OverDrive - Biron on Stolarz's contract focus, Byram going to arbitration and McDavid's impending deal

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

TSN Hockey Analyst Martin Biron joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the NHL offseason, the Maple Leafs' goaltending impressions, Anthony Stolarz's impending contract extension, Bowen Byram heading to arbitration, Stuart Skinner's role in Edmonton, Connor McDavid's length of a contract and more.

Unmistakably Canadian. It's the music that raised you. The artists raising the bar. Hi, this is Bryan Adams. Hey, my name's Brett Emmons. I'm from the Glorious Sons. Hi, I'm Nellie Furtado. Made in Canada.

The station that champions Canadian music. Loud, proud, and all yours. No passports required. Just press play. Tap into Made in Canada now on iHeartRadio.ca or the free iHeartRadio app. Marty Barone is here, our TSN hockey analyst, among other things, of course, big member of the Sabres family. Martan, how are you today?

I'm doing great. How are you guys doing? We're good. We're looking for the replacement for Mitch Marner. How do we go? How do we do that? Help us out here? We got this guy with a hundred plus points 50% of what Austin Matthews does great penalty killer great in the power play Sounds like four guys to me Yeah, it sounds like four guys to me as well now if I Would be looking for a Mitch Marner replacement right now And just it won't happen.

You have to think that this will be an in season addition and more likely, more like February, going into the trade deadline, you're gonna say, okay, where can we find somebody that's gonna come in and give us what Mitch Marner was giving us earlier? And plus you have to identify within your team and your forward group, where are, you know, where's Matthew Nizat and how is Austin Matthews?

Is Matthews able to continue to perform and produce without Marner? Where is John Tavares? Last year, 38 goals. Where is it gonna be this year? So I think there's a lot of big question marks, but you're not replacing Mitch right now. and you shouldn't have to do that right now either. I think Toronto is is a really good team. They're a team that's

going to make the playoffs. So wait a little bit, buy some time, accrue some savvy cap space and then make a move later in the season. Marty when you look at their goaltending situation there's there's been some talk in town that if they were needing to make a trade for a top six forward, maybe they could trade from a position of strength in goal. Because you got Stolarge, you got Wall. You want to run with one and not the other, trade the other, you could do that.

Now, I'm not a big fan of it. How would you feel about moving on from one of those guys selling high on one of those guys and relying on your organizational depth to carry you beyond that? Well I mean I suggested that a few weeks back right even like just after the season ended then look this may be the summer to do it but it's a little too late now when you're looking at the teams that have filled up some of their goalie needs, the goalies that were either acquired like John Gibson to Detroit or you know free agent goaltenders, which was not like a great class of free agents, but still there's some goalies that have filled up needs and they're gonna to re-evaluate later in the season.

And look, Colorado last year in season revamped their crease. They looked at San Jose and they said, you guys aren't going anywhere. How about Mackenzie Blackwood? They looked at Nashville. You guys aren't going anywhere. How about your backup? Right, Scott Wedgwood? And they just changed their whole crease.

Now Toronto could look in November and December and say which team is really struggling in their crease situation and which guy do we feel can, you know, we can part ways with. And I think we lost them. Well, we'll get them back. Marty Barana, it was going down an interesting road there and you suggested that, just sort of as you launch into the season just because of the weird marketplace There's a lot of people that need goalies. Yeah, there's a lot of people that need players, but the supply is down Supply yeah, the supply of proven guys that you can actually rely on

I mean I look you know, I was gonna ask him in a follow-up, but Edmonton, like, you really believe, like, I know they've been to the cup final twice in a row, and that's impressive in a certain way, but they've also had moments in those cup finals where they've been let down by goaltending. Well, did you go back with Skinner again? Okay, let's bring Marty's back in. So Marty, just pick up where you were. We're talking about maybe the goaltending thing is something you look at as the season launches.

Yeah, so I mean I think you'd have to look and right now you're not dealing with from a position of strength. Teams have filled up their needs but in late October, November, by December you may be looking around and said okay, first of all I mentioned Wold because I think Stolarz is the better of the two goalies right now. But you have to see, where has Anthony Stolarz held twice? You know, he was banged up last year, he didn't finish the season, the playoffs, he was backing up the last game. But you have to evaluate everything and see if there's a possibility.

