The Athletic Hockey Show - Will the Leo Carlsson offer sheet cripple the Anaheim Ducks?

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Leo Carlsson and Barret Hayton eagerly await decisions by the Anaheim Ducks and Utah Mammoth on their offer sheets from the Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils. Sean, Frank and Sean debate the pros and cons of the Ducks letting Carlsson walk. They discuss the shocking move by legendary Ottawa Senator Daniel Alfredsson to join the Maple Leafs as an associate head coach, and the guys learn that baseball players are far more passionate about playing in the all-star game, than hockey players ever will be.Host: Sean Genttille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What up, what up? It's the Athletic Hockey Show for Wednesday, July 8th. I'm Sean Jensili. I'm here with Frankie Karrato and Sean McIndoo. Boys, this is the first time, I think, all three of us have been together on a Wednesday in a while. And it is the final time for this season, because we're about to head into the pits of the offseason, baby. There's about to be nothing, nothing, nothing to talk.

about. But we're not quite there yet. We have a bunch of RFAs to talk about offer sheet stuff. But first, here is a subject, Sean McIndoo that is near and dear to your heart. Daniel Alfordson, Ottawa Senator's Legend, joins the Toronto Maple Leafs coaching staff yesterday. He was, of course, an assistant for the Sends the last couple years. another knife in the back for Senators fans, possibly a strange situation brewing for Maple Leafs fans. Is that right? How do you feel about this, McIntyre?

Tell me, please. When I was young, there was a philosopher who was very influential to me, and he had a saying, he said, everybody's got a price for the billion-dollar team, and Daniel Alpherson had a price. Price and Matt Sundin stepped up and paid it. I kind of like this. I'm okay with it. I will tell you this. On the the whole Daniel Alpherson as villain in Toronto, I'm on record as saying the the stick throwing thing was dumb. I think Lee fans went way overboard on the stick throwing thing. Now, a bunch of the other stuff, some of the comments, some of the guarantees, they hit from

behind on Darcy Tucker. I get it. To me, Alfredson is not like at the very tipy top of the villain list. So I don't mind the fact that he has now had to come crawling to the Maple Leafs organization and say, please, please get me out of Ottawa. I want to work for an organization that I can't even do the business. How's he going to finish that one?

You sound like the world's worst WWE heel right now. That's what you sound like. But, okay, think about setting the table for that. Alfie's a WWE superstar. He comes out there. He's wearing the senator's track suit or the senator's jersey. And he's talking about, I don't know, how much he loves Ottawa. And then all of a sudden it just flips and it switches.

And he takes off the track suit jacket and what's under there, a big, Maple Leaf logo. And this event is taking place at the Canadian Tire Center in Ottawa. He just gives a big thumbs down to everyone. This is Halkin and it's Bash at the Beach. That's basically what it is. On the 30 year anniversary, by the way. That's right.

30 year anniversary. And when you said something about like a philosopher, I started to, I knew you were going somewhere with it. And I was like, where is he going to go? And I thought you were going to quote the song by poison. Every rose has its thorn. Because Daniel Alfredson has been this lovely rose for Ottawa and the senator's organization. He came back after an unceremonious exit all those years ago.

And he was there to help restore stability to the franchise and help turn them around and give them a familiar, friendly face. and he's gone to the arch rival. He's gone to the Toronto Maple Leafs of all teams. He's getting a promotion. He's an associate head coach that obviously qualifies him to make more money. And it's not like, this is the crazy thing. It's not like he was just saying, you know, killing time, being a coach. Yeah, I made a lot of money.

I'll be okay. I'm just going to go back to doing what I was doing. He's like asking for more. He's trying to do more. So he's obviously caught the coaching bug. And he wants to pursue this thing, and he's going to do it four hours down the road. And I think it's, I think what Alfie needs to do now is the first practice where he's visible in a Maple Leafs track suit, he has to find a way to get a TPS Louisville response yellow stick like Matt Sundeen had that he snapped back in the day.

And that's his stick. That's the stick that he's using out there. If he doesn't do it, it's a missed opportunity. I can't wait. And look, I mean, he's associate head coach. He's basically number two on the pecking order maybe. And look, that gives him some time because I'll tell you, on behalf of Lee fans, we're going to give Jim Hiller a solid 10 to 15 games before we completely turn on him.

