The Athletic Hockey Show - Did Brady Tkachuk quit on the Ottawa Senators?

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Brady Tkachuk wanted out of Ottawa and the Senators captain got his wish on Sunday, joining his brother Matthew in Florida, after the Panthers traded three first rounders to the Senators to get him. Sean, Frank and Sean dissect the trade and look ahead to more scenarios like this happening. Plus the guys discuss five General Manager's who are on the hot-seat leading up to the draft and free agency, hometown boy Darren Raddysh signing a max deal in Toronto and Jonathan Toews calling it a career in the NHL.Host: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWe are happy to announce the upcoming release of The Hockey 100, the definitive ranking of the greatest players of the beautiful game. This is set to release ahead of the 2026-27 NHL season in October and you can pre-order today from the link in our episode description.Pre-order The Hockey 100: http://hc.com/9780063329195Watch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What up, what up? It's the athletic hockey show for June the 22nd, 2026. I'm Sean Gentile, joined by Frankie Carrado and Sean McIndoo. Boys, we're going to talk GM Hot Seats. We're going to talk Darren Radish. That's all coming later in the show. There was a trade of note that took place in the NHL yesterday.

I'm going to tell you where I was when I knew that something like this was going to happen. I was in the car coming back from a wedding pretty close to EREPA. We're driving an hour and 45 minutes down the road. See the Samaskavich trade happens. Florida sends him to Seattle. And I knew. I knew it was going to be something. I didn't know who it was going to be.

We find out by the end of it on Father's Day that Brady Kachuk, Florida Panther, joins Matthew. Otto centers get a pretty solid. draft pick return. We'll talk about that in a second. But, man, I think we're the first people to talk about this here on the Athletic Podcast Network. Frank, we'll start with you, man. What is, what was the thought that ran through that dome of yours whenever you saw that the trade went down? That it feel as inevitable for you as it did for me? It totally did, man.

It was the worst kept secret that this was something that was going to happen at some point. And like where there's smoke, there's fire. where there's a podcast and it's being talked about, chances are this is something that was going to become a reality. So here it is. It happened. And I had a similar thought to you. When I saw that Samuoskevich deal go down, I was like, huh, is that Helibuck or is that Brady Kachuk? Two names. Those are the only two names that popped into my head. And sure enough, it's Brady. And you know what? Florida Panthers, we all thought they were this candidate of a team to just turn it around next year and be right back in the mix. They just added Brady Kachop. They added one of the premier, like, power forwards in the

NHL wingers. And he's going to play on the same line as his brother probably. So yeah, the Florida Panthers are going to be for real next year. We'll see what they do in that. But for the Ottawa senators, it looks like a deal that a rebuilding team would make because you're bringing back all these high value picks. So now it's up to Steve Steyos to turn these around and say, I got the pieces I need because you need a winger to replace Brady. You probably needed a winger already. And you need a defenseman, like a serious defenseman. So can he cash in on all that currency is the big question.

Yeah. And he, as we're recording this, he's doing his availability. And he has reiterated already as part of that that this is not, he does not see this team taking a step back next year. Now, every GM says that all the time. but in this case, when you trade your captain, your supposed leader, arguably your best player, maybe your second or third best player, probably not even that high if you're going by playoff performance.

But the face of your team, you trade that guy away in a deal where you do not get a single roster player back. There is no reasonable way you can spin that. as we're not taking a step back unless you're not done. And these picks that they got while nice are currency. They're not, if you're the Ottawa Senator's scouting staff, don't get your hopes up too high because they now have a lot of picks to work with, but a lot of areas of need. And according to the GM,

a clear mandate that this is about continuing the progress of the last, couple of years, not about taking a step back and reloading for five years from now. Can I just say something? Like, I'm sure you guys have been in a situation where maybe it was a grandma, maybe it was an aunt. They got you a gift for Christmas. It was for a birthday. And you were like, I guess, you know, it's really, it's a nice thought.

What you wanted to say was, hey, grandma or Auntie Sue, just get me a gift card next time. Because I'm going to take that gift card and I'm going to get what I want. I feel like what the Ottawa senators did, they told Florida, I don't want your San Waskevich, unless it's Lundel, I don't want it. So give me the gift card and I'm going to go shopping how I see fit. And the gift card, obviously, the draft picks. So that's kind of how they've approached it. Throw an extra draft pick in there.

I don't need a warm body. I'll go find a different warm body that I like for my team. Am I delusional? I don't think the return is that bad. And I don't mean, I'm not trying to knock Brady as a player. I know all the jokes about him being the third. best senator are flowing and they have been for the last 18 hours um i don't like in totality given what we know about the situation given what pierre lebrun uh you know the the kind of bits and

pieces that he's reported about it there's a good piece to that extent on the site right now we knew that this was going to be florida right and we know like yeah he was a minnesota's there and yada yada um can't minnesota Carolina. I think if we are working under the reality, which is that it was always going to be Florida, even though there was some kind of cursory move made to leave four teams on the list, so Steve Stahos could maybe juice up their juice up the return. I think it could be worse, honestly. I do. I think ninth overall this year they get another first round pick, another first round pick in 2029.

