Puck Soup - Lemon, It's Tuesday

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Sean and Ryan play catchup after a crazy week, talking HHOF, the draft, buyouts, trades, signings, and more. Sponsored by Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck) and AGI (drinkag1.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McNeue from The Athletic. And folks, we had a busy week since the last time we did the podcast. We had the awards. We had the draft. We had a bunch of buyouts and stuff like that. Had some trades. Call of Fame announcements.

Some pretty nasty stuff we'll talk about later. A free agency day, all that kind of stuff. And I guess the best way to do this, since we have so much catching up to do, is to just go kind of chronologically. So I think the day we released the show, but after we recorded, obviously, the Hall of Fame got announced.

Yes. What were your thoughts? Wait, first of all, who are the guys? Now I'm already forgetting. Pavel Datsu. Yeah, that's right. Shea Weber and Jeremy Ronick. Yep, for the NHL players,

they actually put in two women this time. Yes. And only three men, which was, I think, the first time in a little while. Really? That feels. Yep. Three male players. That's part of what's been so frustrating about the women is they keep using the maximum for the men.

But not this year. So, I mean, you can't max it out twice, you know. That'd be crazy. Datsook was the no-brainer most people seem to feel in terms of his playing resume and there was some question of whether the so-called Russian factor would play in for him. It did not. Clearly didn't.

Again, with all of these guys, we don't know how the vote went or, you know, whether it was unanimous or this or that, but, and never will. But he gets in. Which again. Which is the, not only is it frustrating, but, you know, a lot of people were wondering over the last few years if maybe the Russian stuff was what was keeping McGilney out. Clearly that isn't the case. Like I said with Dad Tzuke last week, like if McGilney's not in,

Dad Tuk's not a first ballot guy for me. But like, you know, I get why he's in the Hall of Fame. And the other thing, I guess, I should say, is I'm done complaining about it. Sure. You know? Shea Weber gets in. I know a lot of people were sort of push back on that or the idea of him being a first ballot guy. I don't.

I think he's a fine. pick. I think fine is the way I would describe it as well. He's fine. I think this guy was viewed as one of the top five or ten defensemen for a decade. Like that's more than that. No, I get it. I really get it. I'm not, like, like I said, they said, he's in. And I go, oh, yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. And, you know, I know people will point and say, well, you never want to Norris, but there are people out there who make lists of, like, instead of going by who won the award, you go by the, the vote share, which is a different way to look at it. And he is absolutely near the top of the leaderboard on that.

For sure. Yeah. And then Jeremy Roanick, which, you know, aside from the fact that he's kind of a dink these days, I think is an okay pick. But again, one of those where you go, okay, well, what changed in the last, or what changed in the last 10 years or whatever that Ronex's been eligible. So, have you seen, has he made public comments about it? I don't think so.

Okay. But yeah, like I said, like I said, like I said, like I said, like he went on some podcast that you and I don't listen to. That's right. Doesn't he have his own? Am I wrong about this? I just, I don't know. Who doesn't have a podcast these days? Yeah.

I really try not to listen to hockey podcasts. They're the worst. Terrible things. I just, I just can't have other people's takes infecting my own more than I reasonably should. Um. that's honestly my big thing with like reading a lot of other takes and stuff like that for the same reason. Like I said, with Roanick totally makes sense to me. I think I've written before like it's weird that he's not in the Hall of Fame for how famous he was.

Yeah. But again, like should he be in over Keith Kichuk? I personally say no, but it's not up to me anymore. Or you know what? It never was. And again, we miss the ideal opportunity to put Keith Kichuk in the Hall of of Fame 18 hours after his into a bender yeah like that you will never get that chance again no until the senators win well hold on okay so like you said we'll never get that chance again

yeah um Natalie darwitz and chrisie wendell pole are the uh women's inductees yeah uh both worthy yeah of course there were other names that he's kind of heard more often but again we don't know who the committee is going to discuss or how the vote goes. I'm like, I'm not trying to be dismissive by saying just put in any two, but the fact that they put in two instead of one or none step in the right direction. It was kind of the big thing. Hell of a, hell of a few weeks for Natalie Darwitz.

Yeah, no kidding. And then the builders are David Poyle. Sure. who is, I think, a no-brainer, but is interesting to me, considering he is on the committee. That's right. He is on the 18-person committee that just elected him to the Hall of Fame, which means he has to... I wonder what his vote was. Apparently, he doesn't get to vote.

Apparently he has to, like, leave the room and all this stuff. But he comes in, he's like, you know what, just for, you know, for the sake of saying it. I vote for me. How fun would it have been if he had, like, left the room and everything? and then he gets called back in half an hour later, and then he's just not on the list. You can take a hike. That's it.

But, you know, like when you're running for president, you get to vote for yourself. Well, some people do. Colin Campbell is the other one. It gets in. And I get people are mad at that, but look, the whole marks of our Gregory Campbell story was, what, 13 years ago?

Yeah. And the guy still works for the NHL. He wasn't... Now, should he? Yeah, absolutely. But he wasn't like drummed out of it. So if you're surprised, I mean, the builder category, if you work for the NHL for decades, you're getting in. So I can't summon a whole bunch of anger over this.

Like, there was very, very, very little chance that he was not going to get in. Now why this year and not last year or five years or I don't know, no idea. I'll say this about regarding that. It made me go, oh, right, the time he was trying to get, you know, referees to change the way they were officiating the game. I forgot about that. Oh, yeah. You know what's a fun.

It's a good reminder of that. Thank you. Yeah, you know what's fun about that? among his many duties for the NHL these days, my understanding is he's often involved in the reviews, on ice reviews, including for this year's Stanley Cup final, for which his son Gregory is an employee of the Panthers.

Oh, interesting. Who would presumably get a Stanley Cup ring if the Panthers won. I don't think there were any, I don't know if there were any reviews at all, but certainly not any controversial ones in the final, but if there had been, oh boy, that could have been fun. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know how they would have handled that. We'll never know. We'll never know. Awards. You know what my big take on the awards is? What's that? We're just done with there being really any surprises at all. Yes.

You know, I think we've been saying for a while now, that the MVP in particular, it's like you can make a credible case for just about anybody in the top five, maybe even beyond the top five, quite frankly. You know, varying degrees of credibility, but credible nonetheless. I think, you know, Nathan McKinnon is a very worthy winner. I think if they had given it to McDavid or I'd say less Kutchev than McGrath. David or McKinnon, or Austin Matthews, or Connor Hellebuck, like all those guys, I'm like,

okay, sure. I don't have a problem with that. And so, like, for McKinnon to win it, the way they're talking about it makes it seem very lifetime achievementy. Finally, he wins the MVP. Well, I mean, you know, this is the first year he had like 150 points or whatever, like made an inarguable case. for himself.

So it did feel like they decided in like November this was happening, but I do. I agree with you on the lack of suspense. I feel like there's too much discussion and bouncing, you know, like among us media types, where it's just like the consensus forms. Like there was no suspense about McKinnon this year, even though it should have been like a crazy four or five way race. Yeah. It was like, and I don't know if that's a factor of the, you know, the bigger, more respected voices putting their thoughts out there and then people follow along or if it's people independently arriving at a conclusion and then just talking about it so much.

But there's very little suspense. I think what I'm saying is the internet was a mistake. Yeah. Did you watch the show? Oh boy You want to talk about a mistake I didn't get to see it But I've

The reviews I think have not been Fantastic And can I say this I think the reviews were maybe even a little too kind Look folks I'm a long time veteran here Of the watching and hating Every second of the NHL Award show for work

Wars, right? I will never in my life forget the Joshua Jackson I think it was for like either the coach or GM award he's like how do you get ahead in hockey you puck up to your boss and then he just kind of stands there for a second and goes I don't write them folks

like he didn't even wait for there to not be a reaction he was just like okay no I know and so Like, this was almost that bad some of the time. And then the Nikita Kutjarov impression. Mm-hmm. Oh, boy.

Aye, aye, y'all. Hachy-bachi. Like, apparently the guy is, like, some kind of a TikTok impressions guy. Yeah. And I don't, even though I'm way too. I don't have, yeah. On TikTok, I did not, I was not familiar with his. Now, a lot of, to me,

the impressions were him going, hey, it's me, the guy I'm doing an impression of. Like he did Stanley Tucci and he said the word Stanley Tucci like six times or whatever. And it's like, nope, I got it. Okay. You should have hit him with a wacky wild stuff, Johnny Carson, you know, like that level of what the impression was. So, yeah, really felt shoehorned in there. than that, like I said, just basically every major award, it's like, yep, Connor Hellabuck, yep, Quinn Hughes. You know, not a lot of suspense there, nor should there

have been, I'd say. So, you know, the big question now is like, who's going to have the extremely funny, like, this guy should have gotten the third place Selke vote? And there were a few of those. We'll always have those. And again, and I, like, even, even, even talking to some of the just the media folks down in Vegas, like, you know, they were pointing, I guess there was one guy from Pittsburgh who, like, didn't have McKinnon or McDavid on his ballot.

Right. And it's like, okay, yeah, but there's like 200 of you voting. Do we really need everyone to vote exactly the same? Like, you know, I was, like, I had a couple people, and I know, it wasn't like, you know, high-ranking,

PWAHA people or anything, but they're like, oh, they should take his ballot away. And it's like, just, you got 200 of you. Like, if you got it right. No, I mean, those, it's just one to point and laugh at those. If they're going to, if they're going to vote that way and then use it to write like some big inflammatory column or whatever, and it's like super obvious and self-serving, that's one thing.

But, like, yeah, there should be a few off-the-board votes for this stuff. Otherwise, like, why are we, well, I have 200 people do it. if they're all going to vote for the same five guys in roughly the same order. No, like I say, like the fun of that is, oh, look at this stupid vote, right? Like that, we can all have fun with that. That's fine. If they're mostly getting it right, like, you know, 95% getting it right or whatever percent you want to say, I'm happy that there's, like, bad votes still. Yeah.

Let the Cranks vote. There it is. As long as they're still following hockey. Like, I think we've gotten rid of. most of the, you know, there are some guys where it was like, yeah, he's been a baseball writer for 30 years, but he wrote about the blues in 1982

and now he's been on the voting ranks ever since. So anyways. You were at the draft. I wasn't. I was, yeah. What were your thoughts on being in the damn sphere? I gotta be honest, pretty cool. Yeah, it looks sick. It looks really fucking cool.

Gentilly wrote like a whole piece about it that I encourage people to go read. And, you know, his, he kind of captured some of my feelings, which was, you went into it, half going like the NFL screw this up, and half going, like, it's Vegas. This is going to be overhyped and not as cool as people say. And it didn't last fairly. It was very, when we first went in and they were doing, like, the kind of preamble.

And, like, all the GMs and front offices are milling around on the front. and the, you know, fans are filing in and all that. They had essentially a rectangle up on the screen that was broadcasting stuff that just looked like a bigger scoreboard video. Sure. And you kind of walked in, you're like, oh, okay. Well, I mean, it's big and the picture's crisp and everything in the sound system, I guess, is good. But, like, oh, whatever. And it wasn't until like right as the thing was starting that they unleashed the full sphere screen.

