Puck Soup - A Nice Long Wait

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Sean and Ryan talk about the playoffs, the eliminated teams, awards finalists, and more/ Sponsored by Mint Mobile (mintmobile.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McAnew from The Athletic. And I don't know if you know this, Sean. There's already a team in the Eastern Conference Finals, and that team, of course, Florida Panthers. They're back. They did it. Damn.

Yeah. Play in the long game. This is why they're champions, you know? Yeah. They said we can just show up for the third round. And the league was like, obviously we agree. Look at how the last three third rounds have gone. Yeah, exactly.

So this feels early. Feels early for a team to be there. You know, it's crazy. Have the other series started yet? Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing, right? Is they had already played two games in that series because they swept in the first round as well. They had already played two games in their series before Montreal and Buffalo played any. And consequently, they are done before Montreal and Buffalo had played two.

you know that thing. I don't know why they don't space that out better, but that's just how it goes. And I mean, in fairness to the league, they did it like this because the way the first round played out, we would have had a Saturday night with no hockey. Right. At like the beginning of May. And nobody wants that. Nobody wants to like hang out with their families and stuff. So they gave us a game.

But this is like, it, it. makes me think of a scenario that I don't find myself in often, but you know every now and then you've got something to do, or you've got a few things to do. Sure. And you get the first thing done quicker than you thought, and you're like, hmm, you know, should I just get started on the next thing?

Or should I just lay around and play video games and waste time? And this is a great example right here of why you should never, never, never, just go ahead and get the next thing done. Right. Because it just, it just doesn't work. You should go back to bed, hold the little covers up over your face, and try again. I mean, it's crazy because now, you know, depending on how long this series goes,

and we'll talk about the Buffalo Montreal series in a minute. But like Montreal, or Carolina could end up with 10, 11, 12 days off between games. Which is, I'm going to say, for them bad. Well, yeah, and I don't know where. Like, they're not even that banged up. Like, they don't need the rest. Yeah. And, like, it'll help for sure.

I mean, all the cliches about the playoffs, oh, you know, it's a marathon, this and that. Like, yeah, it is. It's a war of attrition. This will help. But when you're playing this well. And especially the fact that. Freddie Anderson is playing fantastic. Yep.

And that's kind of the one, like a goalie, 10 days in the future, who knows? Yeah. Who knows who he's going to be? Maybe he'll be better, maybe he won't be. But, yeah, I bet if you were, if you forced Carolina, they'd be like, we would like to start our next series on Thursday.

Absolutely. And that's going to be a problem because, the sabres and habs are still playing. Yeah, and I don't know. Like you say, especially because Freddie Anderson is playing, and especially because like the way the team in front of him is playing, where like there's basically nobody that's having anything worse than like an okay playoff run so far, right?

Like you look at the underlying numbers, you look at just like who's scoring goals, you're going to maybe find one or two guys on the roster where it's like, yeah, I guess he could be better, you know? And everything else you're like, yeah, that's going about as well as it reasonably could. You know what I mean? Like, I was looking at it yesterday because I was writing my like notebook. And, you know, obviously it all starts with the stank oven line with Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake.

I want to say it's 15 to 3 when they're on the ice. and it doesn't you can't do better than that all the and then you go okay well it's that one line no all the lines they're not all 15 to three obviously but it's like six to two seven to five like just really really every line is just pulling their weight in a way that you just never see and so for carolina to then be like and now we're going to go wasn't there another team in the last like decade or so that had like a really long layoff between the second and third rounds? Yeah, I feel like... Like a Chicago team, maybe?

Yeah, I feel like we've done this conversation and the whole rest versus Russ thing. But yeah. But like, then that team went and got like killed in my recollection. So... All right, let's go with that. You know, I don't... It would be helpful if I had the, uh, the example fresh in my mind, but I just don't. So yeah, I, I see.

sit here and I go like it's not it's obviously nice to sweep but like they should they should have maybe given given Philly two games just for just for fun yeah that's strategically I think that was a real miss by

Rod Burtonmore to not pull the goalie let Philly have a couple it's I mean yeah I've just never seen anything like this I guess you know what I mean like like literally this is the first time since 1985 it happened and I was two years old, you know?

