The Sheet with Jeff Marek - Shock the World ft. Eric Tulsky & Jason York

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Jeff Marek is joined by Eric Tulsky, General Manager of the Carolina Hurricanes, to recap a wild weekend that included Eric making one of the biggest in-season trades in NHL history with Mikko Rantanen, Taylor Hall, Martin Necas, and a few other pieces... Jason York then stops in to react to the Ottawa/Quebec City announcement and discuss the state of the Senators fan baseShout out to our sponsors!👍🏼Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/Reach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's Kat Nat from the Kat Nat Unfiltered Podcast. You know we're all about finding those little moments that bring comfort and connection. That's why this winter we're loving the new Starbucks handcrafted menu. Starbucks is the ultimate winter survival companion for Canadians. With handcrafted espresso beverages like the new Cortado and brown sugar oat Cortado, those freezing temperatures suddenly don't feel so bad. If you're looking to elevate your winter routine and add some intentional moments of pause,

stop by Starbucks this winter. Every visit to Starbucks is worth it. So we're gonna talk a lot today about the three-way deal that we all saw go down on Friday. We'll talk about the Carolina Hurricanes, the Colorado Avalanche, Chicago Blackhawks. We'll talk to Eric Tulski, general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes, as we're all trying to get like a vibe check or try to figure out how Tulski is going to maneuver through the NHL in his rookie season as a general manager. I think we're all trying to get a handle on, okay, how is this guy going to operate?

And that was a pretty big piece of the puzzle that we saw on Friday. We'll talk about this from a number of different perspectives. We'll talk about the Carolina side, the Colorado side, the Chicago side as well. How many more shoes there are to drop? What comes next for the Colorado Avalanche, I don't think that they're done by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think Chicago's done

by any stretch of the imagination. But also, part of the conversation that I think a lot of people had this weekend revolved around the nature of the salary cap and perhaps the future of the salary cap. Now, as this collective bargaining agreement winds down, I think a lot of us are wondering what hockey is going to look like when there's a new deal between the NHL and the Players Association.

Now I know that people tend to glaze over, so I'll apologize in advance here and try not to make this about as interesting as sorting out one's sock drawer. I know people glaze over when you talk about things like the CBA and salary caps as sorting out one's sock drawer. I know people glaze over when you talk about things like the CBA and salary caps and escrow, but the one thing that I keep coming back to, and I talked to DJ and Pete on What Chaos about this earlier on today,

is it not time now that the training wheels came off the salary cap? The salary cap, as we all know, was introduced in 2005, and essentially we've lived with basically the same salary cap with minor adjustments here and there since 2005. Is it time to take the training wheels off? And I think one of the reasons why this conversation is being had around the NHL and a lot of conversations

and water coolers and rinks, et cetera, is a lot of this trade that we saw on Friday was sort of mandated or nudged along quicker because of the salary cap and how much Mikho Rantanen was going to demand if he was going to resign with the Colorado Avalanche. Now I know there's been some complications there. Peter Baha has a piece at the Athletic.

If it's not already out, it's on its way out, where Miko Retinen said he was prepared to take less than market value to re-sign with the Colorado Avalanche, to which the question then becomes, well, what do you consider market value? We're gonna talk about all those things today. We're also gonna talk about Michael Anlauer, the owner of the Ottawa Senators.

Today at a press conference, you know, announcing a couple of preseason games with the Ottawa Senators at the Videotron Centre in Quebec City, musing about perhaps regular season games in Quebec City. And there was a picture of Spartacats with a half jersey of Ottawa Senators and Quebec Nordiques. We should also talk about Logan Thompson signing a contract extension with the Colorado, with the Washington Capitals rather. But the big story of the day is gonna continue to be the three-way trade that we saw on Friday.

And before we get into the show, I wanna leave you with this. I got a text on Fridays, I was in Jasper over the weekend, I'll talk about that coming up in a couple of moments, and before I went to bed on Friday I got a text from someone and the text went like this. Three general managers walk into a bar. They all sit down at the same table. One general manager orders a bottle of vodka and starts pouring shots for the other two while drinking smart water himself. We'll let you figure out or decide

which of the three general managers was drinking the smart water. Welcome to the sheet. It's going to be a busy one. It's going to be a big one. Glad to have you aboard today. It's no real punchline of that joke, it's just sort of like a setup. You insert your own punchline. Just thought it was a funny text to get before I went to bed. 3GM flocked into a bar.

So how'd you like that one on Friday? A little bit of a shocker? You know, we were all in Jasper. Tyler Uremchuk and Jay Doughton were on the air and talking about Frank breaking the news and getting all the specifics as we say in the Atlantic or all the specifics of the deal. And it was the buzz all weekend in Jasper at the pond hockey tournament that I was at and everyone from the nation, well a lot of people from the nation network were at over the weekend.

You probably had conversations, all of your buddies following the chatter online. And you know, this trade, you know, trades like this don't happen very often. This is one of the best players in the NHL getting moved mid-season, right? We've seen like this, and Joe Thornton was a massive one, the Boston, San Jose, Jack Eichel, you know, Buffalo, Vegas, but these things are rare creatures

and these things don't happen very often. And I think it underscores in some ways, and I'll ask Eric Tulsky when he joins me here in about 10 minutes or so, the GM of the Carolina Hurricanes, it's very difficult to do deals in season between two teams that are going for it, right? The Avalanche have Stanley Cup aspirations,

as do the Carolina Hurricanes. So how do these two teams get together and do deals that strengthen and not weaken their chances of inching closer to the Stanley Cup? And the answer is the broker team. And in this case, it was the Chicago Blackhawks. We've talked a lot about the Vancouver Canucks and their situation with JT Miller and Elias Pedersen and it's the same thing. The Vancouver Canucks are not throwing in the towel. The Vancouver Canucks still have very much eyes on 2025, as do the New York Rangers, as do the New Jersey Devils, as do the Dallas Stars, as do any of the other teams that you've heard rumored with JT Miller or Elias Pedersen.

Except the Buffalo Sabres, more on them in a couple of moments. If you're gonna get one of these deals done between two teams that have Stanley Cup aspirations, you need a third to help facilitate everything and make things go smoothly. That's one of the things we'll talk to Eric Tulsky about coming up in a couple of moments as well.

The other thing about Tulsky, well, let me get the rundown in here first, and then I wanna talk to Zach and you guys a little bit more about Eric Tulsky and what to expect in this interview coming up with the headline maker from the weekend. So coming up, Daily Outlines, presented by our friends at FanDuel,

North America's number one sportsbook app provider. Number one is Eric Tulski, who joins here in a couple of moments, a general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes. Number two, we'll be talking about the trade. It's still bleeding into this week and we'll see what the rest of the week brings. And we'll see what everything brings leading up to trade deadline. The other story I mentioned off the top, Michael Ann Lauer, owner of the Ottawa Senators, musing about not exhibition games, those are happening, but regular season Ottawa Senators games at the Videotron Center? This after we just saw the Canadian Tire Center filled with Toronto Maple Leafs fans on Saturday? We'll talk about that with Jason York from the Coming In Hot podcast here on the

Nation Network and Daily Face Off and we'll talk more about Ottawa and Quebec and I do wonder at what point the Ottawa Senators and the Ottawa Senators owner specifically, Michael Andlour, backtracks on this one because this was, as we say in the business, not very well received. Tonight's matchup board is an intriguing one and will feature the return of Connor McDavid and Tyler Myers. They are back in the fold and back playing this evening and that is your show today. Zach Phillips our producer and occasional co-host here on the program who joins me now. Really quickly I was in Jasper when I first heard the news. It's gonna be one of those where were you when

as things started to trickle out. We were all wondering about the Taylor Hall side of all of this and whether that was gonna be the entire deal. Where were you when the deal broke out on Friday? Getting ready to leave to my Men's League hockey game. I believe I had just put the dishes in the dishwasher, my phone starts vibrating, I said what could be going on right now, pull it out, went what? They did what? Who got traded? That's about how that went and then as

soon as I was out the door, it got to hockey and every single person there was did you see this? How did that happen happen well and and as well too like part of the remarkable thing about this is you know players like miko ranton and who let's be honest like on that food chain there he's number three between behind nathan mckinnon and nikaele mccarr um and i think a lot of this is going to revolve around salary cap and aav and we'll talk about that in a couple of seconds here but guys like this don't become available. Right? Like guys like they and this is I know like Maple Leafs fans are wondering now about Mitch Marner and the situation is different and the no move clause etc etc etc. But players like this just don't become available. Like Miko Rantinen even though he's buried behind

Kel McCarran and Nathan McKinnon like he's a future Hall of Fame player. Right? Like guys like this do not pop up and you wonder too, okay, so what's gonna be deployment here? Actually, let's throw that, you have the trade board set up before we get to Tulsa? You have the trade board? Just so we're all sort of on the same page about this one, we can riff on some of the players here that are involved.

