Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - What to make of these new divisions?

Episode Date: December 12, 2020

The NHL season is getting closer to starting back up and Hunter brings Nick Zararis (NickZararis from Twitter) on the podcast to talk all about the NHL's new season plan. What were Nick's thoughts on the owners against the players? How important was it for Gary Bettman to not be public enemy #1? The two then go into the new realigned divisions and just how big of a blood bath the East one is going to be. Outside of Boston, who's the next best team? Does he have the Rangers getting in? Where does Hunter have the Penguins finishing? After that, they get into the other divisions and make some more predictions. Should the Leafs run away with Canada's division? Who wins the Pacific? All that, plus much more on this episode of Locked On Penguins.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.BuiltGoVisit BuiltGO.com and use promo code “LOCKED,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, welcome to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L-O-O-Henisquare Penguins. And joining me on a very special Friday evening episode is Nick from Rangers Twitter. Yes, we're having a Rangers fan on a Penguins podcast. Who Gives a shit? He knows a lot about the league as a whole as well.

We're going to talk all about the start of the season, which it looks like it's coming up in a month. The new divisions, the realignment is going to be pretty crazy, especially with the division of death that both of these teams are in and just talk about who we think is maybe going to win the Canadian division and a whole bunch more. So Nick, how are you doing tonight, man? I'm very happy.

I'm watching college football. I've been playing Xbox with a couple of my friends. I've indulged in a Friday beer. I'm good. I'm happy to be here. Yeah. You know, I also have my Friday Corona right over here, you know, just for the times, of course, and, you know, going to be eating dinner soon.

So that's going to be, you know, a late dinner, but, you know, I don't really care. And, you know, I'm also hoping that Virginia Tech actually gets me a win tomorrow and then just fires the head coach because I think we're all sick and tired of them down in Blacksburg. But, you know, get to the hockey portion. You know, folks, we're just going to talk about, you know, the whole start of the season in this segment, you know, get to the divisions and then, you know, just go from there. Nick, when you saw it was going to be like a 56 game season starting in January, you know, were pretty excited that there was finally some news and that the league and the PA were

stopped playing some hardball with this economics bullcraft that they were doing with, oh my God, like the 16% salary like deferment and then the league was finally like, okay, we'll back off on that. Thankfully, just what were your thoughts overall? I'm always skeptical of anything the owners do. It's important that people keep in mind that the commissioner, in all of the sports is nothing more than the spokesman for the owners. When we're all ragging on Gary Bettman, we're ragging on Roger Goodell, it's because

they're just doing the owner's bidding. And it's part of why all of this is nonsense, is they already made an agreement to come back in the summer based on the terms that everyone knew. There weren't going to be fans. There isn't going to be gate revenue. And everyone's just going to have to suck it up until we can get back to some semblance of normalcy. The league has options here. Their new TV deal is coming up soon. They can get money there. They could ask the money for the Seattle expansion team up front. They could ask for more upfront right away and get more money that way where we can avoid playing this nonsense over that 50-50 split in the CBA for revenue between the players and owners. And it's why we always come back to these issues, this nonsense

between the billionaires arguing with the millionaires over who's more greedy. They're both greedy. that's not the point. Sports are in the public interest. We all pay for tickets. We all watch on TV. We all pay taxes that go into building the stadiums. At some point, they need to all grow up and get over it. And we need to, sports are a public interest.

They're a public good. If they're not playing, it doesn't matter. Grow up and accept the fact that someone is going to have to take a loss. I think, yeah, I think that basically covers it. you know, I don't think really anyone was in the owner's camp for this. I mean, you're already asking the players to take a 10% salary to firm in anyway, and now you're going to up it to basically 26%. That's over a quarter of their salaries for the whole season.

