Puck Soup - Gary's League

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about how close the standings are, big new contracts, and more. Sponsored by Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck) and Mint Mobile (mintmobile.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospect. I'm Sean McAnew from The Athletic. And folks, we pass November 1st. It's the day we all look for. And we say, these guys are good or bad, as the case may be. Yep. And, Sean, do you know the grand total number of teams that were more than four points out of a playoff spot on November 1st this year? I'm going to say, were there four?

There were three. Okay. There were three, and they were all in the Western Congress. conference. I want to say it was the Sharks, Blues and Flames. That sounds about right. Yeah. All those teams stink. We're all mad at them. Of course, only the sharks we thought were going to be bad. So that's not good. And now a few days later, they're actually tied with the wild as well.

Yeah, you can't do that. You can't start winning the first week of November. It doesn't... No, no, no. It's not fair. So I wanted to talk about it this way. I know you're not a... big NBA guy. But one of the things they say in the NBA, when like things go the way you would think the league would want them to go, is they go Silver's League. Okay. Because they're just like, oh, he's pulling all his strengths. He's the puppet master.

And I would say that, you know, you don't want to draw too many conclusions from the first like 10 or 12 games of the season. But brutally enforced parity, seems. to be working finally at the National Hockey League level. We're talking about, you know, the Canadian's, the Red Wings, the Penguins, the Devils. These are the top teams in the Eastern Conference, and they are five points clear of one, two, three, four, five teams that are tied for last in the Eastern Conference. The East is, I was going to say out of control, but that doesn't seem like it would work for everybody being 500. So the East is the complete opposite of out of control. It is a classroom full of well-behaved little kids with their hands folded.

And, yeah, just about everyone is... The Bruins are the worst team in the Eastern Conference right now by points percentage. And they are 500. They are 500. And to their credit, they are legit 500. Mm-hmm. Yeah, seven and seven. There are a bunch of other teams.

They'll take one of those if you're, you know, offering. Yeah. Then we got a bunch of teams that are fake 500 or actually above fake 500, which is to say they have lost more games than they've won. But because of how the NHL works, their points percentage is still over 500. It's a pretty, yeah, I don't know. We're in Gary's League. It's all happening. Literally everyone in the East is one point. Everyone in the East right now, their fan base. can be going if we win our next game. We're only one point out. We're only one point out. But more to that point though, like, again, in the West, you got a handful of teams that are like double digit negative goal difference. Yeah. Right?

Mm-hmm. In the East, the worst goal difference is minus three. It's not like these teams are, you know, oh, we're losing in blowouts and then we're, you know, clawing back a three-two win. All of these teams are losing by one or two goals. at worst. Every team in the East has a single digit gold's differential. It's crazy. High or low? They are. Yeah. And like, we're looking at like the penguins, right? Holy fuck. Can you believe the penguins

are doing this? And I really can't. To be, you know, my hat's off to them, right? But at the same time, it's just like, well, we all know that's not going to last. This isn't a good team. Mm-hmm. You know, like, again, credit to Sidney Crosby and and Gennie Malkin for just being like, we got this, boys. And they're just doing it, right? It's to the point where, like, people are going, Ben Kindle, this is one of the most poised rookies we've ever seen.

And relax. You know, we got the scouts behind the scenes watching tape on this guy at the elite prospects. They're going, yeah, he looks okay. Everybody else is going. Poised. Whoa. He's so poised.

You just like, you hand him like a, like, a, little tin of peanut wafers and he opens them up and a snake pops out and he just goes, oh, okay. I knew that was going to happen. Yep. He goes, ha, ha, good one, gentlemen. But, you know, like, again, is that going to last? No.

But credit to him, he's earned his, I get to stay in the NHL all year, or, you know, a good chunk of the year. They might send him back in like December or something. He's earned that, and that's great. I'm not knocking the kid, but it's just like we all know the penguins aren't going to last as the best team in the Eastern Conference. And because nobody's really even close to out of it, that's bad news for the Penguins. Because if they start playing like we expect the Penguins to play, well, then all of a sudden here come the Ottawa Senators or the Florida Panthers, you know, pick your team. You can literally pick any team in the Eastern Conference that go, they're a four-game winning streak from looking like the best team in their conference.

And it's true. Yep. This time next week, one of these teams goes three and oh, and we're all like, wow, the Rangers. Oh, powerhouse. Right. No, and that's what happened with Tampa. They started out like one, four, and two or whatever it was. They're on a five-game winning streak.

It doesn't matter. They're in a playoff spot all of a sudden. Yep. So is this good for? For whom? That's the real. league, let's say. Because here's, I'll give you my

answer to that question. I think if I'm a fan of an individual team, which is the vast majority of the fans out there, I can see how you can say this is a good thing. Because there is not a single fan base in the Eastern Conference

that's checking out right now. There's not a single fan base in the entire conference that can't talk themselves into, like, we've absolutely got this. Like, we're going to be okay. There's no games that don't matter. There's no, you know, all of that. I think if you pull back and you look at it as a whole, it's not good because this is just a mess of mediocre teams.

Right. And so the reason it's good for the league is to your point. This is a gate revenue league. This league makes money by people showing up buying tickets, buying beers, buying jerseys, right? And so the reason they want this parody where everybody's kind of good, meaning nobody's good, but also nobody's bad, is so that you can go, this game matters. You know what? I wasn't going to go, but I'll buy a single game ticket on Thursday. Because if we, the Buffalo Sabres, beat the Philadelphia Flyers, that's a.

a huge swing in points for us. You know? And like even in the Western conference, are you going to try to tell blues fans, hey, you're, you're five games out of a, or five points out of a playoff spot right now.

But also, you've been playing way worse than everybody expects. So, like, you should give it up. You're not going to tell blues fans that they beat the Oilers last night, you know? Mm-hmm.

And so, like, the, only team that I think you could say through 12, 13, 14 games, whatever it is, is out of it, is the Calgary Flames. They are cooked, it seems like. And even then, they have a guy who's supposed to be a really good goalie. And if he gets hot for a few weeks, all of a sudden, they're at least in the playoff conversation again.

Because nobody's good. Right? Mm-hmm. It's funny because you look at the standings in the Western Conference and you go, it may not be the order I would have picked, but these eight teams on Tuesday morning feel like playoff teams to me. The wild card is Dallas and Edmonton. And other than Seattle and maybe Utah, you're like, well, obviously, this is all fine.

You know, this all checks out. And then you go, okay, well, the Kings suck and the Canucks suck. that actually checks out too. So that opens up two spots. I don't know. Look, did you see this clip that was going around the other day or yesterday maybe of Calgary Flames coach Ryan Huska talking to the team about what's going right and what's going wrong? Oh, no. No, I did not.

Could not have been a very long conversation. Yeah, it was just part of like, it was just one of those like, hey, the efforts there. I'm not seeing anybody, you know. like dogging it just because we're bad or anything like that. And he's like, and he keeps going, I love you guys. I think you're all awesome. But we don't have any fucking 60 goal scores on this team, do we? And they all kind of have to look at each other like, you know, that's true.

And he's like, so we got to do more on offense, blah, blah, blah, whatever he's saying. But then this is the, this guy's about to get fired aspect of it for me, where he's like, do you guys know what chat GPT is? Oh, no. And he's like, I put everybody's stats. and career shooting percentage and everything into chat GPT. And chat GPT told me we're going to score 2.36 goals per game this year, whatever the number he said was.

