Puck Soup - No Match

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Sean and Ryan talk about the Oilers not matching the Blues' offer sheets, the Patrik Laine trade, and the Yaroslav Askarov trade request, then play a quick game of Surely That's Gotta Be It. Sponsored by Mint Mobile (mintmobile.com/puck) and AGI (drinkag1.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAnne from The Athletic. And Sean, I was thinking about this yesterday. You know how I know that we have like, you know, the hockey gods on our side or whatever? Anytime we have to do a show this summer, nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens. In the 48 hours before every show we've had to do this summer, it's been like, here's nine things that happened. Yeah. We're almost getting to like a reverse Puck Soup curse.

where everything happens before, including the Oilers making their announcement this morning, just a little bit early. A little bit. That's exactly right. Getting up early in whatever times on Alberta's in. They in Mountain, or are they one of those weird ones where it's like, yeah, we're in Mountain, but like we don't have daylight savings, so you can never tell what time it is there? It's probably something like that.

Yeah. They've got to be in Mountain because the Rockies are just a few minutes away, as we learned. Mere seconds from the oil. You can see them from the rink, I think. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, as Sean says, they opted not to sign the offer sheets extended to Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway by the St. Louis Blues last week. And I don't think any, well, okay, you weren't around last week.

And let's get your reaction to just the offer sheet in general, or both of them in general. It was cool to see. First of all, because it's offer sheets. I think just for whatever reason, just hockey fans like them. We think they're cool. No, why wouldn't you? It's fun to sneak up and try to steal somebody's stuff. Yeah.

That's exciting, right? And the fact that it was like finally somebody. trying the long-discussed dual offer sheet strategy. Yep. I feel like we've been talking about this for years. Not we, you and I. Like we, as if the hockey world. The hockey world.

I know Travis Eos has been talking about it for a while, and I think there have been others where they've sort of said, like, this would be how you would do it. And they did it. And I thought that was cool, but I still was looking at it going, The Oilers will match. The Oilers will figure out a way to match. So I'm mildly surprised.

And I guess just purely from a fan perspective, like this is a good thing that they didn't match because offer sheets can work, dual offer sheets can work. And, you know, it's, God, it's some news. It's a transaction in the middle of August. I'll take it. That's exactly right.

And this little bonus trait that is like just coming across the wire as we're recording this is, I think, quite interesting. Where St. Louis is basically slipping the oilers. What was it, a third in a prospect? A third in 2028 and like an okay prospect, this kid, Paul Fisher, who played as a freshman for Notre Dame last year, a decent enough season, I guess you'd say. It's 2028. the third? Yeah, 2028 third.

I love that. Let's go full junior hockey, man. Yeah. That might be the farthest out I've ever seen in NHL. Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure that I can recall going four years out. Now it's, I guess, three seasons or, I don't know, it's four seasons. Well, no, you got the 2025, six, seven and eight draft. So that's four years out.

Other than like maybe the Gretzky trade, I think, was like every, the picks were spaced out maybe. Well, sure. Yeah. I mean, it's almost, yeah, it's almost like, you know, in the cap era. Yeah. This is just one of those things.

Because I was, I was looking this up, and I, you know, I won't tip my hand too much here because we might do a game show later if we got time. But I was looking it up and it's like, oh, yeah, offer sheets just happened all the time in the early 90s. Yes. There just used to be like three or four a summer. So, you know, I can't look back at the Gretzky trade and be like, oh, yeah, no, it's the same environment as it is today in the NHL. I'd say that's a fair. But it does get to something, not quite the way I had been thinking about it, but I've been saying for a little while now that, like, there is room for creativity.

Sure. In an offer sheet situation, especially if the team that is getting victimized, to use an over dramatic term. But the team that feels like they're being victimized, if they don't just like... The teams are being attacked. Yeah. If they don't immediately just start sulking or instamatch to show that like what big tough guys they are,

there is room for the two teams to work with each other. I think most people know that the moment a player signs an offer sheet, player can no longer be traded. You cannot turn around if you're the Oilers and be like, well, we just traded them to the, you know, some other team. Well, and also you couldn't just trade them to the team that just signed them. You cannot. More pointedly.

Except that you kind of can because you can work out these side deals. And even in the case of, and again, this is going back pre-cap, but I'm surprised this hasn't happened more often because I wrote about it last, last, last, last. week, I guess, where back in the 90s there was a player named Chris Grattan, who was pretty good. He got an offer sheet that the team didn't want a match, but also they didn't want draft picks as compensation. So what they did is they worked out a deal where they did not match, they got the draft picks, and then they immediately traded those exact draft picks back to the team for players

instead. Wow. Nothing stopping you from doing that, right? There'd be nothing stopping the oilers from saying, we don't want these picks, but, okay, if you give us this guy, we won't match and then we'll trade you the picks for that guy. it all comes out in the wash. And that's not quite what they did here, but instead, you know,

clearly at some point, Stan Bowman calls up Doug Armstrong or vice versa and says, not sure what I'm going to do, kind of 50-50, if you want it to sweeten the pot a little bit, maybe you get both players. And then they work out this little side deal.

And in theory, everyone's happy. Maybe, maybe not. But nothing stopping you from doing it. You know, so when you see, you know, people say, wow, these picks aren't enough for compensation or this isn't a, yeah, okay, so pick up the phone and do your job and see if there's a different way to approach it. And it seems like that's what they did here. Yeah. Were you at all surprised, I guess, by like just the fact that Philip Roperer specifically got that contract? Yeah, I mean, it's It's a much higher number than I think you would have expected But that's kind of part of the offer sheet

Nature of the game, yeah I mean, you sort of have to Unless the other team is just completely capped out You kind of have to go to a higher You have to find that sweet spot Of like what's the highest number we're comfortable with Right Even as an overpayment

That they're not going to want to pay and also keeps us in the range of the compensation that we want to give up. So it was well done by Doug Armstrong. I mean, you've nailed it a couple of times in the stuff you've been writing where they're doing this somewhat unusual, like, two-year handoff thing in St. Louis with the GM title. Yeah. And Doug Armstrong isn't sticking around just so he can do a boring rebuild.

Yeah, they're not going to tank. So. Like, why not just retire early? at that point, quote unquote early. Exactly. So, you know, he's clearly trying to put a playoff team together, I guess. And, and I mean, purely, like purely from a talent asset, you know, trade cost, it's a good trade for the blues. Get these two guys for, I guess, a second, a third, a third, and a prospect.

That, you know, that's not a deal. The Oilers would have been interested in making. on its own. Now factoring in salaries and everything, maybe a little tougher, but I'd rather be overpaying guys in their early 20s than guys in the early 30s, the way most GMs do. Do you buy this idea that Doug Armstrong would have never, ever done this if the sainted and respected Ken Holland

had still been alive? Yeah, I always thought that was kind of. Like, the way it was being framed was like, they're golfing buddies. So he's, And the way they talk about Ken Holland after they let him go over the summer, blah, blah, blah. This is revenge. Yeah, I don't know that I buy that. These guys are all buddies on some level, right? Like, if you said to me any two GMs, those guys are, those guys are always hanging out when it's GM meetings.