Yeah, the league was never going to win that with the fans and with the media. It was good that they finally were like, okay, we're not getting anywhere with this. And then the players were like, yeah, we're not budging. So they moved on. And then they actually got to the real stuff, which is, you know, planning the season. You know, training camps, it looks like, are supposed to start January. 1st, I think, for most teams, December 28th for the teams that did not get in, 56 game season. Nick, I think the one thing that I do not like about this, you know, with the divisions,

I think all the games are going to be just against the divisional opponents. And it's like, so we can't play the USA teams. They can't play against just all each other. You know, you can't have a California road trip. You can't have like a Midwest road trip. You're just going to play the teams, what? seven, eight times during the season. It's just like, I feel like they could do better with that.

And then we'll get to the playoff, well, the expected playoff one of which I think they're going to do, which I think is really lame. I've had a couple of suggestions for that. Just what do you think of an all-division schedule, which I think is likely going to happen? It's what baseball did. They saw what baseball did. They saw that baseball only had two, three bad flare-ups where the Marlins had the bad one. The Cardinals had the bad one. And then there were a couple spotty ones here and there where it would be one or two guys.

But for the most part, after that first month, baseball was able to get it under control by limiting the travel, being pretty strict with who's allowed to go where and what tier of personnel is allowed to go to the stadium and such. It really screws the Rangers, the Penguins. Anybody that's going to be in this East Division is going to have a brutal time just because there are no cupcakes. Even Buffalo, who is the cupcake in this division now, is still good. And the devils are going to be better than they were last year. They finally have a second goalie. The devils aren't a cupcake. There's no easy games in that Eastern division.

It's going to be a slog where a lot of the teams are beating up on each other, whereas the central is pretty soft. The Canadian division is very top-heavy, and then the Western division is very top-heavy as well. So I get why they have to do it like this. It's probably only going to be like this for one year, which is fine. I understand. Everyone has to make sacrifices.

I don't expect a lot. I expect, like baseball had, there'll be a flare up here or there where a team is going to miss a game, a couple of games, and we're going to end up having to do percentage points, and it'll lead to a weird team getting in the playoffs like the Marlin said in baseball. Like, the devils get in playing 49 games, something weird like that. Yeah. Yeah, I can totally see that happening. I mean, for those that weren't aware that I've not seen these divisions, I mean,

the East Division, Boston, Buffalo, New Jersey, both New York teams, full of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, and then the central one, Carolina, Columbus, Detroit, Chicago, Florida, Minnesota, Nashville, Tampa Bay, and then Arizona, Anaheim, Colorado, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Jose, St. Louis, and Vegas, and the Pacific. Though there's rumors that Minnesota may go to the Pacific one, and that Dallas may go to the Central one, which seems kind of weird that Minnesota would go to the Pacific, so it looks like they're not done with fine-tuning the realignment. I mean, before, I think it was ESPN that said that, you know, a team like the Penguins

was going to be in a central division, which I would have preferred if you look at those realignment divisions because the penguins are probably second in that division to Tampa Bay, though you can make a case that St. Louis would finish above them, even with the loss of Petrangelo. But, I mean, man, for both of our teams, man, that East Division, that's a bloodbath waiting to happen, man. I don't know how that's going to shake out.

Yeah, I mean, I was tapering my expectations going into this year for the Rangers, especially just because they're still trying to figure out what their team is going to be going forward and they don't have a particularly good or insightful coach. And I wasn't expecting the playoffs in the old format, the one we've been doing the last few years, the divisional one. I definitely don't expect to make the playoffs now with this format

on who we're going to have to play. I mean, I really, we play the Islanders four times a year. Those are the worst four nights a year just because everyone is annoying. Now you're telling me we've got to do it eight times, seven times. You're telling me you got to do it seven times in three and a half months. I'm going to play the Devils seven times. I can play the Bruins seven times. That's brutal.

