32 Thoughts: The Podcast - A Proposal for the NHL’s Eichel Problem

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

The news pods are back! Jeff and Elliotte kick off this episode by previewing the upcoming “All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs” docuseries on Amazon Prime (00:01) as they had the opportunity to screen it before its release on October 1st. They then discuss the ongoing Jack Eichel situation in Buffalo and wonder if the […]

welcome once again to 32 thoughts the podcast jeff merrick alongside elliot freedom and elliot before we get into a lot of news we would like to send our support to jalen smarick yeah for those of you who didn't see it jalen smarick's a player he's from michigan but he played in the ontario hockey league and he plays in the ukrainian League, and he was the victim of a brutal gesture during a game on Sunday. And I think a lot of us are waiting to see what exactly is done with this. Is there a suspension?

And I don't even want to describe it, say what happens. It's so bad, I don't want to give any air to that. But, you know, we just want to say we support him, and we hope the penalty and the punishment is severe because it needs to be nice player i watched him a couple of games playing with the uh the oshawa generals when he i think he was there one maybe two years uh in the ohl and yes to your point uh full support to jaylen smarick things to get to on uh today's podcast we're going to go over some michael stuff uh hughes peterson kachuk that's on the board we should mention and have a discussion about john ferguson in arizona

the new jersey unvaccinated players some news out of st louis but first all or nothing the uh the toronto maple leafs piece put together by amazon i'm about 30 minutes shy of completing it have you seen the whole thing well Well, first of all, Jeff, if you're not going to finish your homework before the podcast, I'm 30 minutes shy. No, that's lame. That's lame. It's like, you're not almost pregnant. You're either pregnant or you're not pregnant. Look, I know what happened last season. There's no, no big grand reveal at the end. You know, it's funny you say that because did you get your preview on friday is that when you got it okay so i got two and they said you know you can't say anything about

it until after midnight on monday so even though we're taping this on sunday night it won't be dropped until monday morning and i was saying to someone what am i allowed to say here and their answer was well it's not like this is a movie you're not spoiling the ending everybody knows exactly what's going to happen so you're pretty safe to say what you need to say wait a minute wayne simmons broke his hand in that game against vancouver i had no idea so here it comes first of, I thought it was great. I think if you're a fan, and not even necessarily a hockey fan, but a fan of drama,

I think it's really good. I think you're going to enjoy it. The access was excellent. There were a lot of things there that I thought were really good. Sheldon Keefe speaking to them, and Sheldon Keefe, I think, is the guy who's going to be, quote unquote,

the star of this series. But if you listen to his speech going into overtime of game six Jason Spetz's speech after 40 minutes of game seven there's an exchange between Joe Thornton and Nick Ehlers and you don't really hear what Ehlers says because he isn't miked but you sure hear what Thornton has to say you know it's really something as a matter of fact I think some of the moments that stood out to me were players getting treatment right after they got hurt you know Jake Muzzin gets cut in the face and you see them working on him and the players reaction to him that really stood out to me too but it's kind of a small thing in the overall picture I really thought it was excellent you know there were a

couple of things i'd like to talk about further but jeff what was your overall reaction to it so there's a couple of things first of all it's really well done it's so well produced it's real slick it's easy to follow i think you're right i think that sheldon keith comes out as a star and man does he have a salty tongue i was gonna say i thought i swore a lot no sir my son like i was watching this out loud and my son who's knows what bad words are he's almost 10 whenever i do that he says daddy said a bad word and i know okay time to be quiet so sheldon is flying keith is flying a cry he's like man said a bad word man said a bad word i better put my earbuds in because this is going to be endless yeah i was watching uh the the last part with uh with my son tj and

he's like his coach likes to swear a lot hey i'm like yeah do your coaches swear a lot and he says not this much but yeah they do this is nothing new dad there's a couple of things in here the john taveras injury in game one against Montreal, the audio and the scene of him sort of coming to and screaming as almost like he's trying to get everyone away from him or off of him is kind of harrowing as I think it was, who was around him at that point? Will Simmons and Hyman. Thornton and Simmons were saying, John, John, John.

That was a chilling part of it. simmons and hyman thornton and simmons were saying john john trying like that was oh that was that was a chilling part of it oh i'll tell you what you know what was hilarious was the scene where joe thornton's driving in his car and brian brooks on hockey central yes talking about how the leafs didn't need to spend their last money on Joe Thornton. I thought that was great. That was a real nice touch. I thought the talk of Sheldon Keefe talking to Jimmy Vesey and Kyle Dubas talking to Jimmy Vesey. When he puts them on waivers.

Essentially asking him the same question, which is who are you? yeah like what kind of player are you going to be here I thought that was really profound putting him on on waivers I mean that was that was an interesting uh I don't know what happened but that was an interesting couple of scenes one thing and this is tiny but you know whenever we see pieces like this about NHl teams i always think of okay how is this going to be different than the original hbo 24-7 road to the winter classic and you want to hear my big huge takeaway from this versus the hbo 24-7 piece the washington capitals versus the pittsburgh penguins kyle dubas has a better slap shot than Dan Bilesma. Do you remember in HBO 24-7,

that scene where Dan Bilesma was taking one-timers and the puck's flipping over like NHL Gary Bettman, NHL Gary Bettman, NHL Gary Bettman, NHL Gary Bettman? And I'm like, is that the same guy I used to see killing penalties with Ian LaPerriere in Los Angeles? Because it doesn't look like he can shoot the puck that great. Kyle Dubas has a better shot than Dan Bilesma. I thought that Dubas' comments about William Nylander were interesting,

