Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks. Here's your source of
information and analysis to help you win your fantasy hockey league. Block off hot
a step hit on, staylock block. Here's your host, Jesse Souvier and
Victor Nunho is the Hockey Live back once again. Victor Nuno VP ring side
Jesse Severe paying tracked Victor. How you doing today? I'm doing awesome,
Jesse. I am decked out and my San Francisco forty nine Ers gear for
the first time this season. And there okay they yeah, yeah, it's
all right, Victory. You are suffering in other sports, you deserve success
in one of them. Even though I've always been a I've always been a
forty nine Ers dislike her. I will admit irrational disliker of the forty nine
ers because I grew up in an era where they were absolutely dom and they
kept destroying my teams. But that era is far past. It's probably time
to forgive and forget. And they have a fun team. Yeah, they're
a bunch of likable dudes too. I think I don't know that Montana,
Rice and Taylor and Craig and all those guys were unlikable. But man,
these guys are fun, especially Debo and the great story with the mister Irrelevant.
They're just like it seems a good story to root for even if you're
behavior so I think you can come around, Jesse. It's okay. I'll
give you permission. I yeah. I And as a native Ioland even though
Iowa State is my alma maters our trival. That's where brock Purty came from.
And I enjoy the fact that the last team that really absolutely destroyed Brock
Party were the iowahaw Gyes because pretty much since he's been a pro, he's
been unstoppable. But Iowa got him benched at halftime when they were playing Iowa
State. You know, I like that. The same thing happened to Ben
Roethlisberger. The last bad game Ben Roethlisberger played before he won a Super Bowl
was against the Hawkeyes. Nobody looked us up. This is the way I
remember things, and if I'm wrong, I don't want to know. But
Victor, that's okay. Our memories can be what they are, but our
current enjoyment of fantasy hockey should be what it is. Boy that was tortured,
there are places to come and hang out and talk about your fantasy hockey,
and they include our discord where you can join free. It's a free
discord and there's lots of good chatter going on at all times, and we
encourage more. We encourage people to come in and just talk some fantasy hockey.
It's a good environment. As other social media becomes less and less,
a good environment to interact with people that you maybe don't know. Our discord
remains an island of hope in a sea of troubles. All you have to
do to join is hit Victor myself up and of course we're going to ask
you to do it on next at fan Hockey Life is me at Victor New
twelve is Victor. But you can also just email us if that's not your
thing, Fantasy Hockeylife at gmail dot com Victor. There's not only a discord,
but you can kick it up next level and there's a couple of things
going on there. Once you tell people about the Patreon, Yeah, we
have a Patreon and if you're like the show, want some extra perks,
you can check it out. We have patroon casts. I've been doing these
with Breddy Shane and really having some new kind of content that's desired by the
patrons and flushing that out a little bit. We have our rankings, and
spoiler alert, we're hoping to have a really big update in the next month
or so, stay tuned for that. But we have those rankings. The
Tidy the Tier Dynasty, which you're gonna hear a lot about on this episode.
It's a really fun league with some cool settings and a bunch of really
dedicated managers. So if you like that sort of tiered concept, that's the
way to get in. And we have a couple of teams on the waiting
lists, so if you're interested, get on there, and you might even
be able to get a team this year. If not, you'll be first
in line for a new division we open next year. So lots of great
stuff support the show, get some extra perks. Patreon dot com, slash
Fantasy Hockey Life. Yeah, it's they are. What are the eighteen team
leagues, Victor the Tidy am I remembering that right, sixteen or eighteen something
like that. So there's ninety teams. There's eighty ninety teams across this thing,
so obviously you get that many people together, you're going to have a
couple of people who flake out and sixteen teams per so I think it's eighty
teams total across the divisions of tidy, so it's ninety six right now.
Oh it's ninety six. Yeah, we got six divisions, so ninety six
teams there's going to be. But the real miracle of it is how few
teams are having trouble and how many teams are competing. So it really is
a great opportunity to get in. And yeah, we're always looking for somebody
to be on standby to be able to take over. And it's dynasty,
so you can always rebuild. It's not like taking over a redraft team halfway
through the season, where what the heck's the point? Sometimes, Victor,
that's not all. The Patreon is one thing, but we also have something
exciting ready to pop because it is the month of December. What is it,
Victor, what's our most favorite time of year, and that, of
course is now the World Junior Championship, That's what we're talking about, which
happens right on Boxing Day, right after Christmas, and it's a really fun
time. All our favorite prospects generally except the ones that are killing it in
the NHL. Sorry to guys like Conna Burdard, Kevin Korchinski, Logan Cooley
won't be there because they're doing great. But we get to see all our
favorite prospects go best on best and it's a really fun tournament. A lot
of us follow it, and we're doing a World Junior pool just for fun
and bragging rights. We got a couple of previous champs that are gonna put
their weight and put their belt on the line. But if you want to
get in this just to hit it, go on the discord and there's a
World Junior channel. Our buddy Anthony that goes by Wolf Tiger, he's gonna
be helping organize this, and our buddy Dolan, who does amazing stuff with
spreadsheets, is going to help us organize that draft. So check that out.
I think right now we're almost full with three pools, but hey,
we'll open another one if there's enough interest. We just want to have people
a space to have some fun. I think we altered the format a little
bit because there was a little bit of last year. There was it was
a little frustrating with some of the format, but we had I think two
D and I think we're going to go one d now and six fours.
I can't remember exactly, but it'll be in there. Come check it out
and be be part of the fun. Yeah, if you don't know,
because I think Victor this is exciting to me. I think we are getting
listeners who are stepping in and just learning this prospect stuff for the first time.
I know that in the for sport that we started, there's some people
who are listening to this who don't have a lot of hockey experience. If
you don't know what the World Juniors is, it's March madness for Canadians,
folks. Basically, the then diagram of people who don't I don't know what
the World Juniors is overlaps with the Venn diagram of people that don't know what
boxing day is. That's what it's a double negative. It makes more sense
if you say it the positive, but it's not as funny. Yeah,
you should tune into it because it would give you a little extra juice,
a little extra excitement, and it's free. It's just fun to follow this
event and see what is up in the World Juniors because it's nice to have
some more sports to watch over your little holiday. Break that you get at
the end of the year, and most of you. I don't have to
convince to watch the World Juniors because everybody knows it's a lot of fun.
But Victor, that's enough introductory fund. Let's take a break to come back,
and we have one to talk as per is our want this year,
Victor, we have the format where we're talking about the x gamers and we're
going over some of the cool analysis that you've been doing at ep rnks side
behind the paywall, mind you, but for or all of those who maybe
don't see it or who do see it, want to hear you expound on
it, want to hear us discuss it. We're gonna talk about some of
the guys you've covered recently at ep rinkside. We do X gamers, and
x gamers basically means guys who have hit a certain number of games in the
NHL, but we're trying to decide how good are they going to become,
what do we make of the early returns, and where do we see things
going today. We have three of those and then I think we have a
little prospect talk. So his ex is zero exequel zero. For the fourth
guy, we're going to talk about and nonetheless we're starting Victor. I'm excited
about this with Connor Zeri. Connor, I never lost faith in you,
buddy. He's a left wing for the Calgary Flames. He's up there playing
right now. My twenty twenty two to twenty three Calgary hot take in episode
two twenty six was that Connor Zera would play forty games in the Calgary top
six. And I was a year late or a year early. I love
Connors. He was my number nine prospect, earn my number fourteen prospect in
the first year player draft back in episode seventies. So I've long been a
Connor's area fan. I've got him in multiple leagues, but it's been a
long wait for him to come up, and I'm so excited that he is
finally making an impact in the national hockey. I'm just saying, I've had
two decent prospect takes in the history of the show. I can't even remember
the other. So I'm just gonna I'm just gonna bask him this one.
Connor, thank you or making me look not dumb for once. Yeah,
the shooting percentage is running a little hot this year for Connor and it's cool
down in the last few games as he is. The early returns of the
season are backing off a little bit, and he slowed down. I need
to watch the Calgary game yesterday. He didn't score, but he's out there
for plenty of time. But I ran One of my favorite charts that I've
been running this year is the evolving Hockey Goals of a replacement chart. Four
teams to see who is putting up the best sort of underlying stat's value for
the team. And guess what. Connor Ziri comes out net number one for
the Calgary Flames the entire roster in terms of his goals above replacement when you
add even strength offense, even strength defense, power playoffense, shorthanded D and
take away and draw stats. If you don't believe me, if you're a
patron, you can go look at the chart on the show sheet. But
yeah, yeah, I'm not saying he's the best player in the Calgary Flames.