If the Rangers went two out of seven against the Bruins, three out of seven, that would be relatively impressive. I don't expect a lot. This format is it's making do with the best available options because like we both have said back and forth when we've been talking the last few weeks is they have to get a season in because they can't be the one league that doesn't have a season. Yeah. I mean, you don't, you don't want to make, you know, Rob Bancred look like the good guy at this. Because, I mean, he was, you know, public enemy number one negotiating through the media. You know, everyone was on the players association side. And there's going to be a whole dispute about that, I'm sure, in the spring and years down the line just because of how bad it was.

But, I mean, yeah, Gary Bebby, you don't want to be public enemy number one. But, Nick, I mean, that was pretty good. You know, we're going to get to a lot of these next divisions in the next segment. but before we do get to that, it's time to talk about Bilko, you know, whether it's a mental or physical wall, you can break through with Go every day. It's easy to take in 1.5 ounce packages.

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You can go to Bilko.com and it's promo code lock and you'll get 20% off your next order. That's promo code locked for 20% off at builtgo.com. Let's go. Okay, so welcome back to this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm, of course, your host, Hunter Hodes. I mean, I honestly, you know, going back off what you say, you know, before we get to the next divisions, you know, I kind of am worried about a little bit for the Penguins.

I do have them finishing right now, I think third. I mean, it's not, Boston's going to win that, I think. I have Washington above them because Washington always finishes a higher than the Penguins. I just don't know. I mean, I can see the Islanders and the Flyers finishing higher than them. They did it this past season. I mean, they basically did it this past season. I get it. I mean, the Islanders are well coached. You say what you want about their system. Barry Trots knows what he's doing. It's boring. I know, but they still know they can get good results. The Flyers are really good. I know people don't want to hear that on the Penguins podcast, but, you know, they finally have a goalie who actually doesn't suck. So I just, I look at the Penguins team and, you know, they're deeper than they have been.

in recent years. The defense is better just because they got the two corpses off the team. And, you know, they have a goalie who is hopefully can play like he did in the first half of the season. So I think the Penguins can get third, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's below that. But I just, you know, the two, you say, the two teams, though, I feel bad for Buffalo and New Jersey. I mean, Taylor Hall is going to have to ask for another trade probably to a contender. I just put it on. I don't hate Buffalo's team.

On paper, it's not bad. It's another thing to put those players together into a cohesive team, but on paper, I like some of the guys they have. Dahlian keeps getting better. They should have Dillon Cousins finally ready to come in and play. Like I said, there's no cupcakes in this division. Everyone is at least competent. Yeah, I mean, that's basically true.

I mean, yeah, there's no teams like Ottawa in the next division. I mean, in the Canadian division, who's probably going to finish last. They're going to finish last probably for the next couple years, just because they can't even field a team. So, I mean, you're right on that. In New Jersey, I mean, they signed Corey Crawford this offseason. That is probably one of the signings of the off season, I think. They finally have a decent goaltender who, when he stays healthy,

yeah, probably one of the above average ones in the league, and they just improve their team overall. I mean, you know, obviously, you know, I mean, the Rangers aren't a pushover. They're getting better each year, even though this is going to be, I don't know if they're going to get in. We obviously talked about the other New York team. Washington, I think, is good, though.

How long can they continue to be good? I don't know a lot of, I don't know about Peter Lavillette. I think he's kind of overrated, but he gets results his first couple years there. So I could see them being really good this year just because of his new system. And then Boston is the President's trophy winners. But, you know, Nick, getting to some other divisions, which division outside of this one, you know,

intrigues you the most out of this realignment? And, of course, there could be other changes. The West, they've got the two best teams. Vegas and Colorado were the two best teams in hockey. And I can't wait to see them play seven times in three and a half months. It's going to be awesome hockey. You and I spent the entire playoffs this year being like, God, I hope we get Vegas. Nine games.

