The Hockey PDOcast - Navigating Trade Protections, Communication Within Organizations, and Volume-Based Team Building Approaches

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Steve Werier to discuss how the Panarin trade played out for the Rangers, the way the Flyers have handled the Michkov drama, organizations like the Blue Jackets and Predators with big decisions to make, and the volume-based team building approach the Penguins and Bruins have taken.  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 PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedocast. My name is Demetri Philpovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Steve Warrior. Steve, what's going on, man? Hey, Dimitri, how are you? I'm good.

We got a lot to talk about today. We have some recent news that we're going to tackle from a front office organizational perspective. And then after we get through that, I want to get into some of the teams. You know, we're in the Olympic roster freeze now. but when we come back from the Olympics, we're going to be in this two-week sprint, essentially towards the trade deadline, and I want to start thinking about that a little bit.

So we're going to discuss some teams who are approaching interesting decisions at this year's deadline, and then even fast-forwarding to this summer in terms of what they're going to have to kind of figure out how they're going to approach it, and we're going to break all of that down, using your extensive expertise behind the scenes

or working within an organization. Let's start with the Rangers, because that's obviously on the forefront of everyone's minds. We got the resolution to the Artemisprinering, Trade Saga this week. Now, I've got Harmon coming on later today to break down the fit from the LA perspective, what it's going to look like for the Kings, all that good stuff. So check the Patreon feed for that later today.

With you, I wanted to get into the Ranger's side specifically in terms of how this played out, the way Chris Drury managed it and handled it, and then the particular timing of it all. And I think that's a good starting point for this conversation in terms of it happening now, right on the eve or final minutes essentially before the wrong. Posterfries kicked in as opposed to extending it into the future of utilizing the Olympic break to either kind of like fish

around and poke around, maybe see if you can extract more values, see if the situation and circumstances can change, and then if it doesn't, ultimately just circling back to the offer that the Kings presented, why do you think the Rangers went this route in terms of just getting their business done now?

Do you think it was as simple as not having it hanging over them, being able to move on to other business situations or do you think there was something else involved? Yeah, I think the way this was orchestrated was probably suboptimal by the Rangers. And let's just start with the, you know, the caveat that as everyone has talked about, a final year, no move clause like Panarin is a big complexifier. It does complicated teams leverage.

And that's why, you know, I think we'll see going forward teams hopefully be far less willing to give that out. I know I've been on the management side of the table with, you know, big name players like Jonathan Hubertoe, where, you know, the final year NMC was a big bone of contention. It took, you know, weeks of my summer going back and forth with Uberdo's Asian, Alan Walsh, about whether it would be, you know, a partial no trade or a full no move. And it ended up being, you know, not a no move for that final year. That was a big thing. And I think like most teams at the time, you don't necessarily realize how important that condition is. until you get to that final year, where it becomes mission critical.

But putting that aside what happened here, there's an old saying, show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome. And I think that's what happened here. The Rangers, to a great extent, handed off the negotiating power to Paneuron's agent, Paul Thiophantus, who has also joined CAA, which means you have, you know, Theofanus, you know, Papyrsaw, and J.P. Barrie, Jim Nice, the whole CAA team, working together to orchestrate the right outcome for them.

And when you have an agent who's allowed to talk to destination teams, you know, the simplest outcome is the team the player wants to go to, gets them. And that team pays a lower than expected price because the agent and destination club don't have an incentive to sort of maximize the price. And I think that's the result here. I think we could talk a little bit about, you know, did the deal need to be done prior to the freeze? Could the Rangers not have just waited until after the freeze close?

for the deadline. And, you know, if you listen to Frege and others, there's sort of some fog of war behind what really happened in the last few days. And that's interesting, but I don't think it's necessarily relevant to the bigger picture and thinking about how they may have done this differently from the Rangers perspective. You know, I remember when I became an AGM, I reached out to a number of, you know, sharp AGMs like Julian Breesbois and any GMs I could meet and talk to, just sort of talk about what their view is and how they approached the job. And I had one conversation with, ironically I'm pretty sure, was Ken Holland,

you know, about how you navigate a trade market in a business where you're dealing with the same people again and again with repeat interactions. And I think it was Kenny who made the point of saying, you know,

there's some times where my team won't be in the playoffs and I'll have a player on expiring contract who's of no long-term value to me. And the offers won't be there. I'll get low-bold. And what I'll do in that situation is I'll say to those teams,

you know what, if I don't get a fair price, I'll eat the cost, this player will stay here, but I'm going to protect and preserve my reputation as a manager who, you know, doesn't do charity work. I need fair value for my players on the market. And if you're not willing to do that, you know, you're not going to exploit me. And so using that as a jumping off point, you know, I wonder if Drury came out and said, here's what's going to happen.

You know, Paul, CAA, give me a list of where our Temi is willing to go. It's his final year. We're not making the playoffs. He's a superstar. He deserves to compete for a cup this year and showcase him. himself for his next contract and go where he wants to go. He's earned that right as a store on with an MMC. Give me a list of the teams you're open to him going to as a rental or on an extension.

And once you give me that list, I'll go out and I'll try to bring forward a deal to one of those teams. And if that doesn't happen, you know, so be it. But it would have maybe put him in a position to say, hey, you know, if they came back and said, well, Chris, we're only willing for our time me to go to L.A. And if LA turned around said, you know, we're only willing to give a conditional third round pick and sort of a mid-tier prospect based on market value for this, you know, 100-point perennial superstar, at least Drury then could have maybe turned around and pivoted it and got some media support and market support and said, I have the start player. I'm willing to move him where he wants to go. But I'm not going to pay $3 million of his remaining salary myself and give him to another team for a conditional mid-round pick. They've got to give me fair value.

