The Athletic Hockey Show - How To Fix: New Jersey Devils

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

The New Jersey Devils traded goalie Jacob Markstrom and defenseman Simon Nemec this offseason as new General Manager Sunny Mehta looks to make his mark on a team that underachieved in the Tom Fitzgerald era. Sean Gentille welcomes Peter Baugh to discuss the Devils’ outlook for the upcoming season, including captain Nico Hischier committing longterm to the franchise, the failed offer sheet for Barrett Hayton, new additions Evan Rodriguez and Jesper Boqvist, and a change in net for the Devils.Host: Sean Gentille With: Peter BaughExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch 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? This is the Athletic Hockey Show. It is the summer edition. I'm Sean Gintilly. As we roll along through this very, very brief offseason, McIndoo Lazz and I are going to continue checking in with NHL teams. It needs some work.

We got 10 teams being profiled overall. Today we're taking a closer look at the New Jersey Devils with our boy Peter Baugh. The Devil's at 87 points last season. That was a downtick. They had 91 the season before. Went from third place in the Metro to seventh place. Obviously missed the playoffs. Second time of three seasons, they did that under Tom Fitzgerald.

Part of the reason he lost his job. The Fitzgerald era is over. This sunny meta era has begun. And that's where we're going to start with Pete. But we can get into specifics in a bit. But what are your top line takeaways on the start of the can we call this the Metaverse? Has anybody come up with that? I like that. We can run with that.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mandatory credit, Sean, Jansel, anytime you use it moving forward. Yes, I will, in every story, I will cite you. Thank you. TM. Yeah. The Sunny Mata era, it's interesting. Like, he's saying the right things. He's, he's been charismatic. He's kind of doing the things that you have to do at this stage of your general

manager's job, which is like winning the press conference. making sure you sound like you have a good plan. And it feels like he does and he's not going to rush into huge moves, but he isn't afraid to leave his fingerprints on the team. So one of the things that interests me most with MEDA that I'm sure we're going to talk about a little more as this podcast goes is how he evaluates potential guys who have upside that hasn't been unlocked with other teams. Because if you saw Florida in recent seasons where he was in the front office, the Panthers did a really good job of kind of unlocking

some guys, finding guys that maybe were overlooked to supplement the star players that they already had. And the devils, when you look at them as a team, the top line talent, like the top of the level talent, like Jack Hughes is there. They've got Nico Heeshire. Like that's one of the best one-two center combos in the league. They've got some talent. wings, including Jasper Brat. They've got maybe not true number one elite defensemen, but they've got good defensemen. And it's kind of about figuring out the depth around them. And I think one of the biggest storylines that I'm watching in the Sunny Mehta era is, is he able to fill in that depth a little better than Tom Fitzgerald was able to.

Yeah, that's been an early, an early focal point for him. I guess we'll talk about that particularly when it comes the forwards. But we're going to start with the defense. At five on five, the devils were nine from the bottom and goals against per 60. They were middle to the table and expected goals against. We saw some uptick in their five on five play, you know, after, just across the board after the Olympics. So they do have something to hang their hat on there. There were some improvements there. In our Etienne Marin and Declan Chism, you know, those are not the top line items, though. The big move of their offseason so far, at least in terms of players headed out is Simone Nemich.

He is a Calgary flame. They traded him along with Maxim Chippelcloth for two first, two seconds, and the aforementioned Morin. So Pete, just big picture question, why is Nemich not a long-term devil? We saw him sign for a bunch of years in Calgary. They got that deal done relatively soon. That was not on the table for him in New Jersey.

