I just wanted to give a few thoughts about my experience during this election.

It’s so easy

I think Canadians sometimes take for granted how easy it is for us to vote in elections compared to other countries. I hear about long waiting lines or mail in voting issues or machines messing up and it sounds a lot like systems being intentionally difficult to ensure people don’t vote. I have never had a problem voting in Canada.

My voting card listed multiple days I could early vote. On the day of the election (today) I had five locations I could go to near my house. I walked in. I showed my ID. I don’t have a drivers licence at the moment so I had to show some other form of proof of my residence. I didn’t have a utility bill handy (thank you paperless billing) but I did have a form from Service Canada about updating my pin number. That was good enough.

Why is that good enough? Because it damn well should be. There isn’t some giant fake voter fraud epidemic and the proof is that we never have elections where too many people voted. I’ve been living at the same place for almost a decade. I’ve been living in Windsor for 20 years. There doesn’t need to be more hoops in me proving I am who I am.

This is the way it should be.

Nobody does door to door anymore

A few weeks ago I started my research on who to vote for. I went to the Who Is Running? page on the City of Windsor website. Out of the 11 candidates, only 6 had a website. Today 9 now have one. One of the candidates told me he sent his website and they didn’t post it. I talked to a City of Windsor employee after who blamed the candidate. His website is there now. While I’m sure it’s sometimes incompetence on the candidate I don’t think that’s true for this one.

On October 15, I sent emails to every candidate in my area that didn’t have a website. It just so happens none of these candidates went to my house either. In fact, only one candidate went to my house and she was running for Catholic district school board. No ward candidates came to my door. No mayoral candidates came to my door. A friend of mine told me both major candidates for mayor came to his apartment building and bought everyone lunch. Are you surprised it was a majority seniors apartment building?

I understand why nobody makes phone calls or texts. Most people today hate when they get called or texted by someone they weren’t expecting a phone call or text from. But by October 15 I only received two flyers. As of election day I’ve received more, multiple from one ward candidate, but not even something from every candidate.

My biggest issue is the lack of door to door.

I’ve worked elections in my lifetime. Provincial and federal. Yes I know a lot of people react poorly to having someone knock on their door. It is, however, the very best way to make yourself as a candidate known. I don’t live in the finest neighbourhood in the city but it’s a neighbourhood full of families, full of adults, and it’s safe to walk. I bring up the safe to walk because one candidate told me in an email he didn’t feel safe as a visible minority going door to door. I am not in a predominantly white neighbourhood.

The lack of door to door interaction made me feel like my neighbourhood, and I, was being ignored. That’s why I emailed candidates.

Do you even want to win?

Out of the people I emailed, one didn’t even respond. She was running for my Ward. Why did you even submit your name in? Can’t send a flyer. Can’t knock a door. Can’t even answer an email.

One candidate told me he didn’t have a website because, “I am running a zero-dollar campaign, and it would just become irrelevant after the election if I had one.”

It costs ZERO DOLLARS to have a website. It costs ZERO DOLLARS to walk around the ward and speak to potential voters. Do you even want to win?

I had another candidate say he was knocking on doors and just didn’t get to me. Okay. Maybe it’s true.

I had one candidate for mayor respond to me about why I should vote for him as mayor by… talking about India. You are running for mayor of Windsor, can’t set up a website, can’t knock on my door, and when I email you, you suggest letting you call me and talk to me about… India. And how we should be in a state of emergency. Because of India.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE EVEN RUNNING FOR?

I am glad I emailed candidates because it did help me in making my decisions for who to vote for. I didn’t email everyone. If you didn’t get an email it’s because you had a website and/or sent me a flyer.

But I really just can’t get over the laziness of these campaigns. People put their name in and then put in zero effort. One person did tell me they got in an accident recently and you know what that’s just bad luck and I’ll let you off the hook. Maybe not on building a website but on not knocking on my door.

It would take an hour for the average person to walk from one side of my ward to another. I feel like in a week of walking through the neighbourhoods you should be able to get the ward done. Maybe you get held up by a few candidates. Maybe you get tired. Bad weather. It happens.

THE DEADLINE TO FILE FOR NOMINATION WAS AUGUST 21 WITH THE ELECTION ON OCTOBER 26. YOU HAD TWO MONTHS.

Two months to go door to door, knock on a door, maybe talk to someone, and make your presence known. The Ward candidates I feel have no excuse.

Mayoral candidates? I understand it can be hard to hit every door in a 200,000 person city. I understand it’s easier to set up events. But to only set them up in a senior apartment complex? I didn’t get a visit from the current mayor. I didn’t get a visit from the brother of the former mayor. I didn’t get a visit from anyone except Tina Chittle, and she was running for Greater Essex County District School Board Trustee. Thanks Tina.

I didn’t get invited for a town hall. I didn’t even see a candidate try to talk to people on a Windsor Facebook group.

We are more connected to people than ever before in the history of society and yet we make less of an effort than ever before.

Everyone seems to be running a two issue campaign

I don’t mean to generalize, maybe I’m being lazy, but in checking websites and flyers, there seems to be two primary issues on everyone’s mind: homelessness and drug addiction.

Yes, it’s an issue. It’s an issue everywhere. Windsor isn’t special. It’s wild when I hear people talk about their city like it’s the only place where oxycontin got widely distributed outside of cancer patients and people got addicted to strong level pain medication only to have it replaced by meth and fentanyl.

The cost of living is higher than ever. The cost of paying bills is higher than ever. It’s tough to work, it’s tough to travel, it’s tough to live. I’m not minimizing this in the slightest.

I just find it a bit frustrating this is priority one, mainly because it’s a visibility issue. We see the people on the street, paralyzed by their drugs, struggling to walk. It’s horrible. It’s inhumane. I have a family member on those streets and it breaks my heart. But I don’t see a single candidate declaring they are willing to spend the millions to get them proper drug treatment, proper dental treatment, proper mental health treatment, to clothe them, feed them, and house them. To get them their needed education or skills training to get back into working and paying taxes.

The cynic in me feels like multiple candidates are running on the promise of not turning people (yes, people) going through the roughest time in their lives, not into tax payers with dignity in their lives again, but just a way to… make them disappear. People just don’t want to see the homeless people. They don’t want to see the people struggling on drugs. Make them disappear and you’ll get their vote.

That seems to be all that matters to so many. They see it every day so they feel it every day. But rarely do I see someone saying they have the goal of actual recovery. It’s mostly just to hide them.

“You should run”

No.

I hate hearing this after I speak about the pros and cons of current elections.

I’m in my early 40s and I understand myself well enough to know two things: yes, I have an understanding of what works, or at least a confidence to believe I do. No, I’m not very good at getting people to take my advice on what to do.

There is a level of charisma required to get people to listen to what you have to say and then work with you to get it done. There’s also a level of fortitude required in shaking hands with people you don’t want to shake in order to get things done you want done. I know my limitations.

I wish the people who do run the best and I hope to help people in the future to run better campaigns that better represent what people actually want. I want people better educated, especially in our current society where education and the pursuit of knowledge is considered a waste of time and everyone wants answers immediately without doing the work.

That doesn’t mean I think I can accomplish it. Then again, with the level of laziness I have seen from some candidates, if someone wants to front the money next election? There’s certainly worse ways to waste your cash.

Even then, I’ve spent too much of my life online to not be an easy target for quick smear campaigns. As John Mulaney once said on the idea of becoming President of the United States of America, “Not unless everyone gets real cool about a bunch of stuff real quickly.”

Just because I want more human campaigns in municipal, provincial, and federal elections doesn’t mean I’m necessarily the person who should do it.

Anyhootie, good luck to all candidates running today. It’s a nice day out. Enjoy your walk to go vote.

The post Thoughts on the 2026 Windsor Municipal Election appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.

Does it matter where I saw it? Not really. But I went in the afternoon and I went on the cheap day. Somehow I woke up one day and cheap theatre day went from $4.50 to $9.00 but here we are. For the low price of $9 I was able to get an entire theatre by myself to see the new Tom Cruise movie in the final days of Warner Bros. Discovery.

I have been excited about Digger since the first teaser “announcement” trailer.

Why? I don’t really know. Seeing Tom Cruise finally look old honestly might have been it. One of my favourite performances by Cruise was Vincent in Collateral. It’s the first time Tom Cruise was trying to look his age in a very long time. It’s not really his fault he has good genes and always looks younger. You can decide if it’s Hollywood plastic surgery I don’t really care. People love to think everyone is fake because they would be fake if they had the opportunity. I don’t know if Cruise got anything and I really don’t care. The point is he was 42 playing a guy who looked 42. He no longer looked eternally 30 something.

The Digger teaser had Tom Cruise looking like a man in his mid 60s or older. His body not some perfect athlete. This wasn’t Mission: Impossible anymore. It wasn’t even American Made. It’s the first non action movie since Rock of Ages. The first drama since Lions for Lambs. That said, Digger is less a drama and more a satire. A black comedy. The closest to black comedy Cruise has ever done would be the introduction of Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia. He’s never done a black comedy really. Check that off the list.

(Before anyone says anything yes he played a weird old agent in Les Grossman but that wasn’t him trying to seriously portray someone older. That was for the yucks.)

So here we go. I know nothing about the movie. The title announcement told me nothing. The official trailer told me nothing. It did introduce me to things. John Goodman was going to be in this! There’s an old cat! The lighting is strange! Digger is an oil guy? They bomb an iceberg? There’s a big fight in a pale parliament building?

Then there’s the choice of Burning Down the House by Talking Heads. That had me interested. That couldn’t just be picking out an 80s song.

“Watch out you might get what you’re after”

So I see the movie alone in the theatre. Shut my phone off like a good boy even though I’m the only one in the whole room. I watch the movie.

As the final “Level Four” blared out of the speakers? I felt this was not just the best movie of 2026 but the best film of the 2020s.

Non Spoiler Review

I’ll be spoiling a lot later so let me do a spoiler free review.

I didn’t come into this a big fan of Alejandro G. Iñárritu. I liked Biutiful. I liked Birdman. It’s not my favourite Birdman (that would be Harvey Birdman) but it was good. Good performances. Good gimmick. Babel stinks. The Revenant is a very beautiful to look at but ultimately boring movie. So I’m 50/50 with him.

The choices he makes in Digger I absolutely love. There’s a purpose to the lighting. It isn’t “just another digital film with no colour correction” everything is deliberate. If something you see makes you feel queasy or artificial that’s because the director, cinematographer, and crew literally wanted to invoke that. Nothing is laziness. Everything is in place for a reason. Every angle, every design choice, right down to clothing.

The acting is phenomenal. Tom Cruise is giving his best performance. There might be movies you like him in better but I think he does more in this than anything else. People say he’s trying to chase the Academy Award. This doesn’t feel like an Oscar chase performance. This isn’t Cruise crying in a holocaust movie in December. This is Cruise going all in on this performance, leaving a part of him in it, putting a part of him inside it, and creating a character that will live years after.

John Goodman, one of the most underrated actors of the past 40 years, shines in this as well. Riz Ahmed is fantastic. Sandra Hüller has the difficult task of being a human while clearly being asked to be over the top in ways that would usually be one dimensional or feel like a bad B-Movie but there’s a reason she is and she’s great at it. Michael Stuhlbarg doing great supporting work as he always does. And Jesse Plemons? There’s a reason many think he’s the next Philip Seymour Hoffman and it’s not just physical similarity of both being fair haired squinty eye guys. Everything he does in this movie is incredibly important.

The pacing is great. I was rarely bored. There’s several moments that change what you’re watching and what things mean and they keep you going. You’re constantly thinking about what everything means, what this is saying, and what’s going to happen next. By the end you think, okay, now what? And then you get what. And you get what everyone is seeing. And then the credits roll. And then you can’t stop thinking about Digger for a week.

No movie has had me thinking about it this long in almost a decade. The last time I thought about a movie like this was Blade Runner 2049 and that’s arguably my favourite film. Much like Blade Runner 2049, Digger makes choices and asks questions you can ask about yourself and the world. It isn’t a movie that wraps everything up in a bow. The movie doesn’t tell you how to think. Which is why people are so divided on it even when they agree.

That’s Digger.

Hit Job or Hit Dog Holler

I can’t promise it will be spoiler free after this sentence so this is your warning.

Prior to the film releasing in theatres the original reviews were… bad.

A lot of mainstream critics, some I even listen to and respect, were absolutely blasting it as a movie without focus, doesn’t know what it’s saying, and hates its audience.

