GDT: 4-Nations Games

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Just a bizarre sequence of events. The guys hasn't been medically cleared by the Canucks and Mike Sullivan says he's en route to Boston at a press conference...
I got a slight whiff of panic out of Sullivan's comments. That didn't sound like a confident coach - it sounded like a guy who has some injury and illness issues in his room and was hoping for a lifeline...
 
What could we reasonably ask for from Florida, NYR, L.A., Vegas, etc.?

NYR: Lafrenniere + NYR 1st round pick in 2025?

Players like Brady never get traded so it's going to take a lot more than Lafreniere and a protected or mid round 1st.

If the Rangers miss the playoffs and win the lottery again, Lafreniere and 1st or 2nd is probably a starting point, ironically, since they asked us for 3rd+Brady for Lafreniere back in 2020.

If he goes to New York it will be for a King's Ransome, and then we will hear how Ottawa offered Brady for Lafreniere alone in 2020, or some sort of silly alt history related to that draft.
 
It also simply won't work: if the captain and star player requests a trade, they are getting it.

Exactly.

Teams can't hold on to disgruntled superstars indefinitely because it becomes a distraction. When it is a big enough distraction, the team loses games and risks missing the playoffs, people stop buying tickets, and season ticket holders don't renew. Tkachuk not reporting isn't the issue, it's Tkachuk reporting and being a distraction. There is a reason EK was traded the day training camp opened up. They couldn't keep him any longer.

GMs also have to build and capitalize on the market for a player. When you hold a player for too long, and then it gets out that they are disgruntled, the market usually collapses. For as much as Sakic holding on to Duchene for as long as he did was legendary, it's only legendary because he got incredibly lucky. If that drags on for another few weeks, Ottawa drops out of the trade, and they aren't getting much more for Duchene than Ottawa got for him from Columbus.

According to Friedman, Sakic was sweating bullets because he turned down some big trades early on the process. Dorion very much bailed him out. Look at the consequence of holding on to Duchene, the Avalanche had one of the worst seasons of all-time. Sometimes the result isn't reflective of the process, Sakic got lucky.

Tkachuk doesn't need to play coy to get his NMC to activate and then request a trade. He is going to have an element of control just by the nature of the situation. Maybe not as much as he would have with the NMC, but he isn't being sent to a Columbus-type team. The cost for him pre-July 1st will be so high, that any team who acquires him will want to be sure that they have a shot of keeping him long-term. Anything is possible, and someone like Chicago or San Jose could do something stupid and acquire him, but I just can't see it given that NMCs no longer expire with players. It's way too risky.

My hope is that we go on a big magical run, and we have a nice four playoff window to finally enjoy the fruits of drafting Tkachuk, but I am well aware that may not happen. I don't think they should keep Tkachuk if he isn't 100 percent hyped about the situation. It's way too risky if the market for him in a trade right now is what we think it might be. Once his NMC kicks in, he's going for something a lot closer to the original Karlsson trade (not what it became, what we thought it was at the time) than even what Buffalo got for Eichel.

Wait why are we trading Brady?

We need Lafreniere to appeal to our key market, Quebec City.
 
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Exactly.

Teams can't hold on to disgruntled superstars indefinitely because it becomes a distraction. When it is a big enough distraction, the team loses games and risks missing the playoffs, people stop buying tickets, and season ticket holders don't renew. Tkachuk not reporting isn't the issue, it's Tkachuk reporting and being a distraction. There is a reason EK was traded the day training camp opened up. They couldn't keep him any longer.

GMs also have to build and capitalize on the market for a player. When you hold a player for too long, and then it gets out that they are disgruntled, the market usually collapses. For as much as Sakic holding on to Duchene for as long as he did was legendary, it's only legendary because he got incredibly lucky. If that drags on for another few weeks, Ottawa drops out of the trade, and they aren't getting much more for Duchene than Ottawa got for him from Columbus.

According to Friedman, Sakic was sweating bullets because he turned down some big trades early on the process. Dorion very much bailed him out. Look at the consequence of holding on to Duchene, the Avalanche had one of the worst seasons of all-time. Sometimes the result isn't reflective of the process, Sakic got lucky.

Tkachuk doesn't need to play coy to get his NMC to activate and then request a trade. He is going to have an element of control just by the nature of the situation. Maybe not as much as he would have with the NMC, but he isn't being sent to a Columbus-type team. The cost for him pre-July 1st will be so high, that any team who acquires him will want to be sure that they have a shot of keeping him long-term. Anything is possible, and someone like Chicago or San Jose could do something stupid and acquire him, but I just can't see it given that NMCs no longer expire with players. It's way too risky.

My hope is that we go on a big magical run, and we have a nice four playoff window to finally enjoy the fruits of drafting Tkachuk, but I am well aware that may not happen. I don't think they should keep Tkachuk if he isn't 100 percent hyped about the situation. It's way too risky if the market for him in a trade right now is what we think it might be. Once his NMC kicks in, he's going for something a lot closer to the original Karlsson trade (not what it became, what we thought it was at the time) than even what Buffalo got for Eichel.



