The Hockey PDOcast - Last Words For The Trade Deadline

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to put a bow on this year’s trade deadline by summing up what the top ten teams in the league did with one word. 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.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name's Dmitri Filippovich and joining me here in studio on this Monday starting the week's wrong. My good buddy Thomas Trans, Tom. What's going on? Oh, not much, bud. Just enjoying that was a fun weekend of hockey. John Hines blew my mind. NFL for agency, obviously tracking that closely. Thatcher Demcoe injury news, big preoccupation on Canucks. So yeah, lots going on. It's been a fun weekend. Nice to take a deep breath after the trade deadline.

But I'm excited to share some sober second thought reflections with you on what went down and what it all means today. The trade deadline's over, but just because that's the case does not mean we're going to stop here. And I want to say, I think people really enjoyed last week's slate of P.D.Ocast shows. We did like six hours worth. I was really proud of it. But I want to keep it going. Instead of taking a step back, I want to keep building on that momentum. And despite the fact that deadline festivities and all the badness that comes to that is over with,

I'm going to try to do so here. And I don't know if it's going to be sobering necessarily, Tom, because I think the best way to fight the hangover is to just keep going. And that's what we're going to do here. I don't want to stop podcasting. I want to keep talking hockey. This is the hair of the dog. Deadline recap. Exactly.

So here's the plan for today. I know it's not quite as exciting as the two segments of the season kind of sandwiching it, right? you have this brief period after the deadline before the postseason. But I actually think it can be a good time for us. It's less stress. We can kind of worry about sort of we don't have to worry about checking our phone every couple minutes and anticipating breaking years that we have to instantly like plug into and react to for our job.

So we get to just kick back, watch these games and see how all the pieces fit as teams jockey for position. But before we do all that, I want to sort of put a bow on the trade deadline with you in particular because I tried to get to as much of it as I could on Friday's two-hour show. I think there's obviously still some meat on the bone. You can only really get to so much at one time. But also, we've had the benefit now of this weekend to sort of marinate on this, think on it. And I think in particular, rather than the sort of what in terms of what happened, I want to get into the why and how with you, like the mechanics of sort of the behind-the-scenes stuff for the deadline in terms of the business at play.

I think that's probably, I don't know if you agree with this and whether it's a feature or a bug, but it's kind of the most underappreciated part of pretty much every deal these days, right? It's typically sort of featured as like, this player is going to this team, this is the return, but in reality, a massive consideration guiding all of these moves is the financials, right, in terms of like the capability of a team to actually facilitate it, all the moving parts of that. And so I think that's like a fun segue for us, I guess, here to finish off the trade deadline talk and then get into the stretch run here. the best example to illustrate sort of the business side, right?

How things alter as the deadline nears is how rarely you see these big retention deals earlier on in the season. But at the 11th possible hour, everyone's willing to retain. Everyone's willing to... Well, not everyone. Not everyone. Not everyone. Sorry, Eras. 31 teams. 31 teams.

Yes. But, you know, and it's because by the time you're here, right, but especially when the deadlines March 8th and the season ends officially on April 16th or whatever and you're only looking at 38 days of prorated salary. The numbers are actually far more manageable than you assume, right? You're talking 150K here, 250K here, you know, rounding errors from the perspective. Whereas earlier in the season, you're looking at way bigger numbers. It's unbelievable how the retention dynamics alter and are so unique to deadline season. and, you know, gave this deadline in particular a feel that, like, the cap was fake,

that the hard cap, you know, instead of being this all-governing force in the league, through the prism through which we must analyze everything, all of a sudden became a matter of, you know, a matter that creative front offices were able to navigate around, something that felt optional. I think that's only good for the game, despite everyone whining about Vegas LTI to the point that Kelly McCrimman had to come out and do. do the old wedding crashers thing. Like, oh, man, we lost some really good men out there. Playing for the Yankees? So that's my question for you then here. Let's start off with that.

Do you think, so do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing in the grand scheme of sort of the health of the league in terms of like drumming up excitement and, and conversation and dialogue amongst fans? And the reason why I ask you this is because on the one hand, I think the league clearly sort of prides itself on this idea of parody, right? And how like it's really tough to separate. yourself from the pack and then especially in the postseason with the volatility of the sport and the seven game series this idea of i don't want to upset you here but anything can happen that's at least the way the league sort of presents the playoffs right that's all well and good i think that the issue though is you get into these circumstances where it's a bit

strange that like you read these reports how it's like the kings are really interested in riley smith but it's it's just too complicated for them to to pull off this deal or you get like Ilya Lubushkin requiring a third party broker to facilitate a trade. Obviously, the leaves doing so so they could go out and also add Joel Edmondson. And I understand all of that. But when you take a step back and sort of view it through that lens compared to like how other sports operate, it is a bit strange. Not for nerds like us, it's like, yeah, it's cool. Let's add three more layers to this that we can unpack.

But for a fan who's just like, who did my team get? It's definitely like a bit obscure. It's more fun with more activity. it's more fun with more possibility. You know, the biggest, like just from a fans' perspective, the biggest day of interest around the Vancouver Canucks across the last five years since I've been covering the team, was the day the Canucks executed the Oliver Ekman-Larsen bio.