And it's like, that's actually one of the worst numbers in the league, man. And also if you're asking Chat GPT, like to be a calculator for you. The robot that has designed to tell you whatever you want to hear, even that one is like, that's what I'm saying. You guys stink a little bit. You use it as a calculator instead of just opening up a fucking Excel spreadsheet and doing the math yourself, whatever it is. And, you know, if it had said, like frankly, I'm surprised it didn't come back to him and say you're going to actually score 4.85 goals per game the whole rest of the way. Three touchdowns a game.

You're all. Yeah, you're good. But again, it's just like, we're that out of ideas that we're asking chat GPT if we're going to, how we're going to score more goals or whatever. Uh-oh, man. I don't know what to say about the flames other than... I kind of love the idea that there's a coach out there who... Like, what if he starts getting the lines from that? Sean, you don't think every coach in the league is doing this shit?

You know what? You're probably... I feel like some of them aren't. There's no way Joel Quenville has figured out how chat GPT works. Yeah, that's probably true. He doesn't know how to go on computer for sure. But at the same time, You know what it is?

I think if you're winning, you're like, I don't need to ask chat GPT anything. But if you're the second you lose two games in a row, you're opening up, you're opening up Microsoft co-pilot or whatever theirs is called and going, I need some answers here, Big Dolly, where we got for me. But yeah, anyway, like,

Calgary is the only, Calgary and probably San Jose, I guess, are really the only teams where you're like, we're not supposed to be. here and we're not, and so maybe we just give up. And even San Jose, like, there's reasons to show up and watch those games if you're a Sharks fan. Yeah.

You get to see Macklett-Cellibrini every night. That rocks, you know? But every, like the wild, would it surprise you if they won three games in a row and all of a sudden they have a playoff spot? No. That the Blackhawks are five and eight, but also 500. Yeah. We love it.

And that's fake. obviously, too, like look at the underlying numbers or whatever, but like, I don't know, whatever. You can talk yourself into it for now. I guess what I'm getting at is this is good for the league in so far as this might get someone to buy a Predator's ticket that maybe wouldn't have otherwise. We're only two points out of the playoffs right now. You know, but it at least keeps them. Yeah, in those, especially in those.

especially in those markets where, I mean, there's some markets in the states where fans will just check out and go do other things and then circle back in the offseason, right? Because there's just that there's other sports and hockey isn't. Yeah, I was going to say, or maybe they'll wait until February when after the Super Bowl. That's the flip side. Let's see how they're doing. They wait until, you know, I mean, Nashville is maybe not the best example because their football team stinks too. But, you know, you get there. college football, pro football ends, and then it's January, and you go, okay, how are the Predators doing?

Oh, there's four points out of a playoff spot. Okay. Cool. That's one good week. I'm in. And meanwhile, everyone like us is like, no, they stink. They're horrendous, yeah. And then they win two in a row, and they make the playoffs, and goal it gets hot, and who knows? Yep. It's a fun league. Well, it's something all right. But yeah, I mean, look, again, just the team with the best record in the league right now is the Colorado Avalanche. They're seven, one, and five. So even them, they're, they've lost six of their 13 games. But OT merchants, they must have hired John Tortorello over there or something, you know? Mm-hmm.

To me, I, I don't know, I don't know how to make heads or tails of any of it, which is fine. It's November. We can all just kind of sit here and go Yeah, it's crazy But you know what? Remember we talked last week About like look at all these crazy guys Who are leading the league in points or whatever Remember that?

Mm-hmm Okay, here's the top five in points now Shifley, Eichel, McKayn and McDavid, Malkin. Only like Shifley and Malkin, you're like, what? That makes a little more sense. McKinand, McDavid, yeah, okay, I get it. And then,

Your goals leaders are McKinon Hughes and Caulfield. They have 10 apiece. So things are returning to normal on that. Yes, nature is healing. That's right. But it makes you wonder, okay, obviously, like the Oilers are doing their thing where they're starting a little slow again. But if McDavid's going to get going here, okay, they're going to rock it up the standings. Look out Seattle Cracken.

Who, by the way, lead the division in our one point ahead of. fourth place Edmonton. Awesome. What a league. Any other teams catch you? You want to talk about Seattle? We could talk a little bit about them, sure. Okay, great. Dead even goal difference and they lead the division?

I love that. That's really funny. Yeah. A little bit questionable, but... They're giving up a lot of goals. They're scoring a lot of goals. Shout out to Daryl, the Cracken fan, who has made it his... his life's work to convince me that they're... I feel like he's not trying to convince me they're amazing,

but that they're better than... than they're getting credit for. And his latest number... Go ahead. ...was that they are the... They have apparently played the toughest schedule... Right. ...through 12 games.

Which is interesting for a team that's... ...got points in 10 out of 12. Yep. Yeah. Are you convinced? Are you on board with the... Yeah. Yeah, for some reason I just don't see these guys keeping up on the 11.5 shooting percentage.

Call me crazy. Who leads their team in points right now? Oh, yeah, Jordan Everly. Of course. First place in the Pacific as of this morning based on points, not points percentage, but. They also haven't lost in regulation at home, which helps. First place ahead of, as we all thought, the Anaheim Ducks. But only three points.

into a playoff spot because, again, even in the, even in the West, like, you take those three bad teams. It's only the very bottom of the West. Yeah. It's insane. I don't know what's going on in Minnesota. They, they don't seem to have a lot of answers either. And that is the problem, right? Like, they're going, huh, well, I don't know what to tell you.

You're supposed to know. You're the guys that run the team. Mm-hmm. They're, yeah, I, they're getting out shot by one, which is a funny stat. They have a minus one shot difference, but they can't get a save right now. That's what it really boils down to. Gustavson 895, Walsett, 863. Let's pump the brakes on that.

Wollstet is the goalie of the future there. But you need one of your goalies to be about. above 900, in my opinion. Interesting. I was looking up something else, but because I have it in front of me, I am looking at last year's standings on today's date. Okay.

And certainly some very interesting things stand out as far as, if you're looking for a reminder that one month doesn't necessarily tell a whole story. leading the Eastern Conference in points percentage with an 8-2-1 record the New York Rangers defending President's trophy winners, by the way. So they're on fire. The Bruins are holding down a playoff spot.

The Montreal Canadians are garbage. They're 4-7-1. They're down there with the sabres and flyers in absolute last place. The Wilder in... I've got the second best record in the league at 8-1 and 2. Canucks are doing pretty well.

And the Oilers are bad and the Avalanche Stink. The Oilers are always bad at this time again. This is why nobody's buying this right now. Right. They're like, oh, how are we... Look at us. For them to go Kilbot mode.

Yeah. Yeah. They're like, oh, look, we're hurt. I need a band-aid, and we're like, no, you're not. Blow on it, you're fine. Yeah, it's the, it's the Nathan Fielder call an ambulance, but not for me. Exactly.

Yeah, I don't know. Like, I personally think Philip Gustafson is better than this. And the fact that nobody's running away with a playoff spot means that this probably doesn't matter that much. We'll look back on the first like three weeks of the season, four weeks of the season, whatever it's been and go, oh yeah, remember that? The Wild started bad. Oh, well. They made the playoffs. They were a pretty good team, just like we all thought.

And that's about it. Yeah. Now, I will say this so. And again, just because I'm looking at those, you know, the standings from last year. This time a month ago, we were all like, whoa, wow, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Reditors are off to a terrible start, even though we all pick them to contend for the division after they signed Stamcos and Marsh So and remade their team. They're only four, seven, and one. Ah, they'll figure it out.

