The Hockey PDOcast - The First Sunday Special of the Offseason

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance for the first Sunday Special of the offseason in which they take a closer look the moves we've seen so far, the lessons we can learn about how teams will conduct their business as the cap continues to rise, and what the 2026 Stanley Cup market tells us about how the teams at the top of the league's hierarchy are positioned prior to whatever is yet to come this summer. 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 Pediocast. My name is my good buddy Thomas Jans. Tom. What's going on in? Hey, buddy. I'm excited for, I mean, you know, realistically an 8 to 10 day stretch that she could reshape the league. Probably won't reshape the absolute apex, you know, unless the Carolina hurricanes connect on a home run. But, you know, it's going to be a fascinating offseason. It's going to be a fascinating stretch, especially with sort of this being the first time we've, we've seen NHL general managers have a chance to operate without the shackles of the relentless

austerity that was the flat cap era. And I'm thrilled. Like, this is going to be a ton of fun. And yet, you know, very much like when the first cars were called horse drawn or sorry, The first were called horseless carriages, right? It's like, oh, it's a horseless carriage because you didn't have language yet to define the new thing. You had to define it relative to the thing that was familiar. We're still going to see a lot of like, oh, that's a lot.

Oh, that's a lot. And, you know, increasingly, I think we get to do something that I'm really excited about dim in analyzing moves and off seasons and overall planning, which is to obsess less. over like the efficiency of a bet and more about whether or not the player is good enough, right? Whether or not the player actually helps the hockey side of it gets to take center stage relative to where we've been for an awfully long time. Oh, I like the player, but man, that's a risky deal, right?

It's like the, the, we're now bowling, or NHL general managers anyway, are going to be bowling in lanes that have the ropes up. The mistakes are going to be far more forgiving. You're not going to end up with a dead contract or an overinvestment. And it's like, well, there's no chance they can compete now unless they land four impact players in one draft class, right? Like there's going to be ways to get rid of your problems. We're going to see fewer buyouts.

We're going to see more creative trades, I suspect. And we're going to see a lot of money spent. So it's going to be a really fun next 10 days. And I'm thrilled to sort of preview it with you here. And I'm thrilled to observe it all go down over the course. of, you know, what should be an exciting and busy 10 days of NHL news? Now, hold on a second. I'm just looking at my notes here.

And I thought we were doing the Game 8 post-game show of the Stanley Good final. I wish. I wish. It is, you're right. It's the first Sunday special of the off-season. We're in off-season mode. It's the first one that we're doing as we distance ourselves from the playoffs. And I'm with you.

I'm expecting particularly we've already seen on the trade market, a number of moves, certainly on the smaller side in terms of magnitude. but I think ones we can learn from in glean useful information in terms of how teams are going to conduct themselves this off season and maybe how this new cap environment already dictates a lot of the thinking and framework for them. I thought it would be fun for us to start with this. Look ahead to the 2026 Stanley Cup market

because that'll allow us to kind of not only frame right now in a bit of a time capsule before all of these moves happen, what the league's hierarchy is like looking ahead, but also then gives a chance to maybe talk about all those teams and where they're at and kind of stuff either they've done already or what they're positioned to do so. What do you think about that? Yeah, love it.

All right now. If I'm talking about a betting market, let's go. Yeah, this is right up your alley. So you mentioned the- I language. You mentioned the hurricanes. They are currently still listed at plus 700 as the favorite.

Right behind them, Panthers and Oilers this year's Stanley Cup finalists, plus 750, stars and abs plus 850, the Golden Knights, plus 1,200, plus 1,600, and then you go into the Devils, Kings, plus 1,900,

and I included the Jets at plus 2,300 as well as the top, whatever 10, 11 teams there in the mix. What sticks out to you in terms of some of those prices? Do you want to go through them in order? Do you want to talk with the teams that have already done stuff? I'll let you choose your own adventure here. Yeah, I mean, I think the, well, let's start at the absolute apex with the Carolina

hurricanes, right? That's clearly a market assessment that's based off of both the fact that they're really good, clearly a top five team last season, even though in a lot of ways. what the hurricanes did was take some medicine. I know they swung for Antinen and would have loved to keep him if it had worked, but it didn't. And I think when you look at that sort of global series of moves, they can be said to have netted more for Marty Natchez than they would have without doing that deal, right?

They came out ahead ultimately and they were still willing to not bolster their lineup for sort of one chase, but instead take some medicine, regroup. And I think that's what Brindamore was getting at too after the loss in the conference final, where he was like, I wasn't even sure we were going to make the playoffs. Like, you know, I didn't even know we could make this work to the extent that we did, but we did. And now they're sitting there as a team that showed us that even their floor as a team that, like, actively sold at the deadline is conference final didn't get swept.

to be clear the gonna hang it didn't get swept banner and they have 20 what seven million in cap space and honestly a lot of their pending ufas are guys that they'd be better off letting walk anyway because they need they like fundamentally need to create space on their blue line and on their roster for other guys, right? I mean, Brett Burns and Dmitri Orlov expiring. And it's like, yeah, but why would they even try to resign those guys, given that they almost need to carve out minutes for Nekheum and Morrow, at least to start the season, right? If you have to go acquire a second pair of defender at some point because you're better than you expected, so be it, right? Jack Roslowski, right? Mark Jankowski types. I mean, I guess they already, uh, Jankeausky.