But I do believe that in November, maybe early December, you may gain that position of strength again when there's teams that are going to say, oh, we really need a goaltender. And I heard you guys just mentioned the Edmonton Oilers. I mean, maybe it is the Oilers saying, we can't continue with Skinner and Pickard. We have to go get somebody. And at that moment moment maybe the phone is going to ring with the leaves and they're going to need to look to one of their. I believe we lost him again. Wow. That doesn't happen often, but nonetheless he was making a good point.

You buy some time because they have it and then all of a sudden somebody gets a little more desperate and maybe the price goes well, the price will go up. Yeah, it's a dicey one for me. Like I batted this one around a handful of times about whether you could trade one of I just be afraid to because they took so long to get there. It took a long time to get there, Jim. You're right. And they both had, you know, a really well documented history of pretty regular injuries.

Like these guys have not had really long runs of healthy play, right? Well, I think that anybody with any kind of doubt would suggest to you, the moment you trade one, in the next game, the guy that you kept gets injured. Exactly. Wouldn't that be... That would make total sense. I mean, we've seen that. Yeah.

It would be concerning, right? What a break for Dennis Hildeby. Yeah, it would be concerning, right? And a break for Dennis Hildeby. Yeah, it would be exactly. But you know, it's, and you know, they got Actimov and Hildeby, they got some guys, they seem to believe will possibly become NHL goal tenders, but that possibly is a big word. And you've got two guys here that are proven, right?

Like, Wall and Stolars have shown you at their best, they can be elite to near elite guys, right? As long as they can stay healthy. Now we don't know what kind of workload either one can take because we just saw last year where they both had unprecedented types of workloads. And what do you know, Stolar's got hurt. Yeah, you could blame Sam Bennett for that. I mean, I would.

But, but, you know, he also had, you know, he's had other Nixon cuts throughout the years, as has Joseph Wall. so it's tough i mean right now to have those guys under contract for six million bucks for the pair for the year pretty good it's a great deal now stole is gonna get more expensive because you know his deal's up at the end of next year they're gonna have to extend him uh you would assume probably you know he's at a 2.5 million dollar cap that you you assume this guy's getting like a raise times two basically okay my

fingers are crossed though we're gonna bring Marty back in again yet again fingers are crossed over here too guys I don't want to be cutting out cutting out cutting out there might be a tariff thing I don't know so let's talk about your blue liner in Buffalo born born buy room I mean what what's happening there's all kinds of trade talk and they're going to arbitration which doesn't really, I guess, take away the trade talk because maybe they don't like what the arbitrator says. What do you think happens? Well here's an interesting situation because I think that again, if you were to deal from

a position of power it would have been two weeks ago, right, at the draft. Maybe you acquire a player, maybe it's a pick from that draft, maybe you flip that around. The Sabres already had moved JJ Peturka to Utah. So I think that was the time right now. So Bo Byrom decided not to go to arbitration because I believe he wanted the leverage of an offer sheet in his back pocket and then

yesterday by 5 p.m. The Sabres Had to decide if they were going to take him to arbitration the team elected arbitration, which they did So now it guarantees Bo Byron will either be signed with the Sabres Signed with a different team or traded or whatnot, but he will be in uniform game one somewhere. And I think that's good for the Sabres because number one, if Byron is signed, I think you got a very good blue line with Dallin, Byron, Power, the acquired Kesselring, the acquired Connottimmons to play, you know, third pair with Samuelson.

I think with Byron, their blue line would be really, really strong. If you don't have Bo Byram, where do you trade him and what do you get in return? That is the big question. And I don't know right now that the best return is out there. I think two weeks ago it would have been there if, you know, there was, you know, some good options on the table. But they really like Bo Byram, and he played really well with Rasmus Dallin last year. So why force something if you don't have to? Right now you know that at worst,

Bo Byram is signed to a one-year deal in arbitration and will be there game one. So that's the worst casecase scenario and that's not a that's not a bad thing for the Sabres. You got Dalene at 11 Owen Power at 8.3 I gotta believe that Byron is somewhere in between but that makes sense no I I don't think so Byron had like 38 points last year I think or you know seven goals or

he doesn't play power play I think when you go to an arbitrator and you're gonna show all the numbers the ice time and everything I believe it probably will slide in between six and seven that's kind of like what I think a lot of the analytics projection we're saying a one-year deal somewhere in the five and a half to six, but I think it may be more than that. Now, if you go long term, you're probably pushing closer to 8 million. And I think that's where the holdup is because the Sabres have Dallin at 11 and power at eight and a half. So Bo Byermis then, do I have the ability to continue to grow in Buffalo because I don't,

