The Hockey PDOcast - Takeaways From the Start of Free Agency, Part 2

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro and John Matisz to work through their main takeaways from the start of the offseason and all of the player movement we've seen so far. 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.

Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey-D-O-Cast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich. Joining me today are my good buddy, Sean Trapiro and John Mattis. This is part two of our double header of our free agency recap here on the PDO cast. Of course, in part one, we talked about the Detroit Red Wings and their lack of activity and what they would do. And Sean, as you noted, right when we are going from part one to part two here, during the break, they went ahead and brought in Vlad Tarasenko.

It doesn't necessarily change the tone of our conversation or move the needle necessarily that much at this point of his career, although he can be a useful contributor and give a bit of scoring punch. But yeah, an interesting signing. I thought I would acknowledge it because if people are listening later on to part one, and they're like, why are they not mentioning that at all? It's because of the timing of the news. Well, yeah, and they bring him in.

And it's a, I mean, it's a move. And it's interesting because it puts more pressure on how to, What do they do with that Vili Huso, $4.75 million now? Because this tells me that there's got to be now something to do that because those looming Raymond and cider contracts now become harder to fit in. Because originally it's like, okay, they're just going to roll it back with that and sign those two and get it done. So now there's even more pressure to Husso thing.

One fun fact that it'll just be funny now is like, we know Teresanko wore 91 for most of his career until we were 10 in Florida, because I think it was Ekman Larson, I think, who had 91 in Florida when he was there. So 91 is not retired in Detroit because Fedorov and the Illich family kind of had a bit of a falling out, despite Federov being a heart trophy winner and everything there. So now we'll see if 91 is actually truly retired in Detroit, even though a good friend of the program, I guess we could call him good friend of the program. Daniel Sprung did ask last year if 91 was available.

So that's a, so. Well, shoot or shoot. And Daniel Sprung is certainly. a shooter. So he's never gun shy. All right. I believe it's my turn. I'm going to pitch us on the Florida Panthers here. You mentioned Vlad Tarasanko's most recent team where he won a Stanley Cup with them this past year. You know, the cost of winning in the NHL, we had this conversation in part one about the Tampa Bay Lightning, right? And they're certainly in the later stages of that because they're run atop the league as contenders and Stanley Cup favorites has been removed a couple years now. But you sort of see it and they

went through themselves, right? Like, not only do championships pump up everyone's individual of value, but then that also forces the organization into tough decisions and conversations about loyalty to the team that won and the guys that helped you get there, and then what you need to do

to sort of actually try to keep winning, right? That's sort of the reality of the business, especially in a hard cap league. The Panthers, I thought, were an incredibly interesting position heading into this offseason because they had a bunch of guys who were either expiring and were key contributors to that cup team

or had one year left and eventually they'd have to make a decision on them, right? We saw them essentially walk away from the table on Brandon Montour. Obviously, they were never going to give him what he wound up getting from Seattle. I don't think they ever really even entertained the idea of bringing him back.

I'm sure they were like, all right, do you want this bargain bin offer? And he was like, no. And that was the extent of their conversation, I imagine. They lost OEL to Toronto. They lost Stollars Toronto as well. They lost Stenland to Utah. They lost PDA guest favorite at Lombagini.

The prodigal son returns to Calgary as well. But what they did is they brought back Sam Reinhart at 8.625 over eight years, which considering what he would have got to the open market is a massive value for them, as we predicted here. They brought back Kulikov at a $1.15 million rate. They kind of took flyers out guys like No Sick and Boquist, AJ Career. They brought back Drieger as a potential backup or third string goalie. They brought in Nate Schmidt as well.

They extended Anton Landel. I got to say, we'll still see because there's a few big decisions for them to make with Ekblad in particular. It seems like they are going to extend for Higgy long term and then Bennett becomes the next question. But assuming Bill Zito A's those, he's pitching about as perfect of a game as I think a GM can at this point from like a blueprint of what I'd like to see my team's GM do in terms of making these tough decisions and not overcommitting yourself and prioritizing the right players and sort of We always talk about sort of scouting and evaluation of other teams and other players.

I think such an underrated skill for success in the NHL is being able to critically evaluate your own team in house and actually realize what matters and who moves in the needle and who drives the bus. They've clearly done so here. And so I commend them for that. And Bill Zito is just doing a heck of a job right now. And that extends beyond the Stanley Cup, of course. But he's doing everything he can to solidify that and give them a chance to turn this from a one year thing into. multiple potential Saldi Cups, and that's really cool. I would say masterclass is the word that comes to mind as far as

picking and choosing the right guys and then getting them out good numbers. I mean, Reinhardt, like, he's not going to be a 57 goal guy, but he's probably going to be a 40-goal guy and a Selke candidate. I mean, that for 8.6, when the cap is rising, you'll probably hate it in year 7 or 8, but that's pretty much every deal in the NHL. Lundell, I think, is going to be a huge bargain at 5 million. and times six down the road.

Right now it's like maybe a slight overpay. But that'll age... He led them in 5-15 scoring this postseason. I think it's perfect. I have no... Yeah, sure. And I just have no doubt that he's going to reach another level, that he's going to be more like an $8 million player sooner than later.

So I thought that was fantastic value. And then Schmidt and Kulikov had the numbers that they signed for, assuming that they play on the third pair, I guess we don't know exactly what the pairs are going to be. But like if you can have your third pair at, you know, whatever that is, two point something, that's tremendous. I think Boyquist will fit in well in terms of the style of play that Maurice deploys in Florida as like a fourth line guy. So I think this all makes sense. Obviously, like you mentioned, Eckblad Bennett for Hage is still hanging in the balance.

But, you know, they could just keep all three and figure it out later. like, you know, we'll see how much more work they do in the off season. But I think Bill Zito has, it's kind of crazy, right? He wins the cup. Obviously, the draft is a massive moment. And then he goes straight into free agency, like, lost asleep there to, you know, understate it. Yet he's pulling off these really smart moves. I think it was, you know, A-A-plus level.