Sometimes the first month does give away the ending of the whole movie. Sure. It just, you just don't know which is which is the trick, of course. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you about Nashville. Yeah. They're below 500.

And they're not like one of these teams that like kind of, you know, you can talk yourself into, well, you know, they're a good week away. It kind of feels like, kind of, maybe they just don't have it. Whatever this mix of like 34-year-olds they have on the roster is isn't getting the job done for them. And I wonder, I wonder what you do. Because I don't, I don't have the, the Puckpedia page open right in front of me here. But I don't feel like they have a huge amount of cap flexibility or anything like that. And like going forward, you know what I mean?

Like they have a bunch of guys signed, eh, they have a bunch of ticket guys signed for the next couple of years. But they actually, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven pending UFAs. So I don't know. Maybe they could shake some things up. And the one thing with them is March or so, I believe, but especially Stamco's, they didn't go long, long on the deals. And you're already getting the Stamcoast trade trial balloons, I guess I would say,

floated of like, hey, maybe, maybe this isn't working, you know, I could see them moving him at $8 million. It's too much for what he's producing. I mean, he's not producing anything right now. So it's clearly too much. But I could see, especially if they retain a little bit or take back someone. Well, here's the thing, real quick on retention. They're retaining on Colton Sizzins and Matthias Ekholm right now.

So they have one retention spot. Okay. That's not good. Well, I mean, if you've got one spot, you're, use it on something big. And I guess this would be, would be big. But, yeah. They also, all those big ticket guys, Foresburg, Stamcoast, Marcia So, Yossi, who's now hurt. I think I saw week to week.

That's not good. Brady Shea and Yucy Soros, like all their big ticket guys. All have full no move. Yeah. Which isn't necessarily always an issue when you stink. Yeah. Although, you don't need to convince them. I have heard it's a fun place to live.

You don't need to convince them to get on the lifeboat for sure. I've spent two days there. My scouting report is a lot more monster trucks on the sidewalks and it rains really hard. I said this before. I was like starstruck seeing freaking gravedigger back out of that. trailer. I was like, this is unbelievable, man. All time great experience for me at that draft. I saw Bigfoot, I saw Gravedigger. They were all there. The rest. The only ones that weren't there is I don't think they had the ones that Hulk Hogan and the Giant drove on the roof.

That's right. Shout out to the Giant. Maybe they were on the other side of the arena. I don't know. Maybe that's where Craig Barubi was going in such a hurry. He was getting into the giant one. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know. Like, to me, it's impossible to take anything away from any of this. Other than this is every owner getting exactly what they wanted.

Mm-hmm. And even the flames, like, don't really have to care because it's like, well, we're getting the new arena in a couple of years anyway. Just stink this year. Get your Gavin McKenna's, you know, your Keaton-Vearns, those kind of guys. and off you go. Yeah. I really wonder what Calgary will do because that's been the classic team

for so long that you point to and go, they are never allowed to rebuild. They refuse to. Yeah. They have to, you know, they just, the owner will not allow it. Well, the fans won't allow it is what we're always here. And it's actually the fans.

That's what, yeah. That's what people say when it's the owner. Yeah, of course. In that sense, like playing 200 hockey for six weeks is maybe not the worst thing that could happen. A million percent true. Yeah. Because if they're playing 45. It's 35.

And he signed for three more years after this one, after this one, three more years. Anybody wants to take this contract off my hands on Craig Conroy? I'm going, step on up. You go to the owner when you're six points out of the playoffs and go, yeah, it's only six points, but we got seven teams to pass. We got, you know, this and this. He goes, well, win a couple games and then come back. We can do this. I'm not giving up on you.

Your 14 points out, maybe even the owner goes, all right. Yeah. Even the owner's posting a picture of the standings going, at Grock, is this true? These guys stink, man. I don't know what. And, oh, man, they have so many guys signed, like, for two or three more years, at least beyond this one. They only have four pending free agents, and it's like Ryan Longberg, Justin Kirkland, Rasmus Anderson, who, I, from what I understand, they're trading this guy any day now. It's going to happen.

I'm just telling you, man, they have got Nazim Cadry, who is still. productive, still playing well, and is an absolute, he is a guy who has the dog in him. Yeah. No kidding, man. Is there any team out there

that perhaps has some connection to Nazim Cadry and perhaps, I don't know, their GM has some connection to the flames that desperately needs guys with a little bit of dog in them, I'm telling you, man, Cadreys getting traded to the Leafs this year. It's such an obviously, like, A to B, this is going to happen kind of a thing, that the fact that it hasn't happened yet and makes you go, it's only a matter of time, for sure.

The other one that I have seen that makes sense is his other former team, which is Colorado, which never really did replace him. They've tried various things as like the middle six. enters, but, and he's obviously, uh... I don't know how they make that work financially, but... Sure, you know? Yeah. Like, they're...

Yeah, they got to save money for McCar, I guess. Well, I don't know. Well, that, well, that and also... Rock Nelson for Nazan Cadre, straight up. Yeah. Flames be... Chat GPT. Should we make this trade?

Here's the thing. They're not getting older if they make that trade. They're the same age. It's a youth movement. That's exactly right. They just look like they would be getting 30 years older. They're not, though. Anyway, it's funny what the difference between 34-year-old,

Brock Nelson and 34-year-old Nazam-Kadry looks like. Yeah. There's something there. I don't know if it's lifestyle or what it is, but. Brock Nelson was on the Coolidge ticket. You know what I mean? That's what he looks like. But yeah, I wonder how much they have a little buyer's remorse on that, that three-year, seven and a half million extension.

But here nor there, I suppose. Let's put it this way. They're the best team in the league right now. They're not sweating it too much. The Leafs, maybe they need to start working the phones a little. That's all. Well, the only Leafs hockey I've seen all year because I was distracted by baseball, I tuned in for the third period last night. and I can report.

These guys are a jugger dot. They're absolutely unstoppable. Four goal third period last night. These guys are kicking ass and taking name. And the crazy thing about it is... I was one of the group techs, I would say. Like, this... The market is so ready to turn on this team.

Oh, yeah. They are so... And last night was pretty, like, their fans are booing them off the... ice, they're just getting absolutely speedbag for two periods by the penguins. We are playing well, but you know, you're on home ice and all that stuff. Like, I would love to see, show me some of the columns that got three quarters written during the second intermission. Yep, absolutely.

And then they come back and win in regulation, too, which is, all right. And that's against the best team in the Eastern Conference, the Pittsburgh. Very best. Best of the best. Did you see, by the way, Eric Carlson's quote when he found out William Neelander was playing? Yeah, he's like, that sucks or whatever. Yeah, he goes, oh, that sucks?

Yep. Oh, Neelander's playing tonight. Fuck. Good stuff, man. That's good. All right, why don't we take a break? We'll come back and we'll talk about all the big contracts that got signed in the past week.

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All right, we're back. And let's talk about all the big contract extensions that have been signed in the last week, starting way down there deep in the heart of Texas. It's the Dallas Stars give Thomas Harley eight years $10.587 million. I assume he's a big Sidney Crosby guy. And yeah, what do you think? Yeah. So this one came in with a little sticker shock, I think. I think this was a bit higher than most expected.

