The Athletic Hockey Show - Penguins acquire Erik Karlsson in trade with Sharks, drafting an NHL starting lineup to win Stanley Cups in the next five years

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Hailey Salvian and Sean Gentille step in for a Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show to break down Sunday's trade that sends Erik Karlsson from the San Jose Sharks to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and all the pieces included. Then, they are joined by Mark Lazerus and Max Bultman for a summer draft . Their mission- to draft a starting lineup with the goal of winning as many Stanley Cups as possible in the next 5 years, while also falling under a $45 million salary cap for their lineups. There will be panic picks, friendships will be tested, who leaves the episode as the winner?Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ hockeyshowTo get 15% off go to mudwtr.com/hockeyshow to support the show and use code HOCKEYSHOW for 15% off Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Monday. Surprise. No Ian Mendez, no Julian McKenzie. It's Haley Salvian and Sean Gentilly. Given those guys a break, we've had a few weeks off.

So we thought let's bring this Friday energy to a Monday here. And we had a fun pre-recorded episode planned for you because it's August. It's slow news time, right? And we figured we can't possibly talk about how the penguins or the Carolina hurricanes or the Seattle Cracken or whoever was still in the mix over the weekend or the last week. How they could land Eric Carlson. Like, no, we're not going to do that again. Let's do something fun instead.

What could go wrong? Well, it happened. Eric Carlson on Sunday afternoon traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in a three-team deal with the San Jose Sharks in Montreal, Canadians. We will get to the fun off-season. content in the second slash third segment of the show. But we wanted to pre-record or re-record, excuse me, the top of this show, because it's a pretty big new, Sean.

Kyle Dubas, he did the thing. Definitely had a sense that we were going to come out of this weekend with an answer one way or the other, right? Because Pittsburgh needed to, all right, there's a way to say what the sharks needed to do. It was, it was, they needed to make their move or, we'll say fish or cut bait. I feel like that's probably the diplomatic way to put it. There was some added urgency, I think, on Pittsburgh's end because of what happened to Jake Gensel, surprise ankle surgery for him.

So he's going to be out until November, maybe. We'll see what that looks like. And I think that added some urgency on Pittsburgh's end. We had the buyout question. The buyout window came and went without Michael Granland departing. So that's, you know, what did that mean? Was it was Atkin an effect of a prospective San Jose deal? We know now that it did.

He was involved. But yeah, this was, this is what Kyle Dubus had been gunning for since the draft. He came out and said it and then he went out and did it. You know, I think those are two separate things, you know, theorizing over something like that and saying like, yeah, we're trying to make this happen. And then actually you're reeling it in or, or, uh, are not necessarily the same thing. But it's a deal that Pittsburgh needed to have.

It's a deal that Kyle Dubes clearly wanted to consummate. And it's tough to find any negatives on the Pittsburgh end, that's for sure. So let's go through the full trade here. It's a big trade, but doesn't feel overly complicated, despite how many bodies, prospects, picks are moving around here. So here's the full trade. Pittsburgh acquires Eric Carlson, Rem Pitlick, Dylan Hamiluk, and San Jose's 2026 third round draft pick.

San Jose acquires Pittsburgh's 2024 first round pick that is top 10 protected, forward Michael Granland, defenseman Jan Ruda, and forward Mike Hoffman, Montreal, meanwhile, who comes in as the third team. And we can get to this later after we talk about the penguins and Carlson, because it was the top of mine pieces, but some kind of tidy work by Kent Hughes. I like it here. So Montreal, they get Pittsburgh's 2025 second round draft pick, defenseman Jeff Petrie, goalie, Casey DeSmith, and forward Nathan Leger. That's one of the penguins prospects. Nathan Laguerre. As you said, Sean, I mean, I think there's a lot to like about this trade. The biggest piece is it feels like Kyle Dubus just,

you know, almost killed two birds with one stone, right? They accomplished a lot of what was top of mind for this team. They wanted Eric Carlson or they at least wanted another big piece to help them maximize the end of not just Sydney Crosby's career. I don't want to think about that yet. The Patrice Bergeron retirement got me in my feels last week. But not just Sydney Crosby's, you know, career, but the big three, right? The decision was already made.

They're going to run it back. They're going to keep the guys together. let's have one more kick at the can together over this next two, three years here. And once you make that decision, then you have no choice but to go all in. We already saw what happened when you keep the three together, but then you keep saying, well, I don't want to lose young players or don't want to lose too many picks. Guess what happens? You miss the playoffs because you lost the Chicago Blackhawks.

You miss the playoffs by a point. So I really like that Kyle Dubus, you know, went and did the thing, right? He took the swing, you know, four more years at $10 million for Eric Carlson. Sure, that could end, you know, it could be spectacular. It could also be a spectacular failure depending how things happen. I'm going to lean on the side of this is awesome. And I love the GM who takes that chance, who makes that swing. And again, Eric Carlson, 100 point season, three-time Norris trophy winner.

And on top of all that, he undid the damage that Ron Hextall did, people who listen on Fridays. Maybe Monday listeners aren't familiar with our work or my work more specifically. I spent many, many minutes, hours, days talking about what Ron Hextall did with the Penguins roster. So not only does Kyle Dubosket, Eric Carlson, but he dumps some pretty bad contracts. Jeff Petrie. His 6.25 million through 2025 is gone. Michael Granlins. My goodness, I kind of like hiccuped at the same time. Grandland's $5 million through 2026. That's gone. You can live without Jan Rudah. You can live without Casey de Smith. And again, I don't care about first and second round picks and prospects when we're talking about maximizing Sidney Crosby of Gunny Malkin and Chris LaTang exhale.

Sorry, Sean, here you go. What do you think about this one? Good? You're done? This is what it looks like when a GM understands the job that he's, that he's been tasked with doing. Kyle Dubus for the next two years. three years. His reason for his reason for being is to is to maximize the end. I don't even know what we're supposed to call this honestly with Crosby. Like is it is the end of his prime? Is it like a different phase of his career? Whatever. The dude's still one of the five best centers in the league. He's 90 points last year. Whatever. He's still great. And Kyle Dubus understands that. I think he also understands it on some less tangible level that this is how you have to operate when you're when you're

dealing with the best player of his generation to me this is about the off the on ice stuff there's elements that involve chris latang there's only elements that involve guinea malkin but to me this is about crosbie as much as it is about carlson it's about it's about doing right by him and it's also it's also about, you know, not hastening the end of, like, what, like, what's the other option here? Like, rebuilding whenever that dude is still a 90, 95 point player. Like, it's, it's wild. I'm not sure, I'm not sure what the alternative was, was supposed to be. But what differentiates Dubus, I think, in some ways from Hextall is that Hexel's desperation move was adding McIlele grandland at the trade deadline, right? It's not, it wasn't a good fit. It wasn't a good on-ice fit. It wasn't a good

financial fit. There is an element of desperation and a lack of thoughtfulness there. And that's not the way Dubes moves. We know that. I think he looked at what Carlson brings. It's impossible to think, and I know I wrote this, but it's impossible to imagine a more real, another realistic player, an available player coming back who's capable of carrying the offensive load because that's what they need. Because for as good as Crosby and Malkan are, you know, the odds that they're completely healthy and as productive as they were last year are not great, right? So you need someone who's capable of who you can run your offense through, who you can,

you know, turn loose for maybe a couple weeks if, you know, whatever, if getting a Malkin, you know, breaks a toe or something. You say like, all right, like here, do do more. And there was no one in the roster that was like remotely capable of, of, of, of performing at that level, right? So this is, but like I said, this, this all boils down to, you know, what else were, what else was Pittsburgh supposed to do here? There's, they're going to have two or three more years of this.

