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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

C Horvat (31) $8.50 x5
W Barzal (29) $9.15 x5
W Palmieri (35): $4.75 x1

C Schenn (34): $6.50 x2
W Holmstrom (25): $3.65 x1 (+1 RFA)
W Ritchie (21): ELC x2

C Pageau (33): $4.85 x3
W Duclair (30): $3.50 x2
W Maccelli (26): $2.50 x1 (+1 RFA)

C Cizikas (35): $2.50 x1
W Heineman (24): $1.10 x 1 (+1 RFA)
W MacLean (27): $0.85 x1

W Palat (35): $6.00 x1
(W Engvall (30): $1.85 x4)


D Schaefer (19): ELC x2
D Pelech (32): $6.15 x4

D Pulock (32): $5.75 x3
D Romanov (27): $6.25 x7

D DeAngelo (31): $4.50 x2
D Mayfield (34): $3.50 x4

D Kessel (26): $0.85 x1


G Sorokin (31): $8.25 x6
G Vanecek (30): $1.00 x1
(G Varlamov (38): $2.75 x1)
 
I'm always the optimist, so I'm banking on a 2028 with Matthews and McDavid.

Can't help thinking about the McKenna to McDavid goals, second assists to MacKenzie. Too bad McMann left.
 
Willy sleeps unbothered on the subway, Matthews is besties with our biggest pop star and we barely even look at him as American, and McKenna has made more public appearances in a week than Mitch made in 7 years.

Such a brutally tough place to play.
 
Feels like since Miller is long gone, and Hughes was traded halfway through the season, he's talking about what he ended the season with over there, but just my interpretation, of course. Might be all three of them.
 
Fwiw:

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I mean...reading between the lines it looks like Miller and the Canucks tried forcing Pettersson to be something that he isn't, he didn't respond well to it, making it all worse and it devolved from there as they just kept trying to force it on him. I mean, you can criticize Pettersson for maybe not being intense enough or whatever gritensity stuff they were trying to instill in him, but it sure sounds like the toxicity came from around him. If you don't think the guy has "what it takes" you trade him, you don't spend multiple years trying to "toughen up" a grown ass man.

*edit* Also, to clarify. That Brad Richardson quote came after a season where a 21 yr old Pettersson dropped 18 points in 17 playoff games including game winners in 2 of their 3 wins against Vegas in the 2nd round.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Feels like since Miller is long gone, and Hughes was traded halfway through the season, he's talking about what he ended the season with over there, but just my interpretation, of course. Might be all three of them.
Click to expand...

Once a room is broken though, it's broken. I'm sure it's heavily cliqued up with everyone sticking to their group of a few buddies. That's usually what happens on shitty teams with bad rooms.
 
Pettersson is a lazy bitch tho I'm pretty sure. He's what this market used to think Willy is. They couldn't be less alike.
 
MindzEye said:
Once a room is broken though, it's broken. I'm sure it's heavily cliqued up with everyone sticking to their group of a few buddies. That's usually what happens on shitty teams with bad rooms.
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Yeah, bad teams are a disaster zone. If not rebuilding and stacked with youth and soon to be retiring vets, it's as toxic an environment as there can be. Guys who want to win don't want to be on the team, kids get beat up for every mistake, arguments and shit that carries over into the dressing room. If anyone has played any organized team sports, there's nothing worse than losing to get teammates at odds with each other. Vancouver seems like a bit of an extreme case, but clearly there was a lot going on.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Yeah, bad teams are a disaster zone. If not rebuilding and stacked with youth and soon to be retiring vets, it's as toxic an environment as there can be. Guys who want to win don't want to be on the team, kids get beat up for every mistake, arguments and shit that carries over into the dressing room. If anyone has played any organized team sports, there's nothing worse than losing to get teammates at odds with each other. Vancouver seems like a bit of an extreme case, but clearly there was a lot going on.
Click to expand...

Reading a handful of articles on those years, it seems to have been a full on sanctioned push by the organization to get the leadership group (Miller, Hughes, etc) to lean on Pettersson to "toughen him up". Which considering that we're talking this happening during the seasons Pettersson was dropping 102 & 89 points sounds more like a case of shitty management group not understanding how to get through to anything but a prototypical hockey player personality and just insisting on trying harder and with more toxicity to mold him into something they thought he needed to be....while he put up elite #1 centre production.

Can't really blame him for not wanting to deal with it all. Fuck you, pay me.
 
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You know, with a little bit of distance from the shock of July 1 now, and absorbing some of the convos here (especially a couple of CH takes), I'm starting to feel better about the roster.

If Chaykes' mandate was (1) nothing but short term deal for non-impact guys, (2) get bigger, tougher, faster, and (3) leave room for a big 2028 offseason, then what we've got currently is actually pretty decent. I think part of what happened here may tie back to what Florida did - getting Brady for nothing off the roster, and then the rumored and realized signing of Gudas, the Panthers are going to be more of a bitch to play against than ever. Getting guys like Paul and Duhaime will help with that, and so will a grinder like Sissons. If this is truly what is driving things, then he may well keep Joshua and Lorentz who are both big and difficult to play against. And if one or two of them don't pan out, they shouldn't be hard to move. Since there was no impact player to get, they didn't go after a guy like Marchment and $7M per since he's a mid guy, and left things open to try to acquire a big name at the deadline. If that's the plan, maybe I'm good with it. And if the inflated prices he paid were to get guys like Sissons and Blueger to agree to two years, then that's also better than having them for three years. I still don't agree with the Bob/Hildy move, but I could easily be embarrassed by Bob having a spectacular year.

Chaykes keeps talking about trying to make more moves, but maybe those will be much more selective in nature now that the roster is full. And if there isn't a great deal to make, he just won't, and will wait to pick his spot in-season and at the deadline. He already added McKenna and Raddysh to the roster for free, and those guys should make a big impact. If there's another one for the right acquisition cost, we'll go after him. I just hope what he said about Rielly (he's a big part of things) and Knies (very improbable to trade him) are sincere, because I think both would be mistakes that would set us back.

Roll out this strategy for the year, see where things go, and cater to Matty's preferences until we get his name on an extension next year. Then try to refine the roster for another year, without capping yourself out, and plan for all the space you need for McDavid and even Werenski if he ends up going free.
 
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