The Hockey PDOcast - Unsung Stars in Dallas, Nick Schmaltz's Extension, and Erik Karlsson Stepping Up For The Penguins

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to get into the run the Dallas Stars have been on over their past 15 games by highlighting the unsung players that have stepped up during their winning streak, all of the considerations in analyzing Nick Schmaltz 8-year extension, what we've liked and haven't liked from watching Sabres games this week, and the degree to which Erik Karlsson has stepped up for the Penguins during a brutal part of their schedule. 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 Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPEDEOCast. My name is Dmitra Filipovich and joining me here, as always, on a Sunday for our Sunday special, my good buddy Thomas Strands, Tom, what's going on, man? Not much, buddy. Doing well. You know, we're sort of settling in now for the stretch run.

The folly of the NHL standing system, I think, is laid plain now, especially in the Western Conference. The Department of Player Safety is taking some serious shots from star players. And McDavid. And agents. And Connor McDavid and Austin Matthews agents chiming in in a significant way. The Buffalo Sabres continue to be a division leading team. In fact, opening up their lead, just as we all expected in early December.

It's been a lot of fun. Like it's looking like we're going to have some meaningful playoff races. Out east and out west, I think more out east. Just because I don't know that the second wildcard, those teams are like as interesting to me, generally speaking, and the playoff bar is going to be, what, 10 points lower? Yeah, I was talking about this with Harmon. We were looking at the Western Conference playoff race on Friday, and he's like, yeah, all of these teams involved have amongst the easiest strength of schedule the rest of the way.

And I'm like, yeah, because they're all playing each other. Right. and every model is going to rate all of them very poorly. And so the competition is soft, but in theory, I guess the competition is the teams that are vying for playoff spots. So it'll be competitive, but ultimately the significance of it is probably less impactful than the East,

which does feel a little bit more open, certainly, in the first round or two. And especially because it feels like, you know, the, like I think the wildcard teams have a better chance, especially if it's Ottawa or Columbus, I think, who frankly in my mind have a higher gear than Boston for sure and maybe Detroit. Certainly Detroit depending on injuries. Yeah, I mean, I think that could get, that could make for a really interesting first round.

In the West, though, it's more just like if Utah crosses over to the Pacific, what's the problem? Like, how bad is the Pacific relative to everybody else this year? I think is a very open question even if we retain some level of faith that, Edmonton and Vegas will be different animals come playoff time. All right, let's start with the West then, because I've got a list of topics for us here for this week's Sunday special, and number one on that list is the Dallas Stars, who are 14-0-1 in their last 15 games, including 8-0-1 since coming out of the Olympic break,

despite the fact they've gotten 11.5 total minutes in that time out of Rupa Hintz and Miko Ranton 5-1-5 shares during the stretch of 15 games, 55% shots, 63% high-danger chances, is 57% expected goals and 61% goal share. Now, they're top two in all of those metrics across the board. The other team with them is the aforementioned Ottawa Senators, so maybe we can discuss that a little bit later as well because any way you slice it, they certainly look like a playoff team. Before the season now, the stars are up to second in goals against,

second and unexpected goals against first, inner slot shots allowed. And, you know, offensively, because of how the season started, the volume is still going to rate them low in terms of quality. quantity, but they are up to fifth and inner slot shots taken and seventh in goals scored. And the crazy thing is they're, what, 15 seconds away from having won 15 games in a row. Yeah. With that Valenachuiken six on five goal that sent that game to extra time and then the aves wound up winning on trade deadline Friday.

And that game, that Valenchuchen goal is the only thing separating the abs in the stars now because there's currently a three point gap between them as we speak. And that is the ultimate difference. That seems like a crazy thing to say because we spent months just assuming that the gap was so significant between the abs and really everyone else that despite how good the second and third team in the central were, we were like these two teams are locked into a round one matchup, the abs are running away with it,

they're going to play wildcard too. And I still would pick them considering I think they have a game in hand as well with that three point gap. But it's getting tighter and more interesting than I think we really thought it would at any point. and so that's going to make for a fun final month. And I've got a lot of Stars notes because I've been really impressed watching them play,

doing this with those absences. Yes. And then dominating a 5-15 where it hasn't just necessarily been your cookie cutter, goal-tending, and special teams, the way it was early on, which I think is still a very viable blueprint for them moving forward because they're very good at those. And we know those two areas carry an outsized impact,

especially in a couple game sample in any playoff series. But the way they're playing 5-15 is impressive, and there's a couple unsung heroes as well that I wanted to get through that have really caught my eye. And I think deserve a bit more attention than, you know, Wyatt Johnson and Jason Roberts and Amiro Haskin and Thomas Harley now, who all certainly deserve it themselves. But it's really been a team effort. I think that's what's been the most intriguing and exciting part. Yeah, no, the, I mean, the Dallas stars in the first few months of the year, you know, as you said, the goaltending special teams, top end of the lineup is so dangerous. And they're going to manufacture quality and also the muscle memory finishes.

that Jason Robertson brings, plus Mika Ranton's unparalleled ability to just call game at certain moments is going to be too much for just about everyone who's non-elite to handle on any given night. And now, especially through these absences, like especially since the trade deadline since the Olympic break, the floor minutes, especially from some of their bottom of the lineup moments, right? So I'm talking how Bischel and Myers, for example, have immediately become impossible to generate a quality look against. It's not that they're dominating play when Myers and Bishel are on the ice together, but there is an element to which their combination of size and the fact that they're both skilled enough to get play moving in the right direction, especially with how stars forward support defensively. There's just nothing going on, inner slot with a lot of East West Puck movement in those third. third pair minutes. I think that's helped elevate this floor. I think you're getting really good play from Thomas Harley, you know, Oscar back, and that sort of Ritzkovi and third line with,

with bunting, you know, though, like, right now they're doing it without Ranton and hints. And I think there's an element to which if you sort of look at what the top end of their lineup matchup looks like night to night, it's not overwhelming. It's that it's, they're still good enough without sort of their two best forwards to at least hold serve at the top of lineup. And then right now it's lower down that's that's sort of winning. And I do think in terms of how that changes how I'm thinking about them, I was a little concerned about their five-on-five profile in December.

