The Sheet with Jeff Marek - Everything You Missed This NHL Offseason So Far ft. Keith Kavanaugh

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

The NHL offseason has been packed with blockbuster contracts, front office shakeups, coaching changes, and franchise-altering moves—and we're breaking it all down.On today's episode of The Sheet, Jeff Marek is joined by Keith Kavanaugh of PuckPedia for a complete recap of everything that's happened across the NHL this summer. They dive into Jason Robertson's new deal with the Dallas Stars, Macklin Celebrini's market-setting contract, the latest surrounding Dylan Larkin's contract situation, Quinn Hughes' extension talks with the Minnesota Wild, and Evan Gold joining the New York Islanders. Plus, they discuss every major coaching hire, GM change, front office addition, salary cap implications, contract trends, roster building strategies, and what it all means as teams prepare for the 2026-27 NHL season.Whether you've been following every move or need to catch up on the biggest NHL headlines, this episode has everything you need to know.🔔 Subscribe for more daily NHL analysis, breaking news, interviews, and insider discussion.#NHL #Hockey #TheSheet #JeffMarek #PuckPedia #KeithKavanagh #JasonRobertson #DallasStars #MacklinCelebrini #SanJoseSharks #DylanLarkin #DetroitRedWings #QuinnHughes #MinnesotaWild #NewYorkIslanders #NHLFreeAgency #NHLContracts #SalaryCap #NHLNewsReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tuesday, August the 4th. Welcome to another edition of The Sheet. Glad to have you board today. Whether you are listening on your favorite podcast platform, whether you are watching us on our DFO YouTube channel, whether you're in the chat, whether you're taking us on a run, on the treadmill, on the road, whether we're at the gym with you,

whether you're just chilling out with us. We appreciate your attention today. So thanks for joining us here on the program. Keith Kavanaugh is going to be stopping by from the PuckPedia Hockey Show. We're going to talk about everything that's gone on. so far this summer. We're going to try to cram it all in as we're kind of doing this summer midway point,

August the 4th, figuring, all right, this is kind of the midway. There's a little pause right now. Teams are regrouping, general managers or having a look at, you know, what's next for August and maybe trying to squeeze in some vacation as well, which, by the way, it used to be like two months, like for managers and they were like checked out, like July 2nd, pieced out gone fishing. Now it's like you get a week, maybe two if you're lucky. We're going to be talking about what's happened so far with Keith coming up in a couple of seconds

and speculate on what could be next. But before we get to all of it, I want to draw your attention to two things. First of all, in The Athletic, a good friend Aaron Portsline, who covers the Columbus Blue Jackets. Just wrote an outstanding piece that I would encourage all of you to read. It's one of those pieces that selfishly, if you're not a subscriber to the athletic, you hope that they make available for free. And I know it's a little bit navel-gazing because I'm in the media business,

the broadcast business. But the title of the piece is, is NHL hockey on the radio a dying art? Veteran broadcasters worry about its future. I would direct you to all this. We talked about it last time, what happened with the Columbus Blue Jackets. And now Jess Faboda is doing his last week.

So you wonder about the future of editorial on the Columbus Blue Jackets website as well. A great piece. I encourage you all to have a peek at it. Aaron's a brilliant writer and been on the Columbus beat from day one. The other thing, I just want to put it out there because I want to have, I want to make sure that things like this are part of the discussion. You heard me last week go on about, you know, even if it doesn't make sense financially to do some things as an organization, you should still have a pride of ownership over what you do and the products that you put out. should be the best that you can possibly be.

And you don't ever want to send a message to the marketplace that you really don't care about something that you're putting out to the marketplace just to have it on. And I know that radio, I'm not removing radio itself from this situation. Radio has done plenty to shoot itself in the foot over and over and over and over again. But nonetheless, someone that I've gotten to know a little bit, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for already. We've only had a couple of interactions. Kat Wetstone put out a tweet this morning.

That's a really, I think a really important point to have as part of this discussion. And she submits, I've been thinking a ton about blind fans and how this affects them. Because of the detail radio goes into losing that could derail a blind fan's experience of the game. I know it sounds small, but radio and accessibility. still matter. There's a great blind hockey association in Toronto. I know there are a blind hockey league. I know there's a lot of other blind hockey leagues that are around.

I just wanted to make sure that that became just part of the discussion point is something that you have, at least in the back of your mind, because I don't think that Columbus are the last ones to go down the simulcast route. And the other thing that I'll point out, too, is most if not all, of the broadcasters that you hear calling games for your favorite NHL team got their start in radio you know I'll focus on you know Buffalo Sabres for example

like Dan Dunleavy who I think has one of the best calls has one of the best calls in all of the NHL he started where I did fan 590 back in the in the 90s I started 95 he was probably there before me I know he was there before me because I would go to the studio and there was Dan I'm like oh man don't leave you so good Buffalo has always been blessed with great broadcasters.

You know, Hodge, Darling, Weber, Jenerette, of course, and now Dunleavy. Let's not lose sight of the fact that all these people got their starts in radio. They all did. Anywho, bracket that conversation for another day. I'm sure we will pick it up because, as I mentioned, I don't think it's the last time. We're going to see an operation and an organization here and go the simulcast route. In the meantime, here we're going to be a moment. Here we are, beginning of August, and it's probably a good time to take a pause, as it seems like the NHL and 32 teams have all sort of taken a pause right now.

After a flurry of activity in early July, that was great. That every day was catnip. That was fantastic. And bring aboard Keith Kavanaugh from the Puckpedia hockey show. I wanted to have Keith on for a while now. And I figured Keith right now is probably the perfect time because, and I know I'm going to jinx this year. There's probably an hour right now where we're pretty sure. sure that nothing's going to happen. I know the

OHL trade deadline or trade window just opened up so there's some moves in junior hockey, but right now in the NHL, I think we're pretty safe saying right now, nothing major is going to happen over the next hour. So let's have a sort of little rewind and a speculation of what we're looking at now

in the National Hockey League. And the latest bit of news is the Islanders, and we had mentioned this on the program a few weeks ago after he stepped away from the Boston Bruins contract expiring August 1st. This is, of course, Evan Gold who gets hired as an assistant general manager and the general manager of H.L. Hamilton for the New York Islanders.

When he stepped away from the Boston Bruins, he was going somewhere and after a couple of weeks it became obvious to many of us that he was headed to the islanders. So just so I can have it out there, the geek moment of the podcast, I thought of Stan Butler. Longtime OHL coach, 800 wins, one of the best to ever do it. So he used to have a hockey school, a North Toronto arena, and casual hockey fans will recognize that name because that's the place where Tom Wilson played. And it's, you know, North Toronto Arena, home of Stanley Cup champion Tom Wilson, that's on the voicemail when you call. So he used to have, check this one out. So he used to have this hockey camp at North Toronto Arena.

And I believe all four of these people were at one camp all at the same time. There was Evan Gold, who was going to York Mills Collegiate, Judd Moldaver, who was going to UCC, Chris Burkett, who's chief legal counsel for the PWHL and D. David Beeston, who's a former head of Fenway Sports. Now, either stands a really bad instructor because none of these people made it to the NHL or he just like helped raise a fine stock of people to populate various front offices and agent offices around the National Hockey League, the PWHL and other sports entities. But anyhow, long-winded introduction to ask this question, what did you think of the hire?

Yeah, well, Jeff, it's great to see. great to come on your show finally. I need to do my rookie lap here, which is fantastic. And also to your point, too, hang on, you're the rookie, shave the beard. Hang on, you're the rookie, shave the beard. Let's go. Get the Bick out right now.

Shave it live on the air. There's your rookie lap. Can you imagine? It would be like Michael Rupped that when the daily faceoff event was in the city with Johnny Lazarus and Colby Cohen. Yes. Ruppers getting his beard shaved live while their show's going on. It's good.

