The Hockey PDOcast - The Conn Smythe, This Year's Playoffs, and This Week's First Wave of Offseason Transactions

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Harman Dayal to close the loop on our coverage of this year's postseason by discussing Sam Bennett winning the Conn Smythe over Brad Marchand, the quality of the playoffs, and the likelihood of the Panthers continuing their run next season. Then they get into the first wave of offseason transactions by breaking down the Devils shedding Erik Haula's contract, Matt Duchene staying in Dallas, and the reports of Trent Frederic's extension. 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.

since 2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey P.D.O. cast. My name's Dmitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Harmon Dile. Haram, what's going on in? Doing well, I'm excited for the offseason fireworks that are about to go off. Yeah, you're probably more prep than I am. You've been in the past couple weeks grinding away at the athletic, doing a lot of a lot of prep in terms of what to look forward to with all the player movement and getting everything ready, especially from a Canucks. off-season perspective. I've been so tunnel vision for the Stanley Cup final and really just living and breathing and eating that up for the past couple weeks. So it's a bit of an adjustment

for me, especially with no games these evenings. I joke about it all the time on the show, but it's still true. I just have no idea what to do with all this newfound free time, especially in the evenings, going out for walks, going to the gym, trying to keep myself busy. I'm sure with all the news that'll be coming in the draft and free agency, that'll fill up a lot of time. I thought it would be good for us. This is our first show post. Stanley Cup final. And as we segue from the playoffs to offseason mode, I thought it would be good for

us to first put a bow on the Stanley Cup final, kind of circle back to some of the stuff I didn't get to cover in the heat of the moment in the game six post game on Tuesday night. And then we'll take some mailback questions and look ahead to some of that offseason stuff and what to look forward to there. On the Stanley Cup final note, I wanted to quickly

touch on the Khan-Smith and the voting for it because when Drans and I did our post game on Tuesday, we didn't have the details for it. All we knew was that Sam Bennett had won. And it was certainly a very deserved victory, but I thought the voting and the distribution was interesting. And I wanted to get into that a little bit here with you because there were 18 voters. Each of them had Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand in their top two, 11 of them had Bennett first place. Seven of them had Marchand in first place.

And that's why Bennett wound up winning a shout out to our guy, a Swedish voter, Per Bureman, who was the lone Gus Forsling, third place voter. I thought that was a very well-deserved shout by him. and I wish more people had had him on their ballot. But what do you think about the ultimate conclusion here with Bennett winning the cons by the Marchand finishing second and kind of how that all shook out? It was fully deserving from my perspective. I mean, 15 goals in 23 games.

He came through clutch and so many big moments. And it's not just the goal scoring aspect, but at 5 on 5 legitimately tilting the ice for his line, the same way that Barkov's line tilted the ice, the same way that Lundell's line tilted the ice. It wasn't just putting up the goals. The Panthers control 61% of scoring chances and goals during his 5-and-5 shifts. And because Matthew Kachuk was limited,

it's not as if Bennett was riding the coattels of a superstar linemate. He was legitimately driving the bus in a lot of ways. Not to mention all the gamesmanship and a lot of the intangibles where, look, I get it. If I was a fan of an opposing team rooting against the Panthers, I would hate Sam Bennett and I would think, oh, he's a dirty player and this and that. But if you can get away with it in the playoffs, and it gives your team a leg up in that game within the game aspect,

you take it all day long. And so that element, too, I think, has consistently made a difference in the postseason. And you can argue that Bennett shouldn't get away with some of the stuff that he gets away with, right? I didn't like the elbow that, for example, knocked out Stollars. I thought that probably warranted a one-gave suspension. But for better or for worse, he is able to sort of get away with a lot of those extracurricular activities.

And when you combine it with how dominant his on-ice performance was, I would have voted San Bennett number one as well. Yeah, we were joking how he's just an evil genius. Like he's turned this stuff into an art form, just like how he falls in certain situations. doing everything where it's like in a vacuum as an isolated event, you could make the case at least that there was nothing premeditated or insidious involved. But then you put it all together. It's like, all right, well, this collection of work probably suggests something else. But he was just doing that all postseason.

And that was a big driver of the success. I'm with you. Not just the 15 goals that led the playoffs, but 13 of those 15 came in their 13 road games. And we're noting how they went 10 and 3 on the road closed out each. of the first three rounds away from home. And that was a big prevailing theme for them in this run. And the other big thing working in his favor was nine of those 15 goals came in the East final and the Stanley Cup final, right?

And I think while the cons might is technically a full postseason award and should encompass the entire four rounds, it's understandably in the voters' minds kind of backweighted for the later rounds as the quality of competition theoretically increases the the magnitude of the moment does as well. And so he was scoring so much in those final two series. And I think, you know, with Matthew Kuchuk in particular, you noted him earlier, rounding in a form as the playoffs went along and him getting a bit healthier,

or at least finding his footing a little bit, that line in particular started to really assert itself and take over at five on five the way we'd come to expect from them in the past while he was healthy before his injury, right? I think early on in the postseason, they're producing on the power of play. But I remember you and I did a show early on in that round one series, which feels like forever ago now against the lightning. And we were noting that

