The game might not have mattered, but we finally had some live NHL-affiliated hockey on Saturday when the Detroit Red Wings prospects and the Dallas Stars prospects played.

The Red Wings won 4-3, but more importantly we started to get some baseline readings on prospects for both organizations before training camp.

1. It’s important to keep that intro thought in mind for this 20/20.

I treated this game more as a scouting venture than game coverage, and will do the same for the remainder of the prospect tournament, which goes through Tuesday.

2. Off the ice, it was the first live Red Wings event we’ve had since Steve Yzerman was relieved/quit his duties as general manager.

The Red Wings also still don’t have a GM and Shawn Horcoff is filling in on an interim basis, so there’s a really weird vibe of uncertainty around the organization.

3. One NHL scout in attendance, for a team not at this tournament, jokingly asked if he could get the job before walking into the scout lounge.

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It’s only 28 days, four weeks exactly, until NHL opening night and roughly two weeks, give or take a few days, from when NHL teams report for training camp.

Nothing groundbreaking here today, in fact this is more of a meandering of thoughts, but I wanted to open some conversations about how and why things happen within the sport.

So first, the impetus for this line of thinking. Earlier today I was at the library working on a different project and started looking through the magazines, where I picked up the most recent edition of Sports Illustrated, which had a story about Brentford in the Premier League and how the club’s data-usage. In particular, the story dives into Brentford’s data-driven approach to set pieces, and how in the Premier League, much larger clubs are now using similar models to add to their success.

It’s a good piece, I encourage you to read it, even if you don’t like soccer.

But reading it reminded me of a story that I was told by former Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland, who is now the GM of the Los Angeles Kings.

This must have been 10 years ago or so, and I was the NHL Prospect Tournament in Traverse City (R.I.P.) and I was talking with Holland and a couple other reporters about the Red Wings drafting history and how they dynastic years were built.

Holland compared the past Red Wings drafting success, finding Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, for example, to an ice fishing expedition.

I’m paraphrasing here, but Holland got pretty animated relaying the tale.

We were the only ones looking in the right places, and it’s like ice fishing, you pull something out of a hole, like ‘hey we got a Datsyuk!’ or ‘Hey we got a Zetterberg!’ and all of a sudden you see more fishing lines in your hole.

Basically you can’t go sit by yourself at the ice fishing hole anymore, because you’ve brought back too much fish and everyone wants a piece.

Again, I’m paraphrasing, but the point here is near the end of his time in Detroit, Holland was talking about how best practices for his team led to best practices for other teams and therefore created slimmer margins in drafting.

That’s what’s happened in the Premier League and for Brentford, while a set-piece heavy data-driven approach is still good, it’s no longer unique with other teams putting just as much work into something.

It’s kind of how the standard rises in sport, something works, everyone steals and then we have a new base for what is the norm.

Kind of wanted to open the conversation here in the comments and pick some reader brains as we go into the 2026-27 hockey season. What ideas/approaches, in your mind have evolved in this way? What makes you curious about it?

Again, not ground breaking piece, in fact I’m giving you the work, but wanted to open the conversation.

Thanks for reading.

All though August has had some high points — including seeing some of you in person two weeks ago — it is always a bit of a slow march toward hockey season.

“Is Zach Benson good hockey?” arguments can only keep us so occupied. Videos of Daniel Sprong, seemingly taunting his own bench in the KHL are a fun distraction, but also a reminder it’s about a month until the NHL season really kicks off.

I’ve been lucky to already watch some high-level hockey this season at the Hlinka Gretzky Tournament, but for many of you, it’s still a couple weeks till you can be greeted by a cool rink and sub-par arena coffee.

That’s a very poetic way of telling you, it’s time for a mailbag.

Let’s get into it.

I’m planning on traveling to Detroit for the prospect tournament this September, who are a few players you are excited to see showcased for the Stars? Also do you have any tips for a journalist on their first “work” trip? Local food recs are appreciated 😅

Emil Hemming is intriguing to me, I’m looking forward to see his starting block for this season after he struggled to start last season in the AHL, but then popped off in his return to the OHL.

The prospects tournament, for me, can be a telling sign of where a player should or shouldn’t be going into camp. Hemming is at the spot where he should look like one of the best players on the ice, he should enter with confidence, and that type of performance could parlay him into a stronger AHL season, and potentially, eventually an NHL call-up this season.

Cameron Schmidt also highly intrigues me.

As far as the journalist on their first work trip, and I’m assuming you are footing the bill yourself based on the quote usage, enjoy it. Taking a risk on yourself, in this case financially to pay for a trip, is worth celebrating and soaking it all in. One of the best pieces of advice I got from someone in this field came from Jim Vertuno, who works for the Associated Press in Austin and would higher me for freelance gigs.

I was covering an event at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, I believe it was a MotoGP race, and Jim asked me I’d taken the time to go just watch a couple laps outside of the media center. Take some time, enjoy the moment, realize where you get to be right now, and soak it all in.

So that’s my best advice, soak it all in, don’t be afraid to be yourself and don’t be afraid to talk to as many people as possible.

When it comes to food, assuming you are coming up from Dallas, it’s a cop out, but get some Detroit-style pizza at Buddy’s.

(Detroit-based readers, feel free to tell me in the comments whether you agree or not, or what would be a better option.)

Do people in Dallas care if the next TX franchise is in Houston or Austin, and if so is there a favorite?

I’m not sure what people would prefer, but the Stars, I believe would prefer Houston. It’s less of an infringement for them, and causes less headaches with potential territory/rights.

Who is your dream candidate for Detroit Red Wings GM/PoHO? (can be one or both)

First on the Red Wings’ hockey leadership search.

The team is currently conducting interviews, and from my understanding in the hockey world Florida AGM Brett Peterson, San Jose AGM Jeff Kealty, and Dallas AGM Scott White have all been looked at by the Red Wings/TurnkeyZRG.

We also have pretty strong indications that Jeff Greenberg, the Tigers GM, is in the running for the job.

On a personal level, my job would be much easier if Scott White got the job, but that’s selfishly a note, for me, where I’d already have a working precessional relationship with the new Red Wings GM.

I don’t know Peterson personally, but based off people I’ve spoken with and my impression of how he handles things/views the game, he would probably be my top candidate right now to run the Red Wings hockey operations.

What is your ideal red wings timeline/series of events from now up until 31 December? (Ie if you thought all pieces feel into place, what would it look like to you?)

