Devils Stick & Pick

[00:00:05] Hey everyone, Mr. Devil here, Kenny Danico, three-time Stanley Cup champion of the New Jersey Devils, and you're listening to the Uncle Puckers NJD Podcast. Let's go Devils! Morning. Good morning, Timothy. How are you today? Ah, I am good. Hanging in there. Just reading Sue's stuff, yelling at people to calm down, you know.

[00:00:33] Okay, so, alright. So last night was the first round of the NHL Draft, or if you're Thurman Thomas, the NFL Draft. But, um... He was great, by the way. One of my all-time favorite players. Love the guy. And yes, anytime that he's out there, I'm happy. So, and he's allowed to call it the NFL Draft. Um, you know, most of the, you know, you see a lot of these running back, particularly in his age, and they're like... Oh, they're big fatties.

[00:01:04] They're big fatties. Like, knees that work. The huge O-linemen, the six-foot-eight, 300-pound O-linemen retire, and they get trimmed down, and they become these fucking animals. But the skill positions, the wide receivers, the running backs, they retire, they get fat. So, um... Yeah, well, the opposite happens. Like, the fat guys stop eating so much to get, to stay fat. Right. And the not-fat guys start eating, and then they get fat.

[00:01:31] Like, as soon as Maurice Jones-Drew retired, he was like, I'm a multi-millionaire, and I'm hungry, and you can tell. By the way, apparently that rumor about the fridge was wrong, or about him passing away, was made up. Out of all things that we can deep fake, is it really William Perry's death than what we need to do?

[00:01:55] People, like, it's really, honestly, like, what compels someone to be like, you know what? I'm going to pick this random guy. Probably a Packer fan. And just say he died. It was probably a Packer fan. Yep, I blame everything on Packer fans. I mean, I blame usually on Bear fans, too. But, you know, in this case, I can't. What's up, C-Doug? When it turns out it was a Vikings fan. Viking fans are wonderful, and they're beautiful people, and they're nice to everybody. I have to say this. There were some highlights of the draft.

[00:02:23] I have to say, I mean, we mentioned Thurman Thomas. Gavin McKenna going number one. No surprise. Stenberg going number two. A little bit of a surprise, because San Jose did have some offers on that number two pick. But they're going to be a goddamn wagon in a couple years. That is a team that I am so excited to watch play. There was another team a couple years ago that people said the same thing about.

[00:02:46] It is much easier to build with no pressure than it is to execute when you have expectations. Do you know what else is? Hang on one second. There else helps a lot. What's that? So, real quick.

[00:03:12] So, in the NHL, all right, Macklin Celebrini, his rookie year, played 70 games. And last year, played 82. So, if your star stud player can play every game, you have a much better shot of, like, well, Jack missed 30 games this year. That is, to me. But go ahead and look at the gap between Celebrini's point totals and everyone else. Go and look at the on-ice results. I know. I know. He does. He does.

[00:03:41] They have a lot of young defensemen. We had two very young, high-picked defensemen that we were high on as well. Let's give it time for them. Like, everything. And that's kind of the theme of this show. Like, that's... I will reserve judgment. But I will say this. Macklin Celebrini in two years has become one of my favorite players to watch. I think he's absolutely amazing. And I think... He's awesome. Yes. So, like, yes. Having him.

[00:04:07] And then you see the pieces, whether they are, you know, yet to blossom, but they're there. And you see what that team can be. And, yeah. If they're managed right and everything comes together for them, they're going to be an extremely good team in a couple years. Maybe next year. I think next year they can play for a playoff spot. Yeah. I'll grant that. The future is bright. I will put it that way.

[00:04:32] And if things go sideways in Jersey next year, we're Shark fans going forward. The Uncle Bunker San Jose Sharks podcast. Mine. Speaking of number one draft picks, also last night. Man, this fucking kid, Matthew Schaefer, is awesome. And I've... God fucking damn it, man. Why does he have to play on, like, a rival? Fuck the Islanders. But, like, he's just so polished and speaks so well. He just, like...

[00:05:02] He, like, looked fucking great. Was wearing, like, a dialed up, like, double-breasted suit. Like, holy shit, man. This kid's got to fucking knock it off. I'm a big fan of Matthew Schaefer. And, yeah. Unfortunately, yes, he does play for the Islanders. But I'm sure he'll get sick of that at some point. And then the number three spot, I was very happy to see Caleb Malhotra go to Vancouver with his old man coaching there. You know, we grew up watching Manny Malhotra. I think that's an awesome moment.

