On Wednesday, Caro puts an end to the Worlds arc. At least Latvia, once again, getting a medal at the Hockey Worlds makes me feel better about this roller coaster of a season, she writes Gus' thoughts after the medal ceremony ends at Worlds.

With three days left to go, Caro then starts writing the ending sequence to the book. So, while the extra hockey played in the plot after the trade might have made this window to the 100% open, it also made the book longer than some would like, too. But it seems like every playing sequence from the deadline on out was simply setup for what is going to happen now.

When she starts the stream on Thursday night, Caro is reminded of being asked about offer sheets earlier in the project.

"When will you talk about offer sheets?" Lagado asks her.

"Now I believe the time is right to discuss offer sheets in greater detail. But it seems like restricted free agents might take weeks to sign or get traded, and to prevent other teams from making offer sheets, players file for arbitration" Caro starts answering.

"Why do you think Gus doesn't file for arbitration?" Capitolium asks her.

"He knows that an arbitration hearing is a lose-lose situation. Even then, players file for it much more often than offer sheets get signed. And teams tend not to take players to arbitration because the kinds of players for whom teams would take them to arbitration tend not to be extended QOs"

A team can take a player to arbitration only once, whereas players can take teams to arbitration as many times as they have contract years while a RFA, Capitolium sighs, while Caro starts the chapter with Gus wondering if arbitration is right for him.

But, shortly after free agency period begins, the Constellations lose a D-man to it, and had no luck trying to get one, nor did they believe that they had anyone ready to step up to the plate in their prospect pool.

"One last thing about arbitration: players often do this to buy time to negotiate a contract, usually signing about three weeks later. Offer sheets, well, are the main source of restrictions in restricted free agency"

"An offer sheet, in this context, would come off like a Deus ex Machina..." Glitter, whose knowledge of NHL restricted free agency was next to nonexistent up to this point, comments.

"Only if you don't know about restricted free agency. To be fair, teams bear the risks, and a lot of hockey fans don't even know about that aspect of the sport. Once a player signs an offer sheet, the original team has seven days to match it"

In which case I will have Gus sign it, feeling like it's the only way he could be back with his beloved Emma, and spend the following seven days agonizing over whether the offer sheet gets matched, Caro keeps to herself, not wanting to spoil any more than she already had.

"What do you feel like Gustavs' cap hit is going to be? Obviously, Gus has improved his offensive game!" Marie-France asks Caro.

"We're not talking about multi-first-rounder level of offer sheets!"

"What do you mean by multi-first-rounder offer sheets?" Glitter asks.

"First of all, very few players even get contracts that big, even as unrestricted free agents!" Caro checks against the current table of offer sheet compensations. "It would take a cap hit of approximately nine point five million or more to require a team to give up two first-round picks, a second and a third, and almost no one is signed to a contract big enough to give up four first-rounders!"

So we know the upper limit of the offer sheet size Gus will sign is going to be ~$9.5M. For that sort of cap hit, you'd better sign a Norris trophy contender if you do so for a D-man, and have him play accordingly, so I expect Caro to write about signing him to a smaller offer sheet, but still a major raise that will take him to UFA, Capitolium sighs.

"Hold on, why do you assign a value in draft picks to an offer sheet?" Sampoong asks her, while rolling his eyes.

"Because of what happens when the original team doesn't match the offer sheet. The new team must give away a certain number of draft picks to the old team, depending on the cap hit" Caro then posts the link to the table of compensations.

Assuming that the player is average relative to his cap hit, it seems like, so long as there is no first-rounder involved, signing an offer sheet is cheaper than outright trading for an equivalent player, Marie-France realizes that Dallas paid quite a lot for a pending RFA. But the Habs willingly parted ways with Kotkaniemi because he was one of the worst players in the $6-7M range back then.

"Anything more you would like to know about offer sheets?" Caro asks her viewers as she writes the passage about Gus being thrown an offer sheet his way, but the following question makes her lose some focus.

Maridun: Who can sign an offer sheet?"

"Offer sheets cannot be a player's first contract, because skaters must have played at least eighty games, while goalies must have played at least twenty-eight games. Also, a qualifying offer must be made to a player, and the player must twenty-six or younger on July first!" the streamer answers her viewer.

I forgot about the cap hit! I can double Gus' cap hit and the Constellations would only give up a second-rounder. But I guess, Gus' previous contract was just Seattle signing what is called a "bridge contract" that reflected the poor opportunities he had there. At the deadline, Gus was traded for a top-20 protected first-rounder and a defensive prospect, so Dallas' 2026 first is now in Montreal's hands. It will become clear now why I spent 3 chapters ensuring Dallas' 2026 first lands in Montreal rather than the 2025 one. The cap hit must be high enough to warrant giving up a first-rounder, Caro dreads her viewers' reactions to why either Dallas or Montreal waited so long to sign Gus.

"Do you have any explanation as to why it took so long for either team to sign him? It's not uncommon for RFAs of his caliber to get re-signed long before there's even a question of QOs or offer sheets to sign!" Capitolium asks her, about to throw up because of her indecision on her MMC's cap hit.