That was more interesting based on how many people wanted to read about it, two fans, than the Pedersen extension, then the J.T. Miller trade, then the Miller extension, then the Bruce, there it is bump, then the run through the bubble. Why? Because it opened up possibilities, right? Like, it created a sense that like, hey, now this team can be better. They, in fact, were, but it was the possibility that people reacted to. Possibilities, things to hope for. That's what fans want and respond to. And I think an environment where you've got like regular cap growth and the ability to actually make moves. and teams actually finding ways to execute deals that blow your mind, like the Tomash Hurtle deal, I think that's all upside, all upside for the sport. Well, to that point, my buddy Dave, who does analytics for the Victoria Royals, who was in studio with us on Trade Line Day, is a Canucks fan as well. And when we were here in studio on Friday, following the festivities, he opens up his laptop,

and he starts typing in Cap Friendly, and it immediately redirects him to Oliver Egman-Larsons' buyout page, because he had been visiting that so many times. And so to illustrate your point on that, there's that. What else I was thinking of was sort of, I mean, first the market and the prices, right? Did it feel to you like for, I guess some of the reasons we've hinted at so far,

the returns were relatively depressed? I think like the flames, like in particular the two deals. And it's apples and oranges because we know that centers typically just get valued more by the market. Right. So guys like Sean Monaghan and Elias Linholm have that working for. them already baked into that price but those teams that acted quickly rather than waiting until the final week almost it feels like almost got the best returns in terms of like what the haves and the flames got compared to what we were seeing the day of where you have tyler tofully

going for a future second and a third in deals that i think we all thought were yeah this is a pretty reasonable price for a team that can sort of meaningfully improve its roster and compete for us down like i would pay that every day now the number of teams who could facilitate that were were few and far between. So I'm a little bit split. I mean, I think there's a lot of seller teams that thought that Calgary set a market that was favorable to buyers, right? That's like some of what I'm hearing from various people around the business.

You look at the Lindholm deal and there was a ton of assets in the deal. But when you really like stop and actually think about it, right? It's like Kuzmanko's a deal that, you know, I think the Kinnock's were beginning to view as a potential liability, something that's. that might actually be difficult or require extra cost to get off of. Yoni Yermo, I think, was 50-50 to ever be signed by the team. Hunter Bruce Stevech, that's an interesting prospect, high upside guy, but one of those volatile prospects, like the upside case is really compelling,

but the Ty Smith case is also really compelling. And then a conditional fourth. I mean, it seems like a lot, but it's kind of not. And I think the Monaghan thing, like I think Montreal, was one of the very few teams that benefited from the market Calgary set by acting quickly. Outside of that, you know, and I even think you can poke holes in that Calgary package. Like, I just think this shaped up to be a wildly favorable buyer's market at the deadline. I think there's a few forces at play here.

And I think one of the ones that most shaped what we saw, especially in the, in the case of the Gensel deal, was how few trades involved actual top prospects. Like with the exception of Vegas parting with Edstrom for a long-term piece in Tomash Hurdle, did anyone trade one of their three best prospects? I don't think they did, right? Like you saw Grushnikov types, you saw Carolina trade some like second round guys who were tracking well. But, you know, industry opinion tends to not view those as impact prospects. Teams really held tight. Like teams were willing to part with draft capital to some extent. but they weren't willing to part with their top prospects.

And I do think that even with cap growth upcoming, the promise of cap growth upcoming, what that really does sort of emphasize is how much teams are still obsessed with the upside of landing like a major contributor, like a real contributor on an ELS. Like that's still something that teams are obsessed with. And I thought this deadline activity really bore that out on a global scale.

Well, deservedly so. I mean, obviously this is the extreme and sort of the highest and possible example of a use. see sort of the impact like the stars being able to call up a Lank, Logan Stankov and just having him basically slot in and immediately start producing in a top six role. Like the value of that for the next, not just the rest of this season, but the next two years after that. And then beyond, obviously, because you have the cost controlled asset is massive. I would even stretch that out to just like young contributors in general and lump in like Niels Hoaglander here as well. Where like the

idea of him, he's already got 25 on five goals, which I believe is like top top 10 certainly in in in total, but also like top three were in pro rated in terms of his usage, at 1.1 million next year, like that is just an enormously valuable contributor. And so I understand, like, it makes sense that teams would prioritize, that are already

firmly in this window, would prioritize guys considering they probably already then have a lot of high salary players on their roster, guys who can step in and play for cheap as opposed to someone who might help them four or five years for now, which a lot of either draft picks or like B prospects are. So I think that totally

makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, uh, there's a lot going on there. I think some people would suggest, and some people in the industry have suggested to me that one of the reasons why you see that too is like a simple bias where, where the idea is if you trade a draft pick and then that team selects a player and then that player goes on to be something. Right. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't your player. Right. Right. And the end that some of this is, just kind of like a self-dunk because you're basically implying like, hey, our scouting staff wouldn't have identified that player. It's like you're kind of admitting that if anything, the team should be like,

oh, we totally would have taken this guy who panned out. Yes. Right. So it's like the, yeah, I mean, I do think there's an element of that, like an element to which there's a risk mitigation factor at play. But I also do think that fundamentally it's a product. That's one of the big products of the cap era, right? the notion of the first player prospect package, we do still see it.

We saw it for Bo Horvatt last year. But it's increasingly rare, right? That's just something that's going kind of out the window. And I think that sort of dovetails nicely with the discussion of the Gensel deal, where, you know, I think the penguins have been carved for it. I don't know exactly how you feel about the package. But I think the overall value of that package is probably better. than what the flames netted for Elias Lindholm, and by some margin.

