Trade deadline is coming upon us

Sarah Sivian, columnist for Bleacher Report. Let's see, at Sarah Siv on Twitter, at B slash R, no, it's B R underscore open ice.

The title is different than the actual handle. Sarah Sivian joins us talking about trade deadline. How are you?

Yeah, that's how they get you. I'm fabulous, Adam. How are you?

I'm great. Like, not to tug at your heartstrings, but you were part of this as the Hurricanes went from Dormet to, you know, obviously one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. And you missed the party on Saturday at the Carter-Finley Stadium. What's even the point of me even being there anymore? Because that was supposed to be my reward.

No, I'm just kidding. I wish I was there. It looked like so much fun. I love that people showed out for the club hockey teams.

I mean, there's no denying the viewership was up to hockey is real in Raleigh. It was tremendous. It was so much fun all day long. It was a blast.

And yes, 24,000 people showed up to watch State and Carolina after I assume a lot of those people were also there for the alumni game. Apparently Don Waddell broke up a two-on-one Jacob Slavin style. And that we'll just leave it at that. All right, let's get to the trade deadline. And this is just, we'll just call it serendipitous here because you have your latest column on Bleacher Report is in fact NHL vibe check grading fans realistic trade proposals ahead of the deadline.

I'm kind of stunned that a lot of these are legitimately realistic. Fans don't do that. We want to go, we want Timo Meyer and we want to give you a seventh round pick and somebody we don't want. But obviously it takes a lot. So first of all, what if for you, what does Carolina need might not be the right word, but maybe it is. What does Carolina need? I know it's more of, and I always say this too, the the division and the conference are getting better and the canes can either go with or without that. You know what I mean?

So I think it comes down to what it always has for the past few years for me. It's just the goal scoring, right? Like, and I look at the game stats and there's such a cohesive team and their coach guy, Rod Brindamore, and they're so defensively sound, but just adding that extra oomph on a wing would just be perfect.

Yeah, I actually, here's the interesting thing for me. Let's just say Timo Meyer. Where do you put Timo Meyer? Well, if Timo Meyer has to be in your top, on your top two lines, your top two scoring lines. So who gets bumped out of that? Who gets demoted to go play with Stasny and Nason on your fourth line? Is that Seth Jarvis? Is that where he goes?

Is that where Tevo Terevinen goes? That's awfully difficult to do to some of these guys. Timo Meyer would have to be in your top six or somebody would have to.

That's the hard part for me. Yeah, I do like that Tevo can play anywhere, but he is heating up now and you don't really want to mess with that after it's kind of difficult road back to playing, but I mean, if the Sharks wanted to take Jarvis, then that eliminates that problem, but it's kind of a, you'd rather have that problem. Yes, you, yeah, no, Seth Jarvis going nowhere. I'm very confident that Tom Dundon is not moving anybody significant off this roster. I guess that could work just because obviously these teams that are selling are very much rebuilding and you're seeing what they're going for. I, I feel like it's going to intrigue him that people are getting these stars at 75% off with a middleman and it, the fire sales right now are kind of tempting, but the more people get off, like there's been such an active market even before the deadline. I haven't seen this in at least a few years, so it's like the stakes are high and I feel like the Sharks can ask a lot for Meyer right now. Personally, I'm hoping that it gets really bad in Calgary over the next few days and we can catch them in a weak moment and get Elias Lindholm back. That's what I'm hoping for. It's not going to happen.

The old switcheroo and then he's going to be snake bitten again, because that's just how it goes. Hey, we don't need that. Gosh, I miss Elias Lindholm.

Sarah Sivian is joining us here. See, the way Jesperi Kokaniemi is playing over the last, really the last month, he's been really good, has changed for me the word from need to want. I think they want more scoring. I think they need another defenseman who could play, not just depth, somebody who could play, because ideally I think Calvin DeHaan is depth, but because of the way they have played of late, I think it becomes more about need than what I would. Wouldn't it rather have a center? Yeah, and you know how the canes operate where it's like even the centers that they have, they can move them to the wing and you're seeing that with Ryan O'Reilly in Toronto too. I mean, he's playing center, but they have Tavares on the wing now and it's just kind of, you play to those versatile strengths and if you have to choose between a center and a winger and a center can play wing, why wouldn't you go for the center? Absolutely, and they do have some guys that can play center. Do you feel like Rod would willingly move Martin Neches back to the middle? Is it even ever going to happen again?

I don't know. He's leading the team in points, so I was just looking at that. I'm proud of him. You got to eat your crow on that one, but I know it was never really about him not being a good player. It's just kind of the fit and the situation and the context that a lot of people have failed to kind of grasp, but I don't think you don't mess with that right now, especially when the canes need more goals or want more goals.

That's probably better well said. Yeah, first of all, your initial reference, yes, I did not only want but think that they would trade Neches in the off season. Last year was so devastatingly bad for him that I really thought that he needed to go somewhere else and the team needed to sell before it was obvious that he was not going to be great. And they're very lucky that I am not the general manager.

You know what? I think the general manager probably wanted to trade him too, but it just wasn't happening. And I think the patience there is and only doing it for the right cost that never came up is probably the smartest thing they did. Yeah, Tom Dundon did not want to trade Martin Neches. As soon as the season ended, I talked to him and I assumed that they would and he goes, nope, not interested. And do I think they would have in the right deal? Probably, but it would have had to have been for a pretty major return and people have tried to get Neches from them this year in major deals and they're like, nope. That's why I don't think they're trading, especially somebody who's got value. I mean, Neches another year at three. Jarvis, another year at what?