Cachuk did not look like himself at all, right? He was kind of limping around the ice, was barely moving, just completely stationary for large stretches of the game. And then you compare that to how he looked by the time the postseason was done. And it was night and day. And so from that Cain series on, really, it felt like that line was able to really control a lot of the chances and expect the goals and goals the way they'd done previously. And that tilted things in their favor. Because early on, and we're going to talk more about Marshaun here in a second, that line was doing a lot of the heavy lifting for them and allowing them to kind of skate by,

and by the time they got to round three and round four, they took over, I think, in those two series alone, they were up 10 to 3 in their 5-1-5 minutes, and as you said, controlled 58% of the expected goals and high-dangered chances, and so that was a massive development for them. I think he was certainly a worthy recipient of the award. I personally, if I had a word,

I think I would have leaned towards Marchand just ever so slightly because I feel like the combination of him, Lundell and Luce Therunan as a forward line was the best three-man group I watched this entire postseason. And in particular, they carry them in the first two rounds while guys like Cachuk and, you know, Verheagie and Reinhardt were struggling where they're shooting. They were able to still win those series

until they found their footing later on because of that line. And in particular, they don't get by the Leafs in round two without how good that line was at 5-1-5. And then what he did in the Stanley Cup final where he scores the six goals, and in particular, his speed off the rush, just killing the Oilers,

right? But in games two and five on the road, he scores multiple goals in both those, either breakaways or off the rush where he dances, Oilers' defensemen, and beats their goalie.

And so I just thought what he did during this title run was nothing short of legendary. I just put out a mix on YouTube of all of his exploits in the Stanley Cup final alone, and it was like a six-minute video of him just creating high-dangered chance

after high-dangered chance. And so encompassing the full playoffs and how they got to that point, I felt like him as a proxy for that line. I wish I could just give it to all three of those guys because I think they were their most valuable contributors. But the way he leveled up in the Stanley Cup final with his goal scoring, I would have leaned ever so slightly to him. Yeah, and that's a totally fair take too.

He was such a dog out there, especially in that cup final where, I mean, how many times did he just go through the Oilers defense all by himself? And this is a player that you look at and go, He's 37 years old. And at times, the regular season didn't always look as quick as he has in his prime. But when the stakes ratcheted up, he really found a way to tap into the elite side of his game and not just the goal scoring, but as you alluded to the play driving of that line, how pesky they were on the forecheck, the physicality being responsible defensively.

and being able to really elevate in moments when the top six perhaps had the occasional night off, especially because Barkov was tasked with so many difficult defensive assignments, especially in that cup final going ahead to head against McDavid, which for the most part, they really did an effective job of limiting McDavid and Drysettel at 5 on 5 in that series. And that's the beauty of the Panthers, right, is not just having the superstars at the top of the lineup, but then having that elite third line in. in a similar vein that Tampa had with the Coleman line when they won those cops and when Pittsburgh did when they had that HBK line. Yeah, I think they won his all told his 5-1-5 minutes Marchand's 21 to 7 in terms of goals throughout the postseason.

And in that final, his slipperiness in particular, right? It felt like the Oilers were trying to be physical and play the body. And he just kept essentially poking the puck away and then sliding off that contact and going into space and then creating from there. and I feel like that line was the distinguishing factor for the Panthers, right? There's so much, like, it was such a well-rounded team effort and there were so many various contributions and everyone's stepping up along the way to win that back-to-back title.

But in a lot of these series, it was just easier for them to say, all right, well, we're going to use Barkoff against the other team's top line. They can just play them to a draw, and then these guys are going to significantly outperform whatever second or third line the other team has and whether it was against the Leafs, or the Oilers in the Stanley Cup final

that ultimately came through for them. And so I feel like that separated them from a lot of their competition. I want to ask you about the, it feels like there's been a bit of a kind of like a hindsight retconning of that trade, right? Kind of this disbelief that the Panthers

were able to get him for the price that they did. And it was labeled as a second rounder, which was a conditional first, which wound up obviously translating into a future first for the Bruins. On the one hand, I get the optics of it. And I think I even said it at the time that it's a tough look for the Bruins just because this Panthers team

had sort of demoralized them and really killed their window over the past couple years. And then to send a legendary franchise figure to that team is certainly a tough pill to swallow. Yet at the same time, he's a 37-year-old impending UFA, who, as you mentioned earlier, the regular season did not look like this player and was hurt at the time of the trade. and all of his numbers, his 515 production, everything,

all of his impacts were lagging behind what they had been in his prime, right? And I think it was fair to wonder what the Panthers were actually going to get. Now, he fell into a perfect spot here, getting to play with Lundell and Lusterreen and not necessarily having to play top minutes, and certainly blew me away in terms of how he looked physically and how he was moving. And then his hands finally came along in that final.

But it does feel like it's a bit of a hindsight evaluation to view it as such a law. side of trade. It wound up certainly being a slam dunk for the Panthers. And I think regardless to the result, you make it every time if you're them. But I don't think it was necessarily as unjustifiable as it kind of seems now that we know how this postseason played out. You couldn't have expected Marchand to play at this level in the playoffs. But even at the time of the trade, even with the question marks around, all right, his five and five scoring has slipped. He isn't quite the play driver. He used to be. He slowed down. He's maybe not

the maybe not quite the player that he was in his prime. Even with all of that context in mind, that return felt really light for the Bruins, especially trading him away to an Atlantic division rival like that. Plus, the second would have only converted to a first had they gone to the Eastern Conference funnel. It just, it felt very late.