It's not there. But it's great to see that it's not just the
optical illusion of the cool prospect that we're paying attention to, but he's actually
contributing a lot to what he did. Pops, I said number one on
the team. That's right, Victor your witness. Yeah, You've had some
good takes for sure, but it is nice to be proven, right.
I still think you probably your stand on Dolling Hill is what you'll be most
remembered for. But this is a good one. And I've been early on
many of my takes too. It's frustrating. You're like, I was totally
right, but too early. And yeah, Zari is a really interesting player
because when he was coming up, he had some pretty good equivalencies and he
looked pretty good and the dub he was playing for Kamloops and he was a
scorer. He was one of these junior players who looked really good, but
he could just skate in and score or take the pass in one time it.
He was really effective at that. But it was a very junior level
skill set. And that is always a bit concerning because you're like, he
looks great, and you go watch him these junior games and you're like,
he's amazing, and then you start to wonder. You start to see as
he moves up in levels that maybe that isn't going to translate as well.
But Zari is one of these exceptions who basically learned and I'm not exactly sure
who told him or what the feedback was, or he figured it out on
his own, but he basically realized that he needed to become more of a
playmaker and he needed to evolve his skill set. And it's no more evident
in this than when you look at Brown's data. And I talked with Mitch
about this, and there's a great quote in the article about about this from
Mitch, who's just such a smart dude, but he talks about and in
the data it completely flips for ZERI in terms of his expected goals and expected
primary assists. He basically turned into from a goal scorer to a playmaker,
and it's like incredible that you can do that and be elite. He's almost
a better playmaker now in terms of some of the data set that you look
at. Then he was a goal scorer. So it's I don't know,
how can you be fantastic at one thing to get yourself drafted and then completely
flip the switch and turn into a different, more complete type of player in
other areas. That's just that's an incredible feat. I would say he is
looking great. He hit a wall a little bit in his first AHL season,
but then he also turned that around and ended up increasing his equivalency.
When you look at Mitt Mason Black's PNHL E model, it looked really good
in the DUB and then it really tanked in the AHL. But now he's
looking like a superstar potential based on his what he's doing in the NHL right
now. I like his comps to guys like Dawson Mercer and Asam Kadri.
I think he could end up being similarly productive. But I think the other
thing that's really interesting and important about Zeri is that he's not just an offensive
player, like he's actually really good defensively. His defensive metrics are some of
the best. You mentioned that a little bit, but his expected goals against
for sixty is really high, and his expected goal differential, even in his
small sample set in the NHL, is really good. So that just means
he's probably going to get more timeline ice, more opportunity, and yeah,
I think this Skuy's the limit. And one thing to think about in a
situation like this is do you sell high on a player like this because he's
probably overperforming. I think even as much as we like him and believe in
him. He's not going to shoot twenty three percent for his career. I
don't think. I don't know that anyone ever has done that, So that's
coming down. His PDO is high. His IPP is like an elite offensive
player. Guys like Crosby McKinnon can rock IPPs seventy plus for their whole career.
I don't know that he's that player, so some of these might come
down a little bit. But I still think a lot of what he's doing
is for real, So I would caution on the cell high unless you're getting
like a for sure point per game type player, even if they're older.
That's an interesting swap. Would you swap Sidney Crosby for Connor's area If you're
in a championship mode and you're only looking at the next couple of seasons,
that might be worth it. I wouldn't trade him for a sixty five point
player or seventy point player because I think Zary can be that long term.
So yeah, that's he's really fun though, Jesse, I don't know what
do you think about that kind of swap? Would you cash him in for
anything less than a point per game play right now? Just because he's rocking
high percentages. Probably not unless I had geez, it's so hard because I
would say if I had a win now team, there might be some value
to doing it. But the things that he's helping you win now, Yeah,
it really is. If you think that there's a little optical allusion to
this, or you can find a Flames fan who is just so excited about
this finally happening for them, then maybe you can find the value for it,
because you could probably find value for anybody. But right now, no,
I'm just excited about the Connor Zery shares that I have. So we're
gonna We're gonna hang on here, Victor. We are back to getting the
Mason Black holes for these guys, which is exciting, like we did in
the preseason, and maybe you voted on them out there, Connor Zery versus
Ridley Greg of the Ottawa Senators, So we're matching guys who have had a
little bit of time in the NHL now and Mason Black ran the poll,
Connor Zery out ahead really Greg fifty basically fifty six to forty four percent on
one hundred and fifty six votes. Is that that is the way that I
think I would go because I'm not quite sure that Rially Greeg is on the
level of what we're seeing right now from Connor Ziri. But is that what
you would do too, Yeah, definitely. And we talked about Greg on
the episode with David Saint Louis about how he's a guy that's made it at
every level, even though so there was some skepticism, and I think he's
a decent asset and he's obviously he's looking like at a n hlor But one
of the things that David pointed out, which is happening right now, is
that he's happened already. He's often injured because of his play style, and
so I would always be a little worried about investing in someone like really grig
just because it seems like the kind of guy that you're going to miss large
swaths of time to minor little injuries. It may not be major, but
just being banged up, just missing five, ten, fifteen, twenty games
at a time here and there is annoying when you're trying to rely on someone.
On the other hand, if you just go based on points per game
and just him in and stream somebody that that's probably fine. But the reality
is that I think that counnors Aera is a much better well. I think
is a much better real life player. But I also think he's probably a
better fantasy asset because he is going to demand more power play time. I
believe based on his shot and his playmaking skills, he's maybe not as rough
and tumble as Zeri. As Zeri's a little more of a finesse player.
He has only six hits in seventeen games, so he does that a little
bit, but nothing like the eighteen hits in twelve games that Greg has.
Definitely more bash for Greg, but I definitely think that Arry is a better
player. I'm surprised it's this close. Maybe that's just because Greg has been
around a little bit longer and maybe people aren't quite believing so much in what
Zeri is doing. But if you just look at his PNHLI, it's also
a lot higher. So I also wonder if people just look at what Mason
puts for the PNHLI and then just pick that player, because in this case,
series is higher. But I think that's also legitimate based on his as
well. Yeah, for sure. Moving on our next guy to talk about
today, Mason mc tavish. You wrote about the Anaheim centerman over there at
DP rings side, and he's burning it up in year two, hasn't yet
hit his twenty first birthday, and yet scoring nearly a point per game.
For those frisky Anaheim Ducks, scoring has slowed down a little bit, and
then he went out with an upper body injury. But over his career,
yeah, he's point per game this year, first one hundred and thirteen games
in the NHL, he's got a forty nine point per eighty two game pace,
so he's got more points than that. But he's basically on track as
a fifteen point player already as a twenty year old over at the court.
And if you look at the Anaheim goals above replacement, what it looks like
is that his defense is not quite there yet, but his offense is already
producing at a decent level. But he's not alone. Trevor Segres is even
worse on defense according to some of these advanced statistic all forwards after the three
years of Mason mctavish's career. But I got to say, Victor Mason McTavish
is somebody. He came out with the excitement of his play talk about the
World Juniors we talked about earlier, and the amazing play that he made at
the World Juniors last year, and just the talent that we've seen flashed at
this age. Fact that Anaheim is still going to need a top six center
to go along with Leo Carlson, it looks like Trevor Zegers's destined for a
wing position. I got to think that there's a point per game season in
his future somewhere. That's maybe the kind of trajectory that it feels like Mason
mctaviash might be on. Are you a McTavish stand still after a little bit
of a slow started his career, But geez, give him a break.
The guy's been playing at eighteen and nineteen and twenty, Victor Or is Mason
McTavish a name that is not necessarily going to rate out the way it started.
I think some people would push back on your claim that I'm a McTavish
stand because I seem to have him a little lower. I've had him a
little lower in some of my rankings. One of them he's passed one hundred
game thresholds. I usually I cut people off at that point and he's not
on my ranks anymore, but I had him quite a bit lower. And
I think one of the things that's true about that, or that's difficult about
that, is that he had such a weird development curve, and it was
because it was not necessarily his fault. He was in the affected by COVID.
He was in the OHL. So he had his draft minus one season
and it was really good, and then he basically they didn't play in his
draft season. So he went to second division Switzerland once once they finally realized
and if you remember, if everyone remembers back to that time, but a
lot of people thought the Ohl was going to play. They were going to
play, they were going to play, they were gonna have a short season,
and then finally they didn't, and all these players needed to find somewhere
to play, so it was challenging. There weren't enough spots, so he
found what he could find and he played thirteen games and had eleven points.