And I think, you know, getting the short end of the stick here in some ways as well is Taylor Hall because that's a really nice pickup for the Carolina Hurricanes. funny too you know Tyler Dello is an assistant manager with the Carolina Hurricanes he was in Edmonton with Taylor Hall was in New Jersey working there in the analytics department with Taylor Hall and now Taylor Hall makes his way to the Carolina Hurricanes where Tyler Dello is. Insert your either Stefan Matto or Matt Cullen joke here if you wish for for Mike Keenan or Jim Rutherford anyhow. So Rantanen and Hall end up with the

Carolina Hurricanes, the Avalanche with Martin H's Jack Drury, a second and a fourth and the Blackhawks picking up a third round draft pick, they retained 50% of the Miko Rantanen salary here. And I know that's how Davidson is slings and arrows all weekend long about how that's all that they were able to get the, the third round pick. We're going to do a lot today. We'll, we'll see if we get around the Chicago side of things, but what are the most impressive parts of all of this to me? Well, first of all,

we all knew that Martin H.S. was available. I mean, that had been rumored going back to towards the end of last season, certainly into the summer as well. Sometimes, and this is, you know, like the Zen Farmer fable, sometimes you don't know whether something is a blessing or a curse when it does or doesn't happen.

And one of the first things that I thought of was, you know, I'm guessing Carolina feels pretty good about the deals that fell through with Martin H just before, because now that led that led the Carolina hurricanes to Miko Rantanen. I don't think that Tulsi is going to bite on any of the, well, how many times did you have him move and who was he going for and all that, but at the same time, I think we'd all be on the same page, that it led somewhere really good. And I do wonder, like, you know, Zach,

and by the way, in the chat, people are wondering what happened to the top of your head. They're used to you being a half man and half hat. We're not used to seeing, and he's smiling, and he's like, look at that, Zach actually does have hair underneath there. So he's not half man, half hat, half AirPods. He is an actual breathing human being.

I wonder what the feeling is when the deal is done. And Eric Tulsky goes to Rick Tawkin and says essentially, here's the keys to a Ferrari. Go drive this thing now for the remainder of the season. Yeah, like what did you make of this deal when you first heard it? I mean, I was stunned like everybody else and then you try to measure off the returns.

With Colorado, I'm reserving judgment because they're not done. But with Carolina, like, this is like one of those tape measure home runs. They didn't give up a first round pick. They didn't give up one of their top three or five prospects in all of this. Like tape measure home run. The outfielder is not even looking at the ball. It's gone. Yeah. That same reaction for me. And one of them I'm sure we'll get to as this goes on as well, but like you look at each part of it. So automatically I think,

okay, home run for Carolina. I, there's no, there's no other way for me to really break that down. You've outlined everything about Miko Rantanen. We talked about the salary and you get in Taylor Hall, like all of that stuff, who you lost, it all makes sense there for you. I think that that's home run. Colorado, the first thing I thought when I thought about Colorado was there is something else. Like there is more to come here. There's another player, there's another move, whatever. And then the final thing, which maybe I'm being harsh on this and I've listened to other people break this down. I don't know. I'm interested to see where this goes and listening to Eric when he joins us and then hear what you have to say about it as well. But genuinely,

like the honest reaction when I saw it as well was what the hell is Chicago doing? I didn't think that they were going to go and hit a home run on this themselves. I did think more. So that's kind of each team's individual breakdown for myself there at least about initial reactions at the game. I just wonder if there were if it was a situation where and again, I don't know. But I wonder if this was a situation where, and again, I don't know, but I wonder if this was a situation where there were a number of teams that were prepared to act as broker, and I don't know the answer to that.

And listen, what we've learned now, and I think the wise general managers have learned is that cap space is very much a thing, and the more that you have, you need to treat it as if it is an asset. I mean, what has Tulski talked about? I mean, we talked at the beginning of the season about him on that podcast earlier in the summer, the Expected By Whom podcast, where he talked about, you know, the moves that you're making. Are you trying to make

your team better or are you just filling holes? I think about that a lot. Like, that was my, the one comment from anyone in hockey that I took away from the summer was that one. And I can't stop thinking about it. Getting dressed should be simple. If you're like me, you want to look good, feel comfortable, and be ready for anything. That's why I love Dürer. It's not active wear, but it's not just fashion.

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those freezing temperatures suddenly don't feel so bad. If you're looking to elevate your winter routine and add some intentional moments of pause, stop by Starbucks this winter. Every visit to Starbucks is worth it. Okay, let's bring Eric Tulsky aboard. He is the architect, one of the three architects of this massive trade. He's a general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes.

Eric Tulsky joins me now on the sheet. Eric, how are you today? Have you stopped smiling? I'm guessing everyone saw your upper teeth over the weekend. Yeah, it's been a busy week trying to catch up now and everything else. What you know, I was just saying to Zach a couple of seconds ago, Eric, you know, I wonder what the feeling is like when you can go to your head coach Rod Brindemore and hand him a pair of keys and say, here's a Ferrari you get to drive now.

I'm curious, how much were you in conversation with Rod Brindemore through all of this? And I do want to ask you about Tom Dundon as well, but how much were you in concert with the coach on this one? Yeah, I mean, Rod and I work very closely. It's essential that I understand what he's looking for, what he thinks the team needs, that I can go try and bring it for him. You know, he really thought very highly of the players we were sending out. So it was, you know, it's not like he was super excited to get rid of them, but of course he's excited

to bring in the players that we brought in. You know, I was mentioning before you came on, on that podcast in the summer, and the one quote in the Expected By Wh quote in the expected by whom podcast where you talked about and I'm gonna paraphrase and probably Eric butcher this but something along the lines of you know are you just trying to fill spaces or you're trying to make your team better I mean you let a lot of high price players go you know whether it's pesce whether it's Tara Vining whether

it's Shay whether it's Nathan and we can go on and on. You know, how much of, because I think we're all trying to get a feel of, okay, how is Eric Tulski going to drive this thing? Like, what's his style going to be? You know, what should we read into this and try to learn about Eric Tulski? Were you giving us a peek into something when you said that, as far as your management style, how you look at things like trades or the salary cap and roster construction. How much of that one quote was a peek into the hockey brain of Eric Tulski? Yeah, I mean, I think we try really hard not to be dogmatic about anything. There is no one right way to do it.

There is no single one piece that we need. Every single situation's evaluated individually. And the question is, will this get us closer to where we want to be on every decision we make? Was, was Ranton and someone that you had, I know managers talk all the time and various names get brought up. Was that someone that you identified and thought, you know, perhaps Colorado is going to have an issue here, re-signing him, maybe he wiggles free or was that something that you were approached with? Um, I don't know. This dates back to the summer when I talked to 31 teams about what trades we might do.

And so, you know, I forget whether I made the first caller they did, but at that time it was just, what do we have on the table? It wasn't really a serious, like, this is going to happen kind of conversation. Right. But, you know, we made a list of teams that had pieces that they were willing to put in play potentially that we were interested in and kept circling back to those teams to see where they stood and where we stood.

And at some point, maybe it gets serious or maybe it doesn't. I think if you had asked me in June, whether I thought that was likely to be the outcome, I would have said no, these sorts of things usually don't happen. You put a lot of work into every one of these trades and 99 of them, 99 out of a hundred times, that work is just wasted effort that went nowhere.