This is, I see it, because I think he's an excellent player and I think he doesn't get enough, probably doesn't get enough recognition because Heiskenen's there. So he's viewed as the number two and fair enough. But this is a guy who would be the number one defenseman on half the teams in the league, including some pretty good ones. I get, I mean, I, I guess to say we're, we're seeing the movement in the defensemen contracts from the, you know, the, the, the Luke Hughes, Jackson LaCombeyes getting nine million to, you know, Evan Bouchard and guys like that. I guess this fits in. Yeah, no, like Thomas Harley can go, wait a minute, Luke Hughes got how much I deserve 1.587 million more dollars.

of that and the Dallas stars had no choice but to agree. The Dallas stars were like, that's a weirdly specific thing to say, but all right. And, you know, he, it's the full eight years and all of that. So by the time. And I think that is, we'll talk about this for some other guys here, but I think the eight years really is kind of the, the pressure point, right? Like, you can't do it until what, what, what's the date on? that? It's like, it's not July 1. I think it's a little more. No, I think they get till next September to. Oh, okay. Right, right, right. But point being, they, people are feeling the,

the, the pressure, I guess you would say, to lock in at eight years, but for teams, it's in a way that they're going, if he does any better than this, we are completely fucked. We need to. We need to get this guy signed ASAP, and some guys are obviously amenable to it, and other guys are like, ah, let's wait and see. There are a few upcoming RFAs that feel very player-driven in that way. We'll talk about those guys, like the upcoming free agents in a bit who, you know, the eight years probably matters to them more. So, yeah.

I think this is a very good contract. I do start to wonder just about, like, how it all fits together if they have now five guys making north of eight million, six? Is that what they're up to now? Yeah. It's Rantaninan, Sagan for one more season, Hints, Heiskenen, Harley, and Otten.

or however many that that is. So, I mean, Sagan's the kind of the key there, that him coming off the books. They would really like him to move that up by one year. They might. So they could, so they can retain Jason Robertson with little difficulty. But yeah, really, really good young player. They have him signed until he's into his early 30s at this point. Like basically the entire time you would want the guy signed.

And without that, you know, oh, he's turning 31. He's still really, really good. We've got to give him five, six, seven years, you know? They don't have to worry about that. I think he's sent until he's like 32, 33. At that point, you can have a very different kind of a conversation. At that point, the cap will be $7 billion. That's right.

How weird does it look in hindsight that, geez, like six. Are we talking six years ago now when Carlson and Dowdy signed for cap hits that started with an 11? And everybody was like, oh, that just reset the market. And then here we are.

Yeah. Six years ago. And obviously the cap went flat in the middle of that is the huge factor. But it's even given that the fact that, well, I mean, I guess maybe, I guess I can say this until Kail McCar and Quinn Hughes come up

and then 11 will seem like nothing. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So I think, you know, this sets up Dallas really well and you're going to talk about Jason Robertson, a guy who I think both sides, from what I can tell,

both sides kind of want to make this happen. But they're going, A, you know, yeah, the cap's going up, but all these guys have, like I said, have like 8 million or more on the books. And B, like people are acting like, you know, he's had a down year last year or whatever. And I guess he kind of did. But do you know what his like point total wasn't his goal total last year? I was looking at this this morning. Wasn't he like 30 and 70s something?

35, 45, 80. And people are like, this guy sucks. Yeah. This is a guy we can't give it $10 million to. It would be insane. There are there are guys who are going to get way worse contracts than Jason Robertson wherever he ends up signing, you know? And with Robertson, I think he's one year away from UFA as well.

That is the complicating factor there. Yeah. But you're just like, oh, this guy who I'll just read you the last. the last four years of goal totals for him. And this is his age 22 to 25 seasons. 41, 46, 29, 35. Okay, maybe he overperformed a little with the 41 and the 46. He's not a perennial 40 goal guy.

I think you can count perennial 40 goal guys on one hand. Right? Mm-hmm. And you're like, what a bum this guy is. He got to 35 goals last year. What? He's fucking sick, man. It's got to be in a way, like a pretty good negotiating spot for the stars,

in that they just go to him and they're like, look, we like the player, we want to keep you. The problem is we've just got so many good players on this team. Yep. That if you want to stay and play with all these really good players who will, you know, make us cup contenders for the next five years, you might have to take a little bit of a discount. Now, if you don't want to do that, I've heard the sabres have cap space. What do you think, Big Dog?

And he's going to go, well, and what's, I have some questions about palm trees and tax rates. And they're going to go, well, I don't know. They probably don't have any palm trees at all in Dallas, do they? They have cactuses. That's almost the same thing.

There you go. It's all you know. need. To an average Canadian hockey player, it's the same thing. It's exactly no difference. Show me cactus, Talmud's a palm tree. We got a deal. The other funny thing about that to me is one of the guys you're hearing talked about a lot in the in the free agent discussion is Alex Tuck, who's coming up as a free agent this summer as well. Yes. And he's five years older than Robertson is. Mm-hmm. And they're saying, well, Alex Tuck is a guy that's going to be in the like $11 million conversation.

Yeah. Or whatever. And it's like he is. A guy who's Alex Tuck. His best year goal scoring is the same year that you got Jason Robertson, like, labeled a bum. That's exactly right. I get what's happening with Alex Tuck from the perspective of we got to, we got to do some for the offseason, man. We got to pump this guy's tires a little bit.

But yes. I want to shout out Alex Tuck's agent. I don't know who it is. But that he's being mentioned by like insiders in the same conversation as like Artemi Paneer. And I think Alex Tuck's a very good player. but he's also almost 30, turns 30 in May. And his best year is a 36 goal season, three, four years. Yes, he had three years ago.

He had 79 points. He had 36 last year as well. 79 points is his career best. It's the only time he's been over 70. Yep. That was three years ago. Last year, he had 67 points. That's the only other time he's been over 60 points.

And Jason Robertson, the horrible bum. You know what I mean? The coward. Yeah. Now, like, look, Alex Suck kills penalties and all that. Like, again, I think he's a very good player. But if we're talking about these guys being on the same level for whatever their next contract is,

and you're only buying one year of RFA off Robertson, I don't see the comparison personally. Again, I guess Jason Robertson isn't like the 200-foot guy that you, that you would say Alex Tuck is, but like, come on, let's be serious here, you know? Um, yeah, I guess I don't have much else to say about the Alex Tuck thing, but I, I just, I've seen that multiple times in the last like week, week and a half, like, since all these contract extensions got signed. And I've been like, huh? Yep.

To me, this is like the difference between like an $8 million player and a 10 and a half, $11 million player. And yeah, you're worth whatever you can get. Everybody acknowledges that. Oh, if someone wants to give you $10 million, you know, go with God, man. That's great. I'm just looking at his agent, his representation and, like, who else they represent. Mm-hmm.

Kail McCar at the top of the list. So, yeah, life's probably pretty good for those folks. Yeah, sure. Why not? They've got tuck this year, then McCar, then Clayton Keller the year after. That'll be fun. They're doing pretty good down there. All right.

Logan Cooley, speaking of Utah guys, Logan Cooley, eight years, 10 million per. This was Utah going, if we don't sign this today, it's $12 million tomorrow. This guy can't stop scoring. and it makes perfect sense to me. This is a hell of a player. This is a guy who, you know, I don't know how high I think his ceiling is, really.

Like, I don't know that he's ever getting into the MVP race or anything like that, you know? But at 10 million bucks, in this, the way the cap's going, he doesn't have to get anywhere close to that. No, a million bucks is the new 8 million.

And he's going to be a really good player for $8 million for a long, long time. A long, long time. Again, I, I'll just, I'll say it briefly and I'll shut up. I don't understand why agents are letting 21-year-old sign max lengthed deals that represent fair value today. I don't get it. The way, I think they said this on 32 thoughts, but if you're 21 years old and someone says to you, do you want $80 million, that is hard to turn down? Yes. If you're currently making...

