The Hockey PDOcast - Offseason Takeaways Extravaganza, Part 1

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

In Part 1 of our offseason takeaways extravaganza, Harman Dayal joins Dimitri to talk about the Alex DeBrincat trade to Detroit, the Hurricanes signing big-name free agents, Kyle Dubas' first summer running the Penguins, and whether the Kraken have another big move coming. 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.

dressing to the mean since 2050. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovic. Welcome to the Hockey Pedioc. My name is Demetri Filippovich and joining me in studios, my good buddy, Harmon Dile. What's going on, man? Pretty good, just scrambling into the studio last minute here. Yes. We made it work.

We made it work. We're here on time. We're broadcasting. We're back as well. I took last week off. I had a little trip out of the island with the family. It was really nice. Unfortunate timing on my end because it was pre-planned well before.

and then obviously because of the weekend and the timing of everything, we weren't able to do any shows right after July 1st to talk about free agency. But the good news is we're here today. We've got a lot to catch up on. We're going to try to get to everything. There's so much that's happened over the past 10 days or so in terms of player movement and all that that we're not going to be able to cover everything, but we'll do our best to kind of whittle away at what you and I found.

Most interesting. The biggest takeaway is kind of some of the trends we've noticed so far this offseason and we'll just go from there. Where do you want to start? Because I'm going to give you a blank canvas here to paint on what caught your eye. What do you think is most interesting? I know there was a trade in particular recently that you wanted to get into. Yeah, the Alex de Brinket trade was really fascinating because for starters, the trade market,

it feels, has been developing slower than at least I expected. And maybe that's just a product of teams just not having a lot of cap space. But the fit for him in Detroit is probably the best out of the bunch in terms of when you were thinking of potential destinations. I mean, right off the bat, the primary concern I had with DeBringt was the cost of his next contract, right? Especially with the leverage that he had

with the qualifying offer. And I like DeBringot a lot as a player. I was nervous about paying him, let's say, eight and a half or slightly higher than that, even on a long-term deal. So the fact that Detroit was not only, first of all, able to acquire him for a pretty modest return, you're talking about first round pick, a fourth, and Dominic Kubalik.

But the contract cost to keep it under $8 million in a four-year deal, and of course I'm sure it helps that he's from the area and that sort of thing. I think those are two factors in terms of obviously the acquisition cost and then the contract extension price that makes me feel a lot more comfortable with the bet, because we know he's going to be a high-end goal score now, and you're hopeful that he can continue getting back to the. to the sort of rate that he was before as a 40-goal guy. But you don't need him to necessarily be elite, elite.

Even if, let's say, he's a 35-plus-goal type of guy, at that valuation, you're happy with that. Well, there's a lot to unpack here. I want to talk about the Red Wings, because they've been arguably the busiest team this off-season for seemingly the second straight summer. But on the note of kind of DeBrinke's contract, I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the conversations he had

with his agent throughout this process. because I imagine his agent was like, let's try to keep our options open here and not necessarily box ourselves in from a leverage perspective by just making our intentions clear that we only really want to go back to your home state in Michigan and play for the Red Wings because you look at this contract

and it has to be viewed as a massive win for Steve Eisenman and the Red Wings, right? You mentioned the $7.875 million per for four years. Those are age 26, 27, 28, and 29 seasons. there's no trade protection in year one. Years two to four, there's only 16 team no trade. So he's, in theory, could be traded to half the league without his go ahead. And there's zero signing bonus money in this deal, right?

So when you compare it to some of his comps like a Jesper Brad who signed a couple weeks prior or Kevin Fiala the year previously, both guys got the exact same AAB in 7.875. They obviously each went on the longer end in terms of term, but both the same. those guys got a pretty significant portion of it paid out in signing bonuses. They got full no-move clauses in years two to four in their deals. And so from the Red Wring's perspective, it feels like there's almost no risk, right? Of course, for a player that's making nearly $8 million, I guess conceivably he could get hurt or he could struggle and you could be like, all right, well, you know, this isn't paying

off the way we thought. But at this price and at his age and what he's already shown where his down season was 26 goals and whatever's nearly 70 points. It feels like you're taking away all of the risk with this deal and baking in quite a bit of room for growth from the Red Wings perspective. Absolutely. It's exactly the type of win that they needed because, as you mentioned, they did a lot of tinkering, adding a lot of different pieces up front on the back end,

but the one need that they still hadn't really addressed was adding that type of high-end goal score. And they simply needed for their next step, the next stage in them improving as a team, they simply needed more star talent is what it comes down to there wasn't a lot of sort of help around Dylan Larkin up front offensively at least of course you have most sider on the back end and that's where obviously Lucas Raymond you're hoping he can take a step and within the next couple of years join that sort of territory as well and then now adding DeBringit

that's huge and what I'm really interested to see now is it's so fascinating to try to unpack DeBrinke's performance last season because there was obviously the drop-off and there's the worry or concern that you might have, again, which is alleviated because the Red Wings didn't have to sort of pay a lot. But in terms of when you're talking about the ceiling of a guy and can he get back to being a 40-goal score, the biggest question is, can he continue to be that without Patrick Can on the side? Because he had that in Chicago. And that's where Detroit doesn't quite have an elite playmaker. so I'm interested to see where exactly he'll sort of land in that department. But it is interesting to see like when you unpack his scoring profile,

his power play production was basically the same. The drop off was going from 27 even strength goals two years ago to only 16 last season. And I think when you look at the circumstances in terms of his deployment, right? This is a player who didn't get to play a lot with Tim Stutzlid because Brady Kuch was the sort of number one winger in that role. and then because of Josh Norris's injury, he's really centered by Shane Pinto. Again, talented rookie,

but he's not the type of distributor that you'd, that would be the perfect fit for a trigger man like to Brinket. So coming over to Detroit, now at least he'll be able to get the upgrade from playing with Larkin, but also I think this is one part of the argument that hasn't been brought up as much when we talk about the production drop off in Ottawa last season.