Yeah, I'm curious. One thing I'm interested to see what's next with Florida. We talk a lot about Eckblad and we talk about those other things. And I think, once again, Masterclass, I like the description. I'm just fascinated to see how they posture the goal tend to next year too. Because Spencer Knight is, and it's good. Like I talked to Spencer Knight before the Cup final. And it seems like he's in a much better space coming out of the player assistance program and everything like that.

But you're talking about one of the keys to their success last year in the past two years has been having a backup. Two years ago, Alex Lyon, this year, Anthony Stollars. who have been able to allow Bob's work by Brodke's workload to be lessened, to be able to step into that spot. And I'm very curious to see how Florida handles that space because I think one of the things the Panthers did a really nice job is realizing that the way that team plays, you can probably find a quad A guy who puts up good numbers. And I think that's kind of one of the proofs like nothing against, I think,

I think the Panthers learned from let Alex Lion walk and Alex line went to Detroit and wasn't nearly as good as he was in Florida. And then they decided to do the same thing with Stolars. I know Stolars had a ton of confidence in his presser. I think he mentioned he felt like he's one of the best goalies in the world. And that's great confidence. But you can find a Quad A guy and he'll put up good numbers behind that Florida team the way they play. I don't know if spending, what is it, 17% of the cap on two goalies where one, he's getting older.

And yes, he had a great playoff run. but we know his workload needs to be lessened. And the other one, you're still kind of figuring out where he is as a goalie. I'm just interested to see as Florida figures this out, do they have to go find the next version of, do they have to go and find the next version of their Anthony Stolars or their Alex Lyon to be the backup there? Because it's just another part of all of this,

because I don't think you can ignore, I don't think you can look at what Florida success has been in the playoffs last two years. without pointing to the fact that they had the reliable baseline backup. And I think that's important too right now with this team. These are the ultimate champagne problems when you're a big question about that. Oh my God. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Is there a backup going to post a 916 save percentage or a 922? I don't know. We'll see. And the backup is Spencer Knight, who's pedigree. You know, he's a first round pet. He could blow it out of the water. Obviously that 4.5 is whatever.

But, you know, this is total champagne. Well, I think part of the beauty of what they've assembled here, and that ties in your point about the backup goalie. It also ties into a bigger question about the state of their blue line right now is because of the way they've constructed this team and how dominant Barkov is in the way he plays and their particular playing style as a team. We've spoken at length about how you can plug and play guys because you just remove their usual responsibilities that otherwise have to fend off on other teams. And it's just like, all right, you move forward, you pinch all the time. We saw some of those issues in the Stanley Cup final against the Oilers, but they won the Stanley Cup too. And so I assume they're going to keep playing the same way.

And so like Nate Schmidt at 800K or whatever, I think he's going to look pretty good there. I would have loved Oliver Schillington on this team. That's a lot of left shots. So we'll see. And maybe that sort of makes them moving. We heard that they're at least entertaining the idea of trading atqbald, right? He's got the one year left at 7.5, 12 team, no trade.

we'll see. I think that inspires confidence that they're realizing that extending him long term probably isn't the right play and kind of walking away from that. They don't have very much right shot talent here

and there isn't that much on the market. Maybe they can add another boquist there as well as a reclamation project as a right shot. We'll see. I think any defenseman that has some skating ability and a bit of like offensive instincts

is going to look great on this team, except for I guess Mike Riley who somehow struggled early last year with him. I should say, yep. Yeah. Actually, before I get yelled, that and I should correct myself. I just looked up.

I missed it because they didn't have, they signed Chris Treacher. So they did sign their, yeah. Yep. So they signed their 30-year-old, the 30-year-old guy who's Quade, who can be that guy.

So they've done that. So I was wrong. So before people yell at me in the Discord channel, which they should all join. Yes. Well, they've navigated this perfectly, and they're now at the spot where Barkov, Kach, Ryanhart, and Forsling.

their top four players are signed in their primes long term for less than 34 million combined. And that's what makes them special. That's how they want a Stanley Cup. And that's what's going to set them up. Assuming they keep doing all the other good stuff we've just talked about for not only a two, three year run here, but potentially five or six years, depending on health and those guys aging the right way. But they've done everything they can to at least put themselves in a position to succeed.

And so kudos to them on that. Any other notes here? I guess the Reinhart part of this is interesting. Not necessarily a deep dive of the player, but just him coming in at that number, it's always going to lead to conversations about taxes and the benefits of the market and stuff. I will say we talked about Nashville,

and I think they certainly paid full freight for all of their guys, and they have a similar perk. The Seattle Cracken, we can talk about them, and they just paid Brandon Montour and Chandler-Stevenson as well, which was one of my, the ugliest deals I thought on July 1st. They paid full market price for those guys and they have no state income tax there. And so it's a perk certainly, but I think also being a really good team that plays a fun

style and has had success there is always going to incentivize guys to come back. And I think that's sort of all the tax stuff is a bit of a red herring for that actual crucial kind of part of the recipe here that they've stumbled upon. Well, like every team has different advantages, right? So the tax stuff is like, I think it's interesting that a lot of these big name guys who left tax-free states went to other tax-free states, Marsha-show, Stamp Coase, Montour. They basically, like, they move from one tax-free state to another. So I think there is at least a little bit of a note on that because if you're branded Montor and you can make that much money in a tax-free state, great. But it's like no one has throughout Seattle's history, no one's been like screaming the,

Look at them their tax-free advantage. It doesn't be, no one screams about you being a tax-free state until you're a good team. Just like there's other advantages that teams get all the time, too. Yeah, Florida's had issues attracting talent for years. And then now that they're good, they're attracting talent. Obviously, the taxes help. But, like, you know, Ryanhart's not signing if things didn't go, go essentially perfectly since landing from Buffalo, right? It's been this nice progression.