talking about how, and he kind of smiles and laughs to himself before he says, you know, he'll drive you crazy. On the one hand, he'll drive you nuts, and then he'll turn around and do something that no one else can do in the league. It was pretty neat. on the one hand he'll drive you nuts and then he'll turn around and do something that um that no one else can do in the league it was pretty neat the stuff about nick felino getting traded and those visuals i thought was good the interesting thing about the scene with joe thornton and nick ehlers that you reference when thornton's going on about diving diving diving what i was

really hoping was going to happen was to your your point, we didn't hear Ehlers because they were going at each other between the boxes. Yes. I was really hoping we'd hear what Ehlers had to say. And the other person I wanted to hear, and this is just knowing Paul Maurice a little bit, I would love to have heard a comment from Paul Maurice while that was going on.

I was with the Marlies when Paul was the coach. I was doing color with John Bartlett. And I remember there was one game. It was the Marlies against the Syracuse Crunch. And I think it was John Paul who would have taken the penalty on a really bad dive by Jeff Platt. Do you remember Jeff Platt? Of course. He played with the Eriotters with Jeff Platt.

And he kind of had that rep a little bit too. And I remember when he did it to draw the penalty paul maurice went banana sandwich he went crazy he went he went nuts on the call i remember asking him afterwards about it and he said there's a lot of things i love about this game one thing i just can't stand is diving i had yeah i did kevin denine same way boils my blood and i had never seen paul seen Paul Maurice that angry or animated before, which is why in that scene, would have loved to have seen the Winnipeg Jets coach and, of course, heard what Nick Ehlers had to say about it.

Now, by the way, you talk about Tavares. Yes. One of the things that I thought was really interesting was you talked about that whole situation on the ice when he was injured. And yes, it's quite haunting and it's quite chilling. Remember after there was the fight immediately with Foligno and Perry.

And a lot of us watching it were like, we didn't like it. It just didn't feel right because it was obviously an accident. And I know all of us who were watching it that night in the Lotus, everybody in there felt that it didn't feel right. And the Lotus, know all of us who were watching it that night in the Lotus, everybody in there felt that it didn't feel right. And the Lotus, for those of you who are not familiar,

is the lounge where we watch games during the broadcast. You know, Ron was there, Kevin was there, Jennifer was there, and I was there, and I know we all kind of felt, you know, do we really need this? But then seeing Simmons and Hyman and Foligno talk about it on the ice, it's that moment where you realize what the athletes are thinking in that moment with what they know and what we're thinking in that moment with what we know and we saw. And we obviously don't have the same emotion. We're not wired like they are.

And I didn't like that fight, but I had a greater understanding for why it happened, seeing the three of them talk about it. So watching that fight on this piece, on the Amazon piece, I didn't focus as much on Nick Foligno, who everybody's really focusing on during this fight as, you know, the guy who wanted it,

the guy that was doing it on her code, all that know what i really noticed cory perry do you notice what cory perry didn't do during that fight at all yeah he didn't throw a punch didn't throw a single punch yeah it's almost if he was like okay this is the way it has to be this is the old school way now i need to take my lumps for an accident, whatever. This is just the way we do things. He didn't even try to throw a punch. Not at all. You know, he got his gloves off quick and engaged, but didn't even try to do anything.

The whole thing was bizarre. I don't want to relitigate that. I really don't. It's history, but I'm just talking about the moment that they talk about it on the show i found it very revealing there's a couple of things one of the um i find i mean i'm geek like this so i love this kind of talk you know talking to the leadership group or the trying to make beliefs and talking about the inability to score off of rebounds and we're last in the league is scoring off rebounds which is where you know a team like peter deborah's teams like that's what

their offense is all built around uh scoring off rebounds i thought that was uh pretty neat i really like this stuff on zach bogosian specifically with his grandma and i won't give away to anybody but that was very nice um really touching anyway i don't want to give away the entire thing but uh you have further thoughts on this the one thing I would have liked to have seen more was exit meetings, but I wonder if they were just like told to get out. Yeah. There wasn't my, like Jack Campbell after game seven, they had a shot on them in the room for about 10 seconds.

Like that will stick with people, but there wasn't much from exit meetings. And, you know, I would say this too. I had a very interesting conversation on saturday night so after the game uh that we worked the montreal toronto pre-season game a few of us went uh to have a beer and um you know craig simpson was there and you know craig hadn't seen it yet chris johnson was there and chris had seen it and ch Chris was explaining the scene before game seven. Kyle Dubas has the meeting with Mitch Marner. And basically from the way I hadn't watched it yet.

I watched this all on Sunday. And so to me, it really wasn't that bad. But Craig brought up a really good point. He said that he thinks that you're hurting the player with a camera there. And I thought a lot about Craig's point when I went home and when I was around on Sunday and I was preparing for this podcast and then I watched it. So Craig told the story about one player before a big game,

a huge game they had, and the player was like, I have no confidence right now. I'm really struggling. Very similar to the way Mitch Marner was going into game seven. And he said that he couldn't even imagine trying to do that with a camera there. He said he ran, he got footage of the player doing incredible things say like this is how good you are this is what you can be and he just said that he doesn't think that in a moment like that and you know we've talked about this topic ad nauseum but i really

found craig's perspective interesting that he doesn't think a player in that moment will trust the situation with a camera there and he doesn't think you can reach a player properly with a camera there that's an excellent point and at certain points I would suggest that there are some players that don't want to see anything because the camera's there and there are others that might perform because the camera's there. It all just depends on your personality and the nature of the conversation. I think that's a great point. One of the things that I was interested, because in a situation like this, in a series like this, you want to see things