He's also just straight up really unlucky. Like, he had a lot of posts. and when you look at the last time his shooting percentage dip below 15%. Like it was 10.3% last year.

The only other season was the 1920 campaign where he had 18 goals and the next season he bounced back with 32 goals and 52 games in that short in 20-21 season. So I wonder how much of

even the drop-off that he had last season was just a product of he didn't get as many bounces instead of just hey, he's not with an elite talent and Kane. and so can he replicate that?

It's a nuanced argument to try and unpack. Well, that season you referenced there in 1920 when he shot 8.7%. I believe that was the only time in his career where he's dropped below 15. And the optics in terms of like the timing of him having the year where he only shoots 10% and scores 26 goals last year is obviously unfortunate for him, not only from a contract leverage perspective, but also just from how we view him as a player because I think everyone was very interested to see how he would look without being on the receiving end of those Patrick Kane passes.

I think it's highly encouraging that if you look across the board, his shot attempts, shots on goal, high danger chances, any single sort of generation metric that would, you know, account for what type of opportunities and what position he was in as a shooter were all right in line with all of his career best, right? It really does seem like it was just a matter of the efficiency coming down from a shooting perspective. Now, he had that one 20% shooting season, right, where he scored at like a 45 goal pace. He had another where he was around 17 or 18%.

I don't think, I wouldn't expect anyone other than like Prime Stephen Stamco's or I guess Leon Dreisaitle to shoot and finish at that volume that way moving forward, but he's a 14% shooter for his career. And I don't know, what would you set the line at for next season? Like, do you think it's, do you think he's going to be closer to 10% which he was last year or like probably closer to the 14, I'd imagine, which he establishes his career high or his career rate? And so if that's the case and he keeps shooting at his volume, that's like a 35.

goal score, which I think the Red Wings would be pretty happy with, considering I don't believe they've had a 35 goal scorer since Marion Hosa did it like 15 years ago for them. Wow, that's, I hadn't thought about how long it's been since they've had a pro-Lic goals And it was pretty much one of the last times where a player of this scoring caliber also sort of went like, I want to go play for the Red Wings, right? That was obviously that team was firmly in their cup competition window. Marion Hosa was chasing a cup at that point. It was a very unique circumstance in that regard.

and also he was clearly a superior player than Alex DeBrincat. But just in terms of like a guy who is a premier goal scorer and offensive player in this league, having a chance to go anywhere really and calling his shot and going to the Red Wings. Now he's from Michigan. That certainly helps. But that has to be viewed as like an encouraging development for the Red Wings, I think. And their fans are understandingably excited about it. Yeah.

And that's where you mentioned 35 goals and him probably getting closer to his career shooting percent average. That's exactly the type of range that I was sort of thinking about in my head in terms of if I had to set an over under, like that's where it be because, yes, in Detroit, he won't necessarily like Dylan Larkin's a great player, but he's not an elite playmaker. So he's not quite going to have that same setup help that he did during his best seasons. But at the same time, I really think that a big part of what happened last season was simply him not getting back. bounces and things not going his way, which I think will bounce back, especially since, again, at even strength, Larkin as a line made, and if he has, let's say, David Perron on the opposite wing, that's still going to be an upgrade on what he had at even strength of Ottawa last year. Now, again, obviously, on the opposite wing in Ottawa, he still got to play with whether it was Giroux or Bathison. So it's not like he was without talent at all. But I still think Detroit will be at 5-on-5 a better fit in opportunity. And that's why I really like this. fit for Detroit and I think it's exactly what they needed.

Well, they were desperate. They were desperate for this type of play, right? They were just miserable offensively last year. If you look at 5-15, they were 28th in scoring. Only the Chicago Blackhawks generated high danger chances less frequently than they did. And so I think he's going to provide a shot on the arm off the rush as well where if you look at Corey Schneider's data for tracking Red Wings games last year, Dylan Arkin was very good at carrying the puck up the ice and then creating shots and chances off of those entries.