Are they, you know, a top tier team in the east or the league? I still, I still don't think so. but the other alternative was not trying? What are we doing here? Right. And we already know from last season, and mind you, it was a small sample size

because Ruda was hurt and Granland didn't come in until after the, around the trade deadline time, but we already know from what we saw of that pocket of time that a Pittsburgh Penguins team with, you know,

Jan Ruda, Casey Smith, Granland, didn't do anything. They missed the playoffs. So I'm with you. I think it's great. And I wrote this as well. Like Carlson isn't a fit for every team.

Like not like not every team. It's not prudent for, you know, a lot of contenders to go out there and drop $10 million on someone with his skill set. Like he doesn't fit into the pay structure of a lot of, of a lot of good teams. And a lot of teams don't necessarily need him to be, you know, puck-toting, you know, point.

guard on ice, Eric Carlson. The Pittsburgh Penguins do need that. They need, again, they need someone who's capable of carrying a pretty significant amount of load because the role players just, you know, aren't there. We're sitting here talking about third-line center, Lars Eller, you know, God bless him, but Lars Eller and Jeff Carter and the Drew O'Connors of the world. like, well, that's not, that's not championship stuff. You, and if, if those are your, your support players, you might as well try to add another star, right?

So he made sense from, from a financial standpoint. It really is just an, an impressive bit of work by Dubus because, again, he cut, he cut down on, on his cap obligations. He made them younger in a, in a weird way, which is also, which is also really funny. And, yeah, he cleaned up the Greenland mess specifically. the fact that Greenland was was treated as any sort of it almost seems like he was treated as a positive asset by the sharks he wasn't it was just that's just the way the cookie crumbled that's what what Pittsburgh forced back you know to make the deal happen

but it is it's wild and he's a and he's a perfect fit and the Pittsburgh Penguins I think were a fringe wildcard team you know without him owing to the work the Kyle Dubus did with building out you know, the depth, the depth players on that roster. They're better now. They would have been better without him than they were last season. But now with this, you're talking about a world where I think, you know, you look at them as the front runner to get a playoff spot.

And they couldn't say that before. And we know now, because we're reminded of it every single year, that the only thing that matters is getting it. And they're in a much better spot, you know, to roll the dice there, to withstand maybe a couple lost games here and there from Crosby and Malkin into really position themselves to be a legitimate, relevant team. And that's all you can expect.

Like the alternative, again, I keep coming back to this. The alternative was Sidney Crosby playing pointless hockey for the last two years of his contract and maybe beyond that. That should be unacceptable. If you are running the Pittsburgh Penguins, that should be an unacceptable proposition. And to go back to Hextall, I think at times he seemed okay with that. And Dubus is putting the flag on the ground and saying like, no, that's not, that's not how this is going to work.

If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but the effort's going to be there, right? And that's all you can ask for when you have, you know, guys like that that are still on that roster. One of the things that's interesting about this trade, and I think this is the last point we'll make on the Penguins before we quickly look at what the sharks got. look at Montreal and then we get to our offseason fun time extravaganza. Mark Lazarus and Max Boltman joined us for that. One major asterix, I guess when we're talking about, does this make the penguins a playoff contender? And this is a two-parter, I guess, is Tristan Jari. How does he perform on his new extension? Do we trust Tristan Jari? The penguins, I think, can probably go as far as he will take them. And that sounds so silly, potentially to say on a team that has a core four

that includes Eric Carlson, Evgeny Malkin, Chris LaTang, and Sydney Crosby, because you'd think that they would go as far as Crosby goes. But we've seen in the past that if Trisunjari is playing well, the penguins will be okay. If Trisandjari is either hurt or not playing well, the penguins can have some hard times. And that might be even more true this year because you lose Casey de Smith, who I would say is an average backup for a bigger question mark in Alex Nadelcovic. He had a good season in Carolina, but a lot of goalies play well in Carolina. He was not as good in Detroit. So what is Alex Ndalkovich in Pittsburgh? What does this mean for the goalie tandem? So that's one point here. What does this mean for Tristan Jari? Is there more

pressure on him? How far can he take them? Do we trust him? And the other point is, what does this mean for Evgeny Malkin. Because for so long, we have seen Sydney Crosby and Chris Littang out there at 5-on-5 together and Latang moving the puck up the ice for Crosby and those two working together. Gany Malkin's played with Letang. It's been years. Obviously, they share the ice together. That's all we're saying.

But now maybe we're going to see that two-headed monster, so to speak, have their own, you know, slick puck-moving defender kind of paired off with them on a consistent. basis. Like Malkin is going to get to reap some of the benefits of playing with Eric Carlson more consistently. Maybe it flips. Maybe Carlson plays with Crosby and Lettang plays with Malkin, but I feel like Sidney Crosby's a man with he likes what he likes. I feel like it would be weird to say like, never mind, you don't play with Lettang anymore.

Yeah, especially if he's got to deal with, you know, figure out life without Jake Gensel for four weeks, for however long, four weeks or six weeks. you're not going to take Crystal Tang and Jake Gensel away from Crosby. Yeah, it is good news good news for Malkin because he's never had a talent, you know,

approaching whatever, 75% of of Eric Carlson trying to get him the puck. The other interesting thing is, you know, and we'll see what Mike Sullivan does. The idea of Carlson playing in Sullivan's system is a lot of fun as well. But like, maybe he gives him his own line.

maybe he's like hey yeah you go out there with uh you go out there with uh lar zeller or jeff carter or whatever and that's you can you can you can they can tailor you know you can have the like you can have like the third unit out there and and have it have it run by have it run by carlinson i don't know like i it's it opens up a lot of really interesting possibilities and you know i i think that's i think that's part of the fun eric the other thing too that we have to remember is that Eric Carlson is about to be a second pair of defenseman. You know, that is,

that's going to mitigate a whole lot of the issues. Because, like, is he a good defensive player? No. I mean, did San Jose need him to be, or ask him to be or expect him to be? No. Part of his job was to go out there and produce points and everything else was secondary.

So I think that's an important thing to remember. But also, he's not going to be playing against top competition anymore, you know? It makes sense. It's going to be fun It's fun to see You know Markey players

Join marquee teams And we got a bit of that today It's a great day for hockey It's not It's a C-minus impression there Of the great Mike Lang Sean muted my mic He tried

He tried He was trying to boot me from From the Zoom here All right So we really like this for the Penguins We give it A, A plus, whatever, it's great. Well done.

Claps all around. San Jose. People've got some questions. But I have a question for the people who think Mike Greer did a terrible job. A question for you, Sean. What did we think that they were going to get for Eric Carlson? I think this is an acceptable return. You get a first round pick.

You get at least one element you can flip in Ruta. I don't know if Mike. Kaufman or McIle-Granlon have any have any value to anybody other than the San Jose Ozzy sharks at this point or is you know is whatever cap cap line items. It's fine. Like it wasn't going to be better than that because at the end of the day, Eric Carlson is 33 years old and does make, you know, was going to make 11.5 million against the cap for four more seasons and does have kind of a gnarly injury history, especially with San Jose

at least. So, you know, in some respect, he was trading damaged goods. And it comes back to what I said before, too. Like, Eric Carlson is an A-plus ad for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Eric Carlson would not have been an A-plus ad for a lot of other teams. Eric Carlson, if the hurricanes somehow made it happen, would he have been an A-plus ad there? You know, if you're playing behind Burns and having, like, I don't know. Probably not.