I mean, it felt very light. There's perhaps an alternate scenario where had the lightning beaten the Panthers in round run, which they obviously weren't even close to doing, but that's only a second round pick for a franchise icon. And I get the concerns in the context at the time. But even when it happened, it felt like such a steal for the Panthers. And there was also an element of, at least from my perspective, seeing Marshan having to be the go-to option on a Bruins team that didn't have many offensive weapons outside

of David Paschnok and understanding that, oh, okay, moving from that environment where he's expected to do all the heavy lifting to playing in Florida, where he doesn't need to be one of their top few forwards in terms of top six usage. He just needs to be a part of a part of the, just needs to be a cog for their success, not the heavy driver. It felt like that was going to be a situation where you'd be able to get more out of him, especially playing on that third line, where he isn't having to necessarily go up against top defense.

and he's got some really talented linemates to play with. So I, yeah, it wasn't like an egregious steal of a trade at the time. But at the same time, even with all of that in mind, I still thought, wow, that's like the, the Panthers are lucky to get him that cheaply. Yeah, certainly. And he only had the team no trade. So it wasn't necessarily even fully restrictive, although they clearly, especially considering the reporting that he had, you know, his preference would have been to stay. They wanted to do right by him and send him where he wanted to go where he had a chance. to win and that wound up happening.

I mean, he had 24, 5-1-5 points in 71 regular season games this year between the two teams, and then he had 16 in 23 playoff games here for the Panthers during their run. I mean, the way he performed there was a peak version of himself, and I'm very curious to see how the next couple weeks unfold for him on the free agent market. Now that the playoffs are done, I wanted to quickly talk to you about the quality of the 25 playoffs and how you feel kind of coming out of it in terms of the memory. of it, the quality of it, whether it lived up to the hype, how you feel about it, all told in terms of just the way it transpired, the drama, whether you think it lived up to it or whether

you think it was kind of just a ho-hum postseason for the NHL. I think it mostly lived up to the hype. There were a few letdowns, right? The Battle of Florida in round one wasn't as close or competitive as I thought. Both conference finals ending in five games was a little bit disappointing, but there were also some epic showdowns, especially earlier in the playoffs. I thought the Battle of Ontario was fun as hell, especially when the senators started to turn things around and made the leaf sweat a little bit, especially with the habit they obviously

have of choking. Stars Aves was an all-time classic, especially with the rantan and revenge tour, the dramatic ending of the Jets Blue series, them tying it up late, six on five, and then scoring to win it an OT was incredible, but even a series like HAB's capitals. I know that series ended in five games, but it didn't feel like a typical five game series when you consider how close each game was. There wasn't a single game where the Canadians were outclassed or not even really in that game.

Every single one of those games was tight. And honestly, just to see playoff hockey in Montreal again and the mix of speed and skill and physicality, the Tom Wilson dynamic. that series was entertaining as hell especially that was one of the rare series you get where because neither team is necessarily a defensive juggernaut there was actually some open ice for players to make fun plays off the rush

which there typically isn't in the postseason Leaves Panthers round two was awesome and then the ending of the cup final wasn't quite as close as I would have hoped but the start the first two games especially were electric. So I'd say for the most part, it was, it was pretty good. I think the Stanley Cup playoffs lived up to the hype. Yeah, that 24-hour stretch at the end of round one with Ranjin's Game 7 Heroics in the third period against the Aves and then transitioning to the

next day, Jets Blues and Perfetti's two goals laid and then the Jets winning it over time. That was incredible and almost made the playoffs just by itself. For me, you could lump in, you know, out west, the Kings Oilers round one series as well was incredibly entertaining. We did wind up only having the three game sevens, I believe, and I think part of that is just the east bracket itself was wholly underwhelming, right? The only series that went really long was that round two series of the Panthers' Leaves, and even that one, while it gave us a game seven and the Panthers were almost down three-nothing. I can add to that game three,

just the one-sided nature of those games five and seven as that series kind of went along, removed a bit of the fun for me. But I don't know. The conference finals note by you is interesting because I was thinking about this and I saw some stat earlier about like how short a lot of the conference finals have been for a long time now.

And I think part of it is just the playoff format, right? I think we focus on how it forces her pigeonholes some of these round one matchups between two overqualified teams where it's like the second and the third best team in the entire conference have to play in round one and one of them is going home and being out of it early on. But I think what happens is because of kind of forcing the divisional winners or whoever comes from that side to be the representative in each one, it winds up leading to these conference

finals that might not necessarily actually be the best teams in the conference going up against each other. At the same time, though, you look at the ones that were involved this year. And even with Starr's Oilers, I think that was a very fair representation of the West. And it just wound up being a short series because the Stars couldn't really handle what Edmonton was throwing at them. But I don't think there's necessarily anything sort of fatally flawed with it. But, you know, we don't know the stat where I think all but one or maybe two by the end of it, um, favorites wound up winning every series this postseason. Like it was pretty chalky from that perspective. There was some twists and turns along the way, but there has been a bit of a dynamic shift, I think, and opinions vary

on it going from, you know, the unpredictability and chaotic nature of the playoffs to much more, um, of sort of the dominant teams or the strong teams with the star players up top controlling things and going through and advancing and ultimately winning at all and so we have had a bit of a dynamic shift there

I think and that's reflected by that stat I just said of the favorites winning pretty much every single time. What's also interesting to track how I'm trying to rack my brain and think about over the last few playoffs how many instances have we seen

were a goaltender single handedly steals a series and a team that otherwise was decisively outplayed as because that's typically the underdog formula right is it relies on on goaltending and you think about for example the the canadian cinderella run to the cop funnel in 2021 and how brilliant carry price was you don't have many of those types of stories anymore where an underdog goalie can sort of or an underdog team is sort of carried by elite heroics by the tremendous goaltending. And I just think generally we're seeing fewer and fewer instances in the playoffs where teams just aren't getting goalied as much.

