The Steve Dangle Podcast - But Why Columbus? | July 15, 2022

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Aaron Portzline of The Athletic to explain, why Columbus? (00:00), You Can Bet That with Sports Interaction (21:00), do we like the moves the Red wings made? (27:00), how good is the Metro division now? (35:00), what are the Ducks working towards? (44:00), did the Panthers get better? (48:00), and where will these UFAs sign? (53:00). Originally aired: July 15, 2022 Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Individuals must be 19 years of age or older to open a Sports Interaction account. Terms and Conditions apply. Any opinion expressed is not advice, a promise or suggestion that increases the chance of winning. Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly. To learn more, visit: https://help.sportsinteraction.com/hc/en-us/articles/216779528-Responsible-Gaming-Self-Limitation-Self-Exclusion. Or if you have concerns about a gambling problem, call ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600. Sports Interaction is subject to successful AGCO registration and execution of an Operating Agreement with iGaming Ontario. The Eligible iGames conducted and managed by iGO are only available to those physically present in the Province of Ontario. Visit this episode's sponsors: https://sportsinteraction.com/sdpn https://trybasis.com/sdp https://zbiotics.com/sdp https://mvmt.com/dangle Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Steve Dangle podcast, powered by Sports Interaction, Canada's sports book. S.D.P.P. The Steve Dangle podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Wilde and Jesse Blake. Let's go! And leading the show with something we've never just jumped into an interview like this over Zoom. Aaron Portsline of The Athletic. uh you might know him because he's the guy you want to talk to when you're talking columbus blue jackets thank you so much for coming back on aaron well thanks for having me guys thanks for the kind words there have you slept oh yes not well but yes okay um what happened

yeah i mean you know it's funny these um the last couple days have sort of gone like this why did johnny goudreau pick columbus well he thought it looked like a nice place to raise his family yeah but why did he pick columbus um there are guys there he knows who've played there and they've said nothing but good things about it yeah but why did he pick columbus right he thinks the blue jackets have young talent maybe they're going to be a good team no but so really nobody knows why he picked the blue jackets do that like no matter what he says or what anybody says it's just there is a sense of disbelief um euphoric disbelief here in columbus central ohio um outside of columbus i think there's a lot of people who are still scratching

their heads wondering how the hell this happened or what happened and how did it get to this point it's fascinating story when did you when did you start to get the sense that the blue jackets were even in on this because i i got i have to be honest with you i don't believe any of us talked about the fact that the blue jackets might be a team he he would even make an offer like i didn't know that they were in on on the last chris johnston show he mentioned that he got a tip at 7 30 in the morning on the day of free agency july 13th but that he was skeptical yeah well exactly and and honestly the so i mean the blue jackets have a press conference at three o'clock on Wednesday to talk about the signing of Eric Goodbranson.

There's no way Jarmo Kekalainen steps away from his office to talk Goodbranson for an hour with the fine local media of Columbus, Ohio, if he's in the running for Gaudreau at that point, or if he knows he is, right? They didn't find out for sure they were in the mix until after that, I think four o'clock or so. Now, obviously, they knew they had put an offer in, and they've done this before.

They extended an offer to Alex Petrangelo when the whole world thought he was going to Vegas. You put it in there. You see if the guy wants to talk. You have a relationship. Even the beginning steps of one, just talking to them, expressing your interest in the player. You never know where that could benefit down the road. They talked offer sheet with Mitch Marner three years ago. Obviously, didn't sign one.

but if you remember that, was Mitch Marner going to leave the Maple Leafs to come to Columbus? I don't think anybody expected him to sign the offer sheet. It's the conversation you have. You never know. You see where it goes. I think this was of a similar vein. If there's one thing on this roster that they don't need, it's a left winger, but anyone can use Johnny Gaudreau. So you put your name in the ring. You know they want to take a big step forward. You know that they don't want this restart to be a rebuild and a long multi-year process they want to be good as soon as they can be good and so they put their name in and then they find out mid-afternoon my first inkling was in the four o'clock hour again not shocked they put an offer in but the first

indication that there were that there was mutual interest there was around four o'clock and i gotta tell you i i fretted over that tweet about as long as i've ever fretted over a tweet because you're like how in the hell do you frame this that doesn't sound like the most preposterous thing to people ever because everybody knows he's going to philly right if he doesn't go to philly he's going to go to new jersey we all know this hello and so i think it was like 4 45 or whatever that we were able and felt comfortable tweeting after checking with the same people three or four times this is like a legit thing like not not a not just an offer but mutual interest and that's when it became apparent to me it was around four o'clock wow i liken this deal to sort of when