Certainly didn't work last time. Those guys couldn't play together. They couldn't coexist on a power play. you know, Burns got a lot of the shine there versus versus what Carlson got, right? So loving this deal is much about what he brings to the Pittsburgh Penguin specifically. It's about the team as well as the player.

I don't think everybody will be falling all over themselves, you know, to praise, you know, whatever. If the Maple Leafs had to get their, had to give up Nealander to add, to add, to add, Eric Carlson, then the math gets a little different, right? But I think it's, you know, I'm got, people are pissed at me already. I'm, I'm literally getting, you know, angry messages on Twitter now because I gave, they gave the sharks a C. Like, Cs get degrees. Like, it's fine. It's, it's okay. It's, it's not, it's not an F, it's not a failure. This is what was expected,

you know, you get a, you get a top 10 protected first round pay. and you don't have to worry about the salary cap in three or four years. Cool. Like, nothing wrong with that. I think where you can have legitimate questions and back up saying, you know, it's not a great deal for the sharks is when you consider how many teams have gotten first round picks just for cap dump deals, let alone what we can equate to two cap dumps and a trade for a three-time Norris trophy defender.

and the fact that Mike Greer said today that they were prepared to go into the season with Carlson on the roster if necessary. So it's like if you weren't in any kind of rush, you didn't have an internal timeline. If you needed to go into the season with him, why was this the deal that you took? I guess that probably signals to us

that the other deal, because Greer said there were two teams in the end that were still in the running. So it probably signaled to us that it was like, all right, this one's the best one, or this one fits the most for us. Let's just do it. It's a tough spot for Greer, too, because you can look at it and you say, like, did he wait too long, right?

Did he, did he, because in the last couple weeks, what have we seen? We've seen Carolina go out and add Tony DiAngelo and extend Sebastian Ajo and increase their cap obligations down the line. They added a player who, you know, would have in that slot, in that, say, second pair, you know, right side power play presence slot. And they added some money. So they're out of the running. Seattle Cracken, they extended Vince done for a gazillion dollars. All of a sudden, they're against a salary cap. They're out of the running.

So, you know, did Greer hold on to them too long? Like, maybe. But the flip side is, you know, if you're Mike Greer, you're saying, I'm going to hold on to this asset for as long as possible because someone's going to get desperate and there's going to be some kind of bidding war, right? And it didn't happen. At the end of the day, Pittsburgh was the fit. And when you're, and also Eric Carlson, you know, has a, has a no trade clause. And he, and he does have, you know, some he, and he did want out. And that's, that's a factor too. So, I, it, now is that justification for them taking on Michael Grandland and, and, and, and, and fixing a bunch of Pittsburgh's problems, like at the same time, like, maybe, maybe not. But that stuff, that stuff also does, it doesn't, who cares that they have Michael Granland and, and, and in, in, in my coffin. What happens for. What happens for?

them over the next two years is irrelevant. The point for them was, you know, getting out of the last two years of the contract and then, and getting the first round pick. And it happened. I mean, they're in a rebuild. The rebuild's on. We all know that's what happened. That is what is happening in San Jose right now. And if you want to look at it in a glass half full perspective, I mean, the way I'm looking at it is it's hard to win a deal when a 100.3-time Norris trophy winning defenders going out the door for one. And at the very, very least, again, glass half full, optimist view, the sharks get a first round pick that's likely going to be in 2025 and freed up a ton of cap space for as soon as 2024, 25 and beyond. So over the next four years, this is how much cap space the San Jose

sharks are going to have according to cap friendly. And this is assuming the way that the cap is going to raise over the next four years. Um, so next season, so 2024, 25, 36.4 million dollars in cap space. Then the next season, 59.2 million dollars in cap space. Then the season after that, 72.7 million dollars in cap space. And the season after that, 83.9 million dollars in cap space. Those are the four, or I guess three of the last four years of Eric Carlson's deal, uh, you know, by that fourth year, they're going to have as much cap space, you know, that is the salary cap ceiling at this point in time. So I don't hate it from the San Jose Sharks. The last bit here on the trade is the third team, the Montreal Canadiens.

I thought the way that this three team deal went was kind of fun and creative. I think we're so used to seeing a third team get involved just as the bank basically saying like, here's the loan or we can take the money. the habs instead they get Jeff Petrie at 25% less than they did before they traded him to the penguins. If he stays he stays, if the habs flip him, there could be more to come. So that's interesting. They get depth of the goalie position in Casey to Smith to go with Jake Allen and Caden Primo. They get rid of Hoffman's $4.5 million and his roster spot to allow some of their younger players to, you know, have those spots flourish in the lineup get more opportunity.

opportunity and a second round pick from the penguin. So they act as that mediator here. And the haves only added $887,000 onto the books. Kent Hughes, tidy work. I think I just learned that Mike Hoffman was making more than $4 million a year. Good for, good for Mike Hoffman. Yeah, I mean, Jeff Petrie's still a good, a good hockey player, right? Jeff Petrie at 4.67 million or whatever, full, we'll just round up and say $4.7 million. I'll take that dude on my team anytime, right? You can have him around. I know they have some, does, does he have some, does heur check play this season?

Does he not? Whatever, you, maybe having around to mentor young defensemen. Maybe you flip him to an American team if he doesn't, if he doesn't want to come back to Montreal. Like, whatever. It's an asset. And everyone loves second round picks, too. And it was free. It was, this is, this is found money for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for,

in the Montreal Canadiens. Yeah, I loved what they did there too. All right. I think it's time to get to our previously recorded content. We did this segment in Friday fashion on Thursday afternoon with Mark Lazarus and Max Boltman. And it's a full draft segment. The goal of this draft is to build a starting lineup of players to build a round for the next five year window. It's a six round snake draft. We all needed to fill out a starting lineup with three forwards, two D and a goalie. We did not. need a natural left wing center right wing but we made the rule that you can't just take three centers and we set a salary cap at 45 million dollars to make us think a little bit about value

versus just taking all the top players making 10 11 12 million dollars and I want to give a shout out to Jeremy he sent us this idea in Sean's mailbag that posted last week he sent in the question and we said well not we I said I'm stealing that that that That's going to be our podcast. So let's go. This was fun. I hope you enjoy it. All right.

So this could either be very fun or very excruciating and irritating and irritating and not fun to do or listen to it all. We'll figure it out. But we're doing a fun little draft exercise today on the show, as Sean and I mentioned, with Max Boltman and Mark Lazarus. Guys, thanks for joining us. It's going to be a six-round snake draft. You have to fill out a starting lineup, three forwards, two D, one goalie.

This is your starting lineup that you build around to win as many Stanley Cups in the next five years as possible. Very excited to see how everybody approaches this. And we've set a salary cap, too, $45 million. So our wonderful summer activity. For the interest of full disclosure for our listeners, we decided this 10 minutes ago because Haley was having a panic attack over the $40 million salary cap. That is correct. It went from 30. It started at 30, it went to 40, and it finished 40.

Who knows, man. Maybe in 30 seconds we'll be up to 50, and then it really won't matter. We're going to start the activity, and I'm going to realize that I don't like any of the players who make four to five million dollars in the league and decide that there is no salary cap. It's almost like that's a structural problem with the NHL and the way it works. There is no middle class. I had an existential crisis. I basically what happened is I had an existential crisis over the dwindling middle class. in both the NHL and society.