And now I'm imagining, okay, if they're able to graft the top-end skill onto what they're doing to teams now, that becomes a, like a potential cup-winning profile. Well, as I said, they're three points behind the abs, even if they don't catch them for first, what this has done is built a nice little cushion between them and the wild in the two, three, in terms of who's going to get home ice in round one, and that's obviously going to be very important as well. But I imagine we'll be circling back to this next week because I was looking at their upcoming schedule between now and our next chat for our next Sunday special, home against Utah, at Colorado, at Minnesota, home against Vegas. Really just speed running all the

best teams in the West. Yeah. And I think that's going to give us an even better sense of where they're at. And I was also thinking about the idea in terms of, you know, at one point between now and the playoffs, I want us to bring back our stakes tiers in terms of heading into the playoffs, who's got the most on the line, how this can play out. We spent a lot of time focusing on the stars from the perspective of falling short against the Oilers in the Western Conference final and kind of bumping into the ceiling before making it back to the Stanley Cup final. And obviously, I think we'd all agree it's a pretty remarkable feat to be one of the final four teams, even if that's ultimately all you cap out at.

year over year. Part of their undoing, though, beyond not having Connor McDavid on their team, has been these seven game wars they've had to indulge in in round one, where two years ago was that series against Vegas where they went down two nothing and had to fight back and win game seven at home. Then last year, of course, the comeback against the abs with Miko Ranton and's heroics in game seven. And that's all part of like a compelling story in terms of like your transition through the playoffs. But undoubtedly, if you're going to go far, I think it helps to avoid the early bloodbath. Just emptying the tank in that round one and the gap between playing Minnesota, even with

Home Ice versus Wildcar 2 and the West, as we just said off the top, is about as massive as you're ever going to get in round one. And so I think that's an important thing to note. Do you want to go through the three guys I have highlighted? Yeah, let's do it. Standouts for them. Number one, S. L. Endell.

Yeah. He's never going to get the shine because he doesn't put up the points and he plays with Mero Haskinen. But man, he's having an outrageously great season defensively. second most penalty kill minutes of anyone in the league, and they're giving up less than seven goals per hour during that time. On HockeyStats.com, 93rd percentile quality of comp, 98th percentile, even strength defensive impact, crushing it at 5-1-5, and they're not giving up anything with him on the ice,

and I just think he's been immense and a total game changer. Number two, our guy Justin Ritzkobian, who is having the glow-up of all glow-ups over the past couple weeks. It all starts with me teaching you how to pronounce his name, Yep. Which was huge for his reputation in league-wide circles. And then he goes on national TV and just Ritzmaxes, antagonizes McDavid, draws four penalties. He was just trolling the Oilers all night in such a functional manner.

And I say this in the most complimentary way. He is such an incredibly annoying player. Yeah. Because he's just constantly moving. And he's one of these guys, it's like, on the underside. side of things. So like he's kind of just like a pest floating around at all times, but I think he's got enough offensive juice to make you, to punish you as well and earn those minutes higher in the lineup we've seen throughout the year because of their injuries up front. He stepped

into a top six scoring role in the wing. Now he's centering this third line with Michael Bunting after his acquisition at the deadline. And he's been so useful for them. And I love his career path too. I don't think we should necessarily devote a full segment to a career arc retrospective, the way we did with Nate Schmidt a couple weeks ago and a couple other guys we've done. But I think it's a really fun one because I know you've talked about highlighting his younger brother coming out of the NCAA and sort of similar prototype and profile. And he's your classic kind of like lay bloomer, right, where in his final two NCAA seasons, he's over a point of game, but he's already in that, what, 22, 23-year-old gap.

So it's not necessarily a top prospect. Comes into the AHL in his first pro season at 24 years old, has 60 points in. 67 games. And then this year, first year, NHEL are full time at 25. And he's going to score 12 to 15 goals, have 30-ish points, but gives you so much defensive utility and movement up and down the lineup. And another one of these, like we talk about the hurricanes doing this and the abs and some of these

smart organizations, Jim Nill very like sneakily squeezing in this two-year extension in early January where he gets them at 950K for the next two years. And then now he's having this glow up where we're talking about him on the PDO cast and so I've loved this game I think he's so fun to watch and that performance against

the Oilers is certainly worthy of us talking about him here today. Yeah, the reaction in the penalty box like everything about it is so good. No, and he's, I mean, that line with bunting and Blackwell is as annoying as

it gets through and through, complimentary. Well, you need these guys certainly for any good playoff team, but I also love when you have a couple of them playing together and I'd argue all three of those guys. fit this bill, but that reaction shot you're talking about to the penalty box in that Oilers game with him in Blackwell, where Blackwell is just telling Leon Drey said,

I love you, I want you. And trying to get under his skin and then Vetscovian's just sitting beside him, just raising his eyebrows, which was an all-time gift. He's also like for, I mean, he's not young in the sense that he's 25 years old, but as a first year NHLer who's kind of moved between the wing and the center position, he's also winning 60% of his face-offs. and immediately has given part of this defensive floor that the stars have established along with what I just said with Lendell.