new york signed panarin in the middle of their quote rebuild and it kind of it expedited everything and then now we saw a team this season uh overperform all expectations and and jump ahead in and make the uh eastern conference finals and columbus i see in a similar situation with this signing where it's it might not be this season where all of a sudden they're they're in the eastern conference finals or anything like that but they've definitely sped up the rebuild and in a couple of years we might see that this swing was the right move at the right time because this is when the free agent was available to come to columbus and and now they might actually be a contender not this season but maybe in a couple years yeah i think so and and you know at first

when yarmulke clinton continually referred to it as a restart we thought it was just semantics that word rebuild had taken on such an ugly connotation that nobody wanted to use that because you know look at buffalo look at at edmonton arizona look at the struggles that some places have had with that process it's not a it isn't it's not so easy to just decide you're going to do it and then and then have it go as you want it to he didn't want to do that he wasn't going to take it down to the the wood as as you say he wasn't going to trade congener he wasn't going to trade Bjorkstrand. He extended Zach Wierenski with a huge contract last year. They went into free agency last year with Sean Corrales. So we knew it wasn't going. They're not doing,

they had no plans to do what Chicago is doing now, where it's pretty clear what Chicago's goal is. They want to be competitive. They thought it would be a two or three year turnaround. And this coming season will be year three of this. And they should be competitive. They should score a hell of a lot of goals there's still some major question marks here and there's still more moves they have to make as and fall out of the gadreau signing um but but it should be a team worth watching um again a team that exceeded expectations last year as you noted and i think expect to be competitive big time this year okay but why columbus i mean i got a text i won't tell you was from but just earlier they are saying geez i'm still not sure what happened i still can't

figure this out i mean it's hilarious how it's hitting with people we're missing something was a text i just got like it has there has to be another reason here so it's and and you talked about it last time we were we chatted with you columbus is a great place to live yeah and and you know uh on the internet ohio takes a lot of shit kind of like florida right um the reality is there are reasons there are yeah different reasons but you know there's a lot of like there's like almost a meme level version of what ohio is and what specifically not maybe specifically columbus i think they're more talking about different cities but aaron um beyond that yarmulke kalinin his teams are always competitive whether they're going to make the playoffs or not

his teams are always competitive i looked at and we ran through some of the other organizations yesterday the flyers who from our perspective at least are a disaster the devils who are on the come up but may probably are not there yet um you know the islanders who we're not quite sure we think they're a good team they should be a good team they started you know 21 20 out of 21 on the road last year uh so it's kind of hard to gauge um columbus as an organization you know you very few people have uh are on the outside of this organization but have the perspective that you do close up. Where is this organization? And with David Juracek coming in and being the sixth overall pick, with Eric Gabranton coming in and bringing his fists with him, what do you think

this organization looks like this year? And then I think more importantly, the next two following it. Yeah, well, I think they're set up to be competitive this year. They were competitive last year. I think there's certainly a greater sense of that now. If you're looking for question marks and i do think there are two glaring ones i think the right side of the defense is a question mark good branson is is is what they need an element of good branson is what they need but that's a third pair guy and i i don't say that as a slam i just think that's the reality it's probably a 15 minute guy physical guy someone's got to clear the crease penalty killer could be out late in games to shut him shut it down the top two pairs though on the right side next to

Wierenski on the first pair and Gavrikov on the second, I think are major question marks. And there are potential answers in-house. Boakvist had a really good first year in Columbus last year. I think he had 11 goals. A bit surprising. A real struggle defending. A real struggle competing for pucks along the wall. Jake Bean is a puck mover as well.

Doesn't have the goal scoring attributes as a Boakvist. Those two guys have to get stronger. one of those guys is going to be on the top pair next to wierenski probably last year andrew peak played there and you know kudos to him the kid the first full nhl season and he's playing on the top pair of the for most of the second half of the season and paying a humongous price and taking some abuse for it because it's it's a bit above his head um but a competitive young man i'm not sure where it all fits on the right side there's no perfect answers and that's a hard way to live especially in the postseason when your your defense is a little sketchy on the right side

the other big question for me is elvis merzlikens and goal is just a ton of potential has a superstar persona hasn't yet been the superstar number one goalie this last season was really the first time he's had a full crack at it played a number one workload if you will And it was kind of a mixed bag. There's some emotional stuff there, of course, with this last season, with the passing of his dear friend, Kivleniaks. So maybe last year is a bit unsettled for various reasons, but he needs to take a step forward and really be a difference maker in net.

Pieces are there for them to be very good, competitive for sure this year. In the future, extremely bright. I mean, Sillinger as an 18-year-old last year was a breath of fresh air and really productive as an 18-year-old in the NHL. You assume he's going to be better. Kent Johnson looked a little lost at the end of the season, but this is a sublime playmaker. They love the Juracek pick. He's probably a couple of years away from being an impact player, but could be in the AHL this year. And if that's the case, he could see NHL time this year.