So now the vibe is off for the show. Last Monday I'm on a podcast railing against billionaires existing. And now we're talking about the disappearance of the middle class. I like how this has become the summer of economists. Yes. Do you guys know my grandpa was a teamster and raised seven children on a teamster salary? Can you imagine doing that in the year 2023? It's a disgrace.

What's happened to this country? What has happened to my country? Make it great again. These are the things they're taking from us, yes. This is what happens when it's August, and there isn't a whole lot of news other than the fact that Kyle Dubas hired himself to be the GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Kyle Duel boss.

Yeah. Congrats. That can't be an original. I used it on Twitter about five minutes ago. Recycle jokes, baby. Let's go. You know, Haley said this will be either very fun or very excruciating. That's going to be like on my.

tombstone. Here lies Mark Lazarus. Very fun or very excruciating. Depends on the... Never. Never the time. Subjective. Yeah. Okay. So we did the draft order before we started. Something must have happened. The NHL is rigged because Mark Lazarus won the first. Chicago wins again. Chicago wins again. This is unbelievable. So it's Laz than myself at number two. Max is number three. Sean's number four. We're going to snake draft it.

six rounds. Everybody good? Do we have any more? What if we made the salary cap? A hundred million. Well, then we just start freaking out about how, you know, nobody gets paid enough. Well, to be clear, so the cap is, we're assuming that the NHL cap is going to go as the NHL cap is going to go, right?

This internal cap is just, we don't want anyone's top six players to make more than the lightnings. Well, that's the gray area here. Some of these guys within the next five years are going to. going to get huge raises. It's, it's an, it's an, it's an, it's an insane thing. That's my strategy. My strategy is to just be will for you and befuddle you as much as possible. No, it's, it's not.

It's not insane because it, you don't have to get under by the fifth year. It's just you have to know when you're doing this, when you're building this team that you are going to have. This is like the first thing that Max said. Like he's so dead ass serious about this. He was completely silent. He was like, cut the shit. What's going on with it with the percentage raise on the cap? Like, come on.

Yes. We're going to assume that the. cap is raising, like the NHL cap is, and you're right, like, we can't just, like, barely scrape under with a bunch of guys who are about to make, like, $15 million next year. I mean, you could. Like, that's, you could do that, though. Yeah. Totally.

And the cap is, the cap is, the cap is, that's what we're working with. But I think that's what makes this kind of interesting is somebody like Sean might just be like, I'm going to kick the can down the road and hope there's a bunch of really good one million dollar players out there. So I'm going to use all my money now, but Max might go for a more eel. young player lower cap approach. I'm probably just going to freak out. I'm literally making my pick in two minutes.

I don't know who it's going to be yet. Two minutes. How about 30 seconds? Well, I'm waiting for Haley to tee me up here. So anyways, I think what, and we should say we got this idea from somebody who put a mailbag question in for Sean's mailbag that happened. And this is something the athletic football show does. And what makes it fun is that everybody kind of like builds their own.

Rosser a little bit differently. So, but yeah, age, like, positional versatility cap hit, things like that are all going to be taken into consideration in different ways for all of us. So we can let the fans vote after. The main thing we're trying to do here, like, because I'm sorry, this is a point, this is a point that we hashed out. There's a point that we hashed out between us at the start of all this. The goal here is to win as many Stanley Cups as possible the next five years.

That's it. Like, that's what, that's what it boils down. too. You can interpret that however you want, but that's the goal. You're trying to win as many as many cups as you can. Start here on the clock. All right. So it's supposed to be easy picking first, right? You're supposed to have the obvious thing and there's the best player that's ever lived is on the board. But I think I got to go strategy here and I'll think myself, I'm going to take Connor Bedard because he's making $950,000. And that leaves me $44.6 million basically to play with over my next five picks, and he's going to be within five years, I mean, he's as sure a thing

as they can, right? I'm taking a risk here, but I'm screwing myself because, like, the five or six best players in the world are all going to leave me in the next before I pick again, but I'm going to go with Badard and take my chances. But you're going to have so much cap space. That's the point, right? And so much goodwill in Chicago. See, there's no middle class in the NHL, but there's a huge second tier. When you get past the big three or four, there are like 20 guys that are all kind of the same. So I think I'll be all right. Okay. It's going to swing back to you and they're going to have to draft Corey Perry and actually, hey, be careful. Danielle's on the line. You get my vote. Okay. I mean, I think that's fun and different, Mark, but I'm going to take Connor McDavid.

Yeah, that's probably smarter. I'm okay with that. Yep. This is better for me. It's better than me having the first overall pick. Actually, I wouldn't panic because of McDavid, but the more easy ones for me to get out of the way, the quicker this draft will go. We've all seen how many Cupsies already won, so clearly it's working pretty well. Shut up.

Not with my roster building. I'm the general manager here. You're also as aging in the present of the team. It's real art imitates life situation for the podcast in Oilers at this point. All right, Max, you're up. I will take Kale McCar, whose deal I think is only four of the next five on its current number, but as long as it lasts, it will be the best deal among defensemen, I think.

That's who I would have taken if I didn't take the dart. Way to make me feel dumb. No, I thought that was a reasonable pick, Haley. When the league has that preseason car wash is what everyone calls it. It's a media event that happens usually in September. Last year's was in Vegas. Me and Rousseau were there for that. And the day they were bringing out all the players,

all the players one after another was the day that it was around the time that McKinnon was negotiating his contract. It was right after McCar signed his extension. So the whole joke of the day was like, oh, guess what, man, you don't have, you don't have the best contract in the league anymore. Like that's, that's Kill McCar.

Because that was a ridiculous. That was McKinnan's title for God knows how long, right? Because he signed that long term deal for, way, you know, way below market value, but the Ave's just sleep locked into another one. I mean, my original play was to take McCar second because I thought last would go McDavid. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Okay, Sean. Okay. One of the, I think a point that always needs to be stressed is that for the lack of a middle class and for the lack of, you know, maybe effective three, four, five million

dollar players in the NHL, the elite players are underpaid as well, too. And I don't think anybody embodies that, you know, idea quite as much as Matthew Kajuck, tied up for $9.5 million for the next, however many years. It seemed like a good contract when you signed it.

It's looking like a great contract, a year into it. A plus value, just in general. You know, do I love taking wingers this early, maybe, maybe not, you know, but we're kind of an interesting spot here where you got to weigh a lot of different things. So the other choice I'm going to make here in the interest of, I guess, in service of what I just said, I'm picking another winger. I'm picking Jason Robertson. He signed a bridge deal.

Signed a bridge deal. It's going to come back and bite the stars in the ass because that dude is an elite, elite player. He's had two great seasons in a row. He duplicated what, like, Kuroil Karprizov did, you know, the season before, if you want a different way to think about this guy. So I'll take two elite A plus value franchise winners, figure things out down the road and say, thank you very kindly. I had already circled Robertson as the guy I was going to take on my next pick, because I figured he'd still be there at eight. Yep. Also, you could build your whole team around him marketing-wise, because he should be the biggest star in the NHL. He's up the personality. Honestly, I was saying to me. Same same goes for him and Kachuk, right?

Like I'll, I'll make money. I'll make money on gate based on those guys and in whatever else. There's a there's an off-ice benefit to have those guys on your roster as well, too. So that was my, that was my hope going into it. And there we go. I hate you. Do you said his contract will bite Dallas in the ass? Do you think it's going to bite you in the ass? And when it's up in, I guess it's three, not two, but it's a good question. Since this is a fake exercise and we're not actually running the seams, I'm not I'm not worry about it. Max is the only one caring about their second contract.

