Martin Natches, by the way, you did mention. Winnipeg Jets, Chicago Blackhawks, Montreal Canadiens, Calgary Flames, and Boston Bruins. See? Told you, Boston. Go away. Are among the teams. Well, Boston does what Vegas does. They're always in on the guy. It's true. Go get the guy. It's true. Boston, it's never, Oh, it's too hard, or How would we make that work? It's your freaking job. Go make it happen.

Then they do it.

Winnipeg, Chicago, Montreal, Calgary, and Boston for Martin Natches.

You know what? Boston never does? Hey, should we just run it back? No.

Hey, should we just... They don't have to ask that question because they always go deep. Well, last couple of years, maybe not so much.

I was listening to the overdrive segment about Marnie yesterday, and I'm like, I'm taking crazy pills. I can't believe they're right.

Well, okay, but you're talking about Darren Dregger saying, Well, he doesn't have to. I think we know the connection there. I'm not trying to insult anybody, but we know the connection there, and we know that that's posturing by the Marner.

God bless Jeff O'Neill. God bless him for being like, Well, what did he say? They were like, What is all this about we have to make changes, and then they're going to offer him a contract extension? What are you talking about? And Dregger's like, Well, then would you let him play the year and walk for nothing? And Jeff, without missing a beat, goes, Yes. Yeah. And he's right.

Where do you think Martin Nietzsche makes the most sense? I'm interested to see the Chicago Blackhawks in on this because they should be in the business of acquiring good young players, especially wingers, Who can score around Conor Bedard? Where do you like him the best?

Boston is a pretty good fit because even though they play really solid hockey together, there's definitely room to grow on paper. He'd fit a really good window for them because he's not a rookie, he's not a sophomore either, but he's also not old. He would help them get better now and for the future. I think a lot of players should be in on this guy. The Zaka coil thing got old for the Bruins a little bit, and adding Natchis to that really, really add some punch to the lineup. So yeah, I like that for Boston, which is why I hope it doesn't happen. Okay.

All right. Jesse, what do you think?

I like the Montreal-Canadians as a landing spot. I'm waiting for them to keep doing these deals and take on scoring talent so they can get better a little quicker. I feel like 25-year-old player who wants to play on the power play a whole bunch, and there's ice time available in Montreal. They need more goal scoring, they need more talent. I think there's a deal to be made, especially with their salary cap situation where they're not up against it. They can give this RFA a decent deal, and maybe it's shorter term, so you see how he plays out and with the extra ice time that he'll get in Montreal. I think it'd be a good fit.

You're right. I'm talking You're talking about Boston. You're talking about Montreal. These are not the same team at all. Isn't this player just good? And aren't the hurricanes just good? Why aren't they keeping this player?

He doesn't want to be there. Why? He doesn't like his role on the team.

That's, I mean, nuts.

That's why I mentioned the power play stuff because he wants more. He wants more time on the... He wants more ability, more areas of score goals to put up points. He's not happy with how he's being deployed.

I don't hate that. I like that in a player. I want a guy who's like, Yo, screw this. I'm better.

I mean, one of the great things about pro sports is whenever these discussions come up, we're like, Oh, what about reasonable thing? And we're not talking about reasonable people. We're talking about the most competitive 1% of human beings on the planet.

Yeah. And you know what? Wherever he goes, especially teams like the Blackhawks and the Montreal-Canadians, if he ends up in those, he'll get his power plate time. We'll know.

Yeah, but if he's as competitive as he's being sold as, isn't it going to kill you to lose frigging 50 games?

Well, I think if you look what happened in Carolina, like two years ago or two seasons ago now, 22, 23, 71 points last year, 53. So a bit of a drop, bit of a change in usage, bit of a deeper lineup. And at a certain point, you're like, Listen, I'm the guy, and if you don't believe I'm the guy, I'm going to go somewhere else and show you that I'm the guy.

I want to make some money.

Yeah. Forget about the winning and losing. You'll figure that out when you get there, because if you're the guy, you believe you'll win, they'll start winning because you're there.

He doesn't go there and be like, This team sucks, and we're going to lose. I think he thinks that they're going to win.

