Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey Piedocast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich.

Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dim is Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy,

Jack Hahn. Jack, what's going on, man? Very exciting times in Toronto and for least fans across the world.

Yes. Yeah, we're going to do the Ryan O'Reilly trade breakdown today. We're recording this. We're pre-recording it. We're off. It's a long weekend here in Canada with Family Day on Monday. And so we're off on Monday, but I'm pre-recording the show with you because I want to get all our thoughts out here while they're still fresh, while they're still hot. And listen, the Leafs were, I think it's fair to say one of like the highest leverage teams

to watch ahead of the deadline because it felt like they were linked to pretty much every

single player available, right?

And I think it wasn't a question of whether they do that's something because clearly

with where they are in the standings

and how desperately they want to, you know, actually use that regular season success into

finally getting over the hump and winning a playoff round this year, they're clearly going to

do something. What they were going to do, I think, was up for debate, right? We heard numerous

different perspectives. There were a lot of

smokescreens about whether they'd even be willing to use a premium asset, like a first for a

rental, whether they were trying to identify a defenseman and upgrade that way, or whether they're

going to add a forward. And we now know that they acquired Ryan O'Reilly and Nolachari. They sent out

four picks to do so, including this upcoming

2023 first. And I think, I'm not sure your take on this, but from my perspective, I think,

regardless of your mileage on the player, and we're going to talk a lot about the details of O'Reilly's

game, the decision itself to go aggressively after a forward upgrade was, I think, ultimately

the right one. I think that was

their most meaningful path towards improving this team. And I know that goes counter to what every

single boomer uncle in Ontario will tell you about this team's weaknesses and how they're soft

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