The Athletic Hockey Show - Why the NHL's remaining RFA's are still unsigned

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Adam Fantilli, Alexander Nikishin and Simon Edvinsson are the remaining restricted free agents yet to be signed by their NHL clubs with only 6 days remaining until the start of the season. We discuss why that is, and what the end game is for the Blue Jackets, Hurricanes and Red Wings. Plus McIndoe enlists Corrado and Gentille to participate in his prediction game for the 26/27 NHL season.Host: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What up, but up, it's the Athletic Hockey Show for Wednesday, September 23rd. I'm Sean Gensile. I'm here with Sean McIndoo and Frankie Carrado. Boys have emerged from the season preview cave, season preview writing cave, long enough to have a lovely conversation with you. I'm really psyched about this. I think it's fun to spend two weeks pretending to know.

stuff about the various NHL teams and we're almost the end of the road. Wait, you're not a full-fledged expert on all 32 teams? Yeah, it's crazy. I'm not just coming in cold with profound knowledge about the Columbus Blue Jackets, let's say. Has anybody suggested to you that if you actually watch the games, you'd know that their team was so much better than you do. Wait, I watch games for Eastern Conference teams.

It's the Western Conference teams that I, I don't pay any attention. You're going to start your game at four in the morning. You can't expect anyone to watch. I'm not doing that. Let me ask you guys this. You guys know the bowler and he does the strike and he goes, who do you think you are?

I am. What's his name? Pete Weber. Come on. Pete Weber. It's a legend. Get it together. PDW.

That's like my question to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Who do you think you are? Like, who do the clubs? Blue Jackets possibly think they are trying to, whatever you want to call it, man, low ball, hold firm, play games with a guy who's your franchise number one center, who's already tucked 30 in this league. The Columbus Blue Jackets, as far as I'm concerned, are in, I have a lot of respect for them. They're in no position to do what they're doing to Adam Fantilli, not to mention the other distractions that have marred this team, like Zach Werencky.

and Kirill Marchenko, and then you do this to like a young guy. Can you like, can you help like make it make sense for me? Like how does this possibly make any sense for them? I look at their situation and obviously Fantelli, we're eight days in a training camp right now. Fantelli's an RFA doesn't have a contract. Our buddy Chris Johnson said on his podcast, he thinks the blue jackets have been in the $12 million range on the offer. So it's interesting. that's an interesting number to be at.

This is where we're at, by the way, like in the life cycle of things. CJ's talking about it. Elliot Friedman's talking about it. Friedman said on 32 thoughts a couple days ago that the blue jackets, this is the blue jackets and the things, that they probably need to know Fantelli's number before they make other decisions, which is clearly, you know, Marchenko, et cetera. But they want Fantilla to be locked in, I suppose, before they do stuff like that. man, I look at Fantilli in a way similar to the way I looked at Leo Carlson in the Anaheim Ducks.

It's not quite the same situation because Fantilli hasn't had a stretch of games like Carlson had from December to, you know, or from October to, you know, December or January last year before that thigh injury really came up and bentham. like Carlson looked better for that stretch than Fantilla ever has. So it's maybe not quite an apples to apples comparison, but I think it's close enough. If you're Anaheim or if you're Columbus and you let those guys, whatever, those guys end up elsewhere, whether you let Carlson walk and sign with Philly

or if things go south with Fantilian Columbus, Like, what's the point of the last five, six, seven years of your org's lifespan? Like, those are the guys who once you have in the fold, you kind of do whatever it takes to keep around. Right, right, McAdoo? Because if they don't have a guy like that, why bother? What was the point of the last five years? And what's the point of the next five years if every potential start? I mean, Adam Fantilli is kind of in that middle.

zone where he hasn't he hasn't proven that he's a franchise guy yet and yet i mean for the columbus blue jackets you can make the case that he is the best center in franchise history that's a very sad statement to make but it it might be true so to answer both of your questions of what is columbus doing here what's the hold up how are they playing this you know why why wouldn't you just give this guy whatever he wants the only answer i can come up with is that maybe if we've figured this out, Adam Fantilli has figured it out too. And he's coming to them with a number that is higher than what feels reasonable. If we're arguing over high 12s to low 13s and we've got kind of the term figured out and we're just squeezing over a few hundred thousand,

then I will 100% agree with you that the blue jackets are being ridiculous and playing with fire. right but if adam fantilly is reading the room the same way we're reading it and going these guys have to give me whatever i want is is he coming to them with a leo carlson number is he coming to them with something you know closer to the halfway point then is it is it is is is adam fantili in his camp are they saying well carlson's at 18 but that's an anomaly because he got that offer sheet and it was out of this world but the badard contract like that's something that i think is attainable. Now, maybe you don't think the Bedard contract is attainable, and that's fine. And I don't think Fentilly needs to make $15 million because I think Connor Bedard, as of, you know, today,

and moving forward is going to be a better player. But what's wrong with an organization? Going to a young guy like that and saying, here's the deal. Here's the offer. It's big money. It's a lot of term. We want you here. We want you to be a big time leader here. And we are giving you responsibility. The tone of the negotiation speaks volumes. And the fact that we're this far into camp and it's not done yet from the outside looking in would indicate that the tone is not that. It's somewhat we're trying to keep you lower. And I can understand the frustration. That's the only team right now that's operating that way. Everyone else is kind of taken a little bit of a call it a gamble, call it whatever you want, but they're putting faith in their young

guys that the number they give you today is going to look really good in three to four years. Because it is a gamble on some level with Fantilli. Because he's scored at a 30 goal pace for the last couple years. We know that he's got that part of his game, you know, relatively lined up. There are concerns about his playmaking ability. I heard that from a handful of people when we were working on the players tiers project over the summer. And that bears out in his numbers. You know, he had half a primary assist per 60 last season, which was, which is not good. It's 264th in the league among skaters with at least 500 minutes.

