The Athletic Hockey Show - NHL tax-free states win free agency

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Gentille, McIndoe and Corrado recap the first two days of NHL Free Agency, including the aggressive decisions by GM's Barry Trotz, Julien BriseBois and Bill Zito, and the challenge for franchises to compete with tax free state teams.Sean and Sean look back on a hectic but fun weekend in Vegas, where the Sphere stole the show at the draft, the Penguins, Red Wings and Sabres failure to improve so far this off-season, and the sneaky good Capitals free agent and trade performance ahead of answering listener questions on the NHL off-season including Jacob Trouba on the trade block, if the Sabres are poised to make a big trade and the Rangers, Golden Knights and Stars possibly getting worse.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the athletic hockey show. It's a show about Frankie Carrado on the floor at TSN, pointing at names on a big monitor. Frankie's here. He's going to go over all the fun from July 1st. He'll be here in a couple minutes. I am joined as always with my Vegas nights.

running mate. Part of the dangerous Vegas night's crew the lead man someone would say Sean Mac that's right

we we watch the Bellagio fountains together at midnight in Vegas because we couldn't figure out how to how to walk to the hotel that we could see

but you can't get there because you got to go through the MC Escher staircases of doom that are required to cross the street in Las Vegas

dear listeners there was a moment on what's it What day even was that? Thursday night? I have no idea. Thursday night. That was probably the Thursday. Yeah, I think so. Where we were walking past the Belagio Fountains, like, with like our heads down.

Because we just wanted to go home. I looked over like Sean in profile walking as the fountains shoot up. The music hits its crescendo and just, yeah. That feels like it happened a month ago now, though. So much has gone down. does and the boy game seven feels like it was three months ago

and not nine days or nine days but yeah let's let's start in Vegas here's here's what I learned what have we learned Sean I learned that I love Las Vegas for about 48 to 72 hours

that's right and then there's just that moment you're just whatever you're doing you just I gotta get out of here and then you look at your watch and you go, yeah, that's, that's about right. I've hit my cut off. My flight's in 18 hours. I think I can just sleep and hang out until then.

It's the only place where I was, I had like the red eye on Sunday. So I had all day to like hang out in downtown Vegas, which sounds fun. And it was fun. But I was just like, I got another half hour before I have to hit to the airport. You know what? I'm just going down. It's gone. I'll just go.

I'll sit in an airport. I'll sit at the gate for half an hour rather than spend one more. second surrounded by this this i mean we kind of didn't do anything on our last night there like we hung out we ended up we end up hanging out and get gambling a little bit we had had a decent meal but like we were all gung-ho about going to see a show it didn't it didn't happen we're like yeah didn't happen just eight hours of us not being able to agree on who and when and what was going to be involved in that and so now on today's show the two people who couldn't organize a six- person couldn't find a show to watch in Vegas are going to tell you how your favorite team

screwed up and wasn't smart enough. Speaking of favorite teams, not your favorite team, but your local team. You learned anything about the Pittsburgh Penguins, Sean? Yeah, they're cooked, and I think people are finally starting to realize it. And what tipped me over, because maybe I was guilty of this too. At a certain point on July 1, I was like, okay, Jeff Skinner buyout. Maybe he'll take a little less. I'll do the Matt Duchesne thing.

Come to town and play with Malkin or Crosby or whoever would end up getting Jeff Skinner. Nope. A man signed for $3 million a year with the Edmonton Oilers. Because that is where you go now if you're a winger in your 30s who's already made some money and you want to just cup chase, go to Edmonton. Geez, Jeff Skinner, I mean, he wants to just playoff chase. A thousand games, he's never played a playoff game. Truly, truly, when somebody made that point,

whenever the discussion on July 1, you know, whenever we got Stamcoast out of the way and all those guys, and we're going to talk at Link with Frankie about the top guys. But when the discussion turned to, all right, where does Jeff Skinner end up? Someone said it's a priority for this guy to play in a playoff game because he's never done it. And when you hear that, you're like, oh, my man is not coming to Pittsburgh. Because that is so far from a sure thing now all of a sudden, you know, they've gotten passed in the Metro Division food chain undeniably by the Washington Capitals who made the playoffs

over them last season. But everyone's like, okay, this is luck and goaltending and, you know, one goal games and all that stuff. they did, Washington did everything they could to make all that stuff stand out, right? They trade for it. They trade for Chikrin and they trade for Dubois. They had meaningful pieces. They trade for Andrew Mangiopani. They like actually, they actually look like a playoff team now after not looking like that during the playoffs last season.

So Pittsburgh gets passed in the food chain by them. It's a, it's a disastrous, disastrous, disastrous off season for that. And that's, Washington fascinates me because as, as good as they were last year, year, good-ish, that was absolutely the team that when everybody looked at when you're doing your playoff projections for next year, whenever it comes around to do that, that was the team you were taking out. They're going to follow. You always got to take out a couple teams, you've got to put a couple teams in.

That was the team that everybody's taken out. And whether you're Pittsburgh, whether you're that trio of Ottawa, Detroit Buffalo that are still wait and breakthrough in the Atlantic, that was the spot you were looking at. them and probably the islanders would be the other one, but everyone thinks New Jersey's getting back in. So that, again, takes you down to one spot available, but maybe it's not. Maybe Washington's the top frontrunner for their own spot

that everyone has given up, which is not great news if you're one of those other teams and you didn't improve significantly, and I'm not sure that any of them did. Pittsburgh didn't. Buffalo certainly didn't. Detroit, maybe. Detroit, Detroit, Detroit, Detroit didn't know from me.

I think they're worse. I think they're worse now than they were last year. Truly. And Ottawa, Ottawa did improve with, with the line of salt mark trade. And easily, hands down. I mean, that, that was a big win for them. But then they make the Jeff chicken trade that they're, sorry, the Jacob chicken trade, might as well been the Jeff.

That's old man. Old man brain just took over for a second. Yeah, given what they, given what they got back. Not very much at all. You know, they sort of took Chikrin, made him worse and older, but right-handed, and got a middling draft pick. That doesn't make them any better. So I don't know.

I mean, we haven't sat down to crunch the numbers. And by crunch the numbers, I mean, wait for Dom to tell us what that playoff race looks like. But, I mean, you look at the rest. I mean, Florida, you. assume is in Boston you assume is in Toronto I I think certainly more likely than not maybe more vulnerable than those first two teams Carolina the Rangers Rangers have had an interesting offseason or lack thereof but you know they're there in New Jersey and then you know Tampa was the other team that maybe would have looked vulnerable they go out and get the biggest fish of

them all and we'll talk with with Frankie about that I'm sure but uh boy the east is uh the east is interesting because there's a lot of teams that for years have been saying, well, we're ready, there's going to be a spot there for us. And where's the spot? Who's, whose spot are you taking? I mean, you got to go and take it. And for Washington, I just, you know, like, look, man, I'm not going to sit here and say that the caps are a legit contender.

