The Hockey PDOcast - The Red Wings 20 Games Under Todd McLellan, and the Stars Trade Route

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to breakdown the changes the Red Wings have made since their coaching change, and how Todd McLellan has been able to get a 15-4-1 stretch out of them. Then they revisit the trade the Stars made last week, and Jim Nill's logic for going the route they did in acquiring Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci from the Sharks. 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.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dmitri Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Sean Schioreau. Sean, what's going on, man? A lot. I usually go to the nut too much, but that's always a blatant lie. There's a lot going on.

So get through this weekend and get through tomorrow, and then we get to relax a little bit more with, I think, I guess there might be games Sunday. I know I'm going to the Detroit, Tampa game tomorrow, and that's the last game out. I'll attend before we get a little bit of a break. So a lot until, and then hopefully, finally not a lot starting next week.

Yes, there are two games on Sunday morning, obviously, before the Super Bowl, and then there's no NHL games from February 10th to the 22nd, I believe. We're going to have Four Nations games starting on the 12, and we're going to, you're at, asking me before we started recording whether we're going to be taking some time off we are not we are going to keep powering through we're going to be breaking down the four nations games we're going to

be doing all that here so don't you worry pedio cast listeners but before we get to that i wanted to have you on because first off i want to talk about the red wings and the stretch they've been on and how well they've been playing under todd mcclellan and then on the back half we're going to get into the stars a little bit because we've had about a week or so here to reflect and marinate on the move they made last week, and I know you've spoken a bunch to Jim Nell this season, and so I want to tap into that with you. It's good timing, right?

It's a nice kind of Venn diagram here of the two teams that you cover most closely, and the fact that they've had interesting storylines around them, so we're going to cover that all today. Let's start with the Red Wings, who finished off their Western Road Trip going 4-0, that stretched their winning streak to seven games. Now, that gives them two separate seven-game winning streaks

under Todd McClellan, which is a pretty good stat for a full season. Even crazier when you consider that he's actually been running this team for 20 games now. They've gone 15, 4 and 1 since the coaching change. Let's talk about the differences. First off, I want to hear from you about just the day to day. Obviously, the team's been on the road here for the past week or so, so you haven't necessarily been around them and covering them live at the games.

But previous to that, you've seen. the practices. You've seen sort of the communication, maybe some of the odd ice differences in terms of how they're sort of operating now compared to how they were previously under Derek Delaun. I want to break all that down and then we can get into the sort of individual parts of the players who have been performing better and what's driving that success. Yeah, it's also, you mentioned the 154 and 1. It's an interesting, it's 154 and 1. It's actually, you know, he was on the bench and he gets the credit for the loss, but that one of those losses is the, I think it was the 6-2 Tampa loss.

I think that was the score. Like in his, he gets hired, his first day with the team is that morning. He comes in and effectively the first game of them, the first game of basically just managing and meeting the team, they get cranked by Tampa. They get booed off the ice after the end of the, at the end of the first 40 minutes. And that loss technically falls on McClellan.

But the next morning is the famous viral play-fin hockey speech and everything like that. in his first practice. So yes, they're 15, four and one, but they're almost, if you think about it, since he's actually

been able to coach a team and had a practice, it's been 15, 3 and 1. So it's almost even, it's almost even more impressive than. It was, it was a game against the Leafs,

and they went down 5-0 in the second period. And then that's the game, your reference. So yeah, since then, yeah, it's even better. Yeah.

So, and the other thing, so about Detroit, there's two things that I kind of look at now with basically tomorrow it's it's been it's been 20 games they'll be um game 21 tomorrow then they'll go into break it i've got been looking through a couple things of like why are they here and where are they going and and to me you have to look a little bit at the past of things and

i think part of the issue before and i don't want to break derrick lalonde over the coals or anything like that but i think part of it was i think his shelf life that kind of hit i think Derek Lalonde was a very, it was way more of a tactical, not as intense, more of an individual teacher at times. A lot of things that you kind of expect from a guy who was a career assistant in his first NHL head coaching gig, guy who had coached in college hockey before, guy who was, and I think there's a lot of younger guys that he connected with a little bit more, but he was also So someone who didn't really, when things went awry and everything, he didn't command the moment and didn't command the room.

I think that's one of the things that is definitely different between Lalonde and McClellan. Malone talked about how it's a very quiet room, how the Red Wings are very quiet room, and it's a, and he wasn't sure why. We don't hear Todd McClellan complain about that. Instead, Todd McClellan has kind of pushed guys a little bit more. He's calling them out and things like that. I think that's part of the reason.

Part of the reason is the wind, the voice and the person steering the ship, basically players that effectively tuned him out. I think that's fair. And that's why it's impressive. Like, I'll see Tampa tomorrow. It's one of the reasons it's impressive. Yes, he's won two cups, but John Cooper's run in the NHL is so impressive. because he hasn't had guys to him out.

The other thing for me that's remarkable to think about, just from the McClellan standpoint, is I think he got a little bit of the, for lack of better word, a little bit of the luck that, and so this is something where Marco Casper playing like he has, Simon Edvinson playing like he has, those guys have just continued to progress the same way

that they were under Derek Lolan. in my opinion. And honestly, McClellan has also benefited a little bit of the other guy put in a lot of work to help those guys get to the next step, and they haven't. And so, like, I think there's, I want to give a little bit of the Derek Lone credit and blame at the same time. Now, what's different? And that's, and that's, that is the key one. And I actually, right before we came out,

I think I saw Mike Kelly did a pretty good thread of some of the, quote unquote, tactical stuff. And the biggest thing for me on all of this is there's been some more actual aggressiveness in the team. And it's happened in multiple places. There's been more aggressiveness when it comes to shot selection. There's been more aggressiveness when it comes to how they're defending the blue line in particular. They're not letting teams basically walk in like they used to for quite a bit. And they've also been a little bit, I don't know, a little bit more aggressive in giving guys opportunities.