So that's like, you know, in terms, he's, he's producing primary assists, like, at a level Connor, the Conner Doers and Ryan Donato's of, of the world. That's not great. That's somewhere where he needs to improve. prove, but I think you get lost in the sauce if you worry about that all too much. Because at the end of the day, this kid is 21 years old. He's six foot two. He's a productive NHL player already.

He can skate. He's got the frame. It seems like he's got some of the stuff under the hood that everyone likes to discuss. It would be, if I were paying out of him until he's $14.5 million a year or whatever. Like, is that a little bit of a gamble? Yeah. there is a chance that he's not going to be worth that. But that's the kind of move the teams have to be willing to make in the world we're in right now,

with where the salary cap is and with where his peers, relatively speaking, are. Like, roll the dice. Put your, put your flag in the ground on this dude because, like, nobody else has maybe ever come around that organization with this profile. and you can't rely on doing anything better anytime soon. DGB, ask yourself this. If the press release came out and you saw it and it said, we've signed Adam Fantilli to a seven-year deal, 14 million A-AV,

what would your one word or one emoji reaction be? I don't think it's going to be like a palm on your face. I don't think it's going to be like the meme of the guy going, it's not that. It's like, it's a reasonable gamble. Yeah, that's seven years. a reasonable gamble. Maybe there's a bit of a Columbus tax on there, but that's been part of this franchise life and others for a long time. There's two other factors here that I think about.

And one of them, and this may be unfair, but the fact that it's Don Waddell, a very old school GM, this guy's been around forever, I wonder if, and again, I don't know him, enough to say this for sure, but I just, I wonder if he and guys who've been around as long as him are having more trouble with this cap jump. Oh, 100% than some of the newer or younger or more analytical guys. Like this idea that, this old school idea that you come into the league and you earn your contract and you work your way up. And now you've got this guy who, you know, is a good young player and not yet a great,

young player saying, okay, my starting point is Nathan McKinnon money. My starting point is Connor McDavid money. And then, you know, we go higher from there. Maybe it's tough for Don Waddell to get his head around. Maybe it's not. But I do think about that. The other thing, the elephant in the room for the whole Blue Jacket season is the best player, I would argue, in the history of the franchise, is Zach Werenck.

Zach Werensky this year had one foot out the door before he brought that foot back in and said, you know what, as long as I feel like we can win, I will stick around. And the Blue Jacket said, great, happy to have you, we will win. And then they spent the summer basically not improving the roster in any meaningful way at all. Now you're talking about if Antilles not there, this team is worse than the team that fell apart down the stretch last year and got blasted by Rick Bonner. and all of the other stuff. At what point, if you get too cute on this, at what point is Zach Werenzky going,

what am I doing here, guys? You know, you told me we're going to win. Now we just started the season 2, 8, and 1 because nobody else wants to be here. You know what? Maybe I will go to Dallas. Get me out. Yeah.

I want to make a clear distinction here between organizations and how they operate. Because we're talking about Adam Fantilli and the Columbus Blue Jackets. And then if you talk about Nikitian, who's a young defenseman, really talented, big part of Carolina just winning a Stanley Cup, the big difference, as far as I'm concerned, is Carolina has had to make decisions on players in that position, defensemen that were really good. I think of like Brady Shea. I think of Peschi. And they've found adequate replacements, actually more than adequate because they've won a Stanley Cup now without those big.

bigger names that got paid a lot of money. Yes, they were older players. But like Carolina's philosophy and their ability to recruit allows them to navigate this situation better than the Columbus Blue Jackets do. Because Columbus has not built a winning program. They have not become like a desirable destination. There's no significant tax break playing there. What do they have going for them that they're going to be able to pivot off of Fantilli and say, okay, plan B, and it's going to work. I'm not convinced there's a plan B. Whereas Carolina, I have faith that they will turn this situation into something that is more than adequate for them and remain competitive. There's a very big difference between the two. Carolina doesn't need Neketian to play. And Carolina doesn't need to flip

Niketian for anything meaningful to succeed. Like, that's it. Like, they can, they can stash him and deal with it later. We know that they're capable of winning meaningful games, whether Alexander Nikitian isn't a lineup or not. Like that, he is a hell of a defenseman. Yes, he is, absolutely. And he, to a very real degree, does deserve a bigger role on, and would have one on some

other team. Like, I can run a power play. He can certainly play top four minutes. Like he doesn't need to, you know, be on a third pair, getting Shane Gossus bear scraps on the power play unit either. Like, he's a guy who could make an impact in a very real way elsewhere, but that doesn't mean that Carolina needs him. And I think that's what changes that situation materially from the one in, from the one of Columbus is that they could, they could, they can do what they want with them. The amount of leverage that Carolina has on, on that situation is, is significant. Yeah, and like you say, people want to play in Carolina.

