The Athletic Hockey Show - Why Carter Hart signed in Vegas

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

With Carter Hart signing a contract in Vegas, Hailey Salvian and Sean Gentille welcomed Jesse Granger, hours before the deal became official to discuss why the Golden Knights are taking a chance on Hart, Adin Hill's injury, and the inexperience of Akira Schmid in net. Arpon Basu joins from Montreal to talk about the Habs' tidy bit of business, locking up Calder Trophy winner Lane Hutson and the front office duo of Gorton and Hughes as well. Plus, Hailey and Sean discuss the rink delays in Milan for the 2026 Winter Olympics and what NHL players have to expect at the Olympic village.Hosts: Hailey Salvian and Sean GentilleWith: Jesse Granger and Arpon BasuExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the athletic hockey show. It's Haley Salvean and Sean Gentilly here with you for the Thursday edition of the show. We've got Jesse Granger joining us today to discuss the Vegas Golden Knights and what sounds like an impending Carter Heart signing. Later, our pal Arp and Basu will join us to break down the Montreal Canadiens three and one starts the season and a handful of extensions signed in. in Le Belle Provence. Before all that, I want to remind you that we are on YouTube now.

Make sure to subscribe to our channel to YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show and check out our Discord as well. All right, our long-winded intro is over. Let's bring in my co-host, Sean Gentile, who is getting himself ready for the first power rankings of this season. That's right, Thursday. Here we go. We're back.

Why'd you have to bring it up? Everything was, I was having a nice little morning. Coffee hit well. Now I have to be reminded that I'm going to spend my entire evening staring at a computer and talking to Dom. It's as rough as it gets. Thanks a lot. Yeah. At least only 11 games on the schedule.

I feel like sometimes it's 14 on a Thursday night. Yeah. Just 11. Only 11 games tonight in the NHL. A couple of big highlights. Panthers Devils is kind of interesting. Jacob Markstrom is hurt, though. Um, so we'll get to all that later on in the show, but a bit of potential news that we want to discuss today.

Carter Hart, the former Philadelphia Flyers goalie who was on trial for an alleged sexual assault in June 2018, will reportedly sign in Vegas, Sportsnet insider Elliott Friedman said yesterday on the fan 590 that the signing could very well happen. Uh, as soon as Wednesday is when he said that. Um, we have not seen an official announcement. yet on Thursday, but things certainly seem to be trending in that direction. There's a lot of chatter from insiders about this. Our own Chris Johnston has been locked in on everything that's happening with the five hockey Canada players, and it seems like Carter Hart signing in Vegas is just a matter of time. Some further necessary context here, the five players from the 2018 World Junior Championship team who were on trial for sexual assault, that's Carter Hart, Alex Formanton,

Michael McLeod, Dylan Dubay, and Calfoot were all reinstated by the NHL after being acquitted of all sexual assault charges back in July. The NHL and NHLPA agreed that the five players would be eligible to sign with NHL teams starting on October 15th. That was Wednesday and become eligible to play on December 1st. As we mentioned, Carter Hart appears to be the closest to signing a contract. the Carolina Hurricanes reportedly expressed interest in both Hart and Michael McLeod, but those deals have never really materialized. Michael McLeod signed a three-year contract in the KHL just a couple days ago, too. Sean, I'll bring this over to you before we bring in Jesse Granger.

Do you just have a thought on all of this and maybe how we got here for Carter Hart? I think Vegas makes sense for Carter Hart for a lot of different reasons. We knew what his preferences were coming into all this. We'd heard, whether it was from CJ or from other people, that he wanted to sign with an American team, wanted to sign with the playoff caliber contender. Well, that's what the Vegas Golden Knights are. We know that Vegas could use another solid option

to pair with Aiden Hill. And I'm sure we'll talk about that with Jesse in a couple minutes. But we saw Aiden Hill have the best regular season of his career, really, but then hit the skids in the playoffs. There's issues about, you know, questions about workload with him and whatever else. So you're looking for some other viable option to split time with him.

Open question is whether Akira Schmidt was the guy. He played four or five of NHL games last season. So that's not necessarily a player that you want to stake your postseason hopes on. Vegas has the money. We saw that open up ahead of training. training camp when we found out officially that Alex Petrangelo was not going to play the season. So Vegas has another mechanism in place to add cap space that they might have otherwise lacked.

Vegas has the temperament. They have the history. We know that that's a, that's a pretty cutthroat, pretty ruthless organization in a lot of different ways. We know that they have no problem taking on players who've had some degree of controversy or, or, or, misbehavior or malfeasance in their past. This is the team that drafted Trevor Conley, who was the subject of some pretty, some pretty heinous allegations as a draft eligible player. So it shouldn't surprise anybody.