I don't feel that way. But they're in such a uniquely difficult situation with where they're at with Oveskin for the next two years, maybe three. Like, they're locked into that, right? So what they're saying is, let's try to be as good as we possibly can, A, and then B, they're going out and doing something about it. Like, it's not just, it's not just lip service. They're, they're, they're stuck in a tough spot, but I think they're executing it about

as well as you reasonably could expect them to. The one thing that I did find very funny that hadn't occurred to me, but it was brought up to me on the other podcast by the other guy yesterday. What's, what's Jacob Chickard's best trait? What's the one thing he can do? bomb from the point on the power play. Dude, you're going to shoot on that powerplay? You're not allowed to shoot on the power play in Washington.

Nobody is. You better not, man. You better learn how to take that big wind up and turn it into a feed to the top of the faceoff circle because that's not your job. I think he's kind of, I think his rep is kind of normalized over the last couple years where the dude was just unquestionably overrated for a couple years there now, for a couple years there. in the tail end in Arizona. And all the trade packages, the last for the second of five rounds of Jacob Chickering trade discourse that we did,

they're all crazy. Like people wanted too much. I'll tell you what, man, Nick Jensen in a third round pick, I'll do it 100 times out of 100. I don't care that that guy is not, you know, the true number one or number two defense that everyone thought it was.

I will put my man on a second pair and let him, and let him, you know, hang out at the top. at the zone on offense. The cliche for so long, right, was, you know, there's always guys like Bergeron and Barkov, and, you know, Barkov, especially the last few years, was, is he so underrated that he's now overrated?

Chikrin's the other way. Chikrin was so overrated for so long. I completely agree. Underrated. Completely agree. So, all right. Let's just, real quick, on Vegas, since we were there, let's talk a little bit about just the experience of being there.

You wrote a whole piece about the sphere and what that was like. I feel like we're both on the same page. Like we both went in kind of going, how's the NHL going to screw this up? And dude, it was cool. It was really cool. Here's what I'll say about the event. As a dude walking around being blown away by the visuals and all that stuff,

it's 1,000 out of 100. I wanted to hate it. I wanted to go in there be like, this is kind of underwhelming da da da da da da it wasn't it delivered everywhere it needed to deliver there are there complaints that we could make about it as like a workspace sure it's not meant to have hundreds of of working journalists in there and also who gives a shit that doesn't that doesn't matter people don't care about the work about they're not being enough you know laptop plugs or whatever doesn't matter as an event made for the fans made for the most avid fans

the most hardcore fans are the people who are actually paying money to go see a draft, it was fantastic. And I came out of that thinking, maybe this isn't something that should be there permanently because I physically don't know if I could handle that. But if you all... Financially, I don't think the... Financially, financially, I will never recover from my roulette losses at the casino at Paris,

which is where we were staying, by the way. That's right. Yeah, if you were able to figure out. I think it's very possible that we see, A, a return to Vegas and B, maybe some second thoughts about the decentralization thing. It does sound like that. That was the talk on the weekend that maybe some of the GMs that were not so sure about it are getting pushed back. For me, the moment, and I think you mentioned this in your piece, when we first walk in on Friday night, You first walk on on that floor.

And, you know, you see that the seating goes up so much higher than you think. It's like almost football stadium style. And the screen is obviously huge. But the NHL just had out like a rectangle across the screen. Yep. And they were showing highlights and stats and all of that stuff. And it just looked like like a big IMAX. And it was like, yeah, okay.

That's, that's, it's nice, sure. And it wasn't until like right as. the broadcast started that they unleashed the full thing. Yeah. We were there. We were ceiling and it that was the moment we were like, oh, okay. Once the broadcast, once the broadcast started is when they revealed the, the full breadth of the, of the sphere experience.

It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, that I hope other people, like I don't know how well it translated to TV. I wasn't watching the broadcast. It seemed, I can imagine you could not quite picking up on how cool some of the stuff is. I hope it's something more people get to experience. Honestly,

I do. I hope whether that means the draft gets re-centralized or whatever, like, who cares? I think this is something that, you know, if in a year or two or five, we're talking about the draft going back,

to sphere, I think people should make it a point to go. If you want to do a Vegas trip, if that's your thing, it was completely worth it. I thought it was awesome, very sincerely. Yep. Also awesome. Night one. And then leaves. Night two is all, or day two is always a letdown.

I tell you, I saw a guy. I saw a Flyers fan in full face paint for day two. I tried to. It looked like night old face paint? Did it look like slept in face paint or did you think he got up at 6 a.m. or whatever? local time. I think he reapplied. It might have been for you, man.

Dedication. And then a couple days later, it's draft time for free agency time. Re agency time. Frankie on TV and you and me sitting in our easy chairs doing the Leonardo pointing meme. As it should be. Let's go to Frank.

And here with our big board, we have Frankie Carrado. What is number 76 through number 100? or wherever we are. What's going on? We didn't quite make it that deep on the big board, but I'll tell you what, if we had to,

we were prepared. We had those names, we had the numbers, no problem. We were willing to go there. But how did we feel, how did we feel about the mid-debat change from the Team Canada card

to the Team USA card? Are we okay with that? Like, oh, I'm not participating in this because I'm not on speaking terms with you anymore. It's unbelievable. The betrayal. The absolute betrayal.

I sent you the gift. You might as well have been Sean Michaels humping the Canadian flag in front of a furious audience. That's terrible. Absolutely. I could sense it happening. There was a slow build. I'm on the couch at that point. I'd relocated from like a normal work area to literally working from my laptop on my lap.

And I looked up, I was like, he's going to do it. he's going to do it. It's going to happen. The flip, baby. We love it. A little bit of that. Listen, like, it's a coin flip, I think, between those two teams. Like, it would be very close.

A little bit had to do with, I think, a lot of people on the panel were taking Canada. Like, we have to make this a little dramatic here. Come on. We can't just, you know, and you could make a compelling case. You sincerely meant it. Don't do this to me. This wasn't, this wasn't for TV bullshit. This is because you thought they're sincerely better.

Yeah. Yeah. there's there's so many wrestling things that could have gone with it like what's the what's the one where it was it the NWO where it goes thumbs up and all the sudden it's thumbs down yeah what am I thinking of do you know what I'm that was that was uh that was triple H but I'm gonna I'm gonna act like I don't know what sure because I want to I want to seem like a cool guy who doesn't watch wrestling but uh yeah that was right up there that's what that's what Julian Breezebaugh did to Stephen Stamco's he was like oh thumbs up you're the captain of

Oh, actually not thumbs down. You're going to Nashville. We're going to make you an offer that you can refuse. And you'll go to the Nashville Predators and make your $8 million, which you probably deserve. And boy, are we going to be keeping tabs on Nashville and Tampa this year or what? You know what it was for me was watching Tampa clear all that cap space on Saturday morning? And sitting there going, I don't remember who was sitting next to me. It might have been you shot and I was like, okay, well, this is the stamp goes money.