Play best of nine, best of 11, best of 15, whatever you want. I just want to see high-level possession hockey between elite teams. That division compels me the most. The Canadian division will be fun because the Canadian media is going to be extra annoying and dial it up a little more because they're only playing each other. You know how annoying the Montreal media is going to be if the Habs lose six out of seven, eight to the Leafs? You know how bad it's going to be if the Oilers beat the flames seven out of eight times,

that kind of thing. The Canadian division has the most potential for fun just because of the way the Canadian media covers hockey. but I think the Pacific West, whatever you want to call it, division is the most compelling because it has the two best teams in the entire league.

Yeah, I mean, I can't wait to see them play that off. That means seven, eight times. I mean, you also have Dallas in there. They just went to the Stanley Cup final. They're still insanely good. Seeing them play Vegas and Colorado seven times. I mean, inject that into my veins.

Anaheim, I mean, they're kind of still there, I guess. Arizona's kind of, I don't know. Those two teams are just, I don't know, they're kind of okay. Anaheim is still retooling. They waited too long to get their rebuild underway, and they're paying for it now. The last two years, it hasn't been pretty. Arizona just doesn't know what it wants to do, and it hasn't known what it wants to do for a while now,

where they've been adding veteran players, but they're still drafting in the top 10 because they're not making the playoffs. They've had a hard time getting out of that soggy middle of, the league that you don't want to be in because it's hard to make the playoffs consistently in this league as we all know but i do want to say in that western division we can't sleep on the blues i know they lost petrangelo but throwing krug in there krug is perfectly fine he's not as good of pretrangelo he's 80 85 percent of pretrangelo the blues will be fine that's going to be interesting and then we i don't know what to me to me I don't know what to make of those teams we just said,

the Anaheim, the Arizona. The Kings and Sharks are both kind of in the, well, we blew it up. Now we're waiting. Yeah. And we've got to see what happens. I think the Kings, like, Rob Blake, he's actually done a really good, nice job with that team to get, like, the number two pick with Quentin Byfield, Quentin Byfield, he's going to be really good. They've got, they've restocked a lot of their prospect system.

They've got a lot of picks back in trade. they're going to be better sooner out of them there I mean they still have Anzay Copa tar we all know Drew Dowdy is probably the most overrated defenseman in the league but I mean he's still he's still good but he's just not like what he's people think he is and then like he said San Jose some people expect San Jose to make a big jump next season

I don't see it personally they're just a bit too old I just I don't really think that at all but St. Louis I mean they're still really deep it forward too I mean they're going to get Tarasanko back that's so big for them I mean you can really see when they were playing the Canucks and the return to play, you could just see they weren't the same without them. And I felt bad.

The Canucks were just taking it. Their top forwards were just taking it to them every night. I mean, they stole Ryan O'Reilly. He's one of the best two-way centers in the league. You know, Buffalo really screwed that trade up. But then, you know, you get to this central one. This one's interesting to me, Nick. You know, Carolina, obviously, they're still going to be great.

Columbus is a good team. Detroit is going to be terrible. I mean, Steve Iserman. He has his little Izer plan. That's going to take into effect a few more years. Chicago, they openly admitted that they're not even trying to compete this season. Florida, I never know what to make of the Panthers. There's something, I don't know what they're doing.

Minnesota, again, that's kind of a retooling team as well. And then, you know, the two favorites, I think, in the division. I mean, well, I shouldn't say the two favorites. The big favorite is Tampa Bay. They're going to run away with it. But then Nashville is the big intriguing one. You saw last year, fired Bobby Allette. They were good under Heinz for a bit,

but then just in their playoff series, Pecoran didn't look the same. I mean, they saw some great forwards, though. It's just, I don't know about them. They're just a wild card. They're like a big wildcar on see for the whole league this year. Their pieces don't fit that well together, which is their problem.

They didn't make a conscious effort to when they were acquiring all these guys. guys to make sure they all worked, where they traded for tourists, they signed Duchenne. They got all of these marquee, high-scale guys, but nothing really fits. They still got Foresburg, who's pretty good. They've got Toulvanin, that finished prospect, who they've been saying is going to be good for a while now, who still hasn't made the jump. They still got two of the best defensemen in the entire league in Yosie and Ellis. Yeah.