That's reasonable. that's what we expect. And if it doesn't happen, our time he's going to stay as a ranger and we're going to put him on line with some of our young up-and-coming prospects and he's going to mentor them and it'll be a good experience

and we'll play out the year. I think the way it was navigated may have led to the result being a little underwhelming. Having said all that, I do think it isn't completely irrelevant that Drury sort of went through the gauntlet with Barclay Goodrow,

Chris Kreider, I'm missing one more, Jacob Truba. You know, those contentious negotiations, the PA wouldn't have loved that. I don't, you know, I wouldn't be shocked if some agents and players said, hey, let's, you know, hold down the fort here. And just from a sort of goodwill standpoint, having written that letter last week, and having gone through those tough negotiations and deals, you know,

the Rangers may not have had the stomach to fight that fight on the Panera front, but I do think the result was not optimal. And I question whether they should have maybe waited a few more weeks and hoped another suitors came forward with a rental offer. Yeah, listen, I'm not an insider by any means like an Elliott Friedman, but just from some conversations I've had in the meantime, and I think we've seen some of this reporting as well. I think the idea that this was purely strong arming from Panarin's camp in terms of them just identifying the Kings as the only place that accepted trade to wasn't really the case, or at least that's not how other teams who were involved in it felt. what I sort of view is that there was a market of teams that they would have accepted a deal to, and then the market essentially dried up on them for one of two reasons. Either there was teams that wanted to acquire him and extend him,

and he didn't necessarily want to go there ultimately, and we heard the report about what the Cracken were offering them. And then, you know, the Florida teams, the Lightning not wanting to do an extension necessarily to maintain future flexibility, and then the Panthers, I know you wrote about this, not really being able to go through all the machinations at the time to fit it in for this season. And so I think ultimately the Kings wound up presenting themselves as the most logical option. But even with narrowing it down to one team, I think you still, as a team holding on a Panarin, maintain the leverage of the other team that's being the Kings still ultimately is going to want him,

even if some time passes, right? Like I think the alternative, and we heard them rumored as like, well, they're going to go acquire Van der Kaine or some other winger that's not nearly as good or as valuable and meaningful for the organization as Panarin is. If the idea that they can ultimately get him is still available to them, you do have some leverage, I think, as Chris Drury and the Rangers at that point, to circle back to that and be like, well, if you want the player, you're going to have to meet at least some sort of demand here and it probably exceeding what they ultimately got. Yeah, I think that's all right. I think it also ties back to the optics of Panera and being held out of the lineup. And listen, we don't have full visibility as to whether that was the agents going to the team and saying, hey, you know what? You're going to start shopping him, sit him out. We don't want to jeopardize his extension capability here with an injury or whether that was the ranger saying we want to preserve the asset.

But in any event, I think it could have maybe had a different result simply by, you know, making it a far more simplified process. shopping him as a rental to the list of teams he'd be willing to go to. Even then, that allows him without an extension if there wasn't one to showcase himself to compete, to play meaningful games, to drive up his value by playing well in the playoffs. And, you know, if you look at the historic return for more key assets as rentals at the deadline, it's not underwhelming. It's historically been pretty good. You know, the Leafs paid a high price for some rentals last year, as did other teams.

So, yeah, a lot of moving pieces. there. It goes back probably to the bigger global question of, you know, if you're the manager of a team, you're supposed to be sort of the subject matter expert who knows before anyone else. You know, is my team going to be competitive? What do I need to do with these players if we're not competitive? How proactive do I need to be in shopping a player before the market realizes either, A, I'm in a desperate spot, or B not being able to get full value for them? And certainly the Rangers, you know, by sequencing this by having, you know, a rough season, having that letter sort of putting out the everything must go sign

and then trying to shop a player with an artificial deadline. I think putting all that together may have been sort of a tough fact pattern for them to navigate. And yeah, certainly probably led to the results that we ended up seeing. Well, listen, I think people are going to view and hold the return against them in terms of how it ultimately played out. But, you know, you mentioned this early on. I think getting to the position they got to in terms of the way the contract was structured to begin with, and they're not isolated here.

We see this time and time again with high profile names and especially guys who signed the type of contract Panarin did as an unrestricted free agent back in the summer of 2019. But I want to get into, you know, last time I had you on, we had a question I believe about with the cap going up and more money just being available to everyone and teams being able to justify, you know, allotting higher. AVs to players they bring in, whether that would be a means or a way for them to use that as a concession against giving out full no-move clauses, especially for latter years of deals, to maintain some financial flexibility if things go south the way they did for the Rangers here over the past couple years. Does this, the way this played out and the way it's been received publicly in your opinion, do you think that's going to change the dynamic potentially?

Because I remember at the time, and this was a couple months ago, and how you were saying that you don't think it's necessarily going to alter it. Players are still going to prioritize this and teams are going to give it out because they're not going to risk losing them. Well, there's two sides to this, right? If you're a player out there, you look at how Panarin was able to go to the team he wanted to go to and you say, wow, these new moves are absolutely essential. I better make sure I get that. And, you know, that's not a hard concept to get your head around if you just think of, you know,

of whatever your job is out there in your field of employment, if part of your employment contract says we can ship you to one of 31 cities on zero days notice at any time during your contract, you'd probably think, yeah, I'd rather not have that. You might trade off a decent amount of money to prevent that upheaval. It's a serious concession, and I think it's hard to quantify that in a dollar value. I think the most likely outcome, honestly, for most agents and players is they're going to continue to want to have their cake and eat it too and say, you know, I want a top-of-market

deal coupled with a no move that I've earned, as opposed to accepting that as a trade-off. they're going to say we've earned both of them. And it's, again, you know, it's not a zero-sum game, but you always have that situation where you'll have teams that really need to get, or think they need to get high-end players right now. And if they don't, the managers might think that they're, you know, either their own careers are in jeopardy or at least their own role at that team or simply that their team will be as competitive as they want to be.

