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Max and Daniel wrestling on the ice lives in my brain rent-free btw

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Chance Meetings- Morgan Rielly Story Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Word count: 4.1 k

October 6th, 2018

Morgan’s POV

The next morning I woke up with Hailey in my arms and I couldn’t help but smile as I looked down at her as she buried her head further into my neck. Her hand slowly reaching up, so that it was placed on my chest. Her pink lips parted slightly so I could see her perfectly white teeth as she smiled in her dreams.

Last night was entertaining, to say the least, but seeing Hailey with the Green Family gave me more of an insight into the type of person she is.

It may have been a little uncomfortable when Tom asked me the sex question last night but he apologized multiple times throughout the night. Even though it was inappropriate and something Hailey and I should have discussed together I could understand where he was coming from wanting to protect Hailey, it just could have been done in a better way.

Having the chance to sit down and talk to Tom over a couple of beers gave me more of an insight into who Hailey is and how much everyone in the family truly loves her.

I was falling for Hailey fast and I couldn’t help but picture what our family would look like as I saw her interact with the children.

At 24 years old that thought should scare me but I couldn’t help but think that if this relationship progressed as it has been I could see myself wanting to start the rest of my life with her as soon as possible. The day I ran into Hailey at the Hospital I phoned my mother and told her that I met a girl that was truly beautiful inside and out. Mom said that she could tell by the way my voice changed when I talked about her that I was in deep.

We had a game tonight vs. Ottawa and I had to force myself to get out of bed so I could head to the arena for my day of game routines. I kissed Hailey on the forehead softly, waking her up from her slumber. “Good morning beautiful, I have to go to the arena for the day of game routines,” I whispered as I leaned down slowly to kiss her on the lips. She nodded her head and with her adorable morning voice said “morning, I will see you after the game.”

I gave her one more kiss before I made my way to my vehicle to head towards the arena. I couldn’t help but laugh as I thought about all of the commentaries I would receive from the boys based on the fact that I am wearing the same clothes that I left practice in yesterday.

Hailey’s POV-

As I was getting ready for the game Jess comes knocking at the door.

“Come in”

“Hails, we really like Morgan.” She said as she sat down on the couch in my room. “Ella told me he is just like a prince.”

“I really really like him, Jess,” I said sitting down on the couch too. “Like I think I already like him more than I did Lucas and it’s only been a month.”

“Well, he handled Tom like a pro so he is really invested in this relationship as well.”

“Omg I felt so bad for him but he was so amazing all night,” I said as I nodded my head agreeing with Tom.

“I am sorry again for what Tom asked at the dinner table. Even though his heart was in the right place that was a topic you and Morgan should have discussed in private.” Said Jess as she shook her head picturing the look of embarrassment on Morgan’s face.

“Morgan and I discussed it last night and I truly believe he is not like Lucas and that he won’t cheat on me.”

“I’m glad you discussed it but I still would like Tom to apologize to Morgan again. I was so mad at him last night.” She said as she rolled her eyes at her husband antics last night.

“I’m sure Tom will have plenty of opportunities to apologize to Morgan again. Morgan asked me if it would be possible to come over once a week to hang out with the family. He mentioned something about a Games night on a day he doesn’t have a game.”  

“That’s a very good Idea. I can tell that he genuinely cares for you and the children and wants to become a part of your life and incorporate himself into our family dynamic.”

“So how was it with Morgan staying over?” Asked jess as she winked at me.

“Hahaha, we just slept... like we fell asleep watching Netflix.”

“But it was so nice waking up in his arms this morning.”

Jess nodded her head at my answer And asked “What are you going to wear to the game tonight? Are you planning on wearing something casual, fancy or a little bit of both?”

“I was thinking of wearing my grey Nike shoes, black leather leggings, my grey hoodie sweatshirt, and my jean jacket,” I said As I walked towards my closet getting the clothes out and placing them on the couch beside Jess.

“Ooh that will look good, What were you thinking of doing with your hair?” Jess asked.

“I was thinking of curling my hair loosely for a beach wave look. Also this morning Morgan left his Pirates baseball cap here, So I think I am going to wear that to the game.” I told Jess.

“Tom will definitely comment on the Pirates hat haha.” Laughed Jess “I can picture him shaking his head muttering ‘you are in jays territory’” said Jess as she imitated her husband's voice causing me to giggle as I shook my head.    

I made my way to the arena waiting outside the ticket booth for Lucy so we could head into the arena together. As I was texting Morgan my usual ‘good luck’ message Steph and Lucy made their way towards me.

“Girl, love the outfit,” Steph said as she gave me a big hug.

“That’s Morgans Pirates hat, isn’t it?” Lucy questioned as she pulled me in for a big hug.

“Yes, he left it at my place this morning,” I said as we pulled apart from the hug.

“This morning?” quipped lucy as she winked.

“Mitch told me something about Morgan being incredibly nervous to meet the family you work for. Even asked Mitch for advice on what flowers he should get you.” Steph stated, “I don’t know why he asked Mitch because he barely even buys me flowers.” She added as she shook her head laughing.

“Jake wouldn’t have been any help either though... I swear that since we have gotten married and had Henry he thinks he needs to stop being romantic and impress me.” Lucy said as she rolled her eyes making fun of her husband.

“Boys,” Steph stated as she looks towards a group of Leafs fans that had huge cardboard cutouts of Mitch’s face.

“The night went really good but Tom, the dad I work for made both Morgan and I uncomfortable during dinner when he asked how many girls he has slept with,” I whispered so that the fans around us couldn’t hear.

“Omg.” Gasped both Steph and Lucy “how did Morgan handle it?”

“His answer was perfect, he showed how genuine he is and what type of guy he is when he is in a relationship.”

“Awe.”

I continued to go into detail about how the night went down as we walked into the arena and made our way to our seats.

Once we got to our section Steph grabbed both Lucy and my arm to stop us from walking “we need to take a picture of the three best friends!”  

She handed pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of us altogether and posted it to her Instagram story.

She looped her arm back with mine and we made our way down to the seats. I noticed that they were the exact same seats as last time. Lucy must have seen me realize the seats and whispered “Morgan gets seats in the family section during the season. He just never used them before you, Well except for when his parents came.”

‘Wow,’ i thought ‘I must be special if he is already giving me his family seats. When he could have got me tickets anywhere in the arena.’

The first period flew by as Lucy, Steph and I got to know each other better as we sipped wine, took pictures, and watched our boys.

As the boys skated a lap around the ice after the first intermission Morgan locked eyes with me and sent a wink my way causing my cheeks to flush.

I could hear Steph whisper to Lucy “they are both in deep already”

Not even A couple of minutes into the second period Morgan took a wrist shot and score his first goal of the season, Mitch getting an assist. I jumped up with the girls to celebrate as both Steph and Lucy threw their arms around me for a big hug. As we pulled away from the hug I locked eyes with Morgan who pointed in my direction he skated back to the bench.

I couldn’t help but smile as that was Morgan’s way of telling me ‘that goal was for you.’

The rest of the game flew by with the Leafs winning 5-3, Morgan picking up an assist on Mitches Goal during the second period.

After they announced the three stars, Mitch, getting the second star of the game, We made our way to the family room to wait for our guys.

Once we got into the room Christina came walking over to us pulling us in one by one for hugs.

“Morgan’s goal celebration was adorable.” She whispered as we pulled apart from the hug.

“Hailey, I know it’s last minute but tomorrow I’m hosting a watch party at my house for all of the wives and girlfriends to celebrate the first road trip of the season. I would love for you to come!” Christina said as she looked across the room to make sure her children were behaving.

“I would love to. What should I bring?”

“Morgan has been bragging to anyone who will listen about your baking skills. Would you be able to bake something for the party?” She asked as she looked toward me after seeing her boys were behaving.

“I would love to,” I replied.

“Thank god,” stated Steph “I’ve been wanting to taste your baking since Morgan told Mitch about it.”

“The cookies she made at Morgan’s place last weekend were amazing,” Lucy said as she winked at me remembering when Jake and her interrupted our date just so Jake could annoy Morgan and steal the cookies I made.

I couldn’t help but laugh, I guess my mom was right about the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

We continued talking about the party until the boys started filing into the room. Looking towards the doorway I watched as Morgan walked into the room with his hair still wet from his post-game shower. His tie loosely around his neck as he mouthed “There’s my girl,” towards me from across the room as we locked eyes.

He made his way towards me and once he got close to me he pulled me into his arms and connected our lips for a soft but romantic kiss.

“Nice goal superstar,” I whispered as we pulled apart.

“Looks like I need to sleep with you before every game,” Morgan said winking as he did. Totally aware that Jake had heard what he said. Whispering “Also my hat looks amazing on you.” As he sent me a wink.

“You totally did do the walk of shame this morning Modaddy. Stop denying it.” Said Jake laughing and teasing Morgan.

Lucy shook her head at her husband and whispered towards me “he just fell asleep Didn’t he?”

I nodded my head in reply to her question causing her to scold him “ Jake stop picking on the happy couple... they are still in the honeymoon stage. I’m sure they just fell asleep watching Netflix as we do.”

“So they Netflix’d and chilled,” Jake said wiggling his eyebrows trying to be seductive.

Mitch and Auston quickly coming over to join in on the fun of picking on both you and Morgan.

Morgan pulled me in close and whispered: “this will shut them up.” As he dipped me and gave me a long passionate kiss as the boys whistling around us. Causing us to pull apart laughing.

I stand beside Morgan as he talks to A couple of the boys about their upcoming road trip.

“Boys, the bus is here to take us to the plane.” States Babcock as he walks into the room.

Morgan signs as he pulls me in for one more hug and kisses. As we pull apart I slip and envelope into the pocket of his suit jacket whispering “open this when you get to your hotel room.”

Morgan nodded his head and grabbed his backpack and made his way out the door and toward the bus.

“The first road trip is always the hardest,” Lucy says as she gives me a smile.

Lucy and I made our way out of the arena as we discussed the plan for tomorrow. “So I was thinking you, I and Henry should have a sleepover tomorrow after the watch party! It will be like we are in college again.”

“Sounds good!” I replied

“The party starts at 5:30 pm so if you could come to my place around 4:30 pm that way you can drop your bag off and we can go together.”

October 7th, 2018

I woke up to the sound of my cellphone ring. I quickly grabbed the phone and saw that it Lucy phoning.

“Hailey, did I wake you up?” Lucy asked as she Heard the sleepiness in my voice.

“Well Lucy, it’s 8:30 am any person without a kid would be sleeping at this time.” I joked as I sat up in bed yawning as I did so.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about what time it was. Henry has been up since 6:30 am.”

“Jeez, that’s early.”

“Anyways the reason why I woke you up probably isn’t as important as sleep.”

“Well, I’m up now.” I replied, “what did you need?”

“I was just going to ask if you wanted to come here earlier? That way we could have some girl time and bake the cookies together.”

“Sounds good, I can be there for 1:00 pm.”

“Perfect! We can have lunch and bake the cookies while Henry is having his nap.”

“See you then.”

Thankfully I was able to fall back to sleep. 

I quickly packed a bag, and Around 12:30 pm I headed over to the Gardiner residence.

“Did you bring the goods?" Asked Lucy as soon as she opened the door.

“Omg, that sounds like a drug deal,” I said as I started laughing.

“Well, your cookies are addicting.... so in a way you are a drug dealer.” She said as she started laughing.

“Haha, yes I did bring some of the ingredients to make the cookies.”

“Perfect, let me take your overnight bag and put it in the guest room,” Lucy said as she grabbed my bag out of my arms. “Oh, feel free to head into the kitchen to get all the ingredients set up.” She added.

I made my way into the kitchen and saw that Lucy had a bottle of wine already on the counter ready as well as a cheese and meat board.

Lucy came back into the kitchen and poured us a glass of wine each.

We listened to music and drank wine as I started making the cookies.

“Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions about being a Leafs players girlfriend?” I asked as I watched her make us lunch as the cookies were in the oven baking.

“Of course Hails, I want you to know you can always come to me if you need anything.” Said Lucy as she was getting the ingredients out of the fridge to make a cobb salad.

“What’s it like being the wife or girlfriend of the maple leafs? When I was dating Lucas he didn’t really like me hanging out with the other girls or going to game. Which should have been a big sign that I wasn’t the only one in his life.”

“When dating a leaf player be prepared for everything to be under a microscope. From the media on the way and from the fangirls on the way you look. But the hockey wives and girlfriends are a big family. And not just within this team but within the league. No one understands the lifestyle more than them. They understand the late nights, early mornings, they understand the long road trips and the media pressure the players go through. They understand what it’s like supporting and believing in their guy and team especially when people start to doubt and criticize their abilities. They understand the criticism the WAGS get from fangirls and the messages they receive on social media. She is either too fat or too thin, players only go for models what is he doing with her? she isn’t blond or pretty so she must not be a wife or girlfriend. She is only with him because he has money. We get messages that your significant other is cheating on you ‘don’t you know that he has a girl in every city? He isn’t faithful to you.’ They will do anything possible to make you doubt your relationship.“

“Hailey, just know that I will always be here to support you as well as the other lady leafs.”

“Any advice you can give me about being a good hockey girlfriend to Morgan?”

“When you date a hockey player There dreams become your dreams. They have been dreaming about winning the Stanley Cup since they were little boys. They will push themselves and do whatever it takes in order to achieve it. It’s our job to love and support them on this crazy hockey journey. The Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy to win so the wife’s and the players become a family and teammates as we all work together to achieve our goals.”

“They are on a winning streak right now but what happens when they have a bad game or they start losing games?” I asked as I looked towards the girls.

“Each player handles a bad game or loosing different, but Jake comes home and likes to watch the game tape to see what he can do better next time. We have a glass of wine and I sit in his arms as he discusses the game. We just need to be there with open arms ready to love them and support.”

We arrived at Christina’s House just before 5:30. Christina’s answered the door and pulled us in for a big hug welcoming me to her house as It was my first time.

“I’m so glad you were able to come over on such short notice Hailey,” Christina stated as she looped her arm with mine and guided me into the television room. “I can tell we are already going to be best friends.” She whispered.

Once we got into the room I saw that a bunch of ladies were already here. Instantly the nerves started to set in, ‘i really hope they like me’.

“Ladies this is Hailey, she is Morgan’s girl.” Christina’s announced as we walked into the room.

Instantly the lady’s stood up from their seats and gave me big hugs welcoming me into their family.

I had a chance to talk to all of the ladies before everyone found a seat to watch the game.

I sat between Lucy and Steph as they waved me over and patted the seat in between them.

Throughout the game we eat snacks and drank wine, talking about everything the WAGS do throughout the season.

Tavares scored 2 goals and Morgan got both assists. Aryn looked at me from a couple of seats over and we both stood up and high fived each other.

The game was tied going 6-6 going into over time. I was sitting beside both Steph and Lucy so we grabbed each other’s hands squeezing them for support.

As the boys skated around my eyes were glued to Morgan as he skated around the ice. The puck came to Morgan and he took a wrist shot scoring. As Morgan celebrated his goal on the ice with his teammates I celebrated with my teammates. We jumped up screaming as we all gave each other big hugs and high fives.