And that part of that was injury. They dealt with some injuries. So that's kind of, to me, the things that stand out on this. So I rambled there. What do I? Can me back on track. Well, I think here's what's interesting because you mentioned how Derek Alon was a career assistant coach and he had been through the Tampa cycle of them getting

to the position they got to eventually, right, where like a lot of these young players developed, hit their prime and they hit their Stanley Cup window. He comes to Detroit and especially since, I guess you could say last year. I wonder how much of this is just bad timing for him and how much of it isn't his fault in the sense that there was a certain level of desperation organizationally, I think, in terms of turning this thing around, getting back into the playoffs for the Red Wings from Steve Eisenman. And you could see that in the way they approached every off season, right? Where they would go out and they would spend a bunch of money on these veteran players and bring them in and have them play meaningful roles. And you look at the first 30, 35 games of the season for the Red Wings, even when they were down low in the standings and losing their games,

the one silver lining was the play of the young players. Like they were driving pretty much all of the positive results from Edmond to Lucas Raymond and so on and so forth. And it was actually the veteran players that Steve Beiserman had brought in the past couple years. They were really dragging the team down and anchoring them. And that's what kind of made it bizarre to me. And I think you and I have spoken about this before in dissecting the Red Wings. How much of it in terms of the blame game should go to the coach in terms of the usage for the players and how much of it should go to above him in terms of either what the mandate is or what they're telling him to do or what they're giving him.

Because there's this crazy stat that we'd referenced where since Eisenman took over in 2019 to 2023, they had 12 second round picks. and until Albert Johansson stepped into the lineup this year, they hadn't had a single one of those players play for the Red Wings and provide any sort of contribution. And then now you watch Johansson step in. Obviously Petrie gets hurt, but he's playing a top four role. He's giving them very useful minutes. We've recently seen Elmer Sotomblum get called back up,

score a couple goals. We've seen Bergrin. I think he's about 10 points in these 20 games that McClellan has been coaching. Obviously, Casper, we're going to talk more about him, but he's playing a top line role and then you have certainly Raymond and Sider and Edvinson doing their thing.

And so it's bizarre that for a team that was struggling with a coach whose forte that should theoretically be that they didn't double down on that and do this sooner, right? And then you bring in this veteran head coach and Todd McClellan and a lot of the veteran players are playing much better under him and maybe that speaks to your point

in terms of the communication and actually getting more out of those players and sort of reinvigorating them with the intensity. But also we've seen them start to actually integrate more young players along the way as well. And I feel like that's a big part of this sort of calculus. I think there's two parts that kind of connect to this. One, there's been more public accountability

and therefore it's been, and I've also been told by players, there's more private accountability where, while Derek Lalonde was good and helped to younger players, and there's younger players that give Derek Lal credit. Robert Johansson has talked about what kind of his help and what he did. And even Bob Boogner, who was fired as well, kind of helped and helped younger players push.

But Derek Alon did not effectively really connect well with the veteran players. He did a good job of helping the younger players take the next step and everything. But Vladimir Tarasenko told me a couple weeks back that he wanted more of a coach who told him like it is. And that's something that he said he got. it with Paul Maurice in Florida and he felt like he had it again now with Todd McClellan. And I think that's part of it where there's been more of that treating everyone like equals almost, right? Where like sometimes maybe Derek Lalonde and I'm not saying maybe Derek Lalonde was overly

respectful to veteran status and just the way he treated guys. And like the whole Justin Hall having a horrible game and then Todd McClellan effectively going out and ripping him in a post game press conference, that's something Derek Lal never would have done. He found ways to talk about how young guys needed to get better, but he never would have ripped a veteran player like that. So I think there's part of that.

And I think there's also a bit of there, and I think this is more timing of it. I think someone new comes in, and you get these young guys that are taking this next step, and they're

giving, and they're starting to get roles that they've, probably earned, but now older players are starting to have the, oh, oh, expletive moment of like, hey, I might be losing this gig. I might be losing this spot, this role. I have to perform better. I think that applies here as well. So that second part is a little bit just fortunate timing for Todd McClellan and then

and everything like that. But the first one is just the accountability and him and him kind of being willing to do that. It's also the other thing I think just within the organization, and it's hard to know the exact reality of this because Steve Eisenman keeps everything close to the vest. And I know within that organization there's a lot of people that are scared to push back on Eisenman and everything like that. McClellan is doesn't have, McClellan's been fired as an NHL head coach before. He knows he's been brought into a. effectively save the day. He's not afraid to go head to head with Heisman on how things should be done. And there's a lot of times where we could see the seeds of some discontent

between Lelon and Iserman that would kind of seep out. The fact that David, that David Perron was let go walk to go to go to Ottawa. The amount of times I heard David Peron's name mentioned in the first half of the season by Derek Law and how much to start, how about how much the Red Wings never replaced him. That was pretty vocal. Like, he clearly disagreed with this move. He clearly disagreed with this. And it'll be interesting to see how McClellan and Eisenman continue as they get.

