The Hockey PDOcast - NHL trade deadline takeaways Part 2

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.

Harmon Dile. Harm, let's talk about Chickren. So he goes for a 2023 first, which is top five protected, Washington's 2024 second, and a 2026 second down the road. And there was a lot at play here. There's a ton of context that's clearly important that was dictating this price, right? It came out afterwards. Elliot Freeman reported that the coyotes essentially had no interest in taking any dollars back, even if it was expiring for this deal, like to facilitate it,

they needed to do a deal like this, where they just take on futures that they don't have to pay for now and just get off of Jacob Chicken's contract, which in and of itself is such a sad way to think about this thing because you're talking about a 25-year-old defender who's in his prime, who's really good, who's making half of what he probably should be on the open market, and you're viewing it as like,

this is a bit too pricey for us. I think we need to cut some costs here. like let's save the coyote's conversation for like a bit down the road here because it's another whole separate issue but from the senator's perspective i get the risk of all right if they miss the playoffs again this is two straight years where they trade a first for alex de brinket they trade a first for jacob chikrin they're running out of runway with uh cheap e lc years similar to what we're talking about with the kinnocks where jake sanderson has one more they've already paid josh norris they've already paid rady kuchk they've already paid tim stil

they've paid Thomas Shabah, right? They've already not box themselves in, but like they're paying for a lot of these young players and they don't have the team success yet to show for it, right? And so you're wondering whether it's from a timing perspective, the right timeline, whether it makes sense. I guess I don't want to be speaking out of both sides of my mouth here because the senators aren't necessarily that far ahead of the Canucks in terms of their place in the league hierarchy. But I do like that they went and at least got a,

cost-controlled 25-year-old defenseman Jacob Chikrin, even though they're not in that similar position. I know that they're much closer to the playoffs this year. There is risk involved, but I just maybe what's clouding my judgment is the fact that I just, I feel like I'm on the extreme end of my Jacob Chikin evaluation. Like, I think he

is very, very good and the conversation around him has not done justice what a player he is. Yeah, I think there are also a couple of differences in comparing the senators and the Knoch. number one is senators at this point they don't have Pedersen or Hughes level like a one-two there in terms of stars but the core is so much deeper at this point in terms of who's already arrived

I mean at this point now with chicken in the fold well even even starting with the forward group right like that's a you know they've got a really solid top six when you go down the list of Debrinket Brady could Chuck Josh Norris who by the way like centers have been in the playoff contention with him missing a ton of time right where which you know not not a lot of you know if other teams were in that sort of spot they'd also especially in the east a lot of other teams would potentially be in trouble and then you have stutzla batherson juru still like that's you that's a much deeper sort of forward group especially when you combine it with now you have one of the best left sides of the

NHL was Shabbat, Sanderson on his ELC, chikrin, like, that's an embarrassment of riches on the left side. I also really like Artem Zub. You probably need another right shot guy to sort of supplement, you know, who's at least competent, who's at least an upgrade on Travis Hamanick. But I think you've got a lot of building blocks there already. And then the second consideration, which I think is really important, is you're not tied down to any anchor contracts.

Yeah. Right? Like Hamnick's expiring this year. There aren't, like, you don't, like, you don't, on their cat-friendly page and go, oh my God, how are you going to contend around this Oliver Beckman-Larsen contract or J.T. Miller's soon to be an anchor himself or

there are all these four to six million dollar contracts which you're trying to reallocate. Like the senators' books are so much cleaner and they have a better prospect pipeline too. Well, and they also have more locked up or built-in runway now organizationally because I think I don't know how much stock you want to put into this,

but I do wonder, from a Canucks perspective, there is at least some fear of like, we don't want to be so bad to alienate Elias Pedersen before he gets signed to his next deal, right? He has, what, one more year after this one? And then he's still an RFA,

but he's going to be in for a big payday based on the way he's played this year in particular. For a lot of these centers guys, you're mentioning, they've already signed them for, what, six, seven, eight years down the road. So not necessarily that, like, there's no, like, gun to your head or anything, right?

it's like it gives you a bit more runaway to to make these decisions there's also the fact that they're up for sale and i imagine they're also trying to improve um the perception around their organization in terms of making them a more intriguing asset for someone to step in and buy right and so i i i here's the thing you mentioned the x's and o's in terms of the blue line right i'm very curious to see what they do with chikrin and what they do with other defensemen they have because in the opener against the Rangers, they use Chikrin basically on the third pair left side. They played him when they cold it mostly, right?