We need Lafreniere to appeal to our key market, Quebec City.

Karlsson was heading into his final season before UFA when he was traded. We didn’t deal him because he was going to be a distraction, we dealt him because we knew he wouldn’t re-sign, we got an offer that was likely going to be as good as we could get at the deadline, and we didn’t want to risk him getting injured and then losing him for nothing.

As of July 2nd, Tkachuk will have 3 years left before being a UFA. Completely different situation.

If he “commits” to the team after the season but then asks for a trade when his NMC kicks in, the team can very easily tell him to suck it up because his only option is playing here.

There are only two scenarios in terms of him being traded. He’s traded at the draft to the highest bidder (and a team like Columbus may very well pony up to go for it, as they’ve done before), or he’s here for another 2.5 seasons, until the trade deadline in his last year.

He’s not picking his spot (ie. Florida, NY or St.Louis) in July or August.
 
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Karlsson was heading into his final season before UFA when he was traded. We didn’t deal him because he was going to be a distraction, we dealt him because we knew he wouldn’t re-sign, we got an offer that was likely going to be as good as we could get at the deadline, and we didn’t want to risk him getting injured and then losing him for nothing.

As of July 2nd, Tkachuk will have 3 years left before being a UFA. Completely different situation.

If he “commits” to the team after the season but then asks for a trade when his NMC kicks in, the team can very easily tell him to suck it up because his only option is playing here.

There are only two scenarios in terms of him being traded. He’s traded at the draft to the highest bidder (and a team like Columbus may very well pony up to go for it, as they’ve done before), or he’s here for another 2.5 seasons, until the trade deadline in his last year.

He’s not picking his spot (ie. Florida, NY or St.Louis) in July or August.

He was dealt the moment training camp opened. It absolutely had to do with ending the distraction. They kept Mark Stone who was a pending UFA, same with Duchene, both of which they likely knew they couldn't meet the demands of, but neither of which were already out there publicly as having one foot out the door so it wasn't the same kind of distraction. So it clearly wasn't about protecting a UFA asset.

JT Miller is a similar situation that we just saw. Vancouver didn't just say screw it we have crappy offers, we will just wait. They dealt him before the market collapsed any further and their playoff chances were made any lower.

This is not a market that can handle anymore losing seasons. If Brady asks out and they refuse to trade him because they have 3 years of team control, it will prove to be a massive distraction in the last market place they can handle that kind of chaos. This team needs playoff revenue and season ticket renewals. By dragging in a Brady trade, not only do they still get the same negative outcome (fans upset that Brady wants out), but they also make it worse by prolonging the negative story and getting a worse return because his NMC would have activated.

If you go through the history of these situations, team control doesn't matter because there are too many stakeholders who are effected negatively from the distraction of a superstar wanting out.
 
He was dealt the moment training camp opened. It absolutely had to do with ending the distraction. They kept Mark Stone who was a pending UFA, same with Duchene, both of which they likely knew they couldn't meet the demands of, but neither of which were already out there publicly as having one foot out the door so it wasn't the same kind of distraction. So it clearly wasn't about protecting a UFA asset.

JT Miller is a similar situation that we just saw. Vancouver didn't just say screw it we have crappy offers, we will just wait. They dealt him before the market collapsed any further and their playoff chances were made any lower.

This is not a market that can handle anymore losing seasons. If Brady asks out and they refuse to trade him because they have 3 years of team control, it will prove to be a massive distraction in the last market place they can handle that kind of chaos. This team needs playoff revenue and season ticket renewals. By dragging in a Brady trade, not only do they still get the same negative outcome (fans upset that Brady wants out), but they also make it worse by prolonging the negative story and getting a worse return because his NMC would have activated.

If you go through the history of these situations, team control doesn't matter because there are too many stakeholders who are effected negatively from the distraction of a superstar wanting out.

He was dealt the moment training camp opened because they didn’t want him to step on the ice, tear his ACL, be untradeable for the rest of the year, and then walk for nothing.

Distraction had zero to do with it. They were tanking. A distraction would have actually helped.

JT Miller didn’t want out of Vancouver. He had an issue with a teammate. Had that teammate been traded instead of him, he would’ve happily stayed there. He never asked for a trade. Neither did Pettersson. The team decided to move one of them.

I’m not saying the team won’t trade him if he asks out. I’m saying they’ll force him to make that decision prior to the draft. They’re not going to let it get to July 2nd when that NMC kicks in.

If that date goes by and he’s here, it’s because he wants to stay here and has told them so.
 
Brandon Hagel who I find supre impressive and who has scored some nice goals on Ottawa this year - he describes why some franchises are good and some suck:

- Drafted by Buffalo in the 6th round and Buffalo never signs him - he signs with Chicago out of the WHL

- Chicago outhinks themselves and trades him for a massive package to TB and the entire package including 2 x 1st round picks and all the extra players amounts to the Jason Spezza trade - nothing there besides maybe a Nick Paul.

