Speaker 1: This is Neil Smith, former president and GM of the
Speaker 1: New York Rangers and the New York Islanders. Join me
Speaker 1: and my co host Vic Morn for our podcast NHL
Speaker 1: Wrap Around for all the important news and views around
Speaker 1: the NHL.
Speaker 2: Round two of the NBA Draft Tonight. We covered Round
Speaker 2: one for you from start to finish last night, which
Speaker 2: means you boy got home at about ten o'clock, a
Speaker 2: nice little eight hour radio shift yesterday.
Speaker 3: We'll see what tonight brings.
Speaker 2: I believe it's only four minutes between picks tonight four
Speaker 2: Round two. However, we do have the NHL Draft coming
Speaker 2: up tomorrow and the Utah Mammoth will draft fourth overall
Speaker 2: after receiving a little lottery luck, and the Utah Mammoth
Speaker 2: also made a trade, so we'll talk about that and
Speaker 2: a bunch more NHL offseason stuff with our next guest,
Speaker 2: the Great Neil Smith. Back on the Drive on a Thursday. Neil,
Speaker 2: Happy Thursday, sir, How are you?
Speaker 4: I'm real good? Thank you. That was quite a trade
Speaker 4: for the for the Mammoth.
Speaker 3: So let's start there. Let's start there.
Speaker 2: You know, ultimately Josh down, Michael kesserline two players that
Speaker 2: a lot of people around here liked an awful lot.
Speaker 3: But let's get to know this new player.
Speaker 2: It looked like the Sabers were going to part ways
Speaker 2: restricted free agent JJ.
Speaker 3: I think it's peterca Is how you say the name? Neil?
Speaker 3: Tell us about this young man and what do you
Speaker 3: think of the trade?
Speaker 4: Well, he's a German from Munich, Germany, and I think
Speaker 4: it's a great trade for Utah. If you go strictly
Speaker 4: on getting the best player. They definitely got the best player.
Speaker 4: Peterca's got twenty seven goals last year, sixty eight points
Speaker 4: is a threat. He's a definite upgrade for the hockey club.
Speaker 4: When I say hockey club, you still called the team's
Speaker 4: hockey clubs. I'm not saying that as the old name. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 4: but I like Michael Kesslering. He's a big kid, and
Speaker 4: you know it brings some real size. But when you
Speaker 4: get a chance to get a guy like Patca, you've
Speaker 4: got to part with a couple of guys. And Josh
Speaker 4: Done is only twenty three, but that's the same age
Speaker 4: as Paturka. So that's great for the for the Utah
Speaker 4: Mammoth because they're getting a young guy. And as we've
Speaker 4: talked about so many times, this is like their free
Speaker 4: agent that he's not a free agent. He's it was
Speaker 4: a trade, but it's like, you know, free agency coming
Speaker 4: early for this team.
Speaker 2: Twenty seven goals, forty one assists last year for Paterka,
Speaker 2: sixty eight points overall. So let's dig in a little
Speaker 2: bit deeper. He's a right winger. You mentioned he's German.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I've got some stuff in front
Speaker 2: of me right now. He looks like a big, sturdy kid.
Speaker 2: So for our Utah Mammoth fans out here, let's dig
Speaker 2: a little bit deeper. Exactly what type of player is he?
Speaker 2: Where do you think he fits the top six Ford?
Speaker 2: Do you think he's on the front line? How do
Speaker 2: you think it plays out?
Speaker 4: I think he could. He could end up on the
Speaker 4: first line. He certainly end up on the power play.
Speaker 4: You know, he said he's an offensive threat all the time.
Speaker 4: He played seventy seven games and got sixty eight points.
Speaker 4: So you're almost at a point of game on Buffalo
Speaker 4: Sabers who didn't make the playoffs and didn't have a
Speaker 4: great season. And if I want to be sarcastic, I
Speaker 4: could say that Utah might be headed for the Stanley
Speaker 4: Cup because they have Buffalo has traded away so many
Speaker 4: guys that have ended up winning the Stanley Cup, like
Speaker 4: Sam Ryan Hart and just to mention one and a
Speaker 4: number of others, that maybe luck will have it with
Speaker 4: Utah this time and Peterca will end up in a
Speaker 4: Utah jersey winning the Stanley Cup.
