The Hockey PDOcast - NHL trade deadline takeaways Part 1

Episode Date: March 4, 2023

The Athletic's Harman Dayal joins Dimitri in the studio as the pair run through their biggest takeaways from the 2023 NHL trade deadline.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. 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. 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.

mean since 2015. It's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Dmitra Filipovich and joining me here in studio at SportsNet 650. It's my good buddy, Harmon Dile, harm. What's going on, man? You survive and you're hanging in there? Yeah, especially because all the action happened beforehand. So the Friday itself was a lot calmer than usual. Yeah, it was. I'm viewing it, and I think we should view this show through the lens of like everything. Oh yeah. The trade deadline isn't just today what would happen on Friday because it was admittedly pretty quiet. It's like everything, especially the past week, right? Because there was a stretch there, I believe it was a Tuesday or whatever. Tuesday was not. The trades were

coming in hot. Beliefs made like four in a span of what, an eight hour like business business hours? Yeah. Yeah. No, they definitely did. Okay, so here's the plan. It's been a couple hours since the trade deadline passed. It's still very fresh. But we're going to do our best to kind of, to kind of gather our bearings. We're going to try to do a, we're not going to necessarily do like a winners or losers. It's kind of more like big picture takeaways, maybe what we liked, what we didn't like, teams they got better, how much they got better, sort of, obviously we're going to have to see all of these

pieces in action, right? I think that's what's going to be the exciting part about the next couple weeks of the regular season. It's going to be seeing how this all fits, how it shapes up heading towards the postseason. But I think we can do at least our best sort of initial takeaways on, on everything that we saw. And go from there. So let's, we've got a special two-hour show here at the PDF. guest actually because it is the trade deadline special so we're extending and we're blowing it out so let's uh let's have fun with it let's see how far we can get to and then afterwards we can we can unwind

a little bit and relax i think we've deserved a nice long nap so um harm i'll give you the floor since you're the guest give me a team that interests you from this year's deadline in terms of what they did whether it could be for good reasons it could be for bad reasons it could be for let's see what happens reasons. What's your first pick? Yeah, I'm not picking them because I necessarily think that they're the biggest winner per se, but the Edmonton Oilers, I really liked what they did at the deadline. I honestly expected considering the way the demarket was shaping up were it seemed like

Ken Holland wasn't really that interested in Chickren. And yet the Oilers had such a need on the blue line. So I was looking at names like Gavrakhov and Edmondson or, I know the there were the Carlson rumors, but in my head I was like pulling that off financially. I just didn't view that as a legitimate possibility. So in my head, I was thinking, oh, my goodness, what if the oilers go out and pay a significant price for a defender that's going to help them, but not really move the needle in a substantial enough way?

And then Nashville obviously fell out of the race. And then you look at being able to acquire Miteas Ekholm, get Nashville to retain a bit, to he's at a flat $6 million cap, uh, cap hit. I really like to fit for Ekholm with the Oilers, even though he's on the older side because he's the perfect blend, in my opinion, between bolstering their actual defensive play, which has been a huge issue,

someone who can stop the cycle, someone who can box out in front of the net, someone who can just play this reliable style, but he isn't limited in terms of what he can do with the puck either. We've seen, even in just the first game, watching him, the poise with which he can manage the puck, and headman it up the ice, right? And that's where they found that balance,

especially because I saw a lot of people going, well, Chickren went for so cheap. Why didn't Edmonton get in on that, considering how much younger he is? But context matters here where, number one, Arizona clearly did not want to take any salary back, which was a problem for the oilers who were dollar and dollar out. And secondly, Ottawa's first round pick is more valuable than Edmonton's,

because Ottawa's probably going to be in a position where their first-round picks going to be in the middle of the first round, the Oilers have a much higher likelihood of having a first-round pick that's much later. First-round picks aren't equal, as we all know. So with those considerations in mind,

I really like that. Come and then Buxtad to sort of bolster their bottom six, hopefully help them on the penalty kill as well. I really like those two additions. And so to me, considering how scary it looked at one moment where I'm like, oh, my goodness, I thought they made out pretty well.

The Oilers were number two on my list, not necessarily the second of the team that I like second most, but in terms of interest level, I was sort of like jotting down teams that I wanted to talk about on my end and the way there were second. So I think you're on to something there. I really like the acquisition cost, right? You think about it. They basically turn Barry.

I know that he was playing on the right side for them, but they turned Barry's cap dollars and Reed Schaefer, who they took with the last pick of the first round last year, their first this coming year, which will hopefully be in the late 20s for them yet again, and a fourth into Eckholm and a sixth, I believe, right? And there is a bit of risk in the sense that at Coleman turns 33. He's got three more years at $6 million, as you said. But that kind of like lines up with what this organization's window is, right? It lines up perfectly with, I believe, when Connor McDavid expires,

Dris Heidel expires the year before that. And so it's like that's all that ultimately really matters here. And that's the way we should view this thing. And that's going to be a recurring theme as we talk about some of these teams. It's like you say how not every first is created equal, not every timeline is created equal as well, right? It's all relative in terms of the players you have and their ages and their contract status. And so the thing that I like about at home is, you're right, he's a perfect fit because we've already seen him.