signed right for next year but jack rossovic types it's like they need to create an opportunity for a guy like bradley nodow to sort of make it and so you know i think we expect them to be super aggressive pitching mitch marner i don't know if they're likely to have success there and i think one thing we have to consider too like you know i think about this a lot with a guy like jason Robertson being rumored on the market, right? And we love Jason Robertson. I think Jason Robertson, it would be a steal for any team that acquired him, and that includes the Carolina Hurricanes. There's ways to make it work. But I do think if you're acquiring him and you're the hurricanes, you should be cognizant of the fact that, you know, much like, much like the fit with Miko Raton,

who's a puck possession based player, wasn't perfect, right? I don't know that it will be with a guy like Robertson either. Those are guys who need to control the puck. need to play an area game. Robertson's skill is not getting in on the forecheck and causing a quick turnover and being a quick strike player. And granted, you know, you can make it work with the right fit. I mean, it's worked for Matthew Kachuk, who's not too dissimilar stylistically in Florida. But, you know, I do think in going big, like one of the reasons why Marner, you know, in our minds eye makes a ton of sense. It's like, yeah, he plays defense.

He tracks back. he's pretty good at winning puck battles. He's pretty good at hitting teams off the counter, but also manufacturing some of that quick strike offense with anticipation on the forecheck, right? Like he's devastating, especially when he ends up being sort of an F3 and anticipating passing lanes in the neutral zone.

Like that to me makes a ton of sense. I do think even as they look to level up here with reams of cap space, being really conscious of making sure that the stars that they acquire can play their stars. style of hockey is sort of the rub, right? That's that's like the special sauce if they can, if they can identify that type of difference maker this summer. Well, and I do wonder for them, because there's been a lot of growing sentiment about Martin or potentially exploring something

we rarely see in the NHL, much more so certainly in the NBA of a big name free agent, trying to go to three years and then maximize their earning power by getting back in the market with the cap continuing to go up. If anything, I think that would be something that would probably be even of more interest to an organization like the Hurricanes that obviously is very analytically savvy and trying to kind of scale this stuff out and be diligent about where they're spending essentially eliminating a lot of the risk that comes with a 28-year-old unrestricted free agent signing for seven years, right, where you're not necessarily on the hook for years 33, 34, 35 or whatever. So I think that's interesting. I think a guy like Nikola Ealer certainly makes

sense. I think if anything for that maybe, and we've seen them be very active on the trade market throughout they have these three first round picks over the next two draft classes. They have a bunch of prospects to deal with. They have theoretically some of that middle-range salary, which we've seen a lot of over the past week or so, either get extended or be valued by teams with a guy like Esperi Kokonimi and so the possibilities are endless for them. And I do wonder whether someone gets into a cab crunch or a team like Vegas potentially

wants to be the Mitch Martner team and then needs to move money out. even if it's in the form of good players, all of a sudden a team like Vegas, and we saw them do that, what, two summers ago, when they just got Max Patch ready at that time before he obviously blew out his Achilles, but essentially just scoop him up into this open cap space

and take him on and view him as their big free agent acquisition. Well, and presumably something like Alex Pietrangelo's health will loom large in terms of determining exactly what Vegas needs to do or consider here. But, I mean, you know, paying a price if you're a team like Carolina and you have just reams of cap space and ending up with, you know, just a combo of, and I'm literally just picking guys on the knights who have mid-range salaries who fit the way that Carolina plays, right? So don't, you know, assume that I'm reporting anything or thinking anything beyond just that side of it. But like, you know, Carolina parting with some assets and coming out of it with Hague and Barbashev, right? I mean, that immediately makes sense to everybody. who's watched the Carolina Hurricanes play, right,

and would create, you know, some extra size on the left side of the back of the blue line, something they really didn't have, something that I think they needed against Florida, right? And a guy like Barbachev who, you know, struggled to finish in the playoffs this past year, but obviously has been a really good sort of third guy on an elite top line in the past and, you know,

is kept in a cage eating raw meat until, until puck drop. And that's the style. a player that certainly with, you know, the way that their matchups have gone against Florida over the past few years and the size of their overall forward group. I mean, that that player type added to that lineup makes a ton of sense from a hockey fit perspective. So, you know, something like that. Anyway, I think more than anything, Carolina's priced at this level because it's like they're an elite team with endless options and they're an elite team with endless options

in a front office that I think has won the benefit of the doubt in terms of utilizing their natural advantages correctly. And, and, you know, so to sort of scale this down to Florida, right? Plus 750, I mean, would you be surprised if they get Bennett done at some point in the next, you know, eight days before the market opens before, before Bennett becomes ineligible to sign an eight-year deal, right? Maybe right at the wire a la Sam Reinhart. And the moment that happens, they become the Stanley Cup favorite.