I don't think you expect him to really be an impact NHL guy right away like Sillinger was, but they've had four top 12s, five first-round picks the last two years, and I feel like they've stocked their prospect pool extremely well for the future. Do you expect anything big on the trade front? Because there were rumors leading up to the draft that they were in on Ryan McDonough, and i always say like about teams who kind of swing and miss is when they don't get the guy they don't just go well i guess we just won't have him then i guess we just won't upgrade at that position so yarmulke's gotta be working the phone still right he is but he's also in a salary

crunch now that he has not been previously so if they sign line a they're probably needing to clear $5 million to be cap compliant. Is that just parting ways with Gus Nyquist? Is that trading him a salary dump to Anaheim or some team that needs to get to the floor? You'd hate to see it come to that because Nyquist has been a real nice player and loves being here. Those are typically the players Columbus has held on to, but something's got to give. I'm not sure that they've got the resources right now to add that big defenseman. But in speaking with Kekalainen this morning, I think his preference is to make a hockey trade, not a salary dump. But good luck with that. Good luck. Because what we're saying is you're upgrading the defense,

the top two pairs on the right side. Those are expensive. That's an expensive piece. And you're trying to cut $5 million out of your payroll. Those two things just don't jive. So I'm not sure you can fix that right now. I think Boakvist or Bean, Blankenberg, the kid from Michigan that came in last year, or Peek, somewhere in there, they have to find an answer to the right side of their defense. And maybe it's not perfect. Maybe it takes them to the trade deadline, and they add a veteran then when the cap woes are relaxed a little bit. I think that's possible as well. I'm looking at this, and Patrick Laine is arbitration eligible. Yeah. Do they want to keep him? they do okay absolutely do and do they want to keep him long term you do does he want to stay uh yeah my understanding is that they've talked about a five or six year deal okay

the sense i get is that they're a million million and a half apart and it's funny about three weeks ago three weeks ago yarmo kekalainen said the part of the pitch they've made to line A is, you know, maybe don't try to kill us on the AAV here. Don't try to totally bankroll us because we want to be able to surround you with players. And I think players are suspicious of that, especially in markets like this that haven't won, that haven't had rosters chock full of all-star players. Of course, you're suspicious of that. I would think the acquisition of Johnny Gaudreau may be proof positive to line A that, okay, there's going to be some jam here. If you're line A, I don't know that there's a better player

to play with than Gaudreau, a better table setter, a guy that gives you more space in the offensive zone by the attention that he draws. This is a team that also has Jake Voracek, a great playmaker. He had 56 goals, many of them to line A, or assists, sorry, many of them to line A last year. It's a pretty good setup for line A. So my indication is that the signing of Goudreau hasn't exactly goosed the line A negotiations forward, but I think it helps them. And maybe it's a little part of the negotiating process that they haven't seen yet, and maybe gets it done. okay and and obviously you know brad larson sort of taking over as the head coach what's your what's your impression of him as a head coach um are the systems going to work with because what we've been used to is the tortorella version of of blue jackets hockey hard defense everybody's blocking shots block shots block shots block shots yell at the ref um you know a lot of people i think you know because we're all rightly focused on our own teams outside of columbus brad larson doesn't

have like a gigantic brand name like Tortorella does so how is this team changing with this guy as the head coach and obviously far more offensively minded Goudreau and Liney alone yeah you just never ever under any circumstances would have expected that type of player under Torts although Liney did what's Larson brought to this team and where are they going in terms of style yeah well interesting to note that Liney didn't thrive under Tortorella we were shocked anything but he did with uh larson though the last year was much better i will say this and towards his defense artemi panarin had two of the best seasons that a blue jackets blue jackets player has ever had right under tortorella in that system and tortorella absolutely loved panarin

and the sense was that the feeling was mutual um but you know larson's system certainly last year was much more offensively inclined and and part of that part of that was uh they just didn't check i think the fear of god maybe left the building a little bit when tortorella did um but they're different on the back end too i mean you take seth jones and david savard out of the back end that it's going to look different i mean you and you replace them with with a couple of guys that if you stood next to you would look down to make eye contact with them Jake Bean, Adam Bonefist. These guys don't strike you as imposing physical specimens

like Savard and Jones did. And so they couldn't defend the way that they used to. But they were much more open offensively, much more – you might say they were too loose. Look at the goals they allowed last year, more than they've ever allowed in a season before, almost 300 goals. So they may want to tighten up. They may want to bring a little bit more of the Tortorella