This is real. I'm going to kick back in the road. It's fine. Why am I here? Love you, Max. I'll take Mira Haskinen. This is not going well for me. I think he's a great compliment to McCar and also has a very good contract.

And I think it's just long enough. Yeah, he's got actually a spare year. So I will take Mirahe Haskinen. That means I'm next. Yeah. You're next. okay this is

this is the Kit Kat ordeal all over again during the Halloween candy draft I'm not good at this kind of stuff guys and we're allowed to oh yeah

one of the rules we said is you can take like two centers but you can't do like three centers so you can kick somebody out

to the wing if you want to can I just let Las go next you're gonna pass no make a pick I'm going to go Leon Drysidal

Okay Why Drysidal what could go wrong Not many I thought he was unbelievable in the playoffs I was going to take Tim Stutzla But drys but drysidal only makes like Yeah Stutzler

He's not a good deal anymore I mean he's good deal but he's eight and a half or whatever now Right So you may as well just take drysidal Although drysidal doesn't need the raise During the five years Or dry saddle will need the raise You're right

This worked out very well for me. It's not a final answer. No, it's your final answer. That's how this works. You submitted to the lead. It's not my final answer. That was radio Laz again. Hi.

All right. All right. All right. I'm taking Nathan McKinnon and Adam Fox. I got my center. I got my number one defenseman and I've got my, I'll put a dart on the wing. I'm feeling good.

I love it. You're not overthinking, you know, the moves at the turn because you have all that money saved on Badard. And Fox is a good deal. Fox is 9.5. Totally. Yeah. McKinnon,

I'll pay 15 million for it if I have to. I don't care. I'm taking them. And now it's me again? Yep. That sucks. We've broken daily. That sucks.

I'm going to take Rasmus Dahlene. I need something a little bit cheaper. Yeah, he was at the top of my list. I need someone a little cheaper. I need someone a little younger. He only makes six mil. I mean, that's a bridge deal.

It might bite me in the ass. You'll think one year left at $6 million. But it's either that or McAvoy at nine and a half. And I think I need to slow my role a little bit here. So I think I think you're probably comfortable paying that dude, $8 million a year. Yeah. That's fine.

Yep. Dahlene. I am going to take Brady Kachuk because I really wanted Matthew. and I don't think there's anyone else other than Brady who can approximate him. Really? Yep. All right. Who is the closest approximation to Matthew other than Brady?

I don't know. Corey Perry 15 years ago? Yeah, right. So if I need a time machine, I'm just going to use the pick on Brady. Well, who is, I remember there were a couple guys in the draft who, Max, you can help me, who like maybe took a couple, leveled up a bit because people were looking for next Matthew Cucke, who are those guys? Fintilly and Ryan Leonard.

Yeah, Fantilly and Ryan Leonard. And I see it. I think it's possible, but I want the sure thing. And Brady, you know, if it's winning in the next five years, I think Leonard, I mean, Finale will be there this year. Leonard should be there within the next year or two. But like the time it takes for those guys to become impact guys, if you're not Badaard, who I thought was a worthy first overall, then I don't want to waste any of those

years. I was debating the Fantilli because it could have started with Fantilli and Badard and just gone nuts on my last four picks. But Fantili just, he's not a sure thing enough to when there's this many good guys on the board, even at better deals than that. Sure. So Max went Brady. Max went Brady. I did not think Brady could Chuck would go in this exercise. And Sean, once you're done, we should take a second and figure out our everyone's cat pits and see where we're at halfway through.

I'm keeping track. You guys not keeping track to your own money here? I am. I am. All right, all right. It's not looking good for me. I'm getting stressed. I'm feeling good.

Am I, is this a mistake? I don't know. There's a little bit of projection involved here. He's not a franchise center yet. But given who he's playing with, I don't mind this. Maddie Baneers. Right. I like it.

He's, you know, we're, like I said, we're projecting. I don't necessarily love the skating on my top line, but there's a lot of skill. And there's a whole lot of meat left on the bone for a center there. And I save some money as well. I love it. You save money now and he doesn't have the point totals that are going to make him like have a crazy RFA number and is really, really good.

I love that. We talk about how Maddie Bennears looks like he's in his early 30s. Yeah. There's always. It's one of those things you look at him. You're like, you're not in your 20s. There's no way. There's always that dude too.

There's always that dude in every draft class. I remember joking with Jason Brough about this. in Florida years ago. Because it all revolved around Eckblatt. Aaron Eckblad looked older than me. It's exactly the same as you looks right now. Yeah. Every dude is like, okay, you're the one that's like,

you're the one that's like buying beers, you know, to like tonight whenever, whenever everybody goes out. You're like, oh, I'll just like, Aaron Eckblad somewhere in Fort Lauderd. I'll be like, yeah, I'll take, uh, I'll take eight blood lights, please and feeding them to Mitch. To Mitch Martin who looked like he was nine at the time. Seattle comes to Chicago and the, I needed to talk to him for a story and I walk into the visitors room. I don't know exactly what he looks like. And there's a

crowd around this like old guy in the corner. And I turn to one of the right, I go, who is this? He goes, veneers. I'm like, no, really? Who is this? No, no, no. You're lying. That's Ron Francis. So I'm going to take that and I'm going to use the money saved on on maybe going cheap at one C to get a franchise defenseman. And I'm taking Charlie McAvoy. He's probably never, he's never going to win an Ors at this point. I've come the terms with that. But I'll take that dude on my team 100 times out of 100.

He's for sure that like, Yep. He's the best defender who's never going to win a Norris. Yeah. Someone asked. Terrible era luck. Yeah. Someone asked me in a mailbag question, like, who is the best,

who's the best player in the league right now who's not going to make the Hall of Fame. And I think that Charlie McAvoy is going to be good enough by the time it's all said and done. But I was also, I was concerned. Like it made me think of him, you know, kind of, kind of in those terms. Like, like, is he, is he going to get screwed? We'll, we'll see. So that puts me overall at 19,000, 26.7, about $28 million. dollars. That's through four picks, right? Through four picks. That's what you have left or that's what you've spent? That's what I've spent. Okay. I've spent 32.5.

Through three. That's correct. I spent 23.05. I feel pretty good about it. And I've spent 25.7 through three. All right. Oh, sorry. Not 32 and a half. I've spent 27 million. I don't know what I think I just blacked out. Sorry. It's Canadian math.

Yeah, there's a 32 Canadian exchange rate. 32 million Canadian is 27 American. Yeah. All right, Max, what do you got? Okay. God. I'm going to take Jack Hughes. I love it.

8 million is the cap hit. Sign for the whole thing. And I think he's just a superstar. I think he was on my heart ballot this year. So I probably couldn't justify letting him go any longer. Almost picked him in the second round. Yeah, like I was thinking about pairing him and Kachak. Love it.

He was my, he was my, like, now I'm panicking because I thought, like, David was going to go first. I was like, okay, if I can get out of this with, like, McCar and Hughes is my two big pieces, like my D and my center. Max is having the draft that I wanted to have. And I could have done it. I'm a little smaller than I hoped to be, though, with my two kind of franchise D and franchise centers. Looking like the devil. guys. You need a Timel Meyer.

I don't know if I can afford them. Getting stressful. Okay. All right, Ellie. It's my turn again. Okay. I might do something stupid here. No.

Stupid yet, great. Get out of here. Get out of town. I'm going to take, I'm going to take Jeremy Swayman. Ooh, wow. His arb number was 3.4. I think I can get this done because I don't care about Lena Solmark.