They're like plus 600, right? Like the moment they get Bennett done, the books probably, there are this line probably moves and they tie the hurricanes or maybe even move ahead of them. But with Marchand, Eckblad and Bennett all out there, you know, I'm guessing this is something of a hedge position where it's like they're basically priced as the favorite, but not quite just because we don't want to, we don't want to have like, we want to stimulate action on this. We don't want people to be leery of making this bet and putting money into this market.

because who knows what's going to happen with three of their, you know, most important playoff performers. Well, three of their like 10 most important playoff performers, that team so deep. But nonetheless, certainly Bennett would be like number one, right? But yeah, if they want to sort of make sure that this is a value proposition for betters, but also give themselves some wiggle in case Florida's circumstances, you know, dramatically are altered over the course of the next 10 days.

which we don't expect, but I guess it could happen. Well, you and I started this conversation and kind of hit the tip of the iceberg near the end of our game six post game in the aftermath of their cup victory, discussing how they've turned themselves into this premier organization in the NFL, kind of what the secret sauce has been, what's gone into it, right? And since then, I've had a bit of time to apply more thought to it and really think about it. I was on your show on Friday before the weekend, and we spoke about it a bit there as well. But I want to dig into that a little bit more because I think it was crystallized,

even further in the aftermath of the company these celebrations. Now I think part of it is probably alcohol infused certainly as well, but just how dearly everyone involved wants to stay, right? From Bennett to Ekblad, although his tone has been

a bit more dire at times to Marshan as well. And part of this helps with when you win, right, they just won. You're still basking the glow of that. They've won back to back now they've been in the Stanley Cup final three straight years. That helps having a ton of players obviously helps, but I keep coming back to just how they're doing everything right now

in terms of both on and off the ice, right? We spoke about how as soon as they win the Stanley Cup, Barcove receives it as the captain. He immediately makes a point of recognizing the first time winners, the veterans in the team, and Nate Schmidt and Seth Jones and those guys and passing along to them, that content comes out. Afterwards, the clip surfacing of Paul Maurice's interaction with the fourth line on the bench as the clock's winding down in that game six and acknowledging the impact the fourth line had and sending them out for the victory lap to close out the game all that stuff and I want to talk a little bit more also about the type of behind the scenes investment I think that goes into building a team like this and

becoming the gold standard in the NHL right because it's not something we necessarily think a lot about I think everyone just assumes everyone is on a relatively even playing field here because there's a salary cap there's only so much much you can go to, obviously, that's increasing now. Maybe that'll increase the range of outcomes for teams. But then the stuff that isn't mandated by the league, right? Whether it's a topic that you're certainly very familiar with much more than pretty much anyone else, the new practice facility they have, all the stuff they have gone, the investments in the front office as well, right? Bill Zito gets a lot of the attention, but how much they sunk into the goalie department

with Roberto Luongo spearheading it, the analytics department with Sunny META as the assistant GM and how valuable it's been for them to uncover a lot of these either hidden gems or just take a flyer or a lottery ticket on using their pro scouting to bring guys in on minimum deals essentially to fill roles for this team and how valuable they become and then creating essentially an environment where other veterans are looking at that and being like, all right, well, if I want to reinvigorate my career and increase my ability to earn money down the road, I should go there and take a crack at this. all that stuff's kind of come together for them.

And I think it's maybe something that's not necessarily on the forefront of a lot of hockey fans' minds, because we just generally pull up Buckpedia, look at the salary cap, look at the contracts, and just assume everyone's kind of spending the same. But it does feel like for a team that was mired in the depths of despair for like, what, 20 years in a row, essentially, and seem like they'd never come out of it. And then turning into what they become now as the envy of the league, essentially, I think that's a remarkable story. And I think it really starts with that supplementing, obviously.

just having essentially an all-star team of star players. Yeah, I mean, even extending to their spending in the American League, right? I mean, that Charlotte Checkers team, their American League affiliate is in the Calder Cup final right now. You know, the old Panthers farm team up in Springy, you know, like regularly would be in games against the Toronto Marleys who they were in the same division with where the Marley's had more salary on PowerPlay 1 than they had in their entire lineup. And that's not how they're doing business anymore either. Right.

So the, the Panthers have reached this, I'm going to call it their imperial era. They're in an imperial era and that poses new challenges, right? In some ways, instead of having to count cards, like Bill Zito came in and almost had to like count cards and play all these angles in order to, you know, like buy low on high pedigree forwards and try a whole bunch of things in free agents. with your Wenberg, DeClair, Verhege types, you know, some Hinnastrosas too, right? Some misses as well in there. But it was a very different sort of thing that they had to go through because they were rebuilding the depth that arguably the franchise squandered at the expansion

draft in 2017 with like Marsha So and Smith being allowed to walk for nothing, a fifth round pick in total, right? And having accomplished that now, the Panthers have arrived as back-to-back cup champs and a team that everyone wants to play for. And so now it becomes a totally new set of challenges where how do you manage, you know, how do you manage a world where your star defender

who maybe you can or maybe you can't quite pay a fair market rate to, you know, is like morose about it at a cup celebration party at 11 in Miami, right? I mean, how do you manage relationships there? how do you manage the hard choices you have to make? How do you manage the pursuit of the star player who's like, hey, just wanted to check in. Do you guys have flexibility to make this work? Like, in some ways, it is a new era for the Florida Panthers and for Bill Zito and

co. And I actually think in some ways it's going to be just as difficult to manage. I mean, it ain't easy at the top as much as this team looks poised to be formidable for years to come. There's going to be some difficult choices. There's going to be some disease. of more stuff and there's still, you know, even with the cap going up, a finite amount of player personnel resources to spend and allocate on your, on your roster and in your lineup.