But it was the league that we didn't really have a lot of equivalency,
and more importantly, not a lot of scouts were there to have eyes on
this second division Swiss team, so no one really knew. And then he
had an incredible under eighteen World Junior, so it was just who knows,
right, like, what's happening? And then his Draft plus one season,
he spent some time with the Ducks, he spent some time with the goals.
He then he went back to Peterborough, and then he got traded to
Hamilton, and then he played at the World Juniors, and he played at
the Olympic Games. He played a lot of hockey, but it was like
fragmented in all these different places, so it was still hard to know exactly
what to expect. He looks incredible playing against his age group peer you mentioned
and the iconic World Junior. Although I have a clip about that in my
article, and if you look at that Kip clip closely, what happened before
that? He saved the goal on the goal line, He made three horrific
mistakes that could have ended the game. And then no one's going to remember
that ever except that I put it in my video. But no one cares
about that because he saved the game and then Canada won. But it could
have gone very differently from mcavis. His what we remember him by and his
lore could have been the guy who gave the puck up and cost Canada the
gold medal. That could be what we remember him for. And there were
three chances for that to happen and he and it didn't. So anyways,
it's just interesting. But then last season was his first full like in the
a NHL the whole time, and it was weird. It wasn't necessarily the
best. Anaheim is going through some things, but had a forty four point
pace in eighty games. And I think what's really interesting about all this is
that, yeah, he's known as this or he has this, the idea
of being like a good two way player. And in his first season,
his first full season, last season in the NHL, he was middle of
the pack in terms of his course he against. But it seems like this
season, whether they've asked him to or he has tried to be more of
an offensive player, he has done that and he has almost point per game,
seventy two point pace. It looks like he's going to be close to
point per game player. But he is literally the worst to forward on the
Anaheim Ducks. His cours he against is horrible, It's epically bad. He's
three times as bad as Frank Vitrono who's having a fantastic offensive scene it,
but he's the next worst, and it's really epically bad. I don't really
believe that he's this bad. I think that he's probably cheating for offense or
trying to be more of that score, trying to give the team what they
need. It's difficult in situations like this. Right the team is struggling,
you try to help them score, and then you give up a little bit
defensively. I'm sure he can play better defensively. We've seen it, but
also we've seen I've seen another people have seen when he tries a little too
hard. Sometimes he makes some big blunders and right now it's okay. But
on a competitive Ducks team, which I think is not too far away,
he can't be doing that stuff and he's got to really learn how to figure
it out. So it's an interesting case. I still feel like we don't
really know what to expect from McTavish because we haven't had a consistent enough sample
size at this point. He is playing in one league consistently since the beginning
of last season, and that's good, so we can see, but we're
still only one hundred and thirteen games into that experiment, so we don't really
know, but I do think this is a player who has all the talent
and can certainly be that point per game plus player, and I wouldn't be
trading him, but I do think that he needs to he needs to figure
out what his role is. I don't think he's going to be the top
line center earlier Carlson, so he's probably a two C. He's probably a
two C that's on the top power play though, because I think he has
to be there, Like not all second line centers are. Sometimes it's the
top line center and then winger or something. But him being on that top
power play long term is going to be the difference between him being a sixty
five point guy and a point per game player. And I think the Ducks
will put him there because he has the shot, he has the tenacity to
recover pucks, like, there are really good reasons to have him there.
But if he somehow didn't make it on that top power play long term,
then that would be really bad for him. So a lot of this kind
of bakes in what the long term projection is him being by carl behind Carlson
long term. Zegrets probably being his winger, or maybe Carlson's winger is tough
to say, or maybe they load up and it's Carlson McTavish secrets. That's
possible too. A lot of still unknowns, but no, I think that
he's cooking a little hot right now, as I think most people would agree
with to some extent. But he still is really good, and once he
can round out his defensive game and be a little bit more consistent and the
Ducks are a little bit better, I think not the sky's the limit,
but I think he certainly should be in that point per game plus conversation perennially
and Mason Black, just to prove that he's Mason Black, just to prove
that he's out here to tweak you. Victor has put Mason McTavish up against
a guy who I know you're a stan of or have been at least quintin
Buyfield, the guy who you know definitely is finally showing out what he can
do at the NHL level. And part of it is they by all accounts
that he's been allowed to play not the centiment role, and it's been freeing
him up to do some things. So he's up against Mason McTavish in this
competition. But it looks like he's getting disrespected Victor, because Mason mctaviash by
almost a two to one margin, sixty six or thirty four is out ahead
of Quintin Buyfield in this much voted upon result. The disrespect for mains Victor
or mister Buyfield. Do you disagree with this result and stick with your guy?
Of course I'm going to take Buyfield. I'm a Byfield Stan till the
day I die. Darn. I love that guy. And it was really
funny. I was arguing with someone on Twitter about how good he is and
how making a joke like how could we have known he's going to be this
good? And the King still took him second overall and I'm like, yeah,
but the Rangers didn't. And that pisses me off still because he should
have been the top player taken in that draft. I said it then,
I stand by it now. I still think he's a better player than la
Fernire's a better He's a more impactful player to the team. But yeah,
it is interesting. He's one hundred and twenty three games into his NHL career
and sicky similar compared to compared to where mccavish is at one hundred and thirteen.
Similar that way, but he was drafted a year earlier. McTavish made
it a little bit sooner. And remember the Byfield was really young, so
basically he could be They're only a few months apart. They could have been
drafted in the same year. But anyways, it is an interesting comparison.
It also is interesting because McTavish might follow Byfield's path in terms of sliding over
the wing at some point, and that has been something we saw in La
with the strength down the middle, And as soon as they acquired Dubois,
knew Buyfield wasn't going to be a center, at least not anytime soon,
because there's no reason to play him on the fourth line. He's got three
great centers in Copauitar, Denot and Dubois, and so he's gonna be a
winger. And as much as that sounds easy and centers can play wing,
it isn't always easy for guys who are used to playing down the middle and
are used to being involved in all the action to all of a sudden be
out on the periphery. It isn't as easy as it sounds. Some players
struggle with that because they just they want to have all the puck touches,
they want to take the face offs, they want to be involved. I
don't know if their analogies to other sports, but I know that in baseball,
like catchers, pitchers are involved in every play and then you're sitting down
on right field and sometimes you fall asleep, So maybe that's maybe that's something
similar. But I know that the wingers can sometimes check out a little bit,
but he hasn't. Byfield has been fantastic, and yes, the streak
is going right now as we speak, twenty one points in twenty four games.
And what's more important to me is Buyfield has looked like the guy that
we thought he could be. In the last game, he like skated down
on a really good defender I think it was Kaden Gooli, and he just
dipped his shoulder and just went around him, just used his body, his
physicality protected the puck tapping goal. It was like, Yes, this is
the guy that we thought he could be at the NHL level, and he's
got the big frame, he's got the soft hands. I just think that
the upside is still higher with Buyfield. Although I think you'd be happy with
either of these guys, so there isn't really too much difference, but I
do think the I do think that Quentin Buyfield at the very top, can
still be a ninety plus point player, and I'm not sure how much higher
mccavish's ceiling is then point per game. I think he's probably in that seventy
five to eighty five point range. If everything goes right, I'm sure he
might be able to spike up more. So I think we're probably splitting hairs
here in terms of the difference. I'm a little surprised that the poll is
so lopsided toward mc tavish, but I also think that was before Buyfield really
came on. This poll was actually from a couple of weeks ago when I
first wrote this article, and I would write a Byfield article, but there's
already been a bunch written about him on EP. So go check out all
the great work from my colleagues, including a great videos. I think it
was by dem who did that, and Dimitri Philipovic did a really great kind
of essay narrative essay and with tweets and video, So check that out because
it's really fun watching watching all that First of all, I'm shook that you
made a baseball analogy. We're spreading out Victor's interests, and I almost couldn't
get back to listening to the take Victor because I was thriving on that so
much. But a centerment, as to state the obvious for you fantasy players
out there, centermen more valuable in real life, a winger more valuable in
fantasy. So that's another that's another way to choco up one or mister Byfield
mixed up. Morgan Frost, our third of these X gamers today, Philadelphia
winger, and you wrote about him. He's not quite having the age twenty
four season that I, at least I had hoped for after that age twenty
three season where it looked like he was really breaking out. I'm contractually obligated
every time something changes for the words for a Flyers player to decide whether to
blame it on John Tortorella, because that's what we all do. But I
don't know if that's necessarily fair. Although I don't know that he's necessarily getting
all the love there right now, or he's necessarily out of the doghouse his
I pulled his career impacts charts, and it is not necessarily trending up.