[00:05:31] I hope it actually works out. And by the time Caleb actually, you know, makes the everyday roster that, you know, Manny's still the coach there. He's going to get fired before Caleb comes up. The way the shelf life that some of these coaches have and are put into untenable situations, like Vancouver actually is in, like... Yeah, that sucks. But a very cool moment for the Malhotra. A very cool moment. That was cool to see. Yep. They interviewed Manny, which was cool. And it's just...

[00:05:59] Goddamn, we're getting so old, man. And, like, has... I don't know if it was like this in previous generations, but I feel like there are so many legacy guys just playing in the league now. And I don't know if it's always been like this. I don't think it was. I think a lot of when we were into hockey, talking, like, you know, late 80s, 90s, and it's kind of devil's heyday, I think most of those players, from what I remember, were, like, first-generation players.

[00:06:27] And now we're seeing all their kids, few grandkids, but not nearly as many. Like, you know, I don't think so. I can't remember any legacy players, per se, that really stick out. Yeah. No, neither can I. I mean, like, my high school hockey coach was this guy, Raelle Turcotte, and those are the hockey camps that I worked at when I worked with Martin St. Louis.

[00:06:51] But his son, Alfie Turcotte, was, like, a head instructor at these camps. And he also played for the Canadians. And he used to tell a funny story when we were working, like, while we were on the ice, he'd tell the kids about Scott Stevens absolutely massacring him in the head, which I always loved that. But his son, Alfie's son, is Alex Turcotte, who plays for the Kings. Right.

[00:07:19] So, like, that's kind of that generation. But, you know, you got the Kachuksen here, Malhotra. There's definitely some cool stories. I think the first, in terms of picks, getting back to the draft, the first kind of off-the-board, so-to-speak, pick was Dax and Rudolph going forward. Like, pretty much everybody, like, all the draft experts had Chase Reed and even Keaton Beerhoff going ahead of him. So, it's an interesting pick there at four.

[00:07:48] It's just, like, again, it's like, I don't know. Jarmo's been fucking in a lab cooking shit up, man. He's doing pretty well. You know, I mean, I'm not familiar with a lot of these draft picks. Of course, you know, when we got to number 12, you know, the excitement was there. Okay, if the devil's picking this, who is it going to be? It ends up being Alexander Command, right? Center Swedish League, I believe, right? Yeah, the Swedish U-20 Junior League.

[00:08:16] Now, I think devil fans are a little, I guess, I think they're pretty split on this. You know, I think that, I mean, being a devil fan ourselves, yeah, I wanted action. I wanted them to blow it all up and let's fucking get whoever, trade the picks, do this, do that. But then again, that's not realistic. And it's kind of, you can kind of see what Sonny Mata's doing. And at least I can, right? Like, you got to have a strong foundation.

[00:08:45] And I think that anything that you build is going to crumble without a strong foundation. And you could see him doing this in the office, in management, right? He's making sure that the developmental system is going to be secure and well cared for and doing the right thing and producing actual players that can play in this league. And to the management system and all the Fitz guys that were here and, you know, they're all gone now. And now it comes to... A lot of the scouts are still...

[00:09:14] I'm talking about management, you know. But now they, you know, and then, okay, you have this 12th pick. Yeah. I am positive that if Sonny Mata had a deal in place for that 12th pick for a player that he has on his radar, it would have been gone. Obviously, he didn't have that. So he picked the best possible player, what he thought was the best possible player. You look at Florida, right? And they're built young down the middle, right? With Lindell.

[00:09:39] And this pick to me makes sense when you see where Sonny Mata came from, what he's trying to build. And this guy, maybe two years from now, like you say, he's our 3C next, you know, in a couple of years. I know it doesn't give us immediate help right now, but we still have enough draft capital. We still have enough players and roster players to move. And we still have two full months before training camp even starts. So that's where I'm at. I'm fine with this pick.

[00:10:08] I'm fine with it. I was a little annoyed more so with the Dorofaev trade over to the New York Rangers, which we'll talk about in a little while because I really like Dorofaev and I thought he'd look great in a devil's uniform. But regardless of that, I am totally fine with this. I like the way he's building it. This player, he seems like a kind of, I don't know, Anton Lindell kind of player to me from the little bit that I saw. Now, I'm not saying that I'm in any way an expert on him.

[00:10:36] You have probably a lot more insight on this guy, so I want to hear what you have to say. But that's just my opinion on it. I don't give a shit. It's fine. It's just guys, you know, Sonny said it, right? I want to build to win now. I want to build to win later. Right. He wants to, you know. Have you ever seen, I spend far too much time on the internet. And have you ever seen a meme where it's someone says, I like pancakes. And then someone jumps in and says, why do you hate waffles?

