The Hockey PDOcast - The Kakko Trade, Who's to Blame in Buffalo, Stars Cap Space, and AHL Success

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to talk about Wednesday night's games, the Kaapo Kakko trade, Buffalo's misery continuing and who's to blame for it, what the Stars will do with their cap space, and the importance of AHL success for NHL teams. 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.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDO cast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on, man? Not too much, man. I'm here and join you on to talk some hockey. So there's no better place to be, right?

Life is good. Yeah, we're recording this. It's a Thursday morning here Pacific Time coming fresh off of last night's Wednesday night, Night Slate, it was a pretty minimal slate in terms of games. I believe there was only five, but I feel like all of them had talking points. I want to quickly run through with you. I believe you were at

Wings Flyers, right? I was at Wings Flyers, yes. There you go. Of all the hockey games, of all the hockey games played this season, it was one of them. It was one of the NHL games of all time. It was a fun one, though. Certainly not lacking in events. Ten combined goals on 43

shots. The Red Wings had a three on O at one point, which they converted, we had an incident where the official was standing beside the bench and raised his hand thinking he was going to call a penalty then put it down in the meantime the flyers pulled their goalie brought a six-sater out the goalie comes back the red wings get us chance and then they blow it dead and john turderella absolutely lost his mind i thought he was going to leave the bench and storm the ice based on his reaction it was pretty great theater ultimately common sense prevailed and they didn't wind up awarding a penalty but it was a

a sequence unlike any I've ever really seen before. Now, I thought Mo Sider had a, had a beast game, and he played a bunch, and he set up the game winner, ultimately. But the story for me from that one was Simon Edvinson getting hurt after playing just 536, because for all the talk about all the limitations for the Red Wings and their offensive struggles and everything, yada, yada, yada, one of the true bright spots this year has been the development of that pair of Mo Sider and Simon Edvenson, and you look at the splits when Sider is playing with Edmondson and how good the Red Wings are, the fact that they're like 52% shots,

56% high danger chance share on this Red Wings team when they're out there. And then what happens when Sider has to play with Ben Chirot instead, I really hope this isn't going to be a long-term thing because I was enjoying the progression of those two guys, and I feel like the alternative is not a very palatable one. Yeah, I also thought you were going to talk about the video make it, you of what happened in the stands last night

night too? No, what happened? And the wings, flyers? Were you going crazy out there? I was not, but there was a man who kept from moving his shirt throughout the game multiple times being escorted out and decided that he could effectively try to escape the usher's

Oklahoma drill style and tried to bowl through four of them. Actually knocked one over, eventually kind of got tackled, and it was to an extent where it's a point of the game we're literally all five, all, all 10 players on the ice just turned and watched it. And it was enough of a talking point that it was, it was multiple players had commentary.

Patrick Kane was time to talk about a post game. So I thought you were going to ask about the update on the important viral, viral video beyond the torts reaction to the arm going up. Well, the torts one was good. I didn't see that. But you know what? As someone who watches NFL football every Sunday, the Lions with all their injuries could probably use some pass rushing help.

So maybe this guy's elusiveness in breaking through the crowd might wind up being a useful skill for them. No, that was a, that was a hectic game. There was a lot going on. I wouldn't say it was the most well-played game, but it was certainly rich in, uh, in events in theater. I'll call it roller coaster.

First period was awful. What's like, first period, there was not many events in the first period. But so final 40 minutes was, was definitely great theater. But you're right on the Edvinson thing. And it was, it's one of those where I don't know what it is,

but after the game, we asked Derek Lalond, any update on Simon Edvinson, he says no update. His body language is really dower. His mood is really down for a coach that just won a game. And then lo and behold, they didn't have practice today, so there's no chance for updates. And when, in my experience in this business, when a player leaves the game that early in the game,

and you have no update after the game, it's usually not a good thing. So I hope I'm wrong. I hope it's just, and I hope I'm misreading that, but it's, that could be really bad for Detroit, and it's bad for us as hockey enjoyers because I've really liked watching it. I love watching Evans' growth. I love watching this game. I've loved watching him with cider. As you said, cider was good last night, and I finally went back and tracked down the hit this

morning. He basically took an elbow that knocked him out of the game up to up high, and that was the last shift he took. Are there many instances this season where you would describe Derek Llan's body language as positive? I feel like generally when the camera pants don't on the bench, I haven't obviously interacted with them in scrums this season the way you have, but I feel like in game settings, maybe this reflects the way this Red Wing season has gone for the most part, but I'd say it's generally pretty dour. I mean, there's a line, right? Like, you start to get the, as, when you cover someone you get when you cover a coach you get the line of what is what's their happy face and what's their uh f you for asking that question face so i i tend to learn those pretty quickly and uh it was

uh derrick laun's face was one of we just got not very very good news about the defenseman that has actually been good on our defense um i thought there was a there was a great line um from post game that i thought you would enjoy when he's talking about his team and he says like oh well with the injury, we now got some other guys who aren't used to playing top four minutes now have to play top four minutes. And I'll be honest, I just couldn't help but laugh because you only have six defensemen. So losing one shouldn't lead to, last time I checked the math, you, there's only losing one still means there's three others there that are still used to top four minutes. Yeah. Well, also, his absence yesterday just meant a truly ungodly amount of Ben Chirot.