And then he wins the company, goes, like, we've been negotiating for, months. Like, let's just figure this out. I'm happy here. Let's do this. Let's also put it this way. Florida has been a tax-free state since the Panthers have been a franchise. So if all of a sudden, it's not like this is a new thing. So like it's, if it was just instantly, I put a team in a tax-free state, you're great. And that's what I feel sometimes it gets boiled down to. And that gets incredibly frustrating sometimes. All right. We've got to keep in a move. We have so many more teams to cover here. And we've got not enough time here. But we'll try to do our best. Sean, you're up. Who's next on your list?

Let's go with Dallas. That's sticking with Wow, real original. Finally a team. We haven't talked about recently. Real, real, real original. Let's do it. This is another team that's interesting to me

where you go and you spend some money. Sorry, you create some space with a buyout. And then you go and spend your space that way with the question mark, right? Like, now, so Dallas buys out Ryan Souter, they get out of that deal. And then they get Matt Duchenne to take the real team friendly $3 million one-year deal. And I just, I have to feel, I wonder how Matt Dushan felt on July 1st watching Lubbushkin getting more money than him. And Matt Dumba making three quarters of a million more than him. Like all of a sudden, you're spending $7 million on those two defenders.

And everything with Dallas feels like it's always part. of moving the cap core, basically just pivoting the future every, basically two, three years down the line every time. And they've done a really good job with that. But those two moves are like, it's a team that went to the Western Conference final, back to back years. And I don't think they got better. So.

Well, we'll see. I mean, I think they're betting on some, much like a lot of these teams, right? Continued improvement from Johnston, a full season of Stancoven, Maverick Borough. Like, I think from a forward perspective, I think they're certainly just banking on a lot a player is getting better now. I can argue that older guys might get worse or more likely to be hurt. So that kind of bounces that out. I thought I was ready.

Like I've been making notes along the way, right? The initial news, I was like, all right, they saved nearly $3 million buying out Ryan Souter. I think just as importantly got him off the team and freed themselves from the rigidity that provides, which we've documented at length here. I was like, that's great. Bring back Matthew Shea at $3 million. Awesome.

They didn't wind up sort of picking up the tab on the season he had last year and were able bring him back because he was so good up for them. They missed out on William Carrier, which is a player that was linked to them very heavily in the early on the process. Now, I don't blame him for going to Carolina based on the term they gave him, but still, I would have liked him on their bottom line there. And then they lost Tannab. I also can't blame them based on the deal he got from Toronto for not being able to sort

of bring that. But my issue is it seems like, and I'm not sure how you feel if you've kind of talked to people there or sort of documented the process along the way, but it felt like they were of banking on that. And then once they struck out, they didn't really have any sort of plan B, in my opinion. And I thought that was sort of reflected by the fact that as these defensemen started going off the board, it seemed like they almost kind of panicked. And instead of spending all their money on one legitimate difference maker who could potentially anchor a second pair or play with S. Lendell and sort of replicate what Tanev did, he's obviously a very unique player, but kind of that

effect to allow Harley and Hayskin into play full time together in the top pair. They instead were like, all right, well, we're going to bring in Dumbah and Brendan Smith and Lubushkin and we'll bring back Lundquist and all this stuff. And I don't love that approach, right? That volume approach of like just bringing in a bunch of guys as opposed to having anything that's like legitimately meaningful.

I would have much rather seeing them just consolidate all that money on one really good defensemen instead. I'm not sure why they did that. It felt like honestly just while following it in real time, that they kind of panicked as guys started going off the board and they just started trying to grab as many defensemen as they could because they were worried about missing out on all of them. Yeah, I mean, Jim Nell is a famous line where he says, his version is you can never have too many defensemen. And he can never, you can never call the man a liar the way he collects defensemen.

Like, the interesting thing, too, with this is you go through and talking to people about Dallas, everything about this was the TANF term was the difference. Like the stars wanted to do four years. I know the stars wanted to do four years with Tannif, Tannib wanted, he wanted the five or longer, like the six he got with Toronto. So everything with Dallas is, they have been so captivated on the salary cap stuff, right?

Which is fine. Like, that's one of the reasons you stay in the upper echelon for a long time is you don't overly commit to one. So the reason Dumba and Lubushkin came in and worked for them was they could get the two-year deal. They get the two years done. And I just felt like they focused so much on how you positioned your cap for future raises of Wyatt Johnston and Logan Stancovin and everything like that, that you kind of put this year

on the back burner too much. It was kind of how I look at what Dallas did, where it's like, it's part of, it's good thing to look at long-term health, but it's also okay to be like, let's look what we have right now and try to be. You could have been more aggressive. I mean, the biggest thing in Dallas that's amazing, it's amazing to me, and it makes me feel incredibly ancient to say this, but Jamie Ben is a UFA at the end of this year. The Jamie Ben eight-year deal is finally coming to an end. They're about to have $9.5 million in cap space next year.

So you had the space to get some things done. And yes, they got rid of Fox's contract, so they did a little bit there. But there's just so much of a emphasis on what are the Dallas stars going to look like in 26, 27, where there wasn't enough emphasis on what the stars are going to look like in 24, 25 is how I look at what they did. That's kind of my read on it. And it's not short sight. It's not the right word, but it's kind of frustrating from if you're trying to look at wanting a team to try to take the next step.

Let's take it a step further than that then, John. I really don't like when teams take this approach of worrying too much, not only about what the team's going to look like in this year compared to future years. they seem very worried about what the team's going to look like in game one as opposed to game 82 or or game one of the postseason right like I don't like when teams feel this sudden desperation to just fill out their full depth chart on July 1st and just so they I guess they can have like security or they could just everyone can go away to their their cottages in their cabins for the summer and not really worry about it

I don't understand why teams do that because every year we see that there's going to be a bunch of interesting players that are going to be just available to be scooped up at bargain because everyone runs out of money in cap space and line up spots on their team. There's going to be a bunch of teams at some point that are going to wind up regretting all their purchases and are going to try to give away guys for cents and a dollar. And I love being able to sort of capitalize on that. Not that the stars have restricted themselves for making any sort of moves, they have a great team.