“Dam Hails, ever since Morgan asked you to be his girlfriend he has been on fire!” Joked Lucy “I mean come on, 2 goals and  4 assists in 3 games.”

“I have a feeling Morgan is going to have a record year now that he has his good luck charm,” Lucy stated as she put her hand on my shoulder sending me a wink.

We watched as the boys celebrated their overtime win. The rest of the lady leafs thanked Christina for hosting the party and headed home.

Lucy, Steph and I started cleaning up the television room so that Christina didn’t have to do it.

“Oh my god, thank you for tidying up. You really didn’t need to do that.” Christina said as she walked back into the room after saying goodbye to everyone.

While Steph was tidying up the coffee table she knocked the remote and it changed the channel. We looked at the TV and saw that the movie Mean Girls was on.

“Mean Girls.” Exclaimed Steph as she sat down on the couch.

“Oh, that’s one of my favourites.” Agreed Christina as she joined Steph on the couch. Lucy and I joined the girls on the couch and we all watch Mean Girls.

“OMG, what if we did a girls costume for the Halloween party instead of with our guys?” Asked Steph after she took a sip of wine. “Like what if we didn’t tell them what it was and we just showed up the party together.”

“What costume should we do then? It has to be a costume that has four people.” Stated Christina as she took a cookie off of the coffee table and took a bite.

“Mean Girls.” Stated Steph just as the Halloween scene of the movie Mean Girls played on the Television in front of us.

“Yes!” Exclaimed Lucy.

“I love that Idea!” I exclaimed, “I just hope Morgan isn’t mad that we aren’t doing a couples costume seeing as it’s our first Halloween together.”

“He will get over it.” Joked Steph “I’m sure there will be plenty more Halloween parties in your guys future.” She added as she sent a wink in your direction.

“So Hailey can be Cady, Lucy can be Regina George, Christina can be Gretchen, and I’ll be Karen!” Steph stated as she grabbed a pen and paper from the coffee table and started writing things down.

“Oooh Yes, we can dress up in their Halloween costumes from the movie.” Stated Christina as she pulled out her phone to look up possible outfits on Pinterest.

“We should totally have some fun with this and dress up sexy to drive the boys crazy.” Stated Lucy as she looked around the room at all of us girls.

“We can go shopping later this week for our costumes,” Christina said as she took another bite of the cookies. “God Hailey, Morgan wasn’t lying about your baking abilities. That has got it to be one of the best cookies I have ever had.”

It was like Morgan had heard his name because my phone started to buzz in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw that it was Morgan, quickly picking up the call and walking into the front hallway.

“Good game superstar.”

“Thanks, babe. How was hanging with the girl?” Asked Morgan

“It was really good Mo, they are all so nice and welcoming.”

“I’m glad babe, god I wish I could have you in my arms right now,” Morgan said whispering the last part as he didn’t want the other guys to hear him as they were walking into their plane.

“This week will fly by and before you know it I will be in your arms again.”

“What are you doing the day after we get home?” Asked Morgan as he sat down in his seat on the plane.

“Well, I planned on seeing you.” I joked into the phone.

“I’m glad haha, a couple of the guys wanted to go out for dinner with you, Lucy and Steph. Is that okay with you?”

“Sounds like a plan Mo, I can hear you’re on the plane. Have a safe flight and text me when you are in Dallas.”

“Okay, Goodnight Babe.”

“Goodnight Mo.”

[patagucci34]

Dreams do come true, part 3

Here is part 3!! 

I am going to start using names for friends and stuff because it might start getting confusing. Just an FYI, Y/BF/N from previous chapters will be April. 

Warnings: smut

Enjoy :) 

Y/N’s POV

It had been a few months since Auston had been to Vermont. I couldn’t wait to see him again. I had just landed in Toronto to spend a week with him over my Christmas break. They had a week of home games so we figured that would be the best time, and we would get to spend a week together because I was on my break. We worked it out so my flight landed when he was able to pick me up from the airport and bring me back to his place. I was a little worried about what I would do with my time while he was at practice or training during the day, also about meeting all of the wives and girlfriends, and his family would be there for the very end of the week. But, I would cross those bridges when I get there so I tried not to think about it that much.  

I was waiting for my luggage and starting to get anxious…not sure if it was because I was worried my luggage was lost or because it was hitting me that I would be seeing Auston soon. I received a text from Auston saying that he was waiting by the Tim Hortons and couldn’t wait to see me, that eased my nerves a little bit, but I was still worried about my bags. Eventually, my bag came out and I made the trek through customs. After what seemed like hours later I was walking through the terminal to find Auston. It didn’t take me long to find him and my nerves disappeared as soon as he laid eyes on me. I picked up the pace a bit and dropped my bags as he embraced me in a hug.

“How was the flight?” He asked as we let go.

“It was fine…I really hate flying…but it wasn’t bad I guess.”

“You don’t like flying?” He asked.

I looked down a little, feeling a bit embarrassed, “no…I’m kind of scared to fly.”

“What?! How come you never told me?”

“I don’t know, it’s not the biggest deal. It doesn’t stop me from flying, I just don’t like it very much.”

Auston gave me a smirk, “that’s so cute!!” He said bringing me in for another hug

“Hahaha, shut up,” I said reciprocating the smirk.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Let’s get out of here.” He said grabbing my suitcase and leading me to his car.

We made the drive to his apartment so that I could drop my stuff off and change. He had a game tonight so he had to get the rink, he asked if I wanted to go then or if I wanted to go a little bit closer to game time and he would leave a ticket for me at will call. I decided to go with him just because I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing.

When we got to the rink he gave me a quick tour and then showed me to the family box where I could hang out until the game started. He got me a seat by the glass where I would be sitting with Steph and a couple of the other girlfriends. I was super nervous to sit with them. I had talked with Steph over Facetime while talking to Auston, but I had never met her in real life. I hate to agree with the “they have a type” stereotype, but all of the WAGS are gorgeous, and I didn’t want to feel out of place. Not to mention the fact that Auston and I aren’t technically dating.

I tried to stop thinking about it by pulling out of my phone and checking social media. I noticed there were already pictures of Auston and me together. He did warn me that hockey is huge in Toronto and people are super invested in the players so there might be a lot of people taking pictures and saying hi. I just thought he meant that people would be asking him for pictures. They weren’t terrible pictures, they were mostly us walking into Scotiabank. I just knew that this was going to cause a lot of stir and I didn’t want Auston to have to deal with that. I scrolled through some of the comments and most of them were just asking about who I was, but some of them were pretty mean. I tried not to let it get to me because I know people are just like that and there’s not anything I could do, but it still hurt my feelings to see people saying that I was ugly, fat, and not good enough for Auston. They were even criticizing my outfit, which might I say, I thought was super cute. I had Auston’s blue Leaf’s sweatshirt under a distressed jean jacket with black skinny jeans, white Yeezy’s and a Leaf’s baseball cap. I was starting to wonder if I was in over my head. Here I was sitting in the VIP box in Scotiabank Arena waiting to watch my friend with benefits play in his NHL game. Two years ago, I would have killed to be here. Now, I’m just not so sure I’m cut out of for this. I was about to call Y/BF/N when I heard the door open to the box, I turned and saw that it was Steph. A little wave of relief came over me knowing that she was here now, but I still felt a little awkward because we had never met in person.

She came right up to me and embraced me in a hug. I smiled at her kindness and was hoping it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought.

“I’m so excited that you’re here!! Auston has not stopped talking about you coming for the past month.” She said with a huge smile on her face.

“I’m excited to be here too! I’m excited to see them play live.” I responded.

“It’s great, and we have good seats by the glass which is always fun. Have you been here since Auston came earlier?”

“Yeah, I’ve just been hanging out up here, I didn’t want to risk getting lost and being late for the game coming here on my own, so I decided to come with Auston.”

“That’s probably a good call, it can be kind of tricky navigating around here,” she said before asking, “do you want to go get a drink?”

Now she’s speaking my kind of language… “yes please!”

We made our way to the bar making some small talk about my flight. After we got our drinks we made our way back to the lounge and sat down.

“So, give me the deets on you and Auston.” She said with a big smile.

“Haha, I’m not sure there are really any deets to tell…I’m surprised you don’t know, from what I’ve heard Mitch has kind of a big mouth…” I said with a smirk.

Steph laughed a bit, “you’re not wrong about that one…all I’ve heard is that you guys talk all the time and hooked up when he visited it before training camp.”

“Then you know just as much as I do,” I said laughing a bit.

“All I have to say is that Auston has never been like this about a girl…”

“What do you mean ‘like this?’” I inquired.

“I mean…he doesn’t stop talking about you, he’s been glued to his phone waiting for you text him or call him, and believe it or not, he hasn’t been going home with girls as much as he usually does…”

“Wait he doesn’t?”

“Not really, I don’t remember the last time he took someone home with him…do you sleep with other guys?”

“I mean not really, I did sleep with this one guy a couple of months ago, but it was kind of drunken mistake. When Auston visited we talked about what we were and we both decided that we were fine just being friends with benefits, which I actually am fine with, I just don’t really have the urge to sleep with anyone else.”

“I think he’s feeling the same way, but don’t say anything to him, he should probably talk to you about this himself.” She said with a small smile.

We sat in silence for a few moments when more people came in. There was a pack of blondes that walked over to us. Steph introduced me to everyone, and I made some small talk with them for a little bit before the game started. Right before Steph and I made our way down to our seats, Christina came in with her boys. She immediately recognized who I was, I’m assuming now that Auston had shown her pictures, and I got a similar welcome to what Steph gave me. She gave me a huge hug and said how glad she was to finally meet me. I let her know the same before Steph dragged me behind her to make our way to our seats.

We were down there for about five minutes before the Leaf’s came out for warm-ups. I couldn’t help but smile seeing Auston on the ice. He just looked so at peace, even before a big game. A few minutes into warm-ups he skated by giving me a wave and wink. I blushed a bit and waved back. He came back again a few minutes later and mouthed “you look cute as fuck.” I blushed more and that eased my worries about the comments a little bit.

At the end of the second period, it was tied 2-2 and the game was getting a bit rough. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love a good fight, but I was a little worried about Auston getting hurt, and I was hoping for a good outcome, I know how Auston gets after a loss and I wanted to have a good time tonight.

Luckily, Auston scored in the last 2 minutes, getting them the win. Steph and I both cheered before we made our way down the tunnel to the locker room.

We chatted with the other WAGs a bit waiting for them to be done with interviews.

A few minutes later, Auston emerged from the locker room. He still had most of his gear on, he had just taken off his jersey and his shoulder pads. He was super sweaty, but honestly, he looked as hot as fuck. I could not wait to get him into bed. He smiled when he saw me and gave me a hug and kissed my forehead.

“Good game, Aus,” I said smiling.

“Thanks, it was really nice to have you in the stands.” He said softly.

“It was nice being in the stands…” I said before lowering my voice a little bit, “but um, do you think you could speed up a bit? That game winner was kind of a turn on…”

“You got it, babe,” he said before laughing and squeezing my ass as he jogged off to get changed.

Once he came out again, he grabbed my hand and we hurried to his car. We made out a bit in his car before deciding going back to his place was probably better.

As soon as he opened the door and dropped his bag he picked me up and brought me to the bedroom. He let me down on the bed and started taking my clothes off.

“You know…this is kind of a signature Auston look…” He said commenting on how similar I dressed to him.

“That’s what I was going for…” I said kissing him to shut him up.

I was down to my panties yet he was still fully dressed. I stopped what we were doing and started undressing him. I went for his pants as he started unbuttoning his shirt. I took his boxers off and started sucking his dick. I had been waiting to taste him for so long, I went to town. He stopped me after a few minutes and we moved to the bed. I laid on my back and he immediately went down on me. I forgot how good his tongue felt inside of me, the way he sucks on my clit... “Mmmm, Aus. I need to you fuck me right now,” I managed to moan out.

“Anything for you, baby.” He climbed over me and start to fuck me, he started off slowly, kissing me with every thrust. He gradually picked up the pace, before full speed he turned me over and started fucking me from behind.

“Mmmm, fuck Aus, I’m gonna cum,”

“I’m so close, baby,” he replied giving my ass a slap.

A few minutes later we were laying side by side catching our breath. “I missed that so much,” Auston spoke up first.

“I’ve thought about going to bed with you every day…” I responded looking over at him.

“I wish you could…”

“I wish I could too Aus, but I just still don’t know what is happening next year.”

“I know, I know, I just really like being with you.”

“I like being with you too, but I like what we have going.”

“Me too,” he said with a small smile.

“You should get to bed, you have practice in the morning.”

He gave me a kiss and turned off the light and we went to bed.

I woke up the next morning alone in bed. Auston had left me a note saying that he’d be back around 11am, and to help myself to whatever food for breakfast. I laid in bed a bit longer and then decided to get up. I made myself some eggs and watched TV for a little bit before going to take a shower.

When I got out of the shower it was about 10:30, Auston would be back soon, so I got dressed, cleaned up the kitchen and went back to watching Netflix. I had texted Wyatt last week letting him know I was going to be in Toronto and would like to catch up. Wyatt was a friend from undergrad who lives in the area. Since Auston would be gone the whole next day I figured that would be a good time to meet up with Wyatt. I decided to text him and see what he was doing.

Hey, Wyatt!! I’m in Toronto!

Y/N!! I was wondering if you were going to text me…so far so good?

Yeah, this city is beautiful!

Yeah, it’s pretty nice, do you still have time to grab a bite to eat? I was hoping you had some time tomorrow, Auston has to be at the rink all day so I have to entertain myself.

Yeah, I’m free all day, we could get lunch?

That works, can’t wait. :)

Great, I’ll text you tomorrow.

As soon as I read his text, Auston walked through the door. I smiled as he set his bag down and made his way over to me.

“How was practice?” I asked.

“It was good, tiring.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving…do you want to go out?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel like cooking, give me 10 to change?”

“Of course!” I said with a smile. He pecked my lips before heading off to change.

He emerged a few minutes later and we headed out to a nice Mexican restaurant for lunch.

We made some small talk before he brought up what I could do the next day while he was at the rink.

“Actually, I have a friend, I think I’ve mentioned him before…but I think we are going to lunch.”

“Ohh, yeah. I do remember you mentioning him. He lives in Toronto?”

“Yeah, he goes to medical school here.”

“Is he from the states?” “No, he’s from a place about an hour from here, but he played at CU.”

“Ohh, that’s right.”

I was trying to read Auston, I couldn’t tell if he was bothered by it or not. Wyatt and I were kind of friends with benefits throughout our four years, but that was it, we don’t really talk so much anymore, but I haven’t told Auston that we did hook up. I feel like I should because it was don’t want to shady, but there isn’t anything to worry about so I don’t want to make him upset.

“…is that okay?” I asked.

“Of course, I’m glad you have something to do tomorrow.” He responded pointedly.