And then, yeah, it might be coach coach Alfie. Go out there, hit a guy from behind, look all innocent. and have your hair like rustic clown. I got to say, man, like one of the things that I realized as I've gotten further into this business and surrounded myself with more Toronto Maple Leafs fans or former players, I don't think I understood the depth of the Alfredson thing.

A lot of this comes from McIndoo, I suppose, but like, I don't think I realized how much Leaves fans dislike this guy. And I gradually realized that over the last five, six, seven years. So I was as shocked as anybody when I saw that. And I was very, very excited to see how the larger, you know, how the hashtag passion would, like, would respond all this. Because you guys, you guys don't like that guy. And you never have.

It's because he was the face of not just a rivalry and not just a great rivalry. and not just a great rivalry, an intense rivalry, but, and this is very rare in the Leafs history archives, a rivalry that the Leafs clearly won. So that means a rivalry that Leaf fans still like talking about to this day, right? Like you can come up and be like, hey, remember that thing you guys had with the Flyers in the early 2000s? And it's like, yeah, we don't need to do that.

Let's not talk about that. But this is one where, yeah, we'll happily talk about it. So, I mean, I will just say, for the record, I'm happy with the hire. I'm happy to welcome Daniel Alpherson to Toronto. All I want is for him to just give a simple press conference where he renounces the senators in its entirety, where he admits and acknowledges that they were dirty cheaters during the Battle of Ontario, and where he proclaims that the leaves are the best, and that Matt Sundin, quite literally now, owns him and probably always has.

Once we do that, we're good. There's no problem. Well, I'm happy to bring up Matt Sundeen because clearly there was a lot of skepticism when this front office was assembled. John Chica, Matt Sundeen. And it was like, okay, what's Matt Sundeen bringing to the table other than being, you know, face of the franchise icon? Like, what is the grunt work?

What is the daily, you know, duties that Matt Sundeen is going to have to do? There's no way this happens without Matt Sundy. Yep. Like this is Matt Sundeen kind of asserting himself, flexing his muscle, and being able to pull something off like this. And if it goes well, man, we're going to talk about how Daniel Alpherson, who ran a really good power play, top 10 power play in the NHL for the Ottawa senators, came to Toronto and did something to that, a similar effect here in Toronto. And Matt Sundeen was the guy who facilitated the whole thing. So this is one move for Sundeen where we start to see how he can kind of flex his muscle a little bit in the new role that he's in. Two things real quick and then we can move on.

First of all, this now leaves the senators with an opening on the bench. I'm wondering what Darcy Tucker is up to these days, Travis Green's old buddy. They could maybe put the whole line back together and we could just do a total. ship a thesis osmosis thing where eventually we've we've completely switched. Here's my question. When the Leif's first play in Ottawa, does Daniel Jefferson get another tribute video or is there like a maximum one welcome back tribute video per career? Do they just replay the old one?

Like what do we, what's the protocol here? I saw a tribute video at a Pittsburgh Pirates Atlanta Braves game yesterday for Joey Bart that the pirates played for Joey Bart. So I don't know if I'm the right guy, huh? I don't know if I'm calibrated right for this. I just Google Daniel Alpherson, Sean McIndoe. Uh-oh. I'm looking at a series of posts

that you have made over the years. Here's one. The top 10 dumbest moments in the Battle of Ontario. This is from the original blog. This is from the old blog spot. Now, it was one thing when Daniel Alpherson guaranteed that the Sends would win a series after a game five loss,

after all Alpherson made guarantees that didn't come true all the time. And at least he was a player, meaning he could have, meaning he could have some impact on the game's outcome. He didn't, of course, because it was a game seven, and he's a senator,

but he theoretically could have. Okay, that's a good one. What else we got here? That was, like I said, I was positive about the guy. You are, you are positive. If you ask a senator's fan to create a Mount Rushmore of comic genius,

it will include George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, and Daniel Alfordson pretending to throw his broken stick. I don't think you meant that as a compliment. I don't think so. I don't think so. I got one. December 3rd, 2014.

Sean McIndoo determined Alpherson to be Hall of Fame worthy last month, but not without plenty of consternation. So you gave him a little bit, but you kind of reeled it back a little bit as well. I guess. There's a whole Grantland post. The Hall of Fame, candidacy of Daniel

Alfredson. Let's see. Four, his numbers are good. His numbers are good. They're not great. You're fairly... I think this one's fine. See, I was... You can tell when I cross the Rubicon from BlogSpot

to actual grown-up getting paid to do this where I like try to take the Homer glasses off. I guess. You're really struggling on weather. This seems like you're forcing yourself to come to the logical conclusion, which is that he should be in the Hall of Fame. I heard a good Alpherson story.

