Chapter 1: What happened with Kiril Kaprizov and the largest NHL contract offer?
Kirill Kaprizov reportedly rejected the richest NHL contract in that sport's history. But the Minnesota Wild says that report is bullshit. We talk about that with Greg Brzezinski and more.
This is Hockey Show.
All right, we got David Druck over here at the Hockey News. Ethan is in the studio on the ones and twos, not the sticks. Please don't ever say that again. And Rosie's somewhere, somewhere in America. Somewhere in the backyard brawl in West Virginia, I believe. She's covering football with Lucy. This is the Hockey Show. My name is Roy Bellamy. Let's get into the news of this week.
The NHL has announced that Dylan Dubé, Kyle Foote, Alex Foreminton, Carter Hart and Michael McLeod will be officially eligible to sign with any NHL team starting October 15th and will be able to play in the National Hockey League. Starting December 1st, the five were acquitted of sexual assault stemming from their time on Team Canada's under-20 junior team in 2018.
Now, the league took into account that they haven't played in 20 months. And with that, I expect to see the Edmonton Oilers probably try to sign Carter Hart because they need a goaltender. But, I mean, this is probably an insult to... women who are trying to get into the game, trying to grow as fans in the sport, I don't think they're probably taking too kindly to this news, David.
No, it's kind of like a no-win situation at this point because you're going to be upsetting somebody, whether you're upsetting people that want to see the game moving forward, whether you're upsetting people who are going to say, hey, these guys... They went through the legal process. They were found not liable or whatever the term is up there. And they should be able to go on with their lives.
There are valid arguments to be made on both sides. And you're just not going to make everyone happy. And as we've seen in the league right now, you've got Stan Bowman, you've got Joel Quenville. Everybody's coming back.
So just kind of follow suit. Yeah, it's just not a good look for this league. And this league has had plenty of... situations where they haven't looked good in the decisions that they made. So kind of quickly getting these guys back into the league is kind of off-putting.
I would imagine that they're looking to get into like February, March, where this can all get swept under the rug and we can move on to Olympics and Stanley Cup playoffs and not talk about the blemishes on the league.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of the NHL's new contract eligibility rules?
An AAV of $16 million. That would have been the richest contract in NHL history. That's how you build a winning team. Yeah, yeah. You build about a quarter of the cap around one guy. Yeah, that's how that usually works. You know what that tells me? Apparently, he's better than Conor McDavid.
I was going to say, sorry, David, this is a fascinating situation to me because McDavid hasn't even signed his deal yet. And if you're Kaprizov, you're probably saying, I want to see what McDavid signs for and then maybe ask... for a little bit less than that, right? Because maybe McDavid gets 19 or 20, and then you can ask for 17 or 18.
But what happens if McDavid takes 16 and a half because he wants a team-friendly deal, and if you're Kaprizov, you have to go back now and say, oh, about that 16, hey, how about that? That's what I think I deserve. And then the Wild are going to be saying, should you only be making $500,000 less than Connor McDavid in average annual value? I don't know about that.
Or, or, follow me down this rabbit hole. He wants to be traded. He's driving up the price on the Wild because he doesn't want to be there anymore, and they're forcing their hand to have him traded to another team.
What do you think about that, Dave? I mean, he's going to be UFA next season, so there would have to be some kind of back-channel talking, you would think, because a team's not going to pay whatever price you'd have to pay to get a Kirill Kaprizov, even at a UFA year, without knowing that there's some future involved. That'd be one hell of a rental. Yeah. for the playoff run this year.
I don't know, man. It's pretty crazy to think that Minnesota's a good hockey town. They've got some good players there. Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi, they've got some good young talent there. I don't know, man. Where's he going to go?
Yeah, so a couple things to add on here. First of all, Elliot Freeman on 32 Thoughts Report. His kind of suspicion was that if Kaprizov is saying no to this deal, there's somebody out there that's telling his camp...
we will offer him $17 million, $18 million, $19 million on the open market because, again, once he hits the open market, he's only going to be able to be offered seven years by any team, so they would be able to give him a higher average annual value.