They're going to play him with Evan Bouchard. And I think stylistically, it's such a fantastic combination of skills because at home is a big dude and he's not particularly like the most fleet of foot, especially at this point of his career. But because of his footwork, because of his reach, because of his like smarts and experience, experience, he uses, he makes the most of what he's working with, right? And so he can handle speed in terms of rush defense, but he can also box out in front of the net, he can kill cycles, he can do a lot of the stuff that some of the other defensemen have struggled with. I think he's not necessarily the profile of the most prolific puck mover up the ice. Like,

that's part of my appeal for trying to speak Carlson-Droeilers into existence was I want to see him headmanning the puck up the ice to McDavid and getting like the cleanest exits possible. that's not really at home's game where he thrives is a much more underrated part of the breakout and it's the first step right it's going back retrieving the puck um absorbing an oncoming four checker taking a hit most times and still making an effective play and that's something this blue line really struggled with in the postseason last year has continued to struggle with again this year it's handling that speed right it's like when a four checkers coming at you they have a lot of guys who all of a sudden panic make a mistake leads to a turnover it prevents you from breaking out cleanly

and at cole might not be always making that first pass out of the zone but he'll get it to mac david in a way that he can skate it out then right he'll get it to bouchard who can then make the pass up that's something he excels at and so i think that combination of skills is actually exactly what they need it now i know i would have loved to see them go out and add another right shot defenseman because if you look that's kind of the weakness of their depth chart now but i think there is that trickle-down effect here where okay you use at colem with bouchard all of a sudden, Cece and a nurse who have been kind of like thrown into the deep end and have been drowning for a lot of the year, all of a sudden have less to do.

They're not necessarily eating up all the tough minutes. Kulak, who we know thrives in sort of tertiary sheltered minutes or kind of like a lesser responsibility, gets the bump down to a third pairing role where he can all of a sudden do what he excels at. And so I think the depth chart, even though at Colm does play the left side, allows everything to kind of fall into a more natural place. For sure. And I'm also really curious to see the impact this has on Bouchard,

all of a sudden in terms of he's an X factor in such a key piece now, especially because the Oilers didn't add another right side defender. You look at how impressive he was last season. I think losing Duncan Keith, you could tell that he wasn't quite finding his fit. It's been a tough year for him. And so having an experienced partner like Ekholm, someone who can clean up a lot of defensive mistakes, someone who's reliable in his own end.

That frees up Bouchard, I think, and I'm really curious to see if he can sort of regain some of the form that he showed last season, which then gives you an internal boost as well. Not to mention on the power play, I've seen a lot of people talk about the impact. Barry had there, and yeah, Barry's been excellent, but I feel like there's so many great keys on that power play.

Plus, Bouchard has a great skill set with his shot, with his IQ. I mean, I remember watching him so much in junior. and just being so impressed by the level of composure that he has. So I'm confident he'll be able to step in on PPP 1 and have a significant impact. And I think with Echoman in the fray, it'll give him that experience veteran who can help maybe stabilize his game. So that to me is the crucial secondary component is, all right, let's see what kind of step Bouchard can hopefully take as well. Well, you're opening up a lot of high leverage, meaningful puck touches for him as well, right? as you're saying, like on that top powerplay,

I think this is obviously a much more difficult thing to quantify, and that's not necessarily we spend too much time on the PDOCAS, but you'd be foolish to ignore the added element of, all right, you're a young defenseman, like Evan Bouchard, all of a sudden you get to play on the top unit powerplay. You're certainly going to thrive and get a bunch of extra points. You're going to get a bunch of opportunities to do really fun stuff with the puck where you have a lot of space and you're working with McDavid and Dreis Eidel.

That's going to have a natural impact on the rest of his game as well, right? you go to 5-1-5, you go other elements of the game, and all of a sudden you're feeling pretty good about yourself. You're like, all right, like, this is fun. I just got a couple points already. Like, you know, I'm riding high, and that's going to certainly have a positive impact on the rest of his game beyond just the power play,

which is, I think, going to have, like, no discernible drop-off. If anything, it might get better because I view him as a bit more of a threat to actually punish you with a shot from there. For sure, especially because the mental side of the game is huge. Especially for a young defender, right? Exactly. The more, with that, power play. It's really a spot plug and play where like you mentioned, I don't expect any drop off.