And unfortunately, for this Red Wings team, I think he has been. used to playing top four minutes. So it's not necessarily a change in that way, but I feel like for Siders environment and his ability to play this game, it certainly is. Stars Leifes, the Leafs score on four of their first eight shots. Now the Stars obviously, you know, their room has been ravaged by the flu bug recently as a lot of NHL teams around the league have. They made a note on the broadcast about how Jake O'Dinger, who wound up being pulled, I believe after the second period, has played seven games, essentially in the past two weeks. So that's obviously not ideal. they would like to tone that down a little bit.

We saw Miro Hayskin and play 29-49. Now, in his minutes, the stars were up 3-1. Unfortunately, he was not able to play all 60 because in the other 30 minutes or so, they were outscored for nothing. I don't really have too many notes on that. We're going to circle back to the stars later because I want to have a bigger picture conversation

about them with you in terms of how they're going to utilize this cap space they're sitting on and team needs and all of that. But I mean, you watch this game, and they got eaten alive in particular by that, by like the third line essentially for the Leafs. And it's like, you've got a Brendan Smith, Alex Petrovich defense pair in the year 2024. Things probably aren't going to go great for you.

So I feel like that game, even though obviously with Harley being out, certainly makes things even more dire. But I feel like that game in general kind of highlighted, I guess, or exemplify the conversation we're going to have later about them and sort of the big, team need or the elephant that's in the room right now for the stars.

Yeah, my one thing on the stars, it's like Miro plays 2950 or 2949, whatever the exact number is last night. And this is one of the warnings that the stars came into this season with, and I've talked about this before in various places where with that Finland trip, their schedule doesn't get any easier. With having that trip to Finland playing November 1st and 2nd there, their schedule is so condensed compared to so many other people.

And on top of that, the travel from doubt, the travel Dallas as compared to some other is pretty high. So it is a stars team that when it comes to minute wise and it comes to this, it's a lot of survival mode right now just because of the circumstance. And that's the one thing I'll leave there. And then we can put a pin in that stuff until we go into them more later. Well, especially with the fact that Miro is going to be playing a very prominent. role in particular at the Four Nations

and we assume we're going to play an insane amount of minutes as well and so I think that just plays a big round of this song. I mean, Estelle Lendell's going to do the same like for the stars, right? Like it's going to be like, oh, we're going to have this, we're going to have this break and you know what? Well, hence Lendell, Heskin and for Team Finland and Lendell and Hayshkin are probably going to play together and all of a sudden they log, when they log 20, Jim Nell is going to be hovering his eyes watching Miro play 29 minutes.

minutes against the United against Canada and everything like that. 29 minutes, probably through the first two periods and then whatever he winds up playing in the third period as well. Yeah, and I believe Lundell played like 30 minutes in the previous game as well. Let's rifle through this. Panthers.

Wild, the Panthers pumped Minnesota 6-1 on the road to end of five-game road trip very impressively. I don't want to talk too much about the Panthers because I'm going to circle back to them later this week. The Jets and Ducks played a surprisingly fun finish where the Ducks tie it late and then Troy Terry wins it dramatically into dying seconds.

I want to end with Utah, Vancouver though, because I'm not sure how many people stayed up to watch the end of it. I highly recommend whoever's missed it to work their way back and at least watch the overtime because for all our complaints about how coaches have sucked the fun out of three-on-three overtime, how it's not as exhilarating as it used to be, essentially in this game from the moment Gunther ties it late in the third with under five minutes. left through end of regulation and then every single second of overtime, both teams just essentially scrapped the gentleman's agreement to play so they each secure a point and they were just

back and forth action trading chances. It was an unbelievable three on three. The crowd was awesome. I highly recommend checking that one out if you haven't seen it. So that was fun. All right. Let's get into the Capocaco trade that we got yesterday. As you and I prepared for today's show, that certainly wasn't on our docket. We had all these other. other topics. And then on Wednesday night, we hear about the trade. And so this is a good opportunity for us to get into it. Obviously, the Rangers are in free fall right now. They started the year 12, 4 and 1. Since then, in the past calendar month, they're 3 and 11 with a minus 21 goal differential. Their only wins in that time have come against the habs, penguins and sabers. Their latest defeat

was arguably the most embarrassing of all. They got shut out in Nashville by the 32nd ranked team in the league. What are your thoughts on this trade from both sides? You can take it whichever one you want first. And I guess Kako, the player himself and sort of what he represents and how you're sort of viewing this deal as it turned out. Yeah, I think the value actually makes sense. It is, it's just from where he was in his play. It is laughable sometimes when we see a guy who was a second to overall pick get moved for such a little return on papers. So when I first see that, you're like, oh, man, that's, that's all went for when you think of that guy's draft pedigree. But we look at Kako's game and where he's played and everything like that.