But, yeah, I don't know. I don't have a lot to say about Carolina. Like, they're as dominant as you would want them to be against, okay, let me ask you this. You buy this shit about like, oh, well, their opponents have been really weak. I don't think, I mean, yeah, the flyers were a weaker than you would typically. see second round opponent. I still argue that the senators were a good team, and it was, that series was, A, closer than most four-game series, but B, much more a case of Carolina making a good team look bad

than getting a bad team. Flyers are maybe closer to what we think of as not a great playoff team, but they beat the Penguins. They earned their spot. So well, what I was going to say is like The thing the thing about being the number one seed in your conference is you're supposed to play the fucking weak teams Yep Like I know we all hate this playoff format, but like it's not so bad that they're like actually the the two best teams have to play each other in the first round

That's not how it fucking works and it shouldn't be So like it's not it's not just Oh they played weak teams well A that's like they played 82 games to earn the right to play the weaker teams teams. B, as you say, the teams weren't like that week. It's not like, you know, that capital's team from a few years ago or it's like, oh, we got into the playoffs with a negative 87 goal difference or whatever. You know what I mean? Like that wasn't what was going on. And here's what it really boils down to. Yeah, they played weak teams. Okay, sure. I agree with you. Let's say I agree with you. I don't all the way, but let's say I do. They fucking annihilated them.

It's not like they want a bunch of seven games. They fucking crush these guys. And lots of teams in history, like the history of this playoff, the 16-team playoff format, have played weaker opponents than this in the first round and not done nearly as well as these guys. It's like they say, you can only play who's on the schedule. They didn't, this isn't the PWHL.

They didn't get to pick their opponent in the first round. So they were like, oh, okay, I guess we'll play those guys. And then they play them and fucking destroyed them. They haven't lost a game yet. And honestly, they spent like 12 minutes trailing. If you want to do the easy opponent narrative, like,

whoever they play in the conference final isn't going to be an easy opponent, but they're not going to, it's not like they're playing tamper for some established cup favorite. Like, they're going to be playing another upstart. Like, it's a very weird playoff path, if you had shown it to someone at the beginning of the season. But yeah, that's who they're playing.

And you're right. Like, I don't mind that the team that actually had the best record got the easiest path. That's how it's supposed to work. This is like if the Canucks had won the draft lottery, which they didn't, and we'll talk about that later. But if they had won the draft lottery, then people go, well, that's not fair. I mean, they were the worst team in the league this year. Yeah, correct. That's how the system works.

You know, what do you want me to tell you? Shout out, by the way, to Neil Payne, who has a substack, or at least did a few years ago, and wrote about biggest gaps in playoff series. Apparently 11 days between playoff series is the record. 2003 Mighty Ducks, and this is maybe who you were thinking of, the 2019 Bruins, who had to wait 11 days before playing the Blueprint. lose in the final. My opinion, that blues cup is fake.

We don't have to sit here and pretend Jordan Bennington's a good goalie anymore. There you go. The numbers don't lie. But wait, Craig, Craig Bergerbe is still a great coach, right? For great news for the team you like, Sean, yes. He's killing it. Yes. Awesome.

Yeah, there have been apparently twice with 11 plus days, eight times with 10 plus, 38 times with 9 plus. So not super rare. And Neil finds that those teams. teams go on to win the next series at about a coin flip, which is a little bit worse than expected. Yeah. Then when you factor in, you know, who is the favor in that sort of stuff. So, yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, Neil. Neil. Unless you made all that stuff up and just put it on substack to fool. Well, if this is a few years ago, we know it's not chat GPT. Luckily. Yeah. And then they're like, oh, the, the 1972, boss. Boston Bruins.