And I think that's part of the reason why the favorites have been able to more consistently went out in recent times. Yeah, I think part of that is what we've been talking about throughout these regular seasons as well, right? Teams have optimized and their offensive efficiency so much and the best players in the world are just so much better at creating the types of looks that are going to make teams, I think, less vulnerable to those scenarios where you wind up just settling for a bunch of perimeter shots and goalies wind up having, you know, these 42 out of 404 shots faced,

save performances. And that becomes a bit of a rarer thing. And maybe that's why we're seeing that. Let's end with this. Then we're going to go to break and then switch gears and talk about the offseason a little bit. How likely do you think it is that the Panthers looking ahead to next year are able to three-peat or even just make a fourth straight Stanley Cup final because there's certainly been a lot of talk about whether this qualifies as a dynasty or not. I don't really care that much about that particular topic. I would think generally you probably have to win at least three cup finals, not necessarily in a row, but in a short period of time with the same core

to kind of be vaulted into that rarefied air. This is a back-to-back certainly, and I think what they accomplished is incredibly impressive and already vaults them into all-time team category, especially with the three-year run they've been under in the dominant fashion with which they closed out the Oilers this year. But looking ahead to next year, what do you prognosticate kind of their odds here

and what that looks like before we see whatever everyone's roster wise of settling into? Yeah, on paper, they should still be the best team in the Eastern Conference. You look at their offseason coming up, especially if they're able to retain San Bennett and we heard Aaron Eckblad during the Cup final talk so passionately about what it means for him to be a Florida Panther and how badly he wants to stay with the Panthers. Ekblad just strikes me as a type of player that is likely to take a hometown discount to stay there. And so I, if I had to guess, just logically sort of reasoning things out,

I would suspect Marchand's probably the most likely of the three big UFAs to leave just because this is a perfect opportunity for him to cash in. He's won that cop. And when you look at the prime of his career, he was a pretty criminally underpaid player. His cap, it was just north of $6 million. So that to me always felt like a one year thing. And so, all right, fine, you lose Marchand. And we just talked about how impactful he was on that third line.

outside of him, I don't know if you're able to re-up Eqblad, this is essentially the same core minus Marshan. And then the only question you would have is, is more just the health and longevity and fatigue factor of the next spring, potentially having to go to another fourth straight deep playoff front. And will they still be able to replicate that,

that aggressive in your face, nasty playing style or will certain guys be just bogged down and worn down physically? That health aspect and the fatigue is honestly a bigger question mark for me than the actual roster because the roster in the core on paper is still going to be formidable, it's still going to be elite and I don't anticipate them losing any key contributors besides one of the three big pending UFAs. Yeah, the 2026 market, a very preliminary one for the cup odds, has the hurricanes.

It's a slight favorite at plus 700, I think, just anticipating with their cap space and the conversations we had about them going big name shopping, really bolstering their lineup. But then the Panthers and Oilers, this year's Stanley Cup finalists are plus 750, and then you go down to the stars and the abs and so on and so forth. You've got 76.5 million committed to 10 forwards,

five defensemen and one goalie. That leaves them with 19 million or so to work with Mackie Samiskevich is an RFA, but he's ineligible for an offer. and obviously didn't really factor into their playoff plan. So I imagine they'll be able to retain him at a pretty cheap price. I'd like to see them go long term on him. And I imagine he'll be able to step in next year.

And even if they lose Marchand play a big role in the middle six and contribute a bunch like he did when they were hurt this year. And then it comes down to what you said, Bennett and Ekblad, Marchand as well. I think guys like Schmidt and Noshik, while they were very valuable for them, Schmidt in particular, are the exact types of players. They're going to be able to essentially just keep spinning, the wheel on and adding similar

player types for cheap to fill out those minutes because of what they have in front of them. And yeah, you're right. They played 68 playoff games the past three years and you would have thought that would have started to take its toll already this year, although by the end of that Stanley Cup final, they looked as fresh and dominant as ever.

I think what they did towards the end of the regular season where they really were diligent about managing minutes and resting guys, even if it meant dropping down in the standings and not having home ice, I imagine we'll see that and maybe an even heavier dose of it next year as they try to just make sure they're at full health for the postseason. And I'm ultimately at the point.

I mean, we did a bracket challenge on the Piedo gas discord. And I think there were like 150 entries or so. I wound up finishing sixth. And please don't look at my Western conference portion because I pretty much had every single thing wrong there. But I still wound up finishing pretty high just because I had the Panthers winning it all against the Jets, I believe, is my final version. and I remain pretty steadfast in needing to see someone beat the Panthers in the playoffs with the way they play before I would feel confident saying anyone could do so. And this postseason clearly just reinforce that even further.