Like, I don't, am I thinking about this wrong? I don't know if this, I don't know if this is just based on, you know, because everybody and their mother knew that there was really only one destination for this guy. But I feel like it was in a vacuum. We'll see what he does with those picks, I suppose. But in a vacuum, it's not a bad return. I don't think. I totally agree, man.

Think about, like Bill Zito, this guy's in a position where he could put the screws to anyone when a player says, I just want to go to Florida, or I'm going to give you four teams in Florida is one of those teams. But I, like, I kind of think Bill Zito's been pretty honorable through this, this, this, and just thinking of other deals that have happened where, like, you know, guys have wanted to go there. And it's like, no, I'll, I'll give you a fair market return. I want to conduct business in good faith, even though I'm in a position of high leverage. Yeah, even though I've got you guys over a barrel here. Exactly. He's got, he's got what he wants and like they like what a what a way to cash in for the Florida Panthers are you kidding me

you have one bad year you get a really high pick you part with a forward that maybe didn't fit your forward group the way the other guys do and now you're turning this around like I can't believe it like the the beat goes on for the Panthers just like one like perfect move after another it seems like yeah I think two things can be true Brady Kachuk has always been overrated based on his last name. Is that right? I think so. I think if he wasn't Keith's kid and he wasn't Matthew's little brother,

I don't think he's viewed the same way. And it is also true that he is a very good player who has a skill set that is becoming increasingly unique in the NHL as far as being like the classic power forward winger. And he brings a lot of value to a team. Did the senators get enough value? Maybe not. I don't think this is a trade that if you just put it in front of their front office a few months ago and say this is the best you're not going to be sight. They wouldn't do it.

But under the circumstances, yeah, they did just fine. And you're right. I mean, this is a lot like the Panthers Matthew Kachuk trade where it was another situation where everybody knew the team had to make a move. everybody was waiting around. And the Panthers just elbowed their way to the front of back then, a pretty decent lineup of teams and said, we're ready to drive off the lot right now. Yeah.

Here is our offer. We want to do this today. And they kind of did that with this one as well. And obviously there's a time crunch. You're dealing with a ninth overall pick that you can only move for the next couple of days that you presumably are not going to have a pick like that again anytime soon. I don't know. Here's my question.

Give me a number one through eight. Where do the Panthers rank right now in the Atlantic division as far as you projecting next year? Let's not say standings. Let's not say who finishes where. Who comes out of that division? Who's got the best odds to be in the conference final representing the Atlantic and the Florida Panthers one through eight? And I'm guessing it's not going to be six, seven or eight. They're still, they're on top of that division for me.

Are they one? Are they ahead of, I mean, Montreal and Tampa, I think, are the only two teams you, you put in the conversation even. I'm done, I'm done believing in the Tampa Lightning. Like, I've picked them to win too many playoff series over the last, over the last couple years. Like, they're back in show me or shut up mode, I think. So I will, you know, I, and Montreal, Frankie, we've talked about this. I think in some capacity, like, we love the core. There are holes on that roster still that, you know, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not world. It's not world ending stuff, but they have, they have some slots to fill and they have some questions to answer before I'm ready to put them in that group. So I think it's maybe, you can call it one A one B. Um, but I, man, it's tough to not look at. And I know that all these guys are old and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I, I get there. And they have no goalie. We think. We think they don't have a plan though. They have. They have a plan though. They have. They have. They have. They have.

And I wonder if, like, you know, they could say what they want about Anton Lundel potentially being their number one centerman at one point. I don't know how much down the road Florida looks. I wonder if Florida just looks at it and says, we're going to win right now. And we'll figure the rest out later. So, yeah, who cares? So let's just say the quiet part out loud. The Ottawa senators were told by Florida, Lundell is off the table. Don't ask about it.

Was that because, as has been reported, the Florida Panthers just love this kid? and think he's a big part of the future, or was that because they've already got something in the back pocket? And I'll just say, Connor Hellebuck, and he's a big name that would go in that deal. And so they're going to manage to pull off both of these because they don't have, they don't have the trade assets to go get Connor Hellebuck right now, unless Lundell's part of it. Correct. But they do have the cap space. As much as they just got a big ticket, they could still make it work cap-wise. Are they going to go out and get Connor Hellebock, too?