They're always golfing together. I go, yeah, sure. You know, they have a lot of interests in common. They like hockey. They're rich, old white guys, you know? There's a lot for them to talk about. I buy the idea that maybe Doug Armstrong doesn't do this if it's Ken Holland, but not the idea that this was like cooked up as some sort of like I've seen some of some of the talk around it like veering into the cat like the area of like well why didn't Ken Holland get these guys signed? Maybe because he knew he was on his way at the door and then he could cook up a plot with his buddy Doug Armstrong.

Yeah, I mean that's crazy. But, like, the Edmonton media, I can't remember who was like, oh, no, like the team straight up told him get these guys signed in, like, January. And they maybe weren't necessarily all that interested in signing in January because they wanted to see if they could improve their value or whatever. Sure. And this is where I'll say what I said, like on the Patreon episode last week when we didn't have the regular show. This Brober contract is fucking insane, right? And, you know, we had John Cullen as the Sean replacement while Sean was on vacation. And John was like, oh, well, I mean, he had a decent playoff.

And it's like, yeah, he definitely did have a decent playoff. Except that, like, I looked it up. And his, do you know what his P.D.O was, Broberg at five on five? I don't know off the top of my head, but I, I remember. remember reading this in your piece. 110. Yeah. 110.

And when he was on the ice, they outscored the other team six to two. That's like bad, actually. If your PDO's 110 and you only outscore the other team six to two, that's not good. It should have been higher than that. Like it should have been like nine to one or something, probably. So, you know, I'm not totally convinced that Broberg is a full-time NHLard, let alone one that is worth 4. whatever million.

Yikes. Okay. You know, but also he just turned 23. So it's not like it's impossible. But this is, this just seems like one of those contracts where if the oilers had matched by like December, everybody would have been giving him the Cody C.C. Treatment. Like, we got to get this guy the fuck out of here.

Mm-hmm. And that's fine. You know, like I, I don't blame the guy. I think it was Elliot said he had wanted like 1.8 million or something like that. And the blues come along and they're like, how about 4.8? Yeah, no shit, man. I'll take that. No problem.

Thank you. This is always the thing, right? When we're sitting around every summer talking about how there's no offer sheets, somebody will always come along and like push their glasses up their nose and be like, hey, did you know that the player has to agree to the offer sheet? Right. And we, and, you know, we slap our foreheads and drop back into our chairs. But it is true that, like, you know, some of these situations, well, why don't they target this guy hit?

The player might not want that. I think if you're getting 4.8 instead of 1.8, you're probably, that might be a situation where your agent, like, puts the chair up against the door and it's like, you're not leaving here. That's exactly right. Yeah. And then with Holloway, I felt like, you know, this felt like about right to me, 2.2 kind of approve it contract. That felt about right to me. And I don't, again, like maybe the Oilers are offering 1.5. And you're like, well, if I can get 50% more.

Yeah. And probably a better opportunity, like just in terms of, you know, let's be honest, the Oilers have a slightly deeper forward group. And the blues do. Debatable, but, you know. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, on the one hand, you got, like, Leon Drysidal and Connor McDavid. Right.

And on the other hand, you got like, uh, uh, uh, uh, oh, yeah, Jordan Kairer, Robert Thomas, I guess, right. Like, that, like, that's, you got to go like, oh, oh, right, those are the two best forwards on the team. I like both of those players. But, like, if those are the two best forwards on your team, that's a problem, you know? I do wonder if keeping in mind that both of these were announced at the same

that like it was like if that was maybe part of it for either player to say well, hey, we're doing two of these things. And especially if one, let's say Broberg jumps at that offer, then you go to Halloween and you go, look man, we're signing again. So the offer sheet drama is happening either way. So you might as well get on board and get some extra money. out of this.

Right, for sure. Yeah, I, you know, I guess that, so here's why I'm surprised the Oilers let them both go. Is, I look at that blue line in Edmonton now, and I'm like, oh, I don't, I don't know, man. That's, that's a weird one to me. You know what I mean?

Obviously, they made the two trades on Sunday night, which made everybody go, Oh, maybe they're matching because they just freed up all this cap space by getting rid of Cody Cici. But then they also brought in Ty Emerson, and then they make the trade for Vasili Pod Colson. And it's like, okay, maybe they're only matching on Broberg? Like the number of ways this changed just in the last like 48 hours is kind of makes this all a little surprising, I guess. Yeah, it's been like a fun little drama to watch unfold. I like it.

Who's next? Who's getting the offer sheet next? Yeah, I mean, there are a decent number of unsigned RFAs out there in teams with Cap Space. We'll talk about one of them in a little while here. But I think we're probably done with offer sheets this summer. We are. We are probably done.

I mean, it's, it's, it's that thing where, let's not get greedy. We got. Yeah, we got two. I think we've only ever had one in a summer. Well, that's not true to the, the, the oilers did it. Was it the Oilers with Vanek and Penner? Yeah, it was, right? Yes, that's right.

When Vanek didn't work and then they went. And they got Dustin Penner. And that worked out great. And everyone was really happy. Really happy. So, yeah, I, you know, I'm pretty, I guess you've got to be pretty happy to just get the one locked in, you know? Can't, uh, beggars can't be choosers, I think is the, is the old saying. Believe it is.

Yeah. So, yeah, it's, um, it's interesting to see where the oilers go from here. Let's do, let's do this now. You think the oiler's like next move is just like, oh, yeah, we got dry sidel resigned. We're locked in. No problem. Yeah, everyone's, that's the big one. Everyone's kind of waiting on.

And the other thing is the some of the reporting around this morning's decision has been saying that, you know, hey, part of this is they wanted flexibility for during the season. They wanted some cap flexibility to add. And, you know, having these a couple of extra picks. doesn't hurt either, which is probably smart, but also implies that they're not going to rush out and make any moves right now. That's right. They're going to focus on dry saddle and then see what happens. Yeah, and along those lines, too, just, you know, like the Oilers have a million dollars in cap space.

and, you know, there was some talk that maybe Van der Kaine would just get LTIR for the season and make all of this kind of moot. But if there's a chance he's going to come back, that would have created huge problems for them. So, you know, I think obviously he's going to start the season on LTIR. Or, you know, the season starts and then they put him on LTIR after day one or whatever. but they just can't assume that they will, you know, go without him all year. That's kind of what I think is going on there. But yeah, it'll be, it'll be interesting. Just, you know, the oilers, I don't love Holloway or Broberg in terms of like what kind of an impact they could have for the NHL club this season.

I think, you know, they're pretty good, but they're not going to. like be huge needle movers. But you've got to say the oilers are worse today than they were a week ago. Yeah, especially when you're as top heavy and talented a team as Emmington, you need some young guys. Yep. You know, in theory in the NHL, the way the system typically works is the younger guys or the underpaid guys.

