The Athletic Hockey Show - Does Necas really want to leave the Canes?

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

On today’s Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Ian and Laz discuss Sidney Crosby nearing a contract extension with the Pens, an intriguing list of potential 2025 UFAs, if the Oilers actually need a GM or not, where Martin Necas and Patrik Laine will be playing next season, this year’s remaining free agents, and more.Plus, The Athletic’s own Jesse Granger joins the show to discuss this offseason’s goalie carousel, including the Linus Ullmark-for-Joonas Korpisalo trade and Detroit’s four-headed netminder monster, and what the next deals for Jeremy Swayman and Igor Shesterkin might look like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, as always, even though it's the middle of July, and it's the offseason. It's the two people you expect to be in these seats on a Monday. It's Ian Mendez and Mark Lazarus, although, last, I feel like maybe we should get our producer Chris Flannery to drop in like some steel drums, some kind of, some kind of island vibe here, because you're about to, when this podcast ends, you're going full vacation mode on us. I got one foot out the door, major senioritis.

Let's get this over with, huh? Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that was me on day two of the draft. You know the day two of the draft when it starts really, really moving and you're like in the fifth round. And you start looking. It's like, all right, the team I cover has, oh, crap, they've got a seventh round picking. And I go, oh, fine. And then they make the picking, like, please don't be here.

Please don't be here. Please don't be here. Because you don't want to do one more scrum and have to transcribe one more interview and write one more thumbnail sketch of one more plan. playing from again. That's where I'm at right now. My favorite is when the prospects come out. Like, the first round picks, you know, you kind of have a bit of an idea of who they are and what,

they're going into it. But those seventh round picks, you're scrambling, then you get to the little podium and you're like, so like, how surprised were you? Did you have any idea that, you know, T-Max would pick you? Who are your heroes going up? Yeah.

Who do you model your game after? For fans who don't know you, how would you describe your game? We all ask the exact same questions of every single prospect. after the first rounder. Oh, man. Are we as bad as you know how the teams have their set questions at the combine? And they're like, if you could take a pill that would allow you to win a Stanley Cup, but you would die six and a half years early, would you take the pill?

I wish the teams would ask, that's a great question. I wish the teams would ask that question. It's always like, how great is everything? Yeah. Isn't this the best? Oh, my gosh. But hey, listen, I know you're heading off for some much-deserved R&R, a little downtime for you. But you said, you know what?

You wanted to do one last pod before you hit vacation. I can't stay away from you, Ian. You can't quit me, Las, you can't. But it's funny because, you know, we were kind of messaging in our group slack over the weekend, you me, Chris, our producer. And we were like, okay, like, we've got to come up with some ideas here. Like, let's think about it's mid-July, it's the dead zone. all of a sudden when we were putting some ideas together,

we're like, wait a minute, is there too much to talk about? This is kind of... This is the most jam-packed Google Doc we've had heading into an episode of this podcast. Yeah, well, let's start with some fresh news courtesy of our friend Rob Rossi, who does a terrific job along with Josh Yoey of covering the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Rob Rossi puts out earlier today on Monday that the Pittsburgh Penguins are closing in on a contract extension for Sydney, Crosby. So I'm imagining Sid turns 30, 37. Liz, in August, Cindy Crosby is going to be 37. We're all so old, Ian, we're so old. I know. I know this because I'm 10 years older than Cid. So it hurts that Cid is going to be 37. But it never felt like this guy was going to go anywhere else, did it? Like, no. No. And, you know,

I keep, you know, as a guy who's covered the Chicago Blackhawks, for 12 years, I immediately came to the Taves and Kane decision where they decided to walk away from those guys. And the more I started drawing comparisons, the more I realized it doesn't, it's not apples to apples because Sidney Crosby is still one of the 10 best players in the world. Like, you can still win with Sidney Crosby. You can make an argument that you couldn't do that with Patrick Cain and Jonathan Taves anymore, certainly not at like a $10 million salary. So it's not the same, but it's kind of the same in that, you know, the penguins still have this core of Crosby, Malkin, the Tang, you bring in Eric Carlson now.

What are the Pittsburgh Penguins? I mean, are they just a novelty act now? Are they a nostalgia act? Is it just a matter of we can't imagine Sidney Crosby playing in another uniform? So we're just going to sacrifice the last four years of his career here? Like what are the Penguins? Are they trying to win right now? Is Kyle Dubus still think that the penguins can win with this ancient core?

That's the question here. Man, but they don't give off kind of like last damn. vibes, do they? Like, they don't give off the vibes of, they got one more run left in them. It doesn't feel that way. Now, do they have one more playoff appearance in them? I think so. But do they have one more Stanley Cup run as currently constructed? I feel I would be disingenuous if I said that they did. But I understand, like, if you're Sid and you've got your three rings, like, it's not, like, do you think he's ring chasing now at this stage of the career? Or do you think the legacy of being like Mario

start to finish with one franchise. Like that matters to him. I think that's a huge part of it is that he's got three cups. He does not need to go out there and do the mercenary thing, do the Ray Bork thing, the Marion Hosa thing to where he just starts jumping around from

Jerome Ginnler, exactly. He doesn't need to do that. Like, look, there is a burning desire within Sidney Crosby to do it again. He needs to win. He wants to win. He has to win. But he also doesn't. right like his legacy is secure and that legacy of being a lifelong pittsburgh penguin matters to him because mary lemieux is the guy he grew up with literally grew up with you know the first few years in the league

and he understands what that means so i think he has to balance those two things but just like the penguins can't envision him playing for another i just don't think sidney crosbie can even imagine himself in another uniform man i can't like i can't even you know sometimes you can picture you can close your eyes you could, okay, I could picture this guy in another jersey. Like, I can't even picture him, you know, and people always say, well, he wants to play one season with the Habs because that was his childhood team. Like, I can't even close my eyes and picture.

Like, Jonathan Taves was like that. Like, we're, you know, like, Jonathan Taves has not officially retired, but he hasn't played in over a year. And we're all just kind of waiting for him to officially retire. I could never picture Jonathan Taves on another team. Patrick Cain, it was really weird seeing him in a, a Rangers jersey that first time. Like it was bizarre to see him in blue.

But we always kind of thought he was going to end his career in Buffalo. Like you could have imagined an old Patrick Kane, like a 41-year-old Patrick Kane still wanting to play and doing it for another team. But you couldn't see that with Taves. That's Crosby. You just can't even, it's unfathomable. Like you can't even like, you can't, if you try to have an AI, say, hey, draw, give me, give me Sidney Crosby in a Canadian's jersey.

AI would be like, no, can't do it. Can't do. Image 404. Image not found. Error. So, Sid, it's funny because when he signed his last deal, everyone remembers the cap hits 8.7 because that's his jersey number and he's superstitious. But remember, last, he signed in the summer of 2012 just before the lockout when it was the last time that these sort of big time front loaded.