But to your point, too, about the radio situation. I read that article this morning. The Athletic. I mean, I think they're great in terms of their hockey coverage. So if you don't subscribe, this is another endorsement of the athletic. To your point, it is hard to, how do you dictate, like, if you're on TV, the way you're describing the game is going to be completely different than if you're on radio. Because, like you mentioned, you need to tell the score over and over again.

You need to let people know, like, what's going on on the ice that they can't see it. So I'm on board with you. I don't think simulcast is the answer. I know there's costs associated with everything. so I get from a financial perspective why that might be. But let's talk about Evan Gold here. Sure. Yeah, like your point, great hire for the New York Islanders.

I talked to our friend Stefan Rosner before just to get some more insight from him. So obviously Evan Gold's been in the Bruins organization for almost a decade, if not longer. He's coined this analytics guru, but what he's really strong at in industry circles is a balance of the eye test with the numbers, which I think is kind of the future of how you've successfully. succeed in a front office. So he'll be the GM of Hamilton. Obviously, he's going to be the assistant GM with Darsh 2 in New York. And he's going to be involved kind of with everything, including the cap. And they also have a couple guys nearing their ends of deals in Steve Pellegrini and Chris Lamarillo, who have been there a while. And, you know, I love, I love Chris Lamarillo,

big fan, New Lou Lamarillo since I was like five years old. So yeah, just great, great family, great people. But to the way the Darch is building this front office now, he's getting a lot of guys in their like 40s, right? So he has Ryan Bonus, he has himself, Matthew Darch is only 49, Evan Gold, I believe is 46, and then McKee also is in his 40s. So it sounds like it's sort of like a changing of the guard and just trying to kind of become a little more, you know, data-centric. And I think that's kind of the approach that some of these teams are taking now. You know, it's into tune. And we'll look historically at this as well. You know, when you look at just the demarcation point, I think for this generation is 2005. I may be, maybe, maybe.

even a little bit longer, but I just used 2005. That's when the game changed, new rules package, new logo for the NHL, lockout, salary cap, like all of it, right? Discuss what worked, discuss what didn't work, discuss what they should change, discuss what were the home runs. But it seems as if more so than ever, one of the smartest things you can do is populate your front office with people who could take your job. You know, where once upon a time, the philosophy was, you know, never hire someone that

could take your job. That, you know, it's, I'm going to go through the sort of evolution of general managers here. That very much was the saying when the art of the general manager was wide open and general managers made all of the decisions, right? Now, because of, you know, how many, how many times the CBA has changed, the art of the manager has been greatly diminished from the Bill Torre in Sam Pollock era. But that turned into, if you're going to hire one, hire two assistant general managers.

And the thinking behind it was never have someone challenge vertically, always have them challenge horizontally, right? Like let them fight horizontally. So hire two assistant general managers. Therefore, all of their energy can be focused on getting over on the guy horizontally as opposed to challenging the guy vertically. And now in this era of collaboration, it's like, no, fill your front office with like three or four people that could take your job. They look at the Detroit Red Wings with Ken Holland and Iserman and Nill and Verbeek and

et cetera, et cetera. Dallas is the same way with Scott Wade and Beverly, go down all and all. Like the manager space right now seems to be volume, volume, volume, and it continues to fragment as well. This is the cap guy. This is the analyst guy. What's part of the time? The GM did the whole thing.

And now you just can't. Now you just can't. well also jeff it's like um when your team is like cap strapped or you look at the islanders for example right like they're in an interesting spot because they have an aging core in the beau horvats and the matt barzelles but then you strike gold with matthew shaffer and you have to kind of step take a step back and be like how do we build this for the future are we going to be a team that's going for it as they did at the trade deadline last year or are we going to be a team that drafts really well collects a lot of assets and then when matthew shaffer in a couple years gets that new extension Maybe that's when we kind of go all in on that window. So the Islanders, instead of, you know, doing a lot of roster manipulation this offseason, they did some front office manipulation and really managed to get a lot of people in their front office that they make decisions, be creative. And sometimes when you're kind of cap strapped and there's not too much you can do on the roster, you do it with the front office. The thing in Darsh's defense here, too, like he and you sort of already winked at this is Darsh inherited a lot of people.

Like normally a manager comes in. It's like, all right, I'm bringing it all my own. all my own crew, but like there were a lot of people that are already there married to long-term contracts. I would imagine it would make Darsh feel like, okay, I'm a little bit hamstrung here right now, but slowly, but surely I'm going to chip away. And that's why I looked at the Evan Goldhire and said, because we're all looking for breadcrumbs. Okay, what does this tell us? What does this tell us? And to your point, I think he's going to try to put together a progressive front office. I really do. Not unlike what, where he came with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yeah, he saw what worked in Tampa

under Julian Breezebaugh and even Steve Eisenman to an extent. And then he kind of is getting mold in that front office structure. And then when he gets his opportunity in New York, he brings in guys like Ryan Bonas, like an Evan Gold, who were interviewing four general manager positions. Evan Gold was a finalist in Vancouver. And, you know, they couldn't work out the final details. And then that obviously led to his departure in Boston.

But he's bringing in guys who are right on the cusp of a full-time GM job. And those are the guys who, like you mentioned in the past, you might be hesitant to bring on because you think they're going to potentially be a successor for your job. But at this point, you need to kind of bring on all the brains that you can so that you can build a successful, sustainable contender because that's what gets you to keep your job in the long run. Because if the Islanders missed the playoffs again this year with Matthew Schaefer, like, you're probably not thinking Darsh is on a short leash, but there's always the potential

that sometimes these ownerships want quick results. And if you aren't able to produce them, they might make a change. Tell me when to stop. 16, 17, 18. I'm talking about Matthew Schaefer. 19. Let's do 19. So there was a question too, right?

Where it was, who's going to take over to be the most, the highest paid player after Macklin-Cellivrini's extension? And I actually don't think it's going to be Schaefer. He seems like a kind of guy who will take a reasonable value contract that won't necessarily break the bank and take the blank check and the 20% allowed in the same. CBA. He might take a little bit of a discount to let the Islanders build around him and use that

salary elsewhere. So to me, I mean, yeah, Schaefer is going to be extension eligible on July 1 of next year. And you'd imagine that the Islanders do what the Sharks did this offseason with Macklin Celebrini and eventually come to terms on a deal. It'll be interesting, Jeff, to see what that term is, just given how this offseason is kind of shaped out. And these young players, instead of taking that usual max of eight years, which will be seven years starting on September 15th, they're taking that five-year deal that only buys one UFA year and really kind of allows them to redip in the pool of the contracts at age 26, which is still their prime years. You know, part of me, I'm going to get on my sort of high horse here for a couple of seconds.

Part of me really hates it when I hear, oh, he's going to leave something. He's going to leave some money on the table. So the general manager has, you know, we saw this countless players, Connor McDavid famously a couple of times now. Part of that really bugs me. And here's why. And I'll go back to 0405. We went through a year-long drought of NHL hockey.

There's still American League hockey. There was still junior hockey. It's like hockey was still being played, but the NHL was dark for a season. And out of all of it, the NHL wanted a salary cap, they got a salary cap. And it seemed as if, like, Keith,

like almost right away, teams went into Selmo. And what they sold the players on is this is a partnership and you're a general manager too. Like I hate it when I hear like when players take on the responsibility of managing the salary cap. It is not Matthew Schaefer's job to manage the cap for Matthew Darsh. It is Matthew Schaefer's job to perform as best he can on the ice and get compensated. I hate the word fairly, but here I go using it. fairly based on where he is now and where he is headed.

But somewhere along the way, and I will fault the players and I will fault the agents for it, the players and agents bought it. Like they're somehow responsible for the cap too. No, you're not. No, you went through a lockout and had a salary cap shoved down your throat. You lost your executive director and Bob Good now.