Well it starts with hiring a GM before we get to September, which then quickly parlays into signing Simon Edvinsson to an extension.

But let’s put some dates on things to have some fun.

Sept. 1 — Red Wings hire a new GM, let’s go with Peterson for this thought exercise.

Sept. 2 — Red Wings sign Simon Edvinsson to an extension in the $8 million AAV range.

Sept. 10 — The Red Wings trade Dylan Larkin, avoiding the awkward training camp and then announced Moritz Seider as the new captain.

I think, from there, you see what happens. There’s too much right now that can shuffle, in my view, for us to feasibly see what happens into late December.

If you had a single use time machine and could go back and undo one NHL decision/rule/change that you think did the most damage (besides the 05 lockout), what would you fix?

The lockout is a good one, that’s probably the easiest answer.

I would like us to go back to home teams wearing white at home, but that’s not worth a trip in the time machine.

Let’s go with going back to Matt Duchene’s infamous offside goal, where he scored when he was about 10 feet offside and it counted, let’s go back and help the officials catch that play in the moment.

Look, I don’t mind video replay, but I think that moment was such a flash point that led to the overreaction and frustrations we have today with replay. Maybe if they got that call right in the moment, maybe we have a better replay system today instead of an over-reaction to on egregious miss.

Have you spoken with anyone from the organization about Tyler Seguin’s rehab progress? And do you expect a contract extension for him after his current deal ends?

The contract extension I’m gonna wait on, but I do think we could see something if he comes back healthy and is now eligible for a 35-plus deal next season.

Having spoken to some people from the Stars, including Stars coach Glen Gulutzan, there is a lot of enthusiasm about Seguin’s progress and where he’ll fit in this season. Obviously, you have to take that with a grain of salt, but there is excitement there.

Is the ability to “force” posts/crossbars a repeatable skill for a goalie?

I love this question, I’m going to ask goalies and goalie coaches about it throughout the season.

My initial thought is technically yes, because ideal positioning should, in theory, create more opportunities for players to try and pick corners and thus hitting more bars/posts.

But let me research it and get back to this.

I think the best words I can use to describe the feeling are positively overwhelmed.

Last night, in Allen, Texas on a Tuesday, we packed a bar and restaurant for a hockey podcast. Add in the fact that this was in one of DFW’s more northern suburbs, so many people had to fight rush hour traffic to get there. There also weren’t any associated hockey events going on anywhere nearby to boost attendance.

But people showed up, one person even drove in from Arkansas from the event, and you could see how happy the restaurant manager was, on a Tuesday, to have business buzzing with people talking about hockey after my pal Gavin Spittle organized and delivered with a live-recording of Spits & Suds.

I’m not typically great in large gatherings, I’m a very quiet person who likes to sit back and watch the world, a very shy person by nature, who gets more talkative in smaller settings (or in written/work form). In fact, I’ve always said, I got into the business of storytelling because I find others more interesting.

And last night, it was humbling and thankful to hear others tell me their stories, that I was somehow included in.

I met many people who I’d only interacted with before on Twitter/X, some showed me messages we’d exchanged years ago, and I was able to re-live memories of various stories or moments that connected away from the ice. The fact that my voice, in some capacity, is part of someone’s daily drive, is both horrifying and humbling at the same time, and I don’t really know what to say other than, ‘thank you,’ when someone tells me they started listening or reading a certain outlet because of me.

I finally got to meet the man, better the legend, behind Sportstoons. Steve is one of those people who I’ve even done work with before, he did the cartoon for this site, and he’s awesome. You should commission him or buy one of his prints or books if you can.

One person had to leave early because they had a beer league game later that night, but they still wanted to make it to the event, again a tremendous honor. Another told me how their beer league team had watched The Late Game, getting together to project it onto a garage and in their view the movie captured the spirit of the thing.

I signed a copy of my book, 100 Things Stars Fans Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, for one kid who’s dad bought him a second clean copy of the book because the original copy had been taken with him to camp. I’ll tell you there’s no higher honor for a book than seeing a copy of it being well-worn and beat up a bit.

I was also so happy to see so many people thrilled and excited to meet my pal Stephen Meserve, who I co-wrote We Win Here as we went through a receiving line signing books at the end. We Win Here was born as a passion project, Stephen and I sharing stories and ideas over beers that we eventually decided to write down, and to see that it’s provided at least some semblance of entertainment to readers means the world to me.

I don’t even know what I am anymore, I’m a weird hybrid writer/reporter/etc., even this site has become hard to define at times, but at one point I was a Dallas Stars beat writer, and Matt DeFranks was one of my best friends and rivals. We fought daily to get the best of each other, and I think I’m so much better today in this business because of Matt.

It’s cool for me to sit back and watch that now with Robert Tiffin and Lia Assimakopoulos, who despite some shortcomings compared to the budget that Matt and I had (the Dallas Morning News used to give their beat writer a proper travel budget), are consistently, and respectfully, pushing each other to be better in their coverage. They both got some of the love they deserved last night at the event, and I highly encourage you to read them, daily.

Brien Rea stopped by, Brien and I have known each other for a long, long time. I bought him lunch in his first week as the Texas Stars broadcaster down in Austin, more than a decade later — we are all getting old — we were interrupting each other, and laughing about it, on a live panel.

Most importantly, or maybe most importantly, this event, again on a Tuesday in August, doesn’t happen without Gavin Spittle turning a passion project into so much more. I said it on the show last night, but Gavin has done this right, he’s never over-promised, but he’s always delivered on passion for building and producing a hockey podcast in DFW. For me, to see a restaurant full of people for his show, the work he’s put in, it’s pretty damn cool.

We live in a weird world, I don’t live in Texas anymore, but I’ve been able to stay connected to the DFW hockey community from afar, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

As always thanks for reading, and I’m sure Robert and I will talk about this more later today on Episode 20 of Algorithmically Incorrect Hockey.

According to multiple sources, who reached out this afternoon, the Red Wings are using turnkeyzrg for their job search to replace Steve Yzerman.

Turnkeyzrg specializes in executive placement for sports and entertainment, the client list includes at least a handful of NHL teams, including the Vegas Golden Knights who used turnkeyzrg to hire their team president Kerry Bubolz.

Of note the turnkeyzrg has the Detroit Tigers on their website as a recent client. Len Perna, the chairman, Founder and CEO of turnkeyzrg has previously served as the Executive Director, General Sales Manager for the Ilitch Sports and Entertainment.