that you've never seen before you know what's it like give us a real peek behind the curtain going back to the nick felino situation was almost as just like hey boom and they acquired nick felino and here's him saying goodbye to the wife and kids and packing the car and there's miko letnan's you know toronto me police hockey bag in his trunk where did that come from what i would have found fascinating was to be able to hear the call between dubas and yarmulke colan i wonder if the other gms were kind of told you're not going to be in this like that to me like you're looking for moments like that where you know this is you know territory that we never canvas that would have been something where oh yeah okay that's got some flypaper to it that's something

new the one thing that that was interesting to me about that exchange is is that i think a lot of people and i don't want to give it away but basically they're they're debating about the draft pick and yarmulke kakalainen in that situation he can grind right oh yeah because the least talk about their position in that trade you know what chance they think of actually getting him and yarmulke kakalainen's like I can grind these guys a bit and Kyle Dubas is in a position where he's saying I really want the player so I'm probably gonna have to give up to a bit of Kekulainen's grinding and even though he's not on camera Kekulainen i can see what he's doing i thought it was really fascinating one of the other things and you always saw it in the maple leafs dressing room behind sheldon keefe was the

board with uh the other team's lineup and the officials and a couple of sort of keys to victory as well yeah another thing that i think would have been compelling although i can understand why it may have ended up on the you know editing room floor would have been hearing keith talk about the other team's players i wonder if that was a no-no too i wonder about that i wonder of talking about the officials hey here's the two referees we have tonight here's how they call games uh we had an incident with this guy over this call two weeks ago heads up here it was so much part of the shot you're almost waiting for a keef to turn around and say okay here nick suzuki these are his tendencies here's what we need to do to him you know here's

how we get to carry price here's a whom or whomever. It was just so much part of the shot that you're waiting for him to address it. And it never came with you. I wonder if that was a no fly zone too. And the whole thing about this is there's a few things I'm thinking, you know, the lease could have done this again. They didn't want to.

I'm wondering if another NHL team would ever allow this much access again. There's a lot. It's really good. Like there's not a lot here. You're going to say, Oh, I really feel we were cheated out of this or again. There's a lot. It's really good. There's not a lot here you're going to say, oh, I really feel we were cheated out of this or we didn't get a chance to see this. There's a lot there. It's really good. And it's a really good reveal, a really good look.

And I think obviously all the stuff around the end of that Montreal series, Q's reaction on the bench and the overtime winner in game five, that's going to be all the talk. And there's going to be a lot of good stuff for people to sink their teeth into. I mean, the one thing too is as we've reported, there was a scene with

Nylander that was edited out. I would love to know what that was. So die. Don't know that we ever will. It's excellent. It's really good. Yeah, it's really good. Make sure you check it.

I know I'm nitpicking here. I think any Elliot is, oh, we would love to have seen or heard the trade call, would have loved to have heard Sheldon Keefe address players on the board behind him. But this really is an excellent piece, and I hope they get the green light from other teams to do it oh by the way before we go on the rest of the nhl yeah on friday max had a day off from school okay and we went out to uh chudley's to pick some apples i used to go to chudley's when i was a kid oh my god it's the best apple farm and uh i met uh one employee there named riley bruce and uh riley was kind enough to provide us with an apple crumble

and i got one for each of the two of you excellent because when i'm talking about the stuff in public i don't like to reveal how selfish i truly am so you know there's an apple crumble coming for the two of you guys too thank you riley i haven't been to chedley's for some time but i used to go as a kid every single year it was an annual tradition um in our family do they still have the big barn and the hay jump that was always a thrill to me as a kid second story at the barn and jumping into this platform of hay i did not see that if it's there i didn't see it all right very good but the apples are still good oh my god i've had so many apples in the last couple of days i'm i'm i'm apple tonic oh chudley's that brings back great

old memories um going with mom and dad uh to the nhl it was a story of the summer will it be the story of the fall will it be the story of the winter when will this story end jack eichel and the buffalo sabers you know so obviously we saw the first big story already that he failed the physical. And as we'd reported, they took away the captaincy. And now we'll kind of see where this goes. I'll tell you this. As Kevin Adams said, teams are still calling him. I just don't know how this is going to happen. They've admitted that they

hope they could solve it through rest but that's not the case there's still a surgery here and they haven't agreed on it you know one of the things that happens here is that once the puck drops they've got to pay him because he's injured yep so i think teams are wondering if he hasn't accepted their medical opinion like everybody's sitting here saying what's going to happen and people are wondering to me are the sabers going to suspend them so they don't have to pay them you know if they suspend them he doesn't get surgery are they going to argue to toll the contract which means that you know the year doesn't come off. It's kind of like the Alexei Yashin thing.

And I think at some point in time, I've been thinking about this a lot this weekend because I wanted to address this on the podcast. I think the NHL has to step in here. I do. I understand that the NHL wants to protect the rules of the CBA. I get that. That is their goal. But at the end of the day, I don't think it's a good look for your league

when you have a star player like this and a team that can't agree on this. And this player, who is a star player who can drive a franchise, is in some ways held back from playing because they can't agree on a surgery. Like I understand the rules of the CBA. This was negotiated. If it was my body, I'd be furious.