And now you're managing the cap? part of the part like that bugs me like that's for like honestly like that's for you and heart to do at puck video you guys manage the cap okay that's not for shaford and celibini and Leo carlson and all the McDavid and leaving money forever it's not their job to man like does that resonate with you at all because it the more I see it the more it really bugs me oh I have to leave something for someone no you don't yeah this is what the owners wanted so now deal with it you can't put together a successful team too bad you want a salary cap just the way it is don't plan the players he make a ton of good points so like i i hate to push back too much it's just i think the players view it as they know that whatever chunk that they're going to get is going to be less for the rest of their team to build around but so your point too like that's not their job right it's not their fault that they're at the top of their market and matthew shafers comments was basically like my agent who's patrick morris is going to figure out the numbers for him so they're going to come some offers and you know it could have been a celebrini situation too where he also didn't

take the max of what he could have. And if he waited another year, he would have been able to get even more because he signed the extension a year early when the salary cap's going to be going up another $9 million that adds to the amount percentage that he can take on his next deal. So he did inherently leave some money on the table as well. But maybe he's happy with that number. And maybe he views that as a number that he's comfortable with. It's generational money, right? It's over, you know, almost $100 million. So, but yeah, it's not the player's jobs to leave money on the table because then you don't know what the next moves are going to be in in edmonton for example after you saw what they spent that salary cap on do you think connor macdavit was really

thrilled about leaving money on the table for what had transpired after you never know what's going to happen part of me go if i'm macdavit at that point i'll come in for twelve and a half you run every trade and every signing by me i think that has to be the agreement right because he left so much money on the table he didn't just leave a million dollars a couple million dollars It's similar to Jalen Brunson and the Knicks, where he left $100 million over four years to let them build a championship team, and they ended up winning the championship this year.

But if you're doing that, and that's the responsibility, then you also should have more say in what these moves are going to be because if you're the best at your craft, you know which players you're going to bring in that you're going to succeed with, you would think. So let me shift to agents here quickly. You mentioned Pat Morris of Newport a couple of times. I want to swing to Darren Farr, someone who you know very well,

from Cortex. That was a great podcast. And really got some good traction, too. Especially in Toronto for some reason. I'll scratch my head by that one. I had someone tell me years ago, this person said to me, if my kid played in the NHL, I'd want Darren Ferris to represent him. Because I know that he'll get my son every last dime.

That's here. He'll get every quarter under every cushion, take back every empty, and he'll put it in my son's pocket. That's how this person said. That's how I feel about Darren Affairs. Were you surprised at the reaction? I mean, we probably shouldn't because it's Toronto and it's Mitch Marner, right? It's like that in case, it's like a classic talk radio in case of emergency, break glass. Oh, go to the Marneux topic, break glass.

Let's go and you know you're going to get popped in Toronto for it. But were you, were even you surprised after that interview when you published at just how lit on fire that whole interview became? I mean, Jeff, yes. To answer your short, short and sweet, yes, I was surprised. When recording that, and I know Steve Daniels podcast did a whole reaction to it, and the whole sentiment was that he went seven and a half minutes uninterrupted, just kind of going and going and going. But we were super thrilled that Darren Ferris came on.

He kind of gave his opinion. And, you know, Marner was just one little topic that I wanted to discuss among a plethora of different things. Like I think the most pressing this offseason was the Bowen Byron, not just the acquisition by the Blackhawks, but then the subsequent extension. I mean, I was getting text messages from, you know, SportsNet 590, all these Toronto media wanting me to come on and explain the situation and how that interview played out, which I was happy to do. But, yeah, to your point, I think Toronto just loves to talk about these situations.

And granted, they're a lot closer to all the details of what happened than I am. I'm not a Toronto Maple Leafs fan boy. So a lot of those media people and the players and, you know, former players are on shows now talking about it. And I think that they're just kind of fed up and just sick of talking about something that happened over a year ago. But like when we give agents an opportunity in a platform to talk about whatever they want to talk about, we had Elaine Wa on a couple weeks prior.

And he was kind of breaking down how that Nico, he sure extension was going to look, which he ended up signing a few days after we recorded the episode with him. We had John Cofi, who represents James Higgins. And we talked about his amateur tryout, which he signed before he got his ELC, signed with the Boston Bruins, which was a big talking point this year. So we love when agents come on and give their peace of mind. But to us, like, you know, we expected to get a little traction on that, just given the nature of the conversation.

But I didn't expect, you know, over 1.3 million views on Puckpedia's Twitter with the clip. And then me getting text messages from people, I don't ever get text messages from people wanting to talk about it more. It was just, it took a life of its own. But, you know, I think Ferris got his point across. And to your point, he will maximize what value he can. can get for his clients. If you look at a co-buyro deal, he got an incredible deal for his client on that contract.

That's the thing. And the reputation is well told. Like, Darren Ferris tries to walk guys to free agency. Like, he's not afraid. He encourages his clients. Like, get right, get right out there and see what's over on the other side of the hill. As for the Marner topic, like the Marner topic in Toronto is this generation's version of

the Kerry Frazier, Wayne Gretzky, High Stick. in the LA Toronto series of 1993, which for how long did Toronto media dine out on that? And now it's the, you know, the ever-long audit on Mitch Marner and Toronto. I find a lot of it really insincere because Maple Leafs fans die for this topic to get renewed. And then when it does,

they come out and blast whoever's talking about her for not being able to let it go. Like that's the thing that I kept wondering about it. Like I watched the piece with Darren and I'm like, all the key did was ask him a question. It's not like he just jumped in and said, before we start this, I've prepared a, I've prepared a statement about Mitch Martin. No, like you asked a question he gave what I thought was a really thorough answer.

People may not like it. But from his point of view and from his clients and his clients' families' point of view, those are the answers. People are dying for it, but then they turn on the outrage machine pretty fast. Well, Jeff, too, your old Pallalia Friedman, he always says, you know,

we get mad when players give these, you know, people in hockey media, right? They give these template, boring answers, but then we also get mad when they tell the truth and they really expand on it and they give their personality a little bit.

And these people, you can't get both sides, you either get one or the other. And to me, I'd much rather a situation like Darren Farras where he gives, his side of it and he's really thorough in his answer and it allows the conversation to happen. Do you have a dream agent, by the way?

In terms of what? Like, because you have a lot of agents and I love talking to agents, love hearing agents talk to. Is there like anyone in the landscape, either current agent, past age, and like there are so many, like, I missed on basically, like, who was the late and he was such a wonderful person to talk to. I broke in doing hockey media with Bill Waters, who was a former agent with Alan Eaglson in the 70s before later on becoming assistant general manager with the Toronto Maple Leafs. So like I've sort of grown up in hockey media around agents we all have.

Is there one, like do you have like an agent wish list? Like, oh, I'd love to be able to talk to Don me in, you know, the godfather. I'd love to be able to talk to like whomever. Is there one? Maybe Mike Gillis. There's a great one. agents still call him for advice. Agents still call him for advice to this day.

Even Kent Hughes, who's in the, you know, the GM of the Montreal Canadians right now. Like he, he obviously came from a nice background and then his agency got acquired and then he went to Montreal. And then the fallout was, you know, I think some of those players ended up coming up to cortex with Darren Farras. So there's two agents right now, I would say. And the first one's going to be Judd just because he's so engaging in his conversation. He represents some of the top players in the NHL, and he's a guy who I believe is maybe going to position himself long term for an executive role on an NHL team, a la what Kent Hughes did.

He can't take the pay cut. Keith, he can't take the pay cut. Same as Pat Preasaw, can't take the pay cut. I know. Pat's another guy, too, who I think would be interesting. I think the thing with Pat is he's a lot more guarded in the information he's willing to share on a public podcast like our Pupedia Hockey Show. So I think like the interview on the record would not be as interesting as maybe the interview off the record.