I think so. Hold on. Look at it from the Winnipeg Jets point of view. They're dying for a centerman. Like they need someone to play under Mark Shifley. And if Hellebuck doesn't want to be there, you're going to tell the Winnipeg Jets, listen, we can do Lundell. They would sign up for that in a heartbeat. Now it's a hypothetical. We'll see if it happens. But boy, like that gets the deal done. I mean, we know the conversation has happened. I feel like we can say with pretty good, I mean, the two teams have talked. I can't imagine that they haven't. Lundell makes more sense for the Jets than draft picks do. Like if you're Ottawa, you can say like, all right,

fine, we'll take the picks. We can use them. We can try to flip them for Jason Robertson or whatever, like, whatever they're trying to convince themselves is going to happen here. That's easier to do with Ottawa. I think where Winnipeg is in their lifespan,

excuse me, especially looking for someone to play behind Shifley as long as they have. I think Lundel is an easier. you're fit for Winnipeg. So it would make sense that you'd want to keep your powder dry if you're Florida there. Yeah. Dude, and if I'm Steve Steyos, now my my process is, I need to identify the rebuilding teams that are going to value picks and who do they have that are good players that can help me win right now. The first team I think of is the Vancouver Canucks. They would love to draft as much as they possibly can. Okay, so who do they have? Do they have a right shot defenseman who's really good,

who can play a lot of minutes, they do, Philip Hironic. So they have a scoring winger who's on a big ticket that maybe helps reduce the cost of acquiring Philip Hironic because I can eat that whole ticket potentially and take it off their hands while they get an asset back. Yeah, they do. And Brock Besser. Like, I think that's the first call you make if you're Steve Stales and see if there's a way you can package those guys together, unless I'm like pie in the skying that.

But I think that makes a lot of sense, especially with Travis Green, having familiarity with Brock Besser already. It's interesting. I haven't, I haven't been online enough in the last 24 hours to see if that got floated, but that makes tons of sense, man.

Yeah, there was a lot of Jason Robertson talking. That doesn't make sense to me. There's a reason I discounted that here, by the way. That's like, I'm just, that's like the,

you know, okay, like whatever, go go. Another American player who is, has contract leverage and control and all of that. And unless he really wants to be your guy, I don't think that makes sense.

The other piece that's been talked about is offer sheets. This does potentially, you know, the picks they acquired can't be used in the offer sheets, but it frees up their own potentially. They could feel better about taking a swing at somebody. So that's an option, too. I think there's a few ways that the senators can go with this. The Jason Robertson thing is, I can't see that happening. do we know, like his brother plays in Toronto, right?

Like, his brother's been like dangled on the trade market forever. Do American players like playing with their brothers? Is that a thing? I don't know. What I'm saying is like, if anyone knows the intricacies of a Canadian market and how crazy it can be, it would be this guy. Like, he's not, he doesn't have to put himself through that. So why would he? Unless you're going to pay him a ungodly enough money.

Yeah, you just pay him more money than anybody else would. Like, I don't. I mean, sure. That always talks ultimately, but I don't know. I got to say this. Here is the thing, and this is maybe me being in Ottawa, that has really landed with me because, Sean, you said you hadn't seen a ton of the online chatter. About Vancouver, at least. I have been shocked at the reaction from Senators fans, because my first reaction when this

deal came down, I tweeted it out, I said, you know, this is a decent return for Ottawa, But man, what a kick in the teeth for sense fans. Because you've been told for years, don't worry, this isn't actually going to happen. I know, you know, everyone's connecting the dots. It's not going to happen. The owner said it. The GM said it. The player said it.

And then it happened exactly the way everybody always thought it was. It's incredible. It's incredible. And what's amazed me is how many senators fans are are throwing the good riddance on this guy. And I will tell you, it wasn't like that 48 hours ago. Nope. All right? And I'm not saying there weren't some senators fans who had real reservations and especially about, you know, the way things happen with the Olympics and the politics of it and the fallout from that. Absolutely.

But you weren't hearing that. If you went into the places where Sends fans go, you weren't hearing a bunch of we got to get rid of Brady. But as soon as the trade happened, like, you know, sometimes you use the metaphor of like you got to rip off the Band-Aid. You hear that a lot? this band-aid fell off for the Senators fan. This Band-Aid was barely even attached. Floating on the top of the pool. Yeah.

Exactly. It's good that the Band-Aid came off, though, Sean, because think about if you're Steve Staeos and you're like, okay, let's play this year. 100%. Let's go into this year and see what happens because I'm in Win Now mode and I need to do well this year. So now you carve out a year out of that deal.

What's your value next summer? He maximized, I think, the most he could possibly get for Brady doing this two years out and allowing Florida to get that extra year out of it. And if you're looking for a backlash, it so far has not happened. In fact, it has been the opposite. And we've got, you can already kind of feel like the knives are out. And I'm sure there's going to be some stories in the next couple of days about, you know, the teammates thought this or this is what happened behind the scenes.

I don't know how much of that will get out. or not, but this fan base, I have almost never seen a situation where a player who was this popular in a fan base has been traded and almost right away, the fans kind of look at each other and go, you know what? Good, good riddance, good riddance. Every fan base does it to an extent, but, you know, if Connor Hellbuck leaves when Quinn Hughes left, if it's Austin Matthews, whoever the next big star in a Canadian team who leaves, you're going to have that kind of internal backlash.