And so, yeah, I think he deserves a lot of credit for this. And I think a really fun story. And then the third guy that I had was Matt Duchesne, who I remember early in the year after the extension he got this past off season, given his age. He suffers that really gnarly head injury and struggled coming back and reestablishing himself. I think he only had like four or five points in his first 15 games he played through the, the end of 2025. Since then, he's been a point of game. They found a really nice combination with him, Jamie Ben, and Sam Steele,

and they've given them some offensive juice as well. And so, yeah, I feel like everything's kind of coming together for the Starz team. And I'm very interested to see what it looks like when they reintegrate Hinson-Ranton and whether they can keep playing this way. Because I think everyone would agree that your team's going to be better when you have Miko Ranton and Rupa Hinson the lineup. And they can do stuff that, especially Rantan, that very few people in the world can do in terms of just taking over a game.

and turning shots into goals and being a difference maker in that capacity. But especially with Ranton and like you have to play a certain way pace-wise for him to fit in and kind of a bit more methodical, slowing it down, you know, leaning on the puck. Without those guys, all of a sudden now I feel like they've really unleashed a lot of these more unheralded bottom six types that could just play at a more frantic pace. And that was one of my issues with the stars watching them early in the year where I felt like they were a bit more plotting at times. they weren't retrieving pucks very well.

They were kind of one and done. And now all of a sudden, these guys have less offensive upside, but it's allowing them to control play a little bit more and increase the volume. And so if they can strike a nice medium between those two, once those guys come back, all of a sudden now we're going to be cooking. Yeah, and I think Sam Steele with Duchenne and Ben,

I think is a perfect illustration of exactly what you're talking about. I guess the only guy I'd add into that is back on the fourth line. As they've had to move guys up the lineup, the quality of that fourth line has diminished. still getting excellent results, like still winning those minutes really handily, both territorially and in terms of outscoring teams. And, I mean, you watch them play,

I'm pretty confident that he's the driver on that line as it sits right now. So I've been really impressed. Has there ever been a more stars player than someone named R2 Hurru though? No, never. Yes. It's incredible.

And look, I think the back, the Ritzkovian, and the Maverick Bork, you know, filling in ably with their skill players at the top of the lineup part of this, is critical. I think what you're seeing in terms of, you know, we talked about a lot, for example, with like, Malinsky in Colorado or, you know, Nikitian, but also what Carolina's managed to get out of Jackson Blake this season and on and on, like the organizations that are sustaining success seem to have multiple guys like this coming homegrown every year. Sometimes those guys end up being trade assets.

Sometimes they end up being meaningful contributors, but you can't keep up. given, you know, the volume that a guy like Chris McFarland is trading at or, you know, given the ability of a team like Minnesota to just completely revamp their team in midseason, you sort of can't keep up without having just an wildly steady flow of new talent making their way onto your roster, making inroads, and then, you know, being promoted and becoming the reason you win. I actually think there's a really interesting contrast here with a team like Florida, who this offseason traded Justin's. sort of, for example, and have kind of found themselves short of exactly the type of player

that he is, right? Like, knowing what you have, keeping the guys that are ready to take this step, you know, I think is really essential for allowing these teams to sustain the sort of excellence that we're seeing in an NHL that, you know, let's be real. I mean, aside from Minnesota sort of crashing the party, because they were able to trade for a Norris winner in mid-December, you know, is feeling pretty close. Right? The changing of the guard quote unquote that we're seeing, for example, in the east feels like it's mostly at the bottom end and maybe Buffalo, maybe Minnesota are kind of the exceptions of teams knocking on the door. But, you know, Detroit making the playoffs while Boston's out of the cup window and Toronto falls off, like Montreal making the playoffs, like that doesn't feel like a sea change in a world where we're pretty confident that like Tampa, Colorado, Dallas, and sorry, Dallas. Colorado, Carolina, Tampa, you know, the old guard, the teams that are in the conference final year after year after year are still the best in the league.

So, you know, I think it's really impressive what Dallas has been able to do with some of these unheralded guys. Well, and especially when you have such a top heavy roster build from a salary perspective, when you commit a disproportionate amount to three or four guys the way they have. And then if you're competing every year, you're not picking high in the draft and being like, all right, well, a year or two for now, we're going to integrate this top. top 10 pick on an ELC that's going to reopen our window now. That's an interesting thing to think about from the Panthers perspective, for example, if that does happen this year. But you're going to have to get creative in terms of NCAA signings and guys, you draft lower in the lineup and develop for a couple years in Texas and then call them up. And so, yeah, that's been huge for, for I guess filling in the margins, especially with all the

injuries they've had because I think this season could have gone much differently. Otherwise, all right, do you want to get into the Nick Schmaltz extension? That's the next thing on my docket. I mean, so I want to preface this by saying I like Nick Schmaltz as a fit for this Utah Mammoth team. I think he's a good player. I think he was going to clearly be the top free agent and keeping him for eight times eight is like fundamentally good business, better than they, better off than they'd be if they allowed him to walk.

However, I think about, this is like an analogy that really sticks in my craw sometimes, but like the sky dome in Toronto when it opened in whatever the late 70s, early 80s. I'm not going to be exactly super specific. It was sort of heralded as like the new great, the latest great example, like the Astrodome of like what baseball was moving into with artificial turf and a retractable indoor window and all the cement and this sort of like brutalist futuristic design, right? And everyone was like, wow, that is the future of baseball. And the very next year, I think it's Jacobsfield opened in Cleveland, or maybe it was Camden in Baltimore.