He signed 12 years in the summer of 2012 for 12 years. the league shut down and these types of contracts weren't allowed. That was the same summer as Parise and Souter, right, and all those things. So Rob Rossi kind of lays out the idea of maybe a three-year term for Crosby and maybe it's going to be around $10 million. Does that seem about right? Like three years would seem about right for sit? Yeah, I mean, the way he looked this past year, there's no, it's not hard to imagine

him still being really good for three more years, right? he's going to go out on his own terms while still a great player. Three years, I mean, it's going to be like 9.87 or 10.087. There's going to be an 97 in there somewhere. 100%. It's not going to be a round number. It's never going to be a round number. But yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's interesting. It's like how many millions of dollars did sit? Not that he's hurting. I mean, as Rossi put in the story, he's making $4 million a year in endorsements alone, which for a hockey player in America is just monster numbers. Like, that is not the kind of numbers that your typical hockey player makes in, in America. But how many tens of millions of dollars did he leave out on the table with that 12-year contract? Like, if he had gotten to, like, another contract in that span, he would have been making, you know, MacDavid McKinnon money.

He'd be able to $12, $13 million a year. So he's probably cost himself $25, $30 million over the life of his career. I mean, even that, even that $8.7 million contract, even back in 2012, that was kind of, of a discount. He deserved more than that, right? Yeah. So he left a lot of money on the table over the course of his career. But like you said, though, if you're making in the neighborhood of $4 million with, you know, up here in Canada, he's got a Tim Horton's endorsement deal, he's got a Gatorade deal. Like, he's got all these endorsements. That probably mitigates it. If you're looking at it

and you're like, okay, well, I'm making 12.5 per year when you add it in the endorsements, right? Like, maybe it comes back to that conversation. We have. last week on the first day of free agency where is Jake Gensel doing right by his fellow players by taking such a discount in Florida? Because or Sam Reinhart, like, are these guys, are they doing right by their fellow players by taking discounts to play in a no-tax state? It's the rising tide lifts all boats there. And it's like, Sidney Crosby should have been raising the bar over the last 12 years,

but he took that ridiculous deal that they used to be legal. Yep. And, you know, it slows the curve. really does flatten that salary rising curve. So we've talked, I feel like we've talked a lot about this over the last couple of years that, wow, wait until you get to the summer of 2025 and you look at the potential UFAs. So if we believe that Crosby's close to being done, he's off the list. Victor Hedman was another guy that was potentially in that mix.

He's out of the mix. He's signed in Tampa for another four years. But like last, listen to this class of guys who are entering the last year of their deals who could potentially become UFAs at the end of next season. So you got Leon Dricidal in Edmonton, Ego Shisterkin in New York, Brad Marchand in Boston, Toronto's got a pair of guys in Marner and Tavares, Miko Ranton in Denver,

Lina Solmark who just got traded to Ottawa, Vesna Trophy winner last year. Like that's a pretty big group of guys with some big star power. Like if I'm looking at this, of all the guys that I just listed, to me, Brad Marchand, is the legacy guy. Like he's the guy that he's obviously not Crosby,

but he's the guy that like, I think if you're Boston, that's the legacy guy, right? I mean, yeah, and we've seen that with Boston where guys don't leave, right? Yeah. You know, there's always the possibility they leave and they don't leave. They take less to stay.

There's that culture in Boston. But I mean, who saw Stephen Stamcoast leaving, right? I mean, you look at that list and you start wondering, well, none of these guys are actually going to make it to unrestricted free agency because nobody, ever makes it to unrestricted free agency in the NHL when they're superstars. But we did just see it happen with Stamco's. Maybe this league is becoming a little more ruthless the way it probably should be when it

comes to these guys and you say, well, this guy, you know, so-and-so is going to be in his mid-30s. Maybe we don't want to extend him for eight years here. Maybe this is a bad idea. And maybe we're going to start seeing more teams be a little more ruthless the way Tampa is, the way the Rangers were with Barkley Goodrow. Not that he's in that category, but there is this ruthlessness that you have to have in pro sports as a front office. And the NHL's never really had it.

It's always been kind of like, oh, come on, legacy guy. You will sign you. And, you know, maybe the Blackhawks walking away from Canaan and Taves against those guys' wishes and the lightning walking away from Stamcoast against his wishes. Maybe we're starting to see a little bit of that. The ones that I find interesting that are up for contracts next year are dry sidel and marner because there's, and part of that probably has a function of, They play in these Canadian markets where there's a lot of noise.

Like, think of Sam Reinhart. Guy played the entire season. It was kind of like, oh, yeah, that guy, he scored 57 goals as the UFC. Can you imagine if that was in a hockey mad market? And like, to me, I look at dry siddle, and this is my feeling on him. If you're the Oilers, I think you play out the season. I don't think there's any way, unless this guy explicitly says to you, I am not resigning.

I will never resign here. You got to play out the year. And that includes the trade deadline. Unless he says to you definitively, because last, here's my point. And I know, I think you disagree with me on this. You're going to hear the people say, you can't let that guy walk out the door for nothing.

You got to get something for him. But my approach has always been when you draft a guy, you got him for free. You didn't give up any assets to get Leon Drysidal. So why is there this push that you better get something for him or else? Or else what? You got 10 years, the best 10 years of the guy's career. Yeah, I mean, I mean, nobody wants to get John Tavarist, right?

Like, where the islanders were under the impression that he wanted to stay and then he left, right? Yeah. So if Leon Drysidal says to you, there is zero chance I am resigning here in the summer. And he says that in February. Does that change your mind at all? Oh, boy. But it's tough. I wrote about this during the Western Conference final because, like, this past playoff run seems so important because there's no guarantee that.

dry-siddle will be on this team next spring. Because look, I tend to lean with you. If the Oilers are contending next year, if they really feel they have a chance to win the cup, if they're in good position come February, you can't trade him. There's no way you get, whatever you get for him will not equal one Leon dry-siddle. Like, there's absolutely no chance. You're going to get a late first round pick from another contender,

and you're going to get like a prospect and maybe a player. Those three things will not add up to equal Leon dry-siddle. So if you really think you have a chance to win the cup, and you don't know if Connor McDavid's going to resign the year after dry saddle, you have to win a cup. You have to go win that cup, and you keep dry sidle and McDavid together and you just, you know, hey, if he leaves in the summer,

that's $8.5 million a cap space we have to work with. I mean, that's the only way you can look at it. But if they're like in third place in the Pacific and they're kind of middling and it's like, well, you know that they're capable of getting hot and going on a run because they just did it, I'm not so sure you hold on to him. That becomes a really sticky situation for them.

Okay, you brought up a great point in that McDavid is kind of just one year behind dry siddle. He will be a UFA potentially in the summer of 2026. So how much of a voice should he have in this last? Like, do you sit down if you're Oilers management and ownership and you have to get to a fork in a row with dry saddle, do you sit down with McDavid and say, what do you want to do? Like there's only a few athletes that I think have that type of currency.

I think he's on that list. I think you sit down with him, don't you? And say, absolutely. What do you want to do? And if he says, let's ride it, let's go. 10, 15 years ago, a GM would have looked you in the face and told you to go F yourself or even suggesting bringing a player into that discussion. But this is different now.

This is the era of LeBron James. And superstars do have a say and probably should have a say because Connor McDavid is the single most important person in the Edmonton organization. Far more important than his coach, far more important than whoever's going to be his GM, far more important than Jeff Jackson. He's more important than the goddamn owners. Connor McDavid is the Edmonton Oilers. He's your, he is your cash cow, and he is the reason you contend year after year.