There you go. You know, they wait it right to the last minute. They've cleared up the money and now it's, you know, they're going to have the nice home. Nope. Nope. I mean, it was like, it was like being worried that you're in like, you know, your relationship is bad. And then you catch your significant other shopping for diamond engagement rings. And you go, oh, okay, there you go.

Nope, not for you. It's for Jake Gunsell. That's, uh, not, not for you. Nashville's the team to watch right now, isn't it? Like that are they ever. Don't you want to see how they, because on the one hand, they've added two legitimate stars. Both could have a chip on their shoulder, let's just say, based on how it went down. Plus, you know, plus they beat the blue line.

They kept UC Seros. You know, this could be a team that like, all right, move over Colorado, Dallas. We're right there at the top. But also, they're old. that you never know what the aging curves are. This could go real bad as well. Like this is the range of outcomes here for the predators is something else. But Barry Trots does not mess around.

One year on the job as GM, apparently he missed the memos about playing it safe and five-year plans and all that because he is swinging for the fences. I love it. Okay, so quickly on the Stamcoast thing, so if you hear some of the conjecture as far as what was offered to him, you know, that was out there, was it $3 million spread out over eight years? Okay, let's say, that's crazy. Okay, that's,

that's beyond insulting for Stephen Stamco's because he's an 80 point guy, still 40 goals last year. But let's say that is the case, okay? And you cleared the cap space like you said, and you got Victor Headman agreed to an $8 million deal. So chances are you had that $8 million dollars penciled in. Can we agree on that? You knew that was happening and you knew the Gensel thing was happening. And if you still had three million dollars to throw at Stephen Stamcoast, could you find three more million dollars to make it work and keep him there as your captain? Like, could you find a way to, if you already had the three, you know, kind of budgeted for, could you get him to six million? Because he left money on the table to stay in Tampa Bay the first time around. And by all accounts, you know,

unbelievable guy, you know, not greedy, not looking to, you know, not looking to break the bank on anything. If they made him a $6 million offer, you know, four years, would he have stuck around for that? I kind of think he would have. You know, I think he would, he's so established there in with family, hockey, life, whatever. I think if, if you made him a $6 million player, he would have stuck around. But regardless, he goes to Nashville. And here's the, like, here's what I find interesting about Nashville is last year, they did such a good job at value shopping. They got Ryan O'Reilly at $4.5 million. That's your number one center. Then they grabbed Gus Nyquist on a two-year deal at 3.1 or something like that. So two-thirds of your first

line was making a combined $7.6 million. And O'Reilly was really good. And Gus Nyquist had the best year of his career at age 35. Now this year, you turn that value shopping and you said, let's open up the piggy bank and you got Stamcoast, you got Marchesote, you got Brady Shea, who's maybe not the same type of player as Ryan McDonough, but he's going to be really good for that team if he plays the way he can. They, I think they saw that there's a window of opportunity in the central. They're a playoff team and they needed some offense in that series against Vancouver. and they said, we're not messing around. And this is our way of kind of capitalizing on that.

So it's some interesting business by Barry Trots. That's for sure. We'd seen this in bits and pieces over the last couple years where it became obvious that Nashville was turning into destination city maybe for players, certainly for American players. I think the potential for stuff like this was always to happen, where it's like they needed them. money. They needed some kind of, some kind of core or whatever, some kind of success team wise

to graft onto. And they got it. They got it last year. Like, you're like, yeah, great. Ryan O'Reilly, Ryan, like Roman, like Romano, C, 45 goal, finally healthy fellow Forsberg. Like, yeah, I'm in. And I think it happened a few times. And it's going to keep happening because, because guys like being there. Nashville is a good place to live. It's a good place to, you know, raise kids and all that stuff for NHL players. They love it there. And it was only a matter. Yeah, great building.

Totally. And is it another one of those tax-free states? Yes, sir? Yes, it is. I wrote my piece on Monday. I'm starting to rethink the whole tax thing. It was time. We had the argument, Frankie and I.

And I'm not saying it, I've never said it did matter. but I've always said I felt like it you know we make too big a deal of it boy it's tough to it was tough to sit there on Monday and what you know between that between Sam Reinhardt you know taking the deal that he took to stay in for guys would like when you saw that number come through be honest

DGB your first thought was William Nealander am I right or wrong well that that was the first thing that came to your mind you said this this guy Sam Reinhart just had 57 goals scored the Stanley Cup winning goal and he took 8.6 and Toronto had to pay William Nealander 11 and a half. Like that, that had to be the first thing a lot of people were thinking.

It's absolutely, you know, certainly if you're a Leafs fan, you're looking at that. I'm guessing other fans probably have, you know, may have guys on their team that they're looking at, geez, I'm sure, you know, I can't wait for Mitch Marner to explain why he's $4 million better than Sam Reinhart. But clearly, look, it's the tax. are part of it. Obviously, you know, there's, there's, hockey players don't like to move.

The hockey players, all things being equal would rather, would rather stick around. It's a good organization. It's a winning organization. They've clearly treated them well. And the other thing that I think is so important that, you know, you mentioned the Leafs, that the Leafs have never had,

is that the Panthers have that unofficial internal cap, where Barkov is one of the very best players on the planet. and he makes 10 million. And Matthew Kachuk is, you know, we've all spent the last two years pumping his tires, but what a superstar is, and he's 9.5. So you really, you really want 11 when those two guys were there?

Probably. It's something we've seen from, it's something we've seen from so many successful teams. You saw it in Boston for years until the dam finally broke on Pasternac. You saw it in Colorado for years and until the dam broke with McKinnick. Think about, Think about this. So let's say, let's say that did happen. Let's say Reinhart went to the Panthers and he said, I'm an $11 million player. You got to pay me like that or I'm going to leave. You know what I think they would say? Okay. Then you got to leave. And guess what? We will recruit the next version of you or we will try our best because there's a lot of guys that want to come down here and play because of the lifestyle, the taxes. But more importantly, the team and what they've built. Like they've built something. really cool there. And now they're, they have championship pedigree that goes with everything there.

So, so I think they're, you know, they're just as confident in their ability to keep players as they would be to recruit and trade for new players. You know, two years in a row, the, the trade deadline. Claude Jureu wanted to go to Florida. Vlad Tarasenko wanted to go to Florida. I would imagine this year, there's going to be someone out there who says, I got a no move. I want to go to Florida. Just figure out a way to get it done. And the team that's trading that player is going to get a fourth round pick in return. And that fan base is going to be outraged by how little the return is. But that's, you know, that's happened two years in a row now. And they can bring in players because of everything that they've built there.

When Reinhardt signed that deal, the first thing I thought of was him on the ice, after he wins the cup, scores the cup, clinching goal. He's like, I don't want to leave. He didn't. He got what he wanted, right? Like, that's, it's pretty, it's pretty cool to see that happen. But, Frankie, you mentioned the, you know, that they would have let them walk. That was kind of the theme of the weekend is some teams are showing that they are, they will just be heartless.