Obviously, when you're winning, it's great and everything like that. It'll be fascinating to see what happens during a seven-game losing streak. But I think there's a little bit of that element to the organization now, too, where Steve Eisenman went in and hired a head coach, hired someone who, is going to tell him, no, you're wrong on this. And I don't think, as much I don't think that existed with Derek Lelon before, and it led to more passive little tickey-tack side comments. Like there was a, there was an exchange between I had between,

between Eisman and I at the end of last season, where Derek Lelon mentioned how, hey, there's some young players that were ready in the HL, but never really got their opportunity. and I asked Iserman about it in his press conference the next day, and Iserman's like, well, sometimes the coach thinks he knows something that he doesn't know. And like there was little like tic-tac passive aggressiveness there that is, that was reflective of the power dynamic. And I think Todd McClellan comes in and is basically,

knows he's going to get fired someday, doesn't care. So he's not afraid to handle it the more assertive way, I think. Yeah. You mentioned that Mike, thread that he put out on Twitter, and I would recommend people check that out because obviously part of this is getting really good goaltending, certainly, but it's kind of chicken

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Defensively, you can see, I think this is what you're sort of alluding to there in terms of the intensity, and it should come as no surprise based on what we've seen from Todd McCullough and historically in various spots, especially thinking back to his most recent run with the Kings

and where they excelled in terms of defending a bit more aggressively, especially controlling the neutral zone more and it's amazing that a team with relatively the same personnel obviously McClellan has done a few interesting things in terms of lightning the load a little bit on most cider not in terms of ice time but in terms of the difficulty of those minutes I think we've spoken about before where he's playing a much more reasonable assignment now we talked about johansson stepping in so slightly different details but ultimately relatively the same personnel

core that goes from 29th in terms of defending their blue line and breaking stuff up to third now under Tom McClellan. The amount of time they spend defending in their own zone, how much offensive zone possession time the other team has is similarly gone from 29th for them all the way up to 10th. And I think that is sort of tied into a lot of what we're seeing offensively from them as well,

where for the past couple of years under Lulloan, even when they were scoring so much, it was on the power play, and the power play has gone to even greater heights in this meantime, and that certainly helped the results. But at even strength, they just never had the puck, right? And I think that was part of it where you're just constantly sort of punting the puck and living to fight another day and willing to have stretches where nothing happens. And then we talk about, oh, man, this Red Wings team is really struggling offensively.

They're not generating anything. How do we solve this? And then now all of a sudden, they're just killing plays more quickly. They're getting the puck back. and all of a sudden the offense just looks significantly different because they actually have the puck for once. And I feel like that's an important thing to consider here when we break down teams tactically

and why they might be struggling in one area. I feel like all these things are kind of inextricable and awake in terms of like defense leading to offense and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, it's, it is, it really, to me, and you kind of talk about that defensive standpoint and you talk about where things going, It's the other key is, and it's the, you can go get the puck back is, I think, the other big mentality thing that's been changed. I think you go back there was at one point, like, it's crazy if you go look at the Red Wings shot totals per game, if you like, and if you did the split of like their highest shooting, highest shooting events are all after the coaching change.

And obviously it's not just because they've been winning, but that's been the mentality thing. there was such a I've talked to players and it happened so much more at even strength they had the puck so little that when they did have it there was such a

that cliched grip your stick find the perfect play and now there's been such there's been a much wider team-wide appreciation of you can take that shot you can take that shot and we're going to go get the puck back

you're a we can go do that we don't end but I think that's another big thing. It's funny because this is the team where the middle of the first part of the season, there was a whole conversation about

shot counts and everything like that. And at one point, I don't remember the exact day, but at one point, Derek Lollone talked about Patrick Kane and how he was like, who was talking about it was like, oh, I don't think Patrick, I think Patrick,

you just want to throw shots at the bad shots at the goal, and I don't think anyone wants to do that. And then after the coaching change, Patrick Kane is, talked about how much more enjoyable he's been playing for a team that is more willing to just throw shots at the goalie. Obviously, it's a happy medium. And obviously, you had that really great show with Woodley a couple weeks back about the save percentage and everything that touched on a lot of this. But it's, it's funny to me to look at this, where there is, you have one coach

who basically had no faith at his core that his team would get the puck back. So we never give it up. And now you have another coach. He's like, I trust you're going to go. get the puck back, so don't be afraid to make a play. And I think that's another big theme here that you've seen play out with the wings. And one of the big driving forces, and this ties all of that up neatly, both in terms of just controlling the puck more and having it more often getting more looks on net and also the integration of younger players and bigger roles, is this top line of Lucas Freeman, Dylan Lark, and Marco Casper. They've played 180 minutes together this season at 515, 58% of the shots, 57% of the expected goals.

Amazingly, that trio played two total minutes at 515 under Derek Lohn prior to their coaching change, so 178 of those 180 minutes have come in the past 20 games. And they've, I mean, they've not only been dominating, but I want to talk about Raymond here specifically because of players since the holiday break, the only ones that have more points than him are Pastor Nat Kuturov, Dreisaitel, or Boy Jason, Robertson and Nathan McKinnon plus 10 penalty differential. I think that's an important thing here as well. He's been plus 10 or better in that category every year of his career.

