u/Turbulent_Oil700

Was interesting to read the national perspective on our guys. Here's who was on the 156 player list.

Tier 3 (Bubble NHL star and top of the lineup player)

#6 Logan Cooley (#5 is Carlsson, #7 is Sennecke)

Tier 5 (Bubble top and middle of the lineup player)

#24 Caleb Desnoyers (#23 is Malhotra, #25 is McQueen)

#34 Dmitri Simashev

#47 Tomas Lavoie

#49 Ethan Belchetz

Tier 6 (Middle of the lineup player)

#78 Tij Iginla

#84 Gabe Smith

#89 Daniil But

#107 Vojtech Hradec

#122 Maveric Lamoureux

#150 Michael Hrabal

$156 Vadim Moroz

Tij gets a mention, too. Thought it was worth the listen overall, but easy on the tracker to find the bit about Soimashev if you're not interested in the rest.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/podcast/240-the-athletic-hockey-show/

He’s got a full NMC, so wherever he goes is not going to have to overpay. At the same time, Detroit has to agree, and they won’t unless that “somewhere” can send back players and not just draft picks. He’s almost exactly two years older than Keller, so while he’s about to turn 30, he still matches our timeline reasonably well. Seems like a pretty good fit to me on paper! Curious for others’ thoughts.

Curious about folks' thoughts here. McMann is a nice player who is the same age as Keller, but I don't follow the logic. While Yamamoto is not a top-sixer on paper, that line was cooking with gas. It's one of the *last* things I'd be worried about if I were GMBA and trying to get us deeper into the playoffs, especially because if it's not working as well next year it's easier to trade for a second-line winger than many other potential needs.

Obviously, money makes all the difference here: a player like McMann would potentially be a huge upgrade for our *third* line, but presumably he's going to command second line money (and the massive delta between goals and expected goals from this past season suggests he might end up being pretty overpriced).

https://preview.redd.it/agzvgu6sop1h1.png?width=1412&format=png&auto=webp&s=5caa677fa2386b8aad0286c6874869ba66057d5e

Curious who folks still watching are for and against. (If your first choice isn't Buffalo, you probably don't cast a reflection, so really I'm wondering who the other picks are.) I have to admit that I struggle to find a villain aside from Vegas: to me this is an unusually compelling group of teams.