We knew it with Vegas. We can add Tampa to the list. I mean, Tampa had already had some, some of those sorts of moves. So they had shipped, you know, Ryan McDonnell. Trade, trade was. But, I mean, with the Stamco situation, that feels like a new piece of, you know, When you want to build a winning team, are you willing to be heartless like that? Or are you going to get, you know, when push comes to shove or you're going to get all kind of squishy and go, well, we got to be loyal.

You know, we kind of. Because one of the things that you hear so much when you talk about teams being like that is, yeah, well, you got to be careful, though. Because if you treat Stephen Stamcoast like that, good luck signing a free agent. Well, they treated Steven Stamcoast like that and the new free agent, like passed him on the way out the door going in to take his spot and his money. and couldn't seem to wait to get in there. So what kind of team? What kind of GM do you want to be? Are you willing to make the really hard decisions?

Or are you, when push comes to shove, do you prefer the path of least resistance? So we had, I was on overdrive yesterday, and we had Eric Erlinson on the show. And he gave us some pretty cool insight into what exactly the background on the decision was by Julian Breesbaugh. And he said one of the things that kind of came to the forefront, front was looking at players that are set to sign their fourth deal, he said that's where, you know, the steepest decline was. And the only one that was really comparable was Anj Kopitar. So he took, he got the extension at seven million in LA. Outside of that, you know, the fourth deal guys don't necessarily do very well. And so I think that's, you know, kind of

analytics driven, not necessarily, you know, um, um, complying with the narrative and everything that that entails. But I think it's going to be really weird on a couple on a couple fronts in Tampa next year. One, specific to Jake Gensel, okay? The season finished, Stephen Stamcoast was there in Tampa. He wasn't traded mid-season. So all those returning players now, they only know what that room is like with Stamcoast in it. So everyone's showing up to training camp and it's like, there's going to be.

be a lot of, oh, when Stammer was here, we did this. You know, when Stammer, remember when Stammer did, like, there's going to be a lot of that. And Gensel's going to be the new guy. And it might, like, it might feel a little weird just to be, you know, the new guy who was, quote, unquote, you know, replacing him. So that's going to be tough. And, and what happens if we get halfway through the year and Stamco's has, you know, five to 10 more goals than Gensel? Or what if Stamco scores 40 and Gensel scores 32? Like what are we talking about then? It's just it's a tough.

I think it's going to be really weird. It's going to feel empty. It's going to feel empty and foreign. I think for a lot of the returning players in Tampa when they show up to training camp and their captain, the guy who's been there for 16 years with such a large presence, is no longer there. They chose against them three separate times. Think about it. They trade for McDonough.

They sign Gensel. They prioritize the extension of it. with headman on some level that's that's a choice against him it's still just don't forget eight years ago let him walk to july first and you know they let him do back then remember we had the negotiation window so they let him go and see what else was out there and watch the pitches and that and and he ended up coming back for what at the time felt like less than maybe we can maybe we can make three and a half a year work let's try to let's try let's try to make that And still like, imagine those conversations.

Jesus Christ. They let him go into the boardroom. They let him have the boardroom meetings back then, right? MLSC, all the different companies saying, we're going to give you this side deal, that side deal. Guess why they did that? To make up for the difference that he was going to have to pay in taxes and cost a living in Toronto.

It always comes back to the table. It always comes back. I'm so sorry I had to do that. Speaking of Toronto, how do we feel about the Leafs rebuilding a blue line? for $9.5 million, but handing out a lot of term to do so. Like, here's where things get interesting, I think, for Toronto. Okay, Tanev, in order to lure him to Toronto, in order to, you know, don't go to Dallas, come home, it's six years, and they get them at $4.5 million.

Like, if you're Toronto, you basically are operating with a four-year window, right, where it's Austin Matthews contract, right? So I look at that as like, it's a four-year deal. be two years of paid vacation at the end of it. OEL, you know, good cap hit. He has to stay healthy. Like, he's got to hold up his end of the bargain, but he was really good in Florida this year. I thought he was good in the playoffs. And Yanni Hockenpa, you know, six foot seven. I mean, there's, that's kind of enough said on, you know, on what he would bring to that blue line. So three players, nine and a half million dollars, forget about the term. But now you have,

you finally have a D-partner for Morgan Riley. You have someone who can play on the first power play unit and give you a different look in OEL and you got a six foot seven monster. I don't know. I think that's pretty good for a day's work as long as everything holds up, as long as everyone's healthy and playing to, you know, their capacity. Yeah, the blue line in Toronto was priority number one and it is unquestionably better right now. As far, and at a cap hits that work out okay. It's the term. The term is the giant flashing warning light on the dashboard with really all of those deals.

But the intent of especially, put yourself in Brad for Living Shoes. Look, I have to fix this blue line. If I don't and next year goes bad or next year goes like this year went, we're all getting fired anyways. Me, Shanahan, everybody. They're cleaning house. The new boss is going to come in. And so, yeah, I'll sign Chris Tannav.

And if he's broken down already and he can't play, well, it's going to be some other GMs problem five years from now, probably two GMs from now, five years from now in Toronto. And if it works out great, then great. I'll deal with year six when I have to deal with year six and probably LTIR to do it. So I don't mind it. I'm still, I mean, I still come back to when I look at the Leafs that there is a big four in. in the Atlantic right now. And those big four, it's Jeremy Swamen, Andre Vasselowski, Sergey Bobrovsky,

and then what the Leafs have got. Oh, I don't know, man. I wasn't expecting you to go to go. Bravo. Bravo. You had me on the edge of my seat there. Very well done. And your point is very well made.

Because all those teams, franchise, stud, number one goalie, Leafs are rolling back the tandem, right? Like, Stolars, hopefully, and his numbers have been good. Stolars has been good when asked to play, but he's going to potentially have more of a, I mean, more of a, he's going to have more runway here in Toronto because who knows how healthy wool is going to be?

Who knows, you know, like, is the game going to be there for Wals? Stay healthy and can't play whole seasons. Sean, we're around someone on. And I can't remember who. In Vegas. It was like, yeah, I don't think Solaris can play more than 25 games. I think it was, you know what? I think it was Jesse Gring.

Might have been Jesse. We were talking to. And Jesse was, because he's the goaltender whisperer. And he was pumping the tires of him. He was saying, this is, this guy's a good goal. This is before he even signed in Toronto. He's saying, I hear that that's who they're looking at. Yeah.

He's a really good goalie. You know, he was explained, like Jesse always, you get him going on goalies, and he starts talking how they do the angles and this and that, and how they rack. And he was saying, I like this guy a lot. but he can't stay healthy. So you got him with him. You're going to have to bridge the gap.

So you know who comes in after that? Matt Murray's next up. It's fine. It's fine. Matt Murray can stay healthy. So it's all good. That's right. The market efficiency is goaltenders,

you can't start 40 games in a season. All right. So you get three guys. You can start 30. You're set. We've got 60 games worth of decent goaltending between those three guys. and the rest is going to be Zamboni drivers. And it's going to be fine.