That's true. You need some underpaid guys when you're locked in on some of the best players in the world at the top of the lineup. So it does hurt, but I don't think anybody is. tearing up their oiler Stanley Cup betting slip this morning.

No, yeah. I mean, you know, the thing is, though, the odds are that they're not going to make the Western Conference final, right?

Like, that's just, that's true for the cup favorite is the odds are not in their favor, just the way the NHL works, you know? And so I wonder what happens.

I don't know that anybody's going to, we're in April and we're like, Oh, they shouldn't have let Broberg go. That's what fucked him in the playoffs. They lost the first round to Vegas or whatever. I don't think anybody's going to have that reaction. Unless they lose the first round of St. Louis. Yeah, I guess that's true.

Philip Broberg, seven-goal game in game four. To finish the sweep. I could have done this any time I want it to. But yeah, along those lines, I did want to talk about this from St. Louis's point of view. I think I think what we talked about earlier is right

that they don't want to do like a full tear-it-down rebuild for the last two years of Doug Armstrong having the GM job. But I think what they've done this summer also kind of indicates that they're doing the

retool by getting guys that maybe weren't working out elsewhere and hoping change of scenery kind of makes it happen for them. I think that's where you can kind of unequivocally say the strategy is here, because this summer they got Alexander Teschier,

remember him from Columbus. I do, yeah. Yep. They got Holloway, they got Broberg. Depending on how you feel about Pierre-Olivier-Joseph, he could kind of fit in that young-ish guy. He's 25, so maybe not. But a young-ish guy,

who they're kind of trying a reclamation project with. And, yeah, I don't know that, you know, if you're buying four or five lottery tickets, you're really only hoping one hits. So maybe one hits for them, you know. But if not, they're not like super financially in tough, you know, a tough situation with any of these guys. I don't know. I mean, the blues roster problems are kind of more in the middle of the lineup or the top than. You know, the Philip Roberg deal. Yeah, I don't think anyone looks at the Blues as very much this year other than playoff bubble team with a goalie who has in the past gotten hot and carried them.

I mean, the reason they were a playoff bubble team this past season is that Jordan Bennington was probably the second or third best goalie in the league. played a ton of games, a ton of goals saved above expected, high save percentage, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I guess that gets you within six points of the playoffs. Right?

I don't know how much more it does for you than that. And if he comes back to Earth at all, which is likely just, this is how it typically works. This guys can have one or two big seasons, but most of the time they're closer to the league average, let's say. There are a few goleys

for whom that's an exception, but I don't think Jordan Bennington's one of them. He was like 890 something the year before, right? Yep. I'll be nice. I'll say they'll meet in the middle. He's like a slightly above average goalie.

But remember, the Blues needed a world beating performance to get within six points of a playoff spot. They were ninth in the West last year. Pretty good. They were. And as you pointed out, six points is a lot. Six points is like one of those deceptive numbers that sounds close.

Yeah, you only needed to win six extra shootouts or whatever. That's a lot. I'm interested. I'm really curious to see. Oh, this is the other thing. These two deals put the Blues at 53 contracts. I don't know if I've ever seen a team that high. I did not even know you could go over the 50.

There are currently four teams that are over. The blues, the penguins, the capals, and the sharks. So it's like the cap you can go over like during the off-season kind of deal. Must be. I guess so. Yeah. I feel like I've seen it where it's maybe, you know, I guess I always figured there's like a grace period kind of like what you're saying. But like I figured it was even shorter than that.

Like you can go over for like a week or something. You know, but 53 is way over. So if you're a blues fan get used to getting faked out by some fake trades. Yeah. It's like, well, we traded who for a, oh, what? Oh, wait. No, that's some 27-year-old ECHL dude. Yep, that's right.

Cool. But yeah, I was, like I said, I just, I don't think I've ever seen 53 out of 50. I probably have and just like didn't register it or whatever. It's the summer, who cares? but, you know, this one had me pulling up the Puckpedia team page and going, whoa, 53, holy shit. That's crazy. I never seen that before. So, yeah, I think, did you, did you have any thoughts on Vasili Pod Colson?

I did not. Fresh start. Yeah, fresh start guy. Former top 10 pick. You know what? I shouldn't say former. Still a top 10 pick. That's right.

just happened a few years ago now. What's interesting about him, you mentioned his rookie year, is his games played in the NHL number has decreased every year from his rookie year? Not what you want. No, not ideal. I think he only played like 19 last year. His underlying numbers were good, but it's only 19 games. They probably, you know, used them pretty advantageously, let's say.

And I do think this is the part where we have to like, mention guys that were picked immediately after him. I can look that out. Matthew Boldy, Cole Coughfield, Alex New Hook, Peyton Krebs, Thomas Harley, all picked in the next eight picks. Yeah. The Canucks drafting in like the 2010s was so damn weird.

Well, I mean, you know, home run or absolute like swung and miss so hard that you spun yourself into the ground. Yeah, Bugs Bunny style. Those are the only two picks. that they had. Someone had to come along with a corkscrew get you out of the damn ground.

Exactly. Yeah, no, you're right about that. And what's funny about that, of course, is when Jim Benning still had his defender. I wonder if he still has his defenders. He probably does. But anyway, when all that was going on, it was always like, yeah, but like,

he's good at the draft. So that's why you got to keep him around for another six or seven years just to see what happens. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Yeah, I think we covered that from just about every angle. I don't think this affects either team's playoff odds very much. Like, I think the Oilers are in very, like the, the Maple Leaf Zone where it's like, okay, yeah, they're going to make the playoffs.

Playoffs kind of, or regular season just kind of doesn't matter for these guys. Yep. Right? We're trying to get McDavid to 60 goals again. We're trying to get McDavid to 150. points, whatever it is. Like, that's all, that's all we're really shooting for here. But it's not, they're going to like that cap flexibility when they got to

resign, uh, uh, dry sidle and, and McDavid, quite frankly. And, um, and, uh, Evan Bouchard as well. I guess we didn't really talk about the Cody C, C trade. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it's, uh, the team was like, yeah, we'll definitely give you a roster play. The only interesting thing about that was that a lot of people, felt like San Jose didn't squeeze as much as they thought they might for Evanton to dump that salary.

But you're the sharks. I mean, guys probably going to be like third or fourth best defenseman. Oh, yeah. He might be, I'm not joking, he might be on their top pair next year. Yeah.

Like, it's not Mike Greer's job to be like, I am here to screw over the Oilers. It's his job to, like, I'm, I'm always saying, like, you GM, like, your job is to do what's best for your team. Usually that means screwing over other teams, but in this case,

it meant being the guys who stepped up and went, yeah, we'll take a third for a guy that will actually play for us. Now, they can't retain salary this year. They're at the three max. Do you know who the three players they're retaining salary on right now? The sharks are? Yeah. Well, it's got to be a hurdle. That's right.

