The Hockey PDOcast - The Oilers, Trade Market, and Mullett Arena Vibes

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Ryan Lambert of EP Rinkside joins Dimitri to talk about the Oilers needs, this year's trade market, and his recent trip to Mullett Arena to watch a hockey game. This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.  The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Lessing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Amitra Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Ryan Lambert. Ryan, what's going on, men? Oh, not a whole lot. Yeah.

Yeah, well, you just got back from your big trip. I did, yeah. Which we will, we'll talk about it in the back after the show. Okay, we're going to do a full, a retrospective of a Mullet Arena deep dive and break down here in the PEDO cast. So looking forward to that. Let's start talking about the Oilers, though, because you recently wrote about them already B-Ring side, the big piece on them.

And I actually, in thinking back, I feel like I haven't necessarily talked that much about them on the show so far this season. Done it kind of been passing here or there, but certainly haven't done a full breakdown, by any means. And they're having an interesting season to say the least, right? Like, my initial inclination is to be like, well, it's the same as it ever was. but I actually think that there's some kind of like unique circumstances so far this season where it actually is at least statistically a bit different than it was,

you know, last year or in the past, whenever this team's kind of struggled. Yeah, for sure. I guess the big thing is that everybody thought it was going to be different this year. They went out and they got the goal tending that, you know, we've kind of felt they were lacking for the last few years. And they, you know, they were going to get a full season of a. van der kane or so they thought yeah um and i think maybe there was also some thinking that like some

people would step up on the back end and uh you know like darnel nurse would have a better season and they'd be able to deploy tyson barry more effectively and that kind of thing and it just didn't happen well here's the thing even after utterly just curb stomping the anaheimducks last night. They did, yeah. A team that as a society, I think we've progressed past the need for. Like, I don't think this version of the ducks will revisit in the future, but certainly this Dallas-Eakins version we don't need it anymore.

They're still getting outscored a 5-15 for the year the Oilers are. And I think the thing that the thing, the reason why I wanted to talk about them was you see all these think pieces, right? And all these Oilers beat reporters were writing about who they should be targeting, what this team needs. And it's kind of just regurgitating the same old tropes and same old stories that they've basically written for the past five years, right? It's like they need to get tougher. They need to get more physical.

They need to work on their on their defensive, on, on, they need to get a defensive defenseman basically like the archetype, the traditional thing we think of what we think of that player. Yeah. And the framing of that is just so off to me, right? Because you look at it and it all it all works from this kind of diluted idea that they're all set offensively. they have Connor McDavid, they have Leon Dreisital. They're good. They're going to score enough goals. And for me, that just hasn't really been the case, right?

Like, I know they're scoring a lot of goals in all situations because they literally have the most efficient power play we've seen all the data we have going back to 2007, certainly, right? Well, I think their rate is like higher than the Canadians rate when they were like, okay, we have to change the rules of how power plays work. Like they have a higher power play percentage than those teams. or at least they did the last time I looked at this sort of thing. Yeah. And the...

So like historically good power play. And yet. Well, the 1819 Lightning, the team that won, what, 62 games or whatever. Yeah. They had 11.5 goals per 60 on the power play, which was the high watermark previously. This Oilers team is operating at 12.6 goals per 60. It's literally the best we ever seen. The 515, it's kind of helped mask the reality, though, that the 515 offense has been deeply

troubling and like just genuinely not good enough. They're 19th in goals per 60 at 515 as a team. According to Corey Schneider's tracking, they're 16th in the league in shots off the rush at 515, which to me seems almost impossible because they have the greatest, like the singular greatest rush player we've ever seen. Yeah. And Connerick-David literally leads the league in individual scoring chances off the rush this season yet as a team even accounting for that they're 16th their middle of the pack which i can't

like you almost can't reconcile those two unless you take a step back and realize wow there's some really like deep rooted internal flaws here that go well beyond well we're good offensively because we're scoring a lot of goals because a lot of the games played at five one five and just relying on your power play to bail you out every single night is not a very great strategy i don't think I mean, it is if you can reliably draw penalties and just go, well, we'll score on, you know, more than one in every three. But I don't know, like, you know, you hear all the time, well, playoff hockey, they don't call penalties or whatever. I think that's not really true. I think, like, the data shows that that's not really true.

They actually call more penalties in the playoffs a lot of the time. But, you know who I think doesn't draw enough penalties? and I've said this a million times. It's Connor McDavid, right? Like, for how fast he is, how good he is on the rush and all this kind of stuff and how much he just has the puck on his stick, this guy doesn't draw penalties. And I think that's, you know, we've talked about it a million times.

