Two Questions and a Thought
This is your reminder that Sunday is the start of my annual two-week break from writing. So, for the next two weeks, there will be no Prism Hockey articles at all, but when I’m back from the break, it’s pedal to the metal. The Champions Hockey League will have started by the time I’m back from my break, and that begins the 2025-26 hockey season calendar, so our summer lull will finally be over. I will have an article out early next week, reminding you that I’m on break.
Anyway, let’s go over two questions readers submitted for a mailbag. This year, I have two questions to answer:
“Why do you think GMs are mostly paralyzed when it comes to effectively utilizing offer sheets, especially when the cap is going up? And do you think the cap raise affected this years' free agency, as GMs knew that they could shoehorn an additional plum contract in and not really be penalized?” (Colin B. on Bluesky)
The reason they’re paralyzed to utilize offer sheets, even now with the cap going up, is for the same reason they always were: they don’t want it to be open season on their young players. It’s basically an unspoken rule: “You don’t offer sheet my players and I don’t offer sheet yours”. No one wants their young players to become targets. That’s why offer sheets happen so rarely. That’s always now that Doug Armstrong (St. Louis Blues general manager) opened that can of worms last year, he made sure that none of the RFAs he wanted to keep, like Joel Hofer, made it to July unsigned. Somebody, likely the Oilers, probably would have offer sheeted Hofer. Why? Armstrong broke the unspoken rule. So, it doesn’t really matter if the cap is going up or not. No one wants to start a war where RFAs are regularly offer-sheeted. It’d make it harder to protect their own young players, and what GM wants to make their job harder?
For the second question, the answer is “Yes”. Just look at the Florida Panthers and how they managed to keep all their top talent. If the cap hadn’t gone up, they wouldn’t have been able to do that.
“Cossa or Augustine, who are you more hyped for?” (GabArr on Substack)
I have a rule for goaltending prospects: I don’t get excited for one until they’re in the AHL and performing well. Goaltenders are so hard to develop that I need proof they can do well in the highest levels of competition first, and considering the AHL is arguably the second-best league in the world, it’s good enough for me. Augustine looks promising, but I don’t really care too much, and it won’t be until he’s dominating the AHL. Sure, AHL success doesn’t always equal NHL success, look at Devon Levi, but AHL success is more likely to mean NHL success than NCAA success. For goaltenders and how tough their development is, I want to see them as close as possible to the NHL and doing well. That’s why for me, the answer is Cossa all day, any day. He’s performing well in the AHL, yes, maybe not to the standard we’d hope for from the 15th overall pick, but he still looks like a legitimate starter (even if it’s a 1A in a tandem), and he did well in his NHL debut, but he looks good. I am infinitely more hyped for that than someone doing well dominating talented teenagers who are destined for the NHL and early 20s men who are destined for Europe (if they even have a hockey career after college). Not saying it’s easy to dominate the NCAA like Augustine is, but it’s not the top-tier talent like the AHL is. Even if I didn’t have this rule, I would still choose Cossa because his ceiling is still higher than Augustine's. Once again, I like what I see (like, I like it a LOT) from Augustine, but Cossa is who I’m hyped for.
The Colorado Avalanche aren’t doing Pride Nights anymore, but they are now doing porn nights. No, that’s not a joke. They’re literally doing a game devoted to celebrating porn. It’s called “Fourth Wing Night”. For those of you lucky enough to have never heard of “Fourth Wing”, it’s a mediocre porn book written by Rebecca Yarros, who is an Avs fan. The book is mediocre and straight-up porn and should not be celebrated, especially around children. Yet, the people who complained about Pride Night are nowhere to be found because it wasn’t “sex around children” that offended them; it’s the existence of people they see as “degenerates”. Literal porn is ok because it’s porn for boring straight white women with no lives. If I’m coming across as judgmental, it’s because I am. These are not good books, and the sequel to “Fourth Wing” is a book so bad that neither my middle sibling nor I, both of whom have a very high tolerance for poorly written books, could even finish it. These porn books are everywhere and inescapable. At their absolute best, they have mediocre prose, one-dimensional characters, and a few good ideas that are poorly executed. That’s “Fourth Wing”. The sequel, though, is just terrible in every way imaginable. Anyway, this is who the Avalanche are promoting now. A mediocre white woman who writes mediocre (at best) porn for other mediocre white women. But if you’re queer, you can go screw off; the Avs want nothing to do with you. Absolutely embarrassing decision by the Avalanche.
If you do like these books, please know that there are actually good fantasy books written by female authors, like Robin Hobb, Vaishnavi Patel, and R. F. Kuang. Go read those. There are actually good romance books, like ones written by Emily Henry. Go read those. Don’t read this crap. Have some respect for yourself. You only have so much time on this earth, and you shouldn’t purposefully spend it on reading crap. Read the good stuff and live your best life.
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