"Let's say that Montreal didn't want to overpay based on a small sample size, which obviously increased in size as the season progressed, and his game, improved"

Great, he improved, and Dallas might have found it equally premature to sign him while the season was not yet over, Glitter starts to realize the price she paid for glossing over the hockey part of Player Masher. Especially since she understands the book as being a hockey book first and foremost now. But it is then that she starts telling the cold, hard truth about Player Masher:

"Caro, Player Masher might be one of the best books I read on how the transactional aspect of hockey affects players, but I don't feel much chemistry between Emma and Gus" Glitter gives her review of Player Masher up to this point, fully expecting Dallas not to match it. "I mean, yes, they treat each other with respect, even when both schedules are hectic"

"But then the prospect of reuniting with Emma is one of the core things Gus wants out of the offer sheet"

Caro re-reads the hockey game chapters, hoping they provide clues for Gus' new cap hit, and hence whether she wants Montreal to send their native picks for the first 3 rounds, or to keep their second. His cap hit will essentially determine what the happy ending, be it "ever after" or "for now", will be made of. And, of course, Montreal being Montreal, if Dallas does not match, he will face more pressure to live up to the contract.

"I'm not going to mince words, cap hits aren't going to be of much use to a player other than for budgeting. Sure, Quebec taxation is sky-high..." Marie-France sighs, while she watches her coworker struggle to think of a cap hit for Gus' offer sheet, and with it, the cost of the happy ending.

"What's for sure, though, is that he has improved his game enough for his cap hit to skyrocket"

"However, he still doesn't have much star power, and yet, players of his caliber get signed every year for sizeable cap hits, so you must decide accordingly" Capitolium adds.

"I may as well have Emma tell him that he's not going to get a better deal once I put in a cap hit for both people to think it over. But thank you of reminding me of what star power Gus might have"

Because Gus might not have much star power, it doesn't make sense for Montreal to give up its second, on top of its first and third, so maybe at the top end of what could warrant giving up a first and third. In which case it's going to be Dallas' version of Kotkaniemi. Caro thinks about how much of a cap hit that is going to be, and the term, too. Why does my mind feel so sluggish tonight? My mind usually works faster than that! Then again, I'm used to my mind working at such high speeds that anything less would be noticeable, even when that lower speed could still be faster than in normal peeps.

After some soul-searching, when she finally feels like setting a cap hit and a term, she knows that teams signing players such deals tend to eat into UFA years.

"Finally, I got a cap hit to work with! His cap hit is going to be six point eight million, for five years, more than triple his old cap hit!" an exuberant Caro exclaims.

"Frankly, Caro, I don't understand why you obsess over your MMC's cap hit so much..." Glitter rolls her eyes when she hears about how Caro had finally set a cap hit.

"Again, Dallas didn't want to overpay based on a somewhat limited sample size, while Montreal was where he improved his game" Caro then starts writing the agonizing scenes after the signing of the offer sheet.

About how he feels like love could be back in the air, as well as wondering whether he will be able to live up to this giant offer sheet. And the Constellations sacrificing a first and a third for him. I'm sure the Constellations are not in it for reuniting players with their lovers...

"The way this is headed, the source of happiness will last at least one season" the streamer comments on the offer sheet's impact on their relationship.

"Where does that come from?" Glitter asks her, about to start talking about ever after vs for now happy endings. "You make it sound like the source of happiness has a clearly defined ending!"

"Players signed to an offer sheet cannot be traded away for the first year on it; it's the only way for a player to get a no-trade clause before hitting unrestricted free agency"

Like I knew Merzlikins was overpaid based on a small sample size, and, after Gaudreau died, Columbus kept him only so they can hit the cap floor. I call myself a hockey fan, but even I didn't know that signing an offer sheet also came with a one-year no-trade clause! Jacques, who kept quiet in his coworker's chat, realizes that offer sheets are much more complex than he initially believed.

"There's a distinction between happy ever after and happy for now. Just so that we're clear, happy ever after doesn't mean marriage or children, only long-term commitment" Glitter clears up a possible misunderstanding.

"And I thought happy for now endings were about them being together, but with issues remaining unresolved, without any implied time frames for their resolution, and not sources of happiness that are time-limited, or otherwise cannot be guaranteed!" Sampoong retorts.

"Then again, Montreal would probably have traded away, or signed, someone else if the 2026 draft class, in that book's world, wasn't so weak, and that, in the minds of the front office, Gus would have, along with the equivalent of Demidov and/or Hage, made that Dallas' first better than Montreal's" Caro feels the need to unpack the subtext. "Very easy to miss the implications if you know nothing about hockey"

"Remember the book that Caro called horror in all but name? I tend to tolerate HFNs more in dark romance because it's often implicit that making the happy ending ever after requires a lot of time and resources, such as therapy, which the couple might not have!" Glitter says.

"Also, what constitutes a happy ending in horror isn't the same as in romance. The villain's demise or arrest are common happy endings in horror" Capitolium comments on horror happy endings vs romance ones.

"Horror can tolerate unhappy endings the way romance might not. The only time where an unhappy ending might be tolerated in romance is when it's not the last book in a series with the same couple, but the global ending must be happy. If anyone wants to read Harlequin series, however, you should know that publisher demands at least HFNs for each tome!"

Speaking of therapy, there are times when couples therapy stalls because an issue specific to one person must be resolved first, she thinks of DMing Sampoong about therapy.

"One more thing, Caro: please don't make Gus out like he's going to be Alzner" Capitolium warns her.

"Alzner? What's Alzner known for as a hockey player?" Sampoong rolls his eyes.

"Alzner was a D-man who played much worse after signing his big contract. Granted, he didn't age well, and he was an UFA, but Gus makes me feel like he had two incentives to improve his game: not being waived again, and getting a bigger contract!"