Puck Soup - Weeks When Years Happen

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Sean and Ryan talk about all the big trades and signings this week, the draft, expansion, free agency, and more. Get bonus episodes and more at Patreon.com/PuckSoup

I'm Ryan Lambert from the perfect takes newsletter. I'm Sean Magninu from The Athletic. And I'm going to say this to my friend Sean right off the hop here. I apologize for the length of this show. Oh, no. I mean, this was the craziest week I can remember where not just like trades and signings, but like surprising trades and signings and also expansion news and also free agency is tomorrow.

You know, like, it is as busy of a week as I can really remember in the league in the summer. Yeah. This is, like, the NHL

loves to cram an entire off season into like a week and a half. Yeah. And then that allows them to, on July 5th, be like, see you in September. Goodbye.

See you. We're gonna generate, we're out of here. No news for three months and then. expect a bunch of excitement when we come back. That's right. Let's dive into it, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, we'll kind of go in chronological order a little bit, but I'll put it this way. Within maybe an hour of us stopping recording last week, Simone Nemich and I think Maxim Simplakov also to Calgary for two conditional first round picks, a second and a prospect. And that is the most who cares news of the week, basically. That happened to eight years ago. Both the first picks have already been used. Those players have retired. I felt like this was a heavy price for Calgary to pay, but I guess I get it.

Yep. And I like it from, I mean, big picture from the devil's perspective, you get gifted a very high pick, you use it, the guy never really makes a big impact, and then you trade it for more picks and you start over again. That doesn't feel great, but just given where they were and cap space is tight and all of that. Yeah, and... And he apparently wanted... Apparently, according to the rumors, Nemich was dumb enough to think that he could get the amount of money he would get if his star, much better brother already played for the devils.

And that's not how that works. So he, yeah, it's, it's a lot for Calgary to give up. But I guess if they feel like this is a cornerstone piece, then you get it. Because you can't, you don't want to be Chicago and just collect picks forever. Yeah, and also, like, he has shown flashes, right? Like, if you get peak of his powers, Nemich, you don't mind paying that price. I don't know how likely he is to be peak of his power as Nemich. But if he's more or less that, you're like, what two first round picks?

Who cares? Mm-hmm. You know? And I also think he probably, to your point, fits their timeline a little better. I don't know how good these guys are going to be at the end of the day. day, but if you can, in theory, have Zane Perak on one pairing and Simone Nemech on another, that's pretty solid, you know? But at the same time, if you want to argue, much like last summer when we were talking

about Hudson and, why am I blanking on his name, Dobson in Montreal, where it's like only one of those guys can be on the first PowerPoint unit. which naturally limits how valuable the other guy can be, kind of the same idea, I think. So whatever. I don't mind this for either side, but I'm not like doing backflips. Maybe 20 minutes after that trade, I think.

Like, I'm not exaggerating. It was within an hour, I believe. Ottawa flips the ninth overall pick they got in the contract, the Kachuk trade for William Eklund Plus. It is not quite as good as maybe we were expecting, I think. I think that was, that certainly lands as the initial takeaway, I would say, because you've got, we did talk about it on the show last week after the Brady Kachuk trade, which was, look, we know Ottawa was going to flip some of these picks to get.

immediate help. They're not going into next year with a bunch of guys in the HL or in college and telling their fans to just wait a couple of years. Correct. They had three first round picks, one of which they could not trade. I kind of wondered it. I guess I don't mind them getting an Eklund type player. I don't mind them trading the ninth overall. I maybe would have thought this, I mean, you're not getting Eklund for 25th overall. No. No, no, no. But, yeah, I mean, it certainly didn't have the kind of sticker shock of, you know, just to throw a name out there, like a Jason Robertson coming back or a handful of other guys where you would have been like, there's your Brady replacement. Thank you very much. Here's the guy we actually land. And then, you know, obviously, it wouldn't have been Robertson because you would have been doing the exact same thing. that you were just doing with Brady,

but somebody like that. And Eklin's a good player. That with, you know, maybe a little more to give on his ceiling. You know, like, let's see, 23, 24. But again, I just, I do think it just kind of fits like more.

Frankly, it fits San Jose's timeline better, especially because they go out and get Keaton Verhoff with that pick at the end of the day. and we'll talk about the draft four hours from now when we get past all the trades and signings. But, yeah, if I'm an Ottawa fan, I'm a little, I'm looking at what a downgrade it is from Kachuk to Eklund and going, hmm, couldn't get a little more for that pick?

Yeah. Nice bit of work by San Jose because you find a GM who you know is motivated. to make the move right away. That's one way to put it, yeah, sure. So, yeah. But yeah, I think, I mean, I think, honestly, at the end of the day, fair trade, but a little bit of a bummer for Ottawa because you were just maybe hoping for a bit more.

But Eklund might fit in really well here. They've had a lot of good luck with Swedish players in Ottawa. And he's a good player. And I mean, I'm not trying to stereotype here, but it has seemed... as if the European players are not the ones who have an issue playing in smaller markets, colder markets, that sort of thing. Well, we'll talk about Carol Marchenko in a minute, I think.

But, yeah, it's, you know, again, like if you're, if you're Ottawa and you're trying to sell the future or whatever, like, hey, we're going to be competitive here, you just kind of maybe thought they'd get a little more out of the Kachuk trade than they did. That's all. Maybe, yeah. And they still have a future first sitting there in someone's back pocket to move if the opportunity presents. So maybe it's not quite a complete grade yet, but we'll see. All we can do is grade what we have in front of us.

You know what I mean? That is true. I was going to say this about the draft. I saw this take multiple times over the weekend. All these people grading drafts, we're not going to know of, if, the draft was good for another five, you shut the fuck up. Yeah. I don't want to hear.

Do you want to take takes seriously? Or do you want to be like, well, anything could happen? I guess that's true, man. So why be in the business? You know what I mean? Imagine if you went to the athletic homepage on Sunday morning. And there was like one line that said, we'll get back to the last.

Click here for a list of to find out if you were on the list of players drafted. And then there was just like a full page of coverage of the 2017 draft. Finally. Finally say, now we know. What was that year? I don't remember. It's impossible to say. There was a great, speaking of, there was a great headline in the Vancouver province over the weekend because the last player that was still Canucks property that Jim Benning drafted.

like left the organization or isn't getting re-signed or whatever it is. And Patrick Johnson was like, this proves it. The last Benning Draft ever was a huge bust. No NHL players came out of it. And it's like, man, that was a long fucking time ago. So it just goes to show you never know until you know. We can put a grade now on the last Jim Benning draft. Um, another thing.

Great Jim Benning's work in Vancouver. Yep. We, we, there was just no way to know if it was working or not until now. Thumbs down for me. I know everyone was waiting for. Yeah. Uh, also the, the senators later got, uh, the ghost of Andre Beirokowski for a sixth round pick. Sure.

He's still in the league, folks. Yeah. Aren't we excited? And, and was pretty good last year in the first half. And then non-existent the second half. But for a six-round pick, sure. Yeah. Take a not anything.

It makes sense. A bigger trade involving a winger here, and this is a very active team over the last several days. Alex Tuck goes to Washington for a third round pick. He extends there for eight times ten and a half. Mm-hmm. That's pretty good. That's ultimately, I think, around the number that... A lot of us figured, you know, it's hard.

I think a lot of us. They were saying 12 in like February. There was a point, yeah. So. And then, you know, a lot of people who look at numbers were saying, like, no, it shouldn't go higher than a nine. Yeah. It's UFA. You're going to pay a premium.

Yeah. But they need goals. They need to get up and down the ice. in Washington. And Alex Tuck does that for you pretty effectively. He'll be fine on that

contract you would imagine for the first few years. Yep. And what do they care about four years from now? Yeah. Just like every eight year contract, if you're not signing a guy who's 21,

you're expecting problems towards the end and that you bake that into your value assessment. Yep. Speaking of value, I mean, third round pick for Buffalo is not bad. That is higher than had kind of been the established sign-and-trade price. So I kind of wonder what the dynamic was there that they were able to hold off on or squeeze a bit tighter, I guess. You know, not.

Yeah, I mean, I'll put it this way. There are teams such as Ottawa that I would have been more eager to be like, I'll give you a third round pick for the rights to that UFA. You know, maybe not Tuck specifically. But, like, I'm a little surprised that Ottawa, again, just to just to choose a team that downgraded in the last week in certain ways, didn't get more involved in that. But. Yeah.

Maybe they tried and were rebuffed, you know. And obviously Tuck's got a ton of control there. But, hey, and it was also. It's nice to see a star player choose a, you know, northern team that hadn't won a Stanley Cup in the last few weeks. So that's, uh, that's nice. Yep. Um, hey, uh, the, the capitals in addition to getting Alex tuck, they trade, uh, Connor McMichael a first and a prospect for Jordan Kyru, who, again, you know, kind of plays a similar role. score in theory scores a lot of goals

good in transition all that kind of thing so clearly they had a plan in mind this summer let's say and I believe since we last did this they also extended Spencer Carberry which you know why wouldn't you do that

yep that's just but there it feels like they're getting the band you know built up once again one last ride Alex Ovechkin oh we don't know we don't know if he's going to resign.

He's going to recite. Well, sure sounds that way. It would be very, very funny to wake up tomorrow and find that, like, Alex Ovechkin signed with the Winnipeg Jets. I just love these guys. I love what they're doing up here. He's like, honestly, I mean, my preference was watching him, but I never heard from them. I didn't get a call.

So then they're like, oh, we had his old email. It turned out. It's a classic mistake. Yeah, I like both of these trades for, for Washington, and that allowed them, of course, to move on from Hendricks-Lapierre, a former first-round pick, well, I guess you're never a former first-round pick, but a first-round pick that didn't really work out. You know, he's like an okay player.

That's about it. But hey, while we're speaking of the Buffalo Sabres, they sent Bowen Byram and Jordan Greenway to Chicago for the fourth overall pick, a second-round pick, and Louis Crevier, who, I think is a pretty decent defenseman. Yeah. So this one, it felt like of everything that happened in the week, this one got kind of the strongest reaction.