And, you know, I think like the, the Echblad decision here is going to be a fascinating one. The Marchand decision, right, is Marchand old enough to just be a pure mercenary and, and sort of go take the best offer that he can find in a place that he's comfortable playing in. you know, some of the Bennett reported numbers, right? I mean, even with the extra year, if you're signing $7.5 to $8 million, right? That's like $60.000 million. Could Bennett get 10.5% on the open market? Could he get 11?

I mean, if he was truly willing to play anywhere, I think the answer is yes. And so, I mean, that's a $17 million, like 11 times 7 versus $7.5 times 8. That's a $17 million gap. right like how does this actually play out right we we know how we think it's going to pay out play out pay out we also think we know how we think we know how it's going to play out and that bennett's going to decide to re up and take a run at you know immortality in three in a row but you know I mean these are these are real decisions and and I'm sure difficult ones which is why you know no one's going to be shocked if for reasons aside from the fact that everyone needs to sober up here

and actually check in for office hours. Some of these talks and some of these negotiations that the Panthers are managing drag out a bit. I think another key here, and we've spoken about it a bunch pretty much every time they've signed one of these guys along the way. And I imagine if they do bring these guys back, it'll also factor into that as well. And it's to the point in terms of the spending where it is a bit of an uneven playing field for teams is just the contract structuring and the specifics of it. And I think that's something to really consider as we move forward here as well with teams, trying to differentiate themselves from other teams in the market in terms of, all right, as a free agent, what can you offer me? Why should I sign there?

Pretty much every guy they've signed along the way here, maybe not Anton Landel's extension as much because he was just in a different point of his career. But all the guys who were walked right up to unrestricted free agency and had the idea of that somewhere in their minds, how front-loaded all these deals were, right? And the investment involved there as well where essentially everyone on the team that signed one of these deals is playing on a $1 million. salary with everything up front in signing bonuses and all that stuff kind of coalescing into big reasons why you want to stay beyond the tax advantages and the sunshine. I think it's remarkable and you kind of hinted at this, the sort of disease of more in managing those expectations and everyone's happiness. What's really struck me is along this way, how involved everyone's been, I guess, and how happy in their role they've been. Like, I can't remember a team like this that had this

much success and this many good players who probably could be playing bigger roles. You look at that third line as case and point of that, how little reported at least, either bickering or agonizing there's been about usage or role and everyone just kind of fitting in within the grand scheme of things and making it work. I think it's been just remarkable. I think they're in a good spot. Like listen, they have 19 million in cap space. Yeah, they are. Even if you divvy up, what, 14ish on that, on Bennett and Eckblad, let's say, that still leaves you with, I think, more than enough room to get Mackey Samiskevich done as an RFA, bring in a backup goalie for vet minimum, and then fill out the fourth line center that Noseg might depart, and then a third

pair left deal, although you already have Balinskas there, who I think is more than capable to replace Natchemit down the line. So losing Marshall would hurt here, certainly in the grand scheme of things, but it's another thing where, all right, you come back to the trade deadline, either someone's unbanged up or a different situation present itself, and you just go out and keep essentially working that same churn at the deadline to fill that role. Yeah, and Semiskevich is an interesting one, in part because I don't want to bring up the Matthew Coronado contract and ruin our bit. But the opportunity costs now of kicking the can down the road with bridge contracts. Like, for example, the Dallas Stars, right?

An incredible Houdini act that I absolutely do not want to minimize getting the Dushain deal done. And then offloading marchment and actually getting positive value despite being what, they were within a million of the cap. at that moment and then getting Maverick Bork locked up for $1,0.95K, basically on a one-year deal. And it's like, man, that's awesome because he was a really attractive offer sheet target. Right. So I don't want to, I don't want to criticize what I think was an incredible escape act from Jim Nill in the Dallas Star's front office. I want people to hear this as criticism.

I do, however, want to illustrate a point, which is that there is, in this era of cap growth where, you know, a one-year deal means that you're next, next time you're negotiating with an RFA, right? They're going to be doing so in an environment with a hundred plus million dollar cap. And if it's a two-year bridge, then you're going to be negotiating in an era with a, you know, 110 plus million dollar cap. And right, as these, as this cap growth comes down the pike here, the opportunity cost incurred by kicking the can down the road on really good players become so much steeper. And so this is one of those ones that I'm curious about,

where the Panthers, if they do, you know, go for broke, short term, let's try to win three in a row because, holy cow, three in a row hasn't been done in 40 years, no one's going to sniff at it or criticize the organization and nor should we. But I'm curious to see how an organization that, you know, for example, with the Hubert O' Weeger for a Cichick deal has shown us this willingness to think long term and think in five-year windows and really be disciplined about structuring things to extend their window versus, you know, just sort of charging head down into brick walls, hoping to to bowl them down, which the Panthers probably can do.