Yeah. And when that happened, it was like, oh, okay. Now this is like, damn, all right. That is, it really looked cool. And the place holds like 18,000. Yeah, I think for concerts they said it was 20 or something. It's completely wild. Like it's because I mean you look up and it's like oh that's like a quarter of a hockey rink

But then you realize it's like yeah quarter of a hockey rink with football stadium seating right I seen a concert there would be absolutely wild I would love to do that but even this like it The graphics were all cool the you know the presentation the giant trade buzzer Um Goldhorn thing was uh I like it I I think think the NHL, I think presentation-wise,

knocked it out of the park. I heard from a few places that the whole thing cost the League of Fortune and I'm sure it did. That Betman and Daley had to like specifically like push it through

the owners because like there's I guess a budget for this stuff and they were so like so far above that that they needed the okay from the owners. And they got it. I think it was worth it. It was very, very cool.

And now there is, you know, partly as a offshoot of how neat the experience was, and I think just partly like a kind of sober second thought thing, but apparently there's talk of keeping this format of the draft after all and not going to the Zoom base way. So we'll see. We'll see how that turns out. But apparently that is not as done.

a deal as it sounded like. Yeah, I'm reading a book about the making of Mad Max Fury Road right now. And, you know, a famously troubled production went way over schedule, significantly over budget, allegedly. And it's like, yeah, sometimes you've got to spend a shitload of money to do cool stuff. It doesn't, you know, look, in the end, they let them make a second one, right? Like, even though they were like, oh, my God, what a disaster. Mad Max Fury Road was. If the end result is cool,

sometimes people are like, you know what, fuck it, let's do it again, let's run it back. And I hope that's what they do here. I hope it's at the sphere every year from now on. They fucking nailed it.

Because that's the problem, right? It's like, okay, this one's going to be in the Nashville Predators Arena. Yeah, like, who cares? It is going to be tough for whoever has to follow the sphere. So you just do it at the sphere every year.

Then you don't have to worry about it. And look, like, how often do we say, like, oh, you know, here's the NHL. They can't market it. They would, you know, they're so boring. They wait until some other league has done it good 10 times and then they copy it. Here's the NHL. They were first. I saw, you know, more than a few places, including some non-hockey places, were like, man,

how come the NFL or the NBA didn't do this first? Yeah. So yeah, kudos to the NHL for pulling off. And I have to say this, a huge kudos to the NHL who apparently told all the teams before the draft, cut it out with the preamble. Do not bring your whole. Don't bring the whole front office up. You get three people. Do not congratulate the Panthers.

Do not thank Vegas. Get up. Say a few words. Make your pick. get off the stage. Yeah. God bless the NHL for doing that. And also, not only did it make everything go a lot faster and, you know, just feel like they weren't wasting our time, but it also got us a quote in one of Elliott's 32 thoughts where like somebody from the Panthers was like, nobody's congratulating us.

This is garbage, which is an all-time. What do you give a fuck, that? All-timer. An all-time being unable to take the win. moment. Yeah. Like, dude, nobody's telling us we did a good job.

Just go get struck by lightning at your Stanley Cup parade. Yeah. Just do it. Shut up. No one wants to hear it. As far as the draft itself went, anything, any big takeaways from you?

So night one was, you know, obviously we all knew Celebrina was going. There was some intrigue around how the top five would shake out. Yeah. Yep. That was kind of the big name.

The, Tijiginla was you know sort of a big would he get to Calgary would they take him if he did cool pick for Utah though yeah Utah jumping in no real well no trades at all involving players on Friday night pick swaps only a couple of pick swaps

was cool to Cecil Indy on yeah oh I thought the Michael Buffer thing was fucking awesome the Michael Buffer thing was great like So on both of those, Montreal gets up and they're like, and to make our pick, here is the world's greatest Habs fan and you could just,

the whole room was like, oh God, like, get out of here. You guys are so up your own behind. Like, come on. Like, were you going to bring up like some kid or some 98-year-old man or, you know, like, geez. And then they're like, silly and beyond.

And like the place just, a big, a huge pop as the, as they might say. And, you know, she looked good. And then, yeah, Michael Buffer. I thought the Michael Buffer, like, as much as obviously you love to see Celine Dion, all that stuff she did with the Bruins last year, that was fun. But, like, Michael Buffer comes out, and you're like, well, I mean, he's looking a little

older these days, you know? I haven't seen Michael Buffer do anything in a minute. Still got it, baby. Still got it. And the thing is, like, when he first came out, I was like, oh, is he just going to do, like, let's get ready to draft, you know. But no, the fact that he did the whole height and weight and everything, especially in front of a room full of prospects who don't know they're being picked.

So, like, you know, everyone's out there like, I weigh 197 pounds. That's right. Yeah. I mean, most of them are hockey players. So, you know, they're between 5-11 and 6-1. Yeah. So that was. I can't remember.

Did they measure me at 6 feet or 6-1? Yep. I mean, it was, you know, when he then. proceeded to introduce the NWO when they came out and spray paint at the prospect, I thought that was a little. Well, look, you know, they got to put the yellow stripe

down that guy's back. Yeah. To indicate he's a coward. Also, you had a couple teams, like, have players do the pick, which was also neat, and then they just kind of stopped doing that. So I don't know if the league said, like,

hey, only top five or whatever, but. I would imagine, but you know, having Joe Thornton out there? Wow. Yeah. Somebody was telling me that the Celine Dion conversation, when they, like, called her up, was like 30 seconds. They're like, you know, we're doing this thing. Would you be? And she was like, yep. Hell yeah. Send a car, pick me up. I'll be there. I bet the same with Michael Buffer. I bet he was fucking pumped to do that.

Now, here's my question. It seems like he was having fun. If the Habs trade their first round pick, like what? She just, you have to reacquire one. night, right? I mean, you just... You know what? We're not sending the car. We have a fourth round pick tomorrow, so we're going to have you do that. So, yeah, day two, I've been to, I don't know, five of these things now, maybe more.

I'm still shocked at how fast day two goes. Also, day two was the start of day two was the only time the entire weekend that I didn't love being on Pacific time? Sure. You're like, wait a second. Yeah, Gary, Gary Betman at the end of night one says, and we'll be back at 8.30 tomorrow. I'm like, fuck, what? I got to figure out what time's on this is it.

I don't know. I don't know what time I'm going to be awake. This sucks. Yeah. So I guess, you know, day two, the story shifts to the trades. Yes. And we do get some. well I mean we get more than more than some but some big ones

Utah kind of stealing the show Sergachev's big one I mean that oh yeah and and it's that was fun because it was not only a big trade but it was not a name that had been out there not at all yeah that was really that was really crazy because you know like we've been saying for a while now.

We're saying, okay, yeah, obviously there's going to be, there's going to be some moving pieces with Utah. They're going to kind of go a little bit crazy. And then they went like a lot crazy, you know, with all due respect to like the Beck Malenstein trade, you know? Mm-hmm. That's right, yeah. So, yeah, that was cool.

There was, I was, like, John Marino. I was just going to say they immediately also trade for John Marino. And it's like, whoa, okay. They're really adding to their blue line. Any time you can trade for a guy who immediately becomes your second best defenseman, you do it. See, the joke there is they only have two defensemen. Yeah, I was going to say, they literally did not have a single defenseman sign for next season. I believe when they made the circuit.

They might have had, fuck, who was it? one of their own guys from last year that they actually, you know, had signed maybe earlier in the day or something like that. Or maybe I'm thinking of Sean Dursey. No, I'm thinking of Michael Kesselring, I think, and then Jersey was around the same time. Jersey was signed, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, they're in the process of remaking their Blue Line. Sergachev coming off a not great year.

Obviously, he had pretty big injury concerns. But, and Marino's kind of the same thing. I'd say they bought a little low on him without necessarily paying the buy low price, if that makes sense. But to get those two guys, like, that's a huge statement. you know. Yep. So that was pretty cool. Tampa wasn't done dealing.

They got someone to take the Tanner Geno contract off their hands for some reason. Mm-hmm. Yeah, got a conflict. I know what the reason was. The contract's bad. I guess what I'm saying is why did the Kings do it? Yeah, the contract's bad and also, the contract's bad, but not terrible for, you know, a younger guy who, you know, middle six.

but it's fair to say that Genoa's not developed the way that he's never lived up to his rookie season. Yeah, because he hasn't shot like 25% since then. And Tampa, of course, famously gave up an absolute

ridiculous haul of draft picks to get him. Yep. Didn't get anything close to that value either from his play or from the trade, but okay, I mean. Sometimes you've got to cut bait instead of fish.

Yep. You know. What were the other big trades? Kevin Hayes to Pittsburgh. Yeah, that one. A bit of a cap dump for St. Louis. Total cap dump, but doesn't make a ton of sense for Pittsburgh only because Kyle Dubas, like, the day before was like, we want to get younger and faster.

And then he goes and gets arguably the slowest good player in the league. Yeah. Does that make sense? But. Well, I mean, yeah. I don't think of Marsha as being a particularly fast guy. Yeah. But just to mention a guy who moved recently.

The only other trade the day of the draft that really... Well, I guess there are two. The devils sent Akira Schmidt and Alexander... Like, they gave up on Alexander Holtz a little earlier than I kind of. of expected them to, sent him to Vegas. But they had a goalie log jam. They had to make something happen. I get all that.

And Dallas, it didn't work out trying to sign Chris Tanev, so they sent his rights to Toronto. And that all worked out great for the Leafs. And I'm not going to look up anything that happened after June 29th for them. Cool. And then the other trade that we, I guess we have to mention is the reason Vegas needed a goal is They trade Logan Thompson to the capitals as he is sitting in the lobby signing autographs, which is very amusing.

Now, apparently, he did know before he arrived at the building that he was being traded. I guess he was the guy who hosted their night before draft party for partners and that sort of thing. Probably had a pretty good night and then wakes up to the news that he's been traded and still shows up and signs the autograph. So stand up guy, Logan Thompson. I know it's butterfly. Okay. That was, I can't believe how quick that was.

Holy shit, I got to like take a minute here. That was incredible, folks. There we go. You believe that? Thanks for joining us this week. Yeah, we got to get out of here. End on a high note. So, yeah, the next day, Jake Gensel's rights go to Tampa.

They eventually sign him. We'll talk about that in a second. And Carolina gets a third round pick for him, which is a pretty high price for a just for the rights sort of move. Strongly implying that Tampa knew with certainty that they were going to get them. Yeah. I'm trying to think, were there any other big, I guess I can just pull up. The other two were the Rangers get Riley Smith. Right, right, right.

Which is kind of, I guess. Well, that was, yeah. I was going to get to July 1st. I'm sorry, you're right. I'm looking at it. Yeah, I think that was the main. Yeah. I think that's it for before July 1, I'm saying.