That's going to be such a confidence builder. And players then can enter at five on five, a sort of flow state as opposed to before where I'm sure Bouchard is in a spot where he's still trying to find his role, still trying to find his footing and in what exactly he can he can bring on a consistent high end sort of level. And he had that last year. And I'm sure for any young player who hasn't been through a lot of in their early career, it can start to create question marks in terms of, okay, how much can I start to express my game? You maybe start to wonder a little bit about where, you know, you're a little bit more careful at five on five because you don't want to make a mistake. And like you said, I think this sort of gives him a little bit more breathing room, a little bit more

safety net at five on five. And I think, you know, if the oilers go deep, he'll be a big part of them taking that step. For sure. Yeah, I guess one final note on the Oilers for me is I would have loved to see them, I think they were on the right track, and I certainly like the moves they made with Eck Holman and Bukstad. If anything, I would have liked to see them become even more aggressive

and increase their risk profile and really push even more chips in the middle of the table because of the situation in the West right now is how open it is with how strong their team is. I would have loved to see them like flip a Yamamoto and a pick into a better winger, right? I would have loved to see them potentially even add to someone like Radco Gudis or something, turned Cici's minutes into him or some other right shot defender

that gives them a different element and makes me feel more confident in their minutes because you know what you're going to get from the top of this lineup, right? And I want to just see them round that out. So I think there was other moves they could have made. I know they were working really tight up against the cap, right? I believe after the Bugstad trade, which hilariously he was making, what, like $900,000 or something? and they needed half of it retained to make the work.

They literally had zero cap dollars to work with, so it would have to be another money and money out type of move. But I think there was ways to get creative and leverage some of the contracts they have and to other players. But we can't hit back in the grand scheme of things. I was prepared to enter this conversation like a week ago being like, oh my God, the Oilers blew it again

because we've become so conditioned to thinking that way after all the moves they've made. And instead, I do view this as a big W for them, right? So credit where it's due. all right here's the next team on my list and this was my number one team it's a neat team near and dear to your heart a team you cover every day of their living it's our vancouver canucks now actually i'll see the floor to you here because i want to hear your perspective on this being kind of in in the fire every day and then i'll give you my take on it from the outside and we can kind of go back and forth on that yeah so right off the bat nobody's arguing that philipponic is a bad thing player, right? He's an excellent defenseman, top four, right-handed, 25 years old.

Those are hard, rare pieces to acquire. And the price that the Canucks paid in terms of first and second round pick, considering the rarity of that kind of piece, it's not bad, right? Like, it's high, but it's, it's defensible. The problem is the timing. Yeah. You have a Canucks team that right now is, I think, 26 to 27th, in the league standings.

And for so many years, they've been at a significant deficit of first and second round picks, just constantly trading them away. Considering how weak their prospect pipeline is and how they don't have immediate talent coming and the fact that they don't have cap flexibility this summer, as things stand right now, to upgrade the other parts of their roster, they already have over $80 million committed for contracts for next season. This just didn't make sense as the time to go and make a big swing trade, especially because with their cap situation,

it's just I don't see a window of how this really works, especially they've tried really hard to move Besser, right? There were conversations about J.T. Miller and all these other players. they've shown that they can't really move cap out and the problem that I see is look I can see a scenario where they can retool and make the playoffs for next season especially if Demko bounces back because they've had the 32nd safe percentage in the league this year

there are factors that you can look at and go all right if these things go right you can make the playoffs next season I just think you're lowering your ceiling down the line in terms of being able to build a contender especially because on this roster now once Elise Pedersen gets his massive contract at the end of next season, once Horonik gets his big extension at the end of next season because he's going to be an RFA with arbitration rights

and big point totals and big ice time numbers, you're looking at a scenario where the Canucks is core, is full of market value contracts. And what we've seen from teams that win the Stanley Cup, whether it was Colorado last year, look at the amount of bargain surplus value contracts they had where players are so significantly outperforming their cap. Those are essential in a hard cap world

to be able to fit so many good players under the roster, right? They had McKinnon at 6.3 superstar. They had Byron on his ELC leading all Aveskaters in 5-on-5 minutes in the Stanley Cup final. They had New Chuskin putting up 52 points in 64 games or something as a $2.5 million capet. Cadre at a 4.5 million dollar cap hit, it scored 87 points in 71 games in the regular season.

You just go, Devon Taves, a legit number of, 1D making 4.1 million. And so you look at even the number one team that you consider this year going into the playoffs. The Boston Bruins, it's like they've lined up their window and they can be so aggressive because none of their forwards make over 7 million. It's like they've got all these contractual advantages. And that's why you have to be so intentional about when you time your window because

it has to be around when you think you have those surplus value contracts. And the problem is when you trade over. consistently first and second round picks, you know, not all those draft picks are going to hit, but when they do hit, they're ELC players that are, you know, those exact deals that you need to surround an

expensive core with. So that's why I just don't like this trade from the Connecticut's perspective. Yeah, I think that's the important part. People get hung up on kind of the bird in the hand versus the probability of a... It's like, oh, well, yeah, I'd rather just have

Philopronic than a player that, or a draft pick that has an X percent chance of becoming Philopronic, right? But that's not really what's up for debate. Part of the, the big part of the value of draft picks is it gives you that opportunity, if you nail it, if you draft and develop correctly, to have players at cost-controlled prices, even beyond their ELC, because you have a runway of however many years, three, four years, potentially of RFA status where you have complete leverage on them as assets.