and then if he wasn't doing it, they really didn't have anyone else in the team that could do it on a consistent basis. And even last year, when De Brinket's scoring came down a bit, he was still very involved in terms of those exact type of chances, whether it was setting up teammates

or shooting himself from those high danger areas. And so I'm very curious. It seems clear that he's probably going to at least start as a running mate for Larkin, and those two guys are just try to do everything off the rush as often as they can. But it just gives them another playmaker,

whether it's as a shooter or as a passer, just gives them more offensive talent, which is something I think they did need as an organization quite a bit. And so I'm skeptical on how much of a difference just to brink at in isolation as we kind of talk about everything else the Red Wings did here,

how much he's going to all of a sudden improve their playoff outlook for next season. But I think that's sort of besides the point in this conversation in terms of being winners and losers of this trade or whether the Red Wrens should have done it because I think we're in agreement here in Lockstep for the acquisition cost

and then what it took to retain him on this contract, it was sort of a no-brainer, right? He kind of just fell into the app and it's like, all right, even if they're not necessarily ready to take this massive leave as an organization, when this sort of happens, you kind of add this player

and then you kind of figure out some of the other stuff after. Yeah, and it's like the Atlantic Division is just so competitive that you almost look at it as a case of they took a step last season in terms of being more competitive. This year you're hoping is another sort of step towards that and then the year after you're maybe targeting is

let's try and make a step. the playoffs because you've got at least Buffalo right there and then obviously Ottawa as well as a couple of other rising teams that have promising young cores and Eisenman mentioned at the deadline that he thinks that they're that they when he sort of shipped out Hironic and made the Bertuzzi trade to bring in more assets that hey we're we think we're a little bit behind we're still in a building phase here and I think they're just trying to manage that manage that long-term outlook with trying to stay patient and not getting ahead of themselves,

but also you want to continue accelerating the process. And that's why it's so interesting to look at some of their other moves as well. It's the second straight year they were really active in for agency. And this is where for as much as I love this, Burkut trade, whether it's this summer or the offseason before, I haven't necessarily loved their work in for agency. And particularly particularly the amount of term they've given to guys, that are non-star contributors. I wonder if there was maybe a different way to add winnow pieces

without adding those long-term cap commitments. But that's another part of the equation that especially when I look at Comfer and Cop down the middle, pretty similar players in terms of being middle six pivots and especially you're going to have within a couple of years Marco Casper coming as well. So it's not as if they were desperate to need enough. middle six center.

And so that's why I'm curious to get your take on Comfer and how you think he fits with Detroit and what you thought of that signing. I didn't love it. I mean, they were very active. And that's why I wanted to like differentiate between I really like the De Brinkette addition for all of the reasons we cited. All the other stuff is a bit of a different story for me. Where for the second straight years, you mentioned, they sort of jump head first into free agency

and spend freely as if they're a team that needs that kind of one final push to reach whatever destination they're trying to get to, when in reality, they're very far away, right? I think it's tough to justify this type of an approach. Now, it's not like they were necessarily giving out max contracts or anything like that, but when you're looking at it through the prism of, all right, well, we're paying J.T. Comfer and Andrew Cop, 10.7 million combined over the next four years. We're paying Ben Chirot and Justin Hull, 8.1 million combined over the next three years. Like, I don't think they're anywhere near close enough to competing or being in their competitive

window to sort of justify those types of moves and especially in the volume of them we're talking about here it is a bit much i like i like goss's bear for one year i think he's going to help them i certainly like daniel sprang at one year for two million dollars um climp costing for two million one year fine christian fisher for one year like those are the types of moves they probably should be making and then either they find something that fits and that's a player that stays with them for a while or what happens what happens last year where they you know they don't make the playoffs but they become a seller, they get future assets for them. I'm fine with that.

And I think that's why it was a bit tricky to sort of reconcile the direction of this organization because I think we praised Eisenman at the deadline for acknowledging how far away they were from some of their division rivals in competing and then pulling the plug last year and becoming an aggressive seller. And then once again for the second straight off season, their actions and their approach don't really kind of gel with that sort of thought process. Yeah, especially with Comfer, it's going to be interesting. because you see some people sort of referencing, well, yeah, he finally broke out and he was playing 20 minutes a night and 52 points.

But you have to look at the context deeper there as well where he was playing a lot of his minutes alongside Miko Rantan. So it's like, what does that production look like away from Rantanin? I don't expect him to be a consistent 50 point guy. And before that, I believe his career high is only 33 points. And you're looking at a player who on a contender is probably a three-seat. like a really, really good one. Don't get me wrong. And you're talking about a guy who has consistently managed some of the best defensive results in the NHL.

So this is a legitimately good player. He's versatile. He's a player that can play multiple positions, move up and down the lineup. He's a good player. But just coming off of that type of career a year, it just feels like you're buying high on a player who probably can't. I don't want to say can't repeat what he did. But you're just, you're buying at the absolute peak of a year. this value and I don't love that contract especially again when you already had cop in the mix as

well yeah and it's not even really a critique of the players themselves and kind of like in isolation right it's more so like the awkwardness of the fit would given where they are because I guess the question you just keep going back to is like like to what end like kind of what what's what's the ultimate goal like what are you trying to achieve here and I just don't think any of these players really move the needle enough to to justify to especially giving out a five-year term in that regard, right? So that's kind of why I don't like, and I think that's a very easy way to get yourself into trouble

where it's like, all right, well, this isn't that big of a deal. They can get out of this. It's fine. It's whatever. But then these things kind of add up. And then all of a sudden, you've got a bunch of players kind of like in their early 30s making more than they should with a couple years left, and you're sort of stuck in this weird purgatory where you don't want to be in the NHL, right? And so I think that's the point. I guess one final thing I kind of want to ask you about here on the Brinket contract

before we moved on because you, you segue there to talking about some of the Red Wings other moves before I could put a pin in that conversation was while, you know, I'm not sure DeBrencat and his agent aren't losing sleep over the fact that he's making, we're set to make 31.5 million over the next four years getting a play where he wanted to play, right? Like that's obviously a perk for him. He'll be back on the open market. I believe when he's like 29 years old, he still won't have turned 30 yet, so he's on the right side of 30. That'll be the summer of 2027.