A couple other things I did want to talk about, and then we'll take a break and then we'll come back and do July 1 stuff. Four Nations rosters are, well, partly out, I guess you would say. Um, whatever we're calling the frozen faceoff. No, Frozen Face Off is like an NCHC thing. It's the Four Nations face off? Four Nations. I don't think it's a... Freeze out?

Something like that. Okay. Anyway. Well, you know what? I have, it's the Four Nations Face Off. That's right. I have the NHL press release story open here. Uh, so let's just go, uh, I guess, alphabetical order of right country.

Canada, they're number one on the call sheet here. You got Sidney Crosby, Cal McCar, Nathan McKinnon, Bradshan, Connor McDavid, Braden point. They're your first six. Yeah. And so, you know, the big three centers and McCar were the obvious ones. And then there was maybe a little bit of question. I know a few people were a bit surprised by Marchand.

I wasn't, you know why? They're doing this in Boston. of it. Somebody mentioned that as a... That would be my guess. I mean, he's also like a name brand. Like, you know, he's been a star in this league for a good long while now, you know. So I get it.

Like, I'm not like, how could they possibly consider Brad Marchand one of the, you know, 14 best Canadian forwards. Yeah. And then Braden Point keeping in mind that John Cooper is the coach. Yeah. And also that he's fucking. good. Yep. You know, like that helps, my opinion.

You know, he's just not McKinnon, McDavid, or Crosby. But if that's your four down the middle, if your fourth center is Braden Point, thumbs up for me. And, you know, of course, it goes without saying that these guys can all shift to the wing. So it's not like you look at this and go, oh, well, Canada's centers are locked up. That means none of the other guys can make it. Right. They can figure it out.

Well, I think it was Nathan McKinnon was like, oh, it should be me, Crosby and Marshand, like, on one line. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, they're from the same place pretty much. I sure are, yeah. So that's why. That would be a sick fucking line. I'd love to watch that line. 100% would be, yeah.

Finland, Yossi Soros, Miro Heiskenen, Esselindel, Sebastian Ajo, Ajo, Sasha Barkov, Miko Rantanin. Not bad. Pretty good. pretty good group. I think the problem for Finland is there will be a fairly good-sized drop-off after that first, let's say, 10 or so players. I mean, that's why, in a way, having this first six concept was very smart because it makes you look at the first six and go, this is, anybody could win this.

This is crazy. And then, yeah, depth will become an issue. When they're breaking out Aki Berg to the fourth defenseman. Yeah. Sweden, Gus Foresling, Victor Headman, Eric Carlson,

Philip Forsberg, Willie Nealander, and Mika Zabanajan. Yeah, I think Elias Pedersen not being on the list was maybe the mild surprise. And I don't think

there's anyone that you just mentioned who's like miles worse than him, but I think certainly if you're a Patterson or a Canucks fan, you could pick a few of those guys and say he should have been in a head. But other than that, I mean, he's going to be on the team.

Yeah. We don't have to... Right. That's the thing is you don't have to stress about it too much. Now, one thing I noticed is, I believe the only team with a goalie announced is Finland. Mm-hmm. So that's a little weird, but... Yeah, that was, I guess, what surprised me of the U.S. list is I wondered if they would just put Halibuck on it.

Yeah, they didn't. The U.S. list is Adam Fox, Quinn Hughes, Charlie McAvoy, Austin Matthews, Jack, Eichael, Matthew Kachuk. Hard to argue with that list, I would say. Not bad. Not bad. So, yeah. And that's probably smart. Leave the door open on goalies. We know how weird they are.

Like, Connor Hallibuck was the best goldhender in the league this past season, won the Vezina. 897. Absolutely could have. Yeah. You know? You know, wouldn't shock anyone. Way she goes. Yep. Oh, well.

Yeah. Good, good groups for all, for all four countries. Now, what do you think, like, Leon Drysidal's going to do during that time? Go sleep? Yeah, probably. Yeah, smart. It's long... Probably spend a lot of time on online researching Boston apartments.

People do seem to think that's just going to happen, huh? That's crazy. It won't, but sure. Probably won't, no, yeah. The one last thing. we can talk about here is surprise, I would say surprising number of buyouts. Yeah.

Seven? Seven. Okay. Skinner's the big one. Well, Skinner's the big one in terms of, in terms of price, I would say. Obviously, they're getting out from under a $9 million contract for another, I think, three years,

if I'm remembering right? Buffalo, obviously, we're talking about. We're not talking about Stuart Skinner. That's a different guy. Yeah, that would be big news. Same team, though, all of a sudden. Yeah. Can I, okay, let me quickly say that.

I know this is July 1st talk. We'll get to that in a minute. But can I, you know what I miss when two guys have the same last name and they don't put the J Skinner and S Skinner on the jersey? That sucks. Bring it back. They should do it. Can we, do we believe the Sedeans for that?

Yeah, I think that's Because they didn't, they didn't do H and, and, uh, what's the other ones? Did they never do that? H&D. H&D? I don't think they did. Okay.

I think they said, you know what? We got different numbers. You figure it out. Which I get that. I mean, if you're not going to do it when you're twins, then that's, that's what I'm saying. You know, that, that's, they did, uh, well, I don't know, I'm looking at some pictures. I'm seeing some with the initial.

Maybe, maybe early in their careers and then they got, they got the political have to be like we're not doing that shit anymore. Now, would you still force him to do it if it's a goalie and a player? Yes. Like, are you, yeah. Is that Jeff Skinner in that? I'm confused. It seems like he's significantly taller than I remember.

Well, here's a question. So who has to put the initial? Like, do they both do it? They both do it. Is it? Okay. As Skinner, J. All right.

Yeah. I'm in. I think, I think it's a good idea. Plus, you can charge more at the pro shop for someone letters on. All those. fans who just bought Stuart Skinner jerseys during the Stanley Cup final. Guess what? Hope you saved up another five bucks for another letter.

Well, this is just free marketing for, like free PR for Stuart Skinner. You know what? The extra ass is on me, folks. And hey, why don't I throw a period in there, too? And it's going to be like off center, just the ass wrapping around the shoulder. I actually read an article the other day that was talking about how good the new jerseys are. So I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, that sounds great.

That sounds like the sort of thing that would be written by an apologist and a show for the league. Mm-hmm. I agree. Mm-hmm. Okay. The other buyouts. Ryan Suter, one of, I think, three players in league history to be bought out twice. Yeah.

He's living the dream. Yeah. The other two are Vinila Callier and Tony DeAngelo, I believe. That sounds right. Yeah. Good poll. You know what? Ryan Suter, go get a.

a third paycheck for yourself. Look, you know, I got the, I got to say, we're in the hustle mindset era now, you know, you're going to have your side hustles to your side hustles. Exactly. Rise and grind in this case by not doing anything. Well, I mean, he could go get another job, though. You could. Nobody wants to work anymore is the problem. That is the problem, yeah. So, yeah, not really, not really a surprise there. Although it was, remember like last summer, they were like, how dare you suggest we would buy out Ryan Souter? Remember that? Yeah, it's funny how that works, isn't it?

What happened? Oh, he had a bad season? Mm-hmm. Well, I guess that's why they were saying you should buy him on last summer. Interesting. Cam Atkinson and Philadelphia, same thing, like, decent enough player, but just the price didn't make sense anymore. Same thing as Skinner, I should say.

Deason enough, but like the price is wrong in that case, and you let it be someone else's problem. Do you know who this guy Nikolai Naizhov is? Nope. Yeah, he was from the sharks. They bought him out. See ya. And then the three that went through yesterday, Adam Bockevist and Columbus, they got the famous one-third buyout. Yes.

Because he's only like 23 or something. Isn't it weird that Adam Bocryst is only 23? He's been in the league since like 1997, I think? Yep. Yeah. Part of the Seth Jones trade that happened 14 years ago. Yeah. That's pretty wild. Surprising that, I don't know, like what's Columbus clearing space for?

Well, I mean, we got our answer yesterday, and folks, it's a good one. You're going to love it. Edmonton buys out Jack Campbell. Had to happen. Yep. Had to. Now, I'm trying to remember who signed that contract. Is that the guy we can't criticize because of how they may.

the Stanley Cup final? That's correct. Yep. Okay, great. Yeah, it just, again, the money didn't make sense, and it remains to be seen whether he can even play in the NHL anymore. Yep, but did sign. We'll get to that on July 1, but. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. If I'm remembering, right, wasn't he pretty good in the AHL after a kind of slow start? I think at one point there was, like, talk that, like, oh, yeah, he's figured it out. He's back. Let's see here. His AHL save percentage, 918. That's as good as you can ask for, really. In 33 games.

You know, I hope he figures it out. I'm not rooting against the guy or anything, but... Everybody says he's a really good dude, so we'll hope. And finally, another one that I think you can just say, they didn't think the money made sense, is Nate Schmidt. but like I didn't even think the money was that crazy for what he brought to the table. Like it was it was more than he deserved. You know, if it was purely merit based, you wouldn't say that's the level of player he is.

But at the same time, I was like, he's not that expensive for what he brings to the table. You know, versus what some other, maybe not. The Jets aren't like loaded with an inefficient contract, I would say. But and maybe you would say even he's the worst of those, or he was the worst of those contracts. But like, I didn't think it was outrageous that they were giving him almost, I guess it's almost six million bucks against the cap. Yeah, that's a decent amount. I don't know. But yeah, I get why they bought him out.

I just, you know, there are more egregious deals out there, let's say. So, yeah, I guess, I guess those are, that's all the buyouts. I don't think there can be any more until arbitration time, which I think starts later this month. Yes, and will only affect certain teams. Yeah, of course. Basically, for people who don't know, I guess you would say, if you get like an arbitration ruling, basically,

like one way or the other, like, you know, whatever the number ends up being, that opens a brief buyout window. Right. So, you know, you get to figure it out then. Anyway, yeah, only certain teams that'll happen to. So why don't we take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about all the July 1 stuff. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Raycon and folks. I've talked about Raycon's everyday earbuds a lot on this show in the past.

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I think Casey Middlestat for example that was before our last or since our last show makes sense to me good good for the abs good for the player you know that might be about it for like the super before the free agency period. But then, on the 30th, we have the aforementioned Sean Dersey contract. Makes sense to me. Maybe a little rich, but not too crazy. Then how about this? Patrick Kane, back to Detroit.

After all that talk. A little bit of a surprise, right? About he might go to the Rangers or whatever. Mm-hmm. Or the savers. I think a surprise more because all the talk was he wants term this time. Yeah.

He's healthy. He's done the, you know, prove I can still play. Now it's time to get some term and didn't happen. And didn't even get to market to see what was there. Yeah, I mean, one year, 6.5 mil, I was definitely expecting someone to give him two or three years. And he didn't get it, which is surprising. I think it's a totally reasonable contract. given that, again, now we know.

Now we know that he's not going to... The wheels aren't going to fall off because of his hip, basically. Well, I shouldn't say we know. Yeah. There's lots of talk about... He is finally fully healthy, et cetera, et cetera. We have a reasonably good idea, yeah, that everything's good to go. And, like, you know, he was super productive.