So it's easy to say academically, hey, let's dial back on those no moves, but the incentives are still there where, you know, teams are probably, going to say, hey, if I have the perception that there's another team out there willing to add that last, you know, seventh year protection, most managers are going to say, listen, seven years, if it doesn't work out, I won't even be here. So let me get the guy to help me in years one to five. So yeah, I think overall, I'm skeptical. We'll see a reduction of those clauses. It's going to depend maybe on, you know, maybe one day a CBA type change that might, you know, create a different alignment of incentives. But I don't see

players becoming any less willing to trade off those protections even if it's for a nominal amount of money. They'll simply say, hey, you know, there's a higher cap, therefore I deserve more of the cap and therefore, you know, I still deserve the protections that other guys have and teams will fight it. And I think it's more going to be

smart teams need to sit back and recalibrate to the extent they're handing out these trade protections to players who aren't you know, superstars and game changers for their team now that they've seen how detrimental they can be on the downside. Okay, I've got one more thing here. Then we're going to move on to some of the other situations around the league. I want to ask you about it seeming like the Rangers as, you know,

once they resign themselves, the reality that it was going to be a trade with the LA Kings, seemingly choosing a 20-year-old draft plus two prospect in Liam Green Tree over picks and futures. And I think Chris Drury came out in the presser he did after the trade and said as much essentially. And listen, it makes sense like you acquire the player you're going to talk them up certainly but i'm not surprised necessarily to see this because i think we see teams operate this way where getting the player over some pick down the line not only increases the likelihood that you're going to be around to see the payoff of it but you get the immediate gratification of having something to show for the trade you just made in the player you sent out we typically don't see teams operate the way you do in the

NBA, for example, where you see all these trades that involve, you know, whether it's pick swaps or futures way down the line years in advance, we're typically limited to a one or two year span, sometimes three at the very, you know, extreme end of the spectrum. And I'm curious for your take on that in terms of the prioritization of more immediate returns as opposed to, like just looking at this from the outside, I would think if I were Christopher and the Rangers, the kings are still, even with Panarin there after the two-year extension, going to be a team on the older side of things. A lot of their players are going to be in their early to mid-30s.

This year, they're hovering around the playoff bubble just on the outside. I think a lot of reasons to suggest that they're not really that good, ultimately. And so that would seem like a team whose first-round pick, whether it's this year, next year, two years down the line, I would want to be holding as a lottery ticket in the case that they truly bought them out and you wind up falling into a top five or top 10 pick that's going to, you know, return incredible value. They chose not to do that.

And we see that time and time again. I'm curious just from the inside organization perspective, kind of how those conversations go and whether you think we should see teams doing that more and operating that way in the NHL. I think it's a team by team, you know, the right answer to this. Listen, if you're a team that has shown an ability like stock picking to pick the right prospects to pick the right overage kids a couple years out and you've done it before and you've picked the right guys and you think you have a competitive advantage then

absolutely exploited and we've seen teams do that like Tampa you know a decade ago who were looking at maybe college kids and overagers and showtime and again they were picking players who panned out then they should be making those moves if you don't have that track record then maybe take more of a conservative approach and say hey even if we're high on this 20 year old kid who who's still in you know junior or college or whatever let's uh be a little more conservative in what we're willing to pay for them because we're not sure, even if we're, we think we're, you know, we think it'll be great. You know, we've whiffed before in those scenarios.

So let's make sure we have a couple other outs than just putting our eggs in that basket. You know, I think in terms of the life cycle of a team, it really depends. I think a team like Pittsburgh, for example, will probably optimize for, you know, post-draft prospects they're high on rather than draft picks at times because they're trying to plug young efficient players into the lineup as they, you know, try to remain competitive. with that core, but build towards the future. You know, I think in the Rangers case, again, it probably goes back to partly the interests of the manager in that case.

You know, they've had a rough year. They probably want to have next season a few, you know, clear wins to show off about, you know, where they're going for the next stage and to have a player who's, you know, 21, 22 and might be able to play NHL games. That's something you can show off maybe more than a 20, 27, 8, or 28 first round pick,

even though you can always monetize those picks for something else. But yeah, it depends where you are as a club. Depends what you think of your ability to sort of grab that value and be right in your analysis. And I've certainly been on the inside where, you know, you see scouts being at the table and say,

hey, we have to trade for this kid or this prospect. I'm certain of it. And you all look back and say, well, you know, you were certain of this player and this player before. And it,

you know, didn't necessarily work out. So let's not, you know, put all of our, are sort of eggs into that basket. Let's sort of diversify it and get picks or other assets. But yeah, I think sort of the Rangers in this scenario

we're maybe looking for someone who can be impactful and be focused on rather than a distant future, even though they may be a few years off sort of from their next window to compete. Okay, well, let's put a pin in that because I want to circle back to what you just said there when we talk about the penguins especially, but let's get into the flyers because I know, you know,

I ran by you a list of teams that I wanted to get into. You mentioned you want to talk about the flyers. They were in the news this year or news this week based on the turmoil, I guess, how we want to describe it between Rick Tocke and Mappi Mischkov and his usage and his ice time to a point where Danny Breyer had to hold a media scrum before a game against the Capitals to try and kind of defuse the situation and talk his way through it. I'm curious for your take on kind of them reaching this point. And also just like the big picture in terms of their decision to go the route of hiring Rick Talk at the summer after he left the Canucks.