But the one time that does work, you hope it makes it all pay off. How many, that leads me to a lot of interesting questions, I think, how many in your mind trades do you have sort of juggling at the same time? Like, I think a lot of fans would be curious, you know, would you be able to right now pull the trigger on something if you said, Jeff, I gotta go

I gotta take this call. Could you pull the trigger on something right now? Like how many how many balls in the air? Do you normally have? Yeah, I mean, I don't think we have a second thing that is that close to completion right now but you know as we were getting close to making a decision on that, we had a few things we were looking at and we, you know, we needed to get to where everybody understood what each side's sort of final offer was, that everybody can make a decision about which way they wanted to go. When you, when it became obvious that this was going to be more than just a casual conversation with Colorado. First of all, when did it start to go from warm to hot? And what was like, what was the final piece?

Like, was there one thing that this deal wasn't going to get done unless X happened? When did it really get hot? And what was the final touch on this one? Yeah, I mean, I would say in the last couple of weeks is when it got especially serious. You know, I think the final touch was really everybody being ready to switch from conversations about what it might look like to actually pulling the trigger.

And there were some pieces involved in the deal that started to have some time pressure. And so that was ultimately the impetus. You know, it was a complicated deal where we were looking at multiple things, Colorado was looking at multiple things, Chicago was looking at multiple things. And so if any one of those has a deadline, then everybody else needs to figure out what they want to do.

Was there at any point, because I'm always curious about the broker in all of this, like one of the things that I'm starting to learn right now and we're seeing with a couple of other teams is for teams that are eyes set on the Stanley Cup, and that's your team and that's Colorado's certainly, it's hard to do a deal, with two teams who have eyes on 2025, you kind of sometimes need someone who's looking at 2026 instead of just 2025.

So I'm curious about the broker here. Was it always this combination of teams that were going to make this deal? No, I mean, over the course of months, I've talked to a lot of teams about how they could sort of help broker a deal, thrown ideas at a lot of people. The Chicago idea came together

because we were also interested in Taylor. And I think there was an assumption that that trade would come with them retaining on him and his salary, the actual cash, is about the same on him as it is on Mika. And so it's not that different for them, but obviously better for us if we get the cap retention. And so it was possible for us to do a trade where we paid a little bit more than we would to get more cap space while not actually costing them meaningfully more cash.

Was there, or were there rather, any no-fly zones for you in all of this? Like one of the things I think, when I first saw the complete trade, because listen, you hear Miko Ratanin's name, you're like, okay, how many firsts did Carolina give up? And then you start to think, okay, did they give up Moro? Did they give up Nikitian?

Did they give up Nadeau? And the picks were a second and a fourth. In your mind, in this deal, were there no fly zones? Like, no, we're not giving up Nadeau. No, we're not giving up a first? Was there anything like that or was that all negotiable? I mean, of course there were players we didn't want to let go, but I think part of what you're describing

is a lot of these trades are a team that is sort of out of it moving on from a UFA before he leaves. It's very different when it's two contenders making a trade. And so I don't think they wanted a package that was just a bunch of futures. We could have thrown 11 first round picks at them and I think they would have said no because that doesn't help them win a cup this year. And so it is unusual that we were putting in really good players who might help them win a cup. But then once you do that, you're not also getting premium futures, right?

So that's the trade-off that came in this case because it was not the usual deal of a buyer and a seller. It was a deal with two buyers exchanging valuable players. I wanna ask you about Tom Dundon. I asked you about working closely with Rod Brindamore. And this is, I wanna make sure that people understand this. Once upon a time, the general manager worked with complete autonomy.

Those days are gone. Once upon a time, you saw your owner at the beginning of the season, maybe at Christmas, and then at the end of the year, and that was it. It's different now. This is a multi-billion dollar business. And the one thing that I think I understand about Tom Dundon, one, he has a value on everything,

and two, he's not shy about going big game hunting. Like, and this is obviously a whopper of a deal, but Tom Dundon and the Carolina Hurricanes have to varying degrees always sort of been in and around deals when there are big name players available. Can you share any of your conversations with your owner around the Ranton and Deal?

Yeah, I mean, so Tom's perspective is always that he wants us to be active. We want to be part of every conversation and make sure we don't miss a chance to make the team better. And it doesn't matter whether it's a small deal or a big deal, he wants to think about is this something that would help us. And part of what is freeing is it's not just that he wants to be having conversations, it's that he wants to really think about on everyone should we do this. And he understands if we make five trades with a good thought process, a good outcome might be that three work out and two don't. And in many places you'd be worried that you're gonna get fired because of the two that didn't work. But here I have an owner who understands that in fact we will

be ahead because more worked than didn't. And so that is freeing. It allows us to take some risks that you wouldn't always be able to take because as long as he's comfortable with the thought process he understands it won't always work out. And if the risk is balanced by the right amount of upside, we'll go ahead and take the shot. Have you already had the conversation with your owner about extending Meekle-Rantinen? Yeah, I mean, we were talking about an extension

from the beginning, right? It's part of the risk in this trade is we don't have an extension done yet. So we have to price in the possibility of doing it, the likely price it would be, the likelihood that we think we can get it done. Obviously, if we get an extension done at a low price, this will be an incredible outcome for us.

If we don't get an extension at all, it'll be a little disappointing. Hopefully we felt like we weighed all the risks and understood where the situation was and felt like we were in a good position to take the chance and press and work on getting this deal done. At what point do you go to the Platterness representation and say, we're interested, are you? Or is that already just baked into the pie? Yeah.

I mean, so that's part of the conversation we've had already. And we are comfortable that the situation we have to offer should be compelling. And we have the cap space to get a reasonable deal done. If the player just wants to go to free agency, then so be it. That's a risk we're prepared to take. I don't expect that's where we're going to be. I hope that's not where we'll be. But that's the work we have to get to now is we got the trade done. Now we have to start working on the extension. You know, speaking of the extension we have to get to now is we got the trade done now, we have to start working on the extension. You know, speaking of the extension in the cap space, as a lot of players went elsewhere,

as I mentioned off the top of the interview here, I see all this coming together now, and I'm wondering how far down the road in your mind, and I know things can always change and different situations arise, but when it comes to planning, like you don't strike me as the kind of person that's just, you know what, let's get through this year, clean up our cap in the summer, and then go back at it next season. Like you strike

me as someone who's looking, and this trade really brought that into focus for me, because all of a sudden, next season with all of this cap space, you're uniquely qualified to pay Mikko Rantinen a very, very healthy sum. How much in your mind are you looking down the road with this team? Yeah, I mean, we do try to look ahead as much as we can. We've been managing our cap pretty carefully to make it so that we could get this deal done when the time came, if it came, you know, not that we knew it would, but you wanna have the flexibility to take advantage of whatever might come along.

You never wanna be constrained in a way that makes you miss a chance. And part of what we understood is that we have the cap space to get a reasonable deal done, if this did end up happening. We've sort of thought through what our roster could look like next year. And I think we're pretty comfortable with a couple different scenarios.

We'll see how it plays out. When do you judge a trade? Like I look at this one and I say, you know what, I'm not gonna judge Colorado's end of things until I see, you know, March 7th, three o'clock Eastern, what this team looks like, because they've now freed up some cap space as well. Like at what point do you look at a deal and say, okay, now I'm prepared to judge it? Yeah, I mean, it depends what you mean by judge it, right? If you're evaluating the decisions

that each side made, you really have to do that with the information they had at the time. So we gave up a fourth round pick in that deal. If that fourth round pick becomes another Miko Rantan, and that doesn't mean we made a bad deal, it means their draft pick worked out and good for them. Ultimately, both sides made a decision based on the information they had, and that's how you evaluate it right now. Now, of course, five years later, you can look back and say,

did it work out or not? That's a different question, right? You're not really judging the decision people made, you're judging whether it panned out. And that's also an interesting question, but it's not the one that I would use to evaluate the decision you made. How much did your players know that you were in the market for something this big? I know players always assume that managers, especially teams that are going for the Stanley Cup, always assume that

the manager is in market and looking to do something. Would any of these players have known specifically, I mean I wonder about Sebastian Aho for the obvious reasons, know that maybe you were going big game hunting there in Denver? Yeah, I mean I don't think so. We kept this pretty tightly held out of respect for them, frankly. They did not want their player's name hitting the media until we were doing a deal. And I can understand that. And so we kept things pretty quiet and tried to make sure there was no risk of creating

