Is Jokiharju Worth Saving? | Ep. 96

0:00 Speaker 1: Can you start a podcast with me?

0:02 Speaker 2: Please?

0:03 Speaker 1: I need something to do.

0:13 Speaker 3: I Jack, sending out a trouble bock of this says.

0:19 Speaker 1: To last, here's a chance, popta right down with goalie scars.

0:22 Speaker 3: Oh my one a move by the rookie too.

0:24 Speaker 1: On one faster not moving in Marsha get it?

0:27 Speaker 3: Jet Own Oil dances in podcast. Wait at home, right way corner, paster Chester.

0:40 Speaker 1: What is that for?

0:41 Speaker 3: Most?

0:51 Speaker 1: Welcome in everyone to another episode of Ruins Tape to tape. I'm your host this evening, Caroline with a K. It is Jun twenty fifth, and I'm here with my fantastic co host, Maria from Watertown. Hey Maria, Hello, Hello.

1:08 Speaker 4: The month of June is flying by, and I am three days away from official retirement land.

1:17 Speaker 1: Hooray. The senioritis must be so bad.

1:20 Speaker 4: Yes, oh, you can't even imagine right now. I haven't fully I have not fully checked out, but it is it is creeping creeping up on me.

1:32 Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Well, hopefully in a couple of days we'll have plenty to celebrate, not just you, but also free agency.

1:41 Speaker 2: Free agency.

1:43 Speaker 1: But until then, yes, until now, to tell her, yes, we are here to talk about more of our trade deadline acquisitions. This week we are talking about Henry Yoki. How are you who was essentially brought to Boston. Uh, not really with a trade. I don't think that Buffalo really got anything. He just wanted out, and quite frankly, we don't blame him. So this twenty five year old right handed d was drafted actually by Chicago back in twenty seventeen in the first round, twenty ninth overall, which is a little surprising.

2:28 Speaker 1: Last season he played sixty games and he had three goals, seven assists, ten points and shockingly a plus thirteen. He also on the Buffalo Sabers.

2:44 Speaker 4: I know, and again you know what farvie for us to be throwing shots at any other organization right now? After the season, Ruins had.

2:55 Speaker 1: God and he had a coursey for percentage of fifty one point four. So he was shooting a little bit more often than not, which is again something that we could not say for a lot of players on our team. But interestingly enough, so again in the last few episodes, we've talked about one of my favorite statistics, the individual points percentage. But when it comes to defenceman, I like to then shift my focus to defensive point shares the DPS, and this is a statistic that effectively measures a player's defensive play.

3:44 Speaker 1: It estimates the number of team points contributed by that player. In this particular season, he actually had a fairly solid defensive contribution in Buffalo. So out of all of his games, he had a defensive points share of one point five in Boston and one point three in or no, I'm sorry, one point five in Buffalo and one point three in Boston. So what the heck does this mean and why should you care? Comparing him to let's say, Charlie McAvoy, he played only fifty games this past season because of his injury, and he had a two point five DPS, which means he had a really high impact in fewer games.

4:34 Speaker 1: Zadorov played eighty one games and he had a five point five whoa, which was pretty crazy, you know. For I mean, I look forward to later this summer when we do another review of Nikita Zadorov, because I think he was a little bit of a dark horse, a little bit of a sleeper cell, you know.

4:55 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, yeah, he gave himself a bit of a bad rapped our face value.

5:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's gonna be He's gonna be when we're gonna talk about more. But a lot of the other players, a lot of the other defensemen on the team. You know, you're looking at again Charlie mcavoyd two point five, Brandon Carlow two point seven, Andrew Peak two point three, Mason Laura one point one. But you know, he's he's the baby. And essentially, as I mentioned, it's an indicator of, you know, how they are contributing defensively, and so, Yoki, how are you being a player that again came into a difficult situation in Boston, didn't really know what the heck was going on his motivations for going to Boston, you know, I mean, I'm not putting words in his mouth, but the fact that he wanted to get the hell out of a dodge huffalo.

5:53 Speaker 1: I mean, is Boston the place that he really wanted to or should have landed to be determin The biggest issue is that he is also being twenty five years old and RFA with arbitration rights, so again Boston is not obligated to give him a qualifying offer, and without knowing the bigger picture and the plans, it's harder to tell what Boston wants to do with this particular player qualifying offers much with them if.

6:39 Speaker 4: He's expected more than three million dollars, I'll tell you that.

6:42 Speaker 1: Yeah. So here's the other thing, is the qualifying offers and arbitration and all that kind of stuff happens. Those are all do a little bit later in the month of July. So who knows if Don and company are going to wait and see where everything else lands to kind of deal with him and figure that out. But you bring up an excellent point, which is he is coming to the end of his third professional contract. He's had four years worth of contracts, two contracts total in Buffalo. His first contract was a three year with a value of seven point five million dollars, so that's a two point five million cap hit AAV and then he had a one year deal that was signed for three point one million dollars.