Jersey, clearly. So what, so what is, why, why is he in Calgary here in July? So Sunny Mehta said that he, he viewed the package they, they got back from the flames as too good to pass up. Obviously, it gives them some draft capital to potentially restock their prospect pool, or it gives them chips that they can trade this coming year to, to further kind of advance the roster that they have on paper. And I think Nemich is an interesting case of his draft pedigree is really high. He was drafted number two overall in 2022. He showed some offensive moments. While with the Devils, he scored an overtime winner in the playoffs. He represented Slovakia well at the Olympics a couple of times. So there were clearly things that you could like about

him. Some of the underlying numbers, especially the defensive ones, were not great. My guess is that the Devils didn't feel comfortable giving him that money. And then they saw a return that. that looked really good and looked like enough that they could potentially further add to their team. Also, the defensive core was already, they already have a lot of defensemen. Like, that was a position of strength for them. They have one of their big prospects, Siliayev is coming up. He was a top 10 pick a few years ago.

They've got six NHL defensemen already under contract, as well as the guys like Chishol, who you mentioned, and even Seamus Casey, who's been one of their bigger prospects. So it was a position of strength. Maybe some of the under the hood numbers didn't suggest Demich was as good as his draft pedigree suggested he might become. And then they got a good package back in return and decided to pounce. And he did sign. I mean, he signed for five years and seven and a quarter annually with Calgary.

He's 22 that walks him up to free agency. I would imagine that number. You know, we have to recalibrate, I think, how we think of we've, Pete, I know you and I have talked about this. generally we need to change the way we value players in general and certainly young defensemen as the cap continues to raise. But it was funny. Like if you look at RFA projections, but you look at evolving hockey or AFP or whatever, everyone came in a little low on Nemich. I don't know. I had a feeling that the number was going to be, you know, it wasn't going to start

with a six. I think that was, you know, where some of the projections lied. It seemed like it was going to he was going to come in a little bit higher. And my sense, you know, from the outside and correct me if I'm wrong here, is that that's just a number that, especially for a defenseman through his 22 through 27 seasons, which are typically a little bit cheaper or at least historically, you know, that's not a number that lined up all that well with their salary structure moving forward. I would imagine that that that was part of, you know, part of part of the reason that he's, that he was moved out because they could see, you know, meta could see where the, where the wind was blowing on that number. Yeah, and maybe you can run a bit of a hard bargain and get that number down a little bit and really kind of forced the issue. But does that do more harm than good at the end of the day? Like now they move on from him.

They have essentially the same decor and more cap flexibility and more picks. We got to talk about Luke Hughes. His developments is always going to be tantamount, I suppose, to when we're talking about the devils. What did you see from him last season? I think a lot of the stuff that we said about Nemich in a lot of ways could apply to Luke's on ice results as well. So where does he stand and how does he, you know,

factor into the long term. The long term picture in New Jersey, if you want to involve his brother in the discussion or either brother in the answer, you know, go for it. But where are we on the Jack Hughes timeline here for them? On the Jack Hughes or Luke Hughes? There's so many of them. The Luke Hughes.

the Ellen Hughes timeline. We're just going to go through the list. Yeah, I'm talking about Luke. Yes. So Luke, I think last year started off, strange for him. He has this contract negotiation that they don't reach an agreement on his contract until late in camp, so he misses a lot of camp. He also, he has some injury issues that he missed most of the playoff series the year before

that kind of disrupted his summer to some degree. So I think this year, Luke, cues is going into the season in a better situation to succeed. He's going to have a full training camp. He's hopefully for the devils. He's going to be healthy. And I think with him, the physical tools are all there. It's just about putting it all together. And I would guess that last year, the lack of a training camp, the contract negotiations, the fact that he became one of the highest paid players on the team, that probably all contributed to maybe a slower start. And we saw, I think, when you touched on their, their slight underlying uptick

towards the end of the season, Luke was part of that. Like, his numbers finished a little bit better as the season went on. So he is certainly, if you rank players on the devils in terms of importance, he is close to the top of the list, just because no one else on the team really has top, top level defenseman upside. And Luke has the physical capabilities of doing that, and it's really about putting it together. So far, he's shown he can be a point producing puck moving defenseman at the NHL level. He has not shown the complete game to be a true top of the line defenseman. And I think it's really important that the devils get that next step out of him. And I think that also comes down to like the Nemwich thing, like they've kind of routinely

chosen Hughes over Nemmich. Like Nemich is the one they traded. has gotten more NHL opportunity, more power play time. Hughes got paid. Hughes got the power play minutes. Hughes is still in town and Nemitz is a Calgary flame. Yeah, they've chosen them at every turn. Yeah, and you can say some of that is because of the family. And it would probably be naive to think that that doesn't maybe pay a little bit of a factor.