So you can ultimately leverage them into taking less than they're probably worth on the open market and give you a surplus in value as you're mentioning, right? And so I just, a team like the Canucks needs to be in the business of finding its own Philopronic in the sense of drafting, where was the second round pick or something, I believe, drafting a defense on a second round, developing him, putting him in a position to succeed, and then having him at 4.4 million for a couple years producing at the level, Plopronic has produced that, as opposed to, paying a premium to acquire him so that you can pay him on his next contract, which is what

they're going to be doing here in a year, as you mentioned, right? And I think my issue for the Canucks from this perspective is they're 26, 27 in the league in point percentage or whatever. They're by any measure one of the worst five or six teams in the league this season. Some of it is certainly bad luck. I think they're probably, you know, at least a few spots higher in terms of true talent level moving forward. When you're that bad, though, you kind of have the perk of emberts.

bracing the process and then taking advantage of other teams desperation, which ultimately crops up, right? And so they were linked to a team like the Pittsburgh Penguins a lot over the past couple of days. And the penguins, the position they're in, they're clearly reeking of desperation. They're like,

all right, we were frantically trying to improve our team here, cobble together something to give our stars a chance. And that's a team you want to take advantage of in a trade where you leverage their desperation into assets that help you moving forward. And instead, the Canucks in a weird way, come across in a move like this as the team that has the desperation and they get taken by the Red Wings,

you know what I mean? It's kind of like a reversal of roles that makes no sense for a team that's in the position there and in the standings. The other problem is one of the, or not problem, one of the biggest counter arguments I see is, well, you can't just keep building forever, right? Like at a certain point with Pedersen and Hughes, you've got to be able to, you know, take advantage and start building a team that can be competitive sooner rather than later. and there's been a lot of dialogue around the idea of, well, you can't rebuild. I think it's important to clarify that when people in the media, for example, me, Thomas Dran's, other colleagues. Two of my favorites. When we're talking about a rebuild, we're not talking about being bad for five years, right? Like this is, in today's league, if you're disciplined about it, especially what the starting point the Canucks have with Pedersen and Hughes, if there were.

disciplined and the head start two that they got with the Horvatt trade, they were looking at a scenario where it's like, all we were sort of saying is just don't prioritize making the playoffs for next season and the year after. Like two years of pain and then start, and then you can start making these trades, right? Like once you collect this high volume of draft picks, that's what then affords you to be able to, you know, not only answer your system, but then in two years, since you've had this excess capital you can start cashing it in for players making deals like this and once you're sort of waiting for some of these you know contracts like a tahn Myers to sort of sort of expire or you're you know

maybe timing buyouts to where it's a bit more friendly down the road to pull the plug on someone like oliverick malars and if you line all that up in a window then you also have the cath flexibility and you and then you're you're in the market in off seasons to be in the bidding for opportunities like when a John Marino comes up on the, on the trade block for, you know, 75 cents on the dollar, when someone like Devon Taves ends up on the trade market for 75 cents on the dollar when another team is in trouble, I don't think that the alternative was we're going to be bad forever. Like in terms of the next five years, we're done.

Pedersen's going to be 30 by the time the Canucks are good again. I don't think it would have taken that long. Well, the argument, I just have no time for the argument of, well, we can't keep building forever. Like you can't rebuilding forever. You can't like eventually you have to be good. It's like, okay, point me to a time where this organization has properly actually been in that phase though, right?

Like they've never, they've been bad. They've drafted high up on the list. But that's all kind of been by accident. They haven't reaped the rewards of any of the things of being bad is which we see teams like the coyotes, of course, like we'll talk about them later. There's negatives to it as well. But how we saw a bunch of the bad teams operate at this deadline,

which is just loading up on tons of draft capital moving forward. They haven't done any of that. Like the part of the irony of this trade is as I texted it to you, they're back down to seven draft picks in 2023. It's like they're allergic or they think it's against the CBA to have more than the number of picks you're allotted. It's like you're allowed to have a surplus of draft picks.

It's okay. You don't need to all of a sudden work your way back to seven. This was also what kind of blew my mind. Before they made the heronic trade, they were projected to have seven picks in the first four rounds. that would have been the most draft capital that they've had in the first four rounds of a draft in franchise history.

So two things. Number one, that shows you that when you look at this team's inability to sort of field consistent contenders, especially recently, like there's a direct correlation of why. They don't draft and develop enough talent. And secondly, because they'd already amassed some of this capital and you had opportunities down the road

where look at the way Baville is playing and he's a sort of asset that you could have monetized down the road here, other players. I don't think this would have taken too long. Again, I'm just saying the alternative wasn't rebuilding forever. It's just, it's a year or two at least too early, in my opinion. And the shame of it is you and I did a podcast right after the Boerabat trade and you go back and listen to it.

I think we were both pretty encouraged where we took the optimistic view of the trade from the Canucks perspective in terms of the return. And the framing was, I feel like the fact they clearly prioritized getting this very interesting, potentially unprotected first next year, getting, you know, taking him on unbelievably, whatever,

building up his value back, getting Atu Ratu, all that. I much prefer that to some of the other suggested trade packages in return. They revolved around like 25-year-old roster players who were already just not going to get you any of there, right? At least they took the shot on this really high upside. potential draft pick. And I was like, you know what?