I know we got to pivot to RFA's just quickly on the way out, though. I heard a good Alpherson story from an old strength coach that was with us in Toronto, and he was in Detroit when Alpey was there. And he said that they were on the road one time, and everyone had showered and, like, sandals were kind of laying around. Some towels were kicking around behind. And those guys, like the strength coaches, the athletic therapist, they all stick around, right?

Like, they don't really go back to the hotel on game day. They just kind of stay there. Some will, some won't. And he walks in to, like, kind of clean things up, and there's Alfie. Like, think about how old Alfie was at that point in his career. How, like, how prominent established, all that stuff. And Alfie is, like, organizing the sandals for the trainers and, like, putting towels away after a morning skate.

Like, I thought that always stuck with me. I think that's just, that's the kind of leadership that Alfie has. And I mean, he obviously is going to instill and has instilled a lot of that on the guys that he's he's coached already. Well, it's going to be fascinating when the senators come to Toronto and play where Alfredson gets to face his former team in front of a building full of leaf fans. And then when they go back to Ottawa and he faces his former team in front of a building full of leaf fans again in a different city. Okay, we got it. We got it. We got to move on. Take a good. Time for a break. We're going back and talk about RFAs and offer sheets. All right, we're back.

Fellas, while we were away, because it was, you know, 10 days or 14 days or so, a good bit has happened. We're not going to relitigate all of it. But the relevant bit is the RFA situation because the bill is coming due on these guys on the two who have signed. We got Barrett Hayton, who signed a deal with the deal. Devils that the Utah Mammoth has until today to match and of course the Leo Carlson deal with Philly

that Anaheim has until Friday to match. Let's just let's maybe circle back because I'm I'm interested in hearing from you about this just generally big picture where are you

on the RFA mechanism just in general? Like were you Were you surprised to see this? That's probably a more direct way to get at it. When this is a few days ago, like, how shocked were you that we saw any of these, let alone two fairly high profile ones? I was surprised, but you know why I was surprised?

Because outside of the Holloway and Broberg ones, it's just not something that is commonplace. And it hasn't been for a long time. And when we were living in this, you know, flat cap world and, you know, even prior to that, when the cap just wasn't as high as it was. Teams really put a squeeze on RFAs, especially if you had no arbitration rights. An offer sheet wasn't coming. So they owned your rights and they were going to try and squeeze you as much as they possibly could.

And I can't tell you how many times, like either I heard it or heard it through other players, that teams say, you're an RFA. You do not get the same money as a UFA. and now with the money rising the way that it is, you know, the class of players that are getting to UFA status, not necessarily being game changers, this is something that, you know, I think GMs are looking at and saying, I'm under the gun, I need to improve my team. And so I'm going to take some big swings here, throw out some offer sheets. And yeah, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to rearrange a lot of the way the market was set up.

But too bad, man. I got my own agenda that I need to work on. And as far as the players are concerned, I love it. I love it for the players because far too long, RFAs were just getting squeezed out of money and being told, eat your, eat your QO, and that's it. And you'll come to camp and you'll play well and you'll get a contract next year. And that's not the case right now. So GMs have another little thing to kind of grapple with.

And those are some, you know, the Carlson one is obviously, you know, crazy. it's earth-shattering. The Haten one is interesting the way that they built it. But as a former player, I'm all for it. It's about time the players had a little bit of power back in this situation because they had literally zero power before. And they had zero power as, you know, a guy like Leo Carlson, he's going into his prime, right? And it used to be that you, you kind of were owned by the team until you turned 26, 27 to hit UFA age. if you had not already signed away a bunch of your UFA years, which so many players seem eager to do, which I never understood and now really don't understand.

But hey, it's in a way better that you're paying top dollar for prime years versus decline years. Let me ask you this, though, Frankie. We don't know yet if either of these offer sheets is being matched. The consensus seems to be that probably both will. There's an argument on both sides in both cases, but chances are they get matched. Assuming that happens, if you're a player in that room and Bear Hayton or Leo Carlson walk in, and you know they signed a contract with another team, okay? Are you just happy for them?

Is it like, hey, man, business is business? get the bag, do whatever you need to do. Good for you. Happy to have you back. Or is there any part of you that's going, how committed are you to this when you put pen to paper on a contract that had another team's logo on it? Buddy, it's a great question. It's the former.