a media circus for them. And I think our players know we're always going to be looking to try to get better. That doesn't always mean there's something like this in the works though. The other thing that I'm curious about too, what have your players said to you about this? Like I would imagine you're Seth Jarvis or you're Brent Burns or whatever and all of a sudden like wait a minute did RGM just get Miko Rantanen? What did you hear from your players right away? Yeah I mean I only talked to a couple of them so far and I think they're excited to have the players that we have come in. I think they're also, you know, always a

little bit disappointed to see their close friends and teammates go out and that's, you know, everybody in the end understands that's part of life in this business. They want to see us keep trying to get better but you know, it's still, it's always bittersweet, right? You can be excited about the new guy and also sad to lose the old guy at the same time. For sure. In your mind and perhaps in Rod's mind as well, Miko Rantanen, we've seen him play center before. Is he a center or is he a winger? Can he be both? Yeah. I mean, ultimately it's going to be up to Rod to decide how he wants to set up his lineup. I think Mikko's mostly played on the wing and that's probably the most likely outcome,

but certainly he has taken a lot of face-offs in his time and occasionally played center. If our lined up ends up set where that's where Rod sees him, then that's where he'll play. At what point did you stop allowing yourself to enjoy that moment and move on to getting back to work? I mean, I think the work has been pretty much nonstop. So, you know, I there the work has been pretty much nonstop. So, you know, there's a lot to do, right?

And it's, you finished the trade and now there's logistics for making connections to people, getting people in, getting, you know, players ready to play. And then it's on to what's our next move and what else can we do? How can we keep getting better? Let me ask about the Taylor Hall piece here. I only have a couple more for you,

but I do want to ask about Taylor Hall, who's had one of the most unique, for a first overall pick, has had one of the most unique careers that we've seen in the NHL. And right in the middle of it, there's a, you know, bam, heart trophy. How long have you had your eyes on Taylor Hall,

your thoughts on him, the player? I know it's been a couple of tough seasons. I know they've been punctuated by injuries, but what made Taylor Hall attractive to you in this? Yeah, I mean, we've been looking at him for a while. He's a very skilled player who also brings size and speed. You know, we like to play a forechecking game and he has the ability to get in and pressure and win pucks along the walls and the vision to make plays from there. He has the speed to back the D off when he has the puck. There's just a lot of things about his game that fit the way we play and provide

sort of that upgrade of both skill and size that we've been looking to bring into our top nine. Let me end on this one because this is, I mentioned this off the top of the show, this is your essentially rookie season as general manager and I think everyone's trying to get a get a feel for how Eric Tulski does business and every every move that you do is another piece of that puzzle for hockey fans to get to know Eric Tulski. What do you think hockey fans, whether it's Carolina or the other 31 markets, what should hockey fans know about you as a general manager? Yeah, I mean, ultimately, you know, like I said, we're not trying to be dogmatic.

I don't think there's any one thing we're looking for. I think we are in every case open to ideas and thinking about it individually. And if there is a deal that we don't do, it's because either we didn't see the fit or we thought the price was too high. We're always prepared to move on to the next one. We never feel beholden that this is the deal we have to do. But when we see a deal that we think makes sense for us, we're not going to be afraid to go ahead and get it done. I know you won't say who it was, but did you feel like you were close anywhere else in the last little while? Yeah,

I mean, we certainly had a couple things on the table that we had to give pretty serious consideration to. This was the one that ended up making the most sense for us. Sela's last one for you. What's the pitch to Ratning gonna sound like to extend? Yeah, I mean, I still need to get to know them before I know exactly what the pitch should look like. I think we have a really strong team. we have a coach that people like playing for, we have a really good locker room, we have a place that's a great place to live. to get to know him and understand what it is that drives him so that I can make sure that you know

that's part of what we're offering him and making a pitch that will sound compelling to him. That's wonderful. Listen, thanks so much. I know it's a busy time. You're always busy. I really appreciate your time today, Eric. Be well. Congratulations on the deal and handing your coach the keys to a new Ferrari. Looks to be on the Hurricanes. We'll talk soon. Thanks so much, Eric. Yeah, thank you. Hey, it's Kat Nat from the Kat Nat Unfiltered Podcast. You know we're all about finding those little moments that bring comfort and connection. That's why this winter we're loving the new Starbucks hand

crafted menu. Starbucks is the ultimate winter survival companion for Canadians. With handcrafted espresso beverages like the new Cortado and brown sugar oat Cortado, those freezing temperatures suddenly don't feel so bad. If you're looking to elevate your winter routine and add some intentional moments of pause, stop by Starbucks this winter. Every visit to Starbucks is worth it. There he is, Eric Tulski, the general manager

of the Carolina Hurricanes pulling off the big deal with Chris McFarlane. And of course, Kyle Davidson on the weekend, Zach. And that is the three-way deal that says, the big deal with Chris McFarlane and of course Kyle Davidson on the weekend Zach and that is the three-way deal that says that sees Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall, let's not forget that piece as well, end up as members of the Carolina Hurricanes. Anything stand out there? Because I think we're all trying to figure out, okay, how's Tulski operates?

Anything stand out there for you? Yeah, you know how Berkey told us the stories about the pirates back in the day and those guys and you hear them go out? Tulsi may be the nicest pirate I've ever seen or watched or come across. The nicest pirate? The nicest pirate. He's going to look you in the eye, give you a little pat on the shoulder and next thing you know your wallet, your watch, your chain, it's gone. Because I don't know, that was very cool to watch you guys talking about that and how the trade went down. But it's not just the trade, you know, it's how we

approach things methodically and how it fits. And then the conversations back to the summer, like watching that unfold was awesome. And then by the way, the chat, love that. Like love you from Eric there. Oh yeah. And just kind of how he approaches the game and everything. So that was cool. You know what's, again, like this is a new, again, like historically, general managers

have always been ex-players. And I'm not knocking ex players. You can still be an ex player and do this job quite well. Thank you very much. But once upon a time, like you had to have played in the NHL to manage a team slowly, but surely that is leaving the game. You know, not that I think it should have been, but, you know, Kyle Dubas in Toronto was kind of an audit in some ways.

You know, that became like the audit of analytics, as ridiculous as that was, because all teams, all teams in the NHL see and find the value when it comes to analytics. But you know, Eric Tulski is another one, another person who, and I always say this to young people that want to get into hockey that may not be playing, like look what Eric Tulski just did. Like I remember reading Eric Tulski's work online, right? Like we all do it. Next thing you know, he's pulling off the Miko Rantanen trade and, you know, hinting at other deals, which I would imagine were probably the Vancouver deals. But like all of a sudden now he's, you know,

over the weekend, you know, one of the most interesting, popular and powerful people in hockey, making the Mico Ranton and deal. Like he just made a move for Hall of Famer. Mid-season, January's not over, and he just got a future Hall of Famer. And again, he didn't give up a first round pick. He didn't give up any of his top prospects.

And the Carolina Hurricanes got significantly better here and brought themselves closer to the Stanley Cup. And that's someone whose blog I used to read. And one of his assistant general managers, Tyler Della, was someone whose blog I used to read. I think it's a really healthy thing, the way the NHL is going. And I think when you do moves like this,

I think it brings a certain amount of the way the NHL is going and I think when you do moves like this I think it it brings a certain amount of respect towards people That didn't follow the traditional I played I played June Z's and Swiftie and now I'm the general manager of this team You know what one thing too that I think is gonna be interesting with the fallout of the or follow Maybe the wrong word the reaction of this from fans is you know you see it all the time How often is it like, we can't let, um, and I'm not trying to like say this about Eric, but I think you and him would probably both get it is we can't let these nerds run the team. Right? Like I don't mean it disrespectfully, but that's kind of the sentiment that gets thrown out there around it. Well, he just traded for Miko Ran-Tenen, barely lost anything, drastically improved his team,

and oh by the way, the other thing that was pointed out by someone in the chat, I wish I grabbed the name, but lost Pesci, Shea, you know, you name it from last year, and basically just his facial expression didn't change and said, hold my beer, watch this, or hold my smart water as you said. You know, I should have told you just walked out of there. Yeah. But, but, but then again, but that that's where it goes back to. Um, like, I know I keep coming back to that one interview, but I just thought it was fascinating listening to him talking about that. Are you just trying to fill a hole or are you trying to make your team better? Like a lot of, a lot of managers

be like, oh man, like we, we can't lose this pair. We have to have this pair. Why? Like it's, it's almost as if Tulski embraces the challenge of this player is going to cost more than prepared to pay him. Even though we're going to lose the player, we're going to get the cap space. And as a manager, I embrace the challenge of not just Filling that hole but making our team better with either a the cap space or be Another player to go into that position and have some leftover cap space to do something else

Like Tulski's made the point to if he resigned everybody in the offseason He would have been 20 million dollars over the salary cap and the team wouldn't have been Better it would have been the same team You know Glenn Saylor used to always say about that eighties Oilers team, like they're winning Stanley cups and say, they would always say every year, just to keep it fresh and keep it, you know, the, the, the, the dressing room energized, you change your team about 15% where common wisdom was like, you win the Stanley cup, you don't change anything, right?