[00:11:06] And it's like, motherfucker, I didn't say that. Like, that's a whole different sentence. Yeah. And it's kind of the old adage. Yeah. The old adage of like, two things can be true at once. My preference, and we've talked about this, my preference was to use that pick in a package to upgrade to the top six wing. I think that was one of our more valuable assets. And GMs tend to value the asset more than the player that's used with the asset, because

[00:11:34] now it's like a real tangible thing. GMs actually love the sort of magic beans more than the actual like tangible reality. However, two things can be true in that the actual pick that we made, while it's different than I think a lot of people projected when you look at how the draft unfolded and some of the guys that we kind of wanted to fall to us, like Tynan Lawrence or Wyatt Cullen got picked right before.

[00:12:04] And I had my concerns about Belchez. Like, I get people love size and he's got a very kind of good net front skill set, but he's got a very niche skill set. And I think taking this kid command, he has a much higher floor than a lot of those guys. He is going to be an NHL player. I think his ceiling and his offensive talent is where he had some questions, but he also

[00:12:35] so he got cut. So over the summer, there's a tournament called the Holinka Gretzky World Cup. It's the sort of precursor of the world juniors. He got cut from that team. Didn't make the team. Went back to his junior team and had an incredible season and actually was one of the best players, if not the best player for Sweden at the actual world junior tournament, which they won golden. So he quickly was rising up draft boards, but to go from, you know, the thirties, late twenties

[00:13:04] down to like the teens is a lot harder than to say, go from like 17 to six. So, so I think I'm not going to say he, he was an off board pick. I think whatever Sonny saw in him and whatever the team saw on him, I like it. I'm going to right now, I'm going to, I'm going to trust Sonny. I disagree with, and I'm with you on that, but no, I mean, you're saying this pick has no shot.

[00:13:33] Like I world's worst gamer. I mean, you can't say that, you know, I mean, yes, the hit rate on first rounders playing, you know, a few hundred games in the NHL is low enough as it is, but you don't know. I mean, you, we have guys on this team playing significant roles that were picked in the fifth round and the second round. And you don't know. So yes, I can see where you guys are a little bit disappointed. It is because you want to move.

[00:14:01] You want some, something like you said, tangible player that we can slot in. This is not a guy that's helping us next year, but it doesn't mean it's not a guy that's not going to be a part of what happens four or five years down the road. And I think you have to look at both of these. And I think that Sonny is trying to thread the needle and okay. Maybe the thought set was, I'm going to use the number 12 pick and I'm going to get a guy to kind of stabilize our middle for the future.

[00:14:28] And then I'm going to use the draft capital that maybe I got from them. And he was either number one or number two in all offensive categories in his league and all his underlying metrics, which is something that Sonny values clearly. And if you're anti analytics, sorry, but all of his underlying metrics suggest that he's going to be an extremely good player. He's an absolute fucking dog. There's a two minute clip floating around on the internet, on Twitter primarily of him

[00:14:58] just being a fucking asshole on the four check. And he's going to be Anton Lundell. I get it. We still have a ton of assets though, that we can still trade to make that move. And if you look at the guys that were traded for Cairo, Tuck, Brady, Dorofaev of all of those guys, like the real truly top six guys, which is what I still think our biggest need is Dorofaev is really the only guy that I thought could actually slide in on here.

[00:15:27] The problem with Dorofaev though, hang on, let me finish. The problem with Dorofaev though, 20 of his 37 goals came on the power play last year. Okay. He's going to make, what is it? Eight by 11 or seven by 11. Yeah. It's something which I don't think we, we would have been able to afford. He is largely a power play merchant. And I think that presents a real question. And I've said this a thousand times before.

[00:15:55] It's like, we need to understand what our power play is going to look like. If we have a guy that's going to be relying on power play time, Timo Meyer, for example, we need to ensure that there's a plan to get that guy power play time. And I don't know if Dorofaev would have been able to get the same kind of time and hence the same value and been worth that 11 million in a devil's uniform than potentially he would have been in a Rangers uniform.

[00:16:23] Also as a Ranger, he's not going to have Eichel and Marner sliding him for beautiful one-timer passes. Like who the fuck's going to pass this guy the puck? I really, I really like Dorofaev. I really like Dorofaev as a player. But again, 11 million, I don't want it. I like Alex Tuck as a player, but for that contract in that term, I don't want it. And anybody that thinks that, and I'm collect records. I'm absolutely right there with you, right?