Because you know, as a player, if you were presented with an offer sheet, you would do the exact same thing. It's just, it's the business part of it. The only thing now that's different is there's another team's logo attached to the paper that you signed, but realistically, if you were going back and forth with your team and you're kind of presenting each other offers and you're trying to get as much as you possibly can, this is really no different. There's just someone stepped in and did that

work for you. And there would not be, if there was a guy in any of those situations, like on those teams that had an issue with these guys signing offer sheets, I don't know, man, maybe they're they're probably not the most popular guys, put it that way. Like, this is just, this is just business. That's all it is. And everyone has to take care of their own business. Although the players recognize that. And there's a little bit of a duty for guys.

I get that you don't want to take too much percentage of the cap, but you still got to keep this thing moving. Like, you still got to try and recoup as much as you can from these GMs. You think Pavl Minchikov's going to be mad at Leo Carlson over that? That dude just signed for seven and a quarter, almost in direct response to what, to the, Carlson offer sheet because you don't think that some part of Verbeek isn't just like, ooh, whoa, okay, I need to, uh, let's, let's try to avoid this happening again.

And the end result is Mitchikov gets a, he's a nice player. Don't get me wrong, but he gets it, he gets a deal that certainly, I would bet my life that when Pat Verbeek and Pavel Minchikov's agent were talking three weeks ago or, or, or if they would have talked a week from now in a world where Leo Carlson doesn't do that, you think that's the tenor that those negotiations talk where they're like, yeah, seven and a quarter for this quasi-unproven, you know, young, young defensemen, like, no way. You know, it's already, it's already starting to pay off. And that, to me, is where, you know, I, when I'm, you know, we hear a lot about offer sheets. We do every, we do every summer to some extent. You know, I feel like we're always, especially, you know, over the last few years, maybe five years ago, we're underwhelmed by the amount of people that actually sign them. You hear every year like, all right, there's, watch out.

There's going to be a few. You know, this year we've heard it more. Obviously, we see two high profile ones. I don't mean to discount the importance of those, but it's still just two guys. So my thought coming into this, or whatever, maybe yesterday was, you know, hearing a lot about RFAs, but, you know, only two offer sheets actually came through. Be that as it may, I think the important part and the relevant part is what it does for guys like Minchikov and what it does for, other players who maybe don't switch teams, but that seed's been planted,

whether it's with Pat for Beak or whether it's with general managers who aren't quite as intimately involved with this, that like, okay, the possibility is there. Clearly there's like an added degree of willingness on the players part overall to do this. Like,

we need to make sure we get our own guys locked up and we're not going to play hardball as aggressively as maybe we would have otherwise. And that's been a fascinating subplot of this, right? Is that you talk about playing hardball and nobody had a reputation for playing more hardball than Pat Verbeek, right? We saw that in our agent poll a few months ago.

Who's the, I can't remember if we said who's the worst GM to deal with or who's the toughest, and that is a different question, but it was Pat Verbeek by, in a landslide. This guy squeezes for everything. And, yeah, I mean, we heard that apparently on the day of the offer sheet, that there was a meeting. And Pat Verbeek said, here's the number we'll go to. and Leo Carlson said, here's the number I want, and there was a big gap. And there was talk of, well, we might get an offer sheet. And Pat for Beak, it sounds like basically said, good luck with that.

You go ahead and see what you can get. And it came back. And you know what's funny? Sean, you talk about this is going to benefit other players because now it's not like a fake threat anymore. It's now something GMs really have to weigh and you can't square around. You've got to get your guys signed. And maybe it's going to be at a bigger number than you want. And maybe you've got to take away somewhere else.

but you're going to do it. And you look at Anaheim and you go, okay, who's the next guy up for a contract? Who's going to benefit from this? Who's the guy who's going to get more money because of what the Philadelphia Flyers did? That's Cutter Goce. It might be the guy who benefits from this the most. And the irony there is a lot of fun. But in the meantime, I mean, if you're Kyle Davidson, are you just sitting outside Connor