So I'm going to try to, yeah, I'm going to go swam in. So at the risk of giving away my strategy here, my plan, the only thing I had coming in was I don't care about goal. Go goalie last. Yeah. But I don't know what to do with, I'm taking the goalie right now because I don't know what to do with my right wing and my right D. So I'm kicking the can. I need a second to regroup. So I'm going to go swam in.

I think I'm going to undermine my own strategy here, though. I'm going to start. I need a winger, right? Because I got Bajd and I got McKinnon. So I'm taking David Posternak. We love it. At 1125. Spicy, baby.

That's a big ticket item. I can afford it. Uh-huh. Because for my second defenseman, I'm going to take Luke Hughes. That's that. Max, what are your thoughts on that? I wouldn't have. I like Luke's potential, but I don't think.

on a, well, I guess you have obviously some very proven players, but I would worry about. Well, I'm worried. Don't get me wrong. How quickly he can get there, right? Like, because you need, with Bidar, you really need to win. You've shortened your window, I think, to the first three years. Because once you have to pay him, you're going to pay him 11 or 12 million dollars here. Again, you're the only one caring about that. That's the whole point. Don't yell at Max. He's doing the right thing. You guys impose the window. I'm just playing by this rule, but that's how I see this is that you have to go. Way up, way up.

And I don't think Luke is going to be an impact player for a cup team for at least a year or two. Yeah, well, I've got David Pasternak, Nathan McKinnon, and Connor Bedard on my top line. And that's nice. That is nice. Okay. So those are my picks. Someone asked me what I thought. Sean asked me what I thought.

And it could, because I knew what you were going to say. That's what I asked. Okay. That's fun. It's my turn again. Is that right? That's right. I've got to, you've got to think about something here.

It's mainly what this podcast. has been as Hayle thinking about things. It's a lot of dead air of Haley's going, hmm. No, no, it's a lot of Danielle cutting out the dead air and making a sound really intelligent. You make her job. Difficult. Scott and I were always so easy on her.

I'm sure. I doubt that. I'm having I'm going to take Kareil Caprize of. All right. I can get the rest of your team. Shut up. I have enough money left. I just calculated what I'm going to

have. I'm going to have almost $10 million for my last pick and I just said goalies don't matter. I'm an idiot. I failed. My top line is dry side I'll make David Caprizo. Yeah, it's not bad. Good luck losers. Max. I'm going to take Tage Thompson. And I'll decide if I'm playing him or Jack

on the wing at a later date. But he makes 7.14. That's like, that's such a fun that's like a fun thought exercise if you had jack hues and tage thompson on the same line like who slides over because like you're because we're tempted to say tage right because he's big but like the dude's career took off when he started playing centerfold when you like when they trust him enough to play centerfold time his defensive impacts last year we're like we love tage love him human highlight real psych to see what comes next that dude is not a good defensive player yet he's not

be interesting. Yeah, I had another, I'll tell you afterwards, I don't want to tip this guy in case someone else is thinking about him. But I had another player who is much, much better defensively kind of lined up. And then I just thought, I need a dead eye finisher for Jack Hughes to set up because that's one of his best attributes. So that's why I went with page. I like the logic, dude. I'm just sitting here kicking myself. Who's, is this me? Yeah, I'm not having fun. Sean for two or no, just one. Two? One? No, two.

No, Sean's got the turn. Sean's got his last two. Okay, I'm picking Shastirkin. Why not? Yeah, I was looking at that. I started looking at like Sorokin and Shastirken. I'm like, oh, these guys don't get paid by much. We're like, we're dumping, we're dumping on goalies too much here.

It's true. Like, the part, the goalies are voodoo thing, the part of goalies or voodoo thing that people always forget about is that if you have an elite one, it doesn't apply. If you get a top five dude, go with God. Yeah, there's like four or five guys that are worth it. Yep. And everyone else is a dice roll, but if you can get a consistently elite dude, you take it, right? So with that being said, I'm going to leave some money on the board because I'm trying to be responsible after however long I've been prodded by Max here. He's more concerned about year four than year one in our imaginary little thing. I'm going to hit the cap, by the way.

I'm going to, that was great, which is great. I'm going to leave some money on the board because I'm going to need to do an extension for Shusark in a couple years. down the road and I'm going to need to do an extension for Jason Robertson. I need a lefty. I'm taking Devonte's. Ooh, I like that one. I like that. It's $4.5 million a year for one more year.

We'll see what happens. You know, that dude, I'm going to need to give Devon Taves a raise too. But I like the idea of pairing him with McAvoy on a first pair. And I'll take the best goal in the league. Please and thank you. You're taking Elias Sorokin? Damn. I that's a home that's a that's a rare homer tape from last no it's just the truth that he was number two on my heart ballot this year he's the best goalie in the league the aisle you can't just circan the year before last was amazing but came back to earth a little bit this year he did he did but there's there's something about that dude that yeah no he's good he's good goalie in my I am in my opinion he's good

Sean doesn't like Ilya Sorokin. It's not true. It's on the record. Well, he just took Shisterkin. Aren't their rivals? Yes. He's just going to bat for his guy, Igor. Or did you take Igor?

I took Igor. Okay, yeah, yeah. I'm taking Jake Ottinger. I'm going to own so much money in a year. I was like, I'll never even approach 45 million. And then I just saw, it basically goes back to what Sean said in like the second round, which is that the most efficient contracts end up actually not just being that cheap. They still end up being, for me, I think it's a lot of guys who signed long-term deals out

of ELC because they got a little RFA discount. So I'm going to hit, I'm 0.16 below the cap with Ottinger. So I'm going to be completely reliant on cap raises to pay him. But I think it'll be just enough. So I'm going to throw a bunch of money, prit him, get him to jump ship, the team max yeah i'm going to use my remaining work my cat run as a as a signing bonus for prittum that's very funny this has been um you're having a good time haley i can tell i'm not having fun i'm in agony i'm like thinking of all the mistakes i've made i was like i don't think i have

enough money to take ottinger so i'll take swayman even though they're like pretty close in in terms of statistical comparisons when you're looking at, that's why, like, Swamen's deal looks kind of similar. I mean, I know it's just one arb number, but it's like somewhat close to Otters. So I thought I was going to do something with my remaining $5 million on D and realized I'm like, 0.3 million away from being able to afford like Jacob Slavin, like everybody. So I'm like, oh, so I'm going to go cheap on the D, which left money on the board for the other options I went with, which is probably why I shouldn't have gone with a goalie there. But I needed defensemen.

And I'll decide in one moment. After the break. After the short, after the short break. I'm looking something up, okay? I just wish I could ask Max a question. You should look at Dobson. That's what I'm looking. I'm debating Noah Dobson.

You're at cider. No, listen, I was debating Noah Dobson, more at cider, or Owen Power. Power and cider are going to get, how long is Dobson's deal? Like two more years. Oh. Right? You're going to get one year of a million with cider and then it's going to be over eight. Power is going to get at least eight, I think.

Yeah. And then Dobson, I think you're going to get two at four and he's going to jump up in that same range. Yeah. they're both good picks. You guys co-GMs now? Yeah, that's right. I'm done now, so I don't care. I'm glad you said no,

Dobson? Because I was like, do I want Dobson, or do I want Cider? They're Augustus. Who's your other defenseman? Oh, in power. Oh, my other defenseman is Rasmus Dahlene.