Like I'd say it's 150% more than what anyone else netted for a player. But it took such a different form than we're used to seeing, right? Because they're getting three prospects back and we know what the premium is for these types of guys relative to draft picks. And then they don't get the guaranteed first. And to them, that's inconsequential because they got the rarer pieces, the pieces fewer teams are willing. willing to part with. But it looks so different than what we're used to a rental package looking like at the trade deadline that I feel like it kind of broke people's brains a little bit. People weren't able to digest the actual price paid. Right. In part because the form was just different

than we're used to. Well, I'm not sure if you would agree or think that we've already arrived at this point, but I do wonder if there's kind of like a paradigm shift to come in the sport in terms of viewing it through the lens of like I feel like teams generally are so preoccupied with having their roster like fleshed out by October 10th or whenever this season's starting and it's like we need to just fill out

every lineup spot and have all our guys locked in and go into the first game of the opening season or the regular season with our roster ready to go and then obviously performance is wildly going to vary you're going to have injuries all sorts of stuff's going to happen but I want like you'd almost be better serve carving out that space and sort of more patiently waiting to make sure that you have the

lineup you want for April 1st or whenever like the final couple weeks of the regular season are to preserve that flexibility if you know what I mean obviously you're sort of playing the risk of if if you don't have a fully fully formed roster and you struggle the start of the season you have to actually make it to the playoffs to begin with but it feels like in hockey everyone is just so focused on by the time we come to July 1st it's like all right I've got $12 million in cap space. I need to use $12 million in cap space because it's a burning a hole in my pocket, as opposed to sort of taking a longer term view of let's keep room open so that once we get

through these kind of benchmarks in the regular season, we can actually pounce when prices are depreciated the way they were this trade deadline. And that's why a team like the Hurricanes, who does that more diligently than anyone else, was able to act in a variety of ways because they actually are a contender who does have that flexibility. Well, you're sort of bringing up one of my, one thing that I found annoying, like, in the wake of the crack and expansion draft where people were like, well, the GMs were wise to it this time. And it's like, for this week, you know, if that team had preserved cap space for two or three flat cap seasons, like these deals would have still come to them. You know what I mean?

They just would have come to them in a slightly different form. Boston for a few years has used the deadline to shop long term, right? Charlie Coyle, Hampus Lindholm, like we've seen this team target players at the deadline and then extend them. So they're doing long-term shopping in an environment

where teams are occasionally a little bit more limited in the number of parties that they can deal a player to. Vegas has started doing this more, I mean, they've always kind of done it. But like Mark Stone, when they acquired him, was a pure rental.

At least he was on that timeline. Right. Now they extend him. but now we're seeing Vegas operate totally differently, right? And like now we're seeing, because, yeah, you have the stone. Well, I think they tried with Satar. Obviously it didn't work out. But like, that was part of the logic as well.

Right. I had this guy who's going to be on this team for a while as opposed to just the pure rental. And, and I mean, Barbosheb and Stone would both be the like expiring guys, but they end up retaining. But if it's a good fit and we're very confident they're going to like it here, we'll be able to retain them. Aiden Hill, too.

Yes. But the hurdle deal is like the most. poignant, clear example of Vegas's M.O., right? Of Vegas's sort of Boston Bruins on steroids approach to using the deadline and the sort of leverage point, the inflection point that comes for teams forced into making decisions here. You know, instead of looking at it as like my final opportunity to add a finishing piece, a third line center or a fourth line center, penalty killing ace.

And they'll still do that. I mean, they traded for Manta, but that price was reasonable, right? That the Hanifan, like, what they're really willing to pay for are the guys who are coming as long-term fits explicitly. Hanifin, hurdle, right? And that to me is a new world. What I'm curious to see is whether or not that comes to be more of the norm, right? I think Carolina obviously bought Kuznetsov and Gensel. I think they'll have, they'll fancy their chances of keeping Gensel.

Who knows? With who's nets up, that's a true flyer and we'll get into it more. But, you know, I'd say that's sort of another example, albeit less explicitly, of a team that had no need in either the Genssel or Pedersen trade talks to have an opportunity to discuss an extension with the player because they're comfortable renting the guy, but they're also bringing them in with a view toward the long term. I think that's a fascinating sort of mini dynamic, like a mini distillation. of the overall, like a Bruin strategy, which Vegas has now put on steroids and taken to the next level. No, that makes a lot of sense. And when I say sort of maintaining flexibility in the way of resources,

part of that is cap space. Part of that is also to the Cain's credit, like volume of prospects to also dip into as well, right? Where you said like no one moved any of their top three prospects. You could probably even say the Cains didn't move like even their top five or seven or however we want to rate these guys. But then that speaks to the job they've been doing the past couple years and accumulating guys where their 10th prospect might be the third or fourth that's prospect

on another team. And so that's kind of part of this consideration. That point in a third best prospect in a lot of organizations, right? A fifth, like a leading scorer in league at the age of 20. You know, if that guy was like a Toronto Maple Leafs or like an Alberta team prospect, people would be like excited about it. You'd be hearing a lot about him. But because he's in Carolina, him and, you know, you just don't hear much about them.

I did want to circle back this because someone over the weekend in the Discord, board posted about how like I think there's that oh I got whiplash from listening to you praise the golden nights for sort of with reckless abandon aggressively mortgaging picks and in cap space to add players while also then crediting the stars for sort of taking a longer term view with their first and their development system and doing that that way and I think that's kind of the point though right it's like as long as you have a defined plan and then you stick to it and execute it, I don't think there's necessarily a one size fits all in the NHL for like how to go about building a sustainable contender.

Right? I think where we bump into issues is when teams sort of by the seat of their pants are like going one direction and then maybe things go differently they expected and then they pivot and change their plan on the fly and then in the off season they go back to spending and then they're kind of all over the place going back and forth as opposed to like following through on the plan, even if it's not necessarily the best plan, at least if it's not necessarily the best plan, at least if it's like defined and then you continue with it, you can almost like you can see what's happening as opposed to just the back and forth.

Well, that's what kills you. Right. Those quick directional changes. Because you're losing like slight value with each of those turns, right? And then like in the aggregate, that's what kills you. Well, I'll give you two examples that I'm deeply familiar with. One was the Florida Panthers, right? In that 2015-16 season, they have that PDO bender season.

