It was once believed that the Royals management have been setting the team up for a nuclear winter with 75% of the team's pro roster on expiring deals at the same time next season, in reality, the team is not going to attrition strip their talent pool to the proverbial studs. Instead, they are going to focus on resigning the likes of Isac Lundestrom, Andrei Svechnikov, Brett Leason, and the defense core of Evan Bouchard, Ty Smith, Victor Soderstrom, and Kaiden Guhle to form the veteran base to which young future stars will learn from.

"It's a deep retool for us for sure. Many of our future UFAs will likely be let go to market in order to free up roster space and salary cap. That way we can focus on drafting high, and allowing those young kids to learn from the best. I have no desire to rise from the ashes since we still have some core talent just about to enter their prime. I know that may be disappointing to some who may be expecting us to be bottom feeders in order to draft in the lottery, but we have never done that in the past and it's not about to start now." said GM Nagle

As for the future of Samuel Montembeault? 

"I can definitely see us keeping him around for the forseeable future. Monty has been a foundation for us all these years and I would really like to see him play us through this retool. It takes many years to build up a young goaltender, and well, there aren't any of those in our system, or many in the league for that matter. I see a world where Monty plays out his entire career a Royal." added the GM