Rennie, at this point, is what he is. He's old. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he lost his job like he has the last couple years every, like it always seems to happen for Nashville. I want to see what Carolina does this year because I talk myself into one team every single offseason as being, this is the team that's going to make the jump. And my problem is I'm always a year early where I do this especially bad in football, where I look at every team and I'm like, this is the year for Team X.

Like last year, I was convinced it was finally the year for the Browns. I was a year early. The Browns are going to this year. And hockey, I did it last year with Carolina, where I talked myself into. This is finally going to be the year Carolina makes the jump. They're not just going to be the nice possession stats team. They're finally going to actually make a deep playoff run because the year before they had beat Washington in that first round series and then went and lost to the island. No, they beat the islanders.

They swept them. Yeah. So I think this is finally the year Carolina makes that leap. and they get to a conference final and have a good chance at making the Cup final. I mean, they didn't get a great shake. They smoked the Rangers in that playing round.

Then they were brutally dinged up when they had to finally came time to play the Bruins where they had lost so many key players for them. I think this is final of the year we see if Carolina's for real or not or if they need to tweak the pieces they have because they're loaded on defense

and they've got a solid group of forwards. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, their goaltending is always a big question, though, I mean, their forwards. I mean, Specialikov is going to be one of the best forwards, I think, in the league really soon. I mean, you know, Ajo, Tara Biden. I mean, the list goes on and on, you know, Peschi's going to come back. Slavin's going to be there. I mean, and I love Rod Brindamor as the coach, too.

He's, he's awesome. You know, I remember just all the memes from the series, I think, against the, I think it was against the Bruins, you know, a couple of bad calls and a couple, he, like, had, like, made the face. or something. I just, I love watching his team play. I do think they are going to, I can see them easily get top three in that division. It wouldn't surprise me if they finished behind Tampa. I just don't think they're going to challenge Tampa Bay. And then, you know, finally, Nick, we get to this awesome Canadian division.

And, you know, it looks like for the first time we may get the Toronto Maple Leafs finish first in something for the first time in like 50 years. So, um, I think they have, they should be able to win this division. They have all the talent in the world to. Um, the question comes down to, you know, will they, you know, just, you know, with Matthews and Tavaris and Marner and Nylander and just, you know, Morgan Riley and Frederick Anderson, you know, this is maybe his last year there. So don't forget Joe Sorton.

Yeah, they got Jumbo Joe to go have a nice cup run potentially. So I think they win it, though Edmonton is going to push them. I know some people are not high on Vancouver this season because of their goalie. Goleys, I get it losing Jacob Markstrom stinks. But, you know, Braden Holpey coming in there, I think he can be okay. But, you know, you have, you know, the guy. that took Vegas to seven games by himself. He basically carried their corpses there than Dr. Demko.

And I just, I love the Canucks forwards, man. I mean, I am also a huge Quinn Hughes guy. Brock Besser, Elias Pedersen, you know, just Bo Horvatt. I just, I love watching those guys. So I think they get top three in there. And then, I know I'm forgetting. I'm high on Calgary too, but I'm just not sure, you know, they're kind of up and down.

You know, what do you think about that one? For the people listening, bad radio, but I was doing the shaky, shaky hands on Hunter here on Zoom. But I think Toronto, if they don't finish in first, have major issues because they're clearly the most talented of all those teams. If they don't finish in first, it would probably be because Freddie Anderson got hurt and they don't have a backup goalie.

And they had to play a backup goalie for a significant portion of the regular season. It's been the least problem the last few, years where they've run into that issue where they don't have a second goalie who can play competently in the starts Anderson can't make. Calgary is very up and down where they play that high flying open-ended style but occasionally they run into issues against teams that can grind them out a little tougher. Vancouver is just a matter of goaltending. It's hard to bank on goaltending near to year. The good way to think about it is defense in football where in one year a defense is always a defense can be very good, but it's hard to carry that over year to year.