[00:16:50] He writes, the kid we drafted will probably be great, but I'm just bummed we won't see him for three years. Sure. I don't know if that's true either. Because he's under, so another thing, he's under contracted in the SHL for two more years. Okay. So the SHL isn't the KHL in terms of the stringentness of their contracts. So we may see him before that. I have a question. How old is he? I don't even know his age.

[00:17:16] So he was seven days away from being in next year's draft. Okay. Okay. So he's very young. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yes, we want something that's going to be immediate, but the bottom line is... Yes. Can I just address this, please? And Ritter Engine, yes, we know. And I don't know if you saw me before, but it's two things can be true. We use a draft pick on a promising young player.

[00:17:44] We still have a ton of assets and a lot of the summer to address WinNow pieces. Let's wait until September when the team is in place and we can, if... Oh, Tim froze. No big move like that. We can readdress that when it comes. And, you know, you have to trust that Sonny Maida has a plan. Tom Fitzgerald left a fucking mess. I mean, Tom Fitzgerald, you walked into the house, right? And the sheetrock was ripped off the walls.

[00:18:13] Somebody threw concrete down the toilet bowl. You know, the foundation is shaky and you are $500,000 over what the house is worth and you're underwater. And you come in and you got to renovate this thing and try and sell it again. It's a difficult ask. It's the scene in community where the guy walks into the apartment with pizzas and he's all happy and the whole fucking apartment's on fire. And he's like... Right. And he's like, oh, fuck. Yep. And so... Yes.

[00:18:41] And look, we all know we need now, win now pieces. Sonny Maida knows that we need win now pieces. He has things in place. He has a plan in place. Now, whether or not he's going to be able to execute that plan to verbatim to how he wants it, that remains to be seen. But I think we have to give this man the grace to... He's coming out of an organization that made it to three Stanley Cup finals in the last four years. He knows what he's doing.

[00:19:09] Let's let him do his job. This isn't Fitz, right? Of course, we can all be hair on fire because we know what happened if Fitz was still the general manager. Like, we don't know what's going to happen with this. And I think just a guy getting picked number 12, if Command becomes a stud top six centerman for this team a couple of years down the road and playing on 3C and having Jack and Nico

[00:19:36] and Commander down there and whoever else is in that lineup at the time, this could be great for this team down the road. Look, I love this kid's skill set. He's a great passer. He's got great offensive vision. He's got a motor. He's a fucking dog. He's got good size. He's 6'1", 190. There's very much not a lot. There's a lot to like about him. I understand. And again, two things can be true. We needed the stock to cover, but we also need winning out pieces.

[00:20:03] And we have assets to still do both. And July 1st is Tuesday. You know, that's UFA. That's offer sheets. That's people signing extensions. Oh, one thing that happened last week or yesterday on the broadcast I sent to you guys Kevin Weeks basically more or less confirmed that Nico is his extension is basically done. And he knows the numbers. He didn't say what it is. So that should get announced.

[00:20:30] The one guy we haven't heard much about, about what his number looks like is Gritzuk, which I'm a little marginally concerned about. I'm not. I mean, it'll get done. And I'm not overly concerned about that. But, you know, you kind of have to tell Gritz at a certain point, like, yeah, we'll talk. But let me lock down our captain first. All right? Let's take care of this thing. And look, we also got rid of, like, look, I was a Nemitz stockholder. I've said this. Like, I think he has a lot of potential.

[00:20:59] I hope he thrives in Calgary. But it became very clear, and Brendan Dillon more or less said it, that he was the problem in the locker room. Right. You know, and we have that problem in the locker room. We have a fresh start. We have another year of organic growth for Luke. And, you know, we have Jack Healthy again. Like, I think there's going to be a lot of natural organic growth from the current group, but it needs to be supplemented. And who's going to supplement it? We still don't know yet.

[00:21:28] Robertson's still out there. Marchenko. Worenski's apparently asking for trades. I would fucking do unspeakable things for Marchenko. Dude, I was just about to say the same thing. I mean, out of all the guys, if it's not Quinn, I would love it to be Marchenko. But the other thing, before we go on to who's available and stuff, like the other thing to think about with Sonny, too, if I'm Sonny Mata, I'm looking at this draft and saying this is the highest I ever plan to pick as general manager of this team.