And in Ottawa right now, it's an awful lot of the Mercedes. Did we not see a little bit of that with Dylan Larkin when he made the trade request, though? I feel like we saw that from Red Wings fans who immediately took on, you know, adopted some of the language that those of us who are like, Dylan Larkin, pretty good player, like not a one C on an on a true contender. And then all of a sudden, after years of having that debate, they swung over to that side. matter of, you know, 15 minutes when we found out that the trade request had been made. And you know what part of that is, is that as a fan in hockey, you can always sell yourself on the intangibles.

You can always sell, you know, somebody can look at Brady Chuck and go, this guy's been a 30 goal, 70 point guy. Why are we acting like he's a heart trophy candidate? This is what he is. And you can go, yeah, but the leadership. He is our leader. He is our captain, just like Dylan Larkin. And when the captain quits, and I'm sorry, it, I, I, I, I, I,

Players have a right to use their leverage and what have you. But when you're the captain, the face of the team, the leader, and you say, I don't want to be here anymore, you're quitting. You're quitting on your team. You're saying, I want to win. We can't do it here. I can't pull you over the finish line. I need to go somewhere else where someone is pulling me over the finish line. You're quitting.

And I think that just really diminishes in a way that, you know, maybe a Quinn Hughes or a Mitch Marner, like it doesn't land the same way with the fan base because those guys weren't supposed to be. the guy. They didn't sign up for that. And Dylan Larkin did. And Brady Kachukchuk, you take the captaincy in an original six or Canadian market. And then after a few years, you go, ah, this is too hard. I want to. And I don't, I don't want to bury Brady Kachuk too much because the chance to play with your brother is a big deal. And, you know, that is, I get that to an extent. It doesn't bother me as much with him as it does with Dylan Larkin, but you're still the captain. You're supposed to be the one tampering with other players to get them to come to you,

not getting, not being on this group chat being sold on, you know, get out of, get out of where you are and come, come golf with us. The thing is, though, the thing is Brady was the captain of the Ottawa senators. Brady wasn't the captain of his little circle. And someone else is the captain of that circle. And that matters more in the grand scheme. Is dad? I'm just saying.

And one thing about, like, players using their leverage and let's not forget, Bo Horvatt was the captain of the Vancouver Canucks, drafted there, developed there, mentored under the Cedine Twins. He was never supposed to be not a Vancouver Canucks. You know what happened there? They neglected his contract and they said, ah, we're going to do J.T. Miller and we'll figure the rest out. And you know what?

So this time, it's the shoes on the other foot. This is a player doing something else. And teams have had their way of doing things to players. Listen, I understand they make a lot of money. I get it. Chartered flights, fancy hotels. All that stuff is amazing, right? But let's not pretend that teams are just so like, they have this soft touch and they're so great.

Like, maybe players can be just as cutthroat as teams right now. And, yeah, it sucks for the fan base. It's not meant to be a shot at the fans. It never is. I don't even know if it's meant to be a shot. It's just these guys have more say and more power than they ever have. after years of not having that. I think there's some degree of overreaction taking place here.

Like, it sucks for 31 other teams that everyone wants to play for the Florida Panthers, I suppose. But I think we are zooming out a little bit too far. I think it's gotten a little reductive with like the super team discussion. Like, this isn't the same as everyone wants to draw parallel. between now, the current moment in the NHL and like 10 years ago in the NBA. And that's not quite the same thing. Because back then, you know, you can look at Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving,

not to go too far into the weeds with NBA stuff. But those guys wanted to play together and they didn't care where it was. They were like, let's take the reins. Let's find a team that has three max slots available next season. and let's make ourselves a package. We're not necessarily trying to go to New York. We're not necessarily trying to go to Houston or Team X or Team Y. That was a big part of the super team era in the NBA,

is those players being like, we want to go, we're going to go chase rings together. The destination is secondary. The important thing is that we're playing together. Here it's more like, let's go do it in Florida or let's go do it in Vegas for a variety of reasons. So I think people are trying to, you know, compare the two a little bit more closely than they, than they should. It's just an easy thing to.

It is. Yeah. And I get it. It's like it's not, it's not completely incorrect. But there's like crucial differences, I think, that are getting left out of the discussion. And it is cyclical in a way. Five years ago, the Florida Panthers were the team that nobody wanted to play for because they never won anything. And when you thought of the floor of Panthers, you thought of like a piece of plywood where the glass should be.

That was what that team was. And so things change. And there was a time 10, 15 years ago where the absolute class of the league franchise was the Detroit Redwings. And now they're the team whose captain wants to bail on them and go play in Florida. So yeah, maybe some of this is just it's maybe it's a little cyclical. And maybe right now it's the Canadian teams or the northern teams that are feeling it. but it could always swing back. And the NHL shouldn't, I mean,

the NHL shouldn't overreact, not that the NHL has ever overreacted to any problem, right? We know how the NHL deals with problems real or perceived. They sit back, they wait until it's absolutely too late, and then eventually they do something that nobody is happy about. But I got to say, perception is not reality,

but perception is kind of the reality. And if you get a bunch of fan bases, that come to believe that their team is actually just a feeder team for a handful of All-Star teams in markets that don't generate much in the way of revenue and that if you're a fan in Winnipeg or Ottawa or Toronto or wherever, that your job is to pay high prices and have the highest TV contract and all of that stuff so that money and players and everyone can flow down to Florida and Vegas and they can win their third and fourth and fifth Stanley Cups.