Yeah, we'll figure out the rest from there. Speaking of the market, like we, you know, we just kind of spent some time talking about the allure to play for teams in the no-stat, no-state tax zones and nice weather. You know, what's the competitive advantage for a team like Toronto? Like, what's their version of that? Their version of that is we have so much money that we can pay you potentially two years paid vacation at the end of this. to not play for us.

So we're willing to, we're willing to flex that muscle, you know? So as much as we talk about, you know, southern teams and no state tax, there can be other ways around that to get the players you want to get. And I think Toronto shows that by flexing their muscle with the,

we're going to give you six years. We're going to give you four years. You know, we'll deal with. The bonuses too. Yes. You're going to get it all up front. You're going to get it on July 1 or whatever.

Very large check on July 1st. Yeah. Yeah. That's what they have. That's what they have. And not every team has that. And they flex that muscle. And I don't know how you guys felt like even going across the country to Vancouver.

It felt like in years past, Vancouver would have been a team that just spent money just to spend it on a day like, yes, on the first, where it's like we just, we have 20 million in cap space. And we're going to sign all these guys just because we have to. And, you know, so Zadorov ends up going to Boston. That's a lot of money. Like, you know, that's $5 million that he makes. Lindholm goes, Lindholm's just under $8 million. I don't think Vancouver needs to go near that, that much money for Lindholm. They don't get anything done with Jake Gensel.

So let's put it this way, okay? Let's say that Vancouver spent $9 million and got Jake Gensel, and they spent $5 million and they got Zadora. So we're talking two players, 14 million. Sure, you know, you got your goal score for Pedersen, which I think would have been great. You got your big, you know, your big physical defenseman, all good there. Instead, I think they spent money with a little more of a purpose. Like, you know, DeBrusc at five and a half.

And then you go, you go, Danton Hinen, you know, who's a winger, scores, whatever. Like, he's decent enough. Then four board and then Vinny Dayharnay. All of those guys, you know, those four guys, it's $11.5 million. And you got two wingers, you know, one that can play high in your lineup. You got two big defensemen. I feel like they didn't really, they didn't go with the big names, the big money, but they spent money with a purpose.

And they still kind of got what they needed to get out of it, which I think is still considered a job well done. Bringing in Heinz nice too, because he's, you know, whatever. He's a solid, solid third liner. But what he does is he allows them to push Souter back to the middle, which is probably where, or whatever, at least have him as an option to play. to play center, which helps their center depth a little bit. I like what they did.

I think $3 million is maybe a lot for Tyler Myers, but whatever. You got to lock someone down and make sure you're not holding the bag at, you know, 445 on July 1, right? I like what you say that, though. You say $3 million is a lot for Tyler Myers, and I don't disagree. For three years or whatever. What did Joel Edmondson get in LA? Got $3.8 million.

The Tyler Myers deal looked worse when they, when they jumped. to it and you're like how you're like is this what's this going to look like and then you see the the silly season numbers on july one it's like okay this isn't actually it's it's it's you know a year longer than maybe you would have liked or something but that's i mean the leaps gave half as much money to a guy the same size with no knees so yeah what's up with that okay i i reached out to someone and they're and and you know funny that you mentioned that like i reached out to someone in the organics because I had I had I have bad knees like I had torn ACL torn quadriceps tendon like if anyone knows what bad knees are like it's me and I reached out to someone there and

they were like no like we went down the path with all our doctors were very well aware of this so they they said they feel pretty comfortable with with that but that's yeah when I saw that I was like oh no like I that's not good for holding up for an 82 games do knees matter for defenseman I can't But you need, these are really, I think they're extra important when you're seven foot two or however, however, talking yhach and pies. Yeah. Ask number four. Frank, what was the biggest pop on the floor of the studio on July 1? Like, was there, was there one thing that happened where everybody was like, you know, everybody kind of simultaneously, you know, gasped?

You know what it was? It was, because we kind of like had, we had the lead up that Stamcoast was going to happen. right with Nashville. So we were talking about that. And then the Marchesil thing kind of happens. And I think a lot of people were like, oh, they're not messing around, right? Like really, really interesting. When the Brady Shea thing happened with Nashville, you could just hear the murmuring, you know, right across the floor, Nashville. Oh my God, Nashville. What do they do? Like it was just like, we got to talk about Nashville. And, you know, we kind of cater to the seven Canadian markets more when we do a show like that. Because, you know, as much,

much as it's on ESPN plus and people are watching in the States, like it's TSN, it's Canada. That's our bread and butter. But it was like all of a sudden, you know, an hour into the show, we're talking about the prets. And I just, they stole the show. Like Nashville completely stole the show and for all the right reasons. And, you know, I guess the one thing now with Nashville is you have, you know, those two goals scores, they're right-handed.

Philip Forsberg is right-handed. You have Ryan O'Reilly and I guess you have Tommy Novak. And, oh, by the way, Luke Evangelista is also right-handed. So, like, who are the distributors kind of dish in all these guys that are going to score all these goals? You know, there's, you still, Stamco said Kuturov, right? Margesa has played with good players in Vegas, but, I mean, like, there still needs to be the distributor.

And maybe Novak and O'Reilly is enough to do that for sure. But I guess that's the one, you know, if you're nitpicking, that's just the one kind of question mark you'd have as far as getting the most. There's a lot. There's a lot to tinging on O'Reilly playing like he did last season because he was, he was great. He bounced back in a big way. If he can repeat that,

they'll be fine. And if not, we're going to be like, yeah. And two, just two other things on Nashville. First of all, don't forget,

they're paying $10 million to do Shane and Ryan Johansson still between buyouts and retain salary and all of that. So that comes off the books after this year. So they could double down and do this again next year. they've by resigning UC Saros they've got the Ascroft card to play in trade and then they were apparently shopping them at the deadline but it or sorry at the draft but the price was real high and I wonder was that them just you know seeing what was out there or is that them kind of setting the price kind of anchoring a high price and saying you know what I didn't in the middle of the year when other teams are shopping you know I'll give you my first round pick that's going to be 28th overall they're sitting there going to be 28th overall they're sitting there going. I'll give you one of the best prospects outside. Whenever they build up a little cap space, maybe they have someone on injured reserve,

they spend the first five months of the season just building up space. They spent the whole draft telling everyone, we want a top five pick for this guy. They weren't going to get that. But 10 months from now or eight months or whatever it is, when they're sitting there going, hey, do you want a late first or do you want a guy who we've established is the equivalent of a top five pick?

assuming he plays well and he's healthy and all that stuff. That could be a big hammer that they can pull out. And I'm looking forward to because it's very trot. Barry Trots, I love the fact that this guy spent not one second in a front office until he was a GM. This dude missed all the memos about how things are done in the NHL, how you got to be so timid and risk averse and you got to play it all safe. This guy does not care. I'd say he's sticking his neck out, but he can't really say that for him. We both know that's not.

