James Myrtle

You know, now there's potentially talk of McDavid doing that and Austin Matthews doing that and

You know, it's you got to keep your stars happy and you got to keep your team competitive and they got to be bought in on the program.

Otherwise, they've got the ability to say, hey, I want to go play somewhere else.

And I think that that's what Edmonton's facing here.

And again, they're not going to want McDavid to walk for nothing.

So he has two years left on his deal, but he really effectively only has one more year where you can show him that you can turn things around and.

It's going to be interesting to see what they do there, but it feels like in some ways they've already screwed it up.

And it's difficult to pivot out of those bad contracts, even with all these teams having cap space.

And it's difficult to pivot, too, because there's just nothing available for agency right now.

Yeah, I mean, there are some exceptions.

I mean, you know, Colorado is still good and it looks like Carolina is going to be good for a while.

And, you know, maybe we'll see if Tampa and Dallas and these teams can reinvent themselves a little bit and stay competitive.

But it's very challenging.

I mean, because you need that really high-end elite talent, I think, to win in the NHL.

I don't think you can do it without that.

And when those players start to get older and aren't as effective –

and you haven't been adding that talent through the draft, where else are you going to get it from?

Because those players haven't been getting to free agency.

So we'll see if that changes as the cap goes up, if more players are willing to sign shorter contracts.

You know, McDavid did it with the two-year deal.