I’m at airport today, Monday, because I’m headed to Dallas for a very cool hockey event tomorrow evening that’s been organized by my good buddy Gavin Spittle.

There will be a hockey meet-and-greet at 6 pm, followed by a live recording of the Spits & Suds podcast. It’s at BoomerJack’s Grill, I will be there along with some of my other hockey-loving friends and if you happen to be in DFW, you should join us.

My pal Robert Tiffin, has much more here, hope to see you there.

Stars Thoughts

Everything You Need to Know about the August 11th Dallas Hockey Meetup at BoomerJack's

I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about it by now, but I wanted to create a standalone announcement with all the information I have about the August 11 meetup Gavin Spittle is putting together. In fact, that Hockey Celebration is a week from today! So if you aren’t already planning to stop by and talk about hockey with a bu…

Read more

a month ago · 29 likes · 10 comments · Robert Tiffin

Since I last wrote in this space I spent about 50 hours in Edmonton for both the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and TCS Live, an annual coaches clinic I try to attend.

(I also played some Magic: The Gathering, with friends on Sunday afternoon in my brief stop at home, if you wanted to know that I am indeed a nerd even when it doesn’t come to hockey.)

Anywhom, I would highly suggest, if you want to be a hockey draft nerd this season, you catchup on the standouts from the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, which Hadi Kalakeche compiled here for Elite Prospects.

Personally, I'm very excited about watching Landon DuPont, the presumptive No. 1 pick for the 2027 NHL Draft up close this season at Michigan. I was able to watch him at the Memorial Cup back in the spring and he cooked against his own age group at this event. The CHL to NCAA pipeline is a fascinating one, and still evolving, and I’m curios to see what a high-profile draft-year defenseman looks like.

Speaking of DuPont, I caught up with new Michigan hockey GM Andrew Brewer during the event about his role and the evolving state of hockey management for NCAA teams. That story is going to be published at EP later this week, I believe on Wednesday.

It’s a fascinating role, and it’s something that I think is going to play a big part in success for NCAA teams moving forward. Teams that have good GMs, who are essentially there to allow the coaches to focus on coaching, are going to have better long-term success.

OK, let’s get to some other things I learned in the past week, I hope this all connects in some shape or form.

On the Dallas Stars and the challenge of this season

I spoke with a couple people at Hlinka Gretzky that work for the Stars, and there are a couple key takeaways I had from inside the organization.

1. The Stars didn’t get better this offseason on paper. They know that, but it’s something that’s worth mentioning, and some of the same concerns/challenges fans have are creeping up for those who work for the team.

2. Mavrik Bourque was never going to be back in Dallas this season. I had many people push back against the thought that Jason Roberton’s deal and timing of it cost the Stars Mavrik Bourque. There was an offer sheet being prepared, the money wasn’t adding up, and Bourque got his bag. Dallas was only going to have the space if Robertson was gone completely, there was no way the team was going to keep Bourque if the deal had been done earlier in the summer.

3. There’s a lot of hoping, maybe call it praying, from those in the Stars organization that this season features a fully healthy Tyler Seguin that has turned back the clock a bit.

On the Detroit Red Wings and their GM search

The Detroit Red Wings still don’t have a GM.

What we do know is that right now Shawn Horcoff is handling the day-to-day of the Red Wings, but isn’t allowed to make trades. As one scout joked with me, his job is probably just a daily check-in with Simon Edvinsson’s agent.

The Red Wings have hired an outside firm to run the search, the chatter amongst those in Edmonton was that Detroit is using the same firm that Toronto used when it hired John Chayka.

I have not been able to confirm that, but it tracks with what I’ve heard about Detroit looking at an analytic-based GM potentially, and why the Red Wings may hire Tigers general manager Jeff Greenberg.

OK, let’s hop into one quick on-ice thing before I have to catch this flight to Dallas.

On goalie positioning and the RVH

I watched a presentation this past weekend from Tampa Bay Lightning goalie coach Frantz Jean on how he works with goalies on when and when not to use the RVH, the reverse-vertical horizontal.

I have written a lot about the RVH, and I plan to write about it more in the future.

But for today, I wanted to provide some visual aides on how an NHL goalie coach instructs his players on when and when not to go into the RVH.

Here is the map:

And here is another, more specific to the RVH usage.

The blue area on the map, the pre-load area is when a goalie should be in the RVH. As in pre-loaded into the RVH for a save selection.

If the puck isn’t in that blue area, the goalie should not be in the RVH and they should be on their feet.

I caught up with a Jean a bit after his prevention too, and wanted to get his view on how the RVH has become a bad word and ripped consistently on broadcasts.

He compared it to golf club selection, who the RVH should be treated like a golfer uses a wedge. You can hit the best wedge shot in the world, but if you hit it when you should be hitting driver, it’s quite useless.

As Jean put it, we’ve seen such a ripping of the technique, and not the selection of when to use it.

OK, that’s what I’ve got for today, We will have more later this week. Hopefully see some of you at the event tomorrow night.

It’s always a fun piece about hope, the start of a new year, and yes, the fact the Cowboys in reality haven’t been a viable NFL contender in the lifetime of anyone under 30 years old.

Whether you care for the Cowboys or not, it’s one of those benchmarks of the year for me (I help with his editing, so I get to read everything before anyone else) that we are getting close to the fall, crisper mornings, and eventually hockey season.

In the past, I’ve always penned my “welcome to hockey” season story in early September, for a long time it coincided with my annual trip to Traverse City for the NHL prospects tournament (that’s in Detroit this year after being in Texas last September).

But this year, for me, it starts this week, in the first week of August. I’m waiting for a flight to Minneapolis and then a connection to Edmonton, where I’ll be attending TCS Live, a coaching conference I’ve always enjoyed in the past, and covering the final few games of the Hlinka Gretzky Cup for Elite Prospects.

This will be the fourth full season of this grand experiment at Shap Shots, a reality I was forced into after a decision by my former employer, but one that’s turned into one of the favorite parts of my job. With the open-mind collaboration of other sites, like EP and D Magazine, I’ve been able to run a weird hybrid site where I’m able to write about what I want and when I want in the hockey world.

Some of the topics have some obvious pull, there is a large contingent of readers in Dallas and Detroit, and that reflects the Red Wings and Stars pull, but it’s also been a place I’ve been able to branch out, make mistakes, and most importantly learn a little bit everyday.

