NHL Fantasy Hockey Waiver Wire Pickups: Defensemen, March 18: Mailloux Getting His Chance to Run St. Louis' PP1
Luke Hughes' play much improved since the Olympics break
Video Transcript
All right, let's go We'll stick with, acquired St. Louis Blues because they seemingly tried to trade everybody.
Brayden Schenn moved to the New York Islanders.
Interesting trade because, as sort of Jan mentioned, they were in the same hotel, and so very, very easy move for Schenn, at least while they're on their road trip.
h- reminiscent of the Moneyball, I don't know if you remember that- Yep scene in the movie, acquiring a guy who they were playing that day.
But very interesting for the New York Islanders because this is a team who has Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Barzal, who is more of a winger but in a pinch can play center, Ohlfert obviously.
F- is the fit there or did they overpay for a third line center?
Just going back to the Blues for a sec, but once Falk leaves, I do like Cam Fowler and Phil Broberg a bit more.
No more than, you know, than usual, but slightly more.
But going to the Islanders, I think this is a great move for the Islanders.
Like, Schenn fits kind of the style they wanna play.
Um- Mm-hmm for a while, Andre Pallot with Horvat and Barzal looked like a pretty decent fit.
Like, for a while, Pallot was scoring points, which hasn't happened a whole lot.
but I think they have three pretty balanced lines now.
I think Schenn's fantasy value wasn't great to begin with playing on the Blues.
I don't think it's changed much since.
Maybe slightly higher because he's on a better team.
but I don't see him taking the same number of face-offs 'cause Bohorrad dominates that for the Islanders.
Yeah.
So it's interesting, obviously, given where I live, I am surrounded by Islander fans.
and for those who don't know, I am 10 minutes from the old Coliseum driving wise, and about 20, 25 minutes from the, the UBS Arena.
My friends are- It's good that you can credit yourself for living next door to the Coliseum, because that's how long- I didn't- it probably takes to drive there.
I didn't call it the mausoleum, I called it the Coliseum.
So I was trying to be nice.
my friends are mixed about the trade, so look, they, they certainly needed a second line center, right?
Pageau clearly fits better as a third line center, and I have to admit, I was mildly surprised that they gave him a three-year deal with a 4.85 mil AAV.
Though Matthew Darsh said that part of it was because he knew the center market was rising in terms of cost, and he wanted to lock up somebody who was cost efficient, quote unquote.
Although I'm not quite sure him taking a $150,000 hit off of where he was at 4.85 million is cost efficient given the lack of production to a certain extent we're getting from JGP.
But Schenn stylistically, yeah, fits what the Islanders are doing, but his play completely cratered this year, right?
His production dropped substantially.
His defensive metrics weren't as good, his face-off metrics weren't as good.
But he fits as a number two, giving up the one a lot, but he's also signed for two more years.
I think St. Louis was more than happy, even though he's their captain, to get out of him the $6.25 million deal for two more seasons.
they gave up an okay goalie prospect in Mildorf, not their number one goalie prospect.
And part of the reason why they gave up the third rounder was because as part of the deal, they moved Jonathan Drouin, who's in the first year of a two-year, $8 million deal.
So they moved Drouin to kinda get out of that contract to offset the cap hit, which is kind of what they did.
So do I th- I think it will help them slightly.
What this is pretty clear is Matthew Barzal is a wing and not a center anymore.
if that wasn't clear before, that's made evidently clear in terms of it.
But part of this, honestly, is we've talked about it a lot, is the Matthew Schaefer effect, right?
Schaefer has turned around this franchise.
They are on the cusp of a potential playoff spot, and the viewpoint they had is they need to try to give the fan base and the organization, evidence that they're willing to make a move to try to bring in somebody.
Now, I think Schenn's an okay move.
I don't think he's phenomenal, but it wouldn't be shock, I wouldn't be shocked if he plays well and fits in nicely in terms of kind of the system that Patrick Roy runs.
He's, Of everyone who's ever played hockey, he feels like the most islanderly, islandery islander.
at least in- I almost understood what Connor meant then too.
Yeah.
I was scratching my head a little there.
I was- I think I, I kinda get what he's saying trying to figure that sentence out.
He fits the mold of an Islander, is I think he's what he's trying to say.
Exactly, yes.
In a roundabout fashion, but that's where he was getting to.
Yes, exactly.
so we'll see how it works out.
I think it was a hefty price to give up for a guy who's on the wrong side of 30, has two more years at a not insignificant cap hit, who's fall-- his play has sort of fallen off with St. Louis over the last few years.
But captain, any time you can add somebody like that, I think New York would value that.
let's stick in the Metro.
I got, I have one question for Jason- Oh, okay and you, Connor.
So do you think next year Islander fans are going, "I cannot believe we're paying $11 million combined to Brayden Schenn and Jean Gabriel Pageau"?
I mean- Yes compare that to some of the past contracts we've had, including Pierre Engvall.
Don't go to Lamorello, "I'm giving a six-year, $18 million deal to Pia- Pierre Engvall."
I'm not going there.
I'm just asking more in general, just for looking at next season.
No, like, within that context, yes, maybe that's a little much.
But I also think they got Lee coming off the books.
and then they got Matthew Schaefer's contract coming up, not next year, but like the year after that.
Mm-hmm.
And that's the big one.
That's, that's the year you need cap space for, and I think they'll, they'll give him as much as he wants.
And I don't think there's any worry with that.
So no, the, the Schenn Pageau contracts don't really worry me at all.
With the rising cap too- I mean, the good part- Yeah they also have, don't forget, guys like Cole Eiserman, who hopefully will be up for them.
They have Victor Englin who might be up for them.
Mm-hmm.
So they have, they have a couple of scoring wingers that they're gonna hopefully plot in there.
So I think the veteran presence helps.
I just, I just wonder if they get off to a slow start, those guys are gonna have the spotlight on both of them.
Mm-hmm.
It is a bit of a low upside offensive team for a team that's probably gonna be near the cap.
Yeah.
I think that's an issue for them.
But it's the Islanders, they're just gonna have to grind their way through games.
They've done it this year.
Yeah.
They've got that overtime shootout magic or whatever it is, and it's just- Mm-hmm it's working for them.
And as long as- Yeah Ilya Sorokin is good, I mean, they're gonna build from the net out every year anyway.
To me, he's probably one of the guys that needs to be up for the Vezina.
For sure.
Him and Vasilevskiy I think are two, have to be two of the finalists