But the other thing here is, and I think this is one thing I think the NHL can do. And that is say, okay, if Jack Eichel agrees, and I think Jack Eichel would agree, everybody should be able to see his medicals. Like St. Louis and Tarasenko,

anyone could have seen the medicals. If anyone has seen Eichel's medicals aside from the Sabres, I don't know it. Now, I've checked and people have told me that other teams haven't seen it and people have told me that other teams haven't seen it and people have told me that other teams they don't know if other teams have seen it I haven't had to this point definitively tell me that multiple teams or a ton of teams have been able to see it so I think at the very least Jeff I believe that the teams, as long as Eichel approves,

the league should say, let everyone see it. Because the longer this goes on, because at some point in time, people are going to say more and more, this is unfair. This is not fair. Because the key thing to remember here is

Jack Eichel was injured playing hockey. It's not like he was on a snowmobile jumping over cliffs. This is a player who was injured on ice legitimately in the National Hockey League, and this shouldn't happen. I understand the Sabres' position, but he could be playing now, potentially, if he'd gone the other route.

So, Jeff, what I say is I think it's incumbent upon everybody else involved here to say we have to find a way to do this because it's not good for the sport. It's not good for the league. And I think the start is make his medical records available to all the teams so they can see what the doctors on both sides of the equation yes and no about his surgery are talking about here complicating this though is what kind of deal can the buffalo sabers make given that this is an unhealthy hockey player and this is still in many people's eyes the surgery that he wants to have the disc replacement we've talked about this so many

times in so many different places is still considered risky by some and i know that if you're going to make a trade for jack eichel you have to be fine with the surgery but not necessarily like i think some teams have indicated that they would but they don't know for sure i can't see a team saying yeah we'll give you xyz for jack eichel uh but we want him to have the fusion surgery. I think you're right. There's some teams that are saying they'd be inclined to let him do it, but they just don't know, right? So I think at the very least, he's seen a few different doctors. See all the reports.

See the ones from the guy we interviewed who say do it. Give them the Buffalo ones who say don't do it. If there's any independent specialists you've seen let them see it let the teams have their doctors look at it because maybe that's a better chance of someone stepping up and saying you know what buffalo we'll make this deal because our doctors believe this can work like someone said to me what if eichel doesn't get surgery and this gets punted to next summer well here's what i'm thinking like how's that good for oh no it's none of this is good for anyone because uh jack eichel's not playing hockey um the buffalo sabers uh aren't

making the trade that they want jack eichel's not going to another team like it's bad this is a situation that's bad for every single person involved every league team fan base and this is just all bad only thing about this is you're right the puck's about to drop here i think we're already at the play because listen he's not going to get either the fusion surgery or the disc replacement and then three weeks time hey look jack eichel's back on the ice here i don't think i think it'd be foolish to expect that. I think we're starting to already, considering that both sides are still at loggerheads, no one is stepping in, nothing happened over the summer, aren't we already starting to look at this being another wasted year for Jack Eichel?

Yeah, and what it comes down to for me is that the player was legitimately injured in a game, right? It was a game against the Islanders. It was Casey Zizekas. Little, I don't even want to call it a cross check. It was a shove from behind into the glass. And that was it. Like he's not injured, like I said,

like jumping over cliffs in a snowmobile or in the summer going out and doing MMA training with George St. Pierre and getting hurt. Like you have to protect players who get hurt legitimately in games. And this is a unique situation. Like I've said, I had someone who told me he's been around the league a long time.

He said, this is the most complicated one he's ever heard. And I understand that the Sabres have the protection of the CBN, but the longer this goes on, the worse it's going to get. And you know, what's going to happen someday, the worse it's going to get. And you know what's going to happen someday, Jeff? It's going to end up in court. Now, I think the law, actually, I shouldn't say this, because for every lawyer, you can

get another lawyer. I've had plenty of lawyers, though, tell me that the CBA probably supersedes everything, but it doesn't mean you don't get that challenge, right? That's going to be Eichel's only recourse at some point is to go to court let me i've never asked you this question do you have a sense of how many teams feel the same way the sabers do about this surgery i think there are some like that's what i the thing that i'm wondering about now is are the buffalo sabres the only ones that would behave like this with Jack Eichel?

I don't know that. I don't know that. I really don't. I will say this, that I definitely think that the league won a victory here in negotiations that I don't think people realize the ramifications at the time.

Yeah. I think everybody does now, and whoever negotiates the next CBA for the players, that's going to be a major point for them. Now, I've had teams tell me, the Buffalo Sabres have $80 million invested in Jack Eichel. We can certainly understand that. If you have $80 million invested in someone Eichel. We can certainly understand that. You know, if you have $80 million invested in someone, you have a right to say, okay, we're not comfortable with this.

Like I said, it's really complicated, but my position is this. He's injured legitimately during an NHL game, and there are teams here, I believe, who are legitimately interested in trading for Eichel, have been involved in discussions with Eichel who feel that they don't have all of the information. So it's like what you said. It's the chicken and the egg.

How can you make the best possible offer for Jack Eichel until you know exactly what all the doctors are saying? So my goal here is to suggest something that says how can we break this log jam i think the first log jam should be the teams can see his records to the rfas um quinn hughes elias petterson last seen in michigan brady kachuk last seen in michigan as well all skating together all staying together all hanging out hey what's going on uh anything on hughes petterson and kachuk we should know about and i'll preface this by saying i wonder if and i brought it up like i put a month and a half ago here on the podcast offer sheets again i wonder if not so much for petterson but for brady kachuk and it's the the cocky nimi one year big dough i haven't heard that if it's there i haven't

heard it vancouver is the team that's been the most paranoid about that with peterson yeah but i i just don't know who can do it now so again these things can all change with one phone call i think peterson and hughes i had heard that vancouver felt that they had made a really fair offer to Hughes on short term, like a three-year deal. I don't think they were inclined to move very much on a three-year deal. I think they feel that they made a very legitimate offer, and I don't know if they're that inclined to move on three years. Now, Hughes. Hang on, hang on. One thing quick on Pedersen.