Everything has to remain exactly the same. We just won the cup. It's kind of like that philosophy of you know you never change a winning lineup how many times you seen that Zack and then if you lose the game you gotta shuffle out a couple of guys on the fourth line yeah that'll show them that will teach them everything but I think there's a there's a couple of lessons here and now that the salary cap is going to grow like the salary cap was artificially depressed and so a lot of managers a lot of managers had a built

an excuse for not being able to make deals how many times is your general artificially depressed and so a lot of managers, a lot of managers had a built-in excuse for not being able to make deals. How many times has your general manager out there said, deals are hard to make in a flat cap? Well, they are if you're not a creative general manager, right? Yes. And prepared to do creative things. And Tulski obviously brings a very creative side

to himself. Okay, so there's still more things to come out of that one that we'll go over today and it'll bleed into tomorrow. But the other thing that I wanted to get to on the show today, and trust me, there's plenty more on this deal that'll continue to spring out. But Michael Anlauer, the owner of the Ottawa Senators, had an interesting one.

In a press conference conference that should have just been a good news, hey we're gonna play a couple of exhibition games in Quebec City and isn't that great here at the La Sentra Videotron, it turned into, I don't want to say it's a disaster, but it turned into something awkward. Here for comment is Jason Mock from the Coming In Hot podcast to comment on a tough day in Sendsland and I'm not sure York Chop if you saw the picture of Spartacat with the half senators half Nordics jersey on but just reading the comments that did not go over well York Chop that did not go over well.

Well first of all Jeff you're having a great hair day. There's some positive right there. I don't think so. I don't know. I have told you before, I'm like the Kraft peanut butter bear just sort of poof and then that's it. Yeah. I'm just happy to have some. I'm not taking this hat off because you don't want to see this right right now. But, um, so it's, it's funny. He's your producer, Zach. Um, sends me a note and I, I, we did our show this morning and I like to decompress after I go to the gym, take the dog for a walk, go for a coffee. I didn't check social media all day and I'm like, what's going on?

I'm like, oh, so I've been on, I was talking to Wally. I think there's now up to 95,000 views on the picture, the split screen of the sins and our deeds. I'll simplify it as best as I can. I think there was very good intentions with what they're doing. I agree. And Jeff, if you look at what the Senators have done so far under Michael Engler, Steve Steyer, Steve Poole, they've pretty well hit all the marks. Like they've, everything is, they're in third place right now in the division. They're in a playoff spot.

They've had a great season so far. Everything's been really good. I would say this is probably the first time you could say, ah, you just might want to think that over before you do the split jersey. I don't mind. For me, you want to go play games in Quebec City? Great. Preseason. And I understand what they're trying to do. They're trying to expand the Ottawa Center's fan base. And why wouldn't you? I think there's great intentions there. But this fan base, and I know from living in here, playing in here, and now doing media for the last, whatever, 15 years, the fan base,

I don't know if sensitive is the right word, but the team's been around long enough where there's a lot of pride in this whole, in this fan base. And they just, they don't like to see something like that where you have a Jersey with your team. And even though the Quebec Nerdiques don't exist anymore, I just think a lot of people don't like that look. And it's obviously by the reaction on Twitter. And like I said, I don't think there was any poor intentions.

I just think probably one of those things where you might've wanted to think, you know what, before we do this, let's maybe spitball a little bit more and see what the reaction is going to be, because the reaction hasn't been good on that part. I don't think people care about playing there or doing that in the regular season. It's just the jersey thing is the big thing. See, you mentioned the word sensitive, and I agree with you on that. I think the fan base is sensitive and the fan base should be sensitive. It's not that long ago, not that I'm speak ill of the dead, but we can all remember Eugene Melnick speculating on, well, if I don't see full buildings here,

there's a, there's Quebec, Quebec city down the street. I cannot listen. I can understand the fan base being particularly sensitive about that. I get that. I'll squash. I'd squash that right away because there is no chance this team's moving. You've got, and I know personally, you know, like this ownership group, there's a ton of money behind the team. There's a ton of people that care. So there's like, as far as saying this is a threat or something, absolutely not.

I just think this is something, like I said, where you're going there, you're trying to get some excitement around there. I just think the timing wasn't great and probably wasn't thought wholeheartedly of that pick there because I think they were just trying to have some fun, have some fun with it, get some excitement going.

A couple of Thomas Chabot was down there, had some players down there. Then all of a sudden, and I would say the timing, what I mean by that, Jeff, you just had a game where you had some main beliefs where you played one of your best games of the year, but, and I'll tell you, Jeff. You just had a game against the Maple Leafs where you played one of your best games of the year. But, and I'll tell you from playing in those games, you got a lot of Toronto Maple Leaf fans in your building and that pisses not only the players, that pisses Sens fans off. A lot of Sens fans don't go to the games because they don't want to be in that environment.

So the timing of this, along with the timing of just having the Toronto Maple Leafs in town, where the game went well, but people are, yeah, sensitive isn't a good word, I'll tell you, I hated it. And I don't know if fans don't like it either. Yeah, I mean, a lot of this too, I think there'll be a lot, I think you can calm a lot of people down. I know this is out of Michael and Lauer's hands,

but I mean, I think everyone's just waiting for an announcement about the new arena and would have figured that that would have come by now. And listen, I am not throwing darts at Ann Lauer for that one. He's trying to move this thing along as quickly as possible. But I think if anything, that would calm every, I agree with you. Like the reaction, oh, they're musing about going to Quebec City. Ottawa senators are not going to Quebec City. Ottawa Senator's going nowhere. But I think what would calm everybody down is

if there were concrete plans and here is a direction towards the new arena. Just think from dealings in the past and being from Ottawa, the NCC, there's been delays before, everybody knows the parcel of land down there, the Breton Flats, it's been sitting there for a while. So people want to get it going. But like anything, it takes time. I just think,

I think people are reading a little more, a little more into that announcement than was there. Like it's going to take some time and it's going to take probably the whole year to get a deal done and to get, you know, there's a ton of things to go behind there. There's political things that go on and all that things. But as far as putting Quebec city and the announcement with the Breton flats and the right, there is, there's zero correlation between the two. I just think it's, it's, it's, it's something they did. And the thing that's pissed people off more is a Jersey and sharing the Jersey like that. And I understand that by the first Quebec City, the team moving and all that and trying to use this as leverage,

I think there's zero, zero connection to those two things. Okay, off of that page, really quick to the actual hockey team. Yeah, let's do it. All of a sudden, you know, we were wondering, which of the three were going to emerge, Detroit, Buffalo or the Ottawa senators? Don't look now now we have our answer

Do you think it's legit? Do you think this is legit team right now or is this a little bit of fool's gold? What say you Jason York? I Would say it's legit Jeff and I just this team plays I've been saying this for a couple months now the way this team goes about their business the way they play I know they're not scoring right now, but they defend better than I have seen this team defend in a long time. You'd have to go back to 2017 when they made the playoffs, they made that nice little run. But it's Travis Green has these guys bought in, Jeff. They're winning with their number one goaltending in All-Mark.