Carlson? Yep. One more. I do not know who the third is. Brent Burns still retaining salary on that deal. Really? Wow. Okay. So they can't retain on Cody Cici, but he only costs $3.25 million against the cap,

which is too much for Cody Cici, but, you know, by the trade deadline, or let's say January or whatever, that number will be extremely manageable for a lot of teams. and I don't think there's going to be any shortage of people who are like, I'll take Cody Cici as my sixth defenseman. There'll be like four or five teams that talk themselves into that. So, you know, have the guy for a year, put them on your first power play unit. It doesn't matter in San Jose.

They're not trying to win anytime soon. So, yeah. I don't hate this for the sharks. People were slamming Mike Greer left and right. I was just like, I don't know. He got a guy he can trade. And gave up on, frankly, a guy who was like the sixth or seventh defenseman on the Sharks last year. How good can that guy be, you know?

Mm-hmm. Yep. I'm with you. All right. Well, I feel like that's just about every angle here covered. So why don't we take a break and we'll come back in just a moment with the, other news of the last few days. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Mint Mobile.

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And the other big news this week, we talked about it, or we teased it, I guess. Patrick Liney traded to the Montreal Canadiens with a 2026 second for defenseman Jordan Harris and no salary retained. I feel like people are very surprised by that. It's certainly not the Patrick Lining trade that I envisioned initially. Yeah. Kind of thought he would return more value to Columbus. But kind of get it.

Yeah, it's the fact that Columbus retained $0.00 of salary is why the return was not very good. And also the fact that, look, I mean, they made it clear, unusually clear from the beginning of the offseason that this guy is on the market. If the market doesn't materialize, what are you going to do? You know, if you're Don Waddell, especially if you feel like, you know, we had talked about maybe the scenario that would play out was, hey, man, I know, I know you want to go. but the market's not there. Come back, light it up for two months. The market will be there in December. And then we do something in the middle of the season.

If that wasn't an option for whatever reason, then, yeah, at some point, you've got to take what you can get. Yes, that's right. It's probably a little bit disappointing for Columbus fans, but I think, you know, not a great leverage situation for sure. No. Can I read you a quote from Don Waddell? He was on TSN in Toronto, I think, Friday. This is a real quote from Don Waddell. Quote, this is a different situation than any I've really dealt with. Keep in mind, this is a guy who's been a GM since like the 80s.

I've had players that requested trades, and sometimes you trade them, sometimes you don't. Obviously, I don't know, Patrick, I wasn't here last year. He went into the program 28 games into the year. He's been very vocal about it way before I got here that he does not want to play for the blue jackets. There was a lot of things that went on in the locker room and he just doesn't want it. You're here. I don't feel like you ever hear, oh, huge problems in the room. He did not want to be back under any circumstance.

Especially for a guy that was still on the team at that point, right? Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, that that was pretty clearly a GM going out there and being like, I'm going to make it clear that I have no, my hands are completely tied here. Yeah. And it looks like it worked because Aaron Portsline reported this morning that all this kind of developed over the weekend. Like Kent Hughes texted Waddell, I think said texted. Got in contact certainly and was like, can I talk to him? And Waddell was like, I said like weeks ago anybody could talk to him if they wanted. I don't care. And called back and he said I had a good conversation with Patrick. let's work out a deal here.

Another quote from Waddell. It solves what it could have potentially could have been an issue, knowing that the player didn't want to be here, and his teammates knew that too. I don't know how it would have gone if he had to come. You hope for the best, but how things were last year, I'm not sure that would have been the case. Yeah.

So very clear that this was much worse than we had been led to believe. Needs a change. It wasn't just a change of scenery. It wasn't just a change of scenery. It was this guy hates it here and everyone hates him. And we absolutely have to trade him. Yep. So they get Jordan Harris. Yeah.

He's fine. He's fine. And he's youngish. Youngish, yeah. Here's my question to you. Take Patrick Liny out of it. Columbus calls up and says, we'll give you a second round pick for Jordan Harris. Who says no on that trade?

I think probably Montreal just because like how much longer do they want to be losing for? Like that's giving up a guy who, you know, again, he's an all right. I guess I'm saying like from a value perspective, not necessarily where teams are at, because it probably wouldn't make sense for Columbus to be given up a draft pick for. No, for sure. Either. But just, you know, I get, because what I'm trying to figure out is like what value is, like what value is. assigned to lining in this trade?

And is it positive value at all? I think at this point it's negative value. Yeah, I think so. That's pretty surprising to me. I mean, again, like it would have been surprising to like three months ago me. Maybe now having heard, you know, having know what we know, it makes more sense. But a guy that, you know, has scored 40 goals in this league, having negative value. in a trade is even given and and you know it's the contract right like that's ultimately what the

issue is but the thing is the contract is not it's not terrible if you think you can get some level of production out of this guy obviously if you think you're getting the guy put up single digit points last year yes but he's only got two years left and you know eight million for a top six scoring winger is not outrageous. Like it's not like, you know, there are bad contracts out there where you're like, there is just, first of all,

the contract goes on forever. And second of all, this guy's absolute ceiling is that he would still be overpaid. Right. Whereas, you know, Lainey, you can see, you can sit there and call,

I can imagine him living up to 8 million. That's, yeah, totally. You know, certainly Habs fans are talking themselves into that. It gets to play with the best center in the world, potentially. There's lots of ways it could go. So it's, but again, like, you know, what are you going to do to, you're going to say to Don Waddell, like, oh, you know, you didn't get enough. Well, I spent three months talking to every gym in the league telling everybody this guy was available.

This was the best offer. This is not a situation where you're going to hear, like, other teams come forward and be like, oh, we would have beat that offer. Yeah, well, again, there was a quote a couple of weeks ago from Waddell, again, just like doing what seems to have been like a monthly, I just got to go talk to everybody about how bad I need Patrick Line out of my lineup. Yeah. Right. Where he was like, look, if I was willing to retain half his salary, I could have had this trade done a month ago. But I'm not. Like, I'm not going to pay him to not play for us.

And so we're at where we're at. And so finally, Montreal came along. They said, I understand you don't want to retain salary. You're going to have to throw in a pick. And Don Waddell was like, I just got to get this guy out of here. Mm-hmm. So, like I don't, you know, like you say, how much, how much more could he have gotten? Yeah, it's an interesting move.

And from Montreal's perspective, it's a gamble, but it's not a giant gamble. Like, what's the worst case? He comes in. he stinks. He's, you know, he's disruptive in the room again. I mean, you're on the hook for two more years. It's not like you were contending in those two years. That's right.

Maybe not even for the playoffs, although, you know, like every team, almost every team, they will go into the season hoping that they can. That's our goal. But. Our goal is to finish eighth. And if it does work, you get a guy. for two years who probably does help you get closer to eighth. For sure.