7:39 Speaker 1: Now, again, sample size being what it was tiny, lots of external factors going on. But Maria, what's your opinion on Henry Yoki? Are you.

7:56 Speaker 4: So? My opinion about defense in general is you can never have enough defensive depth. Yes, However, with some of the other needs that you have, I'm not sure that you are in a position to Again, I'm assuming that this player is going to anticipate or expect more money, right and I know that the cap is going up, but you need to utilize that money wisely to address needs that.

8:44 Speaker 2: You have so that your rebuild.

8:48 Speaker 4: Moves on a faster track than likely what you may want it to be. And I don't see how this player fits in to those plans.

9:03 Speaker 1: Right right, if it there is even any kind of particular motivation to even stay in Boston. Now, granted, he can't just up and leave Boston. The only way that he's leaving is if Boston chooses not to give him an offer. But to your point, Boston needs always has needed, any team always has needed, you know, those extra defencemen right so another.

9:34 Speaker 4: And I don't want to say those are because because they're not a dime a dozen, No, no, no, but you those in other avenues that might not be as expensive. Now, if you're telling me that you think this guy might be able to like have a higher threshold than Mason Lauri or Push Laurai, how much is that worth to you?

10:01 Speaker 1: Right? Well, and Boston already has a defenseman who is I mean well again, small sample size but at first glance, is he truly this that different from Yoki? How are you? And I'm talking about Parker Waltherspoon. You know he had a DPS this season of one point four. He had a two last year, So when he's out there, he's doing his job right. Wiltherspoon played fifty five games this past season, he played forty one this season before, and he's gonna be a lot more affordable than Yoki.

10:49 Speaker 2: How are you?

10:50 Speaker 1: So?

10:50 Speaker 2: You know, what is your investment in this team?

10:52 Speaker 4: It's it, you know, it'd be one thing if you had, you know, acquired this player in a tree where you gave an asset to get this player.

11:02 Speaker 2: But doesn't appear to be the case.

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13:49 Speaker 4: You have other needs and you can find yourself that utility defenceman m h in a more economical manner, right, because I can't imagine he's gonna want he's I mean, I would assume his agent's not going to say to him, listen, you can't take less money than what you made last year. Right, that's just not not it's not good business. Right, It's just not good business. But again, you know how much because our expectation is that the Bruins are going to do something of significance.

14:30 Speaker 2: Right. In order to do that, you need to have the money to do that.

14:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And so again comparing Yoki Haru to Waterspoon, Waterspoon makes league minimum. He currently makes eight hundred thousand on his one year contract. You know, do you do you do you pursue someone like that again, who's probably a defensive version of a journeyman. Right, And you know what, the.

15:09 Speaker 4: Defense on this team is the least of your worries because if you can't no, I mean, sad statement to make, but it's the least of your worries because you know, you get back a healthy Hampisling home. Yeah, a healthy Charlie McAvoy, I mean, Mason Laurai, he's got to take a turn for the better. He finished, you know, finished the season pretty miserably. But I still think that there's upside to this kid. Again with the right the right structure and the right coaching, Zadorov, he finished the season a lot stronger, I think than any of us expected him, yeah, to finish the season.

15:54 Speaker 4: So I think you're in good shape right defensively, right, So I mean, Swayman's going to be better, right, swaymen, we going to be better?

16:10 Speaker 1: Yes, So you know, and when I when I bring up Parker Waterspoon, I'm not necessarily straight up saying that the two of them are exactly the same. You know, copy paste insert copy players right, So again keeping in mind, uh Waterspoon, he had a goal and six assists, but he was a minus ten. But again, we know again, I know every.

16:45 Speaker 4: Everyone, everybody was exposed. We yes said it in a prior episode. Everyone on the team was pretty well exposed unless your name was David Pasternak or Morgan geeky.

17:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and you know the Bruins defense.

17:06 Speaker 4: Uh. And let's not think a card too with this money aspect. Is why I see I said, like, Yoki, how how are you as being kind of like thanks for stopping in.

17:20 Speaker 2: Is right, You've got to pay Morgan geeky something.

17:25 Speaker 1: Right, you know. I also kind of wonder if Boston agreeing to take Yoki Haru was them taking a flyer on him, and they're gonna think about whether or not he's worth continuing a deal. I mean that at the end of the day, it's it's gonna be a money thing. I think it's definitely this is this.

17:52 Speaker 4: Is one that I think, you know, we can both say this is definitely going to be a money issue decision.