Oh, do you think it's because it was a huge mistake by Chicago? Like a huge blunder? I'm not completely convinced of that. Okay. So talk me into this, because I certainly see where the criticism is coming from. But I also know that many people, including myself, including just a few minutes ago on this podcast, have been pointing to Chicago and saying you can't just keep stockpiling prospects. At some point, you've got to put a team on the ice that overlaps in some way with Connor Bedard's early prime. Sure.

Now, I absolutely get the criticism that if you're going to move this pick, you've got to get a winger for. Badard. Okay. Yeah. And if you're not going to get a winger and you're going to get a defenseman, is Bowen Byram good enough to be that guy, I don't know. I'm not convinced that he isn't. I guess what I'm saying here is I don't necessarily,

like I certainly don't feel like this is a win for Chicago, but I see, I mean, I see the logic. I see what they're working here. And I also don't, I don't know that I, and we can, Maybe talk about it separately, but I don't know if I'm as thrilled with what Buffalo has done as a lot of people seem to be. Like, I like getting a third for a UFA who was already leaving. Awesome.

Good work. But he's still left. Getting this package for a very good defenseman is good, but he's still, like, where's the improvement for this team that took a big step last year? And now their fans are looking for a little bit more. I don't know. To see this as like a total spike to football win for the sabers, I didn't react to it that way, even though everyone else seemed to be.

So what I think, okay, we'll start with Chicago because we have another trade for Buffalo to talk about in a minute, too, that I think plays into this. So to start with Chicago, I guess my big thing about it is, it feels, desperate. You know what I mean?

Like it feels like, let's just get the best guy we can find. And if it costs us the fourth overall pick and a guy off our roster, like, obviously Crebier isn't as good as, uh, Byram. But he's not like,

the distance between them isn't so great that you're like, this guy won't even play for the Sabres next year. He's going to be a roster player for the Sabres. And he's going to round out. that defense and I think he's a pretty good player. He wouldn't be played 40 something games last year? I think that you can very easily make the case that, you know, they didn't, they didn't downgrade their roster as strongly as you might think.

And again, we'll talk about the Olen-Zellweger trade as well shortly here. But I think Buffalo should be in the business of we don't want to give buy him that next contract because he's going to want like $13 million or whatever and it's like that is absolutely terrifying if I'm a Chicago fan yep I've I've extensively talked about the shiny new toy syndrome which is where you acquire somebody who needs a new contract and because you've just gone out and acquired them and given up assets you really are not in a strong bargaining position to hold the line on a contract and you go back to history and most of the

worst contracts get signed in these circumstances. Yes. Including the current worst one of Jonathan Hubertoe in Calgary was exactly that situation. Yeah, and they need someone to play the power play there, right?

Like they need a PP1 guy. But when you trade for a guy and, again, putting aside my opinion, when the general consensus is you gave up way, way too much for this guy, And then you're going to turn around to his agent and be like, I mean, you know. How's 10 sound? Some of your underlying numbers weren't as strong and we don't really, like, yeah, there is the potential for this contract to be jaw-droppingly bad.

Yeah. That's exactly right. And to me, like, this is taking on a lot of money and a lot of, like, future money as well. to get Chicago from what, like 55 points to 60 if we're lucky? You know? Like, I mean, but you got to. I understand. You got to improve your, your roster somehow.

You got to take steps. There's no, no teleporting. You got to actually do the work of getting better. And so I don't, I think Chicago was already in that, like, stuck. spinning their wheels with no plan to get to the next part. And I mean, how many times have we said it on the show a million times? The tear down is the easy part. Yep.

The accumulation of assets and that is the easy part. How do you keep from being the Buffalo Sabres of the previous 15 years? So the other thing I want to say about Byroom, and then we can move on to the Buffalo is, boy, he had a real nice situation in, in Buffalo in terms of who played more minutes than him. Yeah. Right? Who's playing more minutes than him in Chicago?

I don't, I think, I think he can, he's a really good player. I don't know that he can be your number one defenseman. And maybe you say like two years from now, actually Levshinov's your number one defenseman. And it's like, okay, sure, but like look who you're paying $13 million to. or whatever the number ends up. That's all. Like, it's not that he's a bad player. It's that the contract he's going to get is bad, probably.

And what's the upper limit on this guy? It is not what I would want to be signing up for for another six, seven years, whatever it is. So. No. And then, again. The contract does scare me a lot. It just. Yeah.

And the other interesting thing here is the talk from the Byram side was he wants to be a number one defenseman. It wasn't going to happen in Buffalo, obviously with Rasmus Dahl. Maybe Owen Power, jury's still out a little bit there, but he wants to be the guy somewhere. Now, it is very possible that that's nonsense and he just, he wants to get paid as a number one guy. guy and like you know or he sat in a negotiation and you almost said well you know we can't give you that much you're our third defenseman and he went okay well i guess i got to go be a first defenseman somewhere but i do have to say i've i've spent a lot of the last few weeks being very annoyed by players who are supposed to be the star on their team going you know what i want to go be the fifth

best player somewhere else sure i don't so i don't mind the situation flipping a bit here if we take him at his word that he's saying like, look, man, this is a good team and everything, but I want to be the guy, I want to be the alpha. And I can't do that here. So I want to go somewhere. I don't mind that until he gets the contract.

You're right. Like the contract is what he's going to absolutely break this for Chicago. But trading away the fourth overall pick in a draft where you weren't going to get the guy you wanted does sort of, like it it doesn't hit me as as big a disaster as some others have have felt yeah again i get what you're saying you got to get better but it feels like it feels like a steep price especially because it cost them a roster player as well but to to the to pivot to the buffalo thing then they

send a second and a prospect to anaheim for olin zellweger who like you know really never turned into what you would maybe want him to have been if you're if you're the ducks but you know I saw people saying and I don't know that I totally agree with this but I saw people saying like he can Zellweger can instantly replace like 80% of what Byron does I think that might be a little optimistic yeah and there's the room to grow there that and the 20% gap is what you pay for right I mean, a replacement level player can replace 60% of Bowen Byron, but it's the 40% that they can't that is the hardest asset to find in the league. So I like that deal for Buffalo.

I still kind of come back to it. And I go, is this Sabres team better than they were at the end of the season? They aren't, but, I mean, they can still make some moves. here, free agencies coming up. If they want to overpay for someone, they are a team with an opportunity to do so. Then then let's just talk Connor Hellebock then because. Right. Yes, they almost traded for Connor Hellebuck.

That was a surprise that we sort of found out about afterwards. And he apparently, he apparently waived to go there. He was like, I'd go to Buffalo. And then they just couldn't get the deal across the line. Which is great news. It was going to be the fourth overall pay. was going to be a key piece. Yep.

They were going to trade UPL as part of the deal. Yep. And it sounded like everyone was on board, and then it was kind of Winnipeg at the last minute that said no. Yeah. It just wasn't enough. Just cold feet, change your minds. I don't know.

I, you know, I like that they're trying it, you know. And in theory, It's not impossible to circle back and say to Winnipeg, like, you still want to do this? You can get the guy instead of the guy. Yeah, you could get the guy instead of the pick, but that's not quite... That's not quite the same, obviously, because having the pick allows you the flexibility, and now they don't have that flexibility. But yeah, like you say, I think that Hellebuck being willing to go there is maybe a good sign.

but if you don't get the deal done, you don't kind of like go, well, we almost got Connor Hellibuck. You guys like that, right? I don't know how to, like, I'm not sure I know how to process a deal that big, coming that close, and then not happening.

Like, I don't know that I can, I mean, it didn't happen. So it doesn't, it doesn't affect anything. But to just kind of shrug it off doesn't feel right either. And it's not a negative that you didn't get him

because there are a lot of trades that just don't happen that get talked about or, you know, almost, the Matthew Nye's trade last year that didn't happen is another example of this

where it's like, you like that Montreal tried it if you're a Habs fan, but also like, okay, it didn't work. That's life. You know, I guess that's,

as much as I like Matthew Nyes, he's not Connor Hallibuck. No, of course. And I guess part of this is, okay, so what does this do? What does UPL think of all this? I mean, you weren't just, you now know the GM of your team

wasn't just looking to upgrade your position, but you were part of the deal, reportedly. And, I don't know, I mean, GMs take big swings when they feel that it's appropriate. And so now if you take a big swing and you miss, what do you do now?

Do you go looking for a plan B? Is there a plan B? Was this a unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to land a Hall of Fame goaltender? Right. And it fell through because obviously the fourth overall pick was a key part of that. And Buffalo does not expect to have a pick like that anytime,

again, you know, their first-round pick next year is not going to be anywhere near as valuable as a trade piece right now than what they just had. Totally. So short of flipping that prospect in the deal to Winnipeg if it were to reopen, I think the ship has sailed there. You're probably right. Yeah, I don't know. This is almost, like, it would have been such a block. It would have been the biggest deal of the week.

And the fact that it didn't happen, just I struggle a little bit, get my head around what to do with that information. How to adjust priors, if at all. Yeah, I think if you're the sabers, you just kind of have to put it in the fucking rearview me or burn the tape or whatever they say. Like, yeah, we almost got a guy like who, ultimately we didn't. So who cares? Because you can't, you can't sit there and go, fuck, if we just had Connor Hallibuck, we'd be, yeah, I guess that's true. You got close, but from what I understand, getting close doesn't get you a cigar.

You're right. I just keep coming back to the goal. Like, we're told that goalies are so weird and fragile that if they, most of them, if they answer a question from the media or if they, like, have to be the third guy to practice, that it just breaks their brains and they're... Mm-hmm. We saw, you know, Jeremy Swayman last season where they're...

contract stuff seemed to torpedo his whole year. What is almost getting traded do? And getting traded for a better goaltender. So, I mean, like, you're clearly, you know, your significant other was at the bar talking to that other person who's better looking than you. And then they came back and they're like, all right, let's go. You're like, all right, I don't know.

Might be some fences to men there. Yeah, maybe. but, you know, from what I understand at the same time, Sean, all that being said, hockey's a business at the end of the day. Is it really? You ever hear about this? No. Yeah, it's true. It's true.

