressive they are and who they add to this roster. Yeah, I mean, they've made five NHL trades this season, which is a lot for, you know, since it's only late February. I assume that Dubas will continue to wheel and deal, but I feel like the move might be to neither sell nor buy to any significant degree. Hope the playoffs come. So you get, you know, Ben Kindle and these younger guys, some reps in the playoffs.

And obviously the Eastern Conference is a little wide open. So I suppose there might be a window there to go on some kind of run, although I'm still not quite sure what I think about this Penguins team. But you do all that with the understanding that you're going to get to work in the summer with over the next three drafts, three first, seven seconds, six thirds. So does that become sort of the summer of penguins wheeling and dealing? And it becomes a situation where you go into next season, with still Crosby, LaTang, and Malkin, but a real, you know, strength and unit behind them.

That's sort of where I'm, where my head's at. And it's just such a gauntlet. Like you mentioned their next, whatever, 18 games. I mean, they get a ton of Vegas and Colorado and Carolina and Utah and, you know, even Buffalo, who's obviously become a hard out these days. is like it's almost nonstop, not only penalty or playoff teams, but teams that are like insanely hot right now. So I feel like if they are going to hit a wall,

it's going to be over the next month. And obviously that's difficult if you are in the seat of the GM because part of that is after the trade deadline. So, I mean, if I were Kyle Dubus, I would, you know, take my foot off the gas in and around the deadline, you know, maybe tinker here and there, but sort of leave my bullets for the offseason. There is no way that is the right answer, John.

Come on. Everything he's done that's gotten... Everything he's done to be successful to this point over the past calendar year or so is the exact emphasis of that. I think press your foot even harder on the gas because not only do they have such a stockpiled treasure chest of assets at this point, but... And I'm not saying go crazy for a rental that you're going to lose in the office seat or nothing, although I think it's totally fine with how many extra surplus

draft picks they already have. but if it's someone with especially term moving forward and they have so much cap space moving forward they could pretty much just add anyone and not even flinch and not even affect their plans moving forward even if it doesn't work out we've already seen that he's going to be so pragmatic and efficient at turning that into something else at a later point like this offseason and so i don't necessarily view it as a one and done i don't i'm not suggesting they should go crazy but i do think there's a way to take a swing at this and try to consolidate and then still sell potentially and kind of redo it on the fly in the off season.

And I imagine that's what he's going to do if the past calendar year is any indication. The sabers, I don't want to actually do them right now because I've got so many fake trades for them on Sunday. I feel like based on your tone throughout the show, though, I'm higher than them on you or higher on them than you are because, and I know you love yourself some sabers, but you threw out Tuck earlier for the for the Cains as a buy even though I think the Sabres are clearly at this point locked into a playoff spot and should be buying themselves and that takes Tuck off the table even if he's going to leave this summer and probably should and you know I think they're beyond just hot at this point like I think they're legitimately good and I think there's some very creative ways assuming they've got good internal self-evaluation of the players they have both in Rochester and in Buffalo for them to make moves that seem like small changes to the NHL roster that pay big dividends. And so we're going to get into that on Sunday. Do you want to handle this triple gold club question that we got from Eric Schumacher,

who, by the way, before the break, if it got lost somehow in the shuffle of all the excitement about the Olympics, had him on. And we did a Patreon show, Deep Diving the Blue Jackets. And he does a phenomenal job covering that team. So please go check that out. now that we're back in the swing of things, Eric asks, there are now five players eligible to win triple gold in a single calendar year.

Zach Wrenski, Clayton Keller, Tage Thompson, Jackson, Lecombe, and Jeremy Swayman. None of them seem particularly likely. Which of their NHL teams would you take, for the purposes of this question, to give one of these players a historic golden season, obviously adding a Stanley Cup to the World Championship they won last year,

and then Olympic gold they won a, last week. So I'm curious for your take on this because obviously none of those teams are necessarily considered Stanley Cup contenders. Some of them are currently sitting in a playoff spot. Some could work their way in there.