But I just don't understand why on July 1st you would feel the need to spend the way they did on the caliber of player that Dunba and Lubbushkin are at this point. If that's the only option you have, I'm perfectly fine. back and waiting for something better to shake free between now and the start of the season or the trade deadline as opposed to just having those two guys and feeling like you're set on the blue line because I don't think they are. They have a bunch of guys. I don't see a lot of puck moving ability on that blue line at this point and that's

kind of alarming for me. Yeah, it kind of shows that Hannah was kind of the glue that held everything together. You know, obviously, Haskin and Harley are kind of the horses, but like you take Tannav out, Dowell starts kind of panicking. Oh, we need to replace them by quality, by fun. not by quality. And if they didn't just sign one of Lubushkin and Dumbach, I think it would have been fine. It's the, it's that second one that kills you.

And I think you make a really good point to Mietro, where it's like, go into game one of the season with an HL or up there. Go, you know, whether you acquire a younger player on another team who wants out, or it's a waiver pickup, or as the season progresses, there's just like a pending UFA that, for whatever reason the team wants to trade early in the season. Like there's lots of opportunities to find a four, five, six defensemen. That's essentially what they're looking for here. So I think that line of thinking that thought process makes a ton of sense versus what Dallas ultimately did. The other thing, like just the other thing on Dallas too that I just don't understand

and I'm still baffled by it, not from the team perspective, because I know how Jim Nill likes to hoard a defenseman. But if you're Nils Lundquist, why on God's Green Earth would you re-sign for that team? I don't understand. Like, this is not a, I get why, because I know and I've covered the stars and I know how they hoard defensemen. So it doesn't surprise me that Jim Nill offered Nils Lundquist a contract because I know how he operates a defenseman.

But if you're Nils Lundquist and you have a coach who wouldn't trust you as far as he could throw you, in the playoffs, he had Alexander Petrovich over you coming out of the HAL, I don't played a game all year. if Hanav wasn't going to be able to play in game five against Edmonton, Leon Bixel, who had never played an NHL game, was a good to come in. I have no idea why Nils Lundquist wanted to re-sign up for this. Like that's my other baffling Dallas question. And he got 1.25 million for it.

So like. For one year. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like, well, Sean, have you ever heard of the term Stockholm syndrome? I mean, he's Swedish. He is Swedish. I don't know.

Maybe he really enjoyed all the work he got to do in between periods, just kind of skating in the tunnel and stuff as we talked about. Maybe he doesn't want to play 20 minutes. Maybe he enjoys playing four minutes in the first period and then 20 seconds the rest of the way. I don't know. Yeah. I don't have any more thoughts on Dallas.

But not Dallas, but like you talk about adding a player like at a value, right? Like not filling out your roster. We joked about him before, but like Daniel Sprong's not signed. right now. Like, Dimitri, like, someone could just go add. You talk about just randomly guys who are going to be available. You talk about being able to find piece. Someone's going to fall through the cracks. And it doesn't have to be Daniel Sprung. I just say that name because you love him. But he's someone who some team's going to be able to add him to their fourth line right before. And he could be a 16, 17 goal score. I just like Nate Schmidt, we just talked about the Panthers.

Yeah. Nietzsche is just a better player than Maddumbo. Like I've watched Maddala play this that fast here. He can't move anymore. And so I don't, giving that type of money. in term and then you watch Nate Schmidt the next day, he's like, all right, yeah, I'll take 800K here and try to compete for Stanley Cup. Dallas could have done it that as well. Not that like all of a sudden Pete DeBur would trust him, although he is a veteran, so maybe he would. But yeah, that's that's kind of frustrating. But obviously, you know, these are larger scale problems than the Champaign problems we talked about with Florida. But these are still ultimately ones where it's like we're talking about optimizing as opposed to like some

sort of fatal flaw here. Right. Like this is obviously still going to be a very good team heading into next season. All right, let's take a break here. And then when we come back, we'll finish up. We'll do a mega section at the end here. Try to rattle through as many teams as we can. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O. guest streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Miss any part of Halford and Brough in the morning?

Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast and don't miss an episode. All right. We're back here on the Hockey P.D.O. cast with Sean Shapiro and John Matt is John. I believe you're next on the clock here with the team that call your eye on July 1, Yeah, the Washington Capitals. I mean, I would argue they're the most fascinating team in the league right now as far as, you know, potential future moves and kind of moving the chess pieces around the board.

Because if you take a step back and look at what they've been doing, they made a pretty clear decision at the 2023 trade deadline, so not the one that just passed the one previously, to retool like, you know, Larzeller, see you later, Demetri Olav, there's a couple other guys, Sandini younger player comes in and it's all under the umbrella of we're going to try and win one last

cup for Ovi and it probably won't work out but we're going to try I found so far this off season that retool has gone into overdrive I mean Dubois coming in Manchi Apani Matt Roy they trade it for Chickren

you know you've got Logan Thompson Duhame like just a lot of new parts and you know, even just to focus on the goaltending, they've gone from Charlie Lingren starting last year's backup to

trading the Darcy Kemper last year's, you know, starter at the beginning of the season. And then bringing in Logan Thompson, who has a deal that's, I believe, under the league minimum because he signed it before the rise. So, like, I find that fascinating where

they've got this tandem that's really cheap and also, you know, some upside there. And then the Dubois thing, like, not ideal to bring in Pierre-Dupeau at this point, as far as, you know, the places he's been and, you know, the disappointments along the way. But, like, to get Kemper off your books and to like sort of take a chance on a center that may finally hit his ceiling, I don't hate it. Given this exact circumstance the capitals find themselves in, you know, Mangiopani will help with goal scoring, which was an issue last year. You know,

Matt Roy, seven years. That's crazy. but really good player. I think Chikrin's going to help the blue line. Like, you know, are they still closer to being like in the middle of the pack than being a true contender? I think so. Like, I think that they're like, I don't know, the 15th best team in the league,

something like that. But they made the playoffs last year with whatever that crazy goal differential was minus 30. I think they can make the playoffs this year, but actually have, you know, a positive goal differential. It's just a really interesting team right now. It certainly is.