I want to see them experiment with either moving Jake Sanderson or him to the right side. I think it's actually more likely that Jake Sanderson does it because Chikrin played with Shane Gosses Bear this year. Both guys were left shots, and Gossus Bear played on the right side, which I think is a bit telling to me. If they do that, though,

I actually think a guy like Sanderson is a perfect defense partner stylistically for Chichrin because Chichrin's been miscast as this, offensive dynamo and that's really not what he's at at at all he's like a very physical play-killing defenseman who's a good rush defender who can shoot well but he's not going to be a four-check for-check killer himself right like he's not going to take the puck up kids talking about it talking about him as if he's this power play specialist it was so bizarre defensive liability yeah no one no well yeah I mean they were telling on themselves no one's actually watched jacob trickle and play

this year um but if he plays like a guy like sanderson sanderson's like such a smooth beautiful skater, right? Like he can take the puck up ice himself. And he's also a good rush defender already is established himself. But I love the idea of that pair because all of a sudden, then if you keep Shabbat and Zoop together, maybe you can tone down Shabbat's usage a little bit. All of a sudden, he's not leading the league in ice time 5-on-5 usage, all that. Maybe he becomes a bit more efficient with a more manageable workload. And all of a sudden, if that's the case, that top four, you're cooking. And then you get to bump down Travis Hamannick to a third pair for now. Hammondick and Holden, I believe, are both off the books after this season. That

creates a bit more flexibility to go out and add more suitable third pair of defensemen for the way you're trying to play and all of a sudden you're cooking with gas. So I think it presents a lot of interesting moving parts for them to make a ton of sense. I think it was a worthwhile gamble. There is some risk involved, especially, you know, he goes down with injury and there was a certain scare against the Rangers last night. It's like, oh my God, here we go again. He's missed 107 games in his first six years in NHL.

Like, I think that is a bit of an issue. But he's a 25-year-old who is like renowned for his physical fitness. think that's the type of player that I would bet on having better injury health moving forward. So I don't know. I like the player. I like the fit. I'm very curious to see whether it can actually finally be leveraged into some actual team success. Even if it doesn't work out where you look at a player moving to the right side,

and for whatever reason, let's say it's just not a smooth transition and you've got to keep all those guys on the left side. Tampa has shown that you can have three. excellent left shot defenseman and sort of deploy your D pairs and where all three of them, despite sort of being on paper on different pairs, are still playing a ton, right? When Tampa had Surgiev, Hedman, McDonough, and their right side was like, they had Chernak, and then it was like replaceable parts, right? Like the Jan Ruta's and Zach Bogosians of the world and just cycling those guys in and out, and we've seen them continue to cycle guys in and out.

So Ottawa was in a spot where at least they have the one, dependable right shot in Zubb. So even in a worst case scenario, even if they can only find a guy who's competent, who is maybe like a, in an ideal world, like a five. It's not the end of the world if you, again, are in a spot where someone like Sanderson

ends up struggling on his offside, you can still be creative about how you deploy them. And you look at how many minutes those big three on the left side would eat, it's like they still found a way for it to work. Yeah, well, spinning this to Arizona's perspective, obviously underwhelmed by the return, right? Like, especially for how long this thing dragged out, you're wondering, all right, what's their asking price, what they're going to get? It was reported they were looking for two firsts or two equivalents.

Now, as we mentioned, not all firsts are created equal. They get one that very realistically could be somewhere in the eight to 12 or 13 range this season. And in this draft, that gives you a good chance at least of getting a very valuable problem. prospect, right? And that's something that most contenders just couldn't offer them because a pick in the 25 to 30 range is not going to net you that type of website. I'm really curious how much of a roadblock the financial element was for Bill Armstrong because clearly they weren't going to take back significant future money. But if it was just money for the rest of this year, I find it hard to believe that if a contender or a team like the Kings, let's say,

had just been so infatuated with Chikrin the way I am as a player, right? They're like, you know what, we need to add. This guy he's going to help us this year, but also for years to come, we'll just pay $0.125 on the dollar. We'll add an extra pick down the road. We'll add an extra first. We'll add an extra prospect to kind of force your hand here. If I'm strong on the Cody's wouldn't have been like, all right, well,

this isn't what we ultimately want to do, but it's just too good of a package to pass up. And I feel like, I know it was reported that the King's offered, I think, what, Bjornfoot and two firsts or whatever for him, and that didn't work out, so maybe this goes against what I'm saying. But I wonder if the market just wasn't there for a team valuing Chikrin that way for whatever reason, right? Like the opinions on him seem to vary so much. And it seems like none of these teams viewed him as such a game changer that they had to pay that price. And maybe that's why this price reflects that.

For sure, we saw it with how Luke Warren Edmonton was about him. And it worked out in the end because they still got Ekom and clearly with the financial obstacles wouldn't have been possible. But right from the get-go, that was one of the first sort of logical destinations you thought of when the rumors even started surfacing last season. And you could tell based off the reporting out of the admitted media, which is tied closely to management,

that they just weren't too fond of the player that they were doing kind of their due diligence, but like you said, they didn't really view him as a needle mover, which you can understand. some of the trepidation around him considering the injury concerns, I think that's 100% valid. And I think that's part of why, even though I like the bet for the centers, like we mentioned earlier, there is definite sort of risk involved here. I also think spinning off of this and speaking more to game theory and what we saw the deadline, it's been fascinating

that we didn't see any truly elite prospects. I think Shakir and Madulin was like the only And your opinion on him may vary, but the only guy that's like, at least he was a relatively high former first round pick that it still hasn't played in the NHL yet, right? Like, he's really the only guy I can think of that would be considered as like a top 50-ish prospect around the league. And that's pretty stunning. Like, we did see teams freely moving draft picks, especially futures. And that probably speaks to the fact that all of these smart teams have realized that if