And then this communication organizationally, I guess, that applies across the league as well. And we typically see it with the most well-run efficient organizations in terms of the top-down approach and everyone sort of on the same wavelength and pulling in the same direction. And now getting to the spot where Breyer drafts Mitch Cobb obviously is highly invested in him being productive and becoming. most importantly, an offensive star for a Flyers organization that's been desperately needing that type of player for a long time now. And then Rick Tocke, coming in and much like any NHL head coach, being very tunnel vision focused on the present in terms of game to game, trying to grind out and squeeze out immediate results because that's what coaches are going to be judged on.

And sometimes the rift, I think, that arises between that line of thinking and then the development and progression of young players who might not necessarily be viewed as the most logical option to achieve whatever the coach is trying to achieve this season. Yeah, I mean, I think unless you've been on the inside of an NHL team in a way that I have, it's hard to really appreciate how significant a disconnect between a strong-minded, very well-connected in the media world coach and a management group can be in the ramifference. that can have. I can certainly appreciate that.

But it's a big deal. And that's something that needs to be ironed out in terms of, you know, hiring Rick as a coach. I don't know Rick personally. People I trust and know have high opinions of him as a coach. And so I think that was a reasonable choice by him. And I think it's also reasonable for him to, you know, have big, strong opinions with the way the season is going there. You know, Philly's in a really fascinating spot because, you know, they're one of those teams the way they're structured where they have a reasonable shot of being competitive,

but they don't look like they have a reasonable shot of being dangerous. And that's a really tough place to be in. You know, it's very easy and almost boring to talk about teams like Vancouver right now and say, hey, they need to, you know, tear it down and rebuild and do that as quickly as possible. There's not much, you know, room for debate there. But Philly's in a really tricky spot because, you know, they have a long list of players who are making in between sort of, you know, three and six or seven million dollars who are useful players, but they're not top of the lineup long-term players you can expect over the next few years

to change the trajectory of that team. And you look at their biggest ticket players. They have Kuturier signed for a number of additional years at over $7 million in a contract that is almost completely buyout proof until the very end of that deal, which is tough. And then Mischkov is going to become an even trickier situation for them. on the current trajectory because he'll be eligible to sign an extension this summer. And you can't foul him that's going to happen because for myriad of reasons,

you know, it would be shocking to expect him to be willing to commit long-term to the team right now. And it would also be probably surprising to expect the team to commit, you know, the amount of money you would need to sign a player like him to a long-term deal. So that then raises the specter of like what happens next season and what happens at the end of next season. And does he become an offer sheet target? Does he become a player who is only going to be willing to sign a bridge contract?

And then you're looking at an even higher ticket for him when he sort of inevitably figures it all out. You know, it's tough. And then, you know, one thing, it's easy to say, what do you need to do to build a championship level team? I think a more interesting question is often, what can you not do? Like, how do you invert and say, these are the things we can't do to. to get to where we want to go.

And one of the easy sort of heuristics for that, I think, is to just say we will not commit significant money or significant term to any player who we don't think is a foundational asset. And that means, you know, even if it means a slower pathway to being great, you're not going to hand out $3, $4, $5,000, $6 million, you know, $5, six, seven-year deals

to third line, second, third-paring players. You're going to only hand out that big term, decent money contracts to players who are really going to be part of, you know, your window to win. And they have a number of players in that mix who are difficult to move and difficult to sort of navigate around. And so, yeah, it's going to be fascinating whether they go into the, you know, we need to break it down because we don't really see the daylight until the Martones and some others come around or whether they keep trying to sort of squeeze as much juice as they can off of a, you know, portfolio of players that just might not be

to get them over the top when you look at, you know, the top teams in that division in that conference. Listen, I think anyone who's watched the film Moneyball is going to take on bridge with your claim that you need to have worked within an NHL team to understand the impasse that can arise

between a general manager and a coach and usage of players and the dynamics that arise there. I mean, listen, I talked about this with Shane on the show yesterday, so I don't want to necessarily regurgitate it too much, but I think there's a very obvious way in the short term to tactfully manage this from a usage perspective. So it doesn't devolve into what happened this week,

where it's national news in terms of power play usage and easier opportunities to bank some points and have a slash line that fans are going to be happy with. But Rick Tocke, and this isn't surprising for anyone that's tracked his coaching career, and even before that is an old school hockey coach who welcomes conflict. And I think in particular, he's a floor raiser as a coach. we saw with the Canucks last year with that roster they finished what 18th or something in the standings

this Flyers team that finished 29th last year is playing like the 20th best team or so this year and I think on a true talent perspective they're probably in the low 20s and they're playing above that and what it's going to at them is probably the 12th to 14th overall pick which ultimately doesn't do you a lot of good moving forward

in terms of becoming one of those dangerous teams you described but the Flyers knew this heading in when they chose to go this route and hire them and I think that's what's the trickiest part for me to reconcile here because I remember the 23, 24 season a couple of years ago, Danny Breyer came in and Torterlo was doing a similar thing where you'd look at the roster and you'd be like, this is one of the worst teams in the league. They're going to bottom out. And then through their work ethic and some of the stuff they were doing off the rush, they were churning out results that had the middle of the pack. And it felt like the entire way Danny Breyer was almost becoming frustrated because it was undoing his plan of wanting to get a top pick and really rebuild properly. I think they have the benefit in Philadelphia of not only the resources financially to accommodate a couple years of being bad and not worrying about fans checking out because they're so loyal to the team and so invested.