So it's a continuation of like a legitimate skill, not just randomness and officiating. And the reason why that's important is this Red Wings team has the highest net penalty differential of any team in the league this season. And we've spoken about, I mean, the power play has obviously been cooking all year, but the penalty kill was league worst or 31st behind the Islanders or just ahead of the Islanders before the coaching change. They're still not very good. I still think under Todd McColl,

they're giving up around 10 goals against per 60 minutes when they're short-handed, which is bottom third of the league. Not good. It's not completely killing you every time you go down a man, but it's still not great. And so one way to work around that is to just not take a lot of penalties and draw many more than you do.

And that's what this Red Wings team does, driven largely by both Raymond and De Brinket and their excellence in that category. And so I think that provides a huge edge as well, given the state of the special teams. And so I just feel like everything we're seeing from Lucas Raymond right here, it's a continuation of what he did down the stretch last year,

certainly where he kind of put the team on his back offensively and scored so many big goals while they were fighting for that playoff spot near the end. And now, especially since the coaching change, playing in this newly constructed top line. I just feel like he's been so, so good. And he's basically been the exact player that I think we thought he would be.

And it's been so fun to watch him do that. Raymond to me is the guy who is, it's funny to say about a team like Detroit because they're such an original six team and popular and all that stuff. But like Raymond to me is going to, because he's never played in NHL playoff series and all that stuff.

Like he's to me the guy who, I think there's going to be a lot of people watching Four Nations and if he keeps playing for Team Sweet and the play he's been playing for the wings, I think he's going to be one of those guys where a lot of people are like, oh, that's what I'm missing with Lucas Raymond.

I think more people are catching on, but I think that's part of it. The other one I want to add real quick, like on the other wing on that line, is with what Casper's doing, this is something where, and I don't know who to give the credit for on this, because I don't know if this is Todd McClellan

taking over player development, or it's the Red Wing's Brass doing it, or it was a disconnect, before, but at some point the Red Wings view Casper as that second line center behind Larkin. They view him as anchoring his own line behind Larkin. And kind of the path to that before the coaching change was, hey, you can be lower in the lineup and you'll work your way up. Third, fourth line center, you'll work your way up.

Eventually, you'll be that number two center and you'll work your way. That was the path before. Instead, Todd McClellan's talked about, hey, he's going to play down the middle, and that's where he's going to be long term. But let's put him on the top line. let's give him the pressure of being a top line player. And then when he's ready to control his own line and take over, he just becomes our second line center.

Effectively, and I don't know who gets the proper credit for that, because that's one of those like internal think tank things where I'd love to be on the wall of who said, let's effectively find a way to move Andrew Cop and J.T.com for down the lineup, finally. I don't know who did that, but that to me is also a notable thing since the coaching change. Whether it's Todd McClellan saying, hey, let's do that. maybe it was Steve Eiserman saying telling Derek

alone to do it and he didn't do it. I don't know the internal think tank thing, but Casper's usage to me is notable for a guy where I know the internal plan is future 2C behind Dylan Larkin. That's the plan. And before it was, hey, work your way up. Work your way up. You'll get there eventually kid to

now, hey, go play on our top line and then when you're ready for that promotion by demotion in a very weird way to say it, whether it's next year or the year after, or maybe even this season if you need to go to it in game it's that's been a big difference

and that's been notable it has he is definitely a dog like you watch on the retrieval being the first guy in the zone keeping pucks in the office zone to the point of just spending more time with the puck disrupting on the wall he's such a nice fit with

Larkin's motor and also Raymond's playmaking I could and I could wax poetically about Marco for a long time he's also just a one of my favorite guys to actually talk to in the room. You go and you see, you can see why you can fit with anyone. And he had a pretty,

I was talking, I did something on him a couple weeks back about just talking to him about international hockey. And obviously he's Austrian, so he's played for, you'll enjoy this story. I was talking to him about like helping try and help me, Austria make the Olympics and they missed, they lost the Olympic qualifier tournament and missed.

But I asked him about, like, where they try to. to go and make things and he's like oh well for us Austrian hockey our goal is always to be Germany right now and everything like that and then he says and he points across the room at cider and he's like you should go ask him about it and I go across the room and I ask cider I asked Mo about it and Mo is very German at times and Mo gave effectively the madmen I don't think about you at all moment where I asked I asked him about Austrian hockey and playing Marco there and most and it's like, oh, that's probably something I'll never think about again.

I know you, I know you'll enjoy that. And I just had to get that story in for you because I know you'd enjoy that. I love that. One final thing that I want to say about Raymond is, and I'll just, during the Four Nations, maybe I'll just go lab and put together a full mix of this because I could probably find at least six or seven great examples so far this season. but that patented shot fake, he's already mastered early in his career, where he freezes the defense and then kind of just like so,

I mean, everything about his game is so smooth, but this particular, how he just sort of bumps the puck to a teammate and gets that lateral movement and creates essentially a hockey version of an alley-of-dunk for them. I think most notably he had like Montembow in a game against the Habs, just an absolute hell. When Monbo was sliding so far and it just looked completely out of the play.

And I think, I mean, he probably, misplay that a little bit, but I think it just speaks to what a deadly, because you have to respect because Raymond, especially on that sort of short side shot, right, like kind of just above the pad, but under the blocker, like he executes that so well, so you have to prepare for that and respect it if he's going into a shooting motion and then his ability to essentially just step into that pass is so good. And you look at the contract already where you're paying him $8.075 million for his age 22 to 29 seasons. by 27, 28, he'll be 25, and that'll be the equivalent of like a 10.5 million dollar contract. And so the value that he's going to provide to this organization is just off the charts.