Maybe they're finally learning from their mistakes in the past. Maybe they're changing their two and changing their approach. This is a sign that this organization is going to finally start doing the right thing and taking a long view of this. And then instead they go and do this. And that's kind of this disappointing part for me. Now maybe it should be shame on us, right? Because one constant throughout this entire thing, regardless of which management team has

been in place is they seem to be very fixated on like their interest level in former first round picks of other teams that are a couple years out now not necessarily, I don't want to say busted, but haven't lived up to their potential and that's why they're available and they're kind of viewing them as reclamation projects. And that's totally fine,

but that can't really be like the main... It can't be your primary... It can't be like your main platform for like running for president. It's like, I'm going to take someone else's first round pick from seven years ago and get the most out of them. It's like, that's a nice strategy. if you're like a team like Colorado does that or a team of Tampa Bay does that it's like all right

well they already have the infrastructure in place where those guys come in they can put them in a position to succeed because they're not asking too much of them in this case it's like all right we're going to bring in Vitalik Grafsov and he's going to be the same like he's going to be an integral pieces that's not necessarily how it works and so that's i think where part of their plan falls through too the timing is also odd because when Jim Rutherford first took over as president of hockey ops, he spoke about the one of the first things that he wanted to do was, we got to fix the cap situation, right?

Then in January, more recently, which is essentially a year after he first took over the job and had mentioned the importance of fixing the cap situation. He says that the cap situation they inherited was, it's been difficult. Like, it's a bigger mess than we thought, which totally fair. A lot of those contracts, you all have reckoned, Larsson,

one, Tyler Myers, Tanner Pearson, on and on. They have been from the last administration. What's odd to me, though, is also in that same January press conference more recently, around six weeks ago, Weatherford said that for the Canucks to execute the vision that they see in terms of a quick turnaround and getting this team back to sort of being an eventual contender was, again, carving out that cat flexibility, one way or another. it's odd to me that they've gone out and made a splashy acquisition before before like carving out that cat flexibility right it's like

best are still in the books miller still still in the books like you don't know what you're going to do with myers in the off season alveen said today that the prices to get off of some of these contracts were too difficult and now you're going to enter an off season where you need to get off of money and they're not a position to be giving away future assets to get off of bad money right now. Like they need every single one of those assets. 100%. And also like it's if they have, you know,

it's been a year and a bit now. They've been through two trade deadlines and a full off season. And they haven't been able to move any of their big ticket contracts, right? They've made moves clear cap on the margins, right? Raleigh Stillman. They gave up a second to get off Jason Dickinson and bring in Raleigh Stillman. More recently they, you know, they've made these like, one to like three million dollars like sometimes they've been able to pull those off but they haven't

been able to carve out that you know mid range or bigger contract for four to six million yeah yeah so that's still a major concern to me is how are you going to get rid of those because that's that that's necessary to continue improving because again I can see a scenario where they are competitive for the playoffs next season but beyond that I'm like is that your ceiling then a team that can make the playoffs the things go right, but how are you going to build beyond that down the road? Yeah. Oh, man, I really open a can of where I'm here because I have like so many other things that I want to say to build off of that, but I think we should take our break here while we still can.

And then when we come back, we'll pick right up where we left off. You're listening to the Hockey Ocas streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Breaking down the top stories in the NHL every day. The Jeff Mary Show. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. trade that let me let's pick back up before we left off

talking about the Canucks because you raised a few very interesting points there I thought a lot of I'm kind of curious for your take on a lot of the reporting that came out around the team because it seemed like there was certainly springing a lot of leaks. There was a lot of information being bandied around about what they were trying

to accomplish, some of the conversations they were having, some of the potential options, certainly a lot more than you see with most teams, maybe just being in this, living in this market and kind of being privy to it. Maybe it's happening elsewhere, but I feel like it was on the extreme side of things purely in terms of like the volume of information we were seeing pretty much over the past week in terms of their connection with Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's interest in some of their players where that was going to go. It felt like, it felt like, like that was like a thing that is a bit of an aberration compared to some of the other things we see around the league.

Maybe a little bit. I think I'm kind of used to there are always being a lot of noise and rumors around Vancouver at this point. I know internally management is not a big fan of all the outside noise and they're pretty paranoid about leaks. So it's interesting too because especially in a situation where a lot of their, sometimes when they make these bigger moves like the heronic trade or when. Well, the Horaniquan was like announced by Detroit's Twitter.

Oh, yeah. Like that happened. The Miller extension, nobody really saw that happening. So it's like sometimes they make a big move and nobody sees it happening. And other times there's just so much smoke. But also, it was also especially odd with J.T. Miller on the timing of of the injury situation and how it was reported where first we had Shana, I believe, on Sunday night, tweeting out that it sounded like Miller's name was surfacing a lot. and trade discussions and maybe who's a potential target for teams. And she seemed to suggest that will he play against Dallas, right?