There were other problems with this game last year. Obviously, you don't sign 35-year-old. Patrick Kane going like, yeah, we think he's going to play all 200 feet for us. But if you ask him to do, you know, point him in the right direction, ask him to do one thing, he's going to do it pretty well for you. I think it's a fair way to put it. I was surprised, but like good for Detroit. That's a nice one. Let's see what else.

The Leafs get Max Domey and Timothy Lilligran for another. for another couple of years each? Well, no, I guess Domi was four years, huh? But what were your thoughts? You have any thoughts about the Toronto Maple Leafs? Not really. Okay. Well, forget it then.

I mean, Domi, it's fine. That's, you know, the average value there is low enough that I think it probably falls into the right risk profile. Yeah. For a very one-dimensional offensive player, but, you know, a guy who's decent offensively. You need those supporting roles. Lilgren was interesting just because it's very clear that the organization doesn't like

this kid very much. Right. You know, scratched during the season and didn't get a lot of time. One of those guys where, you know, the underlying numbers tell you that he's good, but the way he's used to. What about those overlying numbers? Yeah. Suggests maybe not.

And there was talk that he might be traded. There was even some vague talk that they. might not qualify him. Right. Because he had arbitration rights. And so if they had qualified him and he had gone to arbitration, maybe, who knows? Maybe he gets even more. But, you know, now they're, in theory, committed to him for a couple of years.

Let's see what he does under a new coach. Yeah. That is the thing, right? It's the coaching change that makes it interesting. Sam Reinhart to Florida, eight years, 8.625. We all knew it was coming, right? We did. We all knew that he was going back and it was going to be something very cheap.

Okay. So can we talk about the very cheap thing? I saw people going like, well, he can score 50 goals for it. I mean, he can. Yeah. Insofar as he just did score 57 as a matter of fact. But like, do we think that's even a particularly likely outcome? Like, let's say there's a 30% chance of that happening in the next eight years.

Do we think that? No. No, he's like a 30-goal guy. And that's great. It's great to be a 30-goal guy. Who was also, like, a Selky contender this year. Like, that's... Right.

I mean, I... This one, I actually saw some takes where people were, like, this might tick off some people in the PA and, like, some fellow players. Which, I mean, it's always, like, remember, like, there is no rising tide lifts all boats other than the cap going on. Right. Like one guy's salary, it's just how the money gets shifted around, but that this was such an obvious discount from what he would have got in free agency.

But keep in mind, you know, eight years versus seven and that, all that sort of thing. So good for the Panthers, man. They got three really good forwards now that are all making very, very reasonable money. Yeah, I think. reasonable is right. I don't think they got like a steel here. Like if it started with a seven, I would say they did, you know, but like I think they're paying roughly what I would expect a guy resigning with his own team to, to play for. You know, like if he's hitting the market, he's not making 8.6 for sure. Right? But like this is this is about right to me. I don't know. Maybe I'm

crazy. I think he would have got my, I think he would have more than that on the open market. Maybe not. I'm totally agreeing with that. I'm just saying like I think. Whether it would have been higher than the eight times versus the city. Right. Well, there is that as well. But like I'm just saying like if we're saying the UFA market is inherently inefficient, which of course it is, then like, yeah, he could have gotten like nine and a quarter,

nine and a half from somebody for sure. But again, for seven years instead of eight. So, like, I think, I think 8-6 is about right. I don't think they got a steal. That's all in terms of what he's actually worth anyway. Talking about a $9 million contract, though, Jake Gensel. Yep. With Tampa.

So there's 10. 7 years, 9, 9 per. Because when they made the deals on Saturday morning, I mean, I know I was like, well, there's the stamp goal. was funny. So he's coming back. We all knew they was going to come back. And then, you know, the reports started to indicate like, no, it's not for him. I mean, they had their guy. They,

they had their guy. They went and made it happen. They made tough, tough decisions along the way to make sure that it happened. They sure did. And, you know, like, that's kind of the vaguest thing. Like, you have to have those tough decisions made all the time. you know and I don't know like I really like the player I don't know that they're going to like him seven years from now for nine million bucks but they're not in a situation where they're thinking you know if we if we really think about what this does for us in like 27 28

they're just that's just cannot be how the the lightning think about things no I look this up we'll get to it, but the Victor Headman extension, I look this up, you know what their cap commitments are for 26, 27? What's that? 67.45 million on 10 guys. Okay. Well. Caps going up, folks.

Don't worry about. And the thing is, like, you know, you go, well, it's a lightning. Those are good players. Some of them are. Some of them are more interesting. but pretty reasonable deal for headman pretty pretty reasonable again I you know I think that we're starting to see some holes develop in his game he's not Victor headman of you know five years ago

but I totally make sense why they're giving him that money I just think that again by 2028 we're going to be like I don't know I don't know what they were thinking there. I mean, I do know what they were thinking, but you know what, you understand what I'm saying. Anyway, let's move into July 1st officially.

Just going from the bottom to the top of the list here. Tyler Bertuzzi to Chicago, four years, $5.5 million. Yeah, I mean, Chicago's got to start getting some decent players. Yeah, he can help a Connor Badaard, right?

He can Couragev, maybe even, you know, that kind of thing. You're giving yourself more options on the wing than you had last year, which is good. But, you know, is he going to, like, actually help them? No, probably not. He's just going to help bring a lot, make the young stars, developing stars look good. That's your. Joseph Wol to Toronto, three years, 3.6 million. And we're just doing like the kind of bigger deals here, folks.

I'm not doing every single one. That's a lot for somebody who has not played very much. Can't stay healthy. Classic gamble, right? Because if he's as good as they'd like to think he is, then it's going to be a great deal in a couple years. But that's, uh... I would love for him to prove that he can stay healthy first. That's my thing, right?

Like, the money makes sense, like, if it's even one year or the term makes sense of the money's lower, but the combination of the two. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are we doing? What's up? So I get it. Like, I, it's interesting. I kind of like what Toronto's, uh,

goaltending situation is next year. Really? Kind of. Between wool and stole ours. Two guys who have never played full seasons, even close, like combined for like some ridiculously low number of games. Yeah. No, I, I, I,

I'm just saying if I had those two goalies, I'd feel okay about it, apart from the thing you're saying. And the risk is that like, okay, you're going to go Stolar's, you're up for 14 straight games or whatever because Walsert again. Well, then it's a fucking problem. But big problem. You know, on paper, if those are my two goalies in any given game, I'm feeling okay about it, especially at the price point, right? The combined cost of your goaltending is like $4 million. For, yeah, it's for next year especially because Wall is still on the cheap deal next year. Right.

And they brought Matt Murray back. So, yeah. You think it's a different Matt Murray, isn't it? I didn't think it was. Is it the other guy? No, you know what? You're right. It is the same old Matt Murray.

Okay, never mind. So. At least he's cheap now. You got that. I mean, you know, the other goal. The goalies at the top of that division are Bobrowski, Vasilevsky, and Jeremy Swayman. Right. That is a problem.

I think the leaves will be fun. I really thought it was the other Matt Murray. Okay. Because of how cheap the cap hit was. You know what? There's two Matt Murray's out there. They're both goalies. Which is unacceptable.

You can't be doing it. Fucking tell me about it. One of you guys, you know, and it's probably the younger one, Matthew Murray. Yeah. For Christ's sake. Don't they make actors do that? Like they got a drop of the initial or something. Yeah.

Matthew. Murray. Let's go. Whatever. This is crazy that this is happening. Good catch by you. I did not pick up on that. Yesterday was a busy day for me. I had a lot of grading to do. Let's see here. Any other big ones early in the morning? They brought back Jordan Martinook for three years, 3.05 in Carolina. I like that deal for them.

Sure. Okay. Great. Marcia so mentioned him earlier he goes to Nashville five years 5.5 million bucks yep so I mean the the story here obviously Nashville will talk about them in a bit

but him not going back to Vegas I mean you talk about I don't know what was what felt more cutthroat Tampa moving on from Stamco's or or Vegas You know, and... I think Tampa.

I would say Tampa letting Stamcoast go, both because the longer tail on it, but also just... It's a longer tail, but Marcia Soe is the entire tale. I understand. And both players, you know, made it clear that I wanted to go back and it just didn't, you know, obviously they had a number to go back. And it wasn't just they'll take whatever they can get. But, yeah, Marsha's...

The reason I think it's... Yeah. reason I think it's Tampa is, uh, I expect the cutthroat from Vegas a lot more, you know? Mm-hmm. That's all. Um, but yeah, I, like I said, I, I don't know that they're building the the fastest team in, in Nashville, you know, you add Stanco's, so it's not like you're, you're really scooting up and down the ice at this point in your, in your career. Um, and especially with Marsha's, though, a guy, again, like he, you know, he, you know, he. He can get around okay, but can he get around okay when he's 34, 35, 36?

What about 37, 38? Because this is a five-year deal and he's 33, you know? That would be my big concern. But I like the player, obviously, you know. I just, I guess we'll talk about it now. I don't know what the fuck they're doing in Nashville. Like, what do they think that team is? You know?

They think that they're contenders. They think they're ready to move in with Dallas and... I mean, they just added two really good forwards. They kept UC Saros, which was an interesting, like, maybe the most interesting non-move of the lead-up to the draft. Do you know how much money they haven't dead? I mean, they made the playoffs last year. They did, but this is what I'm always talking about, right?

Are they the third best team in their division? Maybe. Maybe is right. I think maybe is the... the right way to put it. And if you're not in the top three for sure, now you're playing, now you're rolling the dice every year, you know? And that's, they have almost $12 million in dead cap money this year between retained

salary transactions and buyouts. Now, obviously, that number dropped significantly next season, but like, it's still like, Jesus Christ I don't know, man like even adding Stamcoast a guy who had 40 goals last year

he's really good again kind of in the the Patrick Kane mold of like you tell him to do one thing he's going to fucking do it pretty well you know but between him and Marsha's so like I just look at the

bottom six on that team and I'm like oh boy okay and then you know there are let's say holes in that defense, but they have the goalie, and maybe that's all that matters. That's fair. Anyway, yeah, that's my big take on them.

Chicago gives Alec Martinez $4 million for one year. That's fine. That checks out. Yep, just get another veteran presence. Yeah. And like now they have younger defensemen. They're going to want to be like, you just play like that guy. He was in the league for 40 fucking years.

Hard to say that he's not a good example to younger players, you know. So, yeah, they're doing that thing. The sharks are doing that a little bit, too. We'll talk about that in a bit. Anthony Manthin to Calgary for one year 3.5 million. I feel like I did not see this yesterday, but it's right here on the list. Yep. Did happen.

That's an interesting one. Flames were clearly in the Rebuild without rebuilding. mode, so I don't mind it. I mean, you get a guy that... He's fine. He's fine, and you can maybe move him at the deadline. And he scored 23 goals last year, I think. I closed the window already, but I think that was the number I just saw.