This year, for example, Shap Shots became home to a simulcast project with Robert Tiffin, Algorithmically Incorrect Hockey, and there’s some other key collaboration points coming in the future, that I’m quite excited about.

It’s also been a place that I can be human and personally, this has become both a hockey site and my personal blog at times, and being able to share stories, like I did yesterday, I hope have helped create a better connection with readers. Hockey stories are human stories told through a sport, I’ve always believed that.

I’m also feeling pretty thankful, while I’m flying to Edmonton right now, on Monday I’ve got a flight to Dallas where next Tuesday night I’ll be part of a hockey celebration in DFW organized by my pal Gavin Spittle, who has turned a passion project in Spits and Suds into a bona fide asset for both fans and his bosses at Audacy.

Stars Thoughts

Everything You Need to Know about the August 11th Dallas Hockey Meetup at BoomerJack's

I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about it by now, but I wanted to create a standalone announcement with all the information I have about the August 11 meetup Gavin Spittle is putting together. In fact, that Hockey Celebration is a week from today! So if you aren’t already planning to stop by and talk about hockey with a bu…

Read more

a month ago · 25 likes · 10 comments · Robert Tiffin

So I guess we could call this a bit of a pallet cleanser after yesterday, again thank you for some thoughts and messages I’ve received, but it’s also kind of an open note/thank you to everyone that reads and makes this site possible. I’m not sure what, exactly, is going to be published in the next couple days form Edmonton, but I’m excited to learn and share it with you.

As always, thanks for reading.

For the past 15 years my day has started with a jab to the gut and soon after a quick, sharp “woof,” if the physical message wasn’t enough to wake me up.

Sometimes that wake-up call would be much earlier than I wanted, many times in fact, but the day has always started that way, consistently, with a “good morning” from Lady Byng, our brownish-chocolate cockapoo with the most expressive eyes I’ve ever seen on a dog, telling me it was time to wake up, get her breakfast and get ready for the day, often by watching her run around our backyard.

The running stopped about six months ago, turning into more of a meander about the yard until eventually I had to carry her outside, where for the past couple months we would just stand watch the sun come up together, like we did this morning.

Tomorrow morning I’m not going to get that wake-up call. My body will probably naturally wake-up at that time, like it does when I travel, but Lady Byng is going to be gone, and I have no idea how I’m going to deal with it.

I’ve written thousands of stories and pages in my life, many of them with Byng by my feet or sitting next to me on the couch. From the time we adopted her at animal shelter back in 2012, the week after Christina and I got married, she’s been the biggest constant in my life outside of my wife.

She moved with us eight times, for both our children, some of the first pictures we have of them, outside of with us at the hospitcal, is Byng and our other dog, Vezina, greeting them when brought them home with a soft nuzzle.

She’s gone now, I’m heartbroken. It’s the type of heartbreak you can prepare for, allegedly, and I’ve been trying for the past couple weeks as this became inevitable. But you’re never truly ready for it, and the grief, I’m sure is going to come in waves, hard and crashing down at first, but smoother as times goes on, hopefully.

While this is being published after she’s gone, I wrote most of it, like I’ve written so much over the past 15 years. Sitting beside’s Byng and occasionally petting her as I hit a stopping point in my thought process.

She was more than a dog to us. She was the start of our family, Christina and I got married in February of 2012 at a court house in Kerrville, Texas. Within a week, we went to the Kerr County Animal shelter and fell in love with a brown cockapoo they called, “Angel” in the shelter, who at the time walked with a limp because she needed a proper bath.

No one really knew her proper backstory or how she ended up there. We were told something about how someone had rescued her from a different shelter, a kill shelter, and had her for a couple days before he was able to bring her to the Kerr County Animal shelter, a non-kill shelter.

They didn’t know how old she was officially or where she really came form, and we have no idea who the person was that rescued her initially before, but because our apartment complex required dogs to be at least one-year old, the shelter declared she had recently celebrated her first birthday so we could adopt her.

She made it to either her 15th or 16th birthday, we don’t know officially, but it was a life that, for me and Christina, meant everything and eventually meant everything to both of our children, who for the first time in their lives are dealing with the real concept of death.

It’s easy to keep circling back to the start and end of a story, memories work that way, with nice little capstones to store everything. But when you go deeper, like I’ve tried to the past week or so, you remember vivid moments from the in between, the parts that aren’t marked with important dates or milestones.

I’ve stopped and thought this past week about trips to the dog park, where the first 10 years of her life, she would run and sprint and loved to go through obstacles, she particularly loved jumping through hoops or tunnels if they had them. Before we had kids, in both Kerrville and Austin, she went everywhere with us, I have many memories of sitting on patios with her and Christina, and this past week I’ve thought about some old friends, who she loved to greet with a hug.

She was also the greatest thief I’ve ever known. For as good of a dog she was, her greatest weakness or strength, was her desire to pull off food heists. She would wait for the proper moment to steal something from the table or counter, slowly sneaking away with her prize. One vivid memory will always be the time Christina made a bunch of cookies for the press box at a Texas Stars game, they were Star Wars themed, and Byng stole and ate all the C-3POs.

I have jars of peanut butter, that I might not be able to throw away, because they are evidence of her brilliance. She would use her front tooth to pierce a hole in the lid of the peanut butter jar, and then had the dexterity to twist it open and steal directly from the jar itself.

It was awfully annoying in the moment, but I would give anything right now to find an empty jar of peanut butter on the couch.

This doesn’t do her life justice, how do you capture 15 years of memories properly? How do you handle the heartbreak that you always knew would come, but could never truly be ready for?

For now, I’ll remember writing this with her by my side, softly petting her while fighting back tears and thanking her for the life she gave our family. Tomorrow morning is gonna hurt, but that hurt, as much as it’s gonna wreck me, will have been more than worth it for everything else that came before.

For full transparency, as you can image, the past week has been a bit difficult here, it’s been hard to keep it together, honestly. Originally I wasn’t going to share this publicly, but in the past, readers have responded well to the human side of my writing, and this about as human as I can be.

My summer break is basically over, I have a flight to Edmonton tomorrow, and we will have a heavy dose of hockey coverage on the way. But for now, thank you for reading, and letting me share in this space.

-Sean

That’s the news, and you’ve probably already heard that if you were anywhere near the hockey-based internet on Wednesday.

This morning, before both Robertson and Stars general manager Jim Nill have scheduled media availabilities, I want to break down what this means, how we got here, and what to watch going forward.