I was surprised. I avoided hearing too much because I still wanted the movie to be a surprise for me. I was seeing people disagree with the early reviews, especially this from Fauxlosopher.

Digger. What a film. Didn’t take long to understand why american critics panned the shit out of this one. The call is coming from inside the house for the people who make villains to erase their own culpability to the great crimes of our time. This is megalopolis, inverted.

— Fauxlosopher (@fauxfilosopher) October 2, 2026

https://t.co/bJmntA8PMZ

— Aaron is Unsustainable (@AaronWrotkowski) October 3, 2026

Maybe this got me more excited for the movie and had me in no way being able to dislike it, but recall my review of episode eight of Lanterns. That was a show I absolutely loved the seven episodes leading up to it. The eighth? I first said I liked it and then the more I thought about it the more my liking of it fell apart.

Why did I see it when so many others did not?

Was it a Hit Job? A smear campaign?

I don’t know. I felt smear campaign because the last big WBD film from last year, Sinners, that also had a smear campaign by the Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and Variety among other outlets that all just so happen to be owned by Jay Penske in some way. And here we got the same happening with Digger. But Digger goes beyond it. Like I said, I generally like The Ringer in discussing movies and Amanda Dobbins called it annoying and irritating. I shouldn’t put this all on Amanda. Sean Fennessey kind of liked it and Van Lathan said he loved it. Mark Kermode ripped it apart, and I doubt he’s on anyone’s dime except his. He called it not brilliant and a jaw dropping failure. I don’t think he’s on the Penske dime.

Honestly the review that bothered me the most was Shea Serrano who couldn’t understand that the movie looks a certain way on purpose to the point where he missed the entire point of the fucking film. Spoiler: they look white bloated and dead because everyone fucking drowned due to the actions of Digger and this is a play about that happening. That’s why they are pale.

“the desaturation thing made me feel like everything I was looking at was already dead”

How do I politely say that’s the point I don’t even know how anymore

— Aaron is Unsustainable (@AaronWrotkowski) October 7, 2026

So if it’s not a hit job (or at least not with everyone), is it hit dog hollar? By that, I mean are these critics disliking it because it says something about political satire, or their vision of the world, or did they take it as a cynical film and so they hate the fact we’re getting a movie saying that the bad guys are going to win and all we can do is laugh at them after they die and destroy the world?

That depends on each critic individually. I do think that could be possible, and that those critics unfortunately don’t get what the movie is about. At least how I interpret it. What’s great is that many people are interpreting it in many different ways and seeing different philosophies and themes based on those viewings.

So how can I say they are seeing it wrong if there’s multiple ways to see it? Because I think the movie isn’t being defeatist at all. I don’t think the message of it is ever about giving up and letting the bad guys win. We’re going to be wandering the ruins of our streets in corporate branded breathing masks if we don’t do more than just watch political satire. I don’t think that’s the intended reading (bad guys win you can do nothing) unless you watched the whole movie bitter about the lack of catharsis.

That’s the one thing this movie refuses to give you, even when it portrays it on screen. There is no catharsis. And if this is a case of hit dogs holler, it’s because those critics go into movies about the effects of environmental catastrophes and abuse of the rich and abuse of the government and all that expecting a catharsis. Expecting the little guys to get something on them. Digger doesn’t give you catharsis.

It took a few years for people to understand Zodiac due to its refusal of catharsis. I’m sure people will turn eventually in favour of Digger.

Network

I’ve seen people say this is Dr. Strangelove. I have even seen people say this is Brazil. For me this is 50 years since Network and feels like Network more than any movie I’ve seen.

Network was a satirical black comedy. It wasn’t a play but it was written by a playwriter in Paddy Chayefsky. It was directed by Sidney Lumet who worked in theatre before moving to film. It’s these elements coming together which is why a lot of Network feels like a play. The arguments in the office. The news set. The giant table of green lamps when Howard Beale is confronted by the head of the network.

Network focused on the power of media, the relationship of corporations versus government, the way television uses people for entertainment, and a glimpse into the future. It did it so satirically you often wondered if what you were seeing was real or not. If it was too outrageous. If it was too inhumane. At least then. When I saw it, I realized Paddy had a crystal ball.

Digger invokes much of that same satirical edge but it’s instead focused on our relationship to media that satirizes real life events and the powers that be controlling those events. How staging a play about real people who did real harm can give audiences a catharsis that doesn’t ultimately solve anything. Nobody clapping and cheering for Digger drowning himself gets their loved ones back. They don’t get their air breathable again. They don’t get their world put back together. But for one moment in the theatre they get to feel like justice was served. Even when they watch as Digger was never punished. He went insane and chose to drown himself. Nobody ever stopped him. He just ran out of sanity.

I don’t know if Digger becomes a crystal ball like Network predicting how we end up living through a cataclysm brought by the untethered rich and the untethered governments. What I do know is that it was fucking time for someone to come out and say that this shit might feel good but it doesn’t help.

That’s the real point of it. It’s sugar to the politically inclined. It might feel good but it’s still sugar. It’s sweet. It tastes good. Too much of it is a bad thing. More importantly it gives you a buzz and brings you back to earth. For some they might say no fucking duh watching political satire doesn’t save the world, but the way a lot of people react to movies and documentaries putting the rich and famous in their place? Especially YouTube videos that go viral? You’re no fucking duh about it. You’re duh. You think it helps.

When Digger gets Ganesh to go up and say everything that his company has been doing and tell the truth, and tells him before it that they can know the truth but what matters is the story? There’s no slight of hand there. That’s how the world works. It doesn’t matter how many facts you have. You can have a big shiny book of facts but they don’t mean shit if you don’t control the narrative. You need to be able to take those facts and assemble them into a story that leads to a removal of power. If you do not accomplish that? Facts mean nothing. That’s what Digger was proving to the parliament as the fight broke out. He was throwing everything he did back into the faces of the consumer. His story was that he only provides what they request. Is it true? Not really. Digger was abusing his power. But nobody told that story. They just provided facts.

It’s something that repeats over and over in discourse online. People pointing out all the ways Donald Trump lies, how his administration lies, and how his supporters lie. The lying isn’t removing them from power. Revealing the truth isn’t taking a vote away.

Whereas Network is about the ways television networks will manipulate and kill for ratings, Digger is about how much we’re manipulated from the jump. That’s why Jesse Plemons as Kenny is so important. He isn’t just Kenny. He’s Kenny Rockwell. He’s the little ginger boy in the play grown up. He says he bought the play 20 years prior. How much has he changed based on his own viewpoint of reality? How much did he change to hide the truth? How much has been lost in the original play based on Kenny’s control of it?

Kenny uses the phone number of Curtis Markson’s daughter to help locate her so Curtis can end the play with the satisfaction of knowing his daughter is okay. He isn’t just bankrolling the story of the downfall of his uncle. He’s giving people that sweet moment of catharsis (denied to us, given to the audience watching Fossil Fools) to forget what his company is doing, another generation of billionaire putting his fingerprints on every day life. The masks everyone is wearing leaving the theatre, with LUNGZ across it? Manufactured by the company Kenny Rockwell owns.

Much like Howard Beale was convinced by Arthur Jensen that he was God and God was telling him to change his message, so to does Kenny Rockwell play God with the audience and the people making the play. The destruction from his family of the planet was by his uncles hands, and it’s by his that people can breathe in the streets to walk to a theatre to go see a play where that uncle dies. Digger still profits.

Box Office Bomb

I’m already getting close to 3,000 words but I want to talk just shortly about how the movie is so far a box office failure.

It’s pretty hard today to give people a trailer that tells you nothing and expect them to see it unless the word of mouth is incredible. You gotta be providing something like Avatar or The Matrix to pull that off. I never once thought Digger was going to be a box office smash, and when I heard the cost I was shocked.

But I also don’t care. My favourite films include Blade Runner, Fight Club, Almost Famous, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Big Trouble in Little China, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Wet Hot American Summer. Guess what? None of those movies were box office smashes. None of them were financially successful in theatre. Some of them weren’t even successful on home video.

Do I only love movies that bomb? Well no. Ghostbusters was my first favourite film. The point is that I don’t base my taste on what everyone else likes. I base it on what I like. I loved this movie. I can’t wait to watch it again, even if the sound won’t be the same. Even if seeing the tree fall down and realize you’re looking at miniatures doesn’t have the same impact again.

This is a great movie. It will likely end up a Rewatchable and I’ll have to figure out where it falls on the list.

There’s been such a weird obsession over the movie’s box office success, and I’ve found that to be the case with Sinners and One Battle After Another as well. I do not give a single shit if these movies are successful. It’d be nice for the people involved but it doesn’t matter to me. What did Zack Snyder say again?

I’m personally convinced the obsession over movie cost is all a way to start forcing generative AI to claim that special effects and such can only be done in Gen AI in order to keep cost of films down which fuck you if you believe that and fuck you harder if you want that. But hey I’m chewing tinfoil and thinking everything is a conspiracy to pump up AI. AI is a cancer we need to stop allowing destroy everything we love.

Digger said it best: “You want energy so that you can ask AI to solve the very same disasters that it’s fueling.”

Dig It

I love Digger.

I love the performances.

I love the way it makes me ask questions about myself.

I love the way it looks.

I love the way it moves.

I can’t wait to watch it for all the small details that others have caught and see if they were correct. Like someone saying the tuna wasn’t actually tuna because tuna has been over fished so now they just tell Digger it’s tuna so he’ll feel like he’s eating something special and endangered.

I love that so many people, positive and negative, come out of the film thinking something different about it.

I love the over the top moments that at first seem like over exaggerated acting only to realize later it serves a purpose. And then peeling that purpose back. Was Emma actually shouting all the time? Or is the actor playing Emma been told by Kenny to play it like that because that was his memory of her? Or is it him trying to make Emma and those who support environmentally safe solutions look like crazy lunatics?

I loved every time the actor John Goodman portrays pulled out a vape pen the second the rehearsal got stopped.

I loved the revelation that there is no big red button to launch a nuclear missile and instead the bowling ball bag is just to contain three books he has to read, and having to read books is the only reason the play can be performed instead of everyone dying in a nuclear holocaust.

I love Digger’s Cosby sweater.

I love the pile up of Tesla cars and robots.

The robots!

I love these robots that are clearly being used as cheap police that can be easily discarded, which are easily discarded in a pile. I’ve already seen people argue we should give rights to AI and robots so humans stop abusing them. It just feels like those robots were likely protected at one point as untouchable police figures until people finally revolted. That’s why there’s the giant pile of them and why the ones on the street are mostly pushed around.

I love how so many people thought this movie was about people being helpless against stopping the evil of the world from destroying it, only for the last shot of the movie to be people on the street fighting the military presence in the city. People who can’t afford the masks to breathe, knowing their life is probably finite due to the poor air.

I love how funny it can be. Digger getting hit with the shoe. Ass cancer. Dying Maggie getting washed. All the times Lina has orders from Digger and the look on her face is complete emptiness. The Vice President failing to take the President’s position. Kenny telling Curtis and Hannah they are both right. Kenny jump scaring Curtis. Ganesh drunk.

Digger baby.

It’s funny. It’s layered. It’s depressing. It’s beautiful. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s the best movie of 2026. It’s the best movie of the decade. Maybe I’m too early to say that. I thought One Battle After Another would be my favourite film of 2025 and Sinners beat it on December 31. We got Dune: Part Three and Artificial coming out. Maybe I should wait for those to come out before I crown Digger.

“Fuck this iceberg! Let’s dance!”

Nah it’s Digger. Welcome to the decade of Digger. Grab a shovel.

The post Digger Decade appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.

The Sweatdown has existed since April of 2018 as a monthly collection of music I’ve been listening to. Sometimes it’s old tracks but it’s usually new music. Everything from indie to synthwave to rock to alternative and more. Every December is a culmination of the music I’ve listened to. Originally posted to Spotify, these playlists can now all be found on YouTube where they will be updated monthly for YouTube Music.

Some of what’s here for October

The Haunted Youth – castlevania
LEAP – Bloodlines

In the past I’ve tried to do a bit of a themed playlist for Halloween. This time I didn’t intend to but I ended up having some good tracks that worked into a Halloween/Spooky playlist. Castlevania, Bloodlines (yes I intentionally put those songs next to each other,) BAD DREAMS, A Little Wicked, Cult Leader (DEVORA always comes in the clutch,) and honestly everything on Sick Joy’s album works for Halloween not just Cinnamon Burn.

