Speaker 1: 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 of hot a stem hit on, staylock.
Here's your host, Jesse sovi Here and Victor Nuno meant.
Speaker 2: To sy Hockey Live once again. Jesse Severe, Victor Nuno,
you know both of us.
Speaker 3: We like to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Victor, I am somewhere in a French speaking country. I've been.
I've been doomed to go to speak French to people
as penitents for all the names I've mispronounced in the
history of the show. So you know, anybody who's who's
enjoying that, I'm on it right now. But yeah, Victor,
I don't know, man. You you're a bit ahead of
me in French. You speak a lot of French.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to work on it right now.
Speaker 3: Well, I do my duelingua every day. I recently got
a French tutorrying. I'm trying. My mom and step dad
have a place in southwestern France that we get to
go to every once in a while, so I try.
But I didn't realize this was a punishment. This sounds
like an awesome punishment. If I could get an all
expense paid trip to France just based on mispronouncing names,
I would one thousand percent do that. So if that's
a vogue.
Speaker 2: Nobody pay that. I could take expense, Victor. I'm paying
the expense. That's that's the other part of it.
Speaker 3: But well, if you're paying the expense, I will.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to mispronounce a few more names, Victor.
That's that's the problem here. You need to get with
the program. No, yeah, man, if anybody out there wants
to be dual lingo friends, I don't have too many
my you know, I've I've got a hundred consecutive days.
Victor's got like Victor's got like thirty four consecutive years
of dual lingo. He hasn't missed a day as far
as I can tell. I look, I look at him
on there, and I'm like, what the heck is this guy?
But yeah, man, we're we're learning languages. We're trying to
get a little bit smarter, a little bit better every day, Victor,
I think it's time for us though, I'm I'm actually
to bow outs. As Victor said, I am viva in
La France right now, and I'm going to peace out.
For the rest of this episode. It's going to be
Victor and the Tidy Takes crew getting you through a
little bit of discussion of the Tidy Takes. So Victor,
right after this, the voice will.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Fantasy Hockey Life. I'm Victor Mania, Fantasy
Hockey Doctor with me is not Jesse Severe this time
we have our Tidy Admiral. I'm very excited to have
you back, Ryan, And I was just thinking, Wow, hallelujah,
the Tidy Admiral is back. Hallelujah. Are you familiar at all,
Ryan with Handel Messiah Handl Frederick Handel's Messiah. Are you
familiar at all with that piece of music?
Speaker 4: Hanlujah, ha, then Lujah, hallelujah, Halley helluja. I could keep going,
but I'm gonna have to sing in a couple more
times this holiday season, so I think I'll leave it
there for you, Victor. But yes, I am a fan
of and familiar with gay Org Friedrich Handel's Messiah.
Speaker 3: Just probably saying it once or twice in your life.
It's great that you had that right off the top
of your head to jump in once.
Speaker 4: Or twice this season, Victor. Yeah, it's tiss the Christmas season.
While I'm batting away these podcasts, I'm also coming from
caroling gigs, going to caroling gigs, heading to Messiah performances,
symphony gigs. It's just a great time a year to
be a singer, and it's one of the best times
of year to be into Fantasy Hockey because, of course
we do have the World Juniors coming up. More on
that later. But to all that being said, it's great
to be back in the hosting chair with you, Victor.
Fantasy Hockey Life Discord members and Tidy managers might recall
that I made an impassioned plea on the discord for
people to start trading in the tidy to give me
more things to talk about and get me back on
the airwaves here. So first I have to say I
would not be here with the great tidy managers who
certainly delivered in these past months for this episode today.
And we're gonna start talking today about perhaps one of
the greatest tidy managers we've ever seen. And no I'm
not talking about you, Victor, I'm talking about somebody who
was the tidy yoger champion in twenty twenty four, the
dual Omni fast Track and Tidy Gretzky Champion in twenty
twenty five. And that is our friend Mystics, also known
as Donna. And those of you who listen regularly know
that Mystics is no stranger to the Tidy Take segment
and is likely the manager who has contributed the most
to this segment with the sheer volume of trades she
has completed in her years here, perhaps second only to
her son, the NHL Rank King, also trade King Mason
and Victor. You felt the other side of this trading
gumption this week. You went up against Mystics, and unfortunately
you went down in flames. She has wound her way
into the hallowed halls of the Tidy Top Division, Lord Stanley,
where she is finally taking her place as one of
the best fantasy managers in the entirety of the Fantasy
Hockey Life Tier dynasty. And unfortunately she's had a bit
of bad luck with injuries and found herself at the
time of this trade in first place. And we're going
to talk about this trade now, and the Victor, we
all know the other manager on the other side of
this deal who is responsible for the other side of
the trade, and what do you have to say about
everything you've seen from mystics so far in the tidy
top division.
Speaker 3: So far, Donna is a super smart, super shrewd. I
think she's always looking for the angles and aware. I
think is really key, aware of where she is and
where the other teams are. I think that's really important
when you're trying to figure out trades and trying to
figure out what you can do. And yeah, I really
thought that was smart that she's looking around and trying
to figure out where she needs to be and what
she needs to do and everything. And yeah, we are
in the same division now at You and Ed and
me and her are all in Lord Stanley. And as
we've talked about before, there's a there's some really high
end teams at the top of You and Ryan are
near the top up and Donna and I near the
bottom as we try to avoid relegation. And so I
think it was really smart for her to reach out
to you and see if you could figure out a
win win a way that the a trade would help
benefit both parties. And I think it makes sense for
you to try to push over the top maybe in
the coming years to refuel your team with some younger
talent that'll be more relevant in the coming years. And
for Donna, she's trying to stay in this division, which
is not an easy task. So I think with all that,
it made sense that you would be good trade partners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we'll get more into some of those factors
a little later on. But you do know that I
know an opportunity when I see one, and like you mentioned,
we're going for a win win deal here. I knew
you'd be proud of this deal just looking at it
on the face of things, maybe not the fact that
it was one of the reasons why you lost last week.