They win the division, right? Everything looks like it's on the up and up. And then they quickly change for about a four-month period to a more progressive style of management commonly associated with the computer boys. And then Dale Tallon comes back in charge. And, you know, so you've got this team built a certain way that all of a sudden gets like small on the blue line and brings in Marsha So and Riley Smith. And it makes sense. A lot of good players acquired. A lot of smart extensions done.

And then you switch back to the other mode of operating. And it's like, whoever was right or wrong, like both were, both made some decent moves, both made some mistakes. But the key was that switching between those two viewpoints in, in quick succession, like three switches within the context of a year, left that team muddled until Bill Zito came in and sorted things out. I think likewise, like in Vancouver, what you saw was this team was trying to build this perennial playoff team. And then the pandemic hit and the budget got lean. And so you lose to Foley and Markster, and Muntanev in free agency, right? And, you know, you kind of cut things to the bone in terms of depth

and change your orientation. And then the very next year, they do the OEL trade. It's like, it's like faucet on, faucet off, faucet on three times in a 12-month period. And it took Jim Rutherford and Alvin two years to sort it out, right? Those quick, abrupt turns and strategy, whether it's political, whether it's budgetary, whether it's how you're assessing your team. Well, now it's time for us to go all in because we're ahead of schedule. Those switches, I think, are death in a heart cap system.

They certainly are. One final note on this, and then we're going to take a break, and then we'll get into specifics with teams. I was thinking about the timing of the deadline as well. Do you think that we're at the right spot in terms of like how late into the season it is? Because on the one hand, I think the reason why you do it that way is like you want to build up as much of a sample as you can to give teams an idea.

of where they stand. And hopefully, like, it's not really the case right now because, like, half the league is on the bubble, basically. Yep. But this idea that there will be some sort of clarity and delineation between playoff teams and teams who should sell. But I couldn't help but think, and while this was all happening, if the deadline had been a month ago or even three weeks ago,

like the penguins might have kept against all. And then obviously he gets hurt, right? Right. But that's sort of an anomaly. But the predators certainly, I think, would have traded like everyone. Yeah. And now they wound up, like they trade Trennan, who was an impending UFA and who we both like. But they extend Novak.

But they extend Novak. They keep Carrier. They bring in soccer, obviously, for really cheap because they could just take his full contract with Arizona. And they bring in Bavillia as well for nothing to replace Trennan. But yeah, like they would have, I think, just traded pretty much everyone a month ago. And I don't think there's a right or wrong answer in that regard, because I don't think for their perspective, whatever they would have gotten back based on the prices we saw for Alex Carrey. I don't think that's going to impact how good they are three years from now, right? It would have been like a mid-round pick.

Whereas now there's good vibes team that's going to give someone trouble in round one. I think there is value to that. But it's interesting to think about like how different the trade-ed-in-I would have looked on February 8th as opposed to March 8th. Fascinating, right? And then you have things that like look sage in retrospect. Obviously, I'm focused on the Canucks. They don't push in more chips after acquiring Lindholm. And then the first game, the day after the deadlock,

that your Demko leaves with injury. Right. And it's like, could you imagine the conversation right now if they'd bought, like if they parted with additional assets, right? I mean, it would be wild. One of the winners, under the radar winners of the trade deadline, though, the Milwaukee Admirals, right? Because now they're not sending half their team up to be blooded in the NHL.

Yep. Now they just get to keep wrecking everybody in the A. Love that for that. That's true. That's a good point. Okay, let's take a break here. And then we come back, we'll pick things right back up with Thomas Drans who are listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Hitting the most important topics for Vancouver sports fans.

The People's Show with Bick Nazar. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here on the HockeyPedio cast with Thomas Drans. Tom, we kind of took a theoretical view. I guess of what happened in the deadline in part one. We were talking about some concepts we saw. Yeah, you know,

we had the weekend to think about it, to bounce around some ideas. Now let's get into talking about the team specifically. And I'm not necessarily going to like break down every single trade because I think we've already done that by Friday. I think it's more interesting to kind of run through where teams stand right now. And in particular the cup picture, right?

Because while while the playoff picture is muddled, I think that's sort of inner circle of teams is getting, is crystallized. for us. And I think the cup odds sort of reflect that as well, right? Like you've got like a couple teams at the top and then another tier put together. And then all of a sudden by the time you get to like the Leafs and the Kings in terms of the betting odds, you're starting to talk like real long shots there. And 14 to 1. Yes, which I think I think classifies, right, compared to some of the other ones. So let's play a little game here in the final 25 minutes. And I'm going to let you

pitch the idea to our listeners and then we're going to get into and have some fun with it. I was listening to Bill Simmons as one does. And they were doing one word for why each team wouldn't win the NBA championship. I don't want to go negative like that. That's not my style. But I was thinking, what if we did one word to characterize? So let's, and let's define it as like the top 14 that cuts us off at Tampa Bay. Okay.

Top 14 teams in the league. And maybe we'd throw in the devils as like a 15th team. Or unless you want to do Buffalo too, because we love Buffalo so much. and they were interested. I think we should just run through as many teams as we can. We've got 25 minutes here. Why not? If we're doing one word,

I mean, that's 25 words or whatever. But you know us. That means we spend 45 minutes on the Calgary Flames. Anyway, let's do one word for just a one word summary of each team's outlook on the other side of the trade deadline now that is past. Okay. Should we start with Florida? Yeah, let's do it. So you want to go, we want to do East and we'll work our way.

I was going to do full league. Okay. Let's do it. Let's do Florida. Go first. By points. Florida, one word. So the Panthers obviously, I mean, so, okay, I'll go with this.