It doesn't even have to be real for eventually you hit that tipping point in a fan base or a big chunk of it goes, you know what, screw this. And that's a big, big problem if it happens for the NHL. If, if, because three years from now, we could be talking about, you know, geez, everyone wants to play for San Jose or whatever. Yeah, dude, sure. 100%. Like, we've seen it. Like, how many times have the Edmonton Oilers got players because guys want to play with McDavid and want to win?

For a while there, people wanted to hitch their wagon to Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner and William Nealander in Toronto because they thought that was a team that was going to have a chance to win. I mean, Pittsburgh Penguins, like guys wanted to play with Crosby. These are not, there's not palm tree destinations, but what they were at the time were well-run organizations that had a lot of success in the regular season. Some of them had a lot of success in the playoffs and guys wanted to be there. There would have been conversations in the NHL between guys at dinner,

or on the bus or, you know, warming up on a bike and you're down in Florida and you're like, man, imagine these guys ran a real tight operation down here. Everyone would want to be down here. Like those are conversations that happened. And guess what? Vegas came onto the scene. They run a great operation. Florida runs a great operation now.

Dallas does. Like, that's just, that's the way things have turned. And you can't always be at the top of your game forever, case in point Detroit. But at some point, the pendulum will swing. and we'll talk about a different set of problems. And yes, and I agree with that, except that there's a certain point where you go, okay, what exactly do people want here? You know, you want an organization that's going to treat you well,

so everyone goes to Vegas? Really, the most cutthroat backstabbing organization in the entire league, that's where you're going to go? Well, no, we want to win. Okay, you want to win. The Florida Panthers just missed the playoffs. The Winnipeg Jets, when they were winning president's trophies, couldn't get anybody to go there.

So I feel like some of the explanation fits and then some of it just doesn't. Because it's all well and good. I've seen lots of people say, hey, Canada, you want some players, try winning some games. You had the president's trophy winner last year and nobody wanted any part of the issue. The issue is that there's no smoke and gun explanation for any of this. And this is sort of, I feel like this is the kind of the way that dialogue has moved online over the last couple days. Is like you can't just say that it's the no tax thing. You can't just say that it's the weather.

You can't just say that it's the quality. Like we have a like we're staring at our rundown for the show and we have eight different things that are that are like in play here, right? And people want to attribute it to one thing, at least vis-a-vis the Florida Panthers or the Vegas Golden Knights. And it's not just one thing. It's a bunch of different boxes that are that are checked in favor of those of those organizations. So yeah, Vegas doesn't care, but whatever you're you're in Vegas. And yeah, there's the weather's great and your wife's going to have a great time. I'm there and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like, there's enough things when it comes to the three teams, basically, that people are talking about now as it relates to the super team discussion, where they all have a whole lot of things going for them right now. And it's not going to be that way forever, but that's the way it is right now, right? And a big part of that, too, is the personality types of the guys of the guys that are, that are, you know, in, in the discussion here. Like, if Matthew Kuch wants to go live in Florida and play hockey. in Florida. Like, I, like, that's just the, that's the, the, the, those are the cards that the

Carolina hurricanes were, that, my God, that the Calgary Flames were, were dealt, right? Like, there's a bunch of different things at, it play. It's not just one, not just one lightning bolt fix for any of this. Let me, let me just throw this out there as, is, is there an overarching factor? I'm going to throw this out there. I think we might have to come to accept or at least to consider maybe hockey players aren't as big and tough as we thought they were. Maybe hockey players actually kind of, they kind of like to be coddled. They kind of like nice warm weather and everyone's going to treat you well and you don't have to sign any autographs or do anything hard. And again, like I can't, the, the the juxtaposition of this all happening against,

I don't even know if New York is open again after that parade they just of here's what happens when you get this explosion of emotion and fan, you know, all of these guys are, and the idea that that was happening at the same time that all of these big, tough hockey players were probably watching it going, oh, that, that looks scary.

I couldn't do that. I'd much rather sit in front of it. Your maple leafs are showing here, my man. What's the old saying? You got it made in the shade, right? Like, everyone loves flying under the radar. You can make a few mistakes here and there, and you're not going to get picked apart for it, right? But you play in a big market, and the littlest thing can become the biggest thing.