The power play is looking down, although his defense seems to be looking up
a little bit and his deployment is not terrible for what it has been in
the past. But I don't know. I'm a little less optimist stick about
Frost than I was this time last year. And he's twenty four, so
he's starting to hit the end of the funnel and we start to wonder what
he is ultimately going to become. Now as far as the surface stats of
what he's getting this year, I should say, six points in seventeen games.
That is not at the forty six points that he got last year in
eighty one. So that's where I'm coming from there. Victor is Morgan Frost
a guy who is still going to have an impact? What do you think
of this guy? He is an interesting case and that's why I wanted to
write about him. And at the time, I decided he was getting healthy
scratched and he was. Yeah, he seemed like he was completely in Tortorella's
doghouse, which was really frustrating because if you looked at his underlying numbers,
they really weren't that bad. Some of his defensive metrics were actually pretty decent.
I think he'd suffered from that thing that he would maybe make some obvious
mistake and it was so visible, or maybe it was like I want to
make an example, or I don't know, I'm not on the bench,
but it seemed like there were some specific things that he were doing. It
was doing that was really pissing Tortorella off, and that was causing him to
get healthy scrash, unlimited his ice time. But when he's out there,
he was really impactful. And he's a really interesting prospect too, because he
had some really high equivalent since in the O. I think one of the
biggest things that has maintained though with him is that he never was like the
most aggressive or physical player. He's always been more of a finesse player.
And I think that is something to think about as scout and you look at
these players, is that if they're I don't want to use the word soft,
because that's a four letter word for hockey players, right, you don't
ever want to be called soft. But his game lacks a little urgency and
aggressiveness at times, but man, he is so creative and he anticipates the
play he knows where players are, and you're seeing this in the NHL.
It's not like he was only doing that in junior. He I have some
tweets in the article where he no looka is. He kind of spins and
turns, knows exactly where his teammates are for tapping goals like that kind of
offense. You can't teach that. That's been innate skill. You have to
have that to some extent, and he does and he's shown it. And
maybe some of the lack of effort or intensity defensively has limited his deployment,
but if you look at the underlying data, it really doesn't track as bad
as it has seemed in terms of his deployment and opportunities, So that's been
frustrating. I do still think that one of the things I posited in the
article is could Morgan Frost be the top line center that the Flyers want or
have been looking for long term? Because Sean Couturier is amazing, but I
don't know how much longer he's gonna play based on his back injury. And
he seems he's doing great right now and I hope he plays forever, but
he has had long stints where he's been out and so it's possible that he
doesn't maintain and then who else so they have down the middle in the pipeline.
The only other guy they really have is Cutter Gotier, and he's potentially
a winger. They want him to be a center, but he might not
be. Even in college this year. As good as he's been, he's
played some wings, so maybe it is Frost. And if it's Frost,
and if he gets paired with some really good play driving wingers, then that
could be amazing for him, right. And he has played some with Konnectney
who helps helps him drive that play and he's been really good. And Tyson
Forrester, has been playing with him a lot too. He's been moving around
a little bit sometime with Tippett and Atkinson. But I think that's the thing
with Frost is that he's never going to be the best two way guy,
so you might need to pair him with a good play driving winger. He
reminds me a little bit of Shifely Mark Schifley, not in the sense that
Shifley is more of a goal scorer, but in the sense that he's a
week one see like he's more offensive and he isn't always the most impactful two
ways, but he's really good offensively, and especially with a couple with a
great winger or two, he could have an unstoppable line or have a really
amazing line with some great productions. So I think that's still possible for Frost.
I'm not sure that's the most likely outcome. He might just end up
being a middle six center that's decent, But I think he's making his case
to stay in the NHL, which looks very questionable at times, and people
were saying, like, just trade him so he could get more opportunity elsewhere.
But I think the Flyers would really regret that if they traded Morgan Frost,
because I do think he still has a lot of upside left in his
game, and maybe everything that Torrella is doing is really going to knock some
sense into him and he'll be a great two way player. I guess that's
so possible too, because most of that really just comes down to effort,
and I'm not saying that he's not giving the effort, but maybe it's not
in the right way, or maybe he needs to learn how to do it
better. And as much as people may dislike Tortorella. He does get the
most out of his players. Just look at what Philly's doing right now.
They were doing way better than everyone thoughts. Yeah, it's an interesting case
with Morgan Frost. I think a lot of people had written him off,
and that's why I wanted to write about him, because I think that he
is taking a little bit more flat than he probably deserves. Yeah, for
sure, the competition he is getting here is Philip Thomasino and the Mason black
Pole, and it's a tale of two guys who were mildly disappointing this year.
Philip Thomasino is a guy who I don't know. He feels quad aish
to me because he's done really well when he's in Milwaukee, and last year
he made a little bit of a run in the NHL. But this year
his time and ice is down nine points in twenty games, twelve to fifty
average time and ice, So he's not necessarily getting everything you'd hope for at
eight. But he he is a couple years younger. He's only twenty two
compared to Frost being at his age twenty four season. But the Mason black
Pole would say that people like him better than Morgan Frost because Philip Thomas won
that poll fifty six point six to forty three point four. Victor, Is
Frost or Thomas your pick of this duo? Yeah, that's a good one.
I think if you're talking about the best high end outcome, I think
it's Frost. But is that outcome likely? I think it's less likely but
more tantalizing. Like I said, if he could be Matt Fey, Mitchgoff's
centerman, or be on a power play with Mitchkoff, and I mean,
he is the kind of guy who can feed no look, passes perfect for
those one timers, and I know Mitchkoff can finish, so man, that
would be awesome if he could do that. How likely is that? It's
really hard to say. Maybe they draft a kid, or maybe someone develops.
Maybe they trade for someone who ends up being that guy, and then
Frost is just left to the wayside, and that's, you know, seems
equally as likely. But I think I would go Frost just for the upside
here. I really like Tomasino and I think that he is still someone who
can figure it out, but he's trending more to be just more of a
middle six kind of guy, and I don't think that he has that same
upside to be to be a top line center even a week one. See.
I think that Tomosino is more a transition player, and I think he's
someone who can be more of this two way guy. But I'm not sure
he's the finisher and I'm not sure that he's as good as a playmaker.
So I would take Frost, but I think it's it's open for a low
percentage outcome. Yep. And the last year we're not really even talking X
gamers. We're going onto an article you wrote on a true prospect, Luca
Cagnoni, and he's a San Jose Shark d Man fourth Brown pick. This
is an exciting amateur who's really blown up this year, made a big jump
from his draft capital to his present performance. Thirty two points in his first
twenty five games this year, and once again heiti ism is the knock on
him. He's still only eighteen, but he's a small fella. And Victor,
I've been reading in the WHL agreement it says you have to be twenty
years old or have four years in the WHL to go to the EHL.
We're always worried about whether guys are going to get trapped in the CHL or
one league longer than you would want. But this is a s fourth year
in Portland. I kind of wonder does that mean that after he plays out
this year, that he would be free, even as a nineteen year old,
to go to the AHL. That would sure be nice, at least
in my mind, to let him have that next level of competition to make
the climb. Anyway, fourth round pick, that's not where you or a
lot of the draft analysts had him. You had him much higher, but
he did slip to that point. What's exciting you about this guy, Victor,
other than the fact that there is hope for somebody coming up for your
San Jose blue line. Yeah, Kegnoi is really an interesting case. And
I talk about this a little bit in the article. He walked on to
the Portland or walked onto the WHL. He wasn't even drafted, and that's
really incredible. And then he basically earned a job, as you were saying,
you know, he walked on, played and the winner Hawks gave him
a tryout, and then they signed him after that and he basically in one
season in his draft minus one season, went from a walk on to basically
a top pairing D or at least the top four D, and then in
his draft season basically became the guy, the man, which is amazing,
especially considering he's a little undersized, and he's even undersized for the WHL and
he's five foot nine. He I don't think he. I think he can
play one more year in the DUB because that first ten game sample, I'm
not sure that counts. So I think he has one more year of eligibility.
I'm not sure on that. I know that they have to be twenty
by December fifteenth to play in the HL, so I don't think he's gonna
be able to do that next year. But anyways, it is an interesting
case and he man. He is really good at a lot of things,
stick manipulation, he's really good offensive creativity. Defensively is going to be the
issue for him because he is small at five nine five to ten depending on
what you believe, and he's a little thin, but he skates really well.
He can be relatively physical at times when he gets against bigger players.
It's still a bit of an issue for him, and that's going to be
the issue can he be good enough defensively to carve out a role. One
of the really interesting things is that in Mason Black's data set, he has
a really strong similarity score to Kialan Addison Kaylan Addison, who is now the
San Jose Shark and who struggled mightily to break into the NHL, I think
is fair to say, and the reason he struggled is because he's a bit
undersized and he's not the most physical, but he's a really good offensive defenceman.
