Author: Brian La Rose

Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include a tour around the Pacific Division, potential captains in St. Louis, and more.  If your question doesn’t appear, check back in our last two mailbag columns.

Emoney123: Can the Flyers please just lose… they win enough games to be close but just out of the playoffs does nothing but hurt their draft order. They have stumbled into finding a #1 goalie in Vladar… what’s next? Can they sign Vitali Pinchuk and finally just end the rebuild? They have to be able to do better than picking players like Nesbitt R1-#12 and Luchanko R1-#13 the past two years!

Well, since this question was posed, they’ve gone and rattled off a bunch of wins to put them right on the edge of a playoff spot.  So, to answer the first thought, no, they’re not going to just lose.  And honestly, that’s something I don’t think they’re too worried about.  Frankly, with the Blue Jackets and Islanders scuffling, they might get in, even.

They’re a good enough team to not be at the level of the pure rebuilder but don’t seem to have the inclination to tear things down either.  That’s why they elected not to sell off parts of their veteran core, either by placing too high an asking price or by simply not entertaining offers for those players.  By taking the approach they have, this is going to be the end result.  I have to think they’re content with it, too, as otherwise, they’d be modifying it.  As for what’s next, it might be more of the same.

I don’t think Pinchuk is the type of piece where they say the rebuild is over either.  Yes, he’s a promising prospect.  But I don’t think he’s the top center they’re lacking.  He might be more of a second or third-line option which is what they already have.  That’s not to say that they shouldn’t try to get him – a free NHL piece is a free NHL piece – but he’s not the final piece of the rebuilding puzzle.

There has been an emphasis on high-floor players at the draft in recent years.  With that foundation in place now, I’d like to see the Flyers take a swing on skill a bit more in June.  While there’s a bigger risk going that way, the potential reward is also higher and the depth they’ve amassed in recent years should give them a chance to be a bit more aggressive in the search for a more impactful piece.

PyramidHeadcrab: Pacific Lightning Round:

1. Do the Sharks make the playoffs, and if not, what’s the missing piece?
2. How long is Seattle going to keep playing “loves me, loves me not” with Shane Wright?
3. Anaheim is having one hell of a year, what’s their X factor?
4. Between Cooley and Wolf, Calgary has had a couple of years of stellar goaltending, but they struggle to score. Is there a scenario where they retain at least one good goalie and finally get some reliable scoring?
5. How vulnerable is Vegas to the likes of San Jose and Los Angeles pushing them out with their 15 OT loser points(!) barely keeping them in a playoff spot?
6. Vancouver’s future is looking dire, do the upcoming draft years have enough to pull them out of the dregs?
7. Edmonton had a long string of #1 overall picks for a while there, and not even Nail Yakupov was enough to get them to a Cup. This year, they’re barely hanging on to a playoff spot, and had they been in the East, they wouldn’t even be in the picture. At what point does management look at the situation and decide it’s time to rework the model?
8. I honestly don’t know a damn thing about LA this year, they just kind of exist in the background. Tell me something nice about the City of Los Angeles.

1) The Sharks enter play today in a three-way tie for the final Wild Card spot.  Few thought they’d be in this situation at this point of the season.  That said, I’m still leaning toward them narrowly missing.  They have a couple of missing pieces at this point.  One is another proven top-six forward to give them more offensive pop.  The other is a top-six defenseman (or two).  There are prospects who could fill that role down the road but a long-term addition would be great.  Failing that, another Dmitry Orlov-esque move could help.

2) If there isn’t a move this summer, they could be playing that for a while.  With one year left on his entry-level deal, Wright may have more value now than the 2027 offseason when he’ll be hitting restricted free agency with perhaps less perceived upside if he stays on his current path for another year.  In that scenario, Seattle wouldn’t want to sell low, meaning that this could be a storyline for a while.

3) Probably Lukas Dostal.  Anaheim is one of the higher-scoring teams this season but goaltending has been an issue, something that’s not entirely uncommon for a young roster.  However, Dostal has been a bit too inconsistent this season for someone who is now the undisputed starting goalie.  If he can be at his best come the playoffs, they could do some damage.  If that’s too obvious a choice, I’ll go with Frank Vatrano.  He has all of four goals this season, two years removed from a 37-goal campaign.  He has more to give and could be a difference-maker from a secondary scoring perspective.

4) I don’t expect either goalie to go anywhere so the answer is probably yes.  Dustin Wolf is entrenched as the starter while Devin Cooley’s track record is still limited which might limit his trade value; he’d probably not fetch the return they’d deem worthy enough to move him.  In theory, they could push in some of their trade capital (picks and prospects) to get a top-six scorer without touching their goalies.  I don’t think they will this summer though.  But Wolf is going to be there for the long haul so yes, they’ll eventually get scoring help while still having at least one good goalie in the fold.

5) With only a five-point lead on a playoff spot, Vegas absolutely is vulnerable, at least in theory.  But with how bad this division has been all season, I don’t trust anyone to go on a long enough winning streak to knock the Golden Knights out.  If I have to pick between a bunch of underachieving teams for who is to make the playoffs, I’m going to go with the group that at least has a track record of success.  The potential ‘new coach bump’ also works in their favor with John Tortorella being the surprising hire last weekend.

6) It’s not as if there’s a smorgasbord of extra picks in the cupboard.  They have one extra first-round pick in the next three years, although three extra second-rounders help.  If the ping pong balls go their way in the lottery and they hit on some of these second-rounders, the draft could be enough to turn them around in a few years.  That said, their recent draft history doesn’t fill me with a ton of confidence.

