Even though it is the end of July, people still want to talk about hockey. And who are we to deny them this privilege? Besides, not only are people curious about Kevin Shattenkirk, Connor McDavid and Evander Kane, people also have feelings about comic book movies and Margot Robbie. With that setup in mind, NHL Mailbag!

1. Out Of Range

Last week, the New York Rangers and Ottawa Senators swapped Derick Brassard and Mike Zibanejad. In the days that followed, the Rangers avoided arbitration with Kevin Hayes (two years, $5.2 million) and Chris Kreider (four years, $18.5 million). With 23 players signed, the Rangers have $3.425 million in cap space, according to General Fanager.

The difference in cap hits between Brassard and Zibanejad is about $2.4 million, which means it’s a deal the Rangers didn’t have to do to be cap-compliant. The only reason to take a (maybe slightly) lesser player is if it frees room to do something else, right? That’s what logic says, anyway, and we all know logic escapes a lot of NHL teams.

Kevin Shattenkirk to the Rangers, as it has for months, makes all the sense in the world. Add Shattenkirk, send Dylan McIlrath to the minors or to St. Louis as part of the trade, and you’ve almost got the exact amount of cap space the Rangers currently possess. Work out a reasonable contract extension with a player that has “New Yorker at heart” in his Twitter bio and everyone goes home happy.

Here’s the problem: What sort of package can the Rangers offer the Blues that works for them?

St. Louis Blues v New York Islanders

The Rangers aren’t exactly overflowing with prospects and it’s not as though the Blues have to trade Shattenkirk. He’s a luxury, but he’s one they can afford for one more year. The Rangers finally have a first-round pick again in 2017, but do they really want to trade a No. 1 pick for the fifth year in a row? It’s not as though Shattenirk makes the Rangers favorites to win the Cup.

There was a time when Rick Nash for Shattenkirk seemed obvious, but now it would have to involve the Rangers retaining salary, which is doable, but it makes the deal more complicated.

So what would it take? Man, I don’t know. Here’s an idea that will definitely never happen.

Shattenkirk and a fifth-round pick for Pavel Buchnevich, McIlrath and a second-round pick in 2018 (since they have an extra one from the Brassard/Zibanejad deal).

Then the Rangers can buy out Dan Girardi next summer instead of paying him $10 million over three seasons to be a No. 6/7 defenseman. That would leave the Rangers with a dead cap hit of $2.6 million in 2017-18, then $3.6 million the following two seasons, then $1.1 million over the final three seasons, all of which could be rationalized as money that could’ve gone to Shattenkirk if he didn’t (theoretically) take a discount deal to be a New Yorker for seven years.

This has been Fun With Speculation In Late-July With Your Buddy Dave.

 

2. Urine My Way

You have no choice but to suck it up and pee in the middle urinal. The child’s urinal is like the handicapped stall; you only use it when you have no choice.

Imagine using the child’s urinal when a child comes into the bathroom. What happens then? Does his dad hold the kid up while he pees? That’s traumatic for everyone. I can pee at midfield during the Super Bowl, but if a dad and his 5-year-old are stank-eyeing me while I pee in the child’s urinal, that might ruin me.

 

3. Kane Walking?

Oh, Amy. Poor, sweet, naïve Amy. Of course the Sabres could release Evander Kane right now, no questions asked. He has been charged with four counts of harassment, which includes allegations of grabbing women by the throat. There’s no doubt Kane has a morals clause in his contract that allows the Sabres to terminate it based on this.

Mike Richards had his deal voided (although there was later a cash settlement, as what the Kings did was bullshit, but you can only fight the system so hard as a player) over a drug arrest at the Canadian/United States border.

You see, Amy, what Kane allegedly did is way worse than what Richards allegedly did. So why wouldn’t the Sabres void the deal (unless he’s found guilty, maybe)?