Are we talking about Kirill Kaprizov money a little bit less? I think it's less. Okay. I think it's more than Barzell. I think it's less than Kaprizov, but I'm talking about the bridge deal. I'm not talking about the term deal. I've said that on the term deal, I think they should go for Rantan. Like that's what I would do if I was Vancouver.

Now Hughes, I know what you're going to say to me, Jeff, because I have mind power. I can read your mind. Go for it. You are going to say, has anything changed since Rasmus Deligne signed? Am I right? Oh, Kreskin, amazing.

Well done. Yes, yes. I know at some point today, you're going to brush your teeth. That's, Kreskin. Amazing. Well done. Yes. I know at some point today you're going to brush your teeth. That's a very bold prediction. Okay. So, I do think the Dallin contract has changed

the terminology there. Dallin, obviously, for those of you who are not familiar, signed three times six. I believe Vancouver's offer to Hughes before Dallin signed was in the fives. I think Vancouver knows they're going to have to move that up. I think on a six-year deal,

which I think was discussed for Hughes at some point, they were obviously higher than the six. They were probably in the sevens. But I do think they knew they had to adjust up after what Delene got. Now there's another issue in Vancouver, and that is Hamannik. And I'm really wondering if at the very least

Hamannik is considering opting out this year. He has to decide by October 1st. I looked it up. I decided to do actual preparation for this podcast. October 1st is the deadline, which is next Friday.

There's rumors that he might retire. There's rumors that he still might play. I'm wondering if he might opt out. All I heard was that when I last spoke to someone about it before the weekend, I was told this is still going to take a few days to sort itself out. Now, the danger is saying it and then everything changes after we dropped it. But I think all options are on the table here. But I think the Canucks are wondering

if there's a possibility that Hamanek won't play. You know, Hamanek didn't play in the bubble two years ago. So all of this is very much in the air. And, you know, the thing that that could do too, Jeff, is it could change, you know, they're going to have to go find a D very much in the air. And, you know, the thing that that could do too, Jeff, is it could change, you know, they're going to have to go find a D if that's the case. But I think there also could open up even more cap room for them to do what they need to do.

And Jeff, while we're talking about the Canucks, I haven't checked the Canucks Twitter yet, but while we were recording this, they lost their first exhibition game of the season. 5-3 to the Kraken. And the kraken's first ever game in franchise history yes and i'm sure everybody is reacting extremely calmly everybody is keeping a very level head in vancouver right now even though the kraken have drawn first blood in the rivalry between Seattle and Vancouver. First goal, Riley Sheahan, we should mention. Riley Sheahan, first goal, first preseason goal

for the Seattle Kraken. A big second period for them, three goals. Perrin III salted it away. 5-3 is the final. Listen, so far it's a good story all around. And seeing those colors on the ice is outstanding. They're beautiful. Listen, seeing those colors mixed with Vancouver,

I think is gorgeous as well. To me, just visually, that was a really cool game, regardless of the score and the play and who looked good and who looked bad. I just think that visually, the way the colors of these two teams mixed just looked fantastic, Elliot. Oh, I agree with you.

I thought it looked great. And when they came out in the warm-up with the Kraken 21 shirts, all of them wearing that, it was just an excellent touch. It was fun. I think they're going to have a huge financial impact on the league this year. You think like I do that it's Vegas and seven other teams in the West, and we'll kind of see where this all works in the Pacific division. So I,

I shudder to make predictions, but I think they're going to have a huge financial impact on the league. Yeah. My only question about Seattle is who's going to score the goals like the defense. Sure. The goal attending. Sure.

Who's scoring goals on this? Well, Morgan geeky, obviously apparently it's going to be the morgan geeky show and listen uh you know everly's feeding past like there are players you look in here and say okay if mccann has a career year if you know don skoy who we've seen go super cold but also go super hot can have a year if alexander venberg can finally figure it out and turn it around, if Jaden Schwartz can pop, et cetera. For this team, it's almost like Vegas, right, in a lot of ways.

For this team to be successful in year one, there's a lot of forwards that have to have career years. You're right. How many teams are going to score in that division? I think the Vegas Golden Knights will score. vancouver is listen vancouver's got vancouver's got three scoring lines now well they got to get those two guys in right once those two guys two guys are i think that vancouver is going to score i think vancouver is an improved team yeah i think los angeles has the potential to score we know edmonton is going to fill the net anaheim i think was the second lowest scoring

team in the nhl last season calgary didn't bring in anyone that's going to pop the offense at all we know there's gonna be a lot of two to one games yeah at the saddle dome can't see the san jose sharks so there's a couple like three maybe four teams that i can see scoring in that division i see it the same way. Vegas is going to score. Edmonton is going to score. I'm with you once everybody's signing in place. I think Vancouver is going to score.

Anaheim's not. Calgary's not. So my question is, what are LA and San Jose going to be? I think LA can score. I think LA can score goals. I think they can, but we'll see. So I see this as a division where, as Daryl Sutter says, it's a 3-2 league. You're going to have a lot of 3-2 games,

and Seattle could win those. I think whoever in that division wins 3-2 games is going to be in the playoffs. Already, though, you mentioned the financial impact of the Seattle Kraken. Yeah, it's huge. You can't keep the merchandise in the playoffs. Already, though, you mentioned the financial impact of the Seattle Kraken. Yeah, it's huge. You can't keep the merchandise in the shops. Out of a pandemic, that is not insignificant.