But also, I think there are reasons for that of the talent they see, perhaps some of the underlying stuff. And now it's kind of a big moment for Luke Hughes because kind of the, it's not like he's going to have this season. It's not like he's going to be missing all of training camp. There's a lot of, I think he can have a more fluid start to the season potentially because of last year started off weird. And last year, we touched on this a little bit before we got on the pod. Like last year was just a noisy year for the devils in general. And I think Luke Hughes and Simone Nemich are parts of that. I mean, Luke, there's this drawn-out contract negotiation that goes well into camp. He gets paid. There's kind of this, there's multiple

defensemen who are kind of vying for power play opportunity between Luke Hughes and Dougie Hamilton, and I'm sure Nemich wanted some power play time. And I think that probably had some weird dynamics to begin with. Then you mix in the element of the team very publicly tried to trade for Quinn Hughes in the middle of the season, which would have meant, I mean, there are a number of players on the roster who when those negotiations are happening are probably like, am I playing my final games as a devil? Am I going to be in this trade? What's going to happen? Are we going to get him? And so there was just a lot of noise around the team. And that's not even to get into the, I mean, Dougie Hamilton got healthy scratched at one point last year.

Talk about him shortly, yes. Yeah, like it's, it was a noisy year. And I think perhaps one of the biggest reasons for optimism for the devils is that it won't be as noisy a year this year. Or at the very least should not be. And if it is, there are very deep organizational concerns. So, Pete, you mentioned the noisiness of the last season as it related to the Hughes' Luke specifically. But I, you mentioned Dougie in there too. We saw Dougie Hamilton Scratch at certain points.

on the stretch. What's next for him? What is the future hold for him in Jersey? What kind of vibes are you getting from him under the under the META regime? Yeah, I believe it was just one highly publicized. It's just once. Okay. Yeah, but it was a big, it was a big if I remember right, it was a big, a big to do about it. I think his agent put out a statement wondering of if this was, there were some ulterior motives to force him into accepting a trade. it was a messy situation. And Tom Fitzgerald was very adamant that this was just a lineup decision and what they thought was best. I think that Hamilton is perhaps someone who will benefit from a fresh start just in terms of the people calling the shots from above.

It seemed like he certainly did not have his normal standard of season last year. But is traditionally someone who analytics and underlying numbers tend to like? Sunny Meadow we know is someone who comes from that world of things. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little more maybe comfort there to start the season. And the devil certainly need that because they need Dougie Hamilton, much like they need Luke Hughes to take a step. They need Ducky Hamilton to take a step back to what he, if not all of what he once was, at least kind of closer to that level of really solid can be a top pair defenseman level player.

Well, the contract's a little bit more palatable now, too. You know, he's signed, he's sure he's 33, he's taking some steps back. He's signed for $9 million decent size number, but he's only got two more seasons left on it, right? So that, that mega deal that he signed to bring him to Jersey in the first place or to, you know, lock them in their long term in the first place. Like that looks a lot less onerous now than it maybe did, you know, a year or two ago. I think if you can get something approximating what Dougie Hamilton was a few years ago for the two remaining seasons, like that's a, that's a number you can live with. 100%. Especially with now everyone makes $9 million.

