The boys are back in town as the Golden Knights are set to go through yet another mock draft as they finalize their preparations for the big (three) days at the end of June. In an interview with TSN 690 in Montreal, GM George McPhee said this week the amateur scouts were here and the focus was on the Entry Draft, but it’s ready to shift to the other draft soon, and with that finally comes some trades.
Monday we jump right back on to the pro side and do our mock drafts and in the mean time we are fielding calls from teams that have ideas and thoughts and things they’d like to do and people they’d like to protect. So we take all that information in and it’ll be discussed next week during the mock draft and then after that when we’ve analyzed teams one more time at the end of next week we will start calling teams back to see if we can start doing some deals. -George McPhee
With just four teams left in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the muddy universe of players is starting to clear itself up in terms of protection and exposure in the Expansion Draft. With elimination, most teams have turned their attention to the elephant in the room and have gotten on the horn with McPhee to figure out what may work out best for both sides.
However, to this point McPhee and his staff have only been on the receiving end of the calls, and by the sounds of it, it’s been a lot more listening than talking. But after this coming mock draft, it appears that’s set to change.
If there’s something there that’s better than draft picks then we would claim that. If we see something on a club that we like but we can get the same thing from another club and we can get draft picks out of this club, then we will take draft picks. We are gonna have to do a little bit of everything, we are gonna need some youth, some experience, some skill, some speed, some grit, some draft picks. -McPhee
We are getting close people. The grill is almost preheated, now it’s time to take these GMs and stick their feet right on the hot coals. McPhee may have been buddy-buddy with these guys since being hired in July, but when the phone calls turn outbound from Vegas, he’ll be looking to suck every last asset out of every one of the 30 teams.
Now for the unfortunate part. Where’s Uncle Sour at? He still bitching about Ovi? Oh well, I’ll just tell you. Even if/when these deals are made, we won’t hear about them until June 21st. Sucks.
But, let’s put a positive spin on it. Keeping the deals secret continues to help the Golden Knights. If these trades were made public, it would start to (sorry about the upcoming Vegas pun) tip McPhee’s hand.
Only one man will have all of the information, and that man just so happens to call The Creator his boss.
Phisig150
There was a couple of typos Ken. Also can we just refer to Jason as Uncle Sour fulltime from now on? Is Ken nice enough to be considered sweet? Because then your podcast can be rebranded the Sweet and Sour Power Hour.
I hope we don’t focus too much on making the playoffs right out of the gate and pass up chances to load up on young talent. Got a feeling this whole playoffs in 3 nonsense is going to bite us in the end.
Ken Boehlke
That’s what I get for writing the article on a Friday night while watching the Playoff game going on. Weak. I blame it on Uncle Sour.
PhiSig 150
Many should be man in last sentence.
Ken Boehlke
Yeah, I think it’s time to just delete that article and call it a day. That was a disaster of typos.
Phisig150
Good article nonetheless. I have a feeling the trades will be leaked ahead of time. Oooh that’s an interesting dilemma for you and Uncle Sour if you come across intel on expansion picks or trades ahead of when the team wants that info out (I’m assuming on NHL Awards night) will you run it or keep it under wraps to respect the teams wishes?