approach to checking this year but i also also nod to the players they've got now when they have the puck this is a team that should be pretty offensive and and can can afford to to get into track meets where in the past that was a death sentence but why columbus we still don't know we still don't know aaron uh you know uh it's it's one of those things where like i felt i remember the last time you were on you defended columbus and i've been to columbus i felt the need to defend it at the beginning of the last episode like chill chill out especially my thing was is like i i think americans talk about columbus the same way they talk about canada so to have a bunch of canadians going in and going what columbus it's like how do you think

they talk about us um it's a it's a great place to live it's a great place to go to school um And it's a great place to see a cannon. I mean, right up close. So listen, it seems like there was a lot of things that went into this. Obviously, Johnny didn't want to talk about the Calgary part of it yesterday. But Aaron, we're going to be checking in with you

this season because I think Johnny Gaudreau to the Columbus Blue Jackets, forget why. I think it just makes them one of the most interesting teams in the NHL. Absolutely. It's not why he's there. It's what he's going to do when he starts to actually play.

um so i hope you'll rejoin us again because it's been it's always great having you on well thanks guys and i look forward to joining you again i i can't tell you how big of a lift this is for columbus um to have they've had star players before through free agency adam foot 15 years ago was a significant player when he left colorado and came to columbus um nathan horton after that a few years these were star players not superstar players this is this is a a player with the potential to be transcendent and i think there's a lot of people here who maybe have drifted away from the blue jackets not the hardcore people of course they're always here um but are tuning back in now and maybe some people who never gave a hoot about hockey maybe

tuning in now as well he's got that power yeah you can't help but feel happy for the fan base in the city because they're getting an electric star yes that's good i wish that like uh each team had to publish jersey sales for every player so we would know i want to know because i would love to know what the spike in columbus goudreau jerseys like last 24 hours yeah just give me the numbers on that i'd love to know yeah and there were there were a million 13s around town from cam atkinson already i'll just pull this pull it off there just rip the name yeah the picture yesterday on on social media i saw that i saw um it was sort of like a passing of the torch cam Atkinson to Johnny Gaudreau yeah so Atkinson still lives here Atkinson still lives here in town

oh wow after his press conference Gaudreau it looked like a limo to me um but anyways took the took the car over to Atkinson's house in Upper Arlington uh one of the leafy suburbs here in town and took a picture of the new 13 with the old 13 it was kind of a little a little weird a little nostalgic for some people but cool if cam to cam smile look legit so cam cam atkinson is i think one of the most likable nhl players out there i just as a leaf fan can't like him because during the the uh the play-in round he absolutely torched us he was just a force i think a quarter of his career goals have come in toronto yeah sniper yeah yeah exactly well aaron thanks again for your time we really appreciate it

always a pleasure thanks guys thank you you know it's interesting david bringing up um detroit detroit detroit it um andrew kopp ben charot that that's i mean they're significant but those odds are like far more significant you'd think than what kopp and charot bring right oh andrew kopp was a great ranger he was a really good pickup for them ben charot it's a lot of money for ben charot i don't know five million dollars for the next four seasons for ben charot it's an odd move for based on what eiserman has done but there have been people saying around the game well we'll see what eiserman could do without breeze walk that i know that he's laughing it's a thing we have heard that it's a thing i have heard it now the

The thing I would say about Ben Sherrod is who are you going to draft like that? Like, I don't know if that's really available in the draft. And if it is, it ain't coming for quite some time. And the confidence and the pedigree, you know what you're getting with Ben Sherrod, right? Yeah. He's big and that much of an asshole. And the contract's not even that bad for a second pairing defenseman. You're paying under $5 million.

You can play the both sides if he needs to. I have to pull this up. That has value. You know? Playing both sides has a lot of value. don't mind i think i submitted a great job here with this contract yeah it's i think people look at contracts and they have to be good or bad and it's like well what if it's just market value like like we had that discussion with david cernak that's just market value that's just what it costs

for the guy might even be below like cernak hits the open market you think he's getting less than what he got i feel like it was andrew and i'm trying to find the tweet and i can't find it but he was talking about basically the the impacts of like how many goals are scored on the ice when this player is on the ice versus when they're off it yes and it's like plus minus not plus well not plus minus but there's like an advanced stat for that and he's like called plus minus goals expect like it he's like uh yeah whatever it is he's like it's a minus seven during the season as in he lets more goals in when he's on the ice than off he's like but don't worry in the playoffs it's only worse which is a 13 or something at minus 13 um i listen there are people that love he's he's like

another erica branson right and i didn't we didn't kind of we didn't really press um too much on that with uh with aaron earlier about the columbus blue jackets but there are teams that believe they want this there are i mean listen on the leaves there's a lot of people who are like man that'd be nice just have big dominant scary guy back more offensive upside than good branson for sure talk about andrew kopp for people that and i will get to perron in a second but talk about Andrew Kopp for a second you said he was a good ranger obviously ranger fans weren't thrilled to lose him what is Andrew Kopp to the Detroit Red Wings he's he's what teams are are kind of looking for these days like he can play sort of middle six center I would say second line center but

