Is the NHL to blame for the Dadonov debacle?

Did the Vegas Golden Knights pull a fast one on Evgenii Dadonov over his no-trade clause and where does his future now lie?

Video Transcript

JULIAN MCKENZIE: We should mention, as of this recording right now, there's, like, one trade that still is kind of hanging in the balance a little bit. It's very possible it could be rendered null and void by the time this is out. But Evgenii Dadonov was traded from the Vegas Golden Knights to the Anaheim Ducks, or so we thought. It seems as if the Anaheim Ducks were on Dadonov's no-trade list. It's like 10 teams long.

And when he was dealt to Vegas from Ottawa, Vegas, at that point, had no idea-- they say they had no idea-- of the teams on this list or if he had a no-trade list at all, and then tried to be cute and offload Evgenii Dadonov. So I'd like to get your thoughts on this. I'll start with the lawyer of all four of us, the smartest one of all of us, Sam. What do you think of this horrible malpractice?

SAM CHANG: I think this is incredibly funny for pretty much everyone except for Evgenii Dadonov.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Yes.

SAM CHANG: I feel bad for him because he's in a lose-lose situation. He either has to go back to Vegas, the team that was trying to get rid of him, or he has to go to the team that was on his no-trade list. That sucks objectively.

The thing that blew my mind was looking at the language of the clause. It says that he-- his agent had to give his list by a certain date to the club. But the contract doesn't say who in the club, by email, by fax, by letter-- like, it has-- it provides no details about what "to the club" means, which is, like, drafting 101, if you're a lawyer. That is the number one thing you look at.

So, to me, when you think about how clubs draft their contracts, that provides a lot of ambiguity. And I think that's where you get problems like this. Who did his-- I think Elliotte Friedman reported that there's paperwork to show that the agent did provide the list on time.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: OK.

SAM CHANG: So I guess the question is, did Ottawa register the list with the NHL Central Registry? Did the NHL Central Registry just lose it and forget about it? And also, why did Vegas just accept from a phone call that the list had expired? Don't you think if you were a Golden Knights lawyer or management you'd, like, ask to see the contract and confirm for yourself? I mean, I think that's what I would do. But-- you know.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: It's common sense. It's common sense. Avry, what do you think?

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: What's the old saying? Common sense ain't so common?

[LAUGHTER]

I don't-- like, it's a good point in that how do you not double-check to make sure all the checks and balances have been taken care of if you're the Golden Knights? But also, it would be so NHL if the NHL lost this list. It would be so NHL if they didn't have this list. Like, you wouldn't see-- this would not happen in the NBA or in the NFL. It straight up would not happen at all.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Yeah, someone made the point to me the other day, if this was in a lower league-- or someone tried to also make the point that if this happened in, like, whatever, the PHF or the PWHPA, whatever they come up with, if it happened in one of those two leagues, we would be-- a lot of people would be railing on them for incompetence.

OMAR: Oh, yeah.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: I think the criticism would be really bad for those two leagues if it happened anywhere there. Not to mention the players, for sure, would speak out about this. But it would be so much worse. The blowback would be so much-- we wouldn't be laughing. I don't think we'd be laughing then.

OMAR: No--

JULIAN MCKENZIE: No.

OMAR: --not at all. And I think it does, and to that point, it does show the double standard. Like, I could see all the tweets, like, oh, poverty league, and--

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Mm-hmm.

OMAR: --this is why people--

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: Yep.

OMAR: --don't want to put funds into it and stuff. But then, you see a league that claims to be professional, and this is happening. It's just, like, yeah, I mean, objectively-- which is weird, like, objectively, this is hilarious-- and-- but again, I think to Sam's point, it is a horrible situation for Dadonov, especially considering the fact that when you're in a position to negotiate a contract.

And especially when you're a player that wants clauses, wants some control, we literally just saw players making use of their clauses to really dictate where they can go. We saw Claude Giroux pretty much saying, hey, I'm only going to Florida, and that's it. We've seen Mark Giordano pretty much use his clause to kind of dictate coming to Toronto.

So if I'm a player, whether I'm on Vegas or whatever, I'm seeing this, and I'm like, yo, can this happen to me? So it's-- it can't be good. But this is another thing, another loss for the NHL. And a lot of people are focusing on Vegas, focusing on Ottawa, definitely, sure, OK.

But this is a league issue. The fact that this is happening in a professional sports league that claims to try to be doing better every single year, on top of the multitude of things that we talk about, officiating on one end and player safety and discipline and whatever. There's just so many things that the NHL just like throws eggs in its face, like, every single time. So the fact that this is happening is just like another-- I don't know, another check mark, another [? star ?] just to show that the NHL isn't as great as it thinks it-- as they think they are. And, like, man, this is just--

SAM CHANG: I mean, Omar--

OMAR: --it's just wild.

SAM CHANG: --even if that-- even if the trade had gone through, even if they had-- even if this issue didn't exist, you're talking about a league where they fine the Devils for the Kovalchuk contract. The Canucks are still paying the Luongo recapture. But somehow the Vegas Golden Knights can acquire Ryan Kesler's contract when he retired three years ago? Are you kidding me?

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Yeah.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: Yeah. The fact that could be-- yeah, the fact that Kesler's deal could be traded, the fact that Pavel Datsyuk's deal could be traded, the fact that Chris Pronger's contract could still be moved-- like, that is comedy right there in action.

OMAR: Yeah, and how random--

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Bryan Little's contract was moved.

