There's a couple of things I want to mention here because we do... Kuznetsov is being reported by Frank Cervali. I was a little early on that story, and it was a learning experience for me because Russian media can be extraordinarily unreliable. Who knew? But Frank Cervali is reporting right now that Evgeny Kuznetsov will be placed on unconditional waivers today for the purposes of a mutual contract termination. So, Hugh, I stayed on that one. But let that be a reminder to you, don't He's not necessarily trust it until we hear it from the North American side.

He must be getting a ton of money.

Well, he had $6 million in real dollars. His cap hit a $7.8 million, but $6 million in real dollars still owed to him. So you have to expect that he's making at least that in Russia. I think the thing is that-In rubles.

Well, aren't rubles like, worthless right now?

They are, but you just pay more.

Yeah. No. Oh, shit. Yeah.

Or they'll just pay him in American dollars. They can pay him in American currency.

They can do I mean, it's the cage. They'll do whatever they want.

They usually do. The team he's reportedly signing with is the team owned by, as we said, Gazprom, which is the gas giant that sells all their natural gas and all that shit.

It's times 64 a dollar to a ruble. Wow, it didn't used to be.

An American dollar or Canadian? Canadian.

Oh, boy. That's rough.

Wait till they announced what he's making.

I don't think that's crazy. If you look at the Yen, the Yen's like, go there, things are things for $1,000 for an Apple.

You should go look up the contract Alex Radjilow signed when he left for the KHL. It's just a number that you can't... Oh, yeah, he makes like 90,000 rubels a year. Sorry, 90 million. You're just like, Sorry, what does that mean? What are you talking about?

Yeah, Huracanes just announced it three minutes ago, too. Oh, okay. So it's official. That's a shame.

I thought he was good for them.

Yeah, I think he was, too. I have a question. Who is going to play for the Carolina Hurricanes next year?

Why do you ask?

Because they don't have a lot of players. And Marty Nietzsche is not signed either.

Your Raduloff thing, just quick Google search. Raduloff is set to make 300 million rubels per year.

And what year was that?

This is 2012.

That's not real. That's not a number. You made that up.

No, that's not real. You made that In 2012, that was around 9.2 million dollars per year.

That's where I got the nine from. Yeah.

Yo.

Who the help? No one was making maybe Ovechkin?

9.2 a year?

It would have made him the second highest paid player in the league, maybe highest.

Oh, yeah. He's up there. So anyway, that's why he left. But yeah, that's a crazy convert. And the Yen is $113 to one. Love it. Wow. Okay.

No, look up some more currency.

It's the Currency Trading Show. That's what we do here.

The Kroner is like $10.300.

Million rubels per year. You're an NBA player now.

What a cartoon. Why did he leave?

Oh, okay. Something else interesting that's popped up in the last 24 hours is that Tori Krug is potentially looking at missing the entire season. He has pre-arthritic issues in his in his ankle, and they're going to monitor it for the next 6-8 weeks. If he requires surgery, he will miss the entire year. That is interesting. I get now why they signed Ryan Suter, because I didn't before. Now that makes a lot of sense because they probably knew this was coming.

Yeah, but Ryan Suter is washed.

He is washed. That's not the same.

But I think so are the Blues, right? Without Tori Krug, especially.

I thought they had a decent offseason. The producer, Hayden, just like, Yes, he is. Yeah, right?

Yes, he is.

He's quite washed. We know of a Minnesota wild expert. I saw a lot of this going around. There was nothing in the middle with this Tori Krug news. There was, That's terrible, and I wish him nothing but the best, and, Oh, isn't that convenient?

Convenient for what?

They tried to trade this player, and he blocked it.

Yes.

They wanted out from under that contract.

That they actively pursued and chose instead of Alex Petrangil.

Yeah. And there's now a scenario where you get all your money and you don't have to go anywhere.

$14 million in cap space they have right now if Crüe goes on LTIR.

If he goes on LTIR, right.

Wow. I don't think they would be announcing this if they weren't pretty sure.

What's Doug cooking?

I think Doug Armstrong is not a stupid man. He already tried to get guys like... He ended up in New Jersey, Timo Meyer. That's right. This guy sold to the Lefs and then tried to buy at the same deadline. I think they want a quick turnaround here.

I think this is real. This isn't made up. Too many people are like, Oh, that's made up. When Kucharav was LTI-ired by the lightning, he was hurt.

He just happened to come back a few weeks after he was healthy.

Yeah. Like, I think they waited.

Yeah, they waited. Like, delay your health a week. Exactly.