Speaker 2: Love It, Love It five year contract extension. Average annual
Speaker 2: value is about seven point seven mil. What are your
Speaker 2: thoughts on the deal that Bill Armstrong gave Peterca.
Speaker 4: You know, it's the money, of course, is to normal
Speaker 4: everyday folks is crazy money, but it's where the player
Speaker 4: would be because of the production he's getting it and
Speaker 4: the production that he will get going forward. And I'm
Speaker 4: sure that Bill and his staff have analyzed Paterka a
Speaker 4: lot better than me and see that a real bright
Speaker 4: future in front of him. And again I'll emphasize, he's
Speaker 4: only twenty three years old by the time the contract's over.
Speaker 4: He's still in his prime at twenty eight, so he's
Speaker 4: going to have to live up to those numbers. That's
Speaker 4: a lot of money for a kid that scored twenty
Speaker 4: seven goals. But I would imagine that they see in
Speaker 4: him you know, him getting better and better as time
Speaker 4: goes on, and that's why they were willing to do
Speaker 4: that contract.
Speaker 2: Do you think this trade and this acquisition changes the
Speaker 2: approach for tomorrow night's draft.
Speaker 4: Not at all, Not at all. They'll take the Well,
Speaker 4: if I were them, when the first three guys get picked,
Speaker 4: whoever's the best player, no matter what position, no matter
Speaker 4: what country he comes from, no matter anything, that's who
Speaker 4: you take. You don't draft based on position or anything
Speaker 4: like that. At that high pick, get the best player
Speaker 4: you can possibly get and figure it out later. If
Speaker 4: you've got you know, if it's a center that's available
Speaker 4: and you've already got centers, don't worry about it. And
Speaker 4: if it's a defense when you've already got defense, and
Speaker 4: don't worry about So I think they'll get a real
Speaker 4: good player at number four. Probably won't play in Salt Lake,
Speaker 4: you know, this coming season, but they'll definitely get a
Speaker 4: good player.
Speaker 3: So before we.
Speaker 2: Get to the specifics of what tomorrow could bring, just
Speaker 2: take us behind the scenes of a NHL front office
Speaker 2: the night before the NHL Draft. What's going on with
Speaker 2: Bill and his staff right now is they prepare to
Speaker 2: make the selections tomorrow.
Speaker 4: You know, they're just having more meetings and there it
Speaker 4: is not up in the air who they're going to
Speaker 4: pick for them right now. They already know who the
Speaker 4: top four players are in the draft, according to their staff,
Speaker 4: and they're well prepared. They're probably talking a lot about
Speaker 4: their second pick. I don't have it in front of
Speaker 4: me where their second pick is in the draft, but
Speaker 4: I would think they're spending more of their time trying
Speaker 4: to figure out who the fourth guy would be, because
Speaker 4: they know who they've got as the top four guys,
Speaker 4: and whoever's the best of those top four would be
Speaker 4: the guy that they'll take at number four.
Speaker 2: So let's move over now to what tomorrow and I
Speaker 2: could bring. And you know, obviously it depends on what
Speaker 2: happens in front of them, does it. You know, once
Speaker 2: upon a time it felt like number one was being debated.
Speaker 2: But everything I'm reading today, Neil is that it will
Speaker 2: be Matthew Shaeffer to the Islanders.
Speaker 3: Is that you're understanding.
Speaker 4: That's my understanding that he is. He is pretty clear
Speaker 4: cut the best player there. You know, there's some there's
Speaker 4: always some talk because the Islanders have our long island
Speaker 4: and Hagen's who played it in Hockey East this year
Speaker 4: is from Long Island and he grew up in Long Island,
Speaker 4: So you know, wouldn't you try to get the hometown kid.
Speaker 4: But you can't do that when you're running an NHL team.
Speaker 4: You've got to you've got to take the best player
Speaker 4: and buy everybody's accounts. Matthew Schaffer is the best player
Speaker 4: and he's a big defenseman, and I would imagine that's
Speaker 4: where the Islanders will go.