But instead sort of trying to be a little bit more nuanced than that in their overall approach. I mean, to me, Samiskevich is a really fascinating canary in the coal mine for how, an organization that we know is one of the smartest in hockey is thinking about the benefits of paying a guy early in this cap growth environment because I think that's going to be a massive competitive edge over the course of the next four or five years who clues in first right who clues in first that this dynamic has shifted and why is it the calgary flames right no but no but very seriously right like this is going to be a fascinating one one last one really quickly dim

Duchesne 6 million 4.8 million 3.6 3.6, 3.6 on his next deal. So that's 60% in the first two years of the contract. You know, just to just to illustrate the point you were making about sort of these front loaded deals. Ryan Donato,

5.25, 4.25, 3.253.25, 3.25 in the four years of his contract. So you are seeing already like, you know, the Deshain deal is a bit of a steal, frankly. The Donato deal, I think, is a big one. Like that, that's one that made me swallow pretty hard here. But, but, but, you know, between Frederick, Donato, Fabian Zetterland, right? And, you know, I, Duchin being the, the highest caliber version of that player, but also 34 and getting four years of term is, is a very

different proposition than the other deals here. We are sort of, we did see this week a market gets set in, in some ways, like middle six forwards and that market is four million with term. I mean, that is that is a scary proposition for what's coming down, uh, over the course of the next 10 days, like what we should be prepared for if Cody Glass doesn't get tender to qualifying offer by the New Jersey Devils. If Jack Roselvic decides to change teams, right? Like forget the guys who you've been, you know, not you, but hockey fans have been talking about or or thinking about joining their teams. I mean, be prepared for numbers that are like, whoa, Roslovick at five times four, right? Like, be prepared because I do think that's coming.

And I do think we got a taste of that medicine over the course of this week, or at least a preliminary glimpse into just how wild this is about to get. Yeah, to your point, just to close a loop on the Mackie Samiskevich note, he finishes the year with 15 goals, 31 points, right? He plays only four of the team's 23 playoff games, a good chunk of the regular season. He's spent playing on the fourth line where you watch it and he's generating chances. every time, but the quality of his linemates means that goals aren't coming from it. And there's just, I can't think of too many examples of this in the past of a guy who was

better suited from a team perspective to lock them in at a cut rate figure, long term, and just immediately benefit from it, right? Just the idea that regardless of what happens, whether Marchand walks or not, he's probably going to be playing top six minutes and on a power play role and is going to easily get into the 40, 50 point range, at which point you'll be a 23-year-old and you're going to be like, man, it'd be nice to get paid for for that resume as opposed to what I did the previous summer. So yeah, that's a that's a big landmark moment, I think, in terms of what that, that contract structure specifically winds up coming out at.

Yeah. To get back to so. Let's take our break here. Let's take our break here. We come back. I want to quickly do a few stars things because you sort of touched on a lot of the Dushain stuff already, but I got a few more notes on them. Yeah, we're going to keep it moving through this line and talk about some of the trends that

we've seen so far this offseason as well. You're listening to the Hockey P.D. Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right. We're back here in the Hockey Pio cast, joined by Thomas Strans. We're looking ahead to the start of the off season and what to expect over the next week to 10 days. We talked about the stars a little bit before we went to break, Tom. And you're mentioning the Dushan extension, 4.5 million for four years. The accompanying move once there within 500K, essentially the cap.

Trading Mason-Marchman's 4.5 million, essentially swapping those two players to the Seattle Cracken for 2025 fourth and 2026 third. Now, I'm of two minds of it, right? Because on the one hand, I think from a crack in perspective, I think Mason Marchman's a useful player. He scored 22 goals in each of the past two seasons, I believe, did so in just like 60 plus games this past year, has the type of size on the wing, the team's covet.

And so even if things continue down this trajectory for them, they're not in a battle for a playoff spot come to deadline, it's pretty easy to envision a world where you retain on that, especially, and all of a sudden, the return for what you get for that player at 2.25 or whatever greatly exceeds what you just paid for him, right? So I think from that perspective, that makes a lot of sense. Yet I think you can lump in what we saw with Eric Holla getting dumped in the final year of his deal, going from New Jersey to Nashville as well, maybe even another move that involved the Cracken

trading the two years left on Brokowski's deal for Joe Villeneau to the Blackhawks. And with this rising cap, one of the things that's happening is all of a sudden now everyone has cap space essentially. And so we used to be in this spot where a player of this elk, especially a team like the Stars, who's kind of backed into a corner where they literally have to move some of these contracts to be cap compliant by the time the season starts. And they have the benefit of going 10 plus percent above until October. But clearly something has to happen for them. They're not negotiating from a position of strength. And yet gone are the days of you viewing that and being like, well, we need to attach a sweetener or some sort of draft capital to facilitate.

this to make a buying team interested. Instead, now it's gone the other way where teams are paying stuff to take on these deals. And I think that's a remarkable swing from where we've been at. Maybe we need to just completely rewire the way we think about this framework. But for me, it's still kind of startling because it just represents such a massive departure, I guess, from the pool we're used to swimming in. Yeah, it's going to be difficult to use your cap space effectively. Right?

that's the real change where in this flat cap era we lived through endured, let's be real, teams knew that cap space was the scarcest resource in the league. And as such, you know, basically 85% of player standard player contracts were available for free on the trade market at any, at any given point, if you could just eat the whole rate of the cap liability in any given deal. And now, right? I mean, in a world where the San Jose sharks have 40 million in cap space and the Columbus Blue Jackets have 40 million in cap space and there's teams with 30 and there's really good teams with 25 plus million in cap space, right?

All of a sudden, Ericala is an attractive proposition to 10 teams and you can get something meaningful back for him. And Marchment is attractive to 20 teams, but only five of them do you feel comfortable sending him to because you want to honor the agreement that he made? with you to some extent more or less. So here we are, right? That's it. It's supply and demand.