That's always true. That's always true. That's always true. Especially when it comes to agents. But I find I've had Pat on a couple of different types on this program in previous shows that I've done enough. You kind of go into it knowing that, okay, there's only going to be so far he's going to go with certain clients and certain topics. But like, look, I was on with Greg and Pat was on and we asked him about the idea of the, because the Hughes brothers are represented by CAA. And Riasa, is there any chance to the Hughes boys, you know, in Michigan and the offseason talking about getting together.

And he kind of did this one with a little sort of Voltarian smile in a wink and said, hockey players talk all the time. Speaking of Quinn, though. If you put in your, put in your on your Pat Brise on the Coder ring, what you're saying is, yeah, of course you're talking about it. Exactly. And even like now we're talking about Quinn, right, and his extension that was going to for sure be signed, you know, a couple weeks into this offseason. And now we've gotten to. We've gone to August, and Bill Garon was on with Russo today, where he was basically talking about, you know,

these are big decisions, and we've been in touch with their camp. And, you know, the sentiment, I'd say a month ago was not if he's going to sign this extension, but when he's going to sign this extension with Minnesota. And now it almost feels like it's shifted a little bit to if. I agree. You still put Minnesota in the driver's seat, right? You still, for all intents and purposes, think that it's going to get done. But the longer this drags on, if we get to training camp and there's no deal in place,

the conversation's only going to get louder and louder and louder. And the devils, I think, are kind of keeping that cap space open a little bit to be able to make that move. Quinn's only do 7.85 million AAV against the cap this year. So obviously the big number will come in the extension that starts next season, but they have the space to fit him in this year with a couple moves. So I think that's on the back of their mind. I think in the back of Quinn Hughes's mind here too is I don't think that anything, I don't think any of this is about the money

because I think the money he's going to get in Minnesota is the money he's going to get in New Jersey is the money he's going to get in Detroit is the money he's going to get wherever he ends up going. I think he looks at it and says like, is this a Stanley Cup team? Yep. Honestly, I really do believe.

Look at the center. Just look at right down the middle. And Joel Ericksonek is a great center. I think he's a really, really solid center. But aside from him, like your center depth is pretty weak. And I think if you look at the devil's center depth on the contrary. They have two of the top centers in the league.

You could probably rank them. I think the athletic ranked them the second or third best center duo in the NHL with Nico Heeshire and Jack Hughes. You're also at a position, Jeff, where you're in the prime of your career. When do you have an opportunity to play with both your brothers in the NHL,

in the prime of your career, where you can potentially win a Stanley Cup for the next three or four seasons? The devil's adding a player like Quinn Hughes, whatever they have to give up, they will be well positioned to compete for a Stanley Cup. You're in and you're out with both Jack and Quinn Hughes and the other moves that Sunny Mata has made on that roster, I believe, has positioned themselves

really nicely for the future. So I think to your point, I think it is about roster construction because even though the Wild have two of the best wingers in the NHL and Carol Caprizz off, and Matt Boldie might have the best contract in the NHL right now, you've got to ask yourself the question of like, what is this team? Are we going to be able to compete with Colorado and Dallas year in and year out? That division's a gauntlet and granted New Jersey has Carolina in the way and Washington has beefed up as well. But I think it might be a little bit of an easier path for them than for Minnesota. It does look like it's the battle for third right now.

Like I know we're doing this all on paper, but, you know, the Stanley Cup exists in the metropolitan division. Interesting. Hey, like all last season, all we talked about was how strong the Atlantic is and how strong the central is. And how weak Pittsburgh was? How weak Pittsburgh was. And, yeah, just stay alive.

You'll see weird things. But when it comes to the New Jersey Devils, like we're already handing the first place in the metro to Carolina. We're giving it to the Washington capitals based on the moves that Chris Patrick made. Spencer Carberry has a lot of options. And like if you really squint that, you say, how is Justin sort of a fourth line center?

But nonetheless, like they are stacked. So it looks like it's the battle for third right now. But I look at the New Jersey Devils and say to myself, A, health is the ultimate wild card. I really like Jake Allen, but it's probably going to be like a 50-50 split there with the net miners.

33, 33, Jeff. Yeah, you think they're going to do it? you think they're going to do it and split it that way? I know you just had Sunny on. Yeah, I would say generally, like probably not, but because of the way Sunny thinks and more of this like money ball kind of approach,

I think for them, it probably makes the most sense. You only have about a $4 million investment in net between three guys. Why not just rotate the three of them, play the hot hand. All three guys are, you know, could be exposed to waivers. So you don't want to lose a Nico Dawes, who's a young asset, free to waiver. So I think for them it makes the most sense to go to this money ball approach,

goalie by goalie by goalie. And then to your point, too, like on paper, the capitals do look like the second best team, but we also said on paper the penguins look like the worst team in the metropolitan by a good bit last season. And they ended up surging and making the playoffs. And, you know, two or three years ago when Nashville had that big year when they signed Stamcoast and Marcia Show and Brady Shea basically penciling them into a playoff spot and it kind of never gelled and worked out together.

So that's why I love how you can put as much as you want on paper. But that's why we play 82 now 84 games in the NHL regular season. Let me ask you one more thing about the devil's too Because I'm with you like and I think that you know listen I've known Sunny Madder for a while and you know he's a huge jazz fan And we all know if it's you know like in poker background and all that like he just like at the end of the day He just thinks differently right like he doesn't draw inspiration from the same places that everybody else in the game has Like he is a different type of thinker. He doesn't care what you think he's respectful

But I don't think he really puts too much stock in the traditional way of thinking case and point right away, boom, Barrett Hayton offer sheet and a really smart one too. Yep. I look at the devils and I say to myself, again, if everybody stays healthy and if they can keep Jack Hughes out of restaurants and let people cut his dinner for him

and keep him away from sharp objects, then I don't know, like, is it beyond the pale that it's the devil's in second place? dare I say, the devil's in first place here. Honestly, I really like New Jersey. I really, really like. And again, if somehow they can get Quinn Hughes here, if it doesn't come together from Minnesota,

and they're forced to sort of move them along and recoup some of their assets they traded to Vancouver, then all of a sudden, maybe the Cup stays in the division. Yeah, I think your point, like health is obviously the biggest factor, but I don't think it's crazy to say the devils get first or second in that division ahead of a Carolina, ahead of a Washington. Carolina is going to be without Seth Jarvis for the first couple months of the season. Injuries always happen.

With Washington, you don't know how these wingers are going to gel with each other. You're going to have a lot of guys competing for minutes that they normally would get on their previous teams that they're not going to get now. So in Alex Tuck, a Jordan Kairu, Ryan Leonard might get relegated. He might not even be on the second power play unit. Justin Sewardiff, who's a guy who, when we talked on Demetri's Philipovich's PDO cast, he's a great extension eligible candidate, a guy who doesn't. He has a lot of value. They traded a second round pick for him, which, you know,

seemed crazy at the time, but then he's developed into a really nice player. So to me, though, the Devils, they have really good center depth, which I think is very important. A lot of the guys that Sonny Meda has acquired, too, have a lot of this wing center flexibility. So you look at a guy like an Evan Rodriguez, like a Cody Glass, like a Jasper Bowquist. They can play the wing. They can play center. He's making bets on these guys. If you look at the fourth round pick, they trade it for Amadeus Lombardi from Grand Rapids, the Detroit Red Wings organization.

He's almost a point per game player in the AHL. He's only 22 years old. He's a guy who they're making a bet on that they think could potentially rise above expectations. And that's the perfect kind of bet because he doesn't cost much in terms of salary. And a fourth round draft pick is very random if that player is going to hit or not. So I think a lot of what he's done this offseason has reshaped the team. He didn't sign Simone Nemich to a long-term contract. so he kept that flexibility, which I think is important as you look that he signed a five times

$7.2 million a AAV deal. So a lot of these moves is just about being flexible, giving positional flexibility, and then giving Sheldon Keith as much matchup opportunity as he wants. And they added a coaching analytics position in their front office, too, which is very rare in the NHL. So I think a lot of looking at these matchups and how to deploy the roster is going to be a big emphasis this season and looking at the chemistry in which players kind of gel with certain players. who has better underlying numbers as a line.