Speaker 2: So if it's Shafer a one, I've got a mock
Speaker 2: draft in front of me. Do you feel like it's
Speaker 2: the Michael Misa kid at two for San Jose.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm hearing that. That's what I'm hearing. Michael
Speaker 4: Misa would go number two. A lot of people don't
Speaker 4: have Haggins three. They got other somebody else. But you know,
Speaker 4: once you get past I'm very high guys there, it
Speaker 4: doesn't always go in any predictable manner because what's you know,
Speaker 4: what's one person's taste in that player is not another person,
Speaker 4: so you can always depend on that. But so I
Speaker 4: don't think it's clear cut that these are the definitely
Speaker 4: the top three. But from what I'm hearing, Mesa and
Speaker 4: Schaeffer are the top two, and you know Mesa could
Speaker 4: go number one. He had a remarkable season. He got
Speaker 4: thirty more points than anybody else in the OHL, and
Speaker 4: that's remarkable. He got sixty two goals in sixty five games.
Speaker 4: But they're hard to get a franchise defenseman, and if
Speaker 4: Matthew Schaeffer's a lot of as a franchise defenseman, they're
Speaker 4: probably going to go there.
Speaker 2: OHL. Ontario Hockey League. It seems like a lot of
Speaker 2: these young prospects are playing up there. Tell our listeners
Speaker 2: about this and what sort of league it is, and
Speaker 2: AU prepares these young men to play in the NHL.
Speaker 4: Well, And then that's a good question, Spence, because you
Speaker 4: know your listeners are mostly used to players being drafted
Speaker 4: out of college. Guess that's where the NBA players come from.
Speaker 4: And a lot of NHL players come out of college too,
Speaker 4: But they also come out of the three Canadian major
Speaker 4: junior leagues what they're called. And going from west to east,
Speaker 4: that's the Western Hockey League, which has all the teams
Speaker 4: west of Ontario. You have the Ontario Hockey League which
Speaker 4: has you know, most of their team are in Ontario.
Speaker 4: They do have Erie in you know, Erie Pennsylvanias in
Speaker 4: Thataly and then you have the Quebec Major Junior Hockey
Speaker 4: League and the Memorial Cup is the tournament at the
Speaker 4: end of the season between the three leagues to see
Speaker 4: who's going to win the big trophy for all of
Speaker 4: junior hockey. It's it's a mini NHL, to be honest
Speaker 4: with you. Junior hockey in Canada is the closest representation
Speaker 4: to the National Hockey League. And what you've got to
Speaker 4: do there, the travel and all the rest of it
Speaker 4: and the game itself is is it like a mini NHL.
Speaker 4: So that's why a lot of scouts and teams prefer
Speaker 4: to take guys out of the major junior hockey. But
Speaker 4: I think that it is now. College hockey is every
Speaker 4: bit as good a breeding ground for the NHL as
Speaker 4: the junior leagues.
Speaker 2: You actually, you're getting good of this because you just
Speaker 2: answered my follow up question. But I'm going to ask
Speaker 2: it anyway to elaborate of all of the potential avenues,
Speaker 2: of all of the potential pathways, you know, when it
Speaker 2: comes to these different leagues, when it comes to these
Speaker 2: different you know, avenues that these young men take whether
Speaker 2: it's college hockey, whether it's the OHL or what have you.
Speaker 2: Is there a clear cut preferred pathway again, College, OHL, International,
Speaker 2: whatever it is. Because I've got this mock draft in
Speaker 2: front of me and I'm seeing like, even throughout the
Speaker 2: first ten there's the WHL, there's the OHL, there's the
Speaker 2: q m j h HL whatever that is.
Speaker 3: Then there's College Junior Hockey League.
Speaker 2: Okay, So of all the pathways, Neil, is there a
Speaker 2: preferred one you look at as a roster constructor and
Speaker 2: a decision maker to feel like, yes, they're prepared the
Speaker 2: best because they did this.
