Okay, hear us out…

If y’all have been on Instagram/TikTok the last two weeks, you’ve probably seen all the creators crushing watermelons between their thighs, or hoola-hooping while standing on top of a pair, or one of the many other creative things.

All in the name of Women’s Heart Health.

Did you know…

• In 2023, 1 in 5 female deaths in the US were from heart disease (CDC)

• Black women are 50% at greater risk for cardiovascular disease (American Heart Association)

• Indigenous women die at a rate of 20 to 30% more than non-Indigenous women (Gomes Z, Hart D, Downey B. Indigenous Women’s Perspectives on Heart Health and Well-being: A Scoping Review. CJC Open. 2022 Oct 22;5(1):43-53. doi: 10.1016/j.cjco.2022.10.007. PMID: 36700189; PMCID: PMC9869349.)

• Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women worldwide (World Heart Federation)

• Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of maternal death in the US (American Heart Association)

• Heart attacks in women present differently than they do in men, which can result in delay of care or misdiagnosis (University of Utah Health / AHA|ASA)

Created by Kortney Olson, focused on “crushing shame, self-hatred, and the lie that women are supposed to stay small, fragile, and obsessed with appearance”, and then of course taking Instagram/TikTok by storm through thirst traps…because that’s what works online nowadays.

Now, neither of us is physically capable of crushing a watermelon in any way, shape, or form…at least not in a way that it would still be safe to eat. But we’re hockey writers. What we CAN do is write a silly list on what we think NHL Teams would do with a watermelon.

After you enjoy this silly little thing, we encourage you to:

• Consider donating to the American Heart Association. For our non-USA readers, consider a donation to a relevant organization in your country.

• Get CPR, First Aid, and/or AED Certified (American Heart Association)

• Share this to help continue to raise awareness.

Read through to the end for one final challenge to our readers…

ATLANTIC DIVISION

Boston Bruins

(Kat) A younger version of Brad Marchand would lick it.

(Base Image Source: X / HockeyPerks)

Buffalo Sabres

(Morgan) It would be run through with a Beer Sabre.

Detroit Red Wings

(Kat) Either Steve Yzerman would put it in a goalie suit, because I’ve never seen someone who loves acquiring goalies like him, or it would go bad in the month of March. Just like the team’s playoff hopes.

Florida Panthers

(Kat) Put it in a goalie suit so the roster can run through it. Or elbow it.

(Morgan) The team would also probably bring it onto the ice so fans could throw plastic rats at it.

Montreal Canadiens

(Morgan) Someone would blow it up with a firework outside Bell Centre…

Source: X / Eric Engels

Ottawa Senators

(Kat) It would have a podcast mic, that’s for sure.

Tampa Bay Lightning

(Kat) Can it kill penalties? Welcome to Team Canada, Watermelon.

Toronto Maple Leafs

(Morgan) The Leafs would keep this thing wayyyyyy past its prime and keep paying it more money than it’s worth instead of chucking it in the trash.

Alternatively, they would stick it in a jersey and put it on the blueline. It would be useless and blend right in.

Source: NHL Stats

METROPOLITAN DIVISION

Carolina Hurricanes

(Kat) It would absolutely become a part of the team’s strength training, and Rod Brind’Amour could – and probably would – outlift everyone on the roster with it.

Columbus Blue Jackets

(Kat) Put it in front of the cannon and see what happens. (Yes, I know it’s pyrotechnic, I wrote about this team for two years!)

(Morgan) I mean…they did do a Jackass-themed schedule release this last season that didn’t feature the cannon at all, so…take two?

(Source: X / Columbus Blue Jackets)

New Jersey Devils

(Kat) It would almost be traded for a generational defenseman, only for the deal to fall through at the last minute.

New York Islanders

(Morgan) It would say “in Long Island” and be ruthlessly mocked on day one and then ask for a trade.

New York Rangers

(Kat) Chris Drury would try to give the watermelon a roster spot.

Philadelphia Flyers

(Kat) Gritty would do something absolutely diabolical that human minds can’t even think of.

Pittsburgh Penguins

(Kat) Watermelons aren’t known for generational hockey talent. If they were, the Penguins would definitely draft it at first overall, nurture it beautifully, and the watermelon would spend the rest of its beautiful days in Pittsburgh.

In all seriousness, I can imagine the watermelon becoming a beloved locker room treasure, only to be broken when the Pens win the Stanley Cup at the end of the season.

Washington Capitals

(Morgan) Would Ovi learn “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles to sing to it pre-game?

(Kat) If any NHLer would crush a watermelon, it would be Alex Ovechkin.

CENTRAL DIVISION

Chicago Blackhawks

(Kat) Hawksmin would use it for TikTok content, particularly for Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar.

Colorado Avalanche

(Kat) It would somehow become a part of a Joe Sakic trade tree.

(Morgan) Minnesota acquires it from Colorado in exchange for Nico Sturm…again.

(Source: NHL Trade Tracker)

Dallas Stars

(Morgan) It would be made the mascot of the Finnish Mafia.

Minnesota Wild

(Morgan) The watermelon would survive all of five minutes with the team before the injury demon would strike, and it would be “day-to-day” for weeks.

Source: NHL Injury Viz

Nashville Predators

(Kat) It would have a nice little cowboy hat, and become a vital part of Preds Twitter.

(Morgan) As long as they don’t put it in one of those “Preds in the Community” shirts from last off-season…

(Source: X / Nashville Predators)

St. Louis Blues

(Morgan) It would sit in the booth with Jeremy Boyer who would play “Fruit Salad” from The Wiggles.

It would be the last time it sits in the booth.

Utah Mammoth

(Kat) It would be placed in a special suite by Ryan Smith, and become a fan favorite.

Winnipeg Jets

(Kat) The watermelon would be used in protest of Mark Scheifele’s Team Canada snubs.

PACIFIC DIVISION

Anaheim Ducks

(Morgan) The prospects would dress it up like a baby and take it to Disneyland so they could use Rider Switch.

Calgary Flames

(Kat) It would sit inside the Saddledome before it’s torn down, with Flames fans using it to place curses on other teams. After all, Flames fans were the OGs in curses.

Edmonton Oilers

(Kat) Stan Bowman would trade it for an orange. It’s smaller and even more useless for a hockey team. And then he’d put it in goal or on defense.

Los Angeles Kings

(Kat) Let the watermelon try being a GM.

San Jose Sharks

(Kat) Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith would use it for sewerball, and promptly hit Sharkie with it.

Seattle Kraken

(Morgan) I think Buoy would tape a picture of Paul Bissonnette’s face to it and body slam it.

And then find that bear that almost charged him and feed it to him. (Wait, do bears even eat watermelon?)

(Source: X / Buoy)

Vancouver Canucks

(Morgan) The watermelon would be a generational part of the team. It would set records and cement itself in the history books.

And then on a random Friday night in December, Elliotte Friedman would be announcing that it is involved in a blockbuster trade that absolutely no one in the world saw coming that alters the team in its entirety.

Vegas Golden Knights

(Kat) The Vegas Golden Knights are a cutthroat organization. They’d probably do the sensible thing and throw the watermelon away as soon as it was delivered.

OUR FINAL CHALLENGE

Here’s the deal…we’ve already put our money where our mouth is…

But this is an important cause. Heart health in general hits especially close to home for Morgan, and women’s health hits really close to home for Kat. So. We issue this challenge: for every interaction we get on our posts related to this article (likes, shares, comments) through the end of May 2026, we will donate an additional $0.10 to the American Heart Association (rounded up to the next dollar).

Make it happen, readers.

Subscribe now

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EPISODE WARNING: This episode contains “Heated Rivalry” spoilers.

Kat: You all have no idea just how excited I am to finally make this episode. HELLO, and welcome to Sunshine and Hockey, the podletter where neither of us have scored fifty goals in our rookie seasons.

Kidding. Neither of us play hockey. We’re just two queer friends who love hockey and books. So this episode was right up our alley.

I’m Kat, and I have not read the Heated Rivalry books, but I have been deeply obsessed with the television series.

Morgan: And I’m Morgan, and I read the entire Game Changers series basically as it was released after discovering the series during a COVID-pandemic-induced fit of reading anything and everything I could get my hands on, now that I suddenly had so much free time and the forced reading burnout from high school/early college semesters went away.

I then went back and re-read Game Changer (2018, Scott & Kip’s book) and Heated Rivalry (2019, we all know whose story this is) before I watched the television series.

My decision to wait to watch “late” was both to give me time to re-read these books, but also frankly because I’m really bad at remembering when new episodes of shows drop, so I’m better off knowing when the finale drops and then doing a binge watch.

Ask me how long it took to watch The Pitt, even though I adore Noah Wyle. The answer is: I still hadn’t watched the first season in full by the time the season two promos started to drop, so now I’m waiting for season two to fully drop.

See what I mean?

Anyway, this is not what we’re here to talk about! Let’s talk about this show.

Kat: For the uninitiated, Heated Rivalry is a Canadian TV show adapted from Rachel Reid’s Game Changer book series. It follows two young hockey players – Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov –, both deemed teenage phenoms, with vastly different playing styles, who begin a sexual relationship before their rookie seasons. It goes on for a decade before becoming romantic, despite those feelings being there the entire time.

It sounds like it’s trash TV, but it’s the exact opposite. I was expecting to hate the show when it first came out, because I despise the hockey romance genre of literature and the weirdness that stems from it (such as the Booktok controversy from 2023), when instead, I was completely blown away by the show, despite Jacob Tierney’s involvement (Tierney is one of my favorite creators making television right now – for hockey folks, he made Letterkenny and Shoresy.)

EPISODE ONE

Morgan: One thing that immediately caught me during the post-draft “happy hour” or whatever we’re going to call it, something which was not included in the book, and I think is a great example of how Jacob Tierney has adapted this book, which was written in 2019, is the line: “Oh, and, uh, just to be clear, uh, we are thrilled that Shane is Asian, or Asian-Canadian.”

We’re still in a place now where, sticking with Asian players for this conversation, but it’s not strictly just with those of Asian descent, Asian NHL players are still relatively uncommon. It may not seem like it because of the stardom of some of the names out there…Jason & Nicholas Robertson (Scottish-Filipino), Nick Suzuki (Japanese Canadian), Zayne Parekh (Indian-South Korean), and Arshdeep Bains (Punjabi), as some examples. But statistically? Still rare.

Anyway. Back to the show.

I want to give major props to the creatives of this show. Before anything ever happened between them, they were really setting up and showing the slowly growing tension between them.