So barring any sort of massive unforeseen changes, I feel like I'm probably going to be echoing that same tune heading into next year. And they're pretty well positioned after an extended run like this to bring relatively the same team back and go after it again next year. All right, Harmon, let's take our break. here. And then we come back, we're going to close out today's episode by getting into some offseason topics. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.

All right. We're back here on the Hockey P.D.O.Cast joined by Harmon and dial today. Harman, let's get into some of the news we've gotten early in this offseason after the Stanley Cup final ended this week with a couple extensions and a minor trade. I wanted to get into some of that stuff with you and whether or what the longer or lasting impact of them will be. I want to start off with the devils trading Eric Halla to the Predators because you and I have spoken about the Devils, I think, a very disproportionate amount of time on our shows here together in terms of how high we are on them, how disappointed we were this year, obviously, with the injuries factoring into that certainly, but also their outlook and why it remains

very glowing moving forward. And this seemed like a very obvious one. I think even the last time we spoke, we talked about the teams are going to be most active this offseason. And it was key for the devils to get rid of some of the anchors on this year's roster that aren't worth what they were making and either just open room up for bigger transactions

or just replace their minutes with more efficient ones. And Hala was certainly the first domino here. And I was actually pretty surprised. Maybe this is just reflective of what this, new market's going to look like this offseason and moving forward with teams just having more cap space and looking for guys who are already locked in so they don't have to get into bidding wars on the free agent market. But the fact that Tom Fitzgerald and the Devils were able to not only shed Hollis 3.15, and it is just for the one year in full freight, but also

getting back a fourth round pick and asset of any kind in return for it, maybe that is just reflective of what's going to be happening this offseason. But man, I feel like that is just a massive home run type of trade for them. And I imagine we'll see them try to do so with Andre Palat, which will be a bit more owners because he's got an extra year and a six point six million dollar cap hit and maybe even Dougie Hamilton as well. And maybe we can get into both of those. But as a first move here, I really like this one for the devils.

And it makes a lot of sense. And I'm pleasantly surprised that they were able to get away with this type of price the way they did. Yeah. This summer, I anticipate that you're going to see a lot of teams able to, you know, move out inefficient contracts easier than in previous off seasons, just because, again, the free agent market is relatively shallow. And yet there are so many teams with cap space to burn to spend.

And when you look at how quickly the middle class is expected to sort of rise in terms of the price of their next contracts, you know, Zetterland being a full $4 million plus player. And of course, he's a better player than Eric Kala, but also the rumored contract that Trent Frederick might get in Edmonton. That was one of the questions I had this sort of offseason was, okay, you have all this cap space opening up. Is that only going to be primarily concentrated at the top of lineup where you see first

and second line forwards and top four defensemen get the bulk of, see the bulk of, see the bulk of the inflationary effect. But no, it seems clear that the middle class is going to benefit as well. And so it wasn't just the devil's able to get haul off the books relatively cleanly, but the ranges with Chris Crater as well, especially because the trade protection involved him coming off of 30-ish point season where his five-on-five play driving fell off a cliff. And he was dealing with these back issues and in illness as well, the fact that the Rangers were able to get positive value back was honestly kind of surprising.

So the devil's absolutely made sense for them to get off Hala. He's been a heart and soul player and he's getting the face off dot, but just didn't provide enough offense. And we know that this devil's lineup needs to add more needle driving offensive creators so that there isn't an overwhelming burden on Jack Hughes, Esper Bratt. O'Hishier and Timel Meyer to drive the boss offensively. Yeah, Holla turns 35 in March. He had a 28 game stretch this year from November 27th to March 7th.

He played 327 minutes in that time. And in 28 games, he had zero points. And that is a remarkable feat. And I think, you know, not to lay at all on his doorstep. But it was very emblematic, I think, of what AIL the Devils this year, a stat that I keep coming back to is five on five minutes without either. Jack Hughes or Nico Hissier on the ice this year, they got outscored 83 to 57 as a team,

and I think even more concerningly generated 1.66 goals per hour, and that is right in line with like the nadir of the McDavid Dryside Oilers during their worst years in the late 2010s when they just had nothing at all around them. And so the devils, I think it's going to be very important for them to make amends for the overcorrection I thought they had on their roster last summer and get back to what makes them at least theoretically special. on paper and that is being just a much more dynamic offensive team and not just being reliant

on those two main drivers including Esper Brat into that as well and so this creates an extra $3 million for them. I'm very curious, you know, Palat, I mentioned the $6 million Aavie, the actual salary itself is down to 3.95 and then 4.95 in those final two years. Dougie Hamilton as well, if they pay his 10.55 million signing bonus on July 1st, his salary this coming year is just 1 million and then it's it's depreciating from that point on in the final two years of the deal. So we'll see what they wind up doing. I imagine they'll be they'll be quite active. And I mentioned those cup odds earlier before we went to break for Florida.

The market is high on the devils once again because I think they're the eighth highest team in terms of Stanley Cup odds for 2026. So we'll see what that winds up looking out looking like for them from the Predators perspective here quickly. It is just the one year. And the actual salary, O'Tahala is only 2.4 million. but man, Barry Trots' run that he's on right now of these types of moves is something else truly. And you look at this roster, in particular, the forward group and it's just such a random assortment of players.