So I'll ask you to put the personal animus aside
here and just let me know what you think of
this deal, which Edward, Donna, and I came up with.
We were looking for an opportunity to help each other improve,
and here's what we came up with. So we were
drafters of Sidney Crosby when we started the Top Division
many years ago, and so we sent away Sidney Crosby
as well as prospect center William Zeller's in exchange for
the number one two, number two overall pick of last
last year's twenty twenty five NHL draft, Michael Mesa, a
very good young player, Gavin Bridley for the Colorado Avalanche,
and a young defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks who's currently
making some waves, Tom will Lander. And I'll just let
everybody know that at the time of this deal, the
trade voting that we institute on the discord has the
BFFs that's myself and Ed at a fifty five percent
approval rating on this deal, with mystics at nineteen percent
and an even deal at twenty six percent, which I
like to see that for sure. So just again to recap,
it's Crosby and Zeller's for Mesa, Brindley and will Lander.
And you mentioned it a little bit off the top here, Victor.
One of the things that you add absolutely have to
know in a dynasty league is what your competitive window is,
but also what your rivals competitive windows are. And as
you mentioned, there's some really high end teams at the
top of the top division here. Last year, Mason the
Rankking beat Jack z for the championship with our team,
the BFF finishing in third. The year before that, Jack
beat Mason for the championship. Those two teams are powerhouses
and they aren't slowing down anytime soon, with them being
first and fourth. I think at the time of this trade.
We also happened to be facing Mason that week the
meat that we made the deal, and all credit to
Mason's team, who had a bit of a hot week,
but we got absolutely shill ACKed with the BFFs finishing
in the bottom half of the points four standings that week.
Like I mentioned, we had drafted Crosby with the express
knowledge that we had a window of about three to
four years and realized we would need to trade him eventually.
Had another great start to the season this year, but
with players like Malkin and Letang soon to be on
the way out and the youth movement in full swing,
we didn't want to wait too much longer. He was
fifty sixth in fantasy points of the tidy at the
time of this trade. If we wanted top value for him,
we had to move soon. We also had a surplus
of centers on our roster to move into that Crosby slot.
We're getting Brindley and Lisa in the deal, but of
course we also had Rock Nelson, Nick Paul, Marco Casper,
who were sitting on our bench more often than not,
and so that was a part of it as well.
Realizing that Tomistics was a little bit further down the
standings that wasn't going to get out of it with
players like Mesa and Brindley not playing, and at the
time of this recording, Brindley might be making his return
to the lineup shortly, but Lisa looks destined for the
World Juniors. I don't think he'll do much more at
the NHL level this season. To look at Mystic's side
of things, she had this to say when we were
talking about it, that using solid prospects and younger players
to attain older but still productive made roster players was
something she felt she needed to do to boost her team.
She knew she'd have to overpay somewhat, but in a
league with relegation and being one of the three teams
to move up to the top division, she knew the
challenge would be large, especially that the three new teams
like hers, had to comprise their rosters from the relegated teams.
There is no such thing as a rebuild in her situation,
so acquiring a thirty eight year old star still in
Sydney Crosby for three young players was something that she
needed to do to boost her ability to get points
this season, a tightrope walk between having a strong active
roster versus retaining a strong prospect pool, and that as
a lower ranked team, she was in the position that
she needed to use her good young players to strengthen
the main roster, and that it is nice to be
able to find a trade partner where the needs of
each team can be satisfied. With all that in mind, Victor,
what do you think of our rationale here and do
you think we got enough for Crosby under the circumstances.
And then let's take a look at it from mystics
perspective as well.
Speaker 3: I think this is a classic win win, especially considering
the constraints of the tidy roster. It is not a
league that has a skater or util spot, and so
that makes it much more difficult. As you mentioned, if
you have extra centers or extra wingers or whatever extra posis,
you might have a hard time fitting them in. You
only have three of each of the forward spots, and
then you have six d with no skater spot, and
so you can sometimes have too much or too little
of one and that is a real factor because then
you are leaving points on the bench and that doesn't
help you. So it depends on how you construct your team.
Me personally, I find centers are easier to find, and
so generally I have not enough centers because I usually
wait for the end or I try to look at
players who have dual eligibility, like I have Stoushla Ryan
Green as my centers right now, with Ikeel as one
of the only center only eligible guys. But yeah, I
think that this is a win win. Donna gets the
player who helps the most right now, and the BFSS
get the players who should be great in two to
three years. I think it's completely possible that we also
see a Sidney Crosby who's in his forties, forty five
even and still Fantasy relevant. I think he's the kind
of guy who could do that. I don't think that's likely,
but I think that it's possible that years into this
trade he is still producing, and so that could create
a bit of a wrinkle in this trade.
Speaker 4: Right, let's talk about that victor. Because Sidney Crosby, we
have to give him as flowers. He is going to
go down as one of the absolute best players in
the NHL, one of the best fantasy hockey players too.
You're still drafting him in the second round in your
redraft league. This guy, he won't go away, and I
completely agree with you that he could still be fantasy relevant.
I think one of the things that Edward and I
were thinking was, could Michael Mesa be similar or equal
to Crosby in two years? Do you think that Mesa
could approach a level of Crosby esque production reasonably soon?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, I think all those things are reasonable. I
think it's very possible that he gets there. I think
he's going to follow the sort of lyric Calson plan
trajectory of it might take him a bit of time.