He is more important than anybody else. And to do, him and Drysiddle, not only are they running buddies on the ice, they are buddies, they are friends. And if you trade Leon Drysidal without even asking Connor, McDavid about it, he gone. Connor McDavid is out the door if you treat him that way. He deserves more. He should have more of a say.

And if you don't give him that say, it's just pushing him right out the door. So one of the interesting things to me is the Oilers don't technically have a general manager right now, right? Like Jeff Jackson's kind of running the show. He's the president of hockey ops. And they're likely in the market for general manager. But as I ask you this, do the Oilers actually need a general manager? general manager because I think you can make an argument.

They've made some really shrewd, smart moves in the offseason here already. Victor Arvinson at two years at $4 million. I think he's a good move. Jeff Skinner for one year, one year at $3 million. You know, they brought back Connor Brown. They brought back Corey Perry. They brought back Adam Henrique. All on, I think we can agree team-friendlyish deals.

Then they execute the trade where they pick up Savoy from Bonnoy from. Buffalo for Ryan McLeod and all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, do you even need a gentleman manager if you're doing all these things?

You talk to people in Emmington, it's debatable whether they had one all year anyway. Ken Holland was a lame duck all year. Yep. And most people in Edmonton don't really believe he was too involved with almost anything they did that it was all Jeff Jackson anyway.

But it sounds like Jeff Jackson doesn't really want to be like, he certainly seems capable of it. If he's the one making these calls, he's done a good job. But I don't think he, He wants the day to day of the GM. He doesn't want to be managing the cap.

He doesn't want to get that granular with it. He wants to be a Brendan Shanahan type team president. And I get that. Being a GM kind of sucks. You are on the phone all day, every day with your own people, with other teams. It sounds exhausting. The amount of it, like you are thinking about the 2028 roster when you're building out these things.

You have to worry about every prospect in the system and what their next step's going to be and when they're going to be eligible for that next contract. you got to be a particular kind of nerd to want to be a GM in the NHL. And I think Jeff Jackson likes the idea of running a team without being bogged down and all that, right? He didn't come up through that system. He was an agent, right? So I get the sense that he doesn't really want this to be his long-term job. So I do think they need a GM because I don't think Jeff Jackson wants to do this.

No, but he's not a great job in the office? Would you not agree that if you looked at the Oilers at the end of the season and said, okay. And they still have a little bit, I think, of an unknown factor on Evander Cain. Like what's his status in terms of injury and health and all that? But realistically, I mean, I think they've had as good on offseason as anybody else in terms of making sure that they hung on to some of those depth guys adding Arvinson. I mean, we can have a conversation about the goaltending. And if that needs to be addressed, I mean, maybe, maybe they could upgrade the goaltending. I mean, for sure, they're going to score some goals, right?

they added a lot up front guys like Skinner that don't really bring a lot defensively obviously. No. Arvinson too is a solid two-way guy, right? And it's still to be determined if you could really win a Stanley Cup just outscoring opponents. Like, the teams that win the Stanley Cup, they play much

more of a two-way game. I guess Toronto about that year after year after year. So I don't know if they're that much better than they were. I actually like Ryan McLeod a lot. I'm not so sure that was a great trade, but it does bring in a young, exciting prospect into the system who's not quite NHL ready necessarily, but you always got to have some next guys to step up.

Not that he's going to step in and replace Leon Dry Cytle next year, but you do need, you do need some young guys in the system. That's fine. I don't know. The West is still incredibly good, incredibly deep. You know, Dallas might have taken a little bit of a step back. Colorado is just an absolute cap hell. So maybe the path is still wide open for the Oilers.

I like what they did. I don't know if they greatly improved things, but they certainly didn't get worse. You know, I thought, so we're recording this pod on the 8th of July. And it was my understanding, Lazz, that Cap Friendly was going to go dark by now. I check every morning. It's like the first thing I do is I go to Cap Friendly. It's still there. It's still alive today as we're recording.

And I want to ask you something here about the Oilers before. And we'll pivot. We'll talk about some other teams and offseason stuff here in a second. The Oilers are in their buyout history. They have two contracts that they're paying for this season for guys they bought out that aren't playing for them. Do you know who those two players are? I'll stop your head. Now you're, I can see you looking on your screen.

Well, Jack Campbell. Yeah, Jack Campbell is one. Do you know the other guy that the Oilers are paying almost $2 million to this season? I had no idea. No. The real deal James Neal. Did you know this? I did not.

That they're paying 1.9. $1.9 million to James Neal this season. How long ago did they buy him out? I don't know. This is what I don't understand. I don't even remember James Neal being on the Oilers. He's like a yeah, he was very briefly. He signed a, it was, remember it was Calgary and, and Edmonton, they traded Luchitz for James Neal, right? Was that not the deal? Sure, let's go with that. You know, I think I think that was it. That was, yeah. The Oilers bought out James Neal in the summer of 2021. Okay.

When he had two years left on a ticket that paid him 5.75. Well, that's what these buyouts are. You just start Bobby Benetian these guys forever, right? They just pay him year after year after year for years. We don't celebrate Canada Day on July 1st. It's Bobby Bonilla Day. Bobby Bonilla Day down here, absolutely. As a Metsman, we get very excited about Bobby Banyi.

What years that guy paid through, 2034? 25 or something like that. Yeah. He's going to be like 70 years old still drawn an annual paycheck from the Mets. What, like if you were an athlete, would that sort of structure ever appeal to you?

We're like, okay, we're going to give you $50 million, but we're going to give you $2 million per year over like, you know, 25 years. Well, they always say if you win the lottery, you should take the lump sum, not the extended one, right? Because you can invest it better than they can. But isn't that basically

what Shohay Otani did, he's going to get paid for the next, like, 40 years by the Dodgers. Yeah. There's something appealing about the, like, if I'm Bobby Bonilla, I know it's the well's never going to go dry on me. Oh, yeah. It's not like he's getting chum chains. He's getting like a million and a half bucks every year. Do you think if you're Bobby Bonilla or any, like, and you're going to fill out a credit

request for, you know, you're picking up, you're buying a boat or whatever. Like, does Bobby Bonilla put on his list of employers? Does he put the New York Mets? That's a good question. Is that count a salary? Is he a salary employee of the New York Mets? Or is it some kind of like retirement annuity that he gets? I don't know how that works.

Is Bobby Boudia getting like benefits? If the Mets had a salary, if there was a salary cap in baseball, would Bobby Binea count against it? He'd have to, right? He would. He would have to. He'd be under dead cap on cap-friendly.

What if Bobby Binea dies? Speaking of dead cap, does his family get $1.6 million from the Mets every year? How does this work? I need to know. dark. Well, how did this turn so dark? We're talking about, we went from James Neal to

the sudden tragic passing of Bobby Bonilla in the snap of a finger. Dead cap. It's such a harsh way I've described, dead money. There's dead money on the cap. Oh, boy. Well, I'll tell you what. Why do we switch gears and lighten things up

here for a second? And hey, hey, we were talking about earlier. We're just talking about the potential UFA class next year, right? Drysidal, Marshan, Marner, Shisterc, and all that. The RFA situation feels like every summer last, the one thing we do is like we sit down and we're like, oh, man, someone's going to get offer sheeted or there's going to be a sticky situation with an RFA.