First, how we got here.

The Stars and Robertson, from my understanding, always had a very similar goal: Robertson in Dallas with a long-term deal. The problem was, financially speaking, they had very different ideas of what that looked like for this coming season.

Robertson wanted the eight-year deal, he wanted that security, but he also didn’t want to play at a below-value cap hit for the length of the deal. Robertson also believes in his own game, the past season after the Olympic snub he proved that, and he felt that he could continue to prove that this season.

With both sides looking at that reality, and both quietly stating in the background that $12 to $12.5 million for a one-year deal made sense, the call was made and the awkward arbitration process was avoided.

I’ve seen a lot of capital H, takes on this, and there are some things that I think are worth looking at here with important context. If Robertson really wanted the biggest payday, he would have taken the Seattle deal, if the Stars were really so sold on him being gone, they would have just traded him somewhere without an extension. While it was a fun summer of content, for some, the reality was both sides wanted the same thing.

I personally believe this was the best move for both sides, with them essentially bringing each other to free agency and a potential extension on January 1.

Robertson now gets to properly pick his long-term home, Dallas or otherwise for the following season, while the Stars have the opportunity to keep him, under market rate, for the final season of Tyler Seguin’s deal before the cap elevates.

There might have to be some roster manipulation this fall, Radek Faksa is potentially going to be traded, but the Stars get to “run it back,” with their current group in what feels like a final swan song for Jamie Benn and Seguin in Dallas.

Then, after this season, the Stars get to re-pivot, Seguin will be off the books, Robertson can get his raise, or the Stars can go wild and move him for oodles of cap space.

Yes, it was kicking the can down the road, but it was also a path that was probably the best path at this point, in my humble opinion.

There will still be podcast/talk show hot takes on this, I’m sure Robertson will still be on the top of all those “trade targets” lists people make, but I also firmly believe that the next true deadline is July 1, 2027.

January 1, 2027 can, and will be a pressure point to get something done, so will the trade deadline if Robertson isn’t signed, but this feels like something that has been properly kicked until late June if needed.

Anywhom, those are my thoughts this morning. Robert Tiffin and I will have more on this later today in our weekly show, Algorithmically Incorrect Hockey, which you can watch either at this site or on YouTube.

On a baseball front, the Texas Rangers have dropped the service are moving to BZZR. The Anaheim Ducks are also leaving Victory+, according to Sports Business Journal.

There’s a lot going on, and at this point A Parent Media Company, which emailed me back on Wednesday afternoon, has stated that there is no comment or update directly from Victory+ itself.

I also reached out to the Dallas Stars, who have said everything is “status quo,” for them and Victory+.

I think it’s also a good time to lay out some facts/notes on the situation.

• According to reports, and confirmed by an NHL source, Victory+ has missed payments to the Ducks.

• The Stars have a different type of agreement with Victory+, they own equity in the business, so there’s more than just rights payments here when it comes to the Stars and the streaming platform.

• The NHL is working on taking over broadcasts next seasons for about eight or nine NHL teams, a new reality with the state of regional sports networks, and there’s been some indication that may be the path the Ducks are headed on.

• When asked, one NHL source said Victory+ “isn’t dead, but it’s heading that way.”

• The WHL has its rights held by Victory+, from my understanding that’s not changed at this moment. I do know there is a strong push coming from Flo Sports to potentially add the WHL and complete the CHL collection with the OHL and QMJHL.

Steve Yzerman is out as the Detroit Red Wings general manager.

It’s unsurprising because in the short-lived world of NHL general managers, eight seasons without a playoff appearance is easily grounds for dismissal. In fact, for most organizations, three or four years without a playoff appearance are grounds for getting sacked.

But it’s stunning that Yzerman, who I felt had the longest rope of any executive in hockey history, was ultimately axed after what he’s meant to the franchise.

And to be clear, this is a demotion by promotion. Yzerman is technically going to still be with the organization working as a “senior advisor to Governor and CEO, Chris Ilitch,” according to the team press release. It’s corporate movement in the sports world, doing your best to save face by adjusting titles, but effectively cutting out any real responsibility.

Ilitch even admits as much, vaguely, in the press release with these types of statements.

"Steve's lifetime of contributions to the Red Wings has meant more to this franchise than words can truly express, and I have the highest level of respect for his continued commitment to our organization,” said Ilitch. “We are thankful for Steve’s hard work and dedication as General Manager and are grateful knowing Steve will remain where he belongs – here with the Red Wings family.”

It’s firing a franchise icon 101, protect the image of the man and the No. 19 that hangs in the rafters, but rip out the roots of what’s happened to hockey operations for a once proud franchise.

The Yzerplan is dead, and this morning, Larkin is the equivalent of Javier Bardem walking away from the exploding car to go rob the pharmacy in No Country for Old Men.

I think we should start with Larkin, because while his relationship with Yzerman was icy, at best, this doesn’t rescind the trade request. In fact, barring a major kumbaya moment, which I’m not sure is possible, the next GM has to figure out how to best land the ship on that trade for the future of the franchise.

The Red Wings, on the ice, are now and should be Moritz Seider’s and Lucas Raymond’s team. Keeping Larkin around, in my view, is going to limit their ability to grow and take that command.

Whether that’s an in-house candidate figuring that out, like Kris Draper, or an external one, one of my key interview questions if I were in Ilitch’s chair would be, “how do we solve the Larkin trade?”

And that Larkin trade timeline, again in my view, now gets pushed back to whenever the next GM is hired. Yzerman is still handling the “day-to-day,” moves until that happens, but this trade is far from “day-to-day” business.

That likely gums up some timelines for other league activity, or forces some other teams to simply move onto play B if they aren’t patient enough.

Todd McLellan will probably still be the coach in Detroit, I don’t expect the Red Wings to make a change there, but his shelf-life is probably limited depending on whom the next head of operations will be.

On another front, I’m fascinated to see what this does to the culture of the Red Wings, and how open/friendly the organization is going forward. Yzerman kept things locked down to an extreme level, outside of the head coach and himself, no one from hockey operations was ever available to the media. There were also in-house limitations on the Red Wings public relations and content teams that no other team in the league had to deal with, it’s something I’ve personally witnessed in my role, and while there were never complaints from those people, you could see how the ethos from the top made their job more difficult.

For those people, and fan access to the team, this news should make their job easier, and I’m a firm believer that the GM truly sets the tone of how much an organization is and isn’t willing to live in a new media world.

