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Good morning to everyone except the cable company bean-counters who seem intent on ending sports radio in Canada. All the best to the talented people at Vancouver’s Sportsnet 650 and Calgary’s Sportsnet 960, both of which were shuttered this week by Rogers. This industry stinks sometimes.

On to a dramatic week in the NHL, where the suspense is building on what could be a franchise-defining decision for two teams.

Well, things have certainly slowed down since the last time we were in your inbox. One week ago, we were digging out of the chaos of a week of blockbuster trades and star-adjacent UFA signings, blissfully unaware that the monster Leo Carlsson offer sheet was about to change the financial landscape. 

This week? There’s not quite as much news to chew on. But there’s some, including a resolution to that other offer sheet…

The Mammoth match on Hayton

Admittedly, in the aftermath of the Carlsson deal, the New Jersey Devils’ offer sheet to the Utah Mammoth’s Barrett Hayton feels almost quaint. A one-year deal worth just under $5 million? Compensation that didn’t include any first-round picks, let alone four of them? Adorable!

But while the Devils’ attempt didn’t force us to rethink modern salary structures, it was tricky in its own way. Remember, teams that match an offer sheet can’t trade the player for a full year. In Hayton’s case, that means that if the Mammoth matched, they’d walk him right up to unrestricted free agency a year from now and risk losing him for nothing. Would they really roll the dice on that outcome, or would they take a second-round pick from New Jersey and call it a day?

Now we know: The Mammoth have matched the offer, meaning Hayton stays in Utah and the Devils come out empty-handed.

This always felt like the most likely outcome, even as there was enough uncertainty to make it worth the Devils’ while to find out. The Mammoth will now get one more season from the fifth overall pick in the 2018 draft, with the possibility of an extension still on the table down the road. They’ll no doubt be hoping he improves on last year’s 10-goal, 25-point output; his career high is 46 points in 2024-25.

As for the Devils, they miss out on the player but now have nearly $5 million in cap space that they can work with. Is there anyone left on the market for them to use it on? Not really, but new GM Sunny Mehta is clearly willing to think outside the box.

And with the offer sheet undercard now taken care of, we can move on to the main event.

Decision day for the Ducks

The clock is ticking. And by tomorrow, Pat Verbeek has to make his call.

The Anaheim Ducks GM is facing one of the tougher decisions in years: Does he blow up his team’s salary structure by making Leo Carlsson the highest-paid player (by AAV) in the league? Or does he take four first-round picks from the Philadelphia Flyers and let Carlsson walk, essentially hitting reset on what had looked like a successful rebuild effort?

If it sounds like a question without a right answer, well, that’s mission accomplished by Daniel Brière and the Flyers. We’ve seen offer sheets in the past where the “match” option seemed so obvious that you wonder why the signing team wasted everyone’s time. And in theory, we could see one where the offer was so outlandish that there was no question it would go unmatched, which would imply a serious miscalculation by the signing team. But this one manages to thread the needle, with a case to be made on both sides.

If you’ve missed any of our coverage so far, let’s get you caught up:

And now, we wait. But not for much longer. Tick tick tick. And then, ka-ching. But from whom? We’re about to find out…

Trivia time💡: We’ll keep it nice and simple today. How many Hockey Hall of Famers can you name who signed an offer sheet during their career?

A few hints: First, the number is probably way higher than you might think. It includes:

A player who’ll be part of this year’s Hall of Fame class
The one player in NHL history who signed an offer sheet twice
Only one player who signed an offer sheet during the cap era
A player who was already a Hall of Famer when he signed his offer sheet
Coast to coast

🥣 Fluto Shinzawa has a great piece on what it’s like to feed a camp full of NHL prospects. Hint: Bring lots of fish.

🤕 The Chicago Blackhawks got some bad news about Connor Bedard’s shoulder.

❄️ We’re a few weeks into the NHL offseason, are you feeling insulted yet? These eight fan bases should be.