So there you go. Brett Pesci to New Jersey, six years, 5.5 mil. That's a shocker. Nobody saw that one coming. No, they didn't report there's a week and a half ago. Somehow, literally everybody, and we're just all fine with that. Yep. New Jersey really feeling like they need to remake their blue line.

I think that's a good instinct for them. We'll breeze past them a bit later, but they add Peschi. They add Brendan Dillon, who's like a pretty good player. They add Jonathan Kovicevich, who is, I think, a good, like a really good depth defenseman to round out the bottom of that lineup. I like what they, I like what they did on their blue line. And hopefully they get, you know, Dougie Hamilton back healthy and all that, too. By the way, I'm on their cap-friendly page right now. We're in the final year of the Iliu Kovilchuk cap recapture money.

That's, uh, wow. That's right. That is something, yeah. It really is. Um, yeah, they, they identified a problem, let's say, and they moved to address it. Two problems, really. I mean, they completely remade their, um, Had they gotten Jacob Markstrom the last time we did the show?

I have no recollection. I feel like they had. I feel like they had. If not, good job by them. Yeah, smart. We all like that deal. For some reason, I feel like the Jacob Markstrom, Jake Allen pairing is going to do better than what they had last year. That's just my hunch.

You think? Yeah. Yeah. It's possible. Here's another one for the Toronto Maple Leafs here. Oliver Recman-Larson, four years, $3.5 million. bucks. I heard there was a lilt in your voice there.

Oh, you find this contract. You picked up on that? That's interesting. Yeah. You know what? Look, I don't think he's as bad as the reputation.

I don't think he's worth this contract at all. Like, I don't know why on earth you're signing up for four years. Yeah. If it was one year, three and a half million, you know what? Okay. I get it. Two years? Sure.

Three years? Oh, that's weird. Four? Huh? What? I just, I don't get the impulse. Like this is, I mean, the, the thinking is, you know, he's a guy that a lot of people, I don't think we're ever, after that contract, and especially when he, the contract he signed with the coyotes, and then especially when he went to Vancouver, he was one of those guys who, like, his value got so tied into his cap hit. Yeah, he got underrated because people were like, he's dog shit because of,

of his bad contract. Yeah, which, which you, I mean, that's completely fair. You have to view guys that way in the NHL. But he was pretty good with Florida. Yeah, pretty good. But. And pretty good is $3.5 million for, you know, for a defenseman who's pretty good is, is fine.

And then, you know, it's the usual. He's turning 33 in a week and a half, man. That's, that's the real problem for me. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, both, both, I mean, let's, let's talk about TANV as well, then because... All right, let's talk about

Christanav. I don't like your total voice on this. Let's do it. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's,

let's, let's, $4.5 million bucks until he's 40 years old. Mm-hmm. So that's, uh, six years, right? And, uh,

you know, this is a guy, the last time he signed a contract in Calgary, with a certain GM you might be familiar with. People were like, yeah, uh,

what? the way he plays the game, that might be a little, a little risky. This guy was like about to be out of the league due to injuries when he was different. That's what everybody thought. And that was 17 years ago. I know. He's a league for six years. Okay, if I, what amount of money would I have to offer you for you to bet $10 that he will still be in the league for the last year of that contract?

I mean, it's only $10. I'll, you know. What you want? 100 bucks? Okay. Now we're talking. Yeah, you give me, give me like three to one odds.

I'd take that. You'd take three to one odds that he's in the league in six years? I don't think he'd be good, but like I, so here's the same. Okay. Here's the reason why I say this. There's no chance that there's anyone who thinks they're going to, he's going to play out this entire deal. Here, here's the only reason I say this.

This thing is basically, uh, buyout proof. Is it not? Yeah, but it's not LTIR proof. Yeah. I guess that's, now it's not LTIR proof, but there is going to be a new CBA at some point. So, I mean, that's, that is one area where they, yeah, they could get it. Isn't it like next summer?

It's not a three years. It is not crucially. Yeah. Okay. I think it's two years that they, uh, okay. Um, yeah, this is, well, first of all, I, I showed once again why I don't do sports gambling. I just don't know how it fucking works. Okay.

Yeah. Right. Um, but like this is just like, look, I get you like the guy. And I get you signed him earlier, you know, and, and he didn't get a raise. He got the, how about the, okay, how about this? Chris Tanev signs a new contract in March 2015 for 4.45. million dollars against the cap plays out that whole contract in october 2020 he signs a contract for 4.5 million dollars against the cap for four years signs another contract for 4.5 million

dollars against the cap so from 2015 16 to 2029 30 he's going to be making basically the same amount of money that is un fucking heard of in the nchel this guy's going to play like 15 years straight at the same fucking cap hit, basically. That's incredible to me. Big salute to Christana. I don't need more than that. Four and a half. That sounds great to me. I mean, anyway, long story short, the Leafs, short term make their defense better.

Long term, this is classic, hey, man, if it doesn't work this year, we're all getting fired anyways. So good luck to the next guy. Or in the case of Tenev, maybe the next guy to the next guy. No shit. Yeah, that's true. Like if Briatry Living is still the GM at the end of the Ekman-Larsen contract, let alone Tanniv, it's because the Leafs won, something. Yeah, for sure.

Jason Zucker to the Sabres, one year five million bucks. He was good last year. He was. That's pretty much all the Sabers did, but the Sabres fans don't seem very thrilled with that. No, they, well, because, you know, buying out Jeff Skinner, you sign Zucker, and is that at best a lateral move? At best. At best, right.

I mean, like, Skinner from a cap standpoint makes sense. Yes, of course. But I think you could actually argue that the Sabres got worse over the last few days. Yeah, no. And everybody is still waiting. remotely controversial idea. The Kevin Adams thing has been fascinating because, you know, like when he was first hired, I think a lot of us went, oh, this is, yeah. Oh, brother.

Yeah, exactly. Here's a guy who just got hired because he's the yes man. He's the only one who wants to work for the Gulas and all this stuff. And then for a couple of years, you're like, oh, wait a second, he's doing all right here. He seems to actually, you know, maybe we missed on this. But now, you know, we always say the tear-downs the easy-ist part. There seems to be a lot of frustration from Buffalo fans and how it's looking right now. And I will hit you with it should, they should be frustrated.

This is, I mean, again, it's a classic thing. They're not the third best team in their own division. Flat out, we can say that with a pretty high degree of confidence, right? Between Tampa, Boston, Toronto, and Florida, of course, you're like, okay, that's four, you know. You know, it's funny. As we record this, I just got a random DM from a Sabres fan who's like, Kevin Adams is giving a masterclass in my job is hard. And that's an acceptable thing to say.

Yeah. Now, look, does anybody want to go play for the Buffalo Sabres? I would argue that they probably don't, right? No. You got to spend some money. So what you do is you have to force them to by exchanging some players for other players. Interesting. I don't agree. Another one here, Ian Cole to Utah for 3.1, one year only.

So this is what their top six looks like right now. You tell me how you feel about this. Surgachev, Jersey, Marino, Cole, Yusov Alamaki, Michael Kesselring. That's what it looks like right now. Yeah, it needs more. And I don't know if 3 million to Ian Cole is the answer. they're spending he's he's a solid bottom of your roster defenseman for sure right um and i you know i i probably like derzy more than more than most i think he's like notably better than uh john

marino in my opinion um so like if your top two is surga chav and derzy you know that's a good top too if if john merino's your your third best defenseman if he's you're you're forth, depending on how you want to evaluate things? Great. I think that's fine. I think that they're kind of in the same boat as Nashville, where it's like, okay, and where are you in the division, though? Yeah.

Because I didn't add anybody up front as far as I'm remembering here. But you know what, I get where you're coming from on that stuff, but, and you don't want to be stuck in the middle of a division forever, but at some point, if you're going to get to the top, you've got to go through the middle. No, I agree. No, I agree. The flip side is what Buffalo does where they're, they constantly seem to be like, well, you know, even if we do this, are we making the playoffs, are we going to win the cup this year? And then next thing, you know, it's been 13 years and you've stunk every year. I'm just, what all I'm saying is I'm surprised given the amount of cap space they had slash have, I guess, that they

didn't really pursue a forward at all. Obviously, their blue line was a fucking disaster, right? So like, I guess. I guess. I get it. But they did, I don't think they've added a single forward. And that's a little weird to me.

I don't look at them and go, well, that's a team that's either going to win or lose a lot of four three games. I think they're going to win or lose a lot of,

last year anyway, a lot of like four or two games. Yeah. Well, they haven't made the Mitch Martin deal yet. Keep an eye out, folks.

Seattle signs Brandon Montour seven years, 7.1, 142-8-57 per. Yeah, let's do both the Seattle deals. Yeah, for sure. Because, you know, Montour,

good player, got the years. I don't, you know, I don't love any seven-year deal, really, but it feels like there's a bit of a Seattle tax. It does. In the sense of, you know, going to a team where there doesn't really feel like there's a great path towards, being a significant contender in any... And you want to know why that is?

Because they keep giving out fucking contracts like this. Listen to these numbers here. Okay, Chandler Stevenson seven years, six and a quarter. That's the one that nobody seems to like. I think I'm higher on Chandler-Stefinson than a lot of people. And I'm just like, why are they doing this? Stevenson's one of those guys. he was like the underpaid great bargain like you don't know about this guy.

Parentheses playing next to Mark Stone. Sure. And but Mark Stone plays for Seattle now, right? But no, I'm just going to read you some numbers here. Chandler Stevenson 6 and a quarter. Andre Berkowski 5.5. Jaden Schwartz 5.5. Oliver Bjorkstrand 5.4.

Vince Dunn, 7.35. Brandon Montour, 7.142. Philip Grubaugh, 5.9, Jamie Alexiak, 4.6, Yanni Gord, 5.167. Jared McCann, 5 million. Jordan Everley, 4.75. These are all like perfectly good players,

players I like. Every single one of those guys, I would argue, was overpaid pretty much. You know, by varying degrees, obviously. And that's before I say, Adam Larson, $4 million. Like, they just have a lot of guys making like three and a half, four million bucks a piece plus where you're like,

oh, he gets that much? It's just like inefficient spending. The Stevenson deal is. Like I said, that's a player I like. But I just look at that contract and go, typo, right? Yeah. And it is. Sadly, no.

It's just, you know, you can overpay two or three guys. You can overpay maybe even three or four if they're really good. you can't overpay seven or eight guys, and they're all guys where I'm like, no, I actually like him a lot, actually. You know, you shouldn't have to make the argument. How much do you think is, how much pressure do you think is on Francis

to get this team back to winning? And do you think any of that is tied to the fact that as somebody was telling me, the NBA might be coming back to Seattle at some point? Yeah, no, I mean, I remember, reading an article about that in like November when they kind of came out of the gate flat where it's like look attendance isn't like as good as it was last year and if the if there are more options for your sporting dollar in Seattle that's especially this is a basketball town

folks beloved supersonic coming back in some form or other because it's it's not like they left because the market was rejecting them but Seems like it's going to be expansion. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting what they're doing in Seattle. Tavo Tera Vining goes back to Chicago three years, 5.4.