And it was like small and intimate. And it was outdoors. And it, you know, if you were sitting behind home plate or sitting in the 500s behind home plate, you had this beautiful view of the downtown skyline. And it was fresh grass. And people were like, oh, right, we love baseball for this. Like, this is what we wanted. And immediately, after opening this sort of palace to the future, was actually the last sort of example of an era that had ended

and ended almost immediately after it opened. And I feel like the contract where you extend and leverage sort of time, right, eight years term. Spread it out, yeah. Spread it out as a way to limit the cap hit. I feel like there's a real chance that this style of contract is the skydome of a new era of how NHL teams should do business. Now, you know, people will say stuff like, well,

you know, maybe Utah's finances demanded that they sort of pursue it in this manner, but they front-loaded the deal, right? Like they heavily front-loaded the deal. So he's making $10 million in salary over the first three years of the contract, for example. The actual, like, cash across the first five years, the average is $9.5.5.ish million. I just think, like, the flat cap created this dynamic where teams were skrimping and saving and handing out NTCs and handing out NMCs like candy and committing eight years to older players,

you know, taking on that risk in order to do everything possible to minimize their cap hit to the greatest extent that they could because that was the thing that you needed most to build a team. I mean, $3 million in extra cap space in the flat cap era, that's like, wow, we can go out and get like a really good middle six forward. Or like we can go out and get a good middle six forward

and a really good depth defenseman. I mean, three million was like all it took to bring in two or maybe three useful players onto your lineup. But that doesn't exist anymore. And I think the value for a team like Utah to paying, like what can you do for $3.5 million in cap space on the open market this summer?

I mean, it's going to be a seventh defenseman. It's going to be Mark Jankowski. Like, it's not going to be like it was where you could go and find Alexander Wenberg fresh off of a buyout or, you know, Anthony DeClair after not getting tender to qualifying offer or, I mean, there's so many examples over the years.

Dylan Strom. Yes. You know, like, I mean, you were like, oh, should we try and sign this 25-year-old center who just wasn't tender to, that's not happening anymore. Like, even the Jeff Petrie's, the Oliver Eckman-Larsons, the Nick. the Nate Schmitz of it all, like that's going, going away.

Players are not going to move in the same fashion. So I think we're getting to this point, like, the way I'd almost think about it is think about contracts having been stretched. And I think increasingly in a world where teams are going to have more cap space than they can find useful players to spend it on, teams are actually better off paying the cash premium, from a hockey strategy perspective anyway, if they can, to sort of, you know, of fatten these deals, make them sort of more vertical, more, more cash, higher cap hits, but preserve your flexibility, manage your risk. And I just, for a team like Utah especially,

where they've got an enormous amount of cost certainty with most of their young core players, Clayton Keller being a very notable exception, and a relatively long competitive runway, I just think they would have been better off spending more. on Schmaltz's like cap hit, like the face value number on his contract in order to limit the term, limit the long term exposure. And while they did ultimately do this over the length of the deal, maximize your flexibility early on when a player is more likely to be like a really strong trade asset, as opposed to at the back end where the cash over cap, you know, is relatively negligible where there's no signing bonus structure, which yes, makes the deal easier to buy out, but doesn't,

sort of add to the heft of it as an asset. You know, it just feels to me like a contract for another day, like a contract for a prior time and not one that maximizes how it sort of serves Utah's interest over the course of, you know, what's the start of a pretty intriguing competitive window here. Yeah, I've given this a lot of thought because it happened on what, Wednesday morning. Yeah.

And so we've had a couple days to digest it. I don't think I necessarily like it for anyone involved. You know, on the one hand, like for Nick Schmaltz, staying with an ascending organization. Yeah. You're already a playoff team. I think we all think the sky's the limit for them over the next couple years. You're in a fun new city. It's an organization that's doing stuff the right way that's spending money.

Like you have all this new life. I think it's very exciting. It's a heck of a pandemic, too. You get $64 million for the next eight years. it's a good spot. Yet I think you could certainly argue that given his production where he's having a career, I think he's on pace for nearly 30 goals and 70 to 75 points playing more down the middle than he had in the past.

Yep. Where he was generally used in the wing the past couple of years, taking a lot of face-offs now bumping Hayden down the lineup as a result of it. And then the supply and demand of the market, he certainly, with how few options are available, It's basically him and Alex Tuck in terms of this type of player. And then you get into like the Mason-Marchman, all of your Bork Strand type of middle six-winger. Yep. Not to mention the right-handed center capable guy.

Yeah. And we saw that at the trade deadline in terms of what an asset that is for teams. Almost certainly could have leveraged it into a bigger payday in terms of pure volume over the shelf. I feel like maybe a worse spot in terms of a team that's not as exciting moving forward. Yes. But in terms of if you're just trying to leverage your earning power, I think that's a fair argument. for us as fans, taking away another

UFA option this summer and how bleak that market already is and just significantly more so now after this. And then for Utah, for all the reasons you mentioned, on the one hand, I get the argument of you're retaining a talent,

you're not losing them for nothing in free agency, and it's a reasonable number moving forward. Totally is. I just don't think ultimately that they needed to or had to or should have prioritized, that in this case because I think it's a different set of circumstances for a Florida this past off season for example or for you know a Tampa Bay or even a Dallas at this point where it's like

the ways with what we have from an asset perspective moving forward that we can bring in a talent like this are pretty limited and we also are up against the cap so shaving off any extra million or two for the next couple years it's such a valuable thing to make all the pieces fit before this deal even after acquiring mackenzie weger and taking on his 6.25 million for the duration of that deal, the mammoth were going to have 27 million in cap space this offseason. And they almost certainly weren't going to spend it based on the players available, but one way to do so would have been replacing this $8 million that Schmaltz is going to make by acquiring a Robert Thomas or a player of that elk and consolidating some

of your futures in terms of picks and prospects you have. Now, as we saw the deadline, maybe that's too rich for Bill Armstrong in terms of wanting to go that route. And so that's why they maybe chose to do this and then explore a smaller trade moving forward. But I feel like this kind of limits their ceiling in a way where I think Schmaltz is a good player. I think if you're serious about competing for a Stanley Cup, I don't think Schmaltz and Keller, because they're kind of a package deal at this point, should be playing two and a half more minutes per game than any of your other forwards when you have a Logan Cooley and a Dylan Gunther coming, not to mention some of the other prospects we're excited about. And then giving them like 60 plus percent

offensive zone starts, power play one usage, all the same. stuff that top the line of players command and get from their teams. And maybe I'm putting a card before the horse in terms of worrying about this and maybe it will change during the duration of this deal. But I think we've seen how teams operate when you commit to a player like this, especially with their longevity within the organization dating back to the Arizona years and the connection with a Keller and what he means to an organization. There's a bit of deference as well in terms of like making sure everyone's happy.