And how well did that offense translate? He basically was like a third
pairing sometimes top power play, sometimes second power play in Minnesota. And that's
why they ended up giving up on him, because he just wasn't doing enough
at all strengths and all the time. And that is a worry that Kegnone
could be that guy. But hey, for a fourth round pick, you
will take the killing Addison outcome any day. It's a little harder to stomach
as a second round pick, which is what Adison was. But if you
look at the trajectory on Mason Black's pinchily, it's like a straight line straight
up, and that isn't very often in these things. There's another Chase McCollum,
who we just had on the show. He looks at some of these
equivalencies too, and basically Luka Cagnoni's equivalency looks like a superstar. He's breaking
the curve. He hasn't broken out into the outcomes of bottom pair, top
four, top pair, and his equivalency is like way above top pair right
now. So things are coming up roses for him right now. His equivalencies
have doubled in the Hockey Prospecting model. In Mitch's data set, he's like
breaking the primary sist per sixty. And there's some good quotes in here that
I have from Mitch and from our buddy Joel Henderson, who always is really
insightful and has really good things to say about him. And I talked a
lot about Kegnoni, and there's some things that still need to be worked out
for sure, like he's not all the way there, and he actually has
taken a step back. I would say, even though his production looks better
this year, there's some defensive things that have some habits that have worsened.
It's a work in progress, but I think you have to be excited about
the progress. And I have to also put in. I didn't put this
in the article, but when I went to the rookie camp scrimmages at the
Barracuda Arena, one that when the prospects all came after the draft, Luca
Cognoni was definitely one of the best players there. I think Quinn Musty was
probably the best. Will Smith was a little disappointing, and Luca Cognoni was
like, who is this guy? Because he looked like one of the best
players out there, and he was definitely one of the smallest. And there
were a couple instances with some bigger forwards that some of them went okay and
some of them went pretty poorly as you might expect. So he has some
work to do. But just the way that he would manipulate the other players
and find the open space was impressive against some of these prospects that are much
bigger and older. So I think there's obviously you want to get him if
you can. I wouldn't go crazy trying to acquire him, because there's still
some question marks there. But if he doesn't cost you much, then especially
if he's free in a shallowish league, pick him up. See what happens.
It could be a bit of a weight still, but I think you're
gonna I think there's a really good chance that Luca Cognoni is the Sharks power
play quarterback in a few years. And even if it's just what's happened with
Addison, I think that there's still a good chance. The other I should
mention the other. The other comps in Mason Black's model are Adam Glendenning,
which would be very not exciting. But Zak Warensky is the other, which
seems as similarly as likely to killing Addison. So obviously, if he's more
of a zak Warnsky type, then hey, that'd be fantastic. Yeah,
very good, Very good, Victor. And there was a poll here as
well. Hunter Bruce to Witch versus Cagnoni, and Bruster to Witch crushed him
the Vancouver Canuck Prospect seventy one to twenty nine. Boom, you said,
this is a guy who is shooting his way up the prospect ratings. Hunter
over here, what do you think of that? Hunter Brustovitch is having a
nearly historic season in the OHL and there's a lot of noise about him recently
because the Americans will left him off the World Junior invite list, but I
think there's a good reason for that because they have other guys like Lanne Hudson
and Seamus Casey and Zee Bulliam who's absolutely just throwing the NCAA right now.
Zee William has more points than maclin Celabrini right now as a defenseman, so
he looks pretty good, if not better, And he's also five inches taller
than Brucetevitch, so anyways, but he's doing great. Regardless of that,
I think that he is going to be He's a Canucks prospect, so I
feel like I don't know, I must follow a few too many people on
Twitter for the Canucks because I feel like that's all I see is Brucevich lights
and different discussions about him. But there's no doubt that he is incredible.
But like Cagnoni, his game does need to be rounded out a little bit.
It's not all the way there. But he was also a third round
pick. So both of these guys later picks who look fantastic later picks because
they're a little bit smaller, they they are more offensive, but I think
they could round out the rest of their game and be really impactful in terms
of for who I would want between the two. I think it would definitely
be Brustevitch, partly because he is a little bit taller. I mean he's
three two to three inches taller, depending on who you believe, than Cagnoni.
He's a little bit thicker too. He does throw his weight around a
little bit more, and I think that his game is a little further along
in terms of two way than Cagnoni. But the thing that you have to
worry about with Brustevitch is that if he unless he gets traded, there's no
way he's taking the power play job from Quinn Hughes. And so there's a
bit of a roadblock there. I don't like, I don't usally like to
think that far in advance, but it is something to consider. And Cognoni,
who's going to be the Starks power play in four or five years unless
they draft, they might it might be whoever they draft this year, because
they'll probably get a high pick and they could end up picking William or they
could end up picking whoever love shooto off, so that there's gonna be a
good option for them this year, and that might be the answer. But
it also seems equally likely that Keagnoni maybe have a little bit step ahead and
get that. But both of these guys are guys that you should know about.
If I had to pick, it would be Brustovitch, tremendous Victor.
That's all we got today for the X gamers. We'll take a break and
come right back time for another edition of Tidy Takes, And of course to
do that, we have to bring in our tidy Admiral Ryan Downey. How
are you doing, Duran, I'm great, Victor. Thanks so much for
having me back. I guess I've holding up my end of the bargain here
because I keep getting invited back. Thanks for having me, yeah, I
would say, and equivocally you have. It's nice, Thanks so much,
And we have some interesting things to talk about. We got some trades and
some of the things. But the first thing I wanted to mention is just
some overall tidy structure and organization that I think is interesting that may relate to
everybody. And of course we have some great visualizations on the website. If
you go to Fantasyhockeylife dot com and look at tidy I believe that page is
not restricted to everyone, so I believe everyone can look at that Some of
the other visas that Brandon has put together and scouting reports are locked. But
I think you should be a look at the tidy structure and you can see
the different tiers. You can see the fast track, you can see the
different way that everything is organized. And one of the fun things that we're
doing this year because we started with basically for divisions and they're all similar,
so we needed to move to to Division two and two to Division three so
that the middle divisions are basically playing against each other to be able to be
Tier two next year, and the top two will be Tier two and the
bottom two will be Tier three. So it creates this fun different competition because
of course they they're still your competition because you want to do well, but
at the same time you're also all on the same team because you have to
try to get your You'd rather be obviously in Division two because you're closer to
Lord Stanley, so that makes it kind of difficult. So and in particular
in my division, the Gretzky Division, which we are currently second to last
in total points, which is super not fun. But the guy who's in
first, the Pleasant Crafts and he's been killing it in our division and it's
nobody can catch him, and it's super frustrating. But then on the other
hand, I'm like, yes, go get us all the points. And
then we're always checking each other as rosters, like you don't want rosters to
go illegal because you're your whole division is playing for the most points. So
you get this nice camaraderie that it's fun, but also some competition, and
I'm sure that's true in some of the other divisions. Have you noticed any
of that, Ryan, Yeah, I've definitely noticed it. I think it
took a little bit of time for people to wrap their heads around the concept
of, Okay, we are competing against each other, but also we're all
pulling on the same rope here. There's some of us also maybe familiar with
the Kakupful, which is also undergoing a bit of a shake up when it
comes to the promotion and relegation, a flattening of the pyramid as it were,
with these tiered leagues. It's important that kind of everyone knows where they
stand and what is going to happen at the end of the season. And
the first thing I have to say is, congrats to you and Jesse for
coming up with this and I know that we have a wider team of Tidy
consultants and board of governors and all that, and everyone has consulted on this
and come up with this as the best option. But these kind of things
are hard to figure out, and it's hard for me even to get my
head wrapped around it. But I got to say these visuals from Brandon have
really helped me pull it together. I'm really appreciating the ability to look at
and just some people know it's Fantasy Hockeylife dot Com slash Tidy. You can
check that out. And it's these kinds of value adds that make leagues like
the Tidy such rewarding league to play in. I must admit I'm a little
relieved as a Lord Stanley manager to see that we're leading the pack in points
four. That's a good check for all of us who made it to the
top division last year. And although Edward and I and the BFFs have had
some bad luck to start the season, it's helpful for us to know where
we stack up in the wider Tidy membership, which last I checked, we're
twelve, not bad for a team in the top division. But as you
said, Craft Sir, is just crushing it. Hopefully we can catch up
to a m the promotion relegate. Oh sorry, go ahead, Victor.
Yeah, I was just going to say, it's not even really that close.