That matters to me, obviously, because I’d love my job to be easier, and I’d love for the Red Wings to be more like the Dallas Stars, where the GM actually encourages members of his staff to be interviewed for stories, but for any Detroit fans, only one thing really matters.

Can the next GM, deliver on this comment from the owner?

“Clearly, we are not where we and our fans expect to be as an organization” said Ilitch. “I’m looking forward to bringing in new leadership to build the championship-caliber organization Hockeytown deserves.”

That’s a question that, frankly, we all will be watching closely.

From a soccer perspective, it was pretty clear the United States was outclassed and after beating some lesser opponents early on, a true match against a top-10 nation proved to be too much.

But I want to localize what happened here to a hockey perspective, and perhaps take a lesson from the circus and hoopla happened before the loss to Belgium.

Folarin Balogun got what is probably now the most famous red card in soccer history. I would argue before that it was probably Zinedine Zidane headbutt in 2006 World Cup final or the Eric Cantona flying karate kick of a fan in 1995, but neither of those incidents led to an American president and administration pushing FIFA, publicly, to change the rules and reverse the red card suspension.

Belgium, in my belief, wins this game either way, but for an American team that was thriving on the vibes and energy from the group stage, everything changed with the aftermath of the red card. When the red card got reversed, and in the public manner it did, it changed the perception. The Americans needed Balogun, it was such an injustice to lose a top player, according to the narratives, and it seemed like fighting to get him back was the equivalent of the Norwegians losing Erling Haaland (which is not the case).

The pressure also ratcheted up, not just the natural pressure of a knockout stage match, but the pressure that all of America had been righted of this wrong and now the United States would win this match against Belgium.

Instead the Americans struggled, they looked out of sorts, Balogun played very little impact, and in many ways the narrative had helped sink the United States before they ever stepped on the field.

Now let’s connect that back to hockey and some of the events currently ongoing in the NHL.

The Ottawa Senators traded Brady Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers this summer, a move that felt like it was always going to happen and was only further pushed by the ongoing podcast with his brother, which seems to have ticked off many within the Senators’ locker room. There was no pride in Ottawa, publicly, for Brady in his most public setting and it started to seep deeper into other players.

Ottawa, for any chance of success, had to move on from their captain, the narrative and cloud around it were hanging on too long.

Which brings me Dylan Larkin and the Red Wings, the trade request heard across the league, and how the team, one way or the other, will deal with this moving forward, especially as top-line centers making less than $9 million per season became that much more valuable in the past week.

The Red Wings have also been overly impacted by outside noise, Larkin included, the past few years and players have admitted as much. The culture of losing has infected Detroit in now annual March collapses, and players have taken the moments of booing and internalized them, frankly, in the wrong way and been almost indignant about it.

Yes, the Red Wings need better players, that’s a direct line from Steve Yzerman, but they also need a locker room that takes that adversity and either gets pissed off about it or uses it to find a solution.

Larkin, I believe, used to be the type of person that would have looked at it the other way, and wanted to dig his way out. But he eventually reached his breaking point, and I think it impacted others, and it greatly muted the intended “culture import” that the Red Wings tried to bring with return of David Perron at the trade deadline.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, my opinions have changed a bit here and there, and when it comes to Yzerman’s promise that he must do “what’s best for the Red Wings,” I think we’ve reached the point where for the Red Wings to have a proper narrative, which doesn’t drive the team negatively during the 2026-27 season, a deal needs to be done before training camp.

It’s not apples to apples to what happened with Team USA, an a short tournament is very different than an 84-game season, but to me there are some prime examples in front of Yzerman right now about how to at least put his team in a better spot to avoid the outside noise becoming internal, again.

Just some food for thought on a Tuesday in July, thanks for reading.

I did my best “Early July Canadian Hockey Writer,” impression last week and took the family to the lake last week after some of the dust settled on July 1.

It wasn’t Canada, we were up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, but it was a pretty good opportunity to get away for a bit, re-charge, and only think about hockey a little bit while driving through the forest.

So this morning I scribbled down some notes/thoughts on what’s happened in the past five days. Some of this is already out there, I’m sure, maybe all of it is, but it’s worth compiling in one place.

Jason Robertson has filed for arbitration, which as I posted on Substack Notes (does anyone read those?) and other social media platforms, leads to three quick observations from me.

1. This filing fits with what’s been his goal, to stay in Dallas but be paid closer to $14 million
2. This isn’t going to end anytime soon
3. Other players being miffed doesn’t track with some I’ve spoke too. Players get its a business

Let me expand a bit on each.

On the first note, as I’ve written multiple times, Jason Robertson from my understanding wants to stay in Dallas and he wants to be the highest paid player on the team, like someone that scores more than 100 points per season, which he is.

He turned down the Seattle offer for this reason, and while I’ve yet to get confirmation I truly trust on the St. Louis discussion, Robertson, long-term, isn’t really interested in anywhere other than Dallas at this moment.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, perhaps, could change his tune on that, especially after trading for his brother, but Robertson partially closed the path to other teams when he filed for arbitration.

And that’s why this isn’t really going to end anytime soon, and with some other signings in the books, Stars GM Jim Nill is willing to be way more patent than you and I. So is Robertson, while the outside world wants conclusion, the player and the GM seem content and OK with the fact that they have September to figure this out.

I don’t think that’s true for Stars owner Tom Gaglardi, who has gotten slightly better at hiding his public frustrations, but still is letting it be known through back channels that the Stars aren’t happy with Robertson. From a media literacy perspective, I ask you this, “who does it benefit if it looks like the Stars or their players are upset with Robertson?”

And to that matter, I’m sure some players are a little bit upset with things, Mavrik Bourque had some friends on the team, but from my conversations there’s also a pretty healthy understanding that Bourque was never going to get the type of money he got from Nashville to remain in Dallas.

Here’s another way to look at it, players tend to like money, and while they’ve gotten pretty good at saying, “I have an agent for that,” the reality is that Robertson signing for his market value is good for the rest of the NHLPA.

Esa Lindell, for example, told me directly that one of the reasons he pushed for more of his value on a contract negotiation was because he took John Klingberg’s advice to heart about realizing this is and always will be a business for the teams.

On the “hockey is a business” note, the Leo Carlsson signed offer sheet and the Anaheim Ducks pending decision to match the Philadelphia Flyers or not feels like it just juiced up Dylan Larkin’s value.