Bradard's house cutting the phone lines just to make sure that nothing gets through or what's what's the plan there that's well listen they sit here today Chicago sits here with like 29 million in cap space and a lot of that has to do with just we're ready to go we're ready to go on anything that happens with the badd probably the same way Anaheim thought they were ready to go if anything were to happen with Leo Carlson like they left themselves a lot of space if you look at like we're what Leo Carlson's, you know, projected salary would be, like a lot of these companies, AFP, SCOSTAT, like, they all have projections, right? The AFP one on a long-term deal is eight years, 11.4 million. On a short-term deal, it's three years at 8.2 million. So there's a

chance that Pat Verbeek was sitting there saying, we're offering this guy 12, 12 and a half million, and he wants 15. Okay. Let's see if. 15 is out there for him, and if push comes to shove, we'll have to match, and we will. And so they probably felt fairly comfortable. I don't think in their wildest dreams, they thought 18 million was coming their way. And that changes things, that changes things immensely. And initially, I thought this. Initially, I thought Anaheim, it's a pretty simple decision. They're either going to keep their star player, or they're going to lose him, and they're going to go back to being a bad team, and they're going to have to, you know, kind of rejig this thing for about four or five years.

So it's a no-brainer. It's a lot of money. You've got to find a way to figure it out. And I still think that. But at the same time, I think Anaheim gets screwed both ways. If they match or if they don't match, even if they're keeping their star player. Because now their cap situation is going to be awful. They don't have, they barely have a back end at this point.

Like they're going to bank on Tristan Luno, who's played what, 14 games? Has he played 20 games? They're going to bank on him being a top pair guy with Jackson Lacombe. You know, they're not going to have money to go around. They're going to be really top heavy. So match it or don't match it, Anaheim's in one big time. And I just see Danny Breyer, like, laughing in an office because, and maybe this goes back to the Cutter-Gocchier stuff.

Maybe there's a little bit of resentment there. But whoever orchestrated this in Philly, mastermind stuff. Complete mastermind stuff on an organization that you clearly have. have a little bit of sour grapes and some history with. Yeah. And that's what you have to do, right? I mean, it has to be an offer sheet that A, puts the other, the receiving team in a no-win situation.

And B, that means it's got to be a number so high that maybe other people don't believe it at first. I didn't. When I first saw, I saw the number 90 million. I saw 90 million. I saw 18 million as the number. And I know that if you sign a guy to an offer sheet that's even longer than that, that it's even longer than five years, it just gets divided by five.

So when I saw 18 million, I thought, okay, it must be like a six or a seven year offer sheet. And then this is the inflated number that comes out of it. No, this was the actual number. Layden with bonuses all over the place. A moving salary, which is something the ducks do not. do for some weird reason. If you look at their their contracts, they're all flat year to year. So this obviously breaks something that Pat Verbeek likes to do. Hey, remember a few years ago? Or ownership likes to do?

Or ownership, although they didn't do it before Pat Verbeek. So, I mean, who knows? It might be, it's tough to say. I just think back, remember a few years ago when Montreal signed Sebastian Ajo to the offer sheet? And we all just looked at it and went, well, Caroline's going to match that. What do you do? What do you do? You just signed their player for them. That had no chance of getting off the ground, and we all kind of made fun of them, probably rightly so. This is the flip side of that, man. I still, having had five days to think it over, I don't know what I would do if I was Pat Perbique.

And that's the sign of a good offer sheet, because if it's an easy match, then you've wasted your time. And if it's an easy, we're not going to match, then you've clearly blown the number so far. out of field that you've made a mistake. This is how you know they found the sweet spot. I don't know what I would do. The other thing to consider too is that it's a perfect offer sheet for the Philadelphia Flyers, right? Like, yes, it's in that sweet spot to maybe stop the Anaheim Ducks from matching it. But there's not a team in the league that is better situated or more sensible to go out and do this

because of their salary structure, because of the pieces that they have elsewhere, starting with Porter Morton, of course, but also just generally, that's a really deep team that has a bunch of interesting young players that also has no quality depth, or certainly no top of the roster quality in that center group. So if you're Philly, you're saying, all right, we've done a pretty good job on this rebuild. here's where we're, we had this glaring, blaring, you know, big red mark at the top of the lineup. You say, fine. Like, we'll go out and we have no other way to get that guy.