And I don't feel like the offer sheet is something that's going to happen this summer, but there are a couple of really interesting RFA situations that I think we might get to Labor Day or we might get to the opening and training camp and I don't know where these guys are at. So I got to give you a list of potential RFAs here. You tell me, which is the one that you think might be, you know, contentious or sticky or hard to figure out. You got Jeremy Swayman with the Boston Bruins, who's now clearly the number one goaltender there with Allmark being dealt. You got Moritz-Sider and Lucas Raymond, two young studs and big pieces in Detroit that, you know, you would like to think are in line for long,

term deals. Quitting Byfield, who had a bit of a coming out party with L.A. this season. Seth Jarvis had a, you know, sneaky 30-goal season this year that, you know, maybe he's as good as anybody on that Carolina team. And then Cole Profetti is another guy I'm always

interested in just because I don't know what his future holds in Winnipeg. So Swamen, Sider, Raymond, Byfield, Jarvis, Profetti, like, help me with this RFA class. What's the one that you think, like, ah, man, last, like, you would tell me that that guy is going to get to Labor Day and they're not going to have a deal done.

Well, I think you left off the one that's probably most likely, which is Marty Naches. Oh, yeah. Martin H. already there. But he's got arbitration rights, though, right? So he's a little bit different, right? Like, he filed for arbitration, did he not? He did, he did.

He just filed for arbitration. So I feel like there's like, I guess a path to. There's a solution coming there. Yeah. Whereas the other guys, I don't know. I don't know. You look at those teams. I was going through them this morning.

and like there's money for all of them. Like it's not like these are like really like maybe Cole Perfetti and the Jets have a little bit of a tight squeeze there, but there's there's money. There's like eight and a half million left on the cap for the Bruins for Jeremy Swainman and nobody else left to sign. The Red Wings have like $20 million still. They're not really a cap team. They've got room for both Raymond and cider to get their big eight year contracts, which I'm sure they want because nobody ever takes a bridge deal in the NHL anymore.

So I don't I don't know if any of these are really going to get contentious. It's going to be, you know, haggling. Like, you know, nobody ever wants to give a goalie $9 million a year anymore. So maybe, you know, is it going to be Swamen trying to get seven and the Bruins trying to give them six? There might be some back and forth, but I don't really see any of these becoming truly contentious to you. So interestingly enough, Swamen opted to not file. Like, you have the choice, right? You can file.

And Marty Nature said, I'm going to file for arbitration. But Jeremy Sweman says, I'm not going to file for arbitration. Which leads me to believe that. they're kind of down the road a little bit here and that he gets, he's confident maybe that, that something's going to get done that's going to please both sides.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's that way to read into it too. Quentin Byfield's really interesting to me. Because if I'm L.A., I would lock that guy up right now if I could to the eight-year deal. Like, I'm a believer in him. I don't know if you think he's first line,

legitimate kind of front-end guy in this league. I think he is last. and I think now's the time to lock him up. I wouldn't go bridge on him. Yeah, I mean, a guy like that, you know, who had a breakout season but not a monster breakout season, if you think more is there, you want to lock him up now so that you have that like Nathan McKinnon deal,

where McKinnon for all those years was making like $6.5 million when he was one of the two or three best players in the world. You want to lock him up just before he reaches superstardom. So absolutely, if I'm quitting Byfield, I want a three-year deal. for the $6 million or whatever it is I'm going to get. If I'm the Kings, I want him at eight years at that number because he is going, I'm with you. I like that player a lot.

I think there's a lot more that he can attain. Not everybody gets it right away. We've seen that with guys like Alexei LeFrenier where sometimes it takes a few years and then they really take off. So even Jack Hughes and Nico Heeshire went through that. So I want to lock him up right now if I'm the Kings because you're going to get him at a discount for the most of that deal. But if I'm by field, I want to. I want that three-year deal. But we just don't see that enough in the NHL.

We don't see they want the security. They don't want to bet on themselves. I'd like to see Quentin Byfield be one of those guys who bets on themselves. If you're Detroit and you're Steve Eisenman, like you said, they got a ton of cap space. That's not going to be the issue. But if you're Lucas Raymond or Mord Sider, do you want to be the first guy that signs? You want to see what the other guy gets and see kind of. You can't really, defenseman forward.

Different positions. Sider to be. is a legit, legit number one guy, I think. No? Yeah, I feel like, like, like, he was on this, like, meteoric rise and he kind of flat-coat a little bit.

Yeah. So I don't know exactly what to make of most. He's certainly a good NHL defenseman. Oh, are you, are you suggesting, like, if you're Eisenman, are you going bridge on cider? I might see if he'd be interested in it because I'm just not sure. I mean, do you want to, do you want to give him that, you know, tip, the, the, the Fox, McCarr,

you know, MacAvoy, it's always around nine, nine and a half, right? That's kind of the standard price for a true number one young defenseman. Do you want to commit that much money to him or do you want to see? Do you want to make sure? Because if you do that, then in three years from now, he's going to be making $11 or $12 million. If he does turn out to be the guy you want to be. So that's what's tough about being a GM. You have to kind of, it's gambling a little bit, right?

Like you are projecting a curve and you're like, you know, every time that a free agent signs, Dom posts his little card that shows like, the value and then you always see the value tailing off at the end, right? And the goal is to have him be higher than his value to be higher than his salary for the majority of the contract. If you pull that off, great signing. It doesn't matter what happened to the last year or two of that deal. That's a good signing.

So you have to play that game. If you're Steve Eiserman, do you really truly believe he's the number one? If so, this is a good time to lock him up at eight years. You can probably save a million bucks on them. If you're not sold, you kind of owe it to yourself to try to get a short-term deal. even though there's risk attached to that because three years from now he'll be making a crap ton.

In Carolina, to me, this is interesting. You know, Eric Tulski is going to have two situations on his hand. Martin Natchez is one. Seth Jarvis is the other. And Jarvis, you covered a little bit of Carolina in the playoff this year.

I don't know that the world knows how good Seth Jarvis is. Like, I think he's one of those America's best kept secret kind of guys. Like he's got 33 goals this year last. Like 33 goals entering a U, an RFA season. It's coming out of entry level deal.

Boy, like to me, he's got to be thinking I'm sitting in a great spot to leverage myself, right? Absolutely. That guy's a stud and Carolina lost Gensel so they can't afford to have a guy like him. You know, they got to lock him up. He is a good two-way player. Like he is a really, really good player.

He is one of those kind of guys that flies under the radar. And you can see him being like the next like Sasha Barkov where he's like the most underrated player in the league. Like he's fast. He's good. He's smart. He can score. He can make plays. I would try to lock him up.

Like that's a piece. Like that guy's not, he's only going to get better from here. He's only been in the league for like two or three years. And he's getting better and better every single year. That's that's a piece you lock up long term. So I'm interested in the Marty Nature's thing because I felt. like there was a window of time, even while the playoffs were going on, where it felt like a Martin Natchez trade was like imminent.