Hey, and speaking of Americans who may or may not get traded in the near future here, Zach Werenzky kind of makes it known. He doesn't really see a big future in Columbus beyond his current contract, which is two years from now. Right. You want to know what I think, Sean? What's that? You've got to trade this fucking guy right now. Hmm. All this stuff.

Have they considered keeping him until the end and then trading him for like a third line center? All this shit. Like, when they were talking about this during the draft, Butchagross is like, you just tell them you're keeping them for the rest of the contract no matter what. This team cannot do this. This team,

like maybe if you're saying, you're the Florida Panthers, you only got two years left with them, whatever. You have to trade this guy now. What are we doing here, gang? This is the whole thing with Columbus, and this guy is into the discussion we had last week. Columbus is maybe the er-l loser franchise in the NHL. right their whole thing is losing their best players a year before their contract is up or or in the case of their most recent situation like this going we're all in for this season and in fact we're

going to give up like most of a draft to acquire mat duchesne and rindsingle and all these kind of guys uh adam mccade was in that group as well and it's like yeah i the you don't see why this is a problem? You know, like, you can't, let me put it this way. Zacharensky just won the Norris trophy. The reason this team had, what, 92 points at the end of the year, I think it was, is because he won the Norris trophy. He was that good, and also Jet Greaves was that good.

So it's a two-part question. do you think both Jet Greaves and Zach Werenski are that good again next season? I'm going to say they probably aren't, right? As much as I think Werenski is a great player, how often do you see guys win or even be a Norris finalist in back-to-back years? It's very rare. And so if he's going, oh, geez, I don't know, he's not going to get better. like push you into the playoffs and then you make the playoffs with 97 points or whatever the number is

and he goes you know what i changed my mind i love being the seventh best team in the eastern conference let's sign for another 14 years is he going to get like he's going to be 30 at that point you want to give this guy a ton of you understand what you are is i guess what i'm saying to the columbus bluejacket especially because kiro marchenko whose contract is up after next season is also going, I don't want to fucking be around here anymore. Yep. You have to understand what you are.

And Columbus is one of these markets that's like, well, if we just get to 97 points, we're going to make the playoffs and we're going to play as many is two or three home playoff games. Cool, man. Can we have like bigger aspirations than that, please? Yep. And I get it.

The flip side of that is, okay, so we tank, we get high draft picks, those draft picks come and play a few years, and then they say they want out because they don't like Columbus. Well, ideally what happens is you turn yourself into a Florida where, look, Dom had this article, I think, a week or two ago, and I've been saying it forever. You just don't win the Stanley Cup unless you tank. Yeah. Or you're the Vegas Golden Knights. You just don't do it. It can take as long as like it took Washington, for example, right?

It took Washington like 12 years or something like that between or maybe even 13, between the, the, the Ovechkin draft and winning the cup. But like they picked really high a bunch of times in the Ovechkin era, like the early to mid-2000s. and then it worked out, you know. And Columbus has drafted in the top five or six a few times in the last few years. But like, unless you're getting an Ovechkin or a Crosby or a Stamcoast or a, you know, headman in that group, the odds are that it's just not going to, it's not going to work out for you. If you keep picking six, 14, six, 14, six, 12, 5, 9, whatever it is, that's just, that's not a winning recipe.

And I wrote about it this weekend, like, this is why Jason Robertson didn't want to go to Seattle, didn't want to go to St. Louis. And by the way, St. Louis tank to win their cup as well. People don't want to talk about it, but it's true. Like, you just have to understand that, yeah, it'll cost you the revenues that maybe make the team very marginally profitable or less unprofitable, to put it another way. But when your ultimate goal is, we just got to get into the playoffs and see what happens, which I would argue has been the M.O. in Columbus for as long as I can remember, you're just

not going to have any success and guys aren't going to want to play for you long term. It's that simple. Because again, and I'll let you talk in the second. Sorry. But at the end of the day, for me, it's a situation where, you know, you can go, well, tanking doesn't work in every single case. That's true. But for almost every Stanley Cup winner of the last 20 years, basically, tanking is how they got

that Stanley Cup. And it really is that fucking simple. go down the list Florida, L.A., Chicago, Boston, all these teams tanked, picked high multiple years in a row. Or maybe not in a row, but like in a five-year window or whatever. And

given that that's the case, that's what you want to say it's a copycat league, that's what you should be emulating. Because otherwise you just end up being the fucking Columbus Blue Jackets, man. Does it, I'm not disagreeing with your premise, but are what,

is it not the case that what you're describing is a fundamentally broken league, or at least a broken entertainment product? Like this is, if you want to experience the only thing that we're constantly told you're allowed to be happy about as a fan, you have to eat crap for five years at a time and then just cross your fingers

that the lotteries and the, you know, the right players were at the right time, and then you hope. If I'm a Columbus fan listening to this, I don't think you're saying anything wrong, but I'm like, why the hell would I invest in this league emotionally? Like, why would I care about this team

if this is what it looks like? Well, I think, you know, the other, the other example of this, obviously, is the NBA where, you know, there's a huge tanking problem. quote unquote, because teams recognize that's the only way to be truly competitive at the end of the day, right? Right. And what I would argue is the case in the NBA versus as the case in the NHL is.

Obviously, there's a play in and all that kind of thing. And what you often get in the, let's say, six to ten playoff spots in either conference is teams that are either going up the escalator and trying to be competitive two, three years from now, or they were competitive two, three years ago, and now, you know, they're just kind of like accepting their fate and, and descending into not being competitive anymore. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

And in the NHL, there are teams like Columbus where, no, we want to be the sixth. Like, our goal is to be the sixth best team in the Eastern Conference. And obviously, they would say our goal is to be the first, but like, let's be realistic here. They're building a team so that their ceiling is, we will be, if things go right, number six in the East. And that is the, like, kind of aspirational problem, I think, comes out of it where, like, I'll put it this way. Remember, Columbus, they kept all their picks and they swept those. the lightning and can you fucking believe it and all this kind of stuff.

Remember this? I do. How many, since they swept that lightning team, how many playoff games have they won? I saw somebody in a newsletter say it was three. The answer is three playoff wins since that season. And zero, I believe they're oh for the last five or six in terms of making the playoffs. And so I would say to you, as a Columbus fan, who if we're saying, they're like, well, what do I care about this league then? Was keeping all those guys worth it?

Worth seven playoff wins over the last eight years. And, I mean, we've had this conversation. If I'm a Columbus fan, I might say, yes, that was the best week in the history of my being a fan. That was the only time I got any job. joy out of this team. That was the only thing I've been really, really, really loved in being a Columbus fan. So, no, I'm not interested in having that retroactively taken away from me, even because there's no guarantee that trading all those guys and being even more of a loser franchise that doesn't even try is, you know, so I get some prospects who, you know,

maybe they're good, maybe they're not, maybe they're still here, maybe they've already said they want it out. I don't know. The cycle just keeps going and going. You could be Chicago, though. You could be Florida. You could make yourself into a team that guys want to play for. Who, I mean, I hear you.

You're making it sound awfully easy, though. It's not easy. It's just. And it's, and it's not as easy as just because, I mean, what, first of all, what's the success rate on tape? I don't know. We'd have to look at it. But it's,

you know, it's certainly nobody thinks it's high. Look at Buffalo, right? Like, sure. And also, like, I mean, yeah, okay, so it's not, not to spend too much time

relitigating 2019, but okay, so we, we quit. We're, where we're in position. We've got a team we believe in. We think maybe we could

pull off miracle in the playoffs, all that nonsense. we quit. We're going to trade Panarin. We're going to trade Bobrovsky. Okay. Like, we're not getting, like, who's trading us a pick that's going to turn out to be the first overall pick? Like, who's trading us the pick that we're going to use on Kill McCar or whoever, whatever franchise altering player was going to come along in the ensuing drafts? No, we're trading those guys for the 25th overall pick, and we're getting a couple more maybe nice pieces who are in the NHL by now. But we're not getting, you know, we're not looking back.

Unless everything goes perfectly, I don't think we're looking back and going, man, the trade tree from those trades that they made were, that's what led to this Columbus Blue Jackets powerhouse that we're looking at right now. Well, again, like, it's about. I mean, your odds of pulling that off, threading that needle so perfectly. Yeah, sure. It cannot be that much different than your odds of winning three more rounds that year and winning the Stanley Cup if you're-

I'm not saying you trade those guys at the deadline. I'm saying you trade those guys going into the season, and maybe that alters some things, right? Like, the good thing about the Werensky situation is they have two years to figure out what they want to do here, right? And that, takes some of the pressure up. Now you can accept, okay,

probably this coming season. And by the way, I haven't even mentioned, uh, they traded a second, third, and a fifth for Valeri Nchuskin. I don't know who that's convincing, but okay, sure. I think, I think Nchusian's a good player. He's going to help them. Help them be what? Okay, great question.

You know, um, like the longer out that you know you don't have this guy coming back, the more that you can do to lay the groundwork for getting the most... I'll put it this way. If the fourth overall pick gets you Bowen Byram,

what's the asking price you can put out there for Zach Werenck? Yes. Oh, it should be enormous, and I'm... And like, in this case, you have a star player, star player wants out, only two years left on the deal, so you have... This isn't a Dillon Larkin just see a training camp. situation.

You kind of have to move now. He's at the height of his value. Like, I'm all on board with that, yes. And you should be able to get an absolute windfall for this guy. Assuming he doesn't tie your hands by giving you a list of two teams. And if he does that, then, yes, I might just go see a training camp. Sure. But assuming it's not it, yeah.

I just, I mean, I'm with you that. there are teams out there that are just trying to make the playoffs and lose in the first round every year. Yeah. Calgary Flames Columbus Blue Jack, it's the list goes on. Which is a loser mentality, but it's not as much a loser mentality as quitting before the season even starts. Just being in a constant state of surrender of we're not even going to try.

Like at some point, you do that. But again. Yeah, no kidding, nobody wants to play for you. They did that. They did it in San Jose, and they're going to do it in Vancouver. And people in those markets are like, we love this. This is like, you know. No, they did it in San Jose after like 20 years of excellence.