They, uh, they waited 46 days. 46 days and they played the Harlem Globe Trouters in the World Series. That's right. We'll do, uh, the flyers when we get to a loser's corner,

of course. And that means we'll talk now about the Montreal Canadians. They're up two to one on Buffalo. And let me, let me, let me, let me say this. This is the,

the vibe that I'm getting. Everybody agrees this series is fucking over. Oh. Is that not what it feels like after after now look Montreal obviously dunked on them two games in a row. Yeah. But the vibe that I just get ambiently is that every Buffalo fan is like, it's over. That nice run, but like, hey, you get a tip your cap tool. You got to, you got to believe.

So here's here's my vibe. Yeah. Montreal's getting better and better every game of this series so far. So far. And if that trend continues, I'm drawing my graph here. And my pen just went off the piece of paper. And it's good news for Montreal. So, yeah, the Sabres, after game two, talked a lot about, oh, you know, we got to adjust this and that.

No, didn't work. They got stomped. So now it's really, Lindy Rough's going to really earn that Jack Adams now because. He asked to, yeah. Apparently, it's not lineup changes. It's adjustments to how they play, which can, you would think means X's and O's and assignments and matchups, but maybe it just means him telling them to try harder. But either way, this feels like a very, even more than usual crucial game for tonight.

Oh, yeah. I don't think I mean if I'm Buffalo and I'm down 3-1 maybe I feel okay about game 5 at home but I don't want to come back to Montreal for a game 6 in that madhouse facing elimination no I would say that that you don't for sure um yeah it's funny because like if you take it as on the whole it's only a 2-1 series right and yeah someone had to be up to 1 yeah that's exactly right. But again, like, what have they been outscored 11 to 3 in the last two games? And especially if you're a team where, let's be honest, a lot of the good feeling about this team was vibes based and not necessarily how they're playing on the ice based. They've been a good team

for a long time in this season. Not, you know, 14-year play. We don't have to get into it. But, you know, they've been, they've been riding high on vibes in a lot of ways, these last, let's say, three, four months. And now it does kind of feel like going, all right, well, you know, this is like playoff hockey. And they're going, oh, right, we, you know. And I think there's no more obvious way to talk about that. then Montreal's best players look like they're Montreal's best players and Buffaloes look frankly like they're on the Buffalo Sabres if you know what I mean. Like gosh, I don't have it in front of me now.

Give me one second here. But like, Tage Thompson has been getting killed in my recollection on, at least on goals. I don't know about everything. Yeah, his underlines are actually pretty good. But when he's been on the ice in the series, Buffalo has been outscored 8 to 2. Yeah, he's really been. One goal, no assists, I think. Yeah.

He had the big, the big, one assist. The big first game against Boston and really, ever since then, we haven't. Yep. I haven't seen him much. And remember we were talking about Bo Byron? This guy looks unbelievable in that Boston series. He's been outscored six to three. Alex Tuck outscored 7-0.

You know, like the guys that are supposed to be driving the bus here aren't doing it. Like full stop. Alex-Tuck has already cost himself so much in free agency. He's only going to get $16 million. That's right. Instead of $16.5. Yeah, the Sabres are going to be like, maybe we can't afford to let him.

No, we can't afford to let him go. And before it was like, we couldn't afford to let this guy go for any reason. Like, I'll put it this way. When like the maybe most standout player for them in this series and in some ways has been Jordan Greenway, like the name on people's lips, you know? Yeah. That's not good. Like he's an okay depth forward and that's about it. And we'll talk about this with Colorado, but like you need your death guys to play great in the playoffs.

Yeah, absolutely. But you need them to play great in support. of your stars who are playing great. That's when it all clicks. What I'm saying is your team does better if everybody on the team is playing great. I'm going to write that down. I might be on to something here.

This is. You just need, you don't need to win every depth battle, but you need your depth on the balance to wrestle the other team to a draw, right? And like, think about it like this with Carolina, right? like, we know who the best players on Carolina's team are, and those guys have been pretty good. But the reason they're through to the conference final is

the deaf guys are punching way above what anybody expected them to. Colorado, kind of the same thing. Like, nobody who's a depth guy on that team, you're Ross Colton's and whatever, Parker Kelly. Like, those guys are playing limited minutes, And they are eating up the competition in limited minutes. And Buffalo just doesn't have anybody like that in this series, right? Like, who would you, okay, let me ask you this.