Did it not feel that way when you listen to the insiders, the LeBron's and the Chris Johnstons and others, it sounded like, hey, there's a lot of interest in this player. This player probably doesn't want to go back to Carolina. You're looking for a change of scenery. I would have figured at some point here by the 8th of July, Marty Dachis has found a new home, right? You'd think so, yeah.

So what do you do with him? If you're Carolina, do you just, you have the control here for the most part? Do you just let him go through the art process, give him whatever he's got? Or do you try to move him a lot of times if a guy doesn't get traded in that like June, July window, teams will sit on him until training camp and wait for an injury, basically, elsewhere in the league where something happens. And the team goes, oh, no, we need a winger right now. Let's give Carolina a call. And then you have some leverage there.

Is that what you do? How would you approach Marty Natchez at this point? But the funny thing is you go back and you think if they had a do-over, they probably wouldn't have bridged them, right? They bridged them at two years. And it's obviously put the player in a much better spot. And this is what you talked about with Byfield. It's like, hey, if you go bridge, it's not all bad.

It's, there is some upside. You could end up with a ton of leverage. You could end up with some power. I guess it sounds like he doesn't want to be there, though, right? Like if you, if you read between the lines. Has Marty Naches himself ever actually said that? Or is it just his dad? His dad?

That's close enough. I've had Black Ox players' dads in the comments in my stories complaining about like Jeremy Colleton's usage. Like dads are always mad. Like hockey dads are the worst. Yeah. My kid's the best and deserves more playing time. Have we heard it from Marty Naches himself that he, like maybe he is upset that

he's only on PP2 and he's not getting PP1 time? I don't know. Maybe Jake Gensel leaving opens a door for him to get that playing time he wants. I have not heard from. Martin Naches himself, I won out. So I wonder if maybe this isn't quite as contentious as we're all assuming it is. Okay. I need to back up on something for a second.

You said, and without revealing identities of Blackhawks players' dads who have entered the comment section, do they at least like hide their name with a username? No. Or is it blatant that it's... It's like, you know, so-and-so's name and initial. So it's not that hard to figure out when the same guys complain about Nicholas Bow Dan's playing time, game after game, story after story whether the story has anything to do with Nicholas Bowden or not,

that's Nicholas Bowden's dad because his Twitter account is the same thing. Like some of these dads, they just get in there, they have no shame at all. And he's not the only one. So you see that a lot. It tends to be with younger guys, like the prospects, and they do not hide themselves. They're either not bright enough or they don't care. Man. Okay.

That's interesting. You are around hockey dads a lot. Hockey parents, man. Hockey moms, too. Like, there is a subset of hockey. parents. And it's a very large subset. It might be the majority that are absolute lunatics, man. Yeah. Oh, man. I love when they entered the comment section, too, that, that, that's cool. So, oh, yeah. So Marty Natchez to me, I mean, he's a pretty productive, what, 25 goal scoring winger, right?

Fair to call him that? And he could be more. His dad's not wrong in that if you put him in a bigger role, he might be even a bigger. He's a really talented young player. Like, he is, Excellent. And any team would want to have Marty Naches on their team. I'm curious because this is Eric Tulski's first big sort of challenge right off the hop. Right? You've got a potentially sticky RFA situation. How do you handle it? And I'm curious to say, because if you know anything about him, Tulski, it's that he's so well-researched, data-oriented. Like he is not, you would think, he's going to weigh all the options. He's not going to play a hunch.

Exactly. There you go. He's going to make sure he maximize, if he trades him, he's going to maximize the value of the asset, correct? Right. Like that's how it feels. He's going to know yes or no black or white, do I want this player on my team? And he's going to know what do I need to get for this player for a trade to be worthwhile, even if it means dragging this out for a while. He's going to have all the avenues covered and he's going to have every eventuality planned for.

Marty Nature's situation is unresolved. So too, as we speak on the 8th of July, is Patrick Linae. And there's another guy who I would have thought when you read Pierre LeBron's original reporting that maybe a change of scenery would have happened by now because, you know, line A, you would get to the draft, you would get the free agency. This is when teams, those rosters are kind of malleable. You can move things around. Like this would be the window.

So I'm kind of surprised that somebody hasn't taken a flyer on a young man who has a 44-goal season on his resume when he's healthy and he's feeling good about life has been a pretty darn good hockey player in this league. Maybe it's a function of Columbus has had a lot of turmoil. Maybe now they're only finally now getting to the point where Don Waddell is like, okay, what do we got going on here? I had to hire a coach, had all these things. but I'm kind of surprised that Patrick Lainey hasn't landed anywhere. Look, there's a lot of, you know, so-called baggage that goes along with him right now, but he's only 26 years old. Yeah.

Like, it feels, he's another guy who feels like he's been around forever. He's just 26. And granted, he had that 44-goal season was a long time ago, but all these like 25, 28 goal seasons he's had have been in, you know, 50 games or whatever because of injuries and various other things. This is still a guy who could put the puck in the net, and that is still the most valuable skill you can have in the NHL. He scores goals, and that's not going to change.

When he comes back, he'll still be able to score goals. I think the question that Columbus has to weigh is what is his actual value on the trade market? That's what's really hard to nail down. Supremely skilled guy, young guy still in his prime should be worth a ton. But coming out of the player assistance program and everything that he's been through, what does that do to his trade value? And I think that's what Don Waddell has to figure out here is, you know, what's he worth and how do I extract that from another team in order to train him? You can't just get him for a six-round pick, right?

You can't just let Patrick Lainey leave for a six-round pick, something like that. You have to get something for him. But what is that something? Is he still worth a first-rounder and a prospect like he would have been a year or two ago? Probably not. But what is he worth? Is he worth an NHL player now? Is he just a prospect?

Is it a pick? That's what Don Waddell has to figure out. And this is a really unusual situation. It's unique in that this is a high, high, high end player that nobody knows what to make of right now. And that makes it really difficult to trade. Wait a minute. Did we just stumble upon a line A for Natchez one for one? Who says no?

Who says no? Oh, wow. I don't know. It's an interesting idea, right? They're both about the same age. They're both highly skilled. They both want out. If you're Carolina, like exactly.

I mean, does Carolina have the cap room to take on Patrick Linae at 8.7? They've got a lot of space still. The hurricanes have a lot of space. Who says no? I kind of feel like that might be a... Cap Friendly says they've got 11.8 left to sign Drury, Jarvis, and Natchez. So it may be a little tight. Cap friendly, though, is now technically property of the Washington Capitals.

Maybe they're fudging the numbers here. It could be. It's all lies now. You can't trust it now. It is an unreliable narrator now. Yeah. Capitals have... Tedley Owens is in there, like just changing numbers, just going into like, you know...

Capital's have 20 million. 20 million of cap space. Yeah, back to his old AOL days. That's right. That's right. All right. All right, as we sit here, kind of a weekend of free agency,

there are still some names, some recognizable names that are available on the UFA list. And I always liken this period of UFA shopping for our listeners or people who have ever been to IKEA. When you get to the end of IKEA that's amazed, there's a section called as is, which is kind of like, you know, the three-legged table that you can take. You have to buy it as is.