That's probably fair. I mean, to me, the big one is from a Rangers perspective, it's, it's all about whatever the next step is for me on the Rangers on this, because obviously Borgon's a UFA. Are you going to, so this is, you're open, you've opened up some space by moving Kako. you've done that and it's part of the cleaning house or whatever terminology you want to use. So what's the next move for the Rangers for me is the big one here. For Seattle, it's just, it's kind of funny. It feels a little bit like the, you remember when Seattle goes and claims Eli Tolvinen on waivers from Nashville? Was it either last year or two years ago?

I can't remember which it was. But it feels kind of similar to that. Now, obviously, the Finnish nationality definitely helps in this. but it's a player who, and obviously they're spending a little bit more capital than a Waverclin, but it's a player who I think has a little bit more tread, a little bit more, and the change of scenery isn't going to be a bad thing.

And I don't mind Taco's game. I just think there was just unrealistic expectations for what he actually is. And a guy that you and I have talked quite a bit, before I go back to a guy I covered in Dallas and then when he went to Colorado was Valenatushkin, right? once Valen Chushkin had the expectations stripped away, life became a lot easier on the ice. And that to me is sometimes things I look at with this trade.

And I think that's where Kako goes right now. And he's going to do a couple things. And there'll be some people in New York and say, well, damn it, he should have done that here. Yeah. I think the fact that he was a second overall pick, I mean, it's relevant in the sense that obviously he possessed a bunch of physical tools

that made him so appealing as a prospect. And he's leveraged some of them so far in his career. But that also, like this is a single. than HL season. So we're pretty removed from that at this point. I think the value of this trade reflects how much. I just, I think,

well, it reflects how much his stock fell. It also, I think reflects the value of defensemen. Like you're seeing in the league right now, right? I pretty much every team, and this isn't a new phenomenon, but it feels like it's this year and more so than ever.

Previously, every team is like, man, we really need defensemen, especially right shot defensemen, but guys who are mobile and who can just step in and actually play meaningful minutes,

and there's just not enough of them to go around. And so what you're seeing is because of that supply and demand and balance, the value of defense is just higher than it's ever been right now, especially like ready-made NHL ones. And so the Rangers clearly valued a guy like Will Borgon probably quite a bit more than you or I or someone following this trade from home. Yeah. And I mean, I think Will Borgon is a fine player,

but it's to me it's, and I guess, this is where I go on the Will Borgon defenseman thing because like I think there's a lot of player I think there's that extreme value on defensemen that people put on it and but I think there's also a ton of guys who are at that 4A level who could do just as effectively in some extent I'm not saying Will Borgan's a 4A player I'm just saying like we put all of this stuff on like we're willing to, from a sport, maybe it's the fact where you only play six defensemen as opposed to 12 forwards or something like that,

but just from a sport and a coach and GM perspective, I think there's so often where it's like, where you're willing to be like, oh, let's take a try on this guy who's worked their way up in our system as a forward. But defensemen, there's people who are more than capable who just never get that chance.

And I just think, and this is me just semi-complaining because I think teams, manage assets poorly where they have that guy where I feel like every single NHL team I won't say every single I feel like most NHL organizations have at least two guys in the AHL who could

who could capably play on a third pair 12 to 13 minutes a night and it wouldn't be a big deal and everyone acts like there's no one there when they go through and they panic about defensemen I don't disagree with you but I guess no the the tricky spot you get into though as a GM is I agree with you, but your coach has to be willing to trust them and actually play them.

And that's what the pickle you kind of get into, right? It's like, as an organization where it's like, you probably have a lot of those guys that you feel like you could, but then the coach isn't actually going to use them. And so then it's, all right, well, we need one. This won't be the first time NHL coaches and I don't see eye to eye on something. So it won't be the last either. Yeah. You know, I'm glad you brought up the toll on an example, because obviously it's a different

circumstance, but the reason why I like this from Seattle, at least in theory, is because it represents taking a swing on a young, interesting forward with potential that I wish they'd just done more since their inception, really. And you look, once again, their 28th and expected goals generated 28th and slot and inner slot shots now. I guess the question of how interesting Kaku is a player at this point who's about to turn 24 and has been in the league for six years is a probably an even more interesting conversation, right? Because you mentioned a guy like Nachuia. and I get the comp in terms of like the best case scenario of breakout. When I watch him play,

I really don't see that level of skating juice where. Oh, yeah. I'm not, no, my, my, let's let's be, let's be clear.

That's not, that's not, this is not saying he's going to turn into, to Val. It's the, it's the, you leave one scenario. It's where a divorce of,

a divorce of sorts can be good for both sides where, hey, expectations are gone. We can bowl, we can now, start anew and all of a sudden a player gets to kind of come in with a little bit a little bit more freed, I guess, is what I would say. Well, no, it's a big guy with clear skills who's underperforming offensively, and that's the comp, right? I just don't really see that.

Now, I think an interesting one would be like a Nino Nieder Rider, for example, who bounced around a couple times and organizations have given up on in the past. The trick is, though, that by the time he was 22, he already had a 24-goal season, which exceeds what we've seen from Cal at this level, but he's obviously a very useful player. And so even if he settles into what he's been so far, which is obviously going to be tantalizing and I think frustrating for people because they just see him in glimpses

or just look at the total package and be like, oh, the numbers don't really reflect that. But just the puck possession, the defensive impact, being a puck retriever, that's a useful middle six wing, right? And that's a very valuable player. The issue

is just like the lack of creativity, I think, and sometimes the finishing that's going to do them in. But it was a modest price for the Cracken to pay. It's like, what, a couple picks. And a Peking UFA and a UFA at that who, you know, after they bring in Montre this past summer and after they extend Adam Larson, you look at the right side. And it's like, all right, best case, this is going to be a third, third pair defenseman for us.