Did you look at someone weird on the bench because the camera caught it? And that's going to be on the four-hour morning show, the two-hour lunch show, and the three-hour drive show, and it's going to be on Sports Center and everything else. And it's like, no one even saw it in a different market. But if the league was 30 of those different markets, nobody's making millions of dollars in this league because nobody's watching it. So at some point, and I guess that'll be my last thing, because this is a whole other topic to get to, I do think this is an NHL problem. We're supposed to have a 35-minute show today, buddy. Come on. I think it's an NHLPA problem as much as anything. And Marty Walsh at some point might have to say, guys, individually, I love that all of you are doing this, but collectively, we're supposed to get 50% of a pie.

And that pie ain't getting any bigger if you all keep trying to go to Florida. I felt a duty to player empowerment. I felt a duty to wear some NHLPA merch today. And then we can also have the no movement clause discussion next week or something because that's a big part of it. 75% of the top 200 cap hits have no movement clause. Counted. Counted today. We can table that discussion.

Folks, the upcoming release of the Hockey 100. It's the definitive ranking of the greatest players of the game. game we all love so much is set to release ahead of the 2026-27 NHL season in October. You can pre-order the link in our episode description. There's also a piece that McIndoo wrote last week explaining what we did, explaining that the series that we ran a few years ago that's now been updated and rewritten in parts for the book. So check that out. Again, there's a link in the episode description, and there is a piece on the site.

I'm going to talk about GMs on the hot seat coming up next. All right. A few of these guys came up in the first segment, but we are talking GMs on the hot seat as the draft barrels towards us, as July 1 does as well. We're talking Steve Eisenman, Craig Conroy, Kyle Davidson, even though we got a contract extension, jury, blah, blah. The reason this is top of mind, guys, and the reason this discussion is taking place is due to the great Stan Bowman, who, as of this after. afternoon has committed $12 million for next season of Jason Dickinson, Connor Murphy, and Trent Frederick. The discussion starts with him. Is he McIndoo on the top of your personal list?

Because he certainly feels like he's at the top of mine. Yeah, I would say, I mean, hot seat as far as who's getting fired, maybe there's other guys that you could come up with. But hot seat as far as who's under the pressure. Yeah, I mean, that's clearly it. and I would have said that before the Mike Babcock decision, but... Didn't even bring that up. But, yeah, Stan Bowman is definitely the guy who is...

I mean, he feels like he's not only on a hot seat for his current job, but his future jobs as well. You know, there's that old line for Moneyball about, you know, I'm coaching for my next job at this point. I don't know that there is a next job for Stan Bowman at anything approaching the level. he wants if this all goes bad. Now, when you got Connor McDavid, maybe it won't all go bad. Maybe it goes good. And next thing, you know, you're having one of those parades. And we all move on to the next thing.

But yeah, I can't imagine there's anyone under more pressure than Stan Bowman right now. And I don't know if we're off to a great start. I'm trying to think of like a movie somewhere along the way that had all these A-list celebrities. And it was like you saw the preview and you heard the names and you said, that movie's going to be a Are you kidding me? And if you were the Edmonton Oilers, like, and that commercial came on, Stan Bowman, Mike Babcock, Connor McDavid, and I'm like, whoa, that team, like, how are you going to beat that? In a world where Mike Babcock is coaching an NHL team in 2026.

And then it blocks. And then it just, it goes to the box office and a few people went to see it and it flopped. And the word got out and then no one went to see it anymore. And I, like, it feels like that's what the Oilers are at this point where they're just throwing like, big brand name guys at the wall and seeing if something sticks for them. And yeah, there's a lot of pressure involved in there. But like it feels like maybe it's happened quietly. Maybe it hasn't. The GM turnover in the last two to three years in the NHL has been incredible.

Like we have so many new GMs in the last two to three years that if you look at guys that are on the hot seat, you have to look at names like, okay, we just mentioned Stan Bowman. He hasn't been there very long. Kyle Davidson's supposed to be working on this whole rebuild for Chicago and they can't get going anywhere. Obviously, the Dylan Larkin News doesn't land well in Detroit and Steve Eiserman has been there quite a while right now. But like, there's a lot of teams that have moved on from GMs recently and have a new guy that's really trying to build up their organization at this point. And, you know, I think the best example of getting like a new GM bump is obviously Buffalo. but they have to continue that.

And Yarmos got to make the right moves now. Or like, you know, I'm not going to say that Buffalo is going to be back where they were because it was an incredible season and they deserve everything that they earned. But, you know, it's just there's been a lot of turnover over the last few years as far as general managers go. Yeah, typically when you talk about this, you look at, you go, okay, who are the teams that haven't made the playoffs in a few years and who are their GMs? Most of those teams have made changes already. I mean, they've, they've sort of moved on from a lot of these guys.