“You seem kind of upset about it…”

“I’m not, I just wasn’t expecting you to hang out with another guy I guess…”

“We’re just friends, Aus. We haven’t even really talked much since we graduated, I just thought it would be nice to catch up and I wouldn’t have to sit in your apartment all day.”

“Did you ever sleep with him?” He asked.

“We did have sex, but it never became anything more, we were just friends with benefits.”

“Is he going to want to sleep with you?”

“I don’t know, maybe, but I’m not going to.”

“Why not?”

“Because, I’m here with you, and I don’t want or need to sleep with him.”

“So, you just want to have lunch with him for something to do tomorrow?”

“I mean yeah, but besides the sex, we were really good friends, and I miss him, and I’d like to catch up.”  

He looked at me kind of quizzically.

“If you don’t want me to, I won’t go.”

“No, no, it’s fine, really.”

“Really?” I asked incredulously.

“Really. I want you to catch up and have a good time. You should ask him to go to the game too.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, and you can invite him to go out with us after.”

I eyed him curiously, he laughed a little and reassured me he was fine with it.

“Okay then…”

Our food had come, which I was thankful for because that conversation was not fun to have. I was hoping this wouldn’t affect the rest of our week. I understand why Auston might be a little upset, but we aren’t together, and I truly don’t want to sleep with Wyatt.

Luckily, the rest of the lunch was fine. We went to back to Auston’s and just spent the day lounging around and watching movies. We made spaghetti for dinner and ended up having a little bit of a food fight. By the time we finished cleaning up and actually eating it was around eight. We started getting ready for bed because Auston had to be up early, but, of course, got a quickie in before actually going to bed.

I got up to pee before shutting the light off, when I got back into bed Auston was already half asleep.

“Goodnight, Y/N/N,” He mumbled.

“Goodnight, Aus,” I said softly.

The next morning, I woke to an empty bed. I noticed a note left on his pillow. Have a good day, today! I’ll text you when I can, and I’ll see you tonight <3

I smiled at the note before putting it on the nightstand and laying back down for a little bit. It was only 9:00am so I decided to rest for a little bit longer.

I sent Auston a text, saying thank you for the note and that I hope he has a good day. I didn’t expect a response anytime soon since he said he would be really busy all day.

I scrolled through Instagram and Twitter, everyone was asking about who this “mystery girl” with Auston is. All of my social media accounts are private, except for VSCO, which is linked in my Instagram bio and I have been getting more followers since arriving in Toronto. I think it’s kind of funny, never in a million years did I think people would be in a frenzy over who I am. In the middle of scrolling through Instagram, Wyatt texted me.

Hey, Y/N, you still free to get lunch?

Yeah! When do you want to go?

12:30 work?

Yeah, that’s good.

Alright, do you want to just meet there?

Works for me

Cool, I’ll send you the address.

Perfect, can’t wait to see you!!

I set my phone down and got up to shower. I stood under the running water just thinking about how crazy it is that I am in Auston Matthew’s bathroom. I think about it a lot, but I still just can’t believe this is where my life is at right now. After bringing myself back down to earth, I finish up shampooing and conditioning my hair and I hop out of the shower to get dressed. I checked my phone and I had a few text messages, one was from Auston checking in, one was from April, and one from Wyatt telling me where the restaurant was. I sent a quick reply to Auston before responding to April and then looking up the restaurant. It said it was about a 15-minute walk from Auston’s which I decided to do because it wasn’t super cold out and it would give me a chance to see some of the city.

I finished getting dressed and decided to head out, I could just walk around a little bit since I was a little early.

I got the restaurant a few minutes early, but when I got inside I spotted Wyatt sitting at a table. He spotted me and stood up as I approached him, he wrapped in a big hug and then we both sat down.

“It’s so nice to see you,” I said with a huge smile.

“I know, you look great,” He reciprocated.

“Thanks,” I said, blushing a bit, “so how have you been???”

“Pretty good, med school is kicking my ass, but I love it.”

“Good, I’m sure it is…I’m nervous I won’t get in anywhere.”

“Don’t be nervous, I’m sure you’ll get in somewhere…hopefully here!!”

“Haha, yeah. That would be pretty cool.”

“So, speaking of…what is the deal with this whole Auston Matthews thing?”

Just as he finished asking me, the waitress came up to take our order. We ordered our food and went right back into our conversation.

“Well, I told you we met over the summer, we talked almost every day for the rest of the summer and he came back to visit before he came here for training, and now I’m here.”

“You’re not dating though?”

“No, we decided with the distance we were good just being friends.”

“But you also sleep together I’m assuming…?”

“Well yeah, but we’ve only actually been together in person 3 times.”

“Gotcha….” He said giving me a look.

“What’s that look for?”

“Nothing... just be careful…”

“I know, I’m not naïve, I know how hockey players are…” giving him an accusing look, he threw up his arms in surrender before i kept going on, “and that’s part of the reason we’re not dating, I don’t want to hold him back, and I also don’t want to worry about him cheating on me every day.”

“Okay, well as long as you know what you’re doing.”

“I do but thank you for the concern.”

Our food came, and we ended up talking for about another hour. We realized we should probably go somewhere else so they could have the table back.

“Do you want to go back to my place? It’s not far from here.” He asked.

“Sure!”

We made our way to his place, it was a lot nicer than I thought it would be. He lives with two other guys, so it was a lot cleaner than I had expected. He gave me a quick tour, offered me something to drink and then we sat on the couch and continued talking. I figured I should invite him to the game before it got too late.

“Auston saved me an extra ticket for tonight if you want to come?”

“Yeah, I’d love to.”

“They’re all planning on going out after, and you’re more than welcome to come too!”

“All?”

“I mean not all, but a group of guys from the team.”

“You know, I could get used to you shacking up with one of the Maple Leaf’s…”

I gave him a small push and laughed, “anything to make you happy…”

“Have you met the team?”

“I mean I went to the game the other night, and so I met a bunch of them, but I only really know Mitch well. I’ve talked with Patrick, Freddie, Morgan, Will, and Kappy over Facetime, but I don’t really know them that well.”

“That’s crazy. Do you know who is going out tonight?”

“Not exactly, but probably the guys I just mentioned and a few others.”

“What time is the game?”

“It starts at 7, but we can go a little early and hang out in the VIP box and get a few drinks if you want.”

“That sounds good…what time is it now?”

“Mmm...like 4:30. Do you want to come to Auston’s with me? I just have to change then we can head to the rink.”

“Yeah, that works. Give me a minute to change.”

He walked off to his room to change, so I checked my phone. I had a text from Auston.

Hey, Y/N/N. I hope lunch was good!! I don’t think I’ll see you before the game, but your tickets are in will-call.

Okay, thank you!! Is it okay if we get a few drinks in the VIP box before the game?

Yeah, of course! So, lunch was good?

I kind of rolled my eyes at his persistence about lunch.

Yeah, it was nice, we hung out all afternoon. We’re going to head back to your place so I can change and then we’re going to head to the arena.

I’m glad. See you soon :)

Good luck, Aus!!!

Just as we finished our conversation, Wyatt emerged from the hallway.

“Ready?” He asked.

I nodded, I had called an Uber, we probably could have walked but it was starting to get colder and I wanted to get to the rink.

I changed as quickly as I could and called another Uber, and we were on our way.

When we got to the arena, we stopped and got our tickets and we headed to the VIP box. We had a few drinks and then headed down to our seats to catch warm-ups. I got some butterflies because I realized Auston would see Wyatt for the first time, and I know deep down that Auston is not crazy about him. All throughout the game, Auston kept looking at us. I was starting to get really nervous to introduce them after the game. Wyatt seemed to pick up on Auston’s looks too because he commented on them.

“Are you sure you guys are just friends? He keeps shooting me daggers.”

I sighed a bit, “yeah, he wasn’t totally thrilled when I told him I was getting lunch with you, he asked what our relationship was, and when I told him we fucked he wasn’t too happy. But it’s fine.”

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to go out with you tonight?”

“Yes, I mean he was the one who wanted to invite you. I explained to him that really are just friends and he seemed to back off a bit.”

“Whatever you say…I just don’t want to get jumped by an NHL team…”

I chuckled a bit, “you won’t get jumped, I promise.”

The game ended, the Leaf’s won, which I was glad for because I was hoping Auston would be in a good mood to meet Auston. I lead Wyatt down the tunnel towards the locker room.

We waited for a little while before players started emerging. I greeted the few that I knew, and then looked up to see Auston come out of the locker room. He walked up to us and it seemed like both of them were trying to size each other up. I rolled my eyes before Auston stuck out his hand, “you must be Wyatt, I’m Auston, nice to meet you…”  

[trashforhockeyguys]

Nervous// Auston Matthews

Your hands shook as you stepped into the limo. Although you’d been an actress for years, you still got extremely nervous before any premier. You knew it was because you were going to debut a new project, whether that be a film or a show, and there was always that chance that it wouldn’t be well received.

However, this time was different because the new Netflix series was one that was so close to your heart. You’d had to fight to even get it made and had worked so hard on every single episode. You’d put all you had into the first season. But production on the second season would all depend on how the premier tonight went.

Your co-star and now best friend nudged your arm,” Your boy toy is calling.”

You took a deep breath and took the phone from her hands. You hadn’t even realized it had been ringing, or that she’d picked it up for you. You didn’t know why he was calling, especially since he was supposed to be getting ready for his home opener tonight.

“Bub?” You questioned, finally bringing the phone to your ear.

“How are you?” Auston asked quickly,” Not too nervous?”

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your game?” You replied, dodging his question.

You could hear music and a few other voices from his end. You suspected he was still in the locker room, probably sitting in his stall all hunched over with his phone held close. He probably had on a baseball cap along with his hockey gear.

“Willy, can you shut up!” Auston yelled, momentarily pulling the phone away, “Sorry, the guys all wanted to wish you luck.”

“Auston,” You whined,” You should be focused on the game.”

“I had to check on you first. You come first remember?” He reminded you” Besides, we have time.”

You and Auston had met when you first started production on the show. You’d been filming in Toronto and happened to be working closely with the Maple Leafs. The team had helped with all of the hockey sequences and any other important details.

Auston had bonded with you pretty quickly, and you started dating not much long after. Your relationship was fun to say the least. The two of you were constantly joking and going on adventures through Toronto. When he was on road trips he was constantly Snapchatting you selfies or videos of the rest of the team doing stupid things, at night you’d always FaceTime. When he was home, especially on nights after games, you’d both snuggle up either in bed or on the couch and talk for hours.

To say that Auston was the love of your life would be an understatement.

“You never answered my question,” He said after a bit of silence.

“I’m okay,” You replied, “I just hate that I can’t be there for you tonight.”

He laughed and I smiled at the sound, “Me? Baby, I should be the one there for you! There will be other games, but this is such a big night for you.”

“Auston, it’s okay. You’re where you need to be,” You told him,” Just so you know, I’m still representing. I made sure I got a nice blue dress, even had them stitch in a little 34 right by my heart.”

You could picture his smile, big and unchecked. You liked when you could make him smile like that, it was truly the only smile you wanted to see these days. You two hadn’t been able to spend much time together over the off season, you’d both been so busy. But the time that you had spent together had been nothing shy of blissful.

“I love you Y/N,” He told me quietly.

“I love you too Aus,” You whispered.

Your heart swelled and ached, you wished you could be there with him. But you also wished he could be here with you. The one thing you absolutely hated about your job was that it often took you away from Auston. Last season you’d missed a couple of important home games due to filming taking longer than you’d anticipated. You could still remember sitting in your chair watching the game.

You looked out of the window and saw that you were pulling up to the carpet,” I have to go Auston, we’re almost there.”

“Don’t be nervous, okay? It’s going to be amazing, I promise everyone is going to love it Y/N,” He assured you,” Are you sure you still want to fly back in the morning?”

“I would fly back tonight if I could,” You admitted,” I just want to be back home with you. The last two weeks of press and late-night show appearances have been awful.”

“Well then, I’ll see you as soon as you land,” He promised, “I’ll even have a big corny sign and flowers if you want.”

You had to choke back a laugh as your best friend gave you her little pouty face that she made when Auston did something cute. She’d started doing that long before you and Auston were officially together. She had been one of the few, along with Mitch Marner and William Nylander, who said you and Auston would end up together. The three of them, as far as you knew, might have even schemed a little to get you and Auston together, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care now. Not when you were this happy.

“I’ll see you first thing then?” You asked Auston,” I can’t promise I’ll look good though.”

You could almost picture him rolling his eyes,” You look good no matter what. Now go kill that premier, I’ll see you in the morning.”

The premier had been amazing. Everyone had loved the show and Netflix was now considering renewing for two seasons. Now all you had to do was wait a week and see how the now debuted on the website. However, everything looked so promising that you almost weren’t worried about it anymore.

The next morning you had to fight yourself to get out of bed. The night had been long, which was in part you fault for staying at the after party too late. But the Leafs had won, Aus had played amazing, so you figured you had a lot to celebrate.

You slept through almost all of the flight, waking up only once the decent into Toronto started. After that you were nothing but a ball of excitement. You hadn’t seen Auston in what felt like months, but in all reality was just a few weeks. In your book though, a few weeks felt like a lifetime.

“Y/N!”

You didn’t even have to look to see who was calling you as you stepped out of the terminal. You’d know Auston’s voice anywhere, as cliché as it was. A smile took over your face as you took off running towards him. You dropped your bag and jumped into his arms. He laughed and held you close to him. The both of you seemed to want to freeze this moment and just stay like that for a while longer.

“Don’t ever let me leave like that again,” You mumbled into his shoulder.

A few months ago, you would’ve been worried that you would’ve sounded too clingy. You’d never wanted to be that girl, but you knew Auston felt the same way. You both never thought you’d fall for one another so hard and so fast. But you knew from the very first kiss that you were stuck, you’d known from that moment on that you’d loved him.

“Take me home Auston. I just want to get on the couch and cuddle for the rest of the day,” You told him,” Tell the guys they can come over tomorrow. I just want to spend today with my favorite person.”

“You’re so corny,” He joked, bopping my nose.

“Just take me home?” You peaded, wanting to get out of the airport.

“Always,” He promised.

[sutterbabe]

#5 Auston Matthews

Requested by @rxsita-twd

Can you do one where you're Mitch's twin sis and like you're at a game 'cause you live in Toronto and Auston gets really hurt and Mitch gets attacked trying to defend him from more attacks and they have to get both boys off the ice (Mitch can still walk but Auston has to be carried) and you race there trying to find out if your brother is okay and Auston pretty much confesses his love for you to everyone in the room without realizing it because he's pretty much knocked out? PRETTY PLEASE THANKS

You guys always have the best prompts and I love it !

Auston is a meme and I had to stop myself from writing ‘cash me outside howbow dah’

This took so long and i couldn’t figure out how to write the important bit.

Also focuses more on mitch than auston im sorry but sibling relationships are really important to me.

Pre-writing note: I bet this is gonna make me cry

Song suggestion of the day: Life worth living by Laurel

Warnings: I got no brothers but my cousin has acted as a stand in and I’ve been traumatised beyond belief so i think im good. He’s an embarrassment. LANGUAGE WARNING (its not that bad idk why i put it in caps).