And I think that's what's interesting about Borgon. He's a player who I really liked two years ago, maybe not as much as our pal Thomas Drance did, certainly. But like when the Cracken had that playoff run, he was a very valuable player for them. He was playing with Jamie Alexiak at the time in a much bigger role. Since then, his numbers have plummeted. He's playing on the third pair with Josh Mahura. And so I get it from a ranger's perspective, like filling the minutes that they sort of left with in the void after they traded Truba, the guy who's pretty mobile.

And I imagine Peter Lavieland's going to trust with minutes. And so I think there is something there. I got to say though, I do obviously, like most people, I think, like this side much more from a value proposition from the Cracken's perspective. But I do think it's an interesting one. Now, I agree. 100%. What's your take on? Because obviously the timing of this is another wrinkle.

Because I don't think it's surprising that the Rangers traded Kako. Like anyone that's been following this for a couple years now, it seemed like much more of a matter of when than if. but the timing of it coming a day after he very publicly and vocally criticizes the coach and the organization for essentially singling him out and blaming him and younger players in general as opposed to some of the other struggling vets and making him the scapegoat and the healthy scratch I don't think that's the reason why the trade happened but I do think the timing is very interesting in terms of when it was finally finalized and pushed through it

when they decided to ultimately do it. What's the old classic NHL ad? No soap wrappers just hockey, right? that's exactly what we have here, right? I mean, it was, yeah, I thought the timing was funny. Obviously, I don't think it had anything to do with it at all. To me, the timing of all of this and a couple of these deals, right? We said a couple of trades go down yesterday, and to me, the bigger timing is there's, GMs are just GMs and teams are such procrastinators that sometimes they're like the kid who gets a, all of a sudden,

the head to hard deadline forces something, right? Like, I truly believe, because we're talking right now on Thursday afternoon, the roster freezes in about 10 hours or whatever it is,

right? Like, I truly believe that the roster freeze, tomorrow, the holiday roster freeze for seven, six, seven to eight, for seven or eight days or whatever it is. I feel that's a big thing

that actually drove the timing of this. Kako was going to move at some point either way. And I think that was the right, you know, it wasn't all we saw that. But it wasn't the comments. It was, was, well, if we don't get it done before Thursday at midnight,

we're going to have to have him here for Christmas. And I don't think Chris Jury wanted him to the Christmas party. So that's, it's kind of that happened. Yeah, I'm surprised the more teams weren't all over this if this was the price, right? Like, I think like Minnesota, he seems like a very Minnesota wild player. I think there's a couple other teams that he would have been an interesting fit on, right? Especially because, like, you look and whatever, he's making two. 2.4 million cap hit the rest of this season, which is obviously very palatable, and you buy

yourself an extended look. He's an RFA with arbitration rights this summer, and then he's a UFA after that, but it gives you a bit of an extended look to bring him in and see what you can mold and what you can get out of him. So I thought, like, his stock clearly fell, but I think, I think the surprising part for me was that he wasn't a bit more in higher demand, I guess, and that this is ultimately what the Rangers wound up settling on. You got any other notes? on this or do you want to go to break? I also, I guess so, the other, or the one thing on that before we go to break is I also think that I can't remember who reported it or whatever, but like there is also something where

maybe the Rangers really see that much in Will Borgon. And that just could be the other thing where it's there, like, I can't remember who reported if I saw there's something where Rangers have kicked tires on Borgon over the past a couple years or whatever it was. And so maybe for the Rangers, this really was as much about Borgon as it was Kaka went away. And I thought that feels foolish to me. But I think that is a reality we have to consider where there was a player that the Rangers and their big board because all the GMs have their lists and wish lists and everything. And this was a guy that was on Chris Jury's wish list.

And maybe that is something that we can't. I don't think we can undersell that part of the potential deal where while we may think, feel and rightful, I think we are right on the value proposition return. And within the offices in New York, they might be high-fiving because they got Will Morgan. And I think that's another thing we have to keep in mind on.

That's fair. And I think that's an important point because if you're a fan of the Wild or the Stars or any playoff team you want to think of, even if you're like, all right, I really wish my team was in on this, especially at this price. The reality is that if you are a current playoff team,

you probably don't internally have defensemen who fit this mold of like an actual at-ageal defenseman that can play real minutes to give away in this type of a deal, even though like if you just in a vacuum look at the players and you're like, all right, well, this guy who's not actually that unique of a skill setter valuable, but he's just a right-shot defenseman and this 24-year-old power forward who still has some interesting components to his game, which one would you take? I think most of the people would take the latter. but a lot of teams that are in this position

probably weren't in a spot to do what the Cracken just did. So I think that's a really good point by you. All right, Sean, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump back in. We've got a few other fun topics. We're going to get through before we close today's show out. You're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming

on the Sports Net Radio Network. All right, we're back in the Hockey Ocupacast, joined by Sean Shapiro. We're going to get into, I want to talk Sabres, and then we're going to talk Stars. And you were at the Team USA World Junior Camp as well. We'll close out with that. But before we went to break, we were talking about the Capocaco trade and everything.