I, the pure Lutu Bawa, I haven't really spoken to much about it on the show, even though it feels like it happened forever ago now because there's been a million different transactions since. It's an ultimate head versus heart way of thinking, right? Because my heart tells me, it's like, the vibes are awful. I watched him play in L.A. last year. And it's like, man, this guy just might be one of these people that just like is always unhappy regardless of his situation. At the same time, a 26-year-old center who I get why L.A. would want to get out from owing him $8.5 million for the next seven years. But if you're Washington, he makes what, 3.25 more than Darcy Kemper over each of the next three years. And Darcy Kemper is a 34-year-old backup goalie at this point.

So, yeah, I think for them, it makes sense as a dice role. All the other moves, what I really like about it from their perspective is they didn't, like the term on Matt Roy is a different conversation and we can talk more about just the term we saw given out on July 1st as a whole and that being kind of one of the big takeaways for me. But a lot of these players, right, Manjupani, Chikrin, Logan Thompson, they're all players who, if the season goes south, like, let's say the capital just aren't good next year and they're out of it, they'll be able to recoup pretty much everything they paid for them and probably then some because they've got two retention slots. A lot of those guys are, I mean, they're expiring players who are on affordable contracts.

And so they'll be able to get it all back. So it's not like they necessarily mortgage the future here for a lot of these acquisitions and like box themselves into having this team. it's an interesting gambit of like having a better team but also retaining a bit of that flexibility you look at their depth chart though it's like the most random collection of players in the league I think

and I say that for better and for worse it's like man I know this guy's on the capitals as well should note they also stole cap rently from us in terms of their off-season transactions it's still up so I guess yeah it is happening so I know for example

I to tease my podcast with Prashon Thayer, expected by whom, we've been told by the folks at Capital's PR that we should ask about speaking to people on July 5th. Ooh, okay. So I believe, as we're all looking at the site today while we're doing this show, you've got about 48 hours. All right. Well, enjoy the rest of the time we have with our loved ones over at Cap friendly.

Listen, the mandate is clear, right? Be as competitive as you can for these final two OB years while he's chasing the goal record. And so I think they've accomplished that here in a very interesting way. They were certainly very active. I like a lot of the players, they acquired here. I mean, the Manjipani one, I know his stock has fallen because he has that breakout 30 plus goal season. And in the past two, haven't gone as well for him, sort of mirroring Calgary's downward trajectory as an organization, but he's still such a valuable player from the way he plays. And they essentially got a better second round pick back for Beck Malinstein than they did to acquire Manjipani in the first place. So just that

combination of moves I really like. Sean, where are you at with the Capitals and what they did? It's also really interesting the way they've got about this in kind of the twilight of Obie's career in comparison to what the penguins, like obviously, I mean, listen, they're in the same division, so they're going to be linked for that, but it's Obie and Crosby. We're always going to talk about them together in this way. The Penguins have, I know they acquired Carlson last year and they spent a bunch of money in free agency, but you should look at the way they've sort of got about it this past year or so.

Very stark contrast between the two. where are you out with the capitals? Yeah, I mean, it's at least a more interesting team. Like, I think they're in that, they're right and kind of in that space where they're going to compete for a wild card spot and might, might be in, might not be. And I, I think it's, it's, I don't, like, as you said on the Dubois trade, like, I don't, does the contract create, no, but I, I think it's a fine, I think it's a fine move for them to get out of the Kemper deal.

And I think they're at least more intriguing this year. I still like the big, the thing with them that's just interesting is where like all these pieces are just, I don't really know how they're all going to fit together, right? Like I'm really interested to see how they're going to play because there's a lot of different pieces. We're like, oh, I could see other than the identity of get the goal record for Ovechkin, I don't know what the team identity is, right?

Like watching, it's going to be really interesting to see how it all comes together. But I'm at least intrigued and I want to watch. And I guess that sells some tickets. So it's a positive. I don't think they're close to contending or anything like that, but they've at least done their job as a business. Yeah, they're throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall and hoping it sticks.

And like some, you know, low risk bets and then some higher risk like Dubois. But it's also like, you know, I like that they're getting after. And they're not just sitting there going, we can't make trades in the NHL. can't do that at least they're trying to turn things over quickly and even like say in the in chikrin's instance i mean the guy's going to be a pending ufay so doesn't work out see you later whether that's at the deadline or you let him walk yeah like you mentioned to me you're just recouping assets say this all say they all say they bomb out in october november and they're terrible like all of a sudden you're got a chance you're probably going to flip thompson you're going to flip

you're going to you might flip ethan bear you'll you'll you'll have you apani yeah manjiopani maybe even T.J. Oshy to somebody. Like, you're going to get. I think the other takeaway from this is that we've seen the last of Nick Baxter and T.J. Oshy. And maybe that's for the better for his long-term health because, well, but the quotes after the season in terms of what he's been going through to actually get on the ice. At some point, I think it's okay to, you know, phenomenal career,

spend some time with the family. We'll see. That's fair. That's fair. But like either way, those other ones, right? You've got the spot where if it all bought. out right away, you're recouping assets a nice way. Like, I don't, I don't get the, for what Washington's perspective is, like, I, I don't understand why, I mean, I know there seems to be,

there's, there was some rift between Logan Thompson and Vegas management for some reason, like, not really sure why or how, because he always, I don't, I don't think they thought he was very good. I think that was the riff. Well, that's what, yeah, but why? Like it's, I mean, it's the, I never really got that. I mean, and also the other fun thing about Washington, it's the all right catch goalie tandem, since that's, I think that might be the only one in the league now. Look at that. Somewhere Kevin Woodley just parked up. He's on a beach in Hawaii or something.