20 years of being in the playoffs almost every year. Didn't win a cup, sure, but, you know. Another team to tank, by the way. But 20 and then tank, yes. Like, sure. But they did that because all of their Hall of Fame stars that their fans had got to enjoy for 20 years were retiring. And okay, so now it's time for a new.

new chapter. That's very different than saying, you know what? Well, again, ask a Canucks fan. Joe Pavelsky isn't Connor McDavid, so let's trade him before the season even starts because we're not even going to try. Like, it's, it's again, though, like ask a Canucks fan if they would rather have the last decade plus or what the plan is now. Are they going to be fun to watch? Are they going to sell a million tickets the next two, three years? Probably not. Were people having fun watching them the last couple of years? Were they selling a bunch of tickets? Yep, true. True enough. So that's all. Why don't we take a break there and we'll come back and we'll talk about even more fucking stuff. Okay, we're back and we got more

trades to discuss, I suppose. The St. Louis Blues having traded away Jordan Cairo, they get Mason McTavish for two firsts and Brandon Carlo for two-thirds. The McTavish one is interesting to me. Carlo is just, I mean, it's new management coming in, dumping the old management's mistake, and probably, I would say probably good value for St. Louis stepping into a situation

and getting a guy who can very, much play in the NHL for not too much. So that's fine. The McTavish, I mean, that's interesting because it's like, at what point is a young guy still like an elite young guy? How much does draft pedigree matter? Should it matter at all? I mean, that's a pretty decent price to give up for a guy coming off

a very poor season. Well, I mean, very poor by the standards or the expectations. Yes, absolutely. would have had for him. So it's a gamble. It's, yeah. And, you know, they're not getting up high picks and that sort of thing. So, okay.

And also, I think they're, if they're confident they can put him in a better position to succeed and get him to like 20-something goals again, he's locked in for another four or five years, you know? So like, at a fairly low price. So they're saying, like, if we can put him in the Khairu position. all of a sudden, like, maybe he's not as good as Jordan Kyru, but you're only paying seven million bucks a year, you're happy, you're really happy with that. So that, that's, I guess, what the other, the other argument there would be. I don't mind it as like a bet. And again, they're trying, they're trying to convince themselves they can be competitive

for something. That division, I think, is going to be tough to be competitive. in with Mason McTavish as, what, your number two center? Mm-hmm. So it's interesting. I guess the other thing for St. Louis is, is this now it for the Robert Thomas trade talk for God, it felt like two years now?

Yeah, has to be. They moved Kairu instead, who'd also been mentioned. So, I mean, that's another situation where it's like, all right, don't worry about it, but you're our guy. Am I? Yeah. All right. But the other thing to say is St. Louis tried to get Jason Robertson, like Seattle, they were told he doesn't want to sign with you.

Yeah. The Seattle one is, that's a big one. That hurts. Again. They tried to give him $15 million. I believe that would make him the second highest AAB player in the league right now. And he was like. I'm good. Thank you, though.

I'm good. And I guess some of the spin coming out of that is that it was presented to him when the deal came together, but there wasn't a lot of time between that and the draft. And obviously the draft pick was a key part of it. So he wasn't ready to make up his mind and commit the next decade of his life to Seattle based on 24 hours or whatever he had, which is. maybe a nice way to look at it if you're a cracking fan going. Yeah, it's a very generous way to look at it.

It is, yeah. But it sure seems like the cracking are in that territory of being another one of those teams. I don't know. How do you get out of this now? Yep. And because I'll tell you, if the NBA comes to town, tanking for five years is maybe, I don't know. Maybe not your best strategy.

Maybe you might as well, because no one's going to pay attention to you anyways. They got a five or six year head start, and they were like, what if we give everybody in the league who's mediocre seven years? Mm-hmm. You know, it's tough for them.

I don't know. They're just a team that, like, they had impossible expectations placed on them because of what Vegas did. And that's why, they are where they are now. Because they also were like, well, we should be like Vegas.

And it was never going to happen. All that's been litigated on this podcast before. But so, yeah, what happens to Jason Robertson now, eh? Like, it sounds like Dallas is just going to be like, eh, bygones be bygones. Come on back into the fold, big dog. That's what it sounds like.

What number, though? Let me, let me pull up Puckpedia here and see what they got to work. with. It's not occurring to me off the top of my head, but they have 9.2 million in cap space. And I think a bunch of guys to replace as well. So they have some moves to me, although that, you know what, that doesn't include whatever happens with Sagan. If they put Sagan on his careers over LTIR, then they have 18 million and it's pretty easy to, to see. how that all works out. But they have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven forwards who are on expiring contracts

right now. But like Adam Ernie, Michael Bunting, Nathan Bastion, you know, you get to give Maverick Bork money, you got to give Jason Robertson money, and then whatever's left over, maybe you trick Jamie Ben into taking that, you know. But. Jamie Ben feels like he'd be easy to trick. you said it not me, man. You know what I'm talking about?

So that's not like impossible to work with. There's other stuff you can obviously do to maybe create some wiggle room. It's not impossible that this happens, but just the fact that they tried to trade him to like six teams. And he kept saying no, to your point earlier, I don't know what that does to the capital R. relationship. Mm-hmm. Hey, let's stay in the Central Division for a minute. Jack Drury plus to Nashville for Zach LaRue and somebody else.

I can't remember and I don't have it written down. Yeah. Oh, Svetchkov, Svichkob. I say this with no disrespect to the players involved. Yeah. There was too much stuff going on last week for me to have a strong Jack Drury opinion for you. Well, to your point.

It had completely evaded my attention that he got a five-year extension at four and a half per. He's a really good, not quite defense only, but pretty close guy. And I think we talked about this with some other trades they made recently. Chris McFarland knows him from work. Oh, well. So, like, he knows what he's getting. And he, like, um, he, He's not probably going to be like, let's overpay this, this mostly defense guy.

You know what I mean? Like, McCarland has proven he's a very smart GM. He surely has all the printouts of like exactly what Drury does for you. And he's, and Drew, and those printouts say Drury is a good player. So I got no real. Zach Leroux, like he's, he's not as good as Jack Drury. so you make that deal the whole day long. They also, yesterday went out and got Neils Hoaglander from Vancouver for a third round pick.

Do you want to guess how many goals Neil Hoaglander had last year? I do not. 50 games? Oh, you don't want to, okay, you don't have to guess then. Dude, he had 10 goals. He had two. Close. He had, it wasn't that long ago.

He had like a 25 goal season or something like that. And so the bet here is we can get them back to that. Or let's put it this way. If you can get them to like 15, you're like, okay, that's worth a third round pick for me. It doesn't have to be 20. I don't mind that deal at all. But what I did like was that Vancouver went and took the cap stage from Hoaglander, and they got Brendan Gallagher at 50% retained from Montreal for nothing.

Yeah. Nice little pickup for Vancouver, I think. It's fine. I mean, he, Gallagher certainly has seen pretty cooked the last few years, but Montreal's doing right by a veteran who gave a ton and, yeah, send him home. That's where he wanted to go, you know, there had been reported that that was basically his ask to Montreal is, you know, if there's any way I can go to Vancouver. And so they made it happen.

Sure. I don't think he'll, you know, having, he's, in a way, he's a great pickup for Vancouver because he is a veteran, in theory, you know, knows how to do things the right way, that sort of thing. But also, he's not going to move the needle so much. It's going to ruin your tanking. That's exactly right. And in fact, he might help. He's maybe not quite worth the money, but like at, what is it, like three and a quarter or something like that for him?

there's a world to me where he's worth roughly that, you know? And because, yeah, he didn't look good last year, but he also shot like 6%. I was looking at this earlier. Okay. And even if I think he's like pretty not good anymore, I got to think that number's coming up a little bit. And if you get 10 goals out of the guy and he's good in the room and the vibes and all that kind of stuff, I think this is a totally... Let's put it this way.

He scored three times as many goals as Nealz-Hlander. Okay. Yeah. You know? Like, that's fine then. They got bigger problems in Vancouver. I can't get mad about this one. Let me move back to the Eastern Conference here for a second, though, because I thought that this was just a phenomenal trade for me.

speaking of 50% retained the Panthers get Garnet Hathaway at 50% retained for a fourth and a fifth from Philadelphia and then they trade the rights to A.J. Greer, who they weren't going to be able to afford to resign,

for the rights to Radco Goudas, who of course they remember from several years ago, well liked in the room there and all that. They are trying to start line brawls every single game next season is what it feels like. They get both, now they have both Kachuk brothers, Sam Bennett, Garnett Hathaway, Radco

Goudis, like, holy fuck, man. They are trying to get, and again, I say this with affection, a team of guys who play like shitheads out there. Yeah. They know what they are. They know the brand. This is the most on-brand thing I can imagine any NHL team doing, honestly. We say this so often that.

the NHL, every team is always like, we want to have character. We want to have, you know, we want to really be a team that people know. And it's like, yeah, your identity is always the same. 30 out of 32 teams are like, get the puck in deep, play good defense, you know, block shots. That's your identity.

The Florida Panthers have an identity. They damn sure know it. They're a bunch of dirt bags. and all I can say is George Peros better get a permanent season ticket in Florida so that he can watch that team and make sure none of these other goon teams touch any of these precious little angels of his.

That's exactly right. And because that would be very unfair. Truly, like, this is more to a team's identity than Seattle giving a second line guy $2 million more than they should have. You know what I mean? Like this is as locked in on what a team is. I don't know how much like Hathaway and Goudas like help them necessarily in terms of like are these great players that can, you know, have even a Brady Chuck style impact.