It's damaged goods. No returns. You know what you're getting into. This sofa is missing a cushion. This leg is missing from this table. It's as is. This is the as-is section of the free agent market. And you've got names like Mike Hoffman, Tyler Johnson,

Calac Pozo, Ryan Suter, Max Patcheretti, Tony DeAngelo, you know, Jacob Vrana is kind of an interesting, he's not as old as the other guys. But really, this is the as-is department. Like, is there any name here? Philip Zedina's interesting. He's on there. Daniel Sprong is on there.

Adam Boquist. So it's not all just north of 30 guys. Is there anybody on this list that you'd be like, yeah, you know what? For two years at $2 million or one year, whatever, $2 billion, you know, I'd take a flyer on this guy. I mean, most of these guys are, you know, at a veteran bottom six or, you know, an Oghawak as, as Naccado would call them.

You know, there's guys like that that aren't going to play a major role. I think the only two that are actually interesting to me are Zadina and Boquist. They both came from that same 2018 draft. There's a number six pick and the number eight. pick. They're both 24 years old. Like, you could still believe, you can convince yourself that, you know, they just need the right situation. And we can bring out that talent that made them top 10 picks. I think those are the ones that are interesting to me, even though they probably are what

they are, like Adam Boquist is too small and never really, you know, touch that Eric Carlson's skill level he claimed to have during the draft process. Zadena just hasn't been able to be the producer that the Red Wings thought he was going to be. So I think those are the interesting guys. Everyone else is like Ryan Suter is, he's pretty much done at this point of his career. He did not look great during the postseason with the stars. There's a reason most of these guys are available.

Kyle Loposo, well, you know, I'm glad he got a cup. I'm glad that he got to go out strong. Some of these guys I kind of wish would retire for just so they could like end on a high note and not like kind of start dragging out the end of their careers. But for me, if I'm a team, the ones I'm looking at are both. focus in Zadena, just because of that pedigree and their age, maybe you can draw something out of them. Didn't surprise you that Zadina, and he got a great opportunity in San Jose last year to sort of,

you know, restart. Now, the ice time wasn't great. He was playing like 13 minutes a night, so he wasn't a top six guy by any stretch in San Jose. And he played 72 games, though last, 72 NHL games, 13 goals. And I think the most eye-popping, eye-catching, and maybe were. some number from Phil Zadino's stat line is the minus 44. Oh, I don't care about that. Did you see the team he was on?

This is like Minnesota Wild fans complaining about Conor Bedard winning the calder with his minus 40 something plus minus. When you're on a dog shit team, you're going to have a dog shit plus minus. Like, there's no way you're going to have a plus 20 on a team in San Jose Sharks were last year. So I'm willing to overlook. I'm more concerned about the fact that he was only able to score 13 goals and he was finally given that kind of a role. the minus 44, it really doesn't bother me.

It doesn't bother you. Like nobody's going to have a good plus minus on that team. Okay. Let's bring in a guy who's usually a minus on the golf course. He's usually like a minus two, minus three. Our pal Jesse Granger, I think, is all set to jump in here. For a little segment, we like to call Granger Things, brought to you by BetMGM, which is the exclusive betting partner with the athletic.

And I want to know, lads, before we bring Jesse in here. I mean, I guess we got to give him his flowers for his 408 yard drive that he had when the three of us went golfing. But what, 10 days ago, whatever it was in Vegas. Jesse took us out to a great course in Vegas, what, about a half hour outside of the city. And we had an amazing time. It was 103 degrees, I think 104 degrees. And Granger on the last, was it the last hole that he bombed one, 400? yards? Yeah, it was that hole that went like straight

down and it was wind-aided. And my drive went like 220s. Yeah, yeah. But like, but let's not forget that I birdied that hole and Jesse found himself in a ravine that took him three shots to get out of it. I would rather bogey a hole with a 408 foot drive

than then birdie it with 220. Let's bring him in. And it is our pal. Jesse Granger. He of the 408 yard drive. Now, is that a lot? the long, I'm assuming that's a longest drive you've ever hit in your life? Yeah, probably. I mean, we don't always have the measurements. But again, this is important to note, I didn't hear the whole conversation, but it's important to note that heavily

elevation aided, I mean, I hit it off the side of a mountain and it just kept going down. This is not a flat land of 408 yard drive. I've certainly, I've certainly never hit a 400-yard drive without a giant elevation drop. So, yes, that was probably the furthest drive I've ever hit. It was terrific. We had a great time and we said we had to give you a shout out for the 400-yard drive. But we brought you on your not to talk golf, but to talk goaltending. And I want you to chat a little bit if we can bring to life your piece that you wrote last week about kind of winners and losers in the position that you focus on the most, which is goaltending.

Because there was a bit of a carousel in the offseason, Jesse. And we saw some teams like Detroit, like Ottawa, like New Jersey, like Toronto. They all made some moves in the blue paint. So let's start with who you like. Let's start with who you like this summer in terms of moves in the crease. Yeah, it was a goalie carousel and it was an exciting one for once. I feel like for a couple off seasons, we've been like we thought Helibuck might get traded last year.

It never happened. We thought Soros, maybe it was going to go at the deadline. We thought Markstrom was going to go to the deadline. They never happened. have been very disappointed by, at least I personally, have been very disappointed by the lack of big-name goalies moving. And then we finally got it. We got Markstrom traded to New Jersey, huge trade, big-time goalie going to a team that has everything and needed a goalie. And then I love, we'll start with the team I started the story with, which is the senators trading for

Linus Olmark, because this team, as Ian knows well, has been looking for goaltending for a very long time. And like they took the swing last year with Corpus Hollow. They gave him the big deal. He was coming off the pretty solid year where I thought he was very good in L.A. He obviously didn't have the greatest series against Edmonton. Not very many goalies do have a good series, playoff series against Edmonton. But Ottawa took the risk. They took the swing. It didn't work. And usually when that happens, you're now stuck for a while. It's like, what are we going to do? I guess we just have to eat the rest of this contract. Hopefully we can find a cheap goalie that we uncover a diamond in the rough. No.

They decided screw that. We're going to find a way to move this deal. They bring in Linus Allmark now. Nothing is certain. No matter what position of player plays, you never know how they're going to fit on a team and how it's going to work. I think Olmark is the most certain thing the senators possibly could have brought in. He is an amazing goal.

He top 10 goalie in the league. And the pushback I always hear as well, he was good behind a really good defensive Boston team. We'll see what he does when he gets behind the senators, because that's a whole different story. And I hate that argument because the senators were better than the Bruins defensively last year. By every metric you can possibly find, I will challenge anyone out there. Find a metric that shows the senators are worse defensively than the Bruins other than goals.

And goals aren't all defense. It's because Eunice Corpusalo couldn't stop a puck. And the other way, the Bruins defense was not very good. The Bruins ranked somewhere between 20th and 25th in every defensive metric, except for goals against, and that's because Swayman and O'Mark were brilliant. They had two goalies with 30 goals saved above expected. Well, if both goalies are that good, your defensive metrics, everyone's going to think they're way better than they are.