what what teams are looking for is just sort of like a bull in a china shop for checker and like he is big and he can play with some belligerence but he's not overly huge and he's not overly belligerent he's just sort of a really hard-working player who can score would you like a really hard-working player who can score it's not all that complicated with andrew kopp i don't think i think he was a great fit in new york and now he's going to detroit who you know uh obviously they don't have the same goaltending but a lot of the same tools at their disposal yeah their goaltending a little better you know you can do worse than larkin cop i think has your up the middle cops gone to better goaltending in detroit get out of here you think so

did they make a change in net i don't remember he's gone from igor to philly oh yeah they have husso i was like does he not get this no i think everybody watching was like is steve in on this joke or not nope all right it's friday this is our second show of the day and i'm just like it's it's friday steve needs two days off i'm like well nedeljkovic christ it's not very good i don't know i was just thinking of your guttural the when uh what i got done with the with the contract situation i think is great in in detroit he's kept all of the salaries low and not to a lot of years like the only players who are signed

through three years from now are the two signings he just made yep cop and charotte and then huso like those are the only three guys who are going to be here in three years so he has like an empty lineup that he can just fill with the young guys that he's gonna have to obviously hand out the big contracts to but they're on their uh elcs right now so it's not something to worry about really right now and he has he can build a winner like it's it's the rebuilds kind of done in detroit and now it's starting it's the build you know we always talk about the tear down and now it's the build up for them and we'll see what eisenman does here uh a couple things there david perron one of the most underrated value signings yes i thought of free agency and noted

sorry what's his noted alan wall's client thank you thank you uh david perron and a full season of Jakob Vrana, I think, is going to change things for them. Yeah, Vrana's one of those guys that like, you forget how good he was. Yeah, but he was, he I think started hot or had a hot preseason or something like that, and then friggin' was out for several months. But then in Washington too,

right, where he fell out of favor, like he was... That's still a very strange trail. I want to know what happened there. I don't know. The other thing is, they've got to work on, and you would expect that sometime this offseason you're going to hear about a Dylan Larkin extension. Oh, I am surprised we haven't already heard it. So let me ask you this.

what's the dylan larkin number point of game player nine nine yeah i don't think i keep going back to the matt duchesne contract and i which is eight times eight yeah i think he can ask for more than that man especially because it's a different year than that uh eight eight years i think uh eiserman not always in on the whole long-term thing but he's got he's got some now um eight might be able to get it done 8.5 i wonder seven you know something like that i think we're sort of underrating um how much work there's left to do in the nhl and moves need to happen it would appear in order for nazim kadri to sign his contract and i wonder if dylan larkin is waiting for that number because what if he signs his number or his contract now naz gets 10 and

he's like oh shit like i just took a mil and a half less per year than cadre i think i got the number what is it 8.71 because of his number he's 71 8.7171 it's got to be 271 it's got to be gratuitous give me that extra 71 dollars can we revisit why you hate that the uh just putting your number in the contract i just i looked at the amount of cap space the leafs have already yeah and it's like such a strange number and i'm like why is it such a strange number oh because two guys tacked on 34 sorry one guy had to get his professional hockey jersey number The other guy had to get his junior hockey jersey number in his salary. Like, how?

Fuck off. The both of you. Why? Oh, no, no. Why, yeah. It's like $90. Why isn't there a sourpuss about it? Yeah.

Sourpuss? It's fucking weird. It's weird. Sourpuss Steve. Here he is. I don't care. He's super weird. It's the weirdest thing that you have griped with Matthew's put in 11.34.

Yeah, and before that, the weirdest thing was Chuck Fletcher in Minnesota because you hated on Minnesota. That makes sense. Yeah, and I was right about that. But you were right. I was right about that. How are you going to be right about them putting numbers in there? I don't know yet, but we'll see.

I don't know how you win this. I don't know if there's an upside on this one for you, man. Yeah, I think you're no-no. Minnesota was very definitely an upside. It's not that there are two guys you shouldn't give it to. It's that they would ask for it. You know what I mean? This is a very get-off-my-line take.

Yeah, I don't care. It is. I don't care. Okay, so Detroit. I mean, listen, they're turning the corner. They're looking good. We'll see what they are this year. They're in a tough division.

I was wondering, before we get to Dallas, because I want to talk Dallas before we do the press conference. I was wondering, is there a world where the Metropolitan is not just more competitive, but far more competitive than the Atlantic this year? Well, like, here's the funny thing about free agency. Who got worse? Who got worse? Like, this could be.