And, you know, potentially decides, hey, I like it here. I'm, you know, this is, I found my spot. I love Martin Saint-Louis, right? Like, that's, we all kind of assume that every offensive player is going to love playing for him. And then you get him signed to a deal that makes more sense. Yeah. You know, there's some opportunity cost lost when you, like this big a chunk of cash. But to me, the worst case is he's a bum.

So you send him home. You eat the money, which isn't fun, but you live with it. And you traded a defenseman for a second round pick that was probably not too far off from fair value anyways. Right. Roll the dice, I guess. You know, like the floor, it's high floor, high ceiling to me for Montreal's perspective. So I don't mind. No, yeah.

I think that's a really great way to frame it. Like, you can't mind this if you're Montreal. Like, you know, worst case scenario or whatever. Yeah, I'm with you on everything you just said. I am, what's interesting is, again, this is just from the, from the Portsline article. The Blue Jackets were ready to move on, blah, blah, blah. It's been a house cleaning of injury prone or otherwise inconsistent players.

Bokefist, Texier, Tessier, Jake Bean and now line A. I don't want to do who he play for or anything. Yeah. But who Adam Bochfuss play for now? Do you know? They bought him out. He signed somewhere else.

Yeah, they bought him out. And is he in Seattle? Florida. That's close. Yeah. Geographically, you couldn't have been closer. They're really, I mean, if you think of the universe as a whole life. That's right.

That's exactly right, brother. Here's a tease for whatever, like training camp episode or something. But I saw who he played for yesterday that I was like, I'm pretty sure this didn't happen. I think this article is fake. Okay. Yeah. I saw one I couldn't fucking believe.

So, yeah, I was psyched to see that where I was like, what? No way. Oh, the other thing about this is now Columbus has a ton of cap room and I'll leave you with one more Don Waddell quote. It sets up if nothing else will go to training camp and see how things shake out. If nothing happens, we'll be in a great position moving forward. And then, you know, he added, if I could find the right guy to throw into that mix, it would be good for us to be honest with you. I got two words for you, Don Waddell. Offer sheet.

Yep. You got the picks. make it happen. Go fucking crazy out there. Just do it. Yeah, why not, man. Moritz cider or something. Like, just...

Well, he's not a forward, unfortunately. That's the problem for him. He could be on this team. You ain't kidding, man. You are very serious about this. Let's see. Who are some unsigned RFAs right now? Lucas Raymond, there's one.

Seth Jarvis. But, but Cole Perfetti. Maddie Baneers, it seems like. Hmm. Now, are those RFA eligible guys, or? Oh, maybe you're right about that. I don't know.

I'm just looking at the list of unsigned RFAs on Puckpedia. Jeremy Swamon's on there. That's crazy that that's still going on. Other than that, not a ton of guys. You own attend Bergerin. Not a ton of guys you'd be like falling all over yourself to... I saw a rumor yesterday that the Bruins are going to give Kyler Yamamoto a PTO. Okay.

Allegedly. Why not? So yeah, there are some RFAs. I don't think they'll do that, of course. But they have just a crazy amount of cap space now. And just to light up out the door of people who want to come and... Well, I don't know if you heard, but when Jordan Harris, when they told him he was going to Columbus, he talked to, oh, David Savard about it, I guess. And now I'm psyched to be there.

Now that I talk to David Savard and David Savard told me how cool it is to be in Columbus. What was he there for a year? Something like that. Yeah. Maybe not even. I'm rip-roaring to go. They got an outdoor game coming up. Oh, let's do it.

it, you know, that kind of thing. Let's see how many games David Savard played for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Oh, no, he played there for a million years, that's right. I was thinking of when they traded him to Tampa that I was

thinking it was the reverse for somebody. First round pick, man. That was the Columbus special. Yeah, so I guess he does know what it's like to live in Columbus for a long time. I'm a fool. Anyway, whatever. Who cares?

The other bit of news this week, I guess you'd say, is in Nashville's goal, all that drama that everybody was expecting? It happened now. Yaroslav Ascarov is like, trade me. So all the stuff that we thought might happen ended up happening. Did I say Ascarov or is it Escarov? I think it's Ascarov. What are you asking me for? Come on.

That's a good point. But, yeah, I mean, so remember at the draft, they were like, oh, they're going to trade them. They're going to trade them. Then they didn't trade them. Well, now they're going to, it seems like they're going to, I guess nobody is like can force them to trade him. No, this is not a leverage situation. Well, I mean, although didn't he say like he's not going to report to the HAL? He did say that.

So there is that leverage. But also they signed Scott Wedgwood to a week. two-year deal this summer. You don't do that if you're like, oh, and of course, Skarov, Escarov, I can never remember now, apparently. Of course, he's going to be back. You don't do that if that's the case, you know? Well, unless the plan is, like, let them get the full H.L.

Season in and, you know, maybe comes up and then Wedgwood can be like the veteran number three. And, you know, there's ways to do it. But obviously, when they lock in UC Saros. Right. That has to be the right. on the wall. You would think that's a writing on the wall situation. So, I mean, this is obviously...

He played 44 games for Milwaukee last year. Yeah. Ascaro did. Like, it certainly seems that Barry Trots, the idea of the plan was we want both guys. Yeah. Sure. I also want two good goalies. Yeah.

But, I mean, having to trade this guy, not necessarily the worst thing in the world. world because in theory you should be able to get a really nice deal for him. Now, the question is, is this one of those situations where now every GM is like, well, I know you have to trade them. So I guess I can give you a fourth round pick. Right. I don't think it'll be that bad. But like, you know, when at the draft, I looked this up last night when the news came out, I guess.

It's not an announcement, which is what I almost said. But the ask was that Nashville wanted to trade into the top five at the draft if they were giving up a scar off. I don't think they're getting a top five pick in a pick swap, you know? I do not think so. You know, they'll get like the 27th overall pick or something like that maybe. Like a B prospect. Like this is sort of a, it does feel a little bit like a Barry Trots gabbled and lost a little bit here. I think I can get both.

And maybe now is in a situation with a little less leverage. Now, who knows? This could be a case where he goes, look, the market for you is not there. We're under no obligation to trade you. We are willing to trade you, but we told all the teams this is the asking price. Nobody's met it yet. Demand's not going to go up if you're sitting at home on the couch. Right.

So come to the HL, light it up, look fantastic. And yeah basically the same thing we said about Patrick Lining yeah except that you're not saying that while secretly being like I can't possibly bring this guy back right because how much can a goalie disrupt a dressing room they're all so weird anyways nobody pays any attention so yeah this is this is really um it's really surprising I guess this is or maybe surprising's not the right word but it is just like oh yeah Maybe you should have done this a few months ago or whatever it turns out. Yep.

I don't know. He's still considered one or two of the best goalie prospects in the world. He's how old is? Absolutely, yeah. Let's see here. He's 22 years old, you know, and that's a position where it takes a little extra time, usually. So. We did our future goalie.

rankings over the summer. Yeah. And Nashville was number one with the bullet. Yeah. Based on, they were like the only team that has a star now and a future star prospect.

