PHR Mailbag: Predators, Lottery, Hellebuyck, Rookies, Playoff Pressure Players

Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include Nashville’s open GM position, what players have a lot to gain or lose by their playoff performances, and more.  If your question doesn’t appear here, watch for it in one of our next two mailbag columns.

Gbear: Who gets the Preds GM job and does Bruno stay or go?

While Barry Trotz is on the way out, I tend to believe his words from earlier this week when he talked about the thought of keeping a lot of this roster intact.  That has me leaning toward a candidate that’s a little more predictable in Tom Fitzgerald.  While he took some swings toward the end of his tenure in New Jersey, he’s not going to come in saying that they need to execute a full rebuild.  I can’t help but wonder if some of the other first-time candidates might be recommending the other direction which might hurt their chances.

I think what also works in Fitzgerald’s favor is that he has held a dual President/GM role before with the Devils.  Throughout this long search, it certainly doesn’t sound like the team is looking to hire two separate people for those roles.  If that’s the case, having an experienced candidate who can handle both might appeal a little more.

Fitzgerald, of course, is familiar with head coach Andrew Brunette, as he hired him to join the Devils as an assistant coach.  Brunette then left a year later to take this job.  With what seems like a good history from their one year together and how this group finished the season, I suspect they’d stay conservative and keep the status quo intact for now if it winds up being Fitzgerald getting the job.  If things don’t go well in 2026-27, then it would be easier for them to make a change.

rayk: What is your opinion of the draft lottery which is approaching on 5/5? Is having teams like the Islanders and Mammoth move up so many slots as they did in 2025 really help promote league parity?

For me, the lottery is a partial solution to a problem that doesn’t have a great solution to it.  Teams that want to tank are going to try to position themselves as low in the standings no matter what the draft order rule is.  If it’s straight reverse standings, we’ve seen how bad that can go.  The lottery creates some randomness which is fun but the bottom-feeding teams are still going to want to get as low as possible to increase their odds of picking first and ensure they don’t slide down as much.  There’s no getting around that.

One solution that is gaining some popularity is the Gold Plan.  Named after its inventor, Adam Gold, the idea is that the first pick goes to the team that gets the most points after being eliminated from playoff contention.  The PWHL uses it.  However, the workaround there is that a team struggles early, has a bunch of core guys get ‘injured’ midseason, then they all come back in March after the team has been mathematically eliminated.  All it does is change when a team decides to sit all its players for tanking purposes.

The lottery isn’t perfect.  But I don’t think there is a perfect solution out there as they’re all easily manipulable.  So having some randomness that gives teams (and fans) a bit more hope seems like a good enough solution for now, at least.

SkidRowe: Will the league rig the lottery so the Toronto Maple Losers are in the top 2?

I feel like this is an important time to remind you that the lottery is done with ping pong balls.  Literal dollar store ping pong balls.  They first provided the video of it in 2022 and if you’re not familiar with the mechanics of how it’s done, I recommend you watch it.  It’s dry and boring but it does provide a good overview of each step.

It’s 14 equally weighted ping pong balls and a lottery-drawing machine.  This isn’t drawing for an envelope that may or may not have been left in a freezer, it’s a 10-cent ball which somehow is harder to rig.  The lottery combinations are assigned to teams in advance (and sometimes are even posted online before the actual proceedings) so there’s no room for uh, excess creativity on that front either.  Conspiracy theories can be fun but how they do the lotteries is legit.

Toronto has greater than a 17% chance of picking in the top two.  After what has happened in recent years, their landing a top-two spot is very much within the realistic range of possibilities.

Cla23: With Hellebuyck’s frustration with the Jets’ season, do you see a trade? If so, where do you think he lands and what do the Jets get in return?

Keep in mind he wants to contend, not rebuild, and NT/NM contracts come into play.

Probably not this summer.  His comments about not wanting the team to be too complacent again this summer suggests to me that he still wants to be there; he just wants to see some other changes to the roster.  If that doesn’t happen, then yeah, he might want out.  The problem is that by the time Hellebuyck will have a chance to assess the state of the roster, most teams will already have their rosters set (or at least wouldn’t be looking to trade for a number one netminder).  So even if he looked at their roster in August and said it’s time for a move, there probably isn’t one available until midseason at the earliest or, more likely, next summer.

But, let’s say he does ask out so that I can tackle the second part of the question.  Vegas stands out to me as a potential fit.  Adin Hill had a rough year while Carter Hart and Akira Schmid have shown good flashes at times but have been inconsistent.  Hellebuyck would give them a much more proven starter.  I could see both Hill and Schmid in the return, negating the need to bring back Eric Comrie.  To make the money work, I think William Karlsson could also be in there, giving Winnipeg at least a short-term center at the same time.  Hill and Karlsson both have 10-team no-trade clauses which could scuttle things so let’s get that out of the way.

Given Hill’s struggles and Karlsson’s short-term deal, either Karlsson would need to come with an extension or there would need to be another piece of significance in there.  I could see Kevin Cheveldayoff asking for Trevor Connelly but he’s someone Vegas doesn’t want to move.  If it landed them a top-end goalie though (and got them out of Hill’s contract), maybe that’d make it worthwhile.