Vancouver got amazing goaltending from Demko last year, stole a series, got them where they went last year in the playoffs, but it's hard to bank on that being the back phone because Vancouver's defense is not amazing once you get past that first pair. Their bottom six leaves a little bit to be desired. They run into the issues. They're built in kind of the same way the Rangers are, where they really are reliant on their top five, six forwards and their top pair. And then after that, you run into issues where those guys get pinned in their own zone

and have a really hard time driving and playing, getting the puck out of their own end. I will say, I think Winnipeg, they need to retool. They need to take a year back, pull it back, and try and figure out what they want to go for because they don't have enough talent to get deep. Ottawa, we know they don't really care about this year. I will say don't sleep on Montreal because they're not the most talented team, but they do play extremely hard. And like we all know, when Kerry Price feels like it, he can be amazing still.

Penguins fans can attest to that. Peggman's going to test it at, Nick. So, you know, we saw, we saw a 2015 God mode, Kerry Price. He came back down. He came back from the heavens down to earth this year. So that was something to behold. something very annoying, but, you know, we had to deal with it. But, you know, I know a lot of people laughed at the Josh Anderson contract, myself included. That deal was Mark Bergeman being high on

a kite or something like that. I mean, I will say this, you know, they play hard for Claude Julian. He's a good coach. He runs a good system. That it's boring, you know, but it doesn't really matter. They get results. I agree with you on that. You know, the thing with Winnipeg, I mean, I love me some Mark Schifley. I love Blake Wheeler. I love Patrick Launay if he gets it back together, but, you know, they only go as far as Connor Heller takes them. He was, he carried, I've said it so many times he carried the corpses last year to the playoffs, almost carried the newest series win. I just, he's going to have to repeat that. And, you know, like you just said, you can't rely on goaltending year in and year out or you're just going to basically suffer.

But, um, is there any other thoughts you have going? Oh, yeah, there's one thing I did, one before we go. I do. I do want to ask. you. There is the playoff format, the rumored one, it looks like it might be a divisional format. One versus four, two versus three winners go through. I personally hate that idea. I get it for logistical reasons and just for a one-off. I mean, but, you know, if you know, if you know, just seed them one through eight, have the top teams pick the opponents. I mean, or if you want to go crazy, you know, one through 16, have the top team number one C, just pick them. So, I mean, or honestly, just seed them one through 16. I think that would be awesome too.

It's just like you just get done playing the team seven times for the regular season. Oh, here you get to go play them in a seven game series. It just doesn't make any sense to me. But, I mean, I guess that's plodged what they're going to do. Hey, I've been banging the drum for years regardless of sport. Once you get to the playoffs, get rid of your divisions, get rid of everything. You seed the teams in order of their record and you let them let them pieces fall where they lie. Seat them one to 16.

Put them all in one city, make sure it has multiple rings. You do it high school hockey tournament style where they can go watch the other teams play like they did in the bubble. Toronto has three NHO rings. They could play the entire playoffs in Toronto where we get four games a day like we did when the return to play started this past summer. I think it's the fairest way to play honestly because I know last year the way the return to play was set out. there was a contingent of Toronto people who didn't like the format because it made the lease have to play an extra game, extra series rather, that they shouldn't have had based on where the standings were when the season ended. Same thing with Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh would have been in the playoffs when the season ended last year, but because they wanted to add those extra teams and they had to play in the playing around and lost. If you want to have the most fun, you see them 1 to 16 and you just play it like at the Peeway, a high school hockey tournament where everyone's in the same city. there's three to four games a day. We all get to watch high-level hockey between good teams. You get interesting matchups that we haven't seen, to your point, where we get to see the Golden Knights against, I don't know, Columbus, something we haven't seen in a while. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