There aren't a limited number of buyers willing to take on these deals. There's a ton of them because Eric Halle would be, I mean, Eric Halle with, think about it this way, Eric Halla with Bennett unlikely to hit July 1, Deshaen signed, Nelson signed. I mean, where would he rank among the best? free agent centerman if he were a UFA about to go to market in the next 10 days. Like he'd be like the third best center on the market. I'm out.

I'm out on the Eric Halle experience. I've seen enough. He just went 30 games this year without a single point. I think I've seen him described as a big personality. That's not what I would describe it as certainly. And so I'm out. I disagree with, I get the logic of you're one of these teams. you have a ton of cap space, you need to field an NHL lineup.

You could view them as interchangeable pieces that you wind up reselling down the road. But there is an element of this that is kind of off-putting to me in terms of the nickel and diming of it, where it's like, we're just going to bring in all these guys who ultimately aren't that meaningful for our outlook and in the aggregate spend this money. Now, a lot of the players who are actually worth that just individually probably aren't viewing a lot of these places as destinations they would pick when they have so much more to choose from. So I think that's part of it.

But I just don't really see how that moves the needle for you. But yeah, I mean, we can lump in what Chris Kreider's deal getting moved as well. And I think another commonality between all these and us talking about really looking at the fine print of the structuring is all of them have AVs that exceed the actual money being paid out by the team that's acquiring them. And so I think if you're a rebuilding team or a team that's not going to make the playoffs, that's also if you're a GM, I think an easier sell to your owner in terms of. of, yeah, we're going to acquire this guy and you're actually going to pay them less. And so it's going to wind up saving your money in the grand scheme of things. And we're going to get some picks down the line. That's a pretty easy conversation, I think, to have.

Well, I'll say this. The Seattle part of this, right? In terms of buying and taking on the final year of Marchman's deal, I like it a lot more. Once you factor in them making it effectively cap neutral by dumping Brokowski's deal. in a subsequent trade with the Chicago Blackhawks, right? And I think Berkowski has two years left, too. So yeah, Berkowski has two years left, $5 million and $3.75 million.

So we know, and $5.5 million cap hit there, we know what Chicago's doing. They're just trying to recreate the Ilya McKeyev trade, right? I mean, they're trying to buy low on a guy and hope that he bounces back and then becomes a trade asset, much like, you know, as much as Chicago wants good players, we won't be astonished if we see McKayev dealt this summer or at the deadline, for example, right?

Especially coming off of a season which he looked fast again and scored a bunch of goals again. So, you know, I sort of look at that, like, we understand this from Chicago's perspective, but from Seattle's, you know, they let Dallas off the mat maybe a little bit easy. But once you make that cap neutral with, by acquiring Joe Valeno, who, I don't know, do you view Valeno is like an interesting reclamation project of any kind or just a one thirds buyout to enhance their sort of cap space. I don't, I don't really have a, I don't think we need to spend any time discussing it so much as I want to put out there that like you can make sense of it either way from a Seattle perspective. But, you know, I do think that that that's one

of those where it's like, I like the moves more when you see them in concert than I did the individual Marchman acquisition. Yeah, I agree with that. Stay tuned for the Joe Blenno deep dive that's going to come at some point. Should they buy them out? Yeah. Um, You know, from the stars perspective, you meant, though. You definitely have a take. No, I think, I think that's fine. I think he certainly has utility. Yeah.

And so I just think getting off the Brokowski money is an absolute no-brainer from their perspective. And, yeah, replacing him and his production with Marchman makes a lot of sense. For the stars, though, so you mentioned retaining Mav Bork at 950K, right? Which was fascinating to me because you look at the offer sheet compensations and, A team could have given him up to $1.5.4 million with essentially zero draft pick comp and could have gone up to 2.34 with just a third going back and they were able to get him before that became an option. And then I'd add Niels Lunkwist there as well, right, who was obviously hurt this past year and was perpetually in Peterborough's doghouse. But with a new coach coming in and they're just there just complete thirst for someone who can move a puck up the ice, I think getting him back at what was essentially his qualifying offer for one year, made a lot of sense too. so that was pretty nifty work, I think, by Jim Nill to make all that stuff happen.

I'm personally just thankful that T.J. Brody is a left-shot defenseman and not a righty, because otherwise I would have been like, oh, my God, they're going to be all over T. But he plays the right side, doesn't he? He's putting a lot of right side. They need to do better, man. They, we can't do this again. No, clearly, clearly. I mean, and that's the team where, you know, if the Eckblad thing drags out, right?

And we start to see, you know, Jim Nill, continue to escape these circumstances, continue to do a Houdini act between now and July 1, you know, that's something where we're going to be looking at very, very closely, much like, you know, the moment the Mitch Marner report was, Marner might not sign on July 1. And it's like, oh, that's Vegas. Like, that's not me reporting anything. That's just, we saw that movie with Pietrangelo as a UFA. Like, when Vegas has dipped in unrestricted free agency in a big way, it's been

three or four days after the market opened, following them ditching a contract, Nate Schmidt in the Pietrangelo case, right? Because that, you know, Vegas, Vegas lives with their, you know, nose pressed up to the glass of the salary cap upper limit. And their sort of method of operating is different, right?