Are we allowed to you, hyphenate stuff? No. Desirable. Nice. I'm going with desirable for the Florida Panthers. Because the two things that happened to them at the deadline where they got this steal of a deal done with Teresenko, where he completely guided himself to, It was a one-team market.

Sunny else. One-team market. So they are able to pay 60 cents on the dollar relative to like the Defoli price for a guy who fits them really, really well. And they were able to get Forsling on a contract that looks like one of the best in the league. To me, this was like the Florida Panthers flexing the desirability of their destination, their no tax logic. The fact that they have a majority Russian suburb, a 25-minute drive from the game ring,

like all of that congeals to give them this massive. massive edge in the pursuit of free agents, in the pursuit of big name talent, in the pursuit of players with any degree of leverage over their own situation, I love Vladimir Tarasenko, desirable. I like that. I mean, that's way better than mine. I was going to go with complete, just because I think that they did so little work to do in terms of their needs relative to other teams. I'm not that high on Teresanko at this point of his career, as we talked about last year when the Rangers acquired him, but I think, obviously, based on the price they paid, which you described why it was so low, but you just watch him and it's like, all right, if he's going to be playing

with Reinhardt and Barkoff and just going to add another scoring option while also bumping Nick Cousins down to the fourth line. Like that's all they needed. Get a Poccozo for cheap. Gives them like fourth line defensive value. I mean, it's a no brain. It was a perfect trade deadline for them bringing in, looping in the forcing extension as

well. And yeah, they're becoming a destination for tax purposes for, uh, weather for winning, right? And I think that's important. Like they're becoming a place where you're going to see more and more players.

trying to get there. Like, it's, it's great. And don't undersell, I mean, that practice facility now that's in Fort Lauderdale, right? The game rank location remains an issue from a commercial standpoint, but from a player lifestyle perspective, like, you're living in Fort Lauderdale. Yes, you're driving 25 minutes to games, but on practice days, most of the time, even morning skates, you're taking a golf cart to a completely renovated practice facility that has, like, barbecue facilities outside for the players.

It's a nice life, bud. And that's important because that's something we obviously don't really talk much about because we're just like evaluating on ice stuff typically. But like, and we talk about those Vegas when in terms of spending, it's not just player salaries. It's like other organizational stuff that makes you a place where players want to come and play and spend however many years. Right. Like that's an important thing. Okay. Next team.

Canucks. Canucks. Do you want to go first? No. I'll let you go first on all of these because I feel like your brain works more quickly because you got such a, such a handle on the. English vocabulary. I got to think a little bit on it. I'm going to go with proactive. Okay.

Right? The Canucks were quiet in the final month leading up to the deadline, which obscured just how many in-season trades they've made. I mean, dating back to like the day that teams reported to training camp, it was like Pearson out to Smith in with a pick, then Lafferty in for a mid-round pick. Then you had Zadorov, you know, as part of a two trade sequence, which also sent out Bovillier. And then you had Elias Lindholm a month before the draft. So it's like in grand total, the Canucks were such an outlier for so many months in terms of aggressively tweaking and sort of just like subtly raising the floor of their group. Floor was the other one I was debating for the Canucks. That they then are quiet at the deadline.

And again, because I think their method of improving sort of defied convention, I think it confused people. There was some hand-wringing in this market that they hadn't gone in hard enough, given how. you know, significant, a dream season that club is authored to this point. And yet, I think on balance, you'd look at them as like an active team in season. It's just that it came a little earlier than we were used to. And I think sort of made understanding it, wrapping your head around a quiet deadline day, a little bit more difficult than it probably should have been. This club, frankly, did a lot of the stuff that you'd look for a team to do at the deadline as a contender.

It's just that they were way out ahead of like, we bolstered our goalie depth. We bolstered our fourth line. We brought in a big fast fourth liner. We bolstered our defensive depth and we bolstered our center depth. It's just that it was done that beforehand. Yes. I'll go with proactors good.

I'll go with understandable because I wish, obviously, like everyone, they would have brought in another top six wing so you could bump McCabe out of a spot like that and really round everything out. They didn't have the resources in terms of picks to go out and bring in it to Foley. They didn't have the capital. face to go out and just absorb Jason Zucker. So like their hands were tied in that regard. At the same time, though, they made a lot of their moves before.

So I think we need to loop all of that in. I think like the fact they didn't do anything on a Friday can't really be held against them because you have to look at the totality of what they did previously, even going back to like getting Lafferty for a fifth in the week before the season starts, right? Like I think all of that matters. This team though, it's interesting because they went through that brief little stretch. I think they went one five and one to end February. Yeah.

And then I had people going like, oh, PDO even fooled the PDO cast. Like I can't believe. Like they bought this team. I was like, all right, let's just, let's hold our horses here. This was the first bit of adversity they faced in the first five months in the season. So I think people were like surprised by it because it took so long. The other shoe has finally dropped. Yeah.

And it's like I keep saying, I just implore people to actually watch these games. I understand not everyone. If you're not living here locally, you're not a fan of the team. You're not going to be watching all 32 teams. But I think taking a big picture of you of this and actually seeing how this stuff is coming together is very important. I think regression has hit for them, though, in terms of especially their shooting percentage. Yes. And for about a month there, every mistake they made, like an unsustainable rate of every, like they weren't making a ton of them.