Yep. And then there's this frenzy. The team announces the next day that he's out week to week. Meanwhile, the agent is saying, oh, it's just a tweak. He's only going to be out for a week, right? So it's weird there that you have that, you know, discrepancy. Then maybe unrelated, but still just part of the timeline at some point in that. there, the NHL releases a memo that they're going to really crack down on LTIR shenanigans as

it relates to the playoffs and that any player that's acquired needs to be playing in the regular season if they're going to be allowed to play for whichever team acquires them. So carry on. Yeah, that's very, that was very interesting timing as well. And then you had, you had three, three-ish days go by and he's playing again, even after he's been diagnosed week to week. and when he's playing it, lines up with the reported timeline of when trade discussions with Pittsburgh fell off the map.

Yeah. Which, hmm. I don't know, harm. I think it's actually a sign that a much maligned medical staff of the Vancouver Canucks has really turned the corner here and has worked wonders on J.T. Miller's injury. I mean, they turned a week-to-week timeline into three days. I mean, that's pretty impressive stuff. I mean, even then, like, it's with the Miller situation, it's so fascinating because

the reporting with Frank Saravali suggested that you know they were looking for a couple first round picks or and further reporting from Dregor and Rick Dollywell here locally both seem to emphasize that the Canucks are sort of looking for a young centerman and that

you know Dregger was saying there was an offer of draft picks Alvin refuted that report but I mean considering the temperature around it what else was he going to do right it's just a big it's a big mess and it remains such a big storyline for me going into the draft

is what are they going to do? And I think the big takeaway for me here is that the Canucks are still looking for a meaningful return, which, like, that's not encouraging to me, and it's a sign that they don't fully understand the value of cap flexibility. And I guess it lines up with the idea of a retool, right, where it's like, we need to be competitive soon, so, you know, why would we need to be competitive soon?

so, you know, why would we need this catholic ability? But the interesting thing about J.T. Miller is you can look at his point totals and say, oh, he's still pacing for 70 plus points, and he's still a good player, but I'd almost argue that you'd still be better off with $8 million to work with and address other needs because you look at him this year, for reference, I think he only has two more even-strength points than Nilea McAev. He banks a lot of empty calorie points on the power play, and you look at his 5-and-5 play,

which in fairness has improved under target. But for the season, the connects are like minus 13 at 5 on 5 when he's been on the ice in terms of goal differential. They're controlling like 45% of the expected goals. They're still uncertainty around can you excel with him as a center or is he really more of a winger? So I think they should be a lot more motivated just to get off of the contract. Well, they seem to have no interest in that, right? Like some of the reporting around Garland was they were looking not just, to get off the contract, but get back an effective roster player in return, which poses the

question of why would any team that would be theoretically interested in Connor Garland, which assumes that they're probably a playoff team that's trying to improve their likelihood of advancing this year's playoffs and trying to beef up their roster, give away a supposed effective roster player to add him. Like that logic just totally falls apart from me, right? It's very curious. Like on the one hand, they're trying to get off. off of money, but on the other hand, they're trying to take back money as well. I don't understand what the real incentive is there other than the fact that they clearly have no appetite to really tear it down, right?

Like, they clearly want to speed this thing up. Before we move on from this, because we have so much left to cover, I didn't want to quickly touch on Hornick, though, because I feel like we sort of boost past that, and I really like him as a player. And so I didn't want this to me be dismissive of, like, I can't believe they gave up a first at a second from Hornyck because I hope the takeaway here is right player or wrong team.

And unfortunately that is a very recurring theme for this organization. But in Heronix case, right? Like right shot defender? I wouldn't necessarily say I'm not sure if you've, I know that you were really getting into the tape on him. I don't necessarily view him as having like one standout skill.

He's almost just like a really good hockey player. Right? Like he does a lot of things really well. He really connects plays. he's in the right window age-wise, what, 24, 25 years old, like that's where you want to be. And you certainly look at the organization's depth chart, what's their right side looking like right now, right?

It's Ethan Bear, Tyler Myers, who's one year left on his deal. And then right now they're using Kyle Burroughs and Noah Jolson on the right side. And there's no reinforcements in the way organizationally, right? Like there's no one you look at that they've drafted or developed recently that's like, oh, give this a year or two and all of a sudden this guy's going to step into a major role. So I understand the desire to address that, but it just, for all the reasons we mentioned,

I think it's a mistake. Now with Roenek, let's talk a little bit about his game. I would argue that Detroit is selling high here because you look at individual shooting percentage, on-eye shooting percentage, on-a-sage-state percentage, all of them are career highs right now. That being said, if you take away all the minutes you play with Ben Chirot this year,

who's just anchored everyone who's been around on Detroit Red Wings, his 5-15 impacts have been really good. And so I think that is encouraging that he's going to step into the situation where he's going to get as many minutes as he can possibly handle. And if this here's any indication, he will handle them pretty well. And so I think for Knox fans, that should be exciting because they added a really good player here. For sure, you start with the skating ability. And I wouldn't necessarily describe him as a dynamic or electric player, but he's so smooth and so mobile. And when he has space, he's a con.

confident pot carrier in transition, which gives them another option in terms of jumping up in the rush. In the offensive zone, he has a good shot. He has good offensive instincts. And on top of that, he's, in my opinion, at least in some of the tip that I've seen, he's taking legitimate strides in his defensive game where when I watch him, he's constantly scanning for threats. He's trying to take away those cross-scene passes.