Like, reps just go, well, you're a star player, get through it. And this is the only sport that really does that. But at the same time, it's like, I just pulled up the numbers from, natural stat trick. When McDavid is on the ice at five on five, they are plus three in goals. When it's, no, I'm sorry. When it's McDavid and Drysidal, they're plus three in goals. When it's just McDavid, dead even. When it's just Drysidal minus three and when it's everybody else minus two. Right. So like McDavid is plus three on the season. Drysidal is minus three and everybody else is minus two. Like they're not, I guess the real

problem here a little bit is McDavid isn't outscoring the competition like he usually does, right? And so that is making everybody else go, oh, we have major problems here. But it's not really Well, here's the thing, though. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, they're up 34 to 31, as you said. Like, they're scraping by in terms of on the scoreboard with McDavid on the ice. You also have 59% of the high danger chances and 56% of the expected goals, right? Part of that is definitely they are not getting saves this year. They got saves last year. Say what you want about the guys they had.

They had above average goaltending in the league. And I guess my point is I just looked it up last year when McDavid was on the ice, the oilers were plus 26. You know, like is just the bad goaltending enough? My kind of thing here is without a Vander Cain. this whole team has fallen apart. Yeah. Like it's,

it's really that simple. Before Vander Kain gets hurt, McDavid has like a huge number of primary assists per 60, and now it's like a quarter of what it was since the Kane injury. Before Kane got hurt, he was playing with Dryside less than 20% of the time at 5 on 5. Since Kane got hurt, it's over 50%. And which just gives you,

even more time that these guys who are lower in the lineup and can't outscore their opponents at all are out there. Like those guys are out there more because McDavid and Dreisdell are out there together instead of two separate lines. Yeah. Well, and when Woodcroft took over last year, one of the big changes he made beyond like kind of, you know, optimizing the offense, less point shots, like funneling everything through McDavid and Dreidelmore was doing what we wanted all along, which was, all right,

I'm going to split these guys up more and they're going to play less. And it's going to be more efficient when they're on the ice. We're not going to just like lean on them and just be this one trick pony and everything kind of came together for them. And then now they're reverting back to that. And just think about the sentence you just said. Like without a bandricade around, they have fallen apart. Like if that to me demonstrates not only like the deeper rooted issues,

but like how the flaws in the construction, right? Sure. 100%. The goal-tending is an issue, but I think that's an entirely separate thing. I think the other reason why they're only plus three with McDavid is because, quite frankly, there just isn't enough finishing talent around this group, which seems crazy to say. But it's true. And not having a mandry cane and then all of a sudden that being this massive issue,

like that's not good enough. McDavid is shooting the puck like 15% more now that Kane, is out of the lineup. He's generating more individual expected goals by, you know, a decent percentage. And that, again, speaks to, like, the lack of maybe faith he has in his not-a-vander-Kin linemates. It's like, oh, I got to do this all myself, you know? Yeah. Well, I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing.

I mean, it's like, but like, but it is an indictment. of what the Oilers have put together around the greatest player of his generation and a guy who, you know, Drysidal, frankly, apart from the points and mostly the power play points, he's not having a good year. Here it is. What he's not playing with McDavid this year, like I said, they've been outscored by three, which I don't think anybody would have seen coming. But 45% of the expected goals, 44% of the scoring chances,

49% of the high dangers. Like, when Leon Driesidal is on the ice, the Oilers have to be better than this. And that's not like a McDavid problem. That's a Leon Drysicle player. Well, and last I checked, when they play him and Hyman together in particular,

they're just getting like absolutely eviscerated offensively. Yeah. And I have to think this is the classic thing of we've talked ourselves into this guy as a good defensive player. Yes. You know, as opposed to is he actually? Well, I mean,

I haven't looked into that, but it feels like he is. You know, he kills penalties sometimes. So how could he not be good defensively? It feels like, well, I mean, watch the game tape, right? Well, here's the point that I want to make to tie this all together. So there's this account on Twitter, NHL underscore Cid, which is my favorite oilers follow for my money. I highly recommend checking out his work.

I've done a great job of drawing the connection and kind of hammering this point home. I think the big part of why these numbers just aren't lining up in terms of how good McDavid is individually been and how we think of this team offensively and why their 5-1-5 play hasn't been good enough is because their defensemen are not nearly good enough at getting them the puck, like breaking the puck out of the zone, right? And that's the point that I want to make here

was you see all these pieces and it's like, well, the Oilers are giving up a lot of goals, their goaltending is struggling, they need to improve the defense once again, Joel Edminton is the guy. And obviously that's flawed logic for so many reasons. But I think especially like beyond Joel Edmondson and what you think of him as a player

and what the exorbitant price they'd have to pay for him is, it's just not the type of player they need. Like they need someone who's a good player that can move the puck and help them in that specific area because for this team to be 16th in rush shots when they have Connor McDavid cannot be acceptable, and they need players who can help them move the puck in the right direction more frequently.

And so whether that's Jacob Chikrin or whether that someone else you want to identify, I'm not saying that offense is the only thing they need to address, but it's just so strange to me how all of this is being sort of like massaged and how like everything is being framed, you know what I mean? Yeah, I remember four or five, maybe even longer than that ago, like one of the first few seasons with McDavid, And everybody's talking about, like, oh, he's spent so much time in his defensive zone.