But every time they made a mistake, it was in the back of their neck. But their process really since the new year, but like especially since the All-Star break, even on that one five-and-one seven-game stretch, That might have been their most impressive hockey of the season, or at least, at least right next to it. Like, they were good. Other than the Wild game, other than the Minnesota game. See, even then, if you go watch that Minnesota game closely, like, they didn't deserve the 5-2 lead that they built. Right. But as their penalty kill started sputtering, the Wild take the lead 6'5, go watch the four minutes between that and when Marco Rossi kicks a puck into the Canucks Net, like just a lot.

an absolute bounce. They probably had like six great A's. No, I know. I'm just turned it up. Like that was, honestly, that Minnesota game, everyone else was losing their minds and I'm watching it and I'm thinking, this is the best version of this team. No,

I see what you're saying. I'm just saying it through the, through the lens of the way they've gone about their business this year, especially like going into thirds of the lead has been like so locked down. And then that was like really the only instance I can think of where it got sloppy and part of it wasn't their own doing. There's calls. There's balances.

Like that happens over the course of a game and the course of a season. But that's just what I mean in that perspective. Demko's out right now for a couple weeks, it sounds like, right? But this is a good part of the schedule to do so because they have like two games the next eight days. There's no back to backs until the end of the month. Where it becomes interesting is in April where they have a couple games against Vegas.

They play Winnipeg again at the end of the season. They play Edmonton, L.A. one more time, I believe. And so like it'll be curious to see twice where the schedule is like at that point. Or sorry, where the standings are like at that point. point because on the one hand they're first in the west right now on the other hand we'll see where Vegas is at because for a while we kept talking about how winning the west as the one seed was very important because you would get a cake matchup in round one and then now that's becoming a bit less clear now you might face the most volatile team in hockey that could get hurdle and stoneback

at some point okay let's keep going because uh we can do more in the canucks okay bruins i'll go first i thought of this one delayed yeah and what i mean by that that is they didn't do anything of note really. They brought an Andrew P. who I do not like as a player, although going from Columbus to Boston, we've seen this. I'm sure he's going to rattle off an amazing 20 games of underlying numbers. And we're going to go like, oh, of course. This is the reverse Connor Carrick.

No, sorry, not Connor Carrick. Who's the guy Buffalo sign that I loved? Oh, Connor Clifton. This is the reverse Connor Clifton. Yes. Yeah. And we see this all the time. Like, the defense matters so dependent on situation and going from a horribly run team to a team that

constantly is so structured and getting the most out of their players. Like I, yeah, it's going to happen again. But they bring in him and they bring him in Maroon, right? There's that report that they tried to trade all mark, but couldn't. Looking ahead to this summer, though,

with Grizzlick, Debrusk and Forbort, they're clearing about like 11 million in capspace. They have no internal pay raises come in compared to most teams, right? Like, they're going to have to pay swaymen, but I think they're going to just trade allmark this summer and they're going to account for that salary discrepancy.

They get access to their 20, 25 first, because I think, this year is going to be conveyed to Detroit. And so all of a sudden, and it's Marchand's last year at $6 million or whatever he makes. Like, I think the Bruins are the team to watch this summer in terms of, like, throwing haymakers. And so it's delayed because they didn't do anything, but I think it's a storm's brewing. I was going to go with realistic. You know, there's so many moments where the, where you were watching the Bruins, you're like, how are you doing this?

And then you're like, wow, I can't believe Pastor and I just cut into the middle somehow to get a glorious chance when he's on the ice with. And then you look at who he's on the ice with and it's like four absolute guys, not a dude to be seen, you know? And I just think they know having gone for it with reckless abandon, I mean, justified, reckless and but with abandon the year prior, I think they know that this isn't the year to spend if they're going to realistically, like, win in this, you know, new Pasternak Maccaboy window. And I think they kept their powder dry and were right to do so based on a realistic assessment

of where they're at. Alice, you want to go? There you want me to go. You go. I'm going to just go with internal. Yeah, I was thinking that. Yeah, I'm just going to go with internal. I think, obviously they did do stuff, right?

I mean, Chris Tanov was probably the, Chris Tanniv was the pricest defenseman that moved on the market, and I like the fit for them for a variety of reasons, mostly that Tanniv's the man. But ultimately, the big ad that they're making here is Logan Stankov. Right? Like, that's the ability of this Stankhoven Johnston Nexus to fundamentally alter, as, as Braden Point did, once upon a time in Tampa Bay, sort of what the ceiling of this team might be going into the playoffs. Like, that didn't happen because of what they brought in. That couldn't have happened based on what they brought in.

But because they're able to promote Logan Stankovin and get this, like, instant totally new gear in their offensive machinery. You know, I think that's their biggest deadline acquisition. And honestly, I've had a multi-year fade position on this stars group. And suddenly I'm feeling far less confident about that, given what we've seen those two young guys do together and individually over the course of the past two weeks, fascinated to see how it plays out down the stretch and into the playoffs. I'm going to go with methodical. The dictionary definition, I look this up because I wanted to make sure. Done according to a systematic or established form or procedure, I cannot think of anything more. than the Dallas stars calling a young player up and getting immediate success out of him

while also acquiring a player without moving a first or a top prospect. This is Jim Nile stars and they executed to perfection. So give me a methodical. I like that. All right. The New York Rangers. Let's go to the Rangers. Do you want to go first?

I'm going to keep asking you. No, I don't. Understated. The New York Rangers is a shoe. the marquee names that have so often been their downfall my entire adult life and went out and got some guys. And I think guys that will genuinely help them. I mean, Alexander Wenberg is not my cup of tea necessarily. I know the underlying numbers have always been relatively decent on him. He's not my cup of tea, but as your third line center, if the if the job description

in his third line center, I think he's an awesome fit for them. Chad Rua deal, I actually like Chad Rood deal a lot, but like if him and Zach Jones is your fourth pair, you know, there's not a lot of injuries that you can, or you're going to have to sustain a lot of injuries on the back end

before you're even getting like 12 minutes you're not all that comfortable with. Well, you got to win the press box matchup as well. You do. And Nick Patan will help on that score as well. Like Nick Patan, honestly, can absolutely give an NHL team,

like 10 safe minutes a game where they're where they're where he helps the fourth line like play those gentlemen's agreement minutes and actually out shoot maybe not out score but out shoot their opponents he was good in a depth role in Vancouver during that Bruce there it is bump time like if he's your fourth line left wing in a in a key playoff game you're zero percent worried about him and then Jack Roslovick I know that they tried to get Barabanov whatever, right? Like, whatever. Like, if you get anything from him that's kind of gravy.