Yeah, right. Even, even bad players, obviously. All right. So we talked to the defense. Let's move on to the forwards. The main additions, obviously, are Evan Rodriguez and Ypresbyr Bulkfest, who came over in the, in the, in the Markstrom trade. but the biggest the biggest bit of business that they took care of was the neco he's your extension he signed for five years an 11.7 average annual value um i you know i'm looking at the stuff that sunny said at the uh you know

when when he spoke about the about the contract extension it sounds like everybody feels good about having neco he's here you know long term under that number this is son this is sunny talking Um, if he decided it would just wait a year and become a free agent, could he have gotten potentially considerably more money? Very possibly. But from the get go, it was obviously to me that that wasn't even a thought for him. He wins nothing more than to win as a devil. He takes his captaincy extremely seriously. He wears everything here so personally. Blah, blah, blah. So everyone feels good about, about, about having, uh, he's sure locked up long term. Um, what is your, what is your perspective on that deal? I, because I, I tend to, I tend to agree with, with meta here. I think, you know, we're not far from feeling, feeling really, really good about Nico Hesier making

11.7, you know, for the foreseeable future. 100%. I, I 100% agree. I mean, you just look at this, this offseason. I mean, the flyers offer sheeted Leo Carlson for $18 million. Obviously, that was an above market value pay because they wanted to maximize their chances of getting him. But Nico Heshire, if he goes to market, can get maybe not 18, but he can certainly get a lot more. then 11-75 or whatever the final number ended up being. Like there are big contracts and there are teams that are desperate, desperate, desperate to have a center, an elite center.

And Nico, he sure is an elite two-way center. I don't know if he can necessarily be your number one, but that's why Jack Hughes is there. Like he's an elite number two center and a good enough number one center, I would say, is how I would describe him. Yeah. He led him in defensive rating last. here according to Dom. That's that's about where you would expect. In terms of the stats in general,

what's your vibe on his statistical season? Because it is to some extent it's what we've come to expect from him. He's in the 70 point range, adds a ton of value defensively. Does that line up the way he played last season, his production across the board, does that line up with the overall vibe on him? Is there more to give when it comes to the full picture of five-on-five impact? Yeah, I mean, he's had better scoring seasons. You look at last season, his shooting percentage was a bit lower than usual. Again, I think last year was a weird year all around for the devils in a number of ways.

I've said that a few times. But I think he's here there's probably a little bit more offensive upside. but one of the benefits of Nico Hesier is you kind of just know what you're getting. You know what level of player he is. Maybe it, maybe he, the shooting percentage is a little lower and it's a 70 point year instead of an 80 point year or a 67 point year, he's going to give you good two-way play and he's going to give you around 30 goals and that's an extremely valuable player. So I thought that was, I mean, that was the point of business that that Sunny Mata needed

to get done most going into the offseason and he took care of it. The other thing, and it obviously didn't work out for them, was, ultimately, was the Barrett Hayton offer sheet. Hayton sticks in Utah, obviously. What, what, why was he a fit? Like, what, what did he add to the mix that the devils were, we're looking for? Well, I asked Sonny that at his, his press conference, and he didn't want to get into, before the offer sheet was matched. And when it was in limbo, he's like, I'm just not going to comment on it. So I think, again, the devil's look, I think Sunny Mata is looking for guys who he views as having upside.

He used that multiple times, referring to multiple players in his press conference, the after free agency and after they signed Barrett Hayden. So I think even if he didn't use that word with him because he didn't want to comment on him, I think that's probably the way that you probably can look at that as the reason. So it seemed like a potential fit of a guy who's had a couple 40-point seasons, who's had a 20-goal season, who has the draft pedigree. I mean, he was drafted fifth overall to think, oh, maybe there's something more there and we're going to make a strong push to try and get him. So it seemed like that was kind of the ammo there. Even if he's just a 3C, you know, even if he's just like a long-term middle-six piece, you know, he's a guy. again, it didn't work, obviously, so that you have to have the asterisk next to that. But $4.7 million for Barrett Hayton coming off a, we'll say a downturn offensively,