Under nine, under nine hundred thousand. Yeah. That's like they would not move Jalen Chatfield right now. So true that it's all about the value and that's exactly like they got him Neches on a good contract. So why would they ever move that?

Yeah. I mean, they're not they're just not going to trade away, guys, especially next year, which is one more year of the relatively flat cap. And they want to leave themselves some room for at least one more year. I don't know how much the cap is going to go up the following year. Maybe it goes up eight million.

I have no idea, but it's going to stay in the valley now because they're filing for bankruptcy. That's not good for the league, but hopefully they increase the cap. No, it's not good for the league, but maybe what Major League Baseball is planning to do, which is take a lot of the stuff in-house and and farm it out, maybe that will be good for the NHL, too. I wouldn't mind it. I mean, who knows how it's how the whole thing is going to work out or maybe root sports will just become valleys everywhere else.

Sarah Sivian from Bleacher Report is joining us here on the Adam Gold show at Sarah Siv on Twitter. I saw a rumor today that the Hurricanes and Bruins might actually do a deal for Craig Smith. He has not had a great year, but actually that's the type of a player that could be a good ad for Carolina. I think that's silly. Three point one million dollars.

That's way too much for him. I don't love that for the Canes, to be honest. Like, I see the vision and I do think if they can snag a player like you're the tough nose player like that for less than two million, I could see that. But let's get our priorities straight.

But here's the thing. They've got seven million or actually it's going to be ten million because I don't think Andre Kosh was playing either. So they've got ten million in cap space to use so they could do that. And if something came along and oh, I don't think they really are interested in Patrick Kane, but if Patrick Kane wanted to come here, Chicago would be more than willing to eat some of the contract anyway.

They could still it wouldn't preclude them from doing anything. To me, finding somebody who can score between the hash marks for this team, that's as important as anything that they could add. I really think like at times like this, we just got to keep it simple. And I think Meyer is the most simple, good fit. I think he'd fit in with a team kind of personality wise with the guys they have right now. I think I mean, he already scored 30 goals. He he wouldn't have to give up a roster player for him. So it's just kind of like this seems like the most obvious easy answer to me.

But of course, it's not actually ever that simple with everybody else having the same mentality. I wouldn't like Patrick Kane on this team, but that's my old take. No, no, I think they need somebody with some with some size who can score in the middle of the ice.

That's that to me has been their biggest issue. Andrei Svechnikov hadn't scored by the way in 1919 games, he had two against who we just play St. Louis the other night. I'm not worried about Andrei at all.

Andrei is going to be 100% fine. He can score in the middle of the ice. And so so can Sebastian. Oh, they just need a few more guys that can do that.

100%. I think that is such a special, unique player because he's so like power forward, old school Russian, I think. But at the same time, he has that skill and he can kind of add so much to a team dynamically that isn't just scoring. But the games are in a place where they could use a few more scores. So if they could take the pressure off him, I even think he'd probably score more because he can play multiple roles.

Yeah, no question about that. Brent Burns playing his best hockey, but the power play has still been kind of iffy. It's in terms of numbers, the power play is much better.

It's operating at about, I'd say 27% in the last dozen games or so. So it's good on the sheet. It looks better on the ice. It looks a little bit better, but not not dramatic. I mean, you think there's a chance that they might revisit Tony D'Angelo? Oh, my God.

Can you imagine? He's not playing well at all on the Flyers, honestly. And of course, towards his towards. And he I read something from Charlie O'Connor from the Athletic a few days ago that said I don't know if you saw this, but it said that the Caine system is so defensively good that it masked Tony's faults. And I definitely agree with that, because he could jump the rush without fear, especially next to someone like slavery. Like that's going to mask your faults every single time. And it was honestly looking back, that was one of the best transactions on paper ever.

One of the smartest things you could do for one million dollars to fit perfectly into the system. But I don't know if you strike gold twice on that. I think it is what it was and it was great. It was fun. It was real.

It wasn't real fun. I loved. Well, I got to know Tony pretty well. I have I have a great deal of respect for his his ability on the ice. Yes, he's not a great defensive player. Playing with Slavin will make anybody look better.

But we have we have baby Slavin and Jacob in Jalen Chatfield now. I'm glad to see him succeed. I was talking to somebody in the front office before the season and they were really just gung ho on getting him in there and they really believed in him.

So it's kind of nice to see that pan out. Yeah. They can say they believed in him.

They didn't believe in this. Yeah. He played when Slavin was out, he played Jacob's spot and they did not miss a beat.

That's awesome. And it kind of goes to show to like the system. Obviously, it helps people not to discredit him. But I think I mean, he had a stint in Vancouver there, but ended up getting sent down anyway. And now the combination of him being ready for the opportunity and being able to have a little bit of a safety net is just so valuable with the way that this team is constructed. Yeah, he has not. Rod Brindemeyer told me about two weeks ago that he hasn't had a bad game yet. So we're we're approaching 60 games. I can't wait to watch him. Whatever's next for Jalen Chatfield, I can't wait to watch. Sarah Sivian, I guess we're going to have to wait till the what the conference finals to see you. Yep, I will make it there though. So I think the canes have a great chance of doing so as well.

We'll see. Sarah, you're the best. I appreciate your time. Of course. Thanks so much. You got it.