I think My First Time is going to be my new favourite band. I didn’t see Social Order live in concert (I didn’t want to go to America and eat recalled food) and a month later I hear “Every Version of You” and now am in love with this band. This song is everything I’ve wanted. It’s modern electro rock with confidence. It’s going that extra step I’ve wanted The Dare to take. Like, I could see this as an Innerpartysystem song for fuck sake!

I did listen to Olivia Rodrigo’s album a few months ago and I liked some songs here and there, but the cure didn’t hit me as much until I heard it going camping last weekend with my friend Ryan. He loved playing it in the car on repeat and I don’t blame him. It definitely got in my ear and is now a song I’m listening to all the time. Or would be listened to even more if it wasn’t for My First Time.

It’s also thanks to Ryan I heard Tinashe with “Nobody Wanna Dance Anymore” which people have figured out early goes very well with Nine Inch Nails. I’ve heard some remixes already mixing it with Closer.

Definitely listening more to LEAP going forward. What a very good rock band.

I put Dexter and the Moonrocks on here. I really like the song. I feel like they used AI on their cover. I don’t know if they did. If I see more AI later that’ll be the last I put them on a playlist.

I like Coach Party Girls! a lot. So many good UK bands lately!

The new song by Kanadia just slipped under the deadline date of me posting this. I don’t know if it was intentional but it really reminds me of probably the most memorable quote by Bill Hicks.

 

October Sweatdown 2K26 features:

My First Time – Every Version of You
Tinashe – Nobody Wanna Dance Anymore
Olivia Rodrigo – the cure
Kanadia – The Ride
Sick Joy – Cinnamon Burn
Royal Foundry – WOW
The Haunted Youth – castlevania
LEAP – Bloodlines
nightly – BAD DREAMS
Dexter and the Moonrocks – If You Could Talk
Balu Brigada – BedHead
Coach Party – Girls!
Valerie Broussard and Battle Tapes – A Little Wicked
Devora – Cult Leader
Ladyhawke – Bad to the Bone
CHVRCHES – Roses

Two more months in the year!

Photo is of “Groot” in Erieau, Ontario on June 29, 2026.

The post October Sweatdown 2K26 appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.

I was very excited to watch the final episode of Lanterns and was thinking of doing a write up covering the final four episodes like I did the first four. The problem is that the final episode landed with such a thud I don’t really see the point. And yes, this is a recap of the episode so I’m going to talk about it. If you haven’t watched it yet stop reading.

I’ll first say this: I left the episode originally feeling good because the acting is so top notch. Kelly Macdonald is absolutely incredible. Aaron Pierre is rock solid. Kyle Chandler is of course fantastic all throughout. The kid who plays Noah does a serviceable job. The blonde waitress is still terrible. Can’t win them all. But I loved the acting. And the first 10 minutes.

We went into this episode with a lot of theories. Almost everything I heard podcasts and people on social media discuss either happened or was part of the dialogue. I heard people talk about all the “Noah being President” stuff would start with him going to Navy. We knew the shoes walking in after Hal had the little circle that tells you he was in the skin regeneration machine were Noah’s.

They played with the idea that he committed suicide in episode seven only to end on them telling you Hal wouldn’t. Episode seven was a work of art. The way it expresses the fact that the Jordan Boy Legacy is essentially suicide and it’s something Hal Jordan knows he has and his fearlessness is about knowing his family history of suicide and living through it is really quite poignant.

Hal in that episode says that Sherriff Kerry killed him. In this episode, Noah takes responsibility only for John Stewart to have his Columbo moment to reveal that no, Noah was just trying to protect his mother. Kerry admits to what she did. Not only did she shoot Hal, she called the one man who could solve the mystery of who shot Hal. A cop basically ensuring her guilt would be revealed.

Only that doesn’t happen.

The biggest issue with the episode is that it tries to tie all the loose ends, tries to explain everything, gets to the “detective” part of the show to reveal the killer and the motive and the plot, and then just… drops it.

You’re not Lord Yoshii Toranaga

It’s my feeling that the writers of Lanterns watched the Shogun miniseries, a miniseries which (please watch it I’ll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible) convinces you there’s going to be a massive war breaking out at the end and instead it’s two people looking over the water sitting and discussing what did happen, why things went the way they did, how things were manipulated, and how things will be. It’s the ultimate tell not show episode and in doing absolutely everything that’s considered to be anti-entertainment? Shogun lands. It’s one of my favourite episodes of TV ever. It lets you see why the character is so intelligent. It’s threaded perfectly.

Lanterns, after seven extremely good (arguably great) episodes, does not land. Not because we didn’t get some big intergalactic war or anything. More because it just says stuff without showing it.

Apparently Noah is the one who breaks Sinestro out of prison… somehow. Apparently not only did he finds all the tech of his “grandmother” but he knows how to use it and he knows how to break a space criminal out of maximum security space prison. And nobody is chasing him. This unfortunately doesn’t explain why Sinestro knew about John, which we thought was because there may have been a Guardian assisting him. Nope! Throw that whole theory out. Guess we didn’t consider the writers not following up on their own work.

So Noah breaks Sinestro out, puts him on a decimated planet to build him a lantern so he can become a Lantern Corps. Sinestro makes a Green Lantern charger but it’s supposed to use the yellow energy of Fear. This, by the way, is barely touched upon again. Even when John uses the lantern at the end of the episode there’s no oh he must be a Yellow Lantern or oh no he’s using both, it’s just, yeah he’s a Green Lantern now shut up.

Sinestro tries to play both sides which is to be expected from a mustache twirling villain (at least I’d assume he’d be twirling it if he wasn’t getting waterboarded) and talks about a charged ring being able to bring back Hal. Is he lying? Is he telling the truth? Don’t worry about it.

John leaves the decimated planet refusing to charge the ring and immediately gets his ass kicked by Noah. Noah takes the ring and the lantern and makes John drive. This immediately had me thinking maybe John learned something from all those times Hal crashed the car on him. Nope. It’s just a nice drive.

Noah and John have a conversation and it ends with Noah handing John the ring and telling him to one day kill him. Let him play the football game and be a hero. But don’t let him know it’s coming. He doesn’t want to be a bad guy and do all the bad things but knows one day he can’t fight his programming. Interesting wrinkle. Not much time left in the episode. I was kind of hoping he threw that touchdown pass only to cut to John up in the stands with the sniper rifle just popping him in the helmet. Then again, that might lead to a world war.

Popping a white high school QB in Nebraska I think would be worse than killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria.

— Aaron Wrotkowski (@aaron.wrotkowski.ca) 2026-10-06T00:01:39.166Z

Instead he does the Columbo with Kerry. Hal went to Kerry about Noah being a Manhunter. Kerry freaked out that Hal was going to expose it and put Noah in danger and shot him in the head.

Why John Stewart checked Hal’s hand for a ring in the pilot episode is unexplained. I guess he just wanted to look. So Kerry, who was at the prison with a six pack of beer for Hal to get out, and dates him and tries to defend him to Rushville, is the one who pops him and will apparently turn herself in. Okay.

We then get what was the most frustrating scene of the whole episode. Guy Gardner shows up. He sees John with the ring. Guy is a Green Lantern. I thought Guy could sense the power of the ring, that the ring the Guardians made for him wasn’t as strong. He could feel that John was an immense threat, so when John is browbeating him that’s why he doesn’t fight back. He basically looks like a complete wimp, a total coward. He takes off. That’s when I find out THE RING WASN’T EVEN CHARGED YET. So Guy Gardner let a dude with an almost dead ring claiming to have a lantern basically emasculate him. What are we even doing here?

John has a new Oath which mentions embracing his fear, which I guess relates to the Fear that the new lantern uses. But doesn’t that make him a Yellow Lantern? I’m no comic book nerd, but isn’t that how these things work? He can’t just a Green Lantern with gold tint, right?

Peacemaker Season Two All Over Again

One more quibble. When the Halogram returns, he brings up the fact he thinks John is taking a serious risk allowing the Manhunter to live. And then like right after he tells John he’s going to be better at this than he ever was. How are you criticizing his decisions but then also saying he’s going to be great at it? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WRITING ON THIS SHOW!?

Maybe I was just in a trance with the great acting throughout but I really thought this was going somewhere better. I thought Sinestro was going to be more than just a guy trying to get everyone to do his eeeeevil bidding. I thought the Manhunter story would actually get resolved. I thought even if this ended up the last of Hal (which I doubt) he’d get a better conclusion.

Billy got a big hug first from Noah though. Hell yeah Billy. Good job.

I’m not saying the show was as good as say TASK which I watched last year. But I do think up to episode seven it was fantastic television. They really were setting up something that could have been the best superhero TV show. Period. Period! Better than Peacemaker (which funny enough also had a bad landing in their second season finale), better than any of the crap Marvel has done, it could have been the apex. This episode was such a bummer.

This isn’t one of those things where I’m pissed the show didn’t do what I wanted it to do. I was completely okay with everything up to this point. What does bother me is they put so much time into the Guardians being important. Not just important, but the Guardians getting it often wrong. They didn’t trust Hal after Sinestro killed one of their own. They tried to replace him with John and when John rejected the ring they went with Guy.

A big thing I talked about in my Lanterns After Four is that Hal, despite his hubris in thinking he could stop the Manhunter and keep the ring, he was the only one in town not being manipulated by the Manhunter. Even John, to the very end, gets manipulated by a Manhunter.

Literal quote from Hal:

“They find a path to power every time, and if they identify a threat to that power, they’ll manipulate that threat into believing anything they want them to. Remind you anyone we know?”

What does the Manhunter, now Noah, do to John Stewart at the end of the episode?

MANIPULATE HIM INTO THINKING HE’S A GOOD KID WHO WON’T TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

Even the request to kill him feels like Noah saying what John wants to hear. See he can’t be so bad, I can relate to him, he’s fighting his programming! This would have been a great time for the writers to play in everything Hal had told John about his upbringing and the Jordan Boys Legacy. Nah. John gets manipulated.

This is where I gotta pull that other quote from John, now from this episode.

“I know you’ll be better at this job than I ever was.”

God damn Halogram, you do not have dead Hal’s intuition.

Surf’s Up Dude

The worst part of this all? With the stupid fucking Paramount Skydance merger with Warner Bros Discovery getting a green light that means there’s a good chance we never get a season two. David Ellison is likely going to decide that a black Green Lantern doesn’t represent the Republican Party of America and reboot the whole series so some dipshit like Zachary Levi can be Green Lantern. What a stupid world we live in.

I thought this could absolutely launch a film if they found a way to bring back Hal and got John the ring. Sinestro the villain. Could they still do it? Maybe have Sinestro and Noah the Manhunter? They find a way to bring back Hal and you got Hal, John, and Guy?

You could, but I don’t have anywhere near the same level of faith in it.

In closing, I just want to once again express that episode five, six, and seven were great. I enjoyed them a lot. Seven is easily my favourite episode of TV this year. Everything with Hal’s father, the speech about letting go, and Hal going to get the baseball back? That was really great writing, and set me up to thinking this show was going to soar into space and touch the stars. Instead it got us all the way into the sky and crashed down. Intentionally not accidentally, kinda like Martin Jordan’s fighter jet. Poor taste I know.

Overall? I still liked the show. You can’t hate it just because it ended poorly. You have to consider everything involved. I would still encourage someone to watch it. I just can’t help but wonder why this is now two shows overseen by James Gunn (Lanterns and Peacemaker season two) that had absolutely flat endings. Makes me worry about investing too much in The People v. Gorilla Grodd.

And yes. You can call it Surf Dracula. It definitely Surf Dracula’d. Also, why won’t someone just make Surf Dracula? It’s not a copyright thing. Give me Surf Dracula! You know what, give me $100,000 and I’ll write it. It’ll be awesome. I’m gonna do seven episodes of Dracula surfing and then episode eight will end the season with him going, “And that’s how I got my surfboard” and everyone will go absolutely crazy go nuts.

VAMP’S UP: Surfer Kelly Pedlow catches a wave in Newport Beach during annual Halloween costume surfing contest, published by Laylan Connelly of Orange County Register, October 31, 2007.

Since I’m bad at ending things like this (NOT AS BAD AS JAMES GUNN HAHAHA sorry) I just want to say the first 10 minutes gave me so much hope. They literally started the episode like we were watching a romantic dramedy about a woman who left her dopey husband to hook up with a formerly incarcerated world renown superhero who her entire town hated but couldn’t do much about because she was the sherriff. I was like wow, that takes so much courage to do on this final episode. And they have so much chemistry! I love it! And then the episode started at 11:20 and now we’re here.