Had the turnover, yeah. It's, so yeah, I don't know. It's, uh, we didn't mention Chris Drury. I don't, I feel like he's, he should be, we should have and he should be in this discussion, but he's also got the a asterisk, the asterisk next to his name because he's a James Dolan guy. We've seen James Dolan in, in various points over the course of his, over the course of his tenure, keep people in jobs way longer than he should have. just because he likes them personally, and I think that's,

I think that's part of what's a play here. What do you think the Knicks winning does to the James Dolan experience, if you're Chris Durry? I think he just in, is he just in a good mood and he's hung over for the next year, and you're okay, or is he suddenly going, oh,

this winning thing feels a lot better than what we normally do. We should try that. Because that would be a very owner thing to do, right? Just agree to the rebuild and then call the guy in a year later and go, like I changed my mind. To a lot of these owners, isn't there a part that like, I'm a smart owner, I hired the right guy and you're all going to see it. And it's like, this is my guy and you'll see how smart he is.

And like part of the owner firing the GM is an admission. I got it wrong. And now I got to find a new guy. And I don't think they want to do that very often. And I think that's what gives jerk. Because like James Dolan, you know, he moves out, moves out Jeff Gordon and the power struggle goes the jury and blah. Like he's like pot committed with that guy in a very real way.

And again, like regardless of what happened with the Knicks, you know, I, this is a guy who doesn't, who doesn't learn from his mistakes. Like I feel like that was the blind squirrel finding an acorn there over the last, over the last years. I'm not sure he's going to take the lessons learned and apply them. It might be. You're right. He might not want to admit a mistake, especially since where did Jeff Gordon go?

Did he go to a team that's having any kind of success? He's in Montreal right now, just absolutely laughing at loving it. I'll tell you what, if anybody tells James Dolan that they want a couple of playoff rounds, he's going to be really upset. He'll be, yeah. Let me throw a name out there that I don't think we've mentioned yet. But it is a guy who's been in a job for a long time, and you talk about GMs who seem to have good relationships with owners,

but things can run out. You think Kevin Shevledeoffs in any trouble? I heard Drags was talking about their working on an extension in Winnipe. I won't believe that I won't believe that Cheval Dayoff is done in Winnipeg until until the axe falls on him. Like he feels like a job for life guy somehow still against all odds. And look, I mean, well in trades. He's done well in trades when he makes them.

He may have to make a big one right now that he probably won't do well in. But I do think people will understand just like with Steve Stales. Like, you know, people understand circumstances at play. And it's not, I mean, we talk sometimes about, you know, certain people and while they know the market and it's usually kind of nonsense, but Winnipeg is a very unique market in the NHL and maybe Kevin Sheld, Shelfle day of understands it better than anyone else. But when you look at frustration from a fan base, certainly Winnipeg was up there this year, let's just say. Enjoy Anton Lundell, Chevy. That's what I say. Let's see how that goes. He's signed through 2030, though, Lundell is. So you don't have to have to have

that discussion whenever that trade inevitably happens. Frankie, what are you doing this week? We did our draft preview show this morning, so that's up on TSN. So we went through our first round, and then that's about it, actually. It's pretty quiet for me. I'm not going to lie. All right, buddy. I think the three of us are back for one more show on July 8th.

Have a good summer. Have a good couple weeks. And then we'll reconvene after. Oh, that wonderful free agency day. So I'll talk to you then. Yeah. See you, bud. Sean McAnewita, big Toronto Maple Leafs,

a bit of player movement there. So I'm wondering, what have you learned? What have we learned, Sean? I learned that Darren Radish apparently does not appreciate my attempt to garner sympathy for the Canadian markets because in the midst of all of this crying about it, we have the Toronto Kid comes back home to the Maple Leafs. leaves Florida in order to do it on a very big contract. Let's be honest.

I think this was less about I want to go play for the hometown team and more about there's one team desperate enough to throw this kind of money at me. But I got to be honest, I don't hate it. I think this is a extraordinarily high risk reward signing, even more so than most of these big contracts, EC get handed out, given the age, given the track record, you know, all of those things. But very often we talk about deals in hockey being high risk, high reward from a team perspective when they're actually high risk medium to low reward in the sense that it's like a team signs a guy and you say the best case scenario is that this deal is fine. And then

the worst case scenario is everything underneath it. Right. Like I've seen this contract's been compared to like David Clarkson. David Clarkson was a guy with. where if he had been everything the Leafs thought they were getting, he would have been fine for the money he was being paid. That was the upside. And the downside was it could be a disaster. And obviously it was. This could be a David Clarkson level disaster for the Leafs, absolutely.

But there is an upside here. There's an actual upside, which is if this guy keeps playing like last year, if last year was kind of for real, I mean, he got Norris votes last year. Look at the 13 or 14 guys who got Norris votes. there's none of those guys are ever going to be available in trade and then there's one guy and the lease gave up a fifth round pick and they're paying him eight million and change if he can play like last year he's well worth eight million for as long as he can maintain that level huge if absolutely a huge if but there is at least a realistic world where next year

we're sitting here and he's had another 65 point season let's say and you're going yeah the leaf's got a bargain this this guy for eight million is is fine as their number one offensive defenseman. We'll see how it works out. But at least I like the fact that there is room up top, which you don't always see in these deals where the risk is obvious and scary at the other side. I think $8 million is just a number we're going to have to get used to guys like Darren Radish making. That's just the way it is.