And just to put a bow on that, I did have one other point that I wanted to make in terms of the question of the timing. Because you look and I mentioned the skid that the Rangers are currently in, according to Dom's model, they've fallen below 30% playoff probability. They've fallen out of the playoff race with both, well, not out of the race, but out of a playoff position with the Bruins and the senators, both clearing them. You look at their upcoming schedule. Dallas, Carolina, New Jersey, back-to-back, Tampa Bay, Florida. Are there next five games? Four of those in the road. Then in the new year, they go Boston, Washington, Chicago, okay. Dallas, New Jersey, Vegas, Colorado, Utah, and the road as well.

And in terms of the holiday freeze for the rosters, if you don't make a move, I believe they play four games between now and when a trade would become available as an option to them. And by that point, if things keep going into the same, direction, the season might legitimately be over if they keep losing at this rate. And so from like, from that perspective and the timing, I think it makes sense if you are going to make a move to make it now and try to actually salvage some of these games as tough as they're going to be. And if not, I mean, Chris Jerry might honestly not be around to to deal with this, but it does

feel like there's sort of with the Truba deal and with this as well. I think they're trying to position themselves to like reallocate resources because I think the, the whole caco dilemma with him as an arbitration eligible RFA and how much you pay him and some of the other RFAs you have. It's setting up to be a very interesting offseason for the Rangers financially. Now that's a ways ahead. And I'm sure all they're worried about is trying to fix this season. But I think all of those things is kind of like contextual factors for why they did what they did now are worth pointing out. Okay.

Savers. Speaking of teams, we're down bat. Oh, eight and three in their last 11 games. They have two regulation wins in the past 40 days. They're all the way down to 29th in point percentage. They, the reason why we're talking about them now is because they had a, a very publicized team meeting this week before their game in Montreal. It concluded with the announcement that they weren't going to do anything because they,

quote unquote, believe in the room and feel like the solution is within the room. Now, the response to that was a game. Montreal that started with them being out attempted 20 to 2 they lose 7 to 1 it was a very tough watch it looked incredibly bleak what are your thoughts on this situation the reporting of it I guess

and everything that's surrounded the Sabres this week so the first thing I have to bring up is so with the meeting so I'm in Detroit right and so I am here in the city where Buffalo where the other team owned by the

Pagula family beat the Lions and a thrilling football game on Sunday. Really fun football game on Sunday. And I just, because I can't, if I owned an NFL, and I don't know for sure how Terry Pagula operates, but if I owned an NFL team and they were that good, I would be at every game.

So I could only assume Terry Pagula was in Detroit on Sunday at the Bill's Lions game, right? Like I could assume that. So I don't, I just, I can't understand how he would have watched that that team watched the bills play

his other team and saw what Josh Allen did and his NFL team did and then be like all right well we got the exact same thing here we got the exact same thing here with the sabers

and we're all good don't worry guys like I don't get how I just I have the this theory and no proof and it's just anecdotal

I'm curious of when a billionaire owns multiple teams and they're in different sports, when one team is really good, if that actually gives more time to let the other team be bad and do nothing, just because you're already kind of drinking on the high of winning. And I think a little bit of that, and that's just partially from my location, being in Detroit, having watched the Bills' Lions game closely on Sunday.

And then obviously that I watched, I rewatch that Montreal Buffalo game. I watched it on replay the next day or whatever. Man, you were not wrong. That was a tough, tough watch. Good for Patrick Aligning, but tough watch. Well, that's why I'm torn on this subject as a whole because I think like if you're just taking

like sort of a more direct microscopic view of the situation, it's like the on-ice product with how they're playing and the way they've been coached by Lindy Ruff this year is obviously unacceptable. right like you just watch it's like they seem to be unprepared to start games I mean they had no plan heading into that one certainly

they weren't covering Patrick Linae from his office on the power play at all the first goal was like I don't even want to say beer league defending because I feel like in that case like someone would probably be even more close within his vicinity like he was essentially standing as the only person on that half of the ice just waiting for the puck to get to him

the power play is 30th in the league they look to my eye like one of the worst passing teams in the league there's no cohesion there's no semblance of the offensive juice they had two years ago when we fell in love with them even in games where they come out and play okay at the first sign of adversity they seem to just like completely fade and wilt and so there's like no resilience

either I just feel like you put all those things together and it's probably a sign that coaching isn't good but my issue with it is I feel like it's a bit too narrow of a view. Like you almost need to take a step back and look at this entire situation when you're assigning blame because what, we're heading into year 14 now of the Sabres now making the playoffs, right? And there's been various GMs, various coaches, certainly a ton of different players. And all of them are different and have unique circumstances. At the same time, though, there's a common denominator here.