I guess it doesn't really go in line. with what we've seen from a lot of other free agents prioritize. It seems like everyone's sort of trying to get themselves to that summer of 2025 when we're kind of expecting the cap to go up to 92 million even or somewhere in that range. We've also seen that teams are starting to move away from valuing wingers, right? Like money's not really being given out to guys who aren't true elite players of the position. And while I think DeBrencat is really good, I don't think he's necessarily an elite winger. So I'm not sure what the landscape is going to look like by the time he's on the open market again

and how valued a player like him is going to be. I'm sure if he has another couple 40 goal seasons, someone will covet him. But I don't think it's quite as simple as I've seen of people being like, oh, this is a win, win-win for everyone because he'll also get another payday when he's 29 because teams might just be operating differently at that point. That's a good point. I think there are two factors in play probably from the player's perspective. Number one being that he's probably content going to Michigan

and especially his young family, I believe. So being able to sort of have some long-term stability for four years as opposed to taking the approach of just taking a one or two-year deal and then potentially having to move your family again, I'm sure that was attractive. And then the second part of that is I'm sure he's confident that he can bounce back and prove that he can be an elite player. Like I'm sure in his mind he's thinking,

coming to a new destination, a place where I'm happy, committed to hear a long term, I can get back to being a 40-goal guy and I will get that payday. He probably has that belief in his own mind, whether that's right or wrong, especially because you've got to remember, this is a guy who in the 1920 season had an 18-goal season after previously having scored 41 goals. So this is a player who's gone through the experience of, I've had an awful season. That was even way worse than the year he's coming off of now. and he bounced back and again the next year scored it like a 50 goal pace so he's gone through

that experience he's not going to be second guessing his ability to produce in an elite level yet so i think he's probably looking at it as like i'll be afraid agent again at 29 and i'm and i'm going to be coming off of let's say multiple 40 goals seasons and i'm still going to get paid top dollars well i agree with that logic which is why i'd actually want to get back on the market sooner like i think he is a good bet to not necessarily for score 40 goals next season but certainly produce at a better rate than he did last year and have much more leverage. So I'm sure, you know, it would have made it difficult to go to Detroit in terms of facilitating a trade like this if he was like, I'm just going to sign a one-year deal and get back on the market. Like,

there's certainly that consideration. But I would have, if I were him, if anything, preferred a two or three-year deal to get back out there sooner because I do, I completely agree with what you're saying. I do think he's going to have more counting stats, I guess, to work off at that point. All right. That's enough about the Red Wings and Alex de Brinkette. do you want here's my next team that i want to talk about with you the carolina hurricanes so they add dmitri earloff 7.75 million for two years michael bunting 4.5 for three years they bring back jesper fast fass freddie and and erranta and i think the big takeaway here for me is in a very carolina hurricanes fashion they managed to leverage the present-day cap room they had right which is

pretty rare for a contender of their caliber to improve their team next season and i guess they year after, while still maintaining long-term flexibility, which is what they seem to cherish more than probably any other organization in the league, generally to add players of this caliber, in particular, Orlov, you're having a tack on years four, five, six, maybe even more. And in this case, they pay a bit more. I don't think anyone would say Orlov is worth $7.75 million next season, but they were able to facilitate that. And that allows them to basically not have to worry about it because he is already 32 years old. Yeah, it's perfect, especially because now I'm so interested to see what they do,

what their long-term plan is on the blue line, because you've got, like, first of all, Orlov's a great player, and he's going to come in and provide legitimate to a value. He can move the puck. He provides solid defensive play. Just overall, in his time in Washington, you watch him play, and you're just like, this is an all-around, just like high-end number three. There are just so many attributes that he brings to the table

even in terms of offensive upside that it's perfect for what Carolina is trying to do on the back end in terms of having a lot of mobile all-around defenders who are good at everything. It does set themselves up in a very interesting spot because obviously Brady Shea and Brett Pesci are your way from Understricted Free Agency and both guys are entering their late 20s

and what we've seen from Carolina consistently is that they don't like handing out the huge six, seven, eight-year extensions for non-elite talent. I mean, even like Dougie Hamilton finished fourth in Norris Trophy voting the year that... He was a UFA. He was a UFA and Carolina was like, all right, we're fine to let you walk, right? Any other team is going, how can we lose this guy who was top five in Norris voting? They let him walk. Just countless examples, Trocheck, Need a rider.

This is a team that because they don't like... giving out those long-term contracts to players that are aging out of their prime. They're always thinking ahead. Even when you look at the initial Kotkanemi offer sheet and acquisition, they were probably thinking well in advance that, hey, we're not going to keep Trocheck. We don't want to pay them on its next deal. So we're going to proactively get ahead of this.