There were hockey reasons, I think, for Vegas to want to do this. And then whenever you look at the larger cultural roadblocks that would be up for a lot of other franchises, those aren't present with the Vegas Golden Knights. We know that this is a win-out organization. organization that, you know, has no problem rolling the dice and in making moves that a lot of other, that a lot of other teams wouldn't be comfortable with. And this is strung out to the endth degree here, right? Because we're talking about a player that, that was on trial for, for sexual assault over, over the summer. But I think that this is of a type with the decisions

that we've seen from Vegas in the past, especially when they need something from a hockey standpoint. And I think all those things came together to make Vegas, you know, the ultimate, the ultimate landing spot here. right let's bring in jesse granger now our Vegas goldenites writer and goalie expert and we can get to a couple other news and notes around the league as it pertains to the crease but let's just start um in Vegas jesse your boots on the ground what do you kind of make of all this chatter that's linking carterhart to Vegas it really does seem like it's just a matter of time just curious what everything's been like there um there was a lot of outrage in carolina at the idea of the cane signing carterhart or

Michael McLeod that may or may not have actually had an impact in their decision to not sign these players. So what have things been like in Vegas for you, Jesse, with all this chatter flying around? Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. First, I'd like to say, very well put by Sean. I agree with pretty much all those points there. I will say that I get the, I get the green. I get the grager stamp of approval. That's all I'm ever looking for. You nailed it. You had all the points. other than I will say the Golden Knights are higher on Akira Schmidt than I think most people are. And specifically, Sean Burke, the goalie coach in Vegas has done a brilliant job here. He's got the best out of every goalie that's come through Vegas.

It's hard to argue otherwise. And he likes a big blocking angles cutting off goalie who gets his big frame in the way. And that's Akir Schmidt. Like he fits exactly what Sean Burke likes in a goalie. And it's a very small sample size. But Sean Burke has even gotten the best out of Akir Schmidt. here in Vegas. We've only seen him a handful of times in the NHL, but he's got like a 960 safe percentage in those in those opportunities. He had a rough year in the AHL last year, but I will say

for a goalie who relies on reads, that's Akir Schmidt is a, he has super high hockey IQ. He's not the most athletic for a goalie like that who relies solely on reads and isn't the most athletic, the AHL can be a nightmare because it's tough to read because it's just so chaotic and people aren't scoring the way they intend to score. So I'll give them a little bit of a pass for a horrible year in the HAL. So I do have some hope that Akir Schmidt can be the NHL backup that the Golden Knights want.

Now, one thing you didn't mention about the Golden Knights that also fits into this Carter Hart thing perfectly is this is a team that loves taking on players that were once of a high pedigree, especially when they were being drafted and haven't worked out in the NHL. And they take those players and they say, we will get, we will let get them to their potential. that we once thought that they had. Like Red Howden, great example. They tried it with Alexander Holtz from New Jersey, seventh overall pick.

It hasn't really worked for Holtz, but they've, like Chandler Stevenson was a high scoring player in junior. He wasn't on the capitals. The Golden Knights brought him over. He became a 20 goal score. William Carlson was looked at as a skilled player coming into the NHL. He went to Anaheim and Columbus and he wasn't a score. The Golden Knights brought him in.

So my point is the Golden Knights love taking swings on players that were once thought of. his high pedigree. And Carter Hart, for all the other stuff around Carter Hart, he certainly fits that. He was once seen as a franchise goalie. He was a high draft pick. He had one really good year in the NHL. The rest of them weren't as impressive. But to me, that's what the Golden Knights see in Carter Hart is a high potential player that you can have for essentially nothing. I would assume this contract's not going to be worth much. And they just want that lottery ticket. What if he does turn out to be what everyone in Philadelphia thought he was going to be before everything happened. So, and then, and then like you said, I think this team is less concerned about the optics of,

of things than almost pretty much any other team in the NHL. And like you said, in Carolina, there was some, some uproar. I think there has been some in Vegas, not nearly as much. I will say, I tweet about it, the news every time it happens. Pretty much all the responses are they don't want anything to do with Carter Hart signing with the Golden Knights from the Vegas fans. But it doesn't seem like it's quite as loud. There was an online petition that someone started.

And it got about last time I checked, it was like 1,700 signatures, which isn't exactly a massive backing. But yeah, I think it will ruffle some feathers for sure. It will upset some fans. But I don't think the noise has been loud enough. And like we've said, the Golden Knights are all about winning. And if they think they can find a potential starting goalie for essentially nothing, on free agency, they're willing to take that shot. Right. Brett Howden, by the way, too, he did testify in that hockey Canada trial.

He was not accused of wrongdoing, but I've certainly seen some fans unhappy to potentially have two players who were in the room in London during that alleged incident. So I've seen that chatter, but as you mentioned, Jesse, I don't think the Golden Knights care. And they're obviously playing by the rules that have been set forth by the NHL. one question two to follow up on Carter Hart. What would be a reasonable expectation for you for Carter Hart if he does sign and if he does play in December? Because this is a player who has not played in a professional game since January 20th,

2024. Some of the other players who were on trial did play in the KHL. Hart opted not to join a team in Europe during all the pretrial proceedings, which took almost a year, well over a year. It was a months-long trial itself and the pretrial was very lengthy. He was a legitimate starter before being granted that indefinite leave of absence. But that last pro game is pretty far in the rear view right now. He's still highly regarded enough for the Golden Knights to go and sign him. So what do we think that we could see from Carter Hart this season if he does sign, given all of this?

Yeah, it's such an unknown. It's going to be very interesting to see how he looks. if and when he gets on the ice. And I would assume that they're probably going to get him some games in the H.L to start. I mentioned Akira Shids. Schmid struggled in the H.L. That's a bad team down there.

The Henderson Silver Knights do not defend well. They give up an insane amount of chances. If you're not on your game, you can look bad quickly on that team. So if he does start in the H.O, it's the opposite of the Golden Knights, because the Golden Knights make the goalie's job a little bit easier than most NHL teams. So it will be tough for him. Like it's not going to be an ease into things if they start them in the HL, but it's going to be, it's going to be interesting. He's a goalie who to me, when I watch Carter Hart play, I see someone with great hand eye, like eye hand coordination is through the roof.