Everybody was worried when he went down. Merrill Ivan has come in there and didn't play really well. Everybody thought Forsberg was out and he wasn't going to get back to it. And long behold here is he's had a couple real nice strong games as well. So I think it's legit. It's been too consistent for too long how this team plays. They're in every game. They always give themselves a chance because of the style they play. And you know, as well as I do, if you're going to be a playoff team, it's all about defending and this team has learned how to defend.

Who's been the via I mean, Marilyn might be the ultimate answer. I mean, Holy smokes has he been fantastic for his team. But who's been the biggest revelation for you outside of him? Who got ushered into into duty by necessity? He's been the biggest revelation for you outside of him who got ushered into into duty by necessity. Who's been the biggest revelation for you? I would say probably the guy that's made the most impact that probably doesn't get enough credit outside the auto area. Probably Nick Jensen. Like I look at what he's done, Jeff. Like a lot of people were talking about Thomas Chabot in a negative way before this season. A lot of people were talking about this right side was too thin on defense. I'm not saying he's been

their best player, but what he's done coming into this situation and I'm a little bit biased being a right shot defenseman, but he's really stabilized that blue line. How do everybody says this? How do you go and find a right shot defenseman in the league right now that can play in your top four? Ottawa did it. Like I know they lost Chikran in the deal, but Jensen has been my God, Jeff, he's been really, really good and he's helped Shabbat bring his game to where people thought it should be, which is he's been playing excellent.

So I just look at the stabilizing force of Jensen has really, really brought this team to another level. You know, the old cliche is right shot add 10% of the contract. How much extra do you think you earned because you were a right shot D? Do you ever think about that in your career? How much extra you put in your jeans, Dirk Chop?

Oh, I'd love to play now, Jeff, just being a guy that can skate the puck. I'd play a little bit. That's why I like Jensen. I like that style of play, obviously. I think more so now than ever with the right shot, D, I just think every team's looking for him. And the game's changed, too. It's all about skating, moving the puck, making that first pass. That's what Jensen does. So absolutely. Yeah, I probably made a few million for that reason alone. Just a casual few million to set, put it on the back.

Yeah, just go buy some tin cans of Canadian tires, stuff the money in and bury in your backyard. I know Yorkie, I know. Long, quiet green, not the noisy stuff that makes that rattling noise in our pockets. All right, listen, we'll let you go on that. Thanks for jumping in real last. I just want to make sure that we had some kind of conversation about what happened today. I mean, ultimately it goes nowhere because the Ottawa senators are not going anywhere. But it was, put it this way, I look at what happened today as a controlled fire. That was a very, very controlled. It wasn't anything that's going to get anything carried away. I think everybody to your point, I think everybody knows what the intentions were.

Things happen along the way. Good way to put a ball on it, Jeff. Good way to put a ball on it. Yeah, there we go. All right, nice and tidy. Okay, back to your daily chores and we'll check in again soon. Say hi to Wally for me.

See you, Jeffy. There is Jason York from the Coming In Hot podcast here on Daily Face Off and The Nation Network. And Zach just sort of threw it out there to the chat a couple of seconds ago about, you know, what everyone think about Tulski. There's a lot of, you know, get more general managers on the program.

See, here's my thing, Zach, and I'm curious what you think about having GMs on. The reason I like talking to general managers is we hear a lot from coaches. We hear coaches daily. We hear, and coaches write a lot of books. Players write books, and officials write books, et cetera. The one area where we don't hear a lot of conversation,

the ones that are actually the architects of putting teams together. And I know a lot of it needs to be shrouded. Sometimes the veils are thick, and sometimes the veils are thin, but nonetheless, there's still a veil that the manager wants a place between himself and how he puts the team together

and the team itself. But it's very rare that you're gonna get someone who will come on and just sort of spill all the beans. Bless Berkey for that. Berkey was, even when he was managing, he was fantastic. You remember when Brian Berkey came out and said, it was one of his first, I think it was his first press conference in Toronto,

he said, I'm gonna get John John DeVos in the draft. We're like, how are you going to get John? It's just like, come out and say something. How are you going to do, what are you talking about? Like it was someone I called Garth Snow on that one. Anyway. Um, so people seem to want more general managers. So we'll endeavor to get more, more managers on the, uh, on the program here.

What did you, uh, I think is interesting too about the GMs there Jeff is that the one thing I feel like people and Berkey kind of like discuss some of it but people always assume trades signings that's what they do. There's more to it right and we're key explain some of the other stuff that they do behind the scenes but then you listen to Tulsulski, come on here. It's very clearly even more to trades and signings. Like people think, you know,

hey, I'm just gonna call up Jeff and say, hey, Jeff, I'm gonna trade you for Miko Renton in today. And they say, yep, done. And it's over within an hour. It's like, no, he's been talking to these people since, you know, July, August, whatever it may be about who could be coming up and then circle back and hey, what are you thinking about that guy?

Stuff takes time. That's why I always laugh and I'm not trying to take a shot at anybody specific here at all. Just generally when I hear reports of Philadelphia is talking to San Jose. They should be, talking like once a week. Or, oh I heard the Rangers are talking with the Red Wings. Yeah, they should. It's what general managers do. I always sort of sideways laugh at those,

like oh, the LA Kings are in conversation with the Florida Panthers. Yeah, the managers should be talking. Ask me, put that on the list of things to ask Berkey about. I remember, you know, one of the first times, one of the first conversations when I was at hockey night, going back to like 2007, I remember talking to Kelly Rudy

about when he first heard his name involved in trade rumors. And he was with LA and Rogie Vashon, another goalie, one of the best ever, Hall of Famer, 1976 Canada Cup outstanding, I digress. He said like, how often do you talk about me in trades, Rogi? And Rogi said, every day. He said, what? He goes, yeah, every day.

I talk about all my players every day to all the other teams, Kelly. That's what I do. It's shocking to hear as a player. I was like, oh yeah, I talk about you every day. What would you be willing to do? What's the scenario? What do you need?

Now it's, so many managers have expressed this one and that is conversations now are more, you just call people, check in on them. What are you looking for what do you need as opposed to as you mentioned earlier with you know brian talking about you know the pirates and i was uh mentioning to the guys uh dj and peter on what's chaos today you know cliff fletcher you know once upon a time you know you shook hands with cliff fletcher you counted your fingers after you know how many times has Berkey said on this show or elsewhere,

the way we used to judge a trade was, did you get the other GM fired? Cause that was a good, that guy loses job, good, I did good. Now GMs be horrified, they got somebody fired. But once upon a time, these guys were all sharks, trying to smoke each other. Okay, anything else? We should mention Logan Thompson, by the way.

Six times 585. This is one of the great success stories in the NHL, and it turned himself into one of the best goaltenders in the NHL. I think we all wonder about the foreign nations with Alex Patrangelo now taking a pass, but wonder about the goaltending with Canada. Can you replace the defenseman with a goaltender? Is Canada allowed to do that? Patrangelo's not going in his place. We're gonna be, we're gonna insert

Logan Thompson. Should probably be there based on the season that he's had this year and previous as well. So he resigns with the Washington Capitals. Any other headlines from around today that you wanna get to before we get to the game tonight? And I wanna say a couple of things about Jasper as well. No, that was kind of it. I did wanna touch on, you know, there's some more ranting in and the conversations about contract stuff, but I mean, I'm sure that that's gonna last for a while

and we have Wish on tomorrow, so I'm sure those things will come up as well We don't need to jam them all in here today. The other thing that I wanted to ask you about I think is more Important to get to today before we move on from stuff is the four nations, you know It obviously came out we saw wish tweet earlier that you're not gonna get suspended if you skip it petrangelo pulls out I think a lot of people started raising their eyebrows and going, okay, yeah, yeah, the player pulled out. Oh, he played 24 minutes for the Vegas Golden Knights last night.