you're in a contending window now, a 2025, 2026 first or second doesn't mean. mean anything to you so why not just try to improve your team now but you're right that's we saw clear demarcation in terms of how teams are validating prospects first picked especially because the difference there is players like chicken and mire had uh control beyond this season right like we're not talking about they're not pure rentals they're not pure rentals right where when vancouver was shopping the market on bo horvat for example like the best prospect you get is atiratu for example like that's you know that makes sense right you only get them for a year how much can you realistically do and of course I understand him for an extension after that,

but for all intents of purposes, he was basically Delta's rental. You would have thought with a player like Timel Meyer, for example, that, and I don't mean to sort of sidetrack this conversation, but whether it was a Meyer or a chicken, I thought that you would have had a higher caliber prospect potentially involved where the devils, you know,

avoided giving up an Alexander Holtz. I never really thought Nemich was going to get moved anyway, but he didn't move him, he didn't have to move a Dawson Mercer, he didn't have to move Asimus Casey, essentially only giving up MacBedoulin, which is a position on the blue line where with Luke Hughes coming,

the devils are already loaded. I was a little bit surprised that some of these players with control beyond this season, especially considering their age, didn't net more, you know, really, really high-end premium sort of prospect, which I think is also an understanding of, I think teams realize that we need these ELC guys, right?

Like looking at the type of role that Bowen Byron plays. for the abs and the playoffs, when you can have a player that, you know, you have such a long runway of this guy's going to provide so much more value relative to what he's going to make. I think teams understand that,

especially, and again, it even goes back to when there were all those rumors around with the Canucks and J.T. Miller and were the Canucks shopping him. Part of the reason I think that they refused pulling the trigger on it was because the Canucks were insistent on getting the sort of piece that could help, like step into the prospect

that could step into the lineup and help right away. Like a Braden Schneider from the Rangers was the rumored player that both sides were kind of haggling over. The Rangers were like, he's going to help us now or we don't want to move him. And the Canucks were like, we need him. And then eventually you saw a player who at that time too, like this is before him tailing off a bit this season,

was in the midst of a 99-point campaign, was still playing center ice well, had a year of control beyond last season. at an affordable 5.25 million-dollar cap hit. And, you know, the Kinex just didn't get it. And I think it's an interesting overall market trend where even for players with control beyond one season, contenders are saying we're going to keep our top prospects

who'd rather trade you future first-round picks. And that makes sense because those players are more likely to expeditiously help you, right? Like you don't have to wait for two, three years while they're still playing major junior, while they're still kind of learning the ropes, with pro hockey at the HL level, they've already probably gotten at least some of those reps

out of the way, even if they're not playing for your main club right now. So that makes sense. Okay, one quick thing here on the coyotes. All these conversations do ultimately tie back to J.T. Miller, though, like, we're going to talk about a few months later. Trust me, like, all of it does. It's like that always a Sunny in Philadelphia, I mean, like,

we've got the board here, and then I've got, like, pins all over the place and string and trying to connect everything. Like, it does ultimately always tie back to J.T. Miller. but on a bit of an unrelated note from the coyotes so on the one hand they have 12 picks this year 14 picks in 2024 11 picks in 2025 they have 13 picks in the top two rounds in those three drafts they did a wonderful job in terms of over the past however many over the past year or two whatever in accumulating all these picks and so that's something that when we talk about a team like canucks we're like oh we wish they were doing that so that makes sense on the other hand though the way that this chikrin thing does that's developed and all the stories you're hearing coming out of it and sort of how financially motivated everything really is can't I can't help but be alarmed right oh yeah what I've got them for is they have 57.2 million in cap commitments for next season now if we assume that the floor is going to be around whatever 61ish or so the way it was this year maybe a little bit more they're

almost there like they can take on another contract or two and and they'll get there 22 22 million of that is on players that will not play games for them. And most of that is guys who are insured, right? Like they just took on Jacob Berger's contract. It's showing up as $7 million or whatever. They're going to pay a $100,000. Yeah. No, there's like not even that. Like it's similar to what Shay Weber, everything. Like they're not going to be actually, money's not going to be coming out of their pocket for it. And it's, they don't operate as an NHO organization. Like we have to be honest, right? Like, they operate as a shell company. And I want to distinguish that like, this isn't a knock against Bill.

Armstrong, this isn't a knock against the coyotes. This isn't a knock against like their fans or anything, right? This is, I think this is like an NHL problem. This is happening because you cannot look at this and be like, this is good that one of our 32 franchises is basically making every decision based on how we can pay the least amount of money possible to be cap compliant. Oh, it's embarrassing, right? It's one thing I would never, ever complain if they,

we're taking on bad contracts for future assets, right? If you're collecting all these first and second round picks, you're taking on other teams of problems. Those are players that, you know, even if it's in a really limited capacity, we'll suit up for you and play some games. But this is like you're just stashing and you're just trying to get away from paying cash.