And, you know, he's got to get better defensively and stuff like that. And I just remember making the point, like, the reason he's spending so much time in his defensive zone is that he feels like he has to go back 200 feet and then carry the puck 200 feet, right? Like, the amount of pressure that he, that all great players put on themselves to, like, perform and earn the contract and earn, you know, the captaincy or whatever you want to say. Like McDavid has to be doing that. And back then and maybe even now, it kind of manifests as, well, if I don't do X, Y, and Z, literally nobody else out there can do it. Yeah.

I mean, it is that simple, but it's still, after all these years, we're still here, right? And I don't know. I guess I should throw this in as well. I'm not sure if you saw Mark Specter did a big deep dive of just. Jacob Chikran and whether he's the right piece for the oil. Let me guess he's not. It was a hilarious article. Well, so here's the thing, right?

And you said they need a puck move. I obviously don't disagree with you. But I think what I would say is the price for Chikrin is so high. And look, like, it's not as though the oilers like, oh, we couldn't possibly, like, now is the time to go hog wild on the trade market. Right. I totally understand that. but my thing is like you've got to maximize what you're getting with McDavid and I guess what you're not getting with McDavid kind of says what that story is right like

Evander Kane he goes out and the complete the entire team falls not that they were like world beaters when Evander Kane was in the lineup earlier this year but you know yes to me, like, I kind of, I look at the defensemen who are available at a semi-reasonable price, right? Because the other thing is the Oilers really, like, they have prospects, but they don't have, like, unbelievable prospects that maybe Arizona would want. I think I would go out and target, like, a middle six forward who actually has, like, a history of finishing. and you're going to pay probably less for that than you do for a chikrin or, you know, who's even another puck-moving defenseman that's, like, wildly available in the market and it's going to move the needle for you.

Like, I don't know that, I don't know if there's a good answer to that question. I guess. I guess I think that's going like too far the other way. I guess I question whether the price. price is too much on chikrin right it's like all right a couple picks which i understand there's an opportunity cost involved certainly you can it's like you can use those picks to get a different type of player but in reality holding on to those picks and being like we need to make these draft picks it's valuable to us it's like well players will not make an impact during connor macdavid

and leon drey siddles prime for sure no i i get what you're saying is i don't know that unless the oilers are like we don't because they won't want, you know, reportedly like a couple of first round picks, which the Oilers do have and like some A prospects, which I'm saying like the Oilers kind of don't have. Right. Like unless you're saying Dylan Holloway, but then you also, because the Oilers are so capped out, they also have to like get the coyotes to take a bad contract. And it's like, well, they already did that for you. Right. They took the Zach Cassian contract off your books. Why would they do it again unless you're really making it worth their while? And I don't know that.

Like, there's at some point, like, the cost is too high no matter what kind of, just because it's like, do the oilers have what the coyotes are looking for versus what, say, the kings have that the coyotes might be looking for, you know? Yeah. Yeah, no, that's certainly fair. I guess, yeah, the question of, like, what type of player you want to identify is an interesting one to me. I think it seems like we're on the same page.

we're maybe approaching it from different angles, but like, for me, it all comes back to, they need more talent, whether that is a defenseman or a forward, right? Like, it's, that's what we're pushing back against, this notion they're like, no, they're all set. Now they need to add this specific niche type of like one dimensional defensive defense. And it's like, no, you should spend your remaining assets on a player that can, is just the best player possible, right? Yes, regardless of position where available. Exactly.

Exactly. And so, you know, Joel Edmondson. That probably is Chikrin, right? I think, I think it is. And that's what I was mentioning this Spectre piece, because it's like, first off, I think we should ban people like passing off an Allison players they've clearly never watched before. It's like, this whole piece framed Chikrin has like this offensive dynamo who's like a liability in his own zone.

It's like, have you? No, haven't watched Jacob Chikin play hockey. Yeah. Yeah, it's, you're telling on yourself a little bit there. like he's fine offensively he's got good zone exit numbers which is valuable for what i was just saying the oilers need in terms of the oilers need yeah but he's also good in his own zone particularly in that in zone defending of like breaking up cycles operating in front of his own net which is also what they need and that's why i identified him as like you know it seems kind of lazy to be like well the oilers

need a defenseman jacob chickering is the best one available that's why they should get him and then i was giving more thought in terms of what he specifically does and what they specifically need and i was Yeah, yeah. You know what? If it's 2023 first, 24 first, let's say Philip Broberg and then you use Tyson Barry's contract or something, if that's enough for the coyotes, I'm fine with that. Yeah, okay, yeah. If you're saying that's what you're giving up to get Chikrin for two years beyond this one,

sold. No, that's not a problem to me. What I guess I'm saying is like, ooh, if I'm the coyotes, I'm like, there's got to be a better lover out there. As much as like Philip Roberg seems like he's fine, you know? I think if there was a better offer than that out there, they probably would have traded him by now, honestly. Well, I guess will one materialize just because, well,

I wrote about this yesterday, but like the other thing that I'm thinking about with this is selling teams aren't going to have a lot of leverage. There's a lot of teams that are going to be tanking or quasi tanking or whatever in the second half of the season because we've really figured out like, okay, you're like the 10 teams in each conference that are legitimately playoff competitive. And that means like there's only going to be a set number of buyers and way more sellers than we usually get. You know?

