What If Every NHL Free Agent Just Decides To Go To Their Hometown Team?
So first of all, let me just start off by saying we should really be calling them the Browns if we’re going to be putting Maroon on the Blues. Get it? That’s a little art class joke for all you boys and girls back home. But back to the actual story here.
Get the “I’m coming home” videos ready because Pat Maroon is heading back to Missouri to play for his hometown St. Louis Blues on a 1-year deal. A moment he’s been dreaming of since he was a little boy sleeping in his Blues bedding.
Now it may not be the biggest signing of all time. It’s just for a year with a cap hit under $2 million. But it’s another player this summer deciding to get their paycheck signed by the team they grew up idolizing. First we had John Tavares skip out on Long Island to head up north to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs. That was a slightly bigger deal for 7-years at $11M AAV. But the sentiment is still the same as Pat Maroon’s decision here to go to St. Louis. There’s obviously a draw for these guys to go play for the team they grew up watching. There’s obviously a comfort level and familiarity that draws these guys in to being able to go home to be near friends and family while playing this game for a living. So what happens if more and more NHL free agents decide to take this path? What happens when more and more NHL free agents see all these “I’m coming home” videos and decide they want one for themselves?
Let’s just look ahead to some of the big names in the 2019 free agency class, both UFA’s and RFA’s.
- Erik Karlsson (Landsbro, SWE) would be leaving the NHL to go back to Sweden. Which, at the moment, still sounds about a million times better than staying in Ottawa.
- Blake Wheeler (Plymouth, MN) would sign with the Minnesota Wild. Adding him to that lineup may be enough to finally get the Wild over the hump and lose in the 1st round of the playoffs in 7 games instead of just 5 or 6.
- Max Pacioretty (New Canaan, CT) would sign with the Hartford Whalers. It would be for the best if nobody told him that they don’t exist anymore. After all the circus show shit he’s been dealing with in Montreal, he could use a few years away from the game.
- Auston Matthews (Scottsdale, AZ) would sign with the Arizona Coyotes. Which, I’m being 100% honest here, is most likely going to happen at least at some point in his career anyway as long as the Coyotes remain in Arizona instead of relocating. And considering how tight against the cap the Maple Leafs are going to be for a while here, I would love to see John Chayka actually offer sheet Auston Matthews next summer.
- Joe Thornton would sign with the Bethlehem Blast. That’s a joke about Joe Thornton being very old and bearing a striking resemblance to Jesus Christ.
So there you go. I know that everybody hates spoilers and everything but at least everybody can sleep in on July 1, 2019 now.