You got any other notes on the Red Wings here before we go to our break? We kind of touched on the big part of it. I mean, the other just crazy stat to me that I'm sure others have parroted it and put out there. For all the history of this franchise, they've never won 10 games in a row. and so they are at a spot where if they beat Tampa tomorrow, and it's two teams that are, it's, I was texting with someone else about this.

Like a lot of, I think a lot of those games right before Four Nations break would feel like senioritis where the players just want to get out of there. But I don't know, I'm hoping this Tampa, Detroit game is pretty good tomorrow because it's two teams that they know where they are and everything like that. And so, but Detroit wins tomorrow.

They'll have won eight in a row, and they're looking at a spot where they're coming out of Four Nations with the ability to technically do something that's never been done before ever in the franchise history, which is kind of crazy to think about just with that. You would have thought at some point in all that time, at some point you had some weird hot streak like that. So that to me is a fun fact and things that they're chasing,

especially if they win tomorrow, and then they can kind of try to heat up to that again coming out of the break. Well, they're up to 61 points in 54 games, and that not only has them sitting in the first wild-gards bar on the east at the time of recording, but also you mentioned Tampa has them one point back all of a sudden

of both Tampa and Ottawa for third in the Atlantic. And so it's interesting, like if you look at Dom's model of the athletic, he's got them with about a 25% playoff probability. I think he'd even admit as much

that a lot of the models don't really have the capability of properly baking into the coaching impact and the change, right? It's kind of viewing the team as a whole, cumulatively and obviously the team has just been playing and producing much differently

since the coaching change for all the reasons we've talked about today. I think the other thing working in their favor is that the team that they're competing with that I feel like would have provided the most resistance or the most juice was the Columbus Blue Jackets and that's a team that they play twice in their next five games coming out of the Four Nations, including the most first outdoor game and tragically, Carol Marchenko is going to miss those games because he had the misfortune of just sitting on the bench and taking an errand puck and breaking his jaw. And so that's such a massive loss for them.

And then you look at a lot of teams they're competing against. I feel like the opening is there. So, yeah, we're headed towards some legitimately meaningful games. I was ready to not go to the March 1st outdoor game in Columbus. It's three hours away. My parents even live in Columbus. And when that game was first announced in the way I saw Detroit start the season, and with where Columbus was, I'm like,

I really don't want to go to this game. That's going to be awful. Right? Like I legitimately thought this could be one of the worst outdoor games ever when it came to to, like, as far as where the two teams were in the standings. And now it's a playoff type.

I mean, it's two teams that are going to be like that. And what a great segue to take you into break here. Where did Marchenko break his jaw? What city was he in? Who was he playing? There we go. This is why we're good at this show.

I'm going to need to take a break here to cry a little bit and wipe my tears and regroup after that. that segue. And when we come back from break, we will talk about the Dallas Stars. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.Ocast streaming on the Sports Day Radio Network. All right.

We're back here on the Hockeyedogadcast, joined by Sean Chippero. Today, Sean, we were talking about the Red Wings and their surge here of late in part one before we went to break. Let's talk about the Dallas Stars. We've had about a week,

as I said, to think about the trade they made with the sharks. They spent a good chunk of their available resources for the rest of the season, acquiring Michael Granland and Cody C.C., I know you wrote about this trade a bunch on your website as well, and you've had a lot of conversations with people in the stars organizations, certainly along the way. It's interesting because I remember you and I did a show on the Stars a while back

an hour earlier in the year, and I feel like I was pitching you on all these grand plans I had for them, especially once we knew how much LTIR space they'd have available to them, and I was like, oh, they can do this. and they can do this to improve their team. And then you were like, oh, maybe they'll acquire Frank Petrono or something. And I remember being like, oh, man, that makes me sad. I feel like we should aim higher.

And obviously, Petrono himself specifically winds up getting that extension with a deferred money with a duck. So he goes off the board. But then they go and they do what they did in Acquire in Granlin and C.C. And it's sort of similar in that they'd in terms of maybe a more measured approach. we shouldn't necessarily be surprised because this is Jim Nell and the Dallas Stars after all. And it was probably wishful thinking to believe that it would be anything different. But let's talk a little bit about the conversations you had with people in the market and the organization itself. And sort of the thought process here, I guess the calculus, the plan, kind of how this all came together and sort of what this means for the team moving forward.

the reality is Cici and Grandland have both been on the stars radar for a while now it's not like this is anything new Jim Nill told me as much he's been looking at them for a couple months now

so that's not really CC and Grandland are not the surprise or the impetus of the deal I mean the bigger thing is just the timing of it where the star if Mirrah Hishkin

and hadn't gotten hurt the stars might have taken this defense corps all the way to the deadline and seen what happened and then maybe been there but when when mirro-hishkin got hurt and the injury and the timing with all of that happened um that and nil looked at the looked in his mind rather pragmatically at the eastern conference and the fact that there's not a lot of rental defensemen available that are actually good um i'm using the word good his words were a little bit nice but like there's not a lot that are actually good and um you have you're going to have to overpay

probably with with how to try to get some players out of there and so the the stalest our thought whether you think cc and granlin are worth that value or not was we want to get ahead of the market on in getting cc we want to get ahead we want to get a defenseman in we want to do this because we want to we don't want to get caught having to pay a much higher sticker price on March 8th or whatever it is, right? So that was kind of the impetus for the C-C part of the deal. Granland was someone where stars were always going to be kind to try to look for someone like Granlin,