Speaker 4: You know, not not really? I mean there, I'll give
Speaker 4: you some examples. Connor McDavid played for Erie. That's where
Speaker 4: he was drafted by by Edmonton from Erie. His his
Speaker 4: sidekick there, Dry Sidle, played in Germany. Uh and so
Speaker 4: there there's two totally different places. You can you know,
Speaker 4: Meithan McKinnon played in the Quebec League, who's a great player.
Speaker 4: So they come from all over the place and and
Speaker 4: there's a lot of great college players that are coming
Speaker 4: into the NHL now, So there's really not a preferred place.
Speaker 4: There used to be a very prejudicial to junior players
Speaker 4: because they would they understood, and they weren't. They weren't
Speaker 4: out getting an education, they were out to play hockey.
Speaker 4: But that's not the case anymore. It's it's really not
Speaker 4: that now you're getting them from everywhere. I just found
Speaker 4: out today and realized that today that Michael kessel Ring,
Speaker 4: who was born in Florence, South Carolina. I didn't realize that.
Speaker 4: I don't think he lived there. I think he was
Speaker 4: just born there and his dad played in the ECHL.
Speaker 4: I didn't know all that stuff. But what I'm saying
Speaker 4: to you, why I'm bringing that up, is the players
Speaker 4: are coming from all over the place now and there's
Speaker 4: really not one hockey hot that like there used to be.
Speaker 2: All right, So to your point, we don't know what
Speaker 2: the first three picks will be. It does feel like
Speaker 2: the Schaeffer kid is the consensus number one, and every
Speaker 2: mack I've seen has Misa too, And then it seems
Speaker 2: to get pretty interesting. Anton Frondell is the mach I
Speaker 2: have in front of me going three to Chicago. Brady
Speaker 2: Martin is the name that this mock has the Utah
Speaker 2: Mammoth taking. But I've seen another mock that has Porter
Speaker 2: Martone the selection at four and Porter is a big
Speaker 2: forward that prior to yesterday, this hockey club did not have,
Speaker 2: but now they have one of those. Any thoughts, then
Speaker 2: there's the aforementioned James Hagen's kid out of BC. Any
Speaker 2: thoughts on who Bill and his staff land on Tomorrow
Speaker 2: night when the fourth pick is called, you know, there's.
Speaker 4: They're talking about Brady Martin that plays in Sue Saint Marie.
Speaker 4: I'd be guessing, to be honest, he spins, I'm just
Speaker 4: gonna flat out and say, I'd be guessing if I
Speaker 4: said who they're gonna who I thought they would take.
Speaker 4: I don't have the expertise on these young kids, but
Speaker 4: I do see on some of the on some of
Speaker 4: the rating things that Hagen's has fallen down in people's minds.
Speaker 4: So you'd never know. You don't know what intel Bill
Speaker 4: and his staff have on all these particular players. There's
Speaker 4: also psychological inventory testing done that way to see what
Speaker 4: kind of character, what kind of personality you're dealing with,
Speaker 4: So then that comes into play on it. So we'll
Speaker 4: we'll just have to wait and see. And I think
Speaker 4: your guest at this point is everybody's goroos mind.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's interesting, Neille.
Speaker 2: I was on a zoom call with Bill two days
Speaker 2: ago prior to the Turko deal, and he he's very
Speaker 2: calculated with his messaging and he's very careful not to
Speaker 2: promise anything. I mean, I've told you this anecdote when
Speaker 2: the introductory press conference took place where the fan base
Speaker 2: here was meeting that team for the first time, several
Speaker 2: of whom probably didn't have any frame of reference for
Speaker 2: what they were witnessing or how good or bad this
Speaker 2: team was. It was just excitement that we had hockey
Speaker 2: in Salt Lake, and Liam O'Brien took the mic and
Speaker 2: really fired up the audience at Delta Center Spicy Tuna.
Speaker 2: People started chanting, and when Bill had the opportunity to
Speaker 2: address the crowd, he basically said, look, everyone knows we're
Speaker 2: still rebuilding, right like he's very careful about setting expectations,
Speaker 2: and the messaging during a zoom call was the continued
Speaker 2: patients and the continued long game, and the continued were
Speaker 2: making good decisions one by one and we'll see how
Speaker 2: it stacks up. So reasonable expectations probably for either the
Speaker 2: fourth pick or the rest.