And so it seems like a great scenario for them to take that type of a long-term view and really build this thing properly. But instead, this past off season, they really chose to go this direction. And you could add the Christian DeVorek five-year extension as well as another piece that sort of, I guess, exemplifies what they've chosen to do here instead of the alternative. Yeah, I think that's all right. And, you know, they also have Zegra's coming up as well. And it's, it's always easier said than done to say we're going to pivot to rebuilding from a team that is, you know, competitive-ish. You can always stay optimistic of, hey, let's, let's add a

couple more pieces or let's help a couple players punch a little bit more above their weight. But it is a tough situation because they are in that, you know, that messy, boring. middle tier of teams that, you know, seem to always sort of fighting between eighth and ninth, which is tough to plan around, you know, as a management group. All right, Steve, let's take our break here.

And then we come back. We will finish off today's conversation with a couple other situations we're looking at and talk about them and unpack all that stuff. Moving forward, you're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the HockeyoCast joined by Steve Warriors.

Steve, we've talked about the Pengland, or sorry, we talked about the Rangers. We talked about the Flyers. we will talk about the penguins in a second here, but I want to get into the blue jackets with you, because right now they've gone 11 and 1 in their past 12 games, 10 and 1 under rig bonus is the coaching change. They've clawed their way back into not only the playoff consideration,

but a very viable path where there are only a couple points back of the Islanders and Penguins in the Metro, have had to head matchups against the Islanders, one game in hand. I think their playoff odds are nearly 60%, so they're looking very alive for that. The reason why it matters and why I'm so intrigued by the situation, is not only for this year's deadline,

where they have guys like Coil, Marchman, Jenner, who are all pending UFAs, that would have, if this streak hadn't happened the way it has now, been viewed as very hot commodities in the rental market surely approaching deadline,

but then specifically looking ahead to the summer where I think it really gets interesting for Lek-Columbus because they have so much cap space, I believe they have under $60 million in commitments for next year, but Fantilli, Mattaich, Greaves are all RFAs and then also this class of Marchenko, Veronkaw and Kent Johnson become eligible for extensions July 1st. And especially for a guy like Marchenko, we've talked about this window between July 1st and September 15th to sign them eight years under the current CBA

and wielding that as a weapon to retain players of this caliber. Let's get into it because they have obviously since hired Lawrence Gilman as well to work on a lot of. lot of these contracts and negotiate it. What are your thoughts on the Blue Jacket situation, kind of what that approach is going to look like for not only the deadline, but this summer and sort of maximizing this thing to keep building on this recent success and setting the organization up for a longer shelf life than just this season? Yeah, I think aside from hiring Lawrence,

they're in really good shape. No, just kidding. Lawrence is a good friend and happy for him. And as we'll talk about him in the second, he's in a great spot. I think this team is set up fantastically, you know, to just suppose what we just talked about with Philly. Columbus doesn't have a single forward right now, you know, on the books for over $5 million other than Monaghan.

They have a long list of high-end young players. They have, you know, underrated elite scoring difference makers like Marshanko, but also Voronkov. And they have big decisions around young players who are the type of young players who, if you sign them to long-term deals early and now, those deals will all age great. especially, you know, with, you know,

Anteneli coming up, who will get one of those big money long-term deals, but also the more interesting ones, player like Ken Johnson, who's having a down here statistically, but really skilled player who, you know, maybe they'll be able to get a little bit of value on

if they make a bet on him now. And those are the type of decisions, right? Like, you know, the cool cylinders, the, you know, the Kent Johnstons of, if you have that belief of, hey, these are our players,

we know them better than anyone else. We're going to make a bet on them being the type of player that we think they will be now, even though they aren't producing at that level this season and they become that player, you know, that's where you get that surplus value of, you know,

maybe going long term on a player for $6 million, and he becomes a $10 million player and you've got him locked in for good. You know, backhand, they're set up great as well. They have Lorensky, you know, they sign Proverov to probably a top of market deal, but they had a big void there, where they, you know, they needed if they wanted to be competitive this year,

which they are. They needed a top three or four defensemen to play 20 plus minutes a night. And only so many of those players are available and willing to sign with a team any offseason. And, you know, I've been in a similar spot in Florida where we had Brian Campbell sort of retire on short notice. And, you know, Brian was probably the most underrated defenseman of his generation. You know, played half the game, dominated on the power play. Could kill penalties. Could do everything.

And, you know, we went out that summer and we signed Keith Seattle to do a long-term deal pretty similar to Proverov. because we need some to fill that void right then. And without doing that, there's a big drop-off. So they're set up well on D. You know, Jack Graves is, you know, probably one of the three best Canadian goalies, even if he's not on the Olympic team. So they're set up well.

And, you know, I think with Columbus, like with that group, with Lawrence in the mix, and, you know, guys we know sort of in their prospect development group, like Cam Lawrence and Josh Wisebock, who works with me in Florida, and are super sharp guys. I think the biggest dilemma Columbus is going to have, is they'll probably identify the right opportunities.