And it seems like all of them do have a defense when they kind of want to give away. But like to your point, I mean, the idea that like, look, the Oilers are in trouble. If they miss the playoffs with McDavid and Drysidal at this point in their career, it's like an unmitigated disaster. It's a catastrophe. Yeah. We got to go out and get Jake McCain. We got to get Gavrikov. It's got to happen.

Like, what are we talking about here? I know. It's wild. Yeah. It's, man. I mean, McDavid's on pace for literally 150 points. That's not like rounding up.

It's like 150.6 or something. I was going to say, if anything, that's rounding down. It's 150 points. They as a team are 10th in the West and point percentage, fifth in the Pacific. Now, they're in this like jumble with the Preds, abs and flames and really like one good week here or there. It takes you from the bottom of that to the top. So that's, that's a non-issue. But Dom's model at the athletic has them at 64% to make the playoffs.

And that's like a very dangerous game to be playing, considering what's on the line, as you just said in terms of how potentially missing would be catastrophic. And I don't know, man, you just look at it like, McDavid has 35 goals, Joyce Idol is 23, Nugent Hopkins is 20, and Hyman is. 20, right? And all those guys are just feasting on the power play. Yes. Their next leading goal score, can you guess who it is? It's, it can't be yes, right? It's got to be, it's got to be someone I'm not thinking. Oh, God. I wish it was, but it's not. I wish it was too. That would be great. The next leading goal score is Kleem Koston with seven goals.

You don't want to be in that situation. If you're a player. Five, five of those seven have come since December 30th, including two last night against that Ducks team, we just mentioned. So, I mean, come on. Like let's. Yes. I mean, the stat, the stat for me from all of that is, I don't, you know, they were doing perfectly well. But since the cane injury, they are 14, 12, and 1, which is like a 91 point pace or something like that. And it's like if the difference between you being a team that's like, you know, we can even actually get to the Western Conference final again, you know.

And we're a team that's going to miss the playoffs by six points. is Evander Cain, like, that's crazy to me when you look at who else is on this roster. I mean, the thing for me, though, is, like, so you look at, like, they've been rolling out that Nurse CC defense pair as their number one pair this year, right? Boy. And, yeah, I mean, it was understandable to give Nurse a bit of a free pass

last postseason because he was clearly hurt, right? And so it was like, oh, he's getting beat out wide by the abs every single time. it's like, okay, well, yeah, those guys are really fast and also he's playing it. He's playing in. Yeah, it's okay. You watch this year, it's like, nope, that that pair is just getting absolutely feasted on every single time anyone comes at them with speed. And Nurse is a valuable player. He's making $5 million or $5.6 that he was last year.

Now he's making $9.5. And it's like, okay. So at this point, you're already, you're like in that deal no matter what. But for me, the reason why adding a guy like Chukrin is also interesting is because, Because him being a left shot defenseman is actually more valuable to this Oilers team than it is for most other teams out there. Because we always talk about how like, oh, you need right shot defense. And those are the premium assets. But in this case, you add trickering.

All of a sudden, it allows you to potentially bump nurse down a little bit. Maybe you get even more out of him. You're not asking him and CC to just basically play all the tough minutes against other teams of best players. And if, if Chikrin really is a player that he's shown in Arizona, he can be, all of a sudden, I think like, there's that trickle down effect as well of like making other people better as well whereas if you add a forward and you're like all right we're going to add another finisher next to mac david here that's great and you can maximize those minutes more but does that really ultimately move the needle that much for for anyone else in the lineup it feels like everyone is kind of where they already were to

begin with at that point right it's kind of the opposite of like what the boston bruin's are doing right now where if you said you know two years into his new contract taylor hall's a third liner for the Bruins. Everybody's like, yikes, that's horrible. And it's like, actually,

no, like he's the greatest, he's the greatest third liner in the history of the NHL. And, you know, like they're, the reason they're able to put him

on the third line is because they don't need him on the top two lines and he is therefore dominating, right? And so you could say the same thing about Darnell Nurse, except to your point, they're paying him nine, nine and a half million bucks, whatever it is.