“...and if someone in a Canucks jersey tries to talk to you, punch them.”

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head in disbelief as you glanced across the living room at Auston Matthews, who was watching the exchange with an amused expression. “Mitchell, you’re only older by three minutes, stop trying to act like Chris.” you retorted indignantly, turning your attention back to your twin brother who was clattering around behind you in the kitchen.

“Well, in his absence his solemn duty, to protect you from all harm, now falls to me.” Mitch stated, a matter-of-factly as he walked into the room and plonked himself down beside you. Okay, you hadn’t been to a game in a little while, not everyone can have their dream job (or unlimited time off). That said, It wasn’t like you’d never been to a hockey game, you’d probably disowned (at least by your brothers) if you hadn’t. Still, Mitch was being a pain by trying to be overprotective and you hadn’t even left the house yet.

“That is not Chris’ job. At least he knows I can look after myself.” you muttered, throwing your legs over Mitch’s lap as you leaned back on the arm of the couch, watching him struggle with his tie.

“I’m being caring and brotherly.” Mitch whined, as you finally relented, sitting up to help him fix his tie.

“It’s a hockey game not a bar fight.” you retorted, glancing over at the only american in the room, yet again. “Auston, back me up here.”

“No, no, no. Illegal move. He’s my friend, you can’t use him against me.” Mitch protested indignantly.

“So I can’t be friends with Auston because you’re friends with him?” you retorted. “Sharing is caring, Mitch. Besides, your advice is stupid. I’d probably get more hurt than the person I was punching. It’s the easiest way to break your hand, you know.”

Mitch made a face. “You get my point though.” 

You had to refrain from rolling your eyes again. “Well, Vancouver wouldn’t be so riled up if you would just shut your damn mouth sometimes.” you retorted. Although he was taller than you (just), on the ice, your twin brother was both tiny and annoying. He was also very good but there was no way you were telling him anything of the sort.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Mitch laughed.

“The fun is not getting ten million phone calls from mum every time someone tries to fight you.” you replied, with a hint of annoyance. Truthfully you were more worried than annoyed. Mitch might be a pain but if anyone so much as yelled at him, you were prepared to fight them yourself.

“Not my problem.” he teased, but sobered up under your frown. “Don’t worry, that’s why I’m friends with this guy.” he patted leaned across to Auston’s knee. “he has a scary war face. I saw it one time when we played the ‘yotes” Mitch faked a shudder. “I didn’t sleep for a week.” Auston shoved mitch lightly at that.

you rolled your eyes. “Auston’s the possibly one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met, he couldn’t hurt a fly.” You glanced at Auston. “No offence?”

Auston shrugged and shook his head lightly, his cheeks tinted a light pink shade. “None taken.” Mitch laughed at this,waggling his eyebrows and making you elbow his ribs.

you nodded appreciatively at Auston. “Also, do not fight anyone for him.” you warned, glaring at your brother.

Mitch shook his head. “Stop being annoying. We’ll be fine. Now where’s your jersey?” he demanded.

“Right next to you, doofus. Are we going or not?” you replied.

In reply you received a jersey to the face.

You didn’t pay much attention during warm ups, mainly because they usually consisted of your brother goofing off and just generally being embarrassing. Auston, Mitch and a couple of other leafs guys would skate past every so often and slam into the boards in front of you, making you jump in surprise (much to your displeasure).

This was the last of three match-ups between Toronto and Vancouver, and you could already tell it was going to be a hard fought game before it had even started. You could see words being exchanged whenever one player got close to the other team. Unsurprisingly, Mitch had easily seen through your guise of disinterest earlier and would glance over at you every now and again to give you a reassuring smile. You would gave him a half-hearted one and a thumbs up in return and he would nod.

It was a scoreless but not uneventful first period. There were a few hits that had you screaming insults at the ice, and you could see Mitch going about his usual business riling people up, which didn’t help your game anxiety. The second period wan’t much better and you could tell the rest of the crowd were itching for some action. The third period started well for the leafs, Auston was on fire, speeding around and making plays. Mitch had the puck and was zooming down the ice towards you, when out of nowhere a canucks player appeared, slamming him into the boards. You flew to your feet, screaming profanities, Auston was by his friends side in an instant, giving the offending player a hefty shove. You could see him yelling at the linesman, gesturing to Mitch who had clambered to his feet. Auston and mitch were shaking their heads and just generally looking frustrated as they spoke with one of the linesman before skating away looking furious. Meanwhile, the Canucks fans were louder than ever. Auston tapped gently on the glass in front of you with his stick as he skated past while they prepped for a face off, making you smile a little as Mitch gave you a little thumbs up and stuffed his mouthguard back in his mouth. The canucks player from before skated past and muttered a few words to Mitch who glanced at you and laughed. That was one of the things you admired about your brother, his ability to shrug things off. Auston was usually included in this bracket but apparently whatever they were saying was really getting to him today. 

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” you heard Mitch laugh as he skated by, canuck right up in his grill. Auston eventually got tired of the guy tailing his friend and gave him a shove. The player didn’t take kindly to it, the two guys were staring each other down, each sprouting equally offensive chirps.

“Come on, let’s fucking go.” the canucks player had dropped his gloves and the crowd was going crazy. “come on, hot shot”

Your brother was watching Auston apprehensively, not wanting to intervene just yet.

It was clear Auston wasn’t going to take the bait and the game only got rougher from there. They had eyes on both Mitch and Auston which was making you more than nervous and with no goals, the game was going into OT, or what you like to call ‘oh fuck’. A couple of canucks drove Tyler Bozak headfirst into the boards and from there everything disintegrated. Auston rushed over to make sure Tyler was okay, but instead was met by three canucks who were itching for a fight. Mitch rushed in to help his friend out, but it only made things all the worse. There was blood on the ice and you couldn’t tell if Mitch and Auston were alright since they were trapped right in the heart of a massive line brawl. You were beside yourself with worry, your phone was ringing out and you bet ten bucks it was your mum. As the scrum was broken up by the linesmen, you could finally get a view of the carnage and it didn’t look good. You’d seen a lot of hockey fights in your day, but nothing like this. Your twin brother was struggling to his feet and had to be helped up and off the ice by Matt Martin and Zach Hyman. Meanwhile, Auston was hardly moving, and the sight of a stretcher being rushed onto the ice, really didn’t help your nerves. You didn’t even stay to see them get rushed off the ice safely, you were already sprinting towards the locker rooms get to your brother.

“Mitch!” You cried, flinging yourself into your brother’s arms. He looked worried and very bruised but otherwise alright. You smoothed his hair back from his face to check for any other bruises, still wide eyed and extremely worried. “Are you alright? Did they say you’re okay? Oh my god, I was so.. You scared me! Are you sure you’re okay?” as you continued interrogating him, a couple of his teammates popped in to see how they were doing. Even the news of Mo’s game winning goal didn’t seem to cheer Mitch up. After assuring you that he was alright at least a hundred times over, you finally released him from your bone crushing hug. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?” you snapped, shoving his shoulder. 

“Y/N,” Mitch protested, stepping back to steady himself as your push had caught him unawares. 

“The hell were you thinking! I thought…” to be honest you didn’t really know what was going through your mind at the time, it was all such a blur. “You could’ve gotten seriously hurt.” You glared at him. “I bet you’re fucking pleased with yourself.”

“What did you expect me to do?! I was supposed to fucking sit there while he’s got three guys on top of him?” Mitch yelled, gesturing to the other side of the room where Auston Matthews had lost all forms of mental filter which was much to the amusement of his present leafs teammates.

“I don’t know! I don’t know, okay! You’re not allowed to pull that shit! What the fuck did you say to them?”

“Oh so now this is my fault?” Mitch seethed incredulously.

“I told you if you didn’t shut your fucking mouth-“

“That is not what this is about!”

“Fucking enlighten me then Mitchell because one of your best friends was just pummelled-“

“They said some things and I-“

“What the fuck could they possibly say to you? You laughed in his fucking face!”

“It wasn’t just me! Auston didn’t take too kindly-“

“Oh well done Mitch, blame it on the unconscious guy."

“That is not what is going on here!” He retorted. “If you’d actually let me get a fucking word in.”

You glared. “I don’t fucking care. You gave me a fucking heart attack and Auston wasn’t fucking moving. Excuse me if I’m not as calm as you expected.”

“Austin’s going to be fine.” Mitch snapped, but he sounded unsure.

“Really? Do you know that? I’m no doctor but I don’t think he’s going to jump back out, whoopty-do, and be ready to play.” you replied

“He could.”

You almost screamed at your brother. “Is this a fucking game to you? You could have died!”okay a tad dramatic but to be honest, unconscious Auston Matthews was giving you an indication of how serious this was. 

“Y/N!” Mitch cried out, frustrated, grabbing your wrists as you threw your hands up in exasperation. “I’m sorry! What else do you want me to say, okay? I’m sorry!” You sighed in defeat, relenting and melting into him, squeezing him in a painfully tight hug. Mitch chuckled nervously, as he glanced down at you. “Uh,”

On the other side of the room, your harried yells attracted the american’s attention. Will Nylander watched for a moment as Auston struggled to sit up before finally taking pity on him and helping him out.“What’s up, buddy?”

“Is Y/N here?” Auston asked. A giant grin appeared on Matt Martin’s face as Willy frowned a little in confusion. The conversation caught Mitch’s attention and he extracted himself from your bone crushing hug to listen in.

“Yeah, why?” The other leafs watched in amusement as Auston’s cheeks flushed gently. 

“I’m so fucking whipped.” he told them with a laugh.You were pretty sure both you and Mitch’s jaws fell open in perfect synch as five expressions ranging from amusement to surprise were directed at you.

“Probably don’t announce that to the whole room, Matts.” Mitch muttered through clenched teeth.

You rounded on him. “You knew!” you gasped. “you little shit!”

“ow!” mitch protested indignantly as you landed a solid punch to his shoulder. “He said you were pretty and I told him to stop hitting on you! OW! Stop it!”

You glared at him before grinning giddily at Auston. “you are literally the cutest thing in human existence.”

Behind you, Mitch made a gaging motion.

[indutime]

A First Date

Here’s a story I’ve been telling a lot lately.

Coffee Meets Bagel is a dating app, and as with all modern dating apps, it comes with little gimmicks. For CMB (that’s what its veterans call it), a chat line between a matched pair lasts for only 7 days. This time limit is used to instill a sense of urgency to trade other contact info, grab a date, and presumably sprint to the altar. 

In one such chat line, I had matched with a consultant currently residing in San Francisco. Conversation was sparse but interesting and I got the feeling she genuinely wanted to trade words as opposed to simply answering questions. I get a notification on my phone reminding me that the chat line is about to expire and make a mental note to ask for her personal contact info soon and go back to playing video games (probably). 

And so of course, I forget, and the chat line expires. I desperately try to find some sort of loophole in the app to reopen the conversation, but those devs at CMB aren’t bluffing. When they say 7 days they mean it. 

After about a week, I decide to Google the only things I knew about her from her profile: her first name, her job and her location. First result was her LinkedIn profile. For those not in the know, LinkedIn is basically a social network for people who really care about their jobs and also comes with a paid premium option to unlock special abilities. One of those social network super powers is to message someone without having added them as a connection. “I’m not going to add her on f-ing LinkedIn” and so I move on with my life. 

Two weeks later I add her on LinkedIn.

To accompany my invitation, LinkedIn graciously allows users to add a 500 character limit message. Here is that message:

Okay I know how creepy this looks but I was bummed we didn't trade more info before the chat line expired. I figured what the hell and just searched "(her name) san francisco consulting" and you were first. This is probably the absolute worst way to connect so if you want to ignore this, I totally get it

She accepts my request a few hours later and responds, “nice sleuthing”

I ask her if she’d like to meet up (for professional purposes, obviously). She says she does, but unfortunately she’s out of town for the next couple weeks for a business trip. I ask her if she would like to trade alternative contact info and she politely declines, and states she’s enjoying chatting through a social network for built for professionals. Oddly enough, I don’t mind either. I’m a sucker for quirky stuff like this. Over the next two weeks, conversation remains sparse. All throughout the days I refresh my LinkedIn homepage hoping to see a new message in my inbox and find myself cursing this “quirky” website.

After two weeks, she’s returning back home so I ask if she’s free that coming Saturday. Indeed she is, and asks me where I’d like to go. I’m not really much into the fine dining scene and ask her if there’s any place she’s been wanting to try. She eventually decides for us to meet at Burma Star at 5:30. And on that Friday before the day of the meeting she finally sends me her phone number. “Big milestone,” she says.

I take the train to my office a few hours before the date. The office is empty, save for Jonathon (who’s always there for God knows what) and Mitch, who’s live-streaming a new game called Nioh. I have a Sunday School lesson to prepare for the next day so I take a seat at my desk. Suddenly, I smell something awful. I had smelled it earlier on the train but had just assumed it was someone else with bad B.O. But now as I sat alone, I knew it had to be me. I take off a shoe and take a strong whiff. Bad move. But at least now I’d found the culprit. I then realized I had been wearing the same socks that I had worn the day before and had slept in all night. And boy, my feet sweat. So I head over to a window and place my shoes on the sill and outstretch my socks over a houseplant. Maybe airing them out for a while will get rid of the embedded smell. I wet some paper towels in the kitchen and wipe my feet down to get rid of any residual stench. 

I take a seat next to the window and realize this process is not going fast enough; it was now an hour a half or so until the date. I couldn’t solve this problem by just waiting around, I had to take action. Then I remembered I had found a healthy orange off the street a few days prior and had kept it at my desk as a snack should I ever need it. But I wasn’t hungry. I was desperate. I peel the orange and place the peels inside my shoes. I take a few pieces and place them on top of the peels. I take another piece and rub down my socks with them, hoping to create some sort of citrus filter.

It was a fruitless effort (insert pun acknowledgement here) and deep down I knew there was no way this smell was going away without washing them. But there wasn’t enough time to dry them. Then I remembered my company had handed out dozens of free socks a few months prior and I kept a pair in my bag for any sock emergency I might ever have. This was that moment. I reach into my bag to pull out the fresh pair of socks and thank the Lord for my gift of foresight. 

It was just about time to go and I take one last sniff test for the three troublemakers. My feet smelled decent, my new socks smelled like nothing, and my shoes smelled like someone sprayed orange zest in a tennis player’s gym bag. But hey, two for three ain’t bad. 

My office is in the SoMa district of the city and the restaurant is in the Mission. I take a quick look at the map and find out it’s a walkable distance. I’m always fine with walking especially if it’s a great day in the city. I had been paying for Ubers all week and didn’t want to do more needless spending. And besides, I needed a way to work off my first-date nerves. 