I just want variance. I want weird outcomes. I want upsets. I want it to feel like March Madness because that's the best playoff there is. Yep. I mean, that's, I've been, I mean, that nail on the head, you know, for the last week or so on the podcast, you know, just do something new. You know, these divisional things, you know, the playoff format, the regular one that they have,

that one stinks too. No one wants to watch the Penguins and the Capitals go out of for the fourth time in six years, you know, the Penguins and the Flyers go out of it again. The Penguins in the Blue Jackets with Big Brother, Little Brother. You know, I mean, we haven't seen a Rangers Islanders series in a while, but, I mean, do Rangers Friends really want to see that after they've just played them seven times? No, because you'll just get a bunch of Dennis Potvin sucks chance. all the time. So it would just be like a, it would just, no. That's basically just no. I just really don't need it.

So, Nick, thank you so much for coming on. Unless you got anything else to say before, you know, we leave here. Now's the time to say it. I'm not looking forward to playing the Penguins, Islanders, Devils, Bruins, Flyers. you know, it combines 35 times in three and a half months. It's not going to be fun. It's just not. Yeah, and I will say I hope for the playoffs. They start the games in the afternoon. I would assume that a lot of people will still be working from home at that point because

of the pandemic. Start them at noon. Everyone was loving it. People were home working. How have the TV on? You're doing your work on your laptop or your desktop or whatever. People will watch. They had pretty, I think the ratings were still, I mean, obviously they went down a bit,

but they're still not bad. A lot of people will still find the time to watch. Hell, you know, I was down at the Outer Banks, I'm with my immediate family for a social distance beach trip, watching hockey while you're at the beach. I mean, that's just, that's, you love it. So Nick, buddy, again, thank you so much for coming on this episode. I really appreciate it.

And definitely as the season gets underway, and, you know, we have a Penguins Rangers matchups coming up. I'm definitely going to have you on for that. Just all I'm going to say is fear Adam Fogg. I'll leave it on that. He's good. Yeah, he's awesome. I will say, you know, him and John Marino are great friends, it looks like. They give each other a lot of crap on Instagram.

But, you know, John Marino makes that leap, man. His offensive game comes out. It'll be perfectly fine to take over for Chris LaTang. But let's wait to see if that happens first. But also, Nick, where can they find you on social media and your podcast, by the way? Okay, so my handle on Twitter is my name. at Nick Zerareris. I'm the host of a podcast, the Upper Bowl GM podcast, where I talk to fans of their favorite teams, and we give them the opportunity to run their favorite team. I've had quite a

litany of guests. It's been very college football heavy just because we've been in the thick of college football season for the last few weeks, put out a Notre Dame centric episode that dropped earlier Friday where talks about the jump they've made under Brian Kelly. If Rudy's actually a good movie. It's a good time. We have a lot of different topics, a lot of different teams, and a lot of different sports. Monday, Wednesday, Friday most weeks, as hockey season gets up, it'll be a little more hockey-centric, looking to have a little more. Hunter will be there to come talk about the penguins because I need a little more insight, and I need him to tell me if Jacques Martan is actually a good coach or not. And you can follow where I write Gothmsen,

New York-centric sports blog. We produce content pretty much every day. very heavy in New York. It's football season. Bear with us. Hockey's coming. There'll be Ranger stuff. They'll be Islander stuff. But thanks for having me, Hunter.

Yeah, absolutely. There you haven't, guys. Go follow Nick on all that and please listen to his podcast because he does do a great job on that. And I'm sure he'll have me on too as we talk Virginia Tech stuff. And I'm sure because they're probably going to fire Justin Fuente next week. So I've had to throw that in there. But thank you guys so much for listening.

We'll have a few more episodes coming next week. And then once January hits, we'll be back to basically doing episodes, I think basically every day. So, you know, thank you guys so much for listening, and we will talk to you all on Monday.