Exhibit A: my message to Kat when I first watched the scene between Shane and Ilya on the bikes in the gym after the draft:

The sound mixing choices of the heavy breathing while they’re on the bikes, and then when they’re on the floor talking, the various shots of Ilya as Shane is just staring at him, the hand touching as they pass the bottle back and forth, and the damn wink.

This is an insane way to depict the growing tension that you don’t get through the character’s thoughts in the book. One of the biggest losses, I think for me anyway, that you lose out on between page and screen, is the fact that for both Shane and Ilya, they start the book off by referring to the other by last name. And naturally, as the relationship progresses, that shifts even in their thoughts.

I’m gonna get this out of the way: Shane’s parents. I loathe Shane’s mom. Like, I’m sorry, but I do. She wasn’t in the books much, neither of them were, but when she was, I was annoyed. Shane’s dad? Love him–glad we are getting more of him in the show. The whole bit about the YouTube rabbit hole cracked me up.

And Ilya’s family? Well, mostly his brother. I’m not gonna waste a ton of characters on him, but simply to say: I want to wrap this boy in a blanket and give him soup because man, his family sucks.

The small cast of the show and the smaller budget came out to play pretty quickly. Scott Hunter being included in the All-Star Game wasn’t in the book. The record wasn’t explicitly his, and he wasn’t next to Shane when Ilya gave him his room number. But it did give the ultimate “oh, he knows” moment. And then when Shane and Ilya were in Ilya’s hotel room later…10/10 work there, Jacob.

Kat: I also wanted to comment on the hotel bike scene. The cinematography and soundtrack of this show are truly incredible. I was hooked right then and there.

And then afterwards, where Shane and Ilya are talking to each other and sharing Ilya’s water bottle, there’s one specific moment that really stuck out to me.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Rachel Reid, Jacob Tierney, and Hudson Williams have all been abundantly clear that the character of Shane is autistic. It’s not a fan theory; it’s how Shane was written. And as an autistic person, that means the world to me. I present like Shane in real-life: I’m very high-masking, so to outsiders, it just looks like I’m anxious or neurotic. I’ve found unmasking to be very challenging for so many reasons (I talk about that in my book, Manic Autistic Dream Girl, which releases on Amazon on April 22).

But back to that moment – Shane passes Ilya the water bottle, and the camera focuses on Ilya’s lips. When the story is told from Shane’s point of view, you don’t get much eye contact, especially in the early episodes. That’s huge for me. I don’t think I can put into words how much this show means to me in terms of autism representation. When all I’ve gotten my whole life is The Good Doctor or The Big Bang Theory, which are accurate for some people, but not me, seeing Shane Hollander onscreen is truly everything to me. You can tell how much love and care was put into this character, and autistic people see it. We appreciate it. Thank you, Rachel, Jacob, and Hudson. Thank you.

EPISODE TWO

Morgan: The opening of this episode makes me want to re-watch Red, White & Royal Blue again. There’s an entire sequence in that movie where the main characters, Alex and Henry, flirt over texts, and it’s a somewhat similar style to this. And I am HERE for it. (Also, I’m going to shamelessly plug this movie + book here because it should be mandatory viewing/reading. It has a sequel coming out…at some point. They are filming soon, so who knows.)

Anyway, great creative choice to progress the story along from where episode one ends and where the…er…action starts. But the BIGGEST difference? It’s not the burning of the Ilya effigy. It’s that they already would’ve…well fucked. The snowing out of the Boston/Montreal game, where Shane and Ilya were set to meet again, didn’t happen in the book. But honestly? I am a sucker for this kind of tension and teasing.

This is the only time I’m going to explicitly talk about any of the sex scenes in this show. First of all: loved it, excellent, well done. Ilya’s check-ins are fabulous. 100 points for showing the condoms (we stan safe sex in this house). But…okay, look, I know Jacob talked about not showing Shane’s prep, and that’s one thing. But just throw a bottle of lube in the background or something, man.

ANYWAY.

Another creative praise incoming here: by changing the timeline of the first time they go beyond oral sex to happen in “Fall 2013”, it makes the argument that Shane and Ilya have in Sochi during the 2014 Olympics hit just a little bit harder.

Returning to my thoughts on Ilya’s family, specifically his dad…as someone who watched one grandparent, and is now in the midst of watching a second grandparent develop a dementia-type neurodegenerative disease…there’s a reason I kinda focused my annoyance at Ilya’s family on mostly his brother. Obviously, his dad isn’t great either…but those diseases change you so damn much. While it is easy to assume that Ilya’s father was probably like that before…I dunno, it’s hard for me to hang a ton of negative feelings with that information hanging out. And I want to wrap Ilya in another blanket and give him more soup.

Anyway, back to the tension and pain. The bathroom interaction between Shane and Ilya after they give out the award? The “we haven’t spoken in months, and now here we are” moment? Coupled with Shane’s reaction to Ilya winning the cup? Even after their…reconnection, if you will, afterwards? One that ended with unsent text messages from a dejected Shane in the elevator?

Wrap me in a blanket at this point because I am hurt and nothing can heal me.

Kat: Morgan, I’m sending you a very big hug.

This was one of my favorite episodes. How this show managed to “age” Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie as their characters aged was really impressive to me. In this episode, it’s so clear that they’re two confused kids trying to figure it out with so much public attention on them.

I love, love, love how well this show does consent. Ilya asks for explicit consent before everything. That’s really all I care about with the sex scenes.

As for the actual plot of this episode, my favorite scene was the media scrum scene with Shane and Ilya. As someone who’s been a part of press conferences and media scrums, I was cackling at the accuracy of it. And the moment when their feet touch under the table? Ugh.

All in all, I don’t have a ton to say about this episode. It was a really lovely follow-up to the promise of Episode 1, and moved the Shane and Ilya story along very well.

EPISODE 3

Morgan: I’m kidding. Scott and Kip can heal me. I hope.

I loved their interactions early in the book, and François Arnaud and Robbie G.K. do such a great job bringing that to life. I also love the dynamic that Kip and his dad have, and I’m a bit jealous about it, but we won’t be unboxing that right now.

I did, however, get transported back in time because how did I miss that Matt Gordon played Kip’s dad? I know him best from Rookie Blue, a Canadian cop show from 2010, where he had a leading role. I loved the character he played in that show, who was, funnily enough, a father figure in many ways. I haven’t seen him in anything since the show went off air in 2015, but the second he spoke, I clocked it.

Another show for the rewatch list. Anyway.

You know what killed me? Scott’s line “I know I’m too intense, everyone tells me that…” Because shit, man. Same. And it’s the worst damn feeling in the world because when people tell you that, they aren’t usually being nice about it. Honestly, really every damn word Scott said when he was asking Kip to stay and be there when he comes back from practice and his game just…someone get me another blanket and more soup.

Most of this episode had me in tears for a variety of both good and bad reasons that we are absolutely not unpacking here. So I really only have one other thing to say: if there is one wish I have for really any person out there, but especially those of us of the socially awkward, don’t know what they’re doing, queer variety: may we all find our Emotional Support Friend/Wingperson like Elena.

Obviously, because this show is really about Shane and Ilya, there is a lot of content from the book that didn’t make it into the show that I wish had. So let me simply say: if you love Scott and Kip, go read the book. Ilya stans be warned: there is, naturally, a lot of slander.

Kat: Scott and Kip’s love story HURT ME PHYSICALLY. I fell completely in love with them both throughout this episode. This episode felt like a rom-com. It reminded me a little bit of seeing movies like 13 Going On 30, Love Simon, or Clueless growing up.

Also, like every other hockey podcast that’s seen this show, I’m going to slander Man in the Crease. Yes, I know it’s a direct parody of the Toronto media. But OH MY GOD, they’re like three games in, and the hosts are basically asking, “Is Scott Hunter washed?” Calm down. It’s three games into the season. Wait until he has a J.T. Miller moment where he gives up on the ice or wait until the trade deadline. Man in the Crease is everything about the hockey media industry that I hate. Jacob Tierney, thanks for making my skin crawl when I’m trying to enjoy the queer hockey show!

This was one of the moments where I found myself relating to both characters. Scott for wanting to protect himself and his livelihood, and Kip wanting to love his partner out loud. I’ve been in both scenarios… and they both hurt. A lot. There’s no winning in either scenario. You’re just stuck. You’re stuck between wanting to protect yourself and your partner or whoever you’re seeing; between wanting to love externally like your straight family and friends do, and it’s just… so hard. Impossibly hard.

As for the moment that Morgan mentioned… yeah. Yeah. I’ve always felt like I’m “too much”, which is par for the course when you’re bisexual and autistic, and it’s the worst feeling in the world. It’s so isolating, and so painful. I’ve spent most of my life making myself consumer-friendly, making myself small, and it sucks. Morgan is so so right when they mention that moment, because it stuck out to me too.

Elena’s speech to Scott, where she tells him that Kip “deserves sunshine”... the foreshadowing… the foreshadowing… the narratives…

The banana socks made me sob, especially at the end where Scott covers them up. It made me think of a documentary I watched about Brendan Burke, where there was discussion of an unnamed NHL player (as early as 2010) wanting to do a press conference to come out. He ended up cancelling it right before, because the fear and anxiety was just too much to bear. To this day, in 2026, there are still no out NHL players. And I fully understand why.

To know that there are real-life Scott Hunters out there… It’s just devastating.

Morgan: Dude thank you for saying that about Man in the Crease because I was thinking the same damn thing. I’m a Leafs fan, so…ya know what, don’t get me going here. Can we move on?

EPISODE 4

Morgan: Starting off with a strong kick to the chest: the difference between Ilya and Shane watching the other win the cup…Ilya alone and Shane with his team…but they are both clearly so happy for the other? To put it simply? Death for me. I need a blanket.

But once again, I really love the way they’ve moved through time here. The texts, showing their hookups. But also seeing the subtle ways they physically change each season. One of the challenges this show has is having to age these two once 18-year-old characters over a short span of time. Being that Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams are both in their early-20s, that’s easy enough to do with the right styling decisions–which they made.

I’ve waited to mention Hayden cause I was waiting for the aquarium scene…but we all also need our own Hayden Pike in our lives because that there is a ride or die. I can even forgive him for committing the ultimate of sins when sharing a hotel room: he unpacked his stuff in one bed…and then flopped onto the OTHER BED…WITH HIS SHOES ON.