And, hey, I mean, there's 10 years ago, if you had said one of Carolina or Columbus would be a destination of one wouldn't, you wouldn't necessarily have known which one it was going to be. I mean, a lot of the things that affect the Blue Jackets are in play for Carolina as well. You know, weather's a little bit better. But other than that, it's about winning. It's about having a winning program. A lot of players want to play for Rod Brindamore. They want to go someplace where they get a chance to win a Stanley Cup.

Columbus just isn't there yet. And the other thing is, if Carolina at the end of the day decides we've got to trade this guy, there's going to be, you know, not necessarily a lineup of players who want to come in and replace him, but there will be options, whether it's on the trade market or whatever else. if you're Columbus, if it comes down to trading Adam Fentilly, I mean, what what message are you sending to everyone? And, you know, this is where it gets into Marchenko as well, because he's been open pretty much about wanting out. And he didn't say that in so many words in his media appearance recently, but he also didn't plant any flag saying, no, I want to stay. I want to be here.

I've changed my mind. That was wild. That was a wild performance from him. It was as close as you could come to saying, I really don't want to be here. So, I mean, if, you know, if Werensky didn't want to be here and now he does, but it's maybe conditional and Marchenko doesn't want to be there. And at one point is, does it start to feel even more hopeless than it already does for Columbus?

Because at least other teams, you know, Vancouver stinks, Calgary stinks, fine. they can look ahead in five years and say maybe we'll be great by then. If you're Columbus and you can't get this stuff figured out, I mean, at what point are you just like the late 90s Montreal Expos? You're just a feeder team for the rest of the league and you're never going to win anything yourself. If you want to be successful, you have to be willing to think ahead and not just stay in the here and now. And I think with Carolina, they have looked ahead and they said this could be happening with Nkishin. So we're going to roll out a situation where we have like Chapfield Slavin,

Kianjeehondre Miller, Sean Walker, Shane Gostis Beer, and we'll try and like patch it up with someone like Mike Riley or another young player. And we are still well insulated and we'll be able to get by. Whereas with Columbus, listen, there's no rule around the league that says you have to play ball and you have to give guys all the money. But if you're not going to do that, like if you're not going to think ahead and you're not going to try and what's the pivot point. Well, then you've got to live with the consequences after. And if that means things get soiled with Fantilli and eventually he's not there, that's your prerogative. How are you better whenever that situation comes to rise? I've got a question for you. Sorry, sorry to interrupt you.

But I was watching the Marchenko thing. And we've talked before about how do players feel when a guy is going for the big bucks? And maybe he's not there or maybe he's. And you've said that players get it. They understand. Go get your bag. They can handle that. What about when a guy is basically saying, I don't want to be here?

Like I'm here because I have, I'm only here so I don't get fine. How does that play in a room? How does that play with a leadership group? See, I think there's, it's a great question and there's a very distinct difference between the two. Like Adam Fantilli, I mean, from the outside looking in, we think he wants to be in Columbus, but he's got to take care of himself with this contract. So no one's going to fault him for that. But the guy who's on an expiring deal, who's already talking about how he's one foot out the door,

that you have to kind of look at every day and be on the ice with every day, that one's different, man. That one's like, okay, you're not exactly all in on this with us. And keep in mind, like, every day you're doing meetings, and the goal every day is to get better as a team. And you're always pushing playoffs and, you know, competing for a Stanley Cup. And it's like, when a guy's doing that, how do you look at him and say, he's all in on this with us because it's very clearly not the case.

The only thing you could point to is to say he's going to work hard and he's going to play well because he has to because he's making a business decision. So he's got no other choice other than to play well. But full well knowing, it's like this guy's going to be out of here the first chance he possibly gets. It's a very weird thing, but there's a distinct difference between the two. Yeah, I in the variable there too is that Columbus like if things go well and they have Adam Ventilly in their lineup moving forward like that's a team that can make noise like actually

I think they're they're a playoff caliber team I think the Metro division behind Carolina and Washington is is pretty weak like it's it's conceivable that the blue jackets are a 95 one 93 point team this season because like Like, they do have some, some nice pieces. It, it, now that hinges on Marchenko being right, and it hinges on Fantilli being right. But, like, there is a world where stuff works out for Columbus. And if you're, if you're someone, if you're someone who cares about that team, if you're someone who's on that roster, like, I'm sure, I'm sure, sure, sure, you understand that. This is not like, this isn't, uh, for, this isn't, uh, the 74 point blue jackets.

You know what I mean? Like there's there's a world where this works out for them, but there's a lot that there's also a lot of question marks. There's a world where they are the 74 point blue jackets. That's what scares me. Yeah. There's stuff goes sideways with Fantilli and then they trade and they happen in Marchenko. Marchenko and, you know, Jack Reeves, if he just has a dusted wolf type season where the second act just is a bit of a step back, there's a lot of ways this goes sideways. It's just anti-short, old-tender bias from you, man. You're lumping them all together.

It's unfair. Listen, there's a reason why you play the games. It certainly can happen. And then you bring up 75 points or 74 points. What does it say about Simon Edmondson that he's at camp? And he's like, I guess I understand there was no general manager here all summer. And maybe no one had autonomy to hand be $95 million. So I'll be a good guy.

