I'll be honest: I wrote most of this off and on over the course of Wednesday because I was terrified that there would be another big trade that made me scrap a bunch of stuff I wrote. And I was right to be nervous. There were two more trades — one involving Alex Tuch that counts, as far as I'm concerned, as a "big" one — as well as the Zach Benson contract extension. So not quite the seismic day Tuesday was, but still fairly notable, and it sounds like teams have their irons in the fire for even more. Honestly, I think it's not a coincidence that the biggest stuff that happened involved the Sabres, who are hosting the draft, because today was probably a travel day for most of the league, and no one had easy phone access.

Therefore, I'm expecting today to be kind of a nightmare, and it makes me glad that I have this scheduled to go out before 9 a.m., as usual. There's going to be a lot to keep track of the next two or three days, then a brief respite before what is guaranteed to be the absolute worst Free Agent Frenzy of all time.

Anyway, you're here for the takes. So let's get to 'em:

Team for Texas

It wasn't quite an official announcement, but it's the most NHL thing imaginable that in a week where there was a lot of fretting out of Canada about how those markets cannot retain American talent and what does that mean for the sport as a whole, the league said, "Oh yeah by the way we're probably expanding to either Houston or Austin as soon as they get an arena built." And then it was barely scratching the surface of the top-5 most important things that happened in that week. Five future first-round picks got traded the same day.

So it's gonna be another market in a warm-weather, no-income-tax state to bring the league to 33 teams. And while I think Houston is interesting, they're gonna have to build an arena there. So it's probably fair to say that the success of Vegas, being the first major pro sports team there, makes Austin more attractive for the league; the city itself just passed the 1-million mark for population, and the metro area is like 2.5 million and growing. It's a top-10 market in the US, and while they're gonna have to compete with the University of Texas football team (and other sports, to much lesser extents) at parts of the season, they don't have to compete as directly with Houston's NFL, MLB, or NBA teams. Plus, think of how many NHL players will be lining up to visit the Comedy Mothership and get on Kill Tony.

And you know they won't stick with an odd number for long. Gary Bettman told reporters at the Board of Governors meeting that in addition to discussing the potential for Texas expansion, the league also got updates on Atlanta and Phoenix, but neither "are as far along in the process" as this more out-of-nowhere one. Kevin Weekes is gonna have to save some of the eyeball emoji and timeline photos for a later day, but even with this announcement, it's tough for me to see a world where there's a team in Texas by the end of the decade. They have to complete the viability study in both Houston and Austin, then buy the land, then build the rink, then give everyone time to prep for the expansion draft. Rumors of Vegas getting a team started cropping up a few months after construction began on T-Mobile Arena (May 2014), and by December of that year, the league let Bill Foley hold a season ticket drive. In June 2015, Sportsnet reported the future Golden Knights had some 13,000 season-ticket deposits. A little more than three years later, the "Golden Misfits" took the ice. Somewhat concurrently, in December 2017, the city of Seattle reached an agreement with the future owners of the Kraken to renovate what became Climate Pledge Arena, and a year later, the league announced that expansion had been approved. They started playing in 2021-22.

In both cases, construction was to one extent or another either already underway when the expansion process began, and that's not the case here, but we're still looking at, I would think, at least a year before they even break ground. The league is expected to choose a city and make a final decision on expansion maybe around this coming December, but it's still a three- or four-year process to put the team on the ice. I'd be targeting 2031-32 for this expansion.

But let me ask this: Can you personally envision a world where they go more than a year or two of an odd number of teams? Again, if Bettman is already saying "Arizona" and "Atlanta" out loud, that might even signal two markets are getting ready for the mid-2030s, and frankly, whichever of Houston or Austin misses out might not be far behind. I feel like 36 is a good number just to even out the divisions and all that.

Tough bounce for Canadian expansion once again, but they don't have that maybe-fake(?) Bari Weiss college in Quebec City, do they?

Now he'll never win the Mark Messier Leadership Award

People in Columbus should be 500 times more pissed off at Zach Werenski than people in Ottawa are at Brady Tkachuk.

Obama voice let me be clear: They should both be pissed. But at least Tkachuk had the decency to demand his trade before the draft. With Werenski, the team is set to meet with him regarding his future after this weekend's draft. Insider types are not immediately making it explicit which side wanted to wait until after the draft, but a quick excerpt from Aaron Portzline, who's as plugged in with Blue Jackets as any beat reporter is in their market, certainly makes the implication:

"That sounds ominous, especially given all that has played over the league in recent months. … But if he makes it clear that he won’t be re-signing, the earlier Waddell gets that information — as hard as it would be to swallow — the better."

Like, that reads to me as "That's when Werenski would agree to meet" rather than "Columbus wants to wait until after the draft," and if that's the case, it's a real dick move for a guy who's been the heart and soul (and only real driver of success) for that franchise the last few years. Especially at a time when high first-round picks are trading hands like crazy, for Don Waddell to not be able to jump into that with Werenski is potentially disastrous. Bowen Byram garnered the No. 4 pick, and it certainly sounds like the Rangers were willing to move No. 5 for him as well. The fact that Columbus can't go to Chris Drury and say "Werenski for the 5 and Alexis Lafreniere" or something similar could be a real problem. Even if Tkachuk only had one destination on his list, he was cordial enough to give the Senators a list of three fake teams so they could boost the price to the point it was worth three first-round picks. And he did it early enough that they could then flip one of those picks for William Eklund, and still have time for more.

Let’s say, though, Werenski is like, "I want to play one more season in Columbus and you can deal me at the deadline.” Well, that's gonna mean a huge downgrade in value both because of cap constraints and the fact that the acquiring team is getting him for, say, 55 fewer games.

He has a full no-move right now, of course, and that converts to a 10-team trade list in 2027-28. So maybe he doesn't want to go to New York, or any other teams that may be interested in his services at this time. But if he's thinking he wants out, then it's a bit of a nasty move to go, "Ohhhh, I don't knowwwww."

Because right now there is nothing stopping Columbus from taking and making calls, then going to Werenski and saying, "What about (team)?" It's then Werenski's right to either go or stay based on that request. It could happen with all 31 other teams, and he could refuse it all, as is his right. But is something gonna feel materially different next week? Next month?

Werenski owes them nothing. They gave him the contract and the no-move. But the not-owing doesn't mean he's not-being crummy. You would think that, for an organization for whom he seems (from the outside) to have no animosity, he'd want to do a little bit right by them after all these years and help them maximize the return.

Nothing doing, I guess. That's hockey.

Picks up for grabs

Trivia question: How many top-10 picks traded hands in the first 20 years of the salary cap era (2005-25)? This does not include the future picks that got traded and then ended up being top-10s. We're only talking about teams knowing they were giving away a top-10 pick, so not, like, Tim Stützle and Phil Kessel, for example.

Trivia answer: 10.

This is notable because so far this week, there have been two picks in the top 10 of this draft that traded hands, not counting Florida's No. 9 overall changing hands twice. So that's three trades, a new record for one year. And it sounds like there might be more to come, because the Rangers might be willing to part with No. 5, and Mike Grier said he got an "interesting" offer for No. 2. At this point, I'm really not ruling anything out.

So I went back and looked up all those traded top-10 picks, and wanted to see how it worked out for the teams trading them away and acquiring them.

So, I would say of those 11 trades, three wins for the team moving the top-10 pick, to go with four losses and three draws. You are really flipping a coin with this. Good luck to all involved! It’s none of my business.