Who would you say has been Buffalo's best player in this series so far? Um, not counting Greenway. I mean, I still like, I still like Josh Dowe whenever he's on the ice. And, and are you going to say Zach Benson? Is he? No, I was going to say Josh Dome. Okay. And like, again, I think they did unbelievably well in that trade.

Like you do Josh Don't, like they would do Josh Stone for J.J. Peturka straight up. You know, they wouldn't even get the throw in of Kesselring this time. And because of that, you're like, okay, well, obviously that means Rasmus Doll, is playing unbelievable. You know, like, you're going down the list and you're like, well, if Josh Dohn is going well, all the guys above him in the lineup are probably going, no, it doesn't work that way, you know? And that's the problem ultimately. It's like Dahlene has been good, but in the playoffs, like you say, you need your best players to be great.

This guy's a Norris finalist and, you know, he looks pretty good only, I would say. Now, part of that obviously is Alex Lyon suddenly can't stop traffic. 880, 879 in this series. What would you do if you're linear up? I think there's an argument to be made either way. Like, you already swapped out your goalie, you know? So that's bad. But I think if it's a question you even have to ask, it kind of doesn't matter.

You know, like, you're like hoping you can get Uco Pecalucan and hot is, is that a strategy, you know? I mean, it can be. I just find it weird that, like, I feel like it was a week ago. I mean, it wasn't even a week. It was a few days ago. We were all dumping on the wild for switching goalies for game two after their goal to give up eight goals. And, you know, unforced error. This is what you can't do.

This is. And I remember at the time going like, well, yeah, but the guy gave up eight goals. Like, I mean, it didn't work. They didn't win game too. And now it just feels like we've gone with the Sabres and other teams. We've just gotten right back to the, oh, yeah, are they going to switch goalies? And I'm just sort of like, dude, right your they, it would be foolish to switch goalies columns now instead of after they lose. And then you go, oh, yeah, well, obviously they screwed up.

Big. I would consider it. I would. Oh, you definitely have to look at it for sure. People would, uh, if people would, uh, people would, uh, you look at that very strongly. No, I'm assuming by the time they, they hear this probably, but as we're recording, they haven't done their, their morning skate and who gets the starters net and all that. And so.

And again, like, I guess my thing is you already, it's not like this is the first time they're changing goalies, like the wild earlier this round, right? Like they already had a starting goalie and we're like, oh, we can't play this guy. And it worked against a Bruins team that I think everybody understands to be flawed. And I'm not saying Montreal isn't flawed, but how many times can it work? Like, how many times can you go back and forth? It doesn't feel like the answer is going to be more than once. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So. I think if you really, like, if you forced me to make the call, I'd probably go, lion and then and then you make the switch if you're down 3-1 sure yeah i think that's fine and here's the other thing 879 right how many goals above expected do you think he's allowed or below expected i suppose well i mean it's probably i would assume he's above expected but probably not by a ton because i mean that's right it's he's minus one in three games it's not like horrible or anything you're one goal or you're one good game away from turning it around and like lions proven that he can

steal games and stuff like that i don't think i go back to lukinen i just think like we already made that decision it's not you big dog unless and i said this with the wild last week unless you're doing the thing of it's like putting in the backup goalie when you're down six six to two, let's say, and you're trying to jolt the team back into like, hey, you know, we still have 28 minutes left in this game, we can do this, we just, you guys just need to pull your heads out of your asses. Like, if they want to do that, again, I kind of feel like they already did it, but I kind of understand a little bit.

