Sunday Scaries: More Vegas talk, Evan Bouchard and Morgan Rielly at the Eras Tour

So, after two weeks, I’m finally ready to admit that it may not be looking good for the Florida Panthers.

There are two teams in the Stanley Cup Finals this year that have never won a cup which is great for the league. However, the fact that the 30-year-old team isn’t winning a cup, and the expansion team from 2017 is insane to me. I’m not saying the league is corrupt, but it has always seemed like they have favoured Vegas winning. They were exempt from losing a player in the expansion draft when Seattle came into the league, and heck, they made the cup finals in their first year as a team.

Should they win, Vegas will have had the easiest road to the Stanley Cup, probably ever.

Anyways, moving on from the Golden Knights and onto some more Oilers-centric discussion points.

Number one- Evan Bouchard’s next contract. With little wiggle room and 3 top priority re-signings, Ken Holland has work to do.

Evan Bouchard is arguably at the top of this list.

He is currently still under the contract signed by Peter Chiarelli, which ends this year.

He is a player that most of us would like to see signed to a long-term deal. However, Ken Holland, as I previously mentioned, doesn’t have much to work with this off-season. Robin Brownlee predicts a bridge deal at around 4 million dollars to be the contract we see for him before the 2023-24 season starts.

Personally, I used to be a Bouchard hater, but give Duncan Keith credit where credit is due because it was easy to see his drastic improvements during and after playing with him.

He makes mistakes, like any other player, but he’s still young, still learning, and he isn’t a defenceman that at this point we can risk losing.

Klim Kostin and Ryan McLeod are the next top priority signings in my opinion, and in that order.

I love Ryan McLeod, but Klim Kostin is just so much more of an impact player in my eyes, but I do think that we will be able to sign all three of these players this off-season.

I’m trying my best to have all the faith in the world in Ken Holland to get his job done so we can see these guys tearing up the Stanley Cup finals next year.

The exact opposite of a Scary with this one, but Mattias Ekholm seems to love Edmonton. He has spent his off-season in Edmonton adjusting to life in the city and also with his wife getting ready for the birth of his child. When he first got to Edmonton, he spoke about how excited he and his wife were for Edmonton winters, and I have never heard something so beautiful, because well, I’ve never heard that before. Anyone who has been in Edmonton in winter knows that it’s usually so far from ideal, but for the Ekholms to want to be here as bad as they do makes my heart very happy.

And finally my biggest Scary of all…

A Toronto Maple Leafs player having fun at a Taylor Swift concert. Where my least and most (respectively) favourite things met last Sunday.

Hey Google, play that should be me by JB.