Maybe not so much anymore. Oh God, now I've got to go redo all those rankings. Yeah. And they were so good too. Like everyone agreed with them. Every fan base was like, you're right. Looks good, brother. Thank you.

Have a good summer. That's what everybody said. Yeah. I'm going to see because Sean Shapiro, who is our goalie guy at Elite Prospects. Yeah, he had Escarov number one overall. Esper Walsett, number two.

Dustin Wolf number three. Read the fucking article if you want the other ones. But yeah, I mean, like that's, I think just even if you had said that to the average person, they would have been like, yeah, that's what that sounds about right, that him being one or two, right? Yep. Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. Now, and again, all the usual disclaimers, it's, first of all, prospects are hard to project and goalie prospects especially. Absolutely. So who knows? But there's, how many teams in the league are like, haven't had a goalie prospect in 10 years?

A ton, yeah. So, yeah, it'll be one to watch. Yep. But you would imagine it either gets done quite quickly or, we wait a while. Wow. I mean... I really went on a limb on that one, didn't I? It could. Or one thing, it might not happen.

Yeah. Or it doesn't happen at all. Definitely one of those four things. Short, medium long, or not at all. But what I am willing to say is it's not going to happen in the past. Or unless it happens in the next hour and you haven't... Never mind. That would, yeah, that would be crazy. Yeah, I can. Yeah, I think that's probably about it for, like, news this week.

Am I right about this? I think so. Oh, you know what? There was something I forgot that I wanted to. I wanted to play a very quick... It's not even a game with you, but just on the Patrick Liny thing. Uh-huh. I want to play a quick...

Yeah, I guess we'll call it a game. I want to play a game with you called, who do you want? Okay. Okay. Not the blue jackets. You get a package of five players. Okay. Do you want the first?

first five players taken in the 2016 draft, the next five players taken in the draft, or your pick of five guys from the rest of that draft. So again, to remind, first five picks, Austin Matthews, Patrick Liny, Pierre Luc de Bois, Jesse Poolyarvey, Oli Ulliv, V. Ulevi? Yeah.

Yulov? I don't. The crappy guy from Vancouver. Injuries were a real problem with him. You know, I get it. That's fine. So. So you can have those five guys or you can have.

Meaning I only have Austin Matthews as like a real. Yeah. But like, okay. So right away Matthew Kachuk is number six, right? Matthew Kachuk, Clayton Keller, Alex Neelander, Mikhail Sergachev, Tyson Jost. Or the field. So which do you, I guess, you know, in a world where you were offered those five for those five. Or if you take the field, you get, the big name is Charlie McAvoy.

Jacob Chickens in that draft. Tage Thompson is another one. And then you're down to like Sam Steeles. Well, no, Adam Fox was drafted that year. Well, I'm saying the rest of the first round. Oh, the rest of the first round. Okay, yes. Because I think if you get everyone, yeah, then you will.

Okay. I misunderstood. Jordan Kairu's in there too. I think that probably does become the winning pick. but top five or next five? I think I'd probably take the next five. I think he might, right? Obviously, Austin Matthews is probably the second best player in the world.

Certainly, I would say he's the second best forward on any given, you know, we talk about this. Very clearly the best player in the draft, but it's him, two guys that have been, I mean, Liney and Dubois both have been not busts in the sense that you know, they're both NHELors but you look at the contracts how many times they've been traded

and then two guys that aren't in the league anymore. For Matthew Kachuk who is not Austin Matthews but is not a fucking rocks man not a million miles away from Austin Matthews Yeah. Clayton Keller and Surgishev,

and Nielander's kind of the bust out of that group. And Jost, obviously. Jost is, you know. Is he in the league anymore? Yeah, he played 43 games for Buffalo. That's too. Yeah. That's right.

So, no, he plays for the Sabres. He's barely in the NHL. Or do you say I pass on both and I take McAvoy, Chikrin, Tage Thompson? Like, I don't feel like that's as strong enough. No, I, I, would agree. I think that I think the middle group is is the way to go just because you're getting well, I mean, depending on how you feel about Surgichov coming off the broken leg.

True. You know? I mean, he was, he came back already, right? Yeah, no, but I'm saying like what's the long-term impact of that? Sure. Blah, blah, blah. Certainly, how about, we'll put it this way. Even taking into account guys that aren't in the league anymore or whatever. Like, I think if you're saying if you take their entire career up to this point, I think you probably take like that Kachuk and Surgichab and the one thing I will say is, and this somewhat surprises me.

Matthew Kachuk has outscored Patrick Liny in terms of goals by 14 goals in his career. and he's played 110 more games. Yeah, right. Now, obviously, the trend chart on those two guys are going in very different directions. But it is worth, you know, remembering for, you know, Line is a bum because he scored 204 goals and Kachuk's an unstoppable beast because he scored 218. Well, I mean, how many of those line goals are in the first three or four years he's in the league versus the most recent three or four?

You know, I think that's obviously the issue. issue with with with line a but yeah I'll take I'll take uh six through 10 for sure all right there we go it's it's it's close obviously but I think I think it's a little bit decisive if you want to put it that way sure all right so we're going to move on to just a little time filling game here at the end of the show and the people on the discord as they have for the last few episodes I feel like voted for the game and they chose, surely that's got to be it, the Sean Classic. It's exciting.

I feel like it was a bit of a pity vote because I feel like they vote for years all the time. And then somebody was like, how can I do this one? And then they're like, yeah, Ryan's just got banger after banger and like Mr. Juan Hay Wonder over here. But they're going to let us do it. The way this works is we ask a question. the question has at least one and probably multiple correct answers, but we do not reveal how many correct answers there are. And so the goal is to name as many correct answers as you can,

and then at the point where you feel like you have got all the answers, you then have to say, surely, that's got to be it. and if you're right, balloons and confetti fall from the sky, and if you're wrong, you get called a moron. Mm-hmm. Everyone's bad to you. That's right. Okay. I will give you the category first, how about?

Because I have a relevant one here. Yep. And that is, excuse me, that is guys who signed offer sheets in the capier. in the cap era. Mm-hmm. You teased it earlier in the show and I got all excited. I thought it was going to be like the 90s guys. And I was like, ooh, I know so much.

Right. But, wow. Okay. I tell you how many there are or no, right? No, you do not. Yeah, right, of course. What a stupid question. That's the whole point of the game.

Okay. Whenever you're ready, then, I guess. So Dustin Panter. Yep, that's right. Thomas Vanek. Correct. Ispari Kahnemi? Yep.

Um, Broberg and Holloway. Yep. Uh, Sebastian. That's right. You got it. We all have to laugh at that one. Why were they not going to match that? That was, it was so dumb.

We're going to sign your best player to a discount minimum wage contract. Okay. Hold on. Let us think about it. Didn't, didn't Carolina like, make the, like, wait the full week to just to be? Yeah. Why not? Yeah, that's great.