Surf on, Dracula.

The post The Eighth Lanterns Wipes Out appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.

Here’s how I fared last year: 2025-2026 Likely Wrong NHL Predictions

I said the Carolina Hurricanes were the least “prone to a downfall” club in the Metro. Not exactly calling them Cup favourites but it was still an endorsement.

Western Conference

Two seasons ago I picked Vancouver to win the conference. Last season I was not as bad. I had the top two teams in each division correct (Central just flipped) so I will pat myself on the back Barry Horowitz style for that.

Pacific Division

1. Vegas Golden Knights
2. Edmonton Oilers
3. San Jose Sharks
4. Anaheim Ducks
5. Seattle Kraken
6. Calgary Flames
7. Los Angeles Kings
8. Vancouver Canucks

I don’t think much changes with Vegas. They will get a better goaltender and win the division. The Cup finalists will try to get right back to where they were. Edmonton is a tough cookie. I think they improved in goal but not much anywhere else. I also think Mike Babcock will eventually torpedo the teams chances. I think they are a ticking timebomb waiting to happen. The problem is they might not go off immediately like what happened in Columbus. It might take a season.

I really hope the San Jose Sharks take a step forward. I am a big fan of Macklin Celebrini and he’d be my pick for potential Hart trophy winner. The Anaheim Ducks I’d have higher if they didn’t have to rip their team apart after the Leo Carlsson offer sheet. Then again, I still put most of the blame on GM Pat Verbeek for that one.

Seattle and Calgary are my “I dunno” picks. They could do better. They could do worse. I dunno. Franchises lost at sea. Calgary needs more talent before they move up but they got a great young goalie. Seattle needs Matty Beniers to remember he’s supposed to become a top centre in the NHL.

The LA Kings could certainly do better than 7th with the talent they have but with Anze Kopitar retiring and I’m sure Drew Doughty is on his final season or two? The Old Kings are dead. The New Kings really are not going anywhere fast.

Vancouver is still going to be one of the worst teams in the league. Bottom three. Funny enough I think the Top three teams going after the first overall pick will all be Canadian.

Central Division

1. Colorado Avalanche
2. Utah Mammoth
3. Dallas Stars
4. Minnesota Wild
5. Nashville Predators
6. St. Louis Blues
7. Chicago Blackhawks
8. Winnipeg Jets

It’s still Colorado’s division to lose. They will have Nazem Kadri and Nicholas Roy for the whole season this time. My biggest question mark is their goaltending. They honestly should bite the bullet and try to get Connor Hellebuyck from the Winnipeg Jets. The problem is that any team who’d want to trade for him has a goalie with a modified NTC and they certainly have Winnipeg on that list.

I do think the Utah Mammoth take a step forward and become the number two of the division. I think geting Trocheck was a very good move and allows them considerable depth in their top nine. The defence is fine. Vejmelka and Cossa are an interesting duo. Detroit fans hyped up Cossa for years as a franchise goalie in the waiting only to see him go for a pick. Interesting to see if he develops.

Dallas and Minnesota will likely make the playoffs and fight for that third spot. Minnesota… who knows what they end up doing with Quinn Hughes not signed.

Nashville and St. Louis are similar to Seattle and Calgary. I dunno. Both could make the playoffs. Both could miss the playoffs. I dunno.

Chicago will miss the playoffs but not be in the hole. They will be better than they have been in the past. Just not that good either.

The Winnipeg Jets… boy I’ve been looking forward to this fall. I am not a fan of the Jets. Not a fan of Winnipeg. I think people baby the team about how hard it is to build a club there. They have some top level talent. Kyle Connor would be a superstar anywhere else. But I think with the Hellebuyck stuff and likely others departing? They find themselves bottom of the division and bottom of the conference.

Eastern Conference

Having faith that the Toronto Maple Leafs would still be good was my biggest regret for last season. I also had Buffalo still 7th but that was more fatigue than anything.

Metropolitian Division

1. Washington Capitals
2. Carolina Hurricanes
3. New York Islanders
4. New Jersey Devils
5. Philadelphia Flyers
6. Pittsburgh Penguins
7. Columbus Blue Jackets
8. New York Rangers

No team moved harder to get better in the off-season than the Washington Capitals. Jordan Kyrou and Alex Tuch are big additions. They got a youth movement coming up with the Protas Brothers, Ryan Leonard, Justin Sourdif, Ivan Miroshnichenko, and Lane’s brother Cole Hutson. With it being potentially Alex Ovechkin’s final season I think the Caps secure the top spot in the Metro.

Carolina won the Stanley Cup and will comfortably sit in second. Definitely still the team to beat. Probably the one team that can afford Hellebuyck the easiest. The Devils could if they could find a team for Dougie Hamilton but that means a three team trade. More likely just Carolina.

After that my “I dunno” goes from three to six. I do not know who takes the third spot in the Metro and I do not know who potentially gets a wildcard spot from an Atlantic team. I wanted to say the Devils for the third spot but I don’t trust the goaltending. I have my doubts on the Flyers but I could also see them securing third comfortably. The Pittsburgh Penguins overachieved last year and I don’t think they did enough to get back into the playoffs. The Islanders are basically by default, but it’s also likely a Norris winning season for Matthew Schaefer.

Columbus… man. It’s easy to forget how close they got to the playoffs last season. They are not a bad team. But how long it took to sign Adam Fantilli, the Zach Werenski trade demand then rescinding the trade demand, the Kirill Marchenko drama, I just don’t know how this team puts it together for 84 games.

The New York Rangers stink and need to blow it up. Should they do so the NHL will gift them first overall in the likes of Landon DuPont. Have you ever heard a name that screamed NEW YORK RANGERS STAR like Landon DuPont? I haven’t.

Atlantic Division

1. Florida Panthers
2. Montreal Canadiens
3. Tampa Bay Lightning
4. Buffalo Sabres
5. Ottawa Senators
6. Boston Bruins
7. Toronto Maple Leafs
8. Detroit Red Wings

I don’t want to give the top spot to my Montreal Canadiens. They always have a December struggle that costs them points down the stretch.

So I’m going with the Florida Panthers. Jacob Markstrom replaces Sergei Bobrovsky and I’m not crazy about that move. I don’t know if he’s better. I don’t know if he’s enough. But he should get them somewhere. I think Brady Tkachuk is a really good hockey player but he’s such a bonehead and will be a bit of a problem in that locker room. Those guys gotta be tired of the brothers by now. Whether or not they are? Alex Barkov is healthy and back. Florida will take the top spot.

The Montreal Canadiens. I already did a season preview on them. I like adding Chris Kreider. I like Derek Lalonde as an associate coach. I think they need to figure out new teams for Sam Montembeault and Kirby Dach. David Reinbacher and Florian Xhekaj should make the team. Coming to the end of the year we could see Michael Hage and Alex Zharovsky coming in. Or they make a big trade. Either way? Second place.

Tampa did not do much this season. Honestly, why do I keep them third over other teams? Really it’s because I don’t think Darren Raddysh going to Toronto is enough of a loss. Especially since they replaced him with John Carlson. It’s probably the oldest defence in the league now.

Buffalo lost Alex Tuch and Bowen Byram but I do think they are still a playoff team. Whether it’s third or a wildcard spot I think they get it. Same with the Ottawa Senators. Ottawa I could see out of nowhere moving into the third spot. I like them a lot and think losing Brady Tkachuk will be a positive overall for the team. I like William Eklund a lot too.

Boston and Toronto are my I dunno’s. JJ Peterka didn’t fit in Utah. Will he fit in Boston? Does he learn how to play Bruin hockey? Toronto tried to absolutely change everything around except the core rotting the team. Will it work? I dunno. I like Raddysh. I like Bobrovsky. I like Gavin McKenna, I think he’s going to be an outstanding NHLer. Any NHL team led by Auston Matthews will always have a limit.

And then we got Detroit. I picked them for the bottom last year. They went on a tear in the first half of the year. And then they sunk. This year they got a captain who wants out but can’t get traded even after the C was stripped. They had to watch Patrick Kane leave because their GM stepped down. They added one veteran to the club and that’s it. Oh, and at the time of writing this? Simon Edvinsson is still an RFA. So he’s basically missed all of training camp. I think the Red Wings absolutely sink this year, much like I did last year, only this time I’m more confident.

Way Too Early/Stupid Playoff Predictions

Western Conference

(1) Colorado Avalanche versus (W2) Minnesota Wild
(2) Utah Mammoth versus (3) Dallas Stars

(1) Vegas Golden Knights versus (W1) Anaheim Ducks
(2) Edmonton Oilers versus (3) San Jose Sharks

We get two second round rematches here in the first round. Utah and Dallas both got busted in the first round last year so now they get a chance to make it to the second round. Edmonton got beat by Anaheim so they go up against another California team. How will Connor McDavid feel losing to the guy who will replace him as the best Canadian forward in the league. Notice how I didn’t say best forward period. Kucherov has that crown.

Eastern Conference

(1) Florida Panthers versus (W2) Ottawa Senators
(2) Montreal Canadiens versus (3) Tampa Bay Lightning

(1) Washington Capitals versus (W1) Buffalo Sabres
(2) Carolina Hurricanes versus (3) New York Islanders

I will once again brag about the fact I absolutely called Tampa versus Montreal last season in the 2 versus 3 in the Atlantic Division. I also called Dallas versus Minnesota but wrong spot (they were 2 versus 3 not 1 versus wildcard)

I have set up two “former players team versus new team” matchups because it’s fun to me. Brady Tkachuk will take on the Ottawa Senators with the Florida Panthers. Alex Tuch’s Washington Capitals face the Buffalo Sabres.

I also got Montreal playing Tampa again (I was right last time let’s go two for two) and the Hurricanes probably sweeping the New York Islanders.

As I did last year, I will do a mid-season reflection on my picks and see what’s working and what isn’t, and then of course end of season see how likely wrong I was. Enjoy the ride! NHL hockey is back!

Michael Miller, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The post 2026-2027 Likely Wrong NHL Predictions appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.

In that “How Good?” I brought up the fact that the Montreal Canadiens needed a veteran presence. They recently traded Brendan Gallagher to the Vancouver Canucks. Doesn’t that hurt the veteran presence?

Of course, they would later fill that hole with Chris Kreider.

I questioned if Sam Montembeault was the goalie of the future and compared him to Cristobal Huet when Montreal had Price and Halak in the system. Monty is still here but he’s the clear number three now.

I talked highly of Zachary Bolduc having a big season and it didn’t happen. Instead, he started hot, cooled down, and struggled to figure his place in the lineup. He did however have a decent post-season.

I asked what if Nick Suzuki hits 100 points. He did. I asked what if Cole Caufield scores 40? He scored 50. I asked what if Alex Newhook stops frustrating me and he did! Well aside from the injuries. Not his fault.

I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m not just responding to the article. Let’s preview the Montreal Canadiens.

Sign Everyone

The Montreal Canadiens made it their goal to ensure a lot of their players were locked up this summer. Ivan Demidov signed quite arguably the best contract of the summer, locked up for eight years at $9.15 million per season. Jakub Dobes signed a three year extension that doesn’t kick in until next season at $5.357 million per. It took a while for any new action after that but Bolduc would re-sign at four years, $4.2 million taking him right to UFA status. Chris Kreider I already talked about.

Tuesday we got two more signings. Arber Xhekaj finally re-signed a one year $1.5 million deal to keep him an RFA and ensure everyone on the roster had a contract. Then Alex Newhook signed an extension to kick in next year at $5.5 million for the next five years.

The club is locked up. Four defencemen have long term deals. Seven forwards have long term deals.

Next summer’s UFA’s are mostly veterans. Philip Danault, Josh Anderson, Alex Carrier, Sam Montembeault, and the newly acquired Chris Kreider. The only kinda young player coming up in the summer is Kirby Dach. Their deals expiring make room for Newhook’s raise, Demidov’s new deal, and Dobes new deal. In other words, the Habs are in good cap shape once they get an extra $9 million from the salary cap.

Youth in Perpetuity

Last season, Montreal was the youngest team in the league and made the playoffs. They might not be the youngest team this year, but they will still be one of the youngest. What’s crazy is that they could still take the youngest team in the league title back by next summer.