I'll come to camp. And you guys remember that when we're doing the deal and whoever has the autonomy to make this thing happen. Like, that seems like a really good teammate. It just, it seems like a guy who's legit. And I'm, I'm a huge fan of his game. But even more so now that he's like, I'll be a good guy about all this stuff. But I hope they, I hope they make it right and eventually give the guy the deal that he's worth because he's worth a lot of money. Would you play Edvenson on side with cider like long term or would you give Edvinson his own?

pair. Well, this is the thing, man. If you're playing Edvenson with cider today, you're much weaker in your bottom four. Like, there's a world where Detroit, you know, figures it out. Edvenson's on a different pair than cider and you're like, we're pretty well rounded on the back end, but who's everyone's D partner at that point? Like Albert Johansson's a pretty good player. But they, you know, you would be thinking Axel Sandine Pelick as a top four player at that point, or you would hope. But they're like, he's a hell of a defenseman. I think he can carry a deep air. Like, he's, he's at that level already.

That was another thing that came up a good bit whenever I was talking to people for playoff tiers or for player tiers stuff. This is, you know, I talked to 20, 25 people. There's coaches in the mix. There's execs in the mix. I mean, it was wild how often it came up talking to those kind of people. people. They're like, uh, cider and Edvinson long term. I don't know how well that works, which was surprising to me because the results, the results weren't bad, right? But I, it's,

that's something that's stuck in my head as, as, uh, as that situation as, as, as continued. We'll see, man. I, it's September 23rd. We're going to be playing hockey games in like, in like 15 minutes. And we're talking about three pretty high profile RF, that are still, you know, that's of a very real degree of uncertainty swirling around them. Quite, quite interesting. Stick around after the break. We're going to do

something. This is actually, somehow we've never done this before. Me and Frank, you're going to fill out an entry for DGB's magical contest. Stick around. Folks, the athletics hockey desk, some of the sharpest reporting in the sport, current company excluded from that is set to release the Hockey 100.

It's a ranking of the 100 greatest modern NHL players. It's written by Sean McIndo and Dan Robson and nobody else. Just kidding. Lots of other people contributed there. Including a really good profile about Sergey Fedorov skates that everybody loved. Ken Hitchcock wrote the foreword. I'm so glad that's where we landed on that.

There were plenty of discussions over the summer over who should and could and would write that. I think Hitch is perfect. He's a legend. Books out October 27th. It's from William Morrow. Give it a look. I promise it's worth your time. All right, we're back.

And folks, it's DGB prediction time. Not for DGB. This is for me and Frankie. We're going to fill out an entry form for McIndoo's world famous, very specific, very confusing. Prediction contest that he does every year. I did it a couple years ago, and I sat out last season because I think I was mathematically eliminated by fake Thanksgiving. Canadian Thanksgiving. which is in 10 days, I believe.

Explain the rules real quick, Sean, please. So real quick, you got 10 questions. They are seemingly very easy questions. Things like give me five teams that are going to make the playoffs, give me five guys who are going to finish in the top 15 in heart voting, that sort of thing. You can give up to five. You don't have to give five.

You get more points, the more answers you give. but if you get even one answer wrong, you take a zero on the whole question. So it kind of comes down to how confident are you and how willing are you to risk your points to get a top score. Okay, I think what we have to do, me and Gentilly, is we have to establish a level of trust. So why don't we... I have that with you. It's a two-way street, buddy. Let's do it this way.

We're going to rapid fire them off, but you go, then I go, then. Then you go, then I go, and you got to live with my picks and I got to live with your picks. Okay, okay. All right. This is how friendships get destroyed. I can't wait. All right. Question number one, name, give me five teams that are going to make up to five teams that are going to make the playoffs.

Okay, you want to go first? Yeah. Colorado. Carolina. Dallas. Vegas. Washington. Okay.

Is that five? Okay. That is five. No, no Atlantic division teams. We're all, we're clearly very scary. We are in lockstep,

maybe, here we go, baby, here we go. Anti-east Coast bias kicking in. Okay, question number two, five teams that are going to miss the playoffs. I'll start here, Vancouver.

Calgary. Yeah, good one. Seattle. Seattle's an easy one. Chicago. Okay. Ooh, okay. This is where it probably gets a little spicy because we got to start dipping into some Eastern Conference teams.

And there's going to be some disappointments. The Islanders. Okay. Wow. Okay. I can get down with Islanders. I think they're pretty bad. And that's also fun because if the Islanders do make the playoffs, their fans are really cool.

Yeah, they very rarely. Pretty chill. Yeah. So they definitely haven't spent the last 10 years getting screamed out by them for Yeah. Question number three, give me up to five teams that are going to finish in the mushy middle. So between 9th and 24th in the standings. Wait, can I make a quick edit?

I forgot about Detroit. Like Detroit's not making the playoffs. Can I swap out Islanders for Detroit? Yeah, I'll allow it if Sean's on board. Yeah, I'm fine with that. All right. Detroit it is. Cool.

So now you guys have. have Islander fans mad at you and looking to spike the football and you don't even get the benefit if you're right. That's fantastic. I like that a lot. But Red Wings fans are also famously rational and kind on the internet as well. All right. Hit Gentilly. Hit us with some mid. Let's see some mid here. Los Angeles Kings. Oh, that's a great mid pick. That is really good. They got enough they got enough good players and not be terrible. Yeah. Between 9 and 24, the Utah Mamet. Frankie's not a mammoth

balloon. Interesting. It could be nice. Ninth and 24th. The Columbus Blue Jackets. Okay. The Ottawa Senators. Yeah. I like the Sends there.