Larkin was already a highly-desirable asset as a top-six center making $8.7 million per season, but with the rising cap and the Carlsson deal, that cap hit for five more season became even more valuable. Now whether that means he’s more valuable to the Red Wings or more valuable as a trade asset is fascinating, but it feels like this is just another reason to see Steve Yzerman dig in his heels and be more patient than anyone else would like him to be.

That’s what I’m thinking about/got this morning. Thanks for reading and more importantly, hope everyone had a great holiday weekend, it means a ton to me that we’ve got a reader base here that understands/accepts some breaks in coverage so I can connect with the family.

Unrestricted free agents can start signing with new teams at noon ET today, so in roughly three hours there will new news and things to discuss.

As a quick preview/thought-provoking item before that, I highly encourage you to watch this episode of Algorithmically Incorrect Hockey that we did last week with NHL agent Allain Roy.

Allain happens to represent Nico Hischier, by the way, so it could be a busy day for him.

On that note, for today, there was some big news last night from Elliotte Friedman that the Dallas Stars and Columbus Blue Jackets had worked out the framework for a trade featuring Thomas Harley and Zach Werenski, but it was ultimately nixed by the Blue Jackets defenseman.

As Friedman reports, it sounds like Werenski is more interested in an Eastern Conference team and wants to pick his location.

It’s eerily similar to the trade the Stars tried to make with the Seattle Kraken, but was nixed by the player, who from my understanding, has no interested in playing for the Kraken and was turning down the designation not the $15 million per season salary.

For Dallas, there’s some awkwardness in this, Harley’s name is now being floated as a trade target and he happens to have the same representation as Robertson — Andy Scott.

Nill and Scott are battling right now, possibly all the way to arbitration later this summer, on Robertson’s deal and while I don’t expect the potential Harley trade to impact the Robertson deal, it is something both sides will certainly have in the back of their mind when dealing with each other.

It also feels like, right now, that the Stars and Robertson are going to end up paired together for next season. I don’t know if that’s going to be a long-term deal, in fact that feels a bit more fraught, but it seems like with other pieces falling apart, like the potential Werenski deal, they might try and run this back and kick future negotiations into next season, and perhaps trade Robertson before the trade deadline if needed.

Nothing new on Dylan Larkin, for what it’s worth, I think Steve Yzerman is going to wait on this and he has no issue making Larkin come to camp if he doesn’t get a deal in place that he likes.

Mavrik Bourque has been getting calls from my understanding, he’s a restricted free agent now with a qualifying offer, but teams are pushing hard to find out what might be able to pry the young forward out of Dallas either via trade or an offer sheet.

Alex DeBrincat has also been getting trade interest from other teams, but there’s a big difference between teams calling the Red Wings and the Red Wings actively “shopping” him, which is not the case.

That’s what I’ve got right now on what I know. We should have more later today.

Enjoy!

It’s OK, I didn’t do anything wrong.

I was drinking coffee in the media area around 9:15 am, when they were going through security protocols for the next shift and the security guard, who I had been talking with earlier — side note, always talk to the security guards in this business, they have great stories — asked me to try and walk through to the restricted area so he could show the next shift how my badge wouldn’t let me into that area.

Sure enough, my badge, buzzed red on the monitor, so the system was working.

OK, onto some things you want to read about…

As Robert Tiffin and I spoke about yesterday on an impromptu live episode of Algorithmically Incorrect Hockey, it feels like we are on the precipice of a conclusion to the Jason Robertson-Dallas Stars drama.

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I’m headed to the NHL Entry Draft tomorrow in Buffalo, late-night flight, and figured it was a good time to drop in some notes/thoughts/etc… on what I’ve heard/know/feel before we get into the draft tomorrow.

To be clear, all of this is based on my conversations with people around the league and what I feel confident enough in reporting.

First, the ongoing Jason Robertson situation.

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So, let’s get into it.

Mike Babcock is back in the NHL, he’s coaching the Edmonton Oilers and, frankly, showed very little remorse or even understanding of his past transgressions at his introductory press conference yesterday.

In fact, when asked about what happened with his brief time in Columbus, Babcock resorted to an answer where he said it was his wife’s idea to step away from the Blue Jackets, and not related to anything else.

It’s a sad state of affairs, honestly, because from a coaching perspective it’s been well documented that Babcock is a bully who demeans his players. There are numerous stories to look up, and while the Oilers were flaunting his championships in their presser yesterday, the reality is below the top players, he’s horrible to work for.

Connor McDavid, who allegedly was involved in this process, will be fine. But he’s helped sentence some of his teammates and the Oilers depth players to a pretty horrific existence if Babcock’s tone in his opening presser is truly indicative of who he still is.

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If you missed it, yesterday was a pretty big day in the hockey world as the Florida Panthers swung big and traded for Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, sending three first-round picks and a second-rounder to Canada’s capital.

It’s a move that feels like it’s been in the works for a couple years now, Tkachuk hasn’t been shy about wanting to play with his brother, Matthew, and this offseason has already been defined by rumors and actual trade requests by members of the gold-medal winning USA Olympic team.

Now that Tkachuk has been traded, there’s been some natural speculation and rumor mongering about what the Senators will do with their newfound cap space and draft capital.

Which, of course, brings us to the Senators and the potential of trading for Jason Robertson. There have been multiple reports that the Senators are interested in Robertson and apparently making a push to trade for the Dallas Stars forward. This, in theory, could be done through either a trade with the Stars or via offer sheet since Robertson is restricted free agent.

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When the Professional Women’s Hockey League held prospect media availability earlier this week at Little Caesars Arena, Petra Nieminen and Andrea Brändli were paired together in the makeshift interview pods.

It made a ton of sense, not only are Nieminen and Brändli both coming over from the Swedish Women’s Hockey League (SDHL), but also as 27 and 29 year olds, respectively, they were two of the older players to have declared for the draft with most players in their early 20s.

“That’s been one of the things we were talking about,” Brändli said. “There’s been some slang and things we’ve had to ask about.”

Nieminen was drafted 12th on Wednesday, the last pick of the first round, by the Montreal Victoire, and will join the reigning Walter Cup Champions. Brändli was taken No. 15, by PWHL Detroit, and is expected to be the No. 1 goalie for the expansion franchise this coming season.

They were the first non NCAA players taken in the draft, followed closely by Elisa Holopainen, who was taken No. 19 by the New York Sirens.