You see, Alexander Zharovsky and Michael Hage will be likely finishing their Russian and NCAA careers out and coming to the Montreal Canadiens in the spring. They could potentially crack the playoff lineup. That’s two potential top six forwards, both arguably top nine forwards, who slip into the lineup at 20 and 21. There’s also David Reinbacher, who could win a roster spot this fall if he can squeeze out someone like Carrier into a seventh defenceman role.

Remember, the Habs got Caufield, Slafkovsky, Dach, Newhook, Kapanen, Demidov, Hutson, Guhle, Xhekaj, Struble, Dobes, and Fowler all under the age of 26. And they could be bringing in three more!

That is, if they don’t trade them away.

It seems like the Montreal Canadiens almost made a huge deadline deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs for Matthew Knies that would have included Zharovsky, prospect defenceman Adam Engstrom, plus first round picks. Because that never happened the Canadiens selected Gleb Pugachyov in the first round. It also means they still have so many assets and only so many spots.

There’s been a lot of rumours on Kirill Marchenko of the Columbus Blue Jackets. While I understand why the Canadiens want him, I’m not sure if I want to spend Zharovsky to get him. Or Hage. I mean look at Zharovsky here. He looks very close to a complete project in the KHL already. He’s getting his points. I don’t want to look him only to see him playing at a 50+ point level in his rookie or sophomore year for a guy who maybe does 20 points better now but will cost a heck of a lot more.

It’s a 3-point night for Alexander Zharovsky 🚨🍏🍏 pic.twitter.com/XQym5mUyrB

— KHL (@khl_eng) December 25, 2025

Sometimes there’s a “shit or get off the pot” on building a team where you have to shift your youth for players that will help you win now. I get that. But I’m fine doing that after we get Hage and Zharovsky going. I’d also like to keep Pugachyov just because he seems like a wrecking ball. The only other player I’m protective of not on the team yet is Bryce Pickford because he either picked on a bunch of young kids in the WHL or he’s a legit 30 goal defencemen scoring threat. I don’t want to lose him until we’ve seen him in the AHL.

Crowded Room

So we got all this talk of young players getting added. We got everyone re-signed. We got Chris Kreider coming in.

Is there spots for everyone?

No.

At centre you got Nick Suzuki and Philip Danault. 1C and 4C. Then you got 2C and 3C. Last year that was often Oliver Kapanen and Jake Evans. But it could also be Kirby Dach or Alex Newhook.

Top six wingers are set with Cole Caufield, Ivan Demidov, and Juraj Slafkovsky. That fourth spot… Newhook? Kreider? Kapanen? Dach? Bolduc?

Bottom six wingers you got Josh Anderson and essentially… anyone else. Heck, they might even try Arber Xhekaj as a bottom six winger. Oh, and Alex Texier. He can go literally anywhere.

Can any of the kids make the lineup? Owen Beck? Florian Xhekaj? Jared Davidson? Maybe one of the new kids like Brett Berard, Sasha Pastujov, or Samuel Poulin?

Over on defence you got Noah Dobson and Mike Matheson pretty set in their spots. Lane Hutson is the best defenceman on the team but will he be on his natural left side or the right side?

Alex Carrier likely to play third pairing but is he set in the spot? Can Kaiden Guhle stay healthy? What happens with Jayden Struble and Arber Xhekaj? Can Adam Engstrom or David Reinbacher crack the lineup this season?

Even at goal it’s more conflicting than it should be. Jakub Dobes is the starter. Jacob Fowler should be the backup. But will they try to get Sam Montembeault going? Or will they send him off on waivers? Habs management did say they plan to go into the regular season with only two goaltenders.

No matter how you try to build the lineup you’re leaving someone off you might not want to. The Habs might end up with one of the stronger press boxes in the league. Do you scratch Kirby Dach? Oliver Kapanen? Alex Texier? Jayden Struble? Arber Xhekaj? Alex Carrier? What if Florian Xhekaj has a great camp and deserves a roster spot?

It’s pretty clear that the club needs to try and package multiple players for one guy who can make a bigger difference.

Also, with the looming entries of Alexander Zharovsky and Michael Hage, the guys who don’t have a set spot like Kirby Dach and Oliver Kapanen have to really make a good argument for themselves.

Focus on Five

I’m going to put a little focus on five players and their situations with the team.

Zachary Bolduc: I was very high on the Canadiens acquiring Bolduc from the St. Louis Blues for Logan Mailloux. He had 19 goals in his rookie year with the Blues. He was only able to score 12 with the Canadiens. He also went from a +20 to a -6. There are some reasons for this. Bolduc was used heavily on the Blues powerplay at the second half of the season. 11 of his 19 goals came in March and April. He was also a +8 in that time. Four of his 12 goals for the Habs came in October. He cooled off after that with a lot of talk being he worked hard in practice but struggled to learn Martin St. Louis’ system.

His play in the playoffs was much better, especially when MSL had him on a line with Kirby Dach and Alex Texier. He has good chemistry with Dach. He had three points in 7 games against Tampa and three against Buffalo. He was a +6 on May 10. His next nine games? A -9.

I think Bolduc now understands what Montreal wants out of him. He needs to be a middle six agitator with a deadly shot. I’d love to see him get more play with Ivan Demidov, but that depends on where Kreider plays.

Oliver Kapanen: Oliver was a season surprise. He wasn’t really expected to crack the lineup in camp and he earned the 2C spot next to Ivan Demidov. Kapanen would score 22 goals and 37 points in his first rookie campaign. His first half was very strong, especially the times Juraj Slafkovsky carried the line. Then came the playoffs. Kapanen lost his roster spot for over half the games and played 7 games with 0 points. He played less than 11 minutes in those games.

It should be said he was scoreless in his last 10 regular season games. It’s like his first rookie season he just ran out of battery juice. So what is Oliver Kapanen in 26-27? He’s the prime candidate to lose his spot to a rookie next year (Hage/Zharovsky) and there’s a lot who think he shouldn’t be tried again on the top line.

I was doubtful on him last season making the team but I also don’t like rooting against a kid after an up and down rookie year. Like Bolduc, I think there’s more there. I honestly wonder about putting Bolduc and Kapanen together as a line and letting them prove people wrong together. I hope he bounces back and proves he can be a different on this squad. Otherwise? He’s going to be another Emil Heineman. Thanks for surprising folks. Off to a new team.

Jacob Fowler: This is the best way to present my opinion on the “goalie debate” on either putting Fowler in the AHL or not:

I’m at the point where I ask the question : “are we a serious team?” And if Monty is starting games over Jacob Fowler, the answer is probably no https://t.co/e1a4Z1rQcq

— bren (@brenmidov) September 14, 2026

I’m sorry folks. It’s an 84 game NHL season. The backup is going to play 30+ games. 30+ NHL games is BETTER DEVELOPMENT TO BECOME AN NHL STARTER THAN 60+ AHL GAMES!

Not only that but Jacob Fowler coming in last season helped turn the teams fortunes from out of a playoff spot into a top three team in the Atlantic Division. He deserves his spot on the roster. That’s why he was Dobes backup in the playoffs and not Montembeault.

Monty shouldn’t even be here. This is Fowler’s time. And if he’s every bit as good as I think he is? He outplays Dobes at times this year. Let’s run with both. Options in net is a good thing.

Arber Xhekaj: Listen. I like Arber a lot. I also think his ability to intimidate and be an enforcer is essential. We’re a better team when he can come out and scare the rats. But he also must earn his minutes. He struggles to clear creases without taking penalties. If he could clear creases as well as Kaiden Guhle he would be our permanent #5 defenceman. He doesn’t handle man to man as well as other options. He has a great slap shot and doesn’t use it enough.

This is all on Arber. Stop blaming the coach for not playing him enough. He isn’t giving him enough reason to trust him. Now he’s run out of time. He hasn’t created enough of a gap between him and Struble. Reinbacher and Engstrom could be coming up soon. Guhle is hurt until likely November but once he’s back? It could be hard to get minutes. Arber has to figure this out himself. Make the Habs pay for only giving him a one year deal. Earn a spot on this roster as a serious top six option. Otherwise he might be better off finding a new team.

Should this happen? Habs will definitely need to replace the enforcer qualities he brings. Might cost the team a lot to bring a guy from elsewhere. But you can only wait so long for Arber. I for one hope he finds his game this season. I want the Sheriff here for a long time.

Ivan Demidov: How good will Demidov be this season? Maybe this isn’t as much fun to write about as other players, but it certainly is for me. I thought Ivan really developed as a two way player in the playoffs this year. This was a great rookie campaign for him. He was 2nd for Calder voting with his 62 points. All throughout the year there was a feeling he could be shooting the puck more. I think we see that this year.

I’m expecting a huge year from Ivan. 80 is my base. I think he could do even better with the right linemates. If him and Slafkovsky are back together and they have chemistry with a guy in the middle? He’s going to be a 90+ guy. He will be hitting 100+ in no time. Best Hab forward since Guy Lafleur. That’s his future.

How far can the Habs go?

Last season, Montreal finished third in their division. They beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in a tough seven game series. They then beat the Buffalo Sabres in an equally tough seven game series. After surprising the Carolina Hurricanes in game one, they had no energy remaining and got squashed by the Canes in five.

The loss resembled their first round series with the Washington Capitals in 24-25. This team has a tendency to run out of gas. They spend too much time chasing pucks, blocking shots, and letting teams get set up. Mike Matheson put it best. The Habs struggled against Carolina because they didn’t finish Tampa and Buffalo off earlier.

I of course had to roll my eyes at people saying Montreal was outmuscled by Carolina, just as I did when it was said about the Capitals series. It has nothing to do with size or muscle. It has everything to do with being outcoached and exhausted.

The Canes series featured one of the few times I was absolutely befuddled by Martin St. Louis’ insistence to not touch his lines in four straight losses. That can’t ever happen again. Not even trying the Bolduc – Dach – Texier line from the Tampa series was peculiar.

So how can the Habs change things this time? So far I’ve talked a lot about playoff performance. That’s because I think Montreal is a lock for a top three spot. Even with how hard the Atlantic is? I think Montreal finishes 1, 2, or 3. I don’t think they fall to a wildcard spot. They might win the division.

However, they need to tighten up their man to man defensive strategies. They need to finish teams off faster. Less blocking shots and more stealing pucks to tilt the ice. Less cardiac kid third period miracles. Less overtime wins. Montreal was actually a leader in least giveaways but their takeaways was only 22nd. Who led the league? The Carolina Hurricanes. Montreal led the league in blocked shots. Who was 32nd? The Carolina Hurricanes. Should tell you right there something to fix. Also, total shot attempts? Montreal was 23rd. Number one? Come on, don’t make me type it out.

I do hope Derek Lalonde makes a big difference in the defensive department. St. Louis does need help there. I hope he begins on telling Marty he can’t be playing Lane Hutson as a right defenceman any longer. Left side only.

So far can the Habs go this year? With the addition of Chris Kreider and everyone a year older? Lalonde to hopefully help the defence and penalty kill? Top three division finish and a great chance making the Eastern Conference final again. With some injury luck and maybe a smart addition at the trade deadline (I’m hoping Ryan O’Reilly) I think they can absolutely beat whoever they could play in the ECF and make the Stanley Cup final.

They could also take a small step back and only make it to the first or second round. Atlantic is still a very tough division. Some bad injuries could pull their potential back. Maybe having so many guys unable to figure their place is an issue. While that’s not ideal it isn’t back breaking.

The Canadiens essentially have four to five kicks at the can here before they might start losing core players. You of course want to win, keep winning, and never lose, but those kicks are going to be what develops them into a Cup winner. Hopefully.

Montreal Canadiens fans keep bragging to the league about their great contracts. It doesn’t mean a thing unless they win it all before the 2030s. 26-27, 27-28, 28-29, and 29-30. This is when the window opens. While things don’t shut in 2030, that is likely when the NHL expands to Houston and they will lose a player for that. That’s when Nick Suzuki needs to be extended. That’s when a lot of their original core guys deals come up. It’ll make it much more difficult to keep everyone together at that point.

But we’re just worrying right now about the 26-27 season. Montreal is in a very good position. Games are played on ice not on paper. Puck drop on the regular season begins September 29.

Game on.

“Montreal Canadiens Wedding Cupcakes” by clevercupcakes is licensed under CC BY 2.0 .

The post Montreal Canadiens 26-27 Season Preview appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.

I had a feeling.