He's like, oh, my God. Yeah. You know, I mentioned on the Matt Roy thing, a phenomenal player. And I think getting him at that, whatever, five and a half AAB is good business. And he's going to deliver for that. and there's any number of contenders that would have loved to give them that contract, I think. A trend that I've noticed beyond the fact that what,

1.2 billion or so was spent on July 1st, was last year we saw eight deals given out league-wide of five-plus years on July 1st, 2020. July 1st, 2024, we saw 19, 5-plus-year deals, including 11-7-plus-year terms. What do you guys make of that, right? Because the cap's obviously going up and everyone knows about that.

But it's also, you kind of, Sean, you hinted at it. It's like this sort of double-edged sword for GMs, or it's like, all right, as soon as space opens up, you wind up going and just spending it immediately, and then you wish you had more space. And so like all these comments we heard about GMs lamenting, not having flexibility to do stuff, they had it for 24 hours, even less so,

and immediately spent it. And now I've locked it in for not only next couple of years, but seven years down the road for a lot of these situations. I think part of it, it is a lot of GMs kind of looked at it where they could stretch some of the give some term to get the AV down for this year or for the next couple years. I think that was kind of a lot. I think we saw a lot of that where like let's take the TANA deal for example, right? Where I mean, Demich, you had the wonderful lane out of his career salary, 4.5. Basically,

the man is consistent throughout his entire career. Yeah, immune to the concept of inflation though. Yes. But if he was to sign a three, four-year deal after his, he's not making $4.5 million. I think you had to get to six years to get it down to $4.5. So I think part of it is just that where GMs were like, all right, well, I'm kicking this down the can and I can do this. I think a lot of GMs too are also like, you know what? That I either win a cup with this guy or it's someone else's problem.

Like I think a lot of the long-term deals are like that. Like, that's how short life spent is for NHL GMs right now. What are you going to make about it? I was also, let me pose this to you because speaking of the TANF thing, right? We saw Seraveli tweeting about this. I don't really know how they're necessarily going to actually police it, especially in like a scientific fashion that makes sense. But this idea that like I think the league is aware of what teams are trying to do here, right?

Where it's like, we're going to give you six years, even though you're in your mid-30s, hopefully you give us a couple productive ones. And then worst case, we put you on LTIR. and ride off into the sunset and it's not as much of an issue for us it still restricts you a little bit cap-wise but you can work around it's not actively bringing your

situation down. We'll see what the league does with that. There will be a CBA coming up at some point. I'm sure this along with the usage of LTIR is going to be a big topic of discussion then. I don't want to waste valuable time here necessarily getting into it but I think it kind of ties into this entire conversation. Yeah, I'll just add on a little thing at the end here.

I think that going up whatever it is, 4.4 million, like seems like a lot because there hasn't been growth over the last five years, but it's really not that much money. And if you have signed one of your star players in the meantime, and he's about to get into that new deal, there goes all that money. And so I just think it became a thing where there was way less money than everyone expected. And these players just, they want, you know, total dollars. So they stretch it out and they want the security. And I also think that like say if you just zero in on the defenseman, I mean, the ones that signed for five years or longer, if you exclude Slavin, it's Montour, Roy, Shea, Zedorov, Tanev, Peschi, Walker. I mean, all of them, I guess, could plan your first pair, but like, for the most part, those are second pairing guys. So it's like, maybe there were some teams that were like, we don't want to go high with the AAV because we just don't think like you're worthy of that. And then all of a sudden you start talking about the land. right? So I think if there was a bigger, more marquee name, then perhaps we would have seen

like this massive deal for a defenseman that blows us away with both term and money. But there were a lot of good defensemen, not a ton of great ones out there. And they were all like 29 or older. This wasn't guys that were 27 and just like right out of RFA status. The other shenanigans was a tampering, right? I spoke to a number of players who, I think even before the draft. We're like, oh, yeah.

I haven't necessarily signed signed anywhere, but I'm pretty confident I know which team's going to come knocking. Tyler Bertuzi's deal was on cap friendly at 9 a.m. Monday morning.

Like that one is, that's my favorite most egregious one. Well, it was actively on cap friendly three hours before that agency started. That's the Washington Capitol is trying to get the Black Hawk's in trouble. I'm trying to get a lot of,

league review there. Yeah, yeah, you're right. I mean, we saw so much of it at this point. It's, it's, I don't even want to say it's the worst kept secret because it's not a secret. But yeah, it was interesting seeing all the news unfold. All right, do you want to talk about the Oilers a little bit, guys? Yeah.

They've jumped out to, I believe at last check, the betting favorites for the 2024, 2025 Stanley Cup championship in terms of the winner. After their moves, they buy out Jack Hamm, they bring back Connor Brown, Yan Mark Henrique, that phenomenal third line for them, bring back Perry as well. Most importantly, though, Ad Victor Arvinson, add Jeff Skinner. And you look at the top six in particular now up front. They've pretty much done everything I wanted in terms of adding like legitimate skill

and offensive Jews to play with McDavid and Dry Seidel. I think there's some defensive concerns there with the players they added certainly. But they're well poised to build on the success they had last year. And man, this is as lead. group as you're going to see. We'll see what happens with the VanderKain's deal, whether they're able to get off of that, whether they're able to upgrade on Cody CC.