Because maybe you just feel like you're, you're kind of fighting against a rising tide at that point anyway, but we haven't really talked about Montreal here, and boy, those guys look pretty good. Mm-hmm. Well, they look pretty good and there's pretty obviously another gear to unlock with the top guys, five-on-five. We've all seen the numbers. And you got that, maybe it got going a little bit in game three, but it's a scary

combination when you can, when a team is playing well and you can see a clear. relatively predictable and expected path back to something even better. So, yeah, like, I haven't thought Slavkovsky's looked great in this series. Same with, same with, same to a lesser extent, with Caulfield. They've been outscored three nothing when Nick Suzuki's on the ice, weirdly. At least at five on five. And, like, that's not, that's not a thing you would expect for a team that, again, everybody's saying, and it doesn't it feel like this series is over after three games?

Yeah. Like, Alex Newhook is driving the... Mm-hmm. Driving the bus. The Kirby Doc redemption story weird thing that's happening is, like, it's not the guys that you would expect other than... I might say Lane Hudson is... Yeah, he looks pretty good. But, I mean, you know, Caulfield is...

It's not even like Caulfield's playing badly. He's just... He's snakebit right now. He's doing that goal. scoring thing where it's just not going in other than, you know, he did maybe the fact that he finally got on the board opens it up. But, yeah, I mean, when you're doing it without your 50 goal guy, he's getting looks. Yeah, it's, it's, Montreal looks very good right now.

I think this is, this still feels like a series where individual games are going to really crank the narrative in one direction or another. I could very much see us coming out of tonight going, Buffalo looks unstoppable, man. Montreal is in big, big trouble and all of that. And then clearly if Montreal wins tonight, you start thinking it might be over. Yeah, I think, yeah, if they're down three to one,

that goes without saying. The other thing I wanted to say is this, Sean. Jacob Doebus, hasn't been, like, unbelievable in this series, but a very strong regular season, obviously starting to look like a fairly deep playoff run. And he's not really even supposed to be their guy, you know? Like Jacob Fowler's supposed to be their guy?

There was some question at the beginning of the play, or maybe not at the exact beginning of the playoffs, but like it was an unsettled question whether Dovish was going to be the guy who's starting a bunch of games for them in the postseason. And maybe he had a short leash in all. that. What do you do if you're Montreal, like goalie of the future, Jacob Fowler sitting there. He's, I looked at this up last night.

He's only played like 30 or 40 games in pro hockey period. This is his first year as an NH or a professional player. And like Dobish, one of the best seasons in the league for a guy who only played 40-something games. And is this what their goalie tandem looks like for the next couple of years? or so. I think so. I think that's that's really crazy. You're fine. Like, I mean,

in a perfect world, I guess Fowler doing it would be even better because he's the younger, slightly higher pedigree guy, but you've got no issue with him sitting through having the experience and watching the other guy who's 24. Yeah, that's right. It doesn't turn 25 until the end of May. Yeah, so

I looked up. You know, it's not like he's stuck behind a 30-something year old guy. and you're going, I don't, you know, is he going to play enough? It's, you know, Sam Montembow is the question mark.

Team Canada stalwart. Sam Montanbo is. But the thing is, he's signed on a cheap deal. And I'm trying to think of how many teams need goaltending every summer. It's like, oh, half the league,

okay, great. You know, like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of flexibility they have. And like, yeah, you can say,

Doeb is punching above his weight, I think that's a totally reasonable thing to say, again, he wasn't even the settled goalie going into the playoffs. But if you have a goalie that you feel like you can trust who, like you say, is 24, 25, and another one who's 21, 22, what, you know, what problems do you have, you know? So I think, you know, then let me ask you this. What do you think they do if, like, let's say Montreal closes. this out in the next two games. It's a four to one series. When do they start the Eastern Conference Final? Do they make both teams take like a huge chunk of time off? I think they have

to. Yeah, you can't. I could see them starting the Eastern Conference Final like game one is the night before game seven of, you know, Vegas, Anaheim or something. But you can't, you can't do anything more than that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, one of Why don't we take a break, we'll come back and we'll talk about the Western Conference and then a bunch of other stuff. This week's episode of the show is brought to you by our great pals at Mint Mobile. Folks, I don't know about you, but I like to keep my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, those traditional big wireless carriers also seem to really like keeping my money. And after years of overpaying, I'm starting to get fed up.