I don't have a spot in the power play. Those are the two studs. So I think that's maybe where the holdup is. But I think Byram on a one-year deal somewhere between like six and a half and seven million dollars would probably be the tops I think you could get. Marty, there was a lot of talk in Toronto last week about a little stunt the Maple Leafs developmental team pulled. They brought the developmental camp players down

to a horse barn at the X here in Toronto and they had them spend some time with a horse trainer and a young colt that this horse trainer was attempting to train. And I guess the idea according to Haley Wickenhuis, the assistant GM in charge of development for the Leafs was that this would help the players sort of think about controlling their emotions and learning

how to manage themselves under pressure through the eyes of this horse trainer who's attempting to tame this wild colt. A, what do you think of that? And B, did you have anything like that happen in your career where a team got creative with how they sort of attempted to mold you as a player? Yeah, I remember going to Whistler with the Philadelphia Flyers at the start of the season. So we played Edmonton and Calgary game one and two and then we had four days before the game in Vancouver. So we all went to Whistler.

That was 2007, 2008. A lot of new guys on the team and we had the team bonding experience. They brought in a firm, you know, to do a bunch of different puzzles and outdoor activities and, you know, figuring out, working as a team. And throughout the whole year, we use examples of that. As John Stevens, our head coach at the time,

would always say, the process. You have to stick to the process. And remember when we were in Whistler, the process. And it was great. I loved it. I'm a sucker for all of that. But I laughed when the Leafs did the thing with the horses. Because I have horses myself.

Like my kids, my girls have all grown up in the horse industry. My daughter last year went to South Africa competing in the World Cup of Saddle Seat Equestrian. And listen, there's some time we had gotten her a horse and man, it was gonna be so beautiful and they didn't fit, right? It didn't work and then we sold that, bought another one

and we're like, yeah, this one's not gonna work and boom it just magically happened and I love that talking to trainers in our industry of the Morgans and the Saddlebread and the Saddle Seat World, it's been fantastic to learn how they train and and I tried to use that and many different you know sports analogy when I when I talk to my young goalies and and I different sports analogy when i when i talked to my young goalie then and i give them you know different training ideas uh... because

you have to learn i've i've been watching a lot of tennis watch from the tennis players and their warm-up and their mental approach baseball football hockey uh... equestrian uh... you know track and field. I think it's important to be able to dive into a lot of different things. I like what you said there because you never once quoted anybody in hockey. So you're looking outside of the hockey rink to figure out different things to motivate and maybe little ideas

or theories that you could apply to yourself. Well, and it's important. I know, like I watched some of the trainers that we've dealt with and some of them are young and full of energy and they work until, you know, one in the morning and they get up at four the next morning to, to work the horses again. Some are more older and established and they've, they've, they've figured out ways. And as you know, sometimes you got a horse where you got to spend so much time and energy and you got to ride them two, three times a day and long line them and do all of that. And

sometimes it's just, no, get them out, uh, one turn around each way and then you're good. Like in it's, it's so interesting to me that they did that with the, with the young players to give them, you know, animals are like humans, you know, not two of them are identical. Not two of them are going to have to do the same thing. And you have all these 30, 40 kids at development camps, and you have to let them know that we're going to work with you. We know that you're not like Joe and Bill and Mike next to you. You're an individual, you're unique. And just like they're working with horses, we're going to work with you in how individual

and unique you are. I think that's fantastic. Well, that's interesting stuff, Marty. We had Bruce Boudreaux on last week and we talked about it and he thought it was the dumbest idea he'd ever heard. So everybody's got a different take on things. I love Bruce and he's awesome but but it's to me and I've had a chance to encounter like it when I was in Philly I live next to a baseball player for the

Phillies and I got to see his routine and you know how early he showed up to batting practice and and they played every day, right? And 162 games, and I'm watching the Jays now, and how they have to do it over and over again, and I'm like, man, don't tell me I can't play back-to-back games as a goaltender. Like, I'm watching these baseball players do it like all the time, I'm like, no, no, no.

So I think there's a lot of that mentality that we can be adopting for sure in hockey. Well talking about goaltenders Marty there's a lot of talk about Stolarz obviously he's in the last year of his deal with the Leafs at a really reasonable two and a half million dollar cap hit. There's a widely assumed you know trope that he's going to get an extension it's just about the number in the term you look at stole ours uh... you've seen a play you some have an incredible year for the maple leaves last year you also some get hurt the playoffs

you know what would you be comfortable with if you had to get into that executive suite make that deal with that place dollars so when i look at it and they've got a great beautiful package defied the athleticism uh... dead, the quickness, the reaction. I think this is a guy that wherever he's been, there was always good indication that he could be good, but there was always roadblocks, right?