That the team doesn't need him to be all that
right now, so they're going to give him time. He
has other players around him to insulate him. Macln Celebrini
has just completely offset the entire pressure of anything Michael
Lisa could have felt. So it's just perfect. And then
Will Smith coming along, Eckland, all these pieces are just
making it so much easier for him to get to
that point. And I think when he does unlock that
he certainly has point per game plus upside and in
many ways, I think Celebrini is more akin to Crosby
in terms of the type of player and the upside,
but I think Misa is probably not too dissimilar. He's
a good two hundred foot player. He also has tons
of skill and upside, so I think it could be reasonable.
If I had to bet, though, I would put whether
he'll be equal to Crosby in two years. I'd probably
take the under on that, just because I think it
might take a little bit longer. But I think you're
in that ballpark, and so I would not be surprised
if that. I would not be surprised if Lisa comes
close to Crosby two years, and I wouldn't be surprised
if Crosby continues to be productive after two three years
from now.
Speaker 4: So maybe the worst case scenarios we end up with
the Jonathan Taves instead of a Sydney Crosby, but still
very happy to have that kind of player, especially as
a miners swing option. That was an additional benefit for
us is that we have we had optimized our team
to compete in the last two years, so a lot
of our minor swing guys had graduated either to our
roster or to free agency, and so an additional benefit
for us getting some production from Mysa and Brindley while
they are still under that one hundred games played limit.
That will be very helpful for us next season, especially
if Mysa goes back to junior instead of sticking with
the San Jose Sharks moving forward. And another young player
that we got in this deal we haven't talked about
much yet either is Tom Volander. And we had traded
away literally every single defenseman under twenty four on our
roster in deals to go for it over the past
several seasons. Cagnoni was one I think we traded to you, Victor.
We had traded Axel sandin Pelica. Eric Branstrom didn't work out,
So getting Willander back was a big part of this
deal for us, and so adding some minor swing options.
Getting a young defenseman like Tom will Lander, a guy
who can grow with our roster and grow with that
young core that is now Misa, Brindley and guys like them.
I think we're pretty happy with that, getting ahead of
next year and getting some early roster flexibility going into
the twenty six twenty seventh season.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's really smart. To do and Vlander,
I think he's always going to be a guy who's
better in real life than in fantasy. But in leagues
like the Tidy that reward being an actual good defenseman
in terms of being able to drive play potentially getting
some takeaways you don't necessarily have to bash. If you
have good course and play driving, then you can still
be valuable, and I think he will. I think he
will continue to be valuable in that sense. Right now,
he's already gotten some NHL games under his belt, and
he's cooking at just a little bit under replacement value,
which is not bad for your first twenty NHL game.
So you like to see that he's a really decent return,
and most setups that don't reward those kinds of things,
he probably is going to be well below replacement level.
It might not be that interesting. And the other minor
parts of the deal, I'm not really sure that Gavin
Brinley or Will Zeller's will be relevant. But it's always
nice to take a swing and get something back. This
is something I often tell people that anytime you're and
we'll see some of these later, anytime you're getting a
big piece like Zeller's or sorry, Like Crosby, you always
want to get something else back. Sometimes people will trade
three for one or two for four, and it's just
get something else back. That other team probably has to
drop a player anyway, so might as well get a
Zeller's back mine as well, get or whatever. You don't
want to leave some opportunity on the table like that.
So just and sometimes in many cases, I don't know
about you, Ryan, but I've had this where I've asked
for something else back and the person is I'm going
to drop this guy anyways, and he ends up becoming
one of the better parts of the deal. Just get
something else back always.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. And we have to give mystics her
flowers here because that's that's the veteran savvy coming through
for her, because she said, I have to get something back.
I don't really care what it is, but give me
something back. And so we settled on will Zeller's who
he'll probably play on the World Junior team this year.
He'll probably be a third or fourth liner for that team.
So I guess we'll have to see. Maybe we will
be regretting it when we see will Zeller's put up
like a hat trick and a decided game. Who knows,
But anyways, I'm sure the audience is tired of hearing
about my trade now. This is one of those win wins.
I'm very happy that we were able to do this
with Mystics. We also did another one we're not going
to really talk much about, but we ended up selling
Bbrovski and we got some very good pieces back, Thomas
Harley being one of them, and maybe that'll come up
in a future edition of Tidy Takes. But Domistics certainly
did a lot of work to remake her roster, and
I'm pretty sure she hasn't lost since these deals, which
I think you know about intimately, Victor and he's shaking
his head. I don't know if he'll say anything about that.
So we'll move forward here with another trade from the
Tidy Lord Stanley Division. From two teams that are sniffing
around the top half of the league. We have Pittsburgh
Mutant Turtles acquiring center Luca del Bell Blues for the
Columbus Blue Jackets, center prospect Danny Nelson and goaltender Linis
Allmark from the London Spider Knights for Caleb Danye, Nate
Danielson and Joshua Ravensbergen. A very interesting deal here with
a lot of great young pieces, which is why we
chose to bring it here. But another version of a
veteran selloff with linis Almark heading to the Pittsburgh team.
Mike from the London Spider Knights had this to say
that Caleby and Joshua Ravensburger were two of his favorite
players in the past draft, that his team got off
to an unexpectedly hot start this year and he got
to the point where he felt comfortable moving one of
the oldest players on his roster in all Mark for
a big infusion of youth into his miners. The deal
came together quickly and that he thinks that both teams
got what they were looking for. Josh from Pittsburgh had
this to say that he'd had it on the block
for quite some time, that he was in the market
for a goalie like Almark, that he wasn't actively pursuing anything,
but when the offer came through, he felt he had
to jump on it. Ark may have some injury concerns,
but when he's healthy, he's usually money, and that Ravensbergen
was always a guy I had planned on using as
a trade chip, so moving him didn't bother me as much.