but it still seems like he has more to give there. $4.75 million, if you look at him as, you know, a 3C on a quality team, man, that's a number you take 100 times out of 100. And I do think to some degree, you know, there was a little bit of undervaluing going on there. I think Barrett Hayton in a lot of ways is like the exact kind of player we're talking about in terms of readjusting how we value players. Like three years ago or five years ago, if you said a guy with that profile, I was making $4.7 million a year, you'd say no thanks. But in the world we live in now and also given the player pool just generally of UFA's, trade candidates, whatever, you know, even if he's just a decent 3C, 4.7 million, you know, you'd take that every time. So I think that was, you know, in Utah, I didn't sound, you know, it, I'd sound like they had,

their arms got twisted into matching it. It was like, well, like, what are we going to do if we don't, you know, if we don't do this? And I think that speaks to, you know, the kind of extra valuation that maybe a front office like New Jersey's, you know, placed on a player like him versus, versus Utah. So yeah, it was, it speaks to a solid process, even though the result wasn't, necessarily what they were, what they were going for. I wanted to talk about Evan Rodriguez. He's a guy that Sonny made us familiar with. Obviously, had him in Florida when he was an AGM there.

Quality bottom sixer, quality third line player. I think that's in a lot of respects. That's what New Jersey needs, right? And that's what they're seeking. And I think he fills that role to a pretty serious extent, no? Yeah, I thought I liked that pick up a lot. I mean, you look at some of the team's problems the past couple of years is the bottom six wasn't very good. And when top six guys got hurt, they didn't have

necessarily the horses to fill in on those levels. And if you, Evan Rodriguez, I covered him briefly in Colorado. He was only there for one season, but he spent parts of that season playing on the top line with Nathan McKinnon. He's played on the line with Sidney Crosby before. Like, this is someone who can move up and down the lineup, who can penalty kill. He can slide to the middle of the ice if you need him to, who's a responsible player and is clearly a winning, player given the success that he and the Florida Panthers had when they were together. So I thought that was a really smart bottom six pickup. And Jasper Bowquist is someone who won a cup with Sunny Mehta in Florida, who is an

established bottom six player. And I think those additions are, it will be very interesting to see how Sunny Mehta is able to build the bottom six. Because I think during Tom Fitzgerald's time, like, you can look at, he did a good job of, getting, whether it was him or the regime before him, like, he did a good job getting the kind of top level elite players. It was the bottom of the roster that sometimes they struggled to get the most out of. And now they're kind of taking steps to to maybe rectify that a little bit. So we'll see, we'll see how he, how Rodriguez and Boquist fit. But it's, I think it's telling to me that

they didn't even give Paul Cotter a qualifying offer, that they just let him walk for nothing. And clearly they see the bottom six is somewhere where they can can improve. Yeah. And that's an area where certainly we saw, you mentioned this, but it bears repeating, you know, that's, that's an area where we saw Florida shine, really during, I don't want to say that their peak has passed because God knows, we're all, every team's afraid of them moving forward. But Florida showed an ability to identify players, you know, maybe not like Evan Rodriguez, because he was an established solid NHL player, he'd been on good teams. But guys who can contribute in a meaningful way down the lineup.

And I think that Sonny Mehta had a lot to do with that, right? So if you're talking about a team that struggle to find value along the margins, like there aren't a lot of guys running an NHL front office who have demonstrated that they're better at that than META. So yeah, I think that's an interesting thing to watch. Who plays with Jack Hughes? Let's just put the question on the table. He skated more than 100 minutes with seven separate forwards.

Obviously, the most frequent linemates for him were just for Brat and Connor Brown. Is that something we can expect moving forward? Is there a long-term plan with moving him, you know, alongside anybody else? Well, he's played a lot with Brat throughout his career. I think you could look at that as a potential pairing. And sometimes I feel like that's the way coaches go with wingers.

Absolutely. Like you just, you almost, you pick two guys of, you have Hughes and Brat play together, and then we'll figure out the third guy. Maybe Evan Rodriguez can slide up and play there sometimes. Maybe it's Connor Brown. And the Devils have some of these middle six guys that feel like they can either play a bigger role on a third line or more of a complimentary role on a top line. You have guys that Connor Brown falls into that role for me.

