We have officially entered the calm that follows the craziness of our entry draft, and precedes the silliness of free agency.  If your head is spinning from all the recent goings-on, I’m here to make sense of the past 10-14 days for all you people.

June 7 – 12:01 am EDT - Larry Linke celebrates his 100^th birthday.  Or his 64^th.  No one is counting.  But we know he’s feeling spry, because not only is he keeping his channel updated daily, the fam jam is still trusting him on babysitting duty for the triplets.  This was just the beginning of things getting a little wild in everyone’s favourite sim league.

June 7 – 1:18 pm EDT - Bryce drops a bombshell on the league and steps down as Colorado’s General Manager, but stays on as league commissioner and special advisor to the Kraken, Canucks, and Avs.  After building a powerhouse team, and fresh off winning Lord Stanley, our fearless leader took one glance at Cap Friendly and decided the ballooning salaries due his players over the next couple of seasons looked like a Pat problem.   When the tampering with another team’s staff actually started, no one besides him and Pat actually knows.

June 7 – 8:00 pm EDT - The extremely unanticipated BRHL Awards ceremony took place, and the main highlights were JT Miller, taking home league MVP honours despite playing on the same team as other superstars like McDavid and Matthews, and Steve Vardy being named the GGMEITHOTBRHL… or maybe just GM of the Year.  Either way, very deserving.

June 13 – 12:26 pm EDT – Toby and Dan engineer a blockbuster trade that left onlookers scratching their heads.  A rebuilding Toby, in the midst of tanking harder than the 1983/84 Pens, added the very well-rated Nico Hischier from Dan, who is in the midst of challenging for a championship, for picks number 1, 21, and 33 in the 2023 prospect draft, and $11.7 million in cash.  The only explanation is Toby just likes Hischier on a personal level, and Dan just saw too much value to turn down.

June 13 – 9:20 pm EDT – Things start to get weird during game 5 of the NHL finals as Thirsty Junya posts a board of the hottest actresses from the 90s that distracts half the league’s middle-aged men from enjoying Vegas taking home their 1^st Stanley Cup.  Steph got really into the debate.  Bryce didn’t know who half the women were.  And Sumit, Dev, and Dan showed their age by selecting women who were not on the list and were young enough to be the daughters of some of those on it.

June 13 – 10:09 pm EDT - Sumit pays up big for believing in the Panthers to the tune of $15M in one day.  The league’s biggest degenerate gambler is blown a tough card here, as his faith in a team who only out-chanced their opponents a couple of times through the first 3 rounds, is proven to be a bad idea. 

June 13 – 10:45 pm EDT – Tony officially wins the BRHL’s playoff bracket.  Somewhere around this time, it becomes officially official.  Apparently selecting teams out of a hat for an NHL Playoff Bracket is the way to go to win cash off of your peers and to look like a genius at the same time.

June 14 – 6:27 pm EDT – Garrett gets an absolute haul for 1^st overall from Detroit.  Garret gets picks number 2 and 31 in the 2023 entry draft, along with $7 million cash, and a future 7^th.   This was a no-brainer for Garrett with the return he received.  From my perspective, I just could not come to a clear conclusion on whom I liked at 2, so I paid his price to land who, in my opinion, was the clear-cut top prospect available.

June 14 – 10:02 pm EDT – At the last minute / the 11^th hour / right before it was too late… well, at least apparently… the timeline here suspiciously didn’t quite line up… Rex avoided his draft picks from being auctioned off for being in the red financially.  He probably got close to what an auction would’ve garnered anyways.  And with that order of business, the stage was set for the 2023 BRHL Draft.

June 15 – 8:30 pm EDT – Dan selects Logan Cooley to kick off the 2023 BRHL draft.  After reading several well-trusted sources… all of whom seemed to have given their opinions or made their prospect rankings approximately 2/3 of the way through the season… and seeing Cooley topping all lists, I went with the consensus number 1 here.  Cooley was under 1.5 pts/game when most of the lists came out, but amped it up and produced around 2 pts/per game afterwards, making this an easy choice.

June 15 – 8:46 pm EDT – Devon trades up for his hometown boy, Pavel Mintyukov.  Oh, baby does our boy Dev love little Ducklings.  Mintyukov is pretty much a sure thing and might be the best all-round D-men out of the Ducks crowded young group of rearguards.

June 15 – 9:07 pm EDT – Toby trades up for HIS hometown boy, Rutger McGroraty.  I’m not sure how to spell this guy’s name, but like clockwork, another Cordell moves up to take a top prospect drafted by their real-life favourite franchise.

June 15 – 9:13 pm EDT – Jared trades Drysdale to Steph for 20^th OV and the rights to select Liam Ohgren.  Jared is often very high on certain European prospects, and Ohgren obviously fits what he is looking for.  On the flip-side, Steph discovers Drysdale missed almost the entire 2022-23 season, but never fear because Dev is near and has probably already hit up Steph’s DMs for an overpayment.

June 15 – 9:14 pm EDT – The star of our 1^st round, Devon Cordell decides to ship out Luke Evangelista to Detroit for the opportunity to select the Sudbury Wolves David Goyette at 21^st overall.

June 15 – 9:22 pm EDT – Kevin moves up to select Ivan Miroshnichenko in a trade with Toronto.  Garrett drops down and picks Brad Lambert.  Seemed like a solid move for both franchises.

June 15 – 9:26 pm EDT – A monster blockbuster goes down between Jared and Sumit.  Jared adds the supremely talented and well-rated Dylan Larkin to his improved top 6.  The deal had other pieces, but it was essentially for Sharks prospect, William Eklund, in which, Sumit lands a top prospect while freeing up cap space for whatever he has up his sleeves next month.

June 15 – 10:26 pm EDT – Sumit finally moves Fla’s 2024 1^st for Jani Nyman and $35 mil.  Sumit must really think Sober Ty’s team will do really well next season as he’s been trying to pawn this pick off forever.  The return was a good one.  Nyman is a very solid prospect, and $35 million will go along away towards causing chaos in free agency.

June 19 – 10:00 am EDT – And it begins… or continues… in the BRHL Tradeblock…  A preview of what the next few weeks will look like as we head towards free agency.  Rex reminds the league he’s got a bunch of goalies no one’s heard of on the block, along with a few D-men and draft picks.  Garrett lets us know he’s got some over-the hill veterans he wants to be rid of, and Sumit starts pawning off William Eklund for who knows what.    All of this on tap, plus I’m sure a few spirited discussions on whether pineapple belongs on pizza, or why something as vulgar as ketchup whiskey even exists, awaits.  Though hopefully the boys will stop ruining the chat and take it to the #cooking or #politics channel or else Larry might not survive to see his 65th.