It hurt to give up on Caleb Danoia, but that's
the cost of getting what you need. And Dell Bell
Blues is on the cusp of being an active contributor
in Columbus and so that softened the Danuya blow. He
views Danny Nelson and Nate Danielson as a wash as
if he feels they're incredibly similar players, with Danielson obviously
being closer to contributing for the Wings, and I agree
with him. At the end of the day, he thinks
both teams got what they were looking for, so this
is a deal. They both feel like they got what
they were looking for, and they both praised the other
side for giving them what they were looking for. Tons
of young pieces moving in both directions. Where do you
want to start.
Speaker 1: With this one, Victor?
Speaker 3: I think that's a great insight and great explanation, and
I do think I leaned towards a win win. I
think the process and I think it's always useful too.
When you have three pieces like this moving back and forth,
you can more evenly equate the balance between the two
and one piece. Ollmark is clearly the best NHLer right now,
the only NHL are really and the others you can
see if they might be roughly equivalent, and I think
it's just easier to make those equivalencies when you have
even pieces like that. I think it's also important to
reiterate that goalies are incredibly hard to come by in
this league, and especially valuable since they don't count towards
the game's played limit, and especially goalies like this who
get volume and are on a pretty good team. Senators
are at least a pretty decent team that you expect
to get a reasonable number of wins, so that's always nice.
I think the fact that he had the assets to
get Omark is great. Despite having a great name, I
don't really think that much of Dell Bell Blues. I'm
not sure that he's ever going to be a significant
fantasy contributor for fantasy purposes, and I think Danny Nelson
is probably a better in real life guy, and I
agree that I think Nelson and Ay Danielson are probably
going to be similar. I think Danielsen has the possibility
for a little bit more upside. I've long been pretty
skeptical of him, but I think He's just kind of
a middle six guy. I'm not sure that he has
enough skill to be more than that. But between the two,
I think there's a little bit more upside for Danielson
for sure. I think Ravensbergen has a ton of upside,
but I think the weight is going to be long.
He's someone who wasn't even really playing competitive high level
hockey until a few years ago, and so he's got
a ways to go. But the nice thing is the
Sharks don't have to rush him either. They have some
pretty a pretty good young star goalie in the league
right now, and they have some other options that can
help delay that possibility or that need for him. So
I think the weight is going to be super long
with him, and I think it's possible that we see
Lalan and Spider Knights face relegation before Josh Ravensburgen ever
plays a game in the NHL for his team, so
that might be difficult to stomach, but if he can
keep it off long enough, then I think it'll be okay.
To me, this really comes down to Omark versus Day
on a and because of positional scarcity, I'd probably have
to lean Ollmark, but I do think some people are
underrating day Oona. I know that he's had a bit
of a rough time. He had surgery on his wrist,
and I think that makes it really hard to puck handle,
to shoot to all the things that you need to do.
So I think some people are being a little harsh
on diy Oona, and I still think he has pretty
significant upside. Ryan, I know that you might you might
disagree a little bit on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I have never been super impressed by
what I've seen from Danoya. Certainly is one of those
great play driving centers, but I don't think that the
offensive upside is going to necessarily be there. And he's
a part of that twenty twenty five NHL draft, which
I think we all have come to recognize was more
of a who can get the best third line center
draft than anything else. And so when I look at
a list of players that includes Danny Nelson, Nate Danielson,
Luca del Bell, Blues, and Caleb Daneoya, I think Danya
belongs more in that group of players than say with
a group like Michael Misa or Jcobrien. Some of these
guys who are going to have a lot more offensive
bona fides in the NHL. I'm gonna put you on
the spot a little bit here. What differentiates Caleb Danuy
from some of these other guys who you think of
the guys like in Detroit, like Michael Bransig, new Guard
Marco Kasper. I see Danuy is more like a plus
up version of those guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it depends on
how big you think that plus is. I think that
plus is bigger than you do and so that, But
it's not like massive. I think that he is really competitive,
he's hard to play against. I think his bash is
really good, So that's nice. But you could say the
similar thing for those other guys. I think the difference
is that daone has more skill that should afford him
top six opportunities. Now, whether he gets there and whether
he actually fleshes all that out and becomes what he
could be, I think is a totally different question. And
I personally think that he should be in line to
be that second line center for the Mammoth on the road.
I think that depending on how things work out. That's
how when I did my three year lineup projection for
the Mammoth, I think Cooley is the one seed. I
think they have elite wingers there with Keller and Gunther
and then probably Peterka and again La flanking Dayona. I
think that's where it should be. If he can get
to that level, they might force him to be a
second line center, even if he really isn't that and
so that's possible as well. But I think he just
has more skill than those other guys, more individual skill,
more reeds and ability to play with those top end players.
Does Dione than Nelson and Nate Danielson. So that's where
I think there's a bit of a difference.
Speaker 4: I definitely agree with you on the Utah side of things.
I think probably the big Barrett Hayten experiment will eventually
be over in Utah and he will move down the
lineup or even off of the team. He hasn't really
delivered for them from that kind of middle sixth center spot,
and it's looking pretty scarce for them beyond that, and
so I could definitely see Danuya stepping right into that role.
I could see him being better than Barrett Hayten right
now at the very least. I think we'll have to
wait and see. Regardless of our various opinions on de Noie,
there is still no doubt to me here the Pittsburgh
sent the higher quality centers over to London. This is
the price though, of doing business when acquiring goalies, especially
in this league format where the goalie starts don't count
against your weekly game games played limit, and so they
end up being a lot more valuable. Ultimately, if this
is a world where all of these centers are the
same ASH players with similar long term upsides, and you
pay to upgrade Ravensberger to a current established NHL starter,
that makes sense to me. It's a win win, and
I'm glad that our tidy managers also see it that way.
With the voting being pretty much even all the way through.