Right outside the office, I run into another coworker, Oblanca, who asks me “You know it’s Saturday right?” I put in my headphones and start listening to Elbow’s newest album for the first time. I check Maps to see when Google estimates I’d arrive at the destination. 5:50 P.M. Not good. I text her, “Hey, it’d be super cool if you’re also going to be late.” She asks how late we’re talking here and I reply 15 minutes. Immediately I realize that 15 minutes is a little too late to be late for a first date. And so I start running. After half a mile (yes, really. I just checked on Google Maps) I realize how sweaty I’m getting. This was everything I sought to avoid. So I cave and hail an Uber and text her that I’m actually going to be right on time. “Great, now I’m going to be 10 minutes late,” she responds.

I actually see her walk into the restaurant about a minute before me. I take off the baseball cap that I had been wearing all day to hold my hair back and stick it in my jacket pocket as I enter the restaurant. She doesn’t see me enter so I approach her and she smiles and gets up to give me a hug. Her smile lights up her whole face. She’s wearing a thin black turtleneck. It complements her long black hair.

As it turns out, exercise does not help to get rid of nerves. The adrenaline from the run is only adding to it. I’d also never had Burmese food before (except a Burmese food truck that shows up outside our office sometimes) and there were a thousand things on the menu that I couldn’t decide between. I start talking about the VR project I had been working on and I can tell by her face that she doesn’t care. But I can’t just leave the story unfinished so I painfully finish the boring tale of the technical problems we’re encountering with the project. I’m rambling. I’m not making eye contact. She’s much prettier in person. I look and sound like a moron.

She recommends the fermented tea leaf salad, a Burmese staple. And we each order another dish; her, the garlic noodles with duck and I, the “Tofu Tower.” I get a beer and she orders a whiskey cocktail. Alcohol finally settles my nerves a little and we’re able to get into typical light-hearted first date conversation topics, like politics and religion. She’s very intelligent and well-spoken and extremely charming and surprisingly witty. I don’t fake my laughs or smiles.

She asks me of bad habit that I have. “No stupid answers like, ‘I’m a perfectionist.’” The first thing that comes to my mind is that I don’t brush my teeth at night. (Yes, I know this sounds really gross. It started off as laziness in college but I’ve never had a cavity in my life. So hey, the proof is in the pudding.) But I’m not going to tell her that on a first date for obvious reasons. The first time I had told my previous girlfriend about it, we got into a straight up argument. So I say bad posture. She’s not pleased with the answer and we both know it’s a lame response. So I start off with another disclaimer, stating that what I’m about to say may be a potential dealbreaker and confess my dirty little secret. To my surprise, she laughs. Laughs harder than she has all night. I ask why she found it so hilarious, but she’s not entirely sure. She suspects it was because the long disclaimer made her expect some really bad habit, like hard drugs, but it turned out to be so innocent yet still gross. She says my answer is now the gold standard for every time she asks the question. I finally feel like I’m over my nerves and settle into a groove, like when you finally find the perfect rhythm to a song you’d been trying to write for weeks. 

Let me preface the rest of this by saying there’s a pattern that occurs throughout this whole date. I’ll do something really dumb or say something really stupid and then offset it later by something really smooth. And then screw it up later with something else.

So I ask her what’s her bad habit and she doesn’t have an answer. “How do you not have an answer to your own question?” I ask. She tells me I’m supposed to come up with a new one. “That’s not how it works,” I say, “for example, my go-to icebreaker question is what’s your best poop story?” “What’s a poop story?” “You know, some funny story about pooping your pants.” I can tell by her face this was not resonating well with her and I had made a big mistake by bringing up poop on a first date. So I say that I actually have another icebreaker question that I like to ask. But I pause, and say that I’m realizing there’s a theme to icebreaker questions. She asks what it is, so I tell her, “Let’s say, hypothetically, there’s a technology that will allow you to never need to pee again. What is your price ceiling on a monthly subscription to that sort of service? What if #2 was part of the deal?” But she actually answers seriously and it starts another solid conversation. 

Prior to the date, she had told me that she was going to a concert that night with her friend and that the latest she could leave was 8. I hadn’t been checking the time all night, so when she gets up to go to the bathroom, I’m assuming the date is coming to an end. I stop her as she passes by and say, “Hey, you know for $10/month, you could still be sitting here.” She gives me a laugh and playfully hits me on the shoulder as she leaves. 

When she gets back to her seat, she proposes a new plan. Let’s pay for the food now and head somewhere nearby for drinks. I ask her about her show and she says it turns out the doors open at 8 but the band she wants to see doesn’t come on until 9:30 or 10. I happily agree to this new plan. And so the check comes and we both throw our cards in without a word about it. She finds a bar nearby on her phone and when we get the to-go bag, she says “Let’s motor” and we head out.

The night is brisk but bearable and the cold, quiet air is a welcome relief from the stuffy, noisy restaurant. She asks if she can ask a personal question. “Go ahead.” “Why did you break up with your ex?” It’s at this point I realized that I had been mentioning my ex quite a bit throughout dinner. Even in purely unromantic anecdotes. I still can’t say why I did. Usually when I tell those stories, I’ll refer to her as my friend. But for some reason that night I kept mentioning her as my ex. “I talked about her a lot didn’t I?” “Yeah, you did,” she says with a smile. I answer the question and we head into the crappy little dive bar, never to say a word about my past relationships again.

We agree for her to grab the first round and I’ll grab the second. She orders a whiskey ginger and I order an old fashioned. She changes her mind and orders the same thing. When asked if there was a specific whiskey we wanted in it she asks for Bulleit. 

The bar is dark but quiet, aside from a few fans watching the basketball game on TV. The Warriors are playing in OKC for the first time this season and the game is coming to an end. Golden State is about to win. She’s a basketball fan but doesn’t follow a specific team, if she did, she’d follow the Pistons. I inquire why and she says she likes their coach, “Pop...Popolitch...?”“Popovich?” “That’s him!” “He coaches the Spurs.” “Oh yeah the Spurs! I really like them.” I agree, and we talk about Kawhi Leonard for a bit.

I grab the second round and drop the drinks off at our table before heading to the bathroom to pee. The room is narrow and dimly lit. There’s graffiti all over the walls and a hole in the door where a lock used to be. I try flushing but the toilet is busted. I wash my hands and head out, stopping by the bar to tell the bartender about the toilet. When I return to the table I rest my elbows on it with my hands clasped together. She reaches out to touch my hand for the first time and in surprise I look at her and ask what she’s doing. “Just making sure you washed your hands,” she says with a sly smile. 

She continues to be as charming as ever. We talk about our terrible eyesight, television shows and stereotypes associated with our ethnicities. She’s Korean but I ask to hear her Vietnamese accent because I know every Asian does one. She refuses, but as a Vietnamese person, I open the floor for her, telling her I won’t consider any of it racist. She does it on the condition I do mine first so I do. Hers is mostly an impression of the Phở waiter at the restaurant she frequented in college. It’s oddly guttural but still funny. 

She asks why I had asked her how long she’d been on CMB (she’d been on it for about 6 months). I shrug and say it was just an icebreaker. She tells me it was a pretty loaded question and I ask her to explain. “Well, if I had said something like a month, you might think I had just gotten off a relationship and that you’re just a rebound. Or if I said something like two years, you’d think ‘How has this chick been on the app for two years and not found anyone yet?’” “Good point, I’ll keep that in mind for the next date I go on.” I give her a smile and she laughs. 

I ask her if she honestly thought it was creepy that I found her on LinkedIn. Without hesitation she says no and in fact thought it was quite endearing. I ask her if she’s told anyone that she’s meeting a dude that she met off LinkedIn and she says no. I didn’t know how to feel about having told a dozen people about her already.

We head out to walk to her show and I plan to take a car back to the office from there with the leftover food. The night’s colder now but I’m also drunker now and therefore run a little more warm blooded. She walks up from my left and links her arm beneath mine. “So Josh. Did you have a good time tonight?” she asks. I tell her I did. It didn’t sound genuine when it came out of my mouth, but I really did. She points up at the moon and says, “Look at that, it’s a full moon. Are you going to turn into a werewolf?” I didn’t have anything witty to say, so I awkwardly let out a, “haha....yeaaaah.”

I really need to pee during the walk and kick myself for not just going at the bar (that hypothetical technology would be really convenient right now). I tell her and she feels the same way but at least she’s going to be at a place with the proper facilities soon. She starts shivering and chattering her teeth. So I slowly start pulling off my jacket, stating that she’s left me no choice. She refuses and we both acknowledge how cheesy the whole thing is but I do it anyway, saying that I get warm when I drink.

We cross a street and stop at a corner for her to check her phone to see how far away the venue is. “It’s about a block away.” “Cool, when’s your friend going to be there?” “About five minutes.” “Cool.” She stands about three feet away from me, looks at me and says, 

“So...you can kiss me now or later.”

Keep in mind here that I was not looking to kiss anyone that night. I was going into this date with the expectation of not getting any, and that was completely fine with me. I wasn’t even going into the date with the intent of getting a second date, I just wanted to not look like a total freak. So with that mindset, I was completely caught off guard. Not to mention I still really needed to pee. So I panicked.

“Uh...later, I guess.”

And I keep heading towards the venue, not even staying long enough to see her reaction to getting rejected. I even left her behind as I walked ahead of her.

But now I had time. Now that the door was open, I could mentally prepare myself for the moment. Now the plan was to kiss her in front of the venue before her friend got there and before I ventured off into the night back to the office.

We get to the venue and I call my Uber; it’s about five minutes away. I ask her when her friend is showing up and she says about two minutes. “Okay Josh, you got two minutes to do this,” I tell myself. 

About fifteen seconds later her friend shows up. We introduce ourselves and shake hands. I welcome her to our little LinkedIn event and look towards my date to see if she caught my joke since I knew her friend didn’t. She’s smiling and gives me a wink. She admits that she actually did tell someone about meeting someone off LinkedIn and that person was standing right in front of me. It was her best friend, she tells her everything. So, we have light small talk for a bit and laugh and I’m dying inside and it’s time for them to head to the show. I hug her goodbye and jump in my Uber. I get back to the office and finally pee at a urinal. I felt like I could fill a milk jug.

Jonathon is unsurprisingly still at the office and I debrief him on the whole ordeal. I decide to text her, “So, I’m going to blame not kissing you on my very burdening need to pee. But I should have anyway.” “Yes you should have!” she responds, “But that’s okay, next time I’ll turn you down and we’ll be even.”

Second date’s next week and I’ll probably still be extremely nervous.

[thrashermaxey]

Capped: Reviewing the Trade Deadline and Looking Ahead

  Well that certainly was an exciting finish on Monday afternoon! Most of the big names moved, a few players signed extensions, and we saw a bit of a power shift towards the West. The Tampa Bay Lightning still have to be the Stanley Cup favourites, but Nashville and Vegas certainly upped their chances with some bold moves.

There have been plenty of articles thus far covering the winners, losers, and fantasy impacts of deadline day. Here I want to review a few of the moves made by Columbus and Minnesota and discuss salary cap flexibility.

  ****

Minnesota Wild

  Minnesota may be going about things the wrong way, but at least you can see what direction they are trying to follow. Swapping out Nino Niederreiter (I am never not going to have to look up how to spell his name), Charlie Coyle, and Markus Granlund, for three players with lower cap hits and more years of control, gives the team more flexibility with a retooling effort, and allows the younger forwards some room to grow. However, being a team that was in a playoff position, with a 32-year old goalie, in addition to Ryan Suter and Zach Parise signed for over $7 million each until the end of time, this wasn’t the right time to try and turn over a new leaf.

Trading for young players like Ryan Donato and Kevin Fiala is a good start, but acquiring Victor Rask looks like a step backwards. That being said, this looks like a team that will have the reigns handed to the young skaters next season, where there will be space for them to thrive. Acquiring one or two of these youngsters could pay dividends for your fantasy squad, but like Minnesota, you will have to surround them with some support veterans, and they aren’t going to be cheap for long.

Pontus Aberg, Kevin Fiala, Ryan Donato, and Joel Eriksson Ek all need new contracts for next season. The flexibility that initially appears to give the Wild the options to bring in more players is going to be disappearing fast, while the team shipped out more talent than they got in return. It’s unlikely I’m going to own many, if any, Wild players to start next season, and I would recommend you proceed with caution here as well.

  ****

Columbus Blue Jackets

  The Columbus Blue Jackets have gone all-in for this season, leaving themselves with over $24 million in cap hits coming off of the books next season, and only two draft picks this coming June. They have done all this while they sit just a point ahead of the current ninth placed team.

Columbus currently has their 2020 first round pick tied up in a condition where if Duchene re-signs in Columbus, then the Blue Jackets send that first to Ottawa. Assuming Duchene doesn’t sign, as it seems he has wanted to pick his own destination since he asked out of Colorado, then Columbus will own all of the firsts necessary to make a run at a big offer sheet this summer. Between Mitch Marner in Toronto and Brayden Point in Tampa, there are two cap-strapped teams with a young star available to be poached. Or, they could target a few free-agents such as Erik Karlsson, Joe Pavelski, and Jeff Skinner, to try and load up again without giving up the same assets as through an offer sheet. With this kind of flexibility, GM Jarmo Kekalainen can navigate the cheapest, and most efficient roster through the summer, as deals become available. In one of my leagues last summer, I was able to take advantage of a similar situation and ended up landing Evgeni Malkin for two future draft picks, and a couple of smaller pieces, mainly because I was able to absorb his whole cap hit.

Looking back on it, things might have made more sense for both sides to have Minnesota push themselves all-in before retooling, while Columbus may have made more sense as the seller with eyes on next year duo to their young, high-ceiling core. That being said, the Metropolitain division is wide open, and any team could come out to a likely matchup against a beat-up Tampa Bay in the third round. Knowing your window is important, Columbus sees that now, and we get to sit back, watch, and enjoy.

  ****

Signings

  Eric Staal – Minnesota Wild

Cap Hit: $3,250,000 for two years

This one doesn’t make much sense, as Eric Staal took less money, to re-sign with a team that is not a top contender, that appears to be going in the wrong direction. My prediction model had him earning a three-year contract with an AAV around $5 million. I can imagine if he made it to free-agency he would have had a few offers even above that. Perhaps since he has already won a Stanley cup, a World Championship title, and an Olympic Gold Medal, he doesn’t have the drive in him to leave Minnesota just to win. If that is the case, we could see him retire in Minnesota after this contract expires, concluding his age-36 season.

  Mark Stone – Vegas Golden Knights

Expected Cap Hit: $9,500,000 for eight years

This one is everything but official, as Stone can’t technically sign an extension in Vegas until March 1st. This expected contract is also below market value, with Stone’s estimated AAV coming in on the model at around $10.75M. At this reduced cost, Stone should be able to maintain his effectiveness through to its expiry (at age 34). Patrick Kane has managed to make his contract worthwhile, and at slightly reduced production, Stone can maintain a similar value to that cost versus production level in cap leagues. With his Selke caliber style of play on top of that, he will certainly live up to the contractual value in real life.

  Frank Vatrano – Florida Panthers

Cap Hit: $2,533,333 for three years

Vatrano has had an under-the-radar season, putting up career highs in goals and assists, while playing the role of utility man up and down the Panthers’ lineup. He will have solid value for you to close out the season, with two games this weekend, four games next week, and a current cap hit under $1 million to boot.