And like, did you see this a couple of weeks ago? I don't remember who the, player was, but there was someone on the ice being like $9 million and you don't do anything out here. What, what's happening with you? Like, just really like getting in the space, making fun of them. And it's like, you don't want to be in a situation where guys are pointing out, like, you make too much money on the ice. You know, oh, I disagree. I wish you would come on here and make fun of me for making too much money. What do you do? You're making $9.5 million? I'm like, yeah,

that's right. Yeah, I mean, that is the ultimate. Trump card to that. It's like, yeah, you're making like $4 million. So I don't, I don't really have to care what you think. But like that, whoever that NHLer's point was is to me well taken. Like, why are they paying? Like, I mean, I said it at the time, but why are they paying them that money? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Yeah. Yeah. It hurts. It hurts. Okay. Well, yeah, that's kind of all I. Is there anything else in the other? I just really wanted, because I've seen so much misinformation out there that I just

wanted to, I wanted to have this conversation. I think it's important. I think if you see someone peddling Joel Edmondson is the answer, you really need to have your eyebrow raised in terms of what their agenda is, or at least like why they're saying that. Yeah, I don't even think it's necessarily what their agenda is. It's just like, oh, that guy like doesn't watch the same sport I do, it seems like. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like that would be my big takeaway on we need to go out. Like I said, go out and get Jake McCabe. They're really targeting Jake McCabe. It's like, I mean, it wouldn't, it wouldn't surprise me that they all. but certainly they shouldn't you shouldn't want that so yeah yeah okay well Ryan we're going to take a break here all right it's enough Oilers talk when we come back we're going to talk about a variety of other topics you are listening to the Hockey Ptio guest streaming on the Sports

Network right we're back here in the hockey video guys the Ryan Lambert so Ryan we did Oilers talk in part one uh let's talk coyotes here now I guess we were talking about Jacob chicken let's keep it going okay So you made a little trip over to cover some college hockey, and you got to also watch some NHL action at Mullet Arena as well. Let's give the listeners kind of a peek behind the curtain, because I haven't personally been. I've obviously watched a bunch of the games they've played there so far this season on TV.

And I know some of the listeners have gone as well and kind of experience it for themselves, but let's kind of talk a little bit about it, what you saw there, what it was like, give us all the vibes, all that good stuff. Yeah. So kind of my pitch for going down there was like I've been to easily like hundreds and hundreds of college hockey games throughout my life. And so to see an NHL game in a college arena, like I wanted to know if that really felt as insane as it sounds on paper, right? And so the first thing I did, well, like you said, I went to watch college hockey. there was Arizona State hosted a tournament featuring maybe the probably the most notable team is Boston University,

which has obviously like a number of drafted players and, you know, guys who had big world juniors like Lane Hudson for the U.S. And I just, so like my first experience there was seeing college hockey. And what it felt to me like being in that arena was this is like a perfectly like, average to slightly above average college hockey arena that I've been to. You know, it's not unbelievable, you know, but it's nice. And the atmosphere is nice and the game presentation. They do a good job and all that sort of thing. Like, I don't know.

Again, like, I can't divorce myself from I've seen all these college hockey games and all these different types of arenas. So I can't really say, like, oh, you know, I never thought I would see high level. hockey in a building like this because I see high-ish level hockey in a building like this all the time, right? Yeah. But I really, it's true that I could not get over. Oh, I'm on the concourse right now and Sidney Crosby is 30 feet from me. You know what I'm saying?

Like it really was, you know, they warmed up in the end that, so this is the, I guess, the thing that I should say is the press box, quote unquote, at Mullet Arena is just a little roped off area. on the concourse where we have like tables and stools we can sit on, you know? And so literally like the last row of seats in Mollett Arena and there's only 12 rows of seats up from the ice, which is crazy. But the last row of seats, like that's right in front of where I was. So like I had some teenagers standing up in front of me the entire game, right? Were you telling you to sit down? You know, I wasn't.

I don't want to, like I never want to be the guy, like the old guy who was like, stop having fun at this game. You know what I mean? So, yeah, like, that was a certainly unique experience just to be like that close to the ice. Because most college hockey rinks I go to, you know, even though you're never that far from the ice, you're certainly farther than that. You know, this is only a 5,000-seat arena. That would, that kept it out, keeps it out of the top 20 in college hockey in terms of capacity.

So that's how small this arena is, you know. Well, it's interesting. I think the viewing experience from watching it on TV or on my laptop, how I watch my games, I've enjoyed it. It's certainly unique. I get that, you know, what was the capacity of 4,600 for NHL games? 46 for NHL games, yeah. I just, the thing I don't get is, like, is people being, like, getting all sanctimonious about it, right?

Like, this is a joke. It's like, all right, well, have you watched? I am sympathetic to that view. It is a joke a little bit. Okay. Well, have those same people, have you watched any coyotes games from the past, like two or three years before that? Right. Because I would argue that it's not any more of a joke than what was happening previously.

At least this is like having fun and kind of making the most of a obviously bad situation. If you might want to make the large argument, it's like, all right, none of this should be happening in the first place. And even what was happening in the past couple years shouldn't. That's another thing. But acting as if this is like some sort of. of like, all right, this is the final strong. It's not a bridge too far. No, it's like this is much better than the past couple years.