Obviously, their financial flexibility is kind of tied up here. But any notes on kind of the Oilers and sort of what they did here? Because they were certainly very active as well. And I liked a lot of what they did. I mean, I'm still worried about the blue line. Like, I know that Robert's probably going to take a step, but they kind of addressed the strength, the forwards. Obviously, they needed more depth there.

Like, that was pretty obvious during the blue line. playoffs and over the course of McDavid and Dry Saitle's tenure. But, you know, the more egregious thing was that was the blue line. They didn't really address it. So that sticks out. But it kind of, it might not matter. Like, I mean, if you have Arvotson and Skinner added to that top five, top, or sorry, top six, top nine, dry settle actually has quality players to, uh, to go on as wings. I mean, that solves massive problems. Um, so I thought that, I mean, there's, there's no way to sort of sugar-coded or to beat around the bush. They had a great start to the off-season in Edmonton.

They did. Let me just one note on that, and then I'll let you jump in, Sean, because I'm actually curious for what they did at the draft and whether you talked to any people about that, right? Because I think it caught people by surprise that they jump back into the first round. They essentially mortgage what would have theoretically been a very valuable trade trip this coming season, right, in a future first that they could have used to upgrade their team.

They use that instead to acquire the 30-second pick and actually take someone. kind of surprising to see them do that. I'm not sure what you make of that. But there's been a lot of rumblings here about dry Cytle's extension, right? And what's going to come of that and sort of making sure they get that done. Arming him with Arvinson, giving them Skinner as well, guys who can sort of benefit from these guys up front and attack more off the rush and essentially fill in the gaps that I still think they had.

They glossed over it because their top two players are just so good offensively. But I think this is an entirely different animal now in terms of the person all they have to actually sort of optimize that group. And so that's very exciting for us as fans and very scary, I think, for whoever is going to have to play them. I think they did the right things as far as, I mean, they had a really strong start to the off season. But I think they did the right things where we, that whole looming dry-sitled extension,

UFA next summer story is always going to be there until he signs an extension. But I think they did the right things and getting the people to play with him. So just to kind of show the effort, like, look, we're going to. gonna we were this close last year we're actually going to go get the pieces to try to get over that so i think they did the right thing i think they're fascinating thing for me with the whole dry siddle thing and i guess i guess it even comes into play with the mac david situation after the following season is we know we know jackson's essentially running the team right now the team is that but like this team doesn't even have a gm right now it's it's very interesting from that perspective where they

haven't signed a gm yet we've heard the rumblings and then the fan blowback of we know stan boeman is now I really hope they reconsider. That was just insiders doing a favor because that would be. Yeah, me too. I really hope so too. I hope so as well. I will say that as well. So I'm just interested to see what happens where who's actually,

we know who's making the moves right now, but I'm interested to see who comes in and becomes the GM because I feel like that may have a play. I think that relationship may have an impact on how soon and when and if the dry saddle stuff gets done. but as far as what they could have done in the short term doing the right thing after they lost in game seven and everything like that passes

I mean it's hard to find many flaws that's I would look at it that way yeah I'm with you John I would have certainly love to see them improve the blue line and I think at some point hopefully they will just to give them a better right-hand option there I'm curious to see what happens with the Vander Keynes deal as well right because now their top six is pretty solidified up here

I think they'd certainly like to get off that money The AAV is tough because it's over five for a player who's not really worth that at this point. But after they pay the signing bonus up coming here, the actual money owed in terms of salary drops quite a bit. I think it's like under seven for the next two years combined. So certainly gives them at least a bit of an out there. I'm curious to see how they explore that. But yeah, I really, I'm just excited. Like in terms of actual stylistic fit, right?

Like Arbitson and Skitter on this team are going to absolutely eat offensively. And that's going to be really fun. And Jeff Skinner is going to finally plan the playoffs. And that's cool too. looking forward to that. All right. Next on my list, the New Jersey Devils,

who were also very active. We go back to adding Jacob Markstrom. They dumped John Marino because as we talked about the tampering, they had already signed Brad Pesci weeks before free agency even opened up. They also bring in Brennan Dillon. They bring in Kovacev. They certainly have a type in terms of defensemen

when you loop in drafting saliva as well in terms of the guys they were targeting there. They add Stefan Nason. It seemed like they obviously wanted to fix their blue line in particular. They added Markstrom, but I think they're very unhappy with the way Marino and Siegenthallelder played last year after Hamilton's injury and kind of the impact that had on their goalies. So they bring in these guys who are reliable. I kind of noted when we talked about Shea, the same applies to Pesci. We'll see how he looks at a Carolina system, but at least

like theoretically, his strengths are things that this devil's team needs in terms of blocking passes and preventing stuff in zone. So they had a very specific plan in terms of addressing very sort of niche roles and skill sets that they wanted to supplement their star players with and I think they accomplished that. So inherited a bit of risk because they gave some term to some older players and they got a bit older in terms of their nucleus

in general here. But still, I just think you look at the depth chart right now and it's very tantalizing and I'm going to be all in on this team again at the start of next season. Well, and I don't know about you guys, but I sometimes forget that Dougie Handelton missed all of last year.

And then Timelmeyer just didn't click. Like if both of those guys are firing next year, are doing you know, kind of what they do, I mean, I think the ceiling on this team is super high. We all know what the Jack Hughes, Nico Heeshier,

you know, Dawson Mercer type of players up front, Jasper Bratt, are capable of accomplishing. And then, you know, you add a legitimate starter in Markstrom. You have a really good backup in Jake Allen. And then you supplement the blue line that was, you know, not being led by Luke Hughes and Simone Nemich, but like that was kind of the future. And now you've got veterans galore surrounding them. And, you know, who knows, right? Like with Marino and I'm drawn a blank on who else left on the blue

line. Who knows if they are the better option than Pesci and Dylan ultimately? But like, I think it's worth switching things out and seeing what happens here because that blue line seemed a little out of whack last year a little and now they're longer they're more veteran um so yeah i i mean i'm pretty high on the devils in general like after how they've shuffled the deck here john you got any takes on the devils yeah no i mean it's kind of i have very similar opinions to john like i i think it's there's I think the team you kind of look at they added a bit of that kind of I'm not a big quote unquote grit tougher guy whatever but like I think there were parts of that game that the devil's actually needed and they went and brought that in and then just we talked about it on the trade

deadline show the three of us where like the devil's one of the biggest problems was not trading for a goalie in October of last year and so them getting actually having a reliable plan in net changes everything. So I don't really have much other than just to kind of echo what John said, like, I'm bullish on what New Jersey did. Yeah. I like it. Well, they added grit, but they added it in a lot of instances in the form of good players.