Calgary? So far? Yeah. We're talking about the East, though. Oh, in the East. Yeah, but like... Oh, yeah. Like, I'm just looking at it like...

Okay, so the bottom teams in the Atlantic all got better. Except for Montreal. But, like, Montreal will get better. They got Slavkovski. Yeah, they got Slavkovski, and they'll get better by virtue of the fact that they're not going to be calling guys up from the ECHL because they have, like, 12 guys on the COVID list. um the metro which i think was a relatively even division to begin with with the exception of two like real have not teams i mean the devil's got better it's just it's just philly kind of

languishing the islanders philly thinks they got better and they didn't uh maybe uh but the aisles will get better just because of the schedule they're playing at home yeah um man it's a really even division you're right and there wasn't much between the the three teams at the top because i'm looking at this and i'm thinking they could steal both wild card spots like when you look at so good tell me who's not gonna make the playoffs here i know capitals i know are they not gonna make the playoffs are the penguins not gonna make that better are the rangers not gonna make the playoffs are the islanders really not gonna make the playoffs after you know the bullshit season that they had last year and i know they swung and missed on good row um and then the

hurricanes are they really not going to make the playoffs there's five teams right there easily easily the only teams i mean columbus will be competitive yes new jersey i think they're going to be competitive in 24 months no no that's relevant because they're going to steal points yes right no no i i'm laughing at the fact that you're writing off uh new jersey columbus philly well i'm writing off philly for sure adam's working with what happened last year sure which is relevant yeah i think i mean listen i don't the you know the columbus has some of the best goaltending in that division that that that you know they've got a good platoon there um in terms of like you know what i'm talking about is goaltending solid all the way through you know

these guys are good yeah i think corpus hell is gonna bounce back and they got some and portsy said it right they've got question marks on the right side of the d i get it what did you call portsy aaron portland yeah that's what they call yeah yeah what you call well it's what i call him now he's been on the show two times we're friends now you're right um i think i think at the but then i look at the atlantic okay you expect toronto i would think uh you expect tampa yeah you expect florida okay those are three teams that you expect boston does not have an answer from bergeron yet i think he's gonna come back so is crazy crazy isn't he signed has that not i don't think so there was rumors about that so if you get but bergeron said a couple days ago

i'm not sure yet i have not made a decision he's a liar okay so then you got buffalo i don't think so they got better but i don't think so better they're gonna take points um detroit unquestionably got better they got better they're gonna take points ottawa i think was if we're talking about a winner in free agency i think auto was the clear winner they got way better they're gonna take points it's gonna come down to i mean like i don't think it will be the haves and the have nots in the atlantic the way it was right i don't see an atlantic team maybe getting 120 points again this year no and i do think it's going to be that sort of year where two or three teams who are really good suffer some sort of injury that just sort of tanks their season tanks their

season by christmas like imagine you know who what if matthews goes down for a month how does that affect the atlantic division might be a problem what if that's a you know vasilevsky's been extremely healthy what if he goes down for a month or two and then all of a sudden it's tampa running with who's their backup brian elliott they're running with brian elliott as their starter for 60 days yep how many games are in those 60 days and if they make the playoffs none of us count them out but what if they don't make the playoffs because the division is so good and everyone's laughing you're saying tampa's not going to make the play no i'm saying tampa without the best goalie in the world

might not make the playoffs. I don't think that's a wild thing to say. Rangers with Shosturkin. We all expect them to be super competitive in that division. Shosturkin goes down.

What if he pulls a groin? Right? Who's their backup now? I don't know yet. I don't have the orgy of. Who's the Rangers backup now? Let's find out. Hang on.

New York Rangers, according to Cap Friendly, and this could change, it's Yara Halak who just signed up on your contract. No, did Alan Walsh. Well, then they're fine.

They're fine. they're fine it's amazing it's amazing he's still playing yeah yeah man get onto his conditioning it it really is i i'm i'm looking at representation what uh i'm looking at the dallas stars and i'm totally stealing this joke from fuleman uh acton fuleman who's i think he's he's the he's like my conscience embodied in a twitter account um but uh or at least what's going on in my head but he was like the dallas stars looked at this said we must get older and they're trying to get brent burns they try to get brent burns and that's what he was tweeting about but they didn't get mason marchman is it fair to say that the leafs

really fucked up with mason marchman i mean yeah yes they did like for hanky i gave him a pass on it was five years before he did anything mason marchman was like man he just signed a contract that was worth almost 20 million dollars i feel bad for dennis mulligan because like the leafs got him back and people are like who fucking cares and it's like oh he didn't do anything to you man he barely even played here no and like uh the leafs took mason marchment from like an ahl echl player to a really effective championship winning ahl depth player scored two goals in the calder cup winning game yes he did we were there um to a guy who can play nhl games and barb Thunderhill improved his skating.