even with the injuries. Like the stars knew going into this season, and it's one of those where I'd love to get the truth serum on people to actually talk about it with like the whole Tyler Sagan injury. The Stars kind of knew the Tyler Sagan injury thing was going to have. happen. Everything kind of went to plan that way. There was, I had heard rumblings before Tyler's surgery and even weeks before of like, hey, he's going to play up to around game 20 and then he's going to be shut down for the rest of the year. And you hear that. And it's from,

it's from places you can't report it officially and stuff. And the amount of people hearing it, you're like, this is really, you can't do more with it than this. But then you look back in hindsight, you're like, no, this is, this, then it lines up with the conversations you have since. like, okay, this is, this was always part of the plan. So bringing in a Grandland type was always going to be part of the plan. And it's been just two games. It's ironic that they, I mean, they played a night and recording on Friday. It's ironic that they actually play San Jose tomorrow night.

So they get to go, the return game right away. But it's the stars to me were doing the, they're so over, not overly concerned, but they're so concerned about the long term cap picture. They're so concerned about that, that this, this is the type. of the only type of deal that Jim really is willing to do. Like everyone brings up Seth Jones and everything like that. I can't tell you how many times I've been told internally talking to people in the start.

They're like the Seth Jones thing is completely ridiculous. It's not going to happen. It starts to have no space for that. They're not going to do that. And so the whole, and I'm not saying you've brought that up. I'm just saying that's been the popular like Twitter fodder. And so like, so it's, it's where Dallas is. But I do think they'll make another move.

I have heard that is likely impossible. but we can talk a little more about that too. No, I mean, you never would have heard me talk about Seth Jones and stars on this platform because... You're a responsible adult. Well, I think if they're going to make a move like that, they should actually bring in a good defenseman to improve their team as opposed to adding to the right shots they already have.

Once again, responsible adult. Yeah, they're one of the... And we've talked about this, right? Because in the past week, there's been... been so much conversation about the plan over the next three years for what's going to happen with the cap and everyone's sort of salivating at the thought of all the space that's going to open up for their favorite teams to add. And the stars like all other 31 teams will benefit from that because there's just going

to be more room available. The issue for them, unlike some other contenders, is the timing of the contract in terms of the next two summers having Wyatt Johnson. this summer and then Harley and Jason Robertson on RFA deals do for massive pay raises. And that's obviously in the back of Jim, Jim Nell's mind in terms of maintaining flexibility and not tying themselves up with future cap commitments. It's interesting you bring up Sagan there because in a lot of my logic and the kind of thought process for the stars and mapping this out, I always, I mean, maybe this is why I'm not

an HLGM and I can sort of armchair much more freely and recklessly. but I would view that cap hit of Zagans as one that's very flexible moving forward for a lot of the reasons you mentioned, where even with the surgeries had moving forward, it's probably one of those that is going to require future LTIR stands and is going to be very flexible in terms of managing that. It's not something that's immediately going to become fixed. It is funny from a stars fan perspective where there is a world reality where, and it's obviously Marks, Stone hatred is pretty high in Dallas right now, considering the collision and injury to Mirro Hachkin.

But it is funny in the Dallas-Vegas rivalry, which, God, it's one of the best going right now in the West, that the, if the stars look, our stars fans look in the mirror enough, you may be looking at the Tyler, Tyler Sagan becoming the modern day Mark Stone. That's something that you're completely valid on that point. Yeah. Yeah, I think in terms of the trade, it was on the one hand, I was underwhelmed with the return in terms of the caliber of players they were getting back. I get the argument of the positional scarcity and getting ahead on market and all that. It's just, as we've spoken about in the past, it's been so rare for Jim Nell to move his first round pick.

The one that they gave up for Niels Lundquist, which wound up being the 2023 first. That was the first year they haven't made a first round selection since 2008. And so you think, all right, well, if this is going to be the year, even in what's quote-unquote considered a weak draft, I've pushed back against that as well because I don't think the 27th pick in this year's draft is any less weak than in other years. I think the likelihood of you finding an interesting player, especially if you believe in your scouting and development, is just as high as it's been any year for the stars. So I don't really buy that as an argument for just recklessly moving it. You'd think, all right, well, if Jim Nill's finally going to push his chips in and move that first, it's going to be a plight. player that really wows you in terms of your expectations for how he changes the star's roster and I don't really think that's what happened here. I do like the Grandland fit. I get all of

that. But I just thought kind of comparing those two in terms of my expectations heading in and then sort of the reality of what wound up happening. It was kind of tough to reconcile those. Yeah, I get where you're coming from on that. I do. It's, it's, yeah, it's also. I wonder if the, because I think a lot of people, Jim Nill doesn't look at it this way, but a lot of people I spoke to look at the market of like, okay, it was Granlin was for the first. And then C.C. was for the conditional fourth that could become a third if they reached the Cup final. I think that's the, Jim Nill justified in his head, the first was being able to address two problems at once. And that's kind of the, that's the kind of thinking coming from the man who made the deal.