So I think a lot of that is going to come into play, and I think the Devils could succeed because of that. It's safe bets, right? Like we look at a team, look at even like the Colorado Avalanche, who've been doing it for years. Look at like, you know, Parker Kelly, for example, like really, really smart, safe bets. And it's now on Nashville, obviously.

Who's now on Nashville. And surprise, surprise, we're the Jam of Nashville. But it's, it shouldn't really be a secret. You know, and you look at the Carolina Hurricanes last year win the Stanley Cup. And, you know, we had Tulski on the program afterwards. And he talked about, you know, some of the bets that they've made and players that they've shuffled in and out. And he goes, look, I know I'm on a hot. I'm paraphrasing here. Because I know I have a hot hand right now. Right now, we've shuffled out a dozen players and I'm 12 for 12. I'm not going to stay at 100 percent.

No one thinks. But at the same time, if everything is all just about percentages, You make enough smart, safe bets over the years. These things accumulate and accumulate, and then all of a sudden, the New Jersey Devils become one of the deepest teams in the NHL. It's not just the players, too. It's the contracts that Carolina has signed those guys, too, like the Jackson Blakes of the world,

like the Logan Stankovans, like they're taking these guys when they're not at their peak value, and they're signing them to long-term deals, low A-AV, and it really allows them to have a ton of cap flexibility. but then in addition to that, they're making really good draft picks. So they have guys like a Bradley Nodoo, like a Felix Unger, who are now really interesting trade pieces if they want to move those guys. So they have a lot of assets.

And I think more organizations have to think of their prospects as assets as opposed to guys that are potentially going to develop into your system. One of the low-key most interesting stories to me, now it is, it's not a low-key story for Ottawa Senators fans. It's a big one. But one of the low-key contract stories for me going on right now is Drake Batherson. Yep. I talked about that on the show, too.

What a player. Yeah, I love him as a player. There's a few things happening here. It seems as if, you know, Tuck wanted the Kempai deal. Batherson now wants the Tuck deal, which is the Kemp A deal. And that deal next year, as a salary cap goes up, probably goes up by a million dollars. So the 10.5 is 11.5. I don't know if Steve Steeleau's had that.

number in mind. It might have been a single digit, but here we are with Drake Baltherson. And the other thing, especially right now, is everything Ottawa does is sort of under the shadow, under the umbrella of Brady Kachukh, went to Florida. Yep. And you can't lose another player. You can't lose another player who wants to stay there, too. I think that's also important. 100%. And I think his representatives of Cortex know that. Yeah. And he's coming off a really good deal, right? Under $5 million A-AV. If you look at him last season, he had 71 points and 79 games played. He's a power play specialist, which I know we talk about a lot about, you know, oh, he doesn't have his good 5B-5 numbers. But I also think it's valuable to be converting on the power play, right? So he had 7. Can I pause on that for one second? I had one, and this is an analytics-based. manager who mentioned, I brought this up with one player. And then there was a long silence.

And the manager said to me, correct if I'm wrong here. Do power play goals count? Seriously, there's such a connotation. I'm able to shut up. There's such a connotation that I know really good at 5B5. But like if you're converting on the power plays and he had 7.23 points per 60 last year on the power play led the Ottawa senators top 10 mark in the NHL. He's going to be a 29 years old when the new deal starts.

So you worry about that. But if he wants to stay there, and he's a player who's almost a point for game player, and you lost your best winger, you need a guy. If you're in a compete now window, they have two great contracts with Jake Sanderson and with Tim Stutzelah. You're not going to just throw that away. That, pause, the Jake Sanderson deal might be the best deal in the, I want that as part of the conversation to.

All right. That might be the best. That might be that, I mean, I got a defensive. Listen, I have a default. Like my default, my bias is always at the blue line. that Sanderson contract is so good. I agree. That's one of the best deals in the NHL.

That's the point, though, Jeff, right? It's like if they have these really good contracts and these really good players, you're not going to bottom out. You're not going to tank. You need to try and build for the future. And they did that. They signaled that by their trade with William Eklin for ninth overall, right? They got a winger who's cost controlled for the next three seasons and then his RFA eligibility after that.

But you pair that with Drake Batherson and then, Jim Stutzel on that top line. That's a really good top line. And that's a, you know, it's a tough Atlantic division. But Ottawa was in a good position. Linus Allmark could have a bounce back this year. I know his regular season numbers weren't great last year. But there was a lot going on, you know, outside noise.

And so he bounces back. And they have a good team. Artem Zub was unreal with Jake Sanders in last year, too. It really was to the point about Linus Allmark too. I hope for Ottawa's sake, and I hope for Allmark's sake that that's the real Linus Allmark, who when you look, I've always made this point. It's interesting, Keith. I talked to goalies or people that are in that industry,

and they'll always tell me the same thing. Like, as far as, like, skill goes for a goal to, he's called like top 10 skill. Like other goaltenders look at him and go like, I wish I could do that like Olamrock, like this like on, but the only thing that he's never able to do outside of a brief time when he was in the Sabres organization

playing with Rochester is just, as I would say, like bite down on the mouth guard and say, like, I'm not letting the next one in boys. And we saw that in that in that series against, Carolina. And I can't tell you how many of those Carolina players and people in the organization have told me, toughest series they had was against Ottawa. And a lot of it was because of Lenis Allmark, even though it was a sweet. Toughest series was against the Ottawa Senators. It wasn't the Vegas Golden Knights. It was the Ottawa Senators. And that one was a sweet.

I hope for his sake and for Sen's sake that that's the real Linus Almark, the one that marries that elite level skill with that element of nothing's going past me guys. Get on my back. We're winning this game. Can we shift, Jeff? So we want to talk about the extension eligible guys, right?

I do. I think that's a good time to extend him. As right now, like you mentioned, before the cap goes up, before he breaks out again next season, playing a lot of his time with Tim Stutzlaw. To me, there's another guy. And we talked about Quinn Hughes earlier.

So there was a lot that went back to Vancouver in that Quinn Hughes deal. And the centerpiece of that deal was Eve William, right? Yep. And he's a guy where I look at Vancouver, and I think that they have up until September 15th to extend him for eight years. And to me, that's a no-brainer that you do the eight-year deal on. Because if you're Vancouver, you're not necessarily going to be good

at the next two or three seasons, right? So you're actually able to overpay because you have a ton of salary cap space to when you're in years five, six, seven, and eight, when you are contending and you're supposed to be this good team, maybe play off building towards your contention window. You want that deal to be on a good AAV. And so if you only sign him to three, four, five seasons, when you're finally going to be good,

he's either going to be able to leave in free agency or you're going to have to pay a lot of money for what he's worth relative to what he's making now. And so he hasn't popped offensively. You can get value on that now. So here's the, and again, like this is an old school way of thinking, but I think everybody has a number in their mind.

And the number that I'm looking for is games played. Now when it comes to goaltenders, I try, I really, honestly, Keith, I really try not to have a solid opinion on them until I see 100 games. Okay. And then I start to get,

because you want the shooters all to have a look once and then make the adjustments, NHL games. Yes, sorry, NHL games. So I want 100, I want 100 games from my goaltenders. This was like the old Matt Murray argument. I want 100 games until I make my mind up about a goaltender.

Because I want the shooters to see, I want to see both the shooters and the goaltenders. tenter, make adjustments, and then everything is just going to settle into where it is. Because we've seen Goldies come out of the house on fire and they're incredible and then they fizzle. 90s were full of these goaltenders, I assure you. And I don't know about you, but for defensemen, I've always said the number is 200. And Zeve Williams played 76 games. So the thing that I keep saying, it's a horrible talk radio slash podcast answer. And I fully admit it. But my opinion on Zev Boyam is, I don't know.