7) Not anytime soon.  When you have two of the top five or so players in the world on your team, you’re probably not willingly going to deviate from that.  The rapid escalation of the salary cap should help them in terms of keeping the core while still maintaining some room to add to it.  If they can get the goaltending situation figured out (and that’s a big if), they’ll be just fine in the long run.

8) Without the city of Los Angeles, this very site might not exist.  Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but the internet was created in Los Angeles on the campus of UCLA back in 1969.  Leonard Kleinrock, the architect of the first message, recounted that at the 50-year anniversary in a piece for the Los Angeles Times back in 2019 if you want to read more about it.  I think that’s something nice.

DevilShark: What 1C or 2C options between the ages of 24 and 28 could be had in the offseason for picks or prospects to round out the Devils’ top six?

When I first saw this question, my initial thought was no one.  If teams have an in-prime top-six center, they’re probably not moving them for draft picks and prospects.  Those are the pieces teams should be building around, not moving away.  But after looking around, there are two that come to mind, neither of whom should come as much of a surprise.

One is Robert Thomas, someone who the Blues had in play at the trade deadline.  The thought at the time was that they were seeking at least three top-15 or equivalent pieces between draft picks in that range plus prospects or young players worth that type of return in a trade.  Now, does incoming GM Alex Steen take him off the market?  I have to think that he and Doug Armstrong were in lockstep on a plan at the deadline so my assumption would be no.  I’d imagine that New Jersey’s first-round pick this year and prospect Anton Silayev would be pieces in that move, while they’d likely have to offload at least some salary the other way.  Another high-end part would need to be in there as well to meet their asking price.

The other is a bit more of a wild card, that being Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson.  In his first full season as the undisputed number one center on the Canucks, things haven’t gone well.  He managed just 45 points in 2024-25 and is scoring at nearly an identical clip this season.  That’s not a great return on a cap hit of $11.6MM through 2031-32 (and that’s putting it lightly).  There’s also a belief that Vancouver doesn’t want to retain any of that money to facilitate a move.  That means that there’s a cap-matching piece or two that would have to move but beyond that, draft picks and prospects might be enough to get him.  There would be a ton of risk involved but in a lower-pressure role in the lineup and a new environment, the reward could be considerable as well.

vincent k. mcmahon: Do the Blues have a new captain next season or do they wait until 27-28 to name the next captain?

Assuming Thomas and/or Parayko aren’t traded, could one of them be in line to be the next captain or someone outside the box like Buchnevich, etc?

I’m one of those people who think way too much attention gets paid to captaincies and that the role is largely ceremonial.  (I know some would very strongly disagree on this one.)  But this is certainly a fair question given that the two logical candidates you suggested could very well be on the move this summer.  And if that happens, I’m not sure there’s a great fit for next season.

Jake Neighbours could be a viable candidate at some point.  He’s already an alternate captain and, at least at first glance, it doesn’t appear as if he’s among the players that the Blues are open to moving.  On the other hand, he’s just about to turn 24 which is still on the younger side to be the designated leader of the team.  He might be the long-term internal option but if both Thomas and Parayko go this summer, I could see them going captain-less for a year and then assessing if Neighbours is ready for the role.

letsgonats: What fixes do you see for the Capitals? Top-three scoring winger but 20 teams want that too.

The power play demise and the lowly shooting percentage are fatal. What would be your fix?

Who needs to move in that is getable and who needs to be traded to do so?

I’m going to go a little out of order here and start with the shooting percentage.  Entering Saturday’s action, the Capitals had a shooting percentage of 11.1%.  Considering the league average is 11.0%, I’m not sure how much cause for concern that is.  Ideally, you’d like to see them a little more above average but getting back to first overall in that department as they were last season (12.6%, average 10.7%) isn’t going to happen.  If we’re quibbling over half a percent or so (even a full percent), that’s not necessarily a huge concern that necessarily needs to be addressed.

Now, the power play is more of a concern.  If you want to be a playoff team, having one of the worst marks with the man advantage (putting them around 3% below league average) isn’t ideal.  Beyond adding impactful scoring, one fix there might be shifting up the tactics.  Some of the better power plays in the league feature a lot of movement, designed to get the penalty killers out of position with the idea of capitalizing on openings.  Washington’s power play setup is a bit more static and traditional.  Part of that is having Alex Ovechkin in ‘his office’ and that runs counter to the idea of more positionless forwards.  But taking that more modern approach might help.  Cole Hutson’s addition should help if they go that route next season (the early returns are promising).  And a bit more success with the man advantage would probably boost their shooting percentage too.

I’m not so sure that it’s going to be about who moves out as much as who comes in.  Washington has over $35MM in cap space for next season, per PuckPedia, with only a handful of roster spots to fill.  They don’t necessarily need to move anyone out.  Ovechkin needs a new deal if he wants to keep playing and Connor McMichael is heading for a big raise but even with those, there’s lots of room to add without trading anyone away.

The challenge with the other part of your question is that we don’t know who all was in play at the trade deadline that might be getable so it’s hard to come up with specifics.  But if there’s a top-six forward or a top-four defender available, I expect GM Chris Patrick to be going after them.  It’s going to be a wide net on that front.

Last season felt like an aberration for Washington, where just about everything went right.  This year, not much has.  But in the grand scheme of things, they’re a bubble team in a division that appears to have a bunch of bubble teams.  There’s a good core in place and more flexibility cap-wise than a lot of teams have.  This season hasn’t been great but they’re in a spot to make a few moves and make a push to get back to the playoffs next year.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Curry-Imagn Images.