The Rangers. Yeah. Yeah. The Rangers are weird. I don't have a good read on them. I think it's more likely that they're terrible than good. But I'd be more worried about them completely crashing out than finishing 7th in the league or whatever. Yeah. Already talking yourself out of it.

I love it. Question number four. Give me five coaches who are not going to lose or leave their jobs between now and July 1. July 1. So this, you have to not just make it through the season. You have to make it through, you know, the first few, first few weeks or so of the off season. And you cannot include any of the coaches who were hired in the last year.

I actually think this is the- Just got the job. I think this is the easiest category for us. They'll start pretty easy ones here. Marty San Luis. He's okay. He's all right. Spencer Carberry

Okay John Cooper Obviously Cooper has to get picked here I'm just like always Always nervous His contract's all set He's fine I'm just worried that some days

He's like yeah I'm good I'm gonna go I'm gonna do TV And it's not He doesn't have to be fire He could He could decide to take a walk

At the end of the year And D&Muse D&MU's I don't think I don't think he's going anywhere. Rod the Bod, Brindamore. Pretty good.

Pretty good. I think that's five. I think we left a really obvious one off. You left a couple and I'm curious. So which one were you thinking as the obvious? Paul Maurice. Yeah. Paul Maurice.

I almost went with Maurice instead of. The other one that I wondered if you might pick was Jared Bedner. Yeah, but remember last year there was all that weird narrative? During around? Yes, that's what has me wondering how many. I'm really fascinated to see because I, one of the reasons, I do this contest because it's fun.

I do the contest because the readers like it. I do the contest, you know, because it, you know, gets the engagement. But it also, it gives me fascinating data on what people actually,

you know, who they believe and who they don't. So I'm really interested to see how many people are still. Because Bedner used to be the runaway favorite. than this for the last few years. And I wonder if he is now. Question five, same thing, but with G. UCHocus is their HAL coach, by the way.

Okay. General managers who have not been hired in the last two years. So that takes like 11 of them off the board because there's been a lot of churn in that. I will pull up the list just to make sure you guys don't try to slip one past me here. But, yeah, again, these are GMs. They can't get fired or leave. leave under other circumstances, retirements or getting kicked upstairs. Mm-hmm.

All right. Gentilly. I think it's your turn. Can't use. Yeah. Bill Zito. Those are the slam dunks. I shouldn't say they're not the only slam dunks.

I think those the guys who are at the most obvious picks. I think there's a few more, yeah. There's a few more. Kyle Davis. Yeah, that's a good one. Mike Greer. I think he's got a lot of runway left. Breezebaugh.

Okay. I would have also accepted Danny Breyer. He was, I was going back and forth between those two. I, I got to say, I understand that, you know,

we're doing this off. That reaction of Breezebaugh made me nervous, by the way. We're kind of. I must say. So we're doing this off the cuff. So, you know,

it's not, uh, the, and spend hours prepping the way that. You don't know that. You don't know that. No, Eric Tulski on that. Tulski.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, it's also possible that Dundon might want one of his middle school kids to take over his GM. That's right. I heard he got a new, I got a new golden retriever that can do the GM job. Yeah, there you go.

Okay. Yeah, they, they, they crossed out, you know, Nick Deloria's name on the cup and yeah, the dog's name. Bido. Give me, we're into the players now. Give me five goalies who are going to start at least 50 games this season. I think this is the hardest category. That's incredibly, incredibly hard.

And keep their jobs. Andre Vasselowski. Igor Shasturkin. Elia Sorokin. So we're definitely just, we're definitely just going with we're maxing out here. You want to do five?

You guys have to tap out if you want. Let's do three. I don't like out of goal. Okay. Let's do four then. Let's keep it up four. All right. No.

Swimming is 100% getting hurt, by the way, in a month that's happening. No, Jay Gottinger. It used to be, Connor Hallibuck was the, like, the easiest. pick other than that's Blevski in this, but something change with him?

No, I think they just want to give him a little bit of a lighter load. You know, Stu Skinner. I'm done, I'm done picking Jake Ottinger for any kind of preseason. I'm out. I need a year off from him.

Question number seven, and I will tell you, historically this is the one that I think is the hardest question, even though it doesn't seem like it should be. It made five rookies who are going to finish in the top 10 of Calder Trophy balloting.

Okay. Porter Martone. Gavin McKenna. Evar Stenberg. It could be talked into stopping here to tie the truth.

I'm going to go one more. Maybe I don't. Maybe I don't want to. I took a real flyer on Roman cancer off the other day. He's a very popular draft fantasy drafts. You talked me into

into him as on last week's let's stop there I think top 10 is attainable Top 10 attainable No yeah I mean I ever Elyoporos

Is that Is that an official It's somewhat official If Gentile agrees Okay I should I should point out to people People listening

You get one point for one answer Two points for your second answer for a total of three. So the higher you go, it's not, you made this more complicated. You're not just risking it for one extra point. You're risking it for a lot more,

but it is, it still is, he wants me to repeat. He wants me to repeat the Russian names. It's Roman Kansarov and Elia Protis. Okay. So are they, are they both,

are they both picks? Yes. Yeah. So you guys went five. You went the full five. Went five deep. Completely screwed. I don't know if anyone's ever gone five for five on this.