Yeah, all three of us know that's not true. You know what's interesting about the coach turning to GM dynamic? I wonder how many times he went to David Boyle and said, you got to do this and you got to do that. And maybe Boyle might have said, we can't do this, we can't do that. And he's like, no, you can. Trust me, you can.

And now Barry Trots is doing all the things that he was told you cannot do. But like, DGB, I think you bring up a really good point there in regards to Nashville. And kind of when things started to change there, no Ryan Johansson, no Matt Dushain anymore. It was like, we're moving on from it. Even though you're in the same age demographic, you know, your players that keep us competitive, gone.

They trade Matias Sackholm. You know, Mitea Sackholm's a really good player. They get a, I don't know. I don't know what do you want to call that return now, but, you know, Matias at home's been really good for the Oilers.

But they kind of had a little bit of a changing of the guard there. And now they haven't changed the age demographic on the team. It's like they went with 30. plus. They went with Stamcoast, March Assault. They went Brady Shea. You know, so it just kind of goes to show you. I think Trots has a good pulse on things

and he wasn't messing around. He acted quickly and I think a lot of teams use that stupid term retool. And that's I mean, that's on paper that's pretty much as good as it gets. That is a quote unquote retool where, you know, same age

players are kind of swapped in and out and now your team is very different. I'm also happy for Roman Yossi, who, you know, he's still a top five defenseman in the league, and now he's got a bunch of guys in that age range. And with, you know, we'll say of, of a type with his skill level where he gets to make another run. Like, I think people forget how good the Predators were for a few years. I know it's like five years now, but they win a president's trophy. They come pretty close against Pittsburgh in the Cup final in 27. This was a team that was really good not that long ago, right?

And then all of a sudden things go sideways. And now they've swung back with the same, you know, superstar at the top of the lineup. It's cool to see. You know what this is for the Nashville Predators? I'll leave you on this. This was a banner raising July 1st for the Nashville Predators. They can put that next to the Garth Brooks banner up in the rafters at the rank or whatever it is. You got reason for one more banner, and it's winning July 1st, 2024.

That's right. You've stolen the off-season championship from the Ottawa Senators dynasty that a couple years in a row winning it. We may never see another off-season dynasty like the Ottawa Senators, but the Nashville Predators can raise a banner. Congratulations to Barry Trotson, to all involved. Thanks, buddy. See you guys.

All right, we're back. another bit of news that we we need to hit on. It's not on ice. It's off ice in an unpleasant way. Joel Quinville, general manager Stan Bowman and executive Al McIsaac, who were the brain trust for the Blackhawks during the pathetic response to Kyle Beach's allegations of sexual assault three years ago are reinstated. They're eligible to work in the NHL again. It seems like Stan Bowman is, probably the number one candidate to take the job first. He's been connected to Edmonton by some folks. So it seems like the weight isn't going to be particularly long for him. Not a new sentiment here.

I know this has been expressed by Scotty Powers. I know Katie Strang has said as much. The first person I thought of whenever all this news hit is the person who as a child was assaulted allegedly after Brad Aldrich took a job post-Cuyo Beach situation. It's hard to think about that person and reconcile that with the fact that the people who are most responsible outside of Brad Aldrich himself for that event taking place now can seek gainful NHL employment. It's very, very sad, very frustrating, but here we are. Yeah, and I get that there are some bands out there, Chicago fans, I would guess,

who are tired of hearing about this. They'd say, you know, look, these guys were out of the league for a couple years. They certainly didn't get off scot-free. Their reputations are permanently damaged, et cetera, et cetera. And there is, you know, even when you can go back and read the report, there is still legitimate questions about what exactly got said. said in that infamous meeting and who knew what and how specific were they and who was under the impression that, you know, was it that John McDonough or whoever else was going to handle it,

but there was an organizational failure at the very least. And people with prominent roles in the organization didn't do enough. And we don't even have to have the debate over, is this good news, bad news? It's the, the NHL told us because the NHL dumped this news. in the middle of free agency day literally right at the time where everyone's doing their wrap-ups and everything and by the way

it's also a national holiday in Canada dirty business man they time this absolutely for you know to be a news dump so that tells you that the NHL knows that this is not good news so uh you know Quinville we will wait and see

the only job opening right now is Columbus you would think that after the mic Babcock experience last summer that they would not be interested. Also, I don't, not to catch off. Aaron Portsline did say that a source from the organization, Columbus said that Quenville is not a candidate to take over that job.

So at the very least on that, we, we kicked the can into the season and openings that may come up then. As far as we got another year. And so we look at Joel Klinville on a bench and remember that he signed off on a job recommendation for this guy. Maybe, maybe not even a year.

Maybe November. half a year. But, you know, it's at least not this, at least we don't have to watch a press conference. Like, it sounds like we will stand Bowman because all, I mean, reports were just short of saying it's his job. His job in Edmonton. But keep in mind, the league did say these guys can't take a job for another week. And it's next Wednesday, the 10th, which is basically, this is now trial balloon time. If you're an Oilers fan or somebody and this really bothers you, now is your time.

to make it known because because this, I mean, look at this Oilers organization, right? They, they went out and got a VanderCain when nobody wanted to touch him. They took, you know, they took a bad news cycle for it and then people moved on. They went and got Corey Perry when nobody wanted to touch him. They took a bad news cycle and it seems like people moved on. Not everyone, not everyone, but enough people that it, you know, they re-signed Corey Perry and kind of, there's kind of a shrug. So they're, they've, they put their cards on the table as to where the priority is right now. If you want to knock those cards off the table and you're in Edmonton, then you've got

you've got a week's seven days. But I don't, uh, history tells us that, uh, probably won't be the case. Yep. All right. We do have something, we do have something a little bit more fun to go into. Sean, you have questions from listeners or Twitter followers or whatever, whatever happened? I do, yeah. So I put the, uh, I put the call out.

And this is, you know, some of the stuff we've, we've touched on already, but Michael asks, this is one that we didn't touch on. Thoughts on the Truba situation. He had a no movement clause changed to a 15 team, no trade. Truba put New York's preferred trade partners on the no trade list reportedly. Obviously, we don't see the list. And it's been suggested he would not report if he was traded anywhere, should that be an acceptable strategy. So if people didn't see this, the situation where Jacob Truba is, yes.

He had the full no move, switched to a no trade on July 1st. The Rangers asked him for that list. He has not been traded yet. And the story that came out is it's a family situation, a positive one for once when we talk about family. That is his wife is finishing a residency, is it? She's going to be a doctor. Last year, last year a residency in New York. And apparently it was when he signed the contract and he put the no movement clause in there,

was to coincide with the end. of the residency. It was basically we're not going anywhere until she's done. And then COVID knocked off, he shifted it by a year. And that he may be saying to people, look, I'm not, you know, this is not a permanent thing. But like for the next year, I'm not leaving. Because it's not, I mean, it's, we kind of just hand wave away the fact that when guys get traded, oh, that's it. The kids get pulled out of school. The spouse has to change jobs, all of that stuff. But I mean, you can't here. Like, it's not like she can just say, oh, we got. trade it to Columbus, okay, I'll just transfer my credits to, you know, like, that's not how it works.