So now that makes me wonder, okay, what's next in terms of, are you going to try and monetize one of Shea or Peschi for assets? Then you've also got to keep into account. got a couple of stud defense prospects that might be graduating within the next couple of years in terms of variety and Scott Morrow out of the NCAA and then Keishin out of Russia, a 6 foot four lefty who is a canon of a shot. Both those guys. Who was a deal breaker for a trade deadline? Exactly. So it's like, man, their stockpiled with so much blue line talent.

And it's just about, okay, how are they going to deal with this? excess and then you throw the Eric Carlson thing in on top of that and it's like that blue line situation in the medium term is so interesting to watch now that they've brought Orlov into the fold. Okay well we can take that in a number of directions before we do that let's jump to break here and then when we come back we'll pick back up talking about the hurricanes and Orlov you're listening to the Hockey Ptio cast streaming on the

Sportsnet radio network. Catch up on what happened in Vancouver Sports with Halford and Brough in the morning be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back here in the Hockey P.D.O.cast joined by Harmon Dahl. We were talking before he went to break about Demetri Orlov and the Carolina Hurricanes. We mentioned that, you know, 7.75 million for him obviously was by design by Carolina to give him more than he's probably worth to keep the term down at only two years. Now, that makes him the 20th highest paid defenseman next season among active players of the position.

And so you were hinting at this before we went to break. But I find it hard to believe that the intention here is, is to have him playing third pair lefty at that price range. And especially because while I think he's going to be awesome on the Hurricanes, right, like he's so aggressive, especially in the neutral zone as a defender, no one gaps up more aggressively than the Hurricanes as a team. I'm sure Robert Nymour will love how aggressive Demetrior love defends. Carolina's biggest flaw as a team is turning shots into goals, right?

That's all we talked about this past postseason and for years now. And so just considering the way they're already constructed, investing even more capital in just that position, we'll talk more abundant here as well, seems counterintuitive. It feels like along with the contract status of Shea and Pesci, there just has to be another move coming here, which almost makes it more bizarre that they are listed as one of the two finalists in the era Carlson sweepstakes as well, because while he's sort of a unicorn in terms of playing the defense position, but really being one. of the best forwards in the league. Once again, it would just be investing even more capital in this one position. I just, I'm very curious to see what I guess that next move is because this feels almost like a TBD. Yeah.

And I think for Carolina, it was a situation where I think we've all known that in an ideal world heading into this off season, that their best potential fit would have been an elite goal score, right? We've talked about this for a couple of summers now, but there wasn't, I mean, you talk about a guy like De Brinkett, first of all, we don't even, like, who knows if he was on, if he was one of, on De Brickin's list in terms of a destination that he would have gone to and signed a relatively long-term extension with. But even if that was a hypothetical fit or if that was possible, it's not quite the perfect fit in terms of actually. actually being a sort of game breaker.

And it just, when you look at the marketplace, whether it's on the trade front or in free agency, I just couldn't put two and two together in terms of an elite sort of goal score. So I think their perspective must have been, let's bring Orlov in and we can then probably shift one of Peschi or She out, bring in more assets. And from there, try and look at like bank those, right?

whether it's at the deadline, maybe it helps you add a player who not necessarily is going to be a rental, but can, let's say, I don't know, maybe it's a Travis Keneckney is all of a sudden available. And maybe you view him as a potential fit. Now you've got the excess capital to actually go out and get a guy like that. It is one of those moves that makes you go, okay, what's next? Well, and the way they operate as an organization is they basically assign a value to everyone. and if the value exceeds that in terms of what they think that player is worth, they will walk away.

And if they feel like they can get that player at a value that falls under that, they will keep them, right? And so I'm sure in this with their calculus was all right. Orlov's not worth 7.75, but for a two-year deal, we add him. And then all of a sudden, that makes one of these other guys moveable, everything in particular. A lot of the attention has been focused on Pesci in terms of like the contract extension and what comes next and how desired he is by other team is the right-shot defenseman.

but it would feel like Shea, who will be 30 this season and will presumably be looking for one last long-term deal when he hits down restricted free agent market next summer would be the guy to move, especially since he's sort of, you know, you get him out of the door, all of a sudden Orlov just basically steps onto that second pair of left shot, and that makes a lot more sense. Do you think that Teresenko is that player

that you were describing earlier in terms of what they need? Because he certainly was once. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how, good he looked and how effective he was for the Rangers in the playoffs. At the same time, though, he's a player who's shot rate and chance rate has been declining for a while now,

and is probably not the sort of elite offensive goal scoring dynamo he was in his prime. So I'm not sure. He'd be a nice get for them, certainly, if they do revisit that. But at the same time, I don't necessarily think he's necessarily kind of

exactly that type of player either. You're right. I'm 100%. And you're going to be disappointed if you expect Prime Teresanko and you're banking on 30, 35 goals or something along those lines. But on a one-year deal, I still think that he could be a pretty good fit. Again, because of what you alluded to in terms of I was pleasantly surprised by how he looked with the Rangers, it still seemed as if he had some pep in his step, some offensive pop. And in Carolina, he could be insulated from a two-way perspective, right? Just because of the makeup of their forward group, their defense could help them on the power.