BUFFALO, NY - MARCH 01: Evander Kane #9 of the Buffalo Sabres warms up to play the Edmonton Oilers at First Niagara Center on March 1, 2016 in Buffalo, New York.  (Photo by Jen Fuller/Getty Images)
BUFFALO, NY – MARCH 01: Evander Kane #9 of the Buffalo Sabres warms up to play the Edmonton Oilers at First Niagara Center on March 1, 2016 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Jen Fuller/Getty Images)

Kane is still good at hockey. Richards was no longer good at hockey. Kane has the ability to score 30 goals next season. Richards probably will never reach 30 points in a season ever again.

If charges were dropped against Slava Voynov, he’d be the right side of the Kings’ second pairing next season. If Ray Rice were 24 years old when he punched his wife, he’d be the lead running back for the Oakland Raiders today. You’d never hear the end of their redemption stories.

That’s just sports. They suck. If Kane were Tom Sestito, he’d never get another NHL job. You can probably chart a graph that has an X axis denoting talent and a Y axis denoting the seriousness of a crime, and you can find those spots where the crime proves to be too serious for the talent level and the player has to go.

 

4. Connor McAwesome

https://twitter.com/MrMikeEaton/status/757674479388495872

Zero. Top 10, though. Maybe top five.

 

5. Comic-Connor McComic-Con

I heard there are some new comic book movies coming out. That’s great. Because I was just saying to someone the other day, a good friend of mine, I said, “Harambe, I wish there were more comic book movies, because there’s just not enough movies based on comic books. We need more.” And now we have them.

And what’s that? A movie about King Kong? Finally! Has there ever been a movie about King Kong? Again, I asked my buddy about it, but by then, my buddy was dead. I bet he would not have been excited about a gorilla exploitation movie.

 

6. Your Wife Left You?

Because he looks better naked and makes way more money than you.

 

7. I’m The Best

Neither scares me, as I am a terrific athlete capable of overpowering Zdeno Chara and an amazing negotiator that could extract as much money as I wanted from Lou Lamoriello.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go bench press 90 pounds five times and accept a reduced rate for this mailbag.

 

8. Will the New York Islanders trade Jaroslav Halak before the season?

John

NEWARK, NJ - FEBRUARY 19: Jaroslav Halak #41 of the New York Islanders makes a third period save against Lee Stempniak #20 of the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center on February 19, 2016 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
NEWARK, NJ – FEBRUARY 19: Jaroslav Halak #41 of the New York Islanders makes a third period save against Lee Stempniak #20 of the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center on February 19, 2016 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Thanks, my friend in real life John, who has a private Twitter account despite having only 35 followers, thus forcing me to type out his question. Why are you keeping all your Mets retweets a secret?

Anyway, I don’t know a) who would take him and b) why the Islanders would do it. I’ve been president of the Thomas Greiss Fan Club forever but last year’s 38 starts represent a career high. J-F Berube has seven games of NHL experience. Could they work as a tandem over a full season? Sure. Maybe. But if you’re a team that’s in it to win it now, why not go with Halak/Greiss again and use Berube if (OK, when) Halak gets hurt during the season?

 

9. Highway Robbie-ry (Or Whatever)

We’ve had some great guests on the Puck Soup podcast with myself and Greg Wyshynski: Tom Cavanagh of Ed and The Flash fame; Billy Kimball, a writer for Veep, the best show on television; noted Boston homer and funny television person Katie Nolan, and Sydney Esiason, sports broadcaster, daughter to Boomer and girlfriend to Matt Martin of the Islanders. So we’ve had some good ones in our short run and it’d be great if any of them came back to hang out next season.

But Margot Robbie, come on.

She’s arguably the biggest star on the planet as of this moment. She loves hockey. She plays hockey. She’s starring in a comic book movie that’s out in August. She’s everything we would want in a guest but, as it turns out, she’s somewhat coveted by people with shows that aren’t recorded in a dark corner of a dark studio. Her publicist was nice about it and we are still holding out hope that she finds a 30-minute window during her time in New York and gives us a ring.

At the very least, our interview wouldn’t be worse than the Vanity Fair one.