Give me five defensemen who will finish in the top ten of Norris. Validding. Easy one. Kim McCr. Quinn Hughes. Five in the top ten. Zach Warnski. Lane Hudson.

Rasmus Stallion. Yeah. That's good. I mean, Evan Boone. Schard's sitting right there. He's going to get votes. Have you top 10? He's going to have...

You like any point again? I said, yeah. Okay. So are we not at, are we not at five or did you? McCar, Hughes. Oh, we are in five. Jeff says we're at five.

Great. All right. Question number nine. This is, give me five players who'll finish in the top 15 of Hart Trophy voting. I'm very kind. I gave you an extra five.

Top 15. McJesus. Celebrini Yeah McKinnon I don't know about McKinnon I'm kidding I'm kidding

I'm kidding I said celebrating MVP is still sitting there for you guys Yeah it is He had his day in the sun Wait who did we say already I'm sorry We're at McJesus

McKinnon Celebrini We haven't taken Canada's first line We'll go Cochroves That's fine You don't think Kutcherov's gonna be thrown off

By Cooper quitting Over the Christmas holidays And we need one more Maybe we just Let's throw Leon Drysidal In there too To give us five Good with that Sean

Okay Okay That was the I was just about to say Like Drysidal Not a very confident She did not show up On a ballot last year

Really? Really? Hold on a second. Let's do, do you want to do someone else? That's concerning to me. Okay. Could you be talked into Nick Suzuki? I certainly could.

I would say Suzuki or Pashternock. Let's go Pasternach. Okay. All right. Last of the basic questions, give me five players, up to five players. players who will change teams between now and the end of the first day of free agency. This is the hardest one by far. This one gets a little, it gets a bit complicated.

We're talking changing teams. So that's trade, obviously. That's waivers. That's contract terminated. And they sign. But they have to be on a different team. Just retiring or going to the KHL, that doesn't count. You've got to go, you've got to be on a roster now and be on a different roster by the end of July, the end of July 1st.

So if you're a free agency made it easier this season than in the past. It could be. There are a few that seem like pretty safe picks, but let's see. Okay. You want me to start this one? I was going to say this, this is a spot. And we can't do this because it would be ridiculous. But like, you could start trying to gamify stuff on this and be like, all right, everybody's going to say hellabook.

Like, or hellabuck and all the, all the, all the trees. And that has happened a couple of times where there have been guys that everybody says. And then, well, actually, I rescind my trade request or, you know, they signed the contract. And, uh, what's like the best, what's the best result you've ever gotten in one of these? Oh, I would have to go back. But it's, nobody has ever. Has anybody ever run the tip? Nobody has even come close.

Even the guys who win have at least two or three questions that get zeroed out. Okay. I'll take a swing. Quinn Hughes. Oh my God. Wow. That is, you're sacrificing our entry at the altar for content here, Frankie. I appreciate that.

Or is he? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter now. Sidney Crosby. No. Get out of here. Crosby for Ovecid. Who says no?

Who says no? Here's one. Dude, there were, by the way, some people who ate Crosby on, I guess not last year, but the year before. Well, you know, it was last year. No, we all had to trade it to Colorado at the deadline. He's been traded to Colorado so many times, man. There were a lot of people. He's been in a Canadian more times, more times.

You know. You know who's a good pick for this? Because he's on, he's been on a lot of different teams. Anthony Bovillier and he's a USA. He might get traded twice. Do we get extra points after Bovillia gets traded in December? So apparently we have Hughes, Crosby, and Bovillet,

which is just asinine stuff. You're not putting Crosby. I'm not putting Crosby on this list. I'm not allowing. I was a joke. That was making fun of, you know, let's say, Canadian broadcast networks who,

who obsessed over that one over there. We got Helibuck. Hella Buck's gone. Like he's got a, I think out of all these guys we've talked about, the trade request guys, the RFA guys, I think he's hands down

the most likely to end up elsewhere at this point. Hellebuck, Hughes, Beauvillier. How do you feel about Kirby Doc? What if someone just gets, Is playing for the Laval Rocket count? No, it does not. Getting sent down does not help you.

Should put Dominic Moore on this for old time's sake. Dominic Moore for a second round pick at the trade deadline. Thomas Vatic gets at the deadline. I mean, I will throw out there. You guys haven't said Marchenko yet, which is, you know, we just talk about. I don't know if I'm totally, like that situation is so ridiculous. I honestly don't know if I'm. I think there's a world where he just, like, rots for the next, for the next nine months.

The one that I'm fascinated by, I can't wait to see how many people have Dylan Larkin on this list. I don't know, man. I kind of get, my gut tells me he's just going to be back and it's going to be business as usual. I don't know. Yeah, because he's got 100 years left on his contract. And, you know, I don't know. And he's not good. And he's a two-see.

whatever um boy i wait who are a serious picture it's it's it's hues and helibuck hellabuck and bevoli didn't you say yeah it's really funny uh and we want doc or no if i i you saying doc makes me think that you know something no it's not that i know something i don't know feel like they're they're kind of all set with their skill guys and now they're trying to get a little more meat, more more more meat and potatoes while we're in the lineup. I like that. I think that's an uninformed pick. The other guy who's shown up on, just as I'm kind of scanning through, that we've talked

about, but you haven't mentioned is Nikisha. Yeah. That situation seems like it's gone a little truly, truly, truly. sideways. There's people that are going to listen to this that are going to be banging their fists against the steering wheel because we're not saying certain players because we kind of just sprung this on ourselves. And I think that's great. I think that's what it's all about. If you're that guy, let's see your entry then. If you're if you're so mad at the at these folks. We've never we've never been closer to like like just totally this is like this is like off

camera off mic conversation this is perilously close to that like we're in we're in we're in BS group chat mode right now gentilly I feel I feel like it's safe to say we've built a winner I agree and we are ready to rock so are we are we done on the on the last question we're going to tap out at four there yeah I think okay what do you think there there is one more question and it is the the bonus question this one is optional You do not have to give an answer for this. You can pass. If you do answer, you're going to give me one name.