Stanley is killin. Actually Lemieux has closed the gap a little bit,
but there's still two thousand total points behind it, and when you're looking at
the total division, it's quite a lot. So their gap is the gap
of Stanley where they're ahead of Lemieux is actually pretty significant, and more so
than most of the other in any of the gaps that you see, it's
a little bit less than Lemieux is ahead of the last division. The last
division Yagur has had some illegal rosters and that's been really frustrating for everybody and
we're trying to work on that. But yeah, just you mentioned it,
and I just wanted to highlight it again. The other thing that Brandon has
on here is you can see how you stack up against everybody else in your
division overall, and that really helps to It also points out sometimes you may
have a sense of this, oh my team's good, but it's gotten unlucky.
It can show like where you sit both standing wise and points wise,
so you can see if my points are high, but my standings are low,
then that tells me that obviously I've gotten a little bit unlucky and things
should write. So it's a really nice way to easily visualize like where I
am, where I should be. Can I show I go for it?
Should I push my chips in? Should I maybe a retool? Those kinds
of things. I feel like these visualizations can really help, and you absolutely
kudos to Brandon. And as a commissioner of six leagues simultaneously, which actually
is a lot easier than it sounds, but still somewhat challenging, I'm finding
it very helpful to have league members holding each other accountable for these illegal rosters
like you mentioned, and it's not just limited to the or division or to
the Yogur Division. We've had some illegal roster scenarios in pretty much every division
so far. And to just have that extra layer of community on top of
your own personal desire to do well, notwithstanding, to have people holding each
other accountable as we are all pulling towards the same goal. It's a nice
opportunity for managers to connect as a community and also help out your beleaguered commissioner.
So thank you. Very much again to Brandon for helping us with these
visuals. And since we're talking about Lord Stanley, why don't we talk even
further about it. It's time for us to spend some time on the division
that every Tidy manager is trying to get to, and we're going to talk
about a trade freeze that has now thowed. I wasn't surprised. I don't
know about you, Victor, but I wasn't surprised to see that Lord Stanley
took a little bit longer to get going on the trade front, for the
first reason being, of course, that this division, as well as the
Tidy Lidstrom Division undertook startup drafts this offseason. Some of you who are maybe
not so familiar with the Tidy may or may not recall that we elevated these
teams to the top division and so we left some teams behind. But the
top division obviously didn't have teams to take over, so we had to do
a startup draft. And so I feel as a Tier, as a Tidy
Lord Stanley manager, that I needed to get the hang of my roster and
evaluate my draft with a bit more of a sample size behind it before making
any huge decisions. For instance, we drafted Dawson Mercer. Loved Dawson Mercer
as a player and as a fellow Newfoundlander, I might add, so he's
had a bit of a slow start to the season, but if we had
moved on from him three weeks ago, four weeks ago, we wouldn't have
had his exciting past few weeks. You can't make these rash decisions, especially
when you just drafted the player three months ago. So I'm not super surprised
there. And indeed, we haven't seen any trades yet in Tidy Lidstrom either,
which was our other startup draft that we ran over the summer. This
was a new division and we just had a huge influx of new managers and
we had it needed to make a new division, so we did a startup
for them as well. If I remember correctly, Victor, there wasn't a
whole lot of trading last year when the Tidies started, so a lot of
the inactivity in the new leagues has definitely been tracking for me so far.
Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think, like you said,
everyone trying to figure out. Also, it was a new league too
last year, so there was even more newness, and so people were trying
to figure out just what exactly was going on. Get used to the scoring,
get used to the game's played limit. And there's some interesting nuances with
the roster two, like not having a skater spot sometimes. I always find
that messes me up sometimes too, because if you have extra centers or wingers
off and you can slide them into that slot, but not here. So
you start to realize your roster limitations and restrictions and figure out just what your
team can do. So I think it takes a little bit longer. Yeah,
it takes probably several matchups before you start to get the hang of it.
And then, yeah, usually it's in the eight to twelve range of
matchups till you really start to know where you are and what you want to
do. And so that's usually the point at which a lot of trades start
coming through. Yeah, you start to realize what you need, and the
four managers in particular in the Lord Stanley division realize what they needed, and
we have them to thank for getting us started with the wheeling and dealing here.
Two of these managers in particular have been very active in their desires to
remake their teams factoring in on two of the deals that I'm going to talk
about today. The two managers I'm going to talk about now have combined to
form this first deal, and we're talking about the Steel City Stars and FHL
community favorite Tom Trot. And I'm definitely not just saying that he's a community
favorite because he complimented my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador and also shouted at
my favorite home style breakfast of Newfee steak and Eggs. He's also a very
beloved contributor to our discord. Thanks for that, Tom Tron. We'll start
with the Steel City Stars, who acquired Miro Haskin and defense and for the
Dallas Stars from the Lazy Boys Clay's Team for defenseman Evan Bouchard and Shark's prospect
d Shakir mukham Madoulin, who is ranked as the forty fifth defender on Victor's
prospect sheet. A straight up d swap here with some sugar mixed in with
the addition of Muka Madolin. Thumper, who is the manager for the Steel
City Stars, had this to say about Bouchard and his fantasy potential. Bit
of a spicy take, but thanks Thumper for sharing your thoughts here on the
deal, he said, I watch a lot of hockey, and I emphasized
the eye test and intuition more than the metrics, and in my opinion,
heiskein and is ten times better of a hockey player than Bouchard. While Bouchard
has the better deployment, I feel there is a chance he can be moved
off the top power play and by then he's almost healthy scratch worthy. Thumper
goes on to say that Bouchard is certainly not a playoff hockey player and feels
that the Oilers will eventually need to go away from him to win games.
He did think that Bouchard would still have a better year than Hayscan and all
things staying the same, but at the time of the deal, Thumper's team
was first in the division and one hundred points ahead of the next team,
and he felt this was an easy downgrade in points this year for long term
stability. As for the actual trade, Thumper had this to say, he
tried hard to move Bouchard to at least four or five teams, not our
team. By the way, if you had tried to send it to Edward
and I, we probably would have taken that deal, but realizing that his
trade value was not nearly what he expected. He tried for two popular names
straight up picked after him after the draft, and both were rejected. With
that, he felt that he would need to throw in something to find a
more stable demon and thought B plus prospect in Mukam Duelin was worth Hayskin in.
He stands by the deal still, but wonders if he could have done
better based on the current data from the players. A month later, Clay
was not quite so verbose in his comments, but added this, he agrees
that Bouchard has some deployment danger, but was happy to get Muku mcdulan as
a mid level prospect to offset that potential danger as a team that is clearly
building for the future. Victor, do you agree with both manager's assessment that
Thumper needed to add to get Hayskin in and how do you see Bouchard's future
as part of this Edmonton BU line. Yeah, it's a really interesting question.
And I think when you're in the top division, which there's no there's
not going to be a division above this. Any division we add or anything
will be below. So this is the top. So a lot of it
also comes down to you want to stick around obviously, right, so you
want to win, but the next goal is you want to not get relegated.
And looking at the standings right now, there are a bunch of has
and a few have nots are that have separated themselves. There isn't a whole
lot in the middle in this division. For example, there are six teams
tied at a five and two record, so there's a lot of really good
teams, and there's two teams at six and one. There's a couple of
one and six and an zero to seven teams. So when you're looking at
this, it's okay, you really don't want to get relegated, and you
can look a little bit beyond just one year, right, A lot of
times if you're like initially when we had four teams get promoted last year,
there was a lot more wiggle room. But to just win, you have
to you have to be really good. But I like the idea of looking
a little bit more long term, and this deal certainly with maybe Bouchard not
being as good or potentially having some real life struggles. I think that's a
reasonable thing to think about. I think you also it's really weird because when
the Oilers were struggling, everybody was just saying how terrible Evan Bosche was and
how he was the problem, and then they start winning games and of course
he's not a problem at all. He's great, everything's great. It's hunky
dory. So it's interesting and when you look at his underlyings that they're actually
it's a tale of two seasons. Early in the season they looked horrible and
now they look fine, and so there's definitely some big team effects there whenever
even Bouchard is out there. Though if he's playing, he's going to get
the top power play role. He's going to get top assignments offensive assignments,
which is what you want. So I have a hard time not liking this
deal for Clay. Clay is also one of my co gms in the Dabber
Prospects League, and I've played against him for a long time. He's really
sharp. Both these managers are really sharp, so I don't think there's any
pulling the wool over. It's just a matter of preference thumper set stability versus
some volatility is what it comes down to. Heiskinin is probably not as bad
as he has been so far this season. I don't know that he was
as good as he was last year though, but the talent is there and
the opportunity is there. So it's probably closer than a five point six four
points for Heiskanen and eight point twenty five for Bouchard. It's probably a lot
closer between those two than that. They're probably both closer to I don't know,
maybe seven or so. They both have that upside. So if it
were me, I would probably take the Bouchard side and the prospect who Mukamadulan
Probably I thought I would play more this year, but he's really close.