I think that's an important distinction as well. No, no, no, it was, it wasn't pugilistic grid. It was like actual good defensive grit. Like, Nosen is a nice addition. He's kind of an underrated player who can also play on your power play. Yeah. Okay, we got time for one more team here. Yeah. Let's move on. We got time for one more team. Vegas. Yeah.

Colorado. Carolina or Vancouver. I'll give you guys the floor here. Pick one. I think Carolina, because it's a nice way to go into the off season because I think things are unfinished there. Honestly, that's the biggest takeaway about what they have done is that we still have the nature's trade. The Jarvis extension will come. It's not like there's a ton of drama there. Obviously, this nature's potential trade is just kind of flailing in the wind. And if you look at what left and what came in, as far as the hurricanes, I mean, you've got Gensel leaving, who was a rental. So I guess you take that with a grain of salt in some ways.

Shea and Pesci leaving, Terivinen and Nosen leaving. And then coming in for Shea is basically Gossus Bear. Coming in for Pesci is roughly Walker. Carrier comes in for Nosen. Like they've kind of checked off the box. except for Gensel. And guess what? Gensel was, you know, so massive to them taking that next step as a team,

having some actual finishers on their roster, that it is a little concerning that they've been unable to sort of fill that void. Mind you, it's difficult to fill a void left by Jake Gensel. So, I mean, the blue line's still in great shape when you have Slavin, Burns, Gossus, Bear, Walker, Orlov, Chaffield. I mean, that's fantastic. As usual, worried about their goal. not sure who's going to stay healthy or be good. And they still need, you know, another dynamic player or two.

And does that happen with a NACIS trade where I don't know, maybe they package picks or a prospect or multiple prospects and bring back to NHLers? I don't know what happens. Because once NACIS leaves, that's another kind of dynamic player out the door. So a lot of unfinished business, but it's like, I think they've done well in terms of replacing players except for Gensel. Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's

it was funny I thought because they signed the Carrier deal today and I thought that was one of the most like one of the like most Tom Dundan-esque deals I could imagine

like trying to get a guy for six years on like we'll see a $2 billion deal five six years from now and that'll be like half a percentage of the cap or whatever or like I thought that that was

that was pretty funny but it's yeah it's I'm really fascinated to see what happens with Natchez There's no way for the cap to work. But I would love to see, I would love to see NACCHIS for Ascaroff somehow,

since I can't go through a show with the three of us without pitching Ascarov getting traded somewhere. So I'll hit my, I'll hit that on the bingo board for us. I'll get me a Natchez for Ascarov trade and throw another goalie it or something like that to make it work. But that's, uh, I love that.

I like, we'll come full circle. Yeah. Yeah. And I think most importantly, I think anyone in the newspaper industry that was listening to us today is going to feel good about the fact. they got through the show relatively unscathed after.

No, no stray bullet system. Yeah. Yeah, we were in a pretty good mood today, actually. So no one really took any unnecessary punishment. I'll let you guys plug some stuff on the way out. John,

you can go first, Sean, jump in after that. Plug some stuff in terms of either what you've been up to or any other thing that you want the listeners to check out. Sure. I wrote a Zee Boolean profile recently, which I feel like has a little more weight after he fell in the draft.

and could make the wild look pretty smart. So check me out on Twitter. It's probably the best bet to find my stories, follow me, et cetera. It's Mattis John, M-A-T-I-S-ED, J-O-H-N. And yeah, always a pleasure coming on. I love doing the three-person pod here, Dimitri. Yeah, I'll just plug the got both the stuff over at EP with E-P-Rinkside and stuff we're doing over there.

Give that a read. And then my own site as well. over at shapshots, shapshatshockey.com. Just we're going to some weird, nerdy stuff that's even too weird and nerdy for Dimitri because I go too far into the week. So I don't know. I wrote about Trey Augustine

wearing different branded gloves today. So it is, it is weird and nerdy, I admit. No, that was good. When you started talking about Austin Zarnik faceoffs, you lost me a little bit. Hey, I connected that to Vincent Trowcheck faceoffs. So let's be there. All right.

All right. Well, people can look forward to that. Fellows. Thank you for coming on. My plug is if you're not in there already, get into that Discord. The invite link is in the show notes.

You know, I'll probably slow down a little bit here as we get into summer and take a little bit of a break. But it'll pick back up certainly in the conversation in there. This entire offseason has been great. So get in there. If you're not already, I believe this is our last big show of the 2020, 20, 23, 24 season.

We might have something else in the works. I'm not 100% sure. I don't want to commit to it. So if you see something in the feed, hopefully you'll enjoy it. But if this is the last time we chat for this season, thank you to everyone for listening. Thank you to guests such as Sean and John who took time out of their days to come on and chat on shows like this. Thank you to everyone for listening. It was a blast.

It was a great year. And I need a bit of a break. I'm pretty tired at this point. The playoffs were certainly very grueling in this past week. There was a lot going on. But I know after a couple of days, I'm going to be looking into Austin. Zarnik faceoffs and all sorts of nerdy stuff because I'm so deprived and in need of NHL hockey.

So thank you to everyone for listening. And we'll be back soon with plenty more of the Hockey-Ocast streaming on the SportsNet Radio Network.