So do we have a trade or not?

0:00Pops up in the air, knocked down by Edmondson, and now the blues off to the races, and Colton Peraco. And Peraco knocks it by Gerard, and the Claire chutes his scars, unbelievable. Peraco will have one handed gold over time, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. That sounds great. Wow, he's a dangler. Now, I believe that's John Kelly, I think that's right, blues announcer. We'll see, not official yet from the Sabers or the Blues, but numerous reports have the Sabers trading for that player, Colton Peraco's been in the league a long time with St. Louis, he's 32, closing in on 800 games, all with the blues. What I, a couple of things I'm looking for gets your calls in just a moment here, power play potential, he's always had a big shot, but he is not, he's not a power play quarter,

1:03he's not, he's not a, he's not a slick puck moving, he's a, he's a shut down D, but he's got a cannon. He doesn't, it doesn't look like he's playing the power play at all, right, any more for the blues, but he did. Yeah. Well, you're in his career, he was, he's always had a big shot, he had a, he had a, a big, big shot. You're also not going to find penalty minutes if that's your thing with Peraco 66, 228, is what he's listed, but his career high in penalty minutes is 32, which very well might have been 16 minors in 80 games, you know? So if you're, if you're assuming big, here we go again, big, mean, shut down D, I stick to the choppers, right, right, right. Not a lot of that. Yeah. I mean, he did, he did, he was one of the trio of fights in the four nations last year. Oh, yeah. He was the beginning of the third, the third fight after the Kachuk brothers did their thing. He fought JT Miller in the gold crease because Miller was just looking for it and he just went and picked them and they went, how could I forget a fight?

2:05You know, um, all right, well, we'll see, man, I'm, I'm on pins and needles about the salary retention. I almost want to assume it's going to happen because if, if the return truly is a first round pick, have you seen that specified on a year yet, by the way, because it doesn't have to be this year's first, but it might be anyway. But it's thought to be a first round pick and Mertko, who was, Radeem Mertko, was last year's first round pick. I think for this player at his age with that contract to pay that price, there are, there is almost has to be salary retention and if there is, and it's, you know, as much, if it's 50%, I'm, I'm a lot more comfortable with this whole scenario because 3.25 million, we're talking, the cap is always going up and up and up and whatever role, if he's, if he's on your team next year, as your fifth defenseman, making 3.25 million against

3:06your cap, you're fine. Like, I got no problem with that. If he's making double that, I got some issues. I mean, I just think it's going to, it's, it's not going to be smart money in the long term. In the short term, hey, go win this year, all right, and that's what they're trying to do. I'm here for that. I just hope they protected themselves on the money. Let's go to Justin here, I Justin. Hey, guys, I was thinking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. Thanks for calling. So something that I was thinking about is the rumor started to fly and you guys mentioned it earlier with the idea of power moving out that the team has really built the identity of the defense, jumping up into the office. Something that just kind of excited me as it flew to my head was the idea of spreading around the defense of minutes, having another elite defenseman come in and really solidifying the identity, all three lines on the D-rolling and creating chances in the offense. The thing is that this player is not that player, this is not, and that's why I'm worried

4:09about him getting minutes in the top four, because I think it could take away from what the Saber's best pitch has been. Their fastball has been those four D, freely roaming the ice and creating offense. And I just don't think Paraco, he's not that player. So if he's paired with Dalline or power, you're losing that, you know, you're going to gain something in your own end, maybe, but I'm not looking to disturb that top four in any way. I might be wrong. I mean, I'm not the hockey coach in the playoffs are different. So maybe that's, you know, they're trying to brace themselves for more wall play and you want to be ready for that and I respect that. This is not a guy that adds to what they do best. He does something else that they don't have. And mate, you know, that's where the rub is.