I would also like to be the 1,000,000th person to point out Buffalo’s record before…

…and after Ilya called them terrible (this episode dropped December 12th):

Jacob Tierney knew what he was doing when he was writing the scene in which Ilya calls him “Shane” for the first time. Because it’s 100x worse for the feelings in the show than in the book, with the way Ilya calls him “Hollander” again, trying to put the thing back in the box. In some ways, I think it is representative of the fact that they both know that this thing between them is reaching a point of no return…neither of them knows what to do with that feeling. And that point is more proven with the way that Ilya reacts when he’s shown the photo of Rose and Shane.

And, ya know. The whole last like six-ish minutes of the episode. As we’ve said, peak cinematography and soundtrack.

Kat: My turn to talk about the last fifteen minutes of that episode! The pink lights! t.A.t.U’s “All The Things She Said” playing, then going into the male version of the song! The symbolism!

Let’s break it down.

For the unfamiliar, t.A.t.U. is best known as the “fake lesbians”. They were Russian teenage girls who essentially had to fake lesbianism when signed to an American label to get big. While the members have since made homophobic statements, “All The Things She Said” is remembered as an iconic piece of WLW media.

But everything about them was fake.

When Shane and Rose and Ilya all are in the nightclub, everything about them is fake. Shane and Rose’s relationship, and Ilya’s feelings of pretending like he’s not hurt by the Shane/Rose relationship.

When Shane and Ilya see each other, and the song switches to the male version, it gets a lot more real, more real than either of them want it to be. Like Morgan said, with the two calling each other by their first names, the relationship gets more real than either one is ready for.

Don’t you just love symbolism?

Jacob Tierney, you genius.

EPISODE 5

Morgan: Rose Landry is a saint. She is the embodiment of what any queer person who doesn’t feel like they can come out should have. When Rachel Reid created these female characters to put around all these queer guys, she didn’t create them to be jilted lovers or secret crushes. Yeah, in the cases of Svetlana (who I haven’t talked about yet, but I will) and Rose, they were occasional hookup/former (but brief) lover situations. But they weren’t jilted in the end.

Kat: Jumping in here to describe one of my favorite scenes in the show – Shane coming out to Rose. It completely changes the entire landscape of the Heated Rivalry universe. And Rose is so completely supportive – she pushes the conversation, but doesn’t force Shane into coming out. Hudson Williams killed this scene. I was blown away. And this is how this episode STARTS?? Like Morgan said, every queer person deserves a Rose Landry. I remember how scary coming out was, and I wish I had a Rose Landry back then.

Morgan: You remember me talking about them referring to each other by their last names in the book, and it slowly shifting to their first names? This is when I noticed the change from last to first names. And the emotions in both the beach scene and the meet-up in Ilya’s hotel room definitely continue to drive home the changing dynamics of their relationship, driven by the growth of their feelings.

I wouldn’t ever wish on my worst enemy having to carry around the emotions involved in watching a family member slowly wither away in front of you. Or even worse, in Ilya’s case, when you’re not even there, and you see it in bits and pieces when you visit. I’ve done both. They both suck. And it’s worse when you don’t tell anyone, and you carry that shit mostly alone. And sometimes you just need a damn hug.

And then to call your lover (even if they won’t admit it) by his first name, on purpose, on his way out the door.

Seeing Ilya stand up to his brother, cut him off, and set himself free while he’s in Russia after his dad’s passing had me cheering.

But what had me screaming was the next member of our Elite Tier Women of Heated Rivalry: Svetlana.

This is how you know those two are inseparable. Cause she knew. She knows him well enough to know.

Kat: This raises the question: does Svetlana know that “Jane” is Shane?

I think she does.

But back to the original point: in so many stories involving gay men, women are there as misogynistic tropes. As people who’ve crushed on the man, and are devastated. As people who exist only in their relation to the man’s story.

Svetlana and Rose don’t. They have their own stories that aren’t covered much in the show, but are at least hinted at – such as Rose telling the story about being a child actor pretending to be kidnapped.

Also, can I just say, as a bisexual person, how refreshing it is to see a non-cheating trope in a bisexual character’s story arc? I love RENT, but so many stories involving bisexuality involve “the bisexual person is promiscuous and cheats on their partner with someone of the opposite sex.” That’s not how bisexuality works. Svetlana and Ilya are firmly close friends, and it’s so lovely to witness.

Morgan: Jacob Tierney deserves all the awards for the phone call between Shane and Ilya that came next. Because the only line in the book we got was “and on top of everything, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you and I don’t know what to do about it”, there was nothing else. And let me tell you, as a book fan first, this scene destroyed me from the inside out in the best way possible.

The writing, the delivery (I don’t think I’ve given Connor or Hudson enough kudos, they are truly phenomenal actors and did such justice to these characters and this story), when you consider that Ilya was speaking in his native tongue, in his home, in public even if it was the middle of the night (peep the cop car that drove by). The whole scene is a masterpiece that I cannot describe in any language.

Kat: “I’m so in love with you and I don’t know what to do about it.”

The whole monologue, really.

[screaming.]

Morgan: Elephant in the room time: “What happened with Scott and Kip? This timeline makes no sense.” You’re right. It doesn’t. The Game Changer book, from what I can tell, takes place within one season, namely the 2016-17 season, where we are now. In the show, they meet before the 2014 Olympics, and they seemingly end things sometime before he leaves for Sochi. What happened in the like 3 years in between is anyone’s guess. I won’t tell you how things go in the book; let you read it for yourself. But there is a reconciliation before the playoffs.

Kat: I was deeply confused about that. When the kiss happened, I obviously was in awe and squealing and all the things, but WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE THEN?? Were they still broken up?? Did Scott come get a poorly-made smoothie to apologize? (Sorry, Kip – we all saw what those smoothies looked like.) What happened? Where is the reconciliation?

EPISODE 6

Morgan: I’ve been waiting for this moment since minute one of episode one.

The cottage has everything: alone time, relaxation, being truthful about feelings, planning a future, and opening up about the childhood trauma of finding your mother after she took her own life. I’m running out of blankets and soup. Ilya’s saying “I don’t want you to think she was weak” was a kick in the damn teeth.

Hell, I felt the cathartic release in my own chest when they finally said “I love you.” That feeling of finally saying the thing that you’ve been wanting to say, no matter what it actually is, is like taking the deepest breath of fresh air you’ve ever taken. Because that thing that was strangling you isn’t anymore.

Kat: Going straight from the loon moment to Ilya opening up hit me like a truck. The loon thing was hilarious, and gave me such a good laugh (“stupid Canadian wolf-bird!”), and then Ilya’s heartbreak and grief hurt me physically, especially as someone who’s struggled with mental health stuff for a long time. Shane then deciding to help Ilya from marrying Svetlana by starting a hockey school for kids and donating the funds to suicide prevention… my heart. Ughhhhhhh. This show has done so many things to my emotions.

And also, the parallel of Shane and Ilya on the beach in Tampa to Shane and Ilya at the lake, where they’re so close together physically and emotionally, so domestic and in love?

Damn you, Jacob Tierney.

Morgan: Letssssssss talk about the (unfortunate) coming out scene.

I know parents can have a hard time when this kind of thing is dropped on them. But boy, did this scene kinda further cement my loathing for Shane’s mom. Because she would rather confirm that Shane never let Ilya win than…I dunno, if her kid is happy. And then, naturally, there’s the not understanding bisexuality thing. Again. And then when Shane and Ilya both confess that they’ve never been in love with someone like the other, then Shane’s mom leaves the room.

Kat: I feel like no one really understands bisexuality except bisexual people.

Morgan: Frankly, I don’t care that Shane and his mom had the touching heart-to-heart outside. The traditional “sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me”, “I’m proud of you”, asking for forgiveness type deal. I think all my frustration with her falls back to one thing for me: and that’s damn it all if I didn’t wish I had a parent who I think would genuinely react like that if I ever would actually come out. I have two queer siblings, and the acceptance they both got when they came out was there. But boy, do my parents’ actions when they aren’t around just go completely against that. Lip service and the like.

Kat: I had the opposite reaction to that scene, and for a completely different reason. I’m so lucky to have amazing, supportive parents. (They went to Pride with me last summer, and had a blast.) It brought me back to when I came out to them, and promptly took a shower because I was scared out of my mind. It’s hilarious now, don’t get me wrong, and I came out by complete accident (we were talking about colleges, and it just came up); but the fear when someone realizes that they Actually Just Came Out is a real thing. Shane’s apology hit me hard, as someone who’s the same way. I tried to be straight and neurotypical for a long time, just as he did. It never works, but you don’t stop yourself from trying anyway, because your body craves safety over freedom.

Morgan: See, this is something that I hope more and more people come to understand about being queer. That this community can co-exist, coming from these dramatically different home lives and levels of genuine acceptance from the people around them. That no two people are going to react the same way to a situation like this because of our own experiences. It shouldn’t be the cause of an argument or further division (if you’ve spent any time on Heated Rivalry Threads, you’ll know).

Anyway, then when Shane’s mom jumps right back into manager mode and talks about controlling the narrative and Shane’s brand deals, and I’m just like…ma’am. Leave them be. Let them live.

Kat: That’s her coping mechanism.

Shane’s panic attack/shutdown in that moment was also one of my favorite scenes in the show. He finally gets the comfort he’s craved. That so many autistic, queer people crave. To be told that they’re safe and loved where they are, that they’re okay as they are.

AND IN THE END…

Morgan: I always get scared about book-to-screen adaptations. I’ve been both blessed (Red, White & Royal Blue) and just absolutely crushed (I try not to think too hard about the debacle that was them trying to do a Vampire Academy movie…almost walked out of the damn theater). Because I was so late watching it, I knew it was blowing up. But I also know that the likelihood that some of those people were book readers was probably low.

But in this book fan first’s opinion: a job well done. Sticking to a path that included being true to the source material, but a widened path. Making creative choices that were in alignment with the original story. That didn’t feel completely absurd or out of character.

Kat: Look. I watch very minimal TV. And by very minimal, I mean very minimal. Really, it’s only Taylor Swift documentaries and Shoresy. I was blown away by this show. It’s by far the best thing I’ve watched in a very long time. Everyone involved did a phenomenal job. I’m so glad it exists. I can’t wait for season two. I need more.

Morgan: I can’t wait for season two. I can’t wait to see what this entire creative team does next. To close this out, I’m gonna climb on my soapbox and catch a couple of topics that have been rattling around in my brain this whole time based on what I’m seeing in the fandom space.