whether you agree or not. That's kind of where it came from. And the whole, the grandland one to me is, is that a good deal? And I'll throw this back to you a quick. If they re-sign Grandland, does it make the value feel better to you? Like if they, if there's all of a sudden, they get them to a two-year deal or something, like, I don't know. Does that make it better to you? And I don't, I don't know the right answer to that because I'm a person who has been, I'm speaking, I'm going against my philosophy right now because so often I'm very much a you can't use possible extensions to justify a trade because

that's anyone could anyone can sign a guy after as a free agent and everything like that. Yeah. Obviously I think the context here is important of their organizational history where it's like if it was some other team maybe I'd be like I wouldn't even view a Granlin extension

as a good thing because he's going to be 33 years old here in February. Yet given obviously their affinity for finish players and adding to that mix, but also the fact that we've seen countless examples now of a player like this in that 32 to 34 year age range, come in and because of the situation

and all the talent around them and everything, all of a sudden, them have another couple extra years that are incredibly productive, tacked on to the end of their career. I feel like that's a very realistic possibility here, Granlin. I would probably like him much more moving forward on the stars than I would in some other random situations. So I think that plays into this as well. I'm perfectly fine with adding ground. And I think he gives them a lot of flexibility. You talked about how they're a pretty poor passing

team. He's an excellent passer. I think he checks a lot of the boxes they were looking for. So I think he's certainly going to help them. I'm just underwhelmed by the CC part of this because I think if you're like they still have what, four and a half million or so in LTIR space that they could theoretically spend between now and the trade deadline. It's unlikely that they make any sort of meaningful ad that really moves a needle because I don't think they're going to move any of the other prized assets they have in terms of young players to add a game-changing player. So I think that's a bigger limiting factor than the cap space. And so you look at the team and the way it's constructed, even if Miro Hayskin and it was fully

healthy, the right side of this blue line, if you're mapping out a Stanley Cup title run, is just, it really limits you. And I just don't feel like adding CC really changes that calculus at all. It's another body. He's a veteran. I get all of that. I think he's a player who could look fine in the right situation. That situation is probably carefully managing his minutes in a third pair role.

Unfortunately, especially for the rest of this regular season, he's going to be playing like 18 and a half regular 5 on 5 minutes per night in a top four role. And that's not one of those situations where he's going to look good. And we've already seen it. It's just two games. course, but he's got like a 38% expected goal share. That's probably going to continue. And so I just, in terms of using whatever space you had in terms of the first round pick in the cap space to actually improve your team, I don't think that was the wisest usage of allocating your resources.

I think that's fair. I mean, I definitely, I definitely think that's, that's fair. I also, I will place like devil's advocate to hear on this to defend what Dallas did a little bit of I don't know what other better defenseman is going to be available. Like I just, I don't know which other defenseman is going to be available that the stars had the assets to realistically get. And I think that's the other key thing. You have to like talk about what you're buying with. And now, because if you're, if you're sitting in the opposite GM chair of Jim Nell and

you're making a trade with him, every single trade you're going to talk about, hey, I want Liam Bischel. I want Maverick Bork. I want Logan Stankhoven. Jim Nill has effectively put those guys on the no, they're untradable. And honestly, the rest of the star system is not good, right? Like, I don't, like, it's like you go through in the depth of it and there's, maybe you'd want an ML Heming.

I don't know, but like there's no one else within the Star's pool and I pay attention, more attention to the most. There's no one else where I'd be like, hey, there's a prospect that brings me value that I would want in a trade. So I go, I will give you devil's advocate on that where I agree with you. There are better options. There's ways that you could better improve the blue line than Cody Sisi. I don't think the stars could have afforded them with what they're willing to do.

And I think that's that's the, that's kind of the calculus here we have to figure out. Well, and I think that's self-inflicted in a way, right? Because you look even back to the offseason and what they chose to do when Chris Han have left and how they used their resources to add to the right side. And it's like three games since Miro went out. Matt Dumbus played 47, 5-on-5 minutes. He's been on the ice for five goals against in that time. Like, it's just a disaster.

And so, Lubushkin's actually been much better than I would have anticipated. But I spoke about this with our pal Thomas Drance on this Sunday show when we were breaking this trade down. We know his limitations to his game. And in a playoff series, we will reach a point where the puck comes to him in the offensive zone with a game on the line. and it's going to be like, all right, I really wish we had gone out and addressed this sooner and not live through this. This is the franchise that once reached the Stanley Cup final with Andre Seckerah setting up YOL Kiviront in game 7th. So for a goal in overtime. So it's just it's just it's think about the they've done it before.

I mean, Andre Seckerra is like Quinn Hughes level skill relative to what we're talking about here. So, but yeah, you know, it's interesting. Like Elliot Freeman in his recent 32 thoughts had this note about the remaining LTIR space that the stars have. And it's like no one is expecting them to be done. They will add theoretically to the right side. And then you look at the list of guys. And it's like, all right, David Savard, best case scenario, Rasmus Saladin. None of these players actually stylistically skill-wise actually address the.

Maybe it's just other right shot bodies. you know who it'll probably be just because and I'm not saying he's the fit playing wise but it'll be you know what Essel and Del become really good friends with Henry Yoko Harju during four nations who all of a sudden they'll be we'll see we'll see a Yoka Harjue to Dallas deal because of and we'll hear about how great Granland and Rope and Essel all got along with Henry when team Finland begrudgingly had to take him because we couldn't get Jake Walman his finish citizenship there's a good fallback for us Yeah, Team Finland looked into the viability of a withdrawing from the tournament. And then when they were told they weren't allowed to do so, they're like, all right, fine, we'll bring Henry.