Of course not. But they can really put themselves in a position to draw a lot of penalties because the Panthers get to do whatever they want. let's put it this way. You know, they're going to get Goudis, you know who they're going to get to play six times next year? Oh, who's that? The Toronto Maple Leafs, home of, if this, if he had been on the Panthers at the time,

Austin Matthews, the man who was suspended 12 games for running into Radco Goudis's knee. That's right. You know? I'm not even kidding. I was 50% convinced the Leafs we're going to cite. Goudas if he had made it to July one way to do it. Do you remember

there was a report a couple of months ago that was like because of that hit, Goudis is now hated so much in the league and he knows it that he's just going to retire? Oh, I hadn't seen that. It was like a check report, which is obviously where Goudis is from,

but it was a check report maybe that said that or, you know, one of those like telephone like, Goudis is going to retire Purple Monkey dishwasher. style situations. But instead it's like, we're actually going to put you on the team

where that kind of behavior is encouraged. Yep. You love this shit, right? And everybody's like, yeah, we do. Yep. Staying in the Atlantic division, the Boston Bruins get J.J. Peturca for two first round picks.

Again, lots of the first round picks flying around out there. I think people are finally. understanding that like there's a difference between first round pick is a top 10 pick and first round pick is the number 24 overall. Yeah. People are finally figured it out. So.

Yep. And I mean, Petrka didn't, it was kind of a, I wouldn't say a bust in Utah, but didn't. Certainly that trade looks much better on the Buffalo side. Because of the Shane Doughton, like, or Josh Dane.

Yeah. You know, the guy who is, In some tellings, maybe the third piece of that trade, and he ends up being the only one still sticking around. But, yeah, I mean, I guess it makes sense for Boston. Sure. Yeah. Worth a gamble.

It is a gamble, but worth a gamble. Yeah, they're in a position where they are trying to ring the last bit of value out of the McAvoy, Posternak, Lindholz. home core, if you want to call it that. And obviously Swamen is maybe more of a long-term play there. But like, it's not hard for me to see like two, three years from now. We're looking at the end of the Posternak era in Boston. And so you go get Petrga, a guy who can also put the puck in the net in theory,

plays way more of the Bruin style than I think the Utah style. and so you say, okay, yeah, this makes sense to at least try. Maybe it doesn't work, but it certainly wasn't working in Utah, and maybe they can package the picks and get a guy that, whatever, you know. So I think this is totally like fine for both sides. And that's about it, I guess, you know? Sure. But to stick with Utah, this is one that I'm a little confused by,

honestly, Utah trades one of those first round picks for Sebastian Cosa, the one-time goalie of the future for Detroit and now, obviously, not so much. Well, obviously not so much. But, I mean, he was drafted, what, five years ago? Yeah. And he just had a very good year in the HAL, I believe. That's about the timeline for most goaltenders. You would think.

So, I mean, I don't mind if you're, put it this way, if I'm Utah and I'm, I'm, looking at the organizational depth and all of that, and I'm going, all right, maybe we've got to think about a goaltender with a high pick. I'd much rather have a guy who's about to begin his NHL career versus rolling the dice on someone who's five years away. Like, and this is a guy, you know, they're not getting him to come and be the starter. He's obviously going to be, they used, they need it more depth. Yes. They can't be, you know,

starters don't play 65 games in this league anymore. Unless they're Carol of Melka who just did that. Yeah. Which you don't want as a plan. So, yeah, I mean, I kind of like that for Utah, even with the obvious caveat that I don't know anything about minorly goaltenders. Great news.

Nobody does. Yeah. Assuming that this is, okay, you know, all right, then you, you, I very much understand the logic there. So I don't mind that. Especially if he can come in and play in the NHL. And I'm talking like he's your backup. Yeah, I think the plan is he's going to play like, you know, 17, 20 games,

whatever the number is for them. And if something happens to Vemelka, you're not like, we have no backup plan. You know, like the only thing that I think that was a little. little surprising to me is I kind of think from what I understand it was it was a situation where they have this kid who just played for UMass the past two seasons Michael Hrabble who's like a six eight guy and it was a very good college goal tender who I always from what I understand was being talked about as like this is our goalie of the future and I I guess this moves just gives you flexibility where, like, if there comes a situation where you're moving on from Vemelka three, four years from now, and COSA's more like 28, 29 instead of 25, and then Frobbels like 23, 24, there's like that continuum that you have kind of into the future if none of these guys end up hitting for you in the way that you might want.

right but I thought they might give probable like maybe a longer look to go straight to the NHL but as you say they don't they don't do that with goalies so yep yeah I thought it was interesting that that COSA garnered a first though that's all yeah but I mean if I'm if I'm Detroit like he like he was a first round pick am I correct in that yeah he I believe he was yeah

So, I mean, you spend a first round pick on a goalie, you develop them for five years, and then you ship him out for roughly the same pick five years later. I mean, that's, I don't know if that's ideal asset management. I'm not saying, I mean, if he wasn't your future, then he's not your future. And you've got to make whatever move makes the most sense. And getting a first for a guy is not bad, but. Yeah. Yeah.

Guy who's never played an inning. Or that's not true. He's played like two NHL games, I think. But yeah. Hey, speaking of trades involving first-round picks, the New York Rangers get Pavel Dorofaya for two first-round picks and a third-round pick, and then they immediately extend them seven times 11. Yeah, and this is one of those, out of everything that happened, at least in the lead-up to free agency,

this is the one where I kind of have to stop and go, we really maybe have to reframe cap hits and in the, you know, and it's so obvious to say, well, the cap's going up, so you've got to adjust your priors and you've got to think. And yes, we all know that, and we're all used to doing it every year when the cap goes up a bit, but when it's going up as much as it is, like this $11 million for this guy feels insane.

sane, but then you go, okay, well, what really is 11 million? Well, I, so, we're going to, we're going to get to one last trade that I think is even more. Okay. I, I had that level of, that level of stick. All right. What was, what was yours?

Well, let me, let me, let me quickly say on Dorif I have, um, I think he's a really good player. And, uh, I think this is Vegas going. Well, I mean, to your point, is he worth a lot? $11 million? Maybe not. Especially if he's not going to be playing with Jack Eichel anymore. You know?

I think that that was my read on it. And my read on it from the Rangers perspective is, yeah, you don't have anybody who's like Jack Eichel, you know, guys? That's the concern I would be having if I were the Rangers is he just doesn't have that support system. if you want to say it that way, uh, in New York that he did in Vegas. Um,

I think he's a good player. I think he is underrated defensively. Although again, how much of that is he plays next to Jack Eichel, who covers up for a lot of guys, defensive deficiencies, uh, in theory. But look, if you're the Rangers and you just saw the Knicks go out and, and win a championship, like you have to be looking at it going,

fuck, man. I got to do something. I got to make it look like, look to the boss like I'm doing more than just shuffling papers around on my desk and then opening solitaire the second he walks out of the room, you know? So I get it from that perspective. I just, 11 million to your point is not as much of an overpay as people probably think 11 million dollars is,

but also it's an overpay. But the one that really I couldn't fucking believe, Carolina trades for the rights to John Carlson, and I believe this is the last trade we have to discuss unless something happened while we were recording the podcast, which is entirely possible. Trades for the rights to John Carlson. He wants multiple years at $10 plus million.

And I said, hold on. What? 10 million? Yep. Per year. For two years, apparently. I had seen two or three, but yes. Yeah.

Three, I mean. Three maybe gets the number. number down to nine. Yeah. But it's like, holy fuck me. It sounds like what he wants is 20 million over two years. And then as the team, if you want to spread that over more years for cap purposes, go ahead.

But, man. Yeah. And you know what? He'll get it from somebody, you would think. I know a lot of people have connected the dots that, like, he kind of feels like exactly what the lightning could use right now with Victor Hedman. starting to fade that, you know, you need that top defenseman for one more run. So, I mean, Carolina makes the move.

I guess we'll see. Tuesday morning as we're recording this, nothing has happened. So, and obviously, given the age and all that, we're not talking about, you know, the difference between eight years and seven years is not in play. we hope. Right. Good Lord. I mean, if it's eight years at two million a pop, like, hey, that's fine.

Yeah, maybe, yeah. Yeah, it's, but, but again, like on a short term and at his age, even two years is getting dicey. Absolutely. But he was still good last year. And it's not unreasonable to assume he's going to be good this year. I get, I still get more sticker shock over the seven, eight year deals than, I don't mind overpaying on two years, especially since Carolina's got some cap space.

But yeah, let's see where, if anywhere, that goes. Do we know what they gave up to get the rights? I think it was like a third round pick. Now I don't have it in front of me. Was it that high? Okay. Ducks got the 192nd overall pick from Carolina. Wow.

Along with minor league defenseman Kyle Masters. and I do not know that guy's good, but that's what? That's a sixth rounder? Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, that's a sixth rounder would be six on the nose, I guess. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Great, good for them. Again, not how I'd...

Not how I'd want to spend $11 million personally, but I guess that's how it is now. Mm-hmm. You got to remember with Carolina, it's interesting. They have more so, I feel like more so than any other team, they really have like, look, there's good players in the league, and there's not so good players, but we play a specific way, and we will view players through the filter

of how will they fit how we play. And so they might have a UFA board that's already got like 80% of the names crossed off. Like, no, we're just not a great player, good. We'll deserve the money he gets somewhere else, but he won't, he's not a good fit for what we do for the Rod Brandemore game. So when they go out and target a guy,

you know it's because they've really looked at it and said, this is a, you know, Brindamore or whoever is, like, go get me that guy. That guy can do what we want to do. And then it's a question of, can you convince him of that? And, you know, for a guy like Carlson, that's not a bad team to end up to finish your career with. Yeah. Yeah. You know, again, this feels like a real, the cupboards are bare, so we might as well just get the guy that we think most fits, you know?

Like, because you don't, you don't want to get into any bidding war. How far $11 million is going to go tomorrow is a little bit different, you know? But speaking of contracts, we have a bunch that got signed just in this last week or so. So let's just go alphabetical by team for like the more name brand guys. Buffalo gets Zach Benson at seven years, seven and a half, and Beck Malenstein for six years, 2.9-ish. That one's interesting. Because you almost never see long-term deals at low-cap hits. Yeah.

The Islanders used to, you know, had the fourth line for a while on, on those sorts of deals. But that's... Yep. It's fascinating. I remember Nashville doing that a time of three. Like a Colton Sizzins contract or something. Yeah. So, you know, Malenstein's like a perfectly okay depth guy.