And their books and their depth chart is such a mess. Maybe they're just going to try to be bad again, although it seems hard to fathom given how much money they invested in a lot of veterans last summer. But they're going to have the fifth overall pick next week at the draft. and we'll see it gets easier for them because a lot of the money comes off the book summer of 26. I think they're going to have like 54 million in cap commitments that summer and the cap is going to be 104. So they're going to have a lot of room. But maybe that's not the best thing if they're spending last summer was any indication.

So we'll see. But clearly a team right now that's in disarray and I'm not really sure what they're trying to be or what they want their actual opening day lineup to look like heading into next season. Well, I spoke to Barry Trots in January when they were in the middle of this nightmare campaign. And I was working on a story around how everything had gone wrong for the predators. And I wanted to make sure that I spoke to Trots and got his perspective on what they were trying to accomplish last off season, what he thought of the disappointing campaign and sort of charting the path of the future. And it was a fascinating 45-ish-minute conversation we had.

And I pressed him on some sort of different. topics. I point black sort of asked about the blueprint and in the direction and whether he felt that they had stepped on the gas and tried to accelerate it a little bit too quickly. And my understanding based off that conversation is that the, the MO for for the predators is still to sort of remain somewhat competitive. I don't think they're going to have a splashy off season, obviously like last summer where they're chasing big names. But they're trying to thread the needle between integrating some of the younger players and prospects. And it's worth noting that their prospect pool is pretty strong and they have excess first

round picks over the next couple of years. So they're in an interesting spot, like an odd position where on the one hand, their prospect pool is in a good spot. They got promising draft capital. And yet they've also got some of these undesirable contracts. And I think they're trying to thread the needle between staying somewhat competitive. so that they're like as their prospects are coming up in trots's words, he doesn't want them immediately being thrown into first line spots and having to play

top pair D for example because he doesn't think that's optimal for their development. So, you know, I step back and, you know, the hall thing doesn't make a ton of sense. I don't think that's the most efficient way to, for them to spend their cap. but they also have so much money that it almost doesn't matter because it's only for a year. And as long as this day away from making any dumb signings on July 1st, if Eric Kala is the worst that they do, I think you can live with it because the downside risk is just so little since we're not expecting them to be a playoff team next year anyway. Yeah, they're like, Barry, you're going on vacation from June 30th to July 7th summer, right?

go somewhere without cell service. Yeah, obviously, and it came out this week. I was mentioning this weeks ago now, maybe even towards the end of the regular season, but I was a bit surprised that a bigger talking point nationally wasn't what's going on with Roman Yosi and his future availability. And it came out this week in terms of the ailment he's struggling with

and they still seem optimistic that he's going to be able to have a full recovery and work through it and be available. But I imagine his future availability as well throws a wrench into some of the, these plans and we'll see how all of that plays out. The next piece of news, and this came out today before we started recording, Matt DeShane got a four-year extension from the stars, 4.5 million over four years. Those are his age 35 through 38 seasons. He was playing on a

$3 million one-year deal each of the past two years for the stars after getting bought out by the preys. I believe the preds are still going to be paying his salary this next season, and he's on the books for like $6.5.5 million or something as a dead cap buyout. for them, would you think about this one? Because on the one hand, it's certainly based on his production, and he led the team in scoring last year, right? He had 82 points, particularly early on before Tyler Sagan was shut down with his surgery. That line of Sagan, Marchman, Andrew Shade was carrying them offensively,

and he still looked dynamic. He's coming off a hellish postseason, obviously, and so maybe that plays a role in this thing. But at that figure, keeping him and what he provided for them is certainly a no-brainer. I was a bit surprised to see the term, and maybe that was just a reality that had to happen to accommodate that price, considering how tight up against the cap they are, because he is at that age now,

and we've been seeing him play on these shorter term deals. So that one kind of threw me for a loop a little bit, but the price itself is clearly a savvy one for the stars. Yeah, you sign that contract all day long if you're the stars. I understand that he's had a couple of disappointing post seasons in a row. I would argue to some extent that he was a little, little bit snake-bitten in this year's playoff run. You look at his underlying metrics.

And at 5-15, his line generated expected goals offensively at a better rate than they did in the regular season. And they just could not finish. Now, of course, there are also legitimate questions about as time and space is limited in the postseason, can Duchenne individually get to the inside as

effectively because you saw a shot rate sort of dropped by around 33% compared to the regular season? But by and large, he, he fills an important sort of hole at that second line center position. And especially considering how much time Sagan had missed. And Marchman is a good player, but he's not necessarily a play driver.

Duchenne is still at this age, not just sort of leading them in points, but also capable of driving a top six line on his own. And once you see some of the contracts that are handed out on July 1st, having Duchenne at a $4.5 million cap it is going to, is going to look that much better, especially when you see four and a half now sounds like the kind of figure that you would pay your average third line sort of forward. Again, Zetterlin getting just above 4.2 and the rumor price for Frederick being near 4 million. And I mean,

at this point, Pia Suter might get more than Matthew Shane in free agency. So it makes a lot of sense for them. Obviously, this means that they probably can't afford Mikhail Granland, but Grandland was probably going to cost significantly more anyway just because he doesn't have as many ties in history with the with the stars and it opens up interesting question marks as far as what comes next for the stars to open up further cap flexibility to flesh out the rest of their roster but this this one at four and a half million made all the sense of the world yeah that postseason that he had I mean obviously there's a certain element of being snake bitten when you play 241, 5-15 minutes and don't register a single point in that time.