Same thing. You know, we talked about it. You need some players. Makes sense. Yeah. Boston. Nikita Zedorov, six years, five million. Huh.

Who would you rather have that or Tative? That's a. I guess I would say. Zedorov just because it's only taking him to like his age 35 year and not his age 40. But it's not, you know, here I said this in my, my grades. This is why this is a very, very, very smart signing for Boston. He plays the exact kind of game that nobody in the local media will ever criticize him. And if you do, they'll go, I mean, look, he hits guys, and he's funny when he,

But like, I don't know if you saw yesterday. I certainly saw it 5,000 fucking times. Oh, I sure did too. He said, don't call me Big Z anymore. That's Adain O'Chara. You're not allowed to call me then. And it's like that, first of all... Absolutely the best performance by a...

Like, sound bite-wise. Yeah. First of all, that's true. You're not allowed to call him that. But for him to go out and say that... Preemptively. They're just like... Brilliant.

This guy fucking gets it. Who's ever been smarter than this guy? And, you know, he plays a game, like I said, that, like, the Boston fans in media will be like, he's a fucking bro. You know, all that kind of stuff. Like, lock it in. Nobody is going to be allowed to criticize this contract, no matter how bad it is three years from now. Full stop. This is brilliant from the Bruins.

Holy fuck, man. Yeah, you know what? Why don't we say Lindholm here, too? Yeah. That's the guy that they've been linked with for a year now. Don Sweeney said we've been pursuing them for two years. Wow. Okay.

And this is where I think they both made a mistake, though. Both he and Lindholm were like, I see a little bit of Patrice Bergeron in my game. Don't say that? Don't, yeah. You're going to be reminding people. You know, it's the classic thing. Don't reference a better movie in your movie.

Okay. It's good. See, Zedora of learned that lesson. Yeah, he said, I'm not that guy. Don't even think about saying that. But both Don Sweeney and Lindholm made, you know, the thing we always say, like, die at Patrice Berseron.

Doggy, you're going to be like the zero-store brand, Patrice Berseran. Yep. And again, this is a player I don't like mind or anything, but it's a big contract. I don't know. they needed a center. That's what it boils down to.

They paid a premium to get a guy at a position of significant need for them. And there weren't many centers and available. There really were not. Could have gotten Chandler-Stevenson saved yourself a million and a half dollars. That would have been great. Yeah, it would have been perfect. Jacob Slavin, back to Carolina, eight years. Well, I guess this is an extension that kicks in next.

summer, doesn't it? Yeah, I think so. Eight years, six, a little under six and a half. I'm not going to give you all the decimals. Yeah, they went out and they did some rebuilding of their blue line too, and they, I would say, did a fucking hell of a job of it. They got, they also got Sean Walker for, I think it was five years, three point six, and Shane Goss Despair for three years, three point two.

Yeah. Pretty good. Costis bear has been interesting. He's bounced around and he's sort of one of those guys where like when he broke in at the big rookie year kind of set the bar high enough. Too high. Yeah. He's been disappointing ever since.

And yet like he's in like year seven of being pretty good for. Yeah, he's a pretty good. You know, he's a classic guy where it's like he's really good when you use him in the right role. I have a lot of faith that Carolina will use him in the right role. role, especially because they have other defensemen that they can put in roles that Gustafair is not good at, right? Like, they have the guys that can play the shutdown game, whatever. You're getting Shane Gossusperer so he can cook offensively.

And he's going to have, I think, a lot of wiggle room to do that. So I love that signing. And Sean Walker, one of the more underrated defensemen in the league, in my opinion. For them to get him at like 3.6, that's about right for what his reputation is. I think he can, you know, this is going to be a guy where in Carolina in particular, we're going to be going. Actually, you know, that's one of the best deals in the league, you know, that whole gimmick. I really like what they did on their blue line yesterday. They need to add somebody up front, but that's a different story.

story. Calgary, I feel like we mentioned them with Manta, I guess, but they go out and they extend Yeager Sharon Govich, five years, 5.75. Kind of feels like they chose him over Andrew Mejapani, which probably the right choice. Yeah, and that's a deal that doesn't kick until next summer. And they also got Stromberg, which is... Lomburg. Longburg.

Thank you. You're welcome. They got back Ryan Lomburg. Remember he used to be a Calgary Flame? I did not remember that. Yeah. He's a classic guy. Again, I said this in the grades, but like just a classic born to be overrated in Calgary guy.

Okay. Like he's a good player, but the way they're going to act about him is, can you believe we got Ryan Lomburg on this deal? And then it's like, yeah, no, I can. That actually makes a lot of. sense to me. So yeah, no, like I say, I like I like both of those guys. I like Sharon Govich.

I like Longberg, but Sharon Govich, the comparison, like you say, they chose him over Mangiopane, right? But, you know, he just did the Mangiapani thing where it's like, he scored 30-something goals last year kind of out of nowhere. surely he's going to be a 30 goal guy forever. We're going to pay him like that and then we'll see.

This can be a good place for us to talk about what Edmonton did yesterday. Because here's Victor Arvinson. Two years, four million bucks with the oilers. They did a lot of, I thought, smart shopping in their forward group yesterday. For a team with no GM, they did pretty well. Yeah. Arvetson I like as a risk. And obviously, you know, we knew Jeff Skinner was going to get to pick his own team

and probably do it reasonably cheaply, finally get himself into the playoffs. Yep. Going to be pretty hard for him to miss this time around, for sure. But yeah, if you can get Arvinson and Skinner for a combined cost of seven minutes, million bucks next season. I think you did really well for yourself. At in Adam Henrique, three million bucks. Perfectly good player when he was, uh, with both the ducks and the oilers. Again, like they're, they're putting him in a position to succeed there. Uh, they get Matias Yanmark back. They get Corey Perry back. Like, if, if you were going to say like this is an ideal

outcome for them, like all those guys all in for probably just doing the math here really quickly, like 12 and a half million, something like that. And nobody signed beyond next season. I think that's totally reasonable. Yep. I liked what I mentioned did. Yeah. Let's see here.

We talked about Stam. Well, I guess we kind of talked about Stamco's. Yeah. Four years, eight million bucks. Mm-hmm. So there you go. You know, I thought I thought Utah was going to be the team to do it,

but I can't really knock. Nashville for wanting to get a guy who's going to sell, I would say probably $8 million worth of jerseys. So that's one year taking care. Very well might, yeah, yeah. It'll be weird, but that's hockey. It's the business of the sport, as they say. Let's see, let's see.

We did lend home. Oh, we didn't mention that Nashville also signed Brady Shay seven years, seven million bucks a pop. What's up, dude? Not bad when you can get a deal like that and be the third biggest signing. Yeah, kind of flies under the radar of... Did you know they did this? And you're like, they did?

Mm-hmm. I don't know. I wouldn't have given them that contract personally. He's a good player, but $7 million is a lot. It is, but, yeah, it just is. Actually, I don't... Yeah, no, we don't think there's a butt. Yeah.

Vancouver, they added some... some wingers from Boston here. The Great Danton, Danton, Hinen, and Jake Debrusk. Debrusk gets seven years, 5.5. The Great Dantan gets two years, 2.25. What do you think at Debrusk?

Because I've seen, to me, a surprising number of people who seem to like that deal. I mean, I think he will play well with Lindholm, which, or, sorry, Patterson, which is where Alvin said yesterday, he envisions de Brusk starting.

I think that's a good pairing, but like, I think there's a lot of risk that, you know, Debrusk is more the, the 20-ish goal guy than the 30-goal-paced guy that he was in Boston for a few years there, you know? Yeah. Just, it feels, I don't know, that contract felt like a lot to me, but. It did. I have, you know, I like the player,

convincing-ish arguments that it, it could be a very good fit, especially as he, you know, depending who he plays with. Yeah, I, I don't like hate it, but I also am like,

yeah, if it takes you seven years on the, like, if you have to give Jake DeBrusk what we call the Red Arrow contract, mm-hmm. I don't know, man. Just,

uh, I've never, been a big Debrose kid, so that's kind of where things are with that. Let's see here, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Casey DeSmith gets three years in Dallas. Now, here's the thing. It's only a million bucks. But there was a lot of like, what's Dallas doing exactly yesterday? And I have to say, I kind of agree with that. Matt Dumba, two years, three point seven five. I'm a bigger, this is another one with like the Chandler-Stevenson thing where it's like I'm a bigger defender of his than I think some people might expect. You know, hard to look good when you're on the Arizona Coyotes last season.

But like I didn't think that this was a contract. He went out and earned, let's say, you know. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people looking at Dallas going, it's not enough here. Jim Nils, back-to-back GM of the year trophies. I'm going to be taken away from him. Yeah. He's bad now.

Sorry, bud. But I did like them bringing back Dushain for three million bucks. I thought Dushan had a pretty fucking good year for them. I thought he would get more and certainly more years somewhere. Yeah, 65 points in 80 games for a guy that's going to make three million bucks for you next year. That's great. Jump at that, yeah. Yeah.

There are, you know, obviously some other aspects of his game that may be, aren't that. Points aren't everything, et cetera. But, you know, $3 million. I don't know how you can complain about that. So, yeah, that's

that. We mentioned Chandler-Stevenson. I'm just looking at like two and three plus year deals here. Or, you know, big AAVs. Oh, the other edition in Dallas was Ely Lubushkin, 3.25. I don't know why you're doing that.

Have fun with that. Yep. Big salute to Lue. Lamarillo. The Islanders made, I believe, one signing yesterday, but it was a super reasonable Anthony Duclair four years, three and a half million bucks. I like that deal a lot for them. Mm-hmm. Yep. What's not to like? I think that's a good one. Yep. Let's see. David Perron in Ottawa, two years, four million. You want to talk about what the senators did yesterday?

Yeah, well, let's talk more about the chicken deal, I think. Oh, yeah, we didn't mention that. Sure, of course. Because that is, let's say, not getting rave reviews up here in Ottawa. Now, look, they were backed into a corner on Chikrin. First of all, like, he just didn't fucking want to play for them. Does that sound familiar? Jacob Chikrin getting an underwhelming return because he makes it clear he doesn't want

to fucking play for that team. Speaking of guys who've never been in the playoffs. Yeah. I mean, well, so, okay, here's the thing about Chakran. I still need to be shown that he's more than like an empty calorie. I'm a defenseman who scores 14 goals a year or whatever the number is. Okay. I'm waiting to see it.

We said it when they traded for him. I didn't see a lot in the whatever year and a half he was in Ottawa that convinced me otherwise, you know? Mm-hmm. Now he goes to Washington, where I wonder about his value, because a lot of his value is derived on the powerplay. You think they're going to let him shoot the puck on the power play in Washington? You know what? That's an excellent point. I hadn't thought about it that way.

He shoots the puck on the power play. He gets back to the bench, and it's like, do you know what the fuck we're doing here, man? You're cut. What are you thinking? No one is allowed to shoot on the power play. Well, next year, 100% of the shots taken on the Washington Power Play should be by Alex Ovechkin. And if you, you know, you want to say you're banging a rebound, that's a different story. But if you're beyond the top of the circles and you're not deferring to Ovechkin, you're going to get yelled at.