Speaker 3: Of the moves per Turkus twenty three.
Speaker 2: To your point, like, I don't know that this is
Speaker 2: a front office that's in any hurried ex but I
Speaker 2: had this process. I think they're verydmitted to what they've
Speaker 2: already done and are going to continue to see it
Speaker 2: through and tell it's, you know, the finished product on
Speaker 2: the other side.
Speaker 4: Well, and that's smart because first of all, keeping everything
Speaker 4: in anything in life, keeping expectations in check is smart
Speaker 4: because you get yourself in a world hurt if you
Speaker 4: start over promising and under delivering. In the in the
Speaker 4: hockey business, I think that that's real smart. The teams
Speaker 4: that are elite teams Edmonton Florida, obviously, they weren't built overnight.
Speaker 4: They didn't just go bang and get and work, you know,
Speaker 4: become that good. It took many years and thoughtful construction
Speaker 4: to get them there. And I would imagine that Bill's
Speaker 4: in his mind, he's going, you know, this is the
Speaker 4: same thing. Now we you and I have talked about
Speaker 4: their chances to make the playoffs last next year, I'm
Speaker 4: still going to stick to what I said. They're going
Speaker 4: to be fighting to get into the wild card spot.
Speaker 4: You know, last year at this time Steve Eiserman and
Speaker 4: then detray Red Wings thought that they'd be a playoff
Speaker 4: team or could be a playoff team coming up this season.
Speaker 4: It didn't happen. Things went wrong and it just didn't happen.
Speaker 4: And had Steve Eiserman come out and said, oh, we're
Speaker 4: going to make the playoffs this year. Well, now everybody's
Speaker 4: ticked off because you know, you said you'd make the
Speaker 4: playoffs and you didn't. It's always better to over deliver
Speaker 4: and under promise and make everybody happy that way. But
Speaker 4: I don't I don't have a job to lose. So
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you that I think that there's
Speaker 4: a good chance for Utah this season to you know,
Speaker 4: bang on the door of the wild card spots.
Speaker 2: Any other I know, you guys just recorded a free
Speaker 2: agent primer, a draft primer.
Speaker 3: So outside of.
Speaker 2: The deals that we've already discussed, what are the main
Speaker 2: storylines regarding player acquisition, player retention, players that could be
Speaker 2: on the move that you guys are honed in on.
Speaker 3: Before I say you lose Neil.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, there was a lot of we had
Speaker 4: a lot of talk about the big guys that are
Speaker 4: that are free, that are USA's unrestricted free agents, and
Speaker 4: of course Mitch Marner from Toronto heads the list because
Speaker 4: he's not going back to Toronto, his hometown, so he's going
Speaker 4: to be out there looking for megabucks. Sam Bennett has
Speaker 4: said at some of the celebrations that he's staying in
Speaker 4: Florida and he wants to stay in Florida, So we'll
Speaker 4: see what happens with that. I can't imagine him being like,
Speaker 4: let you know, letting Florida, letting him leave. Brad Marshan
Speaker 4: the elder statesman of the team, thirty seven years old,
Speaker 4: but prove that he's an awesome playoff player. He's out
Speaker 4: there and he's been a leader, he's been captain of
Speaker 4: the Boston Ruins. We talked about all those guys. We
Speaker 4: talked about Florida and could they keep their team together
Speaker 4: and the job that Bill Zito had done so and
Speaker 4: then we also talked about Connor McDavid in his contract
Speaker 4: because he's got one year to go and then he's
Speaker 4: a UFA if he if Edmonton lets it get there,
Speaker 4: which I will never imagine that they'll let it get there.