I mean, this is an organization that's operated as more of a shell company than a professional hockey team for years. Like, I think acting as if it's like, oh, they're a professional hockey team playing in a in not even a top 20 college arena. It's like, all right, are they a professional hockey team? Like, there's certainly a group of hockey players. I think it's totally fine. Clearly not a long-term solution, but like,

I think some perspective is important. Yeah, and the thing I would say, too, is I was struck by how much it is just the coyotes are playing in Arizona State's arena. There is not a lot of coyote stuff like up on the walls or anything like that. Everything is Arizona State. And then, like, they have the logo at Center Rice. And that's really about it for, like, permanent signage or anything like that that I really saw. There might have been something that I missed, but I walked all around that arena, for three straight days.

And if I missed anything, it couldn't have been that big is basically how I felt about it. And that to me, that's what felt insane, right? Like, because I've been to NHL preseason games in small buildings, AHL buildings, college buildings, that kind of thing. They do happen, you know, every year, basically. But it does feel very much like, well, sure. I mean, they're just here, you know, for this game and then they're leaving. Yeah. Well, do you think that is a feature or a bug in the sense that like, do you think in,

like not an ideal world, but I guess if they had their say, would they be playing up the coyotes kind of like decor more? Or it feels like part of the appeal or part of the selling point for at least this season before it kind of gets old. And you're like, all right, well, what's the long term solution here is like, all right, we've got this like section of college students. And like this is like a whole like it is a unique experience. you're not going to trick anyone into being like, no, this is a 20,000 seat NHL arena. Sure. So in that sense, like it feels like that's kind of par for the course for me. Or it's like it's not, I get what you're saying.

It's like they're not playing 41 home games technically because it doesn't feel like that. But I mean, it's kind of part of the deal. Yeah. I guess my major takeaway here is I get why, especially like NHMHs, shell players would be like, this is a joke. This is ridiculous. You know, like, I can't remember who it was, but someone on the sharks after they played there the other night had a quote was like, I mean, it was a unique atmosphere and that was cool.

But like, what I'd rather have is them selling out like a 12,000 seed arena. Right. Because like escrow and stuff like that, which totally makes sense. Which also isn't an option. Correct. Yeah. But like, if you're like, I'm just saying. as an NHL guy. Yes, yeah.

How many trips to Bullitt Arena do you get to before you're like, man, this sucks. You know what I mean? Because like it can't be zero. Like, and it also can't be an infinite number. Like you're going to get sick of it, right? That's probably two, right? First one's cool. Second one is like, all right.

Yeah, that's right. I talked to a couple of penguins after the game on Sunday who had played college hockey. and I was like, what do you think? And they were like, took me back 100%. But I think the quote was from Brian Russ, where he was basically like, obviously it's extenuating circumstances. I think they're making the best they possibly can out of it.

And maybe Jason Zucker was even like, I actually think they did as good of a job as they could, really. Like I went, you know, obviously into the visiting rooms that they, you know, they had to build the separate building to house the NHL dressing rooms. And I went in there and it seemed perfectly nice. Like maybe even a little better than what a lot of visiting setups are around the league, frankly. Certainly maybe not even the majority anymore,

but I've definitely been in worse visiting rooms than what I went to this weekend. And like, go ahead. I was going to say, then you asked Cindy Crosby for his thoughts on it. And he was like, oh, you get Poxie. deep take it one shift at a time. That's right. Wait, what? This is going to shock you. Sydney Crosby did not make himself available to the game.

Wow. Isn't that crazy? No. But yeah, no, I mean, like, I frankly, purposely didn't talk to any coyotes players, even the ones who played college hockey, because I was like, they're not going to say, they're going to be like, it's cool. I love it.

You know, like, what's Clayton Keller, a guy who played it a nicer rink, quite frankly, when he was at Boston University? Like, what's Clayton Keller going to say? I think this is the best thing that ever happened to me and my whole professional. No, of course not. But he's going to be like, yeah, it's unique. It's nice.

Like the thing you're saying about like Crosby just giving like the blandest quote imaginable, you're not going to get a good quote out of a guy who plays for the coyotes about this. So I didn't even try, try quite frankly. Yeah. All right. Is there anything else on a mullet? No, I guess not. I like, you know what?

Let me say this too. Part of the reason this works for the coyotes is that they're going to sell, let's say they're going to sell 3,000 tickets to like die hard coyotes fans, guys who go to, if they don't have season tickets, go to four or five games a year minimum, right? They're going to sell 3,000 tickets to those people. And the differences, one coyotes fan I talked to was like when the Canadians were here, it was like 85% coyotes fans. and that's never happened before as long as i've been going to coyotes canadian's games

those people don't like greatly outnumberous basically yeah and i would say the penguins game was maybe 6040 penguins fans but i talked to a penguins fan who was like yeah it's usually like 70 30 75 25 you know and so like that helps the coyotes too it does feel more like a home game So that's good for them, I guess. Not ideal, but yeah. Okay, let's pivot. I want to talk a bit about the trade deadline and sort of sellers and buyers, right? Because you wrote about this recently as well, and we alluded to it kind of in passing