I don't think that's how it works. And they have a new, they have a new baby. So, uh, he, he, you want to try to, yeah, if you're New York, you want to try to make a, make a deal. You, you have the list, right? You want to trade them? Try to send them somewhere that's, that's, that's not on his list. If you want to get rid of them that bed, wave them. Whatever. Like, if it's, if it's, if it's that much of a problem, then, like, use, use the mechanism. that have that have been given to you don't expect him to to say like oh actually yeah never mind i'm i'm i'm i'm good accepting a trade to yeah he he made very well and again like i'm not uh i bring this up from time to time but back in back in the day like in especially like in the in the

1990s players held out all the time yeah because it was not there there wasn't you know the way it is now you sign a contract that is your contract there's no you know there's buyouts in that You can't, there's no renegotiated in the NHL. That didn't used to be the case. So what used to happen was you had not just guys who maybe hadn't signed a contract, but you had guys who had signed a three-year contract and two years in, they've been playing great. And they go, I want a new deal. I want you to tear up my contract and I'm not coming to training camp.

And just every year there'd be a couple of guys, like a Pavel Burr or so, like that level of star. You're not just the one I only remember. Yeah, they just weren't in the league that year. And, you know, so Sergei Fedorov, guys like that. And it was just part of the NHL. And that's gone away entirely because of the new CBA. There's just no mechanism to renegotiate. But this could be a situation where Jacob Truba says, I'm not going anywhere for a year.

If you trade me, I will not play in the NHL for a year. But again, it's for a specific reason. It's not because he wants more money. It's not because he doesn't want to go play for this team or that team. So I don't have an issue with it. And he's been, you know, he's up for us. about it. And I get that maybe you're frustrated if you're a Rangers fan because you trade him to get the cap space so that you can get in on this guy or that guy. But I don't have a

problem with what he's doing. Maybe the answer is, is there fit with the Islanders? Is there something you could do there? Like, you know, keep them close enough that you're not breaking the family up. But it sounds like he's saying, I'm not going. I'm not being away from my wife and my newborn. He's prioritizing his, like his allegiance is to his wife and his kid, not Tim from Westchester who already thinks that Truba is overpaid and, and wants him to accept some deal to Detroit just for the sake of it. And how it goes.

He negotiated something. Everybody walked into this contract knowing what the score was, you know. And look, I mean, they knew and then COVID changed something, right? I mean, he sounds like. everybody's on the same page. This is what's happening in my personal life and there's going to be no trades. It's a deal with it. I don't have an issue with.

I've got a lot of issues with Jacob Trubal on the ice. I don't have any issues with him doing this off. Yes. A question here from Beards a Plenty who wants to say, wants to know, do you think the Sabres will make a trade for a top six forward since they didn't sign anybody? Not a great, not a great week to be a Sabres fan.

Did the Sabres, we talked about teams not getting better that are aiming for the playoffs spot. Did the Sabres actually get worse? Like between, just as far as the A-N-I. So I think we understand why you would buy out Jeff Skinner given the cap hit. But losing Jeff Skinner and then adding a bunch of loose change you find in the couch cushions,

they might actually be worse. And I got to say that, The feeling I get from Buffalo fans is that the patience meter is kind of running out on Kevin Adams because he's, he was so interesting to me. Because remember, when he got hired a few years ago, everybody was like, what? Like they brought him over from the business side. Everyone was kind of like, yeah, he's the only guy. He's the yes man, kisses up to the Gullahs, gets the job. He's probably the only one who's going to work for them.

And then he went to work and you kind of went, you know what? Hold on a second. This guy seems to know what he's doing. but when it's a rebuild, we always say the toughest or the easy part is the tear down. The tough part is building it back up. And I think he kind of nailed the tear down. For sure.

You did, you know, the Jack Eichael situation, you know, he kind of handled it. Wasn't going to get better than that, for sure. But now it's time to build it back up and the patience seems very,

very low. How much, how much money do you think they have dedicated to salary right now? Like, like, what's their, what's their overall number? I don't know, but it's not, it's not a cap ceiling type of number. Not even, this is worse than I thought it was. Honestly, it's, it's a little bit more than $69 million. I mean, that's, that's not going to do it for, uh, especially in that division.

Yeah, and, and also especially given their needs, they needed another defenseman. They probably needed someone else in that mix, we'll say in the middle six. it just changed a look of it other than Jason Zucker, right? So congratulations, you get Jason Zucker, you get James Reimer, you get Nicholas Obikubel, et cetera, et cetera, man.

There is a lot of work left to be done, not a lot of raw materials to do it with. And I guess the bright side is that they go into the season, being capable of adding, basically whoever they want mid-season, but that's some, that doesn't go too far on July 3rd. The question of are they going to trade for a top six?

They've got lots of assets to do it. The prospect pipeline is still quite good, you know, the young players on the roster. So they can. Will they? I don't know. I wrote a piece last week. Yeah, it was last week when the Panthers won. And I said, like, hey, this should spell the end of the, these narratives about how hard it

is to be a gym in the NFL because the Panthers were very, very aggressive. they only had three guys on their whole roster they drafted. And it was funny because I didn't write the piece about any specific team, but I had lots of fan bases reply going, I know you're talking about our guy. And I think honestly Sabres fans may have been number one on that list going. Like just put Kevin Adams name in the headline next time. And I was like, well, that's, you know,

completely. That's not who it was written for. And this is the team. I mean, we just spent however long talking in relation to the caps. Like who are these Eastern Conference teams who are maybe looking up at Washington now against all odds? It's still the Sabres. Like they're in a worse, now they're in a worse spot than Ottawa. And I think you can, even though Detroit, you know, basically did nothing, I think, I think that was more than Buffalo who might have actively gotten worse.

So here's, that's a good lead. And next question, Brandon says, here's a question. What on earth is Stevie Y doing? Um, I think not a ton. Yeah. Now, I was, I was surprised that they were able to bring back Patrick Kane on a one-year deal. I think that's, that's a great move for them. I thought Kane was, was going to really be, you know, term or bust.

And that didn't happen. So, uh, but beyond that, it's not a playoff team and it's not all that close. Like they have all this, they have all this space. They need a significant. amount of it to do long-term extensions with cider and Raymond, right? So this is like, people see the cap, the available money number and it does have a little bit of an asterisk next to it because you want to get those guys, you know, bridged or signed a long-term deals or whatever. It's still, it's still not enough. And he was, I don't know, like, who knows if

this is true because it's, A, it's an NHL team and B, it's an NHL team run by Steve Eisenman, so nobody knows anything at all. But he was behaving like a guy who thought he was going to get Jacob Truba or Stephen Stamco's or Jacob Truba and Stephen Stamco's. Like he was conserving something that it seems like he didn't need to conserve. That team is, they're a mess. And there are, there are Iserman dead enders out there too, who, whatever, we deal with. whenever we talk about the Red Wings, Max Bolman deals with in the comments

every time he writes anything who are just, Eisman pilled to the degree that they can't look at this roster and see that it's just not, it's not going right. Yeah. And we understand, right?