[00:21:57] That this number 12 spot is the highest that I'm going to pick, and I'm going to cake my guy because I feel like this is my best chance to maybe get a top six center down the road or whatever, because I'm planning on picking in the late 20s here on out. And that should be the most. Not even having those picks. Yeah, or not. Yeah, and not even having them like that's I'm I'm totally OK with this. I am absolutely OK. Now, look, if we had no draft capital, if we had no, you know, no trade capital, nothing

[00:22:26] that we can move, nobody that we can move all this stuff. Yeah, maybe we'd be a little bit disappointed that the one chip we had, we just gave to a future. But we don't. We have other options. There are guys that are out there. And so, yeah, I'm just I think that devil fans, I think we are all suffering from we've said it before. Right. We're worse. This is our phrase. Fuck everyone else for trying to use it, by the way. Yeah, we coined this shit.

[00:22:53] Post Traumatic Fits Disorder is absolutely Uncle Puckers. That's our trademark. Our trademark Uncle Puckers. So and I think that a lot of us have that and we need to kind of get that out of our system. It's it's we're automatically expecting the worst because that's what we've gotten the last handful of years. So let's take a deep breath. Let's see what Sonny does. July 1st could be the fireworks. It could be or nothing could happen. And it could be a little.

[00:23:19] I think we also need to understand that that because he was a poker player doesn't mean he's going to be a riverboat gambler. It means that he's going to take calculated risks that that he thinks will pay off. So that means perhaps taking a more cautious approach to things. He also mentioned things about the salary cap all the time and we need a clean salary cap going into this this upcoming season. So there are things that are working against each other for the Devils right now.

[00:23:48] And I'm not going to ship Sonny off because he didn't get like a top six forward this summer. I won't be happy about it, but I understand that this is going to take some time to unwind some of this bullshit that this fucking bald peanut headed fuck did to this organization. We were on the fucking cover of Sports Illustrated three years ago. And now. Yeah, now we're a fucking lottery team. Yeah, because of this motherfucker.

[00:24:19] It's definitely true. And I mean, so let's talk about the guys. Dubzilla, what's up? Marchenko is. I have not heard that he has asked to be moved. Now, is this just reckless speculation from our part that we want him? It was pretty widely speculated that he he's not going to sign an extension there, which is pretty interesting. So much longer does he have on his contract? You know, that's probably good information. It could have had.

[00:24:48] Let's go to the let's go to the let's go to the Internet and find out. Yeah.

[00:24:53] So, yeah.

[00:25:22] So Marchenko only has this year. 26, 27 at 3.8. So he's going to command a lot of fucking a lot of money. But he's a guy that I would do unspeakable things for. And if he says he's not going to sign an extension, then that means he's basically tradable as of as of now. So I would do on this team would. I mean, that's the guy we need. That's the type of player that we have been talking about forever.

[00:25:51] Do you remember the goal that he scored against us this season when he basically stripped Jack behind the zone and just fucking took off? And even fucking Luke and Jack Hughes couldn't catch his ass because he's so fucking fast. He's nasty. And he's nasty. He's nasty. He's a right shot, too, which we desperately need in that top six, because that adds to power play balance. It adds just a shooting balance. There's so much that goes on.

[00:26:18] Like, you know, I've been hot on this for a while is that we have we have an imbalance of righties versus lefties in our top six. I mean, Marchenko would be amazing. I mean, Jason Robertson, of course, we would love it. But at this point, I think it's going to cost about $75 million a year for him. I almost prefer Marchenko over Robertson. I do. He's also Russian and he's a fucking asshole, too, which I kind of like. I prefer him because of the style play over.

[00:26:46] I mean, yes, Robo's got better hands, more skill, but Marchenko is no joke. And he plays a physical style. And that's what we need. And Marchenko could be a playoff. I'd love to see him in the playoffs. He's the kind of guy that would absolutely step up and be a game changer in the playoffs. Love him. Whatever that if whatever guys are on Sonny's radar, I really hope that Kirill Marchenko is number one. Yeah. I just wonder if Columbus, you know, would charge us the division, the indivision tax, you know.

[00:27:15] Well, is the indivision tax Dougie Hamilton? That's fine. I don't know. Like, I think you leave Dougie out of this. I don't know if that's as much of a thing as it used to be trading within within the division. I think a lot of it also depends on where the teams are at that time. Right.

[00:27:34] If you're rebuilding and, you know, if you're like Columbus probably wouldn't have a problem, maybe trading with like Carolina or something like, you know, that we're not going to be competing with them right now. So we have to do what we need to do right now to get better. And Devils, maybe they look at us a little bit closer. So maybe they'd be like, eh, trading with them. We're going to have to kind of go through them if we want to get to the top where I think if the Devils are playing at their best, they're way better than Columbus. Yeah.