I've heard that they believe they're going to be pretty close to pre-pandemic levels. I'm not sure the full season, which was $5.09 billion, but I think they're optimistic, and I think Seattle's a very big part of that. To Brady Kachuk. I haven't heard as much on the weekend. I think Ottawa here has kind of gotten...

I heard the short-term deals, like they weren't even close, the two sides. They did discuss short-term, and I just heard it didn't go very well i'm always wary of saying this stuff because the one phone call could change anything i could be a total doofus but i heard that the long term like i said i don't think they were that far in overall dollars but where they were disagreeing was on bonus structure potentially trade protection and you know ottawa knows that they're going to have a big deal for stutzle here probably at some point i think they want to hold

it down eugene melnick remember a couple years ago he made that crack about the lease and how they blew their salary cap yeah you know i think he's sitting there saying there's a limit to what we can do but you know we'll see i was going to say how much of this, if you're Brady Kachuk's camp, if you're going to commit long-term to the Ottawa Senators, you want to know what they are spending their money on and how much they're going to spend. I do believe that has come up in conversation, is Kachuk wants to know what the long-term plans are.

I think one of the reasons that DJ Smith got an extension, first of all, DJ Smith's a really good coach. I think we all feel that way. He's a really good coach for that team. But I think Brady Kachuk made it very clear he likes DJ Smith. And Ottawa was like, okay, we're not fooling around with this. We agree and let's get it done. But I do think that's come up is what's Ottawa going to do?

And Ottawa's saying, look, we have some other extensions we're going to have to do here. And I do believe this is all part of the conversation. Okay. So you mentioned Travis Hammonick there a couple of seconds ago, and maybe there's some thought that perhaps he may decide to opt out of this season. The New Jersey devils have an unknown unvaccinated player as well described as someone substantial to the lineup i want to say this about cory massac of the athletic he wrote that story

as carefully as anyone could ever write it true look if i ever had to write that story i would want to write it that way and i can't speak to you know cory's reasons for naming or not naming the player i don't like to speak for other people aside from myself but i just want to say that the tack he took it i thought it was extremely well done so what happens here is this another potential opt-out is this no i i don't i don't think so you know One of the things that I have heard is that there was an appointment scheduled at one point, but the player just decided he wasn't ready or comfortable at that point in time. I don't know where it's going to go. I had some people tell me that in Edmonton, Ken Holland did an unbelievable job.

You know, he had three players, pretty prominent guys, unvaccinated, and he worked. And what he did was he worked to build consensus towards getting it done. And two were done. And, you know, we all know that there's one who isn't. And all they have tried to do is say, here's why you should. And then finally they said to him, okay, here's what happens if you don't and understand what this is going to mean for you

and what this is going to force us to do. And I think that's what New Jersey is trying to do. I think they're looking at this and they are saying, hey, we're trying to be supportive. We're trying to understand what you're thinking. Here's all these resources that you have. We need you to do this. What I don't know if they've done yet is if you look at the devil's schedule, they go to Canada nine times this year, a lot of them are late. What did Jack Hughes tell us a week ago? We want to be playing in meaningful games. And I've started to hear more about some of these conversations. Like there was one team who

called up a guy, and this was one of the players who wasn't like a top player. He was sort of like a guy who would have been around the 16th to 18th player on the roster. And they said to him, if you don't do this, you're going to the minors and you're not coming

back. You know, Edmonton after trying to sort of gently squeeze Archibald towards it, they basically have said to him, this is what could happen to you. In New Jersey, as Corey said, this is a prominent player. You know, I always try to think about it. First of all, what would I do if I'm in that situation? There's a lot of people who are listening to this podcast, and I don't want to get into this.

I'm vaccinated. That's it. Everyone in my family who's eligible is vaccinated. That's it. But I think there's a lot of families out there or friends out there that they've had the strain of people who disagree in their group of friends or in their families, right? And the strain it can take. I've heard in some of these cases, like even in the players who are unvaccinated, who have family members who are vaccinated,

I've had a couple teams tell me that they have seen, or even players who are vaccinated who have family members who aren't. Like those same conversations that are playing out on social media or in our own families, these are happening in the NHL too. And they've seen some really sad examples of how that's affected people. And just because we play sports, or excuse me, I don't play sports, just in my driveway, just because they play sports, it doesn't mean that they're immune from the same arguments

and fights that play out everywhere else. But I think one of the things that happened in Edmonton was they went to two of these guys and said, we need you. You're going to let our group down. I think 99% of the players who weren't vaccinated, who eventually got vaccinated, that was why. They were told, you're going to let your team down.

And I think a lot of guys said, I can't do that. And I think that's what New Jersey's events are going to say here is, you look at our schedule, you're going to miss games that we hope to have that are meaningful for us this year. Imagine we're in the race and you can't play there. And I think that's what new jersey's trying to say do you not also get the sense though that ken holland going back to edmonton though

also said to these players i stuck my neck out for you that's what i would have done i asked someone if he did that because he did oh yeah ken holland did big time i asked someone if he did that. Because he did. Oh, yeah, yeah. Ken Holland did, big time. I asked someone if he did that, and they kind of laughed and said, he really tried not to make it about him. It would be so tempting, wouldn't it? If you're like, dude, after all I did for you, you do this? Yeah, like I was told that he really tried to avoid that.