1. Like Kat alluded to, stop being weird towards actual hockey players in relation to the things from the series. They are actual human beings, and the behavior some folks are exhibiting both online and at games is, quite frankly, disgusting. Clearly, some of y’all weren’t around for or don’t remember 2023. Keep that stuff in your heads or your PRIVATE group chats.

2. Please, please, please don’t buy unauthorized merchandise. This show happened on a shoestring budget. There were so many great scenes from the book (both Game Changer and Heated Rivalry) that were simply not options because they couldn’t bloat with extras (and it’s probably gonna change the second season, but that’s beside the point).
   By buying official merchandise, that’s going to contribute further to the “by the numbers” success of the show and prove that it is a worthy program to invest money (and time) into. It helps not only this show but any future program of a similar nature (how do you think we keep ending up with medical dramas?). I understand it is inaccessible because of price (I share this pain) from official sources–but it’s another way to support the show and all involved.

3. Please stop getting all hyped up and giving free publicity (aka your TikToks and Instagram posts from the games) about teams in the NHL leveraging the music from the show or making posts with references to the show.
   This league is so dramatically not inclusive to the very community that teams are now trying to snag those who don’t know any better and are only interested in the game because of the show.
   This league has already shown that it will turn its back on the LGBTQ+ community when a few voices start screaming about it. Please understand that teams are going to hop on the trends to drive up engagement/views with hopes to convert that into dollars spent, and then drop it the second it stops being the shiny new thing.
   I say this in the least spoilery way for The Long Game as I can, but I have to say it: when season two drops, you can bet the NHL is gonna distance themselves about as fast as they did with supporting the community in general (assuming they continue to generally stick with the source material and season two covers the entire book). And if the teams are still all over this, then they’re just even bigger hypocrites.

4. Finally, in a dramatic turn from the above points, I say this in the most spoiler-free way I can, but to any of y’all thinking about getting tattoos around any of the teams in the book, or thinking about dropping serious money on merch that includes any of the team names, especially the jerseys…don’t. Just wait til season two. Okay? You’ll thank me later.

Obviously, I’m not y’all’s mother, and you can do what you want. But just…think about it.

Kat: I hope this show opens the minds of a lot of the hockey world. I hope this show adds a wider acceptance of queer people in sports. Because we exist, always have existed, and aren’t going anywhere, even if you think we don’t. I hope this show makes these real-life Scott Hunters or Ilya Rozanovs or Shane Hollanders feel a lot less alone.

I hope this show makes the world a little brighter, a little better, a little kinder.

Isn’t that all we can ask for?

We’ll see you next month.

Morgan: So the ECHL is heading on strike as talks between the Professional Hockey Players’ Association (PHPA) and the ECHL have not been able to agree on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

Kat: For the unfamiliar, the ECHL has been heading down this route for quite some time. The ECHL, which was founded in 1993 as the “East Coast Hockey League”, currently houses thirty teams. The ECHL is the AHL’s “little brother”, and as we’ll go into later, future NHL stars, such as Derek Boogaard, Michael Ryder, and Tim Thomas, all have played in the league.

More recently, former and current ECHL players have been vocal about their time in the league, such as Westin Michaud, a retired player, who tweeted yesterday,

| “Playing in the ECHL, I worked side jobs just to make ends meet. Housing situations weren’t always ideal. Got pressured to play through health concerns because speaking up felt like it could cost me my career advancement and credibility. The ECHL needs to do better for current and future players. The pressure to perform and advance is intense, and players shouldn’t have to choose between their wellbeing and their careers. Proud of everyone working to improve conditions at this level.” |

New CBA talks began in January 2025, with PHPA (the ECHL and AHL’s union) executive director, Brian Ramsay, accusing the league of being flippant with issues surrounding player safety, telling the Associated Press,

| “This is a league that has taken almost a year to concede that we should be entitled to choose helmets that properly fit us and are safe. This is the league that still supplies our members with used equipment. This is a league that shows no concern for players’ travels and in fact has said the nine-hour bus trip home should be considered your day off. We have had members this year spend 28 hours-plus on a bus to play back-to-back games on a Friday and Saturday night, only to be paid less than the referees who work those very same games.” |

I did some digging on this – there’s not a number on how much officials are paid for a single ECHL game. The ECHL is claiming to raise their salary cap by 16.4%, and increasing player pay by 27% in the future. They don’t have a timeline on this.

But it’s not just the low pay as to why the players want a strike. The players want to feel safe and secure, both on-and-off the ice. The players are advocating for holiday breaks and off-days – the league has allegedly counted travel days as “off-days”, when these players are traveling up to thirty hours on buses. They want their issues to be resolved faster. (Jimmy Maza, a former ECHL player now on the negotiation board, told the AP, “The top level, you know that those players aren’t being treated that way, so why are they treating us that way? To us, it’s a little bit of a slap in the face with the way these negotiations have gone for a year, when only five days ago, we get a little bit of movement on a helmet issue when it should have been done a year ago.”)

Yesterday, December 22, the PHPA released a statement to ECHL fans, which I recommend all hockey fans check out. And at 8:15pm on December 22, a few hours after that statement was released, the PHPA delivered a strike notice to the ECHL.

Morgan: This strike, of course, will have an impact on the ECHL players, who are going to be going without pay due to the strike.

It is worth noting that some players in the ECHL right now are signed by an AHL team. I’m not sure what it might look like for those players if they’ll get recalled to the AHL to continue playing like the NHL-signed guys probably will. We’ll have to wait and see.

There will also be an impact on NHL-signed players who are currently down in the ECHL. The following is a list of NHL-signed players that are actively assigned to the ECHL as of 3pm on 12/23/2025. This doesn’t impact any “up and down” players who may be in the ECHL primarily right now but are in the AHL due to injuries. This can change just as easily as an NHL call-up from the AHL:

This influx of players is going to create a challenge, especially in the case of a prolonged strike. More forwards and defensemen are easier to deal with by just cycling guys through the roster each game. Still a snag in development, but at least they’re getting games in.

But unless you start splitting games, the influx of goaltenders is going to create a problem and harm development.

I bet most of you don’t realize this, but plenty of now NHL players, or NHL-signed players who are tearing it up in the AHL right now, did spend at least some time in the ECHL during their development.

Detroit Red Wings-signed G Sebastian Cossa, currently playing for the absolutely dominant AHL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins, spent his first professional season (2022-23) with the Toledo Walleye.

Buffalo Sabres G Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen spent his first professional season (2019-20) with the Cincinnati Cyclones as he was working his way back from off-season hip surgery.

Florida Panthers F Carter Verhaeghe spent bits and pieces of the first two seasons of his professional career in the ECHL with the Missouri Mavericks (now Kansas City Mavericks).

Washington Capitals G Logan Thompson spent his first professional season in the ECHL with the South Carolina Stingrays. *He had spent most of 2018-19 playing USports with Brock University before moving over to the ECHL on an amateur tryout.

Get the idea? Plenty of guys have a development path that includes spending time in the ECHL. Plenty have done it and turned out great.

But, for a plethora of reasons, the ECHL is not an appealing option to these NHL-signed players with dreams of playing in The Show. And that’s understandable. The ECHL can be seen as being two levels away from the dream versus the one being at the AHL level.

Carolina Hurricanes fans may remember that during the 2023-24 season, when they didn’t have an AHL affiliate, there was a little bit of drama with multiple Carolina-signed players refusing to report to the Norfolk Admirals, with whom the Hurricanes had a working agreement for the season.

F Noel Gunler and D Anttoni Honka, both of whom spent the previous season in the AHL, would not report to the Admirals when assigned and were both loaned overseas to Liiga teams. Gunler is back and playing in the AHL again. Honka never returned.

This season, the Pittsburgh Penguins suspended D Emil Pieniniemi, who was slated for his first professional season after spending last season in the OHL, for not reporting to the Penguins’ ECHL affiliate, the Wheeling Nailers. To date, nothing has changed.

You should read the linked article from Taylor Haase. It lays out pretty well the way the Penguins organization is treating Wheeling. It’s how I wish more teams would treat the ECHL. It would go a long way to changing the perception of the league…both among fans and players.

But an even more important step in changing that perspective? Better conditions for the players.

Which is the whole point of where we are now.

Kat: Sunshine and Hockey stands in solidarity with the striking players. They’re doing a deeply brave thing, especially within hockey culture, where “suck it up and accept the treatment you’re given”, is an unspoken sentiment (Morgan and I have both experienced it as writers!). These players are risking their careers to do the right thing, and that’s ballsy.

We stand with you, ECHL players. We hope you’re given the treatment, pay, and breaks you deserve.

Morgan: So uh…it’s 9:00 pm on the East Coast right now on December 12th, 2025.

At 7:34 pm this evening…Elliotte Friedman broke an already fragile hockey internet.

I’m getting ahead of myself because this entire day has been some kind of hockey fan’s fever dream…or worse, a nightmare, depending on where your team allegiances lie.

Kat: I’m writing this at 10am, Eastern Standard Time, December 13, 2025. Taylor Swift’s birthday.

Anyway.

And as of twenty-four hours ago, I was minding my own business, watching The End Of An Era, as any good Swiftie was doing. And I decide randomly, in between episodes, to check Twitter.

TRISTAN JARRY TO THE OILERS???

Okay, in all seriousness, this was a move I saw coming. It had been a rumor on Hockey Twitter for weeks, with a particular hockey podcast ending up in controversy for tweeting that it was a “done deal” back in mid-November.

It’s almost time for the December freeze, where everything in the hockey world stops for the holidays (minus the World Juniors tournament… stay tuned for our takes on that), and GMs are active this time of year.

Nothing like what yesterday was, however.

And Tristan Jarry’s worth was at an all-time high. Last season, as much as I love him as a human, he was a disaster in goal, letting in the first shot on net constantly. It happened in six of twenty-two games before being waived and sent down to the AHL, to the Wilkes-Barre Penguins. As a Penguins fan, I felt like it was happening every game. It wasn’t, but I FELT LIKE IT, OKAY?

(And don’t get me wrong: it was devastating to watch. I felt horrible for Jarry.)

So Jarry has been in trade talks for a while.

Jarry is currently in the third year of a five-year, $5.375 million-dollar deal, which made him hard to move prior to today. And this season, Jarry’s been playing some of the best hockey of his career. In fourteen games, he has nine wins (AND WINS ARE A TEAM STAT, FOLKS), one shootout win, a 2.66 goals against average, and a save percentage of .909.

Not bad.

So the trade looked something like this:

• TO PITTSBURGH: Stuart Skinner, Brett Kulak, Edmonton 2029 second-round pick

• TO EDMONTON: Tristan Jarry, Sam Poulin (2019 draft pick, AHL darling.)