- Tampa gets him, extends him on a fair but friendly contract and turns him into a Team Canada starter
 
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Brandon Hagel who I find supre impressive and who has scored some nice goals on Ottawa this year - he describes why some franchises are good and some suck:

- Drafted by Buffalo in the 6th round and Buffalo never signs him - he signs with Chicago out of the WHL

- Chicago outhinks themselves and trades him for a massive package to TB and the entire package including 2 x 1st round picks and all the extra players amounts to the Jason Spezza trade - nothing there besides maybe a Nick Paul.

- Tampa gets him, extends him on a fair but friendly contract and turns him into a Team Canada starter
This is how good teams stay good (Tampa) and why bad teams stay bad (Buffalo and Chicago). That's a tidy bit of business for Tampa...
 
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He was dealt the moment training camp opened. It absolutely had to do with ending the distraction. They kept Mark Stone who was a pending UFA, same with Duchene, both of which they likely knew they couldn't meet the demands of, but neither of which were already out there publicly as having one foot out the door so it wasn't the same kind of distraction. So it clearly wasn't about protecting a UFA asset.

JT Miller is a similar situation that we just saw. Vancouver didn't just say screw it we have crappy offers, we will just wait. They dealt him before the market collapsed any further and their playoff chances were made any lower.

This is not a market that can handle anymore losing seasons. If Brady asks out and they refuse to trade him because they have 3 years of team control, it will prove to be a massive distraction in the last market place they can handle that kind of chaos. This team needs playoff revenue and season ticket renewals. By dragging in a Brady trade, not only do they still get the same negative outcome (fans upset that Brady wants out), but they also make it worse by prolonging the negative story and getting a worse return because his NMC would have activated.

If you go through the history of these situations, team control doesn't matter because there are too many stakeholders who are effected negatively from the distraction of a superstar wanting out.

The committed to dealing him because he wasn't going to re-sign, the timing of the trade was likely a mix of a) didn't want the continuing distraction, b) didn't want to risk an injury that would kill his value, and c) they got an offer that was close enough to whatever value they felt they could get at the deadline.

Mark Stone they wanted to extend, and he wanted to stay (according to York who claims he was told directly by Stone) but the team wasn't willing or able to give him the trade protection and bonus structure he wanted so he ended up getting traded.

Duchene they probably knew was on his way out, but I suspect that juggling a Hoffman trade, Karlsson trade, and Stone/Duchene renegotiations/trades, they simply couldn't make it all happen in the offseason and needed to prioritize.
 
I want this to happen but f*** wish they brought a younger faster more aggressive team that played off instinct .

Hopefully Makar makes a big enough difference.

Makar in, McAvoy out. Hellebyuck has a history of being Swiss cheese in must win games. And Matthews as the top line center in a high-pressure situation? Please.

Americans have been walking around as if they won the whole thing on Saturday. I think they’re in for it tonight.

There’s no one on that side that can match McDavid, MacKinnon or Makar.
 
Told my boss I'm bringing my laptop to work to stream the game (its not even busy after 8pm) and if he has a problem, he can let me go (its his last day at this job too so he chuckled and said do whatever).

Going to be screaming profanities at a laptop inside a rec centre all night long. GO CANADA F*** USA
 
I want this to happen but f*** wish they brought a younger faster more aggressive team that played off instinct .

Hopefully Makar makes a big enough difference.

I'd have liked Tom Wilson and Scheifele on this team.. Its going to be a hard checking game again.

Wilson would have had a response for the Tkachuks targeting much smaller players
 
Told my boss I'm bringing my laptop to work to stream the game (its not even busy after 8pm) and if he has a problem, he can let me go (its his last day at this job too so he chuckled and said do whatever).

Going to be screaming profanities at a laptop inside a rec centre all night long. GO CANADA F*** USA
Me cheering for Canada is more so that I hate the states more, but yes go Canada.
 
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Me cheering for Canada is more so that I hate the states more, but yes go Canada.
Pretty much the same for me. I hate nationalism and aside from cheering for athletes during olympics and other events, I try not to take pride in being Canadian because its not something I accomplished. I'm grateful for being born here, but it's not an accomplishment or anything.

I just really dislike the USA right now and any chance to fuel that dislike is fun right now
 
Pretty much the same for me. I hate nationalism and aside from cheering for athletes during olympics and other events, I try not to take pride in being Canadian because its not something I accomplished. I'm grateful for being born here, but it's not an accomplishment or anything.

I just really dislike the USA right now and any chance to fuel that dislike is fun right now
Sweden was the least evil of the 4 nations that's for sure. I would be inclined to put Finland if it wasn't for the fact that they were an Axis Power in the past.
 

Brock Faber with a refreshing take on the animosity between USA-CAN that is not completely tone deaf. JT Miller and MTkachuk need to take notes, but that would require them to be able to write with a pen and paper instead of sticking it in their noses.
 

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