play the other factor that would be beneficial for Carolina in a circumstance like that would be if you sign him to a one-year deal then Teresanko's in a position where he's so hungry and motivated to have a monster year so that he can cash in on one more contract at the end of next season and it just feels like over the years how many guys have in a contract you just popped off offensively. Like whether it was Bo Horvatt, Nazim Kaudry, Philip Forrestberg,

there's just something psychologically about, okay, it's time to get this bread that helps drive a player to the next year. And I'm not, again, I'm not saying that that's going to help Teresenko

get back to what he was in his prime, but I like the idea of a motivated, hungry Teresanko joining the mix. And I think for Carolina as a whole, for me, when it comes to their offensive outlook in the state of their top six, for me a big

the biggest jump has to come internally it has to come from Seth Jarvis hopefully showing the type of form that he did in the playoffs as opposed to the regular season especially. Sveshikov as well

and then also like Kodkinemi quietly had 27 points in his last 35 regular season games down the stretch and he started really slow obviously in the first half of the season but caught fire and if he can continue to level up

he's still only 23. So if he can be that type of player that he was in the second half of the regular season on a consistent basis, that's just going to help level up that second line. And that also brings me to point out that he's under $5 billion for the next seven years. People are dunking on that contract extension. And I think people didn't realize the long-term play it was. I don't mean to veer off in another direction. But I think those those.

internal young guys taking a next step is going to be just as important for Carolina to sort of level up as is an offensive team. Yeah, we don't have time here to reignite the Kotkinamey War as okay. We got to keep them moving. I do like the bunting get for them as well, especially since there's only three years, obviously more of a complimentary player than a driver, but we've seen him be successful playing that third wheel to highly skilled players in Toronto. And I assume the vision here is to play him with Ajo and Jarvis and basically just let him run loose as a puck retriever and kind of a net front nuisance. And I'm sure that he will be effective there as well. So yeah, it was a, I didn't go into this offseason expecting Carolina to be so

aggressive on the free agent market. I thought they'd be more involved in the trade market. That's still, as we talked about, will probably be the case. But it was interesting to see them utilize that cap space to just basically go and get two of the biggest name on restricted freedoms in the market. You know, another player they have been linked to, as we mentioned, was Eric Carlson, and this is a good segue for us to talk about the penguins a little bit as well, because they are the other kind of top two finalists there on a lot of these reports for Eric Carlson services via trade. And so the penguins were certainly active. I had a vision of what I would have liked Kyle Dubus to do in his first offseason in Pittsburgh. I thought it was a very intriguing

spot for him because he would essentially get the green light to utilize all the resources available to him with the express purpose of getting the most out of these final two years that's any crosbies under contract three years that have getting Malkins under contract especially with how well those two guys played last year and they certainly made a lot of moves I can't say I thought it was the most inspired set of moves from their perspective we can get into all of them individually here. But of course, if the final domino to drop here is consolidating a couple of these assets on their books into Eric Carlson, all of a sudden, I could be talked back into it.

Yeah, I think as it stands right now, they certainly made additions here or there. I love the Riley Smith pickup. But like you mentioned, outside of that, I thought it was more of a traditional spending type of offseason. Yeah. Like when you look at the Graves acquisition, when you look at them bringing Jari back, and Eller, it wasn't necessarily as creative as I thought it might be. And that's where Carlson would be,

would be the cog that could take them to the next level because I still don't have a ton of confidence as it stands right now in them as a true cop contender. And I think that's all we want to see at this point, right, is them able to squeeze something out of the next year or two where you're still going to have Crosby, Malkin, Latangelo, the big three playing at the level that they have been. Graves is also going to be interesting because obviously they overpaid in terms of term.

That's fine because you're not cares about your three, four, and five. They're going to be terrible at that point when those big three retire anyway. But it is interesting to me and I'm curious to get your take because Graves is a player that has built up obviously a strong reputation, plays tough minutes and everything. But I wonder how much of his game has been potentially insulated by always being in... He's been in some great spots. He's been like,

broken to the league, playing on the Colorado avalanche caddying Kail McCar. Last couple of seasons, possession powerhouse team in the New Jersey Devils, last season playing alongside John Marino. Like, that's a great spot to be in.

And don't get me wrong, Graves is really solid defensively. And coming to Pittsburgh, playing alongside Latang, he'll at least have a dynamic pock mover. He'll absolutely be an upgrade on the blue line. But I've had a tough time. discerning

Graves as individual impact And I'm not sure Like again, he's going to be a significant upgrade On what Dumlin was last season Right. Especially with how much his game fell off. But I, especially with the Blue Line being another year older,

I really think they need a piece like Carlson For me to feel confident about that being a contender quality Blue Line. Yeah, I see the appealing Graves. I personally am not the biggest fan. I just don't think he thinks the game at high of a level offensively where you can see time and time again the puck comes to an offensive zone and he just gets tunnel vision for hammering it towards the net as hard as he can defensively

he's a good rush to enter he certainly utilizes his reach really well but for such a big guy don't think he you know defends kind of around the net or does a lot of the stuff that you would expect the player of that size to do so I think it's a lot of like tools that aren't necessarily being used in the way that you would hope for and at this point that probably won't happen I think the 4.5 is fine. I certainly would not have gone six years on them. But, you know, to put it all together for the listeners, so they spent big on Graves, right?