So we'll go out and pay $18 million for him because we're well situated everywhere else to absorb that kind of contract. And you say, absolutely. Like, we will take that. There are teams out there that could assign Leo Carlson to an identical offer sheet where we would be saying, like, is this smart? Is this smart for Team X to, you know, potentially dedicate 18 mil and all these upfront payments and blah, blah, blah. Is this going to be worth it? For Philadelphia, it's absolutely worth it. Like, there is no question. That's exactly it, right? Like, if it's so bad for Anaheim, why is it so good for Philadelphia? It's the same contract. It's the same money. It's the same

upfront money. But you're right. Like, you outlined it in detail there, why it works for the Philadelphia Flyers. You know, in a perfect world, you think Philly wants to pay him 18 million? Probably not, but that's the cost of doing business. Like, they just, they had to come in with an offer that Anaheim really had to think about with matching and maybe led them down a path where they don't match. You know, I just, I mentioned it briefly on the Barrett-Haton one. So that's an interesting one because Utah's got about four and a half million dollars in cap space and that deal is 4-775, but you can be 10% over the cap in the summer. And it's also structured with some bonuses in there. Like it's going to be 3.9 bonus and then the rest is going to be, you know,

850, which is your salary, which, okay, that shouldn't be a problem. But, you know, for Leo Carlson, the signing bonus in year one is 19.9 million. In year two, it's 18.1. In year three, it's 17. Like this is, this is not the Rangers. This is not the Toronto Maple Leafs. This is the Anaheim Ducks. This is a team where for a long time, that building, it's a great fan base. I always really loved playing in Anaheim. I thought they were raucous.

They were rowdy. It hasn't exactly been packed to the brims outside of this year. So they were all, like, that's already an interesting kind of component of this. And then I think if you dig a little deeper, okay, you kind of see what's going on in Anaheim, there's a huge like $10 billion private capital building boom right now near that arena. Next door to it? Yeah, where Honda Center and the baseball diamond is.

It made my life very complicated when I was trying. Right. And you're like, okay, so you were there. So you were there. So you saw it. And then when you see this happening, you're like, wait a second, who would, like, I don't know for sure, but I'm like, who would be funding that on the grounds of the arena? Like, oh, there's some cash going out.

Maybe it makes it more difficult. That's why I brought up Ducks ownership when you were like, Pat for Beak doesn't structure things this way. It might be an ownership thing too because the Samuoli family, they're involved with that pretty significantly. And that development is expensive. And it looks like it. So if you're the Ducks ownership group, the Ducks owners, which is, you know, it's a guy. I don't know if you necessarily want to pay $19 million up front to Leo Carlson for the next however. Like in lump sum, you know, one-time payments.

I don't think that's ideal because you can look out the office or walk out the front door of the Honda Center and see a very expensive, very involved development that's going up really, really quickly. Like that place was a disaster zone during during the playoffs. And it's because they're building this incredible multi-use. It's called OC Live. This ridiculous complex directly outside the arena. And that's, and that's Ducks ownership. And that's, if I had to guess, I would say that's probably why they're not super psyched to have to cut an $18 or $19 million check to one dude at some point over the next couple months. So the flip side of that is if you're Pat for Beak and you're getting pushed back from ownership, you go up to him and you say, look, boss, word on the street is people are saying that the flyers are pushing you around.

Flyers have got more money than you. The flyers are muscling you with their money. Tell a billionaire that. You know, because that's basically what Montreal did with Tom Dundon when they were trying to get Sebastian Ajo, right? There was rumors that the Carolina, you know, they wouldn't be able to find the money. go up to a billionaire and say somebody doesn't think you have money and watch how they snap their fingers and make it appear dollar bills just fall out of the sky onto them it's like izzie mandelbaum you think you're better than me yep so so what's do we have a prediction like should should we go on record

what do you what do we think anaheim is going to do here i think you know i think i think i think they have to because otherwise like what was this for he's your he's your he's your he's your best player he's going to be one of the I don't know six to one season in the league by the time he'll show up on MVP ballots by the time this is all by the time he better done yeah better he hasn't yet sure he better show up on ballots starting next year at the at this rate I think it's based on the way he played until he had that thigh injury I think that's absolutely possible right so but if you let him walk the the piece that makes that the piece that holds the room together,

not to quote Bigelowski, but that's what Carlson is. Like, everything makes sense because of him. Like, it's great to have Cutter Goce and, you know, Seneca and these,

and they're great, they're great players. But if you, they would be in a situation extremely similar to that of the, of the Philadelphia Flyers, if they let him walk, where you're like, oh,

we got some nice pieces, you know, up and down the lineup, but we're missing that guy at the top. So once you have them in the, the frame, man, you can't, you can't let them walk. Because then that just starts, that just guarantees that Honda Live or OC Live or whatever it's called whenever it opens is going to have a pretty mediocre team that's playing next door.