I know there's more to it. I know there's other things that could be going on, whatever, but I mean, I'm wondering as we get closer, if there could be more pullouts and what the kickback would be from fans on some of this stuff. It's really interesting. Now you always wonder when someone opens the door, who else is going to,

who else is going to walk out of it now with Patrangelo? I mean, he's been there, done that competed internationally. Um, I was like you curious last night when I flipped on the Vegas game to see how many minutes he was going to play. I think only Braden McNabb played more on the team. I was only by a few seconds as well than Alex Patrangelo did. Like the way that I look at it is this. The guys really want to go and play in the Olympics. Like that's the one thing that they're there. I think they're really, really eager for legitimate international competition and there is an allure with with the Olympics and you I think you all saw

Everybody saw how upset the players were they couldn't go to the Olympics The last time around and you know, we don't very often see Crosby complaining about things publicly But he was quite vocal about that Conor McDavid was quite vocal about that. That's what these guys want. This is a middle of the season team divided up by four different countries. I too, especially now that players know that they will not be suspended if they don't go. You know, like there are some players, you know, one that I was, you know, we have a mutual acquaintance talking on the weekend and he said, you know, are you going to play in the Four Nations?

And the players said, well, it depends how much they're paying us. Like none of these guys want to get hurt as well, especially like, you know, these are the level guys that play on Stanley Cup potential teams. None of these guys want to get hurt as well especially like you know these are the level guys that play on Stanley Cup potential teams none of these guys want to get injured and I don't know of anyone who's thinking about or close to pulling out here but I always do wonder one goes first who follows right and Alex Petrangelo here is being the Neil Armstrong is there gonna be a Buzz Aldrin that comes second I don't know or third is this gonna be I don't think it's gonna be this major domino this series of dominoes that fall But when one says yeah, you know what?

I'm gonna take the time off because it's not that's not forget season is long players are always Always have some type of ailments and could probably use rest and recovery but could still get through an NHL season and that's what they measure off so I can understand with Alex Petrangelo who's put a lot of miles on that body I can understand him saying you know what I can get through a season I just don't need anything extra right now we have a team that could win the Stanley Cup, I don't want to jeopardize that at all. I would if it were the Olympics, but not the foreign nations face off. So I get it, I don't have a good answer for you.

I just, but I do have the same questions that you do Zach. I do wonder if, you know, he's first if anybody else does follow here Especially now they know they're not getting suspended for any of it, which I always thought was interesting You're not gonna go to something so your suspension is you can't play Oh you skipped school, oh yeah, we're gonna suspend you for a day. Yeah. Okay. Oh no Yeah, I mean to the point too It's like you think about the 82 games season you think about how many games some of these guys have played On the flip side of this it's not like it's going to the Four Nations is a lot of hockey like it's for

Game it's four teams that are in it right. You know you break it down Okay, maybe it's not that much, but it is intense at some of the highest level hockey that you could play Okay, maybe it's not that much but it is intense at some of the highest level hockey that you could play It's a two-week break on the opposite side if you do look at it like that is the other Side of the fence there where you're like, you know what? You know, that's it or all those guys, you know, all those guys all those guys playing for nations are gonna get Nothing gonna get pictures from all their teammates from yeah Nothing. They're gonna get pictures from all their teammates, from beaches.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How's the tournament going? You know that's gonna happen. We got a few things to go over here for tonight's games, including a couple of returns. Tonight's game board looks like this. Five games brought to you by FanDuel.

Proud to connect fans to the major sports moments that matter to them. Roster updates coming to us from our daily face-off fantasy Twitter X feed, which is updated throughout the morning, the afternoon, and the evening, and overnight as well. That feed never sleeps. So five games.

We have the Kings and the Wings at Little Caesars Arena. Camp Talbot starts, Darcy Kemper starts. Big one in this one, Dominic Shine. Do you see this story? Dominic Shine is a Detroit kid. He played Little Caesars and Compuware growing up. Played for the Lincoln Stars at the USHL. He's signed, I want to say like eight one-year AHL deals.

With the Detroit Red Wings, today signs essentially a two-year deal, so the remainder of this season and next year signs his first NHL deal. He plays tonight for his hometown team, Atlal Caesars against the Los Angeles Kings. Nice player and as I want to point out to everybody, so don't be surprised if it happens, sneaky, sneaky tough. Sneaky, sneaky tough guys, Zach. So watch for Dominic Shine and congratulations to that young man there as well. Devils and Flyers, Wells Fargo,

Nico Hescher flying back to New Jersey for further evaluation on his injury. Connexion Blues at the Enterprise Center, Jordan Bittington starts, and it is the return of Tyler Myers for the Vancouver Canucks this evening, only outdone by the return of Connor McDavid. After the three game suspension, he is back tonight

as the Oilers host is Seattle Kraken. Calvin Pickard starts. The Skinner family expecting a baby. Penguins and Sharks at HP Pavilion. So we get the obvious, Sidney Crosby versus who? family expecting a baby penguins and sharks at HP Pavilion. So we get the obvious Sydney Crosby versus who? Zach Macklin Celebrany. PWHL as well, New York Sirens facing off against the Ottawa Charge at TD Place in Ottawa.

7 o'clock Eastern there, the Charger in third, Sirens in fourth, Sarah Fillier 12 points in 11 games. She is second in scoring the PWHL Kendall Coyne-Scofield has 14 and it is one versus two from the draft so Sarah Fillier against Danielle Srdakny first and second overall picks. What's spicy in those games for you tonight Zach? Well I have a PWHL thing I want to bring up to you as well before I get to that. I don't think I've done this yet, especially since Fanules joined us here. Does it not feel like a Connor McDavid goal kind of night?

No, like, no, no, it feels like Connor McDavid hat trick tonight. It's gonna come out and I go off for five points tonight. Like, honestly, like, honestly, I always make the joke that Darrell Sillers, I'm glad you brought us here. Okay, I always make the joke, Zach, that you know, no one's gonna glad you brought us here. Okay, I always make the joke, Zach, that no one's gonna break Daryl Sittler's record because everybody now is like, oh yeah, they get like five or six points

and then either the coach or they don't wanna go back on the ice. Stop that. Do you not get the feeling that if Conor McDavid has a chance to break Daryl Sittler's record tonight against the Seattle Kraken that he's gonna go for it and Chris Knoblok better not sit him down

for the third period. If he's got like eight points. And Chris Knoblok better not sit him down for the third period. If he's got like eight points in the third period, he better get the full two minutes on every single power play to try to break Darrell Sittler's 10 points. He's had like three games of like frustration and anger and just being pissed off. Let him cook.

Just let McDavid go. Just like how much do you want to play tonight, Connor? Is 25 minutes enough? Do you want to play more? Do you want, like, what do you want? Can you want to stay on the full two minutes of every? Go for it, Connor. Like, I'm with you a million percent, Zach.

I'm so glad you brought that up. Go McDavid, go. Just run wild tonight as he returns. 100% with you, 100%. Like, there's no certainties there's there's no such thing as a certainty and it's the NHL which is also like even more you know spontaneous here but like Connor McDavid to score against the Seattle Kraken and I'm like I don't know I just even

throwing out looking at the number on FanDuel plus 130. I'm like, oh my God, this might be one I'm diving all over tonight, Jeff. I just saw it, I saw the number. Oh my God, okay, so that's one I might be jumping in on. Hop on that one. PWHL. Yep. Did you see the Scepters game at Scotiabank Arena? Did you happen to see? It was incredible.

I know you were out in Jasper and we'll talk about that, but the fans there? I just saw the highlights and the clips and the fans were incredible. I just love seeing the packed houses. The packed NHL houses are fantastic. Yeah tremendous. In Scotiabank Arena which is like the library when the Maple Leafs play there and it's the loudest barn I've ever seen in my life. But the thing is like the vibe like the PWHL vibe to games is so much different than it is for the NHL. NHL there's so much like anxiety and worry and tension.

PWHL, like I hope they never get to that place where everything's just like nervousness and anxiety, but like it's much more like fun party, we're here to celebrate hockey and watch a good game kind of vibe. That doesn't surprise me at all. Does it surprise you? Yeah Uh, no, honestly, and I live downtown Toronto now, so I see i've seen the development of this It's nuts walking around here on pwhl game days, especially when it's at home

So there's bars that people are going to to watch when they don't play here when they do play here There's a big crowd out. You know what actually I messed up on, and I wish, I wish I did, I went to with some of my friends a restaurant down the street, and I live in the vicinity of where the Marlies play. The name of the arena's escaping me, so that's where the Seppers play as well usually.