Like if he plays, you said it, man, if he plays for three more seasons or four more seasons, the way he played last year, you see that's money. That's money well spent. And then the other thing is, and I'm sort of forcing myself into this is I've, the term, right, eight years, obviously by the end of it, this is going to be a bad contract by the end. But I've kind of, we've seen so many teams get out of bad contracts in various ways that I no longer think that they're as disastrous as I often do. you know no because you can you can retain some retain some retain a little bit of salary maybe throwing throwing something else and then boom it's it's it's it's it's it's i mean it's not a death sentence the way it was even david clark's the leaf's found an escape hatch on that somehow and

and we see teams do it and um you know we'll see how it goes in the other point that that a couple people have made is if if riders steps in and he plays it plays well and he lives up to the contract. Great. Awesome. You've got a team that is maybe back in the playoff mix. Awesome. Matthews maybe wants to stay. Who knows? If he comes in and he goes back to being the 30 point guy and it's a disaster, it's probably a disaster as part of an overall team disaster. Matthews is leaving and Nealander's leaving. And so honestly, you have bigger problems. You're not bigger problems than Darren Radish's contract. Like what's, you know, the downside is, you know, oh, so what? It'll be like the eighth biggest problem you have, which is a depressing way

to look at it, but also it's hard to imagine a world where this contract is the worst thing that the Leafs have to deal with. Let's put it that way. It's true. I learned that in Winnipeg, there is a Jonathan Tave's Sportsplex. It was in the piece that Murat Etesh and Mark Lazarus wrote yesterday. Do you commemorate Jonathan Tave's retirement from the NHL after a gazillion regular season games. He, I guess he purchased and runs the former Dakota Community Center, which is where he played as a kid. And that's where he made his retirement announcement.

Learning that hammered home, like, I feel like Tave's playing for the Jets was something that was a huge discussion point at the start of the season. And then we realized pretty quickly that it wasn't going to end the way anybody wanted. And that's a bummer. Like, I think having this kind of retrospect. that happens when he announces his retirement, you know, it reminds you how cool that could have been if it would have worked out the way that, you know, Jonathan Taves and Mark Chitman and Kevin Chevaldyev, you know, envisioned when that deal was struck last year. So, you know,

happy trails of Taves, man. He was a great player for a long time. The end wasn't necessarily the way that he, you know, the way that anybody wanted it. But, you know, it, the way it's being treated in the way it's being written about and discussed. It really does hammer home how important that guy is to the city of Winnipeg. And that's something that's something that's always cool to be reminded of. And that's why I don't mind that he came back and gave it a try for a year. And then it happened in Winnipeg because, I mean, we see this a lot. And it's a very entitled things that fans do.

But, you know, you see like Jerry Rice plays a year for the Seahawks. As a fan, you go, I kind of wish he didn't do that. Right? Like there have been a lot of guys where you look back and you go, I wish they hadn't come back or played that last year, whatever. And, you know, I didn't need to see the Matt Sundin in Vancouver year. I wish they had just, and in this one, I mean, the circumstances were, we're very unique. But the thing that makes me happy for Jonathan Taves is even going through that year that he went

through and realizing that, you know, he didn't really have it the way he used to, now he knows. And, and for a while, it looked like if he, if he never came back, he would always wonder. And, and now he knows. He gave it. He gave her the try. He did everything he could. He did everything his body would let him do. Now he knows.

And hopefully he can leave, even though it's relatively early in his career still. And, you know, it's hopefully he can leave with some peace and some sense of I left it all on the ice. And now, now I can move on to the next chapter. And he gets to stand at the Jonathan Tave Sportsplex and see people wearing Jonathan Taves Winnipeg Jets jersey. He's like that's worth the cost of admission, man. Even though, like I said. ended a little early and a little inauspiciously. It's still still a cool thing.

And a Canadian icon who wanted to come back and finish his career in Canada. Imagine that. The last of them. Wish Jonathan Taves would have tried to finagle a trade to the Florida Panthers. There's still time. When UFA Day hits, Future Florida Panthers 4C, Jonathan Taves announced his retirement. You know.

All right, buddy. What you got coming up this week? Oh, boy. What do I got? A draft stuff. We're going to take some looks at this. Soon, huh? The various drafts.

And we got the Hall of Fame announcement coming in about an hour. So I've got my latest class of the Hall of Very Good. This is not an insult. This is a compliment to go into the Hall of Very Good. It's usually a fun day. So I'm glad. I'm glad we took your, uh, from you, telling me why I'm wrong about Henrik Sederberg being a, being a Hall of Fame caliber player.

I mean, you are, but that's good. Taking a break. Glad you learned. Thanks, buddy. And thank you to the listeners. And thank you to the viewers. Your support means a ton to us. And we love having you. Max, Corey, Scott, Chris Peters, tons of draft content coming up later this week into the weekend. Enjoy it. And we're going to have you covered from here on now.