Last year, we had a mutual termination with Alexandre Texier and the St. Louis Blues. St. Louis couldn’t find a taker for Texier’s $2.10 million per season and he seemed against playing in the American Hockey League. The two sides instead agreed to a mutual termination. Texier would sign a one year $1 million deal with the Montreal Canadiens the same day of his contract termination. It took less than two months for him to impress the Habs enough to re-sign him for two more years at $2.5 million per year, an upgrade from his previous deal that somehow couldn’t be traded or picked up on waivers.

Chris Kreider is a bit of a different situation. Kreider wasn’t being sent onto waivers because the Ducks didn’t want him on the main roster. The Anaheim Ducks were in a cap crunch after the offer sheet by Daniel Briere of the Philadelphia Flyers on Leo Carlsson which Anaheim matched and then the signing of Pavel Mintyukov. I talked about it in 2026 Off Season.

Anaheim did a lot to try and get out of their cap issues. They traded both Mason McTavish and Olen Zellweger. They did sign A.J. Greer which certainly didn’t help the cap issues. They also signed one Cruz Lucius. Who is Cruz Lucious? No clue but I love his name. All these trades and signings meant Anaheim couldn’t afford to re-sign Cutter Gauthier who was looking to get $15 million per year. I’m sure that’ll come soon. I’m not sure if Lukas Dostal is in or out at start of the season to give them extra room to add a few more forwards. If not? Anaheim still has to make another move.

But this is all why Kreider had to go. Apparently, Anaheim couldn’t make a trade because everyone knew they were in a cap crunch and didn’t want to help them. It was going to cost a lot to trade Kreider’s deal, and that’s if it was a team Chris wanted to play for. Kreider was on the last year of a seven year contract for $6.5 million with a 15 team no trade clause.

Kreider would agree to a mutual termination and his agents Matt & Ryan Keator told teams if he didn’t want to play for them he wouldn’t accept being picked up on waivers. Kreider’s contract was officially waived and terminated on the 10th of September.

The Feeling

The rumour was that Chris Kreider wanted to go back to the Eastern Conference and he was thinking about three to four teams. I didn’t know the teams but my guess is that the Boston Bruins were involved as he’s a Massachusetts boy. But I had a feeling.

The first contract Chris Kreider ever signed was with Glen Sather back in 2014 for the New York Rangers. His second contract? Jeff Gorton, the current President of the Montreal Canadiens. The seven year deal just terminated? Also signed by Gorton. Kreider also used to play with Martin St. Louis who is now the head coach of the Montreal Canadiens.

There’s also a personal connection with the Canadiens current trainer Jim Ramsay.

Quick story that may help explain why Chris Kreider is now in Montreal:

— Feb. 15, 2024. Jim Ramsay returns to MSG as the MTL trainer after 30 years with the #NYR and a dismissal the previous summer that left several Rangers very, very unhappy.

There was no acknowledgment in…

— Arthur Staple (@StapeNHL) September 12, 2026

Chris Kreider was also considered a big snub by Team USA for the 2026 Winter Olympics, even though they did win the Gold. Who else was snubbed from that team? Lane Hutson and Cole Caufield on the Habs.

To me this was a perfect fit. Well, would be perfect. There’s just one tiny problem.

Some Montreal Canadiens fans just can’t get over shit.

Dropkicking Carey Price to death

As I’m sure you’ve seen a thousand times now, Chris Kreider once ran skates first into Carey Price back in 2014 and injured him out of the playoffs when he was the Montreal Canadiens best player. Did Kreider mean to injure Price? No. Did he run a lot of goalies back then? You bet!

He basically ran every starting goalie in every series. Including the Cup final. We will get to that.

Was Carey Price playing lights out when he got hurt? No, actually he was terrible that game. Did he leave the game immediately? No, he actually stayed in for two more goals. Did Montreal get swept after? No, because Dustin Tokarski, a third string goalie, ended up playing well enough for the Habs to get to game six. Was Price not the same after the injury? Well, funny enough, he won the Hart and Vezina trophies the next year.

But for a lot of Habs fans this was a perfect storm year where they could have won the Stanley Cup. It’s nice to think of, but the Los Angeles Kings were likely whipping Montreal even if Carey Price was healthy. Because Montreal was a fake contender. Those mid 2010s teams were propped up by four stars and then a bunch of junk. They also had terrible coaching and a bad GM. We know this. Sometimes the miracle of a few stars and a couple junk veterans can get you places. Montreal also knows this, thanks to 2021.

But Kreider didn’t stop the Habs from winning the Cup. He also didn’t win the Cup, even after Chris ran into Jonathan Quick in the Cup final. Why? The Kings were better.

But there are Habs fans screaming bloody murder at Chris Kreider being signed because he clearly murdered Carey Price in 2014 and should be hated forever for it. Even when Carey Price himself last year did an interview saying he doesn’t hold a grudge against Chris Kreider.

Chris Kreider plays the game on the edge. We know that from when he hit Leon Draisaitl in the playoffs in the spring. You know what’s pretty good to have? Players who play on the edge and don’t get called for it. You know what isn’t good to have? Those players playing against you when they could have played for you.

Chris Kreider knows the heat he had with Habs fans. And yet, as an unrestricted free agent for the very first time in his 958 regular season games and 135 playoff games, he decided to come to Montreal. On a bonus heavy contract that gave Montreal the room to lock up Zachary Bolduc and hopefully Arber Xhekaj soon after. He chose Montreal.

He chose the Montreal Canadiens because he wants a Stanley Cup.

The Fit

So where does Kreider fit? In a couple places actually.

Fit 1: Top Line

Chris Kreider played last season next to Leo Carlsson all year. So why not do that with Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki? That allows Juraj Slafkovsky to play again with Ivan Demidov (and whomever they put at centre. Oliver Kapanen, Kirby Dach, Alex Newhook, Jake Evans, take your pick until Michael Hage comes in) and spread the offence.

Kreider is an elite garbage goal scorer. It’ll be a lot like when Erik Cole came to the Canadiens to play next to Max Pacioretty. Caufield can still get in his office and snipe. Suzuki can distribute the puck. Kreider can get the rebounds and pressure the goalie.

The only problem with this is that Kreider’s stats definitely took a dive in the second half of the year. He is 35 afterall. It might not be best for his legs to always be playing 18 minutes a game.

Fit 2: Demidov

If we keep Slafkovsky on the top line that allows Chris Kreider to play with Demidov. Demidov can distribute the puck and that allows Kreider to get his heavy wristers in. He likely plays the PP2 and helps bring size to the line.

This still creates a similar issue to the first fit. He’s going to play a lot of minutes. However, this allows him to really mentor whoever is on the line with him.

Fit 3: Middle Six Wrecker

Let’s imagine the Habs do this:

Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Zachary Bolduc
Juraj Slafkovsky – Alex Newhook – Ivan Demidov

Alex Texier – Philip Danault – Jake Evans/Oliver Kapanen

Who does that leave? That leaves Kirby Dach at centre, Chris Kreider, and Josh Anderson.

That’s a 678lb third line.

This keeps Kreider from playing way too much on even strength and can still work the PP2. Fourth line will likely be Danault and Evans being defensively aware with a skill guy (Kapanen or Texier) while Newhook centres Slafkovsky and Demidov. Bolduc will get his shot again on the first line to prove he can be a banger/crasher and contribute some goals.

This also ensures snarl in the top nine, and a big body third line to give Montreal a dynamic they really haven’t had in a long time. It would also be Kirby Dach’s last shot to show he can be a top nine centre on this team before Hage and Alex Zharovsky arrive.

I’m sure the team will think of other fits. It’s hard to say until we know who ends up the 2C. Will Montreal try Oliver Kapanen again, or will there be a trade? I really feel like there will be a trade. Kapanen and Dach really feel like the odd men out on this club once Hage and Zharovsky arrive. Might as well make some room now.

Anyway. It doesn’t matter. We are way too ahead of things. This is just about Chris Kreider and not a Habs season preview. That’s later. Whenever Arber Xhekaj re-signs.

Shaking Hands with The Enemy

So is this shaking hands with THE ENEMY?

No.

Kreider wasn’t angry at Max Pacioretty for showing him up and throwing him into a stanchion.

He isn’t Michel Therrien. He isn’t Marc Bergevin.

There’s people who were in the organization who did far more damage than Chris Kreider.

Chris Kreider isn’t the enemy. Chris Kreider should have been drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in 2009 instead of Louis Leblanc. This is fixing a 17 year mistake. He wouldn’t have become “The Enemy” had we drafted him.

It’s time for Montreal Canadiens fans to get over themselves. Price is over it. Kreider clearly fine. The Habs organization is accepting him. Nick Suzuki, the captain, clearly fine with him coming into that locker room.

Habs fans who can’t get over this don’t deserve to be at the parade. https://t.co/CMttKOVfJw

— Aaron Wrotkowski (@AaronWrotkowski) September 13, 2026

Do you want to win a Stanley Cup in 26-27 or live in the past?

It’s clear Montreal wants to win a Cup. Chris Kreider wants to win a Cup in Montreal. What’s your problem?

Yes, the Montreal Canadiens are a team that remembers their history. The greatest organization in hockey history. But with no Cups since 1993, you’re not imprisoned to its decades of failure. Stop holding them up as something to be revered. It’s time to let go of the failed eras and celebrate this era. Hopefully they win a ring to make it worth it.

And even if they don’t? It doesn’t change this being a great signing.

Welcome to the Habs Chris.

Photo of Chris Kreider from Wikipedia by Jenn G
4.0 Creative Commons Licence

The post Chris Kreider is a Hab appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.

September Sweatdown 2K26 is here on YouTube! You can find all other playlists on The Sweatdown

The post September Sweatdown 2K26 appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.

I just didn’t feel right about doing that this summer.

This has been an absolutely wild summer for the National Hockey League.

Before Free Agency

We had a few big moves before free agency kicked off. The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Darren Raddysh from the Tampa Bay Lightning for a fifth round pick. This was a division rival trading one of their top four defencemen to another division rival for very little so they could re-sign them. Raddysh signed an eight year deal worth $8.5 million per season, 8.17% of the cap on contract start. I’ll admit I’ve always liked the Raddysh brothers. I saw them during the Memorial Cup when it was in Windsor, Ontario (covering it back when I used to do that stuff) and I really thought both of them were going to be stars in the NHL. Taylor is a bottom six forward and Darren had a breakout year in Tampa replacing Victor Hedman on the point, and it’s going to be a tough go to see if this was a career building up to it or a flash in the pan season.

We then had the Florida Panthers making room for Brady Tkachuk. The thing we always knew was going to happen would happen. Florida first traded Mackie Samoskevich to the Seattle Kraken for a first and second, then flipped the Tampa first they got in it with two more first rounders and a second to get Brady Tkachuk. A lot of people have talked about this as a game changer for Florida. I honestly feel like the Ottawa Senators will be in a better position without Brady. He was a terrible captain. He’s overrated as a player just because he does well in fantasy pools. Ottawa would later trade for William Eklund of the San Jose Sharks.

Speaking of first rounders being thrown around, Vegas’ first and Colorado’s first along with a New York second all once owned by the Calgary Flames would be sent to New Jersey to acquire Simon Nemec, a former second overall pick whose time in New Jersey always felt limited. He signed a five year deal with Calgary at $7.25 million, 6.97% of the cap on contract start. It’s a lot of money for him but Calgary is a retooling/rebuilding team. He’s for the future when that money won’t seem so much.

Jordan Kyrou, who was the big rumour insiders couldn’t shut up about last summer in going to the Montreal Canadiens, was actually traded to the Washington Capitals. I think the return of Connor McMichael, Milton Gastrin, and a 1st round pick is pretty fair. I also have never been a fan of Kyrou but I hope the best for him in Washington in Alex Ovechkin’s final season.

Bowen Byram went to the Chicago Blackhawks then signed a massive deal, and that should have been the signal to everyone that the salary cap had officially gone up and teams were going to be spending on locking up young players. Byram signed an extension in Chicago for $12.5 million over six years, 11% of the cap on contract start. The analytics guys never liked Byram. Maybe he doesn’t grow into a number one defenceman you can rely on in all situations but he can absolutely be the new Brian Campbell for the Blackhawks. Buffalo would later replace Byram by trading for Olen Zellweger from the Anaheim Ducks.