But I do think he at least fits the mold of, you know, a little bit of offensive punch in their bottom six, which I think can help. And then also I think he's kind of sneaky good, operating from the flank on the power play. You know, I think he can actually help them there, you know, in the event of an injury to a PP1 guy or on PP2. Is there a word that would kind of encompass like a slow blow?

burn or like a growing on me because that's what I'm thinking of with this team right now. Like sneaky? Sneaky. Let's go with sneaky because on the one hand, I initially wanted them to make a big splash. I thought Gensel would have made a ton of sense and they were sort of a finalist for that. I talked about how Topholi would have been a perfect fit and I'm sure the devil just didn't want to trade him to him. So they go with Wemberg and Roslovich and I'm like, ah, in isolation, I don't necessarily love either player, but then you look at their depth chart right now and the way they've

constructed their top three lines in particular. And they've got Wenberg centering Will Coley, who I really like, and they bump Capocaco down. And I bet that line is going to have phenomenal five-on-five numbers. Oh, yeah. And then they have Roslovich playing with Zabinajad and Crider and kind of like helping push the pace a little bit and maybe create more space along with Grider for Zabinajad to get a shot off at 5-15.

And then you've obviously got that second line, or I guess their first line with Panarin, Trochik, and Lafranier. All of a sudden, like I like, I like how those pieces. fit much more than I would have just necessarily being like, how do I rate Rembrook as a player or how do I rate Rosslerch? So sneakie's good. The Winnipeg Jets. Do you have one? Needed. Yeah. I was going to go targeted. They had to do something. Like obviously they were kind of a first responder to the Monaghan trade. But then after what Dallas did, after what Colorado did in particular, adding those four guys, they had to do something the day of the deadline. They went out and

got to Foley for an unbelievably affordable price. And we didn't, they just got walloped by the Canucks in their most recent game. It was the second of a back-to-back. They didn't have two top six wingers in Valardi and Tofoli. And they scratch Perfetti for some reason. Well, they've been doing that for a while because Rick Bonas insists on being on brand. David Gustafson's season, baby. Fully formed, though, if they can get all those guys on the ice at the same time,

I love that forward group and how everything fits together. And it was needed. Like they had to do it and they accomplished it. And so I gave them four marks for that. So I was going to go with targeted because what do Colin Miller, Tyler, Tifoli, and Sean Monaghan all have in common? Punch up your power play. Right?

It's like, now I know there's mitigating reasons why you haven't been concerned about the Jets power play, given sort of the injury flow for them throughout the season. But like at the end of the day, Tafoli's as good and smart a net front guy who can also play on the flanks on the power play as you'll find Sean Monaghan sick in the bumper and Colin Miller's like honestly one of the most dangerous shooting right-handed defensemen. It's just that there's other holes in his game that have sort of stopped him from ever holding down like a full-time NHL-P-P-1 role. But there's things that he can do like some of the best in the league in that spot. I just think in terms of just a targeted addressing of this club's biggest remaining flaw, I thought they accomplished that.

Colorado. I'm just going to go with fast. But I just Now, Casey Middle Stats Not exactly a burner In terms of a straight line speed But the way he plays is fast Like he'll, he'll

And when you're upgrading over Ranch Manson, you know, that's a huge injection of speed Bowen Byram can play fast and does a lot of things well But Sean Walker is quicker in terms of the way that he plays Yeah, the Trennan de Hame guys don't add speed necessarily that's more of a... Well, Trennan does, especially as a four-checker. Like, he's, like, he's going to get in there

and he's going to punish you, so... Do you think we get to see him ever play, like, a new-age bash brother's, like, third line with Nichushkin? Yeah. Because that'd be fun. I could see it. Like, with Ross Colton.

Yeah. I mean, especially now with Logan O'Connor, unfortunately, a P.D.O. Cass hero, Logan O'Connor out for the season. Like, in hindsight, in particular, it's, like, adding those two guys to give them wing-depth is huge. So, yeah. I just think they leaned into their stylistic, preferences in a really sharp way that, you know, middle stat's not exactly like a known quantity.

It's not like there's no risk to these deals, but this was a move that feels like they're really comfortable in their own skin. They know who they are. They know how they want to play if it's going to work, and it needs to be speed, speed and possession. I thought they made moves that really amplified what they do well. I'll go creative because they actually did a one-for-one hockey trade trading a young defense owner of the upside for a young forward roughly same age that can help them much more they got much better they were very aggressive in doing so and i think like the oilers who we'll talk about in a second here would have loved to trade cc to improve at that position but i think they bumped into the resistance of the fact that very few teams wanted to take on

3.25 million of salary next year and i think that cannot be understated for like the price the avalanche paid to get off of ryan johans's four million next season and and get Sean Walker back. Like that was not Sean Walker for a first round pick. It was a lifeline and Sean Walker for a first round pick. And so that was awesome. So I'll give them creative, the Carolina Hurricanes. Oh, man.