Which is maybe how it should be. But I mean, they gave up nothing to get him, right? Yeah, that's the same. They gave up nothing to get him. You know, it's been a year that we've been hearing about this trade. And it's always been the thing, right? Like, well, trade them during the season. Move them at the deadline.

Ah, you can't move guys at the deadline. But you know what? A draft weekend, teams are going to be lining up. Draft weekend comes and goes, eh, you know, a lot of teams want to see what's out there for agency. But on July 1st, we'll move them. We'll move them July 1st. You wait. And July 1st comes along.

Ah, yeah, it turns out people are just signing the defensemen for free instead of getting our guy. And then they do move them. third round pick and a worse defenseman who at least plays the right side. Yeah, that does help. They don't even save very much money. No, they, I think they took on a million. Oh, no, you're talking about the senators, yeah. No, right.

But I mean, it's not like, wow, you know, they got the cat, like Jensen makes like four million. So. Yeah. And the other thing is he signed for next year, well. And not particularly good. So that's a problem. But the other thing I wanted to say about,

about Chikrin, now he's in a walk year. How much is Washington going to have to pay an empty calories unless he really breaks out and shows me something? Well, what's he going to cost? Here's the counterpoint to that. They gave up so little to get him that I'm not. sure that the shiny new toy factor kicks in here.

If they get a year of them. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying like if he's... Or they get a year of him and miss the playoffs and trade him at the deadline. Like, they're still going to come out ahead on this. I wonder if they would trade him at the deadline. That's all. I wonder if like, because I...

Yeah, I guess he would be a pending UFA, huh? Yeah. It's interesting. I guess we'll see. We talked about the Tanev deal, just scrolling up here. Warren Fogel to the Kings for three and a half million bucks. What are the Kings doing exactly? Nobody seems quite sure.

Okay. Nobody seems to like what they're doing. No, I mean. Other than getting out of Pierre-Luc Dubois, but. Yeah, and even then. They took back a Darcy Camper contract that nobody should like. They also gave Joel Edmondson. four years at 3.85?

Strange. Strange one. I liked them with the Leafs, but not at four years. Not four years, not at that price point, for sure. Even the price point I could have maybe lived with on a short deal. On a short deal, sure, yeah. Let's see, who else? Who else? We mentioned the Sean Walker thing. Oh, I guess we can talk about Minnesota here.

Jake Middleton is, what did he get? It's an extension that kicks in after this coming season, but he got four years, 4.35. And who was the other guy they got? Yakov Trennan, four years 3.5. I like Trennan. That's about it, though. Yeah.

Another, like, where's this team going, though? Well, so this is the thing that I had to kind of remind myself of. This is the last year of the huge cap hit for Paris and Suez. Right. And so once that shakes free, they're going to be really interesting next summer. They still are operating with some big handcuffs on them. So, again, like, I don't know that I think they're going to make the playoffs. They are, what was the quote from Garron yesterday?

Like, they were expecting some bigger contributions by guys that I would say, like, Freddie, they were like, we need more from Freddie Goddrow. And it's like, I don't know that you're getting more from Freddie Goddrow. But, okay, sure. You know, that kind of thing. But yeah, that's, uh, both those contracts are okay for me. Uh, nothing, nothing crazy. Uh, let's see here.

Oh, I guess the UC Soros contract, we didn't talk about it. It became official yesterday. Uh, eight years, 7.74. Less than I thought. That's for sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah, very much. So I just wanted to stay. Yep.

I think understood that while there's a lot of guys who might want to stay somewhere, they may feel like, ah, this team's bluffing. They wouldn't move me. And with somebody coming right up behind. Now, what was interesting is with Ascarov, they apparently were shopping them hard at the draft. Yeah, they were asked around. But we're, you know.

But at a big time price that nobody was interested in. So, yeah, situation to watch. In theory, could have a hell of a trade ship if you're in Asheville to play at some point in your chase to get back to contending status. Let's see. Oh, Tyler Tofoli, we can talk about what the sharks did, where they spent a bunch of money on guys that are going to help, you know, basically what Chicago did last summer. and this summer. This kind of makes me think Celebrini's signing. I was a little,

I wasn't maybe 50-50, but I was like, oh, there's a decent chance he goes back to BU. I don't think that anymore. Tyler To Foley, four years, six million bucks, Alex Wemberg,

two years, five million bucks. There's probably one I'm missing here. But between him and Will Smith, they're surrounding those guys with some, with some help, let's say. So, I get it. And if I'm like Tyler Tofoli, I'm like, yeah, I will take six million bucks for the next four years, for sure.

No problem for me. Yep. They made him an offer he couldn't refuse. You ever hear about these? Get the springs off. It's all right. Yeah. Oh, Zemgus Georgensen's to Tampa.

That's a fun one. I like that. Classic. They still make. that question mark. Yeah. Yep. It will be haunting to see Geregensons in a non-shavers jersey.

You're like, you know, like you get up from the, from the couch, you like you bang on the side of the TV. I don't think this is right. What's like, what's going on? Yeah. Honestly, I don't, I don't know why this is true, but this is true for me. I think this is weirder than Stamco's in a Predator's jersey for me. Wow. Yeah, it's wild.

Maybe it's because I reckoned with the idea of Stamcoast moving on whatever, like a decade ago. You know, I thought about that a little bit. Do you see there was a list somewhere of like guys who had played as long as Stamcoast with one team moving to other teams? Obviously, there have been lots, you know, there have been the Eisenman type guys who played for one team their whole career. But it was a longer list than I thought. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, a lot of them were like Gordy Howe. And it's like, okay, sure.

Right. But like this was a list sorted by seasons with one team before moving to another. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But Dano was another one. But I think there were, I think there was like Gordy Howe was forever. And I think there was one guy at 19.

Yeah. And then everyone else was a kind of. in the range. Like Patrick Marlowe was another one, but it was more guys than I would have thought. Would have been a good trivia question if I'd seen it instead of having the answer. This actually reminds me. Eric Gustafson signed yesterday. How did that possibly remind you?

I'm going to tell you in one second. I just got to pull up his elite prospects page for a second here. So he signed with Detroit yesterday. How many teams would you guess that Eric Gustavson has played for since the 2019-20 season, including the Detroit Red Wings? Is he up to five? He has blown past five, my friend. Listen to this. Starts 2019-20 with Chicago, moves to the Calgary Flames.

Next year, Flyers moves to the Canadians. Next year, Chicago again goes back to Chicago, stays there the whole year. then two seasons ago, Washington moves to Toronto. All of last year with the Rangers, now he's on the Red Wings. That's nine different stops since 1920 with eight different teams. That is wild. As someone pointed out on the Discord yesterday, when we do the Journeyman game, that is a whole Journeyman game qualifying run in five seasons.

Wow. That's fucking crazy. And that's what it, because I think the minimum on Journeyman game is eight. So even before he signs with Detroit, I could have put him in there. Is that not wild? Mm-hmm. And like a huge number of them are original six teams for some reason. He's played for all of them.

But, uh, but Boston and, oh, no, this might be it, right? Because Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, New York, Detroit. Yeah, only Boston is the only one he's never played for. That's going to be a fucking trivia question. Yet. Well, I'm calling Don Sweeney right now. You got to get, you know, he plays one game for the Red Wings. You trade a fourth round pick for him.

Or, you know, he can do the one day retire as a Bruin contract. But isn't that crazy? Nine teams in five years? Yeah. That's wild. That is. Or nine stops. I think it's eight teams and nine stops because he goes back to Chicago.

But still. And five of them original six teams. Wild. I'm trying to think if there's a... Oh, Yuri Slavkovsky, speaking of the Habs, goes eight years seven point six. For a contract, obviously, the kicks in. Yeah.

So another one of those bet on the kid contracts. Yep. No guarantee, but certainly I like it a lot for Montreal. Some risk, high reward. But, boy, I imagine... Imagine seeing that news halfway through last season, a year and a half into his career. You would have been like, that's crazy.

Yeah, that's kind of the thing, right? Like, it's a little bit for me the Tim Stutzler thing, where it's like, well, I mean, he had 90 points last year. So extrapolate that 160 by the time he's 25. That's right. And then that didn't work out. There's a little bit of that to me, but obviously I think this is a really good,

a young player who does a lot more than put up points. Let's put it that way. But now he's got to earn it. And that is often a different thing. So, yeah. What else? What else? Oh, Sean Monaghan five years, 5.5 to Columbus?

Columbus tax is back. There it is. We did it. I get it. I don't know why if you're Columbus, you're wanting to sign up for a 35-year-old Sean Monaghan of hand. Not a guy with the best injury history, but... He's a player. He's a good point. You got to get somebody. You got to get somebody for sure.

And he's a, and as I say, perfectly good, uh, depth center option. I wonder if they'll be using him as that. Um, we're still waiting also for a Patrick Lineate trade. So, yep. Um, let's see. I feel like that's it for like the really big, notable ones. Um, oh, uh, Mad Vey Mitchcov signed officially. in Philly. That's cool. That kicks ass. I think that's awesome

that they got him over. Can't wait to watch him. Yeah, that's going to be really, really fun. Did we really talk about what the Red Wings did, apart from Patrick Kane? And I guess Eric Gustafson, what their goalie situation looks like? Yeah.

It's weird. This is what I wanted to talk about with them. So their goaltenders next year are Ville whoso, Cam Talbot, Alex Lyon, Jack Campbell. They signed Jack Campbell after the Oilers bought him out. And obviously, Jack Campbell and Alex Lyon, both are variable contracts. You know, you're not going to carry four goalies at the NHL level, let's say. I like the approach insofar as I really think that there's a really good chance that one of these guys is pretty good.

for a good chunk of the season. Mm-hmm. I know there's a pretty low chance that any two of them are pretty good for a good chunk of the season, you know? But between all four of them, I think it makes sense that you would take this approach because none of them are particularly reliable, but maybe they can show you something. Now, do I want to pay $8.9 million combined against the cap for four goalies? No, I really don't.

Yeah. But it's, I mentioned this in. in the piece I wrote yesterday. Like the Atlantic is just going to be brutal. It's a fucking new brother. And I would hate to be one of those teams trying to find my way into that playoffs, especially since when you look at the East, the one playoff spot you look at and go,

well, that's obviously the one that's going to free up. It would have been Washington. Yeah. And now they've gotten better, maybe, question mark. But, you know, they're certainly trying to, trying to hold out of that spot. Yeah. Oh, speaking of Washington, we forgot to mention Matt Roy.

I really like that contract a lot. That's another, that's another like Sean Walker style. Like, yeah, we're going to be talking about how good he is for quite a while, I think. They need to help on the blue line. They went out and got it. I really like those additions. But again, like, they got insanely lucky to make the playoffs last year. Let's just be, let's just fucking call it what it is.