Their placeholder cap hits. And they're never, I don't care how many draft picks they have, right? And I say this is someone who, we always preach to the choir about assets, and all this kind of stuff for rebuilding teams. I don't care how many draft picks they have unless their financial incentives change, unless they show that they're actually willing to spend,

they're never going to go anywhere. I'm sorry. Well, they have right now. They have $37 million by my account in actual salary expenditure that are going to be paying out next year. And yeah, you just, you can't compare that to most of what it takes to be a competitive,

potentially Stanley Cup winning organization in the NHL in 2020. like it's an entirely different playing field right like they're playing with both hands tied behind their backs basically and i bring this up because the guy that it didn't get moved at this deadline nick schmalt was a very interesting candidate for me because he has a 5.85 million dollar cap hit for the next three seasons his salary in those years is 7.5 8.45 and 8.5 and 8.5 and i bring that up to say i wish i could take every single dollar to my name that i owed and bet on him not being on their team on opening night next year because there is just no like it's it's a big commitment in terms of

it's a player with three-year term that is approaching their late 20s but he's been pretty productive and I and I fully imagine that acknowledging that math like he's going to be on a different team that is going to be willing to shell out and pay for that salary because that type of growth is just not something they're in the business of handling for sure I I wondered if a team like carolina that had cap space had a hole probably at the second line center position I wondered if they were gonna

sort of check in on on Schmaltz let's do let's do Carolina now yeah let's do it so what are your thoughts on their it's interesting because I think Carolina

is showing that they have a different philosophy in terms of how they view winning the Stanley Cup right I think for starters it it sucks that they lost our own team of liar.

That's disappointing. It seems like they were really in on it, although it is, it's strange to me that Alexander Nekishin was like such a deal breaker. They were like, we just simply cannot cross this bridge. This is a bridge too far for us if they're serious about competing for Stanley Cup. I think that speaks exactly to their philosophy where I think the hurricanes look at a team like the Washington Capitals, right? how many years they were consistently among sort of say the top six or seven teams in the league never

you know not necessarily the best team in the league year in and year out but sort of in that range where you look at them and go that's a legit contender they're not the favorites but they're a legit contender the idea that to actually win a Stanley Cup you just want to like I think from their perspective since there weren't any players return that made a lot of sense I think they went rather than paying expensive prices in a joggernaut Eastern Conference, where only one team can win, we'd rather keep our prospects, our picks, and position ourselves to where we have a really good pipeline. Let's just be good for as long as possible, be within that, you know, top seven or eight teams. And eventually it'll be our year, which we'll see if it works out.

I mean, I think generally they are right in the sense that teams sometimes can be too aggressive and smaller windows and bet the farm. But on the other hand, I really think that with Patrick already out, they needed another sort of high-end score, especially because a lack of league goal scoring has held them back a lot, you know, a couple times in the playoffs before. Also because we saw Colorado as a sort of foil where they look at. at the timeline of the McKinnon contract, right, where they only had them at 6.3 and look what a bargain this is and some of their other contracts with Taves and all the other ones that I mentioned earlier. And they said, this is a unique year or two where, okay, let's be aggressive and not that they,

you know, bet the farm necessarily, but they were aggressive, right? And they went out and it worked for them. They won a Stanley Cup. Maybe the difference is that they look at how strong the East is and they think that, well, Colorado was in a position last year to where they could look at their team and be like, if we add, we're head and shoulders above everybody else, which even if Caroline added to Tim O'Mire, they'd be right there, but, you know, Boston is still a really, you know, tough threat and the Rangers are still great.

So I'm torn on this. I've gone in a lot of directions. I think that's a, that's a philosophy, is what I've explained. And I'm not sure how I feel about it. Well, they will be analytical with every one of their decisions to their, to their, to their final breath. And this was no different, right? And it kind of speaks to what you're saying of like, if we hang around for long enough, we're one of the top five or six teams that has a realistic path towards winning the cup, one year, we'll be lucky. A team that would have otherwise

given us problems with an elite goalie might fall out, clear the path for us. Things will go our way and we'll raise the trophy and will be deemed correct. And that certainly might happen, right? Like they have a really good team. They do a ton of things incredibly well. I'm with you. I kind of wish that they were a bit more aggressive or not desperate, but like a bit more like, let's, we have a really good team right now. We're on pace for like 120 something points. Let's consolidate some of this prospect in the draft pick capital that we have and really go for it because you look. And they're just so different than pretty much every other contender in that they didn't really touch their prospect pool, right?

Like they traded Patrick Bistola for Yesy Pooley-Ree's contract and he wasn't on our EP ring side. guide at the start of the year. He wasn't even one of their top 15 prospects. They might not even have signed him this summer. And they traded 26 third for Shane Gossesbert. Like they went untouched for their firsts. They've got their seconds. And on the one hand, I credit them because they were able to basically absorb both those players and pay nothing for them because unlike most contenders,

they have so much cap flexibility because they're so diligent about every move they make that they were able to just absorb. Like, Arizona didn't have to retain 50% of Gosses Bear's contract. so they were able to only ask for a future third in 2026, and Carolina was one of the only contenders that was even in a financial position to do something like that, right? So I don't want to be like critiquing them because I do think in isolation all of these moves make sense.