Tristan Jerry gave him a five-year deal, which was I'm going to have Kevin Woodley on on Friday, so we can save that for then. They totally overhauled their bottom six, which they were obviously going to do, right? They bring in Lars Eller for two years, Nolichari for three years, Matt Nietto for two years.

They trade for Riley Smith, as you mentioned, which only cost them a third, replaces Jason Zucker, who took a one-year deal with Arizona and was really good for them last. year I think that's kind of, I like Riley Smith a lot as a player, but I don't think that's necessarily an upgrade. And they didn't buy out Granland, which I thought they would do to clear up so valuable cap space. They also didn't move 14th overall. And I'd be very curious to, with

Zach Benson sliding down the board to wonder, and he obviously goes a pick ahead of them at 13 a Buffalo, if they were potentially holding on to that with the idea that he might fall into their lap because he feels like someone who could have been one of the few players to like step in, not next year, but maybe the year after and actually give them a cheap score to kind of help bridge this era into whatever is coming next for the penguins. I don't think Brain Yeager is going to be that guy for them. So I was surprised to see them keep that pick and make it. Here's the thing. I've seen a lot of talk about how Carlson is so risky. And for them, it's like, oh, you know, he was so injury prone and he hadn't been as productive. And last year it was just kind of a one-off. I think the only real risk here,

is not doing anything if you're the penguins. Yeah. Right? It's like Crosby's 36, Malkins 37, both guys were so good last year. All that matters is maximizing these remaining seasons you have with them because regardless of what you do by 2026 or whatever, you're going to suck. Like that's the nature of sports. Like there's no way out of this.

And that's fine because they've had, what, nearly two decades worth now of being Stanley Cup contenders or at least regular playoff team. And so that's kind of the price to do in business. so why not take as big of a swing as you can here? And so I'm really curious to see how that would work, what that would look like. I assume it would have to involve Petrie and probably Grandland being taken back by San Jose, which might work because San Jose seems very reticent to retain money for the next four years on Carlson, at least like a significant cap hit.

In this case, they could basically get off of those final two years of Carlson because Petrie and Granulow had expired by then. and that's a time when that money in cap space will actually be useful to the sharks. It doesn't really matter for the next two years anyways for their purposes. So I do think there is a trade there between these two teams, obviously involving at least one first, if not another prospect from Pittsburgh. I think the complicating factor is that Petri, I believe, has limited no trade, right?

So he could put theoretically a team like San Jose on his list, and then now all of a sudden you're having to involve a third team, and that becomes really complicated. That's why they brought in Kyle Dubas. That's something Ron Hextall probably couldn't have pulled off. And I think that's what the Fenway Sports Group had in mind when they hired them to run this team. When they backed up the brink truck and gave them all of the millions of dollars? Yeah, no, you're right.

So I also wonder just how motivated Carolina is because let's be honest, if Carolina wants him as badly as Pittsburgh does, they by far have more assets. they have by far more liquid contracts and money that they could move out easily. The fit for Pittsburgh is a lot more complicated, but I agree with you that Pittsburgh needs Carlson way more than Carolina does, and I like to fit a lot better in terms of, like, this team needs another player that can be a high indifference maker that can drive the bus that can breathe some fresh air into this core group.

Well, then, like, what they had to do this offseason was fix up the bottom six, right? because they had assembled all these pieces that did not make sense for Mike Sullivan and the way he likes those players to play. And now they're bringing a bunch of guys who can forecheck and can do some of the stuff Mike Sullivan's system needs. And they had a distinct lack of it before. But they didn't really do anything to help ease the scoring burden on Malkin and Crosby, right? Everything is still going to have to run through them. And at that stage of your career, that's a bit scary. And so certainly having Carlson there would help with the heavy lifting.

And all of a sudden, if you're talking about like a top four that's Marcus Pedersen, who was phenomenal last year and Eric Carlson and then Ryan Gray's and Chris LaTang. All of a sudden, now you can talk me into the penguins at least being like someone you need to take seriously next season. So that's something to watch for. We got time for one more here. Do you want to do a quick note on the Seattle Cracken

who didn't necessarily make a ton of moves, especially big ones? And that's kind of why I think they're interesting because I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop here and maybe that's foolish from my perspective because something we've seen from them in their short existence in the NHL is they're going to take a pretty kind of calculated approach here, right? They're going to be methodical. They're not necessarily going to take very aggressive risks.

And they're also not about the splashy moves as well, right? It's much more kind of like beneath the surface, depth. And so in that case, I'm waiting for them. to make a big move because they have cap space available. They have various buttons they could push, but maybe they're just kind of keeping that in their back pocket and that's not actually going to happen this off season. Yeah, I was a little bit surprised now.

I think they're totally well equipped to replace some of the guys like geeky and sprung that they lost. That's obviously not a worry. Obviously getting Berkovsky healthy again will be great. I'm with you because they had some excess cap space and they had three second round picks. So around the time of the draft, I figured could they be in on the trade market to,

you know, whether it's another defenseman instead of, you know, they went out in Zandumelin or whether it's a Ford who can maybe help them out on the power play, I thought that they might look at maybe a move like that. And I'm with you. I'm a little bit surprised. That's not to say that it's necessarily the wrong direction because they're able to take a more patient,

slower approach where another continuing. to build a prospect pipeline up. But they're also in such a weird spot where acquiring good players, like they have enough good players. Yeah. They need to turn like two or three good players into one great player.