No. I honestly, I don't. Like, I do not envy Ryan Johnson here and the Siddins whatsoever because I really don't know. I think that Steve Boyne's going to be a really good defenseman. I really do. I think when you look at everything that he's done leading up to this right now, and I know he'll play on a very challenging Vancouver Canucks team for 45 games. And nobody wants to go through that misery when the team's out of the playoff position, playoff picture by Christmas and you're dragging your ass through the remainder of the schedule. It sucks. I get it. I think he's. going to be an outstanding defenseman. I just don't know yet because I just haven't seen the volume of games. I don't know. I'm just stuck in an old way of thinking. And I'm fully prepared to admit that maybe I am here. But like, do you have a number for defensemen? Because for me, it's 200.

I know. I think that's a good number, Jeff. I think you're right in terms of, I don't know what Zeev's going to be. I don't think a lot of people know what he's going to be because, like you said, he's only played 76 games. And half of that was with the Vancouver team. who wasn't very good last season. But if you're the Vancouver Canucks front office,

you have to make some risks, some calculated risks, some bets on the future because that's what you're building towards. And this could be a turning, like a building block for the future because he's hopefully going to be your number one defenseman for a very long time. And if you, like I said, if you only sign him to that three, four year deal, because if he does kind of go on the trajectory that you expect him to go on, when the end of that deal is up and the salary cap is at, let's call it $150 million,

he's going to be worth, let's call it $17 to $22 million on the salary cap and where if you sign him to an eight-year deal, you can probably get him for $10, $11 million right now. So when he's playing, you know, towards the end of that going into his late 20s, he's going to be on a really strong value contract. Like you mentioned a la Jake Sanderson right now, who's on a really incredible deal. And so if you're Vancouver, you kind of want to make that bet because you want to be in a position to build around him. But yeah, like I think a lot of these GMs don't necessarily know. And I think there are worse guys to make bets on than this player who has a strong draft pedigree.

His micro stats are really good. He's good at puck retrievals. He's good at zone exits, zone entries. He's going to get a lot of power play one time next season. So we'll see how that plays out for him. But, yeah, it's a tough job to be a general manager. and you look at some of the signings that some of these guys make and they're signing, you know, mid-30-year-old defensemen to four-year deals who are not going to age very well and are kind of getting slower when you have this young stud, offensive, quick defenseman who you give him a longer-term deal and you hope it ages well, but you don't know for certain.

Do you think that, I mean, right now, like Landon Dupon and we're now watching him at the at the Halinka. Like there's another one that's on the horizon. Not that there's going to be, this is going to sound so insulting. but just as we saw so many highly skilled forwards, like there was a glut of these, like elite level forwards, and maybe you call this like the Quinn Hughes phenomenon, not to discount everything that Zeeboyim has done.

Again, I think he's been an excellent defenseman. Once upon a time, that was a rare creature. Okay, now it's not so rare. Nope. There's more of these guys coming all the time. The Hudson Boys. Hudson Boys are another great example. Right?

Like, And there's more of these players every single year in the draft. Maybe a little bit undersized, but man, can they, man can they ever watch? Not that, what's landing DuPont? Six feet tall? Yeah. And he's not like a six foot four. And he still has potential to grow.

And he's still, absolutely. But like, with that type of skill from the back end, these guys aren't the rare birds that they once were. Agree, disagree. No, I totally agree. And I think that's a good thing because I think you're taking the size factor out of it when, you know, the old school way of thinking is you want this big burly defenseman who is going to slam you in your place and take a lot of the puck possession away. And then

you didn't have many guys who were small, who were quick, who were fast, but then you're seeing some of these guys really succeed at the NHL level. And you mentioned Quinn Hughes. We mentioned Lane Hudson who won the Calder Trophy and just is looking like another guy who's on a ridiculously good contract. And, you know, someone like a kale McCar is almost like a rare breed where he's so fast, but he's also got a bigger frame and can really throw the body around. But to your point, like Landon DuPont right now is around six foot tall, maybe he grows up to six two. Maybe he doesn't, though. Maybe he stays around six foot. But he seems to be the guy that everyone's talking about that will be the first overall pick in the 27 NHL draft. And if we look at who's going

to be not as good next year, who has potential to get a player like that, I think a lot of teams would be very happy if they kind of built their defensive core around him in the future. Okay, time for a couple more here quickly. What happens with McCar? McCar signs before training camp starts that that one feels a little different than Quinn Hughes because he got drafted by the avalanche. He's been through that system. He won a Stanley Cup with them.

He kind of has just, you know, he's prepared. They've been preparing for this extension for a while. When you look at the contracts, they've gotten rid of. They've been preparing for this. So I was talking about this with Dimitri too. Do we think it makes sense for Kail to do like a four-year deal where he kind of signs for a pretty high A.A. But then has a chance to go back to the market at 31. Or does he take advantage of the CBA where up until September 15th he can sign for that eighth year?

And he gets, let's say, $17 or $18 million. It's really what he's more comfortable with because I could see both deals working for both sides, honestly. But I think Kail is going to sign before training camp. it's just what that term's going to be, and it's probably going to be around that 18 to 19 million AAV because he is the best defenseman in the NHL. You can make arguments for Werenski and Quinn Hughes, but he's right there. Do you see anybody on the horizon? I mean, we're all wondering about Celebrini, and even he didn't it, even though he's getting paid the max for the first few years of this contract.

Do we see anyone taking the max? No, I honestly don't. I think players will come close to the max. I don't think anyone's going to take that max deal. And like we said, like Schaefer's probably the next young player up to potentially take the max deal. But aside from him, like there wasn't really anyone in last year's draft class that I think is going to be a max guy.

And then in this year's draft class, the top two forwards were wingers, which isn't necessarily a premium position when you're paying top dollar. So I don't see any of those guys taking the max. And, you know, Nikita Kuturoff is up, Sydney Crosby's up, but those guys aren't in a position to take Max. Kutrov, you could maybe make a little bit of argument,

but Tampa's cap strap, and he's going to take a little less to stay there in Florida where it's advantageous on his tax structure. I mean, I would just love to see it. Part of me, there's a real part of me, we're all sort of in love with the idea, like, oh, all these kids grow up dreaming about the Stanley. I'm just dying for someone to come out here and say,

like, look, like you have a job, I have a job too. I'm trying to make the most money that I can, regardless of whether I win the Stanley Cup or not. And what the reaction would be. Yeah. It's honest, too, which is like... It's honest. But it's something you don't say.

It's just something that you can't say, even though if that's how you feel, that's how you feel. Why? Because that's how we're growing up. Fans need to believe that everybody's just dreaming about getting the name on... I always make the joke. You want your name on a cup? Go to Starbucks. Now, dreaming about getting the name on the cup and the frozen pond in the backyard and it's all I dream about...

I'm just dying for someone to come out here and say, like, it's my job. I'm trying to get... get the most money I can. I got a family too. People were upset about that Byram deal, right? Speaking to Darren Farrath, where like he got 12 and a half million dollars when he's never been a quote-unquote number one defenseman. And now he's given the opportunity to do that. And that's exactly what he wanted. And it also becomes not only the role is beneficial for him, but then the money that he's getting is beneficial because he was never getting that in Buffalo. He was never getting that in Colorado. So he found a situation where he can

get that. And you know, goodos to him. You can't get bad at him for wanting that. 100%. And again, that goes back to the pre-example. And again, that goes back to the his point. Darren Ferris got that. Yep. Quibble, all you want about, oh, Mitch Marner this,

he got Mitch Marner his money twice. Yep. And you can even argue Mitch, Mitch could have got more than 12 million, but he found his place that he wanted.

And like, I'm not saying he took less than, you know, he could have gotten, but like, you feel like Mitch could have got more. Famously, Mitch Marner was offered

but did not sign an offer sheet. by the Columbus Blue Jackets, million years ago. Is there an offer sheet coming for another Columbus Blue Jacket player here? So my thinking is that if that would have happened, that would have already happened.