And I think the on-night shooting percentage was like 2.8 or something. So I think on that side of things, it was smart for them not to essentially panic and rage quit on it, in particular with the state of the market of centers. I know you've been looking at this quite a bit because the team you cover on a day-to-day basis is certainly in the market for it. And there's guys like Rossi and younger players in the RFA market that maybe we could toss into this that could be available as well, but just in terms of pure UFA. that you can acquire without any sort of acquisition cost.

Brock Nelson went off the border earlier this offseason staying in Colorado, now Matt Dushan as well. And you get to a point where especially if Tavares and Bennett are going to wind up staying with their teams as it seems like we're trending in that direction, you're left with Granland, Puse Souter, Claudeau, and that's pretty much the extent of it in terms of guys who could realistically play middle six roles down the middle and still be productive.

So that's going to drive up the price for a lot of these guys that are still left available. And so getting this done was certainly smart. For the stars, I am fascinated by, you know, after they made the decision to fire Pete DeBarre, it was clear there was going to be some big personnel decisions ahead. And this was the first domino. Now the trickle down from this will be interesting

because you look at their cap and they have not over 95 million right now committed to nine forward, six defensemen and two goalies. That leaves them with less than 500K in cap space. I imagine we'll see them sell off Mason Marchman similar what we just saw with Eric Hala and considering what we saw with the Eric Hala deal, I imagine for a superior player who's younger and bigger and more productive offensively at $4.5 million

and I think the base is even under that, there will be a market there of teams lining up to be very interested in acquiring Mason Marchment and then what happens with the defenseman, right? Whether it's Matt Dunba and trying to sell off his last year at 3.75 or whether they just go the buyout route and I know you wrote about that recently as well, and maybe you can touch on that a bit more here,

or Lubushkin, they're going to certainly need to make over the right side of the blue line based on what we saw this postseason and how it was ultimately their undoing against the Oilers. And so that leaves them with very little wiggle room here, barring some sort of a crazy Jason Robertson trade, and I'm still skeptical that'll happen at any point. If they're going to bring in Ben at a reduced cost

or even to Donov, who clearly loves being there, Grandland certainly seems priced out at this point, But yeah, I mean, they have less than 500K and they have nine forwards under contract right now. So some big decisions are ahead here for Jim Nail in terms of making all of these mechanics work and getting everyone under the cap. Yeah, Dumbah is a must to offload. Whether you pay a sweetener and trade him to a destination or you're able to ideally get his full cap hit off the books at $3.75 million or a worst case scenario, you have to buy him out. If you can't trade him, you got to buy him out. It would save the stars 2.33 million.

This year, the cap penalty for 2026-27 would be a modest 1.1-16. So one way or another, Matt Dunbuck could not be on the team next season. It speaks volumes that he couldn't even get into the postseason lineup. Even early on when Mira Haskinen was out with injury, he had been that bad in the regular season. Ben is 35. So the good thing for the stars there is he's now. I would believe eligible for a performance bonus laid in deal. So especially with him already making so much money in his career and being a Dallas star for life kind of guy,

could the stars get creative about signing him to a performance bonus again, laid in deal where maybe his base salary is only $1 million or in and around that range? and you have certain bonuses that hit. And then obviously those would carry over to the following 20, 26, 27 season rather than costing you for this upcoming season. So Ben could end up being a player where they, through bonuses, get on a cheaper, sort of temporary cap it on, if that kind of makes sense. No, that certainly makes sense.

And we've seen them do that before. I still think if you're going to fundamentally remake the Blue Lide without some sort of a massive robbertson trade here, though, there needs to be some sort of a bigger piece of the pie carved out to do so. And I do keep coming back to whether Tyler, say again, we'll be on LTIR and whether it'll actually be available to start the season, because obviously he's got the $9.85 million cap at the next two years, but we know what he's gone through the past couple years and this year in particular with the hip surgery and how much work he put in just to make himself available on the ice and the playoffs. And the actual base salary itself, those two years, is 1.1 and 1 million.

we'll see that would certainly create a bunch of breathing room for them to make it all fit and i wonder if they've been accounting for that or whether they're kind of playing it by ear and seeing how this unfolds this off season let's end with this we got about six or seven minutes left here i want to quickly touch on the on the trend frederick rumors and the reported extension that's going to come in at eight years somewhere between three point five and four million dollar a v with some no trade restrictions mixed in there he turns 28 in february and I think you and I did a show right after the Oilers acquired him near the deadline, and we spoke about this at length, so we don't necessarily have to rehash all of it.

But similar to what we were saying about Marchand, he was hurt at the time of the acquisition. And unfortunately, for both him and the Panthers, or for him and the Oilers, he was only able to get about seven minutes of ice time in before jumping right into the playoffs. And so I do want to be sympathetic to the idea that what he showed the previous year, where he was a much better player for the Bruins, is more representative, I guess, of what he's capable of contributing than the version we just saw this postseason. Yet at the same time, he placed 73-22 in the Stanley Cup final. Zero points.