You get it right. That's 15 points. That's the equivalent of a 5 for 5. That's a big chunk of points. You get it wrong. Your entire entry is trashed. It's a zero for the entire thing. I don't like that.

The question is, name, give me one player who's going to score 50 goals this year. And you do have, this is. new this year. You have the option if you want to say nobody's going to do it and have that be an answer. Have that be the answer? Yeah. Two guys did it last year. I think someone's going to do it. One the year before and there's two extra games this year, which could, you know. I also think someone's going to do it because the preseason is lesser. So there's just going to be a lot of sloppy. That's interesting. At the start. So I think guys will be able to pad their stats a little bit. As far as who it is, my like, my intuition.

is like Jason Robertson because he had 45 last year with a 15% shooting percentage. He's never fired off a 20% year. And I'm like, if he's got 45 with a 15, if he gets 20%, he's easily 50 goals. That's my rationale. I just, how can you predict? Like, how do you know?

How do you know what's going to happen? I don't want to, I'm out on this. I'm fine with that. Let's take the coward way out. we're not going to hit driver off the T on 18. We're going to hit an iron right down the middle of the fairway. And we're going to make our par. And we're going to shake hands and we're going to win a championship.

And also, I mean, I feel like this is almost like you're up 10-0. You don't put the first power play unit out in the lesson, right? Don't run up the score. Just take a knee, punt the ball, and go home. It took so much strength not to just say like, Yeah, Gochay's going to do it. So look at all those shots. Just write down, just write down cowards for the bonus questions.

We're learning up. And we're in. I'll throw that in the comments. We're laying up. We're laying up. And we're also playing best ball here. So benefiting greatly from that. Just let just let Frankie go.

All you got to do is beat a thousand or so other people. And if you're listening to this and you're smarter than Frankie and Sean, get your entry in. Yeah. in there. All right. I feel good about our team. I'm going to, I got to go over the, go over the list before I, before I commit anything. I think we did some good work here today, dude. Yeah. Yeah, this was good. Nice to see you guys listening to this. Is there a, is there a cash prize available with this? Uh, no, you know what? You know what? The, the prize used to be a signed copy of my book, but, hey, you have a new one coming out. But then, like, people were

winning and I was like, sending them like, hey, send me your address. And they're like, it's fine. I don't. It's bragging rights. It's bragging rights. Now, since I've got this new book out that I wrote all by myself, maybe I got to send like the package. We'll figure it out. But it's mainly a bragging rights thing. Frankie, what do you have to you this week, man? What do we got? I'm actually back in the mix. We have a Leaps, or sorry, a Habsense split squad game on Saturday. So I'll be at the bell center calling that. And then before you know it, we're all systems. go. So looking forward to being back in the booth. Six days until there are games. Yeah. Six days. This time next week, we will be talking about stuff that happened the night and flipping out. Just absolutely freaking, oh my gosh, she was got scored on on the first

shot. Beliefs are doomed. Dumed. I don't even know. Kirby Doc will have been traded by that point so we can cross him off her, cross on our big list. That's right. Can you believe the Doc for Hellibook deal that just went down? That's nuts. Talk for Larkin. Never know. Yeah. All right, but talk to you soon.

See it, fellas. All right, there goes Frankie. It's just me and Sean McInto. Sean, what have we learned? What have we learned, Sean? I learned that with less than a week to go, there's still a lot of free agents out there. Bruce or Jeff had a list of 54 guys.

Now, 54 guys who played in the NHL last year who don't have contracts. Right now. Now, that includes some retirements and what have you. But there's some names on there as well. And the thing that is maybe even more surprising is only six PTOs signed this year, which is interesting. And I think there's an explanation. I think the explanation here, because normally you might say, like, why isn't anyone like the James Van Riemsdikes and Patrick Line is the obvious one, but Carisenko and. You know, why, why doesn't someone just throw a PTO at them? I think my first thought was maybe these guys aren't interested in PTOs, maybe with everyone having so much cap space, they're saying, hey, I want something guaranteed. I think it's more than that, though. I think it's the short exhibition schedule is to play here, because a lot of teams, as I think most people know, there's, there are rules around what kind of roster you have to dress for an exhibition game. and it has to have a certain number of quote-unquote veterans. Basically, you can't just, if we're going to make fans pay real money to go to these stupid games,

you can't be watching the bottom half of an AHL roster. Exactly. That's not going to work. And so one of the ways around that was teams with sign guys to PTOs. You'd get a look at them. You know, you'd get a chance to see if maybe there's a fit, but also you throw them in the lineup for the exhibition game, which means you don't have to put, your star players in for more than a game or two.