That's why you need an adult in your life to say... I agree. This decision is going to cost you $30 million over the course of your life. Are you okay with that? Yep. And maybe he said, yep, I'm fine with it. How much does a PlayStation 5 cost? No?

Less than that? Okay. I'll be fine. This guy's getting a PS5 pro. Are you kidding me? Ooh, okay. Good call. The graphics on them look 2% better.

Ah, okay. Wow. Yeah, this is an awesome player. Again, I don't think I can safely say sky's the limit on this kid. I think, you know, he can get up there in the plane. This isn't quite Jack Hughes signing his whole prime way. But it's not that far off. No, and again, like, the way they're using him,

he is certainly putting his best foot forward with, like he's making the most out of how they're using him and that's great, you know? But the thing that I really thought about this was with their hot start, like he's driving a lot of their hot start. Let's not kid ourselves here. But also, this is just a great way when the jazz suck and have sucked for a while now to go, you like this, right? And all the local fans have to go, yep, absolutely. this is awesome.

I don't know how like BYU football is doing this year. So maybe, you know, they got that going for him. But to me, I just, I think this is really good for the market too. Just because like unlike Seattle, where they've never really had like a homegrown guy breakout, you know what I mean? They, they are capitalizing on the Logan Cooley hype train that has built up in the last like month and gone. And now he's here for. eight more years. How do you guys feel about that?

And they're all like, we love it. Versus like, again, Seattle, obviously they're starting pretty hot this year. I don't know how they're feeling up there. The mistake Seattle made was they should have rather than be an expansion team that nobody would trade with. Yeah, yeah. They should have bought an existing team and then just pretended to be an expansion team.

Well, again, Maddie Baneer, Shane Wright, like these guys haven't hit like Logan Coolie. hit. True. Is what I'm saying. If they had a homegrown guy that roared out of the gates, eight goals in his first 12th games this year. It felt like he was going to be that guy.

Maybe he still is. But yeah, that's been a, oh, well. That's a good question. What's Bandy Baneers' career high? 57 points. It was his rookie year, right? Logan Cooley's, 65 points. and it was last year.

So, like, he arrives in Utah, 25 goals, 65 points, now eight goals in his first 12 games this year. If this is, like, an 85, 90 point guy, maybe you're like, oh, 10 million, I don't know. But three years from now, you're like, oh, who gives this shit? 10 million is not that much money. When the cap's 125 million, whatever it is. So, like, I think this is awesome for them. And I see all these people that like That talk about Utah and they're like adding Ryan Smith on Twitter

Like we talk to at Ryan Smith Utah or whatever is that is And it's like stop sucking up to that guy We get it. He's on Twitter so you feel like you know whatever He's gonna hit he's gonna smash the retweet button but I'm not I'm not gonna be one of those guys I'm just saying I really do think this is a This is a great contract independent of everything else I don't know

How I feel about these guys long term, though. You know, they got a lot of young, exciting players, but as we know, not all these guys hit. Nope. Cooley, I think, is a good bet to do it. At that price, sure is. Yep. The rest?

To be determined. TBD, absolutely. Marty Natchez, eight years, 11.5 million to stay in Colorado. So. Talk about guys who are off to a good start. He's that guy. Looks like a good fit, good player. Not, you know, he's, he's young but not so young that you're saying, you know, he shouldn't have.

Like him going eight years makes perfect sense. Totally. About to turn 27. I think this, on its own, the contract makes perfect sense. But it's impossible to look at it outside. of the context of Miko Ranton and everything that happened there.

Yeah. And just go, you know, it's overly simplistic. Absolutely. But it's very hard not to look at this and go, so half a million less than Miko Randon ended up getting after two trades?

Like was that, did we do all this to save half a million bucks? Well, so... Or... The thing... thing that the thing that you have to say about that is I don't remember what the exact number was but there was a report that ran and wanted like 14 to stay in Colorado and that was they were like that's such a big gap we can't bridge it we got to trade this guy right and so yeah obviously he goes to Carolina he's like get me the fuck out of here he goes to Dallas and he goes okay 12 12 12's fine please stop trading me you know um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um And so, like, it's, you can't do that apples to apples. That's, it's not an apples to apples comparison because Rantanan came in and said 14 or 13 to have, whatever the number.

I don't remember off the top of my head, like I said. But if he wanted, like, if he had said 12 in Colorado and they still traded him, that's a very different conversation. That's all I'm saying. That's fair. I'll also say this. Miko Ranton has been good in Dallas I don't think he's looked like the hundred

and whatever point player he was when he was riding high in Colorado other than for a stretch of the playoffs yeah yeah and he's a streaky score so he just happened to get streaky when everybody was watching those games

you know so again I think Rantanin's a really good player. I don't see Natchez as being quite on that level, but if you put them next to the right people and you can certainly do that in Colorado, you can make guys look better than they are.

And I think you can say that they did that with Rantaninan, and I think they can continue doing that with Natchez. And then four years from now when everybody's a little on the older side, eh, we gave it a good run at that Stanley Cup a couple extra times. you know.

Mm-hmm. So, I like this contract just fine. I don't, I don't really consider it an overpay, because again, these, I think they're buying,

they bought all UFA years, if I'm remembering right. I don't think, I don't think, yeah, he's 27. He wouldn't have had an ERFA time left. Um, so this is the cost of doing business.

I think that's fine. Like, was anybody really up in arms about this because of the, the, uh, rant in it thing or no? I wouldn't say up in arms, but I did see people make that point of, you know, did this, it wouldn't have been better to just stay. Was it worth all the record? Well, yeah.

Can I say this? They also got Jack Rory out of the deal. He seems like he's fine. That's all right. Counterpoint. Which team was it that Rentonin went absolutely nuclear against in the playoffs? Yeah, I get it. Yeah.

Yeah, I, you know, I think you don't make that trade going. Well, surely he'll be back in our division within four months. Yes. Or whatever it was. Yep. That was that, I guess that was a nice little fuck you by Carolina, you know? Maybe. Maybe a little bit.

Yeah, you don't want to sign here. Okay. I don't know who they're saying fuck you against, though, because like they, Colorado, it worked out fine with that, you know. They didn't seem like they were unhappy about the deal with Colorado. It was him not signing there. Maybe it was to Ranton and they were going, well, surely he won't go fucking ballistic on the old team in the playoffs. Oopsie. It's a classic mistake.

We've all made it. We've all been there. It happens. So, yeah, again, like, I think this last, what, three, four more years in Colorado before the wheels start to come off on McKinnon a little bit. maybe not. I hope not. I think it rocks. He could be the sort of guy who stretches the

physical prime a little longer given that he's insane. But I don't know. Just like his game is so predicated on like getting where he needs to be quickly. He's not

look I'm not saying this guy's going to turn into a bum or anything like that but like Nathan, how many more years of Nathan McKinnon, elite, elite, elite player do we have? That's all. Three, four? I think he can probably take the over on that.

Well, what I'm saying is I don't think he's going to be like Sidney Crosby where he just like grinds out 85 points a year until he's 45, you know? Mm-hmm. But also, like, he totally could be. He could be, if Nathan McKinnon played another 10 years in league, I wouldn't be surprised.

I'll put it that way. But, you know, Crosby, again, Crosby's grinding out 80, 85 points versus, you know, McKinnon's like, oh, I lead, I'm one of the three best scorers in the league every year. There's a difference. That's all I'm saying. Jacob Markstrom, two years, six million per, stays in New Jersey. Yeah. The key there is the two.