He makes so many of those. Like he's in the wrong position, but he just can get to the puck. And he's got a lot of athleticism. I talk to goalies all the time after they miss like two weeks of action. And they're like, yeah, it's just tough to get the timing down. And you got to. It's like, okay, so if two weeks knocks your timing off as a goalie, I think it's pretty clear like goaltending, the time off hurts a goalie more than in the other position because everything is so timing based. And the difference between a millisecond off is a goal and a save.

It's going to be fascinating to see if he can get to a level that he was or even close to a level that he was after two years without hockey, without seeing action. Like, I'm sure he's been on the ice with guys shooting on him. It's not like he hasn't seen a puck, but NHL speed. Like, you hear guys talk about it all the time. Game speed is totally different. And two years away from it, it's, I will be impressed if he's still anywhere near the level he was. Jess, how much of this is about Aden Hill, not just about the injury, which is something he's dealing with. Lower body left the game.

You know, I guess we'll see, we'll see what shakes out there. How much of this decision has to do with how the org views him overall and also in the wake of what we saw from him last season. It's like we set up top great regular season. He's in some regards to the best we've seen him outside of the playoff run. But it looked like maybe he hit a little bit of a wall in the postseason from the outside. Is that consideration? How much are they weighing the Aden Hill of it all whenever they're making this, you know, seem to be making this decision?

Yeah, it's, Aidan Hill is a goalie you don't want to overplay because of he, I mean, he's had a history of injuries. last year he finally got over that. And there are reasons to believe that that could happen going forward. The injury a game ago was a freak accident. It wasn't a tear of a leg muscle or a strain because he was stretching too far or because he was playing too much. He got hit in the mask.

His mask popped off. There was another shot coming before the ref could blow the whistle. So he jumped to his feet like a stand-up goalie from the 70s because he didn't want to get hit in the face. and the puck hit him in a sensitive area. So freak accident, but, but having said that, I don't know how much time he's going to miss. He could miss some serious time. Like it, like it. So, so it is that it is a freak injury that could keep him out for some time.

But it's not a like, oh, here we go, Aden Hill can't stay healthy again type of injury. It's a freak accident. So last year he changed his training in the off season. He told me going into the season, I wrote a big story about how he, his goal was to play 50 games. he changed his training in order to help his body be more durable. And sure enough, he hit the 50 game mark for the first time. Like you said, he wasn't as great in the playoffs. I thought as that series went on against Edmonton, he actually did find his game.

And I mean, the last game, they lost one nothing in overtime. So, I mean, if you hold the Oilers to zero goals going into overtime in the playoff game, what more do you want from your goalie? So I will say, the team believes in Aden Hill. And they think he's the number one guy. He's the guy that can win them another Stanley Cup. but you do need a reliable backup because he can't play 60 games. He's not Andre Vasselowski, Connor Hellebuck.

You've got to have a strong tandem starter. And whether that's Akira Schmidt, whether that's Carter Hart, whether that, you know, this team, if it's not working with either of those two, they'll go trade for someone else. So I do think you need a strong rotational backup. You can't just have a traditional backup that's going to play 10, 15 games with Aden Hill. You do need a rotation guy. So, yeah, I think the Aden Hill factor plays into wanting Carter Hart. but I also think that at the end of the day,

Aden Hill's the guy in Vegas. They sign him to that contract. There's a lot of belief that he's going to be the guy to win him the cup if they get another one in this window. Nikir Schmidt stopped all 19 shots he faced against Calgary on Tuesday. Could be a lot to ask of a young goalie who only played five NHL games for the Golden Knights last season. But that's something we'll wait and see.

Still no real update on Aiden Hill after that initial injury, Jesse. Let's move on to maybe some more general goalie questions here. Just a couple for you. A big injury in New Jersey. Jacob Markstrom's going to be out for a couple weeks. It's an undisclosed injury at this time. But how could this impact the New Jersey Devils and their crease in the early goings here? It just feels like this is a team that like every year we're like, yeah, it's the devil's year.

And then there's some injury, whether it's now Jacob Markstrom or Jack Hughes or Nico Heeshire, like just feels like. It's why I've stopped picking them for stuff preseason. and I'm like, someone's going to get hurt. Like, I don't know who. We'll see, we'll see who it is, but it's just going to happen. It's brutal. And this year, it's, at least in the early goings, it's Jacob Markstrom. What do we think?

How does this impact the team, Jesse? Yeah. The devils are like the 49ers of the NHL. Just everyone in the entire team just massacre. No, it's, it's, I'll say this. If it's only going to be two weeks, the way they said a couple weeks was the update from Sheldon Keith. If it's only two weeks, it's totally fine.