Well, with only four games instead of eight, the star players only have to play a game or two anyway, so you don't need those PTO guys to fill it out. In fact, you probably want more spots on your roster to get a look at the young guys because now they've only got one or two games probably to impress. And I think that's had an interesting,

unintended consequence of we're not seeing PTOs this year. It is interesting. and it'll continue being interesting too. Like, we'll see if these guys, it's one thing if you're the Vladimir Teresenko's of the world, you're like, okay, I'm going to stay in shape until September, right? And I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, keep my options open until the start of the season. Like, how willing are those guys going to be to keep it together until October? And I'm like, maybe when injuries pop up, theoretically, that's when there should be space,

it opens up for those guys once injuries start to mount, right? but expecting them to stay, you know, on call until then, if you're a veteran established, accomplished player who isn't going to just be willing to sign for 900 grand a year and call it a day, like, we'll see. We'll see how deep the pool of available players. Yeah. How many of those guys go to the KHL or over to Europe or something on a deal that has an exit where, yeah, as soon as. I get a phone call from the NHL, I'm out of here. But if you're just sitting at home, it's tough because, you know, every team, every team's going to have injuries.

But also every team, when they have an injury, is going to have a guy in the HL. Yeah, maybe we'd take a look at them. Maybe we'd, you know. Figure out if a quad A player is, is capable of actually contributing on an NHL roster. Yeah, that's, that's more beneficial for a lot of teams than signing someone off the street. It's going to be interesting. Yep. I have learned, Sean, and I'm shocked, shocked by this revelation coming out of the NHL Board of Governors' meetings in New York.

Tap in the brakes on expansion. I'm just going to read straight from this report from Pierre and Chris, who were and are in New York. One month after NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told the Athletic, the league could be in a position to award an expansion team to either Houston or Austin by the end of 2026. senior league officials sounded a much more cautious tone on the prospect of expanding to South Texas. We are not under any time constraint, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said after Tuesday's B OG meeting. This is in a situation where we said we're going to expand by X date, get your applications in.

We're dealing with unsolicited, but we're grateful to have them, expressions of interest. And it'll sort itself out on whatever timetable makes sense to everybody. Who could have seen this coming, man? Who could have seen this coming after, you know, a few. Houston rattlesnakes are not in not starting play next week? Is that what I'm led to believe? We were making the jerseys in August or whatever. It kind of seems like that was a dead of the offseason discussion point.

And now as we get closer to games and the calendar moves along, it seems like we might have to wait. Who could have imagined? Look, I've said this before. I don't care when you do it. expansion, I don't even care who gets the teams. All I'm asking, if you're going to add two teams, add both of them in the same season. And let's get an honest to goodness expansion draft.

Not this fake expansion draft from Vegas and Seattle where it wasn't a draft. They just announced their players. I want two teams drafting against each other back and forth. I want them to be bad. I want them to be. One to be bad and one to be good. And we can just absolutely go to town on that. Because it's been, like when the NHL has done this in the past, it's been fascinating

because there usually is one team, one team goes for future and one team goes for a little more present, you know, like the ducks and the panthers sort of did it that way. Lightning and senators, maybe not quite as much. But it's expansion drafts are so fun. So, I mean, the context. content. Sean, the capitalcy content?

Oh, the content. Oh, my goodness. You and Frankie drafting against each other while I play the role of Gary Betman and. Do the impression. No, I'm not. Oh, that's the other guy. That's the other guy.

Yeah, sorry. Just give us a draft, man. Yeah. That's all I ask. I honestly haven't even thought of it in those terms. This is why you're the king. Yeah.

Double, double team draft. Let's make the rest of the league worse and have two ass teams added to the next. Because here's the other thing that the other bonus of doing them both at the same time, we only get one year of GMs crying about losing their night fest forward. Now that's going to totally ruin their plans instead of having to listen to them to do it twice over a couple of years. Just rip your band-a-off. We need the complaints to change a little bit.

We know what the one-team complaints look like. We know how it works when you had when you had Vegas, when you had Seattle. I mean, oh. Let's get a variation on stuff here. The Montreal Canadians were on the way to the Stanley Cup and then they had to lose Sam Montembow to the Atlanta, whatever, the Atlanta future Canadian franchise. It's completely sent them off track. What post you got coming up? I have got, coming up on Friday, I've got my annual preview slash prediction.

This is, you know, you guys do 32 posts of really well-researched stuff. I do one post of like just kind of my general vibes. But this is where I divide the league into four divisions. I've got the bottom feeders, the middle of the pack, the contenders, and the eight teams that I have absolutely no idea what to make of them. Monday is going to be oddly specific predictions. And then we're in the season, maybe. Yeah, we're into the season.

and pretty soon the rankings will be back. You guys are bringing the rankings back, right? The Friday employees are going to be back, okay? Yes. All right. I'm in a golden prison with those ones. Have you decided which Taylor Swift lyrics you're going to base the rankings around? I think, you know, I think some combination of my influence on Dominic and him entering his early 30s over the last few years.

I think has brought that to an end. It's been a couple years. My work, my work is paid off. I can't, I can't ever do that again. Our little quant is all grown up. Thank you, folks. This shows back on Friday with the prospect boys. Sean, Frankie, and I are back on Wednesday, the next Wednesday.

And we talked about this with FC. September 3rd, we're going to have games to talk about, buddy. You're ready for it. Emotionally and physically prepare yourself because hockey's back.