Just leave us along. That speaks to how they feel about him. So, yeah, I don't, that would be hilarious, but I don't see that changing my stance at all. You and I will unilaterally agree it is not the right move. But it is, it's the trade deadline move where I'm like, hey, I unfortunately told you. So if that happens. Curious for your take on this. I had a listener,

a Stars fan, message me on Blue Sky about this, and they were talking about sort of, I guess, when I talk about what I would do if I run in the Stars versus everything, the organization has telegraphed

in this era in terms of what they want to do in terms of like maintaining flexibility and viability and not necessarily boxing themselves with being like, this is the year we need to win the Stanley Cup and then if we don't we're going to spend three years trying to dig ourselves out of that hole, constantly trying to be sort of in that top five to ten

range in the league as opposed to definitively trying to be in the top one, two, or three and then dealing with the consequences of that. And with the cap going up and skyrocketing the way it is over the next three years, we've spoken about how this organization made the pivot in terms of their broadcasts to the victory plus and sort of the potential um i guess financial ramifications of that or kind of

how that experiment is going do you think they will be impacted at all if you project whatever 27 28 when we're expecting the cap to be like 114 million or whatever do you think that's going to factor in at all to this in terms of jim nils thinking of like slow playing this a little bit and managing accordingly or do you think that's just not really a thing and they're going to be one of the deeper pocketed, higher spending teams in the league? I expect them to be a cap team. I expect them to be a cap team as long as possible. And I expect as long as current ownership group is in charge,

I expect them to be a cap team. There are different types of owners and there's different types of things. And one of the realities is when Tom Hilarity, the star's owner is a legit hockey nerd, sometimes puts his hands in a little bit too much isn't as bad as some others in Dallas, which is a nod to some other franchises in the Metroplex there.

So I don't expect the difference between Tom Galardi's team spending 108 million versus 114 million is effectively raising $5 prices at Sandman hotels across Canada. Right? Like it's the like like all like it's to me it is it's not it's not going to impact the stars being a cap team. The the if financial things ever hurt the stars or impact the stars well when there won't be when it comes to player payroll. That's I'll look at it that way.

Yeah. It's and it's and it's part of the reason that. Nill is so careful about his cap structure and everything like that is he is he wants he plans to be able to spend to the upper limit every year and he plans to be able to do that and it's something that he's effectively gotten confidence from his ownership group and over and over and over again and people are talking people are talking about them being able to spend. money or will this impact them with the victory plus they gave matt dumb about three point two five million dollars this year and they're on the books for it next year if they don't if they if they if they can't figure it out so it's the stars will be a cap team it's going to be it's going to be going all right good stuff uh we're going to get out of your shot i'm going to let the listeners know uh what you've been working on recently what they can expect if you got any fun projects i know

you finally put together the Joey Decord VR piece that you were mentioning last time you were on. You can let the listeners know either about that or whatever else you got. Yeah, go go check out. My site is shapshotshockey.com.

I've got the piece about virtual reality usage that Joey Decord uses to prep for games. That's a piece that I was working on for a little bit and really enjoyed putting together. So go check that out. We got a fun cartoon as well from my guy's sports tunes

who I'll give him a quick plug here if you ever need like to commission someone who does super quick cartoon work. I've given him gigs at 9 in the morning and driven back home from Little Caesar's Arena. And I've already had the full art in my inbox by the time I got home two hour, two and a half hours later. So check out my guy's sports tunes. He does a great job. I'm just sports and it's cartooning and all of that stuff. And then, uh, but what's you got?

Well, I was going to say, maybe I'll need to reach out to him and get a, uh, get a cartoon commissioned of me dropping to my knees. crying when I found out that Carol Marchenko was going to miss about a month or so. There you go. There you go. Just with the, and the, you could you could even, you could even give them the idea. You could have the, you could just have the stadium series Blue Jackets, Jersey,

just hanging on the wall unused. That would be, uh, be a great image. Oh, man. You got any, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you out there. Do you have any no, no, that's good. Plugs or, yeah, obviously check out the stuff I do with the guys over. Over at Elite Prospects. For more stars stuff, I'm doing the, I'm not on it daily, but they do the daily podcast down

in Dallas through the All-City Network check out those guys. I'm on there twice a week and they bring me on. And Craig Ludwig somehow has somehow embraces my opinion on things. So it's an interesting battle of old school and new school in a good way. So go check that out. And yeah, but big one is for me, bottom line and being pragmatically, the more money in my pocket is the more people who read my own site. So go to shapshotshockey.com.

Let's do that for me. Well, listen, I obviously didn't agree with it, but there's no denying that getting to watch and cover Cody's easy on a day-to-day basis is going to increase your content ability. In Dallas, they had the, so they all city network down in Dallas. It was,

I was part of the internal meeting. They're talking about all this great views the past weekend. And Bobby, the director of content there said, You know what? It's not the Luca trade that got all these people talking about our site. It's all about Cody Cici. True story. The biggest acquisition in the Dallas sports scene. All right, Sean, this is great.

We're going to have you on again soon and everyone check out your work. We were going to get to some PDO cast mailbag questions. We ran out of time because we went long on the two teams recovering, but we'll have plenty of time to do so in future shows, especially during the Four Nations break, which is fewer games to talk about. So we'll get into that. So get into the Discord if you're not in there already so you can contribute to future mailbags. We've got one more episode here.

Come and finish the week strong. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedocast streaming on the SportsDad Radio Network.