That means like 15 weeks, though. I'm sorry. It's true. This is hockey. is hockey. Jacob Markaffrey? Yeah. Okay. Moving on. What have I done? So this team is, I wrote about it yesterday when the injury was announced. I think the devils are as equipped as any team in the NHL to deal with an injury to their starting goalie because they have one of the best backups in the NHL,

Jake Allen. They prioritized extending him this off season. He was the best goalie on the market. After every goalie in the league signed an extension before free agency, the best goalie that hit the open market was Jake Allen. Some team could have tried to make him their starter, but the devils offered him an insanely long contract and made sure they kept him as their backup. And for this exact reason, Jacob Markstrom is an older goalie, and he's a type of goalie who plays a chaotic game. He uses his athleticism. He leaves his structure all the time. He'll dive head first for a puck. He is a chaotic goalie. And when you get older, that kind of leads to you tearing things or you tweaking things. And I do think that it's, to me, this injury, the concern is,

is Jacob Markstrom at this age going to be able to be healthy and be at his best for the whole season for this team to be able to make a run? Because in the short term, I'm not concerned. Jake Allen was actually better statistically than Markstrom was last year. He's been better in the limited stuff we've seen this year. It's not going to hurt the devils in the standings to be without Markstrom for a few weeks. I think Allen can more than shoulder that load. But if the devils are going to do what they ultimately hope to do, it's going to be with Jacob Markstrom and net. So my question is,

is this guy at this age going to be able to hold it together and be healthy for a long run, play a lot of games in the regular season, play a long playoff run. The more often we see him getting these injuries, the more I question if that's going to happen. To me, that's where I go. Sounds like somebody paid an Etsy witch to put a hex on the New Jersey Devils.

Some kind of reference. that I've seen pop up, but I don't know specifically what for. All right, there is another injury, another goalie injury storyline that's that we've seen over the last couple years. It's Thatcher Demko gets hurt a couple post seasons ago, has a season from hell last season in Vancouver, like a lot of other people did, in fact. He's been good so far this season, Jesse. He's looked like the Thatcher Demko of old, and I think we've seen that manifest itself

already. He's back in the good graces with the team USA. He gets invited to the preliminary Olympic camp after being initially left off the roster. What have you seen from him? What do you think his prospects are? I know I talked to a lot of folks over the summer who are pretty concerned about the injury history as it mounts for him. But also, man, we've seen him at his best. And I think he gave a nice little reminder to team USA of what he looks like when he's at the top of his game.

Yeah, he's looked like the Thatcher Demko of old, a version that we thought, like many people thought we may never see again after those injuries. And it's clear that he's at the top of his game. Now, how long can that last? That's the big question, but there's no question he deserves to be in consideration for this U.S. roster. The last time we saw him fully healthy for a season, he was the runner up to Hellebuck for the Vezina. he is a huge goalie with ridiculous athleticism and the ability to make, I mean, his high danger saves are second to none. Like it, it's hard to find someone who can make those types of like grade a chance saves that Thatcher Demko can. And he's looked so good. His puck, his visual attachment to the

puck is to me what always stands out. Like, how many times does a goalie lose a puck in chaos around him and it ends up in the back of his net or it ends up with a dangerous chance that one of his defenseman has to block? Demco never loses the puck. Like, it is, unbelievable how good his eyes are tracking that puck through traffic, through blocks, through screens. And it's looked really good this early this season. The problem is, it's a good problem to have for America. There are just too many awesome goalies. There are just too many amazing American goleys. It is fantastic to say. And you look at it. And it's like, like there are so many good ones. I mean, I would argue Thatcher Demko is not one of the top three

goalies. And I just saying his praises about how amazing is and how he's like the second best goalie in the world the last time we saw him a full season, but Connor Hellebuck is still awesome. Jake Ottinger is to me hitting his peak and is about to get to a level that we haven't seen from Jake Ottinger in Dallas. I think he's, from what I've seen earlier this year, I think he's, he's kind of been good behind a good team, but he doesn't take over games. Like we don't, like he's gone to the conference finals two years in a row, but when you think of Ottinger, you don't think of a guy who has taken over playoff series. I think that's going to happen. Except for the first round against the Calgary Flames.

Right, right. As a rookie. was super young. Yes. I think we're going to see. A long time ago now. I think Ottinger is going to be spectacular this year. So you've got those two, Jeremy Swamen off to a phenomenal star in a bounce back spot.

I actually, Boston's in town right now in Vegas. I just spoke with him yesterday. He's in a good headspace. And he won the gold medal for the U.S. in the world championships. And he was spectacular in that. So you've got those three ahead of Thatcher Demco.

And then you've also got Dustin Wolf, who is one of the best young goalies in the world. He's looked amazing again early this season for Calgary. There are just too many awesome American goalies to choose from. Maybe we should just start one every period. Can we bring like six of them and just have a different goalie in the net every period? Because there are so many good ones, they all deserve to play, but there's only one net. It's going to be a tough decision for the coaches in the Olympics.

All right. I just love the periodic reminder that Dustin Wolf is American. I love it. I love it. That's enough. Plays for Calgary, played whatever. He's ours. Sorry.

That's enough. Like half the Canadian team's goalies are married. Demco's in Vancouver, Hellebucks in Winnipeg. Joey DeCords a Dooley. All right. I want to hear from Arpin Basso and I want to talk about Sam Montembo. This is pissed me off. Let's take a break.

Arpin still to come and some more Olympic updates here on the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome back to the athletic hockey show. The Montreal Canadians will try to improve to a four-in-one start to the NHL CER. season on Thursday night against the Nashville Predators, Cole Coffield off to a nice start, three goals so far, some big names, putting pen to paper in recent days. Lots to dig into as

our friend Arpin Basu joins the show with some impeccable lighting, beautiful backdrop. You look great. Welcome to the show. I'm stealing Marty St. Louis' press conference seat. This is I'm usually on the other side of these lights, but I thought for you guys.