They waited. You know what? I could be even healthier. With Mark Stone, every time he's been hurt, I've lost track. But every time the Golden Nights of LTI heard him, it's been with a legitimate injury. The easy comparable, or maybe not easy, the one that you think of or I can't help but think of, Marian Hosa, he was dealing with an issue that made him allergic to his equipment or something for years. And he retired when his contract was designed to... When it was designed for him to retire.

That injury becomes, I can't deal with it anymore when you feel like retiring.

Hockey players play through heinous shit for the vast majority of their career. And there are probably any number of stars in the league who could shut it down for several years, if not retire, right now, if they had to.

I look at Patrick Kane when he sat out with his hip for so long. I'm sure if Patrick Cain wanted to just push it a little bit more, he probably could have. Yeah. And not had the full surgery and sit out all that time. If he was with the Black Hawks at the end and they were on the verge of a cup and he's like, Oh, you know what? If I push it for five more months, I could win another cup or something like that. I'm sure he could do that. But it was at the time of his career where he's like, Oh, no. This injury I've been dealing with for a while, I'm going to sit out.

Shay Webber and Cary Price were two of the most important components of the 2021 Montreal Canadiens going to the Stanley Cup final and never played a hockey game again. Price played a couple.

nick Kiprios was right just early on Shay Webber. Yeah, he was a year early. He knew that Shay Webber was dealing with this, and he was like, Oh, Shay Webber may never play again. But Shay Webber just pushed through because Montreal needed him and he wanted to play. And then the injury was always there. It never went away or was never nonexistent.

To a much lesser extent, Yane Hakenpaugh with the Leifs, they still have not officially announced that signing He may never play again. He may play another 500 games. These guys play through heinous shit all the time. So Krug, I think if he was in a situation that both parties were content with, might play this year. But I don't think that's the case.

But it's also- And he's also taking care of his health. Yeah, it also hasn't been announced either way. No. He's been diagnosed with the pre-arthritis, whatever in his ankle, and they're going to reevaluate in 6-8 weeks. That was the announcement. It wasn't that he's going to miss it, it was that he might, but they're going to reevaluate.

Which means we don't find out until a couple of weeks, I think, into training camp. And that, I think, presents a really unique opportunity for the Blues because if they're looking at this season as, Okay, we're going to do the best that we possibly can, but this is really and truly a build year. If we tweak in, great, but this is a build year for us. They can, if I'm looking at their cat friendly Or CapFriendly. Oh, my God, Puckpedia. And I'm looking at where they're at. So they've got two more years after this coming one of Bennington. They've got Falk for three more years, Krug, Pareco for four, nick Letty. Their defense is looking old. You could potentially take back some bad salary. You could take some expiring deals. You could farm some draft picks and not necessarily use those draft picks to draft. You can use those draft picks to get players. And they could be buyers at the trade deadline. Doug Armstrong is a very creative general manager. He's one of those guys that... All the GMs are I was like, Well, if I do something, I might make a mistake. So better not.

Doug Armstrong is not that guy. And he's also built up enough currency with the ownership in St. Louis that I think that he can do things that other general managers just cannot do. And I am very interested to see how he augments Jordan Kyru, Robert Thomas, and I guess to a lesser extent, Pavel Bucinevich, who's 29. He's got to build around these guys now. And I think the Blues are going to be a story this year.

Watch me work. Watch me work Adam. Do GMs make all the phone calls?

No. Agents do.

Agents, well, and assistant general managers. Yeah. So who is Kyle Dubas' most common trading partner when he was with the least?

I'm pretty sure if it wasn't Chicago, it was St. Louis. It was the St.

Louis Blues.

Wow. Interesting.

Who's the head coach of the Leifs?

Craig Berube, chief.

So what are you saying?

I'm saying maybe there's-They're going to trade Craig Berube to the penguins. Maybe stop flirting and kiss.

With what?

What deal? What are you saying?

I don't know if tree trades with the Blues a lot.

What move are you saying?

I don't know. Is there a move that a lot of Lee fans are talking about?

I know there's a writer- Are there margars going to the Blues? I know the Leefs Nation blog really likes Alexi Torepchenko.

I don't know if you're going to move on from the ridiculous assessment.

No, I'm trying to add to it. I'm trying to put fuel in there. Okay. Torepchenko is 25. He's a right winger. He's also 6'6 every single day when he wakes up.

That's crazy. Who else on the Leaps plays right wing?

Stop it. What?

Stop it. What? I don't like what you guys are doing. What do you mean? What am I doing? You guys are putting words in my mouth. I don't like what you're doing. I'm trying to propose a Calleigh Yarn Croke deal, and you guys are making it into something.

Adam said the Blues are going to be good this year?

No, I don't think they are. I think it's a build year.