Thank you. Yeah, it was on game day, and I walk into the restaurant, can't get a table, and I see people wearing jerseys, and I'm like, ah, they're playing there nearby, so it's packed. There were people wearing Aaron Ambrose, Victoire, and Team Canada jerseys,

and I didn't do anything, and then after the fact, I was like, I wish I got a picture or something so we could've had that, was like, I wish I got a picture or something so we could've had that but yeah, I messed that up. Not your last time seeing an Ambrose jersey. And not your last time. No, no.

No, not your last time. Now, tried to get Ambrose to Jasper on the weekend and couldn't quite pull it together. Unsuccessful, bad beat. But I do wanna mention a couple of things about Jasper. So the pond hockey tournament, Flames Nation, Oilers Nation, so we had the two teams involved. I don't want to brag but the team that I was part of made it all the way to the final, Zach, and had nothing to do with me. I've, man, my skills have just, not that I

was great ever to begin with, but like I have have I can play positionally well but I swear Zach now I have hands like feet I got just call me like hands of hands of like yeah man I have like two two feet at the end of my arms man I got zero hands but I will tell you one thing Johnny Lazarus was our ringer Laz can Laz can play like when Laz he would always try to set everybody up, make sure everyone's getting a touch and all that. I would just go off and like Laz, just go man. Like honestly, just go and chill to that.

Like Laz is awesome. You can tell the guys that have played. But you know who's really good? Ryan Pinder. Ryan, game seven Pinder we call him. Ryan game seven Pinder, every shift is his last shift and he plays it hard. He is an awesome teammate. I would just look up, I'd grab the puck. I'd say, all right, where's Laz, where's Pinder and give them the puck.

Now we lost in the final. I can't remember how many teams were involved. We lost in the final to a team that had, you ready? Aaron Volpatty on it. And he had like all of his all of his buddies from like college play and stuff like they didn't move quick and I think probably half of them were all either hung over or buzzed but you can just like when you played in the show like there's long like and we're a bunch of hacks outside of Laz and Pinder. It was, it was, it was pretty high. We had them seven, seven right to the half.

And like, okay, yeah, you know what? We're hanging in there with these guys. Yeah, we've got a shot. And then the second half started. Yeah, we'd have a shot. And every now and then like Volpatty would like just do something. You're like, oh yeah, dude played in the end of the show.

Oh yeah, here in Volpatty, yeah, Brown. Yeah. Yeah. He played in Washington capitals. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I see it Hershey. Yeah.

I had that experience once playing in, I played in a summer league out there in Stouffville, I was playing in it for a while and one of the times we show up, we're skating around. I'm like, holy, who's that mutant over there on the other team. Who was it? I go skate by and warm up across the line. And as he goes past me I went oh shoot some Mason Marchman skating behind me I'm like what the hell is this guy doing out here

well I think he... you're tie game until two minutes left he get they get the puck off the draw and I think that they had told him like kind of what you told Laz hey go and he basically steals the puck off the guy off the draw turns around burns down the ace goes out past the defender rips it over the goalie Shoulder under the bar and he was like, okay the game's over. Thanks for coming He hadn't really done anything to that point, but you could tell if you wanted to at any moment It was there just let him out of the cage and go just let him out of the cage and go. Yeah Don't worry about like playing and making everyone feel like they got their touches in. I made a contribution, like, nah, nah, nah.

Just enough of the cute stuff, just go. Wanna mention Jasper too. That was my first time there. I don't know if you've ever been to Jasper before, Zach, but it is gorgeous. You know, three and a half, four hours north of Edmonton, ravaged by horrible fires last summer and you can see the damages as you're driving as you're driving through and it is very

much a community that is rebuilding. There's rebuilding there's a lot of support whether it is community support or mental health support or business support. Housing rebuilds going on., tourism is going to be a major part of how Jasper rebuilds. I know in our small tiny way, you know, the pond hockey tournaments that we're a part of, you know, helps to sort of reinforce and bring a lot more people to Jasper. There was a bunch of it, there's an American team that were there first time ever in Canada, ends up in Jasper. It was so cool. A lot of great people there. And it's a wonderful community

that are in the process of rebuilding. Jasper Park Lodge is absolutely gorgeous. I know that a lot of people have been to Banff, been to Lake Louise, and Jasper's quite north, but just a beautiful part of the country. Loved it, and there's something really, honestly, Zach, I don't know if you had this experience, playing pond hockey and all you can see around you

are enormous mountains. It is like the coolest thing in the world. The weather was great. The organization of everything was fantastic. It was run really well. Congratulations to everybody who put that together. And listen, we wish the best in any way we can help out as Jasper continues to rebuild.

I know I can pretty much speak for all of us here at the Nation Network and Daily Face Off that we're glad to be part of it and we could help out in our own special way. And the pond hockey was great. And we'll be back next year to try to get that title back because last year, Zach, you know, this team won the whole thing. They added me and they lost.

But last two... Yes, exactly. That's the thing. They added last two. I'm glad you had a good experience. You know who else is a good player? Tyler Uremchuk. Tyler can move. Yeah. He's a good... And I was talking to him after. I'm like, so where did you play? I'm figuring you like some junior somewhere, maybe like some tier two or like anything, right?

Because I only played house league. I never played, I'm like, you should see him skating. Really good skater, puck control, like all of it. Had a spectacular wipe out in the first game and like, he has gashed up his hip. He has gashed up his hip. I saw that. And then you're in there, I'm like,

what did you do to them? I did two thirds of the square root of sweet FAA. That's what I did in the tournament this weekend. I just tried to get out of the way so my guys could rush the puck. Um, had a great time. Uh, you know, everybody did, uh, I think a tremendous job. We've got a lot of social media, pumped a lot of it out and there's, there's more coming every time I went back back to the party cabin,

Your M-Truck was doing another podcast. I swear that guy must have done like, did like 10 podcasts this weekend. Every time I was out there, I'm like, holy smokes, Your M-Truck, you're a machine. So that was great, everyone had a wonderful time. I highly recommend, whether it's in the winter, if you're into skiing, this great pond hockey tournament,

in the summers as well, Jasper is spectacular, a beautiful part of our country. And as they rebuild, I hope you can be a part of it by considering going to visit Jasper. It's really, it's strongly encouraged from this little corner, and you won't regret it. Thanks to Eric Tulski for stopping by. Any final thoughts on Tulski there, Zach?

Yeah, other GMs, if they see his name come up, should be weary to pick up the phone. Don't answer the phone. Yeah, yeah. Don't answer the phone. That is a smart man with an incredible hockey mind who is, he's got a lot of balls. I mean, just hearing him talk about the

trade how it went down and then when you asked him about you know what actually I loved one of the sneaky favorite parts of that you asked him about when he was able to enjoy it when the work was over and he just smirked and said the work was still going on or the work is still going on. I was like, this guy, man, like that's terrifying. His line to Lebrun in the athletic was something along the lines of, you know, we still, you know, we don't have the 20 best players in the NHL on our roster. So I still have work to do like that. Like, how do I get the 20 best guys on this team?

Like that's how Tulski is wired. Again, three general managers go to a bar. One pours vodka shots for the other two while drinking smart water. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks everybody in the chat. Thank you, Zach. As Zach mentioned a couple of moments ago as well,

Greg Roshinski back tomorrow for MVSW Tuesday. Hope you enjoyed the Eric Tulski interview. More GMs on the horizon. That's, we'll do that for you here, certainly. So thanks so much for joining us. Enjoy the games tonight. Thanks to FanDuel for everything you do to help sponsor this program and keep it going.

And once again, thanks to the entire community of Jasper and the Jasper Park Lodge. That was a tremendous weekend. I will not forget. We'll talk to you tomorrow on the sheet. Don't forget, Morning Cup of Hockey tomorrow, 9 a.m. Eastern, Daily Face Off live at noon, this show at 3 Eastern.

All right, and our other properties, Barnburner is outstanding, Mother's Nation every day, Secarison Price, you heard from Jason York earlier on from the Coming In Hot Podcast. So no shortage of content here. Check it out, enjoy it. We're back tomorrow at 3 o'clock Eastern for the shoot. Talk to you. I spent 16 hours last night every day this week, every day this month.

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