Other interesting moves before free agency included JJ Peterka, who was just acquired by Utah last year, going to the Boston Bruins for two first round picks. Apparently he didn’t care for the coach there. Pavel Dorofeyev would move from Vegas to New York for two first rounders and a third, essentially replacing Artemi Panarin who went to the Kings at the trade deadline. Mason McTavish, a curiosity to Habs fans all year long, got moved to the St. Louis Blues for two first round picks. Speaking of Montreal, they would finally move on from Brendan Gallagher, trading him to the Vancouver Canucks to finish out his career.

The last interesting move before free agency was the Florida Panthers officially giving up on Sergei Bobrovsky and trading Evan Rodrigues, Jesper Boqvist, and Ben Steeves for Jacob Markstrom and Angus Crookshank. I think this was a terrible trade for the Panthers and likely will be what holds them back from getting back into Cup contention. Maybe I’m crazy but Markstrom hasn’t had a save percentage over .905 since 2021-22, back on the Calgary Flames. He was decent when the Devils went to the playoffs in 24-25 but I don’t think that’s going to be enough. His save percentage has dropped considerably, more than contemporaries. They should have tried the free agency market first.

The July Meltdown

Things began pretty normal. Nico Hischier would re-sign in New Jersey for five years at $11.7 million per season, 10.3% of the cap on contract start. Good fair deal. Rasmus Andersson would get his way and stay in Vegas, 7 years $8.5 million, 8.2% of cap on contract start. Probably the best deal of the summer was Ivan Demidov signing an eight year, $9.15 million contract with Montreal after his rookie season, 8.1% of the cap on contract start. Locking up a kid like that whose going to be one of the best forwards in the league? Perfect.

We got a few surprising signings like Jacob Trouba to the Sharks and Sergei Bobrovsky to the Maple Leafs. San Jose also signed Mason Marchment to some hefty money. The Maple Leafs signed Jack Roslovic, Colton Sissons, Teddy Blueger, and Brandon Duhaime just so new GM John Chayka could prove people liked him enough to talk to him. Anders Lee became a Utah Mammoth after a career with the New York Islanders. Recent Stanley Cup winnner Frederik Anderson would sign a very team friendly one year $1 million contract with the Edmonton Oilers to close out the day.

July 2nd, Montreal extended Jakub Dobes for three years with a contract ending summer of 2030. Funny enough, that might be the summer we get a new expansion team in Houston, so Montreal might not have to protect Dobes in the expansion draft. John Carlson would fill Raddysh’s spot in Tampa with a two year $8.5 million deal. Alex Ovechkin would re-sign for one final year. Pretty normal day.

Then July…. 3rd.

Leo Carlsson would sign an offer sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers. Five years, $18 million per year. 17.3% of the cap on contract start. It was a good move by the Philadelphia Flyers. Would cost them four first round picks. Get a sure thing number one centre. Puts Anaheim in a cap crunch if they match it. This caused an explosion of debates. Let me cut down each debate one by one. First of all, it’s an RFA offer sheet. You have to make it hurt. It ain’t about what’s deserving. It’s about making it so expensive the team decides against matching it and loses the player. Next, how dare Carlsson? Anaheim had plenty of time to get him signed before this happened but Anaheim GM Pat Verbeek, the little ball of hate, likes to fight every player’s agent on their contract negotiations to get their number down. He put himself in this situation. Carlsson’s agent knowing the offer sheet was tendered made one last offer to the Ducks to sign Carlsson at $15 million and they refused. Anaheim would match the offer sheet, but now have little room to sign Cutter Gauthier who is definitely not taking any pay cuts. They are going to have to shed salary, and this is right after them signing AJ Greer to a $4.25 million deal. I think you could have used that money. They got a lot of guys who could possibly be moved to make room for Cutter. Or maybe they trade Cutter.

A lot of people have said the Leo Carlsson contract “ruined the market” but it didn’t. Players have been discussing pay raises for a while. It’s just a couple guys (hi Connor McDavid) kept taking pay cuts and keeping the market feeling low. It was Kirill Kaprizov making $17 million that changed the market. This was also always going to be the summer where a lot of young players would be re-signing big deals. Connor Bedard takes $15 million. Jason Robertson takes $12 million. Macklin Celebrini takes $18.8 million. That was always the plan. It just feels like a lot because the pandemic froze the cap and players had to work within it. Too many of them stupidly took long term deals instead of short term deals to get them into this era.

Wanting Out

This was also a big summer for players wanting out of their current deals and onto new teams. We already talked about Brady Tkachuk. Also requesting trades were Dylan Larkin of Detroit and Connor Hellebuyck of Winnipeg. Quinn Hughes hasn’t requested a trade but he also hasn’t re-signed in Minnesota yet. What do all these guys have in common? Team USA!

So of course that has made people go nuts about American players leaving Canadian markets forgetting DYLAN LARKIN PLAYS FOR DETROIT. It has nothing to do with Team USA guys wanting out of Canada. It has little to do with Canada. It has everything to do with the Team USA guys all likely realizing that staying loyal to a team that isn’t winning is a waste of your career. All the winning they did in 2026 has them recognizing that they need to get winning before they got nothing to show for it.

I wanted to wait and see what happened to Larkin and Hellebuyck before writing this but I couldn’t really keep putting it off. We’re close to puck drop on the season. Here’s my dream scenario: all of them go to Columbus. Yes, the Columbus Blue Jackets. I’ve always liked Columbus and just think they’ve been the victim of terrible management and terrible luck. Ohio deserves a strong hockey market. So lets’ go with Dylan Larkin and Alex DeBrincat (because we know he isn’t staying once Larkin is gone) both going to Columbus and send Adam Fantilli back (Detroit can afford to pay him huge) and add whatever picks and prospects to balance it out. Then move Connor Hellebuyck to Columbus for Jet Greaves and maybe Kirill Marchenko who we all know wants out of Columbus anyway. Terrible trade? Probably (and yes I know Greaves just re-signed there) but I feel like it’s the kind of move that would at least make the Jets feel like they weren’t tanking yet. If Kirill doesn’t re-sign they can flip him as an RFA. Now the Blue Jackets got Larkin, DeBrincat, and Hellebuyck and that should be enough to convince Zach Werenski (who request a trade and then pulled back) to stay long term. Now you got a strong Blue Jackets team full of Team USA guys. There. I solved all the trade request issues. Let me know how much you hate it at notarealemail@nevergonnahearit.com

Heading into the 2026-2027 Season

As per usual, this isn’t the likely wrong predictions. That will come right before puck drop.

I do want to give some early thoughts about how teams look right now before they even step onto the ice and the league in general.

1. I welcome an 84 game schedule. Less exhibition, two more games? I’m all for it. My favourite season as a kid was an 84 game 92-93 season. The extra two games are welcome. I also noticed the NHL is doing less back-to-back’s and more four game weeks. We will have to see how that works with wear and tear on the players.

2. Carolina had a quiet summer for being Cup champions. They lost Andersen and didn’t even try replacing him. Just running with Bussi and Kochetkov. Alexander Nikishin is still unsigned as an RFA. Do you know who they signed that didn’t play for them last season? Juuso Valimaki from Utah, Zachary Sawchenko from the Columbus Blue Jackets farm club, and Pierre-Olivier Joseph from the Vancouver Canucks. How is that it? I just get the feeling GM Eric Tulsky is lying in wait for a big move. Would not be shocked if he ends up with Hellebuyck or DeBrincat at some point this season.

3. I have no idea how the East shakes out this year. Last year I was 100% correct on the wildcard being insane and the Atlantic division being an absolute free for all. I was wrong about Toronto and Florida being playoff teams still but I think most were. All I’ll say is I think Philly and Pittsburgh got really lucky last year and with the Capitals loading up and the Devils probably getting Quinn Hughes at some point I don’t know how lucky Pennsylvania gets this season.

4. This is the final year for Edmonton. I almost got tricked into saying I liked Edmonton and then I took a closer look. Not only are they betting on Mike Babcock but they are betting losing Darnell Nurse, yes overpaid, will help the defence. It’ll probably help in zone but carrying the puck out of said zone? Not sure. Kasperi Kapanen and Vasily Podkolzin on very expensive deals, as well as Jason Dickinson. That’s almost $10 million tied up in three guys who wouldn’t be top guys to take in free agency. You still got Vladimir Tarasenko, Jonathan Drouin, and Michael Bunting on the free agency market. I’d take those three on cheap deals over the three the Oilers signed. I do like getting Freddie Andersen and Devon Levi, but I think it’s too little too late. Oilers crash out this spring and prepare to either trade McDavid or give him one last ride before he signs with probably Toronto because he’s addicted to losing with high expectations. Oh and because I said it last time: Fuck everyone involved in the Kyle Beach scandal who chose the team over the victim.

5. Who are the Dallas Stars? For years they were a favourite of mine. I mean, so was Carolina and the year I start giving up on them they win the Cup. So maybe this bodes well for Dallas. I’ve been proclaiming them the future kings of the west only for them to keep stumbling. I know it’s not their fault Tyler Seguin got hurt and he’s got one more year, which means they could only sign Jason Robertson for a single year until they know what cap room they got next summer. They got a ton of UFA’s. Robertson, Seguin, Steel, Kiviranta, Benn, Myers, and DeSmith. Clearly the future of the team is around Wyatt Johnston, Mikko Rantanen, Miro Heiskanen, Thomas Harley, and Jake Oettinger. Is it enough? Should they try upgrading somewhere? Thomas Harley can be traded anywhere, maybe they have buyers remorse and move him for a better defenceman? I thought these guys were just on their way to a Cup and now I’m not so sure. Again, don’t be too sad Stars fans. I was low on the Hurricanes last fall too. I just don’t know if I should go all in on Dallas again.

Regular season begins September 29. I will have my 2026-2027 Likely Wrong NHL Predictions right before it. Thanks for reading.

Photo of Leo Carlsson from Wikipedia by Pwinger 4.0 Creation Commons Licence

The post NHL 2026 Off Season appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.

I got off the bandwagon of “superhero” movies before a lot of my friends. I only saw the Avengers: Infinity War and End Game movies because a friend of mine bought a ticket. Aside from The Batman, I haven’t enjoyed a superhero movie in almost a decade. The last one I can think of somewhat liking was Thor: Ragnarok which a lot of people adored and I thought had great ideas and a great movie within but it was way too jokey.

But Lantern’s isn’t a movie. It’s a TV series. Have I been enjoying the TV series at all? Actually I have. I liked the first season of Peacemaker a lot while feeling season two was good and ended really poorly. I absolutely adored The Penguin. The Marvel shows not so much. I’m pretty much out on Marvel. It’s all too Disney now. I tried Winter Soldier and Captain Falcon and it had a few good scenes followed by too much winky wink. You know, wink to the audience. Finding out that She-Hulk was in 360 degree blue rooms instead of just shooting in an office really put a bad taste in my mouth.

So what got me to want to watch Lanterns? Well there’s another superhero show I watched and really enjoyed. It was Watchmen. I absolutely loved Watchmen. Damon Lindelof did Watchmen. I really need to watch Leftovers. Then there’s the cast. I’m in on Aaron Pierre after Rebel Ridge. Casting him as John Stewart was a perfect timing situation. Apparently James Gunn almost cast Aaron Pierre as Warlock in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 so maybe it wasn’t so much perfect timing of Rebel Ridge coming out to sell them on him but rather Rebel Ridge sold me on Pierre before this.

Kyle Chandler is one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood so him as Hal Jordan just made sense. But then you have the forever lovely Kelly Macdonald, one of the best TV actors in Garret Dillahunt, and Gravity Falls Dipper himself Jason Ritter in the cast. And then just toss in Laura Linney like it’s nothing? One of my favourite actors of the 1990s Laura Linney? Come on. Come on!

Am I into the Green Lantern comics? Not really. That’s what is funny about covering this in any angle. I know that a lot of people are trying to figure this show out based on their knowledge of the comic books and will be happy/disappointed based on how accurate to the comics they are instead of whether or not they tell a good story. That’s what happened with Watchmen. It was a sequel to the original comic books and offered new perspective to old ideas in it, particularly with a whole new explanation on the first masked hero in Hooded Justice. I thought it was genius. A lot of comic book fans hated it because it wasn’t accurate to the comic. Stupid.

So all of my thoughts and theories on the show are not based on the lore of the comic books (aside from what I’ve looked up or people have talked about like John Stewart in the comics not needing a physical ring and lantern, or who the Sinestro Corps are), which may lead me to incorrect theories or it might lead me to correct theories because I’m not distracted by pre-existing lore. Who knows. Let’s find out!