They didn't get cute on. term, and I don't think they should, because he's been... He's been... Yeah. And he's, you know, he's, he's been okay this year. Yep. He was hurt. I don't know.

You can't really make the judgment. Part of me was maybe a little surprised they didn't wait a bit. Just see how the year played out, but... Just get it. Obviously, you don't want to be going into the playoffs and he goes on a run and then you're like, oh, wait a second, he's a UFA. Six is probably a

bit high, but I would rather much, much rather be a bit high on the hit than add years that are going to come back and bite me down the line. That's exactly right. They also still have

$10 million in cap space for next year and like nobody of any real note to re-sign. Like if you, if you, I'm just going to read, Sean, I want you to tell me if you've heard of the guys who are pending free agents for them. Oh, okay. Evgeny Dadaunov. I have heard of him.

Yeah, of course he had, but he's also 36. Arseni Gritschuk. No, that's a fake guy. Uho, Uho Lameko, Lameko, Star Wars character. Finnish guy, just so he's a regular Finnish guy. Luke Glenn Denning. I have heard of him. Yeah, he's also...

I did not know he was still in the league, but... Yeah. Zach McEwen. Okay. Again. Paul Cotter. Paul Cotter. At the great start last year.

He did. Brian Hallinen. I think that's my barber. Simone Nemich, you've surely heard of him. Mm-hmm. And this is also the team Dennis Chilowski allegedly plays for this year. and that's it. That's all of their free agents for next season.

And Quinn Hughes. Six million dollars, who gives a shit? Quinn Hughes, they got to get that deal done. So that's going to be expensive. That's true. Well, that's the, well, here's the thing. They're going to trade Dougie Hamilton for Quinn Hughes in three months. And all that money, you know, that still leaves them with probably like four million bucks in free agent flexibility.

They're fine. go. So, yeah. I get why people were like six million. Good Lord. But also, who gives the shit caps going up? You know?

Whatever. But all of that leads to let's talk about some other pending free agents that are, you know, having various levels of performance this year, I guess you would

say. Panarin apparently wants term. And he's, I'm a little worried about if on the range. How old is he? Like, he's, he's the classic older than you think guy because he, he's 34. Yeah, he was an old rookie, so. Yep. Term. I wonder what term is to a 34 year old. Five years, four years. Get me, get me all the way to, uh, get me all the way to 40. Yeah, or are you looking at it and going, Brad Marchand signed until he's 47 or whatever it was? Yeah.

So the thing with Panarin is he's off to a bad start. And so I don't know that he really gets to be the guy who kind of drives the bus on these negotiations. You know what I mean? He just hasn't been that good this year. Well, and the other thing is, it's, I don't get the sense that the Rangers are a team that's like, we got to keep the band together, man. We got. No, they want him to go short. term.

They obviously don't want to lose a really good player for nothing. But this isn't, you know, we've seen other teams where it's like, well, I mean, we got to, we're right there, man. We love our team. We love our, we got to overpay to keep it. I don't feel like the Rangers love their team very much. No, they can't. I don't think they need much convincing to be like, ah, we'll trade them at the deadline.

And the other thing is the Rangers are one of those markets where it's like, if our guy at, you know, he's at what, 11.5 or 8 or something now? 116 and change. Okay. If he leaves and he clears up that cap space, we will use, we will go get somebody else who wants to play in New York at that number. It's not like, you know, Winnipeg going, well, I mean, if we, if we lose Connor Hellebuck, how are we ever going to get anybody to come here who's going to be that sort of player? That's right. Yeah, the line of guys who want to play for the range.

is around the block. Now, maybe they aren't all as good as prime Artemi Panarin. Right. But neither is current Artemi Panarin. He's not even close. No. That contract did work out, though. I mean, you can't say they didn't get what they wanted.

A million percent, yeah. Now, did the team crumble around him? Sure, it did. Because you had mentioned earlier in the show, like, about, at the start of last season, you know, first month of last season, the Rangers were the best team in the league. Bad vibes nuke that team last year,

it turns out, you know? Like, there's a reason Jacob Truba and Chris Crider no longer play for the New York Rangers. Yeah. And J.T. Miller does. Yeah.

He's the guy that you bring in. He's the fixer. Who's saying it better than that? Who's another guy? Oh, Badaard is another pending RF. He's a pending RFA, obviously. And I feel like we're starting to see it with him.

Yeah, and this is one of the, this is maybe the guy that I'm looking at it going, well, he's about to take off insane scoring pace and all that kind of thing. And he's the one going, let's maybe wait till Jude. Let's see how this all shakes out for the rest of the season. Because if he hits 90 points this year or whatever, and he's certainly on pace to be around that, I think,

maybe even a little more than that. If he gets up around there, that'll be $12 million, please. Minimum, you know, like that's the starting point. Whereas if he had negotiated this last summer, he's maybe going, I guess I'd take nine. So that's a really interesting one to watch just because, like, every point he has. And the longer they stay pretend competitive, he just goes, that's an extra 25 grand. Every point we get in the standings, 25 grand more, please.

So that's really interesting to me to see where he ends up. I don't think we're getting an answer on that anytime soon. What about Adrian Kempi? Yeah, this is another one where they're really banging the drum on this guy as a big name to watch. I think he's a really good player, who's probably, underrated and in the right situation moves the needle. I mean, this isn't an MVP level guy by any stretch, but I don't know. Where are you at?

Him or Alex Tuck? Who do you take? Oh, it's a real tough one. You got 10 million to spend. So the thing is, I think the reason, and others have said this, it's not just me, but, you know, when we were talking a few weeks ago about Minnesota when they gave out whatever

$17 billion a year this is a guy who maybe the kings can't afford to let him go you know what I mean like they don't have anybody in the pipeline who does anything close to what he does now I don't know what the kings look like

two, three years from now when your doughties and your and your Copatars are out of the league. I just straight up don't know what the Kings look like and maybe they're rebuilding and maybe they're kind of looking toward that and going do we really want to give Adrian Kempi $10 million to be the guy on this team?

Yeah. And he's 29. They don't have byfield and that's exactly right. So do we want to pay for his post-prime years like they're his prime years? like they're his prime years. It's a really interesting question for that in particular. It's also tough given that like it's the only team he's ever played for.

They drafted him, they developed them, 10 years in the league. It can be tough. It be tough to be clear-eyed about what a guy is and isn't and where you are. And, you know, let's also just say I don't think, I think a lot of us were, we're down on the Kings coming into this year. I don't think you bring in Ken Holland because you're planning you've got an imminent rebuild.

You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. So even if they miss the playoffs, do they... Yeah, I don't know. They're in a really interesting spot with that. I don't know what the answer is. Because it's... It's not just, do they make the playoffs,

but are they actually a threat to do anything? thing. That's what I was, that's literally what I was saying. Put aside the oilers, even if it's, you know, they're playing the,

the golden nights or, yeah, it's just, it's just what, again, it's what do the kings think the long term plan is here? And are they happy with the short term plan being,

we're probably going to get rocked in the first round again. How does that sound? Like, I'll, I'll phrase it a different way. Do the kings, unlike these small market teams, do the kings care,

about those two, three games of extra gate revenue in a way that like Calgary has to or Winnipeg has to, you know, I don't know what the answer to that. He apparently has a limited no team or no trade 10 team. Would you consider moving him? Yeah, sure. Again, I'm the wrong guy to ask. What are I asking? What is going on? Would you consider moving Quentin Byfield?