I don't know that I'd want to give a 28-year-old six years to be a, perfectly okay depth guy, but even now, less than $3 million against the cap is nothing. So who cares? It's not going to be that long or that far away in a few years from being like the minor league barrier threshold. So, yeah, it doesn't. We'll see. Could be bad, but the downside risk is pretty minimal. The Benson one is obviously the bigger contract and more interesting.

I mean, he really kind of popped off in the playoffs. Like, if that's the guy they're getting full-time, it's a heck of a good contract for the Sabres. Yeah, and, like, obviously, the Sabres would know from experience, in theory, that you don't give guys who have one or two good play. playoff series, huge contracts. Do they know that, though? Well, again, in theory.

In theory. But this is a guy who he scored at like a 17, 18 goal pace this past season. And if he can, if he can, like in the regular season, let alone elevating his game in the playoffs. You know what I mean? And so if he's that plus like. You know, he's only 20, 21, something like that. Like, it's easy to see where, like, we're looking at this deal two, three years from now going seven and a half is a fucking bargain for what Benson brings to the table, especially because he kind of plays like that diet, like, let's put it this way.

If he was available, Florida would have been like, we'll take four Zach Benson's please. Right? And great news. They don't suspend guys for playing like that. They barely even penalize him. So, Zach, you go out there, you go ape shit, big dog. Well, I mean, they suspend the guy who slashes you after you slew foot him. They will do that.

Yeah, I just think like this kid, again, I'm being extremely complimentary when I say he plays like a shithead. And, like, that's the kind of hockey player I personally like to see out there a lot of the time. And, like, it's so easy for, like, if, let's put it this way. If they get this kid to, he's a 20 goal a year guy and he plays the way he does and he's putting up like 50 something points overall, seven and a half we're going to be looking at that going, damn, how did they do that? You know, like it feels like they bought high a little bit right now. But the fact that he's only 21, it's like he's not even going to be like at his peak performance for another three, four, five years. You know? so I think this is a great contract for Buffalo

and then Malenstein him a little more okay sure but not a bad week in Sabres Town overall again do I think they're going to be like as good as they were last season by this time next year no I do not think that but they're taking care of the business they need to take care of and that's great okay Colorado

Brett Koolak five times four and a half, Brent Burns one times 850K. Love to see Brent Burns back. Sure. Kulak, yeah, sure. I mean, he's good. It's maybe a year longer and a billion bucks more than you'd want in a perfect world,

but you live with it. I don't even think the money's the problem. The term is the, again, four and a half million dollars, three years from now, We're going to be like, okay, that that's basically the league minimum. You know, like it's going to, it's going to feel so negligible. So, you know, they made some interesting moves this week with the Nachushkin trade and everything.

But they, it feels like they're just in a position where they got to sell to buy, you know? And just that's, they got to keep everything as clear as possible for whatever this Kail Makar extension is going to be. So whatever they got to do, they got to do. And that's life. But I, again, don't, I think we just this past season saw the high watermark for what this Avs group is going to do. Win the president's trophy, went around, et cetera. Did they win two rounds? They went to the Western Conference final?

They did. They won exactly eight games. Yep, that's right. I knew that got swept. by Vegas, I just couldn't remember for a second what round it was. So yeah, like, conference final president's trophy might be this, probably is the ceiling for what this group is going to achieve going forward. But they already won a cup, so who gives a shit? The Kings, Brandt Clark, five times 7.4 million.

Yep. I mean, I like the number. for the Kings I like and I don't mind the term for a player for a change. He didn't sign away his entire prime. So sure. Thumbs up on both sides.

Yeah, I just, I was a little surprised by this because wasn't there like some discourse around like the new year, maybe into February or it's like, do they even think Brian Clark is all that good? Yeah, there was talk of you know, was he available in trade

and that sort of thing. But also 7 million is not for a youngish defenseman with upside. I don't think it's a huge vote of... I mean, it's not like they've made this guy the guy. Yeah. Did you... I don't know if he had a note of this, but did you see that apparently they said

they're not going to extend Drew Dowdy this summer? I did see that. And I, you know, you're a little surprised by that just because, like, don't you want that guy to be? be a king for life and all that kind of thing. But I, my thought on that was like, how mutual is that decision? That's exactly. That's exactly.

Like, Drew Doughty might be like, yeah, of course. Like, let's just, we'll figure it out later. Or. Because Drew Doughty, one year from now could be like $12 million, please. You know, like it's not, it's not hard to envision him getting a raise out of all this. just given where the cap's going. Like, if John Carlson is worth $11 million, Drew Dowdy can go,

that guy doesn't even have a career achievement, Norris, at the age of 26, like I do. Did that guy win two Stanley Cups? You know, like, he can easily say that and go, so that'll be $14 million. And, you know, you can make that out to cash. So that's a little. surprising, but not, like, it makes total sense if you think about it.

Tony DiAngelo, two times four and a half to stay in Long Island or on Long Island. Yeah, that's great. Perfect. Who cares? Totally, totally okay in that role for them. Ottawa gives Jordan Spence four years at five million bucks a pop. Pretty good, I think. Yeah, that's about right.

He was really good. Yeah. Especially once he kind of found his feet in Ottawa. He was scratched a few times early on. He was one of their better players. Yeah, he didn't get the memo that the cap is going up. He's like, like, $5 million would be fine a year ago, wouldn't you say? Yeah, well, I mean, a year ago, he was kind of, I wouldn't say,

at risk of washing out of the league, but, you know, it didn't, wasn't a big acquisition cost. And, you know, again, was being scratched at one point early on in the season, but then figured it out or maybe more realistically the senators figured out what they had. Yep. So no problems there. San Jose gives Michael Kesselring three times four and a half. Another guy where it's like, did you hear, did you not hear that John Carl? I understand.

Kessel Ring is coming off a down year, a lot of injuries, third team in three seasons, all that kind of stuff. But like, the odds that he blows four and a half out of the water and the value that he provides to San Jose is pretty strong, I think. Yeah, I would say so. And, you know, obviously the dynamic here

was this was kind of the domino that started the Bowen-Byrum thing because this meant San Jose didn't have to take a defenseman at number two. which meant they were going to take Sambar, which meant Chicago obviously wasn't going to get a shot at him, which put the pick into play. And then either ironically slash coincidentally

or as part of a master plan, they end up trading the pick to Buffalo, who then uses it on a defenseman to replace the guy they traded to start the whole ball rolling. It's fun. Yeah. Hey, speaking of fun, Troy Stetcher, two years, 1.35 to stick around in Toronto.

Yeah, sure. He was... Let me... He was good. Let me ask you this. Do you think there has ever been a team in his entire career? I'm talking going back to, like, when he was a little kid, could barely skate, all this kind of stuff. That's ever been upset to give Troy Stetcher a little bit of money to be on their roster?

Yeah. He's just a good player. Very good player. and that it's not great certainly but like as a bottom of your lineup guy you're just like this is what it's all about this guy is sick and yeah he's just he's just a really good player

that I've always liked watching so good for him you know um Kyler Yamamoto gets two years 1.75 to stay in Utah I had forgotten he was on the mammoth, but he had a perfectly good season for them.

And it's just one of those things where it's like he got hyped to the moon playing in Edmonton. And then when he went to Seattle, he was like not very good. And he seems to have found a role in Utah good for him. Yep. While we were recording, uh-oh. St. Louis is buying out the final year of Jonathan Drew-end's contract,

four million bucks. He's getting apparently, or, you know, he was supposed to get, and now he isn't going to get that. But he wants to go hit the market, try to find new gimmicks. Yep. So makes sense all around, I'd say. But this is the other interesting thing is, did you see that there was talk that, that Esperi Kogneemi might get a buyout from Carolina? Because was it yesterday or maybe the day before was the last day they could buy him out at one third of his cap hit? And he would have cost them next to nothing for the next eight years.

But they were like, no, we're going to try to trade them instead, not buying them out. And that's where that is right. Yeah. And essentially, I think their logic is, look, everybody needs centers. This guy's a center. He's an NHL center. I don't think they're under any illusions that he's a star in this league, but he's a useful guy making reasonable money to do the job

that a lot of teams are looking for somebody to do, and they should be able to get something for him instead of eating a cap hit to get nothing. We'll find out if they're right or not. Yeah, and the other thing to say about him is like he did lose his like fourth line center role to Mark Jankowski, right? Like not, and Jankowski, to be clear, is like really good in that role. But that doesn't mean Kukeniemi isn't good in that role. He's just not as good as Jankowski. And so like, it should be so easy for Caroline.

to find a landing spot for him where it's like, this is a very good fourth line center. We just happen to have a better one who fit our system better and all that kind of thing. But it's also, I think, pretty difficult to say to a potential trade partner. You want this guy we healthy scratch 16 games in the playoffs or whatever the number was? Yep. So that'll be interesting. interesting. As far as I can tell, that's it for transactions of any major note this week.

Like, if we talk about Kyler Yamamoto, like, I think we did a pretty good job. But they're also the way last week went, I probably missed like five. Who knows? It's impossible to say. So let's talk about this. Another thing that got announced, uh, basically right after we, finished recording last week, they're expanding to Texas. apparently. We're going to get Team 33. That's interesting. Which city in Texas?

It's funny, you ask. Could be any of them. They're looking at Houston or Austin right now. So you guys all made fun and Nate Silver for wanting to expand to Sudbury Thunder Bay. But now we're expanding to...

Yeah, I mean, sure sounds like this is happening and don't think this league is going to stay as a 33 team league for very long. No, I wouldn't imagine so. What's your plan? 40 by, by when?

40 by 2050. Yeah. 40 by 50. Um, the, the thing is from what has happened in other expansion, uh, with Seattle and Vegas specifically, I guess I'm trying to say, is, I went back and looked all this kind of stuff up. And basically like May, June is about when it started being like, oh, it looks like they're maybe getting the ball rolling on building a rink or starting a season ticket deposit drive and all that kind of stuff. And then by like, I think like December or February, they were like,

okay, there's going to be an expansion team by, you know, three years from now, basically. And apparently, I think it was Elliot said this, like, Betman wants this team in the league by 2030, allegedly. Okay. And so this is going to be a fast process.