I mean, it's not a mysterious dynamic there of why Steve Eisman is getting all the rope in the world in Detroit. But I will say that that was the, you know, I picked Brendan's, question to read, but I think there were four or five that came in, all saying essentially the same things, presumably from Detroit fans, maybe not. One more from the Atlantic, as far as teams

that didn't do much, are the haves and Kent Hughes who stood Pat the clear winners here? I don't think they're clear winners, but they didn't do much. And Arpin had a great piece where he talked about how they were, they were in on Marsha's soap, but not at turn. and they when when term became the thing it was hey let's let's let's get out of this their big deal

their big move for the last couple of days was getting Slavkovsky signed long term which is something he handled which which is of a good looking good looking good I agree I like you know it's a risk but I'll take that risk it's a good bet I'm so I'm just

generally intrigued by the arc of his career already I think it's very cool that we saw someone remind us that not every first round pick is some kind of air quotes generational player. Like sometimes it does take guys a couple, like a year or a year plus to start finding their way. And it does work. Like not everyone's Capo-Cocco where we're still like, okay, maybe maybe maybe not. probably probably not like slavkovsky has made huge huge strides like over the last over his first two full NHL seasons and i think it's really cool i mean over the last two months of his first two NHL seasons because a year and a half in you would have never thought this contract was happening and

yet it yet it did so i thought that was a great move but again like with montreal yes you want to see the patience yes you want to see the you know the build and and but we just said with buffalo man at a certain point the metaphor i i love to you At a certain point, you've got to take the car out of park. You've got to put it and drive. You've got to hit the gas and see if you go anywhere. And sometimes you do. And sometimes the wheels just spin.

And Buffalo's been spinning their wheels for 13 years now. Montreal hasn't really hit the gas pedal yet. You can be patient for a certain amount of time. I got to say, I don't know if, you know, I would assume that John here is a Habs fan. Montreal didn't used to be a town where you could miss the playoffs for five years in a row and patiently build and be called a winner for it. But I don't know. At some point, we got to see something from these guys.

And that something can't be being last in the Atlantic every single year. Here's what I'll say about them specifically. I wouldn't be mad that they didn't give seven years of Jonathan March or so or whatever, Sign Chandler-Stevenson or whatever some of this stuff is. Like, that's fine. Stay away from those guys. If there's something to be disappointed about as early, to the Montreal Canadians, it's that they didn't make a trade for some kind of young player

that could, that would make sense to add to that core. And everyone's like looking over in Trevor Zegers's direction, like, like when I say that, but they couldn't get something like that done. And I think if there's something to be upset about, it's probably that. Like I, like, I think that's where they need to look at getting better, not necessarily signing 31 year olds for three years too many. Yeah, not doing the Mark Stahl thing that the Red Wings did for a few years. Question that a few people asked in some form, let's close on it.

Out of everybody, all these moves, who moved the furthest up your Stanley Cup rankings and who moved the furthest down? I don't know if I've thought about that adequately. Where are you at? I mean, I think Nashville moves up. Is it Nashville? Is that easy?

Yeah. But I mean that, yeah, kind of the obvious answer is, is maybe obvious. I love what the, is it, is it a cop out to say that it's the Oilers? Like, can we say that about a team that can we say that about a team that just went to, maybe didn't move all that far up because they were already two or three. There's only so far. I like Victor Arvinson. I kind of, you know, when I wrote my summary piece, they hadn't done Skinner yet.

But that, that looks good. As far as who moved down, I mean, and again, at this stage, you move down by standing pat. Because everybody thinks they're getting better right now. The Rangers of all the contenders really were the quiet one. Especially given, you know, when you're the president's trophy winner, you can sell yourself on a quiet offseason. You just had the best regular season of the league. You're the best team in the league during the regular season. So you don't need to go crazy, except that when you basically call your shot the way Chris

Drury did and saying we got to change the mix and then you don't change the mix, that kind of hurts. Dallas would be the other team that I think a lot of people are kind of looking at going. What happened? Didn't do a lot. When you factor in Joe Pavelski being gone, that that's a team that might be worse. And the fact that they're in the division with Nashville now, you know, puts, Winnipeg is another one that was a very good team last year. There seems like a lot of frustration that nothing's happening there.

And we, you know, yes, we all know, Stephen Stamco's wasn't going to sign with the Winnipeg Jets, but there's other ways to improve. Yeah. You probably should try to try to keep Sean Monaghan in the fold or whatever. I mean, like, I don't love that deal for the Columbus Blue Jackets. but man, it might be the stars for me. Stars are stars and the Rangers of the teams that I feel like would drop from that first tier down to somewhere below that

because it's really tough to look at Ilya Lubbushkin and Matt Dumba as their main ads there. You're replacing Chris Tanna with Matt Dumba basically. Let me give you the last one. And this is a, this one to me is a very fun one because the butt that's going to follow this. But as far as teams, I think got worse, certainly haven't improved significantly,

is the Vegas Golden Knights. They lose the heart and soul and Jonathan Marshall, and they don't really add anything of, you know, they juggle around the goaltending, but they don't add anything of real significance. But they lose William, they lose William Carrier, who's really, really, is a,

who's a good player and also like an identity guy for them. It's a really interesting deal, you know, the long, long, long term cheap deal. But it's the Vegas Golden Knights. And I know we all say, hey, the Rangers maybe aren't done yet. Dallas isn't done. There's still, guys, it's July 3rd. We have two months of offseason still. Yeah, but if it's Vegas, there's no way they're done.

There's no way. So what's next for them? Not if, but when they make their move. Whether it's Marner or whoever else is, you know, Nick Eler, yeah, you know, there's still guys on the trade block. And you know, they're going into, and I don't want to hear they don't have the, oh, they don't have the space for Mitch Marner. Yeah, they'll figure it out.

Sure, they do. They'll figure it out. I think they're going into a season with Brendan Brisson and Victor Olison and Alexander Holtz and. Yep. But for a team that barely made the playoffs this year. and watched some of the teams ahead of them get better. Maybe they're the team we should be looking at and say right now at this exact moment. They're the team that has a thing. But I mean, they're not, they're not.

That is, we talked in the show about the heartless teams. They traded a guy who was signing autographs on the concourse. I looked down when like when I saw someone tweet that, I literally walked out to the, to the one of the concourse balconies. at the sphere and look down on the upper deck at the upper deck table and saw Logan Thompson sitting down there all by his lonesome. He seems like he's doing fine.

He brought up that's worth. He'll be fine. All right, that's it. Thank you folks for listening to the Athletic Hockey Show. Have a happy and safe Fourth of July if you're in the U.S. or even if you celebrate in Canada. I can't imagine why you would. Either way, we'll be back next Wednesday.

And again, have a nice week. Bye-bye.