Good morning, everyone. Yes, the Earth has spun a few times and brought us to another Monday.
In case you missed it, the arb award for Samsonov came in yesterday:
PPP Leafs
I have negative zero patience for cap math because it is July, and it's two months until even preseason games start. Anything can happen. There is no crisis.
Matt Murray is now Schrödinger's goalie. He is both healthy and will never play again, terrible and fine when he's not hurt, on his way out or to the Marlies, done or not done playing, and it all depends on the argument or anxiety narrative you're trying to make.
Eventually Brad Treliving will open the box, and then we'll know.
Until then, forget the Leafs, they've certainly forgotten us, and focus instead on prospects, future value, pointz, ageing curves, height, weight, draft bias, and all the other fun and exciting aspects of the T25.
The full (it's not really all that full) eligibility list goes up today, and later this week the community vote will open. We're aiming for a leisurely summer pace to this year's T25, since this is the first normal summer season in quite some time. It's possible everyone has forgotten just how long it does go on when free agent day is July 1.
The NHL has not quite gone on summer vacation. There are a few arbitration cases outstanding – notably the other goalies – but one way or another, they will all be finalized by August 4 when the last hearing is scheduled.
Still to come are some serious things: the report into the 2018 Team Canada junior team players and the open sexual assault case is due. Past due. Very past due.
At the time of the draft, Gary Bettman said Joel Quenneville and Stan Bowman had asked to speak to him. There is no word on if those discussions had happened, but Bettman sure didn't voice any urgency in the matter.
Both of these are the sorts of things the league will want to have released in August in the hopes no one cares.
Other than that, there are prospect tournaments later in the summer, and the junior teams will have camps and tournaments to help set the roster for this coming winter.
Meanwhile there are 71 UFAs, who played at least one game last year in the NHL and only 22 RFAs. Some of these are injured players, players still not sure if they're retiring, and a few other odd cases. Some are just somewhat surprisingly unsigned.
There is still talk that big trades like Erik Karlsson to just about any team you could think of is going to happen. No one is talking about John Gibson or Connor Hellebuyck much now, though.
I found the FTB from Monday, July 25 last year, done by me – I think everyone was busy then as now. And I said there were 71 unsigned RFAs! Offseason had a later start, so that makes some sense.
Not a single other thing was going on, so July is proceeding as it should.
Okay, time to switch gears for the T25, and thinking about the future of the team. If you want to go back and visit old posts, here they are:
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The most recent year's posts are fixed up and fully readable. I'll gradually go through the older years. It's extremely tedious work, so it only happens occasionally. The main part is adding in images and fixing tables so they don't break on mobile view.
That's it for today, have a Happy Monday, everyone.
What? It was this or the Bangles.