So as Europeans that were already playing professionally in Sweden, how and when do you make the decision to declare for the PWHL Draft and make the move to North America?

“For me it was about timing it around the Olympics,” Nieminen said, who had 369 points in 264 career SDHL games. “I kind of thought about (the PWHL) a couple seasons ago, but wanted to be able to focus on what I could control, playing for the same team in the couple years before the Olympics.”

Brändli had a similar thought about the Olympics and there was also a pragmatic approach as a goalie. Even with a strong NCAA career at Ohio State and Boston University, Brändli didn’t see much of an opportunity for playing time in the PWHL back during the 2023-24 season when it only had six teams.

When the league expanded to eight this past season the number of starting goalie spots opened up, but were largely reserved for current PWHL backups. So when PWHL expansion became evident this season, jumping from eight to 12 teams, and on the heels of a pretty impressive Olympics for Switzerland, Brändli made the decision to declare for the PWHL draft.

“You kind of have to be realistic as a goalie, that no matter what happens, you really can’t prove yourself unless you get to play,” Brändli said. “So you kind of prove yourself, you show there and (in international play) against USA and Canada when you get the chance.”

Brändli also represented the first pick in PWHL Detroit history after the team had traded the No. 3 pick to PWHL Las Vegas for Hilary Knight. It was the loudest pick of the evening at Fox Theater, there were chants before and after by an impressive crowd here, and for Brändli it was special to have the pick announced by Manon Rhéaume, the Detroit PWHL GM who notably became the first women to play in an NHL preseason game.

And it makes sense, this is the captain of an iconic NHL franchise asking to be dealt away from his hometown, and doing so in pretty dramatic fashion with five years remaining on his contract.

I’ve written about it twice at this site here and here, while I was a guest on the Hockey PDOcast on Monday with my good buddy Dimitri Filipovic to chat about it. I’m sure Robert Tiffin and I will also have some discussion about it, amongst other things, this week on Algorithmically Incorrect Hockey (which will be live on YouTube and simulcast here at Shap Shots.)

I’ve also read a ton from some really smart people on the matter and listened to the episodes my friends over at Winged Wheel Podcast have delivered. The Larkin saga has also become the main topic for local Detroit sports talk radio the past few days.

There’s been a ton and there will be more, but there was a couple things I wanted to unpack a bit more today that have been rolling around in my head on this matter.

Let’s start with the reported trade list that Larkin has submitted according to The Detroit Free Press.

According to the Free Press, Larkin’s trade list includes the Minnesota Wild, Florida Panthers, and Vegas Golden Knights.

From my understanding on the matter, those three teams are certainly on his list. I also believe the list is slightly larger than those three teams, there is another team, I know, that’s been told they are on Larkin’s list of considerations and Elliotte Friedman, who broke the initial news, has said something similar this past weekend.

A three-team list has drawn headlines, and led to some vitriol toward Larkin from Red Wings’ fans, which I understand, but I would like some more clarity here on how exclusive or small that list actually is.

Those three teams, notably feature players that Larkin has international experience and happens to be close with from his time at Team USA — Quinn Hughes, Matthew Tkachuk, and Jack Eichel.

Larkin won a gold medal and partied with those players back in February, they took a trip to the White House together, he kind of got a taste of what Tkachuk and Eichel have experience in recent years, after forcing their own moves out of Calgary and Buffalo, and was highly influenced by them.

It gave me reminders of the 2023 NHL All-Star Weekend down in Florida, fittingly when Larkin was still going through his contract extension talk with the Red Wings. During that weekend in February Larkin was inseparable from the Tkachuk brothers, being seen multiple times together at the Elbo Room, a bar that is now one of the NHL’s top unofficial business gathering places.

Whether you like it or not, it’s a player empowerment play by several of the members of Team USA, and there are some general managers better suited to handle this new landscape than others.

I know some people have called Larkin soft for this, and it certainly doesn’t help that he filmed a toiler paper commercial around the Olympics, but I actually push back against that a little bit.

It’s a greedy request, sure, but it’s one of the more brave things Larkin has done in his career. He grew up with Red Wings history and what it means to the Michigan hockey community. He saw what happened with Sergei Fedorov who finally was welcomed home and had his number retired this season after decades of being blacklisted by Red Wings ownership.

The safe, soft play for Larkin was to remain in Detroit. Even if he was frustrated with Yzerman and they didn’t get along, the reality is players and GM don’t have to interact on the day-to-day, they don’t have to like each other, and while snippets of malcontent would come out, ultimately Larkin could have ridden this out for five years as hometown hero, the local kid who lived out the dream of every Michigan youth hockey player to captain his hometown team.

Instead he asked to move on, he asked to go play second fiddle somewhere, essentially admitting in his request that he can’t be and isn’t the focal point of a championship team. He’s a top-six center in the NHL, probably somewhere in the 20 to 30ish range for me if I were ranking them, but he’s not the guy to lead a team to a championship down the middle.

It’s brave to admit that and it’s also brave to throw away the hometown legacy and become a villain.

To be clear, this isn’t to defend Larkin’s decision one way or the other. But I think we are missing the point if we call him soft or anything like that. Red Wings fan can, and maybe they should, call him a villain, but this is more devious than cowardice in my view.

There’s also the reality that Yzerman may not trade him. If you are in Yzerman’s shoes, and I think it’s pretty well known if his name wasn’t “Steve Yzerman” he’d have been fired by now after seven missed postseasons, why would you trade Larkin for a weak return?

It’ll be awkward if Larkin is still on the roster come September, but unless you are able to get an acceptable trade package, why would you just gift a shutdown second-line center, who can score a point per game, to an NHL contender?

It’s also a two-front battle for Yzerman. One to find the best return for his soon-to-be ex-captain, and one with Larkin to whittle him down to make that trade list as large as possible.

From a Red Wings perspective, it’s going to be a redefining trade, a legacy defining one. As someone who is actively working on a book on team history for young readers (elementary school-aged reading level), it’s incredibly frustrating timing since I had just finished up the first draft of the manuscript about a month ago thinking Larkin wouldn’t be going anywhere.

In that mindset, for the Red Wings and Larkin, there’s still a lot to be written and in my book’s case, re-written, over the next couple weeks and months. Maybe the NHL Draft pushes the tempo for this, it’s an ideal time to move assets, or maybe this drags on further into the summer. Either way, it’s something that is going to define this NHL offseason.