Let’s talk about Brett Kulak first.

Kulak is a depth defenseman, previously playing for the Calgary Flames, Montreal Canadiens, and Edmonton Oilers. In a career 611 games, he’s scored 28 goals and 99 assists. 248 penalty minutes, -1 in terms of the plus/minus. Very depth-defenseman-type of stats. This season, he has two assists and ten PIM. He’ll likely be replacing Matt Dumba, who also didn’t look great this season.

Stuart Skinner. Where do we even begin on “Stu” and his incredible mustache?

What we know about Skinner is this: he was beloved by Edmonton media and in the locker room. Despite many poor performances, particularly in the Stanley Cup Final in 2024 and 2025, he was accountable, always faced the media, and took the blame for Edmonton’s collapses to the Florida Panthers.

This season, Skinner was 11-8-4 in 23 games played. His GAA is 2.83, and his save percentage is .891%.

And he needed a change of scenery. He’s been open about his confidence struggles and internal psychology, and a change of scenery will hopefully help with that – less pressure on him to win with Artūrs Šilovs, Sergei Murashov, and Joel Blomqvist on the rise in Pittsburgh.

But Connor McDavid has two years left on his deal that he signed this summer. Edmonton wants to win with their captain. Edmonton wants to win now.

Whether or not it’s with Tristan Jarry, we’ll see.

Morgan: So I’m minding my own business, literally walking out of my bedroom into the hall. Then my phone pings with a notification. I look down and see “Elliotte Friedman” (cause are you really a hockey fan if you don’t have post notifications on for him) and pause mid-step and then…

I know logically that this was real. Because it was a NOTIFICATION. But I’m frantically checking and double-checking and triple-checking that this is ACTUALLY Elliotte Friedman. At the same time, I’m messaging Kat (who then called to perform a sanity check on me) and sitting rather aggressively on my poor desk chair that is already hanging on by sheer force of will, and starting to pull my feed up and PuckPedia…think of it like Tony Stark…

I couldn’t believe it was real. Even as the posts started to roll in from all the other insiders and the return started to become clear, I still couldn’t believe it.

No one expected Minnesota to get in on this seriously enough to be considered a contender. I didn’t expect Hughes to stay in the Western Conference (honestly, I was rooting for him to be shipped to the Devils for the plot).

And now that the dust has settled, the outgoing pieces for Hughes are both surprising but not for this Wild fan.

Marco Rossi: I knew after everything that went down over the summer, he would not finish the three-year deal he signed in a Wild uniform. I knew he’d be traded at some point, but only for the right deal. This certainly counts.

After everything he went through before his career even started, after contracting COVID and being diagnosed with myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), the fact that he was able to even have his hockey career, and a fantastic one so far at that, is honestly a miracle.

Vancouver is getting a good one in Rossi…whenever he comes off the IR. On pace for about a 50-point season, but as we all know, with these moves it can shake up a player’s season in the world of point production…and not always for the better. But Rossi has TALENT. He is a fantastic player.

Liam Öhgren: An interesting case, in my opinion. He was the 19th overall pick by the Wild in 2022 out of the SHL. In his first full season in North America last year, he did well in the AHL with Iowa (19-18–37) but only put up five points (2-3) in 24 games with the Wild.

This season, he has zero points in 18 NHL games and five (3-2) in nine games in the AHL.

He is a good player…he has the pieces. He just needs to put them together, and I hope he does in Vancouver (or Abbotsford if he gets sent there).

Zeev Buium: This is one of those things where I couldn’t believe it, but at the same time I could.

Hughes is a defenseman, so a defenseman had to go in this trade. Ideally, one of the guys actively playing in the NHL right now.

Strictly based on contracts, you had options for everyone except Jake Middleton, who has a full NMC this season, and depending on who is on his 10-team no-trade list, Jared Spurgeon was also an option.

But let’s be realistic for a second: Minnesota was not going to trade their captain in Spurgeon with how he’s playing right now (to say nothing of the fact that he’s 36). Brock Faber was also probably a non-starter (I’m going to assume that Hughes/Faber will be paired up, and I’m here for it). Bogosian is 35 and not exactly a comparable return for 26-year-old Hughes. Same with Brodin, who is 32 (but is also a lefty like Hughes).

Which really then brings it down to Buium or (because this is the NHL and teams do nonsensical things every dang day) any one of the cast of characters that are their extra pocket defensemen hanging out in the press box.

If I were Vancouver, I’d be all about Buium. 20-year-old LHD. 12th overall pick in 2024. 3-11–14 in 31 games of his rookie season after putting up 11-39–50 and 13-35–48 seasons in the NCAA. PLUS, he was on the USA’s gold medal-winning WJC teams the last two seasons and the Men’s Worlds team this past summer. AND he was a Hobey Baker Memorial Award nominee in 2023-24 and a finalist in 2024-25.

He probably has a massive career ahead of him. And while you can’t really replace Quinn Hughes…this is about as close as you’re gonna get from Minnesota’s cast. And that was clearly good enough for Vancouver.

Then of course, there’s that 2026 first-round draft pick. Who knows how good that ends up being. At the rate they’re going right now, Vancouver’s own first round pick probably ends up being higher (it’s still December though…anything can happen).

If Bill Guerin can get Hughes extended in the summer, ideally before the new CBA rules kick in, then I will personally stop complaining about…some things.

Kat: I’m wearing my Marc-André Fleury shirt for this episode, and it’s 100% intentional. I’m so excited about this.

Hello, and welcome back to Sunshine and Hockey, the podletter where my friend Morgan and I break down all the latest hockey headlines. Today, we’re talking about our favorite topic: goaltending.

Morgan: Favorite topic? More like the bane of my existence sometimes…and I mean that in the best way possible…maybe. You can decide how I feel about it after reading this.

Let’s start by talking about some goaltending situations going on around the league right now, and we’re gonna start with the team that has me waking the house up in the evenings, and that is the Leafs. Oh boy, has this season just been a nightmare, and it’s not even mid-November yet.

Let me just lay out a timeline here of what’s gone on so far this season for them in net:

• September 23rd: The Leafs announce that Joseph Woll will be taking a leave of absence from the team to attend to a family matter.

• September 26th: The Leafs sign former goalie James Reimer to a PTO.

• October 6th: The Leafs claim Cayden Primeau on waivers from the Carolina Hurricanes, release Reimer from his PTO, and assign Dennis Hildeby to the Marlies.

• October 18th: “Anthony Stolarz vs the Leafs” media comments.

• October 24th: Woll rejoins the team and resumes on-ice participation and activities to move toward returning to play.

• November 7th: The Leafs place Primeau on waivers.

• November 8th: The Hurricanes reclaim Primeau. Woll plays 36 minutes (as planned) of an AHL game, stopping 21 of 24 shots. Hildeby is recalled from the Marlies.

• November 11th: Stolarz leaves the Leafs @ Boston game after the first period and is declared out for the game with an upper-body injury. Hildeby plays the final 40.

• November 12th: Woll plays his first full AHL game, stopping 25 of 28 shots in a 2-3 OT loss.

You got the timeline. Now, let’s talk about it a bit more because this situation is chaotic.

So that October 18th entry…Yeah, that man had had enough. I encourage you to go find the clip from the post-game presser about it. I want to give the man a trophy for being the only one brave enough to call this team out because there’s not a sane person in this world who doesn’t know how frustrated the fan base is.

Mind you, this was almost (or over, depending on when you’re reading this. I’m writing this on November 12th, so “almost”) a month ago now.

In multiple games early in the season, he had players crashing into him while in the net. It happened against the Red Wings with Larkin; it happened against the Kraken with Marchment. He was also just fed up with the way the team was playing only a handful of games into the season (as a lot of us were and still are).

I won’t dive too deep into the way the Leafs are playing…the seeming lack of camaraderie, standing up for, and (literally) fighting for your teammates on the ice…it’s not there. It’s a joke. And that kinda thing bleeds even into the goaltenders when they aren’t playing defense to help the goalie out.

Goaltenders are the last line of defense. If the opponent is facing down your goalie, it’s not just on them to guard the net, but it’s also up to all the other skaters on the ice to play defense.

I will say this much, to play devil’s advocate a bit, Stolarz has struggled since he said what he said. Is he probably tired? Yeah. Is he being worked in a way that he really hasn’t been in the rest of his NHL career? Oh yeah. 17 games into the season (as of November 12th), and Stolarz has started 13 (playing the full 60 for 11 of them).

Shifting gears a little bit…

First off: I’m glad Woll is back, glad everything is obviously doing better, and he was able to handle whatever it was he needed to handle.

But also on that note: I pray he is not rushed back to NHL action. He may not have a ton of choice if Stolarz is injured unless the Leafs make some kind of move (this has about as much chance of happening as aliens landing on my front lawn tomorrow).

And this isn’t a dig at Hildeby. In two partial and one full game this season, Hildeby isn’t doing too badly. His full game was a loss to the Hurricanes…and he made 47 saves in that game, so like…can’t be that mad about it…besides the loss anyway. And the two partials were both relief situations against Boston. He stopped 20 and 21 shots in those games, had a SV% over 900 in both games. He came into a sinking ship and…I guess it slowed the sink down. A goalie can only do so much when your team can’t score…

No, no. The problem is that there is no one else with NHL experience to back Hildeby up. In the AHL right now, you have second-year AHLer Artur Akhtyamov and third-year minor league player Vyacheslav Peksa.

Peksa has played 21 minutes this season (the other half of that November 8th game Woll didn’t finish) and spent basically all of last season and the season before in the ECHL (which, in my opinion, is how you should be developing goalies when they don’t have overseas pro experience, but we can talk about that later).

Which makes Akhtyamov your next man up. He’s not having a bad season; he didn’t have a terrible one last year either, for it being his first in North America. It’s just the whole “no NHL experience” thing. And with the Leafs performing the way they are…any child goalie you throw in there is on his own, frankly.

[Writer’s update, November 13th: Well, it happened. Akhtyamov has been recalled. Goalie gods have mercy on this child…]

On top of every other problem the Leafs have right now, goaltending is starting to get to that point. Goaltenders need to do their job and keep pucks out, yeah. But your team also needs to hold up their end of the bargain and GO TO THE NET and SHOOT THE PUCK and try to score some damn goals.

And if nothing else, pick a fight for your goalie when he’s treated like a bowling pin.

He’s gotta try to cover for your poor defense and takes way more hate from the fanbase than you do. Be a good teammate and drop the gloves now and then for them.