Like, okay, let's look for example at new jersey's schedule okay so new jersey ends the season at the uh end of april the last day of their regular season is april the 29th so they play at ottawa on the 26th. They play at Ottawa on the 7th. So that's two games in Ottawa in April. In March, they have a big Canadian trip. They have at Vancouver, 15th, at Calgary, 16th, at Edmonton, 19th,

at Toronto on the 23rd. But in between that, they're going back to New York to play the Rangers. And then they're into Toronto. So, I mean, that can make or break your season. Oof. And then the other thing that someone said to me here was that there are people in the league

who are starting to get a little fed up with this. I don't know how many people read the Rolling Stones story about the NBA on the weekend. It was a really interesting story. Like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who I think is one of the smartest people alive, sent an email to the writers saying that they should just say that if you're not vaccinated, you're out. And there are people in the NHL who do have that opinion. They're like, we're tired of this. We want to move on. Life has to They're like, we're tired of this. We want to move on. Life has to start going on. We don't need this. But I think what, in a lot of cases,

what the teams have tried to say, especially with some of their better players is this is supposed to be a team sport and your teammates are depending on you. And what happens if you let down your teammates, like in Jersey's case in March on a big Canadian road trip happens if you let down your teammates like in jersey's case in march on a big canadian road trip if you can't play we'll follow this one um st louis blues uh a trade and the general manager gets re-upped logan brown zach sanford uh logan brown finds a new home goes home to st louis uh zach Sanford goes the other way, helps the St. Louis Blues out with a cap situation. And the Ottawa Senators get a bottom six player.

Well, especially when, and I'm assuming Kachuk is coming back, the Senators are going to piss off a lot of people this year. You know, they have him, they have Watson, they have Sanford now and Smith and, you know, Pierre Dorian, they love that. They're going to love having a team that's going to do things like that. You know, Logan Brown, this is a guy who needed a fresh start. I think he's wanted to be traded for some time now. I think the organization has wanted to move him for quite some time now. And this was just at a point where it it needed to happen it was time and you

know Doug Armstrong I think this was done about two days before it was announced you know Doug Armstrong had a team option for next year and I think a lot of people were wondering would he go out there and say I want to hit it big financially and try to win another Stanley Cup somewhere else. You know, he has a really good thing going there. You know, the owner obviously trusts him. They've won a Stanley Cup already. He's got a lot of power in the organization. Sometimes don't bleep with happy is very, very good advice.

What I think is interesting is that Peter Shirelli hired there. You know, Peter Shirelli wants another chance to be a general manager somewhere. I wonder if it's almost set up that he'll be the successor in St. Louis when Doug Armstrong's time is up. Someone else who we all know is very much interested in becoming a general manager again just became the assistant general manager again just became

the assistant general manager of the arizona coyotes and that is john ferguson jr this is a position that daniel brieer was actually up for as well and they went uh with someone with more experience in john what do you think of this signing by the coyotesotes? Well, look, I mean, I don't think there's ever, it's ever bad to add more experience to your organization. And Arizona, it's a major rebuild. We're looking at almost a total tear down and restart.

You have to have a lot of people there. You know, you're going to miss on some of your picks. You're not going to make all the right decisions, but you better have a lot of people there. You're going to miss on some of your picks. You're not going to make all the right decisions, but you better have a lot of people there that have been around a long time to say, well, this could happen or that could happen

and this can be good and that can be good or this can be bad. I don't have a problem with it at all. The one thing that I'll think about with, whenever I see this player on the ice, I'll think, okay, that was a john ferguson deal is of his time in boston is charlie mcavoy and i remember that draft specifically and on the thursday night the boston bruins when they all went to bed before the draft of the first round

on the friday they all went to bed agreeing that Dante Fabbro was going to be their pick. The Western Scouts really liked Dante Fabbro. And it was Ferguson and a group that he had together within the organization that got it changed the next day. Otherwise, the Boston Bruins were going to take Dante Fabbro over Charlie McAvoy. The interesting story there is the McAvoys and the Fergusons have a relationship going back to when John Sr. ran the New York Rangers and they lived in Long Island. The Fergusons bought Jean Rattel's house and lived there. John Jr. rode school bus with Charlie McAvoy's dad, Bob, and the family's

plumbing company, McAvoy Plumbing, did work on John Rattel slash John Ferguson's house. How about that for the most arcane piece of trivia on a podcast you've heard in how long, Elliot Friedman? That's arcane. of trivia on a podcast you've heard in how long, Elliot Friedman?

That's arcane. Beat that one. Beat that one, bud. Okay, Elliot, before we wrap up the pod, you did something cool. You went to an actual hockey game with actual fans on Saturday night. I had three last year, games three, four, and five of the Stanley Cup final.

Yeah. But this is the first one in Toronto, and I have a bias towards that because it's where I live. And so it was nice to be at the rink in the city I live, and half the crowd was there. And it was a lot of fun, and people were having a

great time. It was great to be back at a, at a game in Toronto. It really was. I can't remember the last time I was at a game at that arena. So it was good to work with David Anthony. Now let me ask you, you know,

I spent a night at the Roxbury. Great look, great tweet. What, what did you think of the attire Dave and a in a well it's not a turtleneck it's a not a mock turtleneck but a a faux turtleneck no no no there's a name for is there a name for them you're asking the wrong guy we got to get deb berman back on the podcast i thought dave dave looked great dave looked like dave looked great uh stewie looked stylish as hell

that was people were like it's a hoodie. It's not a hoodie. He was wearing actually an expensive sweater that had a hood on it. I wore a crew neck. Sorry, that's the term, crew neck. It's like a dress hoodie that Stewie had. Here's the thing. Stewie can pull that off.