  ****

That caps off this week’s article, thanks for reading. As always, you can find me on twitter @alexdmaclean.

  ****

Previous Capped articles:

Previewing the Trade Deadline for Each Team

Goaltenders to Target for the Deadline

  ****

All salary info from capfriendly.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/capped/capped-reviewing-the-trade-deadline-and-looking-ahead/

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

Puck Daddy Countdown: All we are saying is give Leafs a chance

The Leafs’ monumental collapse against the Bruins in the 2013 playoffs was five long years ago. Different team, different story in 2018. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)

6. A positive mental attitude

Pretty crazy coincidence that some of the worst teams in the league — the Canadiens, Rangers, Hurricanes, etc. — have all taken to saying, “Ah, you know what the big problem is here? These guys don’t care enough and they’re not tough enough.”

Not, “Ah, we put together a crap roster that couldn’t be competitive in the league for the full 82,” of course, because that’s a job-protection thing and I get it. But it was particularly rich hearing Marc Bergevin, who offloaded a ton of capital-T Talent in recent years in exchange for Capital-T Toughness, and then said, “I don’t think this is a 40-loss team if they cared more.”

(Which, by the way, it was a 40-loss-in-regulation team, and 53 overall, but who’s counting?)

It’s just one of those very cool and fun things about the sport that guys on talented teams almost always seem to be the ones who “care” the most, and the guys whose teams are bereft of talent really run into a lack of will as their biggest impediment.

You can set your watch to this stuff, but it’s always pretty funny regardless.

5. The Bruins

I mentioned it in the power rankings but it’s very weird that these guys dropped four of their last five while playing for the division and a very favorable playoff matchup against the Devils, against whom they went 3-1-0 with a shootout win this season.

I’m not really ready to ascribe a lot of meaning to their slide. Everyone hits slides and streaks at various times and if anything it just gives Bruce Cassidy a little more bulletin board material, but you really don’t want to be backing into something this time of year!

4. The Bolts maybe?

How much do you think we’re gonna have to hear about New Jersey sweeping them in the regular season? An insane amount? Feels like that’s the right amount: “Insane.”

I gotta tell ya, it truly doesn’t matter how things went in the regular season because this isn’t a “matchups” problem for the Bolts, this is a “New Jersey scored 10 goals on 103 shots” problem. Mathematically, the odds that they keep shooting 9.7 percent seem fairly low.

Here’s a better way to contextualize things for people: Y’know how Tampa is better than New Jersey? Like, objectively better? What would you say is the probability that Tampa wins any given game against these Devils? Like 53, 54 percent? So what the Devils did in winning these three previous meetings was have their shorter odds come up three times in a row. Now they have to do it four more times in a maximum of seven games.

I’m not saying it’s impossible that New Jersey wins seven of a possible 10 games against the Lightning, I’m just saying that even on narrow winning margins, it’s really hard to do that.

3. Roberto Luongo

Very, very nice to see Roberto Luongo come back for another season at age 39. Did you know my man went .929 in 35 games this year? It’ll never happen but he should really be in the conversation for “top-10 goalies of all time.”

His career save percentage in 254 games since the start of 2013-14 is .921. He was 34 that year! How is it possible? The guy has a .919 career save percentage since 1999, and he’s played more than 1,000 career games.

Feels like people didn’t really appreciate him until he was funny on Twitter, but this man is a saint and I love him!

(On the other hand, it would have been funny to see the cap recapture penalty Vancouver and Florida faced. But that number only goes up as time goes on, to the point where in 2021, it would be like $8.5 million to Vancouver and $0 to Florida. Hilarious.)

2. Job security

Imagine being as bad at something as Ken Holland has been for years, and very publically running your ship into the ground in stunning fashion, and at the end of the day your bosses are like, “Y’know what, how about two more years with a seven-figure salary?”

I saw some people expressing consternation that the team is bringing back Jeff Blashill as the coach, and I get it on some level because, y’know, the team was awful. But Ken Holland got TWO more years out of management for reasons totally unknowable and unjustifiable.

1. Two thousand thirteen!!!!!!!!!!!

Can we let the damn Leafs live?

A thing I will truly never understand is how we’re trying to pin the failures of the 2013 Toronto Maple Leafs, and specifically how they blew Game 7 of that opening-round series, on this current Maple Leafs team.

Every guy on the team had some gormless weirdo stick a mic in their face this week like, “Ah, how will you overcome this one?”

It’s narrative-building, and if (when?) the Leafs lose this series, it’ll be used as some sort of fodder against the team because people are just that dumb. Because what’s Mitch Marner going to say besides, “Yeah dude I didn’t have a driver’s license yet, so I don’t really care about this.”

Since then, the Leafs have turned over all but five players on the roster (Tyler Bozak, Jake Gardiner, Nazem Kadri, Leo Komarov, and James van Riemsdyk), their coach, and pretty much all of their front office. To say the words, “Two thousand thirteen” out loud doesn’t sound like it was that long ago, but Auston Matthews was negative-three years away from being an NHLer.

The Leafs aren’t and shouldn’t be the favorite in this series, and if they lose to the Bruins, even if they get swept, that has basically nothing to do with the events of 2013. I don’t know why this is a hard concept to grasp.

(Not ranked this week: Steve Simmons.

You hear a lot when Steve Simmons or some other guy like him does a real Creep Take, as Simmons did with Marc Savard on Sunday, is “He’s nice in real life though!”

(I’m sure, by the way, this is a thing people say about me, too, but I’m actually such a nice sweetie and the only people I call out are the ones whose takes are bad.)

Well look I gotta say, leaving aside all the Phil Kessel stuff and whatever else Simmons has done to piss people off in the past, for him to use his space to call out a guy who publicly struggled with concussions and mental illness — and has been pretty damn open about that in a number of publications that are readily available to you with a simple search query — is ghoulish.

Because okay, listen, I have a lot of thoughts on the sport that I don’t publish because to say, “I wish Patrick O’Sullivan would just shut up for like five seconds,” isn’t really fair or productive in a lot of cases. Patrick O’Sullivan should get lost, for sure, but for the most part his dumb input is harmless. Like I said, guys have bad takes and deserve to get called out for them sometimes.

But I gotta ask, what’s the point of saying “This concussion victim sucks and I hope no one gives him a job.” Like, what does that get Simmons? There are plenty of former players I don’t want to hear from, but I’m not out here saying, “This guy you haven’t heard from in a while, I hope I continue not hearing from him!” Especially because we all know what Savard went through if we’ve been paying attention, which to be fair, Steve probably hasn’t.

This is a guy who’s a 1000000 percent media dumbass who loves to call people out but blocks anyone who disagrees with him even slightly on Twitter, and if anyone shouldn’t have a job, it’s him. He’s everything wrong with the media carrion class and someone has to say it.

—

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

[thrashermaxey]

Capped: Holiday Shopping for the East – January 3

  Happy New Year! Wishing you all the best for the new year, and that the things you want to change, change for the better.

On this end of things though, not much is changing. You can still get all of your fantasy need-to-know right here. Dobber’s mid-season guide is almost here! Arrives January 11th.

  Closing in on the mid-way point of the season, here are some holiday shopping needs or new year’s resolutions for every NHL team.  

  If I can share a hope for all of you over the next week, it is that you continue to watch and enjoy the World Juniors even though some of the favourites in Canada and Sweden have been eliminated. There are still four excellent teams left.

  Boston Bruins

Really the Bruins just need to be healthy. In more words though, they could use another depth forward, especially one with a scoring touch. Guess who played with the Bruins last season, is still a free-agent, and has three 40-goal seasons to his credit? Rick Nash. Should he come back from his time off dealing with his last concussion, he would fit at the top of the Bruins’ wish list.

  Buffalo Sabres

Buffalo has turned a corner this year, but they need to learn from some breakouts in recent years by New Jersey, Colorado, and Edmonton. They need to keep their foot on the gas, and they do that best by re-signing Jeff Skinner. The former Carolina Hurricane has never been in a better situation, and the only way his value stays this high is if he re-signs in Buffalo. The Sabres are deploying him in more offensive situations, and he has grown into some real chemistry with Jack Eichel

  Carolina Hurricanes

Carolina has the lowest cap hit in the league this season, and my bold move prediction from two months ago was that the Hurricanes would acquire both Sergei Bobrovsky and Artemi Panarin in a big deadline swing. Carolina needs consistency and goal scorers for Christmas. However, they may have to weaponize that cap space in other ways, as their playoff hopes are slipping away. Keep an eye on the youngsters, because if this season keeps slipping away, they will be given room to grow, and score.

  Columbus Blue Jackets

As mentioned right above, Columbus needs to figure out what they are doing with Panarin and Bobrovsky. They can’t afford to let both walk, and they probably can’t afford to keep both on new contracts, so they will have to pick one, and focus their efforts there. Panarin is set to discuss his future over the all-star break, so for now, Columbus should be focusing on Bobrovsky. In the meantime, backup Joonas Korpisalo may be in line to pick up a lot more starts after the trade deadline, or next year. Even if the Blue Jackets lose their two stars, they should be able to compete for a playoff spot in 2019-2020.

  Detroit Red Wings

The best thing for Detroit would probably be to have a few extra compliance buyouts to reset their defence. Filip Hronek, Nick Jensen, Joe Hicketts, and especially Dennis Cholowski are ready to take on more responsibility, but there are too many aging vets in the way. Some of the forwards are showing what they can do with the added responsibility, and with another high draft pick, this team is looing ready to turn the corner soon.

  With the youth they are stockpiling, Detroit could be priming up for another 20+ year playoff streak, and would likely be a cheap place to get some undervalued depth into your prospect cupboard. 

  Florida Panthers

The Panthers have all of their core players locked up on team-friendly deals, and a solid set of prospects coming up through the system. Their biggest hole on the depth chart is in net. Roberto Luongo and James Reimer are serviceable, however at their price tags, they don’t provide the quality the team needs right now. Unfortunately, both are signed to contracts taking them through at least to the summer of 2021. Management here is probably going to have to get creative to sort out an upgrade if they really want to contend. That, or Luongo needs to stay healthy for long enough for the Panthers to win something.

  Montreal Canadiens

That Max Domi for Alex Galchenyuk swap looks like it’s working well for Montreal. It seems to have rejuvenated Jonathan Drouin as well. The trio is forming a top line with Philip Danault, and no one has been asking about a new first line centre for the Canadiens. With the return of Shea Weber, they’re looking a lot more solid on defence. It is in net where the question marks lie. Carey Price has been average this year, and with only Antti Niemi and Michael McNiven to back him up, there isn’t much support. Most concerning is that Price’s quality start percentage is the lowest it has ever been. However, since Weber’s return, there has been a bit of a rebound. In those 13 games, Price has been back to his all-star form, sporting a stellar 2.39 GAA and a solid 0.916 sv%.

      His quality start percentage is still low, but the 8-4 record is a good sign. With some more support around him, Montreal fans, players, and fantasy owners alike have reasons to hope that the Canadiens’ netminder is on the rebound (at least once he returns from injury anyways). Maybe the media can make it their New Year’s resolution not to put future blame solely on him.

  New Jersey Devils

A healthy set of key players would be a big boon to a struggling team. Taylor Hall is currently out, Kyle Palmieri has been a band-aid-boy through recent seasons, and Cory Schneider still isn’t himself after hip surgery. Elliott Friedman went over some good news for Schneider owners though, where he provided some hope for a rebound next year. Roberto Luongo, Pekka Rinne, and others, have gone through similar procedures, it has taken them at least a full season for them to get their mojo back. This season is Keith Kinkaid’s in the Devils’ net. With Schneider’s contract and improving health, expect a better showing next season.  

  New York Islanders

A new contract for Anders Lee. The Islanders have survived losing their captain from last year, but they would be in very rough shape if they had to deal with that again. Lee could command upwards of $7 million on the open market, so the Islanders are going to have to open their cheque-books.

  New York Rangers

The Rangers need to make their resolution to stick to the building plan. It is well in place now, but some of their best pieces won’t arrive for another two or three years. As a result, despite being only two spots away from a playoff berth, selling off UFAs, Kevin Hayes, Adam McQuaid, and possibly even Mats Zuccarello should be the first priority. Hayes and Zuccarello on new teams would likely both see reduced roles, and a hit to their production.

However, I do like the fit of Kevin Hayes in Winnipeg, playing the role that Paul Stastny did last season.

  Ottawa Senators

After a hot start to the season, the Senators have fallen back to the spot in the standings that most expected entering the year – the bottom. Their Christmas wish has to be some lucky bounces with the lottery balls, so that the decision to draft Tkachuk last year doesn’t look so ludicrous. The following New Year’s resolution should include not making a mess of the Mark Stone and Matt Duchene contract negotiations. Pretty simple, but not necessarily straightforward. Expect both to get decent raises one way or another.

  Philadelphia Flyers

After spending big last summer, the Flyers might be best off filling some of their depth from the minor leagues, and bringing in a better mentor for Carter Hart. A veteran like Mike Smith could be a great addition in the offseason to timeshare with Hart for a year or two. In the meantime, between Brian Elliott and Michael Neuvirth, it seems they may be stuck with too many mediocre options, and no better trade partners available (Sergei Bobrovsky would be the closest, but I don’t see the Flyers bringing him back for just a few months).

  Pittsburgh Penguins

The Penguins took care of some business last Thursday inking Jake Guentzel to a five-year extension with a $6-million AAV. The Penguins probably didn’t get the time on it that they were hoping for, as Guentzel will now hit UFA status before he turns 30. The AAV is also a little higher than my model would suggest, so kudos to Gentzel’s agent for the player friendly deal.

  With the signing, it appears that the Penguins may not be able to retain the services of UFAs Derick Brassard, Riley Sheahan, and Casey DeSmith. As usual, the depth spots will be filled with cheap contracts from later in free-agency, and through the farm system. Though at this point, there is not much room for future additions, or even a deadline push if Justin Schultz comes back before the end of the year.

  Tampa Bay Lightning

Getting Brayden Point a contract has to be at the top of the Christmas wish list. Managing to keep the AAV a little lower in order to not have to sacrifice some talent on defence to fill the roster spots would be a bonus. My contract model now has him at an AAV just shy of $8 million, which would likely be too pricy for the Lightning to keep with all of their current obligations. Clearing out Ryan Callahan’s $5.8 million AAV for the next two years would go a long way to solving their cap problems. Maybe that should then be the real top-of-the-wish-list item.

  Toronto Maple Leafs

Resolutions:

Do not mess around with Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews like they did with William Nylander.

Do not let them get to the point of being given an offer-sheet.

Let players like Justin Holl play.

  Washington Capitals

With no largely pressing contract issues, minimal deadline cap space, and the title of “Defending Stanley Cup Champs”, life is pretty simple. Go out and win some games, make it to the playoffs, and do it all over again. These guys are going to be gunning for the back-to-back like Pittsburgh had. Make no mistake, one cup is not enough.

