Thomas Drance

In the fact that it took them as long as it did to negotiate with Manny Malhotra, um, in the, in the fact that both Malhotra and Ryan Johnson have three-year contract terms, which creates an environment where presumably you're only about 12 months out of

from being in a cycle where you'll want to show the sort of improvement you need to show to get extensions.

I mean, how's that even possible given this team's circumstance?

So, you know, I look at all of that and think, well,

I'm not reading too much into Ryan Johnson's budgeting question.

I think he was just listing it as one of the many factors that you have to consider.

And the idea of like, I also think because in that quote, he talks about budgeting and then he talks about subtractions, right?

And some people are like, whoa, you would need to shed money to bring in money, right?

I think that was an implication that some people drew from it.

And I think what he was talking about was like listing all the different things that you have to consider.

Among them is that this team's NHL roster is like kind of full.

Right.

Yeah, right.

Or with...

you know, Hedl shifting to the wing or whatever, Pat Pedersen shifting to the wing, which is something I think I'd like to see at this point.

So, yeah, I mean, I look through it and think,

I think he was talking about two separate thoughts when he was talking about subtracting versus budgeting.

That was my interpretation when I wrote it.

And so I think we might be reading too much into that, but I understand why we would, given how this club's behaved for the last month.

We'll know a lot more in four weeks, though.