The Oilers score one total goal in that time. And it was just such an offense killer where nothing was happening. They weren't necessarily getting killed defensively. I think they gave up only two goals in those minutes. But his puck touches throughout was something Drans and I kept coming back to in these post games. And they were sort of the dangerous kind where they weren't like overtly bad in terms of brutal turnovers or anything very visibly egregious. But they were all these small errors where they were just like subtle misplays or him slowing down a sequence or kind of killing a potentially promising one that ultimately add up into the types of negative value that really does kill you in the long haul and in the aggregate. And so that would be my one concern here at that price.

you would have figured going to eight years is one thing, and that's a concern for a guy who's going to be in his 30s halfway through that deal. You would have thought if you go that term, though, there's going to be a concession in terms of the AV, and you're doing it to bring it down so that you can fit everything else in financially in your team, and instead it feels like he's getting the best of both worlds here. This player type is obviously very coveted in league circles,

and teams probably value it more than maybe your I do. And I get all of that, but this feels like a very, very, very steep commitment based on what we've seen. And maybe it's in line with what we're going to see more of because as you mentioned, Zetterland 4.275, Donato before that, 4 million. Duchet here at 4.5, all very different players. But that sort of middle bracket financially of somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5 million is probably

going to be a range that we see a lot of these deals coming in here. And maybe this middle class type of player is the one that's going to be benefiting the most from the cap skyrocketing in year one here this offseason. Yeah, so Frederick, I like him as a player. I expect that he'll bounce back. And I'm giving him grace for this year's platform because of how banged up he was and playing the injury. But having said that,

he feels like a luxury. The Oilers can't afford at this point. You look at their cap situation. And before accounting for a potential Frederick extension, they're looking at around $12-ish million in cash. app space. And the reality is, Evan Bouchard is going to eat up the overwhelming majority of of that. You figure his next contract, the AAV probably starts with the 10. Now, there are ways for the Oilers to clear additional room, right? I wonder about Victor Arvinson and can you get him to

waive them in a no movement clause? And in a worst case scenario, you could buy them out. Vander Kaine is another possibility to get dealt. But when I look at the Oilers roster and how many other areas I would have wanted to upgrade. You know, the goaltending potentially, but even, even more sort of pressingly, adding another top six, like true top six winger would have been on my, on my shopping list. And it feels like committing three and a half to four million dollars takes away from your ability to go out and get that forward. And that to me was really more of what the Oilers were sort of missing in that cup final, especially when Zach Hyman was out, was they were relying heavily on guys like Capitan to play up the lineup.

And that just didn't compare it to the depth that the Panthers had on their top nine wings. So it's just, it's disappointing for me to see, again, in a vacuum, could I see a world where Frederick bounces back next year. He returns to being a 17, 18 goal guy. And in a vacuum, his value relative to the contract isn't bad. Yeah, absolutely. But it's about committing to committing a significant salary to a bottom six player when you already are overpaying Henrique a little bit for marginal kind of bottom six value.

And when in my mind, you could have pooled the cap space that's going to Frederick, plus the room that you could manufacture with, let's say, trading a cane or an Arvinson to actually go out and land a true. packed top six-winner. Yeah, let's say it's 3.75 million. I have them at 86 million in commitments on 11 forward 60 and two goalies and that's before Bouchard's next contract, which is, as you said, is going to account for the rest of that. And so figuring out ways to add talent at key positions or even improving goalies is going to require a lot of creativity and doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. You know, this one reminded me of when Miles Wood signed his deal a couple

summers ago and that one was 2.5 million for six years and part of the logic is you go along on the term for a player that you covet just because you have so many other expensive players and you have very limited cap room to deal with and he was heading into his 28 year old season at the time as well and now two years in and i do think frederick is a superior player but two years in and the abs i'm sure at this point would love to press the undo button and get rid of that and there's still so much term left on that but yeah well it's very possible we see more of these deals i mean previously and you know different in terms of his commitment to the organization and and role and all of that but we saw a gourd sign for a six-year deal to keep the a

v down as well so i do wonder if we're going to see a lot more of these types of structures the rest of this off season all right harm we got to get out here i'm going to let you plug some stuff on the way out i know you've been very busy over at the athletic let the listeners know about some of the stuff you've put out recently and what other coverage they can expect from you moving forward here heading heading closer and closer to july first yeah dres and i just today dropped buyout watch article, players to sort of watch regarding potential buyouts. And later this week or early next week, I also have another sort of piece looking at overpriced contracts that teams could be looking to trade.

I'm a little bit pissed off that the devil's traded Eric Hala this early because he was on my list. So having to add a couple other guys on there to replace players that are already getting traded. But that's another fun one that I'm excited. to pump out there. All right, buddy. We'll keep up with good work. We're going to have you on again soon. My plugs are go check out. I put out the Gus Forsling and Brad Marchand, Stanley Cup final

mixtapes that I referenced earlier on the PDOCS YouTube channel. The Gus Forza one in particular is for the true defensive sickos. Some of my favorite work. Join us in the PDOCAS Discord. Give us a five-star review wherever you listen. And we'll be back Friday with our annual two-part mock draft with Cam Robinson and Chris Peters

and then we've got a ton of off-season previews ahead next week starting off with the Sunday special with Dren. So looking forward to that. The playoffs may be over, but there's a lot of fun stuff ahead. So stick with us here as we head closer and closer to the draft and free agency. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedioCast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.