This next trade, however, was judged to be a little
more one sided by our listeners. We did have the
Caprice Sons sending away Gabriel Landeskog to our friend Fred
one if Byram two if Byfield for center Anton Froundel
who was drafted in last year's draft, goaltender Michael Hrabel,
and right winger Yegorten, who I know you guys talked
about him on the most a recent episode. I think
of fantasy hockey life. I make interested to hear about
what you think of this deal in that context. Here,
we actually didn't have the opportunity to speak to the
manager of the Caprices as that person has been cycled
out and replace with a new manager due to some
life factors. And so we did ask Fred what he
thought about the deal. That he took a big shot
in acquiring Landeskog, figured it would take some time before
he hits his stride, and when I asked him about it,
this was when Gabriel Lanskog really started to pop off
a couple weeks ago, over eighteen minutes of ice time
in his last two games at that time, and that
although Fred recognizes that the cost was very high, that
he really wanted him. And yeah, as I said, this
message was written to me on November twenty fourth, two
games after Landeskog moved up to power Play one and
bounced Victor Olafson off the top unit. Full disclosure here,
Victor Gabe Landeskog is one of my absolute favorite NHL
players ever. I've followed him since he was a kitchener ranger.
I've never had the option opportunity to roster him in fantasy,
So there's a part of me that's a little jealous.
Here Fred admits to paying a premium here, do you
think he gave up too much?
Speaker 3: In a word, probably yes, but if you win, the
price is never too high. I'm just not sure why
Fred made this deal though, because he's now eleventh at
three and six, and so I think it might be
a little hard to stomach. He's I guess, maybe thinking
he's trying to avoid relegation and that Leneskog will be
good for another year or two, because this kind of
looks like the play you make when you're trying to
push your chips in and win the division, which is
not the case. Leniscog does look a bit rejuvenated, and
we've seen some really high end flashes from him, but
that's really haven't caught up to where he was four
years ago. He's well below replacement level right now at
thirty three. I'm not sure that I would have paid
this much unless I was knocking on the door of
the championship. I think there's still room for him to
grow and become more valuable. I don't know that this
was the best calculated risk, the not one that I
would make. Especially considering the cost. Frondell is looking every
bit like a future top liner at top six at worst,
and I think he'll be ready for NHL action soon.
He was in the Hockey Helt Spanskin in his draft
season last year, and this season he's in the SHL
and he's looking great. I think he might even be
ready for a NHL action next season. Maybe he gets
some AHL conditioning, but at worst it's a couple of years.
So the weight on front Dell is not long. And
even though he's about having a bit of a down
season at U Mass, Michael Crabbel is one of the
best NCAA goalies and I think he has starter upside
for the Mammoth. But that weight is probably a couple
of years, two to three years from now, So I
get that. And Sarin, Yeah, I really like him. I
think that he is really fun and I feel we
talked about him recently. I feel like he should have
been enough to make this trade. Quite frankly, like you
have an older, aging asset who hasn't quite hit his
stride yet and you have a young up and comer
who could be somewhat equivalent to that. I don't know
it seems like that should have been enough, and giving
everything that he gave there just seems way excessive. Frondell
for Atlantis squad seems like way too much in and
of itself. And then you act rabble answer and just
it's too much for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I couldn't agree more with you, Victor. You took
a lot of what I was gonna say out of
my mouth there. The first thing I wanted to highlight
is that I think Anton Frondell should not be involved
in this deal. He could very well be the twenty
twenty five version of Gabe Landscog. He and Victor Ecklund
dragged that Jury Gardens team all the way up from
the Alspenskin to the SHL, and they're still looking incredible
as part of that league, facing the higher level of
competition and rising to the challenge. Anton Frondel right now
ten goals and five assists, fifteen points for twenty five games,
and he's eighteen years old playing against Ben. He's on
a similar kind of trajectory to another twenty twenty six
draft eligible that we were talking about off the podcast before,
Victor talk about Evar Stenberg. Those are high end, elite
players and Frondel is certainly one of those guys who
could end up near the top of a roster in
the NHL for the next fifteen years, So I think
it's a bit weird that he is involved here. Like
you said, hera ball is certainly coin flip, but it's
not like there's much competition in that system. They still,
I think, only have one NHL goaltender in the whole
kitten kaboodle of their goaltending system there, So he should
be in the league in a couple of years. And
like you said, Diegor surin, what's not to like? He
should be making a Will Cooley style impact in Nashville
sooner rather than later. I will never fault someone forgetting
their guy though, and maybe land Is called will rediscover
some of his previous form as the season progresses and
he gets into the grind. But I still think it's
a lot to give up. But good on your Fred,
you know what you want, and I hope this deal
works out for you. Time for us to take a break.
We'll be back right after this and you're listening to
Tidy Takes. All I do is will we no matter
what my name Odam, and we're continuing down the veterans
selloff path. Here Victor with a deal from the Tidy
Yogurt Division suitor McGavin aka Rob, the architect of the
Dynasty IQ project, and if you're interested in more about that,
you can ask him about it. That you know who
I am on discord for more information. He has acquired
one of his guys, so similar to how Fred got
Gabe Landeskog, we have a deal here where Rob acquires
Dylan Larkin in exchange for left winger Daniel boot Or
as he is known to his Utah Mammoth teammates Cheeks,
versatile forward Ryan Nugent Hopkins for the Vonton Oilers and
center prospect for the Seattle Krack and Berkeley Catton. Our
Tidy managers have judged this in the favor of the
Boot Nugent Hopkins cat inside, with the Jamie Bens coming
out with fifty percent on this deal, with Rob getting
sixteen percent and it being a thirty three percent even
split as well, just from the JB. Jamie Ben's side
of this trade that he feels he received great value
and feels good about the trade, even if Dugen Hopkins.