when we were talking about trickering and the oilers. But I was giving this some thought because a lot's being made right now of, you know, financially it's difficult to facilitate. facilitate moves because so many teams are up against the cap, at least teams that would conceivably want to make an upgrade. And so everyone's kind of trying to like a crew cap in the meantime and get to the deadline and wait to see if there's injuries, if they can, you know, get third parties involved, all the usual kind of annual trade-edline shenanigans that we see. I think the other thing, though, is, like, if you look at the way the league is laid out right now, there's been a lot

made of, oh, well, you know, teams saw what Connor Bredard did at the world juniors. And so now they feel extra motivation to get rid of everyone they can and fully tank or sooner than they probably would otherwise to try to get a head start on increasing their lottery odds. And I guess my question for that is, is that really true or feasible? Because a lot of these teams that would already be doing that are already so bad that I don't think necessarily trading players that have already helped them be this bad is going to make that much of a difference. And also, what, there's nine teams right now out of the 32, they're just completely out of it, right? And I think you can realistically make a case that none of the other ones are going to be that incentivized to make

any drastic moves. Like, we'll see with the blues, right? When O'Reilly and Teresenko come back, like where they're currently at, they won a few games here recently. So they're at least hanging around on the fringes. They're not in full blow it up mode, although I think they will be motivated to trade those guys. But beyond that, it's like, I guess the red wings as well, potentially. they kind of like the guys they have or the guys they have. They already made a big push in spending this summer to sign these guys longer term. So they're kind of just happy to, I think, be competitive this season. I don't, what are the big structural changes around the league that's going to, you know,

kind of totally change the current environment for trading, I think? Yeah, I guess my thinking is, and maybe this is just me being like, well, this is what I would do if I was a GM of like the Nashville Predators or whoever. you know, where it's like, well, if I have like a, you know, 15% chance to make the playoffs, but if I don't make the playoffs, I can maybe get up to like a 7 or 8% chance of getting Connor Badaard. I guess I'd, if I'm a GM and it looks like I'm not going to make the playoffs anyway, I guess I'd rather maximize my opportunity to get like this kind of like generational, like,

franchise defining talent that, you know, you just aren't going to have access to if you're a fringe playoff team 99.9% of the time, right? So, like, you're right that a lot of these teams, like, are bad with the guys they have, but you can always get worse. You can always call up, you know, like replacement level players are not even worth, like, you know, like a guy you call up from the HL or there's always a worst player out there that's making more money that you can take on to help you. And that's kind of how I'm thinking about it, just because it does seem like we've seen a little bit more reporting from like insider

types that like, like you said, the performance Badaard put up as a 17 year old at World Juniors kind of made some some teams go, maybe I do want to take. And it's too late for them to be like bottom five or whatever. But even if you can get into the bottom 10 or 12, like, well, you know, you have a X percent chance to get that guy.

And especially if you're the kind of team that can maybe get an extra first round pick out of it, then you even have more flexibility to say to yourself, well, you know, I can, I can try to maybe move up in the draft. I don't know how feasible that would be. But, you know, I just think there's a little more that you can, in the way the GMs usually try to talk themselves into, we can be playoff. competitive if i if i just get player x it's now more like we can be conor badear competitive if i get rid of player y you know what i mean yeah i guess i'm looking at it right now so is it top or the bottom

11 teams have like an actual chance to get the top pick i think it's something like that yeah yeah it looks like it and so it's yeah as long as you're in that group you have at least the 3% chance which is obviously better than nothing um i guess here's a kind of complicated factor though one of those teams right now is the Florida Panthers who don't have their pick

so like they're not gonna I mean just to say a face even if it's already a sunk cost they're gonna go full steam ahead not that they have to that that's a different discussion I mean they don't have the flexibility to even be a buyer necessarily

at this point but they're not going to like trade away guys to make themselves worse the predators as a team you mentioned would be an ideal candidate for that unless the player they're trading is UC Soros. I don't see a world in which they get bad enough to be in that conversation.

Totally agree. He's so good that he's single-handedly going to keep them in the middle of where you absolutely don't want to be, which is like 14th best odds, so you can't even get a top three or four pick. And then the Sabres are another one where they're going to miss the playoffs probably because of the Atlantic Division and the state of it and how good it is. But, you know, not only are the vibes good there, but also they don't. really have players to trade.

No, they do not. The team is so young and guys who are part of their future plans, like, all right, what's Victor Oliveson going to net you? I don't know. Right. But I guess my point is that like, if you look at it right now, St. Louis is 12th from the bottom in terms of points percentage.

Yep. And they're not that far ahead of the red wings. And so, like, I could absolutely see St. Louis just going, man, who cares, you know? Forget it. We're just going to, we're going to sell O'Reilly and Tarasenko and Nicole and all these other guys,

like, you know, that are on expiring contracts. And yeah, like, it kind of feels like a lost season in St. Louis anyway. So why not, like, really lose it? Yep. And get first round picks for these guys who are valuable for sure. But, like, are they even coming? Like, obviously Tarasenko is not coming back. I don't, I don't expect.