Exactly. And it's like, so how do you do that? It's not like, it's a really fascinating goal to try and accomplish. And I wondered, especially like, where the lack of elite talent shows, I think most prominently is the power player aren't 21st in the NHL

and that's where if you don't have elite options, it shows on the man advantage. And I've seen a lot of crack and fans sort of go well, we want a better power play quarterback for the first unit. And it's like, yeah, maybe, but I think you also just need

elite forwards for the flanks and in your forward positions to help take that power play to the next step. And that's where, you know, I'd previously been wondering, about, okay, could they swing for a guy like Shifley? And I remember you and I had sort of briefly spoken about that. It's going to be really, really interesting to see how Seattle manages that over the next couple of seasons.

Yeah, I mean, they let Sprong and Geeky go for, what, Sprong got $2 million one year from Detroit. Geeky got $2 million for two years from Boston. And I understand that both guys have pretty good arbitration cases, right? And they were arbitration eligible. So that's why they didn't qualify them. They let Carson Sussie go for 3.25 over three years. I think all of those are pretty reasonable deals. Now, part of the reason to be skeptical about them building off of last year would have been,

well, they led the league in 5-15 shooting percentage, right? I think as a team, they were over 10%. Well, two of the most efficient guys in that regard were Sprague and Geeky. I think Sprong was like a 14% 5-on-5 shooter last season. And he certainly got shooting chops. I wouldn't necessarily expect him to continue that. And so maybe one way where this might be kind of like galaxy brain, 4D chess type of thinking,

but maybe one way to fight off a regression that's coming is to simply avoid bringing back the players who are most likely to regress. And instead, just basically go back, restart the process and try to buy high on guys who or buy low on guys who will work their way up and basically try to kind of keep that line moving, and keep that cycle flowing. And so I don't, I'm not sure they necessarily did that because I'm not expecting like Pierre Edward Belmar at this point of his career to have a glow up.

But like, Kela Yamamoto at the one year that they got him for after he got bought out is perfectly fine, whatever. I don't, I thought Dumlin looked cooked to my eye last year. So I don't like replacing Sousy with him. But, um, a full year of Cartier as well. Yeah. And, and Brokowski, as you said, we'll come back. Like, there's certainly pieces there.

The reason why I brought it up, though, is so they have 12 forwards, seven defensemen and three goalies on the books right now, right? they have 9.1 million in cap space. They can open up another three or so if they buy out Chris Drieger and they are conceivably going to have a second buyout window to do so because Vince Dunn's arbitration case is set for July 24th. Now, I'm very curious to see how that plays out because he was like top 10 in goals and points for defensemen last season.

So I don't think they necessarily want to actually get to arbitration with him. But there's things they can do here to open up even more room. I find it hard to believe that this is the team they're going to go back into next year. It just feels like there's another move to be made here. Well, I wonder if Seattle's also the type of team that can sit on that flexibility in terms of money and assets. And almost wait for the next big opportunity to come up, right? Like whether it's the next team O'Mire, the next Kevin Fiala, the next, you know, Jack Eichel, those types of opportunities where maybe you buy your time. and when you do see, you know, whether it's a franchise center,

franchise defenseman, wing, or whatever it is, the star hits the market that you set yourself up to be one of the teams that can really get in on the bidding. I wonder if that's part of it. It was also interesting to see that they were poking around on Carlson, but I wonder if that's maybe the approach is to sort of wait for an opportunity when a guy sort of wants out or there isn't a future for him in a particular spot and to then pound.

on that opportunity is one of the few contenders that might have flexibility, although with the cap going up soon, there are conceivably the next time a great player becomes available. There are going to be more suitors, so it could be a more competitive market. And they have 13 million clearing up next summer with Eberley, Wenberg, and Schultz coming off the books. And I believe Maddie Baneers' second deal is really the only sort of big pay jump they have to account for. I still really, you mentioned Shepley, I still really like Elias Linholm for them.

Like if you're rolling baneers, Linholm, Yanigur, down the middle, that is a very, very, very annoying group to play against. Do you like that next contract, though, for Linnae? No, I don't. But, and listen, this probably just goes against, like, what we mentioned, like this ethos and kind of risk profile that they operate with. So it might be a mood point. But I do think, like, they should be in the business of trying to consolidate some of these pieces

and being aggressive because while they got a bit fortunate to make it as far as they did last year, it's clearly like a good team with a lot to build around so I don't think they're just kind of take that for granted either harm let's get out of here uh I'll let you quickly plug some stuff and let the listeners know what you've got in the works before we get out of here yeah it's like the fifth time so uh I'm sure everybody knows my works at the athletic yeah they're like oh who's this guy yeah who's this annoying guy um that keeps writing with Canucks uh no i yeah i've got a bunch of Canucks and national uh stuff up at the athletic and uh yeah yeah you're You guys can find me on Twitter and threads now too.

Oh, there we go. Nice. So, yeah. I love that harm. We'll have you back on again soon. Probably not until next season, so enjoy the off season. We'll be back tomorrow with another episode of the Hockey PDOCast, as always, streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.