I can't pull that off. No, me neither. And you looked like you were just ready to hit the club. You were ready to go and then you had uh you had mckenzie in his life jacket and craig and cuthbert in their ties and the thing is like i think everybody should dress as they're comfortable if cuthbert and simmer want to wear ties let them wear ties. McKenzie has real fashion sense. As long as it's clean and he doesn't look sloppy,

then I know people are going to say, really, you're discussing who looks sloppy? I have no problem with it. Now, it's funny. I actually called Deb on Sunday because I also wore the crewnecks to Chicago when we did the YouTube videos with the interviews. I don't like the crewnecks.

I said, if I'm going to do this, that's for you. I want to wear an actual turtleneck. So I think that's where I'm going here. But the one thing I want to say, I saw a lot of the tweets and the replies, and I was laughing at them every morning. I love when the fans do this stuff. There's a lot of people who liked it. I'm sure there's a lot of people who didn't like it, who think don't like it at all.

I just hope that we we've made a decision to experiment a little bit. I hope we don't give up based on the reaction of one night. I think you have to be committed to it. Like I've said to Deb, Jeff, that if I'm working the opening Wednesday and I'm working the opening Saturday, if I'm working those two games,

I want to wear a tie for those two games and then after that i'll fool around with the other stuff but to me there's something about the opening night of the season and the opening night saturday you wear ties for those ones okay but here's the big question for you then that everybody's wondering about yeah what are you doing about the feathers yeah i don't know i mean whatever i feel like on a different week here's what i think okay grow it i'm serious dude the long hair suits you well i like it long i i really do that's from from one friend to another the long hair suits you well me like i get like this bad middle stage where i start growing my hair out and i end up looking like the craft peanut butter

bear and i'm just like okay stop it it's got to. And I can't get past it. I can't push through. I don't have enough confidence in myself to do it or know what to do with my hair in that weird middle stage, but yours looks good long and you can push through and do it. I would say go for it. All right. That's from me to you. I'll put that to anyone listening right now that feels like they want to tweet Elliot about his hair. I say, go it i say grow along it's all jazz fault i think you can pull it off dude all right by the way big week for the jays this week some of those home runs oh man they're yankees yankees are hitting but you see stanton this those balls haven't even landed yet it's no longer fenway Park it's Stanton Park

he owns Fenway this weekend oh my god now before you went to the music I would like to uh shout out the uh son of uh one of the great athletes I've and people I've ever covered I don't know how much you ever dealt with the Argonauts or adrian smith the cornerback i know adrian smith yeah yeah great guy just a fantastic human being always loved my dealings with adrian so his son keandre smith and keandre smith is a wide receiver at the University of Guelph. I like him already. And on the weekend. Wise choice, young man. Keandre Smith caught the winning touchdown pass

as the Guelph Griffins upset the number one ranked Western Mustangs 23-21. Don't call it an upset. Don't call that an upset. As much as it pains me to say this, I just wanted to shout out Adrian Smith And his son Keandre Because Adrian's a great guy A great human

And I'm very happy for him Because I know he'd be proud of his son Keandre it always warms my heart When I hear these words Griffins over Stangs Thank you to the Smith family. The last thing I would like to say for the pod this week,

I never look at ratings. I don't believe in it. I've seen people get corrupted by it. Amal, however, likes to tell me sometimes what's going on. And this is our first real full news pod

of the 2021-22 season. And Amal says that last year we had a really good year number-wise. So I just wanted to say, Jeff, thanks to all the listeners that you liked what we did last year. I have really high standards. As you know, Jeff does not. And we aim to deliver again this year. You could listen to any podcast in the world,

you're listening to ours, and we aim to return that respect. Absolutely. There are a lot of choices you have to make in your podcast selections, hockey or otherwise. We thank you for the time invested in this one. And that's what most impressed me when Amos would have spelled out stats for us

is how many people actually listen from the beginning to the end and why like we don't understand that like why would you do that you just fell asleep or uh you left it on by accident you left the room and forgot that it was on i don't know i'm convinced that's what my wife does she just she gets us to listen she just turns it on she leaves leaves the room. Is this over yet? It's the downloads and the time spent listening are quite flattering. And yeah, like Elliot says, we got some things on the horizon this year that I think you guys are going to really like.

And once again, we are committed 100% to this. And that is unwavering, all three of us. So hope you like what we have in store for you this season. We know we're going to love presenting it to you. So thanks for being with us all these years. And we hope that you're happy again this year because we've got some cool stuff on the horizon. And we will, by the way,

do another Yellow Laces podcast at some point. You know, we owe a Word Association podcast. Word Association podcast. We promised it. We have to do it. Yeah, well, that's part of our commitment to excellence. And on that, taking us out, a psychedelic pop duo from Stockholm, Sweden, who dropped their self-produced debut album in 2019.

With mutual love for radio-friendly 70s pop, Matthias Gustafsson and Martin Fugglstrom collaborated for their sophomore album 615 am from that record here's distant alarm by adult oriented pop on 32 thoughts the podcast enjoy like a distant alarm Hovering and promising Salvation, realization I believe if you want to I believe if you want me to

With you What's hidden we desire Like a distant alarm It endangers our complacency It all means And dangers Are complacences If always I believe If you want to I believe If you want me to