Like I think Gosses Bear will help their power play, which I believe is 23rd ranked. Pooley-R-V with the finished connection, it makes a ton of sense that they're going to appreciate what he does well and not worry about the weaknesses, play with like Jordan Stahl on a third checking line and just eviscerate you on the forecheck with their reach in their puck pursuit.

And so they're going to get utility out of these players, but it's not the one big move like Amaya where you go, all right, this team is really going for it this year. The other interesting thing is, and this is why it's difficult, right? It's, I don't think this was easy to be in a team like Carolina's position because you could, you can see the argument for both sides

when I look at their sort of timeline in their window where with this season and next, they've got some unique contracts, right? Where at the end of next season, Sebastian Ajo at a bargain less than eight and a half expires as a pending UFA. They've got on the back end, especially with Pesci at the end of next season,

around, right around 4 million expires. And I think Shea fits that timeline as well. And of course, that Shea Pesci pairing has been excellent. So on the one hand, you could kind of argue that, okay, should we look to take advantage of this two-year window and really look to be aggressive? But then on the other hand, you could say, well, our MO has typically been

that we don't like paying, you know, like, of course, you keep a guy like Spashnaho, but when it comes to maybe like a peshi or a Shea, we don't like to sign guys in their late 20s to their big UFA contracts. When you look at what they did, the trocheque and Need a Rider and all those sorts of guys letting them walk, if those guys are going to walk,

then we need to keep and Alexander Nukisian intact because we need those guys to sort of be able to step in and have them play meaningful roles so that's where I kind of caught in the middle and you know it's so unfortunate that I really wish Travis Keneckney was in the market right like for a team like Philadelphia

they're not going anywhere anytime soon a player like Kine would have been excellent for the Keynes in terms of he's got term he's got a reasonable cap hit and similar to Meyer, it would have been another one of those targets where it's like,

it would have been worth paying an expensive price for, but I think once Meyer left, and this was what I was wondering, when the discussions happened, I was like, I don't know who plan B is. There's not an obvious plan B. Yeah. Well, I think it's going to be someone that's like underpaid

and maybe underappreciated that has still term left, right? Like, it's not going to be a player that they're going to have to pay financially at a premium on the open market. Harm, let's take our final break here. And then when we come back, we'll finish this conversation up. You're listening to the Hockey Piedocas streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.

Take that, take that. All right, we're back here in the Pediocas of Harmon Dial. We're going to have to go into hurry-up mode here because we've talked about like five teams so far. And I really thought this two-hour window for us, the extended version of the Piedo Gass, was going to give us the opportunity to cover everything. And in classic fashion, we haven't.

So, speed round. Give me a team that you want to talk about. Toronto. Really interesting to see just how active they were, the number of trades that they made, significantly reshaping their team both up front and on the back end. For starters,

and a lot of people were hesitant about trading for Ryan O'Reilly, and they had some flashbacks to Nick Felino, but to me, I didn't like that comparison at all, where I understood the premise that, okay, O'Reilly's been injured, down year, did you catch him a year too late. But Folino, in comparison to O'Reilly, like they're not even comparable.

No. O'Reilly is a player that heading into this season had been nominated for the Seleke Trover, or at least sort of in the top five in four consecutive seasons. The number of 50, like, Felino's top 55 points once in his career, and that was six years before the Leafs acquired him. O'Reilly did that, like, nine times. I mean, they're entirely. So that's why for me, I love the O'Reilly addition right off the bat.

It gives him flexibility in terms of whether you want to load him into the top six, which they've experimented with or have him centering his third line, and you can definitely have that debate. But it gives him someone who's a clutch playoff performer just as recently as last year, the seven goals in 12 games. What he did to the Canucks when they played them in that series, and the Blues were badly outclass in that series. almost single-handedly clawed them back into that series.

So that's big, especially in like in previous big game moments, we've seen some of their stars, you know, sometimes be quiet, right? The Leafs, so to have another weapon that can come through and add the sort of gritty defensive side of it to the physicality, the bite, which they've also added on the back end,

I liked a lot of what the Leafs did. Well, I think a lot of this has been framed as like they want to get tougher. They want to become more playoff. ready or have a more kind of a playoff hockey element to their team, right? And there's certainly part of that. I think another issue that Al Duba is clearly identified here with the team was, all right, when push comes to shove in big moments when we're playing in a game seven

against the Tampa Bay, which they might be staring down the barrel of again this season, that team, if they get in a position where they're up or it's a close game, they can load up defensively. They can basically just put every single one of their defenders either across the blue line when we're trying to enter the zone with possession, or load up in front of their own net and just basically dare us to beat them from the outside, and we have no way of kind of penetrating that defensive force field, right?