This is going to be, they decide on either Austin or Houston, you know, uh, in the next six months. They get shovels in the ground and the lead, and the board of governors goes, uh,

approval expand or expand, or expansion approved, basically. So, like, this goes from Austin, Houston, we don't really know to by December we're going, you know, welcome the Austin, whatever. I wanted to say Austin bats because Austin is famous for a huge bat population. But that was the name of a minor league team in Austin and like the 90s. The Austin Matthews. Okay. The Austin rattlesnakes, and you get every 45-year-old dude to the goatee pulls this 316.

Well, that's a Houston guy, isn't it? Yeah. Stone Cold Steve Austin, a Houston guy. But it's just such a, it's such a no-brainer to do Austin for me. In looking stuff up for this, I saw that they recently passed in Austin city limits. A little joke. In Austin City limits, just that city, they recently passed one million residents. And in the greater Austin area, it's like two and a half or something like that.

Okay. And you keep your, you do the thing that Vegas did so well where you are number one, the first team in the market. Right. Which I think really helped the Golden Knights, like, establish that fan base in a way that the Cracken maybe did. have so many people buy in right away. And again, part of that is Vegas had a ton of success right away. But in addition to that, you keep your powder dry for Houston when you are going for your 37th team eight years from now.

You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. So I, and again, like, there is just like established ownership in Houston that could be there. The Furtitta family has apparently looked at it before, but not super interestedly. Whereas I think it's the Freeman or the Friedman family maybe is the expansion owners this time. And if they're ambivalent about Austin or Houston, you just kind of make them go like, how about Austin? Does that sound good to you guys? You know? So we'll see on that. But in announcing this, I guess Batman was specifically asked, what about Phoenix or Houston?

And he said those processes just aren't as far along as this one could be already. So I would say that doesn't speak well to what's going on in Phoenix or Atlanta right now. But. Oh, boy. Yeah. We got some breaking news under the wire. Pierre LeBron tweets, The Panthers are working on a trade to acquire goalie Jacob Markstrom from New Jersey.

Wow. Not who I would be dying to get my hands on, let's say, just given the way the last year or two went. But let's let me pull this up here. Let me have a look see. Obviously, the real problem for them is that ends their contention for Connor Hellebuck. Yes. Well, you know what, maybe. And Sergey Bobrofsky as well.

And, yes. So, you know what? We didn't mention they acquired the rights to Akira Schmead. Or maybe he's already signed for next year. But he will seemingly be there back up. The third round pick, which for a team that had bad goaltending and he was their number three that they didn't even look at turning to in the playoffs. That's exactly right. A third pick is pretty good for that.

Yeah, apparently Evan Rodriguez. in the deal. And by the time people hear this, they'll know the whole deal, but yeah, that's interesting. Well, again, Evan Rodriguez is just a guy where it's like, yeah, they probably couldn't afford to keep him around. But can I, I'm just scrolling through my timeline here. Can I give what might be an unpopular opinion? Okay. And it's not a guy that I like, but I'm getting a little tired of Kevin Weeks just like doing the, here's a picture of Jacob Marksner. Like, dude, just break the news. If you know something, Just tell me.

And, you know, I'll give you a great. It's a picture of the player and not a picture of a city that I'm supposed to recognize. Yeah. Oh, you don't recognize the famous Newark skyline? Yeah, like, absolutely, brother. Let me say this, though. To your point, I don't know if you saw this in Canada, but you're watching the draft coverage on ESPN down here.

And Kevin Weeks goes, and look, like Carol Marchenko, he doesn't even, he is. another guy like Werensky who doesn't want to be around beyond his contract. And apparently Don Waddell was like, that is news to me. I didn't know that. What he had gotten was like a call where his, Marchenko's agents wanted to talk to him. And he was like, I'll talk to you tomorrow or Sunday or whatever.

And that was the news that they were going to give Don Waddell. Okay. And so, like, Kevin Weeks can be a newsbreaker guy. But this is, it's the, it's the spicy pork and broccoli thing. People were laughing when he was posting like a quarter of his face in the laundromat. Yeah. Remember that? And so he leaned into like, oh, people like the vague posting.

People like me doing funny bits on Twitter. Whereas, Kevin, I got to tell you, Big Dog, funnier that you ruined a GM's day. Very funny. On live TV. All right. That's the fucking movie, your big dog, from now on. You at the GM on Twitter, assuming he doesn't know. And you just go, hey, I don't know if you saw this, but like if you want to keep doing a bit, that's the bit to do.

You just go, hey, did you know that you're trading Jacob Markstrom? Thank you. So, anyway. It's really interesting for the Panthers. Markstrom bad last year pretty okay the year before, obviously like Vesnaworthy the year before that. Yeah, but at his age, you can't go back that far. And he's two years at six million. This is the extension that the devil's signed the beginning of last year, so it has not kicked in yet.

Can I say this? Like this for the devils. Oh, they don't have a goalie for next year? I think that's fine. Let the chips fall where they may. You know. Maybe. But, yeah, just to wrap up.

And of course, we should point out the sunny meta connection here, right? He goes from Florida to New Jersey. Mm-hmm. So you would assume whatever he's getting back is going to be something he knows and likes. Evan Rodriguez is a very good. Yeah, we don't know if it's both. You know, you future listener, hello from the past, you know what the trade is. We don't.

Yeah. You figure it out. Oh, another thing that happened this morning, and I forgot to put it on the outline. Did you see the Sabres hired Milan Luchich as a scout? That is funny. Very funny. Yep. Very, very funny.

But yeah, just to wrap up the expansion thing, like, as you say, the idea of them sticking with 33 teams for very long is I don't buy it. You know, my only real disappointment with this is I was really hoping they would announce three and 34 at the same time and we'd have a real expansion draft. Yes. There's still time, but, yeah. I don't, I don't buy it. And the other thing, I guess, to say about that is the reason they're going to do this so aggressively over the next few years is this is the only way the NHL knows how to make real money. Yep. And the players. Two million bucks or whatever.

Players don't get any of it. Yep. So that's why. Let's talk about the draft really quickly. They had some really, I thought, I had a blast watching the draft. It wasn't, you know, for all the like this isn't a particularly good draft, blah, blah, blah. There was a lot of fun stuff, I thought. So I went to the movies to see Jackass on Thursday, the new Jackass movie, and the last Jackass movie they're claiming. And I see this thing, hey, or maybe this is when I went to the movie Friday.

It doesn't matter. I was coming back from the movies. And first thing I see when I look at my phone and I get home, eyeball emojis, folks, there's going to be an A-less celeb announcing the Maple Leaf's pick at the draft this year. And I was like, is it Justin Bieber? Is this the A-List celebrity? And then Justin Bieber walks out. It's either going to be Justin Bieber or Will Arnett.

Like, I don't think... I like Will Arnett a lot. I don't think you can call him an A-Lis. No, I wouldn't... Well, put it this way. I would say Will Arnett is at the same celebrity level as Justin Bieber. No, no, no, no. You don't think so?

No. I'm saying they're both not quite A-LIS. But, yeah, like, I mean, you're not getting... Yeah, Tom Cruise wasn't going to come out. Brad Pitt isn't walking through that door. Yeah. So the joke I made about seeing Justin Bieber at a big event involving the Leafs. Wow, that's crazy.

I can't believe it. This is like the time I saw my barber when I got a haircut. If the Beliefs have a big thing going on, Justin Bieber's going to be there and he's going to be happy to do it. The kid loves the Leafs, you know? Salute to him for being a Leafs guy. I think that's great. But I just thought it was so funny where they were like, an A-LIS celeb is going to announce Toronto's pick. And I was like, yeah, Justin Bieber, you mean?

Yeah, we all know who that's. great. Another fun thing in the top three here. Vancouver gets Caleb Malhotra after all. It was it was tricking. They were tricking us by saying they weren't going to draft him in the media. I had a lot of fun with that. That was great.

They got us. Elliot also said that apparently, maybe it was a situation where, uh, where in fact, Mani Malhotra had said, I'll be the coach, but like, please don't draft my son. I don't want that. And then they did it anyway. He's a jerk. He's an idiot.

I hate this guy. Another top three pick thing that I thought was great. San Jose Gatsemberi at two. That's fine. I think we all saw that one coming. Then Keaton Verhoff, who coming into the year got a little bit of like, could he play his way into the number, like a top two or three pick or maybe even one. one, which I didn't, I didn't buy one, but like two or three felt like it was on the table.

He didn't do that, but he did go ninth overall. And now they have two guys that, like, are feeling like maybe lottery value guys. And then because, like, randomly defensemen were dropping in the draft at like 24 or whatever, they get Ryan Lynn, who was a guy who at one point was like, is he going to be a top 10 pick? That's crazy that that happened. And two of them defensemen. the position of need for the sharks. Verhoff and Lynn are both playing college hockey next season, but Sandberry

could very easily be in the NHL on October 1st playing next to... I'm putting a gun to your head. And I'm Canadian, so it's a water gun. Okay. You have to get...

How many Stanley Cups are the sharks going to win in the next 10 years? I will... say 1.5. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, it really feels like it's trending. But they're both going to be in lockout years.

That's exactly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, I think, I think one. And look, people said this about the Leafs as well back in the day. Like, oh, you know, the LeBron thing. I'm not talking about one.

I'm not talking about two. but I think one has to be the baseline expectation for where things seem to be trending. It'll certainly be a disappointment if we're here 10 years from now and they have not. Yes. Yeah. That's exactly right. Because they have had so much lottery luck the last few years in a way that even like Toronto didn't, right? When they got Matthews.

Like obviously you're going a well of Celebrini ceiling is Matthews like a 70 goal guy almost at the peak of his powers and all that. But like, they just have so many guys where you look at him and you go, that's going to be a really good NHL player. You know, the problem is keeping them all together, but if you can, let's put it this way. If Chicago could keep the band together for as long as they did, it shouldn't be that hard when the caps $140 million for San Jose to do the same thing. if they want to reach into the couch cushions for that. I don't know how much money Hassel Plattner has. But again...