And I think you got to guard against that too. I agree. I think they match it reluctantly, of course. And, you know, there's a couple things. If you look at the way that center ice position is structured right now, Carlson, Granlin, paling, Tim Washie. Now take Leo Carlson away from that. Exactly.

That's not good. Even though you have the shiny toys on the wings, it's still not good. I think the other thing with these four first round picks, we just hear the term first round pick and we think it's got a lot of value, which is true to a certain degree, especially if it's a high first round pick. But you're going to get Philly's first round picks. Philly's going to be adding Leo Carlson. It's going to be adding Leo Carlson.

Philly's going to be a bet. They're going to be a playoff. team last year are do we all of a sudden expect Philly to turn into like a bottom feeder that's going to hand you over, you know, top 10 picks? These are going to be 22, 23, 25. So what are you going to do with those? You're going to turn around and you're going to call Steve Iserman and say, I got a deal. You won't believe it. I got four first round picks that are going to be in the high 20s or mid-20s for you. What do you think for Dylan Larkin? He's going to hang up the phone. So as much as you can, you know, make a, come up with a theory that, oh, they can turn those picks and parlay them

into something, I don't think that's that easy. So I think they have to match it, even though it's a lot of money and their cap structure is going to be busted for a long time. I, I agree, except I'm not as convinced that these Flyers First are guaranteed to be in the 20s. You know, this is a deed. They made the playoffs last year, yes, without Leo Carlson. But nobody thought they were making the playoffs. Everybody was shocked that they made the playoffs. And the one nice thing to keep in mind, if you're Anaheim, these picks would be unprotected, which is gold in the NHL these days. You can't get on. I mean, you, you call up the, we saw it at this deadline, the Colorado Avalanche are sitting there with 120 points and their top 10 protecting draft picks they're trading

away. So I do think there's, there is some decent value there. I still think. I still think, think they match. Producer Jeff says he thinks the ducks let him walk. So it's not completely unanimous. He thinks they take the picks. But I think they, I think they match. And I think they match. The tiebreaker for me is just at the end of the day, NHL front office types are very alpha male. You will not walk in here and take my blah, blah, blah. And Pat Verbeek is by. Pat for beak was the original little ball of hate. And he earned that when he was a player. And I don't think he's mellowed as a as a GM. So I think push comes to shove, I think they take it and then they figure it out.

But it's tough. Frank, your summer vacation is about to start, my man. You got a round to get to in a couple minutes here. As we sit here and talk right now, it is approaching 10 a.m., I will have my peg in the ground in 40 minutes, gentlemen. I wish you I wish the three of you both Sean's and Jeff

an amazing summer all the people that listen to us with our nonsense all year long thank you so much for listening I can't tell you how many times I see people and they're like hey we listen to the athletic hockey show we love it

so thank you to everyone for listening and looking forward to starting back up in the fall with you guys don't sign any offer sheets Frankie I don't spit in chicklets or Steve Dangel comes calling you don't, uh, you don't answer. It's up to producer Jeff if he's going to match it.

All right, fair enough. Steve, Steve, the little ball of hate dangle. That's what we've always called. Enjoy the golf, brother. We'll talk to you real soon. Frankie's walking up to the T-box already, I think. We're back. Sean McIndoo.

I would like to tell you something that I learned. What have we learned, Sean? Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Zach Wheeler on Tuesday night. Struck out 14 guys. and he said afterwards, this is Wheeler, he's 9 and 1, he's, you know, a Cy Young candidate for the Phil's. He is not on the National League roster for the All-Star game, which coincidentally is in Philadelphia. And he's mad about it. Wheeler said it pisses me off, and it's kind of BS that he wasn't on the roster.

I think the thought is that the main is that the reason he wasn't on the roster is because he's pitching, you know, immediately before the All-Star break begins. That typically is just a ticket to guarantee that an MLB starting pitcher doesn't actually wind up on the... We're seeing it with Paul Skeens in Pittsburgh and Mizorowski and Milwaukee. And we've seen it in a couple different spots. But those guys were named to the roster and then replaced. Wheeler bypassed that. It seems like he just didn't make it straight away because of the rest thing. And he's mad about it.

So I learned in the last five days that it is, it's, that in other sports, players get, players actually want to compete in the other game? It might just be baseball at this point, but, but it's possible to be mad over not making a team.

That is not any kind of sentiment that we've ever heard from an NHL player since, I don't know, like, do you remember when all star games are relevant? Because I, I, Honestly, even in the 80s, they were a little, I don't think they were relevant since it used to be the Cup champion playing the All-Stars. Back then, it probably mattered to at least one team.