And so I'm glad that you brought up the ownership part of this because I feel like, like when you look at the way the Sabres have operated. And I feel like this week highlighted that in particular. I feel like that's where you have to start with a finger pointing. Yeah, and it's the whole, we're all giving ourselves pat on the back vote of confidence and everything like that. Shouldn't the fact that you go in and your belief in the team is like, I'm sure that they went to that being like, oh, we're going to give belief in this team in this meeting and then they're going to go show us why we support this belief. shouldn't that have been the immediate to me that's the immediate red flag right there

of like you know what we have no sway over this group we have the guys that we have that we've been patting each other on the back they have no sway over this group and it's it's it's it's kind of one of the the classic examples of

if they're going to make a trade in the next 10 hours if they're going to make it to get one done before the freeze, but how and I don't know how you justify sticking with the current coaching situation and the current GM situation

and I think part of the apathy comes from ownership on that. So I it's Buffalo is a frustrating team man. There's a bunch of players that I know both you and I really like individually on that team that I would that I love to ISO and watch on that team.

And then you just watch the whole team play. It's just sad. Just sad. I mean, Sean, paying multiple coaches as an expensive endeavor, I think it's much cheaper to sit by and not do anything, to be honest with you. And that's what I'm trying to hint at here, because here's a thing. Jeez, geez, geez, oh, come on. Sean, here's a thing.

No, no, I'm not defending anyone. I'm actually doing the opposite. What I'm saying is, But Gula bought this team in 2011. That was the last time the Sabres made the playoffs. If they missed this year, which they're on track to do so,

as I said, there's 29 the point percentage. That's 14 straight seasons. Do you know how deeply rotten an organization you have to be to miss the playoffs that often in any league, but let alone the NHL.

We talk all the time about how much variance and turnover and randomness is involved in the sport? Like for one year in that time to not accident back your way into the playoffs is you would almost actively have to try not to do so. Like it's exceedingly difficult.

It's almost statistically impossible to go through this long of a run of incompetence. And that's the common denominator. So I think it's an incredibly frustrating situation. I think they certainly need to do all sorts of stuff, especially what makes it doubly frustrating is you look around. And this is the year that it's more open than ever, right? Like you look at the Atlantic Division in particular, the fallout from the Rangers, the Bruin struggles, there's such an opening there and avoid to be to be grasped.

And for them to be failing this miserably, given the context of that as well, makes it even bleaker because this isn't one of those years where it's like, all right, well, the East is so loaded and the teams ahead of us are just so furbly entrenched that even if we put our best foot forward, we wouldn't ultimately get it done and we'd fall short. And that's how we talk ourselves into having the season that we're having. That's not what's happening this year at all. yeah it's just I don't know how else to paint the picture in Buffalo right

it's just you said it perfectly there's it is it is more this it's really bad man it's really bad yeah um okay the Dallas stars let's let's switch gears and talk about them because they're sitting on nearly what 10 million in cap space once Tyler's again goes on LTIR

and the conversation on what they're going to do. I mean, obviously we see this happen in the past, but for a contender that's as deep as they are to have that much real estate, I guess, to cover makes a very interesting proposition for Jim Nell and Company. I'm curious for your take on the timing and the ultimate selection of what they're going to do with that, what they're going to try to prioritize and how they sort of fill that gap in this big year for them, where, as I said, the league is just as wide open as ever, and they've been so close to getting to the mountain top,

how do you see this progressing? Yeah, for what's a gym nail is a very patient general manager. I've covered this and written about this a ton. So I think one of the things that is actively happening right now for the stars is they are, right, it was predicated by the Met Dunba injury, and maybe they should have just gone to Leon Bischel a little bit sooner, even without the MET Dumb injury,

but part of it right now is I think as a staff and as a team they're figuring out is Bishel that in is Bishel this season that internal solution on the blue line. So are they going to do they, do they already have sort of the defensive ad already? And if so, do they need to add another defender?

Like, because last year the TANF trade was exactly what they needed last year. And they still needed like, they're still severely lacking a TANF. type piece that helps them protect the net and clear that space. But the big thing with Sagan being out is the stars definitely, because it's not just 10 million, it's like once it gets to the deadline, if they use the LTIR and with cap space, they're on pace to have almost 16 million in cap space of deadline space, right?

So there's enough space to bring in multiple pieces. And it's, we've seen a lot of reporting on and I've heard. it myself to where the stars are actively shopping for a forward. They're actively looking to add someone because they know they they don't believe, say, and we'll be back before the end of the regular season. They, one of the things that the stars really like about their group is they feel like they have a space where they can bring someone in. And it's not going to be a super hard group to get in because they have a bunch of, uh, because like, so someone, someone pointed out to me from the stars organization the other day that whoever,

the stars make a trade for, they could easily slide them on to a line with Marchment and do Shane right now, just because those two already have such good chemistry. That would be like the perfect, like, isolator to bring a guy in and bring someone in. So I expect the stars to be, to go and try and find a forward. It's, there's, it just feels like the gym nil type guys. And I'll put like, I'm not saying these are the guys that necessarily be on top my list, but I look at like the Jim Nill type guys that he'd probably be looking at or probably you look at like a i know brock nelson is a popular name right now but i feel like of a trano or like even like an or riley smith who was a former stars player like those are the ones that that that come in and into mind of like those are

the guys that i would if i was building jim nil's typical shopping profile those are the guys that i would target based off my knowledge of what jim nil has done and covering that team his history and everything like that let me just remind you you that the only right shot defensemen on this roster are Matt Dumba, Ilya Lushkin, Niels Lundquist, and Alex Petrovich. Now, I know, me or a case can it can obviously play on his offside. I would be a bit more ambitious, I think, especially with how good the stars are, how open it is. I know it's not Bill. I get that. I get that. I get that. Yeah. I get that. I get that. I definitely get that. I just, I think, unless there is the