Now, Joe Smith and Michael Russo of The Athletic did say in their article about the deal being turned down that he's told, Kaprizov has told them he loves the area, but he's also said that winning is the most important thing to him.
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Chapter 3: What are the wins and fails of the week in hockey?
This happened, and we kind of have to reassess the situation. And they still want to sign Kaprizov, obviously. Their owner, Craig Leopold, has said nobody can pay him more money than we can. Nobody's going to offer him more money than we can. Where do they go from here? I doubt they expected him to turn down 8x16. So will that continue? Will they be the team that offers him the most money?
That's a shitty feeling, isn't it? Yeah, that's not good. To offer somebody that kind of money. And to get turned down. We are doing such an awesome thing. He's going to love it. To get Claire the best birthday present ever. You're so excited to give it to her. She rips off the paper and she's like...
She likes the paper more than the gift. This is also arguably the second best player in franchise history behind Mikko Koivu. You can't lose this guy if you're the wild. And so I think you have to be a little bit embarrassed if you're the wild. Kind of a bold statement that he just said there, isn't it? I mean, he could be, no.
I can't deny it.
I can't deny that at all. Let's say he could go down as the second. He could even go down as the best player in franchise history. So it's fascinating, and it's going to be fascinating to follow for the rest of the offseason and regular season.
We'll talk about this more with ESPN.com NHL writer Greg Brzezinski in a moment, but let's get to our wins and fails of the week presented by Jägermeister. Serve it cold or don't serve it at all.
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Chapter 4: How is Marc-Andre Fleury's return to Pittsburgh significant?
Jägermeister, damn, that's cold. For more, visit Jägermeister.com. Drink responsibly. David, what is your win? Well, I actually have two wins this week.
You got two of them. We got a late-arriving win right before we came on the show. But my first win of the week, win is Calgary Flames. You win. You know why? Because you just locked up an excellent, excellent young goaltender, Dustin Wolfe, to a very team-friendly deal, I think. Seven years, $7.5 million for a starting quality, high-end goaltender.
I think Dustin Wolfe was a big reason why Calgary was even in the playoff race for as much of last season as they were. He's definitely a battler. He's so athletic. He's got a great attitude. I'm very excited to see what the future holds for Mr. Wolf and Calgary there.
And my second win, which we just found out right before we came on to record the show today, one of my favorite goalies of all time, Marc-Andre Fleury. The flower. The flower. The second flower. Yeah. Coming out of retirement. He's coming back to Pittsburgh on a PTO. He's in a play in their preseason game. I think it's the 28th, the 27th? 29th.
The 29th at... Okay, I think it's the home game on the 27th against Columbus, Ethan, that they're doing it in... It's one of them. Because they're doing it in Pittsburgh. Yeah, of course. It's going to be probably the most watched...
pre-season game of all time like they're standing room only for a pre-season game but i mean could you could is that so cool though like i'm tempted to go i'm not gonna go but like the thought crossed my mind so it's really cool i mean he's not coming out of retirement or anything he's just gonna do this but how awesome even a one-day contract for yeah go out as a he never should have left pittsburgh like what were you thinking sending him to vegas and then he did all that amazing stuff there yeah so but very cool double wins goaltender yay
My winner of the week is the fact that South Florida now has a Major League Pickleball team. Oh, God. The Paul Meech Royals have launched. And they have some big names who have joined the ownership group. Sipping the Kool-Aid, Roy. The former North Carolina Tar Heel basketball players Tyler Hansborough and Marvin Williams. Okay. Coast cornerback Kenny Moore.
I hated Marvin Williams when he was on the Hawks.
Dude, Tyler Hansborough to me is the worst. That guy.
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Chapter 5: What are the latest developments regarding Sidney Crosby's potential trade?
Congratulations, Mark. You are now a team owner. Ethan.