You're not going to have to wait long for a prospect like that, so
I like that. But I think this is pretty fair either way. What
do you think? Right? If I was going to be very nitpicky,
I would probably say that Mukamadulin is too good of a prospect to be the
plus one in this deal. I'm a big fan of his. You've turned
me on to him over the past year or so, looking at your prospect
sheet and seeing he's very strong on the bash front. He's got some offensive
inclination, and so I think that I'm excited about that kind of player.
We talked I think last week or two weeks ago about other defensive prospects,
options that are not like Luke Hughes or David Yurachek, Simon Damach, like
guys who have some offensive inclination who are not those kind of A plus prospects.
And I think Mukam macdollan falls easily into that category here. It's the
type of player that I really like to take a swing on. I probably
would prefer the Mukam Madolan and Bouchard side myself. I'm not super high on
Hayskanen. I love him as a player, and we all watched him in
the playoffs a couple of years ago when he absolutely dominated for the Dallas Stars.
And you're right, and that is there's no clear winner here. I
think there's no pulling the wolover a manager's eyes. These are two sharp managers.
As you said, I just really prefer the upside. The bombasticness of
Evan Bouchard's offense is really appealing to me. I also think Bouchard's skill in
transition lends pretty well to our format. So even if he loses some deployment,
which by the way, I think is unlikely. He'll still offer some
value. I like Hayskinin, but I feel that he's been given the chances
to produce at the same offensive raiders Bouchard and keeps missing his opportunity for whatever
reason. Thirty four power play points in seventy five games last year was great,
but I think it's his absolute peak. I don't think that hayskin And
can do much better than that. He's on pace this season for twenty power
play points. I think that's a bit closer to his true power play production.
Great player, don't get me wrong. And in this format with a
lot of pariffs and femwick and time on ice and all that stuff, Hayscinin
is very valuable. So I do think it's a lot closer than it appears,
like you said, but I think give me the Muka Madolan and Bouchard
side. Yeah, we agree that it's a good call there. This isn't
the last time, Victor we'll talk about Thumper and the Steel City Stars,
but we'll give him a break for now and talk about Tom Dron. Tom's
been busy over the past few weeks and got things started with a trade involving
one of your favorite young players, Victor, that's right, it's time to
get Stanky. But in this case, Tom Tron traded away Logan stank Covin
to Queer One Imports managed by Liam for Johnny gudrou So we have a right
up prospect for veteran trade here, very exciting to talk about. Tom told
me that he was adamant that he did not want to move Stankovin at all
when he received the first offer, or the second offer or the third offer.
But when it turned to get to Gadreau for Stanky, Tom started seriously
contemplating it, agonizing over the decision, leaving the trade pending for a week
before pulling the trigger. In his words, do I need the help now?
Yes? Do I believe that Johnny Hockey is actually this bad? No?
Tom asked some buddies and other league who all thought it was a no
brainer deal for him to move on from stankoven to get Johnny Gadroau. Finally,
he decided to bite the bullet and just accept the trade. It hurt,
it still hurts, and Gaudreau has since picked up the pace and has
helped, but Tom believes that he will one day regret this deal. He
just hopes it's not for a couple of years. Liam, on the other
hand, says that this trade goes all the way back to the draft and
that he was targeting high impact forwards under the age of twenty six. So
this is a manager who is taking the long view of his team here.
He never planned on taking Goodrow as a veteran, but in the draft it
was hard to pass on him at his draft slot, so he knew that
he would eventually be dealing goodrou as part of his long term strategy to create
a great young dynasty team. He saw Goodrow under performing and thought he would
get a move on before his value decayed any further, which probably explains the
multiple offers to Tom Troun. He also felt that he was pretty deep at
left wing, and given the team situation with Gaudreau and Columbus, felt like
an easy decision to move on from this veteran player. Liam is a huge
fan of Stankovin, having followed him for quite a while, and puts a
lot of stock in Dallas's ability to develop Stankovent in a similar way to Wyatt
Johnson, another favorite of yours, Victor, I love this kind of trade
victor in a dynasty. Who would you rather come out of this deal with
stankovin or Goodrow? Yeah? I think ye. Everyone knows how much I
love stankovin long term, he's going to be awesome. But I think it
also really paid a picture of what's going on in the league with these guys
right now, because that, of course, is going to really matter.
And I think in order to make this kind of trade where you're giving up
a roster player for a prospect, you have to but both teams have to
be in the right position, I think, so that is also part of
it. And if you're looking at the standings, so Queer one they are
currently fourth, and Liam's currently fourth with tied at that five and two record,
but he has the second most points for all of those teams, and
Tom Tron two and five the top two and five teams. So there's potential
here to turn around. And it seems Liam has a little bit of bandwidth
to be able to lose a player that is not the top of the roster
type of player, but certainly could have some turnaround, right So that's part
of what you're looking at, of course, And right now where Goodrow,
he's a guy on a busy night, you might not be starting a guy
that you might be, or at least you weren't while he was really strugg
He has turned around, as you mentioned, quite quite a bit lately,
but still looking at Tom's roster, still in the middle, towards the bottom
of the fantasy points four, still has some other underperformers on his team like
Troy Terry and guys maybe like Kevin Hayes, although he's been a little bit
better, So it's it also has to have that in context, right.
I think it helps Tom right now maybe pull himself up the standings a little
bit, and it's probably not hurting Liam too much because his team's really good
and I think he's probably looking at sustainably. I want to be competitive in
this division for years, and Stanky's going to help that for sure. And
I think if this deal, maybe this helps save Tom from relegation. If
that's the case, then it's a win. It's a win, and that's
what we like to see. Of course, I think everyone knows long term,
I'm going to say Stank Covin, but there's no question that it's going
to help more that goodro is going to help more this year. It's still
up in the air whether stank Coven is gonna get games, and I tell
it might be after the Fantasy playoffs, so it's not going to factor in
this year. But I have a hard time thinking that he's not going to
play most of the season next year, so we will probably find out as
early as next year. And so I just think of this as a win.
I don't know that there's a you know, I don't think there's a
winner and loser here. What do you think, right? Yeah, I
agree completely. You know, when I saw this deal, I thought of
our trades last year in the or Division, which Edward and I want.
I'll continue to remind people of that, of course, But I remember we
had talked about when we were drafting, picking up players similar to Stanko who
are younger, right, younger players who have upside for the future. Our
plan was always to try and make it to the top division this season,
and so we would pick up those players in the draft as trade chips for
later on. And so I remember the two players specifically that Edward and I
you know, had drafted in order to trade them were Jack Quinn and Seth
Jarvis, and so we were able to move those guys later in the season
for a combination of I think it was Clayton Keller and Edward might have to
correct me about this offline, but I think it was a goalie of some
kind. I think we maybe got Anton Forsburg or something, but we needed
those pieces in order to move up. And in this case, I completely
understand what Tom is doing, and to his credit, he says he will
regret this deal. He hopes he doesn't have to regret it within the next
couple months or year. But Stankovin is the type of player that you want
to build around going forward. If you're a team in Tom's situation where you
need points, you need to start moving up the standings to avoid relegation.
Of course you make that deal one hundred times out of one hundred. Obviously
I would prefer the Stankovin side. But if I were I'm only a few
standing spot spots higher than Tom, I would probably make a very similar deal
to try and get more points on my team. Right now, I make
that trade along with Tom every day. Further to our conversation, a couple
weeks ago, Victor ree, Wyatt, Johnston and Craftster who's coming up a
lot in this podcast today in Tidy Gretzky, I think Stankovin will probably edge
him out for that last power Play one spot eventually, alongside Hayskin and Hinton
Robertson. And I've always seen Stankovin as a braden Point type, and I
trade Goodrove for braiden Point today, So give me Stankovin for sure. Sorry,
Tom, I hope you don't have to regret this deal this season or
next. But yeah, it's completely understandable why this deal would happen, so
good job to both managers. Indeed, I tease that we get back to
the Steel City Stars, and I'm nothing if not a man of my words.