So the moment I heard, I think it was Frank Ceravali who reported like, Marner, don't, Marner might not get done on July 1. And it's like, oh, oh, okay, well, I think I know what that means. I don't actually, but I think I know what that means. So, you know, and that's to bring this really quickly back to the odds. Where does Vegas go? Plus 1,200 today. Where does Vegas go if they're able to add Marner? Right. To me, that's like the best

early value on the board. I, you know, I know they got sunned pretty significantly by the Oilers. And they're getting up there in terms of the age of their best players. But I mean, that team's still extremely deep and extremely talented. And, you know, there's all sorts of, you know, they, they couldn't find an answer to McDavid Drysidal in the playoffs this year, but in a hypothetical matchup 10 months from now, in which they're able to throw a Marner Carlson Eichael line out on the ice, that becomes a more interesting proposition to me, Dim. So to me, Vegas at 12 to 1 plus 1, I almost feel like it is not almost.

I feel like that's probably the best value among the non-long shots on the board. it is assuming that petrangelo and his 8.8 million going on LTIR help create that opening I guess the issue for me would be with petrangelo unavailable in this uh theoretical circumstance and then Nick Hague is an RFA also likely being moved how you're replacing those minutes for a team whose calling card has been just having six good defensemen they're creative enough I think certainly to to fill some of those gaps but I I would worry a little bit about that are you selling the Korshack's stock now? I've never really owned it actually. I feel like I've been delegating a lot of it to you. That's my stock? Yeah. Well,

I'm holding that stock. I'm pretty comfortable with that. Are there any other long shots? By the way, before we move on, I don't want to move on from the gambling markets yet. Because there's a couple other long shots that I feel like we should talk about in the context of what we're going to,

what we're expecting and what we're perhaps prepared to be surprised by over the next little bit here. but are there long-shot teams that really stick out to you as being massively undervalued in these opening lines? Well, I think actually once you get outside the top seven and the last three teams that I listed there, the devils, the kings and the jets are all interesting to me for a variety of reasons. Now, I fear for the kings being on tilt after a fourth straight, embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Oilers and bringing in Ken Holland, we'll see if I was another GM, I would just be calling every single day about Jordan Spence.

I think the idea of a 24-year-old right-shot guy making 1.5 million who is as good as he is and seemingly on the outs, right, because they changed the GM, but they retained the coach, and that's a coach who played him 33 minutes or whatever in five games of round one and clearly just does not view him as an option he wants to rely on. That would be a no-brainer for me, but they have theoretical cap space at least this summer and are going to be one of the Martyr teams. And for as humbling as that defeat was, I think the brink. blueprint was pretty clear in terms of what their A game looks like.

And if they were able to add one more legitimate offensive game breaker, considering the impact we saw a guy like Kuzmanko have in his limited time there and him being a flawed player, but him just having a bit of creativity and playmaking ability below the goal line and how that opened things up for their power play, they would be an intriguing one for me. And then the Jets were a plus 2310th for a team that won the president's trophy this year. I get it because I think that's baking in the reality that Nikla Eilers is probably a walk-in free agency. And I don't love their route towards replacing what they desperately need

from him, which is instant offense and speed related to compared to a lot of their other top offensive players. That would be a concerning one for me, but they're going to be bringing back relatively the same team and we're probably a pretty good bet to at least be really good in the regular season again. And just so from a stock trading perspective, like if you look at these odds come the postseason, they seem like a good bet to move up this list as a post-season. And we're to where they're at right now heading into the off season. What do you think about the Utah mammoth being eight in the west? Like, you know, by the outright's market anyway, they are priced as a team that, you know,

should be expected to make the playoffs. Like them, the blue, them at 3,500, blues at 4,000, and the Canucks at 5,000. It's like, that's what Vegas is telling you, or the outright's market. are implying are, you know, that that's the wild card race right there. Well, I guess with the Minnesota Wild too at 3,400. Well, Utah and Columbus, anyone you talk to, and a lot of this has been reported already, but they're essentially involved in every single thing of any magnitude right now. And that's because they have good young teams who just missed out in the playoffs.

They have a ton of cap space and a ton of resources to make whatever trade they want or whatever addition they see fit. And so getting ahead of that before that ultimately lands and then news drops seems like a smart bad for me. I think ultimately we're talking about the cup market. And that seems like a massive leap of faith. And I don't want to be on the wrong side of our Utah mammoth because no one has spoken more highly or just at more length on them than you and I have. And I'm very happy about being on the ground floor there. But that seems like a bit of a stretch for me at this point.

I think I need to see one or two more steps before we'll even get into that consideration. but yeah but if you see those steps you're not getting that price yeah that's fair you know i mean man utah must be monitoring the what's happening in florida right now so aggressively hey like both bennett and marchand would be just unbelievable additions to that roster for what they need tremendous and and i mean yeah i i'd add too that while they're not on tilt or their ownership Tilt groups not likely to be on tilt given that, you know, their first season, I think, showed a lot of promise. You know, there was no like heartbreak at the end in terms of making the playoffs. There was a lot of, you know, heartbreak in terms of losing just a rash of one goal games in which the team played well.