17:59 Speaker 1: Yeah. He is the only one that if you know, he's not put in a trade package, which, again, with the exception of all of the guys that we've talked about in this particular series, I'm not particularly attached to any of them except for Lauco, but again that's because he was part of the team before. Without that history. Yeah, probably all of them i'd be like, all right, well it is what it is because they're new what have you. But he's one that I think Boston could walk away from. He's the only one I agree with you, yeah, that this is this is not gonna go great no for him.

18:49 Speaker 2: And again, you know, none of the players that we have been.

18:54 Speaker 4: I'm doing these segments on are going to bring you back to the promised slant. Okay now, and I think you know, our listeners and viewers are savvy enough to know that and to figure that out.

19:06 Speaker 2: That's not what we're saying here.

19:09 Speaker 4: However, in this instance, I think, because you are in decent shape defensively as an organization, that you can move on from this player if said player is looking to get a payday or a higher pay day, which I think it would be.

19:33 Speaker 2: An overpay in my view.

19:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, again, it's it's it's so difficult to evaluate a lot of these guys that came in for the last twenty games. I mean, you would think with twenty games that should be enough of a sample size. I mean, you know it's a it's a reasonable fraction of the season.

20:02 Speaker 2: But but I.

20:04 Speaker 4: Think when you were growing, things went off the rails so quickly. And you know, I don't like to use the word tank in any way, shape or form about any pro athletes because I just don't think it's in their their DNA.

20:23 Speaker 2: But was there a bit.

20:25 Speaker 4: Of some quick factor in there? Yeah, likely there was. I would I would be frustrated. So I mean emotionally, So I think it's really hard for anybody in the organization, you know, other than those players that you've identify as your core players, which right now are David Pasternak mm h, Charlie McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman. Although we did hear an interesting tidbit and Jeremy Swayman that the Edmonton Oilers had actually made an inquiry about Jeremy Swayman even after he signed his new contract, and I wonder how much of that had to do with the fact that the Oilers might have been a little bit worried about how Skinner would hold up during their playoff run.

21:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, but.

21:29 Speaker 1: Which actually without naming the team, was brought up by Elliott Friedman a couple of weeks ago in a pot Yes he did it, So I do believe that that is a factual statement.

21:46 Speaker 4: M m. But you know, again, this might be one of the he he he may end up being a bit of a casualty whether or not he has his heart set on staying in Boston. I don't know that, you know, when you have to make roster decisions and financial decisions, I'm not sure that this would be a good decision. Yeah, the Bruins to make to provide him with an offer.

22:16 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so he's the one also we kind of have the least opinion on, as ridiculous as it sounds, because we, first of all, always have an opinion on every single player on this team, and then here you are listening to our opinion is explicitly in this series. And I think the fact that he didn't particularly make a significant impact, I mean again, don't blame him hard to cut through all that noise.

22:49 Speaker 4: No, no, no, And it's not good because none of the other players that we spoke about a significant impact.

22:56 Speaker 2: I think we're looking at it pragmatically, right, right, and right value.

23:02 Speaker 4: If we have needs offensively, Claire needs offensively, you have less needs defensively, where it would be not an efficient use of resources. Yeah, to keep this player on who happens to be a defenseman, right, you know, I think if he.

23:24 Speaker 1: Was, I don't know even what he was in his prior contract to something. All right, maybe you know we can entertain, we can entertain that. I don't know. I just don't have a good feeling about this one. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm surris, Who is right? Right?

23:48 Speaker 4: I mean the Bruins could do something, you know, to make us look like we have no idea what we're talking about, which.

23:56 Speaker 1: Or five five deal? Oh my god, then I'm gonna turn over my card, my hockey fandom membership card. I don't know what I'm talking about, but who else with this team? So that being said, any final thoughts Maria on Henry Yoki?

24:18 Speaker 2: Are you no? Not on Henry? I think we have.

24:22 Speaker 4: We have come to the conclusion that he may likely made a pit stop and it may be time for him to take the next travel itinerary to his next destination, but I'm not sure it's going to be in Boston.

24:43 Speaker 1: Yep. Well, listeners, we want to hear from you ahead of this free agency. Do you think he's going to be given a qualifying offer or not? And why do you think that? Will be so very curious to hear what you guys have to say, and always make sure you like and subscribe and follow us all on our social media, especially as we are going into the biggest day of the year, which is the free agency year Christmas in July. It sure is it's the end of the high Holy days and we of course will be live on free Agency day you'll see more details as we get a little bit closer on all of our socials.

25:29 Speaker 1: But as always, thank you Maria for a lovely conversation my pleasure.

25:34 Speaker 2: I enjoyed it as well

25:36 Speaker 1: And of course, go be's, go Bes.