Yeah, I guess I would. Yeah. What is the 23? Get them out of here. Fuck, get them out of here. No, like, I, of course,

would consider, again, like, I, if I'm the Kings, and I'm like, okay, I have like a baseline level of money that,

like, Calgary or Vancouver or whoever doesn't have to fall back on, I'm just like, whatever, man. Like, let's, maybe you don't blow it up because,

again, they do have a few 23, 24-year-old guys who are, potential difference makers in this league. But you've got to let those dogs off the leash at some point, too. And I don't know that, you know, maybe Kempi's not holding them back, but is Koppata holding those guys back from really stepping into those bigger roles? There's only one way to find out.

And if we're not going to be good anyway, which, you know, good being like cup competitive, why not find out? That's my thinking. But as you've said before, I don't think you hire like a 78-year-old guy to be your GM and he's like, and I'm going to, of course, be around for the rebuild. Yeah. I mean, Ken Holland has, has he ever led a rebuild? No, I don't think so.

Seems like a problem. I agree. But anyway, a couple more guys I wanted to quickly touch on here. If you're Vegas, what do you do with Torfaya? You sit back and you watch and you laugh at the fact that this is legitimately funny. He's an arbitration-eligible RFA. He's making $1.835 million a year. He has nine goals in 11 games to start the season.

I don't know how you value that if you're him, you know? You're just like, well, obviously this is going to last forever. There's no two ways about that. I straight up don't know. I don't know what the answer is. I think the answer here is. Great start, bud. Let's circle back in the new year and...

Sure. See where things are. Yeah. I just don't know how you price it all in because he's going to go... You understand that those nine goals I scored in the first 11 games of the season. Those all count the same as the ones that I'm scoring now, right? Mm-hmm. So, like, doesn't he feel like a guy who could have like a career heater shooting percentage goes haywire, scores 40 goals, and then signs with a, sorry to say, dumb team on like a some, like, couldn't you see him on the first line of the Sabres for the next five years, just scoring 13 goals a year?

So he's an RFA. So, like, he's not going to get that opportunity unless he, like, you know, he goes, I'm obviously a $15 million player because I'm scoring at like a 75 goal pace right now, you know. But I will say this. He scored 35 last year. It's not like, it's not like this is completely out of left field. This isn't Jonathan Chichu going from like a pretty good goal scorer to the best goal scorer we've ever seen in that. that era. Don't we've,

you don't go making Jonathan Chichu, your example. No, I, again, Patreon subscribers out there know where this is going, but yeah, he's,

he had a pretty good season before Joe Thornton got there. And again, 35 goals is a pretty good season. Maybe it's even a very good season. But then Joe Thornt gets there and he scores, what was it,

56, I can never remember the exact number, but it's around there. 56. Yeah. And everybody's like, line this guy up for 15 Rocket Rashards. He's playing next to Joe Thornton forever. And it didn't work out that way. That's all.

Well, I'll give you two more here. Nick Schmaltz, speaking of Vegas, or Utah, rather. We were just talking about Vegas, so that's why I said Vegas. Nick Schmaltz, he's playing really well to start the year. And this is their first big test to me of what do we do with this guy who's playing really well to start the year, but is also going to be like 30? Yep.

How do we handle this? I don't know what the answer is, obviously. Again, the answer is that you wait, but there's a risk involved with doing that. you get clarity, but sometimes what you get clarity on is we probably should have got them. You're not going to like what you find. Probably should have them earlier. Yeah. Yeah.

But I would still rather have that clarity than feel like I'm guessing. Now, I'm assuming they feel like they know the player a little bit better than that. Sure. Yeah. It's just kind of like what type of risk do you want? Yep. And the last one I think is really interesting based on, the start to the season is Trevor Zegris.

He looks fucking good, man. He looks really good to me. Like exactly what you think of Trevor Zegris as being, you know? Yeah, this is what the Flyers were rolling the dice on. A million percent. I think he, given what they gave up for, I don't remember off the top of my head, but it wasn't very much. Yeah, I was. He is fucking delivering, man.

And he's arbitration eligible and all that kind of stuff. So what do the flyers possibly do here? And as, you know, long-time readers know, this is where I'm going to say the words, shiny new toy. Yep, totally. Although, the fact that they didn't give up a ton for him, maybe mitigates that a little bit. And obviously the fact that he's RFA and, you know, they're not at the risk of seeing him walk. But putting the right number on it is tough. Absolutely.

Again, like, this is a guy where obviously he really struggled with the ducks the last few years. But before that, he's like a 20-something goal guy, 88 points that one year, which, or no, I'm sorry, 65 points. 88 was his penalty minutes, which is actually quite a large number, now that I'm looking at it. But, you know, if this is like a 60-ish 20-goal guy, I think kind of what he's around now, like, 6 million bucks, 7 million bucks, you add a million dollars to that because the cap's going up, whatever you want to say, I think that makes sense. I think if they're talking themselves into this is an 80-point guy, they're probably going to be disappointed at the end of the day. But it's hard to say that for sure because it was clear the last couple of years that his coaches hated using him in a way that would make him effective.

Yep. So I don't know. Again, I just don't know, like, maybe the way Rick Tocott is using him, means this is sustainable. I'd be a little cautious about that, obviously, but maybe. It's in the realm of possibility. But, you know, this is another one where you just kind of wait and see.

And every time he scores a goal, you're just like, fuck. And I do, I wonder where his head is at. Totally. I wonder if he's sitting there going on, look, this is the fit. I want to show what I can do. I've been run down for years. years, I'm not going to sign some, you know, long-term deal based on those years. I'm going to really show what I can do. Or if he's just like clearly fit matters. Like he, if he might feel like he's the poster child for being in the right place is important. So, you know what? Lock me in. Some place I'm going to be excited. I'm not going to have to hear about trades or anything. Lock me in. Give me the stability. and I'm still young enough to do another deal later in my career.

Sure. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter. And I guess I'll say now if we see him do the max-length deal, I probably won't do the usual schick that I do for younger guys because under his circumstances, I could kind of get it. Yeah. Yep. It's really interesting.

Well, I can't think of any other big upcoming. free agents that are like super interesting to talk about. Patrick Cain. I don't know, whatever. Who cares? You know? You got any big Jordan Everly thought? Like, yeah, okay.

Not really. You know what? This is actually an interesting one. If Guinea Malkins appending UFA, what happens with that? I don't know. You wait to the summer, for sure, for sure. Unless he's willing to do like the super cheap deal. But yeah, yet another way that Pittsburgh being good-ish to start the year kind of screws a lot of pre-packaged narratives about what was going to happen there.

Yeah, it felt like it was over for him in Pittsburgh. I think if you, when he signed that deal, I think if you go back and listen to the podcast, read our articles, whatever, we're all like, well, obviously this is the last contract he's ever getting in the NHL. He's going back to the KHL. He's having a great time over there. And now it's like, I don't know, he looks fucking awesome to start the year. He looks extremely motivated to get one more contract done. But he's also going to be pushing. It says here he's 39.

When's his 40th birthday? It's in July. Well, there you have it. We're finally going to get Malkin to the Kings after all these years. He's going to be playing next to Kepa. It's going to be great. Vindicate it. Yep.

All right, the NHL announced last night, Cowboys Stadium Outdoor game. Outdoors in quotes, I suppose. Yeah, this is the second time they've done this because it was the roof open in Vancouver at all? I don't know the answer to that. I feel like it wasn't. I mean, obviously we're all paying more attention on Luongo and Tortorella and all that. But yeah, I don't, that's cool.