And Louis, yeah. Yeah, that's it. I've seen you on the other side of those lights, my boy. Both do you well. TV lighting is a blessing and a curse. Depends on the day. Depends what you're trying to hide. Okay. We wanted to start with the Lane Hudson extension, ARPEN,

because it kind of fell through the cracks here on the podcast the last couple days and eight times $8.5 million deal. Just how team friendly is this? Is the big question I want to ask? And how have the Montreal Canadians been able to build this culture with their young players who have all kind of left like a little something on the table. I mean, I think it's considerably team friendly. I don't think it's quite as team friendly as people are paying it out to be, but it is team friendly for sure. The reality is Lane Hudson was not

eligible for an offer sheet on July 1st as a guy who kind of only played two games when he did sort of burned his first year coming out of college, did not have arbitration rights for another two seasons after this one. They're only buying, I believe, three free agent UFA years out of the eight years on this deal. So from that point

of view, it's not Jackson La Come, right? Jackson Lecombe, they purchased way more UFA years. It's not even Luke Hughes in that respect. So yes, it's team friendly, but I think the parameters for Lane Hudson were probably a lot closer to what Dustin Wolf did, even though he's an older player. But that's

how the Canadians kind of looked at it. Like everyone was pointing at Luke Hughes, the Canadians are like, well, who finished second in the Calder? It was, you know, your American boy, Dustin Wolfe in Calgary. And so it was, I think those were kind of the two sides of this coin. And so it's not a shock to see that Lane Hudson fell somewhere in between those. And closer to the Luke Hughes side. I mean, the one thing Lane Hudson got is he got the bonus structure that's not going to be allowed after whatever it is, September 26.

or whenever the CBA kicks in, you know, he's getting, in the first 12 months of this deal, he's getting $23 million in his pocket. So that was a big factor here, I think. You know, I think the Canadians were initially tried to get him on a deal that had more money attached, but it had deferred money, which is now illegal or not permitted under the CBA. Getting this bonus structure, I think, was a pretty big win for Lane Hudson, and that the tradeoff was a lower A.V and the cap hit that the Canadians get to benefit from for eight years. It was just a couple months ago that everybody was afraid over what the negotiations were going to look like, right?

We see Lane Hudson's father going on podcast and it turned into a whole, turn into a whole, a whole stinking thing. And now here we are. It's mid-October and he's locked up, you know, to a deal that makes a whole lot of sense. Well, to his credit, I think he, he was the driving force behind this getting done. That's great. Like, he didn't like how his season started. It was a distraction for him. He admitted as much.

he wanted it behind him. And I think the Canadians were kind of counting on that happening, to be honest. So, you know, I think both sides win. Honestly, like Lane Hudson did not give them, did not take a haircut here. He signed a $70 million contract. He's 21 years old. And as I mentioned, in a span of 12 months, he's going to have $23 million coming to him. So no one should feel bad for Layne Hudson.

He's going to be maybe 30. Like, he's not even going to be 30 yet by the time that contract ends. That's it. He'll be, he'll be, well, he will be 30 because he'll be, it kicks in when he's 22. Right. And so he'll be 30 when it ends. Yeah, that's okay. It's too much to have. Usually. Yeah. It's all right. 22 plus eight is 30. Yeah. Is that true? Are we sure? This is why we bring Arpin on. Two other contracts. I'm your math expert. You're in big trouble. Yeah. Yeah. Two other big contract shelled out in Montreal, Arpin. Five-year extensions for both Jeff Gordon, the executive. BP of hockey operations and GM Kent Hughes. What do you make of these signings and kind of what this means for for the Canadians? I mean, it's kind of the natural progression of things. Remember,

you know, Jeff Gordon had a pretty similar kind of three year run of a rebuild in New York and didn't get to see it through, you know, got fired before they reached the stage where he can kind of execute the next part of it. So this gives him that runway, both him and Kent have six years to get this to the finish line. And, you know, I think as I argued in the piece I wrote, but I mean, I do think that the part that they're approaching is the harder part. You know, like it is, and what they've done so far is not easy, but it is easier to liquidate players, accumulate draft picks, develop prospects. You know, that part, the Canadians, I think, have executed exceptionally well, but we've seen a lot of GMs have success with that. Mark Bursivay was great

at that. You know, it was the next part that he wasn't that good at. And that's the part they're at now. So we'll see. And the Lane Hudson contract, along with what Caden Gully signed for, what Slavkowski signed for, with Suzuki signed for, Cofield, you know, we'll see what Demetov does, but they basically have their core locked in for under, they have six players in their core that are locked in for under $50 million a year.

With Demeov, that'll probably get to the mid-50s or so, you know, that's going to be half the cap in a couple of years. So that's a pretty good position for them to be in. Now, how they spend that money and how they choose. to fill holes on the team, that's the tricky part. And I think Jeff Gordon kind of admitted that yesterday when, you know, he said, we're still going to have to be patient. That's going to be hard when the team's competitive and you want to take that next step.