But, you know, I don't think there's the same level of pressure that, like, caused the Kings to swap out Blake and replace him with Holland, for example. that said, you know, Ryan Smith and the Utah ownership have dealt with like a historic level of draft lottery bad luck on the NBA side of their pro sports business. And so I do wonder if they view this as like, hey, look, this is a team with a chance to take a step up. And we should approach that with some urgency, especially now that we're not going to have, hey, this is our first year in this market buzz, right? inevitably sort of holding us up. Last thing I want to talk about really quickly on this market and then I'll drop it dim and we can get into whatever you'd like to finish the show. But the Anaheim ducks and the Montreal Canadians, both at plus 10,000.

Same odds as the Detroit Red Wings behind the Nashville Predators and the Calgary Flames and like just ahead, but only by a little bit of the Boston Bruins. I feel like, you know, it's probably not paying out. but those two teams have profiles and flexibility, right? Those two teams have the ability to add something significant and the profile of team that can just like level up very, very quickly here. So those two teams stand out to me as well as just being like, there's no reason why there should only be, you know, six teams with lower Stanley Cup odds

in my mind than the Ducks and the Montreal Canadians, given what we view as their most likely trajectory over the next, yeah, it might take 18 months, in which case this doesn't help you. But at those odds and given sort of what we know about how quickly things can change in terms of a team gathering momentum, especially if they have a Lucas Dostalin net, right? Like especially because both of those teams have some pretty intriguing goaltending assets. Those leap off the page to me, too, as being worth like a, you know, a sprinkle, a double-tapped sprinkle here on the ducks and the habs. They're severely undervalued in this market. Certainly as risers and the ability to improve very dramatically. I think especially,

you know, what's going to be interesting is we talk about teams just having more copious amounts of cap space and that opening doors for a lot of additions. I feel like we're going to feel that more on the free agent market in future years, especially as it keeps increasing and maybe teams time this out a little bit more. I think you're going to see a lot of bad contracts this year on the free agent market as teams try to reacclimate themselves. But the quality of the players involved is just lagging so far behind and that's going to dictate a lot of that analysis, right? Whereas the trade market and that's where these teams really come into it that have cap space and either desirable young assets or guys that are malleable. And that's why Utah is so

fascinating because they won the lottery and they have the fourth overall pick and anyone you speak to keeps coming back to what's the likelihood they actually make that pick as opposed to using it to acquire a forward that's 23 to 25 years old that immediately steps into their top line and makes them significantly better. And so that would be a fascinating development and getting ahead of that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be really interesting to see exactly how teams pursue this. And then lastly, I do think offer sheets should be a front of mind consideration for us, right? In a world where talent is at a premium and in a world in which unrestricted free agent talent is lacking and overpriced.

You know, like, why, why are you paying or why are you considering paying $6 million to XUFA when you can pay $6 million? And yeah, you have to part with a first and a third, but you're getting a Will Cooley or a player that, you know, you'd never be able to acquire straight up from the New York Rangers for first and a third, right? I mean, that that's the sort of profile of move, especially with a guy like Cooley, who I know produced 45 points this year at 20 goals, but I still don't think people are viewing him as the caliber of player that I do, right?

Like, I still don't think people are viewing him as a guy who can be, you know, in that Barbashev type role or that Hyman type role with skilled guys at the top of a lineup potentially than the Matthew Nye's role, right? And I mean, who's a better bet for it, right? like those are the sorts of things that I think teams have to be considering, especially if, you know, this market proves to be as competitive and frustrating as it seems to be based on the conversations that I'm having with, you know,

top hockey decision makers and around the league. Like this is, you know, I think this is becoming a, a very intriguing market for all but like a couple of the contenders in no state tax jurisdictions. and, you know, the offer sheet route is going to be an appealing one. It has to be as this summer moves along. Apologies to Matthew Coronado and his extension. We ran out of time and did not get to it today.

Actually, I swear, I had so many notes on it and we just, we went, as you should have probably expected long. I almost. We talked about it with Sam Baskavich, but I think a lot of that logic applies and we could circle back at some point. And kudos to the flames, man. Kudos to the flames. They made the bet everyone should be making.

Yeah. And I think it was very. constructed, right? Because that was met with a lot of initial sticker shock. And then you look at it. And it's a lot of these concepts we talked about. Age 23 to 29 seasons. Two million dollars in signing bonuses the first year, none the rest of the way. No trade restrictions until a 10 team list in year six and seven. This is fashioned for everything you'd want as a team. And so that comes with a slightly higher AV, which won't even be the case if he scores 30 to 35 goals next year, which he scored what, 24 last year and has the shot to do that. So absolutely no brainer.

What do you got to plug? Oh, man. It's going to be a lot of work over at the athletic, breaking down everything Canucks-related between now and July 1. We'll hit on all around league stuff too. We'll do the same at Canucks talk on Sportsnet 650, and you and I'll do some extra work here, right? I mean, that's how we do it. We're excited for the next 10 days, and so we'll spend some time breaking it all down for our listeners

and because we like hanging out. We certainly do. Yeah. Got a lot of fun stuff planned. We put out a mock draft with our guys, Cam Robinson and Chris Peters on Friday afternoon. Check that out. I'm back on Monday with Shana Goldman.

We're going to do most interesting teams this summer. So getting into at even greater length, a lot of the stuff, Tom and I hinted at today. Join us in the PDCAST Discord. Keep those five-star reviews coming. And that is going to be it from the two of us. Thank you for listening to the Hockey PEDEOCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.