Yeah. And so he's like, I think O'Reilly helps them a lot in the sense of different ways to score from in tight, which is, I think Kyle's actually made that point in some of his interviews when talking about the acquisitions. And I think that makes sense because if you look at the five times, the most recent five times they've been eliminated, they scored one goal against Tampa Bay last year, one goal against Montreal

the year before got shut out by Columbus and they only scored Pasozo season and then scored one goal against the Boston Bruins oh sorry that's the past four elimination games but the point stands of

in these big moments that's actually what's been there on doing it hasn't been this idea that they're not good enough defensively or that they can't get it done in terms of playing too risky of a style of hockey they need to find ways to score goals in those moments

and so that's what I'm interested in about here for sure we also saw them renovate the fourth line in terms of bringing in Noel Chari and I think Sam Lafferty. Sam Lafferty, I like that fit a lot better and for last season as well that was a little bit of a concern

was I think could Toronto win some of those secondary matchups and I think they're a much better position to do that. Also on the back end, Rasmus Sandines had a great season in a very sort of sheltered and limited role. I think clearly though

I still had some concerns about could he handle a really heavy four check and could he get it done in crunch time? Is he ready for that, right? He's still really, really young. But by the sounds of it seemed malcontents, so be able to trade away all these assets and then be able to bring one back at a first rounder. I thought that was impressive as well

and to kind of reshape the blue line. With a player like Jake McCabe to have the especially retained. Yeah, two million for two more seasons after this one. To have the cost certainty beyond the season and have the flexibility if he can play both sides. You add Luke Shen into the equation as another sort of depth defenseman. They've got so many different options for how they can configure the blue line now. I mean, you're looking at a scenario where you have someone like Connor Timmons who is playing

pretty reliable hockey. He's someone who could be on the outside looking in in terms of their top six or Luke Shen could be on the outside looking in. And so that means if you run into injuries or if a certain pair is being exposed, you've got options for different, you know, plug-in play modes and you're not worried about can this, you know, like Rasmus ending, can he survive this workload? If something's not working, they can quickly shift.

Well, here's a thing. We saw this series against Tampa Bay last year, and it's like it's been a lock that they're going to play them again in a rematch this season, right? And especially this year with even Ryan McDonough now not being there, you look at the shape with that blue line for the lightning, and the way to beat them is to just absolutely pulverize them on the forecheck. because aside from Victor Hedman

and even he is prone to turnovers when you pressure him, right? He's a big guy. He doesn't want the puck in his skates and being kind of harassed by smaller players in particular. He wants to be in an advantageous position, right, with space. If you look at the composition of the depth chart on the blue line for the lightning,

you can really kind of pick them apart with speed with an aggressive for check. And so I think that's where guys like Achari and Lafferty really fit in because they can actually go out there and sure, throw the body and be physical and all that good stuff that people love in the playoffs, but also functionally force them into turnovers, create scoring chances when the lightning can't get set defensively in those settings, right?

So I think that's a key part of this. I guess my question, though, is I spent the past couple of days waiting for one more trade from the Leafs. I know they made a flurry of them on that Tuesday or whatever. They certainly weren't lacking in terms of activity, like they made their moves. But right now they're perfectly positioned to activate Matt Murray, call up Matthew Nyes basically after his NCAA season is over,

and that's all the room they have for. I was wondering whether they were going to use a guy like Alex Kerfoot, who has 3.5 left, and they clearly don't trust, and he's on the outs, and he's expiring, and package him with that Bruins 2023 first, which they acquired in the Sandine trade, which doesn't really make sense as an asset for them if they're going to go this haul in.

I was wondering whether they were going to do that and package those things, or maybe even a Justin Hull, because they have so many blue liners now to go out and take one more big swing, at a top six winger in particular who can score in different ways and give them another added element of that, right? And I was waiting for, I was waiting for it. Like a Bertuzi? Yeah, potentially. And maybe that's why the Bruins went ahead and made that move themselves to block the leaves from doing so. But I really thought that was like the last move on the chess board. And instead now, you're right, it's not ever a

bad thing to have nine NHL caliber defensemen. But it's also not an ideal usage of resources to have three of them watching from the press box, right? And so for me, I would have liked to see them potentially use some of those to get something that I still think they need, which is a bit more scoring punch. Now I think they're hoping that Matthew Nyes is going to be that for them when he comes up and we'll see. It's a lot to ask for someone who's never played in the league before, especially on the fly like that. But that's kind of the calculus, I think, that they approach this with, and that's why they made.

And maybe they just felt that after Bertuzzi went off the board, there wasn't really that type of player that was worth pushing the rest of their chips. Or even with the possibility of Bertuzzi, who I would have loved, loved as a stylistic fit. They've already given up so many assets. Could you afford to give up another one for a rental in a year where the East is so strong and you know you're going to have to get through Tampa again? I can understand why they sort of looked at it and went.

It's not an easy sort of maneuver to find that right target that makes sense. I don't know. Like they have two more playoff runs with Matthews and Elander before their UFAs. They have another one after that. and Tabares, Kyle Dubas doesn't have a contract after the season now. That shouldn't factor in the decision-making because he's done a good enough job

where he should be getting that extension regardless. And maybe part of it was like, you know, he's in a no-win situation in the sense that if he does move the rest of these assets, people are going to be like, oh, what a cowardly move, like getting rid of stripping everything bare on his way out, right? And who knows, the deal maybe just wasn't there. But that's something that I would have liked.