So to me, Ottawa is a decent defensive team that's going to suddenly look way better on that side of the puck with Allmark behind them. And then that, to me, that like, now all of a sudden your forwards have a little more confidence. We're not going to get scored on every time we give up a scoring chance. To me, you put a stud goalie behind a young team like that. this that's trying to learn how to win still. I think it's the best move they possibly could have done. It did cost a lot.

They gave up first round pick, but I love the move for the senators to pick up Hallmark. I need to just take this and just play that audio for the Ottawa audience. That'll that'll fire everybody up in Ottawa. But now, like Corpusello goes to Boston, Jesse. Does goalie Bob, as I like to call him? Bob Essence does he fix him? I think it's going to help Eunice a lot, mostly because he's going to be back in a rotation.

And to me, when he played his best hockey, it was when he was in a rotation with Elvis Merslikins in Columbus. He wasn't the guy. He wasn't the savior. In Ottawa, you get that deal. And everyone is like, all right, you're here to save us. We haven't made the playoffs. And however long, this team isn't great defensively. We've got a bunch of young players. You're our savior. And he just wasn't up for that. I don't, I don't know, personality wise. I don't know Eunice, I've never worked with him, but he just wasn't ready for that in terms of just the on-eyed stuff. So I think that being in a rotation with Swamen, who can take the tougher games, he can take

the bigger bulk of the, they did have some salary retained. So for Boston, it's not hurting you as bad as the contract was hurting the senators. I think that he's going to be fine there. I don't think he's going to be great, but I think that you can, you can definitely use him and he's going to be able to spell Jeremy Swamen. So the Swamen doesn't have to play 60 games because, Boston's proven that's not the way they want to run their goalie. So I think it's a good fit for both teams.

I think Boston got something for Allmark. They got the first round pick. I think they could have got more, to be honest. I thought the senators got away. That was a great deal for them. But I do think Boston got something for him before they lost him. And the senators get the goalie they needed. I thought that, and those were the big moves, right?

And Olmark owner New Jersey, which we've talked about before, those were the ones. Because the free agent class this year wasn't great. I mean, you had to me, the two super interesting ones, are the two guys that have been amazing backups for a few years now in Anthony Stolars, who goes to Toronto and Laurent Brasua, who goes to Chicago. I think those two are the ones that I'm the most excited to watch this year, just in terms of can they take the next step? Because I think both are going to be given the opportunity to prove you're more than you've been your whole career.

Because these guys have been backups for a very long time. I think in Chicago, Laurent Brasua has, in my opinion, he has the track to being the number one goalie there. I think he's probably the best goalie there. We'll see how good that team's going to be. They signed a bunch of guys proven that they're actually going to try to win this year. I think Braswa has a chance to show he can be a starter, a number one goalie in this league. And then for Stolars, I mean, his numbers have been phenomenal, but very small sample size. Like he doesn't play a lot.

He doesn't take on a big workload. He's spent pretty much his whole career behind John Gibson and Sergey Bobrovsky, who are both just workhorses that play every night. So he's now going to get a chance. I don't know if he's the number one over wall. Joseph Wall is probably going to be the top guy, but he's definitely going to play more. And if you play well in a tandem like that, you find yourself as the number one goalie. So I think they both have a chance to be starters on good teams for the first time in their lives. And kind of crazy for guys that have been in the NHL as long as they've been.

So who lost the game of musical chairs here? Who's standing while everyone else has a goalie and they're just standing with empty hands? Who lost here? Yeah. I mean, to me, it's the Kings. And they did acquire a goalie. They brought in Darcy Kemper. That weird Pierre-Luc de Boatrade, it's like, hey, this guy's not.

working for us. That guy's not working for you. Let's see if we switch teams. Maybe they'll fix both of them. We'll see. Kemper did have a lot of success in L.A. I mean, that was one of his first stops in his career and he had a phenomenal year in L.A. That was before he went to Arizona and was really good for the coyotes and then obviously went and won a cup for Colorado. So maybe the coaches in L.A. know something about Darcy Kemper that we don't. Maybe they're going to get him back on track. He was not good in Washington this year. So we'll see. And I think if you were, if you're a king, fan, you say, okay, Kemper, there's a chance that works, but also, like, for a bunch of off-seasons in a row, we've had a great team without a goalie, and we never invested.

Like, last year, the answer was Cam Talbot. Year before that, the answer was Eunice Corpusalo. Meanwhile, if you're a Kings fan, you see the devils getting Jacob Markstrom. You see the senators getting Linus Old Mark. It's like, why aren't we doing that? So to me, I don't think the kings are a disaster. I don't think it's like, oh, my God, they don't have a goalie. Darcy Kemper could be the answer.

I just think it's a pretty underwhelming answer for a team that has shown that they're really good. They just can't get past the Edmonton when it was in the first round because the goaltending has me. That's perennial all-star Cam Talbot to you. Thank you very much.

That's the thing. Cam Talbot was brilliant last year because the Kings make it so easy on their goalie. I wrote a story at the middle of last year showing how many high danger chances a team gives up compared to how many low danger chances, easy saves. Basically, which of these goalies are getting

safe percentages inflated by having a bunch of easy saves and not a bunch of terrible ones. And the Kings made it very, and Big Save Dave, Dave Ridditch, came off the couch and was brilliant last year for L.A. So I do think that that team makes life easy on its goalies. If there's a place that Darcy Kemper is going to find his game again, that's a great option for it.

What I have liked to see, like Jacob Markstrom go there, absolutely, John Gibson. He's right down the street. Go get that guy. But, yeah, I think the Kings and the Avalanche. The avalanche are another team that they have Alexander Georgians. He led the NHL and wins last year.

The aves are another team that make life easy on their goalies. I thought they could have upgraded, whether it was going out and getting one of the stars or maybe going out and getting a really solid backup to Georgiev that you can actually turn to in the playoffs when he doesn't play well. So the Kings and Avs are the two like contenders that I thought maybe could have helped themselves in net and didn't. You know, Jesse, you brought up the name of Cam Talbot. And he ends up in Detroit on a two-year deal at about two and a half per, I think, yeah,

two and a half per on him. And Laz and I talked about this last week on the free agency, free agency pod where we were like, man, Detroit, instead of going with one stud, it's like they've dressed up four goalies in a trench coat, and they're like, maybe we can, we can trick them. So I want to get your take on Detroit's foreheaded monster with Camp Talbot, Alex Lyon, Vili Huso,

and introducing Jack Campbell to the mix in Detroit. Yeah, it's, I think if they stack all four of them on top of each other, 920 safe percentage is realistic. Yeah. It's, it is fascinating. And you know what's even more fascinating is I think Detroit has like the two best goalie prospects in the world right now in Sebastian Kosa and Trey Augustine. Now, Trey Augustine is going to go back to Michigan State. He was in the final four last, or frozen four last year. He's going to go back.

