Ston Thews

@NHLFoley No worries big man foles

@AustonsHairline Appreciate it Ston Thews

Lots of new followers after these GM Cards. Appreciate all of y'all. Let's ask - what do you want to see? From these GM cards or future hockey data cards? Always welcome new ideas, critiques, and thoughts on what the hockey world doesn't have yet. What do you want next?

@NHLFoley Unfortunately, if there’s not a good way to communicate it, then it doesn’t provide any context. I think changing it to the number they were drafted would be much more valuable. Just my 2c tho

@AustonsHairline Think it’s fair to argue it isn’t - but I liked the context it provides to each class

@NHLFoley Why is that necessary info?

@AustonsHairline It’s the # of picks in that year. Wondering a way to make that clearer. Maybe swapping it to the other side of the logo?

@AustinAbbott 898

Guess Ken Walker’s Rushing Yards total in 2026 Closest guess wins a prize (this will be worth your time I promise)

@jonah_fleisher Very well said

Say you’re a young promising team (i.e 2016-17 Leafs, current Sharks). Managers get wrapped up in the notion that, given the presence of these franchise-caliber talents, they need to immediately go all in to expedite their ascent. They start trading future assets and walking their own players to UFA so that they can capitalize on their “window”(which they first view as the term of their ELCs and, later, their first post-ELC contracts). Teams begin to hemorrhage so many assets during this time frame that, unless they draft almost perfectly, by the time those players have signed their UFA deals, there’s no second wave of talent to support them. All the assets that could have been used to produce those support (or even core) players have been traded for rentals or allowed to walk out the door. Instead of having a stockpile of young players who can contribute to the team for the next 5-7+ years (in the case of Yzerman’s Lightning, look at Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov, Anthony Cirelli, Ross Colton, etc.), they possess a severely limited cast of support pieces, which then necessitates that they continue to trade assets to shore up their roster with veteran rentals. With their core players now 27 or older and on their UFA, they can no longer afford to bide their time for 3-6 years for a new wave of draft picks to develop and join the fray, lest those core players age out or choose to leave in free agency. Rather, they are essentially forced to continue trading picks for more veteran talent — continuing to mortgage the future — until their core finally ages out, at which point they’ll have no other option to embark on a full-scale rebuild.

@jonah_fleisher 25 goals 50 points

This is a pretty fair deal for Nick Robertson — one I wouldn’t have minded on the Leafs. Now that he’s gotten the change of scenery he’s gotten, it’s put up or shut up time for him.

@jonah_fleisher Not to be confused with Adam Gold, creator of the Gold Plan en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Plan…

Toronto native Evan Gold, who was a finalist for the Leafs’ GM job, could be coming home. Would love for this to happen. Gold would join Ryan Hardy and Judd Brackett as assistant GMs. Would allow for Brackett to focus primarily on scouting, Hardy on minor league operations, and Gold on CBA/cap compliance and negotiations.

@jonah_fleisher Reminds me of the Leafs/Marner RFA saga. Obviously plenty of differences, but in the sense that the future looked so bright before signing an RFA to too much money and ruining the teams cap structure

Go figure. Leo Carlsson is the single most important player to the Ducks franchise. There was no way they were ever letting him go for four mid-late firsts. They can figure out the salary cap picture later and build around the contract, but Ducks fans better hope that Verbeek’s learned his lesson.

@TuskedUp @jonah_fleisher Losing assets for nothing = bad

@jonah_fleisher Which they are totally fine with. He's depth this year. They have the 3rd most stacked prospect pool in the league. They aren't concerned.

And in that case, Hayton can walk straight to New Jersey who he knows wants him. And the Mammoth are left with nothing.

@jonah_fleisher “Utah is loaded” Lol

@jonah_fleisher @PuckPedia Damn didn't realize that

@AustonsHairline @PuckPedia Nope. For the games played threshold, it kicks in as soon as they reach the limit. So, immediately after Cowan plays in his 160th game, he’d require waivers to be sent down

Find it curious that Jacob Quillan was only able to get a two-way deal from the Leafs. Likely indicates that the plan is for him to be sent down to the AHL and serve as the first call-up. Quillan is still waiver exempt next season.

@jonah_fleisher @PuckPedia I assume that it kicks in the next season? For example, Easton Cowan signed his ELC when he was 18 and played 66 games last year. Let's say he plays 82 this year and 82 the year after He won't become unexempt halfway through the season, yeah?

@AustonsHairline Depends on the players’ ages when they sign their first contract. Quillan was 22 when he signed his ELC, which means that he gets three years (or 70 NHL GP before his waivers exemption lapse. This year’s his last year of exemption. From @PuckPedia:

@BarDown @jonah_fleisher Please analyze and tweet your preferred UFAs in tiers. Thank you

A lot of difference-makers are still on the open market 👀

@jonah_fleisher Friedman "thinks" Toronto "might've". Classic hard hitting reporting from the best in the game.

Not surprised at this. The Leafs are in the rare position of having all of their projected roster players under contract for both this season and next, which means they have flexibility to structure a contract for Giroux with performance bonuses that would count against next year’s salary cap as bonus overages. The combination of money and opportunity (riding shotgun to Matthews) should be quite attractive to Giroux.

@jonah_fleisher Bang

For full transparency, I’d hope the league is just as hard on the Tanev contract. Unless there is a legitimate career-ending injury, you should not be able to get out of it. The league needs to ensure that things are above water. I’d also argue that, even if there is a career-ending injury, long-term (say, 3+ year) 35+ contracts should be made immune from LTIR just as they are immune from cap relief in the case of retirement.

@JFreshHockey Candidly I have zero clue what you’re earning. But you don't have any aspirations to work in the NHL one day? Make the decisions you believe you can make better than current GMs? Also, your response implies you’ve received interest from said leagues?

@AustonsHairline you think it would be more lucrative and enjoyable for me to do analytics for an AHL/ECHL team than what I'm doing right now?

since we're in that mushy middle between the Draft and UFA, how about a quick AMA

@jonah_fleisher @RealKyper Sniped!

Here’s what @RealKyper had to say about Nichushkin in his latest trade board. In a vacuum, I’d love him on the Leafs, but probably not the best idea to come to such a big city given his history. If I were running a smaller market team, I’d be all over this.