So are we saying then that other athletes and other sports like being famous star athletes? Like, that's something to aspire to and not something to run terrified from? It appears to be much more widely. embraced in other sports, yes. I think it's possible, honestly, that you see like Paul Skeens just go and hang out in Philly on an All-Star weekend and be in the dugout and do that kind of. Like, the odds of that ever happening for an NHL player are functionally zero. It would never, never, never.

As opposed to, like, the NHO where there has to be like a dedicated employee whose job is to just like blackbag Alex Ovechkin two days before All-Star weekend and make sure they get them there to at least wave in the crowd. What are we going to have to do? How are we going to have to bribe you to get you to involve yourself in the All-Star festivities? Like, cars, you guys, you guys, you guys, you guys don't have a pilot? You want a Honda Pilot? We'll get you a Honda Pilot, fine. You guys are probably dying for a Honda Pilot, right? That's, yeah, yes. And look, I, I like the MLB All-Star game, like the stakes are low, like, I don't want to, I don't want to gas up how much players on their sports care about All-Star Festivities. It's like the Pro Bowl, basically,

doesn't exist anymore. The NBA might be in worse than the NHL when it comes to just trying to find something that the athletes care about and will at least pretend to compete in. So like it isn't, I don't want to make it a total, like, I act like this is three leagues versus one when it comes to this. But the fact that Wheeler was actively pissed about it and said so, that is a sentiment that you will never see from an NHL player. So it was, it was kind of, it was kind of wild to read that yesterday.

I do like that. I'll tell you what I learned. I learned via a Craig Barubei interview that, according to him, Mitch Marner was the emotional core of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The core. He was the energy. He was basically the guy in that room. Sean, I think I might be starting to crack the code on what may have been wrong with the Toronto Maple Leafs. And what's that?

I think I'm starting to piece together where maybe some of us. If the beating emotional heart was our pal, Mitch, Mitch, Mitch, Barner. Dry hair, choking back tears in the penalty box. If that was the guy that everyone was looking to, if that entire team was going to, going into a game seven looking down at their what would Mitch do bracelets. I'm starting to feel like maybe I might know where some of the issue was with this team. You would think Craig Barubi would try to be the emotional core of the Toronto Maple Leafs if all else fell. Where is he on that?

Yeah, you would have thought, but, uh, ah, well. Do you think their emotional core is going to be this season? You know what? That's a great question. Colton Sizzins? it might be just bring them right on or you know maybe it'll be

I think it's going to be Matthew Nyes I think after six straight months of hearing a new trade rumor every single day he's going to be in a great frame of mind in October when it's time to go out and play for real he's going to feel a real dedication and loyalty

as he after every shift looks up and see if John Chike is on the phone in the in the front office box just waiting for that tap on the shoulder. Hey, go take the sweater off, man. You're on your way to wherever it is. That seems like it's the right way to leave this season for us.

On a on a doomsaying kind of niche note about the Toronto Maple Leafs. I'll fix it. It's going to be fine. In Alfie, we trust. Yeah, yeah. You said it. Are you going to, like, if you, are you going to, like, just wait until the start of the season or wait until training camp to see the kind of, like, quarter zip or,

like jacket that he wears when he's when he's on the ice and then get one to match. Is that what you're going to do instead of buying a jersey? I might do that. I'm going to, I'm going to start growing the hair out. I did, I did get the haircut right before the news dropped. So, but now I'm, I'm going to grow it out just on the sides. I'm going to keep it short everywhere else. And, yeah, it'll be good. And I guarantee, I guarantee that the next time you see me, I'll have Daniel Offence in here. Yeah. And of course, the next time I see you will be in October sometime because we're just not going to speak until then. That's correct.

Just kidding. We got shows coming up this summer, a bunch of our beatwriters. We did it last year. It's the How to Fix series. We're going to try to figure out, yes, the Maple Leafs, yes, the senators, but also the Canucks and the Red Wings and the Devils, teams like that that have missed out on the playoffs. We're going to talk to the beats, figure out what the road back to postseason relevance for those teams are.

Check it out. That starts up soon. until then though thank you Sean McIndoo thank you producer Jeff thank you Frankie Grado wherever you may be on the first T somewhere for another great season man

I love I love you guys I love doing this Maccandoo what do you say we'll do this again we'll see I don't know okay maybe maybe yes maybe no bye bye we'll see