Dawson Mercer falls into that role for me. Evan Rodriguez falls into that role for me. So I think Hughes, the big thing is honestly with Jack Hughes is just him staying on the ice, which last year's injury was very different than the ones before. It wasn't some on ice shoulder issues or anything. It was a freak accident with a glass or whatever ended up happening in that Chicago restaurant. So the big thing with Hughes for me is just that he, if he's on the ice, I think he'll be successful with who they put him with.

It's just making sure he stays there. All right. So we got forwards and defense knocked out. We do need to talk about the devil's goaltending. We saw a pretty big move made there. They sent Jake Markstrom to Florida. They bring back Gavin Rodriguez and Yesper Bukfast, like we said. So the Markstrom era ends, you know, pretty inauspiciously.

As they were making that shuffle, this is on July 2nd. Mata's talking about Nico Daz. It sounds like certainly he's ready to start a season with a Nico Daz Jake Allen combo. This is, this is Mada speaking. He said, Nico Daz has been a pretty big prospect. for us for years now, kind of really hasn't the path to sort of develop. And for me, we're excited about the potential opportunity in front of them. Obviously, having said that, we'd consider anything and everything as time goes on.

We'll see. But for now, I would answer that by just saying I'm really, really excited to see what Jake and Daz and Daz could bring. Is that the vibe you're getting as well? Like, are we, is that what's going to happen for them at the start of the season when it's October? Are we looking at a Nico Dawes, Jake Allen, you know, timeshare? Well, they signed David Ridditch too, so they have a little insurance there. And he was a serviceable backup. Big Save Dave.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And he was serviceable last year with the Islanders. So I think it's certainly not the sexiest goalie group to have Jake Allen leading the way with Nico Dawes and David Ridditch. But Markstrom really struggled for them last year. That's another we were talking about distraction.

actions earlier. He was unsigned at the beginning of the season and there was this whole will they won't. They extend him. They end up extending him to a deal that I honestly was surprised that they were as easily as they were and get good players back in return. But I think that potentially speaks to where the goalie market was this year. Like teams needed goalies. So it's interesting that the devils are taking the approach of we're not going to overpay for an established goalie. We're going to roll with Jake Allen, who's shown last year he can play well for, I think he was started maybe 43 games last year, somewhere in that range. Dawes were going to give him a chance, and Rich is there in case we need some insurance. So there's a chance that

Markstrom goes to Florida. He's energized. He plays great. The Panthers play good defense in front of him. And you're, you're worth of saying, oh, Bill Zito, what a, what a job to identify this goalie and, and know that he can get back to his potential. But it's, It's clear that the devils wanted to prioritize other areas of the ice, namely the forward group and building up that depth. And we're willing to roll the dice a little bit with less proven goaltenders at the starting level. That's as obvious a win-win trade as you're going to find because Jacob Markstrom, did he make

sense for the Florida Panthers? Like, absolutely, right? If they're going to move on from Sergey Babrovsky and they clearly were moving in that direction for quite a while, but Brobrovsky ends up making more money than. than Jacob Markstrom does. Of course, it makes sense. If you're the Florida Panthers, you need something approaching a proven goaltender in the mix, right?

Especially given where the market was at. So I think he makes sense. They had the money to maybe buy a little bit of a luxury item, at least in terms of salary. But he made zero sense for the New Jersey Devils. Like you don't need, like when you're as deficient, I think, you know, you mentioned the bottom six. You mentioned just wanting to move on and kind of move on to whatever the next phase is, man.