[00:28:01] But it's also like, here's our next three first round picks and Dawson Mercer or something like that. Yeah. I feel like that's a guy that you're like, here's a fucking godfather offer. Yeah. That is a godfather offer. And you're getting a guy who plays anywhere in your lineup, can play power play, can play penalty kill, never misses time. You know, we are very critical of guys on this team. And Dawson Mercer is one of those dudes that sometimes we're very critical of. But I love Dawson Mercer.

[00:28:30] I think Dawson Mercer is a heck of a player. But I also think that this team, that he's the only really big movable piece right now to make this team better. Yeah. And a lot of that is... Now that Nemec is gone. Right. You know, we replaced that with multiple assets. And, you know, like I said before, like, you know, GMs really value the fantasy of having first round picks. And, you know, it's calculated of like where, you know, where those picks potentially could fall.

[00:29:00] And, you know, basically every pick that gets traded now is always top 10 protected these days. So, yeah. But there were a lot of trades yesterday. A lot of people trading back. A lot of people trading around. Even Bettman made a comment about it. And you have to keep in mind, too, today, right? I mean, we picked second or third in round two. We picked in a couple of minutes. Yeah. I actually got to probably duck off because I have to, for all about the jersey, I have to write up the second round.

[00:29:30] Well, fuck it. I can just find out who it is. Well, keep us posted if you have it on right now. I mean, there are some good players that are still available. I realize it's second rounders. That's fine. But that was I telling you about that Xavier Villanueva kid? Yeah, you told me about him. Sort of Lane Hudson-y, Quinn Hughes. He's still on the table. There's a couple other guys that are pretty good, too, that are still available.

[00:29:58] You know, here's the other thing about command, right? Like, Sonny was the guy that had Brat first or second round projection, right? When he was here. I don't know about that. People said he had him like sixth on his list. I'm like, I don't see that. Well, let's say he had him a lot higher than where he was picked. Like, you know, Sonny might just have a knack of going deep into these analytics and seeing what guys are really going to outperform or overperform.

[00:30:24] Then, you know, so, you know, he has his reasons for commander, you know, or command, commander, commander. Or Sonny's entire model could just be about like you look at his model and it's actually like I like guys with cool names. Because he picked command and then he traded for that dude Amadeus. Yeah. Which is a great name. But didn't we get rid of him already? Amadeus? Yeah.

[00:30:51] Didn't we pick somebody up, a prospect, and then flip it for a fourth round pick the next day? No. Yeah. Check that. I thought that we did. I can't remember. No, we got a prospect for the fourth round pick. Okay. Maybe that's what I saw. From Detroit. So, like, the one encouraging thing about that dude Amadeus, A, he better use that fucking Falco song as his goal song. But B. That would be awesome. All the Detroit fans were fucking pissed.

[00:31:19] We all have rock me Amadeus signs. Amadeus. Amadeus. I like it. Oh, oh, oh. Amadeus. Amadeus. I saw a lot of Detroit fans that were really pissed. I got to duck out and come back in. All right. Go ahead. So, and the other big one was that Kosa got traded from Detroit to Edmonton to Utah. So, it looks like the Detroit Red Wings are out on their biggest prospect goaltender that they had in a while.

[00:31:49] And now it's Trey Augustine, and that's his net. So, Kosa going to Utah, I was just talking about that. That kind of stinks, right? He was a little bit on our radar. He was on my radar. Yeah. He's a great goalie. He has won stoppucks everywhere he goes. Six, seven, something like that. You know, that's another thing that, you know, we got to be a little patient with is Tuesday, July 1st,

[00:32:14] is when Markstrom's trade protection loosens up a little bit. Yeah. So, we'll see if anything happens, happens there or not. You know, I've said this before. I think most analytics guys look at them and say, hey, just play better in front of the goalie and the goals against will go down. Like, that's kind of, I mean, it's a pretty obvious and simple thought, but it's actually true and proved out statistically. It is very true.

[00:32:43] But I also believe that when goalies especially, and it's this way with, you know, you look at defensive linemen in the NFL and these certain positions that once the decline starts, there's really no coming back. And I do put goalies in that bracket. Marky's numbers are going down. Look, if we're stuck with Marky and Allen next year, it is what it is, right? We have to make the best of it. Same with everything else. We have to make the best of it.