That's my only thought is that I think it would have already happened if at a fantilly, I know who you're talking about, would have gotten the offer sheet. It's because I think now, I don't think the value is there when you see what Leo Carlson signed for,

you assume that, and then Macklin Celebrini and Connor Bedard, you assume Fantilli is going to come in right below those guys at around $14 to $15 million. Are there a couple teams that could definitely use him that also have the cap space right now? Absolutely. But then it also creates that situation that Leo Carlson's now in

where he accepted an offer sheet to go somewhere else, and now he has to answer those questions. And if it's not life-changing money like Leo Carlson got, I don't see him doing it for if he's going to get a similar amount at Columbus. it would really have to be an overpay. And I don't think a lot of teams are in position to do that right now. You look at the most cap space right now is Detroit. If you go to Puckpedia's website at $19.5 million.

But that would be an interesting place for him if they lose Dylan Larkin. And went to Michigan. The University of Michigan. Yep. So like I, I'm in place, though. Yeah, I was going to say, like, who's signing that offer sheet? They have other things to do. Like, well, what about Simon Edmondson?

Right. He's a guy that I think is more likely to actually get offer-seated just because he's going to probably fall into that bucket that Brandt Clark, Simone Nevich, Pabal Minchikov signed for five, five, five, seven point two. What if someone gives him $8.5, $9 million? Like, I think that that could be an appealing offer sheet for a team, and he's a really good player. I'm glad you brought up Minchikov, too, because I don't think we've talked about it enough as far as, like, what that contract did for other defensemen in the NHL? We talked, oh, what did the Leo Carlson offer sheet mean for all these other forwards? Yet, man, you can maybe make the argument, like the one that really stung was the Minchikov deal. 100%. That one aches. No, they were going to pay that much money. Not a chance.

And they didn't think, of course, they were going to spend 18 on Carlson. But I think that, I still think that that's different than what Pavel Minchikov ended up signing for. Yeah, and Cutter-Goti is still in RFA. Now, he's not offer sheet eligible there because of the NHL service time. But now what's his contract going to be? There's rumors floating around. He's not going to take less than $15 or $16 million per year on a deal. So the ducks are in a tough spot with salary cap because they only have $9 million in space right now.

So if they're going to assign Gaudiade to that kind of a deal, they're going to have to move some bodies out and some cash out before they kind of make that deal. You're allowed to go 10% over the cap in the summer ago. Okay, last one. Before I let you go, team you are most interested in for the remainder of August. And maybe Detroit is the obvious one because they don't have a manager. and there's a sidebar to all of that. And then there's a whole Dylan Larkin saga. And you mentioned Edvenson as well. That might be the obvious answer here. But I don't know, maybe there's a

sneaky one that we're not paying attention to. Yeah, I won't go obvious. And I'll go kind of based off an answer you had when he came on our show a month ago. And that'll be the Columbus Blue Jackets for a couple reasons. So one, obviously, the Adam Fantilli, he's a restricted free agent right now. What does he end up signing for? But then you have this whole Karl-Marchenko situation. He's on a ridiculously low $3.85 million a AV contract. He's extension eligible. He has another year left on his deal. Does he want to stay long term in Columbus, which he expressed a couple years ago, does that completely flipped now? And does he become a valuable trade asset to a team like a Montreal who's been rumored to potentially be involved in a conversation about that?

But then they also have Denton Matechuk, too, who's extension eligible, who's a really, really nice young defenseman. I think he's a power play quarterback of the future. And so depending on what happens with Zach Werenski, that's another player who I look can potentially sign long term in Columbus and what they do there. But you mentioned too, you still don't think the Dallas Stars deal

is off the table for Zach Werenski. So is that something that gets revisited this summer and does that potentially happen? And then that starts to create some dominoes that fall in Columbus. I really have a hard. That to me looks like the Werenski side really needed things to calm down fast.

where Dallas was like, nope, we're doing. But the thing is, like, the deal made sense because what's the thing, what's one of the things that Columbus needs more than anything else? Someone to replace Zach Warren. A first pairing defenseman who's under contract for a long time. Right. Like all of it, even as a one for one,

that completely checks out. Right. And the good thing with restricted free agents or good thing for teams is that you're not able to put trade protection on their restricted free agent years. So Thomas Harley still has three or four years left as a restricted free agent that he is not able to have trade protection. So even though he signed his long-term deal in Dallas, he has no say if they trade him a year or two years from now. Okay.

Any last thoughts you want to leave us with? Anything burning in your mind that you want to get off your chest? No, I think we covered it all, Jeff. I think there's just been a lot of extensions that have already happened. There's going to be more that kind of flush out throughout the season. And I think training camp is going to be kind of the pseudo. deadline for a lot of these to get done. And if you're seeing some guys who aren't signed at training camp, then you're going to start seeing the media talk about it. The rumors are going to

happen. But we got about a month. Hopefully, you know, a lot of the front office guys I've talked to are taking their vacations, you know, in the next couple weeks. So I think we might see not too much action happening right now and then maybe pick up right around U.S. Labor Day. Need some momentum for the season. Listen, you spent far more time with me today than you you probably bargained for. But buddy, I appreciate it. You be good. We'll catch up soon. Yep, it's always good to talk, Jeff. Continue pissing people off on that podcast. Keith Kavanaugh from the Puckpedia Hockey Podcast,

who does some outstanding work there. It seems as if one of the real niches, and I should mention, I probably should have mentioned this off the top of the show. We do at Daily Faceoff, we do have a partnership and relationship with the good people at Puckpedia. That's, of course, Keith and Hart Levine,

who you've seen on this program and elsewhere. There was a whole lot in there. let's get to our man who's recently back from San Diego, the one and only Zach Phillips. Oh, there's the hat. Yeah, there's the chapeau. There's a turning your back on hockey already. Anything in there, spice your chili.

You want to hop on more Mitch Meyer talk? Are you going to be that Leaves fan? Let it go. Leave it alone. No, no, no, no. Oh, okay. You want to do that? All right.

Because I said something about it as well when I saw the clip come out. But first of all, I have no issue with Keith asking the question. He should ask the question. And I think he did a great job with it. If I got a chance to interview Darren Farris, I would also ask him about it. And I'm sure if he came on here, you would ask him things about that time or Mitch or whatever. And rightfully so. My only beef with it, Jeff, was not necessarily what he said, but just the all-around situation.

As a Leafs fan, my beef with it was the lack of awareness that seems to be seems to come from that camp at times of why do people dislike us or me or whatever. And then at the same time you hear comments that are like, well, 10 years later, we're holding a grudge because Lou Lamarillo didn't give a signing. Schedule A bonus. Schedule A bonus. Yeah. Right. Schedule a bonus in my rookie contract.

And it's like, well, that's the kind of stuff that pisses people off when you're still holding on to that 10 years later. And yet at the same time, they kind of question, why do people dislike me or why do people give me a hard time? That is my beef with it. And that is my beef. Not with Keith or asking the question or anything like that. But that was my frustration. As a Leafs fan, that was where I took issue. So a couple of things there.

one, I think that Darren Ferris is just trying to be honest in that moment about how that family felt. Like, I have a lot of time for Mitch Marner. Like, he's a tremendous. I always enjoy going back to I used to watch him play with, I'm going to be that guy. Sorry, Domino's Flyers. Like, guy was insane. It was this number one center for the Domino's Flies. It's just incredible.

This is after the Von Kings. And then with the London Knights on that incredible line with Matthew Kichuk. and Dvorak, like one of the best junior hockey lines I've ever seen in my life. And Mitch was magical out there. And I remember that year that London hosted and all the 205s had checked out and they were too cool for junior hockey and then I'm getting swept in the Memorial Cup. And Marner was like one of the only kids that cared and who gave a shit and was like really good for it. Anyhow, I digress. The one of the criticisms or let me not a criticism.