I think it was it was time to go, right? So I think as a win-now trade or a win-win trade rather for both sides, I think that one, I think that one makes a ton of sense. There's a world where Markstrom goes and kills it for the Panthers and everyone says, great job. Great job, Bill Zito. But also that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a bad job, Sonny Mehta, because I think having him around at that number for any amount of time, you know,

given where their other needs kind of lied just didn't make much, didn't make much sense. Yeah, Andy had a really tough year last year. Yes, he did. It was, it's not like if you're looking at last year's team, what they're bringing back. It's not like their goaltending got worse on paper from last year. Obviously, Markstrom has a higher upside than probably all of the guys we just mentioned. But based on last year's results, I think this is a. Well, who can imagine a New Jersey devil goaltender moving elsewhere and finding

fighting an added degree of success. It simply has never happened before. Pete, what's your overall, when we talk again in December and March and June about the New Jersey Devils, like what kind of tone do you think those discussions will take? How realistic is it for them to climb back in to the Metro race in your purview?

To me, it's very realistic. You look at this division, There's the Carolina Hurricanes who, I mean, I think even if half their lineup got injured would still find a way to have 106 points in the standings next year. They just, that team knows how to happen last year, basically. Seriously, yeah. That team knows how to crank out wins in the regular season, especially, and now we know in the playoffs too. You saw them up close for a long time. So I think pretty safe to assume they are going to be first in the division.

I think Washington on paper has taken some steps and is probably, in my eyes, the favorite to be second in the division. After that, though, I look at all these teams and I don't see, I don't think you can definitively say any of the other teams are better on paper than the devils. And you probably, you probably can't definitively say a lot of them are worse than the devils on paper. Like there's just going to be this group of teams where it comes down to which players stay healthy. which teams kind of hit some of the transactions on the margins, and then which players have internal developments. Like Porter Martone could have an amazing year next year, and suddenly the flyers are way better than we expect.

But I think you saw, I don't want to call the Flyers and Penguins making the playoffs last year Fluky, but it was certainly not the teams. You can call it that. Yeah, I mean, it was certainly. I think that's fair. Yeah, it wasn't the teams people were expecting necessarily. So to me, that third metro spot is pretty up for grabs.

I would expect the Atlantic is going to have five of the playoff spots next year. But I think the devils could very easily be in the mix for that third spot. And hey, maybe Jack is healthy the whole year and has an MVP caliber season and they're second in the division come April. We're two geniuses agreeing on everything here. Yeah. Yeah, we haven't had a ton of disagreement. Third through eighth in the metro is going to be a mosh pit, I think.

and we're going to see, we'll see the devil's in the thick of it. And honestly, given the way the last couple seasons have gone, certainly last season, you know, couldn't ask for much more. I think some positive steps have been taken. You know, you mentioned the noise of last season getting quieted down. I think that's, I think that the needles, the needles pointing upward for them. So, yeah, we agree. Thanks, buddy.

Keep an eye on your work on the rest of your work this summer. Do you have anything big you want to talk about coming up? I don't mean to just bring this on you. but do you have anything in the hopper or are you going to disappear for a little bit? I've got some, I think the summer is my time to try and pursue some bizarre, weird stories. So some of those I'll keep to myself in case they don't work out. I do have, um, is there a most valuable primate two story coming? No, I should I, well, the first, the, I think our bosses were okay with just one most

valuable primate story. Those are, that's the, uh, that's the classic one for them, one for me is stories, man. I'm very familiar. Exactly. I will have at some point, the last two summers, I've done Hockey Hall of Fame tiers, where I've tiered active players into their...

Always love reading that. Yes, and people will be very mad at me. I got Max Boltman on board this year, so he will share some of the fan outrage for when we put your favorite player in tier three instead of tier two, or if you're mad that someone is a tier too high. So that'll come out at some point in the summer, too.

And then, yeah, just will have hopefully a steady stream of stories mixed in with a few weeks off to charge up for next season. Very nice. You and Max can share the weight when it comes to outrage, outrage comments. Exactly. That's the way it goes. Thank you, buddy. And thank you to producer Jeff, of course. Thanks to you fine folks for watching and listening to this episode, The Athletic Cocky Show.

We'll see you next time.