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Taxes and fees extra, see MintMobil for details. All right, we're back. Let's talk about Colorado, Minnesota. Obviously, Colorado picks up, what was it, five to two last night, five to two win? Five to two with two empty netters. Two empty netters, that's right. One of those games were like,

the final score doesn't do it justice because it was a very close game. But also if you take the empty netters away and call it a three two game, that doesn't do it justice either. Right. Yeah. Colorado was doing the like little brothers trying to punch me, so I'm just going to put my hand on his forehead and keep him at arm's length. And yeah, it, uh, Colorado looks, looks good, man.

They look really, really good. Yep. they, um, you know, their best players are being their best players. You're Martin Natchez's and Nathan McKinnons. They point a game or way above a point of game, I should say. Um, in fact, McKinnon eight points in four games in this series so far. That's pretty good. Mm-hmm.

But I think what you would say is that, because let me put it this way. You know who I think has been the best player in the series so far? Quinn Hughes. He's been fucking awesome. Yeah. But there's. But they don't have as many good guys as Colorado does. And it's starting to add up.

You know what I mean? And I'll give you a good example. And I wrote about this this morning. They've got five undrafted players on their team. Right. Now, they didn't personally sign all of them out of, you know, junior or college. But like, you know, you know, Parker Kelly, this guy's playing 10 minutes a night or whatever it is.

He scores his first, I think it was his first point of the playoffs last night was the game winner. But like, if you look at his underlying numbers, you're like, this is a guy who's having a really good playoff that playoff as a depth guy. Nick Blankenberg, Logan O'Connor, also undrafted, right? Y'all Kivirontah, who just got back into the series, undrafted. Ross Colton, a late round draft pick. Like, Sam Malinsky, I think, is undrafted. You can just kind of go down the list and go, they're getting contributions from guys that shouldn't be major contributors in the Eastern or the Western Conference semifinals. You know what I mean?

And you don't need all those guys to hit all at once. But if you get one depth guy to do one good thing per game that results in a goal or prevents a goal at the other end, you're going to win. It's that simple. you know and like this is this is the strength of the Colorado Abel everybody understands that they have two or three of the let's say 12 best players in the in the world right now depending on where you rank divan tapes you know and they and then they have that second layer of guys like landisg and like Nchuskin right but then they have that like third and even fourth layer of guys where you're like yeah you know what the fact that Nick Wa is like

only playing 10 minutes a night for them or whatever it is, that's really fucking solid. And I don't know. And they went out and got those guys, right? Like, I mean, that's what I mean. Yeah. Like, they identify guys. Cadre got the huge goal last night.

They paid up. Some people thought overpaid. But they, uh, this is, I mean, look, they're not even out of round two yet. So we won't get too ahead of ourselves. but it's tough to see the wild win in three straight though isn't it it sure is it i mean if if this goes away it seems like i mean it's it's almost we might look back and say color i had like the textbook deadline for a contender the classic will overpay a little bit because we're all in and patched exactly the right the right holes or something will happen either the rest

of this series or next round and we'll go you know what they actually should have done those fools, those buffoons. And then it'll be whatever that is. But yeah, right now, I mean, it's almost like, and I don't know if you find this, I struggle a little bit to write or to talk about Colorado just because they were so good all year. Yeah, what's there to say?

And especially through the first half, it was like, oh, and there's almost this element of it where it's like, oh, are we just going to do this? Like the best team is just going to win? Like, yeah, man, that might happen. I can't remember off the top of my head the last time we had the one seed from each conference in the Stanley Cup final. But. Oh, yeah.

It seems like we might be headed that way, eh? Yeah. It's going to be incredibly rare. Yeah, I mean, they're just, the worst thing you can say about them is they've given up one game in this series. And look, I would say, look particularly good in the one game they gave up. But, like, ultimately, who cares? You know? It was when they were already up to nothing.

They'd scored... I'm trying to do the math here. The first game was 9-6, right? Yep. Yeah, so they'd scored like 14 goals in the first two games of the series. It's like, yeah, we can take a night off. Who gives me...