At the time of this recording was hurt. Usually he
is on the power play with McDavid and Drysdle, so
he is a valuable asset in Catton and Boot, he
got younger, and that he's going to be much better
in two years, and that those two guys fit more
with his window with other players like Demodov, Slavkovsky, Misa,
Haggens and Fowler on his team. Rob had this to
say that the deal came together because he desperately wanted
to not finish in the bottom four this year and
is trying to make the playoffs, if that's not too greedy.
That he had a ton of decent prospects from his
cell job late last season, and he's putting it out
there that he still does actually if there's any Yogur
managers who are looking to buy, and that he wanted
to leverage some name recognition with Boot and Catton as
toppers to an upgrade from Ryan Nugent Hopkins, and that
Larkin fits that bill perfectly. He had peg Detroit as
an improved team candidate, which I think is very fair
and just figured anyone on that Detroit power play one
was going to get points. Larkin's play at the Four
Nations put a bug in his brain since late February,
and he's still only twenty nine, and so he sent
the offer and it was accepted. He's thrilled with the trade.
He knows that he probably even lost the deal. They
gave up a ton, but he can't get Larkin in
other leagues, and that he's hoping before Catten and Boot
bite him in the boot that he'll be in another
tier that he'd like to make a few more deals
like that this season. So tidy Yager managers get on
the phone another deal Victor where Rob admits to overpaying
to get his guy, but he doesn't seem to turn
at all. Would that be too much for you to
acquire admittedly one of the better centers in the league.
Speaker 3: I think it's true that you have to overpay to
get your guy. If you have eyed who you want
and you reach out, you're typically going to have to
overpay a bit. I think this is more than I
would want to pay, frankly, although Larkin is awesome and
I like the get In general, and roster consolidation is
really important, as we've talked about having one guy who
gets more points and you can fit others into those
spots that aren't producing as much is really important. The
thing here is, though I think RNH can be pretty
similar to what Larkin can be. I don't think it's
that far off. I looked at the points and for
the whole season, Larkin's at six point five three per
game and RNH at five point five five. But you
definitely have weeks and times where they're almost the same.
And I think that we have seen Edmonton's power playgo nuclear,
and since all of those pieces are back, including Hymen
and RNH, it has been pretty fantastic, and so I
feel if you're giving RNH, you shouldn't need to give
as big of a plus. I think Cadden is a
great get. I think that it won't be long until
he's over four point five Fantasy points per game. Even
though he's a low priff guy. I think his points
upside is huge, and I think that he's good. He's
right now the most talented forward on that Seattle cracking team,
even though he's young and has a bit of things
to figure out. So I would not have wanted to
give that, but I like the get there, certainly for
the Jamie Bens, and I think another a boot is
another low periffs guy, but I think he could. He
has seen some looks there in the top six. He'll
probably be up and down and won't be a consistent
producer for a little bit now. But I like this
RNH side. I think getting both Boot and Cadden is
a huge win. I think long term the Larkins side
probably wins because that's a competitive looks like a playoff team,
and I guess that makes sense for Rob at the
bottom of the league trying to fight to save off relegation.
I just feel like he probably didn't need to give
quite as much of a plus to RNH to get Larkin.
It always depends on what that negotiation is, and sometimes
you just want to make it happen, and so maybe
you'll give a little bit more than you wanted to.
I just feel like he might not regret Boot as much,
but he might regret in a year or two even
sooner giving Cadden because I could see Kadden really going
on a run. What about you, Ryn, Yeah, just in that.
Speaker 4: Idea of overpaying, I think he probably could have gotten
it done with either Catten and Nuge or Boot and Nuge.
So I guess it depends on what you think about
Daniel Boot, but you were kind enough I was able
to go into a bit of a deep dive on
Daniel Boot on the Keeping Carlson Short Shifts last week
because he did make his debut on the Top but
in the Top six with the Utah Mammoth didn't do
a whole lot, but he's playing the right way. He's
doing a lot of things right, and the early returns
for him in Utah are very positive. You were kind
enough to give me your opinion on Daniel Boot for
that episode, and I'll just read what you had to
say that you think he has the potential to be
similar to an Alexi Protass, a guy who at his
worst is like a depth contributor and at his best
is a productive kind of seventy point ish kind of
guy in the Top six. And so it really does
depend on where you end up with Daniel Boot. If
he ends up closer to an Elmer Soderblom who doesn't
really use that size and skill and just is more
of a replacement level, I think this is more or
less even given the circumstances that you described up top,
But otherwise I think the value is a little too
much for me to give up, especially if isn't a
win now and move up move And we're going to
finish off today Victor with two trades that rhyme a
little bit at least when it comes to one of
the key players involved. Before we continue, Victor, why don't
you give us an idea of what this player is like?
And we're talking about Consta Hellanius. He is featured in
both of these deals, and I'd love if we could
just upend our format here for a second and establish
a little bit of context on the player before digging
into his involvement in these trades.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, I think that you have to start
by just naming the production. That he has twenty points
in twenty four games in the AHL as a nineteen
year old is pretty fantastic, and I think you have
to give him credit for that. He also played his
Draft plus one season as an eighteen year old in
the AHL and had over a half point per game,
so all that is very impressive. He's also good at
the World Juniors. Some of his underlying numbers don't look great,
some do look great, and so when you look at
it that way, some of his transition data is quite disappointing.
Actually he's not seeming to do very well there, but
his Fenwick and net expected goals is incredible, incredibly high.
He's winning tons of face offs. That was one of
the questions too, Could he be a center? It looks
like he's doing pretty well at that and his bash
has been better than I expected too. His hits are
fiftieth percentile. He shoots a lot, doesn't block too much,
but overall that's going to give him a solid peripheral floor.