I think this is the summer players start going, You know what? I'm going to hitch my wagon to this, Connor Bedard. Other than guys like nick Felino who are openly talking about how he's going to retire soon on the bench. You got to get some guys to play with this kid going forward.

Nikolai Eeler's name has come up in Trade Talks, the Winnipeg Jets. He has had some injuries the last few years, but this year played a full 82, was drafted one spot after William Neillander, and is a 61-point player who, frankly, if you were paying attention to the Jets, things didn't go well with him and Rick Bones.

Or Paul Maurice.

Or Paul Maurice. Well, Paul Maurice is a little better, I think. For six million bucks for one year, this is a guy that puts up a lot of points. This is a good player that can slot in on a lot of team second. If you're a really good team, it's a second line. If you're a good team, he's probably a first-liner. You don't like him. Me? Are you saying you don't like him?

No, I'm saying I like him. The reason I'm being-I like him.dismissive is- His ice time, by the way, under Bones went from 18 minutes a night under Paul Maurice to 15:38 and 15:52.

That's why.

Nikolai Eeler's being in Trade Rumors is as close to a free space on the Bingo card as you can get for a non-leaf. Every year, it's, Play them more. No, I won't. K will trade them. Then they didn't. Puts up points, never plays. This is very much Winnipeg's MO, is guys are in rumors forever, then nothing happens, usually.

Unless they're tracksuit gets thrown in the shower.

Yes, then you're traded immediately. But then it's like, HelaBuck, not as much, but like, Shifly.

Yep.

Wheeler. Line A. I remember doing a segment where I was like, Shut up and make a decision about this player. Not for him, not for you, for your fans. You need a reason to get excited about your team. I want to know if I can buy this player's jersey. Is there a point? And at every moment of every year, it's like, we don't know if he's staying or going. And I feel like it's been like that for Nikolai Eelers for all of post-COVID. I think this predates it. Honestly, it's just there's a brain fog there, and I have no idea if it predates it. I'm pretty sure it did, but I can't remember because of the 2020 syndrome or whatever you call it. But every year, every year with Nikolai Eelers, it's one of those... Yeah, it'd be interesting, but I'll believe it when I see it. I think we talk about this every year.

The Winnipeg Jets are due for a move with Eelers just for the change, for the sake of change situation, because they've been running the core with Hela Buck, Eelers, Shifley, and if you want to throw in Morrissey and Blake Wheeler in all those years.

Isn't this familiar as hell?

Yeah, and they He moved off a Wheeler eventually. He walked. He left, and they parted ways. Then you have your new captain now in Lowry, and you're moving off of what you had, and you've picked the guys you want to to stick with. You've given Scheifly long term deal. You've given Hellebuck the long term deal. Connor is going to be there forever. You're going to keep him around. I feel like Eelers is just the last piece that you probably don't want to get married to and you want to just divorce it now and move it out of the way. I feel like that's the parting away, and then they can move forward because it's stale. It's a little stale, that relationship.

The irony is like a Line 8 Eelers swap could make some sense. I just don't know if he wants to go back to Winnipeg.

That doesn't make sense at all.

No, but just in terms of role and money.

If his name wasn't Patrick Line A and he didn't play there before, yes. Yeah, but because it's him. I just feel like dealers in Winnipeg is a little stale at this point, especially with how they lost in that first round. You remember that story? Yeah. Not pretty. Well, there needs to be... Same with Toronto. There needs to be some consequence for losing. When you lose that way with a bunch of guys who have been here forever, this is a new guy.

I was going to say I would like Eelers in Toronto. Yeah. I would like a guy like that.

Eelers is a good player. Soft on the left. Yeah. I mean, let me bring this team up again. Really strong offensive player, underappreciated in the market he's in. Nikolai Eelers, welcome to Carolina. You sound like a hurricane already.

Everybody's going to Carolina now.

He sounds like a hurricane, though. I'm not using them as my cop-out team. It's all the players we're talking about.

He's not Finnish. He's Danish. I know.

But they're close.

They are close. They used to be one.

You know, hockey guys. If you squin, it's the same country. It's the same place..