This is what Carolina should have done. Yeah, okay, you guys can have game three. That's cute. You get a nice win on home ice. Have a good one, though. We're actually not... We're actually not all that interested in keeping this competitive.

you know, there's not a ton else to say about this. Like you say, like this is the team that we all thought was the best in like November. So, you know, you'd like to see Minnesota have a little more punch,

but like, what can you say? They, ultimately what I think Minnesota's problem is, is they kind of have the, a little bit of the problem I always talk about, which is like they don't have a ton of guys who are like big difference makers who are in their mid-20s.

They have some really good, really young players and they have some really good like 30-year-olds or older than that. And then like the guys who are like in the 26, 27, 28 range are just relatively few and far between. Which I don't think is that historically you would say that's not a good recipe, like that's not how most good NHL teams are built or competitive or whatever you want to say for the cup. And again, like it's last night, they're, Colorado squeezing the life out of them.

It's 2-1, and then suddenly, boom, they get the goal, places rocking. Like, at that moment, it felt like, okay, you know, while come back and win this, man, we got a series. Hold, serve, both teams are winning at home. Here we go, seven games. but even before they got the goal, like it was like the avalanche were like, that's cute.

Yeah, that's exactly right. You tied the game. All right, we're going to not let you touch the puck until we feel like scoring. You know what, Sean? I just looked it up. You know, how many guys would you say the Wild have on their roster

between the ages of 25 and 29? Ooh. If you had to guess. I mean, it's Caprizov, right? Correct. He's 28. Is there what? Are there even five guys altogether?

No. It's Quinn Hughes and Yakov-Trennan. Those are the other two who are in that age range. Now, look, I don't think you can find two better players in that age range than Hughes and Caprizov, like pound for pound, whatever you want to say. But they're just aren't enough. In fact, I kind of overrated how many younger guys they had. You're of Hunt, Faber, and Boldie are all like 24 and under. And so that means, and Walsstead, I should say.

And you know what, Gustavson, I didn't count in that, he's 27. So I didn't count, but he's their backup goalie. So, but like everybody else on the roster is 30-year-older, and hell, a lot of them are 34 plus. Folino, Tarasenko, Bogosian, Johansson, Spurgeon, Petri, Petri, I always forget. Felino and Zuccarello. That's a lot of guys over the age of 34. It is. And that I feel like is kind of catching up with them a little bit.

You can't keep up with Colorado when you have that many old legs. And I mean, look, and the other part of this is, and we talked about Carolina, hey, you're the top siege. you're supposed to get an easier path. It could be that we're starting to see the effects of Minnesota having a really tough first-round series. Didn't go seven, but six tough games against Dallas and Colorado had a by, basically. So that could be part of it. And if it is, good. Finish first and get an easier path like that.

I think it would make the NHL regular season a lot more interesting if it felt like that stuff mattered again. And so maybe this helps nudge it in that direction. Yeah, that's exactly right. Like, Minnesota feels like a team that's going to be around for a while, especially once they cycle some of these older guys off the roster. You know, they have a little bit of roster help coming in their, in their, not a ton, but like some.

And, you know, like, if you, if the worst thing that happens to you is you got, you ran into a buzzsaw team like the avixtap team like the avi, You can kind of just go, I mean, they would have done that to anybody what we're supposed to do. So that that is kind of life and like, I don't even think that's not that bad. I don't want to be doing wild autopsies yet with series not over. I kind of do. If and when we get there, I don't think it's a, I mean, I think you stay the course. but you may also have to sit there and go like, all right, we're not,

we're still into the same division with these guys, so we've got to figure out a way to beat them one way or another, especially if the window is not as wide open as you might think. Yep, that's right. Vegas and Anaheim, what do you think? Like, this is feeling like a weird one to me, if I may say. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. And it's been sort of, like, I feel like on balance, Anaheim's been better for longer stretches.