Lanterns is not about being Fearless. It’s about Trust.

One of the only things I knew about Green Lantern was that the ring was about Willpower. I did watch that Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie and it’s all about willpower. What the heck is willpower? Having willpower is about having control over your emotions. Essentially it’s about discipline over the self. You don’t allow your emotions to get the best of you.

Hal Jordan in Lanterns shows willpower pretty much every scene. Some might confuse his snappy remarks as not being in control of his emotions but almost every scene he’s in absolute control of how he wants to express himself, how he processes information, and how he relays it.

The fourth episode Weenie is the best encapsulation of Hal Jordan’s willpower. When Jordan finds out that John Stewart has been talking behind his back about trying to take the ring he doesn’t get in an argument with him. He doesn’t have some silly banter back and forth about the ring. He processes the betrayal and recognizes this is not the moment to lose his cool. Who does lose his cool? John Stewart in hearing his family home is about to get a sky laser with his parents inside. Hal knows what the situation actually is. It’s about trying to pit the two against each other to get what they want. The whole situation, as Hal figures out later, was a distraction.

Willpower, however, isn’t talked about as much as being fearless. Fearless because fear, as I know from my little knowledge of Green Lantern, is what powers the yellow lanterns. The yellow lantern is the Sinestro Corps. Sinestro right now is just imprisoned for killing a guardian. A large part of willpower is not allowing your fears to control your actions. The yellow is clearly a counter to this.

It might be a good time now to realize the show isn’t called Green Lanterns. It’s called Lanterns.

Guardians of a Lie

The show is presented like a detective show. The original mystery was about the town. Then it’s about who the Manhunter is. It’s more than that though. We’re four episodes in and we now realize that absolutely everyone is lying to each other. Nobody is telling the truth. But some lies are bigger than others, and it’s going to be about figuring that out.

The end of episode four had Hal Jordan running the rental car into a telephone post with John still in the car. We will get the fallout of that in episode five. He did it after pointing out that it wasn’t John Stewart wanting the ring that made him realize he couldn’t trust him. It was him not saying that Zoe was his suspicion on who the Manhunter was when Hal straight up asked him. John gave the weakest lie that it must be Will Macon. That’s where Hal put it all together. He was willing to trust a man who wants to literally replace him and yet John couldn’t trust Hal with the theory that Zoe was the Manhunter.

John Stewart is an incredible character. It’s not just he’s been built to be Green Lantern his whole life. He’s also been lied to his whole life. And continues to be lied to. And has to trust those lies in order to get what he wants.

The Lantern Guardians want to replace Hal Jordan because he can’t be controlled. He can’t be trusted if he can’t be controlled. Fear could take over him if he is not controlled. John, on the other hand, they do believe can be controlled. He’s been controlled ever since the day his mother decided he could one day become the Green Lantern unlike his father. Their goal was to ensure he lives fearless. Unfortunately, the literal parental abuse they inflicted upon him to grow him to be who he is today has actually filled him with a great amount of fear. The fear of not becoming the Green Lantern did not break him. It just led him to be an architect, which was what the Guardians wanted for him. No, it was the moment Hal Jordan was willing to let a laser take out his parents. John isn’t ready for that, which is why Hal remarked the heroes journey of losing parents before becoming what you need to be.

We need to get back to the loose ends. Why is it that Hal Jordan is “breaking protocol” by meeting Sinestro, but Sinestro up in a space prison knows who John Stewart is? Why would Sinestro suggest to kill John Stewart? Why was both the Guardians and John’s mother so insistent on him taking the ring as soon as possible? Why did the decoy lie to say the Manhunter was Will Macon? Did Zoe say anything else to John Stewart when fucking him to make him feel like he needed to protect her? If Hal was convinced by Sinestro to bring the Manhunter to the guardians, why is he willing to bring the aliens who plan to destroy Rushville into town?

All of these are built on lies. Or maybe in the case of Hal it’s not lies but Hal masking his true intentions. What it all comes down to for me is that absolutely everyone in the universe is trying to keep these two men apart. Make them fight each other. The reality, and I’m sure the next four episodes will explain this, is that Hal and John need each other to survive this. They don’t trust each other right now. They’ll need to trust each other to survive. If, of course, Hal survives. The end of episode one was made to look like he doesn’t.

Predicting Where It Goes

Episode one established Rushville. Episode two (literally called trust fall) uncovers the Manhunter and Hal deciding to meet Sinestro. Episode three is about John Stewart’s background (why do people hate flashback episodes so much? This was a great episode. As I said on Twitter, people are more focused on dissecting “the way television works” than actually watching the show.), how he was raised, why he doesn’t like Hal, and why he has good reason not to. Episode four is about making their dislike for each other personal. Hal was fine treating the Guardians trying to replace him as an issue with the Guardians and not John. John hiding the Manhunter theory on Zoe changed that. John didn’t like Hal for causing his dishonourable discharge and being a general jackass to him, but he’s now run him into a telephone pole. And unlike the ejection from a car in the pilot episode? John doesn’t have the ring to wrap himself in bubble wrap.

The theory on Zoe being the Manhunter is something people have suggested since the first time she flirted with John in the bar, and I’ve heard people suggest she’s even someone else. The one that really gets me is the fact that the Guardians have constantly been moving not as heroes but villains in all of this. The fact Sinestro knew about John Stewart still very much bothers me.

I’ve heard the theory that the Manhunter’s are not the villains but the Guardians. Zoe might be a Manhunter, but the Manhunter’s are being hunted to extinction by the Guardians when they haven’t done wrong. Rushville is basically a dream utopia in many ways with a hospital with no patients, a cure for cancer, and basically teleporting cows to slaughter. Actually, that one I don’t know how that makes things better, but man that was a cool scene.

I rewatched the final scene of the pilot (I still love they called it pilot, so cheeky) when they flash forward to 2026. John Stewart now has a cool beard, but he isn’t flying. He’s driving in a quiet Rushville in the snow and goes by a wreckage. Sheriff Kerry Kane is still there (Kelly Macdonald isn’t allowed to die she’s too lovely) and brings him to a dead Hal Jordan sitting on the bleachers. He brushes the snow off his hand to check if he has the ring and he doesn’t. John is confused about this.

We do know due to that Superman movie that came out last year there’s a Guy Gardner who is now the Green Lantern and has Hal Jordan’s ring. He’s going to appear later on in the season. Why would John be looking for a ring when he knows Hal doesn’t have it anymore?

What I’m getting at is that the future doesn’t really give us the belief that John Stewart 10 years later is a Green Lantern. If that is Hal Jordan dead (and not say a projection from a Manhunter with a crystalized heart) then the last time John saw him? He was still the Green Lantern. Whatever happens in Rushville with the exploding terrorist aliens, the Manhunter, and the townsfolks being armed by Manhunter for an alien threat? It doesn’t feel like this ends with a passing of the torch (lantern lol) between Hal and John. It does however seem like John has some affection for Hal being frozen to that bleacher, so they might have figured out what was going on.

Where I personally hope it goes is likely different from what the show does. Just to give an example, I wanted Game of Thrones to end with the white walkers winning. I wanted the humans to be so embroiled in their greed and their pitiful rivalries that they ignored the true threat of the white walkers (who I thought were an analogy for global warming) and be completely wiped out. I thought that was the most powerful ending possible. Instead we got… whatever we got. Never finished that stupid final season.

Where I personally hope it goes is that the Guardians are currently being driven by fear. Literal yellow energy. Sinestro killing a Guardian, corrupted by yellow energy, actually passed that fear to the Guardians. Everything they are currently doing from trying to replace Hal Jordan with John Stewart is built on fear. They fear Hal will become Sinestro. In reality, they are becoming Sinestro. The reason Sinestro knows who John Stewart is because he knows the fear is in the Guardians now.

Hal Jordan is figuring it out. He figures out the Guardians are driven by fear, Sinestro is trying to drive him to it, and John Stewart is highly corruptible, regardless of his training, due to his love of his parents and his need for human connection.

“They are ruthless, Junior. They assimilate into communities by attaching to weak spots. It’s what their programmed to do.”

“So what you’re saying is they have no other choice?”

“They find a path to power every time, and if they identify a threat to that power, they’ll manipulate that threat into believing anything they want them to. Remind you anyone we know?”

This was Hal pointing out the weakness of John. He allowed himself to be corrupted by the Manhunter. They identified him as a threat immediately. That’s why Zoe met him at the bar. John even tried lying when he knew based on what Zoe told him.

I think Hal puts it all together, and he tries to push John away because John has allowed himself to get caught up in it. But at some point, Hal will realize he can’t solve this alone. He needs John, just as much as John needs Hal to break the people manipulating him and become his own man.

The whole town of Rushville has been manipulated by the Manhunter, and John Stewart is now included. John’s going to need to realize he needs the willpower to get over his problem with the lies and start seeing the truth. John isn’t just manipulated by the Manhunter but also the Guardian’s. Once Hal exposes this, with John’s help, I think it leads to John getting the Green Lantern power without needing a ring. Which I believe is accurate to the comics.

I am also hoping that the Hal Jordan we see dead at the end of the pilot isn’t Hal at all. It’s a holographic projection telling John that the issue with Sinestro and the Guardian’s isn’t over.

What do I think the show does? I have seen the theory that Zoe isn’t the Manhunter but actually part of Antaan’s alien crew. I don’t know. I don’t think the show, or Damon Lindelof who showed with Watchmen he likes strong black characters (please understand I’m not saying this like it’s a bad thing, I already said I loved Watchmen), wants John Stewart to just be this pawn of manipulation letting himself get fucked and screwed with by every woman in his life to finally break out of it because of big swingin’ dick bachelor Hal. There has to be a hero arc for John in this. So far he’s been more of a liability than a help.

I think the show wants us to think it’s John being manipulated when in reality it’s Hal. This plays into the theory of Zoe actually not being the Manhunter. Maybe the Guardian’s were correct that Hal is breaking protocol because he’s being slowly influenced by Sinestro. The big twist will be that when John opens up Hal’s coat in 2026, there will be a crystal heart. In the end the Manhunter was actually controlling him completely and that’s why he no longer has the ring.

It would take some huge leaps and really mess with what we’ve got from Hal Jordan being the one guy who can figure things out (he’s a master detective, specifically in figuring out when someone isn’t who they seem to be) but it allows John Stewart to leave this a hero. I feel like the show will want that more than John being just a guy who has to break the manipulation his life has endured.

This will still allow a situation where John becomes the Green Lantern without needing the ring, where his heart is his lantern.

Maybe that will be too much of a betrayal to people to see that Hal ended up fully manipulated by the Manhunter, but I feel like that gives us a road to John and answers the pilot’s final scene.

3,000 Words Later

Damn this show is good. I could be completely wrong. I could be right. I could be way off track. The comic book people might be laughing at me by my theories. I’m good with that. I’ve loved the way this show has respected the viewer and showed you perspective over and over. Characters will say things that don’t feel true, and nobody is there to immediately tell you that it’s a lie. You’re allowed to believe what you think in this world and it’s up to Hal and John to figure out what’s the truth. Isn’t it great to have a show we can discuss and agree or disagree on instead of something just fed to us so we never feel dumb? I’m okay with a show making me feel dumb because I didn’t get it. It makes me wants to figure out why.

I do still believe that the focus on fearless is to eventually instill the counter of fear, but that willpower to realize you’ve been manipulated and how to get through it will be important for Hal and John. I do think, if they play their cards right, they could absolutely launch this show into a movie with Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre being the Green Lantern’s going up against Sinestro, the Guardians, anyone. Lindelof has done a fantastic job.

I’ll end on one little thing.

I'll talk more about episode four of #Lanterns later but this episode especially I can't get over how much Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross changed music in film and TV.

— Aaron Wrotkowski (@aaron.wrotkowski.ca) 2026-09-07T03:24:47.660Z

I wonder if absolutely everyone in Hollywood is using the Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV as temp music now so when someone like Stephanie Economou is tasked to do the music for Lanterns she goes right into making it sound like a Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross production. Trent and Atticus worked on Watchmen, so it’s pretty easy to suspect that Lindelof wanted that type of sound again.

It’s not just things they worked on though. The Social Network soundtrack, which pulled a lot from Ghosts I-IV, really changed movies and TV with the way it sounds. As a Nine Inch Nails fan for most of my life? I’m glad. I like the way things sound.

Anyway, looking forward to the final four.

The post Lanterns After Four appeared first on Aaron Wrotkowski.