In every organization, it didn't work out perfectly or there was somebody else there. And in Toronto, I think those roadblocks kind of opened up in front of him and he was able to go ahead. So for me if I'm the lead obviously I'm trying to manage the cap. Like do I do I really think Anthony Stolarz in the five to five and a half million dollar range is gonna say no? Like this is a guy that until last year was a backup goaltender. Like if I say okay we'll give you a four-year deal at five and a half because you're our number one and look this is so not clear like by the end of this year maybe it's Joe Wall and unfortunately Stolarz is not their

number one but if we continue the way that it's been last year I'm thinking Stolarz could be their number one. He's not gonna say no to that. He's not gonna say I want six and a half, I want seven. Like he's got maybe twenty you know million or whatever four times five on the table. I mean that's more than he's made his whole career. So I don't think he would say no to that or say no to somewhere there. I get agents get in the way and say, oh we can get this and that whatever, but there's only 32 teams. There's only 32 number one goaltenders. When you have one of those chairs you don't want to give it up. Yeah, Walls at 3.66, I mean even if you gave him 5.5 or 6, that's still pretty good

money for two goaltenders. You'd be at nine and a half or both that that's pretty good uh... i think this story is until it until the contract is signed is gonna be the major headline what do you think edmonton does uh... with uh... connor mcdavid where does that go all man and i'm i'm i'm still bad for the oilers because this summer the first week of july could not have gone any worse, right? They have to trade a Vander Cane, they lose Connor Brown.

They just been, they look like they've not been able to add any of the depth that they would have wanted. And it started maybe last year when they lost Holloway and Broberg, but this has not been good. So I think Connor McDavid will stay in Edmonton. The big thing for me is I don't think he would stay for much longer than a two or a three year deal. Like Connor is still in the prime

and will be in the prime of his career for the next eight, nine years. But he doesn't wanna give that up and say all of a sudden, I have no control over that. So for me, I think Connor McDavid will stay an Euler, but will probably sign a two or three year deal and say, okay, in three years, if it doesn't go the way I want, or if it doesn't go the way that we wanted as a team then have the option to just go somewhere else and chase a cup because we all know I mean I remember my first year my first full year with the Buffalo Sabres had a couple of guys in

the locker room sit next to them and they're like Marty I tell you it goes fast you think you're gonna win a Stanley Cup in your first year and you're in your last year and you still haven't gotten a chance to win it. It goes fast. If you're Carl McDavid, you give yourself a little bit of time here with the Euler's, but after two or three years, if it's not happening, you're probably going somewhere else. What do you think the number is?

If he goes, like we had MJ on Marty and MJ was sort of making a case, you know sort of pretending he was McDavid's agent saying give me two years at 16 million a year and I'll put you on the clock to make this team a contender and then we'll talk in a couple of years. What do you think is the reasonable cap hit if he goes two or three years? So next year the cap will be 103.5 or somewhere around that so the maximum salary that he could make would be 20 million dollars right like 20 percent like 20 percent so it's not going to be 20 million but I also don't think it will be 16. I have a number I think 18 million is probably the number.

Wow. Economic David I get it that maybe he says okay let's go to 16 so you have two more million dollars to play with and bring in somebody because you'll make it right you'll make it on another contract he can go and trade the money but at some point you know you're you're gonna say you know what like I'm worth eight he's worth 20 he's worth 20. He's worth 20. Like how much less are you going to take? I think 18 is the number, but I wouldn't be surprised if Conor McDavid does the Euler's a solid and says, I'll go to 16 on a two-year deal.

But you know that's coming with strings attached that in two years, if it's not good, it's bye-bye and I'm gone. Wow. Marty, you can uncross your fingers now. Everything's good. Thanks very much. Okay, good. Thank you.

You too. Marten Baran, TSN Hockey Analyst. Seasoned gamer or just video game curious? This Week in Gaming is the podcast for you. We break down the latest in the world of video games from basics to beyond. The hottest gaming news, insight and industry leaders and more, weekly. Join me, Naomi Kyle, and stay ahead of the game with all the latest updates.

Even if you're a total newbie. Stream This Week in Gaming on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.