5:09He's certainly if he's used as a third pair guy and they spread the minutes out more evenly, that works just fine for me, but he is not going to add to what they already do well. If anything, he has the potential to take away from it if he's on the ice with those guys. If he's playing third pair minutes with Kessel Ring or some other guy they go get or counter him in once he gets back from his broken leg and they feel like they can play them 18 like Paul said a little while ago 18 minutes a night as opposed to the very sheltered minutes mostly they've been giving Murtka, not Murtka, Metsa, I mean, the same mistake Paul made. Although I don't want to muddy the waters, they were trying him out the last couple games on different pairs. And if you notice, like he was on the ice with Dalin, he's on the ice with Byram, this is Metsa I'm talking about. And I wonder if that's just a fishing expedition to see. Do we need more depth? Can we count on this guy if we get to the playoffs and he has to play, right? Or do we need to go get somebody else? That'll be our seventh or eighth guy because that's what I think with this trade, especially

6:11now that's where Metsa ends up. I think they're probably just sort of trying that on a little bit, but the paraco is slotted properly. I can get with this very easily. If he's on the ice a lot with one of those other top guys, I'm not sure I'm going to really like the results. JD next, hello. Hey guys, I want to tell you, I think this is a great deal. He's not signed for a ton of money. It's 32 years old, deals up when he's 37. I think Bulldogs write about his role, but you can keep this guy for a long time. And if you don't want to, he's got a deal. It's not hard to move. He's a big guy and I'd also like to suggest and I'll hang up and get your comments. Sabers need to be more like the golden nights and start dealing away more picks if they have to because they've got more than enough number one picks, first round picks in their

7:11organization. Yeah. Well, they're absolutely, even though they did not pull off the Thomas deal yesterday, they were shopping. Nothing really but futures for that trade. So I think they're inclined to agree with you and what they just did today is a one and last year's number one, which tells you they're, they're not against, they're like, maybe they're the Rams. They just, we're going for it. The time and place they are developmentally, it works well enough to do it that way. I think it's called for and I like the aggressiveness. I'm just not crazy about the player they chose this time. Yeah, I'm not sure this can be considered a player that would be easy to move in the future. I would not say that, you know, these are, these are, sorry, special circumstances and he makes perfect sense as a trade target for a contending team, I think, even at his price. But that's not going to last for too long. I mean, you make his age sound like he's 10 years younger than he is.

8:11I think the caller, like it's kind of old for a player who's got so much term left. I want to say again, not to sound paranoid. There is the, the wave of the no trade clause here. I don't get how this gets out before that's done. Nobody would want that. The Sabers would, of course, not want that. Everybody's thinking now that they've acquired this player to have him say, no, I mean, that's the kind of thing they've been trying to get past for so long. That kind of a result, not that it has to be anything that huge of a reason, but he's got to agree to it. Why would that not have happened before the reports? That's not to say that, I guess I'm a little bit cynical about one aspect of this kind of reporting. It's not to say that somebody couldn't break a story that there has been an agreed to trade, but it doesn't happen through Darren Dregor. No offense. That's when it's sort of, this is when it's fed and how does it get fed?

9:15Again, like usual, football too, a lot of the top insider names have the story at the same time, right? So it gets fed that this trade has been made without the player's consent. It doesn't that seem like the opposite of what would normally happen. I mean, it's always that the player has to be notified first and I don't know how much time would you give a guy to decide? It's a big deal. He's never been traded. He's never played for any other team. Any kind of trade can be traumatic, but I don't know, is there like a certain standard amount of time that a player would get a day? Maybe. The teams have got to move pretty fast, so they'd want your answer, but I don't know. Again, I don't want to sound like that's coming necessarily, but there was another trade last hour between Utah and Calgary. Yeah, Mackenzie Weiger. Okay. And Elliott Friedman is saying the same thing is in play there that he hasn't announced. He's agreeing to it, so I don't know, this just does not sort of make sense to me.

10:16It's been an hour or more, right? We were in the 4.30 to 5 o'clock window when we found out that this was being reported, the way it's being reported, and yeah, I'd like to see that, I'd like to see that and the salary retention piece before much longer goes by because it is a little surprising fact. I'm watching, as I'm sitting here now, Andy Strickland, there's a blue's beat guy is on a radio show in Canada saying the reporting is a little premature. I'm not suggesting it's not going to happen, but he has a no trade clause, and we still don't know. Yeah, that's the point. All right. Quick break, and then we'll take more of your calls at 803-0550. Thanks for joining us. Big trade. That's true. Sabers and blues might show up in the bulldog WGR.