He's trying to tie up guys in front of the net, which sound like that should be a defender's job. but the Canucks defensemen don't really do that on a consistent enough basis. He's really competent there. And I noticed that when he makes the right read, he's somebody who closes quickly using his skating. And he has a competitive side to him where he's able to take the body and press up guys against the boards,

make defensive stops, and help transition the other way. So I think he's going to make a legitimate two-way impact for this team. And it's why, even though they're 27th in the league, I still bring up the playoffs as a legit possibility for next season because I think a lot of people, their immediate thought was, all right, perfect. This is a long-term partner for Hughes. And maybe that's the case, right?

Definitely, I think you'd want to see them in offensive situations together. But considering how thin the rest of the blue line is outside of Hughes and how badly they've been dominated when Hughes has been on the bench, you almost look at Heronic is He needs to carry his own pair, right? And so that way you at least have one of Hughes or Horonic on the ice And that's where I think he could make Help this team take legitimate strides

At 5 and 5 and the way I view the trade as a whole is Almost it shares some similarities to when the Canucks acquired J.T. Miller Originally from Tampa Bay Bay where I look at the player and I'm like Really good player The cost, the price is fair, right? It's not a significant overpayment or anything along those lines it's just the timing doesn't make sense

in the bigger picture of what the team is accomplishing. It's not that a first to a second round pick is totally unreasonable for Philipronic. If Edmonton doesn't get at home and instead turns around and trades their first and second for Philipronic, I don't think, like we're praising 100% sitting here. And of course now that Islander's first is more valuable than Edmonton's

this year, as you mentioned at the top, in terms of first round respective values. But you're right. I think that's like the very important thing to key in on here. Do you have anything else on Hironic or do you want to, I don't know, pivot to pivot to the Red Wings a little bit while we're on this topic? Because they're an interesting team to discuss what they did at this trade line. Let's pivot. So what's fascinating about them, and I think this is a bit of, we could lump the capitals, the predators.

I'd even say the blues less so because by the time they pulled the trigger on the O'Reilly and Teresanko trades, they were already so far out of the race that it wasn't really a consideration. And those guys were, you know, older impending UFAs. with some of these teams, it's interesting that maybe in years past, you would have seen them talk themselves into, well, we have a 20% shot by most models of making the playoffs. We're kind of on the fringes of the wild card. Let's not necessarily be buyers, but let's kind of hold our cards tight and see if we can make a little noise, sneak into the playoffs, get a couple home game playoff revenue. And instead, they totally pivoted the other way, right? Like the Red Wings,

and maybe part of it was crystallized for them. by playing this back-to-back set against Ottawa Senator as a team they're sort of competing with for one of those wildcard spots and getting just absolutely demolished in both of them. But as soon as that happened, they were like, all right, you know what, we're pretty far away. And Steve Eisenman actually, after the trade line, came out today, and I'm not sure if you saw this quote,

but he basically said that they view Buffalo and Ottawa as being ahead of them in terms of the rebuild, and that was part of why they approach this trade line the way they will, so take that for what it's worth. But they're kind of on the margins here, and there was a lot of, all right, well, you know, they have a lot of young players. It's been a while since they've been in the playoffs. It makes sense for them to go for it. And instead, they totally pivot.

They trade Heronik for futures. They trade Tyler Bertuzi for a first. They trade Oscar Sunquist. They get off of Branda's money. They make a lot of moves that are like big picture moves for them. And so it's interesting to compare that to what the team they traded with in Vancouver did because it's almost like it's totally diversion in terms of direction. They've created max flexibility for themselves, right?

the quickest way to improve a team is when you have cap space and when you have excess draft capital, right? And that's where Detroit now has now has the option of they can go out and they can continue drafting and developing, or they can make the sorts of moves that a team like Ottawa has made, right? Where they went out and they made the DeBrikan trade and then they went out and now made the chicken trade, right? where that helps you take a quick step forward and Detroit positioned themselves to do exactly that. So I really like how honest they've been in terms of looking at their internal situation. Obviously, getting the Larkin extension done as well at a pretty nice rate getting it done ahead of the deadline. So it's not looming over you in the offseason.

I like the strategy because it takes a lot of top end talent to really contend for a Stanley Cup. right it's not just this nucleus of three great players to to really like you look at the embarrassment of which is a team like colorado or Tampa Bay has in terms of high-end players Detroit has some pillars here right like they've got cider they've got raymond they've got edvinson coming they've got larkin they've got some really nice pieces but i think isman's done an excellent job of being self-aware enough to go we want to continue adding to that pool, whether it's using those chips to turn around and trade for win now players in the sort of 23 to 25 range, or just continuing adding them to the system and letting them develop.

Well, I'm really curious to see what they do because in trading around out, they retained half of it, but in trading him and Hironik, they clear about 7 million in Kakam's for next year. In the process, with all these moves with you lump Bertusian and Sunquist in as well, they add a 2023 first, 2023 second, 2023 fourth, and a 2024 first. And I actually would have, to go fully down this road, if I were them, I would have not retained 50% on Brana, use that to retain 50% on someone like Pew Souter and try to trade him to a contender and get even more assets.