And like you said, they'll have the money to make those deals happen. But the question they're going to have to ask themselves is, if we make this attractive deal, what's the deal we can't make down the road? You know, they'll have a good player who they can get. And they'll have the assets to get him. But they'll have to think really big and say, you know, a year or two out, is there going to be something even more transformational? And when I say that, I mean, like, you know, this summer or this deadline,

they might get a really good top six forward or top 4D in the middle. 20s available to them who they might be able to acquire for, say, a 2028 first round pick. And everyone in that group will say this is a good player, this is a good asset cost, we can sign them to a good extension. But someone in that room might raise their hand and say, you know what, 2028 first round pick, we wouldn't be able to use that to offer sheet Matt Faye Mitch Cod to sort of weave two threads together here. And, you know, you have, if you have a group of sharp thinkers who can really sort of see around

corners, think around long term, they're looking. at every player around the league and every team situation and modeling where every team will go over the next one, two, three years, you can navigate that cap space, that asset portfolio, those player contracts and really execute on some big, exciting things. And I'm curious to see what those things will be for them. Well, the reason why I bring up Marchanko and Brochow in particular is because their situation is fascinating after they went the bridge route with both. It's set up the situation where next year they'll be entering the final years of their deals.

Now that they'll still have team control of them, but they're both going to be 27-year-old arbitration-eligible RFAs who are one year out from unrestricted free agency. And that dramatically impacts the team's leverage and their control and how that situation plays out. And so knowing Lawrence a little bit, I wouldn't describe them as a good friend necessarily the way you did. but I'm a fan of his work and we've certainly spoken about hockey a bunch in the past. I know he's very shrewd. He's a very pragmatic thinker and a strong negotiator. I'm fascinated to see how they approach this

because you almost, as soon as July 1st comes or even before that, I think you need to really assess and figure out which way this is going and then make your determination then in terms of if a long-term deal is going to come, you do that and you bank on that aging very well in your favor for the,

organization. And if it's not, I feel like you almost need to get ahead of the situation and not just, you know, bear your head in the sand and play it out because if you get to the following summer, all of a sudden, I think your optionality dramatically decreases from where you'd be at this in the summer of 2026. Yeah, I agree with all of that. You need to be well in front of everything. You need to know, best estimation you can make, you know, is this player going to be willing to resign and extend. And if not, you know, can we move them if so where, and what do we do do with that cap space? You can't sort of run the clock and wait until, you know, like we saw with Canaran, you know, you're out of time where it's the wrong time of year. You know, if you're shopping

a player like a Morshango, you absolutely want 31 teams to have the cap space and the, you know, the knowledge and the sort of runway to think about and make their best pitch for a deal like that. and those are the type of decisions that can really set a team up for long-term success. All right, let's get into the Predators because we've gotten used this week. The Barry Trots will be stepping down

from his position as the GM and they're beginning a search for his long-term replacement. There's a lot of wrinkles to this. You can go with the direction of the timing of it in terms of heading into Olympic roster free being one month out from a trade deadline where the Predators are going to have some decisions

with impending UFA. that you could sell for a decent return, and then guys who still have term on their deal, so it's not as much of a time crunch, but whether it's Stamco's or O'Reilly, given the stage of their career they're at in terms of age, and also how valuable they'd be for multiple kicks of the can for a Stanley Cup for an acquiring team.

If you're going to trade them, now would be the time to do so, certainly. The Predators have clawed their way back into the playoff race as well. I've been playing as a top 10 to 12 team, essentially since the start of December. Now the hole they dug themselves early, on still makes it a bit of an uphill climb, but there's reasons to be optimistic.

And yet there's all these moving parts. They're going to have to make some very important decisions, maybe not as consequential as the ones we just talked about with Columbus. But nonetheless, with the uncertainty of who's going to be making those decisions and what that's going to look like in terms of the direction, I think it's a fascinating situation. So you got anything on the predators about anything I just said? Yeah.

Listen, I think anytime there's a GM change, that means probably not everything. went perfectly, but having said that, I think Nashville's set up really, really well and better than most might think. You know, oftentimes, before a change like this happens, and as we're seeing right now with

some of the other teams we discussed earlier, you know, you see a team that thinks they're competitive, realizes they're not, trades away all their futures, and then sort of starts making you some haphazard decisions and, you know, it's sort of only in the NHL in these scenarios, you see

someone who's, you know, sort of the arsonness, turn around and say, well, I'm actually a home builder and sort of starter rebuild, sign new deals, and then the change is made. And that really puts teams in bad spots. That's not what has happened in Nashville. You know, they've got a couple challenging long-term deals, but they have all their future draft picks. They have, you know, a really strong prospect pool with Brady Martin and a number of other high-end prospects. They've got Cassidy, and they've got, you know, they have a torchbearer at each position, right? They've got Forsberg, Yossi and Soros, who are and should all probably remain predators for life and can pass the culture and leadership onto the next generation of players over that team, much like what

we're seeing in Pittsburgh right now. And they'll have some challenging decisions. I think, if you look at their roster right now, they would like to probably have more elite, young, high-end roster players that they can project out like the kids we talked about in Columbus. You know, Nashville has Luke Evangelista. They might have a couple others like Blankenberg on the back end who might be worth long-term bets. But they do have some really tough decisions to make. You know, they've got some deadline deals to make with sort of that group and transition

on the manager's side where they'll want to sell off. They're expiring UFA forwards. And that's fine. And that's okay to do with a transition group because you're really just running an auction there and you're a price taker and you're taking, you know, the best bid that comes in for for a draft pick at the deadline for a player like a Michael Bunting. That's not necessarily a decision that needs long-term perspective. But they do need long-term perspective on some of the more challenging deals.