Kat: And there’s the opposite of the Leafs: the Columbus Blue Jackets.

For the unfamiliar, the Blue Jackets are in a dual goaltending situation with Jet Greaves, 24, in his first full-time NHL season, and Elvis Merzļikins, 31, who’s been the Jackets’ main guy for the 2020s. Greaves has been Goaltender 1, and Merzļikins has been Goaltender 2.

When Morgan mentions the Leafs, I can’t help but think of the Jackets’ October 18 game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning had been going after the Jackets all game, as per usual (and I’m not saying that because I’m a homer, I’m saying that because I have eyes – sorry, Lightning fans), particularly Greaves. At the third period’s conclusion, Greaves made several saves, with the biggest one being on Anthony Cirelli at the net, but in the last few seconds of the game, the Jackets were blocking practically every shot to ensure nothing went to the net. To protect their goalie.

And to protect their goalie’s honor, after the whistle, a massive scrum broke out between everyone on the ice… except the two netminders.

It doesn’t seem like much, but when you have a team that truly loves their goaltenders, it shows, and the last three seconds of that game demonstrate it.

Jet Greaves has worked his ass off to get to the NHL level, as has Merzļikins. Greaves’s professional career began in 2015, starting with the Cambridge Hawks AAA team. He was selected in the third round of the 2017 OHL draft by the Barrie Colts, and played two seasons there as the second goaltender in a tandem. (Fun fact: He and Arturs Silovs shared the net during his second OHL season.) Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Greaves didn’t play his third OHL season, therefore, ending his time in that league.

He was never drafted into the NHL either. He was eligible as early as 2019, went undrafted, and in late 2021, he was signed by the American Hockey League (AHL)’s Cleveland Monsters on what was essentially a PTO. In his debut, he made 40 saves against the Belleville Senators. While the Jackets don’t have an ECHL team affiliate anymore, at the time, they were affiliated with the Kalamazoo Wings, and Greaves split the 2021-2022 season between there and Cleveland. At the end of his deal, Greaves was re-signed to a three-year ELC, and spent his second year as Cleveland’s “main guy”, despite being expected to be a backup. He was called up to the NHL on January 11, 2023, but didn’t debut, and was sent back down to Cleveland.

Finally, on April 4, 2023, he was called up to the Blue Jackets, and debuted in a game against (who else but) the Toronto Maple Leafs, where he’d set an organization record for the most saves made in a debut game.

He wouldn’t be the Blue Jackets’ “main guy” until the end of the 2024-2025 season, where he’d get national media attention for playing some of the best games the Blue Jackets had ever seen, including a shutout against the Washington Capitals. His most famous moment for non-Jackets fans is having Alex Ovechkin flustered because Greaves was playing that well. He’d be named the NHL’s First Star of The Week on April 14, 2025 – and get name recognition all across the NHL. After the Jackets were eliminated from the postseason, he went back to Cleveland for their Calder Cup run, but wouldn’t return back for the 2025-2026 season.

As for Merzļikins’s career, you can read more here: Hockey in Heels — KEEP ELVIS IN THE BUILDING

Personally, I think that Jet Greaves is development done correctly. There’s plenty of comparisons to make surrounding him, particularly on goaltenders who’ve had their development rushed. Greaves made himself a star with his work ethic, but his time in the AHL absolutely helped form him into the goaltender he is.

Morgan: I love Jet. I love the story of Jet. I’m excited for him and to get to watch him continue to flourish.

I am always a huge proponent of letting the kids cook in the minor leagues. Whether that’s the AHL or the ECHL. I don’t understand why people hate on the ECHL as much as they do (actually, I do…but from a development standpoint, it’s important).

When you let guys work the system, play at the lower levels, and work on their skills, it can work out.

Does everyone need it? No.

Do I think we should make those assumptions based on junior or European pro-level stats? Absolutely not.

Could some young guys maybe have benefited from some additional time to cook? Yeah.

And one of them, in my opinion, is Pyotr Kochetkov.

But I think his story is just a case of really unfortunate circumstances.

Drafted in the second round of the 2019 draft by the Hurricanes, signed his ELC in April 2021, then spent the 2021-22 season playing his first full KHL season, where he also played over 20 games in a season for the first time since the 2017-18 season.

I’m not kidding.

For those who don’t know: the VHL is the second-highest men’s league in Russia, and the MHL is the men’s junior league (no player can be over 20).

Anyway, from just a raw numbers standpoint, Kochetkov didn’t have a ton of pro experience when he came to North America. Great numbers, though, which is always a plus. But you can never count on those translating to North American play (I’m about to sound like an idiot with what comes next in the story).

So, Kochetkov arrives in North America in mid-February 2022 and heads right for the AHL Chicago Wolves. And oh boy was this kid unstoppable. 15 games between mid-February and mid-April, 2.09 GAA, 0.921 SV%, 13-1-1.

And then the call comes…“(Soon-to-be 2022 William M. Jennings Trophy winner) Frederik Andersen is hurt, you’re coming to Carolina to play with (The other soon-to-be 2022 William M. Jennings Trophy winner) Antti Raanta.”

Kochetkov plays three regular-season games, winning all three. He then gets thrown into the first round of the playoffs against the Bruins. He wins his first appearance in Round 1, Game 2. Loses his next appearance in Game 3. He then doesn’t make another appearance in the playoffs until Round 2, Game 6 against the Rangers, when he goes in for relief for Raanta barely three minutes into the second period, down 0-3. Canes would lose that game 2-5.

He would play again in Game 7 after Raanta got injured late in the second period. Canes were down 0-2 when he went in and would lose the game 2-6.

No rest for the wicked, Kochetkov is returned to the Wolves, who are by this point deep into their Calder Cup Playoff run. Kochetkov would play in six games, backstopping victories in five of them, including two shutouts, in the final two rounds of the playoffs as the Wolves claimed their Calder Cup victory.

See what I mean about sounding like an idiot? That all sounds pretty good, right?

Well yeah. It is.

It earned him a four-year extension in late November 2022 that kicked in for 2023-24.

And he had a good 2022-2023 season where he again split time between the NHL and AHL.

Then 2023-2024 happens. And it’s a disaster for everyone involved, and suddenly this kid, who has only had one full season in North America under his belt, with decent enough numbers in the 2022-23 season, is basically the #1 guy in Carolina for a period of time.

Andersen has his blood-clotting issue, Raanta struggled, they claimed Spencer Martin off waivers, and even Yaniv Perets (remember him?) made an appearance.

Raanta struggled to the point where, when Andersen came back in early March, he was the one who was sent to the AHL in favor of Kochetkov.

2024-2025 went similarly. The season started with the Andersen/Kochetkov tandem. Andersen went down, and net duties primarily went to Kochetkov, with Dustin Tokarski, Martin, and Perets making a small number of appearances.

Kochetkov’s stats sank in 2024-25 compared to past seasons.

From not just a physical mindset but a mental one as well, I wonder how prepared Kochetkov could have been for back-to-back seasons like this…where all eyes were on him. Where he was carrying the load. Where he was typically playing game after game after game.

Not to mention the concussions…players come back from that different. It changes them. You can end up with lingering issues (I’m speaking from experience on that one). Nothing you can do about that issue, but…he could’ve used more development time.

I think he could’ve benefited from just one more season in the AHL, being their #1 guy playing the bulk of the games. Then, an NHL migration circumstance where he wasn’t just thrown headfirst into the deep end of the pool.

And I fear that someone may look at Kochetkov’s path and assume that it can work that way for, maybe not everyone, but a lot of guys.

But he is a lucky one in my opinion. His success in the Russian leagues translated overseas. But that isn’t always the case. And sometimes guys are gonna come over with even fewer professional-level games than Kochetkov.

Guys need time to develop.

There is nothing wrong with playing in the AHL or the ECHL. Nothing wrong with starting a guy somewhere and moving him. It happens all the time.

But that’s usually with skaters…because there’s all these other guys waiting in the wings.

The goalie market sucks; it has always sucked and is getting worse. And sometimes teams don’t have a choice.

Like the Leafs right now, who don’t have another NHL-experienced backup goalie with both Stolarz and Woll down, and are running a tandem of Hildeby and Akhtyamov.

Like the shaky ground the Hurricanes were on for a while, with Kochetkov not ready to play yet and a tandem of Andersen and Brandon Bussi, who, until coming to Carolina, hadn’t debuted at an NHL level. And until last week, didn’t have another NHL-level guy anywhere. Now they have Primeau and Kochetkov back…so their goalie depth is…better. About the best you can hope for with the way the goalie market is, I guess.

I could (and have, ask Kat) spend hours talking about the benefits of the AHL and ECHL and how I am begging hockey fans to stop looking down on these leagues. But we don’t have that kinda time right now.

Kat: This is 100% true, and I’m grateful that Morgan told this story. Pyotr Kochetkov is another story similar to Jet Greaves – someone who worked his ass off to get to the NHL level. Luck and work ethic contributed to his success, especially coming back from injuries like concussions – we largely know how the NHL doesn’t take head injuries seriously (hell, look at Sidney Crosby’s concussions and the cases of former enforcers, and then go read Boy On Ice by John Branch, which is the best book I’ve read in 2025), much less when it comes to goaltenders. Goaltenders have a similar-ish role to enforcers, when you think about it: they’re the protectors of the team, the lead, the game. They’re the defenders. Goaltenders, like enforcers, have shorter careers, and often share some of the same injuries, such as concussions. And in the end, who protects the protector?

That’s all for this episode of Sunshine and Hockey. Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. Subscribe if you enjoyed this, and tell the world about your favorite goalie today.

WHAT IS SUNSHINE AND HOCKEY?

Sunshine and Hockey is a written podcast (aka “Kat and Morgan transcribe their DMs about their teams”) from two friends, with the goal of making hockey – the NHL and the AHL – more accessible for everyone! While the NHL treats “hockey is for everyone” as a fun little slogan that isn’t taken seriously at all, we have the opposite goal. Hockey really is for everyone, whether you’re a casual fan or a complete hockey sicko (a Leafs fan, like Morgan), and it’s really fun – we want to emphasize that sense of fun and whimsy. We release our columns monthly, as we both have day jobs and lives outside of hockey.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Kat: My name is Kat (she/her/hers), and I’m the “emotional/narrative brain” of this podletter. You may know me already from my blog, Hockey in Heels, from Twitter or Bluesky, or from some of my prior jobs: I spent two seasons covering the Carolina Hurricanes for Inside the Rink, and I spent a season at another outlet covering the Columbus Blue Jackets. I also “dip my toe” into following other teams, like the Montreal Canadiens, because I am a huge Patrik Laine fan, and the Pittsburgh Penguins. (The Habs may be my Canadian team… to be determined.) I want to follow the PWHL more this season, especially after that Montreal playoff game with a million overtimes – I consider myself to be a Victoire fan. In short, I just really love hockey. If you’ve followed me for a while, you may know that I’m an autistic woman, and hockey is what is called my “special interest”, which are these all-consuming interests that dictate how you see the world.