Just to add something, our buddy Dave Damshek from Football America messaged me just before the show and was like, the Pens are bringing back Marc-Andre Fleury. Oh, it's only for a preseason game. Dang. So I guess the nostalgia tour is really revving up in Pittsburgh this year, especially if Sidney Crosby is going to be out there going home.
for dave damson yeah fair enough dave's a man all right my win of the week uh sam bennett what a what a year for sam bennett benny married cup con smith new contract benny's buddies what a year for sam bennett and he brought the cup with him to the humane society in broward county where he has benny's buddy set up of course his adoption program for every time he scores a goal and uh he got to the some of the pups got to hang out with the stanley cup and
I just love looking at puppies in the Stanley Cup. It's a beautiful thing. Look at my background on my computer. Dworky's background. Yeah, it's so Dworky. His background is Benny with a cat in a Stanley Cup.
It's not even a cat. It's a kitten. It's a baby cat. He had the kitten in there.
And scoop from our friend Jess Blaylock. She said both of the cats that were in the cup for Benny's picture, they've already been adopted.
Good job, Benny. Yeah, Benny's the best. He didn't even have to score a goal for that one. What do you mean? What a year for Sam Bennett.
David, what's your fail of the week? My fail of the week, we're going back north of the border. The Conor McDavid obsession is real, and it goes all the way up to the top of the political food chain in Canada.
We are in a crisis. The global trading system has been upended.
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Chapter 6: How do the Hughes brothers feel about playing together in the NHL?
Supply chains have been destroyed. McDavid is unsigned. This is not a transition.
This is a rupture. So that's Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressing the nation, apparently, on the importance of global trading, supply trains... Connor McDavid's extension at Edmonton. And we know, Roy and I have been privy to just how big of an Oilers fan Mark Carney is. Yeah. It runs very deep. So, yeah, this is like red level in Canada. This is code red.
McDavid. If Connor McDavid leaves Edmonton and signs with an American team, it's going to be a That's going to be the civil war that we get.
Every time I want to take Canada seriously, they do something like this where the prime minister is up there talking about hockey.
That's a Barack Obama level joke there where he just mixes sports in with his humor. So good. Good for him. Good for him. My fellow week, the Hershey Bears. Now, I realize that the Hershey Bears are the affiliate of the Washington Capitals. They've been the affiliate of the American Hockey League affiliate for Washington for the past 20 years. And they're celebrating.
For four games this season, they are hosting Capitals Night. And the fail is to Jersey. Jersey is terrible. Oh, my God. This is a 90s, 2000s era inspired jersey, uniform. You know, the teal, black, gold, and white jerseys. Yes. The Screaming Eagle. The Olaf Kozigs. Yeah, the Kozig era. Yeah. This one is a beige, brown, black. And they call it the Screaming Bear. It's as bad as you think.
I like it.
It reminds me of a movie that you recently called Cocaine Bear. That looks like that bear.
Oh, like the Bruins Cocaine Bear.
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Chapter 7: What changes are being made in the NHL collective bargaining agreement?
And we had another great instance of this. Roll the tape. Canadian Girlfriends for 600. Leon Dreisaitl stars for this northernmost NHL team, but went to warmer Spain to propose to Celeste Desjardins.
Ian, were the Winnipeg Jets? No! You know what? Not a bad swing, though. Edmonton is further north. Ian, back to you. That's not a bad swing because I feel like... It's not even the same province. You hear more about Edmonton generally than you do about Winnipeg. I feel like Winnipeg just feels like it's a more remote place.
This is not only not knowing sports, this is not knowing geography and not knowing that Edmonton is more north.
It says northern most. Yeah, but at least he named a team. You think the other one, they're pulling out the LA Kings. They don't know.
Well, at least Ken Jennings said dry saddle correctly.
Right? I was thinking the same thing. Yeah. Alex Trebek was like the master of pronunciation, though.
Well, he's Canadian. Fair. DSBN.com senior NHL writer Greg Brzezinski is coming up next.
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Chapter 8: What are the prospects for NHL expansion back to Atlanta?
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