My New Year’s resolution will be to not forget this, and try not to bet against them too much come playoff time.

  ****

If you read the whole article, cheers! If you just skimmed some and skipped to your favourite team, that’s fine too. Let me know in the comments if you agree with what was said about them, or if you think there was something missed.

  ****

Previous Capped articles:

Doing Some Holiday Shopping

Sell-High Candidates

  ****

All cap related info is courtesy of Capfriendly. All player data was pulled from FrozenTools.

  That caps off this week’s record article, thanks for reading. As always, you can find me on twitter @alexdmaclean.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/capped/capped-holiday-shopping-for-the-east-january-3/

[thrashermaxey]

20 Fantasy Hockey Thoughts

Every Sunday, we'll share 20 Fantasy Thoughts from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week's "Daily Ramblings".

Writers: Michael Clifford, Ian Gooding, Cam Robinson, and Dobber

  1. Jeff Skinner is the second player to hit the 20-goal mark this season – Patrik Laine, now with 21, being the first. The former Hurricane is loving life next to Jack Eichel, and we can only assume Eichel is having a good time as well. The two have formed a deadly top line option.

It will be very interesting to see the type of contract Skinner garners if he can keep this up. Here's hoping he doesn't price himself out of Buffalo. Eichel has been waiting for a serious mate and he's got him now. (dec1)

  2. Bold statement time!

In the last 25 years, we’ve seen five players score 60 or more goals in a season.

Mario Lemieux: 69 Alex Ovechkin: 65 Jaromir Jagr: 62 Steven Stamkos: 60 Pavel Bure: 60

Patrik Laine will join that group in 2018-19. (dec1)

  3. Valentin Zykov was an early second round pick of the Kings back in 2013 and has three assists in 13 NHL games this season. His goal-scoring was non-existent, despite that being his ‘specialty’. While with the Checkers last season, he led the American League with 33 goals in 63 games. He did so on a highly-unsustainable 30 percent conversion rate. But nonetheless, he had promise.

Zykov was a sexy pick for a sleeper/breakout candidate last summer. The expectation and early indications had the Russian playing on the top line with Sebastian Aho. That didn’t happen. He found himself playing under 10 minutes per night before being a healthy scratch the last three weeks.

In Edmonton, he gets a quick chance to rejuvenate his career. There’s a revolving door beside Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the top line that he’ll surely get a sniff at. It’ll be a situation to watch. If Zykov finds lighting in a bottle, he has nice upside. If not, he could quickly find himself back on the wire. (dec1)

  4. I’m getting a few questions about Nikolay Goldobin and whether I think you should add him to your fantasy team. He’s owned in just seven percent of Yahoo leagues. Although the returns of Brock Boeser and Sam Gagner will decrease Goldobin’s power-play minutes, he appears to be a fixture on the top line. He and Elias Pettersson have developed a great connection both on and off the ice, so he could be worth taking a flier on depending on who else is available. He’s currently on pace for 45-50 points, although I see 40 as a safe target at this point. (nov28)

  5. In case you were worried about Jonathan Huberdeau’s value because he was bumped down to the second-unit power play earlier this season, don’t be. With a goal and an assist on Saturday, Huby now has five consecutive multipoint games with 11 points (2g-9a) over that span. That puts him at over a point per game (28 points in 25 games) this season. And with Vincent Trocheck out for a while with a fractured ankle, Huberdeau is back on the Cats’ first-unit power play. (dec2)

  6. Now that William Nylander is signed long term, it will be interesting to see how Leafs’ general manager Kyle Dubas manages superstar RFAs Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, not to mention whether Nylander is eventually traded.

In our 18-19 Fantasy Guide, Nylander was projected to score 60 points in 75 games. Assuming he returns right away, Nylander has only 55 games to play, which over that span would put him at 44 points. He will likely need a few games to get back up to NHL speed, so don’t expect immediate returns if you’ve been hanging onto him all this time.

Nylander’s imminent arrival, which could occur as early as Tuesday against Buffalo, could mean that Kasperi Kapanen is bumped off the Matthews line. At least we now know that Kapanen is NHL-ready (10 goals and 18 points in 27 games), but his fantasy value could take a hit with the Nylander return. (dec2)

  7. Jesper Bratt, seeing some time on the Devils’ top line, has seven points in his last eight. He’s still not getting top unit power play deployment which will mute his ceiling, but he’s one to watch right now. (dec1)

  8. Mikko Rantanen is on another planet right now. The 22-year-old had posted multi-point efforts in his last six games and eight of the previous nine. Gross stuff. He now leads the league with 43 points in 26 outings. I've run out of superlatives. This guy is not a product of Nate MacKinnon (although it sure doesn't hurt that they have amazing chemistry). Of course, Rantanen should be considered a locked-in top-10 keeper asset. (dec1)

  9. Canes’ Curtis McElhinney's has five consecutive starts with a 0.930-plus save percentage, with victories in four of them. The 35-year-old journeyman looks like the starter in Carolina for the time being. That holds significant fantasy value.

Petr Mrazek is younger and I'm sure the team is hoping he can regain the form that earned him the label of goaltender of the future in Detroit, but until he figures out how to play even remotely close to league-average, McElhinney is the man. (dec1)

  10. With Dustin Byfuglien sidelined with a concussion, Jets’ Josh Morrissey in particular has benefitted from Big Buff’s absence with ice times of 28:59 and 29:02 over his last two games and a goal on Saturday, his first in over a month. Byfuglien could return next week but for now Morrissey is a great short-term pickup. (dec2)

  11. Devan Dubnyk has for the most part been a fantasy goalie that you could rely on since he was claimed by the Wild off waivers during the 2015-16 season. Goalies can be prone to struggles, though, and Dubnyk is no different. He has allowed four goals in each of his last four games. Since November 13, he has struggled mightily with a 3.56 GAA and .856 SV%. (dec2)

  12. Kevan Miller took a puck to the throat last Monday night. Official word came down Wednesday morning that he had suffered torn cartilage in his larynx and will be out more than a month. He had just returned from injury, too. It’s been a tough year for Miller and the Boston defense as a whole.

  13. Mikko Koskinen appears to have the faith of the very defensive-minded Ken Hitchcock. So, Cam Talbot owners are facing a dilemma of whether to drop him. Talbot hasn’t done himself any favors, allowing at least three goals in each of his last six games, which isn’t going to cut it with coach Hitch. It probably depends on your team’s circumstances, since goalie management is becoming harder and harder, but at the very least Talbot should be on your bench. (nov28)

  14. If you’ve been staying up late to watch the Kings play, you’ve seen (or based on icetime, haven’t seen) the fall of Ilya Kovalchuk. If you own Kovy, unfortunately I don’t have good news to report. He was held without a point for an eleventh consecutive game last Thursday (and is now listed day-to-day with an ankle injury).

Kovalchuk is clearly not a favorite of new coach Willie Desjardins, but I’ve also heard speculation that his benching (low TOI when he was playing of late) has the blessing of Kings’ management. Otherwise, this would be by far the most ballsy move that Willie D has made as an NHL coach.

I don’t want to say “I told you so” with Kovalchuk, but I’ll reiterate something that I mentioned during the summer. Kovalchuk entered the NHL in the early ’00s as a top prospect along with the likes of Dany Heatley and Rick Nash. Heatley is no longer in the league, while Nash was just a shell of his former self last season. So, you were basically getting a 35-year-old who had aged five years since he last played in the NHL and whose peers were no longer NHL stars. I knew about the strong KHL numbers, so I wasn’t willing to write him off completely, but I was more willing to let someone else take a chance on him and didn’t draft him in any of my leagues.

  15. I’m sure by now the Kings would like to trade him to a contender with considerable cap space. Good luck with that, because he’s got two more years on his contract after this one at $6.25 million per season. Yikes! But before I speculate any further on what happens to him, I will simply tell you to go ahead and shop him around, in case someone out there is willing to pay for the brand name. Someone in my last Ramblings asked if Kovalchuk could be traded away for Alex Tuch. Yes, I would make that trade in a heartbeat if you haven’t already. In fact, if there’s an option on the waiver wire that you’ve got your eye on, you could probably part ways with Kovalchuk. 

  16. Like his older brother Matthew, Brady Tkachuk is proving to be a quick study to the NHL game. Much has been made about Elias Pettersson’s impressive rookie season, but Tkachuk is also putting together a solid rookie campaign. Tkachuk already has nine goals in 14 games and is also scoring at over a point-per-game pace (16 points). He’s also recorded six points (3g-3a) over his last three games. He’ll most likely hit the rookie wall at some point (20 percent accuracy), but he’s got a long NHL career ahead. (nov28)

  17. Lines have been in flux for the Senators all year. There have been injuries, call ups, and general under-performance defensively being the reason. The line of Tkachuk, Colin White, and Mark Stone haven’t played a lot together, but when those three have been healthy since Tkachuk’s return, they’ve been skating together and have been good.

the Sens are a favourite team to pick on. Playing DFS? Stack against Ottawa. Playing season-long? Stream players playing against Ottawa. They’re porous defensively at even strength and on the PK. That line, however, is not. So just freely picking on Ottawa isn’t really viable anymore. We need to be aware of who will be matched against that line, because they are good. (nov26)

  18. With two in his last three games, goals have just started trickling in for Kevin Fiala, but if he keeps shooting like he is right now and continues to regularly earn back his ice time, they’ll come in bunches. Those in 12-team leagues or deeper should stash him on the bench if there is room and no need of the spot immediately. (nov26)

  19. Cap leagues have always been about one thing: having highly-successful talent on cheap contracts. Being able to get those 60-point rookies or sophomores on entry-level contracts is nearly a necessity to win such leagues. Not only that, though, but the RFA contracts these talented players would get would usually be much lower than their open market value. It would keep a cheap player on a cap league roster for a decade.

The times, they are a-changin’. Teams are more reluctant to give out those monster deals to guys hitting free agency in their late 20s. We saw this in the MLB last offseason and it’s starting to seep into the NHL. Sure, the Caps signed John Carlson and TJ Oshie to monster contracts over the last year or so, but since the unmitigated disaster that was the 2016 free agency period (think Milan Lucic, Loui Eriksson, David Backes, and Troy Brouwer), and the troubles the Hawks and Kings are running into with their legacy contracts, teams are very weary about handing out monster deals to 28-year olds. There are still big legacy contracts handed out (the Washington guys named above and Marc-Edouard Vlasic comes to mind) but players changing teams and getting huge deals are fewer and further between.

  20. The 2017 offseason saw Kevin Shattenkirk, a defenseman with five consecutive 40-point seasons in 82-game campaigns, get just a four-year deal while Alex Radulov got five years and less than $6.5-million per year. And other than the guys staying put, that was basically it.

In 2018, aside from John Tavares (a potential Hall of Famer), no one got more than five years to change teams. James van Riemsdyk got 5x$7M, David Perron got 4x$4M, James Neal (who has scored 20 goals every season since the beginning of time), got five years at less than $6M per. Four years ago, someone like van Riemsdyk would have probably gotten 7x$7M, or something close to the Oshie deal anyway.

If players aren’t going to get paid as they expect at the age of 28, they deserve to get paid more at the age of 22. Players are going to start wringing every dollar they can as soon as they can, as they should. Their time to earn for the rest of their lives is limited and they’re all one injury away from never playing again. But this is going to impact cap leagues significantly in the short-term. With a lockout looming, this will be a big sticking point for both the NHL and NHLPA, for different reasons. (nov27)

Have a good week, folks!!

    from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts-52/

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Caps Advance; Leafs Force Game 7; Bill Peters; Chuck Fletcher – April 24

We are going to get a Game 7 out of the first round thanks to Toronto’s 3-1 win last night over Boston. After falling behind 3-1 in the series, the Leafs have evened things up and are one win away from their first series win since before the 2005 lockout.

Toronto, and Frederik Andersen more specifically, weathered the storm through the first half of the game and really locked things down in the second half. Kudos to the Leafs here; they went into a shell in Game 5 and were letting the Bruins shoot at will. They kept their foot on the pedal here and with a bit of luck, probably could have had a couple more goals.

Both Tomas Plekanec and Mitch Marner had a goal and an assist in this one with the former salting the game away with an empty-net goal. Plekanec has really showed up in this series for Toronto and it makes me wonder if they sign him as a free agent. Tyler Bozak probably isn’t getting another contract and Plekanec would fit in well as their third- or fourth-line centre.

*

Washington closed out their series against Columbus with a 6-3 win in Game 6. Despite not starting the series in goal, Braden Holtby has largely played very well for the Capitals and that continued last night with 35 saves on 38 shots.

The back-breaker really came from Alex Ovechkin as he scored goals less than six minutes apart in the second period to make it 3-1. He finished the series with six goals in six games.

It’s tough for Columbus to lose in the first round again but with Artemi Panarin, the emergence of Pierre-Luc Dubois, a dominant defence pair in Zach Werenski and Seth Jones, Sergei Bobrovsky in goal, and very nice ancillary pieces like Alex Wennberg, Cam Atkinson, and Boone Jenner, it seems a matter of time now. A good team with a lot of fantasy goodness to go around.

*

The Calgary Flames announced former Carolina Hurricanes coach Bill Peters will be their new bench boss for next season. Glen Gulutzan and his assistants were fired a week ago and Peters opted out of his contract with the Hurricanes. Now here we are.

You can read Dobber's fantasy slant on the hiring here. 

Calgary missed the playoffs but they still have a pretty good top-9 forward group and top-4 defence group. Well, maybe top-3. Either way, this is still a good roster. We’ll see what they do over the summer. I imagine at top-line right winger is in the cards. Maybe some depth on the blue line. Regardless, Peters is going to have the pieces of a postseason roster. Let’s see what he does with it.

*

News from the Minnesota Wild:

#mnwild announce team will not renew GM Chuck Fletcher’s contract.

— Sarah McLellan (@sarah__mclellan) April 23, 2018

Fletcher had been the general manager of the Minnesota Wild since 2009. He’s the one responsible for the contracts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, two players missing for parts, or all, of the playoffs this year due to injury.

Under his watch, the team had qualified for the playoffs in six consecutive seasons but had failed to move past the second round in any of them. The inability for his teams to manage deep playoff runs is undoubtedly the reason for his firing.

I’m curious to see what the Wild do here. They went heavy into analytics a couple years ago hiring both Alexandra Mandrycky and Andrew Thomas. Those names may be familiar to some because they were behind the site War On Ice, a favourite among many of the analytically-inclined until it was closed following their being hired. Hopefully they stick around because they’re both bright minds who can help this team down the road.

There is only so much that can be done in the near-term as the following players are signed through at least 2019-20: Parise, Suter, Mikko Koivu, Mikael Granlund, Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle, Marcus Foligno, Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, and Devan Dubnyk. Jason Zucker and Matt Dumba are pending RFAs, both of whom they should sign. That’s 12 players on the roster, most of them in the top-half, for the next two years. Unless significant trades are made, there’s not much to be done outside of filling out the bottom-half of the roster.