You might be eager to go get something that might not actually be the right fit or the right player. So we have to exhibit the patience that we've shown so far in this next phase. Because just because a player becomes available doesn't mean he's the right fit for us. We're going to have to be kind of judicious in how we've seen. spend that money and the players that we go after. I think an important thing to remember when you're talking about the Canadians, too, is how much little wins on contracts accumulate, right? Like, I think we look at, we look at this core and we see all the players that they have

signed a long-term deal. I mean, you have Suzuki through 2030, Kulkoffield through 31, Slavkovsky through 33, blah, like there's a long list of players that are locked up. Right. So to some extent, and they've made their bets on those guys. Like that, those are, this is the core of the, of the team in some respects. In different situations with different teams, those guys make up a larger chunk of, of the cap, right? So, so I think that's where it's impressive for them is that, yes, this is the tough part. Yes, adding the, you know, smarter, shorter, shorter term pieces around, around the core is, is easier said than done.

But they're also in a better spot than a lot of teams are because, you know, even if you look at this season's cap figures, you know, they're projected at 25 million at the deadline, right? So they've done well, you know, with the work that they've put in over the last couple years to save them, save a million here or there. You get Suzuki under eight. Everything kind of, you know, everything kind of plays off of that. And then before you know it, you have five million or seven million more than it than you would otherwise and more than a lot of other teams in similar positions of that. So it is, it's impressive. Well, five or seven million is a pretty good player, right? Correct. So that's, yeah, it's a big difference. I should mention that all of this does kind of cascade out of Nick Suzuki's contract, which was signed by Mark Virgin. I kind of knocked him earlier, but that was his one nice parting gift because Ken Hughes and Jeff Gordon have really set up their entire cap structure based off that one contract. And even though Lane Hudson went above it, you know, Suzuki signed that four years ago.

And it's not like he went extraordinarily above it. like it's only a million up on what Suzuki got. So that's one thing. But the other thing I guess I would warn is that we've seen this before. And it's ironic because, you know, the Canadians, Mike Madsen's in the last year of his contract right now. It's a contract he signed when he was with the Florida Panthers. It's a contract he signed when Kent Hughes was his agent.

That Florida Panthers team did the same thing, right? Remember the computer boys, whatever, like, you know, when they went on the big analytics sort of, you know, dove in on analytics and they signed all their, guys to long-term deals, it didn't work out because those guys didn't work out, you know? And so it's like, you never know. I think there's still question marks. Like, Uri Slavkovsky's locked in.

He's in the first year of an eight-year deal. What is his ceiling? We don't know yet. Right. There's a lot of things that we don't know about these guys. And so there's still work to be done. The Canadians have to make sure that these guys are the guys they think they are. But we've seen this model before.

It's not unprecedented. And it works sometimes. And sometimes it doesn't. If the guys that you commit to don't deliver what you are hoping they deliver, then you're locked in in a bad way, right? And so I think the next few years are going to be pretty critical. In this season, you know, for a guy like Slavkowski, a particular, you know, he kind of knows that it's time to sort of put up or shut up.

You know, he keeps talking about how he, what he needs to do to become the player he hopes to be. He's decided this year I'm not really going to talk about it anymore. I just have to go out and do it. And so until I do that, don't bother asking me about it because, you know, the proofs in the pudding. And so I think they have a few guys like that, like gooies on the verge of sort of taking another step and he expects to. We'll see if he does. Frankly, his start to the season has been okay, not great. They have a lot of question marks like that.

And they have a lot of years attached to the guys with those question marks. So this is not a, you know, it looks encouraging, but it's not a done deal by any stress. stretch. Let's do one final question with you, Arpin, because we want to get you out of St. Louis's chair. I don't know. Marty might show up and be like, get the hell out of my, get the hell off my desk. Why are you sitting at my desk, you jerk? You can blame me and he'll be like, who is that? I don't care. I'm sure he watches the show all the time, guys. Yeah, for sure. I think I made eye contact with him a couple times during the play. He'll, he'll remember me. he's both right. We just saw this news and we talked to Jesse Granger about it in regards to Thatcher Demko,

but Frank Saravali reporting a couple new players added to the extended roster for Team USA for the 2026 Olympics. Lane Hudson is one of them. So just curious, do you think that's a deserved edition or an unfair snub to begin with? Just bringing it back to our initial conversation about his extension, Lane Hudson now added to the crew that USA hockey is going to be looking at for Olympic consideration. I mean, I found it pretty bizarre that he wasn't invited to the orientation camp.

You know, it's an orientation camp. Like, what does it hurt to invite him? Like, he's for sure going to be, like, you know, he's for sure going to be consideration. He has, like, almost no chance of making the team, right? Like, how many puck-moving defensemen can you put on a single team? Quinn Hughes is going, obviously. You know, Adam Fox will see if he goes. But, like, you know, the U.S. have puck lovers.

It's not really something that, and it's hard to build a defense, you know, if you have six defense. and two of them are Quinn Hughes and Lane Hudson. You might have too much of the same thing, right? So his chances of going are pretty slim. Going is like injury insurance in case Quinn Hughes gets hurt, which he tends to do, might not be a bad idea. But yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean, he won the Calder Trophy.

He was a top 10 score among defensemen last year. He is only getting started. He's, and his honestly, his defensive shortcomings, I think, are slightly over. Overblown. Is he a great defensive player? No, far from it, but he's not as bad as people make him out to be. So yeah, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's normal. Considering if you looked at his resume and you left out his height and weight, it would be ludicrous that he'd not be on the list, right? The only reason they don't put him on there is because he's 5'9 and he's 175 soaking wet. So, yeah. Brock Besser, the third player invited, by the way. I feel like I just. ignored him for every time we brought up the Olympic list.