So I was like, should I just go, Dahlene in power? That's my D. I would take, I think Cider is better defender than Dobson. I'd take him. Thanks, Max. I'm going to take

Moritz cider. She had taken Sorokin and just had him back up swimming because now Las is going to take him and I'm pissed. There's 20 goalies I can take Matt at this point. I can't afford literally every goalie. You can afford Vasilevsky. I can't. I'm thinking about it.

I think. And also I was, I just want to say, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Okay, Fire Marshal Bill. I was on the Moritz cider for Calder Train. This is a very like... Wasn't that unanimous?

Didn't he win that unanimously? Wow, congratulations. We're close to it. I too voted McDavid for the heart. So my problem, the Luke Hughes thing was too aggressive in hindsight, clearly. Like I thought I was being too smart. I forgot how many goalies don't, that are good, that don't make ridiculous amounts of money. And I left myself too much money for goal.

So just to stuff this in Max's face, I'm going to keep it under the $40 million cap we originally agreed to. So I have room for the future. And I'm going to take Ilya Sorokin, the best goalie in the world, number two on my heart ballot this year. Because imagine that pathetic New York Islander's team without him. Yeah, that leaves me Sorokin with $4 million. He makes $8 million, I think, next year. I can still afford that.

I can afford his extension. $39.225 million, obeying the initial rules before Haley had a freak out. That's really good. I think I kept my cool this time. Just not on the Slack Channel. Just kind of freaked out a little bit. Multiple avenues of communication between she and I in the last hour. I'm on vacation.

Okay. This is, I am doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Wait, Haley, you're Canadian. Don't you have a cottage you should be at? I don't,

I'm, I am in my 20s still. I don't have money to own a home. I thought you were handed a cottage the moment you were born. Yeah. It's universal universal health, universal health care and a cottage. Universal cottages.

The cottage in the Mascocas. No. My parents do live near wine country, so I can go roam the vineyards, but I won't because I'm doing this. And loving it, every second of it. And I feel like I got the best player in the world and my team also sucks. None of these teams suck. You know what? Yeah, we're all looking pretty good.

Justice? for Ken Holland. This is very hard. Well, but that's the thing, as it's like that you have a bunch of, like my team is not deep at all. I have to go like Daniel Sprong on every wing on every other line.

I'm actually probably going to try to like sneaky put Tage on a different line than Jack because. Yeah, dry side was my two. Let's go over. Let's go over our lineups in our cap figures here. You want to do that? Yeah. One second.

I don't know how much more at Snyder makes. He makes like, he's like under a LC. Yeah. It's like 900 grand. All right, I'll start. I've got Connor Bedard, Nathan McKinnon, David Posternak, Adam Fox, Luke Hughes, and Ilya Syrokin at $39.225 million.

I like it. My first line from my imaginary team. Maddie Baneers between Jason Robertson and Keith Kachuk, top pair left side. Oh, no. Try again. Try again. Oh, my God. What's his cap hit?

Like $30? $30. For, it's Matt, Maddie Bineers, Maddie Bineers between Jason Robertson and. in Taryn Kachuk. She's switching, she's switching sports. I'm just going to plug every fan. There's a dog that I can put on the left wing, maybe.

It's been, it's been ears between Matt Kachuk and J.R. Jason Robertson. Devon Taves left side, Charlie McAvoy, right side, starting goaltender. I think Sean's going to win us. Just a shade under $38 million.

Yeah, I thought you want this. I've got Mira Hayskin and Kel McCar Brady Kachuk, Jack Hughes, and Tage Thompson with Jake Ottinger and goal $44.84 million. Where's the Slack? Where's the Slack? That's terrifying.

Heskin and in McCar is sick, dude. That is terrifying. But is it actually like that much more effective than Taves McAvoy? Like Taves McAvoy sounds like that pair that like on like February 8th, all the analytics accounts are like Taves McAvoy has given up three.

You can almost believe James and McAvoy being on the same team because you got McCar and Taves on the same team. I guarantee you, I guarantee you if if Devon Taves and Charlie McAvoy run a pair, we'd get like an article from Dom on February 18th being like, can they just share the Norris or something? Like this isn't, this isn't. It's impossible to parse. We need a defender's version of the Jennings trophy. Yeah. And then neither of them ends up winning because they split votes.

Yeah. And Cale wins the award. anyway. He only has to play 60 games and he gets about that. That's right. I just want to say that at 242 Eastern Time, Max Boltman said, I will not be seeking

to hit that cap because I don't want to. But I think $1,000. 160 grand under the cap. And all of us who said that you try looking Jack Hughes in the eyes and telling him you don't want him as your first line center. Sean and I are busy for caring about the future. We've got money in the bank.

Yeah, but you guys have raises. Some kind of analogy there, yeah. My only raise that's due is Ottinger, I think. Maybe McCar. I think I have McCar the last year, but the cap will be up by like 10 million. What's that going to be? Yeah. But the cap will be up by like 10 million.

15 million? I can afford it last. I can afford it. Max is going to be, Max is going to be sent and tage to like Robeda Island or whatever. He's going to be doing some Maple Leafs level caps bullshit where guys just disappear for no real reason. Yeah. That's what it comes to. went all over the place.

So I have McDavid as my one C and then my wingers are Leon Drysidal and Curio Caprizov. They can figure out who wants to be on the off wing. I think they both shoot left. You're going to have a tough time sharing that puck. Yeah. That line though is the equivalent of the of the Taves McAvoy thing where on February 18th that Dom article would be like, it's impossible to pick the heart

between these three guys. They're the best line in the world. And he somehow lands, he somehow lands on the conclusion And the two of those guys are good, and the third one sucks. And everyone's like, what's the problem here? By definition, none of those three would be in. I mean, why doesn't Leon Drysidal play defense? Yeah, Drysidl's agent blasting him on Twitter.

And then my D. is Rasmus Dahlina Moritz's cider. My goal is Jeremy Swayman. My cap hit is $40.3 million. Well, you had me until Swamen. I just, I don't know about that pick. You could add Connor Hellebuck and fit him. You know what she's talked about Jeremy Swam on this podcast, Mark?

It's a lot. There's like Swam in corner. You literally could have fit Connor Hullabuck on your team. Each week, it's like, what's like? You would have had a guaranteed win. You would have won guaranteed. I should have just went Ottinger. I thought I was doing something by giving myself some money,

but then I realized like I may as well just take another MD. I briefly thought about, so I should have left the goalie for last. I briefly thought about trying to, I tried to. I thought about going All-American after my first two picks. Couldn't live the gimmick. I can't. I came close enough.

Damn. I feel like we've all got an argument here for the best team, except for Swamen. I'm giving it to Sean. I don't know what happened. I don't know if you guys remember our mega franchise draft during the pandemic, but I won that one too. Oh, that was top three. My team aged well, though. I had Kachuk as my lead player, Matthew Kach.

Yeah. And got no love at the time. And now I would do, I would be, I was ahead of my time. I don't even remember. I took, I took Quentin Bifield as my player just to pander to the prospect guys. I picked Chicago as a city as my first pick because you're guaranteed to make money. Yeah, because of all the subs you sell from ingratiating yourself with the fans. Mark Antoine had the first overall pick and he picked like New York City instead of McDavid.