Remember, this is an undrafted guy. Really improved his skating and turned him into an NHL player. No one thought this was there. No one thought a 0.8 points per game, selkie vote-receiving guy was there. So credit to the Leafs for helping him get his career off the ground. Credit to the Florida Panthers. panthers that's where the real credits go yeah developing him into a real factor in this league

florida signed him to two contracts that were worth under a million dollars he signed for nine 700 grand and then 800 grand so both those years still nobody expected him to do anything and he still hadn't produced yet and the situation with athletes is so important and who knows if he develops into what he is now if he's on the leafs you know and he goes to florida and then finally that second year he's in he finally becomes uh his full-form mason marchman which is incredible he was playing in the top six with florida that wasn't that wasn't available here no it never would have been no so like the thing oh the leaf should be upset ah we don't know what it would have been it could have been any situation how it plays out we could have buried him in the marlies

and ruined his career what if william carlson never left the blue jackets oh yeah would we ever know his name would he be a multi-millionaire 40 goal 30 goal guy what if the leafs had actually given Lonnie Bohannes a chance what if Lonnie Bohannes Pierre Hedin and all the other guys from that era and and let me throw this out there in terms of uh people who deserve credit for Mason Marchment Mason Marchment yeah like uh you know lots of teams throw resources at guys and a lot of people are too stubborn to to take the advice and to take the lessons and they don't take advantage of everything that's that's available to them so Mason Marchment turned himself into mason marchman also he's uh very familiar with the uh coaching staff there in dallas i know like

they they go back to like uh one of the coaches there they go back to like his childhood and that was a big motivation for him signing oh that's cool yeah with uh with his dad passing too uh recently it was good for him to go to a familiar space with people he knows yeah and really really good fit mason mason marchman's a dallas star that makes a lot of sense an interesting very very interesting team that not a lot of people are talking about is the anaheim ducks you went out and you get ryan strome for five years 25 million cool you signed frank for toronto you haven't re-signed sunny milano and i know that they need to hit the floor i get that but it's what are where are we going that's why losing sunny milano is so confusing like what's

going on here they're kind of weirdly treading water and in no man's land like they've got these great young players right troy terry and and and uh um trevor zegras are amazing but yeah it's like it's like you you have adam henrique and then you just signed three years younger adam henrique they have more cap space than any other team in the entire league including teams like the arizona the coyotes and buffalo savers it's not the worst time to be bad in the nhl you're just coming out of a pandemic it's a flat cap there are a lot of desperate teams looking to move deals like if i'm anaheim i'm calling the flyers every day jvr jvr jvr how about jvr um how many firsts can i get for jvr and uh conor bedard and matvey mitchkov on the on the horizon it's not the worst time

to not really be going for it if you're not sure about your team yeah if everybody thinks it's going to be this really deep draft and the ducks right now have three second round picks two third round picks in their own first like they have a whole bunch of assets and they can just use this year to accumulate more and then really go for the draft and then like you said adam they already have the bunch of young players already there uh looking to make their mark in the nhl so maybe it's a quick rebuild for the ducks then you take this season off an underratedly huge power vacuum with ryan gets left yes yes i wonder who takes over leadership there and i wonder if if strome was one of the people that they kind of targeted but henrik seems like a guy prime for that been

there forever he was in and out of the lineup i know but you know sometimes it's like you know rebuilding team and blah blah blah hey question florida panthers yes are they better the worse or the same uh so i don't even remember who they got because they weren't one of the more relevant teams in terms of like exciting signings they lost mason marchman that's bad claudia they lost oh yeah well yeah they lost they sort of lost claudia and they don't have their first or their third this year or their first the following year okay so that's bad also um what else is going on there they were trying to move bobrovsky didn't work who was going to take that remember there were whispers that no i'm going to read off their signings yes please all right so uh alex lion

uh in net yeah uh mark stall and his brother eric for the bto that was yeah that was noteworthy that could be interesting they need uh an old guy they got a pair uh nick cousins depth guy Colin White. That's a smart signing. I like that one. Rudolf Spalsers. I like him too. Shout out Lafayette.

Nathan Staios. I don't know. That's it. Any relation to Steve? I don't know. Probably. Oh, and Anthony Boteto. So not any big, big name moves.

And they are $3 million over the cap currently. They're going to be missing Anthony Duclair for a number of months too with that Achilles injury. Okay, so that's probably putting them under the cap. But they're going to have to make a move here. They have to move some salary. Potentially. I mean, they've got, here's the problem for the Panthers. Their dead cap this year is almost $7 million.

