On Tuesday, Vancouver extended defenceman Filip Hronek for eight years at $7.25M. While that might seem like a big number, as a percentage of the cap in 2024-25, that works out to just over 8%, or a high-end number-2 defenceman. It is still a lofty ask – he needs to perform to levels like Hampus Lindholm or Devon Toews – but this isn't the same as signing for $7.25M a season five years ago.

For cap leagues, it's fair to keep in mind that his 48 points and 148 shots were both career-best marks and he did that on a team that was fifth in the league by even strength goals. As long as Quinn Hughes is around, Hronek will not spend much time on the top power play, so expecting more than 50 points is asking too much. Also, he's not a volume shooter and doesn't put up a lot for hits or blocks – he's fine in those areas, but certainly not a multi-cat merchant. This is probably too rich of a contract for it to be palatable in cap league formats, especially where this thing lasts for eight years. That is not a contract people want to get stuck with, even if the cap is over $90M in 12 months' time.

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Just a stray thought: I hope people are really appreciating what Connor McDavid is doing in this postseason. Not only is it a tremendous performance from him, but it highlights just how much this entire team revolves around him. He has dragged the Oilers to back-to-back wins and has his team a home win away from forcing Game 7, which seemed unfathomable six days ago. This is being done with Leon Draisaitl being a ghost all series while Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins have combined for two goals in five games. There are superstars, and there are supernovas, and McDavid is the latter.

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Pierre-Luc Dubois, before his trade protection kicked in on July 1^st, was sent to the Washington Capitals with goaltender Darcy Kuemper headed the other way. Alex wrote about this yesterday.

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Jacob Markstrom was finally traded as well as he was send to a New Jersey Devils team that very much needed his services. Alex also had the breakdown of that trade here.

I am going to write more on both of these deals next week.

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Back in Tuesday's Ramblings, I talked about defensive responsibilities for certain defencemen, namely looking at which ones were doing the heavy lifting for their teams. This was an attempt to look at which blue liners are tasked with the puck-moving duties on their respective pairs/teams to try and make sense of some high- and low-turnover options. It is really just an attempt to see who may be getting the short end of the stick from a certain perspective.

Today, we are moving on to the forwards. Here are some guys who stood out as being particularly responsible for a lot of defensive zone work with the tracking data from AllThreeZones and is all at 5-on-5.

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Nikolaj Ehlers

The Winnipeg Jets' forward leader by rate of defensive zone touches, exits, and exits with possession is a guy whose name has been in trade rumours. It is always fun when little coincidences like this pop up:

Unsurprisingly, Ehlers led the Jets by credited giveaways per 60 minutes as well, but when we consider just how much responsibility he was asked to carry, then it makes sense. Perhaps there would be a happier medium where that responsibility is spread out a bit more among his line mates and defencemen, but if there is a Winnipeg winger that should be tasked with getting the puck up the ice, this is the right one to do it.

This also brings up an interesting question in which remaining teammate would pick up the slack if Ehlers were traded? Both Tyler Toffoli and Sean Monahan are likely on their way to another franchise while Ehlers didn't play a lot with Mark Scheifele. It could put a lot of pressure on names like Cole Perfetti, Nino Niederreiter, and Vladislav Namestnikov. We will come back to that question in a few weeks once we have a clearer idea of the Jets roster for 2024-25.

Sean Couturier

In those Tuesday Ramblings, one of the names mentioned was Sean Walker. He did a lot of the heavy lifting for the Flyers in the defensive zone, but he was shipped out at the trade deadline. At that time, Rasmus Ristolainen was hurt so it left basically just Travis Sanheim that had been doing the defensive puck-moving from his pair. After that, it was moving the remaining blue liners into more involved roles, and it's a wonder how much that factored into their late-season defensive slide.

Well, Couturier was also heavily responsible for the Flyers moving the puck out of the defensive zone:

The curious part is that the two Flyers forwards that had the highest rate of failed exits were Scott Laughton and Morgan Frost. Laughton, especially, had a bigger role over the final 6-8 weeks of the season when the team moved away from giving Couturier top minutes (when they dressed him at all). Not that Couturier's numbers were very good late in the season (there was likely a fair amount of bad luck, too) but Laughton got crushed, too. Something to keep in mind depending how the team uses Couturier next season.  

Dylan Larkin

We won't go long on this one because it probably comes as no surprise, but Larkin is the Detroit forward with the most defensive zone touches and exits per 60 minutes in this tracking data. He really is the heartbeat of this entire team, but it also highlights the problem: he can't do it all himself. Lucas Raymond took a step forward this season and looks to be rounding into an excellent winger, but if those two are on the ice together, it really doesn't leave a whole lot elsewhere on the roster to do the work that needs to be done in the zone. It is a very interesting offseason for the Red Wings.

Tomas Hertl

This is another player where we won't run long, but, to no one's real surprise, Hertl was tasked with a lot of the defensive responsibility when he was in San Jose. Now that he's in Vegas, that should decline, and it also left a big void in the team's defensive structure. The hope is that Logan Couture can return from his injury (or injuries) and can pick up some of that slack to help insulate the young group that will be there next season. There have been reports that San Jose may want to add some short-term veteran help, likely for this specific reason, so this is another team where we'll have to check back in a few weeks down the road once the offseason movement has started to clear up a bit.

Alex Laferrière

The first player that really stuck out to me when going team by team was Laferriere in Los Angeles. In hindsight, it makes sense because he does have some speed to burn and you'd want him getting the puck to other players on their way out of the zone, and not the other way around. All the same, what stuck out to me is that despite a high rate of zone exits, even considering his defensive zone touches, there wasn't a high rate of zone exits with possession:

That means a lot of chip-and-out plays, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but when playing so much with Pierre-Luc Dubois, it might make sense that PLD didn't have a tremendous season. If he's constantly having to chase down pucks in the neutral zone, it doesn't give him the opportunities to get up the ice with the puck, with speed, so he can make use of his size and reach on zone entries. Maybe things will change with Jim Hiller in charge for a full season, but we'll have to wait and see on that.  

Sam Carrick

The last guy we'll mention briefly is Sam Carrick. Why Sam Carrick? Because Sam Carrick is currently playing in the Cup Final, and he did a lot of defensive zone work for both Anaheim and Edmonton.

To start with, Carrick was second among the team's forwards (behind Alex Killorn) by defensive zone touches per 60 minutes, but he was just a shade behind and a bigger sample would probably change things a bit. However, Carrick was first in zone exits per 60 minutes and second in exits with possession:

The goals against were fine in Anaheim, the team just couldn't create much offensively with him on the ice.

Carrick was sent to Edmonton as part of the Adam Henrique trade and in a sample of just a few games, he led the team's forwards by both defensive zone touches per 60 minutes and rate of zone exits. A few games doesn't tell us much, but it was interesting that after doing a lot of work for Anaheim defensively, he did the same in Edmonton's bottom-6. The defence was good, the offence got a lot better, and the team produced positive results with him on the ice. Things haven't been as good in the postseason, but there are just two games – at most – left in the team's season and he could still be a difference-maker for them.