[00:33:10] And that might, you know, we know that he's being shopped. So, even weeks I heard talking about that and saying that, you know, he's on the market. So, Tuesday or Wednesday, whenever July 1st is when his teams open up, there's going to be some teams, I think, that are interested in Jacob Markstrom. Yeah, I don't think, I don't, it depends on, you know, if we might have to eat a little bit of that contract. But, and that's kind of all the negotiation of like, are we giving something up to get rid of him?

[00:33:38] Or is he actually a valued piece somewhere? I think we probably get a late round pick for him or something like that. Yeah, and I think he is a valuable piece somewhere. I think a team like Edmonton, we said it, right? LA, they were even talking about Detroit interested in Markstrom. Like, I mean, okay. If they gave up Kosa and are interested in Markstrom, like, fucking punt Eisenman into the sun. Like, what the fuck is he doing? I don't know what he's doing over there.

[00:34:04] Like, there are just certain general managers that get to a point where I feel like it's just, he's not, he's just, I feel like Steve Eisenman right now in Detroit is just in a position where he's going to hurt the team in every move he makes. I think he is so far over his skis right now between the pressure, between what it's been now to get this team into the playoffs. I just don't know if the man can even think straight anymore. Yeah. Like, who would you say are good GMs? Like, Zito. Zito. Jim Neal. Armstrong.

[00:34:34] Tulski. Armstrong. Yeah, Tulski. Armstrong in Utah. And Greer. Gary. And Greer's getting a little bit of a pass because he's still building. Yeah, but Greer has kind of hit, you know, a steady stream of doubles, right? Like, he's just getting guys on base and getting them home.

[00:34:55] So, he got three really good high-end players yesterday in the first round by fucking doing some Kevin Costner draft day shit. Like, I want all my first rounders back. Yeah. Because I fucking feel like it. The guy he got, Justin Lin, in like the 20s or something, I actually wrote his prospect profile for ATJ.

[00:35:23] And like, he's awesome. Like, he's just fucking fast as shit. He's always pushing pace. He's always activating. He's a little rough in the defensive zone. But he's, his biggest issue is he's 5'11 and he's not six feet tall. If he had a six in front of his name, he would have been a top ten pick. I'm really excited to see, you know, those certain teams, especially out west. And the three main ones, like, I want to see Utah, Anaheim, and San Jose in the next couple years.

[00:35:51] And I do think there will be a little bit of a changing of the guard. You know, maybe it's not going to be automatically Vegas, Dallas, and Colorado all the time. You got to watch that. There's some good teams coming up. There's some funny, funny trades that happened. So, to revisit a trade that happened last year was Paterka from Buffalo to Utah for Paterka. Sorry, go ahead. Paterka? Paterka. Thanks, Don. For Kesselring and Josh Doan.

[00:36:20] Now, Paterka got traded. Actually, Paterka got traded when Buffalo was picking it. Josh Doan was on stage. It's fucking hilarious. That's so, yeah. So, Paterka goes to Boston. Paterka goes to Boston. And Kesselring got traded, too, to San Jose. Okay. That's what I was going to add. He went to San Jose. So, the only guy kind of left standing from that trade is Josh Doan, who at the time was largely kind of considered a bit of a throw-in in this trade.

[00:36:47] It turns out he's been the most valuable piece of it. Like, he had an awesome season. Like, he's a fucking dog. So, what do you think about Jack Quinn? I mean, I haven't watched him play enough to really form an opinion. You know, he's... It would be disappointing if that was the only Quinn we got, right? Like, it would be kind of funny if we had Jack and Quinn and Jack... Right. And that would be awesome. Yeah. Jack Quinn and Jack Quinn. He has a good pedigree, I think.

[00:37:16] I think he's a little undersized. He'd be an interesting guy. The one thing... Like, I mentioned those five GMs that I think are the good GMs. A red flag for me would be... Oh, Jarmo is looking like he suddenly figured out how to do this. Oh, maybe they just took the reins off him a little bit from Columbus, right? Yeah, or he's like, I'm finally out of Columbus, which is a fucking dump. But he went to Buffalo. Like, that's not supposed to be an upgrade. Someone... Yeah. Someone...

[00:37:45] I forget who it was. It was one of the insiders said that Buffalo is now steadily kind of coming off of no trade lists. Like... Or he's... Yeah, someone said he talked to a couple agents who said Buffalo's not on no trade lists anymore. It goes back to like... Winning will do that to you. Yeah, it goes back to like winning is the most important thing to all of these players. C-Dog said that Jarmo pantsed the black heart. He did. Yes, he did. It's like... It's like Davidson, what are you... What are you doing, dog? What are you doing? Yeah.