Maybe even a guy like, I know he's wouldn't necessarily, he's not like a finisher, but how good would a guy like Connor Garland, for example, look on. this team in that role as another sort of like just tenacious puck retriever and high motor guy who still has skill to his game and I'm sure the Canucks would have loved the Bruins 2023 first and Kerfut's contract and whatever else it took to make that work right and so who knows that was a trade that I had seen kind of bandied about his idea and I really liked it and it never came to

fruition but um all right so we've done the Leafs do you want to quickly bring a full circle talking about J.T. Miller a lot on this podcast. Do I talk a bit about the penguins? Because I think how they approach this compared to what a team they're always going to be linked to, especially while Crosby and a Betkin are still in the league, and the Capitals did, where the Capitals were behind them in the standings, but they eventually realized it wasn't going to be their year,

and they basically moved every single UFA they had, except for Nick Jensen for futures, or in the case of the Orlov trade, getting a first, and then flipping it with Gustafson to get Rasmus Sandin from the Leafs, the Penguins instead went, and as the oldest team in the league, added a 31-year-old, a 32-year-old, and a 35-year-old to the roster. Yeah, so the one move that I liked from today was finding a way to get off of Brock McGinn's contract, which had two years after this one of his defensive numbers are bad,

but he's like playing the worst teams ever. Yeah, so that was a good trade. But beyond that, and I'm also shocked, someone took to cap-tip, took cap-and-off waivers. The fact that the penguins were able to find a take over cap-in and McGinn, open up all that cap flexibility and they weren't able to make a bigger sort of splash that made more sense. I think is extremely, extremely disappointing now.

Right off the bat, Hextall would not have had the leeway in terms of his own job security to kind of do what the capitals did. I'm sure if the penguins missed or had an early, you know, first round exit, that his job would have been in trouble. So I can understand why they were in a buying position,

but you look at Granland, he's taking a big step back. This season, he's got two years left after this one, I believe at a $5 million cap hit, I just don't think they're catching Grandland at the right time. You've really got to hope that he bounces back to the level that he played out last season.

And that third line has been just such a disaster. You're hoping that he can come in and stabilize that, but I don't know. I mean, here's the thing for me. I cannot rationalize. I understand that regardless of what they did, regardless of who they added, they'd have an uphill climb as a wildcard team playing.

against potentially the Bruins or the hurricanes or the devils or whatever in round one. But once you bring back Malkin and Lattang this summer and you have Crosby, and Malkin and Crosby are playing at such a high level at a below market value price for you, under 15 million combined, neither guys missed the single game yet the season due to injury. Once you make that decision as an organization, you have to have a one-track mind, right? Oh, yeah. Every move revolves around, does this help us maximize the remaining year? years these guys have left. And for them to keep a pick that's going to be, you know, in the mid,

in the 15 to 20 range this summer, it's going to be an 18 year old that's probably going to take four years, three, four years generously to make any sort of impact for them is just unconscionable to me. Like, I just don't understand how you can look in the mirror and look at the way those guys are playing, the commitment you've made and be like, this is what we needed to do. This could be the last possible year where they have any real shot of, of contending for a cup, even if it was an outside sort of shot, especially because, like, Malkins have been healthy. Like, how often does that happen?

He's playing really well. He's playing really well. They had to, in my opinion, like, find a way to make a more substantial upgrade. They didn't do nearly enough. And adding another sort of questionable contract in the Grandland one beyond this season, it's a really tough look for Ron Hextall.

I mean, their strengths previously was their bottom six because they like Mike Sullivan had this superpower of anyone you plug and play there I'm going to get the most out of them they just need to forchick aggressively be solid defensively have a high motor and I'm going to make it work with them even if they just came up from the HAL and then you look at all the moves they made recently and they're just completely opposite from that right it almost feels like there's this growing gulf between heck Stoll and Burke in the management group and Mike Sullivan in terms of the players he likes and I wonder what the communication is like between those two or what's going on there because the relationship clearly seems to be kind of not where you wanted to be in terms

of communication between those two. So I don't know. I really did not like what the Penguins are doing. They're probably going to make the playoffs here. I just think in terms of maximizing these remaining years, they did not do a good enough job. Let me give you a quick pitch on why I love the Minnesota Wilds trade at all. All right. So they entered with a unique situation financially where they had a ton of flexibility this year and absolutely zero ability to add any money beyond this season. And so what they did is they play the third-party broker in the O'Reilly trade. They play the third-party broker in the World Warlock trade. They add a fourth and fifth, I believe, in those two deals, right?

They go spin around and trade those for potential scoring help in Gustav Nyquist and Marcus Johansson, right? They get off of Jordan Greenway's contract, which I believe as two more years left at $3 million, which is valuable for the cap space for them moving forward. They get a second out of that. they in the last minute come out of nowhere to steal John Klingberg for a future fourth which really speaks to how far his market value has dropped and they add Oscar Sunquist whatever as well

but basically they have they turned a third two fourths and a fifth into a second a fourth and two fifths and they improved their current roster and also shed money for next season and so in the grand scheme of things it's not like oh I think all of a sudden Minnesota is a contendering because there's still basically a one-line team.