Arpin, thanks so much for doing this. Do you have a prediction on where Sean and Dom are going to include the Montreal Canadians on power rankings tonight? Is it going to be too high or too low? Are Canadians fans going to be mad at them? Well, frankly, like, honestly, some of their underlying numbers are not, are not glorious in this early stage. So I don't know if you guys are going to be swayed by that.

But I would have them in the, it'd be in the top half, I think, if I had to guess. I'll counterbalance our own computer boy, right? Congratulations to all of us, by the way, for making it to the final season of Mike Matheson's contract. Good God. And he's honestly been their best defenseman so far. Like, he's actually going to be an interesting problem for them to tackle because, you know, their top four for the future is kind of set without him. So it's going to be, that's going to be a fascinating file that this newly resigned management team has to tackle. Right.

Thanks so much, Arpin. this was great. Thanks for sitting in the hot seat. Thanks, guys. Here we go. Straight out of Martin-Saint-Louise. Oh, there is. He's right behind you. Drop. Oh. There we go. That's a good way to do.

I don't know if there's a better promotion to check us out on YouTube than Arpin's exit from the show. I hope that made it in. He's showing, it should make it in. if not, I'm going to have words with whoever posts these on YouTube. It's cinema. He shows us his nice backdrop, drops his phone, and everything just faded to black. It was cinema. The Montreal, I almost said Marty St. Louis.

Marty Scorsese, Cinema by Arpin. It was great. The Montreal Media Room is also like a black box theater too. Like it's very, there's something about the setup there where it's very, uh, Very dramatic under normal circumstances. Or at Bell Center. They were probably at Plasbell. No, pre-game skate.

They're probably at the Bell Center. Anyways, check us out on YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show. We're on the Discord too. Maybe someone will gift that. Maybe. I thought it was pretty good. Check us out. YouTube.

It's great. Final segment here on the athletic hockey show. It's just Haley and Sean now after having Jesse and Arpin on. Just one quick little note. we want to get to before wrapping up. Board of Governors meetings, one interesting nugget out of there. The Olympic hockey rink,

this is a little delayed in the construction in Milan that's intended to be the main hockey site for the Olympics that are coming up. We're almost just over 100 days away from the Olympics. And the hockey rink is not ready. And speaking at the Board of Governors meeting, Gary Bettman, the commissioner, was reacting to a report that a test event that was scheduled for December at the arena

is no longer going to be held there amid all these construction delays. Gary's a little bit concerned. So am I. I'm a little concerned too, especially considering the idea that like maybe the first event being held at this arena could be the opening game from the women's hockey tournament that I will be covering. and I will be angry on behalf of players if the ice and the rink is terrible. Like that would just be, that's just so unacceptable.

There was a little update in LeBron's report this morning, though, that the IOC, so the IOC told the athletic on Thursday, the arena is scheduled for completion in mid-December and that a new event has now been scheduled for early January, which is roughly a month before Olympic competition is set to begin. So I guess we can pump the breaks on our concerns. But still, like, this has been an ongoing topic and the Associated Press has done a great job covering this too. Like, they're just consistently checking in to be like, is this arena done?

Is everything okay? For grading on the curve of Olympic facility drama, I feel like this one is pretty, it's pretty low on the list. Like, these are, these are standard standard kind of delays. like, I'll take this. Like, will I take this over the Rio Olympics when they were like bulldozing favelas to to build, you know, stuff like that? Like, yeah, it's fine. This is, this is small potatoes.

We're talking about, you know, test events that get pushed into the future. We're not talking about people getting displaced or stuff like that. I think that's, I think that's kind of where I landed on a facility thing. But it's absolutely, you know. It's just like almost mock hockey out. Yeah, right. Exactly. Even for me, I think it would be unfair if the first game played there is a women's hockey Olympic game. Like, Team USA is debuting on opening day. Like the Italian team is debuting on opening day, that would be a failure of epic proportions if the women are basically testing out the Olympic ice. But it sounds like that is not going to be the case. Good. Because, yeah, that would be horrendous. All as well, that ends well there. As long as it's done and as long as you can verify and guarantee that the ice is in working condition.

and that it's an appropriate rank for professional caliber players. Obviously, we're talking about the women's and men's tournament there. Like, all as well, that ends well. But yeah, it is, man. That's always part of the, that's part of the rub with the Olympic conversation or the World Cup conversation. If we're talking about soccer, facilities are all, there's always drama. There's always BS this involved. And if this is where it ends, like I think the players in the media to cover it and whatever else,

I think everyone can consider themselves pretty lucky. Speaking of mock outrage and Olympic trauma. Yeah, right. So, NHL players at Hockey Canada's orientation were basically warned in a meeting about the conditions in the village or just being warned that like, you're not going to be at the risk, you will be in the village. And I was reading this and almost just laughing of like, it's,

I guess it's just been that long since NHL players have been at the Olympics, that they need to have a meeting where they are sat down and told, you're going to be taking bus rides. There's going to be traffic. You will be in the village. This won't be the ritz. And maybe the food won't be great. Grab some bananas because you might be hungry on the bus.

Like, Tim, I was just like, that is so crazy. This is a story from Christ, Johnson that just came out on Wednesday. It's so funny, and I almost wanted to laugh at all of them, like, wow, these poor posh babies have to stay in the village. And then you think of it, like, I guess the meeting makes sense because basically Sidney Crosby's and like, Marchand will probably be the only ones who've been to an Olympics.