[00:38:15] I mean, on Chicago's side, like, I get it. Like, if Bo Byram was your guy, like, that was it. It was going to be Bo. And if you're stuck on that, he's going to be our number one D. All right, you give up whatever you got to give up for him. It's just the fact that Bo... And I like Bo Byram, but I just don't know if you give up that much for him. But like we said on the other show, like, watch Chicago, you know, crash and burn. That's fine. You know, I mean, I think they're going to have a very...

[00:38:42] If they don't progress this year and be in the playoff hunt, you're going to have a very disgruntled Conor Bedard. And that's going to be interesting to see what happens there. I haven't heard shit about his extension. No. Like, they're in... Please, sir, will you stick around, sir? Right. He's in the checks, sir. Is 20 million a year enough? Yeah, they're in that territory with Bedard. You know, so then there's Robo, right? And the rumors are out. Well, not rumors.

[00:39:12] We know now that he turned down 14 million a year from Seattle. I think it was an eight-year deal, sign and trade, 14 million a year. And he turned it down. I think this is more about the team than it is about the money. I agree. So I do think that, yeah, like we were talking on the group chat yesterday and Bobby making the point because he's down in the Outer Banks right now, so he can't make the show,

[00:39:38] that, you know, I don't want to pay for a guy that isn't willing to give that discount. Like, in my opinion, with a hard salary cap, you have to have guys that are willing to take a little bit less so you can build a team around him. And so he was like out on Robo for 14 million. Now, I'm okay with Robo 14 million because I think with the salary cap in a couple of years, it'll be fine. But I get his point. Like, if it is the money that's holding him up, then I don't want him.

[00:40:06] Then I don't know who pays him at that point. Yeah, I see his perspective. And it's like, maybe you give a little bit, but like, it is these guys' livelihoods. Like, would you take a discount to work at, you know, a restaurant that just because you like the people and it's good, like on your salary? Well, if I'm going to, if it's somehow working there, I collect championships and that's kind of the deciding factor of whether or not I get into the Restaurant Worker Hall of Fame,

[00:40:35] then maybe I'm taking a little bit less. It's a consideration. I get it. But I get your point. But like, he did turn down Seattle and a lot of people make a lot of noise about the tax stuff in Seattle for the next two years. Apparently there's legislation in their state legislature that is going to add a state income tax to Washington State. People have said it's not costitational. It's going to be voted down.

[00:41:04] But in two years, what's that? It's over a million dollars. It's like a tax increase for every million. It's not. It's going up to like 9.9% or something like that, which is a pretty hefty income tax. However, I think, look, man, if you're making 15 million dollars and you don't have a good accountant to help fucking minimize your tax burden, whether that's where you live, your foundations, what LLCs you set up to fucking funnel money to the Cayman Islands, like get a fucking account.

[00:41:31] Yeah, I don't buy the bullshit of the tax free fucking states. I don't buy it. It helps a little bit because like your tax burden and it's like those costs like make themselves up another place. You just get a little bit more disposable income that's going to go to different places like your car insurance and your health insurance. Exactly. You know, your homeowner's insurance are going to be super expensive. And if you can't live off 14 million dollars a year, you know, you got fucking bigger problems than whether or not where you're playing hockey. You know, the drugs and hookers, I'd fucking get that. Yeah.

[00:42:01] Like Florida has always been a tax free state. Right. It wasn't until Florida started winning that they became a destination. You know, back in 10 years earlier, nobody wanted to go fucking play for the Panthers. You know? And so. Yeah. Anyway, whatever. Winning is what does it. I need to go watch this draft because I have to be ready to. Dude, we pick yet? No, but Seedawg just said round two is just starting. So. All right. All right.

[00:42:29] Well, listen, guys, we're going to wrap it up a little bit, a little bit of a shorter show today. We kind of just wanted to talk about the draft and whatnot, but maybe we get it. We get it. We wanted to pick traded, too. We said that. But two things can be true at once. They made a good pick. We still have a ton of assets. We still time. Are you working today? No, no. So I can come back later if something happens. So if anything pops, we will definitely come back and talk about it. So, guys, thanks for hanging out with us. Hit the like and the alert bell on YouTube.

[00:42:59] And if you're listening to us in podcast form, a like, a five-star review, a positive comment does really help the little podcast that could. We're the Uncle Puckers, guys. Talk to you soon. See you when we see you. Thank you. Later.