🎱 The inside story of how Alex Ovechkin’s return to the Washington Capitals came together.

👶 Now that the 2026 draft is over, it’s time for Corey Pronman to finally get some rest bring us his way-too-early 2027 mock.

👏 I’m not sure why the Pulitzer committee hasn’t called me about this one yet, but the call is probably coming.

🎨 Ever wanted to design an NHL jersey? Now you can.

🎙️ On the season finale of the Wednesday edition of “The Athletic Hockey Show” podcast, the crew talk offer sheets and have maybe a bit too much fun with Daniel Alfredsson joining the Leafs. Listen here, or watch here.

Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images

No dumb questions

We believe that in hockey, as in life, there are no dumb questions. So if you have something you’ve always wondered about the sport, ask away by emailing us at redlight@theathletic.com.

To pull or not to pull

If pulling the goalie is a good (albeit risky) idea at the end of a game when behind by a goal or maybe two, why wouldn’t it be a good idea at some other point in the game? I have never seen a team pull their goalie until the last few minutes of the third. — Sarah K.

I appreciate this question because it’s one that’s never really occurred to me as a lifelong hockey fan, but it makes perfect sense. If pulling the goalie for an extra attacker is such a smart move in the most crucial moment, why don’t teams do it any other time?

First things first: Sarah is correct about teams basically never pulling a goalie for an extra attacker until late in the game. There’s been a recent trend of coaches making the pull earlier than they used to, one that’s often attributed to Patrick Roy’s aggressive approach. But they never do it any earlier, unless it’s a situation that’s essentially risk-free — a delayed penalty, or an offensive faceoff with only a second or two left in a period.

So what’s the deal? The answer comes down to the value of a goal and how it changes over the course of a game.

Let’s start with a key detail: A team that pulls its goalie late in a game is always more likely to be scored on than they are to score. One estimate is that the ratio is about three-to-one, which is to say the team that’s ahead will score an empty-net goal about three times for every time the trailing team scores with the man advantage.

So why do it? Because those goals aren’t created equal. Let’s take the typical situation where Team A is trailing by one goal, with let’s say two minutes left. If they pull the goalie and Team B scores into the empty net, that matters — it all but ends the game, depriving Team A of the comeback chance they would have had if they’d kept the goalie in. That empty-net goal by Team B has value.

But it’s far less value than a Team A goal, which ties the game and makes it overwhelmingly likely that we’ll get overtime. In the regular season, that means a free point and a chance at another. In the playoffs, it means the chance to turn a regulation loss into an OT win, which can end up deciding a series. Given the score, Team A’s goal matters a lot more than Team B’s will.

To put it maybe a touch too simply: Team A doesn’t really care if they get scored on, because the difference between losing a game by one goal or two goals is meaningless to it. But the difference between losing by one and being tied at the end of regulation? That’s massive. So it’s worth the risk.

But it is a risk — a big one, that’s overwhelmingly likely not to pay off. So it doesn’t make sense to try it until you absolutely have to. So teams wait as long as they can before they pull out all the stops — and their goaltender.

Your trivia answer… 

Believe it or not, there are 11 players in the Hockey Hall of Fame who signed an offer sheet during their NHL career. The list includes: 

Larry Robinson (with the Kings in 1989)
Guy Lafleur (with the Nordiques in 1989, when he was already in the Hall)
Scott Stevens (with the Blues in 1990 and again in 1994)
Brendan Shanahan (with the Blues in 1991)
Michel Goulet (with the Blues in 1991)
Sergei Makarov (with the Sharks in 1992)
Teemu Selänne (with the Flames in 1992)
Keith Tkachuk (with the Blackhawks in 1995)
Joe Sakic (with Rangers in 1997)
Sergei Fedorov (with the Hurricanes in 1998)
Shea Weber (with the Flyers in 2012)

Will Leo Carlsson join the list someday? For $18 million a year, you could argue he’d better.

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