So let's talk about the most recent trade made in the Lord Stanley Division,
and this involves Tom as well. Tom Tron acquires Rasmus Ristol Linen from
the Steel City Stars for right winger William Dufour, who is Victor's two hundred
and forty four forward with good bash and not a ton of upside. Before
we go deeper on this trade, I have to outline some extra context for
myself and perhaps some other managers in the Lord Stanley Division. I find myself
in the league with these two fine gentlemen as I've mentioned, and my co
manager and I received an offer from the Steel City Stars on the same day
that this deal happened, of Rista Linen for our Jaden Pern. And I'm
here to tell you that we would be talking about our team right now had
I responded to Edward in time enough to make this trade, because we are
very weak on D and Rista Linen would offer a lot for us. Lord
Stanley Managers, if you're out there listening, please send us your D offers
please. Thumper had this to say about his rapid fire offer technique. I
had four D men on the bench on Sunday, and for ideal team makeup,
I don't like more than three in this league. On Sunday, also,
I was down thirty seven to my opponent, so I was looking at
any way to get an edge on games played. I looked at my lowest
demon and thought with McCabe, Ristall, Linen, and dem Demello all being
in the same boat, liking the short and long term deployment options for McCabe
and Demello better. And it's the biggest hang up being that if Risto's deplay
it was him being eased back into the lineup or if Sandheim and York have
taken over those top responsibilities. So he made the call to move on from
Risto, even though he liked him. He fired off ten offers, and
there's how many managers fourteen in our league, so there's a considerable amount of
the managers. Got an offer for Rasmus ristall Linen for a sea level prospect
or better to see if he couldn't get this deal done before the Sunday evening
games. It didn't work out because the move happened a bit later, but
he's satisfied with the move because again he wanted to decrease the number of demon
and he's just glad he picked up an asset for one. Tom had an
equally detailed, salient and informative opinion on this deal, saying, why the
hell not, thanks Tom, Victor, what do you make of the multiple
offers at once strategy to try and get that game's played edge and why don't
we just for the sake of it? Contrast and compare William de four and
Jaden Peran, who are the two prospects Thumper would have been happy to receive
for Ristall Linen. I think it brings up a really good point that Justin
and I often talk about we need to and I want to stress. I
just want to stress that it's really helpful and you should really consider the fact
that you need to send good offers. You need to have good relationships with
fellow gms because you may be in a situation like this where you want to
make a quick trade and it might be something that needs to happen to help
your games played very soon. So if you have good relationship with people,
if you don't send crappy offers, if you look for win wins, if
you do all those kinds of things, then this can happen. Right if
you're just sending out these like ridiculous offers where you clearly win in a landslide,
you're not going to be able to do those kinds of deals because people
are going to get annoyed at you, they're going to be upset, insulted,
whatever. So I think it really it comes back to I think a
big part A is really have respect for your league mates and really try to
find the win, try to find something that works for everybody. But also,
yeah, sometimes you you get in a jam. And I've been in
this situation too, where you're like, oh, shoot, I need to
make something happen now because maybe you're busy or forgot or whatever, or the
situation your team changed. So I think sending out a bunch of offers can
be really helpful, and you just personally, when I'm in that situation,
I don't really care which one gets accepted, right, I'm just like whatever,
whichever one, I'm just I'm going to go with it, whichever one
accepts first. Since I don't do that all the time, there's certainly times
where you're like, you see a certain situation and you have time and you
can plan it. Yeah, that's great if you have time, that's my
preferred method to try to find the right deal for everyone. But there are
times where you get multiple and I've been on the other end of that too,
And there are times where it's like, yeah, might pick the best
one and I don't mind that. And there are times where no, none
of these are, none of these are going to work for me, and
it's fine, you just you can say that. So I think either either
way is fine overall. I like the idea here, and you were asking
about different players. I think that Before is someone who I think is a
bit overrated in a lot of circles. I think that he is not a
bad prospect and did I think maybe that rank disrespects him a little bit because
I think he does still have some upside. He has struggled, it has
trended down for the last couple of years. I think he gets a little
bit of more notoriety because he's one of the better prospects and a really bad
prospect system, and that can always help help your notoriety a little bit.
But I don't think that he's that will end for someone who is really going
to be that exciting or move the needle that much for most people. What
are your thoughts on DeFore? Ryan? Yeah, Defour and Paran They're both
kind of players who are very similar in my evaluation, and I'm giving up
a little bit of my player evaluation strategy here, so sorry to my co
manager Edward, but I would prefer Risto to Paran do four for sure.
Paran in particular is one of those Carolina guys who has upside and an elite
skill or two and will work well in their balance system. But even if
he hits his ceiling. As long as Rod Brindamore, or as I like
to call him, Line Blendemore, is in charge, we won't see the
kind of upside we might have hoped for otherwise. And I think du four
has been in the same boat. I'm not super high on him. I
would much prefer the periffs d with offensive upside over the two maybees here And
just to comment a little bit, Victor on the strategy here, I'm guilty.
I've done it. Anyone who's been in the Degenerate Dynasty Dudes League over
the past month has probably received an offer of me trying to move off of
Philip Roberg for example. So just trying to get anything in return for that
asset. Yeah, you got one. I know you got one, and
I've done it. And it's kudos to Thumper here for this for the strategic
move. I'm sorry it couldn't work out, but as a fellow Lord Stanley
manager, I'm not that sorry that it didn't work out. I'm sorry that
I didn't get Risto. That's really how I'm feeling about it all. Victor.
Yeah, Risto such an interesting player, right, He was like amazing
for a couple of years when he was in Buffalo and he was getting We
were all saying this, this is why you need to pay attention to things
like how good the players in real life, because everyone was saying, he
is not this good like he is. He struggles defensively, why is he
playing twenty five twenty six minutes? And then of course he completely fell off
a cliff. His ice time was restricted. I think people were starting to
realize some of those things. But then it seems like he's had some resurgence
here. It seems like he's been able to They've found a different role for
him, and the team has been a different place, and so all those
context things matter. And I was he's someone who's been on my roster in
the FHL Dynasty and where the tidy rules are mimicked from, and he's been
rough. It's been rough to roster him. But then with this newfound role
and improved value, it's been like fantastic things. We talked about this on
a previous episode, thing ebb and flow and shift, and you have to
be open to that, or you have to be open to the idea that
if you wrote off Risto as someone who you're not interested in, but you
have to maybe sometimes reevaluate that, but he definitely has come around a little
bit. I think I'm definitely one of these people that can be influenced by
the noise around a player, and I think a lot of the noise with
Risto comes from obviously his bad contract, but we don't use cap figures in
the tidy, so it's really irrelevant. And certainly there you have been points
in this season where Risto and in many seasons that he's had where he hasn't
been a good own. But I think just the periffs bank that he comes
with. He shoots, and he hits, and he blocks, and he'll
occasionally look into a point here or there, I think there's a lot of
value for that type of player. I've had to go back and forth on
my evaluation. Certainly there would be a time where I'd be like, I'd
prefer Jaden Pern and his upside, but I think, give me what is
actually happening here, and that is a defenseman who is on an NHL roster
and who is doing something. Amen. Yeah, great stuff, Ryan.
These are some really good things that think about, along with some strategies,
some nuances of the league. And I love also as you mentioned that we've
been highlighting some of these gms, especially that we've gotten to talk about the
Lord Stanley competitors, because hey, face it, these are the best of
the best. They're the ones that have made it there, and especially the
ones near the top. It's incredibly challenging to win your division. But then
also when playing best on best, to be in the position that some of
these teams ran, that is very impressive to me, and we want to
know what their thoughts and strategies are. So thank you for helping to highlight
them. Yeah, Big Tom and the Steel City Stars in particular, we're
doing some work this month to give us stuff to talk about, and so
thanks to you guys for that. And yeah, it's just as someone who
is in this division, it's tough. It is tough. We're having a
tough time. Edward and I have had some bad luck to start the season.
At least that's what we're telling ourselves. We're doing pretty good on the
fantasy points, for we're getting crushed in fantasy points against which I think is
the eternal claim of unlucky teams. It's tough competition up here, and I
think we're getting worked right now. By Adam Kaye, who was a challenging
matchup for us last season too, So some things never change. But yeah,
looking forward to hearing more from our Lord Stanley managers, and we're hoping
to hear from We're going to reach out to some of our fast Track managers
as well, people who are really rising up the points for chart here on
the Tidy website, and we're going to hear from them soon as well.
So lots of great content from some of the best managers in this league yet
to come. Victor sounds great until next time. A couple more things than
mentioned before we get out of here today. One is our show is brought
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and that will do it for today. I hope you enjoyed this one again
and hearing about some of the prospects on the way up, some of the
guys getting themselves established, some of the trades happening all over the place.
Until next time, keep living that fantasy hockey life.