That includes the Stamco's and O'Reilly, but also maybe some of their veteran players on longer deals where they'll need to either put those players in a position to succeed long-term or think about what to do next. And I think that ability to navigate situations with a group like that does require, you know, a management group and ideally, you know, the general manager who has, you know, extensive experience as a negotiator. I think that's a skill that can't be delegated, even if you have, you know, a strong AGM,

you really want the guy at the top to be able to navigate those relationships with the agents, with the players, not have anything, you know, lost in translation or sort of an agent who can drive a wedge between, you know, an AGM and a GM. You want someone who's got experienced negotiating with big-time agents and big veteran players and making sure they either put those players in the best position to succeed or they can build the right way for the next stage. But overall, I think they're positioned better than most in a transition like that. They're obviously a good attractive market. We like to talk about taxes a lot nowadays that they're in a good position that way in Tennessee, downtown arena.

So I think it's a team that can really be turned around. really quickly with the traffic they have, with the young players they have, and with the space they have moving forward and some of the picks they'll probably bring back at the deadline this year.

I'm with you. For all the talk about what a catastrophic summer of 2024 they had when they went on that UFA spending spree and last year it looked so ill-advised, you look now and a lot of those players have regained at least

some level of the form they had previously, so it's not looking as bad on that front, but also what you're stepping into for whatever, whoever the New York next GM is, is a team that has less than 70 million in commitments ahead of next year, and the cap's going to be 104 or whatever, and then a bunch of draft pick surplus,

not only the players that you mentioned that they've drafted already, but I believe next two draft classes, they have like 16 picks in rounds two to five combined, and so there's a lot of interesting components to work with there. We got about 10 minutes left. I wanted to talk penguins. I had sabres on my list, hurricanes, stars, any one of those that really piques your interest most

and you want to get into here to close today show? Let's go Sabres. They're fun. Let's do it. So they're up to 7th in point percentage. And if you watch them play during this streak, it is very legit. And you can definitely see the vision in the path for being one of those dangerous teams.

You outline when we talked about the Flyers. You know, they got the Josh Stone, long-term extension done. Zach Benson is an excellent to-do list. Alex Tuck as an impending UFA on this very barren market and some of the reported or suggested asks from his camp in terms of what that next deal is going to look like. You're sort of weighing that in terms of building on this year and setting yourself up for a greater runaway moving forward versus maintaining the good vibes and finally ending this playoff drought and kind of that risk reward in terms of doing something versus doing nothing. And then I think they ultimately have to figure out the Josh Nora situation as well because if they are going to get into the playoffs and go on an extended run, I feel like at this point, unfortunately, you'd have to be either naive or foolish to be relying on that, especially at such a premium position. And so they have some stuff to figure out in the short term and also some business decisions moving forward.

But certainly working in a great spot for your armor kick line and stepping into this based on everything that's transpired essentially since the day he took over. Yeah, I just think that he was playing with so much found money, both as an organization, but as a new GM group and management group that's come in and have their long-term deals signed up, that they should, and I think we'll take a big swing, you know, on top of just probably keeping Alex Tucker's an own rental at this point. You know, how can't you with the drought, you know, both missing the playoffs and just all the adversity the turmoil. And that extends to like how the bill's season ended too probably.

Like, you know, that Buffalo market with that fame owner deserves sort of a better ending to the year. And it looks like they're able to write it right now. So I think they'll be super opportunistic. I think like you said, you know, they can add down the middle and, you know, they'll have options and, you know, probably be a few centers available on the market to them. Brian O'Reilly might be one of them, you know, Stan goes another. but probably a few more. And I think they'll take that swing. They're in a tough division with the Tampa's and maybe Florida,

depending on how things shake out. But with where they are, and again, like you went through the list, right? And you've got a team that's not only good and looks like they're making the playoffs, but also so many young players who haven't been there before, the value of making it and playing these competitive games down the line and going someone to the playoffs has to be just, you know, quantifiable, but still so valuable to players like Dullian and all those guys on their roster. And then it'll be neat to see what they do, whether they, you know, do they go long term

with Tuck, which might be tough with probably what he's looking at on the market. Do they make some additional smart bets? Like, I love the Josh Stone contract. You know, similar to what we talked about with Kent Johnson, do they make a smart bet on a Zach Benson, who likewise is just like the very highly skilled young player whose stats maybe not match his really strong performance. and skill set on the ice. And those are the type of deals that, you know,

again, position teams really well down the line, but just, you know, really magical to see they've turned that corner and it'll be neat to see whether Kevin Adams gets a Jim Gregory Award nomination. That would be amazing. I mean, you have to be right up there, especially as a finalist. So we've seen some hilarious ones where they aged incredibly poorly, where a year or two out that GM was out of a job, and you look back on it, and it's like, man, what a time.

