The contrast was a bit humorous. As the Pittsburgh Penguins universe is digesting the eight-year contract for Ville Koivunen and doubts buttress confusion, Sportsnet published a list of the best contracts. Elsewhere in the Daily, there are more Quinn Hughes rumors, the LA Kings are going to level 10 to honor Anze Kopitar, and the Buffalo Sabres-Alex Tuch offers a warning to other teams.

How are we a week into August already?!

I suppose the empty landscape of hockey news is why the Quinn Hughes stuff is taking center stage again, but it’s also a big deal. Hughes is one of two defensemen who could set the market for highest paid player, or completely alter the balance of the Eastern Conference if he lands in New Jersey.

After last week’s disappointing streaming choices, I found a couple of good ones to recommend, at least partially. For those of you who watched The Big Bang Theory, there’s an alt-universe spinoff on HBO Max called Stuart Fails to Save the Universe. They’re releasing one episode a week, which is nice and it’s genuinely funny. I’ve really liked the first few.

And for Top Gear fans, I just found Richard Hammond’s spinoff on Amazon where he started a classic car garage. The first couple of seasons are fun. The third one…I’m just racing through to get to the end. But if you read up on what happened after the show, Hammond lost his business partner and got divorced. The show does not touch on those topics, but his wife’s disdain for him was at first a classic source of humor balancing the joyful Hammond before it was kind of obvious it wasn’t good natured and she disappeared from the show.

Anyhoo…

Pittsburgh Penguins

Pittsburgh Hockey Now: Kyle Dubas shocked the hockey world and Penguins fans with the eight-year deal to Ville Koivunen. There’s a lot of superficial analysis being bandied about, but with a moment to digest, it still raises a lot of questions. Here’s some deeper analysis and some fallout you may not have considered regarding the Penguins situation.

This is a brutal broadside of Kyle Dubas. The Sid Seixeiro show in Montreal just hammered at Dubas.

What is Kyle Dubas doing? #sick #thesidseixeiroshow @Sid_Seixeiro @J_Pardi pic.twitter.com/3ctV99iK4C

— The Sid Seixeiro Show (@sidseixeiroshow) August 6, 2026

NHL Trade Talk, News, & National Hockey Now

New Jersey Hockey Now: It is getting just a little bit tense in Minnesota. A world class defenseman, a pair of brothers on another team, and a team on the cusp of great. James Nichols writes that there are hints of a real dilema surrounding Quinn Hughes.

Sportsnet: The worst will always draw more interest, but Sportsnet went the other way with a list of the best contracts in the NHL.

TSN: The LA Kings are going to honor Anze Kopitar, and that is well earned. The full scope of the honor might set the standard for a few players in Pittsburgh. The Kings are going to retire Kopitar’s number, but also unveil a statue.

LA likes statues outside the Crypto.com arena. There are plenty of them but perhaps in a year we’ll be talking about a No. 71 bronze in Pittsburgh? The Penguins need a few statues, as long they do a better job than the very muddled Mario immortalizer. Or is it the Rich Pilon’s butt statue?

NHLtraderumors.me: It seems that no NHL team wants to give Evander Kane a contract. It’s August, he’s unisgned, but the KHL has come calling.

NHLrumors.com: It’s a cautionary tale that a lot of GMs are heeding. Joe Yerdon joined the Dallas Stars podcast (not sure why Dallas is talking Alex Tuch, but it’s an interesting story). Yerdon cited Tuch’s body language and hurt over not getting a contract the summer before, and that’s why he’s now a Washington Capitals forward.

NHL.com: As the league website previews teams for the coming season, they got to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Is it optimism to end their six-year playoff drought or whistling past the graveyard?

Boston Hockey Now: And we’ll end on a story of the Penguins’ ripples in the water. How will the Koivunen extension affect the Boston Bruins?

Tags: nhl trade Pittsburgh Penguins quinn hughes

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