And everyone was like, uh, the best was Rossi. I think Rocky Works was one of the first owners taken. Rossi picked Atu Ratu, Ratu, because he was about a year. behind the narrative on him when Ratu was a projected top three pick, Ratu went in the second round of the actual draft, like two months after that. We should have sold video of that Zoom for like, like, like $2.95. We would have all been able to, you know, retire off of that, honestly. Because it was so, watching, watching the crowd turn on Ross, he was really, really,

he also picked Brissan as his GM, which I loved. Do you have the results in front of you? No, I just remember this. Oh, wow. Jesus. Okay, also my Jeremy Swaven pick, I just want to say that Jeremy Swaven's only 24 years old. I'm sorry. It's a backup goal.

No, it's not. Yeah, he is. Not in Calibu. He was. But I was just going to say, so the, um, Rasi took Brasana's his GM, which was great. But two other GMs have, or two other agents have actually become. Isn't that crazy? I was thinking, I was thinking, presence of hockey absence.

Not kidding. I remember Rossi doing that. Everybody was making fun of, of Rossi because Pat Prasanna is Sidney Crosby's agents and he can, you know, Rossi covers a team with Sidney who must be on it and has for a million years. But he might have been some kind of trailblazer, honestly, because we're seeing it in Edmonton. We saw it in Florida.

Montreal. Seeing it in Montreal. Like, it's, it's a much more normal thing here. So shout out to Rob Rossi is a pioneer in the field. Always ahead of his time. And I didn't think a pioneer in the field of bullshit downtime like, ridiculous fake hockey drafts. Way to go.

Did no part of you, too, Sean, when Pittsburgh was looking for a GM this year, did no part of you think Brissan possible? I think we all just thought that Dubus was going to be GM. How about this? I thought it was possible. The last time the penguins were looking for a general manager,

which was not that long ago, and it's the one that landed them on the Burk-heck stall, two-headed monster, there was a lot of smoke behind the idea that Brassan was going to end up with the job there. And that was real. That was discussed. And a lot of people thought that that had a real chance of happening back a few years ago.

Yeah. So I think what's interesting is to look at all the players that were left on the board. So when I picked Caprizov, I was debating him or Miko Ranton. Yeah. Austin Matthews was not taken. Neither was. Nikita Kutrov. Kutrov.

Pedersen, Braden Point, Jack Eichol, Nico Hescher, Tim Stitzler, Mark, Mark, Mark Stone, Roman Yose, guys like Jacob Slavin. Jacob Slavin is on my list, yeah. Yeah. So I think it looks like we all tried to just go for a mix of expensive players and cheaper players. That's what you do is an HLGM.

We drafted 20. Shana just had a story today that you always need to yell like the Vegas is the exception, but you always need ELC guys to win the championships. Yeah. So. I mean, we drafted 24 players and one of the, the money trosser basically had to be cheap, right? So the end result is there's a lot of...

Or two if you're stupid like me. Or two. Or zero if you're dumb like me. My team's great. I have $5 million. I was fully planning to like spend all the way to the cap and I left $5 million on the board. Just went broke.

High help bucks 30. I need five years of my starting goalie. Jeremy Swaben. Jeremy Swaben folks. Alaska. Maine. You're going to learn this season. Jared's waving.

It's fine. This was my Kit Kat moment, I think. All right. So in August of 2027, are we circling back on this? Yeah. See who want to cut. Set a reminder? Yeah.

We're all going to be here. On Earth or? Yeah. Based on how warm it is in this room right now, I'm pretty sure the Earth is going to explode. I'm sweating like Ted Stryker here. Don't. I don't. I don't need to have an existential moment again.

I'm in my 40s. I don't have to worry about that. You're the one who's got to worry about that. You and Max. Fire marshal Bill and text. Not Sean. References from Mark. Hi, I'm a 43-year-old man.

I'm close enough. So I'm there. I'm going to tell you something. Hey, Las, what are those little creatures on your wall over your shoulder there? This is my daughter's, they turned it into like an art room. So that's her painting of Pac-Man and the ghosts.

Max, are you serious? No, I was trying to make him feel old. It's Pac-Man, yeah. It didn't where 11-year-old daughter did that. The Deadpan was too strong. Pac-Man is eternal. The painting is meant to commemorate the first movie that Laz saw in theaters. It was a train coming towards the audience.

People got so scared they ran out of the theater. First movie I saw in theaters, Police Academy, an R-rated movie. I had good parents. I was six. Love it. Well, Danielle, who do you think, one on your first count here? probably Sean. Let's put it to a crowd vote.

Love it. Yeah. I think Sean's going to win. I think I'm going to win. If you'd pick Connor Hellibuck, you would have. Why? Because he's older than Jeremy Swamen. Jeremy Swamen had a 920% of the season.

Linus Olmark had like a 940 on that team. Living in a world where Connor Hallibuck is old. He's 30. He's old. You could have taken UC Saros, I think. You probably could have fit him. I'm aware. I know I made a mistake.

I even said, I mean, I'm about to do something really stupid here, I think, and then I did it. Even though I love Jeremy Swindon. I think Luke Hughes is going to be a very good player, but I might have been a little aggressive on that. Sorry, I dropped an F bomb, Danielle. You see Saros is a $5 million cap hit. You would have just fit. You could fit him and swimming. Shut up.

Anyways, where's the outro? This episode's done. I'm done. This was my fun little summer. I knew this was going to go sour. Does anyone have any reflections, actually? Max, how did things go wrong for you? I don't hate them. I like that I don't have any due raises except for Ottinger. I think I can get Ottinger compliant with how much the cap should go up in the coming years. There was a part of me that is thinking I should have

tried a way to get Jack and Cole Caulfield with Brady Kachuk, but I don't think I would have wanted to sacrifice Hayskin and McCar as my deep. Hayskin and McCar is unbelievable. That really, that really messed me up. I was very happy about it. Yeah. I had the exact draft that I wanted for a $40 million cap, which was what I was working for the for the 15 minutes before. I almost I love the Bina's pick. Yeah. I almost feel like drafting fourth is like super health because you can just like let everyone else do their thing and then just bang out time. I feel good about of I feel good about my team. I've got like four or five future

fall of Amers on my team. I'm good. Who are the four? Yeah, what? McKinnon, Posternak, Fox, and Sorokin. I was hoping to get you to elect Padard here. I said four or five. Luke Hughes, who knows? Potentially. I like to play the futures.

There you go, yeah. I like Luke. I'm not anti-Luc. Yeah, you're pretty down. It's the timeline. It's the timeline. Max Bolt makes you got to win fast. That's the headline of this graph.

It was actually Max's burner account that was making all those tweets about how Luke Hughes is terrible. No. He went to Michigan. I can only, I can only ever be so low. Now I don't want them on my team anymore. I forgot about that. There you go. Really, really annoying. It was a problem for Baneers. I'll tell you that much for me. We'll see, annoying alumni base in the game. We'll see what Twitter says. It's looked like Max and I, I think, objectively.

It's a tie between Michigan and Northwestern. Imagine that. Oh, we're all pretty quiet these days. Yeah. I think it's going to be interesting to see what people think because I think Max and I objectively have two of the top players in the world. I thought you're going to say two of the top teams in this thing, two out of four. I think Max and I did really well. Put it this way. Three of my five guys were on many heart ballots this past year. Where is this poll? Where is this poll? We're going to post it on Twitter on Monday.

Oh, I thought I don't post it. No, no. So we're recording this. for our dear Friday fans on Thursday. It's going to post on Monday, so it's not quite Friday. This is very confusing. It's still Friday because Monday ends with day. It's a five-day weekend. All right, we're going to end this. Just a reminder, if you're not an athletic subscriber,

you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show to get an annual subscription. That was such a stupid thing to say. To get an annual subscription for $2 a month for $1 a month for. 12 months. Thanks everybody.