I could also see Florida in there but the potential return is harder to peg down.  They don’t have a starter to send the other way which makes it a tough sell right away.  With both Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett signed long-term, teams will call about Anton Lundell and I imagine Winnipeg would do that, hoping to fill the longstanding 2C issue and then trying to get a goalie from elsewhere.  I’m not sure the Panthers would, however.  But at any rate, I don’t expect Hellebuyck to be asking out this month.

Jaxteller: Which end-of-season rookie call-up impressed you the most? The Hawks fan in me has loved Frondell but Martone has been very impressive as well.

I was impressed with how Anton Frondell fared in his first taste of NHL action.  He didn’t look out of place early, got a lot more comfortable after just a few weeks, and even transitioned back to playing center.  Doing that while adding nine points in a dozen games is a great first impression.  I’m really surprised Chicago elected to burn a year of his contract (I thought they’d cap him at nine games to avoid doing so) but they still have seven years of club control so it’s not the end of the world.

But while Frondell played well, the answer has to be Porter Martone.  He showed that the decision to go the NCAA route and work on his frame proved to be worthwhile as he hit the ground running and then some.  He has helped give the Flyers a more threatening second line, fits their style perfectly, and his contributions helped lead them to an improbable playoff spot (and a looming advancement to the second round if they can get one more win).  If GM Daniel Briere would have been asked what the best-case scenario would have been with adding Martone, I don’t think he’d have even suggested the youngster having this type of impact.

Black Ace57: If I can add onto this, is there anyone you can remember who hit the ground running and impressed as quickly as Martone has in an end-of-season debut like this? 10 points in nine games, two goals in two playoff games, all at 19, I’m trying to think up a comparable player.

There are a lot of good rookie performances in the playoffs.  But adding the qualifier of a late-season addition really thins out the field.  Claude Lemieux spent most of the 1985-86 season in the minors but played a huge role in the playoffs so he might be a fit.  It was the same for Ken Dryden in the 1970-71 campaign but he’s a goalie.

From a non-Cup-winning perspective, Joe Juneau came to my mind.  After playing a full season internationally for Canada (this was a thing back then), he joined Boston in early March and had 19 points in 14 games down the stretch before adding a dozen more in 15 playoff contests as they got to the Eastern Conference Final.  But Martone’s early impact has him in a pretty rare category, all things considered.

Schwa: Which FAs and trade candidates have the most to gain/most to lose in the playoffs?

Let’s start with some pending restricted free agents.  Trevor Zegras had an impressive first season with the Flyers, setting a new career high in points in a contract year.  But how would he handle the playoffs?  Would a weaker performance there have the team contemplating another short-term deal?  So far, he has acquitted himself nicely and the better he plays, the more that question goes away and a long-term, big money contract looks more and more likely.

The other RFA with a lot to play for has been a talking point multiple times already, Montreal’s Kirby Dach.  He struggled considerably in the first two games of the series, including making two mistakes that led to Tampa Bay’s Game 2 overtime winner.  He then bounced back with a two-point effort on Friday night while being the screener on the winner in that game.  He’s owed a $4MM qualifying offer this summer, a big number for someone who has been hurt so much and inconsistent when he’s in the lineup.  A strong showing gets him a longer leash with Montreal or at least gives the Canadiens a potential trade option.  But a rough performance could make him a potential non-tender candidate and put his short-term future in question.

Among the pending UFAs, Viktor Arvidsson is one who stands out to me.  It’s not a particularly strong market this summer and he’s one of the top-scoring players available.  He bounced back quite nicely following a tough year in Edmonton despite seeing third-line minutes.  A big playoff showing for Arvidsson should only bolster his market, making a long-term deal a little more probable.  However, some struggles could put him in a spot where another short-term pact may be the better way to go.

The other is Michael Bunting.  Acquired by Dallas at the trade deadline to bolster their forward group, he underwhelmed down the stretch.  But with games getting chippier in the playoffs, maybe he could show better there.  Well, so far he has been a healthy scratch.  He was viewed as a decent second-line winger when he last tested free agency.  With how things are going so far, he won’t be viewed anywhere near as favorably this time out.

On the trade front, a lot of the viable candidates were from non-playoff teams so this is a smaller pool.  This is a big postseason for Rasmus Ristolainen.  He has been in a ‘will they/won’t they’ trade him spot for a couple of years now with the Flyers pondering but not going into a rebuild.  In his 13th NHL season, this is his first taste of the playoffs.  If he thrives, he gives himself more leverage heading into a summer where he can sign an extension, whether that’s with Philadelphia or someone else if another team meets the asking price for a move.  But if he struggles, the chances of an extension go down and the odds of a team meeting the Flyers’ asking price would also drop.

Jesperi Kotkaniemi has been no stranger to the rumor mill lately.  This was a disastrous season for him but a good showing in the playoffs could help solidify his spot with the Hurricanes or help create a trade market for him.  So far, however, he has been a healthy scratch.  This is the last time his contract can be bought out at a one-third cost.  The way things went this year, that’s the direction it’s heading in.  He has $20.42MM in salary remaining on his deal but could be bought out for around $6.8MM over eight years.  His playoff performance could make or break keeping his contract…if he can get into the lineup in the first place.  There’s a lot of money at stake for him.

Photo courtesy of Sergei Belski-Imagn Images.