Okay, I'm definitely not going to get the full list here because I'm sure there's a bunch of weird ones that I've kind of forgotten about. But one guy that I'm pretty sure I remember is, I believe, a young Ryan Kessler. That's correct. You now have the first three and the most recent four. Okay. Okay. So, because Kessler was it Philadelphia that he signed with? Yes, that's right.

Yep. Yes. There's just a what's cool is there's just a Wikipedia page with every offer sheet in NHL history on here. The world's shortest Wikipedia page. It's not that short. That's what I'm surprised by it. I mean, like you said, like 80s and 90s, obviously the rules were different. And they used to have that super cool rule, which we need to bring back, where instead of draft picks, if you signed a guy to an offer sheet, you then got locked in a room with the other GM and had to work out of trade.

and if you couldn't, then you proposed a trade, they proposed a trade, and an arbitrator had to pick which one was most fair. There were 32. So chaotic. There were 32 from 1986 to 98. Surely that's got to be it. Yeah, including like some huge stars that you're like. Oh, yeah, Fedorov. Sackic.

Cachic. Cich. Cich, yep. Scott Stevens Brendan Shannon Frank Simpson Tammu Salani Sergei McCara

Timu Salani that's right he signed with the flame before he'd ever played signed an offer sheet with the flames right and the Jets matched it and that's how they how they got them

that's it Brendan Shanahan signed an offer sheet one time Larry Robinson's two you know what I'm seeing here there were two Scott Stevens offer sheets.

Yep. That's crazy. Anyway. So just to quickly recap, you now have Kessler, Vannick, Penner, and then Holloway, Broberg, Kotkenyemi, and Ahio. Those are the ones you've said so far. And you've sort of given me the timelines, because Penner was infamously the barn fight and kind of, I think in a way spelled the end, not the end, but that was like the, the exclamation point on the this is not something that gentlemen do to each other.

Right. So I'm kidding. Can I say this? I didn't remember this. The Vanek offer sheet was July 6th, 2007. The Panor offer sheet was July 27th. I didn't remember them being 20 days apart. I thought they were at the same time.

No, it was, it was Vanek. They went and they went and tried to get Vanek and then Buffalo matched. Buffalo matched, even though it was like an insane, like it wasn't. it's seven years, 50 million or some crazy number. That's the exact number. Okay. And then so Edmonton was like, all right, we got all this money. Who else are we going to go after?

All right. So I'm trying to think, because I mean, I feel pretty confident there must have been some in between like the 12 years. 2007 and 2019. Yes. I'll give you this one for free. There were some. There were some. All right.

So surely that is not it. And I know that when I hear the names, I'm going to be like, oh, yeah, I kind of remember that. But it just... Here's one hint for you. There's one that came up for a different reason earlier this summer. Hmm. Okay.

Interesting. Doesn't help me, but I do. I love a little bit of foreshadowing. Ah, okay. Buzz kind of threw in my head Who would be teams that would try to go after somebody? Who would be the GMs that would get victimized? Because they're not old timers.

Man, I'm drawing a blank, and I know this isn't exactly fascinating podcast listening to me silently struggle my way through. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, you know, I'm going to tap out. I don't... Okay.

So the ones you missed, and I'll go in chronological order here. Oh, boy. July 1st, 2008, David Backus, offer sheet from Vancouver, St. Louis matched. Three years, 7.5 million. Right. A week later, as revenge, Vancouver offer sheets, Steve Bernier. I knew there's somebody... One year, 2.5.

Yeah. Yeah. I knew there was some like back and force. They also matched. Right. Coming off, Chicago winning their first Stanley Cup. Of course. Yeah, the, uh, uh, Neamy, right? No. They let Neamy go to keep Nick Chalmersen. Yes. Four years, 14 million from San Jose Chicago matched. Right. Yep. July 9, 2010. You missed. I should have got that one. Here's the one you definitely should have gotten. kind of a big one.

Shea Weber, 14 years, $110 million from Philadelphia. Nashville matched it. How did I miss that? That's not good. All right, yeah. And the last one. Was that the one that came up earlier in the summer? No, the Chalmerson one was because everybody, remember people were like, well, you know, Stan Bowman, he made a good movie, matched Nick Chalmersen and let Niemie go.

Okay, great. Gotcha, got you. Yep. And finally, maybe the funniest offer sheet of all time. coming out of the lockout in 2012-13, Calgary signs Ryan O'Reilly. Yes. Oh, of course. Two years, 10 million bucks.

Colorado matched. And the reason it's funny is, because of the rules at the time, if Calgary had matched, or if Colorado had not matched, rather, uh, Calgary would have had to put O'Reilly on waivers because he was playing in the KHL at the time. and so would have immediately lost him to whoever the last place team at that moment was. Yes. Extremely funny, but Colorado said, never mind, we'll keep him.

Basically cost Jay Feaster's job. Yeah, as well it should have. I mean, that's a huge group of up. No, no, no, we knew about this. Our interpretation of the rule is different than that. And if I remember correctly, and I'm deeply ashamed that I didn't get Weber. Yeah, Weber's the big one, obviously. I'm stupid.

That's okay. I wouldn't say that. If I remember right, I think with O'Reilly, because he had been rumored to be, you know, signing an offer sheet for a while. Like, I believe Colorado kind of instantly matched. Like, it was one of these, like, no, we're going to not even let this breathe. We're going to, within hours, they matched it. Yeah. And there had been talked that, like, if they had taken their time and the stuff with the rules and the waivers had come out,

Like, they could have really held Calgary's feet to the fire. But by, you know, by doing the chest puffy alpha male thing, they potentially cost themselves a chance to, like, really screw over J. Feaster. Oh, okay, I'm, yes, I'm, I'm, I'm deeply unhappy. That's okay. You don't need to be unhappy. And you'll be deeply unhappy, too, because I've got a question with you, which this is, what I did is, went into the spreadsheet, like surely that's got to be at spreadsheet.

And I looked for questions that I have marked as not used. Hopefully is correct. Because we do these on the call-in shows quite a lot. And I found

one. But I got to be honest, it's not super great. Okay. But it's nice and it's, it's an easy one for everyone to play along. I want to name the letters of the alphabet for which there have been fewer than 200 players all time whose last name started with that letter.

Okay. That rocks. Hell yeah. Okay, I'm going to just go ahead right now and say X. That's correct. Very good. I think we're over on X players. Oh, no, Arborchakai, of course.

We're not over on X players. It was the first of the X's. Okay. Hmm. I'm going to go ahead and say Z, obviously. Yes. Z, is what we're looking for, but 113 Zs. You know what, give me X, Y, and Z. I'll take the run at the end there.

I was going for Y, Y, 70. So also a correct answer. More Zeds than Y's. That's actually really surprising. Yeah. Wow. It's the Soviet, a lot of Soviet players. Good call by you, yeah, that's right.