Which one of these do you take and why? Dare I say, through process of elimination mostly, that Tage Thompson has the best chance. Because I mean, I don't see the Bruins on going on some sort of run. The docks. I don't know if they're even going to make the play.

playoffs, you know, Werensky in the jackets. Maybe they sneak in, but I do not see a deep run there. The only other contender is Keller and Utah, but there's something about the Sabres where it feels like amongst these teams they have the highest ceiling and seem motivated to add at the deadline. And I know I did mention the tuck trade, but I was thinking, can they, you know, get rid of him if necessary to upgrade in the moment because they're going to lose them in the summer. It's a new management group. Maybe they just look at things differently than previous regimes. But I fully expect them to, I don't know if they're going to be massive buyers of the deadline,

but this is a fan base that has literally waited 15 years for the playoffs. Like they're not going to sit on their hands. And the team's proven, like it's not a good month. It's not a good six weeks. they've proven over a really long stretch here to be a formidable team. So honestly, it's insane to say given the playoff drought and that we're talking about the Buffalo Sabres. But out of those five teams, I think it's the Sabres, which means I think Tage has the best chance at Triple Gold. Yeah, I think the Mammoth might be the best team on paper.

But the path moving forward and, you know, it's still relatively precarious for them with the way the West is shaping up, but just in division. And, you know, they're not going to necessarily have to go through these teams sequentially because they're going to play themselves in the meantime because of how backwards the playoff format is in the NHL these days. But they're in a division with Colorado, Minnesota, and Dallas. And so I think their path through the West is going to be a bit trickier, despite what we said about Tampa Bay, in the Atlantic and the hurricanes in the metro, the east seems a little bit more wide open. Now, I don't know. if Tage Thompson would necessarily agree with the sentiment here, because I'm not sure, speaking

of quotes that I saw this week, a moment of unintentional comedy from him in an otherwise bleak ordeal for everyone involved this week, essentially said that going to the White House was a very cool experience and something he'll probably never get to do again. Oh, yeah, I just do that. Which hints that he does not believe in a lot of God. does not suggest a lot of faith that the Sabres will win the Stanley Cup at any point soon. But yeah, I think Buffalo certainly has a very exciting trajectory moving forward. And this is beyond the hot streak.

They've been playing so well. And so he's probably the right answer here. All right. Well, we had another question about the Devils. We'll save that for another time, though. There's going to be a lot of time moving forward to unpack everything that's got on in New Jersey. Continues to be such a massive disappointment and mess. I don't know if you've caught their games this week.

But for a team that is reaching historical lows in 5-1-5 goal scoring, played two games against the penguins and the Sabres and scored a goal apiece in them. And one of them was against Buffalo where they pulled their goalie late and gone with an extra attacker. And then against Pittsburgh, they scored on a delayed penalty when they had six skaters out as well. So they refused to score any 5-1-5 goals. That's all the time we have for today. I'm going to let you plug some stuff on the way out. I know you're busy during the Olympics writing stuff up. certainly moving forward as we get to the deadline and then the playoffs your coverage is going to be must read so i'll let you plug some stuff and let the listeners know where they can check you out

sure i guess i just stay locked into the score app i'm going to be writing a lot ahead of the deadline on deadline day i'll be doing some live analysis so that's perhaps the specific thing to plug um on friday next friday march 6th i believe it's marce 6th or is a march 7th i can't remember March 6th. March 6th. I will be, you know, all day when trades come down, instantly reacting. So head to the score out for that. And as usual, Dim, thanks for me on. Was it a blast. And adding to your coverage, speaking up next Friday and March 6th, we'll have you back on.

Sean Shapiro at some point. And we'll be doing our annual post-decline catch-up and breakdown of everything that happened leading up to the deadline. So I'm looking forward to that. Speaking of other coverage, subscribe to the PDA guest Patreon. If you haven't subscribed yet, now is a really good time to do so. I know a lot of people really enjoyed the stuff we had out there

during the Olympics. We're going to keep it going ahead of the trade deadline. Earlier this week, we got that Sam Jard, Brett Kulak trade, get a breakdown on a show there for the subscribers. If there's a meaningful trade like that, between now and the March 6 deadline, I will have analysis of it either on the newsletter at RIN form

or with an extra show on the Patreon feed, So get in there and join us for what should be a fun week ahead. That is all for today. We'll be back Sunday night, as I said, with the fake trades extravaganza. Looking forward to that. In the meantime, I hope everyone is a great weekend. And thank you for listening to the Hockey-PedioCast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.