I cover the Columbus Blue Jackets now, and I am a complete CBJ sicko. I watch every game, despite living out-of-market, and I fully believe that Nationwide Arena is haunted by the Ohio State Penitentiary ghosts.

My hockey story started in 2023, when I went to my first Canes game. I spent the rest of the year getting extremely invested, and the rest is history. I’m originally from Columbus, and while I’ve actually never been to a game at Nationwide, Rick Nash was in the background of my childhood. I grew up in an Ohio State football family, so hockey wasn’t on my radar until I was nineteen and at my first Canes game. (They won 4-1, by the way, against the Detroit Red Wings.) I then spent two years working in hockey media before going independent and starting Hockey in Heels. And now I’m here with one of my favorite people on the planet, talking even more about hockey.

My favorite players are Patrik Laine – my favorite Blue Jacket of all time – and Sidney Crosby, which sound like really basic answers, but it’s true. They are the two player jerseys I own – I have a Union blue Laine jersey that I wear all the time, and a 2008 Winter Classic Crosby jersey. And for those of you who are Jackets fans and questioning my fanship for Laine, please watch that man on the powerplay from the left faceoff circle. It never gets old.

Some other fun facts about me: I love to read (particularly memoirs – I’m currently reading The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin and Autism in Heels by Jennifer Cook), my favorite Taylor Swift album is Red (and I went to the Eras Tour!), I have a collection of Sylvia Plath’s works, and I adore cats. Can you tell I majored in English? (Major of English, minor of Mass Communications.) I’m also working on a book right now about autism. And hockey. Autism and ADHD and hockey and womanhood and all the things.

Morgan: My name is Morgan (she/they), and if we’re giving ourselves little hats for this podletter then consider me the “stats and prospects brain”. Unlike Kat, I don’t have nearly as much writing in the world, save my ramblings over on X. Any Carolina Hurricanes or Chicago Wolves fans may also know me as the person who made a 2024-25 scoreboard blanket for the Canes and scoreboard scarf for the Wolves. (New projects for the 2025-26 season to be announced soon).

By day, I work in IT, and by night, I do literally anything else. I crochet, I cross-stitch, I scream at Kat about hockey stats, and binge-watch a show I’ve watched 100s of times over instead of something new.

I follow several teams in some capacity. My main teams are the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Minnesota Wild. I also casually follow the Columbus Blue Jackets, Montreal Canadiens, and Pittsburgh Penguins. I also keep up with the AHL, typically sticking within the affiliates of my teams (more for my own sanity and time than anything). I also keep up with…well, really every team/league where my teams have prospects/draft picks playing.

My hockey story dates back to the lockdown-shortened 2012-13 season and the Pittsburgh Penguins. I don’t know why I picked the Penguins–I was born and raised in Virginia, you’d think I’d pick the Caps. But nope, Pittsburgh is where it started. The next season, I was drawn into the Leafs and Canes. Again, don’t ask me why–I couldn’t tell you how I ended up here.

I somehow ended up with the Wild during the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season. Maybe it was trying to follow four teams that did it, or the Penguins trading away one of my OG fourth line faves, Zach Aston-Reese, but I drifted away from the Penguins “full-time” after the 2021-22 season, and now here we are.

Hockey for me was always something that was mine. No one knew about my following it–not my family, not my then boyfriend, no one. It got me through a lot of things…high school, college, a pandemic (bless YouTube), a rough break-up, deaths, just the very process of becoming an adult and moving from college to a full-time job. But I didn’t start really opening up about it until the tail end of the 2022-23 season. And since then, it’s just brought me all these new things and joys and memories.

It’s also given me friends like Kat who sit and “listen” to (read about) me going on about stats and waxing poetic about goaltenders and bottom-sixers that I collect in my little pocket (though it is not really a little pocket, cause there are a lot of guys in there).

BEST SHAPE OF MY LIFE SEASON

Kat: At the time of publication, we have reached the very end of training camp, aka “Best Shape of My Life” season. And so far, it’s been a doozy. The Blue Jackets have been doing their annual “Midwestern mix”, trying to find the right lines before opening night.

Luca Del Bel Belluz is playing in Cleveland again, and he looked incredible during the preseason. He’s also going to be the answer to a trivia question forever, which is, “Who was the last person to score on Marc-Andre Fleury?”

Morgan: First of all, the guys that out and out say they’re in the “Best Shape of [their] Life” turn around and get injured within a month and end up on IR. It’s tempting fate, and it cracks me up every time because I personally am a believer in that kind of idea…mostly out of my own experiences, but that’s beside the point.

But I also feel just a little bit bad for Del Bel Belluz–like he even said, “It was obviously good that I scored. But yeah, I felt like I kind of ruined the party there for him.” Flower is such a legend, and it is cool that this kid, who, mind you, was born just four months after Flower was drafted, gets to be part of the history that is Flower’s career in such a frankly meaningful way.

Good grief, reading that back…everything about that paragraph made my bones hurt.

Anyway. I was surprised that Del Bel Belluz got sent back to Cleveland. You’re right, he had a strong preseason, and his AHL stats over the last two seasons were very strong. His season-over-season stats are showing obvious growth and development…he’s gotta be close to NHL ready.

Kat: Del Bel Belluz is going to be the first Monster called up to Columbus. There’s no way that he’s not. He’s looked great in his NHL showings so far. If the roster wasn’t so stacked with forwards this year, Del Bel Belluz probably would’ve made the roster. Unfortunately, that’s just how it goes sometimes, especially in pro hockey.

ANYWAY. The Blue Jackets’ preseason has looked about as expected, minus the Daemon Hunt waiver incident. Hunt, an original Minnesota Wild, was given to Columbus in last year’s David Jiříček trade. Fans thought he was a lock to make the roster, given how he had a strong preseason similar to Denton Mateychuk last year. Then he gets put on waivers… and claimed by the Wild, his old team.

Only the Blue Jackets. The curse is real on stupid stuff like this.

The two big storylines going into the season are:

1. What happens to Yegor Chinakhov?

2. Who starts in net for the Jackets – Elvis or Jet?

I’ve written about Elvis here, and I absolutely think he’s earned the privilege to start in net this season. Last season was about him proving himself in net, because he’s had some unlucky injuries and personal life turmoil. Jet Greaves is such a talented goaltender, and I’ve seen him live: he’s incredible. I’m so glad he was called up from Cleveland and earned his spot as that second goaltender. But I wouldn’t put him as the starter – I think he needs some time as the second goaltender for NHL development purposes. I’m worried that the pedestal on him is inevitably going to fall, and the best way to do that is by putting him in the starter’s net. I personally think Elvis and Jet deserve a 50/50 split in net. They’re both talented, and both need adequate rest. Fifty-fifty seems like a good deal for both parties.

As for Chinakhov… [sigh.]

I’m trying to figure out how to be objective about this, because I do feel legitimately bad for any player who requests a trade, because it often gets so messy so quickly, and fans turn on these players (who are human first) so quickly. I hate to bring this up, but Patrik Laine is the best example of this. He requests a trade, has speculation happening when he’s actively in the Player’s Assistance Program, and then gets traded to Montreal, and a certain subset of Jackets fans view him as Enemy Number One.

This team needs a rivalry. Why not Tampa? Or these fans who hate players so aggressively need other hobbies outside of hockey, because these players are still human.

ANYWAY.

Yegor Chinakhov’s agent very publicly asks for a trade this summer, citing disagreements with head coach Dean Evason as the reason. And it got really messy, with Chinakhov’s agent saying that he can’t let his client play under Evason again.

I said this at the time, and I’ll say it again: context matters.

When you’re a young, injury-riddled (because of lack of development) NHLer who’s had everything in the NHL – playing time, what line you’re on, etc. – handed to you because of front office dysfunction and a coaching carousel that includes Mike freaking Babcock, then it’s a huge and jarring shift, especially to get injured again and miss so much time.

I empathize with Chinakhov, and to his credit, everyone in the organization and reporters have described him as being professional and willing to do whatever it takes to win. Aaron Portzline referred to his demeanor as “sunny” recently.

Chinakhov also fired his agent this past week, moving to the same agent as Dmitri Voronkov, another Russian on the Jackets.

So the question there is: what happens now? Chinakhov is currently on the top line with Kirill Marchenko out, and he’s on the second powerplay unit. Based on what local reporters, Evason, and Waddell have all said – he wants to be there. But I can see a trade happening, whether it’s at the beginning of the season or at the deadline. I’m not going to speculate as to where, because I think a lot of teams would love to have him, but the injury history will give them pause.

How has the Leafs’ preseason looked? The Wild’s?

Morgan: Minnesota had a relatively quiet offseason until really the 11th hour. They finally got Kirill Kaprizov signed to an 8x$17M deal. That stalemate was keeping me up at night.

And then they also locked starting goalie Filip Gustavsson, the Gus Bus, down to a 5x$6.8M deal that’ll start next season. I honestly knew this contract would come eventually after his performance last season, and with just how the goalie market is right now. In this house, we love stability in net (for at least one of the two spots).

Injury issues up and down the roster have definitely put a kink in the Wild’s Opening Night Roster.

F Mats Zuccarello and F Nico Sturm were both put on IR to start the season. Zuccy is going to be out at least seven to eight weeks. Sturm has a back injury that he was dealing with during camp, played in the preseason finale, and…well, here we are.

D Jonas Brodin had offseason surgery and is still recovering, though he is skating with the team. He was not put on IR to start the season, which is a positive sign–but the Wild do have ample cap space for a change.

Minnesota has three young forwards in Hunter Haight, Liam Öhgren, and Danila Yurov spent all preseason trying to earn their way into Zuccy’s roster spot, all on the 13-forward opening night roster. For Haight and Yurov, if they play on Thursday, it will be their respective NHL debuts. For Öhgren he saw 24 games of NHL action last season while spending additional time in the AHL. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how all three of these guys do. And here’s hoping that they make the decision very difficult for the staff as to who gets booted back to Iowa when Sturm and Zuccy return.