I'm not saying they shouldn't add on the back end. They probably should. I'm just trying to give you an idea of what I think is going to happen right now. I'd be curious to see what their appetite is for adding not just a pure rental, but someone with a cap hit attached in the future, right? Because obviously the proposition of LTIR is just for the remainder of this regular season. Jamie Ben's 9.5 million comes off the books. This summer, I believe.

Now, they have a bunch of, you know, intentions coming and players who are going to set to be making more. I think they're also very budget conscious in terms of mapping ahead and making sure to preserve room. And so they don't want to just box themselves in from contracts-wise. So I think a lot of that is going to go into consideration. But I feel like if you just expand beyond the pure rental market, the options become much more interesting. I'm just not sure if they're going to be willing to entertain that as aggressively as they would appear rental. yeah yeah the the other one just like a right-handed d that i wonder it wouldn't be surprised if i saw

dallas shop on the right-handed d part is like if they go and if they sniff around on gaverkov like just and this is again i don't know how we i don't know how on podcast now demetri were supposed to say this is me just wondering as opposed to me reporting because i don't want someone to go aggregate this into like some website that sean shapiro is saying the stars are searching for Averkov. I just wonder aloud on if that's a guy, because I could see, you talk about the right-handed side-ness, you talk about that, I could see that as

well. I don't know. I don't think the Kings have a lot of appetite to move them at this point, especially considering how their playoff footing is and how good he's been with Mikey Anderson. I will say, I agree with you. I agree with you, but I'm just, I'm saying, yeah. I just feel like, you know, we were talking about this earlier

with Chris Jury and Peter Lavillette and taking it league-wide view in general of like interaction and communication between GM and coach and arming them with players they're actually going to use. I think if you're Jim Nell and you're looking ahead to this postseason based on what's happened the past couple playoff runs, I think adding someone who can like legitimately play full-time second pair of minutes and compliment S.L. and Dell is incredibly important because the stars are at their best when Hayskin and

Harley on their ice together. And we also know that the third. pair in particular the sixth defenseman will probably not be used that much by peter burr in any playoff setting and so i think if you're jim nil that's probably not going to change at this point and so you need to make moves accordingly to arm the coach with the right players to actually use that to its full potential so that's all i'll say on that uh in terms of ambition and the type of player you're targeting all right we got a question from luke in the in the pdo cast discord said, is it possible to get more regular prospect or world junior chats on the show?

Some of us need some light at the end of the tunnel considering the state of our teams. Now, Luke, you're in luck because to close out the week, we're going to have our pal Cam Robinson on the program to get into all of that. So I'm going to save a lot of that for then. But as I hinted, you were live and present for the Team USA camp earlier this week. you got any tidbits to share or notes or observations or things you're excited about or anything that came up from the two days you were there? Yeah, it's a weird one because like USA basically, USA effectively uses summer showcase to basically pick the prime,

basically pick their roster. So like they only like, I don't remember how many guys Canada brought to camp. You can ask Cam about that tomorrow. But like, while Canada played games against CIS teams and stuff like that, Team USA just brought 29 guys to camp. And now part of that is there's a lot of certainty already with that team,

where we all know there's going to be a line of, and that Boston College line of Higgins, Perrault, and Leonard. We know that's going to be a line. We know Trey Augustine is going to be the goalie again for the third straight year. We know Zeev Bouillon is going to probably is going to play a big role on this. So for Team USA, it's more about they're kind of at the, the final cuts they just have to make, they still have to make,

they took all 29 to, for pre-tournament games, so they still have to make some cuts. But for me, the thing that stands out about the American team is just, uh, and was just a mentality thing where it's,

this is a team where the United States has never won back to back world June. That's something that is a, as a country is a, a big point that David Carl is a David Carl the coach for the world junior team also the coach at Denver he's a big student

of history and has and uses that as a motivator one of the things from his NCAA job with Denver one of the things that he often used about like one of his kind of go-to lines when anytime anyone would be like oh when's David Carl going to go to the NHL he would often kind of use a bit of a line where

well my biggest focus is getting that 10th national title for Denver and being more than anyone else. Well, they did that last year. And I think that's one of those things where with this, talking to a bunch of those American players for me this week was the, it's not a metal defense. It's more so

of a like history seeking deal where it's like these players have kind of bought into the idea of they can go do something no American team has done before. And that one of my biggest takeaway was talking to the players. Watching it, it's two days of camp. I mean, that BC lot, there's, you're going to have some

instant chemistry already with a bunch of guys returning. with a full, you have six Boston college players on the team. So they should be one of the favorites. And they should have the goaltender in the tournament too. So it's the Americans, there's not many surprises. And that's for as an American who be kind of cool to watch history here, that's, that's a good thing. It is.