OMAR: And how, like, random contracts can just be terminated, and we're just like, OK. Like, remember when Mike Richards' contract got terminated, and we were just like, OK? And we were just like, all right, but then when other teams are like in cap crisis, and then other things gone on, then people want to talk about it. Or the fact that like, hey, listen, man. It's in the CBA. You can do the rule, for sure, 100%.

The fact that now it's becoming a thing where players-- where teams are purposely letting [LAUGHS] players be injured to give themselves more cap for the playoffs? Again, I'm not complaining. Like, you know, it's in the CBA, whatever. Use it to your advantage. But the fact that all these things are happening, and it's not being fixed-- the league's a joke, man.

And I don't know what it's going to take for them to sit down and have an honest conversation and say, hey, listen, we suck. What can we do? And I think until they have that honest conversation, then-- then the NHL, as a league, isn't going to be taken seriously.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: So last question.

SAM CHANG: People are never going to get Bettman to acknowledge that they suck.

OMAR: Oh, of course not.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: No.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: [INAUDIBLE]

OMAR: We have the-- they have the best officials in the sport.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: The refs.

OMAR: Frickin' give me a break.

[LAUGHTER]

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: I mean--

JULIAN MCKENZIE: The best refs. That's a joke in itself.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: [INAUDIBLE]. This is the same league where Bettman openly said himself, only the media wants a site with access to player contracts.

OMAR: OK.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: Fans don't want that. What? What do you mean, fans don't want access to advanced stats or player contracts? What are you talking about?

OMAR: CapFriendly, before the deadline every year, they have to ensure their servers are OK because the site crashes because so many people are there. Armchair-GM is one of the most-used things on the internet, man. Frickin' people are on the buyout calendar, like, more times than I can count. What are you talking about?

JULIAN MCKENZIE: When I was on the "Yahoo Sports Hockey Podcast" with Cuthbert over the weekend, and we were doing our regular Sunday show, we did it in the afternoon because trade deadline stuff. At one point, on [? CapFriendly, ?] beyond the home page, the most popular page on their website was for Travis Hamonic. People use the shit out of that website.

OMAR: Yep.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: We'll get to Travis Hamonic in just a sec.

[LAUGHTER]

SAM CHANG: Best [? deal ?] of the trade deadline.

OMAR: Please. It's not even close.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: [INAUDIBLE]

JULIAN MCKENZIE: One last thing I want to mention before we move on to trade deadline stuff. So if this Dadonov move doesn't work, the Golden Knights are screwed, right?

OMAR: Yeah.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Because if all the players are trying to-- I mean, the salary cap and the LTIR and all that, how are they going to bring back a player before the playoffs? How is that going to work? They might not even make the playoffs.

OMAR: They injure someone else. Like, oh, my gosh. Just, like-- will they get a stick and bash someone's knee or something and say that they were--

JULIAN MCKENZIE: But at this point, they're like, clinging, by a thread in the playoffs. That extra injury might hurt them.

OMAR: That's not being talked about enough, man. There is a legitimate chance they miss.

SAM CHANG: I mean, that's the funny thing, right? Like for years we've said Vegas does a great job of managing their cap, but they're cutting it really close. I think we found where the line is.

OMAR: Yeah.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Oh, yeah.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: You know what, though? If there's one team that will find a way to figure it out, I think it's still Vegas. People have been wanting the Golden Knights to collapse. Watch them some way, somehow, end up in the Cup Finals again after all this.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

JULIAN MCKENZIE: --Cup Final?

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: [INAUDIBLE] watch them end up in the Cup Final--

JULIAN MCKENZIE: If they end up in the Cup Final--

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: --after all this.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Nah. Nah, nah, nah, nah.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: [LAUGHS]

JULIAN MCKENZIE: If they end up in the Cup Final, I'm genuinely going to be upset because--

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: I'll be-- I'll love it. [LAUGHS]

JULIAN MCKENZIE: I'm going to upset.

SAM CHANG: Wouldn't it be way funnier if they had a team with Mark Stone and Jack Eichel, and couldn't even make the playoffs?

JULIAN MCKENZIE: That would be funny. That would be funny.

SAM CHANG: That would be so funny.

OMAR: That'd be funny.

SAM CHANG: And I say this as somebody who enjoys watching the Golden Knights.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: And the Colorado Avalanche, who I would be more upset for, because this is supposed to be they damn year. All the super team, and getting all these pieces and all that. They're the best team according to Dom's model, and everyone else is behind them and all that. And you can't get out of, whatever, second or third round to get to the Final because Vegas got there? We might just have to throw analytics away if that happens.

OMAR: I don't know, man. I mean--

JULIAN MCKENZIE: That's not true. That's not true. Don't do that.

OMAR: Look what Vegas did to Winnipeg, man. Winnipeg was supposed to make-- win the Cup that year. And then Marc-André Fleury said no. And then they--

[LAUGHTER]

--they've been falling ever since, right? So, like, yeah, we've seen it as possible.

SAM CHANG: I was in Vegas for game 5. I flew into Vegas for 36 hours to watch that game.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Damn. [INAUDIBLE].

SAM CHANG: It was 40 degrees. And it was probably one of the best games I've ever seen live. I think the entire rink stood for the entire third period.

OMAR: That is awesome.

SAM CHANG: It was wild.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: History. That's incredible. So anyway, Vegas, figure yourself out because you're going to need to do that.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: Fix up.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Fix up.