Brodin’s spot on the blue line is a bit of a different story. Up until Friday, October 3rd, it was looking like they’d be lining up with Faber, Spurgeon, Middleton, Bogosian, Buium, and Jiříček, with Ben Gleason and Matt Kiersted hanging out in Iowa to recall if needed.

And then Minnesota claimed Daemon Hunt off waivers from Columbus (sorry, Kat). Hunt was traded by Minnesota to Columbus just last season in a deal that brought Jiříček to Minnesota.

The Opening Night Roster was submitted with eight defensemen. If you take Brodin out, then there’s seven. So it’s anyone’s guess really who is gonna be the odd man out on opening night. My money is on Hunt because of his late return to Minnesota.

If that is the case, Zeev Buium, who saw action during the Wild’s short-lived 2025 Playoff run, will make his regular-season debut (which isn’t really a thing, but work with me here). Jiříček will be looking to stick on the NHL roster this time.

Another situation of trying to make the choice difficult when Brodin comes back.

Leafs land…is never simple. One of the highlights of this entire offseason and preseason has been a simple problem that plagues many teams: too many veteran players signed, no space for prospects to jump up that might be ready to go.

Too many forwards. Too many forwards signed to large deals. And you’re now talking about a scenario where Easton Cowan, who has at minimum earned an early-season look at the NHL level, doesn’t have a roster spot without a trade, sending someone down (and potentially still taking a cap hit since you can only bury $1,150,000 in the minors), or we’re letting all that money sit in the press box.

F Scott Laughton getting injured in the preseason and D Marshall Rifai having to get wrist surgery after his own preseason injury have just made the whole situation even more complicated.

They waived David Kämpf, he cleared, and he was sent down to the AHL. And then they turned around and claimed yet another forward off waivers in Sammy Blais.

To maximize their cap hit, they submitted an Opening Night Roster without Easton Cowan and instead Jacob Quillan, who makes an additional $1,500 compared to Cowan. Both these guys were also doing work together, but separate from the “main group” on October 7th during practice. So do with that information as you will.

But either way, Cowan should be playing opening night. Whether he stays or not is up to what he brings to the table in the game. If he’s playing on the 4th line, I might be singing a different tune, because he would get more benefit playing top line minutes in the AHL than 4th line minutes in the NHL…

The Leafs also have to sort out their situation in net as Joe Woll is on an indefinite leave of absence to attend to a personal family matter. Hopefully all is well with him, and he comes back only when he’s ready to.

To get through the preseason, the Leafs signed former goalie James Reimer to a PTO. He didn’t see much action and was ultimately released after the Leafs claimed goalie Cayden Primeau off waivers from the Hurricanes.

They’ll start the season with Primeau and Stolarz in net, and we’ll see how that goes.

The for-now third string is Dennis Hildeby (aka Hildebeast, like good lord, the man is 6’7”), who did get some NHL time last season, and those appearances were…okay. He still needs time. His AHL stats are promising.

For both teams: I don’t take a ton of stock in the early preseason games. I’ve liked what I’ve seen from individual players, but the team as a whole, I don’t have much to say about yet.

THE FLOWER BLOOMS

Kat: Respectfully, it would be a crime for two people who follow the Pens very casually to NOT discuss the Marc-Andre Fleury game. We already briefly touched on it above, but it deserves more than just “Luca Del Bel Belluz is a really great hockey player.”

We all cried during that game. It was so well done. All the callbacks to Fleury’s time as a Penguin – the yellow pads, the mask with “Thank You Pittsburgh”, the reunion with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang… it was perfect.

Marc-Andre Fleury isn’t just a first ballot Hall of Famer. He’s the definition of what hockey is supposed to be about. His entire career was about having fun and being the best variation of a person in a sport that rarely rewards that. And the Penguins rewarding all of that was… it was incredible. The past year has shown how much Fleury is loved, in a way that’s so rare in hockey. The Ovechkin handshake, the tributes, getting to play at Worlds with Crosby – this has been the year of Marc-Andre Fleury. And I can’t imagine how that hug at the end between Fleury and Merzlikins had to mean to Elvis – so much of his game is inspired by Fleury.

Shoutout to Kyle Dubas for doing this and getting Fleury to return to Pittsburgh on a PTO. I hope we see more legends doing this in the future.

Morgan: And as a Minnesota Wild fan, while I think most fans would understand if it hadn’t gone this way, I think Flower himself said it best: “I don’t like to say I wanted to retire as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins…I don’t want to disrespect the Minnesota Wild. I played my last game with them. I signed my last contract with the Wild. They did a lot of things for me. I wanted to go back to where it all began for me. I see it as a nod. I’ll wear the Penguins jersey for one last time and see old teammates and friends. It’s a way to come full circle.”

How lucky are we to live at the same time as this man’s career?

PWHL, POUTINE, AND HOT DOGS

Kat: The PWHL, or “P-Dub”, has finally released its schedule for this upcoming season. While the NHL starts in early October, the PWHL doesn’t begin until November 21, which is nearly American Thanksgiving.

I’m both excited and underwhelmed. I’m excited to see the introduction of PWHL Seattle and Vancouver, despite the expansion draft being an absolute mess. I don’t think the league was anticipating just how much of a demand there is for women’s hockey, which is why they’re rushing expansion before affirming stability first. I’m excited to see how the expansion is going to play out. All in all, the PWHL has a lot to look forward to.

However, I am begging teams to get a little more creative with their schedule releases. I know this is going to sound biased (and maybe it is), but I really liked the Victoire’s schedule drop. PWHL Vancouver’s was also really creative – and a great tie-in for the city. PWHL Seattle’s was both creative and horrifying. How can you not be romantic about women’s hockey…and local food?

Morgan: I’ll just leave it at: creativity among teams at all levels of hockey is a headscratcher at best. They follow trends and all that for the day-to-day kind of content, which I get from a marketing standpoint. But with things like the schedule drops that require more planning…that’s when you show your team’s vibes.

EXTENSIONS AND THE RISING CAP

Morgan: Buckle up, it’s time for a math lesson.

League-wide changes under the new CBA are already underway, with a ton of these changes already going into effect to start the 2025-26 season. One of the items that hasn’t been introduced yet but will be next fall is reducing the maximum contract term from eight years for a re-signing player to seven years and from seven years to six years for a free agent. NHL teams with these elite players who are on the last year of their deal are racing the clock to get them re-signed before the rule changes.

But one of the things that I think folks are also forgetting to take into account: the Cap is also going up. So the value of some of these guys’ contracts right now is going to be, in the grand scheme of things, less. In January, it was announced by the NHL and the NHLPA that the 2026-27 salary cap was (likely, this is subject to adjustment) going to be $104M USD. And it’s just going to continue to go up.

So, like looking at the Leafs, for example, who I could rant and rave about some of these contracts until I’m blue in the face (no pun intended). William Nylander is on Year 2 of his eight-year, $92M contract. His cap hit is $11.5M which, with the 2025-26 season’s salary cap of $95.5M, is only about 12% of the Leafs’ salary pool.

If the salary cap does go up to $104M next season, that number then drops to 11%. I know that doesn’t sound like a LOT, but when you’re trying to build a Stanley Cup-winning roster, every dollar counts.

Anyway, putting down my chalk from this math lesson (which I’m not remotely qualified to be giving).

Elite-level players up and down the league (who are also under the age of 35…sorry Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin fans) are heading into the 2025-26 season with this giant countdown clock over their heads, counting down to July 1, 2026. From pending UFAs like Jack Eichel and Martin Nečas to pending RFAs like Jason Robertson, Connor Bedard, Lane Hutson, and Adam Fantilli, the race is on, and fans (and Prime Ministers) are watching in fear.

One of the other things these pending UFAs have in common is that this is the first time in their careers they’ve been UFAs. They all signed their current contracts as RFAs. And while Nečas has only been in Colorado for a hot second, and Eichel’s contract was signed by the Buffalo Sabres and not Vegas, all of these guys really hold all the cards in these negotiations. If the teams can’t find the middle ground, they can simply walk. Nothing is holding them back.

The RFA side of things is a different story. None of these guys controls their own fates right now. If they get an offer sheet, they can take that and risk their team matching it. They can leave the NHL altogether and go overseas. Or maybe one of the teams does something completely out of left field and just doesn’t give them a qualifying offer, and they gain the freedom of being a UFA. But otherwise they’re kinda just…stuck. Robertson has arbitration rights, so he does have that mechanism available to him. But Bedard, Hutson, and Fantilli are not quite there.

Every player I’ve here are all team-defining players (I know Nečas hasn’t been in Colorado long, but he was almost a point-per-game producer when he got there). They’re all worth massive contracts. But with the changing cap, signing long-term deals just doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s just a question of whether teams are willing to go shorter term with these still pretty sizable cap hits.

We’ve seen guys signed to some insane deals all offseason. The impact they’re going to have going forward is going to be interesting.

Kat: And this ties into the Anthony Stolarz deal. The goalie market was already experiencing major changes before this new CBA and the cap going up. Now? We’ll see more Jeremy Swayman-type deals for goaltenders. A good goaltender is a valuable thing, but also a rare thing – the goalie shortage is real. Stolarz took an extremely team-friendly deal at 3.75M AAV (average annual value), which is an absolute steal for Toronto. His whole deal is the most team-friendly deal I’ve seen in a while, outside of Sidney Crosby’s last extension at 8.7 million (as per tradition) – it’s “how can this make Toronto better?” type of deal. This is huge for the Leafs. Your number one guy is locked down until he’s 36, and for extremely cheap as a goaltender. The cap going up is only going to make this deal age better over time.

As for the Fantilli deal… I’m nervous about that.

Morgan: To have Stolarz/Woll locked up through the end of 2027-28 may bring some much-needed stability to this team and its revolving door for goaltenders. And Hildeby, the probable 3rd string, possibly Opening Night Roster guy depending on if Woll is back or not, is also locked down until the end of 27-28. Like I said. I think he’s on his way. Three years from now? I dunno. Maybe he gives one of them a run for his money and his spot in net.

AND BINGO WAS IT’S NAME-O

Morgan: For the Blue Jackets, Leafs, Penguins, and Wild fans, we have a special treat: regular-season Bingo cards!

Here is a peek at just some of the things we’ll be looking for this season. Head back over to our X for the full images and join us in some fun.

Kat: And that’s it for this month, folks. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for reading. Be sure to subscribe (if you’d like), and follow along with our bingo! We’ll see you next month.