Okay. Here's another question that's similar on the prospect lines that I wanted again to quickly hear with you before we get out. Space Coral asks, does the Hershey Bear's success back-to-back Calder Cops, top of the HL again this season, have anything to do with how the Capitals are looking this year. Now, you look at the team that won two years ago for them. They had Connor McMichael playing a big role. They had Lexi Protois there, Hendricks-Lopier, even Beck Malenstein, who played a big role for them last year, and then they traded to Buffalo this off-season.

Last year's team had Ivan Merschenko, Hendricks-Lapier as well. I think it's tough to quantify, but I certainly think those reps were incredibly valuable. I think the Capitals is an organization in general have done an incredible job of developing a lot of these guys, and they've played big roles on the main team this year. So I certainly would point to that. I'm curious for your take on this, in particular, I know you spent a lot of time documenting everything happening over the past couple years with the Chicago Wolves, right? You've covered a Dallas Stars team that utilizes their HL team as well, and in the recent past, have let a bunch of their guys kind of marinate there and develop before calling them up. That's one of the luxuries they've had

with how deep and talented they've been with this incarnation of the team. But just kind of the utilization, I guess, of the AHL team and that organization as sort of a preparation in terms of playing big, important, meaningful games at that level, and then using that as a stepping stone to integrating them into your NHL team. Yeah, so I'm going to be a quick salesman for a second. me and my buddy, Stephen Merserve, wrote a book about, it focuses mainly on the Texas Stars, but we wrote quite a bit about the HL hockey called We Win Here. And it's a look at a bunch of things through the AHAL landscape,

using the Texas Stars as the vacuum to tell that story. And there's an entire essay in that book where we looked at the cat of, does the Calder Cup matter? It was the question we kind of posed and we looked into this thing. And it's, and it's something that's close to, for me to think about because it's, I covered a team that won a Calder Cop in 2014 in Texas, actually.

And you looked and I was the bright-eyed younger writer who's like, oh my God, the team won the Calder Cup. This means that all these players are going to become NHL. This Dallas is going to be great because of this in 2014. So from the team that won the 2014 Calder Cup, the ones that became NHL regulars for Dallas, like it was effectively Radick Fox, Jamie Alexiac, and like Justin Dowling, who is people may good good good guy but not an NHL impact player. So I'll put it this way. With what Hershey's done,

it certainly doesn't hurt what the capitals are doing because I think there are there are A HL teams where the things aren't run completely where you actually have disconnect and obviously the Chicago Wolves, the Carolina Hurricanes one is the biggest disconnect. But there's other ones where

teams don't play the same systems. There's NHL teams and HL teams that don't play the same systems where you'll get guys who will be called up to called up and one of the reasons sometimes you'll see an issue with a call up or a guy, a young player being lost, it's not necessarily them being

lost. It's them playing the default system in their head that the HL team plays. That's happened multiple times. It's one of the reasons actually when Detroit changed their HL coach two years ago. One of the reasons they did it was so the Grand Rapids Griffins would play a similar style to the Red Wings because they wanted that to happen. And so Hershey plays a more similar style to Washington from my understanding. I don't watch every Herssey game. And so I don't know for 100% certainty, but I also do know Todd Nelson very well. Todd Nelson is the head coach of in Hershey and he's now one back to back called their cups and um is one of those guys

who I in my mind should be an NHL coach but just never really sees that opportunity um I think what Hershey's success does is it makes the it makes stepping into the moments it's makes stepping into success not a surprise and I think that is where kind of and I think that's where this comes in when you get guys who play played for that team who come in and now are going to make an impact with Washington. It's no longer a, it's no longer going from, it's not like going from, hey, a development team to a team where you're trying to win. Because there's some HL teams where it's literally based of, hey, this is just a, where basically a write-off for individual development.

And I think, I'm of the belief that when you do that, you sometimes hurt. the day to day of players playing in a winning environment. So I think that's one way Hershey has helped Washington. But that's about it. Like, let's just be clear. Like, that's about it. Spencer Carberry deserves a ton of credit. You look at it's, I think there is a small impact,

but I don't think it should be overly diagnosed or overly given. It shouldn't be trumpeted from the mountains that what the Hershey Bears are done is the reason the Washington Capitals are where they are. Little credit, but not a ton. Of course, especially. with going out of the organization and making all the acquisitions and player ads they did offseason.

Yeah, yeah, like it's, yeah. I think that's a great point you make in terms of like setting a precedent for expectations once you are called up and what's going to be rewarded with the main club and the way they want you to play and then being able to trace that line I think is a very valuable

asset for organizations. And so I think Washington clearly has done that very well there because you could pretty easily trace the growth. of a lot of these guys who now are playing prominent roles on the NHL team. So I think it's a really cool thing they're doing and another feather in the cap for the capitals organization. All right, Sean, we're going to get out of here.

That's all the time we have for today. Everyone go follow Sean's work throughout the holidays here with the World Junior starting and everything like that. We're going to have him on again sent soon, certainly, for a lot more. Get into the PEOCast Discord. You can get in some questions like the ones we answered here at the end of today's show for future episodes. and thank you for listening to the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.