Correct. So it could be jarring for, you know, Connor Bedard, who stays at every nice hotel in the NHL to be like, why is my bed made of cardboard? Do you think, do you think that when this conversation started at the, at the orientation camp, and this is back in August, by the way, like this didn't just happen. This is, this is a, this is a story just dropped. Story just dropped. The orientation camp is a little bit in the rear view at this point.

Do you think when those guys had that conversation that Sydney Crosby and Brad Marshan are kind of like, like, look at each other and thinking back to Sochi or whatever, when there's packs of dogs roaming around the Olympic village. John Tavares is quoted. So John Tavares was one of the other ones. And he was quoted in this story being like, where is it? He's like, there was military ships. Yes, we're losing.

There was, you know, concerns of an attack. This is what happens. This is what happens when you go. Different beast. This is what happens when you go as long as NHL players have gone without experiencing them, right? Like, it's easy to laugh about this, but it also might have been a necessary reminder for some of these guys to get because they're 22 or 24 or 26 and weren't in the mix back in, you know, 2012 whenever or 2014, whenever, you know, this was last on the, when this was last on the docket. Like all those guys are aged out. All those, all those players who were part of the Olympic experience before, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the.

homesters of the world. They're, they're long gone. So yeah, it was maybe a necessary bit of a reminder for for these guys to get. But, you know, hopefully, hopefully that's where it ends. Like, I don't, I don't want to hear, I don't want to hear complaints from, from 21-year-old team Canada member X about how, about how the, the beds weren't, weren't on par with the, with the stuff that they get at the Reds Carlton or whatever. What I do want to read, though, is like what players need to bring or buy to get by? Because like, is Sydney Crosby really going to sleep on a cardboard box?

Like, their beds are cardboard in the Olympic Village? Are they not? There's like 3,000 athletes who stay there. I don't know if I botched that, but like, I want to know. Are you bringing a mattress pad?

Are you buying a mattress on Italian sleep country? What weird gear is Sid going to bring in the Olympic Village? That's what I want to. specifically if he's got like if he's got a comfort item. Does he have a mattress pad that he bought in 2010 that he now sleeps on every night? Yeah, it's his it's actually a mattress pad he's been sleeping on since he was with Ramoski, you know, 20 years ago. They didn't win the oil cup in Ramoski. So I don't think that would be a good luck mattress pad. I'm talking about the 2010. I don't know if you've heard about this, but he did score a pretty big goal at the 2010 Olympics. So,

Maybe he has like a pillow. Oh, I need to know. I need to know this. What did you sleep with in 2010? Do you still have it? Are you bringing it to Milan? If there was something specific that he had in his bed in 2010, I can guarantee you it's going to make its way to Italy because he is a freak when it comes to that stuff as we know. A body pillow.

Stuffed animal. Sid's a, Sid might be a stuffed animal. Empropetic. mattress pad. Ooh, I need to know. Neck, neck pillow. Is it a neck pillow guy on flights? It's time to figure it out.

The turtle neck pillow, the one that just like keeps your head up, right? And then you can lean to the side. I spent $80 on that thing when I flew to Chequia and I looked insane. Slept great. I'll just be sore. Thank you very much. I cannot, I cannot willingly sign up for something like that. I felt safe putting on the neck pillow.

and the eye mask because the mother and son beside me had like blankets, slippers. They had eye masks. They had neck pillows. They had real pillows. They were tucked in an economy. And I was like, this is a safe space. I'm gearing up. Like act like you've been there before.

Headphones. Neck pillow. Oh, man. Shut it down for hours. It was great. Yeah. But this is a part of the. agreement between the NHL and the NHLPA with the IOC.

And it's my understanding that this is to make sure that like it is a fair and equitable competition. You can't have team Canada and team USA staying in a Lux Hotel and other European federations without as much money, just kind of hanging out in the dorms trying to make it as fair as possible. And, you know, it's funny. Like I would love to know if the women were in the room for this meeting or they were like, no, we just need to talk to the NFLers.

because like Mary Philippe Palin's been there, done that. Like they've experienced this before. And also I don't think they're staying at the Ritz Carlton when they're on the road. You're staying at courtyards with the rest of us. No, no, no, no. That would, they stay at like, I forget what's in the CBA, but I think it's like three or four star and above or something like that. I'd hope it's four star and above because three star is like,

it's four yards. Yeah. That's where I stay at the courtyard. Three stars are not going. I hope it's for it. I'd have to double check that. But yeah, just a couple goofy little updates on the Olympics. Almost 100 days until the Olympics. Until the greatest rivalry on the planet is back.

The Canada USA Women's Hockey Game. There will be one coming up in November, by the way, in Cleveland, November 6th. High stakes at that one, I'm sure. It is. These are all, these are for the bragging rights and to crack the Olympic roster. Ravelry series matters. I'll just fast forward to the tournament. I'm excited for it. I want to see the games they count in a big way.

Let's go. Yeah. All right. That's it. We're done complaining. That was like our... Let's laugh at the Olympic Village for eight-minute segment. Thanks, everyone, for listening to this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show.

Thanks to Arpin and Jesse for joining us today. Sean, thanks for showing up to do your job this afternoon. Thanks, as always to producer Jeff. Max and Laz have the next athletic hockey. show on Monday. Sean and I will be back next Thursday. We'll see you then. Sean, why don't you ever say anything? I don't know. Nothing to add.