O'Reilly to come back. And so, like, trying to stick around and maybe claw your way back into the playoffs because, like, you're looking at Edmonton and Colorado and go, well, we're not much worse than them in theory, or we're not doing that much worse. But, like, you know, Florida, I think eventually it'll just, they'll just kind of figure it out on special teams and move out of the bottom 11. and that just opens up a spot. But the rest of the teams in the bottom 11,

I think they're pretty locked in there. Billy, Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal, San Jose. So really there's like maybe two spots in the bottom 11 that you could reasonably drop into. But I think if you're the blues or the redwings, like that's worth pursuing if you can do it. Because why not? I mean, the Canucks are the highest leverage team here, right?

where like they stink but they stink and they have valuable play like players teams would want both or that well that's the thing like they they have meaningful ways to make themselves actually worse believe it or not as bad as they've been so far and the number one pick is literally a local kid it's like who is a huge conucks like outspoken canucks fan not like not like you know i'm sure connor macdavid grew up being a lease fan but like the year before he was drafted he wasn't going around going you know what i love is the is uh the toronto maple whereas connor badard is constantly going i love tanner pearson everything about tanner pearson is the coolest thing in the world to me and it's like but you're connor badard yeah don't say that yeah

you know like and so for the canucks like all this stuff about you know oh we might we might make a move to to do this or that or whatever. Like, I would just be an absolute sell everybody mode. We'll take back every bad contract you have. The only guy we want to keep is Quinn Hughes and Elias Pedersen. You can have everybody else. Just give us your first round draft tank this year.

And we don't care. Like, absolutely they should be trying to bottom out. But because they're the Vancouver Connection. Yeah, I was going to say, I think pretty much everyone has seen the light at this point, except maybe the people who could actually facilitate it. Yeah. All right.

Well, that's kind of all I had here. I guess we can sign out as well. I was going to ask you about the new Avatar movie because I know you've been talking about it a lot. I'm actually going with our pal Thomas strands tomorrow. So I'm looking forward to that. Do you have any takes on that? And also, yeah, it's incredible.

Yeah. It's amazing. Now, I guess the question is, did you like the first Avatar movie? I did. Yeah. I remember it was actually, it was quite an experience. I think it was like the first 3D movie I saw.

Are you seeing this in like 3D IMAX? Of course. Yeah. Okay. Good. I want to pay as much as I humanly can for the best possible experience here. So I think you're doing this the right way because I heard from people who were like, well, I saw it in 2D and I didn't really like it.

It's like, yeah, you saw it. I don't know what to tell you, you know. But yeah, I'm totally in the tank for these movies. So like maybe I'm not the best. like I think James Cameron is like a top seven or eight director period all time like I could I could go on forever about like why he's he's so cool and but like

yeah like I had it as I think my number three movie of the year I don't know I don't know how much better I could I could put it than that I saw like 65 movies in theaters or something like that last last year and this was this was top three and I was like do I want to really make a top two and I couldn't get it there. But like I was blown away like it's three plus hours it flies by. It really does. And it makes you feel stuff that like you just don't feel in big blockbuster movies like this.

Have you tried, have you tried pitching Eapy Rings Side on on, you know, how we're doing like we're running Cam Robinson's like mock draft version 1.0 for the 2023 class of you doing like draft boards for for the next year's movies? I haven't pitched that. I don't think it would go over well, but also like, every mock draft,

they'd be like, this guy's taking Paya Khan number one again. And it's like, well, you know, he's been through a lot. And he's still, he's still performing at a high level.

This will be a joke you get like tomorrow or whatever. Yeah, you'll get this joke. All right, man. Well, this is a blast. Plug some stuff. Yeah,

EP Rinkside. Yeah. Do I have any promo codes for it right now? Hey, I Love EP is always right there. That's, if you use that off or something, right? Well, no, it's, it's if you sign up for a year, they give you 15 months for the same price, basically. Oh, wow.

I love EP, all one word. And you've, so you've got your mullet arena, deep dive there, wrote about both others that we talked about. I had a big piece on Jack Hughes and a big one on David Pasternak. Two guys, I wrote about this week and I was mad because I wrote. about Pastor Nack yesterday, and I saw your story like in the publishing thing, and I couldn't link to it because it had not published yet. Yeah, well, it just went up now, so people should check it out before he becomes incredibly

rich. I already read it. It's good. Oh, thanks, man. Well, subscribe, and you can read mine and Ryan's work and also check out the great work of people like Mitch Brown and David St. Louis, who I keep talking about, deserve to be much bigger. So hopefully you'll check them out and become fans of theirs.

Thank you for. listening to the Hockey PEOCast. As always, Ryan, this is a blast. We're going to have you on soon. We'll be back tomorrow with a mailbag to close the week out. So until then, you're listening to the HockeyPediocast on the Sports Night Radio Network.