All right, I guess I'll work my way backwards through the alphabet here. You? Probably. You has had 31 players. Do you want to know what's sad, by the way? I had to pull up like the alphabet just so I could visualize it better. Uh-huh. Fucking stupid ass.

Yeah. Give me Q, obviously. Q has had... 23 players. Wow. So you have nailed five letters. Oh? Are you making a guess or simply...

No, I'm making a guess. There have been 188 players. Ooh, close. They began with O, many of which was O apostrophe, the Irish showing up in force here. But yes, just barely. But you're good. I'll go with, I think this is maybe it.

I'm sure there's, like, I might be missing H or something, but I think I, I think there's probably not a ton of I last names. There have been only 68 players. Wow, is that the few? Well, obviously, besides X, is that the fewest? No, I think EU was 31. Oh, yeah, you, sure. And, you know, Y was seven. So, yeah.

Not a lot of. I'm going to say surely that's got to be it. Folks, he nailed it. He absolutely knocked this one. of the park. Seven for seven and then drops the Shirley that's got to be it. That's how you do it. Wow.

That's how you do it, folks. We should do this. Meanwhile, I'm forgetting the Shea Weber offer sheet. We should do this with first names next time. We should, except that hockey reference doesn't make it remarkably easy for me. Right. And I'm sure the answer is there's been one for, okay, let's see if we can do this. Okay.

I don't think there's been an X. Oh, no, there'd be Xavier. Xavier Ulet, probably. I'm thinking, can we do this? A, anybody named Adam, B, anybody named, let's say Bobby Y'all. C. Chris. Yep, there you go, Chris Chelyos.

There's a good answer. D, lots of Dave's. E. Eric. Eddie's. Eddie, yeah. There you go. F. Frank.

Sure. Yep. G. G. Greg Gordy, yeah, that's a maybe slightly more obvious one. Yep. EFG. H. Harry. Harry's.

Yeah. Henrik. Hmm. Who's an I? Elyle. Yep, there you go. Great. Yep, there you go.

Ivan's. This is. Jay. Jay. Johnny. Jared Johnny. Yep. Absolutely.

Kay. Kevin's, Kyle's. Yep. L. Larry. We both said Larry. M. Mo.

I would have been named Stoj. Mo. I would have gone Mike or Mark, but damn. Well, now I'm just named Stooges, you know. Yeah. Okay. We'll circle back to C. Curly Joe.

Uh-huh. I'm sure there's one of those. Once we get to ask, I'll say Shemp. N. Nathan. O. Oscar. P. Phillip.

Q. There's got to be a Quentin. Quentin. Quentin. In my field. Oh yeah, there you go And I believe there have been some other cues Oh, Quinn Hughes, of course

Oh, yeah, sure R, Ryan, S, Shamp That's right Yeah, I think that's probably it, right? TZZ Tom What would be a U? Ooh, what would be a U You know what?

You might be the answer. Ulf Folks Ulf Samuelson He got Old Samuelson I believe there have been a few other Ulfs out there. Are there any U's currently out there?

I can't imagine. I don't know if there's, I don't know if we have an Ulf right now. That hurts. You know what? Okay, so I just looked it up. We don't have an alp, but we do have Ukopakalukinen.

Oh, yeah. Vaccanan. Vacananian. Vakinen and yeah. And also a Yuvis Balenskis I think that one's made up. Yeah, okay. V, lots of victors and Vlads and that sort of thing.

W's, we did have the X. Y. Y, there would, you would have your Eannix. Oh, yeah, there you go. And then Zaharly. Zerli Zalapski. Plus, you know, you're right. the Zaks and the Zadaynos and Ziggies.

Of course. Dude, NHL names rock. Yeah, hell yeah, man. This league isn't the best at a lot of things. See, folks, when we put this, when we put stuff up for like the Supolet voting, I'm always

trying to be like, just let me remember some fucking guys. You know, I'm just sitting there and you're saying, like, remember there was a guy named Zarly? And I'm like, yeah, Zarlie! I did, maybe this will be the supposedly sometime is I did and I wrote a whole piece like ranking the top god I don't even want to know what the number was names in NHL history and at the end of the day they didn't want to run it

because they felt like you know they they didn't want to be seen as making fun of like certain names and you know ethnicities cultures countries that sort of thing and sure uh yeah like I guess I get it but also these names rock man yeah so good So that'll be, that'll be a support. It's just me reading the list. And Ryan in the background going, I remember that guy. Yeah, that's sick. Good one.

Thank you. Bronco Radavoyevich. Now there's a fucking name for you, folks. Hell yeah. You're going to tell me that's not a cool name? You're out of your mind. Anyway, you got anything to plug? Yeah.

Okay, great. Sounds good. Thanks. I, you know, I'm writing about, once a week at the athletic. Last week, on Friday, if you missed it, I had a piece that was, this is absolute August content. It was just 10 historical facts about the NHL that bother me more than they probably should.

People really seem to like it. People got into that one. So go check that out. Potentially, I get some stuff in the can, but you know what? I'm not going to tell you what it is. Wow. Because it's a surprise, and also it's quite likely that I will forget that I'm doing it and get distracted and go do something else. That's right.

And then for me, I guess I will say go to E.P. Rinkside, use the code I Love E.P. When you sign up for an annual subscription, you get three months added on for free. I, too, am only writing one article a week, although I might, I guess we'll see if I write anything about the offer sheets today. I probably won't, I guess. I said everything I got to say about them. But yeah, I might write something or other here in the next little while in addition to.

And then once we get to September, I'm going to be starting to ramp up my college hockey writing and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of previews I'm going to have to write. And then, yeah, go to patreon.com slash puck soup later this week. we will be doing our listener choice Supotlai episode that we always do at the end of the month. Right now, basically it looks like a vote for, like, name one captain for every team in the league, ever. You know, historical. Boone Jenner for the Blue Jackets. Yeah.

I'm going to have to sit here and come up with Seattle, you know what I mean? I don't know. Who cares? People don't like that answer, but, you know, who cares? No, they don't. So, yeah, Patreon.com slash Puck Soup. Sign up. You get a bunch of bonus stuff all month long podcasts and articles and things of this nature.

And I would say thank you for listening to this podcast on August 20th for some reason. And we'll talk to you no main show next week. It'll be Patreon only. And we'll be back at the beginning of September with another main show. And hopefully there have been three more offer sheets since then. Yeah. Get to it. In between now and then.

Mm-hmm. That's right. Preferably within a 24-hour window before we record. Yeah. Give us something to talk about. Who's that? Is that Bonnie Raitt maybe? That song?

Give us something to talk about? Yeah. I think it was. It's a good little song. Gotta be honest. Yeah, it's a hell of a day. song. And it is Bonnie Raid. Wow. A little mystery to figure out.

Dude, couldn't remember the Shay Weber offer sheet, so he's pulling Bonnie Ray lyrics to show his memory still works. Yeah. All right. Thanks, everybody. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye.