Puck Soup - Watch the Food

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about free agency, the draft, the new CBA, and more. Sponsored by Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McNeer from The Athletic. And Sean, I don't know about you, man, but I'm sleepy. Just like all these GMs, you know? They're out there. Oh, boy, I don't. Should I be doing, I feel like I meant to do something today. What the heck was it?

No, I don't think so. Oh. Just a quiet holiday week. Yeah. You get a long weekend. I get a long weekend. You know, all the GMs, they're saying, well, I don't really want to do a lot. We'll lead off with this.

How many teams do you think still have at least $10 million in cab space? Is it half the league? 16 teams? It's only 14, unfortunately. Oh, no. Yeah. But if you want to expand it out to $6 million in cap space, it's actually 17. So it would be very funny if the result of the rising cap was just that escrow came back.

Just ruined everyone. Well, it's funny because remember when they first said like, oh, the cap's going to be $100 million in a couple of years? And I remember I was saying like, okay, there's just going to come a point where a bunch of teams are like, that's too high for me. No thanks. And I figured that would be like when the cap was a hundred million. hundred million dollars, not when it was 95 and a half or whatever it's going to be, you know. I wonder about what happens here, because there's only five teams that are above the cap right now, and obviously some still have a little bit of business to handle and a fewer within a million dollars and that sort of thing.

But are we starting to see already this kind of like, I'll just read the teams that have still 10 million plus in cap space. Utah, Detroit, Seattle, Buffalo, Calgary, Pittsburgh, Carolina, Winnipeg, Columbus, Chicago, Anaheim, San Jose. And San Jose, I think, and Anaheim, I think still aren't even at the cap floor yet. Right. So I don't know what's going on out there. Well, I mean, that sounded a lot like a list of the stuff. smaller market teams with a couple of exceptions.

Yeah, and teams that are like kind of purposely not competing. And I think Carolina's kind of also saying some of this is Nick Eeler's money, whenever that contract could finally get signed. Could be. But other than that, yeah, like you say, small market teams, teams that aren't trying to be competitive,

and then like Carolina and Winnipeg for some reason. Strange. Yeah. Well, I mean, Winnipeg's not exactly a huge market team. No. Neither's Carolina, although you're right. We do expect them to do something. But, yeah, we're going to start to see, in theory, some separation between cap teams and teams that maybe don't typically go that high.

The other thing to say, I guess, is that this is especially after the events of, like, June 28 to 30. And we'll talk about all this in a second. But right before a free agency, basically every big name guy came off the market. Anybody that anybody was going to be like seriously bidding for. They were just like, yeah, I'm actually signing with either a team that is trading for me before the signing period or the team that already controlled my rights. Right. Because the theory is that teams saw how the market was. was thinning out and it just kind of became one of those self-reinforcing things where it's like,

wait a second, we spent all year thinking we'd have a ton of money on July 1. Now we're realizing July 1 isn't going to be all that good. We should just sign our own guys. Yeah, because that's the thing that thought that just made it worse for everyone else and on and on. Yep. Because that's the thing about like, that's where their stuff is that you guys are always saying, you know? Like, that's true that players don't want to move. Teams don't want to move on from players either. If it was up to GMs, they'd just be like, we're keeping the same 19 guys and then we'll trade two out at the bottom of the roster every summer.

Just run it back. Like a lot of teams think like that, especially if they're, you know, top 10 in the league last season. Whoa, we're top 10. We might as well just keep all the guys and see what happens. You know? So, anyway. I asked you last night for a list of like,

10 things that you thought were interesting transactions, team situations, that kind of thing. I had a list of my own, ours not surprisingly, mostly overlapped. So let's just get into it. I'm going to, I put these in like some sort of order, but, you know, don't, this isn't hard and fast, but here we go. Ready? First, after we emailed last night, Sean, Brent Burns to Colorado happened. One year, bonuses up to $4 million. What do you think?

Sure. Yep, that's right. I mean, that's about the contract we thought. I didn't necessarily have Colorado as the destination, but Brett Burns is cool and I'm glad he will still be playing a somewhat prominent role with a good team somewhere. Yeah, I didn't think he was particularly good last year. And obviously, like, he derives a lot of value offensively,

and they're not going to let him be on the top power play unit. so I do wonder what that looks like. But otherwise, yeah, this is like a totally inoffensive contract. He's chasing the Ironman streak, but I think he needs like a season and a half to get there. So I don't know if that's possible. But yeah, okay. I don't super care about that, but it is like one of the few notable things Colorado did in the last few days. So I wanted to shout it out.

Next up, you had mentioned, I didn't have this on my list, but you had mentioned it. And, you know, it is worth talking about. uh, Columbus gives Ivan Proverov seven years, eight and a half million dollars. Yeah. One of the few deals that I feel like is getting pretty universal, uh, scorn thumbs down. Yeah. Scorn's a good word. Thank you.

There wasn't a lot of that, um, tragically, because that's, that's partly, that's the best part. Yeah. It makes this week so fun. I mean, again, a team bringing their own guy back. A big term, pretty big money. Is this just the Columbus tax? Is this what we're... Well, I think this was, it was signed, I want to say, around the same time as the Noah Dobson contract, or maybe even a little after.

But this felt to me like a team looking at the Dobson deal. and saying like, well, this is just what like youngish defensemen cost, you know? And then the market was like, it actually doesn't cost that. Who's the guy you always talk about like that? All the Toronto guys maybe, you know? Where they were like, yeah, this is going to be the market. And then the market does not rise to meet that AAV. And you're like, oh, shit.

Well, now we got this guy. That's what it kind of read like to me. That was the Leafs RFA experience. And a little bit of that. Yeah. So, I mean, a good player, I think. He's pretty good, yeah. Obviously, a guy where if he leaves, Columbus has an issue addressing it.

That's right. Yeah. I don't. Yeah, this was one of the few certified, dicey decisions, I think. Yeah. And I do want to shout out, uh, They gave Dante Fabro an extremely reasonable contract. Speaking of their defensemen.

And yeah, I thought Favro was like dynamite for them upon arriving from Nashville, you know. And so they gave them, I think, four years and a little under five maybe. I don't have it in front of me. But yeah, that was a, you know, greatly preferable contract. And maybe if you want to say those two guys cost, whatever, $13 million against the cap combined, I think that's fair at the end of the day, you know. But. And also, you've got to say, apparently what does Columbus give a shit about cap space?

That's the other thing we have to factor in with all these contracts. Right? Is we're just at a point now where they're going to pay guys what they feel like they're worth to the team. And we just kind of have to go, okay, well, I mean, they have 14 million in cap space. So who cares about the money? The problem is when it's a seven-year deal. Oh, sure. Even if you don't care about cap space this year, what if just for fun, let's imagine a world where the blue jackets are legitimate contenders three years from now.

Sure. Oh, well. Yep. Another one you had that I didn't, because I don't really know what to say. about it is Chicago didn't do shit. I think the only guy they've acquired via sign or trade is Dominic Conanado

who, you know, if you don't know who that is, I think you can be forgiven. Yeah. And this is, I find this really interesting, man, because we saw reports in the media a week or two ago saying it might be

quiet off season. And then we saw them again. Like this is not, if this is a case of a team that was swinging big and missing, they are doing an excellent job disguising that fact. I think this is a team that is just choosing to leave the bat on their shoulders. Yeah, I agree. And I don't know, man, you had 60 points last year.

Right. You're two years into the era of, your supposed franchise player that you blew it all up for the chance to get. They got a lot of future coming.

Nobody denies that. But boy, this is, you know, at some point, well, I'll tell you what, let's, I don't know where they, where they were in your order, but let's combine this

with talking about Montreal. Yeah, sure. I had Montreal higher, but that's, yeah. Because to me, Montreal is the, you know, whenever you criticize a team like a Chicago where, you know, we do this for Buffalo every summer and all of this,

the response is always, well, what are they supposed to do? Right. Who's who are they going to get that's going to make them a cup contender? And the answer is nobody. There's obviously lots of steps to go in between. But it's not that the, only other option is to do what Steve Iserman has done in past years and, you know, sign a bunch of 33-year-old depth guys, you can use those future assets to try to get young current talent and shift your

timeline around. And I thought Montreal did a really good job on that with their two trades. and Chicago is just choosing a different path, I guess. Yeah, so I'll say I saw a clip yesterday of Kyle from Chicago. And doesn't all that Kyle from Chicago stuff now just feel like George W. Bush with the Mission Accomplished Manor. Yeah. But I saw a clip of Kyle Davidson's having a presser yesterday where he's like, look, like, there weren't a ton of options out there us to get markedly better, which I think is true. And he's like, and we've got a lot of young kids who will be competitive, not just like

in camp at the start of the season, but like throughout the year where like we can call guys up from the AAHL and they can push guys at the bottom of our roster. And it's like, yeah, I mean, he's not wrong. I just don't know that like tinkering around with the bottom of the roster is, is going to, you know, I don't even want to say sell tickets because like I don't, I don't think that's as much of a consideration for Chicago. you know, um, these days. But it is just kind of like, yeah, man, I don't know what you wanted me to do, which now let's talk about Montreal, right?

Like, what did you want me to do? I think that's true. There, there's not a lot that would have made people, like people are mad at the tank in Chicago that I get why you would be. I don't, you know, I don't see the alternative for them. Um, but. This is the Montreal thing, where Montreal goes out and they trade for Noah Dobson and they trade for Zach Bolduk. And I don't think they've really signed anybody super notable in free agency, right? But what they've done is they have added to their core guys who are all, let's say, between 21 and 26 thereabouts.

right? Your Hudson's and your, you know, go down the list. Basically, all their good players are between their early and mid-20s. And then they go out and they trade for a bunch of guys who are all, or a bunch, two guys who are difference makers for them and are in their early to mid-20s. Bullduck, I think is 21, 22, Dobson's like 25, 26. And so they are. Unlike what you were saying with Detroit, instead of signing 32-year-olds for four years or six years or whatever the number ends up being,

they're getting guys who fit what their competitive window already was. And this is a thing they do a lot in the NBA, where like if you have a guy who is an elite player who's 30, 31, and a guy who's an elite player who's 24, 25, they'll often trade. one of those guys to more align with the other. So it's like, can we be competitive now or do we need to wait three years to be competitive? Let's go get guys who compliment that. And that's what Montreal did. And I think it's awesome.

Yep. I'm with you, man. I love to talk trash about the abs, but I don't have a lot to say right now. They look real smart right now, real smart. I don't love the Dobson contract. I'll say that. I think you got a little overrated with that one crazy season. Okay.

You know? But you don't need him to be your number one defenseman if you have Rinebacker and Hudson on the way. Right? Like that's basically what it boils down to is not all those guys, again, much like Brent Burns. Not all those guys can get power play minutes. But if you have three guys that you're, or two guys for now and then maybe we'll wait and see on Reimbacker, who you're very confident in their ability to produce at five on five and on the power play, you're in really good shape. Especially again, if they're all in, in your timeline. Yeah.

And yeah, I'm, I'm with you to an extent on the contract. Obviously, I've talked about the shiny new toy syndrome. plenty of times in the past. This is another potential case of that. But I'd certainly rather be rolling the dice on that than I haven't pro rov for. Oh, yeah. No, to me, it's go.

It's get the guy for sure. Yeah. If you think this is a guy who helps you, get the guy. Absolutely. Especially because, again, the way we're going to feel about $9.5 million for years from now, we're going to be like, well, who gives a shit? Nine and a half, seven and a half, it's all the same thing. You know, like, I just don't think there's a point where marginally that's going to affect

the, the Canadians too, too much, especially because they're just a team that they can be one of those. Well, we'll just spend whatever we want to spend teams, you know? So, yeah, I thought it was awesome from Montreal. What a, what a week for them. And again, it's the thing of like they traded two first round picks and Emil and Emil Heineman who like, okay, you know, Heinemann is fine. There's a reason he's been in, I think, 15 trades involving first round picks now. Yeah.

You know? That sounds right. But like they gave up those picks and Heinemann because they were like, Heinemann is a surplus to requirement. And we don't need those first round picks. You know, 16 and 17 or whatever they ended up being. We don't need those anytime soon. Like, they don't help us in our competitive window, so we're just not going to use them.

We're going to, again, use them to get the guy. Awesome shit. Awesome shit. And at some point, you've got to put it this way. This is the path when you're a tear-a-down rebuild team. And I'll point out, I do get that, look, Montreal made the playoffs. last year. Yeah.

Chicago was 30 points away from that. So there's maybe there's a counter argument where you say these are, these two teams are not comparable. They are different points. And Chicago is going to try to make the playoffs with what they've got and then they'll make these sorts of moves. I just, I don't know, man. I don't know what the plan is in Chicago other than be incredibly patient. continue to kick the can down the road and then hope that all these prospects

hit at the same time. Right. It's an interesting plan. Yeah. And the other thing I wanted to say about Montreal real quick is I thought, you know, not just me. A lot of people were like,

oh, there's no way they make the fucking playoffs last year. And I think most people who said they would or even had a chance to, let's say they live in the greater Montreal area. You know? And then they made the playoffs. And I thought they did it in a way that I don't think was mega sustainable. Let's put it that way.

Now they, with these improvements to their roster, and we haven't even talked about Bulldoot, where they go out and get a, like I said, like a 22, I think year old forward who has 25 NHL goals and under 100 NHL games. I think I think you're excited about that if you're Montreal. because they dealt from, they traded Logan Mayu, and that was like a position of strength for them, especially after the Dobson deal, where they were like, how many young defensemen do we fucking need? We need guys who can put the puck in the net.

So let's go get one. Okay, great. Awesome shit from Montreal. Just so clearly identified their needs, so clearly knew a way to pursue it that made sense. and what else can you ask for. But credit to Kent Hughes for that, but also, like, remember, they've got Jeff Gordon running the show.

I think he's, like, sneaky one of the better front office guys of the last, of the cap era, you know, I would say. Well, yes and no. I mean, the Rangers. Yeah, but what he did in Boston? Oh, yeah, for sure. And even the Rangers, I mean, he'd be. built largely a president's trophy winning team. Sure.

Yeah, I guess that's true. If that's the big strike against him, I think there's a lot of GMs out there that would. You're probably right about that. Yep. Absolutely. No, really, just this is what everybody in the, in the Atlantic division, like, should have been fearing when they made all those chains. They're bringing San Luis. Looks like San Luis is a pretty good coach.

Guys like playing for him, et cetera, et cetera. you know, like Gorton, Hughes, like, that's all of a piece. That's all kind of like a one, a three-for-one deal, you know? And it seems like that's really working out for them. What else can you say?

I don't know that I have them as like the winners, like Capital W winners of the off-season so far, but they're going to be the conversation, that's for sure. All right, next up. Speaking of the Atlantic, Detroit gets their goalie. It's John Gibson. They get him for Marazic and two picks. Your thoughts?

My first thought, utter relief that John Gibson has finally been traded. I feel like it's been four years that we've been talking about this. Yeah, him and Zegress, right? Yeah. And they did it with a, oh, fuck, what's a Fowler, too. Remember that? oh, Fowler's out of here, follows out of here,

follows out of here. They finally traded them last year. Now they're handling all family business, you know? Mm-hmm. Settling. Somewhat surprised that Detroit was the destination. Yeah. But Detroit did need a goalie.

Sure. I think we can all think of another team that maybe needed a goalie more and be a little surprised that that's not. where this ended up going, but the price was reasonable. Totally.

They didn't give up a first or a prospect or anything like that. It was the second and a fourth, I think, were the two picks. Yeah, that sounds right. Two years, probably too much money, but two years, you can live with that. And again, they're one of those teams that's like a mile below the cap, so what do they care about the money?

And I'm fascinated now to see how this goes, because as some listeners will know, I have had a running debate for, I would say, three years now with Jesse Granger about John Gibson, where I just point at the numbers and go, this guy has not been good in, like, five years since he was... Yeah, something like that.

Like, he's been awful, or his numbers have been awful. And Jesse's response is, basically watch the games nerd. Right. To which I replied, no. They played too late at night for me, and I'm sleepy. But his argument has always been, John Gibson's a very good goalie behind a terrible defense,

and eventually he wears down. It's easy to buy that argument, isn't it? Like, or to make that argument. It's easy. It's, yeah. Now we got to see it. Now, that's the thing is he's gone to Detroit, right? It's not like to.

That's what I was going to say. This isn't the the ducks when they had you know, pronger and Niedermeyer, you know, let's put it that way. Zadano Chara's not walking through that door

for the Detroit Red Wings. But, yeah. I mean, this is, this kind of, okay, I don't have this on the outline for you,

Sean, but like this is something I was thinking about last night. And I mentioned it briefly in an article how many teams right now would you say you think are 100% locks to make the playoffs? Ooh. East and West, not just the East, but...

Okay, 100% locks? A hundred percent, lock it in, no amount of injury, no amount of underperformance. Oh, I mean, there's probably like six that I'd feel comfortable with would be my guess. Yeah, I could be tough. up to eight. Like I sat down and thought about it.

And I bet if I tried to list all six, one of those teams wouldn't make the playoffs. Like, for sure. Yeah, that's just how it works. So my point is it's wide open for a lot of teams that are like, oh, no, this is it for us. We're going to do it, you know? It could be, it could be Anaheim. It could be, uh, Detroit. It could be all these teams where you're like, yeah, I don't think they're that good, you know?

Like, it opens a lot of opportunity. We'll put it that way. way for teams to make good on on whatever they think or they're you know purporting themselves to be there there is now the opportunity to do that um and that's where john gibson comes in because like i don't think bad goaltending was what sunk the red wings last year but it didn't fucking help put it that way so who knows i don't know i could i could be convinced either way i'll put it i'll put it to you that way about the the Red Wings making it this year.

Which is better than I would have said. So here's the other thing. They go out and they get Mason Appleton, who I think is a good player. Patrick Kane, who, well, he's in the NHL. Can't say he's not, you know? And who is the other guy?

Oh, JVR. JVR was like a depth edition for them. Okay, great. I don't know that any of those guys individually or collectively are moving the needle, but those are the guys they went out and got to compliment. And getting Patrick Kane to stay is nice, but not an addition. Right.

So, yeah, that's just, okay, great, you know, good situation for Detroit, but, you know, how much does good help them? I don't know. Hey, speaking of teams in the Atlantic, again, Boston. They got up to some fun stuff this week. So here's the other signing that everybody hates. Yeah. Tyler Geno gets 3.4 for the next 47 years.

Oh, it's only five. Okay. Sorry. You got to look. Look. The rule of, I have this rule written down. It says, do give. term to deft guys on July 1st.

There's a little smudge on there somewhere, but I'm sure it's not important. Yeah, it's just, look, I remember when the lightning gave up a ton for this guy in trade with Nashville, however many years ago that was. Still one of the most ridiculous trades of the cabaret. I remember when they made that trade, and people were like, oh, you know, he may be,

maybe it's not sustainable, but the lightning can put guys in a position to succeed, blah, blah, blah. This is, so, okay. Yeah, when they made that trade, I think he had just scored 24 goals or, he had one year where he scored 24. That's the number

that stands out in my head. And everybody's like, where the fuck did that come from? Oh, shit, maybe this guy's good. Like, he had scored, he had been in the AHL. Okay, I just pulled up his elite prospects page. The year before he scored 24, he had games in the ECHL, and then he comes up, he scores 24.

Everybody's like, oh, fuck. He has a slow start in Nashville, Tampa Trades for him. It goes badly. How many goals would you guess Tanner Jano had last season in 67 games with the Los Angeles Kings? I feel like I saw the number and it was like eight. It's seven. I apologize to Tanner Jano.

I think he owes you an apology. You believed in him too much. So I don't get why Boston is, look, all the meatheads that cover that team. And it's a dwindling number for sure. But there are still guys who are like, he's a fucking brood, you know. They're going to love Tanner Geno. He brings something to the table. No one else does.

He's going to protect Pashtenac. Okay. The thing about Tanner Genoa is, in my opinion, even as like a fourth line guy, he kind of sucks. There are, I'll put it this way. In addition to Tanner Geno, the Bruins signed Mikey Isamon, Sean Correlli, Matei Blumel, a Blumel,

there might have been one more guy in there that I'm forgetting. But it's just like, yeah, I'd rather have, I think, all of those guys than Tanner Janot. And the good news is they have all of them. But the Bruins depth chart now is a wonder to behold, let's say. Because they're not one of these teams that are swimming in fucking cap space. They have $2 million in cap space. I don't think they have anybody left to resign at this point.

Two million bucks. I'm just going to read you their depth chart from highest paid forward to lowest. Okay? And when you feel like you're going to be sick, you just let me know. It will stop. David Posternak, one of the best players in the world. He's good. It's good start.

Yeah. Elias Lindholm. Okay. Starting to feel a little queasy maybe. Already, yeah. Yeah. Casey Middlestadt. Uh-huh.

Morgan Geeky, good player. Yeah. Especially good with Posternock. I like what he brings to the table. Pavel Zaka. The guy I was thinking of, but it wasn't a guy they signed. It's a guy they traded for. Victor Arvinson.

Yeah. I don't hate that gamble for Boston, but yeah. See, well, okay, I said that about Edmonton last year, and it went bad. Yeah. So I'm a little dicey on that. Tanner Genoa, there he is. Big T.J., they call him. Sean Corrally, Mark Castellick, Mikey Isamont,

Marat Kudznutit to top I don't A guy that doesn't really matter very much Johnny Beecher Matt Poitra Fraser Minton That's their That's their forward group

Oh and they didn't qualify Yakobloco That's He's a non-restrictive free agent Not that I think he's like moving the needle For anybody but that's their forward group This is a team that's like We're going to try to make the playoffs next year

The thing that's the thing that really frightens me about this signing. Is that that impression you did of the Boston guy? Yeah. Talking about how, you know, this is going to be Bruins hockey and all this. That, to me, sounds like Don Sweeney and Cam Neely talking themselves into this guy.

Yeah, I think the Sweeney's is maybe not long for the job in Boston at this point. Well, and, I mean, we say it all the time, right? but that can be part of this, is these sorts of signings will work, in which case they work, or they don't work, in which case it's not going to be Don Sweeney's problem. Right.

A year from now. Probably won't be Cam Neely's either. So the decision-making matrix gets a little messy. This is one of those ones where it's like, if you just gave me a bunch of money and your whole job was every time, or my whole job was every time the Bruins make a pick or a trade or whatever,

they just call me and say, is this okay? And I either say yes or no. And I only get five vetoes a year. I would have used three of my vetoes on the Tanner Geno trade. Okay. Or signing. Yeah.

I wouldn't, like you say, I wouldn't have had a ton negative to say about Arvinson. I'd have been like, you guys are sure, okay, I guess, you know. The thing with Arvetson to me is,

it's one year left on the deal. Yeah. He was a bust in Edmonton, partly because they thought he was going to help him win in the playoffs and he didn't. I don't think that's going to be as much of an issue in Boston. And so it gives you a guy you can flip at the deadline. Yep. You got him for nothing.

You'll get something for him in the first week of March. Yeah, or maybe he'll click really well. and, you know, it's, we'll see. The other thing to say is people in Boston kind of sussed out what the Bruins were targeting with everybody they brought in here. And it's like depth shot volume guys. And people were like, hey, so is that just like the way they're going to play? And it seems like the answer is yes.

Like they're just going to shoot the puck a lot, which to me, I don't know that you can, that game and course he works. but, you know, it is kind of the Rod Brindamore thing a little bit. Yeah. Maybe that can have some success with Marco Sturm as the new coach. I don't know, but I'm not optimistic about this forward group being able to do anything at all. Wouldn't you just love to know what the other offers for Tyler Jones? That's, I was going to say the same thing. Like the Bruins call them up and they're like 3.4 and his agents like,

you can't sign a guy for 0.4 years. and they're like, no, that's the AAV. And he's like, huh? That could have been it. Like, that's the only thing. I can't imagine what otherwise would have gotten lost in translation here, you know? It's just, it's, I'll take Provov at eight and a half a hundred times out of 100 before I take Tanner Chino at five. It's insane to me.

here's another team that I don't I just straight up don't understand what they're doing the Vancouver Canucks out of Vander Cain they bring back Brock Besser they let Pew Souter walk they uh they re up um thatcher Demko they re up Connor Garland beyond uh for contracts that'll kick in next summer keeping the band together yeah but this is like if if the band is like uh

winger that you're keeping together. You know what I mean? Like, this isn't, this is, this is an unbelievable. Okay, I'm getting mad about this again. Here we go. They add a Vander Kaine.

I'm like, okay, I get it to a certain extent. Maybe, maybe if it's me, I don't want another guy where it's like, there's a bit of drama that comes with him in the room. Didn't we just do that? You know,

maybe, also like, yeah, he can score goals, though. Don't look up how he did in the playoffs if you think that way, by the way. But, like, did you see this report last night that Souter was going to give Vancouver a hometown discount and they were like, we're good. And then he goes and signs with St. Louis

for $4 million bucks for two years? I had not seen. Four million AAB. Yeah. He was like, I love playing in Vancouver. I'm happy to be here. And they were like, take a fucking hike, man. We're all set. Huh? he's good. If you're trying to keep the band together, which they clearly are, what the fuck are we doing?

This, I do not get this team's management, like, thought process at all. They sucked last year. They were bad, especially when Quinn Hughes was off the ice. So, they were, okay, go ahead. I'm getting fired up. You just said the magic words, right, which is Queen Hughes. Hughes, who needs an extension next year, has two years left before he's a UFA. So if keeping the band together makes him happy, maybe that's your answer of why they do it.

I understand that. Letting guys walk and maybe taking a step back and now it's next summer and you just miss the playoffs again and you're trying to get Quinn Hughes to lock in. You, to me, what that, what that kind of implies about how they view Quinn Hughes is like he gets, like, Quinn Hughes gets really scared when the sun goes away every night. You know what I mean? Like, he, he, he has no object permanence is, is what that implies to me about what they think of Quinn Hughes's, like, ability to see what this team is. You know what I mean? Have you met a lot of hockey players?

Yeah, look, I get, I get what you're saying. But I think what they're doing is they're going like, hey, Quinn, you're easily fooled, right? You're a real dupe. You're a, you're a, you're a, a mark. Is that right? And he's going, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the Vancouver Canucks. And we have the best team in the world.

We just have made the playoffs one time in the last 15 years or whatever it is by accident. That's, it's crazy that it keeps happening to us. I just don't fucking get it, man. Three years for Thatcher Demko isn't like crazy, but $8.5 million for a goalie where it's like, what did he play 20 games last year? Yeah, that's, that one is so, it's so tough. Like, I don't know what you do with Thatcher Demko

because this guy was a Vesna level goalie two years ago. Then he got hurt and didn't just get hurt as in, oh, he got banged up and missed some games, and it happens. Like, there were reports about him having to learn, like, a new style of goaltending. Yeah. So he plays 20 games or whatever. Isn't great. And now you need to extend him.

Or maybe you don't, and maybe you let it play out. But if you let it play out and he's back to Vezna Thatcher Demko, then everyone thinks you're an idiot for not getting it done. Yeah, they're really betting on him. being Vesna Thatcher Demko again. And I don't know that that's a bet I'd be willing to make. But then again, oh, well, did, oh, who was it? Oh, the Brock Besser thing, did you see the report that they only circled back to Besser

who they didn't want to bring back after they got outbid for Christian Dvorak? I did not see that. Again, another report where it's just like the Vancouver media, say what you want to about the Vancouver media. They are extremely plugged in. They really do seem to know everything that's in like the thought process over there. You know what I mean? And to me, again, it's just like, oh, yeah, the guy we really think is going to get us over the hump is Christian Dvorak.

Too bad Philadelphia came in and gave Christian Dvorak what I'd call a borderline crazy contract. And Vancouver was like, we wanted to be in that race. But, well, I guess we'll circle back to Brock Bessor, the guy who, like, love. loves Vancouver and wanted to stay and blah, blah, blah. Margaret seemed like it was a little softer for him than... Yeah, two and a half months to figure that out and then... I just... It was a weird one.

Road to nowhere for the Vancouver Canucks, in my opinion. Okay. Am I wrong? Are they making the... Again, it wouldn't surprise me if they made the playoffs next year. But, like, they're not competing for anything. And if it's all to, like, trick Quinn Hughes... Okay.

Okay. Maybe he's easily tricked. I don't know. I just think he's not that much of a sucker, and he really wants to play with his brothers. Those are the two things I think about Quinn Hughes. Let's stay in the West here. Dallas, new coach.

Yeah. Glenn Gulles. Yeah. I mean, you never know how interviews go. You never know. I mean, honestly, when you're talking about guys who've primarily been assistants, a guy like me doesn't know who does what. No, of course, yeah.

I will simply say I was very surprised that the Dallas Stars hired an NHL coach who's been a head coach with two different teams and has never won a playoff game. That feels like a weird place to go after you've had Pete DeBore. Well, I mean, hey, if you really want to change it up, a guy who wins a lot in the playoffs, but maybe not the big one, you go get a guy who's never won,

literally never won in the playoffs. He's never won in the playoffs. Four tries. One time and got swept. Four games, they got swept. Now, look, we do have to say he was the coach of the, like, early Jamie Ben-era Dallas stars,

I believe. and the like mid-2010s or early 2010s Calgary Flames I can't remember the timeline exactly now but two teams that sucked I don't blame him for never making or making the playoffs one time in four years or you know also like

not winning in the playoffs those were two bad teams I don't know how else to put it to you you know that having been said not exactly Maxx maximizing the window in Dallas is kind of my read on it. Yeah, I mean, a lot of us said it, right, when they made the decision to move on from Pete DeBore, obviously because of their playoff run, that was a very late move as far as how the coaching

carousel usually goes. And we were kind of looking around going, who else is out there? Well, now we know. Now we know Sometimes when there's a new coach In some places We just we look at that And not because of the coach

But because of the situation You go put that guy on the Jack Adams watch Just because This is the perfect situation For a team to take a step forward And the coach will get the credit Yep If there was like a negative Jack Adams

Reverse yeah I feel like this is The Adam Jacks award That's right The expectations are already sky high. They are cup or bust, and you're bringing a new coach into the mix.

Now, let me say this. He obviously was an assistant in Edmonton the last few years in charge of the power play. And you can say, well, how hard is it really? You say, Connor, Leon, you guys are up. And someone asked, a noveloc about this like during the playoffs and he said well look when he was hired we had Connor and Leon and our power play was almost last place in the league and so you can say it's

easy but the guy before him wasn't getting results and he immediately started getting results so there is that to consider well and the other thing is the oilers power play when it is clicking looks like total chaos. Yes. It looks like there is no structure. There is no... So maybe this is one of those things

where, you know, to somebody like me, it looks like they're just throwing the puck out there and going nuts, but maybe there actually is something there. I don't know, maybe this guy's a... This guy's an offensive genius. Yeah, that's the only thing you can really think of here, right? is like that there's something we're missing. And there absolutely could be, but...

Yeah, totally. It's tough. But like you say, the expectations have to be insane for this guy. And we don't know if he's a good NHL coach. But hey, they brought back Radic Faxa. So think about it, you know. They said they really missed him last year. I'm like, I watched you guys.

You're pretty fucking good. I don't know. You miss it? the guy who was like not a huge difference maker for the St. Louis Blues. Can that be right? Okay. Anyhow. Oh, and also Jamie Ben is back. Right. On a super cheap deal, which is what needed to happen. So that's sure. That's good. Here's a cup or bus team, kind of, maybe. I don't know. Carolina. How do you feel about them? The Keondra Miller deal is fascinating to me.

Yes. On the other show yesterday, we all kind of agreed that we like the deal, but we kind of like it because it's Carolina doing it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And could you not picture the Buffalo Sabres making the exact same trade and contract and everybody going? Oh, brother. Yeah, of course.

Bozos. Absolutely. So, I don't know. Did you see the little clip that the hurricanes put out of Kulski and? I did. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't, this wasn't, you know, the Tyler Sagan trade behind the scenes. No, no, no, no. It's interesting. And, and like, you know, the reasons they said he fits their system or whatever, I was like, hard for me to argue. Like, those are, those are kind of basic points that they're making.

that's not exactly like high-level hockey discussions that they're having, you know, where they're like, oh, he moves his feet really well. By the way, I'm like, yeah, okay, that's true. I, what I found very cool from that clip is Tulski, the computers he was talking to were like super lifelike. Like, they, those, like, look like old-timey scouts. I don't know. That's from X Machina. Yeah, that's right.

His spreadsheets are like really impressively. Yeah. It must have been like a hall of president sort of thing. thing they got going there. But yeah, so not only do they get Keondre Miller, who probably helps them. Another guy they get to bolster their blue line. And again, just like a guy where I'm like, yep, that's a good defenseman. He'll do really well.

They're Mike Riley. Where it's like he's a depth guy, but like, you know, they put defensemen in a position to succeed in a way few teams do. And so I got nothing bad to say about that. But the other big deal they made, and again, we're. recording this presumably before they get Nick Eilers to sign for dirt cheap and, you know, one year or whatever it is. Is they extended Logan Stankov. Yeah.

Eight years, six million bucks. Uh, a big bet. But at that, well, yes and no. It's, it, I don't. That's exactly right. I like the odds. Yeah. I mean, six million dollars three years from now is going to be like,

we think of is $4 million. Because I saw people go, what a steal. And it's like, I don't know. Do you know how many goals Logan Stankovin has in his NHL career regular season only? But do you know how many goals he has? I do not. What's he? 20.

25? 20. That's it. Oh. Okay. That's all he's ever scored in like, you know, a season and a third or something like that. But it's, to me, I'm just going like, well, I mean, that's why the number's not so big.

Because he was like, oh, I should get a lot of money because everybody thinks I'm really good. That's, yeah, maybe. You have 20 goals, big dog, and he had to say, you got me there, you know. 20 career goals isn't a lot, but eight years, I would have thought he'd go shorter, you know. And this is true of a lot of guys. We thought Nyes was going to go shorter. We were probably thinking maybe Dobson goes a little shorter. But they don't.

They all go, like, I would have said five. Even Marner, we'll talk about. Yeah. There's lots of talk about, you know, going shorter deal. I, they, NHL players love eight-year deals. They do. Bad news for them starting next season.

Yeah. But, yeah, I like what Carolina's done so far, hard not to. But, you know, we'll see. Another team in that division, the New York Islanders, Not exactly Befing up for this season Although they did sign Jonathan Drew in Ethan Bear

Who's the goal Dave Riddick You know And Emil Heinem The guy The great Emil Heimann Who they traded for But I really like some of their

Some of their future bets here I thought they had maybe the best draft out of anybody They get Schaefer obviously Which helps Yeah But, um, but, um, first overall pick usually.

Yeah. But both Victor Eklund and Kishon were, were supposed to be taken higher than they were. So to get them at 16 and 17 is like, awesome, you know. And they obviously had those two picks and they were trying to trade into the top five or six so they could get,

um, uh, why am I blank? James Hagan's. Yeah. And, which I, man,

I thought they were going to do it. I thought so too. Once he got, once he got, once he got, out of the top five. I would love to know what those conversations were.

How close did it come? Did they call up? Who was six, Philadelphia? Yeah, that's right. And then Boston. Did they call them up and say, we'll give you the two first? Yes, that's basically my understanding

is that was what was on offer, yeah. Were there conversations? Was it just one of these things where these GMs just immediately say no and shut down a conversation without even I think that I think both well obviously Boston but I think Philadelphia

had really identified their guy at 6 and they were like we won't get them at 16 you know and so that that was just what their move was but again so like if you if you are forced to pick

16th and 17th I think these are like the two guys that you would be like wow I can't believe we got those guys, you know? They also extended Alexander Romanov five years, eight million per. Bit pricey for me, but cost to doing business. And they got a guy who had a big year in the KHL last year. He's like 24, 25.

Maxim Shabanov. Shabanov, I've never seen the guy play. But people were, there was a bit of a bidding war for him, apparently. So that's I've seen enough guys Where it's like You will but this guy scored 8 trillion goals of the KHL last year

And then he gets to the NHL And they're like We can maybe get away with playing this guy Eight minutes a night You know So But there was a bidding more Who knows

Why not? Why not? I think it's only a one year deal So why not just See So Nice little Nice little week for the Islanders

Yeah Another team had a pretty good week, Sean. Getting the band back together we're talking about. This is like getting the Beatles back together. The Florida Panthers. They re-signed everybody. They got it all done.

It's crazy that they did it, but they did it. And yeah, and it's funny. I don't know if it's the same guy or if this is just kind of the messaging that a certain segment of fans. have focused on, but I've seen this comment pop up on a few things that I've done where, like everyone else, I'm like, yeah, Panthers had a great, at a great week. And the counter argument is, well, you know, they're over the cap. They're not even done.

They're going to have to move guys out. They're going to have to, yeah, they're the two-time defending champs. I like Evan Rodriguez as much as the next guy, but if they have to give him away, I'm still going to go ahead and give him the thumbs up on. on all of this. And five years from now, they're probably going to be a mess. What do they give a fuck about five years from now?

You know, there's a phrase that I invented. Flags fly for an extended period of time. Absolutely. And they got two already. They're going to keep going. And look, I mean, I'm not even going to bother doing the whole tax thing on this because there's so much more at play,

including, you know, it's, by all accounts, great organization. All their stuff is there, and they're winning a lot. Why would you want to go somewhere else to get an extra million or two million? Or in, I mean, there were people saying before Marshand resigned with them, Marchand would get offers with a 10 in front of it. Yeah. Obviously not for six fucking years, which is the crazy thing.

That's it, right? Like with Marshan, it clearly, like, the number for him was like 30 million. Yep. And there was a lot of talk that this was, you know, this was a guy who, remember, for a long time in Boston, you always heard his name on the great value contract list. Mm-hmm. Right? And everybody pretended it was because, you know, he just wanted to win, but it was because he signed.

before he really broke through as a legitimate... Yeah, he broke out as like a 30-year-old, or 29-year-old or whatever. Yeah, that's the difference. And so the talk was, this is, you know, he knows it's his last contract. He wants to cash in. And so it was sort of like,

it's going to take between 30 and 32 million. Now, how many years you want to do it for three years? Then that's a 10. You want to do it for four years, which seemed like the number that was floating around the most. then that's an eight. The Panthers did it for six. And look, I have seen it pointed out,

and I don't think this is an unfair observation to make, that this time last year there were reports about the league cracking down on certain UFAs signing long-term contracts into their 40s and saying, you know, we're going to keep an eye on this and, you know, you can't get ridiculous on it. He would be 43. 43, yeah.

43 or 44 when this contract ended. I guess. I guess that's fine. Sure. He'll definitely play this thing out. Oh, yeah, for sure, man. He's not a very physical player. There's not a lot of miles on him.

No, no, no, no, no. It's all fine. But, yeah, you know, the Sam Bennett contract, I think everybody kind of saw this one coming. Yeah. The Ekblad one was, in a way, like I would have bet Bennett first by a mile, then Marchand, then Ekblad. Yeah, no, I think that's, I think that's the correct way. It made Eckblad redundant. Yeah, absolutely. But he just, he really wanted to stay. And again, can't, can't really blame him.

And why, you know, why if you're, if you're Florida, why do you not want to just, like we said, keep the. band together. So that's fine. You know, I, I, not a player that I'm super confident. Another one, I'm not super confident. He's going to play all eight years of this deal. He can barely stay in the lineup at like 28, 29. I don't know about 37, you know.

But keep the guy three years from now. If it's a problem, well, maybe have been to another cup final or two at the very released. You know? It's totally plausible that that's what happens. So what, like you said, what do they give a shit?

Flags fly forever. Keep the band. Oh, that's even better. Damn. Yeah. That's better than my version. Oh.

That's life. Yeah. The Kings. That's who, that I didn't have written down who the team is. The Los Angeles Kings. Kind of. What are we?

Again, this feels like the one team everyone sort of settled on as we don't like the week they had. I think it's easy to see why. We'll put it that way. Well, they remade the blue line. I don't think Gavrikov was ever coming back. No, I agree with that. I think he had already made his mind up about the Rangers. I don't know about the Rangers, but definitely he was going somewhere that was in L.A.

Yeah. I've seen suggestions that he had made his mind up. Well, he's a big Zoron guy, I think. And so he was probably very nervous at 1201 when he had to have his very first contact with the Rangers. That's right. But yeah, so, I mean, he's a good defenseman. Sure. When he leaves, now you've got to figure out what you're going to do. Sure.

And apparently what they do is they look at Jordan Spend. and they're like, hey, buddy. And he's like, yeah, moving up the lineup, right? And they're like, no. Giving you away for next to nothing. Yeah, I don't get it, man. And then Cody C.C. Who's the other guy that they...

Brian Dumolin. Now, look, there's an argument to be made that the Kings needed to make some changes. Sure. Yeah. Because they were a pretty good team last year. that you might have noticed they got they got bounced out of the playoffs in the first round again. And so if you're saying to yourself, we're going to do something that gets us out of the first round,

maybe our crop of defensemen isn't good enough. I wouldn't necessarily agree that that was the problem, but if you want to say that was the problem and you're Ken Holland, I get where the thought process comes from. I can certainly see how watching Connor McDavid carve you up, That's exactly right, yeah. Would make you feel like the blue line should be addressed. Totally. I don't know that you get better in a division with Edmonton and Vegas by adding Cody C.C.

Did you ever watch Cody C C C. And think this is the guy who's going to shut down Connor McDavid. This is the matchup I want to see. Yeah, and Sean, can you, I don't remember off the top of my head. Is Drew not getting younger? I think he's staying the same age would be my. All right, all right, all right, you know? I just, I think this is taking the Kings backwards.

And maybe that's where they need to go. Maybe Ken Holland's like, fuck it. We tried with this rebuild, like, these older guys that we have on the roster aren't doing it. maybe we need to get younger again and a good way for us to do that is to have Cody Cici play like 23 minutes a night. You know, this wouldn't be, these wouldn't be the moves I made if I was running the Kings.

This is another one of those, like, how many, how many vetoes do you want me to use out of my five for the year, Ken, to tell you not to sign? You,

hey, Ken, remember when you signed Cody Cici and it didn't fucking help anything? It was in Edmonton, like four years. ago, man. They traded his ass the second you were gone. And it's not because he was good, you know? I think it was because it must have been because he was shutting down McDavid in practice too much.

Yeah, that might. David was like guys, get him out of his confidence wavering. Yeah. And again, like, anybody watched Brian Dumlin the last few years? It'd be like, oh, man, there's a guy with a lot more to give. I don't think so. This is a guy I liked for a while there in his career. You know, when he was like 27, 28, 29, I was like, oh, this is a pretty good defenseman.

You know, not a top pair guy, but like a guy who is helping out a little bit. What's he like 33 now? What the fuck? And then, and then shot, he's like, you know what? Yeah, we just got a couple of defensemen in their mid-30s. I just don't feel like we have enough veteran experience. Let's go get to Yuel Armiha and fucking Corey Perry. What the fuck, Ken?

Corey Perry, I like. I like that. Do you? Or do you like Corey Perry after he played with Connor McDavid and Leon Drysidal for a whole playoff? Oh, did they not go with him? Yeah, that is a problem, isn't it? Okay. Then maybe not as much.

That's the thing. Everybody's like, oh, Corey Perry still has a lot to give. He still has a lot to give where he just goes to the front of the net and taps a puck into it. who's getting in that puck in in L.A. Oh, boy. Do you think that the week the king's head

was that the plan or did something that was part of the plan not happen and this was plan B through Zed? They obviously wanted Marner, right?

They thought they were in the Marner sweepstakes, they weren't. And so that, I think they were just like, oh shit, now what do we do? Hell of a plan B. I don't think, you know, I don't think there was a plan B, unfortunately.

There might not have been a plan A. No, I mean, there was a plan A. And it was a good one. Get Mitch Marner. That's actually really smart. You should do that. But a few weeks ago now, when they hired Ken Holland, there was a, they had a press conference. And I, like, this is one of those things, uh, way.

where I was like, I'm just fascinated to hear what he thinks his job's going to be. You know? And Ken Holland, so I wrote an article that was like, oh, I think I figured out what he thinks his job is. And he said how many points the Kings had in the regular season

like 60 times in this press conference. He's like, we're 105 point team. We were 105 point team last year. We're 105 point team. That means we're close. and one of the, and so I quoted him in my article, which I just pulled up. A little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit there. A little bit here, a little bit there.

That's what he said he needs to add to the mix. And I would say a very little bit. Yeah, that's right. So, okay, when, this is, I'm quoting my, my own article from a month ago, but I just couldn't remember the quote. When asked whether he see, what he sees is the king's strengths, Holland cited Vezna nominated Darcy Kemper. He also said he views the Kings as being four lines deep in a team that knows how to check, loaded with young players who are only going to continue to grow into their NHL games and get better. And then this is the quote,

I don't want to screw it up. They had a good year. This is a good team. I think you might have screwed it up, Ken. Especially because he's like, oh, Darcy Kemper. Oh, you mean the guy who had like a career year at age 35? Yeah, super sustainable. Good job, man.

Yeah. It's crazy to me. Yeah. I, uh, yeah. Sorry, Kings fans. I, I know I made it sound like there was a butt coming there, but there is. He made it sound like in that press conference where, like, he's like, this is a good team. We want to add a little bit to it, but if we can get a difference maker, we're going to do it.

We're going to, like, empty the tanks to do it was basically, another thing he kind of mentioned a few times. And so they tried to get Marner. Didn't fucking work. And so they were like, we're not going to probably be in the Nick Euler sweepstakes, I guess. So that's it for us. We'll just go get Corey Perry.

Why wouldn't you be? I don't know. I haven't been checking Twitter. I'm assuming Nick Eelers hasn't signed. Yeah. Maybe we got a break coming up in a few minutes. We'll look at Twitter and maybe we'll circle back and say, actually Ken Holland is good.

Yeah, but... Do you think Eelers could... Do you think Columbus take a shot at him? I think half the teams in the league should be taking a shot at him because they have fucking $20 million in cap space. Why not?

Like, what are you not spending it for? Other than your owners like, oh, you know, about 95 and a half, man. That's going to be tough for me, you know? Yep. That's the only reason to not spend $95.5 million unless you think your team sucks and you're like the penguins or the sharks or whatever, you know?

But like, why aren't the ducks just like Nick Eelers? You want $12 million this season and then we'll circle back next year? You know? Just fucking do it. But maybe he's very, maybe Eilers is very selective. You know, he certainly doesn't seem to want to go back to Winnipeg. No. And the, look, okay, I don't have this on the outline either.

But the other thing with Eilers is this. We don't know what it looks like when like he's getting. more minutes than Mason Appleton. You know what I mean? So maybe teams are a little, I don't know, I mean, like I said it a few weeks ago. All these Jets coaches,

every single one of them arrived at the same idea. I can't play this guy 15 minutes a night, sorry. So maybe there's something to it. Anyway. Could be. We mentioned the Mitch Marner thing. Let's finally dig into it, Sean. The floor.

I tell you what. Let's take the break now. Okay, you got it, man. Let me go and, you know what, we're way past an hour. A few jumping jacks and get ready to go. Okay, sounds good. We'll be right back. NHL season's over.

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Right now, Raycon is offering 15% off their best-selling everyday earbuds only at Buyraycon.com slash puck. That's buyraycon.com slash puck. All right, welcome to the Mitch Marner hour here on Puck Soup. Sean, say what you want to say about Mitch Marner, the Leafs, etc. Best of luck in Vegas, buddy. Hope it works out for you. Hope you find what was.

somehow missing from the Toronto experience. Good luck is, I think, all I can say. I think it's a great fit team-wise. Let's start there. Let's just purely do the hockey. Great fit. Vegas is, you know, Mitch Marner is so good that he's a great fit on a lot of teams. For sure.

But Vegas especially, like of the legitimate contenders, that was, you know, Top-line winger was kind of what they were missing. So I think it's a good fit. Contract's fine. All of that. You know, does it move Vegas ahead of Edmonton? Your Western Pacific? Yeah.

Maybe. Yeah, I think it probably does. Yeah. Because, you know, we didn't, I didn't have them on the list of teams to talk about, but that's only because they haven't done anything worth talking. about. Yeah. Which is, to me, not the best way to entice

Carter McDavid to sign a big contract. No, I think. Yeah, Connor McDavid, I'm pretty sure, said, like, my main criteria is that the goaltending stay exactly the same. Because it's working. I actually love the goaltending. So well.

Yeah, Van der Kaine out, and that's about it. I'm in my career. But, yeah, it makes a lot of sense for Vegas. Now, that said, we get all the kind of intrigue behind it. The whole tampering thing was fascinating. Oh, absolutely, yeah. The tampering story, you know, I don't know.

I mean, this is one of those things where I maybe we'll never know the full story. But if people did not hear, the report was that part of the reason that Vegas and Toronto got together on a sign and trade was not just about getting the extra eighth year for Mitch Barner. And it wasn't even just about beating the rest of the market for Vegas. That it was that there had been a lot of talk around the league, that there had been tampering, whatever that might mean. And that it was tampering of a level that could be a concern to the league.

Because obviously, we've joked about it on this show. There's obviously contact at different ways that this stuff happens. And the league, for the most part, has looked the other way, but apparently recently they've sort of reinforced that we don't want this. And the report was that they were looking for a team to make an example out of that maybe the Leafs had a team. case against Vegas and that they were going to push for that unless it all ended up being a player who never even got to market.

And so that, you know, I don't know that the word blackmail is maybe it's a little strong, but it sort of sounds like maybe the leaves blackmailed. I mean, to getting Nick Wah, who's a good player. He's a much, much, much better return on this sort of trade than you normally see. Yeah, Carolina got a third round pick for Gensel, Les. year. Same gimmick. You know, I mean, the Leafs gave up like a seventh to get Chris Tanniv's rights for

an ex-end. That wasn't for the eighth year, but just to beat the market, you know, these sorts of moves. And we're not talking, like, the Matthew Kuchuk didn't, is not comparable because he was still an RFA and there's some control and all that. No, Gensel is the perfect comparison. And he got a third-round pick last year. So the Leif's got lots more than that.

They also, but it's also like a bottom six center. So, I mean, pump the brakes a little. Yeah, you'd rather have that than a third round pick. You would. You'd rather have that than a third round pick. You'd rather have a hundred point first liner than... Oh, that's interesting. Is that true?

A checking set. So, yeah. And then from there, it just sort of gets to the reaction and the legacy sounds like too strong a word. But, you know, how is Mitch Martner perceived in Toronto? How did this all go bad? Jonas Siegel had, I think, a really good piece on the athletic about, like, how did, like, just from a big picture, how did a guy, a local kid who grew up cheering for the Leafs, how did it get to this? To the point where he's playing out the last year and by some reports two years of his contract already knowing he's leaving. Can't wait to get out of here.

And how do you square feeling like you were not respect? enough by one team and then you go to Vegas who to their credit as we've talked about on this show a lot are the most cutthroat team in the league as far as kicking guys out the door as soon as they feel like there's something better out there that they can they can find so my perception of the the respect angle or however you want to put it is and like the thing about um the the the the pressure that you play under in Toronto. Because everyone's like, well, there's insane pressure to play in Vegas, too, right?

And I'll put it to you this way. The pressure in Vegas is all internal. You know what I mean? Like, they're like, if you have one bad season, we're sending you to Utah faster than you can say no trade clause, right? Like, that's the gimmick there. Like, we will fucking nuke you out of this town. We don't care.

They put a footprint on Mark Andre Fleury's back. And a sword through it, some would say. The most popular player in the history of the team, the short history of the team. One of the most beloved players in the entire league. Yep. And they were like, oh, yeah, you're not quite as good as you were a year ago. We're going to take you out behind the barn. Come on.

Yeah, they gave him the DJ Jazzy Jeff, just threw him out of the front of the building. Exactly. And I think that's like, obviously, you know, it has worked for them, let's say, over the years. They have remained a competitive team. You can't really say anything about that aspect of it, right? However, when you talk about how the local media talks about these players and the fans talk about these players, every like to a man they're going oh you mean mark andre flurry the beautiful angel who's never done a thing wrong in his entire life we love that guy yeah that's that's the pretext of every article about a player in Vegas that's the that's like um and and i think a lot of that just stems from the the golden misfits thing where they just like hit the ground running so hard that they're like everybody who ever plays for Vegas is the best hockey player of all time Wayne who.

I'm talking about Derek England. You know what I mean? Like, that's how they are covered. And the amount of deference that management gets with what they want to do, oh, we love you, Mark Andre Fleury. Management goes, he had to fucking go. We couldn't win with that guy. And the whole media there goes, we agree.

We love that guy, but obviously you're right. because why would we ever question you you got like Jonathan Marcia so in the expansion draft and so it creates this weird dichotomy to me where it's insanely high pressure insanely ruthless

internally and externally it's all sunshine and rainbows whereas I feel it's the complete opposite of Toronto remember when Sheldon Keefe had to apologize for saying Mitch Marner had a bad game in, like, February? Which time?

Because it happened. Exactly. Exactly, man. Where he had to have a press conference to be like, I shouldn't have said what I said. You know imagine Mitch Marner going to Kelly McCriman being like, excuse me, the coach was mean to me. Would you please make him apologize? Yeah, okay. Have fun in, have fun in, fucking Ottawa, man.

Fuck you. That's what Kelly McCriman would say 100% like word for word. And so, like, I'll put it this way. They had, they had the, the press conference yesterday with Kelly McCriman and they're talking about. And they, they let him get up there and be like, how dare people say we might trade Tomas Hurdle? How dare they? How, say, the idea, the idea to him is like anathema. We would never do, you know, and it's like, I've seen how you operate for the last seven years.

What are you talking about? Right. But nobody pushed him on that. And nobody pushed, from my understanding, nobody even mentioned the word tampering in that press conference yesterday. What do you think about the allegations of tampering? What? Yeah, that, yes, apparently that is the case. It was not brought up.

And so, like, that is, I don't want to say they live in fear of Kelly McCriman or whatever, but it's just like, we're not going to even bring it up. We're going to be deferential to the front office. They might live in fear of him because by. all accounts, he's a very nasty guy. Oh, I, yeah. And again, I don't even say this as necessarily as an insult.

I like the style of the Vegas Golden Knights. I kind of wish my team did things that way more often. But you see what I'm saying, where it's like, it's just a completely flipped script from how Toronto operates.

And I think that's like, like, it's not Marner's afraid of pressure. He doesn't want, he just doesn't want people to be like, hey, you missed an empty net in a four one, in a game you were already winning four one. Are you the worst player on the planet? You know what I mean? Like he didn't want people DMing his wife pictures of their house when he fucking doesn't back check one time. And I get that. I, you know, I get it too, but that's just saying I don't want to play in a big market. That's just saying I can't handle the big market. And I'm not saying anyone, athletes should have to put up with that. But fans of

any team in any sport anywhere are like any other group of people. You get a sufficiently large number of them. Some of them are jerks. Except Vegas. That's what I'm saying. I don't know, man. Notoriously squeaky clean Vegas where there's everybody's just Ned Flanders. I don't know.

That's why I wrote that in the newsletter today. I'm not sure this is as good a fit for Mitch Marner, who is, you know, if people don't know. part of the, the problem for Mitch Marner in Toronto, he and the people around him were enormously, unusually sensitive to. Yes. Whether it was fans, media, whatever. Media criticism, yeah.

For all the talk of, oh, I don't read the papers, yes, they did. Of course they do. They were, and I mean, look, everybody does. It's always a lie when an athlete says, I don't care about that stuff, all, but most athletes have figured out a way to not care about it as much. The Marner group just felt like they devoured this stuff. To the point where it apparently is possible for Mitch Marner's brain to contain the thoughts both that, A, we are treated like gods, which he said, and people made fun of it, but

I mean, he was making a valid point. He didn't. Yeah, he's not wrong. But you can say we're treated like gods and also, I am not given enough respect. Which sort of gets to the point of like, dude, when is it enough? How much do you need your tires pumped constantly? But this is what I'm saying about like the way Vegas gets covered by the local media until it's time to ship out a Mark Andre Fleury or whatever.

We love these guys. We kiss them beautifully every night. We have Mitch Marner pajamas that we wear to bed every night, you know? Yeah. I guess we'll find out what if you prefer. I just don't think. I don't think that's how the Toronto media operates. No.

You can say that they're, that like the leaves get an insane undue amount of coverage, but it's only because they're in Toronto and that's where all the media is in Canada. Yeah, obviously, like, they shouldn't be the team on Hockey Night in Canada every week, but they are. You know, like, just mathematically they shouldn't. You know, certainly they've been the best team in Eastern Canada for a decade or whatever, you know. But to me, I just, I think that there, that fundamentally the difference in how the fans and media talk about the Vegas Golden Knights is. is kind of what Mitch Marner is saying he wants. I want, like, a lot of attention, and I want all of it to be good.

But is he going to get a lot of attention? Or is he going to get a little bit of attention? Is he going to realize that, oh, wait, there's three beat writers. We're on page 14 of the newspaper every time the Raiders are, you know, are in town. There's a baseball team on the way, so we're going to get bumped. You might be getting out over your skis on that baseball team. Fair enough. It's starting to look like.

Fair enough. But, you know. NBA team on the way, certainly. You know, you're right. And he might be, look, Mitch Martin is like 27, 28 now. He's got a kid. Like, he might be so happy to just blend in. Just nice and quiet.

And, you know, that might be the dream for him. Yeah, well, that's kind of my read. It's just like he wants, instead of 40 microphones, he wants 10. Nothing that we saw in Toronto. made you feel like he, and again, we have to say, and the people around him were that sort of people because you never got the feeling with Mitch Marner that it was, hey, I just want to be left alone.

It was, hey, I want to be loved, I want to be worshipped, I want to be the captain of this team. I want to be, I want the statue on Legends Row. I want to be the next Doug Gilmore. I want to be the most popular, not the most popular. And he is wearing 93 in Vegas, by the way. I don't know if you saw that. popular leaf. I want to be the most popular athlete in Toronto.

I want to be a legend. And any criticism that goes against that, I'm going to take so personally, and we're going to take so personally. We're going to be calling reporters off the record and, you know, we're going to have all this nonsense that you hear about. And then to go there and go to a market like Vegas and turn the tap almost all the way down to where, yeah, no, you're not getting any criticism, but also you're barely being noticed.

I don't know. I sincerely for him, I hope that's what he wants. I hope it works. I hope him and his family are happy and all of that stuff. I just wonder if there's not going to be a part of him that at some point realizes, like, I had it a lot better than I,

I had it better than I thought I had it, and I had it better than people who were in my ear kept telling me I had it. the people who kept telling me, you don't deserve this, you're so much more than this, you're this and that, man, maybe I should have stood up and made my own decisions for a change. Hard to say. Yeah. Well, you know, especially because it's like, okay, are we going to actually, you know, like, is the camp moving with them? You know what I mean?

Or is it really? Okay. Yep. I don't know. They were at the press conference. Okay. Great. Well, there you have it. But yeah, like I say, I think it's a thing of he doesn't want 50 cameras in his face, but he'll take like five, you know? And if that's the case, if that's the case, then it could be a good fit.

My read has always been that he actually, he does want 50 cameras in his face, but they better all be saying that he's the greatest. Well, again, it'll be five mostly saying that. Five might not be enough, man. Okay. Anyway, like you say. Good on Ice Fit. At the end of the day, you know, I don't think he deserves as much hate as he's getting

and will probably continue to get from Leaf fans. Although I get it. This is what sports fans do, right? I mean, well, here's the thing. You might not know this. actually, he had Vegas Golden Knights pajamas growing up. Oh, well, in that case, it's fine. I did get somebody, like some random comment was like,

oh, you leave fans are being such babies about this. And I clicked and it was like an Islanders fan. And I'm like, come on, man. No, here's the thing. I agree with the, with the, Leaves fans are kind of being bigger babies about this than they probably should be. Yeah. Because like you said, who didn't think he was leaving? The one other interesting thing that came out this week that I think maybe changes things a bit,

although that implies that anyone out there hadn't already made their mind up, which is probably not true. But there had been the whole thing of like he didn't, he wouldn't waive as no trade. He didn't want to stay. He didn't want to be here, but he didn't waive as no trade at the deadline when they approached him. and his wife was eight and a half months pregnant i and many others pointed out fucking use your brain his wife was but okay but then what came out this week was he actually was willing to waive his no trade as long as it was a team that he wanted including Vegas sure yeah i mean right that's the whole thing of a no trade clause it's like but there's a huge difference between don't i'm i'm not

going anywhere and i'm going to by the way float to certain media that I'm insulted that they even would offer it versus, oh, yeah, I'm actually open to waiving by no trade. It just wasn't to the right team. That's a big change. And frankly, it takes away the whole, how could you even suggest a trade to somebody whose wife is pregnant when he's sitting there going, no, no, I wouldn't go to Carolina, but like, even further away, yeah, I'll, yeah, no problem.

I'd do that. Yeah. That's a little. Well, as we know, yeah, as we know, like, there's just, he couldn't have done anything to get these people to be like, oh, it's actually, I'm going to be actually really normal about Mitch Marner now, you know, so. I mean, again, this is, I get that it, is this any different than what Yankee fans would do or Lakers or any big fan base? You either, you either want big passionate fan bases or you don't. and if you do and you know

spoiler alert every league does some of them are going to are going to go too far and yeah like there's obvious limits but this whole thing where we sit back

and fold our arms and go like oh you guys are being silly about actually caring about a great player who you know who leaves the team oh okay maybe some fans will take that to heart

and not care as much and good luck with that Well, okay, let's talk about the other stuff the Leafs did this week Because I actually think they had a really interesting week Aside from the whole Marner saga They, with the money they free up or whatever They are able to extend Matthew Nyes They bring John Tavares back

They get Nick Waugh as we mentioned And they trade for Matthias Maselli Yeah It's a pretty Look, you're always going to, right? Yeah, you're always going to lose the Marner thing. Like, you're just not, it's not going to work out too good for you to lose a guy like that. Right.

Like, you lose any trade, you trade a guy like Marner in, whether it's for another player or picks or whatever. You're just not getting equal value. To get anything out of it, like you said, maybe there was some blackmail involved or whatever. But, you know, I would say, like, I don't think they've made up Marner in the aggregate. Let's put it that way. No, absolutely not. But I think they've also done better than I expected them to do at kind of rebuilding the team in his absence. Is that fair?

I mean, I think they probably did as well as they reasonably could have. Yeah. But that's about it. I'm not, it's, it's, it's a C plus or a B minus to me. It's, I don't think it's. They're still worse than they were last season, for sure.

On paper, at least, yes. Yeah. So I don't know, I don't know what to, what to make of it, honestly, because this circles back to my, like,

how many teams are guaranteed to make the playoffs next year thing? If you told me Toronto missed the playoffs next year, I wouldn't be, like, shocked. No. Which is, crazy considering where they were last year.

Yeah, I mean, they, even as good as they were last year, they've got like 10 points to give away before they're in the wild card mix. That's right. Yeah. That's not a lot. Especially when. But we would have said that about Boston. Yep.

Yes. Yeah. And it's not a lot. And now we're saying the Bruins suck and they should blow it up. It's especially not a lot when a huge part of your success was based on. a goalie having a career year. Mm-hmm. Much like the Kings.

The only thing I would, other thing I'll say on the Leafs, and then we can move on is that the Moselli trade is really interesting to me. Because based on what he did two years ago and three years ago, that's a great value. Mm-hmm. Like this could absolutely be your like, your Zach Hyman or your Michael Bunting guy that you drop into the first line

and he can give you 60 points. but also, like, you know, he wasn't very good last year. And this is one of those things where it's like, all right, which team knows him best? Mm-hmm. And it's not the Leafs. It's the team that just traded him away at a discount. So what did they know? Yeah.

What did they see and who's right? And it's probably still worth the gamble. Yeah, totally. It costs nothing but money in like a mid-round draft pick. What was it, the third? It was a third round pick, and, you know, the Leifes have got like four draft picks in the next decade. So it wasn't super cheap to them, but it was worth the gamble. But I don't know, man.

Well, the Leifes are kind of in the same boat as the Panthers in terms of, well, look, like, if we don't win anything in the next three or four years, like, who gives a shit, you know? Obviously. Winning one round flags also fly forever. That's right. I don't even want to get into the amount of respect they may or may not get in the handshake line next year, you know? That's a great point. That's really what we do this for. Absolutely.

So, yeah, to me, I don't know. I think the leaves are maybe one of the, this sucks for me to say, but I think the leaves are maybe one of the more interesting teams in the league now. Because I don't know what next season looks like, and if it doesn't look good, I don't know what happens. You know? Just writing this down, the matronomeapolee Leafs are the most interesting team in the league. One of, one of, don't misquote me. No, I didn't say that.

I said something like it, but, you know, this is two Pinocchio's, let's say. Okay. You know, two pants on fire. One other thing I wanted to mention really quickly is, remember when we were going to get like offer sheets and stuff like that? Whatever happened. Well, but here's the thing. Like, did we really think there were going to be off sheets on July 1? I don't know.

Remember, the St. Louis ones last year came in August. That's true. Like mid-August. And I almost hate to say this because it's such, it gets said so often. and it's one of those things that people say and then they act like they've said something really smart. But, you know, the player has to sign the offer sheet. Is that true?

They do? It doesn't like compel them to play for the team? That would be cool if you could just go and like nail it to someone's door and then like, ha ha, we got them and run off. But no, like, and so if you're Matthew Nyes and let's say he hadn't signed yet with the Leafs, like are you going to toss that grenade like on July, the first week of July,

it seems to me like it's more something where you try to make the deal, assuming you like where you're at, and we'll put a pin in that to get to one name in a minute. But if you like where you're at, you don't want to blow up that relationship. You want to come to a good deal

until you realize, like, there isn't a way forward that I'm comfortable with, at a number I'm comfortable with. So now I've got to open up other options. I don't think you're going to see that early. Unless the player doesn't want to be there. Which brings us to potentially Bowen Byram and the Buffalo Sabres.

And the talk with him that I find interesting is that he might be interested in an offer sheet and he might be interested in a one-year offer sheet. The reason that matters is that there is a rule that if your player gets an offer sheet and you match it, you cannot trade that player anywhere for one year. Right. And so that is because the league doesn't want a situation where, oh, okay, I don't want the guy,

so I'll match the off sheet, then I'll trade him to Columbus or something, and the players don't want that, and the league doesn't. So you have one year where you can't trade them. So they signed, if Buffalo signs him to one year offer, or sorry, if somebody signs him to the one year off sheet, Buffalo matches, they've now got him under contract for one year. And they can't trade him, and it would walk him right to UFA. Not to UFA next year, I don't believe.

No, I think it is. I think it's two years. But then next year you're in that situation all over again, right? Right. Right. Again, do the same thing. And now you can't trade him. So there is an argument to be made that Buffalo,

and Kevin Adams did the whole GM thing that every GM does where he was like, we will definitely match and don't you even dare. I'll fight you in a way if you try to. They've got like 14 million in cap space and he's pretending. In fact, Sean, apparently he's not even a UFA until 27, 28, which is interesting. Okay. This is according to Puckpedia. I had heard two years was what they were taking.

So next year and then the year after he would still be an RFA. His UFA is until 27. I don't think that works with his games play. I don't know. We would have to look at it. Anyways. I'm looking at puck. I don't profess to know anything.

The point is if it's a one-year deal, they cannot turn around and trade them. Right. They're now locked in. And if he doesn't want to be, I mean, he's locked in too. You know, then they get him for a year.

But there's an argument to be made that they should be, that the answer here is if you're Buffalo, A, try to get him sign long term. But if he's not interested in that, trade him now. before the offer sheet appears and now you're potentially locked in.

Right. And, you know, like the thing about like, oh, why wouldn't they just let him walk with the offer sheet is like, do you think Buffalo wants another fucking first round pick? I don't know what Buffalo wants. Well, I'll tell you, I do know what Buffalo wants

and that is to not be rebuilding for another 12 years or whatever. Then maybe acquiring some decent players instead of sitting with your hands, folded and being all patient and saying, you know, we're just going to keep making our picks. And I don't know, they had a pretty good pick in the last draft. Yeah. Lots of teams would have liked that pick.

Yeah. What are we doing? Obviously, I'm with you on the, uh, what are we doing front with the savers, right? Like they're, uh, how do you want to say? Like, aimless, I guess, directionless. where like, whatever, they picked ninth this past year and I don't, I don't know what to, what to say about the Sabres. Like, they're just, did you see Kevin Adams yesterday? They asked them about like offer sheets and would you match.

He's like, we'll match any offer sheet. Yeah. Any offer sheet? Client. And it's like. But you know what? You have to say that as a GM. It doesn't buy because you don't want, like, there's never a scenario on, like, there's never a scenario on,

Unless it's, okay, there's almost never a scenario, unless it's Sebastian Aho and the Montreal Canadians are being morons. There's never a scenario where you're happy to see an offer sheet come in. For sure. So you want to, you know, puff yourself up as big as you can to try to scare other teams away from it. I don't mind him saying that even though it sounds ridiculous. Well, the thing is what he said in saying that, He said that's why we have all the cap space we do. Is so that if somebody tries to offer sheet him, we are like equipped to do to like match it.

And to that point, they have $12.865 million in cap space right now. And if you, you know, if they don't match on a, on a deal that big, obviously they get like multiple first round picks out of it and that kind of thing. But I don't know what, like, I don't know how the, how the math ends up working out. Like, if, if it's like, okay, a team might want to give him $13 million against the cap or whatever. Mm-hmm. And, like, nobody is going to want to do that, even if it's a one-year deal, right? Like, that, that's just such a market redefining contract that I don't think any team wants to do that. And would cost them four firsts.

Right. Because you could, in theory, do the whole. like wink nudge, we'll sign you one year, and then January 1st, you get the five-year extension at a much more reasonable cap hit, and it all comes out in the wash. But you're paying all those picks. That's tough. Yeah. And so, like, at what point does it make sense for, like, you know, a roster player that

helps Buffalo now, which is what they're always acting like they want and that kind of thing. Like, I just don't know how all the columns line up. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, they've gotten themselves into another situation like JJ Peturca where it's just like, get me the fuck out of here, man. I don't know. And then they take like what you would think is less than market value, although I, frankly, the Peturca trade, which we didn't talk about last week. I think Buffalo did about as well as they could. They got two guys that I think help a lot.

And I think Petrca is a little overrated, you know? So, yeah, I don't know what to what to say. Oh, the other thing I did want to talk about with Buffalo, did you see when they picked their guy at 9, Radham Merkda, I think is how you pronounce his name? Did you see, they had, for some reason, they had like, is it the Goo Goo Goo Dolls are from Buffalo, or is it another one of the, it is the Google Dolls?

Yeah, it was Goo Goo Goo Dolls. It was two guys from Goo Goo Dolls, and they said, oh, do you have a message for Radham here about like the buffalo experience or whatever. And the one guy goes, oh, you know, welcome to the community brother. You know, you need anything. Let us know, that kind of thing. And the other guy just leans into the microphone and says, watch the food.

What does that mean? Not enjoy the food. Watch the food. Yeah. I will. I don't know, man. What could it mean to say watch the food, I wonder? I don't even think we have it on the thing.

But what did you think of the decentralized draft present? Oh, it fucking sucked. Is that only a week ago? Jesus, that feels like a month ago. Yeah, it was, it was. It was, yeah. We're doing this. Like, not even a week.

It was like five days ago. That's, uh, we're with, with somebody awkwardly holding a microphone in front of Ryan while we talk on an echo delay. I love, I loved the Zoom cube, of course. I loved when the, when the, uh, the hockey boys had to go in the Zoom cube. and it worked, I'd say, roughly 90% of the time. Yeah. That's a good hit rate in my opinion.

That is. Yeah, just an insane decision. Obviously, you know, the conspiracy theory of the NHL was like, we're going to do this bad on purpose to make the GMs feel like morons. I think that's A, I kind of like that. I think that's a plausible and B what they should have done. If it wasn't what they, what they intended and it was just. just like, you know, standard issue, NHL incompetence. I feel like they left some opportunity on the table.

Here's why I do kind of believe that, is that they did it all night long. Mm-hmm. You absolutely could have made a call on the fly and just lied and said, all right, thank you to the Zoom Cube. No more Zoom, as always, that was for the top 10 picks, and now the rest of the night we're not doing it. But they were like, no, all of you are going to go do this. The other thing about the draft is Roger McQueen goes to Anaheim.

They send him to Disneyland to meet Lightning McQueen in Carsland or whatever they call it. And everybody's laughing. But then he picks as his number with the Anaheim Ducks. The same number as Lightning McQueen 95. And I said, my hat's off to him. This kid's living the gimmick, you know? Yep. I love it.

And look, this is only going to result in him being called Lightning, his entire. NHL career. You know? And people were like, oh, it's just a meme. It's just a meme. Frankly, I want, I want Lightning to become such a, like, prevalent thing for this career that we just refer to him as Lightning McQueen in the same vein as, like, Magic Johnson. And he then eventually gets traded to Tampa. Well, sure.

In a three-way deal that sends Miroslav Shatan to the Devils. Yeah. And Paul Ring under the ring. But yeah, to me, I think this is, I think we can, we can create a magic Johnson situation here where just like he's in, he's in like the program. He's on the screen as like Roger like quote unquote lightning McQueen everywhere. That's just how he's referred to. I think we can make this happen. I think we must make this happen.

I've only seen the first cars movie though, so I don't know what goes on with the rest of the. We'll get you caught up. Yeah. Now, there's the thing about Cars 3 makes Cars 2 look like Cars 1 by comparison. Okay. So that's all I know. I've only seen the first one, as I mentioned. Not for me.

One of Paul Newman's last roles, though, did you know that? I did not. Yeah. He's the voice of like an old race car, and he's imparting wisdom, if I'm remembering correctly, a movie I saw in 2010 one time. new CBA Not obviously in effect yet But we have basically all the details Some of which are insane to me

Okay 84 games This is stupid Yay Why are we doing this Make the schedule balance better Fuck off They're doing it because

They'll make more money With an extra home An extra actual home game We'll see about that. We'll see. That's my reaction to we'll make more money. It's hard to get, isn't it always the thing where they're like, they don't do as well in October and November because people are really only caring about the NFL? And then like February comes around and people are like, look, it's game like 58 of 82.

It's a Tuesday night against the Minnesota Wild. Nobody down here in fucking Florida gives a shit about that. So how many months of the year are we going to have games where people care? Two? You don't get paid by people caring. You get paid by forcing your season ticket holders to buy an extra game. I guess. They had to buy them for the preseason game.

So this is not, this is. Yeah. What was the reasoning for that, though? Money. Is that it? I thought it was. Well, first of all... They also had neutral site games back then.

So it was a way to do that without costing a team a full-on home game. Right. Yeah. Well, so, okay, two things on that. And the preseason is the, obviously, the tradeoff here that most of us are happy about. Two things on the extra games. It's not neutral site games, although I think one should be a neutral site game. But critically, they are division games.

games. So, like, those technically matter more, like, mathematically in the standings and all that. So, like, maybe you can sell people that way. But to me, it's just like, oh, yeah, man, we got an extra game against the fucking Columbus Blue Jackets this year. Awesome. I love it. Thanks.

Cool. You know? Plus, it fucks up all the advanced stats of, like, per 80, per 82 and all that kind of stuff. I think that's the main reason they did it. Piss me off? Yeah, they probably. did.

These fuckers. That's why they had the draft cube. That's it. Anyway. Salary retention is different now. Now if you want to do double retention, you have to wait 75 days. Yep. Two and a half months.

This is another one. I just straight up don't get, like, do you want fewer trades? Is that the gimmick here? Apparently. Awesome. Again, I don't get it. And the, you know, the two and a half months. months, I think, is chosen because that gets you from the deadline to the draft.

Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, no, a lot of people have pointed out this was, you know, a way that, yeah, I don't know. Some GM had a bug up his behind about it, and now you can't do it anymore. I seem to recall some GM had a bug up his butt about the centralized draft. Yeah, 26 of them did. interesting. And then what happened?

Suddenly they're all going to change your minds. That's right. Max term on contracts down from eight and eight years for your own guys and seven for UFAs to seven and six. I think this is just good for everybody. It reduces risk. It reduces risk for teams of GMs just going like, well, fuck it, I'm not going to be here in eight years. I don't give a shit. and it allows players to hit the market potentially one more time.

Yeah, honestly, it's, I understand why the players wouldn't prefer this, but from a fan perspective, I think it'd be better if it was even shorter. Oh, yeah. I'm going to go stand next to Bill Daley on the five-year contract hill, and we will die on that hill together. Oh, no, he left. Never mind. He immediately abandoned his hill.

Well, to your point, like, the NFL, or the NBA, rather, is a five-year max term. And that seems to work out pretty well for all the guys in the NBA. Yep. So there's that. Jack Hughes is wishing there was a five-year limit on contract. No shit, man. This is what I'm talking about. All these guys who's just signed like seven and eight-year deals right now with the way the cap's going up, you know, let's say,

it hits $120 million by 2030, all these guys are going to be like, fuck, why am I still signed for $8 million? This is stupid. Why did I do that? I could be getting 12. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

So, again, you're right. Let's try shorter this time. Well, I guess next time. Permanent ebugs now. Which is good. I don't know where these guys are going to come from, but this is a good thing. Like I said at the time, the David Ayers thing was like when your kid is like, hey, dad, watch this.

And before you can stop them, they do a backflip down the stairs. And they land it. And you go, okay, that was cool as hell. Don't do that again. Right. Because next time, like, we all love that story. It was cool. One time, it could have gone real bad.

42-year-old out-of-shaped dude should not be playing professional sports, even if we think it's a cool story. So this is a good thing. I agree, but it's just, I can still tell you're mad about the David Airst thing. No, it was a good story, but like if it's a good story because he didn't take a slap shot in the collarbone and like go off on a story. Right. Well, now you're, he's getting destroyed. You're doing the John Apatow. He could have killed. killed him with the slap at the Oscars.

I don't know, man. He could have killed him. Yeah, that's true. He could have, but he didn't. Anyways. What I thought was interesting was they were like, I don't know, these guys could make like 80, 100 grand to just like kind of travel around with the team and be at the ready. That's actually, it's interesting because, like you say, a lot of guys would just be like,

wouldn't I rather play in the H.L or whatever? but there is going to be a level of, let's say, college goaltent or maybe major junior, or maybe like lower level European guys, right, like a guy from the second division, the division in Sweden, let's say, who are just like, fuck it. I'll go hang out with like NHL players and make those connections. Because you know what's a great way to get a contract out of this is if a, if a GM sees you play really well in practice for a full year, you know what I mean? He actually looked pretty good.

This can be there every year in college. There's a guy who's like, he had a really good college career. That guy is not a professional goaltender, but that guy had a really good college career. Now maybe this is like a path for them to establish themselves. I think this is fun and interesting. And what I really excited about is when all these guys start signing. And then like I can go, oh yeah, I saw that guy. He was really good at fucking Penn State for three years or whatever.

It's just going to be created like a fun little Like underclass of goalies I cannot wait to read Granger's ebug rankings At the beginning of every year Yeah man it's gonna be fun How many of the like it's it's like remember some guys But with actual NHL rosters Right

Remember this guy your team drafted him sixth round 12 years ago and you never panned out Yeah, he's like 36 now, and he's the e-book. How many of these guys do you think are going to be making their 80K to do this while also working like another job remotely? Maybe, yeah. How come Jeff never comes into the office? And then they turn on the Hurricanes game one night, and he's like, wait a second, that guy's in the accounting department. Curious, do we see, now that these guys will have like some base level of a-competitive?

and B, like, you know, athleticism and all of that. I wonder if we see more guys come into games. Yeah, maybe. Like, remember, like, the game in Florida, which was also against the Leafs where Florida lost both goalies and then, like, Luongo came back in even though he was hurt? Like, I wonder if maybe it's happening more often than we think that goalies are actually, like, finishing games they shouldn't because there's no other option or there's no realistic option. Maybe. Speaking of guys coming out of college and things like that, draft rights, they're changing how they work now. Now, no matter how old you were when you got drafted, your rights expire at age 22.

So it's no, because obviously it used to be two years in the CHL four years for college players. But now that so many CHL players are just going to go to college, the NHLs are just going to go to college. the NHL is just like, it's 22. Okay. Which again, I think it works for everybody. You either see what a guy has or he doesn't, and like if a guy doesn't have it and he's 22 and he just played four years in the CHL and two years in college,

that's a lot of development time. But if you break out at 23 in college, maybe you can get yourself an NHL contract with any team you want. And there's a little bit of a bidding war. So that's all. I think that makes sense. Mandatory neck protection. Starting with any NHL player that comes into the league in 26-27,

anybody with at least one NHL game played before that is grandfathered in. They don't have to do it if they don't want to. And I think this is just a plain old, you know, good idea. Yep. And I think a lot of CHL players will, I'm right in, remembering that they have to wear it now, right? I believe so. I believe so.

I don't watch enough CHL to hardly any, quite frankly, to really know, but I'm pretty sure they do. And so this is just much like the visor thing, a lot of guys are going to come into the league in the next two years and go, oh, yeah, that's fine. I'm used to it. Whereas, like, Jamie Ben's going to be like, and, in fact, I'm going to expose more of my neck because I'm so tough. I'm going to take my helmet off, and I'm going to play with,

Absolutely no protective equipment, except a jock because, come on, man. Come on, man. Two other things. No more deferred money in contracts. That loophole has been closed. Enough teams didn't like it. Not surprising. That's the end of that.

And what I thought was really interesting, no more paper transactions. And for people who don't know, I guess, what that means is like, when you have a young player on an entry-level contract, you can kind of send them up and down as much as you want between your NHL and AHL team. And what that does is, like, gives guys, or gives the team flexibility against the cap. If you can save $12,000 here and there every couple of days, it kind of adds up over the course of the season. And they're closing that loophole, which is only interesting for one reason. Well, A, it helps those players like keep making NHL salaries, which is nice for them, obviously. But B, I'm really curious how this works around the trade deadline, because as people may know, at the NHL trade deadline, if you are not on an AHL roster, you are not eligible to play in the HL playoffs.

And so on the deadline day, you often see an NHL team assign four or five. six players to their AHL teams. Only on paper so that they are eligible for the for the AHL playoffs if, you know, it comes to that. And now

they have to report. And for a team like Boston where you can go or whatever, pick a team that's close to their AHL affiliate, okay, I'll just drive an hour say, hi everyone, go back to Boston. You can maybe do that.

for a day. But for teams like Edmonton where their teams in Bakersfield, I don't know how that works now. Now maybe Edmonton doesn't have a lot of guys they're sending to the HL anyway, but you know what I mean. It's very, or Calgary is a great example. San Jose, another one, they just share a building. That's easy to do.

But I'm very interested to see how that gets handled. And then the other thing, I guess, is LTIR is completely different now. Yeah, with the, your, your playoff roster has to be cap compliant. Is that what they? Your, your playoff lineup has to be cap compliant. Right. The 20 guys. So you can be over the cap in the playoffs as far as your 23 or however many guys you're carrying.

But the 20 guys in your lineup have to be under this, or whatever, next season there'll be like $103 million. Solves the problem and makes everyone happy right up until your team can't use a guy. They want to use the playoffs. And then suddenly it'll be like, my God, the sanctity of the playoffs has been besmirched. Mm-hmm. And then the other one is the signing bonuses. Well, we didn't talk about the other thing with LTIR.

Okay. The other thing with LTIR is, currently you can do the thing that Florida just did with Matthew. Kachukward, you write off his entire salary, and it gives you this crazy amount of flexibility at the deadline to, say, add Seth Jones and Brad Marshand, right? Now, it is the average salary is what's written off unless you never use that player again. So, like, if Matthew Kachuk hadn't played a single playoff game in addition to not playing for the rest of the regular season, you can use all his money. But if he's gone only for the rest of the regular season or comes back even in just the last game of the Stanley Cup final.

Like, you have to be dead certain he is out for the season if you're going to use all that LTIR money. Otherwise, it's the league average salary is all you can write off, which again, I think is going to create a lot of cascading unintended consequences, I think. just because it's going to be like a huge amount of uncertainty, I guess you would say. About we don't know if this guy's going to come back, but if he doesn't come back, we're kind of fucked to not use all that. You know, that kind of, I don't know. It's really, I think this is a fix that doesn't really fix anything. It just shifts the problem in a different direction. But they can't fix the tax thing.

is the only thing GMs can bitch about and fix in the CBA, quote unquote, fix in the CBA. Yep. Now, what were you saying about signing bonus? So the signing bonuses can no longer, you can't do the thing where I give you 10 million and 9 million of it as a signing bonus. Right. Paid on July 1st. Which is interesting because that is something that was attractive to players and was something that could really only be used by bigger market teams. It was a way for the bigger markets to flex some financial muscle.

Yep. And now they can't do it anymore, which is somewhat frustrating for fans of big market teams and probably a nice relief to fans of smaller markets. So I think my read on this immediately was this is kind of the giveaway for the teams that are really worried about not being able to spend to the cap. Right. So this is how they're trying to even the playing field that they're just straight up never going to be able to get even. If the cap keeps going in this direction, there's only going to be eight teams spending to the cap. So let's take away at least some of their financial advantages.

Okay, great. You know, we forgot, I'm realizing we forgot to mention this when we were talking about Vegas. speaking of spending to the cap. But Alex Petrangelo, basically his career is over. Sure sounds that way, yeah. It's not really surprising, let's say. And we've been getting hints about this for a little while now. But it sucks to see a guy basically be like,

yeah, I can either keep playing hockey or live a normal life. So I think I'm going to pick the latter. that sucks. And I get that there's the cynicism from a lot of people saying like, I'll wait until the playoffs when he shows up. But it doesn't sound like. No. It does not sound like that's the case here. No.

This is one of those things where like they tell an old wrestler, if you get one more concussion, you're basically going to die. And so they go, okay, never mind then, you know. So yeah, I mean, the kind of. of surgery they're saying he would need to be able to play again maybe it was just like I can't it was like a bilateral something or other and I was like

I don't that's scary sounding I don't want to really think about that too much thank you though so sucks to see that but that's how they're able to afford Mitch Martyr and all that kind of stuff so I figured we did need to mention

that one other thing we just had this come across the wire in the last little while here. Dmitri Orlov, two years in San Jose, six and a half million bucks against the cap. Okay, great. There's some of that. We did it. Floor room for San Jose. And when they trade for Kerry Price, that'll cover.

That'll get them there. You know what? Nope. With this, they are up over the cap. It's the ducks that are the only team left or under the floor, above the floor. Jesus Christ. The ducks are now the only team below 70 million, which I believe is the floor this year. All I'll say on that is I find Orlova really interesting because he was the guy two years ago

who did the bet on yourself take the short-term deal for when, and then B.UFA again when the cap's going up. You know, the stuff that smart guys like me are always telling players to do. Right. Didn't really work. He didn't fit perfectly in Carolina and ends up getting, you know, he gets a decent contract, but not, didn't really crush it. I don't know what offers he might have had for longer-term deals two years ago.

Yeah, well, the other thing is he's 33 now. You know, like that was the thing the whole time was like how many teams are going to be like, oh, yeah, let me give $6 million to. Yeah, and he's taking a pay cut as a matter of fact. He was making seven and three quarters last year. Yeah, anyway. Um, you know, is he going to move the needle for San Jose? No, he isn't.

Is he a perfectly good player? Sure he is. You know, I got nothing bad to say about Dimitri Orlov, but like you said, his time to make a shitload of money seems to have come and gone. That's life. Anything else you wanted to talk about? I don't have anything else on the, uh, on the outline here. Uh, I think that covers it other than, um, um, Cheers to Bob McKenzie.

Sure, yeah. Everybody loves him, rightly so. One of the best to ever do it, not just in terms of the quality of his work, but just a generally good guy who helped a ton of us in a lot of ways. And now I'm going to go drink margaritas on the dock. One of the few guys,

one of the few guys in his job who, when he was like, I'm not going to take myself seriously. Boy, did he fucking mean it, you know? The, this is my Bob McKenzie store. Everybody's told their Bob McKenzie stories. I met him, I met him one time. It was when I was in college and his son was playing for, I want to say, St. Lawrence. And they played my college, UMass Lowell in hockey.

Like, I want to say like the Sunday after Thanksgiving or something like that, like right around holiday break. and Bob was just like, and this is 05, 06 maybe. Wow. And Bob was just kind of wandering around the concourse and nobody down in Lowell, Massachusetts really recognized him because we, you know, TSN was not widely available in the U.S. like it is now with social media and that kind of thing. And so I just like, I don't know where I got the fucking balls to do this, but I just walked up and introduced myself and said, I want to work, like I want to be a hockey writer. And he talked to me for like 10 minutes about, you know, like I'm not going to say he gave me like mind-blowing advice or anything like that.

But he just talked to some literal nobody. I don't think I'd been published anywhere besides my school paper at that point. Okay. And he just like talked to me for 10 minutes about, you know, this is what it takes to make it in the business and blah, blah, blah. And he was super nice. And he shook my hand and he said, you know, best of luck in your career and all that kind of stuff. you didn't have to fucking do any of that.

I bothered him at his kid's hockey game. Not surprised at all. And if people don't know, that was the only conversation you had every other time you were in the same room, he ran over and started throwing punches at you immediately. That's right. Stombed you out. Yeah.

But yeah, just. Great dude. Again. Great dude, man. That's the, that's the level of like courteous and nice and generous. with his time that he was for everybody, apparently. So that's my Bob McKenzie's story.

Big salute. I don't know that you can have a better career than Bob McKenzie did in this sport. Probably not. What a guy. Anyway, why don't you hit him with the plugs and let's get out of here? If I'm at the Athletic, I got a bunch of stuff. Newsletters, podcasts. We're hitting the summer schedule.

I'm not exactly sure what's happening when I'll figure it out. That's it. That's all I got. Great. For me, elite prospects, there's still draft coverage, folks. You know, now it's more like here's what you and your favorite team

got out of the draft. You know, here's a breakdown of this player that your team drafted and that kind of thing. All the stuff about the draft guide, like, oh, here's what you need to know about this player. That's still worth something to you if you're trying to figure out if the guys your teams drafted are any good, you know? So you're going to want to check that out.

I am, of course, grading not every transaction. Basically, if I feel like it's a player who got something more than a league minimum contract, I'm probably slapping a grade on that. I've done well over 100 at this point so far in the last few days. So, you know, check that out. And then I have an article coming, I believe later today, of the winners and losers of early free agency. So check that out as well. And then head over to patreon.com slash puck soup where you can get all kinds of bonus episodes. And speaking of summer schedules, we are about to shift to that for puck soup as well.

And what that means is you will not be getting main feed puck soup episodes for most of the summer as things stand right now. But every week we do a mailbag that is a mix of answering questions, talking about the news and signings and all that kind of stuff. And just generally longer mailbags than we do in the regular season because there's no main show. And that's how it works. So if you want to keep your Puck Soup fix going for the rest of the summer, Patreon.com slash PuckSoup is where you do that. And like I said, it's not just a mailbag. It's all kinds of bonus episodes every single week.

So thanks for listening. Thanks for sticking with us all year. And we'll see you over on the mailbag. Have a good week, summer, whatever. Salute to you. Enjoy your long weekend. Goodbye.