You're not having issues or drama off the ice. And so you keep giving them those minutes. And I ultimately think for Utah, if they are going to be a true Stanley Cup contender and reaching their apex that I think is available to them, it's not going to be through Nick Schmaltz being their leading forward in terms of usage and being their best most productive player. It's going to be those other guys stepping up and taking that mantle. And so if he's an $8 million player three years from now centering a third line, I think that's fine, especially where the game's headed. But I'm not confident that that's how this is going to play out because of all those reasons are just listed. Yeah, and I think it's fine. It's just not the optimal outcome.

I think we have to remember, too, like, the lesson of the Kachuk trade. Now, there's a lot of lessons from the Matthew Kachuk trade from a Florida Panthers perspective, but part of it was taking a very good team that had, you know, just had a President's trophy caliber-winning regular season and making a move to extend the team's window, even at the expense of sort of, like, at the time anyway, there was at least a risk that in trading the NHL's third leading score and a top pair defenseman. The team was going to take a short-term step back in quality, but they were adding a potential elite talent and getting younger and sort of extending

their window there, and then it hit immediately. Like, it paid dividends absolutely right away. I think there's a useful lesson in that for teams positioned kind of like Utah's. Like, I just think the best outcome was probably to keep Schmaltz, but I think the best outcome might have been to pay more in salary. salary and hard cash to preserve additional flexibility. And it's not even about managing your downside risk, even for me, if that the cost of that additional flexibility in terms of preserving him as a trade asset, in terms of sort

of limiting your downside to year five and Tija Ginnla now is an 80 point guy and Denae is a two-way beast and we're legitimately in our Stanley Cup window, but Schmaltz at 35 is, you know, not capable of handling top six tough minutes in a hard and fast playoff series, which, I mean, there's only 61 guys in the league over the age of 35, and some of them are definitely still really good, but like,

this is not a league that is kind. It's not a bet I'd want to make. It's just not a league that's kind to older players anymore. It never has been, but it's especially pointed these days, as much as we want to say that modern science can extend careers and it can. You know, you're very much betting on the,

old sort of plain graphic with where they've taken shots when you're, when you're betting on guys retaining this level of effectiveness. I just think you'd want, I think they would have been better served, even if it was like 12.5 million times four, even if it was 13 million times four. I almost think it's hard to find a number at which it would have been a bad bet if you'd found a way to keep the deal shorter just to sort of give them time to figure out what they have with their prospects and to potentially leverage Schmaltz as a trade asset. There's even some sense that they kind of did this in the structure of the deal, where the NMC becomes like a slowly less restrictive, no trade clause as the deal moves along, and where

the contract is front-loaded, albeit not with signing bonuses, so that there is a cash over-cap or a cap-over-cash element in the latter few years of the deal. But by the time that matters, you're still talking about, like, first of all, you're not talking about huge amounts of difference, huge amount of potential cap savings, and you're already talking about like a 36, 37-year-old center, which is, you know, a player that's difficult to move unless they maintain a Matt DeShane level of longevity, which, you know, you hope to see, but I don't think you can bank on. So for all of those reasons, I just worry that this takes them, I worry that this type of bet in general for a team at the front of their window, and if Buffalo does something similar,

I think those are especially the moments where you need to prize or value and even be willing to really pay for, pay through the nose for, the flexibility to make changes. It's less about downside risk these days, I think, too. It's in a world where the cap keeps growing up and mistakes sort of harm you relatively less. It's more about having the flexibility to monetize things on your roster, especially as younger players start to make their way through and potentially, surpass aging guys. Yeah, they're set up so well financially. I mean, even after this deal where they're going to have 19 million. Now I think Barry Hayden's the only guy due for a pay raise. And, you know, they got two more years at Keller at 7.15 when he comes up, even at his age, he's still going to be worth more. But at that point, guys like Lawson Krause and even their

defensemen who are going to be in the 30s, like Marino and Schmidt and Jersey are all going have expired and the cap is going to have gone up as well in the meantime. And so they're going to be able to keep scaling this up and adding. And I don't think this prevents them from doing so. beyond the hierarchy within the lineup of if he's just firmly entrenched in one of those top spots, and then it's going to be tougher to take him out of that. But I think it's the same applies to Buffalo with Tuck. Now, maybe slightly less so because they have less financial flexibility this summer because of the Skinner buyout hitting its apex.

And so they're, and with, you know, Benson and Krebs and Kesselring as RFA. They're going to need to be creative in terms of making all that fit if they were to spend on a tuck. But I've seen a lot of the general pushback to the idea of letting these types of players walk if you're Utah or Buffalo is, well, you're not going to be a destination in free agency and how are you going to replace this player's minutes

with that money you've carved out. And you never were going to go that route anyways. If anything, it's going to be via trade to get a better player, which you're going to need to if you're going to be a Stanley Cup team, seriously moving forward. And this did nothing to address that, if anything, made it slightly more complicated.

and difficult for you to do so. And so, like, I would have much preferred going the route of, instead of committing 8 million of Schmaltz here, spending futures to replace that salary with Robert Thomas moving forward, who's a superior player and fits a spot in the lineup that Schmaltz is going to be playing otherwise, and for Buffalo as well, rather than committing to tuck using Murcha and, you know, Hellenus and firsts and whatever other prospect, Jack Quinn, whatever players you want to throw in there to get a better player to come in and play where Tuck is and use that money elsewhere. Right.

And so I do think there are ways for these organizations to let those players walk and then replace them and actually be better off for it because they have the assets in-house to do so. They're not stuck with like the 30-second overall pick from the past three years as their main trade ship. Like they actually have stuff to get creative with. Yeah. Lastly, the Schmaltz deal kind of got me, my gears turning, and I apologize for bringing up the Vancouver Canucks, but I'm going to because I obviously spend a lot of time covering them and thinking about their plight. And every time a Nick Schmalt signs eight times eight with a team in a, you know, low tax jurisdiction in the United States, I tend to think that that's probably a tough outcome for a team like Vancouver, probably a tough outcome. Probably a tough outcome for a team like the New York Rangers,

probably a tough outcome for a team like the Toronto Maple Leafs in the event that their trajectory continues to be gravity-bound and downward. The lack of player flows, talent flows through the NHL right now and the concentration of talent within, you know, let's be real, largely warm weather, low media intensity, low-tax jurisdictions in the American South, I think is, you know, we'd be naive to not say that it's a factor in why some of these contending teams are repeating in the conference final year after year after year. And that's not to say that you can't rebuild or what have you.

But I do think it's an issue that teams around the league should be mindful of. And not in the context of like, well, they should agitate to have some amendment on the cap that factors in tax rates. or like it's not about that that's loser thinking in my mind i just am of the mind that so many of the things that we're talking about right now like the proliferation of no trade and no move clauses 30% the league has them the league should step in teams should be limited it's like no this is a natural outgrowth of teams having to stretch out these deals and find creative ways to preserve cap space part of the reason why talent is concentrating in more desirable places to live is that salaries have been flat.

You know, you're one of the best players in the league. Well, if you're not Carrille Caprisov, you're basically capped out at 12.5, 13 million. No one makes more. Okay, well, in a world where no one makes more, a star player is just going to stay where they're at. I actually think with the cap going up and with there being so few players worth spending that space on, some of these teams, especially in traditional hockey markets, where higher new teams. Teams where, you know, forget getting into the lower bowl for 50 bucks. It's 50. It's coming off of back-to-back Stanley Cup wins. You're barely able to get into

the building to watch a 30-second place team play out a meaningless stretch of games for 50 bucks. Like, you need to bring that financial might to bear and blow up, in my mind anyway, the current sort of stratified pay bans that have been in effect for the NHL for years and years. Like, the only way to reverse this outflow or this flow of talent concentrating in these places that are better to live is to use your, like, flex some muscle, flex some financial muscle in if you're one of these hockey hotbeds and show, like, you've got to put it. If you're the Canucks, if you're the Maple Leafs, if you're the New York Rangers, you've got to put it into the mind of every future Nick Schmaltz that like I shouldn't. sign now because I got to see what the Rangers are going to offer, what the Maple Leafs are going to offer, what the Habs are going to offer. And I think this July 1, people are looking at it and saying things like, well, there's no talent. And they're mostly right.

But I actually think it's a vital one for some of these teams in especially Canada to sort of go out and begin to detonate these structures. Because I think if they don't, you're going to see an incredible level of calcification in terms of the best teams staying good, largely as a result of structural advantages that you can't really accommodate for or account for in a CBA environment. So I'm really curious to see which teams, like I think the lesson of the Nick Schmaltz deal, almost more than anything else, is that players are very comfortable to stay in good places to live on good teams. For sure. And if you're going to change that, if you're going to begin to have talent flowing to the highest revenue teams, the way it did prior to the cap era and even in the early years of the cap era when

salaries were reliably growing. I think the only way to do it is like, is it going to take, you know, a massive offer to Jacob Truva or Michael McCarron? Are you going to be comfortable with that? Probably not. But I still think it's probably going to be the right thing to do, especially if you're paying a premium in cash to limit the term and player protections and TCNMCs on those deals. I actually think it's a pretty straightforward way that some of these teams can use the amount of cap flexibility that's going to be in the system to put pressure on teams that are finding it very straightforward to retain their players while also creating value for themselves, especially because the 50% retention thing means, you know, you sign Radco

Goodyis for $8 million. People are going to be like, that's wild. Okay. But can I sell Radco Goodyis in two years at $4 million, like almost certainly, right? And that's sort of going to be part of how I think teams. especially a team like the Canucks that are rebuilding in a traditional hockey market and their higher revenue team, I think need to be thinking about how to navigate this system. Completely agree. I mean, I think you said this said as much earlier, but, you know, just thinking about it.

Like if this deal had been 12 and a half for four years where you're paying like 14 million, let's say, in the first two years and it works its way down to nine and a half. And in lump sum, the maximum allowable signing bonus that I can. Like that would have been a great deal for the player. He hits unrestricted free agency again at 34. He needs to make up $14 million then in gap. And if you're like, oh, I don't know, that's kind of risky. It's like, all right, well, you're paying that player $8 million for those years anyways moving forward. 100%.

That's more. That's riskier. Yes. That's riskier. And again, because you can retain half, right? You can have the bet go belly up and you're still two years away from having a completely tradable asset, like a contract, especially. if it's front-loaded, that some teams will desire, especially if you're taking back a

reclamation project type in the deal, there's all sorts of avenues to have value. But I just think increasingly we need to think about instead of being like eight, that's efficient. That's how we used to think about the NHL efficiency contest. And I think now we have to begin to reorient it, where actually the money spent is probably good, provided that what you're buying is less term and less player protections on the contract. Like that's going to, it's really, the devil is going to be more in the details than we're used to. We're used to reacting to a cap hit and then saying,

well, you know, the amount that the Maple Leafs are getting for Matthews and Martyr, this team's getting these four guys. Like that's a way, but we have to get out of thinking about it that way. It doesn't really matter. What matters here now is going to be the flexibility you have to market your players and seize on those opportunities

that come about where you can land stars. Especially if you're like Utah, is in the rare spot where they're obviously good right now, maybe not as good as they're going to be. Yeah. But a playoff team. Definitely. That also has cap space moving forward.

Right. And so, like, that is your biggest asset, really, beyond the prospects. It's leveraging that to keep the player, if you like, Nick Schmaltz, for example, and want to keep them and think you're going to be worse off losing them, and you probably will be because it's going to be tougher to replace that guy, especially next year. Use that cap space that you have and then be able to remake your roster in years for and five where instead I think you're taking on a lot of risk here. And I think that's our issue

with it more than anything, just like a team building thought exercise perspective and business dynamic. And I think it's that it's because the cap space doesn't buy what it used to, right? So the cap space is a useful asset, but their best asset is how much talent they still have coming, how many draft picks they still have coming, this idea that they're going to potentially be able to deal really good players, backfill them with better players that are developing internally, and add the return that they're getting into the mix, right? Like, that's the world that they're operating in, where, you know, I think keeping Schmaltz is good business for them because it's hard to replace talent in this system.

Like that part of it, what people are talking about is true. But I just think the way you keep him matters these days. Like, I think keeping him in a way that preserves your flexibility, especially given the way that they're positioned is sort of paramount. And I would sort of say, you know, Love the work, like keeping him, like the player, like what they're doing. I think the contract outcome leaves a lot on the table for them. And I don't think it's binary necessarily because despite them not making a big splash trade at the trade deadline.

And being reluctant to do so, I think they're still very live to be a team who does exactly that still, even after the signing this summer. But let's say part of the logic is we don't want to trade Denway and Aginla and Boot and Simashev and our picks moving forward for a Robert Tomer. or a player like that that's going to fill Schmaltes salary slot and place in the lineup, then you can even more easily justify paying more up front because that means you're keeping those young players who are hopefully going to be playing for you on ELCs during this window.

And that's cheap labor that allows you to overpay in the short term. And so, like, that's the logic impasse for me where whatever the decision-making process was, I don't think you can square away all of it to make it optimal regardless of how you look at it. Totally. And especially because the structure of the deal reveals that they were trying to manage it, right? Like this was on their mind. They just didn't take the sort of language that's in the structure of the contract, what they clearly pushed for in sort of protecting their downside risk to its more logical conclusion. Yes. All right, two more quick topics, the Sabres. Yeah.

Who were our lead on the Sunday special last week. And, you know, we really should just start every show with them. But we have to talk about the stars because they've been the hottest team in the league. They had a bit of a hiccup midweek where they blew that game late in regulation against the caps. And really they should have put it away much earlier. Like they had them on the ropes and just let them off and then wound up blowing it. But still had a good productive week because Tampa Bay, who they're competing with for First the Atlantic, lost twice in regulation. And so as you said off the top, they're up four points now, I believe, with the regulation win tiebreaker. And two games in hand for Tampa still left. I love this fourth line of Sam Carrick playing with Beck Malenstein.

Now I don't love that they're starting games with Zach Benson there. And then Lindy Ross doing the whole knoblock of like brilliant in-game adjustment of putting Benson as a fixer with Dave Thompson and talk when he's available or whoever else. Yeah. In fairness, Benson still like regularly and their games top three in his time. We don't need to do this song in dance. Well, so one thing about Beck Malinstein. Did you see he set the fastest max skating time in the NHL?

I sure did. In that game against the capels? That assist was incredible. Incredible. Yes. But like beat McDavid. McDavid's been number one for like years. And Beck Malinstein, I'm telling you, $4 million man, Beck Malinstein.

You're going to spend so much time doing write-ups above Beck Malinsene heading into free agency as a key target for the Knotton. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's a no-brainer. No, I like it because, you know, it seems small, but that was a low, the fourth line was a low-key issue for them, even when they started winning games in December, because they were using guys like Greenway and, you know, Cossack and Dund. Totally. And they were losing those minutes.

And all of a sudden now, like, Carrick looks awesome. Awesome. Malinstein gives them juice. And the combination of the two is actually, like, not only creating goals, but winning those matchups. And that's massive heading into the playoffs. And you get a lot of pushback from that line. They're annoying to play against. They're physical. You've seen the Buffalo Sabres show an enormous amount of willingness to push back.

they've passed punk tests from the Tampa Bay Lightning, among other opponents. Every Sabres game now, you're pretty confident that you're going to see some rough stuff, which I think adds to the feeling that this is a wagon team that can stand up physically and out plate teams. The Zach Benson, Todd Bertuzzi assist against the Maple Leafs, by the way. Got to shout that out. That was awesome for anyone still quoting his height. And the Tage Thompson five one-timers thing was just like, what are we doing here? It was so cool.

Yeah. That team is absolutely leading the league in Oro right now. So fun to watch. And yet I cannot believe they're using Logan Stanley and Luke Chen together. I'm really hoping this is one of those things where it's been such smooth sailing for them for three months. Yeah. That they're trying to artificially create a little bit of adversity. Or hopefully that they put enough on tape.

Like if you had watched the Jets over the past year and a half, you would have already come to this conclusion. but sometimes you need to see it for yourself. And, you know, there's a lot of idea of like, well, our situation is different and players are so environmentally dependent that it could look different here. Hopefully you get enough on tape over these final 15 games where it's like come the meaningful games in April, it just you throw that idea out as like this is not viable for us because I feel very confident that it's not. And these first couple games have provided nothing to the contrary.

Like Logan Stanley being caught flatfooted and Ryan Leonard just kind of walking around them and scoring a goal in that game, the turnover by Luke Shen against the Leafs in his own zone, like, especially for a team where their calling card and most dangerous component is the transition attack where they've been the best team in the league. And then the offensive zone concepts of like how much they move around, their defensemen activating and all of a sudden coming downhill in the slot and you get all these opportunities. How many plays? The skill gap is just unavoidable.

