Hockey Fight!!!

As John and Brendan prepare to take the rest of the summer off, they join you one last time this season for a recap of all the wild happenings on NHL Free Agency day, including Tony DeAngelo finding a new home, what the best and worst contracts handed out were, and what these very high salaries for defencemen will mean for Quinn Hughes' next contract.

It's a true Fight on the pod this week, as John feels like Arizona got the better of the Canucks in the blockbuster deal they made Friday, where Brendan (mostly) likes it for the Canucks. Plus, Seattle's got a perplexing team and we also dive into the other big perplexing deal this weekend, as Seth Jones gets moved to Chicago where he is expected to sign a massive extension. Speaking of Chicago, we also get into how them and Montreal combined to ruin the first round of the NHL Entry Draft inside of 10 awkward and excruciating minutes.

The Fighters recorded on a very busy Saturday in the NHL, just before a bunch of the expansion protection madness happened and so we got into some of the other wild stuff from this week, particularly the acquisition of Duncan Keith by the Edmonton Oilers. After spending some time commiserating with Oilers fans, we moved on to discuss Pierre McGuire finally getting the front-office job of his dreams and the Twin Cities' twin buyouts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise.

The Stanley Cup Final went the way the Fighters thought it would on last week's episode, as Tampa mercifully finishes off Montreal in 5, and we dissect it all here from what went wrong for Montreal to just how impressive it was for Tampa to win two "COVID Cups". We also dig in to the already-infamous Nikita Kucherov press conference where he appeared shirtless and half-cut and we discuss what excites us most for the rest of July.

They haven't won the Cup yet, but the Fighters can't help but coronate the Tampa Bay Lightning as the Stanley Cup champs, after they take a 3-0 lead on Montreal. We talk about what's been going right for Tampa and more tellingly, what's been going wrong for Montreal as the Lightning look to close out the series this week. We also take a peek at the back half of the NHL Award winners as we ponder the Calder maximum age in the wake of Kirill Kaprizov's win and Marc-André Fleury winning the Vezina without being a true starter. Plus, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins takes a hometown discount and Joel Eriksson Ek gets rich.

The Fighters are back and in perfect time to break down the Stanley Cup Final, as the Islanders fall valiantly to Tampa in a close Game 7 and Montreal manages to beat Vegas, which leaves John wondering if the Leafs were actually....good? We talk about our predictions for the Stanley Cup Final and whether or not we think Montreal can pull it out. Plus, we take a look at some front office moves around the league as the Seattle Kraken have their first Head Coach in Dave Hakstol and the Canucks bring the Sedin Twins into the fold.

It's award season in the NHL, and the Fighters talk about the awards we've seen so far, and decry some of the very weird votes. Plus we take a look at Brendan's Predictor Challenge and talk about the Montreal series lead over Vegas.

The Fight is back and it occurs at the perfect time as there's a break in the NHL schedule between Rounds 2 and 3 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. This allows the Fighters to revisit their playoff predictions and we find that Brendan has so much ground to make up on John that John offers him a deal: go perfect the remainder of the way through the SCF, or bear the punishment on his own. Plus, we recap some of the second round while looking ahead to the third, and we try to envision scenarios where the Habs and Isles can topple the incumbent favourites.

It's a eulogy for another lost season as John's Toronto Maple Leafs are out of the playoffs despite high expectations. He attempts to make sense of it all with Brendan's help as they ponder what the Leafs could do next season from a big trade to smaller UFA moves, and Brendan advocates for a coaching change. In the second half of the show, the Fighters are once again running through a bad hit as Mark Schiefele gets suspended for his hit on Jake Evans.

The Fighters are back this week and recording in advance of an early Saturday morning showtime since they don't want to wake up at 8 am to do the show again. So while they can't report on the Vegas/Minnesota result (though John almost gets it right), they can report on their Saturday predictions for the Bruins/Islanders series and whether or not the Leafs will win Game 6. Plus, we get into what's happening in Edmonton as we ponder a potential Connor McDavid trade request, re-signing Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and what they can do to build a contender.