I mean, it's Jerry's world. It's, it'll be a, it'll be a site at least. I'm curious. It's funny that it's not the winter classic. It's just a stadium series. Well, that's, I was a little surprised at that. Like, because I know even, you know, years and years ago, back when we weren't quite as fatigued by outdoor games and there were like, you know, people would write lists, here's where you could do the Winter Classic. And the Cowboys Stadium was always, especially back when it was brand new, was one of them.

I wonder if one of the things that happens in with the football stadium is sometimes the sun is an issue. I wonder if that is a potential issue for hockey or, you know, given different sight lines and obviously different type of year. So maybe the answer is no. February and Dallas is fine. It's not, it's September that it's a problem. But you do see guys like go for a pass. and just put their arms up and be like, didn't see it because the sun was coming in at exactly the angle.

And I mean, did they say if they're playing it during the day or at night? I don't have that information. They usually want to do the day because you get the better visuals. But we'll see. Well, if it's inside, who gives a shit about the visuals? It's cool that they're doing this in new markets. I like that. Spread it around.

How many seats do you think they sell? It says here, seat and capacity. of 80K, up to 105 if you include standing room. I'm sure they're going to take away some seats for sight line reasons or whatever. Yeah. I think they'll sell it out. They'll turn it

into an event. That would be sick. 100,000 people. 105 wouldn't be very good. Might not be getting hundreds of dollars per ticket, but I feel like they could What's the date on it? When are they doing it? I don't have that in front of me either. I'm a

Assuming it's going to be like... February 20th, it says here. Okay, so a couple weeks after the Super Bowl, which the Cowboys will obviously be in. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if they sold it out. Maybe not the standing room numbers, but yeah, get a big number, why not?

What was the number at the big house? That was over 100. Over 100. I hope they beat that number. That would be really sick. They haven't announced the opponent yet, I'm pretty sure. shore. So who do you think it'll be?

Colorado. Yeah, that's what I assume to. Look, you're trying to get a big house. You've got to have the hot feud. It's that simple. They might wait. Wait until this year. See who wins the Stanley Cup.

See who, yeah. That might be the way to do it. Because you could also do like Vegas. I could see being a potential one. That's probably it. I'm guessing, yeah, I mean, I don't think Winnipeg. Don't wait by the phone. No, I would say, I would say that's probably not going to happen.

Maybe they could sell out the Blue Bombers Stadium. I don't know the name of that one off the top of my head, but, yeah, it'd be tough selling out Jerry World. Anyway, one last thing here. Hall of Fame weekend is this weekend. We got a bunch of inductees coming, of course. but one inductee who is not coming is Alexander McGilney who said, yeah, I'll send a video or something, that's funny. Yeah.

Which is funny. I can't wait to see that video. Oh, yeah. It's going to be while he's on the golf course or whatever. Yeah, I hope he's like, I vision it as like he's like laying on his couch. Like, remember the Patrick Liny draft interview? Yeah. Like he didn't even sit up.

He's just got his headphones in and he's like, hey, what the, It's me, Alex. Thank you for all of good or whatever this is. Yeah. I got it. Front-facing car camera video. Hey, guys. Alex, you're getting an Uber run.

That's right. Hold on. Dennis? Yeah, okay. You want water? What's really funny about it is that for a long time, the reason they said, we can't put McGilney in

allegedly this is all you know who knows speculation whatever but it was that they were like we don't think he'd show up and then they put him in and he's like I'm not fucking going to that guess what

you were right bingo mail me the blazer or whatever you can I'll give you my address and if I get the video over two minutes you know kind of yourself

like big shout out to that one. That just struck me as so funny that they were exactly right about his intention to be in Toronto. Good for him. No, thanks. Good for him. Oh, yeah, I'll be there. I'll just be 12 years late like certain other things might have been. How insufferable do you think the Jeremy Roanick speech is going to be?

It's not going to be good. I hope he gets political. I think that'd be fun. Do you think he'll use it like Michael Jordan where he airs out a bunch of grievances that he has? I think he's going to fake cry for sure. He's going to do the, you know, I never got the Stanley Cup fake tears.

Yeah, yeah. I think he's going to use it as like his. I think this is going to be like his image rehabilitation, but you're right. It would be great if he just used it to lash out at all the hate. I hope he mentions Greg by name. Hey, here's one, Jack Parker, the longtime coach at Boston University is being inducted.

Wow. Great. He dropped the puck at a BU game I went to earlier this year, so. Okay. That made me go, oh, right, he's going in the Hall of Fame this year. I totally forgot about that. And then I saw him, and I was like, right, right, right. I see him at every BU game, I guess, though.

He's almost there. Hey, I'll tell you what, this ties into my plugs. Okay. because I'm doing a Hall of Fame piece. I'm going to give you six active players, and you just give me a yes or no, on whether they're going to make the Hall of Fame. Okay.

All right, this is just, and I won't tell you what my verdict is or anything. People will have to check the article tomorrow or Thursday. Here we go. Jonathan Quick. No. Chris Latang. Yes.

Corey Perry. No. Jamie Ben? No. Brent Burns. Yes. John Tavars. Yes.

Wait, for Jonathan Quick, was that, will he make it or would I put him in? I guess, yeah, you could, you could, I was going to say, will make it, but. I wouldn't put him in. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay. Absolutely. I think he's in, for sure.

Okay. All right. Well, if people have their own thoughts on that, check out my piece later this week, and I'll be on the athletic hockey show with Sean and Frankie tomorrow and I've also got the newsletter duty later this week. I swapped with Myrtle, so

if you got this morning's newsletter and you're like, this stinks, well, that's why. But if you haven't subscribed yet for some unknown reason, you get an extra couple of days this week. That's what's up. Yeah.

And then for me, Leeprospects.com, we got all kinds of prospect coverage over there. I'm, of course, like I've mentioned before, on the NCAA beat all year long. And it's really a very interesting season so far. A lot of coaches are like, this is not going how I expected at all. A lot of teams are just like dropping weird games.

Denver's lost to two different independent teams that they should have smoked, for example. and then the next night come back and like just pounded on them like you shouldn't have done that that was a big mistake by you and yeah the Hobie race is really interesting the Richter race I'm probably going to write

about that sometime in the next week or three here but college hockey Sean has its own like November 1st date of this point if you're not in the NCAA tournament like top 16 you're probably not

going to make it. And that's one week from today, November 11th. Really? All right. Be paying careful attention this week if you're a college hockey fan. Is that because the later season and everything? Or did somebody just hit the number one twice by accident when they were typing it out and they just became the thing? It is that like a lot of there are very staggered, um, whatever start dates. Like the Ivy League schools don't start until like the fourth week of the season.

So Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth. I saw Cornell this week. They looked really good. But like right now, let's see here, a bunch of teams have played 10 games and a bunch of teams have played six or fewer. So there's a pretty wide disparity there. And that gap closes a little bit by the 11th. A little bit, not as much as you would like. Harvard and Yale, for example,

have only played one game apiece right now. And those kind of teams do kind of account for some of the outliers, historically speaking. Anyway, this is a point being, this is a big weekend in college hockey, just because if you're not really solidifying things, you might be in trouble already.

So check all that out to leap prospects.com. And then also go to, Patreon.com slash puck soup, all kinds of bonus episodes. I don't know. We haven't recorded any of them yet for this month, but you'll get probably one this week, if I had to guess, at least. And then, you know, next week, the week after, they'll come very fast and furious like they always do.

So Patreon.com slash puck soup for all the bonus episode stuff. And that's it. Thank you so much for listening. Enjoy the hockey this week, this weekend. kind of thing. And that's it for us. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.