I think they just wanted to get out of the AcoBranda business, clear reading between the lines in Steve Eiserman's comments today that they felt like the relationship was just irreparable. And so it is what it is. is. But they enter this summer now with all of this draft capital. They have $51.1 million in cap commitments, right? And they don't really have any big expenditures on the way, like they have Joe Villeneau as an RFA, but they handle their business with Larkin. They have this one-year cushion now with Mo Sider and Lucas Raymond on their ELCs before they fully get paid the following year.

And I'm very fascinated to see how they approached this, because last summer, they just went on this crazy shopping spree spending a bunch of money on Andrew Cop and David Perron and Dominic Kubolik and Billy Huso and they sort of went for it. And then now they've almost like kind of taken, clear the deck or almost made up for that in clearing cap space, getting more draft capital. I'm curious to see whether they go for kind of round two at the plate and go for another homerun swing or whether they take a more calculated approach because they've pretty much at least opened up any set of options for them at the draft and at every agency. Which is exactly the position you want to be in because you can

take advantage of the best opportunities that come your ways, even if there are scenarios where you, like this is what a team like Carolina does so well, right? Is they use their caps to be first and foremost as an asset to acquire players that, you know, like a max patch ready for basically nothing. Like literally, they actually got paid to take them on for a year. And so it's like, yeah, they've got so many options where it's like

they can, you know, pay a big price and go after the next deprecise. Brinket or Kevin Fiala that becomes available. They can turn to a route of, you know, the one-year window. Do they look at the next sort of patch-ready sort of opportunity where it's like, we'll, we'll get paid to take on this win-now player that can help us sort of take the next step and contend for the playoffs. They can simply use those picks. Like, there are endless options in terms of the next step they take.

And I'm sure internally there, you can tell that they're the, they're the, they're the, they're the type of front office that is so meticulous about aligning sort of their window and their contracts and ensuring that they have an optimal runway, which also leads me to wonder about was part of the logic in the heroic trade looking at the fact that he's going to be an RFA with arbitration rights at the end of next season, understanding that if all of a sudden you're looking to move him at next year's deadline, for example, then teams are clued. into, oh, this guy's got a big, you know, RFA arbitration. He's got huge point totals.

He's got big ice time. Then those teams are, you know, all of a sudden worried about the next contract. We saw it unfold even with, you know, Tim Omar, right? Timomir is such a great player. I'm sure we'll get to it a bit later. But that was an underwhelming return for the sharks. And it was in large part because teams were worried about, okay, what's his next contract going to look like?

There was uncertainty around that. Whereas Detroit not only cashed in on he's playing the best hockey of his career in the of a two-way breakout season, but I wonder if Detroit was looking at that and going, we don't necessarily want to be the ones to pay that big contract and let's funnel him out before other teams are worried about having to pay that big contract. Well, it's also interesting about them.

I mean, Hronach is a right-shot defenseman for them, but organizationally they're loaded on the left side in terms of their pipeline. And they also, they just extended Olimata. They just extended Jake Wallman and both guys way the left side. They signed Ben Chirot last summer. And so they, like, tied up. not significant money, like it's totally fine. And in the case of someone like Walman, like, I love it because I actually think it might bite me

in terms of like being a small sample size, but watching him play, I'm like, this guy is totally legit. Oh, yeah. I think he's the real deal. I like him all. And so, especially for like a three year window or whatever, I'm like, yes, like, let's do it. But so they have a lot of options now, and it's very, I'm very curious to see how aggressive they are this summer, what they choose to do with it.

Because I thought that there was this speculation that after the Horonic trade, there was this window of about an hour before the Jacob Chikrin trade happened. And there was a lot of speculation of, oh, is Detroit going to turn around and use all these picks that they just got from the Canucks for him to just go and take Jacob Chikrin instead. And they obviously didn't do that. Chickren went to Ottawa.

But that would have been a very interesting wrinkle here to see it. And I think Chikran ultimately wound up going for the difference between the two was a 2026 second, right? So they were kind of valued relatively evenly on the trade market. But very fascinating stuff. Yeah, the other thing with Chikrin 2 was I don't mind that Detroit didn't go after him just because he only has two years after this one

before he's an unrestricted free agent So again in terms of timing and window Can you contend for a cup within two years It's kind of tight Like I wouldn't have he He's an excellent player And like the sorts of moves you can make the offseason They could have improved really quickly

But it is also short window So I wouldn't have hated it But I also wouldn't have necessarily loved it Well if they had just turned If they had just gotten Chickren for the exact picks they got for her neck I would have at least found that to be interesting because I do prefer Chikrin as a player

and how left shot versus right shot he does give you that extra year of cost certainty though so I don't know it would have been it's just like such an interesting dynamic of like I wonder how the Canucks would have felt about that right not that they need another left shot guy but like just seeing them go out and then take these picks and all of a sudden repurpose them into a different player

that I view is a better one so all right harm let's uh let's take our break here and then we'll talk about the senators and Chick-Rinn, and we'll lump the coyotes in there, and we'll do all that fun stuff. After the break, you're listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.