How many plays do the Buffalo Sabres have where one of their wingers is attacking downhill from the point. Yeah. I mean, it's like, they do it so well. So, yeah, I agree with you. I also, you know, I think the other part of this Sabres wagon story has just been a really high level of play in all moments. Like, you know, even when their fourth line is struggled, there's been an Austland

who's going to threaten in those minutes or Benson more recently. You know, not that, not that Bryson and Metsa are crushing it, but they're, actually pretty good fits for some of that high-low play interplay that the Sabres rely on in the ozone, and they can get play moving in the right direction, even if they're not as good in zone as defenders as Shen and Stanley. There was a sense watching that Capitals game, for example, versus some of the other Sabres games we've watched since early December, where you felt like there were parts of the Sabres roster soft underbellies that were exposed that another team could attack. in a way I felt like was rarer to notice when the Sabres were playing pre-deadline. And so I don't know that you love a sort of collection of work over the trade deadline,

over the course of the trade deadline where you feel like this team is more exposed in the matchup game than they were prior to it. That said, it doesn't have to be that way based on how they choose to deploy their lineup. So they still have some optionality to sort of soften those edges. But I did think that that was a notable part of watching. that capitals game get away from them slowly on Wednesday. I'm sympathetic to the idea that especially if you're going to go through a long or not Wednesday. It wasn't Wednesday.

That was the Senators game. It was Thursday or whatever. Yeah, whatever day it was. They're all blending together at this point. I'm sympathetic to the idea that if you're going to go on a long playoff run, you're going to need to win in different ways and you need to be multidimensional and guys are going to step up in different capacities.

Part of what's fun about the Sabres team is a lot of their top players already provide you that with Don and Benson and Oslin. like there's defensive utility and winning battles and retrievals and also the high level skill. I think there's something to be said for if you have a decisive edge in some capacity, what you were saying for Utah in terms of pushing it to its logical conclusion and leveraging it to its full capacity on the ice for the savers, strengthening a strength and just like, we're going to beat teams in a certain way and let's get even better at that and really leave no opportunities on wasted. I think that would be very intriguing and going this route prevents them from doing so,

think. Yeah, and it's probably a little bit regrettable in that, you know, the Paraco acquisition would have brought some of what they clearly felt they needed, which was gnarly size on the back end and some, like, late game solidity when they're trying to close out leads, which I think we've been watching the Sabres win games for months and thought, yeah, it's a little bit sketch. It's a little bit sketch late in games. So I don't think they identified the incorrect problem. I just wonder if failing to get the piece that would have been able to fit into their game overall while also bringing that if they may be overreacted in executing their plan B.

All right, let's end with this. Eric Carlson. Good hockey player. The last five games for the Penguins without Crosby and Malkin available. Yeah. 2612, 2419, which was a second leg of a back-to-back. 28-01, 26-25, 26-49. he's about to hit his 36th birthday. In that stretch, seven points,

42 shot attempts, three penalties drawn, 59% expected goal and high danger chance shares at 515. Just been in his bag. I posted a couple clips from a game they played in Carolina, which they wound up losing in a shootout, as they always do, because they cannot win a shootout game. He was just doing like vintage Eric Carlson stuff,

like dancing in the point, handling around defenders, walking downhill, setting guys up back door. And he's been doing it all year. Like he's on pace for 61 points, is impressive regardless. I think he's been even better than that. And without their top two centers available, he stepped up with higher usage and really been a focal point and driver of the offense. And I think it's been so fun to watch. So I wanted to give him some love here, especially because

they lose 6-2 in Vegas. They're going through this absolute gauntlet of a schedule in March. Then they go into Utah on Saturday, a huge come from behind win in regulation. Their next seven games. Two against Colorado, two against Carolina, and then Dallas and Ottawa, the two teams we listed as being top two in essentially every 5-1-5 metric for the past month. Still at 86% playoff odds. They're tied with the Islanders. They have a game in hand on them, and the tiebreaker, Columbus is approaching rapidly. I think they're only two points out, so that's going to be a fun storyline to track, but I still love watching this Penguins team, and I've really been enjoying this Carlson Renaissance all year, really, right? And he's been pretty vocal about.

not getting along with Mike Sullivan last year and the impact that had on the playing style and he's been cooking all year, but just seeing him level it up to like primary Carlson usage as well and not really losing efficiency, if anything, just getting even better offensively, I think, has been incredible. So I'm going to be enjoying it for as long as it continues. Yeah, there's an element to which turning back the clock and stepping up to be the Penguin superstar when they had to leg it out without Sid and then without Malkin because of the suspension. You know, that's the sort of, like, that's the sort of weight a guy like Carlson can still bring to bear. And it's been a ton of fun to watch since the Olympic break, really, right?

Like these 10 games, post-Olympic break, he's been one of the best defensemen on the planet. He's, you know, been slept on for a while, but he's remained a very, very good hockey player. I also just love how significant a dog Igor Shinikov is. Yeah. I didn't realize it. No, he's been really cool. Manta's been incredible. Incredible.

Yeah, all year. Yes. Yeah. I just didn't understand when they acquired him that Chinokov had that motor, but now I can't watch a single Penguins game without being completely delighted. By like the extent to which he plays like one of John Cooper's dogs. It rocks. Yeah.

I mean, he's just shot out of a cannon every time. Every shift. All right, buddy. This was a lot of fun. Sunday special in the books. What do you want to promote in the way out? Lots of rebuild talk coming to the athletic, including more

theories about how the Canucks should go about aggressively breaking the current pace structure that is, I think, favoring teams in non-traditional hockey markets to an extent that's going to complicate the rebuild if some of these teams can't figure out how to reverse the trend of the last five, six years. And then also Connect Stock will probably be

talking about that too on Sportsnet 650 between noon and 2 p.m. Pacific time every weekday. All right, buddy. This is a lot of fun. We will see you back here next Sunday for our next Sunday special. I believe I'll be back Tuesday with Jack Hahn for the next episode. If you enjoy today's show, give us a five-star review wherever you listen, subscribe to the PDOCAS Patreon as well for extra content. And thank you for listening to the Hockeyediocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.