One of the things that I've always wondered about is this perpetual victim. hood around him. And that's why I don't blame him. Now, in order to a certain point, everyone, you know, cut the umbilical cord, grow up, grow a spine, you know, get some hair on your chest and be a man, etc., etc. But it seems as if there's a lot of people in and around that camp that are looking for ways to be offended,

looking for ways to be victims. And I've always said, like, Marner won the game. He got to play for his hometown team that he grew up, cheering for. He got generational money for the entire Marner family. He got, he almost won the Stanley Cup, and if they would have won the Stanley Cup, Vegas

that is, he probably would have won the Khan Smythe Trophy too. It was a couple of games away from that. It's been at the Four Nations and won there, silver medal at the Olympics. Again, there's more international hockey on the horizon forum. The one thing that's always

baffled me is why the the victim mentality around the camp like you won you won the game you won all of it I wish I would

I wish I could be as unlucky as the martyr do you wish you would be as unlucky as the marlers yes they won and that's where I'm with you on this on Jeff And that was my frustration with it.

It's that they are playing victim in this. And again, I can see why Darren answered the question and said what he said, because to your point, from the best of my knowledge, he is being honest. He is answering the question that he was asked as honestly as he could. I get it. Fair play. Like, understand that, Darren. The frustration is that that is the truth because that is the victim's

of things where it's like, dude, you lived the childhood dream of like millions of kids from maybe even beyond Toronto. You lived to be that kid who was one of the best players on the team in his home city wearing the Maple Leaf. And then 10 years later, it's like, well, you know, it really pissed us off that we didn't get a Schedule A bonus. And it's like, what? At the time.

Why? At the time, true. No, no, no. At the time, true. Agreed. Agreed. But why did that? Like, those are the things where it's like, this pisses people off.

And I think that's why people hear that, and especially people from this city and hear it. And it's like, why are you playing victim? Like, we all want to be what you were. And then that happens. So that was my frustration. Hang on, though. You know what, though?

Let me push back and defend a little here. So that is that peek into the mindset of a hockey player. Like, there's the game and then there's the game. there's a reason that McLeodemone took more than the Leo Carlson offer sheet and there is always amongst the top guys no my guy makes the most

no I make the most no I make the most and part of it is I think the responsibility of top dogs to move the needle for other top guys I get that and that's part of it but the game itself there's the game of hockey on the ice the game of hockey off the ice and the game of hockey off the ice

is get a little bit more than the next guy. I'll tell you what. Here's one. Here's one. And it's your team. I'm trying to remember what year it was. Of course it is. I remember when the Maple Leafs signed Jason Allison to a $1.5 million contract.

And then it was shortly thereafter that Eric Lindrae signed with the team for a 1.55. And it's just because, like, nope, I don't. slot higher. Honestly, that is a peak into, not just a hockey player. This is all athletes, the professional level. Because I'm sure it's the exact same

in baseball, basketball, football. Take your pick. I don't think hockey's exclusive to this. There's a whole lot of like, no. I'm better than that guy. I make more than that guy. That's part of it. Oh, how come in Toronto

I'm not getting these schedule A's? How come everybody else in my draft? Dylan Strom's getting schedule A's. How come I, Noah Hannafin's getting schedule A's? Zach Wrenski's getting schedule A's. Everybody around me is getting Schedule A. How come I'm going to get Schedule A? Jack Eichol and Buffalo is getting scheduled,

how come on I'm going to get Schedule A? Yeah. Yeah, no. That's a peek inside the hockey player's brain. That's why. I didn't mind it. I don't mind that. And I know it comes across as victimhood,

but I won't pin the Schedule A thing on perpetuating this myth that you're victims. That's just hockey players being competitive and at times whiny about not getting on somebody else. Sure. There's one general Madge used to make everybody shave their facial hair. That is true. Yes.

Okay. I never saw Kyle Palmyri look so weird. Well, that was actually shocking. The first time I saw Kyle Colmieri with that facial hair was shocking. Yes. Who's that guy? It's a girl when he's in the Yankees.

He goes there. It wasn't allowed facial hair. And it was like, what the hell just happened to that guy? Who's that dude? Anyway, thanks to Keith for stopping by. That was really great. We wanted to get Keith on for a while. That podcast is excellent.

I love how many times they have agents on. Those are always interesting conversations. And I encourage you, as we encourage earlier, people to go read Aaron Portsline's latest piece on the future of radio broadcasting. In hockey, I encourage you to listen to the Puckpedia Hockey Show with Keith Kavanaugh. Now, in the meantime, welcome.

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This stuff is really excellent. Zach, before we bid everybody, good afternoon, good evening or good morning, depending on where and when they're listening. Anything you got, Vernon? Are you still on vacation mode?

No, I jumped right back into it. Did you? You don't go like back? I'm playing banjo between your ears? No, I think I did a little bit on Friday, and after the show ended, I was like, man, I hope I didn't, like, derail this show or anything, because after I was like, I'm my brain.

I landed the night before, there was a little bit of a time change, and I was like, what the hell did I just do on Jeff's show? No, you know, it's like NHLR's first game back after the Olympics, where every game is awful. I was like, these guys forget how to play hockey, and then after a couple of games, They're okay.

Man, those games after the Olympics are brutal. But you're back in. My mouse didn't feel right. Yeah, I was like trying to type. I was typing slowly and correct on stuff. And I'm looking things up all the shows going. I was like, this is a mess. Today I felt way better.

I felt back into it. I heard you didn't get your Schedule A bonuses for July, too, that Amel didn't give your schedule A's. And I will be holding that over Amel's head 10 years from now when we renegotiate contracts. We were still doing this show. Remember back in the summer of 26, so Nommel wouldn't give you the schedule A, Zach. Yeah.

I haven't forgotten, Merrick. Don't worry. Revenge is a dish. Best serve cold and I'll have my day. Yeah. Anything in your brain? Before I wrap things up. No, I mean, I'm just excited for things to get going again here as looking at all the schedule stuff coming up

and when we get to go back to preseason games. And I know you guys just talked about, Keith brought up the fact. that he's heard from some people that maybe some people are going on vacation here now. And I was thinking about the conversations you and I had. I think it was just before I went away where you brought up, you know, timing everything so that you bring some momentum back into the season. Yeah.

Maybe these GMs and AGMs and all these people, maybe agents go on vacation here now too. Maybe this will work out so we do get some momentum coming back into the season. Maybe we'll get a little bit of noise in a couple weeks from now. all of a sudden, preseason goes, and the NHL picks up where it left off. Listen, there's still a lot to get to, and that's why we're keeping the feeds hot here. A lot of us are. And a lot to get to. And by the way, should mention, tomorrow's sitting down with Jetgreaves of the Columbus Blue Jackets,

it's recording that tomorrow for our next broadcast on Thursday. Any questions you have for Jetgreaves? Where should people hit us up at Zach? They should reach out to us, tweet at us at the sheet hockey on Twitter. That is the easiest way for you to do so. Make sure to follow us on Instagram as well at the sheet hockey there. Send us DMs, reply to our stuff, whatever it is. That's the easiest way.

Maybe I'll put up a Q&A on our Instagram poll and tweet one out so that people can send stuff in there. And we'll make that a little bit of a concise way for people to get their questions in. Look at you doing the janitorial work. You're back and you're already the mopping bucket man around here. Good job, Zach. Really appreciate this. Really appreciate the hard work. I'm going to pull a little something next to an ear to the low.

All right. On behalf of Zach Phillips, a big thanks to Keith Kavanaugh for stopping by from the Puckpedia Hockey Show. Thanks to you for listening. Thanks to you for watching. Thanks to you for being around and hanging out in the summer when even though there's no hockey going on, we don't stop talking. Got it?

Back Thursday. Jet Grieves, our special guest as the sheet returns Thursday, at 1 o'clock Eastern. We'll talk to you.