So you don't have to worry about him. But Sebastian Kosa is getting close to, to like, being. NHL ready and they have got absolutely no room for him because they've got a logjam of goalies. I don't know what Detroit's doing in goal. I do think Cam Talbot is a solid signing because I think he brings a level of professionalism and been there and done that for years to that room to a bunch of guys that maybe don't. I think Jack Campbell's probably going to end up in the HL would be my guess. And if he is, that's Sebastian Kosa. You got a veteran NHL guy that's been through it. He's had the expectations. I think that's a guy that can help Sebastian

Kosa along. I don't, I think Cam Talbot's the best of the four. I think he probably plays the most games. But in my eyes, I'm still waiting for the day that Kosa's ready for to play for Detroit. I think that's the excitement. Like that's, if I'm a Red Wings fan, I'm excited for the day Kosa takes over and is the franchise goalie because he has a chance to be one of the best in the league. If I'm a Red Wings fan, I want to punch you right now because all I've heard is eight years is. It's coming. It's coming. Hang on. Eventually, we'll get there. sooner or later. I mean, signing Cam Talbot did not tell me, well, now they're going to win.

Now they're ready to win. The Eiser plan, the world's longest plan and the world's longest leash that anyone's ever had as a GM. God, that process. Before we wrap up the potty or Jesse, just want to get your take on something last and I touched on earlier, which is looking at contracts for a couple of goaltenders. One is this summer in Jeremy Swayman, who's a restricted free agent with Boston. And the other one is a guy that's up at the end of the season, a perennial Vesna candidate and Igor Shisterkin.

So the Rangers are eligible to sign him to an extension as of today if they wanted to. Could you give us a sense of what those contracts could or maybe should look like for a couple of elite goaltenders? Yeah. I mean, we, so we just saw Soros sign his contract in Nashville. And I think we're probably looking around the same. So I think Helibuck got eight in Winnipeg. Sorrow Scott right around there. To me,

it feels like there's a shift in teams wanting to pay goalies again. It felt like there for a while, teams were like I'm terrified of it. Like the Jets were trying to trade Hellebuck. They didn't want to give him the deal. I think Bobrovsky single-handedly made GMs nervous about giving goalies contracts. And then I think he single-handedly erase that by winning back. Maybe that deal wasn't the worst deal ever signed in NHL history.

He did just drag this team to the Stanley Cup two years in a row. I think there's a, that's just me personally looking at the contracts that were handed out this and across all positions. Teams are spending more money again now that we're a little bit out of the flat cap. But I think those guys are going to get paid. I think the fears that these top goleys are not going to get big contracts seems to be going away with Hellebuck getting his and Saros getting his. And even some of those deals we saw Lorette Brasua got $3 million a year and he's never been a starter. So I would say somewhere between 7 and 8, I don't think they're going to get 10. I think the days of goalies getting 10 might be Bob might have scared GMs off of that.

I would say 7, 8, 9 would be my guess. And they're probably going to get 8 years because they're both young and should be good for a very long time. Shisterkin is like if I was starting a franchise right now, I'd probably pick Igor Shasturkin as my goalies. So I expect him to get pretty much whatever money he feels like. Wow. So you think it would be comparable deals for both those guys? Like in terms of term and dollar, Swayman and Chesterkin. I think Swamen probably a little bit less, but I mean, yeah, I think he's probably going to get over seven for sure. Swamen has been, I mean, he's good enough that Linus Olmark won the Vesina,

has more goals saved above expected than anyone in the league the last two years. And Boston was like, we have to get rid of you because we're not going to be able to pay you because we have to pay Jeremy Swayman. So the fact that Boston was that committed to moving one of the best, one of the other best goalies in the league to to sign Swamen. I expect him to get a bunch of. Now, it's going to be interesting. He's going to arbitration, well, scheduled to go to arbitration again this year. And I am always terrified of arbitration for goalies because it's such a mental position.

We talk about how these guys are in their own heads. They sit in the corner. They don't talk to all their teammates, right? Like a goalie's mind is a slightly more fragile thing, I think, than a skater. And going into a meeting and having your bosses talk about how awful you are and how you're not worth any money. And then breaking down with like a PowerPoint all the reasons you're not worth any money right before a season is probably not the best idea. I would be avoiding arbitration at all costs if I was Boston. We'll see what ends up happening.

I mean, he did go to arbitration last year. and he But now he, now Swayman opted to not do arbitration this summer, right? Did? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he did.

And so to me that, and Lass and I were talking about this earlier. We're like, okay, like what is that? Like, it was very painful for him last year. Like he was very upfront, right?

Remember when he rolled into camp? He's like, I'll never do that again. And that was, so I mean, Lanz and I were thinking, okay, well,

maybe that leads us to believe that they're a little bit further down the path of a deal, maybe? I mean, the fact that they traded Olmark tells you that they're very confident they're going to get him signed, right? Like, yeah, there's no way you trade Linus Olmark if you don't, if you're having tough negotiations and you think, wow, we're pretty far apart on this. There's no way you trade Linusolmark. So, yeah, I just look.

So Helibuck is 8,5 and Soros is 7.5 or 7.4. So I would say Swayman is probably closer to the 7, maybe between 6.9 and 74 somewhere. And then I would say Schisturken is probably between eight, five, and nine would be my guess. So a million dollars difference there between those two just because Schisturkin's a little more proven. He's done it a longer time. He's been highly regarded since he got into the NHG. So that would be my guess on those two contracts. We'll see how wrong I am.

All right. We got to leave it there because Laz has already put a sombrero on. He's by the way, Jesse, he's kicking off his vacation. The minute this podcast ends is the start of Laz's vacation. He's heading down. Adios. He's off on a family trip to Mexico. He's going to be picking it off.

What does Jesse Granger have coming up here? Do you got some downtime? I do. I don't have any trips planned right now. Where are you going in Mexico, Mark? Cancun. Nice. Beautiful.

I am not going anywhere. I'm going to play a bunch of golf. That's all I'm going to do this summer. Isn't this 120 degrees in Vegas right now? Did I read that right? If you hit 120 yesterday, yes, I was out cleaning my car in it. And it felt every bit of 120 degrees. Oh, my God.

Yeah, the temperatures you guys felt when you're here for the draft, it was nice and cool that week. It's really heated up. And so, I think I saw yesterday that it was the hottest day ever on record for Vegas. I don't know if that's true because I feel like I've heard 120 before, but I did see on Twitter that someone saying it was, the hottest day ever recorded in Las Vegas yesterday. So it's pretty warm now here.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Well, listen, that wraps up this Monday edition of the pod. Gentlemen, enjoy some downtime. Last, safe travels, man. Safe travels. I appreciate it. I hope you guys get out of town too. Yeah. Are you going to be posting now is last going to be posting anything on social media? I am. I have talked myself into not logging on a Twitter for an entire week. That's my God. I never done that before. I don't believe I will. accomplish it, but that's my goal. I will fail, but that is my goal. The only thing I'm hoping for is smooth travel, no issues, hotels, airlines, all that stuff. Maybe that he'll take the social

media. Fingers crossed. There we go. All right. So that does it for the Monday edition of the athletic hockey show. As always, leave us a five-star rating and review if you're enjoying the show. The three of us would certainly appreciate that. We hope everybody enjoys a little bit of downtime, and we'll get you again next time. Thank you.