Speaker 4: But Connor McDavid came out last week and said he's
Speaker 4: in no hurry to get a contract done. That he
Speaker 4: wants to know that the team is going to be
Speaker 4: trying to win every year and doing everything they can
Speaker 4: to win a Stanley cupan Edmonton before he's going to
Speaker 4: resign there. So that's a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 4: we've been talking about, and we'll have to wait and
Speaker 4: see what happens on Monday. We're talking about tampering to
Speaker 4: a little bit because that's so obvious that that goes
Speaker 4: on before the July first, because Spence, if if anybody
Speaker 4: announces on July first that they signed somebody anytime before
Speaker 4: to a plot, they didn't make a deal in two
Speaker 4: hours on those things. So do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: They last year they were announcing deals at twelve oh five.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you could do it seven year deal
Speaker 4: in five minutes, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, it happens in every sport. How do you
Speaker 2: govern that though, Like you know, whether it's NHL, NFL, NBA,
Speaker 2: it's so very blatantly obvious that it goes down. But
Speaker 2: is there really any way to stop it?
Speaker 4: There really isn't because there's so many ways to get information.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's if somebody lets the cat out
Speaker 4: of the bag. That's about the only way that you know,
Speaker 4: somebody wants to screw somebody and say, well, you know
Speaker 4: so and so called me. And it's not the general
Speaker 4: managers that are doing it. They're not going to call
Speaker 4: anybody and put themselves out there, but they've got people
Speaker 4: that will get information and can find out if this
Speaker 4: guy wants to play. Is there any chance that Sam
Speaker 4: Bennett will sign with you? Tod you talk if somebody
Speaker 4: talks to his agents, somebody talks to his parents, somebody
Speaker 4: talks to his brother, somebody talks to somebody and says,
Speaker 4: tell me it was Sam going to consider any place else?
Speaker 4: And if they said, oh, yeah, is he definitely wants
Speaker 4: to see what you think he'd consider Salt Lake? Yeah,
Speaker 4: for sure if the money's there. You know that those
Speaker 4: kind of conversations You go back, you tell the GM
Speaker 4: now he's waiting to see it. Like they don't negotiate anything,
Speaker 4: I'm sure or that that would be really dumb, but
Speaker 4: they do get their feelers out there and find out
Speaker 4: what's possible.
Speaker 2: Neil, Where can people go find the podcast that you
Speaker 2: guys you know do in general, but also that you
Speaker 2: just did on the Free Agent Primer and Draft Primer
Speaker 2: and the Drafters tomorrow night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just go to our website NHL reperound dot com,
Speaker 4: or go on to Apple or Spotify or iHeart or
Speaker 4: any place where you listen to podcasts and see if
Speaker 4: there were YouTube if you want to watch it. But
Speaker 4: it's yeah, Pierre Lebron was on and he was really good.
Speaker 4: We had before that, and I think I mentioned this
Speaker 4: to you last week. We had Pat verbikon who had
Speaker 4: just traded for Crider and now Pat Verbeek made another
Speaker 4: big trade this past week and trading Trevor Ziegris to Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: That's going to be real interesting to see if if
Speaker 4: Siegris turns out to be a good player with Rick
Speaker 4: Talkett as his coach, and that's gonna be a very
Speaker 4: interesting one. But anyway, there's always news going on at
Speaker 4: this time of year.
Speaker 2: Neil, Thank you sir, Always a pleasure, a fun perspective
Speaker 2: on the eave of the draft.
Speaker 3: Have a great weekend with chat.
Speaker 4: Soon, Thank you, and good luck to the Mammoth.
Speaker 2: Yes indeed, yes, indeed, the great Neil Smith roster constructor
Speaker 2: at the highest of levels. One a Stanley Cup with
Speaker 2: the Blue Sweaters the New York Rangers in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: worked for the Detroit Red Wings and also the New
Speaker 2: York Islanders. Check out his podcast, NHL Wrap Around. Get
Speaker 2: him on Twitter at NYC Neil is where you find him,
Speaker 2: all right. The Utah Stampede Rodeo is on the way.
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Speaker 3: I do, of course I do. I am an extreme bowl.
Speaker 3: There you go. We learned yesterday that you used to
Speaker 3: ride small bulls as a small child. Subjected to it.
Speaker 3: I guess subjected to it. All right.
Speaker 2: You can find tickets at Ute stamped Rodeo dot com.
Speaker 2: That's Ute stamped Rodeo dot com.
Speaker 3: It's July the ninth through the twelfth in Nephi, Utah.