(Left to right): Nick Watt, Chris Maher & Paul Jackson on stage at Homebase Delaware in Wilmington, DE for Maher Media’s 1st on-site live watch party for Game 3 of the Flyers-Hurricanes 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs semifinal series.
Welcome to the inaugural installment of What’s Going On, the official newsletter of Maher Media. Our goal is to interact with our audience on a deeper level and provide a weekly log to keep everyone up-to-date on all things Maher Media, the greatest game on Earth, plus the occasional whatnot and so on.
AROUND THE NHL: Cutter Gauthier is still awaiting the big bucks despite the Anaheim Ducks matching the Philadelphia Flyers’ 5-year offer sheet attempt on Leo Carlsson worth $18M AAV. GM Pat Verbeek is backed into a salary cap corner, and Gauthier, with 41 goals under his belt last season, is clearly demanding a number not too far behind Carlsson.
EA Sports just unveiled the cover for NHL 27, slated for release in early September. Starring on the cover of this year’s edition of the franchise is San Jose stud Macklin Celebrini, who has become the youngest cover athlete in league history. And, let’s just be honest for a second, there’s no surprise here. At just 20 years old, Celebrini has accumulated 178 points in 152 games since being drafted 1st overall in 2024. As far as the actual game goes, James Cybulski, Cheryl Pounder, and Andrew Raycroft are no more, as NHL 27 will feature John Buccigross and Darren Pang on the call for gameplay. Phew.
Elsewhere, the Shane Wright saga seems to be nearing its end. The Seattle Kraken are actively exploring trade options to cut ties with the former No. 4 pick following a mutual agreement to move on. It seems as if the Kraken have been shopping Wright for multiple summers, and the experiment in Seattle is completely over now. The belief is that Wright’s preference is to go to Vancouver, which is somewhat surprising considering the Canucks’ center depth with Elias Pettersson, Marco Rossi, and presumably Caleb Malhotra all in the top-9 for the foreseeable future. Either way, Wright is ready to move on from Seattle as the Kraken’s offseason of nightmare fuel continues…
FLYING FORWARD: As of July 14th, the biggest addition of the summer for GM Danny Briere has been Noel Acciari. Uh…that’s not good enough. But, despite swinging (hard) and missing on Leo Carlsson, and thereby former captain Claude Giroux, it’s tough to consider this summer a failure for the Flyers.
Fresh off of the team’s first playoff run in 6 years, expectations were naturally higher from diehard fans and casuals alike. Probably too high. When Maksim Sokolovskii was drafted 27th overall a couple weeks ago, you heard from just about every angle how the Flyers messed up and should have elected for upside, whether that had been in the form of defenseman Ryan Lin, a trade package for Mason McTavish, or whatever came in between. As it turns out, Sokolovskii impressed big time at Development Camp and is as strong a skater as advertised, despite his 6-foot-7 frame.
Another tidbit of positivity comes from both Jamie Drysdale and Trevor Zegras both electing for salary arbitration, meaning each player wants to stick in Philly with the Flyers despite extension talks taking a backseat. So, between July 20 and August 1, the NHL will hold these arbitrative meetings between player and team, where a settlement will be reached to sign into effect. However, the caveat is that these meetings almost never happen, because either party budges a bit more and a deal is struck beforehand. Braden Schneider, Peyton Krebs, and Nick Robertson have all already reached settlement with their teams prior to their meetings, so it’s highly likely the pattern carries over with Drysdale and Zegras.
With the FIFA World Cup in the rearview now and the MLB All-Star festivities in town this weekend, it seems like Dan Hilferty has his sights set on another premier event to be hosted in the City of Brotherly Love. Whispers are that the Flyers sent some reps to the 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo to scout the possibility of a bid for the 2027 event to take place at Xfinity Mobile Arena. As the Flyers continue to build on their aim for relevancy and respect within the game again, an NHL Draft wouldn’t hurt that stock by any means…
Finally, it sounds like the Battle of PA will be on full display from the jump, as the Flyers will renew their cross-state rivalry with the Pittsburgh Penguins to open their slate of home games in 2026-27. Maher Media founder Chris Maher posted on X today, indicating that the home opener opponent will be announced as Pittsburgh once the full season schedule becomes public on Thursday, July 16.
ON OUR AGENDA: The boys are headed to the beach! Following our successful 2026 Winter Classic event in Delco, members of the Phoenix & Snowmen are joining forces with some new faces on a combined ‘Rink Rats’ team. We’ll be competing in the 31st annual Sea Isle City Beach Classic ball hockey tournament as part of our Rink Rat Games series. For any new fans or those unaware, the Rink Rat Games are a series of ball hockey events under our spin, incorporating fellow content creators, media personalities, entertainers, streamers, artists, college athletes, former pros, etc. Last summer, we visited Cape May for Cool Hockey Events’ Summer Fest, where we played alongside Sasha Tertyshny, 2023 Flyers Development Camp invite and son of late former Flyers defenseman Dmitri Tertyshny. Since then, Tertyshny has turned pro with games played in both the KHL and VHL, and he’ll be running it back with us from August 7-9.
While the Sea Isle Rink Rat content will be posted to our YouTube channel in episodes, we have already begun mapping out live and on-site content for the 2026-27 NHL season. As seen at the top of this newsletter, we made our on-stage debut at Homebase Delaware back in May, when we hosted a live watch party for Game 3 of the Flyers-Hurricanes semifinal series. While plans for more bar events aren’t necessarily imminent, we’d love recommendations for where you’d like to see us go next! In the meantime, keep an eye on announcements in the near future to see where you can find us…
BEST BITE: Alright. I’m a massive food guy, but when it comes to the actual flavor profile, I’m not the best influence. I’m the type to order a burger completely well done with nothing more than cheese and pickles to top it off. Maybe the occasional ketchup, almost never lettuce, and there’s zero chance I’m touching mayo or mustard. The point is that I’m happy to eat the same thing over and over again, and will basically never complain or bother to branch out as long as I can find a chicken tenders and lemonade variant.
With that in mind, I’ve gotta give a serious recommendation here for all the breakfast people out there. Over the weekend, I took a mini trip to Lewes, DE, where I found out that beaches do exist outside of the Jersey Shore, and that a bad taste of food is impossible to come by down there. Massive shoutout to Arena’s Cafe in North Village for ‘The Porker’, which was such an elite way to get the grub going early on in the day. Nothing beats a good sausage, bacon, egg, cheese, and hash brown combo. Shades of the ol’ Taco Bell breakfast crunch wrap before it got launched into the abyss. Seriously, go try it. — Paul Jackson
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