I'm going to go with, I'm just going to go with volatile. I think the Carolina Hurricanes could come out of this deadline is by far the most improved team in hockey or they just didn't do enough. And I have no idea. I have no idea what Kuznetsov is going to contribute, but it could be amazing. And Gensel, I mean, they acquired a hurt guy, like a guy who's injured at the moment. But, man, I mean, I think he's the perfect, the absolute perfect fit for how Rod Vrindamor wants to play. You know, and I think there's going to be a sense of confidence that they can retain him. So I sort of look at Gensel and Kuznetsov and just think there's a real chance that we're looking back and saying that this team

put themselves over the top at the deadline, but there's also a chance that this is absolutely nothing. And that, to me, is fascinating. Which is fine. I will go a swing because they took a swing. Yeah. Right? That's all we wanted from them.

Yeah. We just wanted them to push chips into the middle of the table, add a player who out of their comfort zone. And I didn't even see the Kuznetsov one coming. I would have still went with swing, just purely based on Gansl. And honestly, I'm viewing the Kuznetsal thing as like total found money

if they get anything from them, the rest of the way. So when you look at models that are like, disagree or like rating their traded line poorly because they're factoring in how he played on the capitals. I'm almost viewing it as like a zero in terms of like he might not play. So if he's, if he's a negative value, he just won't play for them because they're not needing him at this point. So whatever they get from him is found money swing. Like Gensel they needed it.

They went for it. They went out on him battling with a team. They're probably going to play in round two in the Rangers. And so I got to go a swing there. Yeah. I like that. The Toronto Maple Leafs. I'll go with truculent.

I was going to go with some less favorable words, but let's go with truculent. Yeah, it's a very good pick. So the irony of this year's team and their defensive metrics and the players are going out and getting compared to previous ones that were ridiculed for being too soft defensively and too porous yet posting great defensive results anyway in the regular season. This year's team is down to 21st and expected goals against defensively. They spent two thirds, one fourth, one fifth, and two sixth for Lubushkin, Edmondson, Connor Dewer, and Kate Weber's signing rights. And it's a small price of pay for a contender to get better in pursuit of a Stanley Cup. I'm just questioning very strongly whether any of that was actually in service of accomplishing that. And so I'm, yeah, there's nothing you to just add because look at this blue line.

Like they're relying so heavily now on Jake McCabe and T.J. Brody, the latter of whom is not the player he once was. and their numbers are not very good together in the limited time they've played, and they're going to have to basically eat every tough defensive matchup for this team. When you, as a big defensive defender in the contemporary NHL, when you lose that ability to like turn and still be defensively effective, things get really dicey for you in a hurry. And I think we've passed that line with Joel Edmondson. I don't need to look at a single pie chart.

Yeah, many years ago. To think that. Many years ago. It's been more pronounced this year, even, in my mind. That graphic I saw of how many playoff series or whatever, he's won in his career compared to every other defender they have was legitimately one of the funniest things in broadcasting history. The last one we're going to do, let's cut it off at an even 10 here

because we're running out of time, the Edmonton Oilers. Okay. I want to do the Devils, though. I'm going to go measured. Okay. Can we do Devils and Euler's? Sure. Sure.

I'm doing measured. I think it's somewhat of a half measure. They moved the first. In 2024, to get Henrique, right? And they brought in Sam Carrick and Troy from Richmond, who was an all-time dude. At the same time, though, in the lead-up to the deadline, we identified top-six wing with finishing talent and a top-six right shot. Or sorry, a top two-payer right shot.

And they didn't really address either directly. Now, Henrique gives them more versatility with Ryan Eugene Hopkins and Dreisaitle and McLeod as a bunch of centers they can mix and match in the top six and on the wings and sitting down the middle. and Troy from Richmond always works his way higher up to Dev's chart than he's initially planned for. So we could in the playoffs see those upgrades paid evidence, but at the same time right now, they didn't really accomplish what I was hoping they would. Yeah, underwhelming.

I'd go with Underwhelming. I just think given the assets paid, because they gave up some premium stuff and the pieces landed, I just don't feel like they got as much bang for their buck as some of the teams like Vegas and on and on. I just want to do the devils really quick because I thought they had fascinating deadlines. Was this entire game just like No, no, no, no. I don't actually have my word back.

I'm searching for it. No, I'm going to go with the word look because I thought it was interesting that the devils went and got two goalies despite being a seller team. Well, I think the, I mean, and I think they've said as much that the sharks won with Cochekin and was purely

to get off of Vanityx money next year, which was huge. Right. Like the fact that the sharks did that for them is wild. At the cost of a seventh. Truly insane. Yeah. And so.

I'm not sure what the sharks were doing. Well, tanking. Yeah. So I think that's clear. Look is interesting. I will go with future because I don't think either of these were with the design of salvaging this season,

although I'm sure like adding Jake Allen will just help them a little bit. But I think like they're going to get their goalie this summer. I agree with you, but I do think that, They at least made moves designed to allow them to evaluate what they have, you know, not emotionally being like, okay, a lot of what's happened to us is goal tending, but maybe not all of it. Let's see what we have if we have baseline competence in net.

And I think that was the motivator. And I think that applies to players on the team, how they play. I suspect it applies to to, you know, interim head coach Travis Green. Feels like they set themselves up to at least take a sober look, as we're trying to do at the trade deadline. line, but at their team down the balance of the season. I like that. Tom, in fitting fashion, we went into this exercise hoping to do up to 15 to 20 teams. We got through 10.

Yeah. We got through the 10 important ones plus the devil's at 11. How many? How long will it take? It's one word. Amazing. Tom, everyone follow Thomas Drans online and listen to Canucks Talk here on the Sports Next Radio Network.

We'll be back tomorrow with Gerald Bell who returning after a week off. We're going to do Logan Stancoven. So look forward to that one. Let's go. And join the Discord as we talked about. We'll take your questions from there in the future. Invite link is in the show notes. Get in there.

That's all for today. We'll be back tomorrow with plenty more of the Hockey P.Docast. So until then, thank you for listening to us on the SportsNet Radio Network.