Since the start of the 2013 season, Minnesota, as a franchise, is third in the league in expected goal share at five-on-five. The rest of the top-5 includes San Jose, Los Angeles, Boston, and Pittsburgh. They have clearly been one of the better teams in the league for a while but winning the Stanley Cup is hard (just ask San Jose).

*

The review of the 2017-18 season continues. Last week I spent parts of my Ramblings discussing various aspects of productions from the blue line, including goal-scoring changes at different strengths and floors through shot generation/blocking.

These Ramblings will continue to discuss defencemen but the focus will be on the power play. Obviously, power-play production is a huge component of value for any skater but it’s especially true for defencemen; no forward among the top-10 in points was close to having half their production come with the man advantage (the closest was Sidney Crosby at 42.7 percent). Meanwhile Shayne Gostisbehere had over half his production come on the power play and Tyson Barrie had exactly half. Others like John Carlson were just under 50 percent.

Here are some stats that stood out to me among defencemen on the PP. I limited it to those with at least 100 PP mins (there were 71 of them). All data from Natural Stat Trick.

  Shot Rate

I think the top-3 by shot attempts per minute may surprise a few: Shayne Gostisbehere, Roman Josi, and Colin Miller. Yes, Colin Miller took the third-most shot attempts of all defencemen with 100 power-play minutes.

Josi may be a surprising name because he’s never really been a shot monster. Guys like Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, Dustin Byfuglien, Justin Faulk, and Dougie Hamilton are names we usually think of when it comes to shot volume. Josi, however, has averaged 3.2 shots per game in total over the last two seasons (it was 2.42 the three seasons prior).

On the power play, it was an anomalous season for Josi. For his career, he had never cracked the 25 attempts/60 minutes mark, and yet this year he was over 36. Initial guess: he was on the second PP unit for most of the season, away from shooters like Viktor Arvidsson and Filip Forsberg. That will require further digging for another day. All the same, even spending much of the season on the second unit, he still managed 20 power-play points and his increased PP shot rate helped boost his overall shot totals.

As for Miller, he’s still not getting the respect he deserves across the league, be it by media or fans. His relative shot share at five-on-five is among the elite in the game since he entered the league:

at some point we, as a hockey community, need to have The Colin Miller Discussion https://t.co/rdQrdG1hiW pic.twitter.com/tEHbDQjDyo

— Michael Clifford (@SlimCliffy) April 23, 2018

Yes, I know that’s with favourable deployment in fewer minutes. All the same, he’s absolutely crushing the role he’s been given, and that’s what you want from your players.

He was given an expanded role with Vegas though a lot of it was allocated to the power play (and that’s just fine for fantasy purposes). He cracked the 40-point plateau, managed over two shots per game, and had a hefty hit total. A solid season all around.

I’m very bullish on Miller, as I was back in his Boston days. It’s fair to wonder if he gets an even larger role next year. He will still probably have to keep splitting power-play duties with Shea Theodore (among others), and maybe this team doesn’t score as much next year at five-on-five. Hopefully, an increase in ice time at five-on-five (he was sixth in this regard on the team’s blue line) can offset a potential decline in team scoring. If he keeps shooting like he has on the PP, though, his power-play point totals should be relatively stable.

Speaking of shot rates, Mikhail Sergachev finished ninth among all defencemen with 100 minutes of power-play time in this regard. He also finished ninth among all defencemen with 1000 minutes of ice time in five-on-five shot rate. His peripheral stats don’t look great because he just wasn’t given much ice time but it was a very impressive rookie campaign.

Sergachev’s short-term problem is that Victor Hedman is signed until I hit my mid-life crisis so getting those coveted top power-play minutes anytime soon is unlikely barring injury. As great as his season was, until he gets those minutes, his upside his capped, even with additional 5v5 minutes. All the same, a productive first season on the PP blue line.

  Shattenkirk’s Weird Season

Shattenkirk had a weird season, short through it was. Out of those 71 defencemen with 100 power-play minutes, he was first in primary assists per 60 minutes. That’s good! He was also 66th in secondary assists per 60 minutes, which is the weird part.

Of course, that secondary assist rate won’t maintain next year given what we know about their randomness. But that primary assist rate is a pretty good reminder that Shattenkirk is still a top-tier puck-moving defenceman. I wonder if with the Rangers going through their “rebuild” and Shatty coming off a season shortened by injury if he’ll be at a huge discount at the draft table in September.

  Morgan Rielly

Speaking of secondary assists, Rielly led all defencemen by a considerable margin. His rate of 5.73 per 60 minutes was 2.03 assists/60 minutes higher than the next-highest blue liner (Dustin Byfuglien at 3.70). The gap between Rielly and Byfuglien was similar to the gap between Byfuglien and 40th-place Noah Hanifin at 1.68. Rielly had 16 secondary power-play assists in 2017-18; he had 18 for his career before this season.

Toronto obviously has a lot of talent but don’t forget that they still split power-play minutes between two groups; there was eight seconds of difference in PPTOI/game between Rielly and Jake Gardiner. That secondary assist rate is going to crash next year. It’s not to say he can’t be productive again with the man advantage but expecting him to cruise past 20 PPPs again is misguided. 

  from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-caps-advance-leafs-force-game-7-bill-peters-chuck-fletcher-april-24/

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Why Dadonov Makes Sense, Bergeron Injured, Trade Rumblings (Feb 25)

Why Dadonov Makes Sense, Bergeron Injured, Trade Rumblings, plus more…

Between in-game happenings, trade rumors, Olympics, and even injury news, there is a lot to discuss here. So although this Ramblings will contain more quick hits than deep dives, there shouldn’t be a lack of content.

Brandon Manning recorded the first three-point game (1g-2a) of his career on Saturday. He did so in just 18 minutes of icetime with barely a sniff of power-play time. That give him five points over his last four games. His situation probably isn’t attractive enough for him to warrant fantasy consideration, though.

Here’s Manning’s goal, which will be better remembered as another lowlight in the Senators’ season.

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With an assist on Saturday, Shayne Gostisbehere is the third defenseman to reach 50 points this season. He has posted monster numbers in February in particular with 16 assists and a plus-12 (and one goal) in just 12 games. That’s the highest number of assists, points, and plus/minus by a defenseman this month, and also a three-way tie for most power-play points by a d-man this month. Is it possible for Ghost to be the highest-scoring defenseman in the NHL by season’s end?

With the Flyers 9-0-2 over their past 11 games, Petr Mrazek is a great option in net at the moment. Although he allowed three goals to the Senators on Saturday, Mrazek has now posted back-to-back wins in his first two games as a Flyer. I won’t say he’s a must-start, but because of his new situation he’s a preferred option in many instances if you have three goalies and can only start two.

Another Flyers’ note to keep in the memory bank for next season: With Wayne Simmonds out of the lineup, Nolan Patrick is playing on the Flyers’ first-unit power play. We haven’t heard from Patrick during most of his rookie season, but he now has goals in four consecutive games and points in five consecutive games. He also fired nine shots on goal on Saturday. Don’t forget about him.

The hockey world wondered whether Erik Karlsson would be pulled from Saturday’s day game in anticipation of a trade. Alas he was not, and he could not register a point in the loss. I tend to believe that a player of that stature won’t be moved by the deadline, as there are more possible teams that can clear the necessary space to make a deal in the offseason. But oh man, imagine if it did. Be sure to check Dobber Hockey on Monday as we will post our fantasy takes on the deals that matter.

Two names that will probably appear on those articles: Tomas Plekanec and Evander Kane. Both were healthy scratches on Saturday.

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Fresh off signing a six-year contract extension a week ago, Mikael Backlund scored a goal and added two assists on Saturday afternoon. Backlund is an important two-way center for the Flames, although his real-life value may be higher than his fantasy value. His $3.575 million cap hit might be easier to take for deep cap leaguers this season, but fantasy leaguers might want to move on after it reaches $5.35 million next season. That doesn’t necessarily mean he should be ignored in non-cap leagues, though.

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With a goal and three assists on Saturday, Mitch Marner has 11 goals and 20 points over his last 17 games. Not only has he turned his season around, but he is now the Leafs’ leading scorer with 51 points. What sophomore slump?

Nazem Kadri had a nice multicategory game, scoring two power-play goals on eight shots on goal. Kadri is on a similar type of roll as Kadri, scoring nine goals and 20 points over his last 17 games.

The Bruins’ loss extended beyond the scoreboard. Patrice Bergeron was seen leaving the Air Canada Centre with a boot on his right foot. On the HNIC intermission panel, Nick Kypreos speculated that if the injury is serious, Bergeron could be placed on LTIR to make room for Rick Nash. As well, the Rangers can take on as much as 50 percent of Nash’s $7.8 million cap hit in any deal. Nash or no Nash, the Bruins are back in action today (Sunday) against Buffalo, so it’s probably safe to assume Bergeron won’t be in the lineup for that game.

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With two assists, Taylor Hall extended his “point streak” to 21 games (technically a 14-game streak because of the injury). Over that 21 games Hall has 30 points (14g-16a). If the Hart Trophy is awarded to the player most valuable to his team, Hall should be in the running. With 66 points in 57 games, Hall is 26 points ahead of the next-highest scorer on the Devils, with four fewer games played.

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The Jets must be good if a Western Conference foe (Vegas) is getting in on a deal to prevent them from adding Derick Brassard. There’s plenty of hot Jets right now:

With an assist on Saturday, Blake Wheeler has 17 points over his last 11 games, including an eight-game point streak.

With two goals on Saturday, Patrik Laine has six goals and nine points over his last five games.

After a so-so first half that was slowed by injuries, Dustin Byfuglien has 11 points (1g-10a) over his last nine games. He recorded three helpers on Saturday. Remember that Big Buff’s average draft position was 25.1 in Yahoo leagues, so there’s still time to recoup your original investment. But in spite of the numerous categories that Byfuglien is a contributor, you should be moving the soon-to-be 33-year-old down your draft rankings next season.

Michael Hutchinson made just his second start of the season, earning the win after stopping 33 of 36 shots. Starts are rare with Connor Hellebuyck playing so well. He would be worth keeping an eye on for spot starts because of how strong the Jets are, but Steve Mason has been cleared to play.  

Kari Lehtonen earned a second consecutive start on Saturday after posting a shutout on Thursday against LA. But after being pulled in the second period after allowing four goals on 21 shots, there probably won’t be a third consecutive start.

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Evgenii Dadonov recorded a hat trick on Saturday, giving him seven goals and ten points over his last seven games. Linemate Aleksander Barkov assisted on all three of Dadonov’s goals.

The Panthers may not be a playoff team, but they’re a team that you want to target for your fantasy playoffs. Over the last three weeks of the season, they play 13 times, more than any other team. So if you want to target Barkov, he won’t come cheap because he’s been scoring at a point per game. But Dadonov would be a superb fantasy playoff target, as he’s only owned in 27 percent of Yahoo leagues. Even if you had to trade for him, you probably wouldn’t have to break the bank.  

With three points on Saturday, Evgeni Malkin has 27 points over his last 13 games. That’s over two points per game. Insane! Do you sell really high in case the inevitable injury happens? He’s “only” missed four games this season.

Flying well under the radar of Malkin and others, Carl Hagelin has 17 points over his last 20 games, including a goal and an assist on Saturday. His overall scoring (eight goals and 23 points in 62 games) doesn’t look that appealing, but having a linemate as hot as Malkin makes Hagelin a possible add since he’s so widely available (just 4 percent in Yahoo leagues).

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Alex Ovechkin scored twice – his league-leading 37th and 38th of the season – while firing 11 shots on goal. Is he on pace for 50? Yes, but just barely. It would be nice to have a 50-goal scorer this season after we didn’t have any last season. Remember when he said he would bail on the NHL season to play in the Olympics? Yeah, that would have been interesting.

Evgeny Kuznetsov scored a goal and added three assists on Saturday. He’s on pace to match his 77 points from two seasons ago. Lining up with Ovechkin for part of the season seems to be making a difference, as is additional power-play time (1:30 more this season over last). As a result, Kuznetsov already has 20 power-play points this season compared to 14 last season, a number that has helped him reach the same number of points as he had all of last season.  

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Will the Darcy Kuemper acquisition tighten the screws on Antti Raanta? You wouldn’t have known it on Saturday, as he stopped all 26 Ducks’ shots he faced in a 2-0 shutout win. Kuemper is expected to start the second of back-to-backs on Sunday against Vancouver (Goalie Post). But unless the Yotes somehow decide to trade Raanta, Kuemper may not see any more starts than he did in LA. Raanta has won four of his last five starts with shutouts in two of them with a 1.51 GAA and .958 SV% over that span.

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It was perhaps a bit earlier than expected, but Jeff Carter returned to the Kings’ lineup on Saturday. He was held without a point with four shots on goal in 17 minutes of icetime. I mentioned in my latest Sportsnet article that now is the time to activate him or add him. Unfortunately, he has yet to score his first goal of the season in seven total games.

Tyler Toffoli scored a goal while taking eight shots on goal. The goal was Toffoli’s first in six games and just his second in 20 games. Toffoli was matched with Carter in this game, so perhaps the two struggling forwards can help each other out.

The Kings have decided to try newly acquired Tobias Rieder’s speed on the Anze Kopitar line. Rieder took full advantage, scoring a goal while taking six shots on goal. If this arrangement can stick for a while then Rieder’s fantasy value will improve with the move to LA.

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For those of you that stayed up late, wasn’t that Olympic gold medal game fun? We don’t have a Contrarian article anymore, but I’m going to give my own Contrarian hot take: What do you say we have this same Olympic format in four years so that we can give nations outside of the usual hockey powers a chance to win the gold medal again? (ducks) Okay, but at least we know that Olympic hockey won’t be so bad if Bettman and the IOC can’t agree on something to send NHL players to Beijing in 2022.

Nikita Gusev scored two goals in the gold medal game. Because you’re probably interested in finding out more about him, I’ve attached his Dobber Prospects profile. If the Vegas Golden Knights can get him to come to the NHL, look out. But that’s a major if. But he’s not the only Russian player where that is the case…

… because there’s also Kirill Kaprizov, the golden goal scorer in this game. Here’s his Dobber Prospects profile. It’s really difficult to know what to do with these two prospects in keeper leagues, as they should be fantasy relevant players. They could both theoretically play in the NHL next season, or they could decide to sign in the KHL again for 2-3 more seasons. Personally, I’d like to see that NHL contract before I attempt to add one of these players to my keeper team. But I know there are others that will take the risk sooner than that.

But we could see players 3 and 4 from this list in the NHL very soon…  

Final top scorers for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games: Nikita Gusev (VGK), Kirill Kaprizov (MIN) and Eeli Tolvanen (NSH). USA's Ryan Donato (BOS) tied for the tournament goal-scoring lead with 5 with Kaprizov and Kovalchuk. pic.twitter.com/w8VkaxKKwm

— Chris Peters (@chrismpeters) February 25, 2018

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For more fantasy hockey information, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.

      from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-why-dadonov-makes-sense-bergeron-injured-trade-rumblings-feb-25/