Like when Capriza's out there, they're really good. When he's not, I don't know how they're going to score goals. But I do like the fact that they were very creative in all these different moves that actually resulted in a net positive for them moving forward. I'm shocked that they got as much as they did for Jordan Greenway considering the year that he's had. I mean, he has what, two goals and seven points this season.

And I know he's been more productive in years past, but in a flat cop world where it's typically been hard to move salary to not only get off of that without, having to take any money back. Well, he's huge, which helps that. Different jaded him from like Connor Garland, right? We know how teams operate. I know.

I actually kind of do, like, he has had good defensive impacts, right? Especially playing on that line. I'm not sure how much of that is hit and how much it was in Ireland. I clearly thought he was the third piece on that line. Yes, but I think it's a stylistic fit in terms of he helps a little bit for what the sabers need. And I like the idea that the sabers are accumulating this roster of like the biggest people in the league.

They can also still skate too. Like it's not like six foot six stiffs, like all these. guys can move and I like the idea that he sort of fits this like vision of what they want. Yeah, that's fair. I'm not trying to pitch you on Greenway, especially if you can help their penalty kill, right? The Sabres is, but for anyway, like for the while to get off of that contract, I thought it was the biggest win, especially considering the value that they netted in that trade. Well, yeah, listen, Nyquist, Johansson, uh, Klingberg, they need offense anywhere they can get

it because the last 14 games, and you saw this, they play the Connox yesterday, they scored two goals. They win two one. Caprizov scores both goals. Last 14 games, they've scored 25 goals as a team. Caprizov's been on the ice for 20 of them. They scored five goals without him in 14 games. And they've won a bunch of them because they're back to being really good defensively, but clearly they need help. I'm curious to see what Klingberg's edition means for Kalin Addison because he plays like, I think like 25% of his all the minutes he plays are on PowerPlay 1. Scrashed a bunch recently. Probably, yeah. So that's not ideal. But I still don't think that they're, it's tough because with the buyout,

it just complicates so much of their cap situation. It really is too bad because they've got this great prospect pipeline. They've got Caprizov where it's like you want to maximize it now. And they just like, sure, I don't mind the players that they picked up, but they still don't have enough of that punch. It's crazy how much they've dropped off in terms of, well, were they the number one or number two or something, five and five scoring team last year?

Definitely like top three to five, but now they're bottom three. Now they're bottom three. So I still, it's too bad in a wide open West where they haven't, you know, done enough, I think. But on the other hand, the field is also wide open that, I mean, who knows, right? Are you surprised that I had an odor about like the Flyers kept Jamie Henry Zike for some reason as an impending UFA when I, I imagine a bunch of teams would have desperately used his skill set. One of them for me was the Cracken who had the 24th-ranked power play. and they were sort of completely silent today. They didn't make any moves around this deadline.

Do you think that's like a vote of confidence in their team that they like their depth and they think they're good? Or do you view it as like, maybe we shouldn't be pushing a lot of futures in here because we're probably not going to make that much noise this year? It's a good question. I hadn't necessarily thought about it from Seattle's perspective. It was really strange seeing them pop up as a team

that was reportedly in on or kicking the tires on Horvatt. and that had me wondering how aggressive they'd be, but they've slid a little bit recently, not a lot, down to closer to a wildcar position. I don't know. I think I don't mind them being patient at all. If anything, I was worried that they might prematurely try to accelerate and kind of do the vagus thing,

where it's like, let's just go after any splashy name we can. With someone like Van Riems, like, yeah, I mean, I would have... They probably could have gone him. They probably could have gotten him, but I also think that, it's tough right they've got all these forwards that are like they're stocked with really useful forwards that provide all these different things like a guy like daniel sprang and in his limited minutes provides so much value that i wonder if they looked at van rheim's dix

five and five value and went is it enough of an upgrade in terms of a power play as a pure net front guy like is he going to lift our power play enough for him for us to justify him being in our lineup on an everyday basis and giving up a potential pick? Yeah, yeah, you're probably right. I just think maybe from the Flyers perspective, I can't believe. Oh, yeah, it was funny hearing Bruce Boudraudra be like,

I would have traded him for an eighth round pick if I could. Yeah, they have one pick at this moment in the top, like, 45 or 50. They didn't use any of their salary retention spots. I have no idea what they were doing, although they were pretty limited in terms of resources to begin with. Harm, we got to get out of here. This was a blast. Thanks for coming on.

Quickly let the listeners know where they can check out. Yeah. You guys can find my work at the athletic. and I'm on Twitter at Harmon Dial 2. All right, this is a blast man. Sorry to the listeners of, you know, whose allegiances are with teams that we didn't cover. I thought for two hours we'd be able to get to everything,

but we just clearly didn't budget enough because we spent so much time talking about J.T. Miller. But there's going to be plenty of time in the coming days and weeks to get into all this stuff. So looking forward to doing that here. Now I'm going to go have a nice cold beer, take a nap, get some rest because this has been one crazy week, the craziest trade deadline.

I can remember. Lucky, I have like two more podcasts and an article to write. Oh, well, Godspeed, man. Thank you to the listeners for sticking around with us this entire week. We will be back on Monday with plenty more. So until then, thank you for listening to the HockeyPedio guest streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.