Probably more than us. Maybe a little bit. But again, like to circle back to the Columbus discussion, right? Like, Hassel Plattner is an owner who passed the marshmallow test. He looked at two or three years of trying to get a few games worth of home playoff gate. and said, I'd actually like to go back to when we had, like, Joe Thornton and Patrick Marlow, and we were going to the Western Conference Finals pretty often. And so, like, this does now, to your point, feel like a team that that's what their ceiling is.

Yeah. I think it's great. Penguins get both Ruck twins, like 15 picks apart. That's nice. Did you see the joke? Someone posted the classic Kyle D. Zubis with two phones photo. He's on two phones.

And it was like him wishing his two best prospects, happy birthday. I didn't see that. That's a good joke. It was a cool. You know, it was cool to see them wind up together and also cool for Pittsburgh that they didn't have to swing a bunch of deals to move up or make it happen or whatever else. Yeah. And like, this was always the thing of like if you drafted them back to back to back.

in the first round, you were reaching on Marcus, but also like, I'm sure you saw this. They didn't stop mentioning it during the draft, but they had said by their estimate, they have spent four nights apart in their entire lives. And these are like two 18 year old kids or whatever, you know? So like, I saw people going, why is it so fucking important? It's because you don't know what Liam looks like without him. That's why. Okay.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it just brings up their, their value. Or certainly it increases Marcus's value to be able to play with Liam. But it just gives you that level of insurance that like maybe this, who knows if either of them is going to work out. But like, you're raising the floor on them working out if you have them together. You know what I mean? Just because they, half of their life.

linemates their entire lives have been the other guy. And you don't want to create a chemistry situation or whatever where you're like experimenting. You have an ideal linemate. He's the guy who lives with them, you know? So anyway, one last note I wanted to put out here. Michigan State, obviously college hockey is playing is changing a lot because of the CHL rule and all that. but Michigan State had five kids taken in the first round on Friday night. That's a lot.

That's, yeah. I believed college hockey tied its all-time record of drafted players either currently or going into next season playing college hockey at 209 taken in the draft. How many picks are there in the entire draft? You know? Yeah. 209 is a shitload. Yeah.

And that number will probably creep up as the summer goes along because remember, like, Gavin McKenna didn't commit to like August or whatever, right? So those can still happen. It just seems like this is the way the hockey world is going. Just thought I'd put that out there. Finally, we're getting to the end here. Free agent frenzy is tomorrow, as we've mentioned. and to me, Sean, it's more like free agent frailty. Uh-oh.

Because this is going to be a weak-ass class. I want you to guess which UFA leads all UFAs and, in fact, all RFAs in points per 60. Wow. And it's not, okay, so it's not Carlson's defenseman. God, who even is? Is it like Patrick Kane? No, it is Victor Arvidson. Awesome.

25 goals, 54 points, Victor Arvidsson. He was pretty good. Yeah, very good. And Anthony Manta, who's a 30-goal guy? Yeah, and Anthony Manta, who was a 30-goal guy last year, he's second. I didn't, I guess I had kind of filed a way that Cutter-GOTE scored 40 goals. He's a pending RFA, scored 41. in fact.

Yeager Chinikov, hey, good luck retaining him to Columbus. Oh, no, he's on Pittsburgh now. And isn't that the other thing with Columbus? They love giving up on guys. But Chinikov is another RFA. Like, it is a very weird free agent class. Very fucking strange. Yeah.

It's going to be a rough day. My buddy Frankie's got to do like three hours of TV tomorrow, and that's going to be. That's it. I only have them on three? I feel like this is a 14-hour broadcast every year. Just helicopters circling Sergey Barovsky's house, waiting to see which team gives him 7 million and why it's the Maple Leafs.

Yeah. By the way, points per 60 for Patrick Kane. I'm going to give you the two guys he's sandwiched between who are pending UFAs. Mason Marchment. and Marcus Johansson All right

Something It is It's yeah sure You're gonna tell me it's not something It's not nothing It is It's a really strange UFA class

It's the only word I can think of Because like Even the guys where you're like Oh That's a good player You're like yeah Like six years ago

That was a good player You know I'll tell you. The name value is not awful on this class, but yeah, it's... Yeah, because, okay, for name value, for example, Ovechkin, Linae, Carlson, Truba, Hayes, Anders Lee, apparently is going to market I saw yesterday. Jaden Schwartz, Oliver Bjork Strand, Evander Kane, Vladimir Tarasenko, and then you start getting into like some real dicey territory.

And it's like, yep, all those guys at one point or another, in their careers were very good players. Great news. The youngest of them is Bjork Strand and he is 31 years old. You know? I'll say this though. The youngest guy actually who's an RFA, I believe, or a UFA, rather, I believe is Patrick Lainé and who knows what you're getting with that, right?

Could be something, could be not anything. certainly I would think not going to cost you very much to find out. And those would be the guys that I'm a little more looking at. You know what I mean? Because I don't want to be getting into like a bidding war for Andre Kuzmenko or whatever. You know what? That's the thing, man, is it's like, yeah, Jonathan Druent's hitting the market. Okay, great.

You know, like, does that mean anything? Not really. I wonder how much of this. I wonder if tomorrow is not going to be the usual, like, frenzy or if it's going to be more like teams reaching out to a lot of, but being like, all right. You know, the usual way it works is like the player gets like six offers and they sit down and then by the end of the day they did they pick the best offer.

And it's almost going to be the opposite. where like teams sit down and go, okay, we need a winger. All right, we've got six wingers who are interested in coming here. And here's roughly what it would cost. And then we circle back to them because it does seem like, like, it's not a very rich market. Everyone's got money. The potential for some ridiculous contracts is pretty high,

but it feels like smart teams will kind of sit back. Which really, I can put it to you this way, Sean. This is how you know, based on what insiders are hearing, tomorrow is going to be fucking horrible, is right before we got on this call here. I saw Pierre LeBron post, hey, guys, don't forget, big name players like Luke Hughes, Kale McCar, those kind of guys, they can sign extensions starting tomorrow too. So there actually is a lot to talk about and tune in for if you think about it. And it's like, oh, boy, man. Like, I know I'm going to be, I'm going to be plopping my ass in front of the TV and, like, doing the grades as they come in and all that kind of stuff. And you can see all that, of course, at the perfect take to newsletter.

But it's just like, fuck me, man. Like, if they're trying to sell me on, you might see a bunch of guys signed contracts that don't start for another year. Like, maybe we just don't do the TV show this year. This is going to be. The number of fucking. farm animals that James Duthy is going to be interacting with tomorrow is through the roof.

Thankfully for Dutty, he's on World Cup Duty. I don't think he's got to worry about this. Oh, really? See, I don't, this is information I don't have done. He's got a little higher interest on the Canadian Sports World assignment for old James.

They don't play again for a little while, though, obviously. So maybe they can pull him off that desk, get him back in. Wow. Hey, speaking of big announcements, LeBron James told the Lakers, I'm going elsewhere next season, see you later.

And you know what they're saying? Golden State, ma'am. Yeah. Golden State with Anthony Davis and Steph. Oh, man. That's going to be fun. Didn't like the big market of L.A. Too much pressure.

That's exactly right. Too many people recognizing him. Yeah. Anyway, that just came across the timeline, so that's pretty cool. Anyway, we are done here. Oh, apparently no salary retained in the Markstrom deal as well. So Florida has taken on all that money. Why don't you hit them with the plugs, and let's get out of here.

If I may at the athletic, we're going to have contest results. Tomorrow, I think, if I get around to writing that. No podcast this week, but lots of good content coming. And then we'll be getting into the summer. And that's when everyone else goes on vacation. And I start posting even sillier stuff than I usually post. Can I say this? I read your piece yesterday about the big day with the Suban trade and the Stam Coast extension.

And it just reading that yesterday, because it was the 10-year anniversary for people who don't know this. And I encourage you to read Sean's piece because it's very good. Good. But it just, it flashed me back to, I was in a cab going to the rink with Greg and Leahy, going to the draft in Buffalo. And we were all just looking at her phone. I was like, what the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? Like, all of it happened while we were in the cab. Maybe, maybe the last of them we had gotten out of the cab. But getting to the draft that day, the whole place was fucking buzzing in a way that was. really something else. And like the sense, like I had completely kind of filed that away that that was 10 years ago to the minute or whatever that your post came out. But I was just like, holy fuck, man.

I like it brought me back to that, that feeling that I had in that cab just like I remember so vividly everything. It was over. Like I remember the weather, everything. It was amazing. So, uh, you know, hats off to you. What a great story that was. And then for me, you head over to perfect takes.bhive.com. That's B-E-E-H-I-I-V.

And that's where I'm doing all my writing these days. I will, of course, be updating the trades and transactions and signings and all that kind of stuff. For, I guess, pretty much the rest of the summer, but obviously I'll be pretty dialed in on it. Tomorrow you can just be hitting reload on that every time, and I'll give you a grade very quickly. So again, it's seven bucks a month for that, or if you want to sign up for an annual contract, you get one month free. So please check that out. That'd be great. And then head over to patreon.com slash puck soup, all kinds of bonus episodes, including one we did yesterday with Sean and Greg, where we discussed the official positions of the PuckSoup podcast on various topics suggested by the listeners.

This was because I had a listener when I posted the bruxuit podcast. Ruins are bad when they got killed by the Sabres in the first round. And a listener posted, is that the official position of the Puck Suit podcast or is this just your opinion? And I was like, I don't know that we need to figure out what the official position was. But our listeners disagreed. They wanted the official positions. And so we came down on all kinds of topics, including who's the best X-Man and Mario or Wayne. and who's on Hockey's Mount Rushmore,

who's on our official podcast, no trade lists and all that kind of stuff. So check all that out. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup. Thank you for listening to the main show. I don't know how long it was. It seems like the answer is upsettingly long. But we'll come back again next week

and talk about everything that didn't happen on July 1. So thank you for listening. Happy Canada Day to our beautiful Canadian listeners. We kiss you so strongly. and that's it. Thank you for listening. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.