So the question is like, how many of these undersized
forwards can they have and can one of them actually
be their top line center? And he's looking more and
more like he could be. So I really like the
opportunity there. He's pushing to be a top six version
of these undersized forwards that they've drafted, like no Oasland.
I think that Helenius is the best option though so far,
and I think that he's the most likely to get
that top opportunity. Whether or not he actually fulfills that,
I'm not sure, but it's looking more and more likely.
Speaker 4: Ryan Victor, you're a smart hockey person, right, so you're
saying it's possible consta Helnius could get one of those
roles on the Sabers. Unfortunately, I don't think the Sabers
have a ton of smart hockey people in there, and
so I think at the time of this recording, they
just sent down Noah Oasland. Lindy Ruff not too happy
about losing a very good, productive young player from his roster.
They don't seem to know what they're doing there either way.
Constant Hellnius looks like he could be one of those
guys that maybe they overpay by a couple million dollars
in a couple of years, or they just never give
him the opportunity even though he deserves it. So it's
an interesting nebulous asset to talk about here. Good to
get an idea on where he is as of late,
and you're right, he's taken a huge step this year,
and so with all that in mind, we have a
deal involving him here. Brandon, also known as our HHL
Commission on our Discord, acquires Hellnius and Basher defenseman Steyan Soldberg,
who is a favorite of mine from Filthy Animal, who
is a new manager to the to the Tidy Lemieux
cadre of the managers. He acquires Steven Stamcos and Brady Shay,
So this is acquiring two productive Ish veteran options for
the future prospect of a constant Hellnius and Steyan. Solberg
didn't have the time to hear from Brandon, who is
I'm sure very busy with all the work he does
for Fantasy Hockey Life among other things. But we did
have Mike filthy animal way in on this deal, and
he says when he was promoted to Lemieux that he
set a goal to stay there. The team that he
inherited was stacked with prospects and had very little pro
level depth. The roster wasn't even full. The plan was
to move futures for established players and try to nickel
and dime his way up the standings. And as a
little side note addendum here, I can vouch for that
the previous manager was really into the prospect game, maybe
not so much into the pro talent game, and was
really angling towards a window that's a bit later, and
back to Mike here that he felt so far it's
been tough to find a dance partner at that point
in the season who would be willing to move contributing assets,
especially in a short run to the playoffs, he made
it clear that everyone was available and even shopped Michael
Misa looking for a high end return and got nothing Crickets.
Eventually he found a team that was willing to move
a veteran players for futures, and they landed on Holnius
and Solberg for the struggling Stamcoast and Shay and that.
Both players he's acquired have been steady depth contributors and
helped him better battle his way to fourth place in
Lemieux with at this time a five to two record,
and he's improved that since then, with Misa, Yurov, Victor
Ecklund and others still in the pipeline and pasta Ajo
and Jarvis leading his core. The future is bright. Dare
he say the future is filthy? I love to see
Mike getting involved here early, Victor, I know you do too.
In his time stewarding this team in tidy Lemieux, he
acquires some lower end pro options. Admittedly for some lower
end prospects. Is that how this works it for you, Victor?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, And people may might not remember, but Mike
filthy animal was up in Lord Stanley had to step
away from a bit and what re entered the league
at the bottom and worked his way up and has
been doing great. So very strong manager and definitely knows
what he's doing. This is a very interesting trade to
me because it seems like I'm not exactly sure you
know what's going on here. Looking at the fantasy points
per game, Stancos at three point two two and generally
just above three is like replacement level in this league.
So he's right below that. Brady Shay is at two
point six, which is definitely below replacement. So the NHL
as sure have some value, but they're not doing so
right now. I absolutely love Stolberg and Helenius, but we
talked a little bit about Helenius stein Silberg. I just
got the opportunity to watch him play in the HL
and that article is coming out for the Journey this
by the time you by the time this episode is released,
should be able to read that he is a dude.
He is awesome. He is gonna absolutely truck guys. His
hits are incredible. He's a big physical presence. He's the
kind of guy that when you're forward coming into the zone,
you are aware of where he is at all times
and probably are just going to go try to enter
the zone on the other side, because Stein Silberg is
definitely a physical presence, and so it's interesting to me
though that I like Brandon's side here, but getting Soilberg
and Helenius isn't going to help him so much as
he tries to stave off relegation, and right now he
is last in the league and it seems like he
has a date with relegation coming. Looking at his roster,
maybe you'd think he probably has some guys that are
injured and maybe they will come out and perform better.
Not really is the answer to that. As far as
I can tell, that he does have some players who
have underperformed, and I think that could turn around. I
like the bet long term if he does stave off relegation.
I love this for him because I think those two
players could absolutely start contributing very soon. And it's really
hard to find those players in this league that can
turn things around for you and pull your team up
from the basement. So in general, i'd want Silburg and Helenius,
which is opposite of the poll. I think a lot
of times there's a tendency to vote for the NHLers,
but I just don't think those two are very interesting.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 3: I will say of all the players who are or
below replacement level, Stephen Stamcos is certainly one who I
think could flip the script on that and become more valuable.
We just haven't really seen it yet, so I remain
skeptical that it's going to happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I wonder if this is one of those ones, Victor,
where if I reposted the poll in the Tidy Trades channel,
if it'd be completely different. Right now, the voting on
this is from about a month ago a lot. At
that time, I think you Stampcos was starting to score
a little bit more, and there's some name recognition definitely there.
I think I really like this for Mike's side of
the deal, and I think it becomes even more interesting
if Barry Trotz eventually does decide to blow up Nashville
and maybe we see Stampcos go elsewhere, maybe he ends up.
I know the big talking points are like, do these
guys go to other no tax states? So do we
see a Stephen Stamkos or a Brady Shay end up
in Dallas or in Vegas, or perhaps back in Tampa
Bay or on the Florida Panthers, Like I wonder if
we do see the stampcost moved to the Panthers, for instance,
if we see the same kind of late career blow
up there Brad Marshaand is experiencing right now, that's when
this deal will become I think, really interesting to me.
But that's probably for another podcast later in the year.
We're going to stay on the Hillarious track here, and
we started with Mystics and we might as well end
with Mystics two, who has been busy all season. This
was one the deal that she made earlier in the
season of all people, with the Steel City Stars, who
is one of the stronger teams in the Tidy Top Division.
Here we have Mystics who paired Hellarius with another solid
Nashville pro, this time one who you do want to have,
the captain Roman Yosi. She sends Consta Hellanius and Roman
Yosi and gets back right winger Gabriel Valardi defensive I
almost said prospect, but he's been a contributor for Dallas
this year, Liam Bixell and Philadelphia goaltender sammy Erson. So
lots of more pro ready assets here, Victor. So that's
certainly something to consider here. Mystics, of course, keeping trying
to really use the spoils of hers bursal draft, that
Yosi was her third overall pick, and that when he
was sitting on her ir and not accruing points for her,
she decided that she couldn't wait out his return, that
she was losing too many possible points and went looking
for a trade partner. Steel City was strong enough to
wait for a Roman Yosi return, and so she gets
back Vollardi a player to roster immediately, Eyerson a player
to help her weak goaliepool, and Lion Bixell to help
recover the loss of a good prospect in Helenius. And
then she thinks that as trade partners they fit very well.
And Thumper, the Steel City Stars manager, had this to say.
He had a lot of great insight here, that his
goal in this deal was to strengthen d from a
position of strength at wing and in goal. That he
feels Yosi was worth the gamble if he can be
eighty percent of himself, and that Helenius is a B
plus prospect, a smart player and starting to produce in
the Ahl Buffalo and needing some talent, so he's happy
with his side of the deal, and that he says
that this deal is probably more of the variety where
he had some extra assets at wing and in goal
and felt that he could try to make a move
to increase his defensive depth. He felt Ersen could be
moved and that his winger core is pretty deep, and
at the time of the deal, Harrison Bruniki and archie
Levschinov were call ups alongside Bixel, so he was having
to decide between them each week and felt he could
let go of Bixel as a result. He also, as
we've been talking about the entire time here, right back
to my deal earlier, that one of the most important
aspects to the Tidy League is having a nice steady
stream of farm miners eligible call ups each year, and
then he shoots to have guys that he thinks will
be able to play in the NHL and give him
those extra games played every week, So having too many
at once or a big gap can hurt, and that
he thinks Helenius can give him that in a year
or two. We've talked at length Victor about Mystic's injury luck,
so we don't need to get into that too much.
Did she get enough for moving off of one of
her top dispersal draft picks in Roman Yosi.
Speaker 3: I think so. I think she laid out the reasoning
pretty perfectly there. She's not doing she wasn't doing well
and couldn't wait around for things to get worse. Sometimes
you can get too far behind her. It's a good
reminder that. And Lord Stanley is the only division where
you have three teams get relegated, whereas in the other
visions you have one, and so it's really important to
keep that in mind because you really don't want to
be in that relegation playoffs. It's quite stressful and things
can go sideways in a hurry, and you have more
chance of going down than staying up. So you want
to make sure you pull yourself out of that as
quickly as possible. So I think they weren't really. I
think they obviously helped her. As you mentioned, she hasn't
lost since those trades, and it definitely helped beat me.
Without those trades, I think I would have won that matchup,
which is fine. It really worked out well for her,
and I think that for Steel City, I think this
is the benefits of being a little farther up in
the standings is that you can make a bet like this.
We already talked about how helpful Helenius can be, and
I think that he can just sit on that and wait,
and in a couple of years he should be really
a strong contributor. And then you take a gamble with
someone like Roman Yosi. For Mystics, she couldn't wait around
any longer. She couldn't handle seeing those points just not
appear on her team after being an ar for so long,
and steel City has a little bit of a buffer,
so it can wait and get that contribution. So I
think this is a great trade. It's a classic win win.
Both teams get what they need and helps Mystics short term,
helps steel City long term. And sometimes with players like Yosie,
you are really hesitant to take a gamble like that,
but when you're a strong team, that's exactly the kind
of gamble that you want to make. And I think
so far it could work out really well for both
of them.
Speaker 4: And those are the kind of gambles, Victor that keep
you in the tidy top division, and ultimately you do
what you have to do to stay in the top
division of the tidy that Lord Stanley Division is the
hallowed hall for many of us fantasy Hockey managers. It's
not easy to get here, and Mystics is certainly showing
her metal as the matriarch of Fantasy Hockey Life's first family,
and so we're very happy to see her involved and
getting dirty with some of these deals. I'm sure this
isn't the last we'll hear from Mystics as the show
continues through the season, but it is the last that
you'll hear of me for today. So thanks for having
me once again, Victor, and I hope everyone out there
in Prospect Lands enjoys Prospect Christmas, which happens to coincide
with normal Christmas, also known as the World Juniors, which
we'll be getting underway in a few short weeks. I
know you're excited, Victor. I'm excited, and I won't make
any promises because of course, we all know that the
Tidy Takes segment depends on having deals from our Fantasy
Hockey life to your dynasty managers to talk about. But
we usually do see an influx of trades in January
around the World Juniors based on what people are seeing,
what people have seen in the World Junior Tournament and
keep your fingers crossed for some relevant names to talk
about as we get to further into the Fantasy hockey
season here. But in the meantime, I will wish everyone
to marry World Juniors and to all a good.
Speaker 2: You miss me. I'm back to tell you that our
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