You got Scott Darling. What? Scott Darling. When did that happen? Let's find out, shall we? Scott Darling. Yeah, yeah. They're paying Scott Darling $1.3 million.

They bought him out. Remember? They signed him to a contract, remember? And he had a modified note. You don't remember that? No. 17-18. They signed him to a four-year deal.

uh modified no trade oh but sorry it wasn't them that signed it the hurricane signed it they acquired it i believe they've they've bought him out since wasn't there they had like a trio of wasn't it darling reimer and hutchinson right and the leaf scott hutch yeah i think i remember that and then keith yandel and keith yandel is going to cost them on the dead cap 5.3 million so this is the interesting thing now like i think there's a lot of teams i think we're going to see an explosion of news yeah over the next week still there's still a couple logs holding up the dam there and then i think come september after everyone's you know been to the cottage and relaxed for a little bit they're a bunch of these teams that are over the

cap are gonna be like fuck fuck fuck fuck and or i think some teams are uh i mean we saw it heading into the trade deadline in the playoffs i think uh i think there might be a couple sore shoulders oh yeah oh yeah they had a long deep run it's a tough team i got a crick in my neck and i and i think my ankle's a little ankly the reason that the uh yandle side the yandle bio by the way it seems so weird is that it happened on the 50th of july last year when everybody was everybody's time clock was all messed up and then he signed in florida not florida philly and he played oh that's right so they that the cap penalty this year for them is is 5.3 million and then the following two years it's 1.2 million each the second wait doesn't

makes sense yandall played all last season in fucking philly yeah and then we talked about that controversy you can buy him out and then he can oh right right so that florida bought him out but previous to last year he signed a league men deal chuck fletcher's like fuck your streak and right that was the end of it well or alan vigno was whenever whoever was there i don't know castle is gonna he's gonna shatter it anyway yeah uh but yeah yandall uh was coming off the end of a seven-year 44.45 million dollar contract signed by tom rowe wow in june uh june july 2016 hey by the way sorry june 2016 you know what we never talk about that 2016 free agency class which was terrible all the re-signings that happened before people made it to ufa which were also bad

of which yandel is one uh stamkos was a fantastic one it was he stands out because there's another guy who signed for like market value yeah so yandel had 6.35 million if the if the panthers had held on to him for for this year or this past year and next 6.35 million but they're saving like a million bucks on the cap can we play a quick game yeah yeah i'm gonna i'm just gonna list ufas right now free agents who need a sign you guys give me a team that's it and then we keep Move it. Nazem Khadri. Colorado. I think it gets done. Colorado. Sneaky pick. Islanders.

Patrice Bergeron. Bruins. Retired. John Klingberg. Dallas. Oh, really? Yeah, I think he stays. Jeff Merrick's going to be so upset. He's got the Klingberg beat, and we've been thinking he was going to move forever. Team! Team! That's his

Brennan Middle. Team, Adam! Man! Klingberg, Klingberg, Klingberg. Who's you're bad at this let's go dallas whatever phil kessel phil kessel pittsburgh reunites with brian burke let's go steve fuck that's a great pick it's not gonna happen league men but it'd be great i want chaos let's make it out it's so not gonna pittsburgh fine oh you guys suck paul stastny oh who needs a center like a third line center with offensive up like he'd be if the Leafs are actually looking for a center Paul Stastny

you're supposed to list a team Rangers Ranger yeah I'm gonna say Islanders Nino need a rider oh man I got two more shit I should have said him for Rangers he screams like a St. Louis Blue if they could move out some cap space doesn't he oh yeah I mean he screams carolina hurricane so that's a weird one uh fucking i say st louis for no reason at all i have no nashville evan rodriguez oh there's another one that leaves goofed on um evan rodriguez to me the big payday is not there he'll resign in pittsburgh okay yeah i'll go steve on that one uh last one brayden holpe you didn't ask about sunny milano uh brayden I know he's not coming back.

He's not going to play. I wonder too, if a guy like Evan Rodriguez wouldn't look at the coyotes. If I'm Evan Rodriguez, if they can pay me three or 4 million bucks, I'm the first line center there. And I get to play with Clayton Keller. This is the other thing.

Like I go, go and go sign a one or a two year deal, walk your ass to 2025 and get as much playing time as you can get. It's going to be very interesting with the teams that are very obviously trying to be bad. if september rolls around these players are still available for like a super discount and like it's gonna be interesting to see if they can't help themselves yes but oh but we could try to win hockey games shit steve i got one last one before we go here let me hit the button i know all right

do you know who it is yes where will harry satari play what did you think it was james Reimer. I was going to say Leafs. Oh, he's under contract. There he is. There he is. Someone sent me somewhere in Switzerland. S-T-P The Steve Dangle Podcast. Powered by

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