so kind of hapsil that was, but I can't remember a scenario like this one previously. You know, the reason why I wanted to talk about the Penguins with you is I was reflecting on, you know, their top 10 in point percentage right now. They've been, as they're talking on a show, so fun to watch. They're sitting and staring down the realistic possibility of having home ice in a round one playoff series, but they're also kind of having their cake and eating too, because along the way Kyle Dubas has stockpiled a bunch of draft capital, has, you know, with deals like the Tristan Jari one that he made with Edmonton really increased their financial flexibility moving forward

by trimming future commitments along the way. And he's done so through this approach of essentially volume-based transactions, right? Whether it's a lot of the signings he made with guys like Manther Brazo, but especially via the trade route. I believe since the start of the 2024 offseason, by my account, he's made 20 trades involving roster players and at times double dipping where he would get paid to take a player rebuild their value and then reroute them and get paid a second time for it. And so he's weaponized his cap space really well,

but I think also shown the value of that volume-based approach where you're not going to get every evaluation right when you were talking earlier about some of the conversations you have internally with scouts in terms of guys kind of planting their flag and identifying a player and being like, this is the guy we have to get. And I think the hubris sometimes that comes with feeling like you're going to be right 100% of the time when in reality, such a large percentage of the league is very environment dependent or a laundry list of other factors

that are going to determine whether they're going to be productive and successful in the spot they're in and how unpredictable or volatile that can be. And so acknowledging that and having a level of humility with it where you just take a bunch of low risk fires and even if a small percentage of them pan out, your organization is going to benefit for it as opposed to the alternative of being stuck. We've seen the Bruins do that over the past year or so, starting with last year's trade deadline. And both teams have entirely reinvigorated their organization's long term, but also set themselves up for playoff bids this year. Do you have any thought on kind of that approach that we've seen from them and sort of everything that goes into doing that as opposed to the way we see teams typically operate, which is like being very married to the guys you brought in and then tickering on the margins.

But for the most time, just rolling it over a year and year again. Yeah, I love you diving deep on the volume-based approach. And I think the baseball analogy here is, you know, you go for slugging percentage, not batting average. Or if you use sort of the business world analogy here, like if you're a good venture capital fund, you care about finding those massive, you know, thousand bagger winners, right? If you can get Google as one of your startup investments, it doesn't really matter if, like, you whip on 10 others for, you know, $20,000 checks because Google is making it $20 billion. And we don't see that all the time in hockey, but we do see that with what Kyle's doing right now.

And I'll tell you a story. We had the same sort of debates and discussion back in Florida. Between 2015 and 2016, Eric Joyce and myself as AGM, you know, we made a ton of transactions. We traded for Riley Smith. We signed Johnson-March. So we brought in, you know, seven or eight players that summer. We made a number of, you know, turned over a number of players who, like you said, were prospects who had come up through our pipeline, who had been drafted four or five years ago, who, you know, we'd have our regional Ontario

scout send an email to our owners every month saying, hey, this many. NHL games have been played by our draftics and you do have that mindset of guys who say, hey, let's have our homegrown guys grow and mature and put value on that. And it's not the wrong approach all the time if those players are good enough. But it is the wrong approach if you're sacrificing,

making your team better right now with the opportunity to say acquisitions, which is what Kyle's doing. You know, you can play both sides. You can sort of say being in NHLGM isn't that different to sitting at a trading desk. And every day there's a bunch of prices. and you can be a buyer, you can be a seller, you can be like a hedge fund,

you can do both types of deals. And he's doing that. You know, he's adding picks where he can. He's adding players where that value presents itself with some of the guys they've brought in, you know, Matt says Brazos. And he's had really good results, you know, this season. And he didn't have those results as uniformly in all the deals he signed

and the moves he made when he initially came to Pittsburgh. But, you know, he was given the long run to do what he's doing and the authority to make, you know, make as many of those deals that make sense to him and his group. And you've seen that payoff with a runway this year. And it would be great to see more teams take that approach. But I know when we were doing that, you know, a number of years ago in Florida, we had feedback internally, but also externally for media guys who were like,

this is fantasy hockey. This is too much too soon. And the regret I have from that period is actually the opposite. It's that we didn't do more. And I remember, you know, I signed Jonathan Marshall as a group six UFA from Tampa, right, in 2016. And the next summer, Yanni Gord was in the almost same situation, right, where he became expendable by Tampa because they just had so many good forward signed long term. And there's back and forth like, well, we've made a bunch of moves like that.

Maybe we don't need to keep making them. And it's like, no, like any time you can grab a very valuable player in a move like that, you should do that every day in Sunday. And we've seen that with Pittsburgh now. You know, they've added players, but they've also turned it around and added picks. And like you said, with Jari and others, like there's a ton of value. And we don't talk about it enough, but like to move a player who has trade protection and get back assets that have much more flexibility, there's a ton of value that isn't quantifiable on a cap sheet to doing that or to bringing in players who have less term than some players who have longer terms.

And that's how you create value and create opportunities like we talk. in the Columbus context where you have that space, you have those assets. And then when, you know, there's a big fish, you can try to reel it in. Absolutely. All right, Steve,

this was awesome. Do you have anything to plug? I've noticed you've been expanding your media footprint. You're writing articles now and stuff, doing all sorts of other radio and podcast spots. What do you want to let the listeners know to check out? I think the only thing I have to plug is if there's a leak in my basement. But now I'm good, man.

I appreciate you. I appreciate the shout out. I'm happy to always to jump. phone on and help out friends with pods and whatnot. But no, nothing right now. No sound cloud. Nothing to plug. Awesome, buddy. Well, it was a blast to have you on as always. Looking forward to the next time we chat. If you enjoyed today's show and one more content, subscribe to the PDOCs Patreon. As I said, off the top, we're going to have Harmon Dial on to break down the Panarin trade and focus on the King's perspective. It gives a five-star review wherever you listen. And that's all for another week of shows.

The NHL may be taking a break for the Olympics, but we will not be here in the PDOC. We're going to have the Sunday special this weekend with trans as usual and then a bunch of new content next week once the games get going. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedioCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.