And I don't know. I don't know how you see, like you said it, like a path for the playoffs that's super realistic for them. That's all. And I think they've undoubtedly gotten better this offseason. No question about it in my mind. I'm just, you know, how much better do you got to be to make this a reliable playoff team? Because they got Manjipane, too. you know, so I feel like we forgot to mention that earlier.

But yeah. And Logan Thompson. So that, you know, am I gambling on the Logan Thompson, Charlie Lindgren combo being like great next year? I'm not gambling too much on it. I'll put it that way. But yeah, I think that's about it. Yeah, I'm sure we miss. I missed one or two, but please don't yell at us.

We are, there, there were a lot. When I was doing the grades yesterday, there was a point where I just had like the confirmed, locked in on-cap friendly deals in front of me. And I looked and I was like 22 behind on things I hadn't graded and I was like, fuck me, man. Yeah. And then I spent like the next three hours working through it and I got there eventually. And I, and again, I definitely missed some.

I couldn't tell you which one. but I definitely some fell through the cracks. There's no way around it. But yeah. And then finally, a really nasty bit of news, I thought, for a news dump at 5 p.m. or whatever it was on what percentage of NHL fans would you say live in Canada and we're celebrating Canada Day yesterday? I would say quite a lot. A third, 40%, something like that?

Maybe more, at least of the diehards. Really trying to sneak this one through. It didn't work. I was looking at Twitter when it happened. They are reinstating the eligibility to be people who work in the NHL of Stan Boehm and Joel Quinville and Al McIsaac, who were suspended, like two and a half years, something like that. I don't know if suspended's the right word, but they were not allowed to be in the league for two and a half years following all the Kyle Beach sexual.

assault stuff that happened on their watch and with them kind of explicitly saying, we're not going to worry about this right now. Yeah. And again, like still, I went back this morning and like just to refresh my memory, like read the Jenner Block report and, you know, to this day, still some disagreement over who knew what and when and what they were told at that infamous meeting. whether they were told that somebody had been assaulted or whether they were just told that, quote, unquote, something had happened and who was left with the impression that it would be dealt with. And the one name, obviously, that wasn't involved in yesterday's announcement is John McDonough, who was the president, the highest ranking person in the room, who at least some of the participants, including Stan Bowman, were under the impression, was the president.

the one who put up his hand and said he would handle it and then didn't. Right. You know, he was, he was the one in that reporter came out looking the worst, but certainly Bowman and Quenville didn't look great. And, and Quenville, in addition, remember, like when the story first surfaced, acted like he had never heard of it. Right. And then we find out that, you know, he was in the meeting and what have you.

So, you know, it's tough because, again, like, we don't know exactly what happened. And there is a huge difference between being told that, hey, your video coach just committed sexual assault and kind of shrugging versus being told, hey, something weird's going on. And John's going to look into it and not following up, which is still not okay. No. And that's the tough part. Can I quickly read what Scott Powers wrote. wrote, like, I think summed it up perfectly in one tweet. What Brad Aldrich allegedly did with the Blackhawks was bad enough, but their management's failure to properly report him allowed him to go on and sexually assault a minor.

To me, there's no coming back from that. Maybe not surprising, but the NHL's decision was wrong today. That's exactly perfectly said. It's not surprising at all. I think a lot of people in the league and, you know, in positions of power to say something about this or whatever you want to say are just like, look, they did their time. And they put in the like the NHL statement said, they put in a bunch of work and we're all just supposed to take that at face value, I guess. And yes, there was a moment on TSN where Craig Button, who I generally like, but he, you know, essentially, I think it was Mike Johnson was saying. Mike Johnson and Frankie Corrado.

Yeah. We need to know what these guys did. And Craig Button kind of said, well, they've, they've done the work. And I'm paraphrasing here. So hopefully I'm not being unfair to Craig. But his point seemed to be, hey, they've done the work because they wouldn't be reinstated if they're. Right, yeah. And that's simply not good enough for...

No, and, you know, I've heard it suggested that when these guys sign with teams, which they undoubtedly will. You know, Stan Bowman already being talked about, he's getting the Oilers job, right? Yeah. And the only reason we're not hearing the same thing about Joel Quinville is that all those coaching vacancies were pretty much filled. I think Columbus is the only one without one at this point. They're far enough along in their search that they probably didn't even talk to Joel Quinville because they didn't think he would be available. And you would think that Columbus wouldn't be interested because of the Mike Babcock experience. But then the flip side is Columbus the sort of team that would say this is our only chance to get a guy like this under this.

I think they probably did that with Mike Babcock. And look how that worked out for. And they got burned. So I don't think I don't think, I don't think Quinnville. is coming back anytime soon. I think when when coaching hires are being made mid-season, like guys are getting fired and stuff like that, you're going to hear his name a lot.

And I, like I said, Scott Powers put it perfect. It's, I don't think there should be any coming back from this, full stop. Maybe, and to your point, even the stuff you said about like, it's not really clear who knew what, when and all that kind of stuff. okay, sure. But, you know, he was convicted of sexually assaulting a minor Brad Aldrich was. Yeah. And, you know, Aldrich was...

That's the problem here. Like, he was Quenville's employee, right? He's on the coaching staff. And the fact that Quenville just certainly seemed to straight up lie about having knowledge of this, you know, before it, you know, when the story surfaced, but before it really blew up into an unavoidable scandal. You know, that he just played it off the way he did. I don't know. But, yeah, as you said, meanwhile, it sounds like Bowman is the frontrunner in Edmonton, which, I mean, obviously as a team, you know, they already went out and got Evander Cain on the cheap when they could.

They went out and got Corey Perry. This, I think organizationally, it's very clear that the Oilers are not worried about taking bad PR. Yep. GM's a totally different deal, but it sure sounds like that might happen. Or maybe it happens unless, you know, they kind of, they reinstate the guys, but they say you can't hire them until July 10th,

which feels like a trial balloon time. Yep. If people do what they did with Perry and Kane and get mad for one day and move on, then, and, you know, here I'm saying specifically in Edmonton, fans and media there it's we will see yeah I think that's right

um it's just like not surprising but certainly still you're just like come you don't this is so fucking like such a layup to to not allow these guys bad like it doesn't mean they can't

uh like work in hockey or whatever but it means they can't work in the NHL I think it's one of things where it's like, you know what, you had your opportunity and you blew it. And again, I'll just refer to that. Scott Bowers tweet. There should have been no coming back from the fallout here. And yet, if you're perceived as being good enough at your job, all the other stuff just straight up won't matter. And look, I think, I think it's fair to say that when he's behind the bench, there are a few coaches in the history of the league better than Joel Quenville.

I think there's the track record that suggests that. And I'm not saying that, like, would be the reason to sign him now or whatever. But with Stan Bowman, it's like, you're going to take that flack to hire him? Yeah. That just seems weird to me. Mm-hmm. But. I got to say the, you know, I know we all talk.

talk about, well, you know, it's hockey culture. This is, you know, nobody feels surprised by this. I happen to be walking by when Kelly McCriman was talking to the media after Vegas drafted Trevor Connolly. Yeah. On Friday night. Oh, yeah, there's that too. And it was just, I mean, it was just the impression that I got was,

I mean, he couldn't have cared less about the controversy other than that it meant that they got a top 10 talent later than they would have. Yep. And, I mean, it was just a word salad. And again, it's just a, no, we trust us. We looked into this. We did our due diligence. And the other one was, you know, our culture is so great here that this will actually be good for him to come in and walk into that room.

And he'll instant. Yep. They always think that shit. It sucks. They always do. And, and, you know, I've, what, three days later. And it almost feels like that story has already gone away. And again, like, if we find out there's like true remorse and they really did the work and they can walk us through that, then maybe I'd listen to it.

I would. I want to hear it, but I don't. Oh, no, I'm saying I would listen to it. And maybe at the end, maybe at the end, I'm like, it's still not good enough. I don't care. And I just want to be clear. I don't know what quote unquote doing the work looks like here. and my instinct is to say there's no amount of work.

But maybe they can do some kind of work that changes my mind. I'm open to that possibility. I don't think it's very likely. To me, there's basically no scenario where they should be able to come back. It's that simple. I can't imagine what it would be, but I guess it is technically possible. That's all. We said it a million times on the show that,

There's no benefit of the doubt here. None whatsoever. Really show it, really prove it. And part of that is maybe going into some detail about what it, you know, if Stan Bowman wants to sit down and go, look, nobody told me that it was an assault and my boss city was going to handle it. You know, like, at this point, how long ago was that, right? Like he, you know. In the meeting I'm talking about. I think at this point it's pretty clear that the meeting was way too vague.

And again, nobody stood up in that meeting and said, what specifically are we talking about here? Yeah. Which was, you know, but, you know, between that and him saying, but also, I didn't follow up, I didn't do this, I didn't do that. Here's all the things I should have done. I realize that now. Here's what I've been doing. I mean, I don't even know what do the work is here. I honestly, I feel like that phrase kind of,

we overuse it to a point. Yeah, talk about, what is do the work? Like there's no, did you build a time machine, then you haven't done the work. And then the other thing is if he has anything to say on it, I wouldn't mind hearing from Kyle Beach on this and how he feels about, you know, what's happened here. Because we saw that, like, you know, in the Mitchell Miller case

where, you know, he says, oh, I've done the work and I've done this and that. And the victim says, no, you didn't. You haven't done any of that stuff. And that I have mixed feelings about that because I also, I don't. Yeah, I don't want him to like feel like he has. Right. I don't want him to feel like he has to say anything. And there's almost this kind of like, oh, yeah, like you're cool with it, right?

Like you're, you know, you're going to stand up and say these guys are good dudes. Right. But, you know, certainly if he doesn't feel that way, I, you know, I hope we hear from him. and on some form or other if he chooses. Yep. No obligation, but that would help me understand better, just how frustrated to be about all of this. But we'll see.

Sounds like we'll be talking about it maybe next week when the Oilers hire Stan Bowman. Yep, that's right. And on that great note, why don't we hit the plugs and get out of here? Yep, sounds good. Find me of the athletic. I've got all my draft. weekend wrap-up stuff, free agency wrap-ups.

I'm going to have more later in the week, including at some point I will have the results of the playoff contests that a few people have asked about. And then into off-season mode where things will get weird. Yep. And then for me, head over to E.P. Rinkside. You can still get the draft guide if you sign up and, you know, learn all about the players your team just drafted.

over the weekend and that kind of thing. And I'll have more transaction grades. I've, like I said, graded almost everything, I think, except like the really minor stuff or something that just happened in that crazy afternoon yesterday. And use the code I Love EP, and you'll get three months tacked on to the end of your annual subscription, free of charge, and then head to patreon.com slash puck soup, get all our bonus episodes,

mailbags, stuff like that, especially because it's the summer now. And we're taking weeks of the main show off because there's just not going to be a ton to talk about. But we will still do like bigger than usual mailbags to cover anything that may happen. So if you want to hear about like there's a big signing on Thursday and you want to hear us talk about it,

the only place to do it is going to be the Patreon mailbag. So head over there and, check all that out. And thanks for listening and see you later. Goodbye, everybody. Bye-bye.