But then they, like this does kind of look like a veteran team, sometimes toying with the younger team and then sometimes not being able to keep up with them. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. But it feels like Vegas has been kind of the steady presence. And Anaheim, you don't necessarily know what you're going to get, period. period, even shift to shift, which is what you would expect for a young team that was not supposed to be here. Yeah, it's funny. I guess I don't feel, were they not supposed to be here?

That's an interesting question because- Well, heading into the season, nobody thought to take the playoffs, let alone be in round two. And even, I mean, I didn't pick them to beat the Oilers. So I would say, yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, no, I just hadn't considered that. but I think you probably are correct, yeah.

Yeah, my take is basically the same as yours, like the wily veterans finding a way to do it by hook or by crook, even though, you know, like, they're obviously not as fast, and they don't really have great goal-tending, although Hart's been actually quite good in this series in my recollectal. I don't have the stats in front of me, but, like, he's been quite good. but what it really boils down to, and I think I said this last week, is Anaheim doesn't have anybody who's nearly as good as Mitch Marner when he's fucking dialed in like he has been for basically all of this series.

He's just been unbelievable. There's nothing else to say. Like, why is Vegas winning this? Oh, you can point to A, B, and C and say, well, it turns out that Mitch Marner has nine points. in four games. Yep. That goes a long way, for sure. And, you know, the Mark Stone factor is there.

Yeah, it's Mark Stone. Injury-wise, what... Who knows? Yeah. And, you know, Eichl has been... I mean, Eichael's been there, but he hasn't scored yet in the series, and that's... You know, when you sign a Mitch Marner, the first thought is, okay, you put him with Eichel. that's what we all thought.

And they did. They have. But it's also, okay, if we split them up, now we got two lines. And that's a big ask of any team to shut down lines that have guys that good. Oh, yeah. Let alone this young Anaheat, like, it's a tough. Easy to see yourself getting overwhelmed there. It's a tough ask.

And I guess to their credit, they've done half of it. Eichael hasn't scored. They haven't. line hasn't really but yeah but it's like Bugs Bunny you put your put your finger in one leak in the side of your

boat and then like three others spring up and you know this is a tied series and I don't think that you would look at it and say like Vegas has absolutely had the better of them or whatever because I don't think they have and in fact at five on five let's

see here the expected goals Anaheim has like 54% of them which is all you could ever ask for from Anaheim. They've on paper been the better team. But what they don't have is guys who break the game open. And Vegas does. And that's why it's tied.

This should maybe be a 3-1 series for Anaheim. But you can't stop Mitch Marner. And that's how it goes. Are we, is it, is it too simplistic to just say whoever wins tonight wins a series? Yeah, maybe. Because, and this is the other thing I wanted to say. Again, I think Carter Hart's been quite good in this series. And I don't know how long I trust that to keep going.

You know what I mean? And I also don't know how long I trust Dostel to kind of not look very good. And you can say, okay, the team in front of him, blah, blah, blah. Sure, I agree. But this is, you want to talk about goalies of the future. This feels like your goalie of the future. and if he's not able to steal you a game or two, maybe you can live with that a little bit.

Look, hey, they're Vegas, they have a roster of All-Stars who are dying to take pay cuts to play for that. That's true. That's all true. But you do want your guy to steal you a game, don't you? Mm-hmm. You do, and I trust him to do it more than I would trust Carter Hart to do it.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Maybe that ends up being the difference. Yep. It's weird. Like, Anaheim's been better for long stretches, but it feels to me like it's the ducks that are hanging by a thread here, even two, two. And that Vegas is like, okay, we're fine with this. We know how to handle this. Yeah, again, you just, you don't want to, if you're Anaheim, you don't want to let Vegas dictate how you're playing the game.

as soon as you do that, you're fucked. They are, if there's one thing they're good at, it's that it's like dragging you kind down into the mud and playing on their level. And not to say that like their level is they're bad. Like their level is like, there are very few teams that can hang with them when things are going right for Vegas. And yeah, a team with a roster that's kind of this predicated. on like the young guys have to be going.

That's the problem for them is, you know, you're, you're much more likely to, let's put it this way. And this is crazy that this is true. You know, whatever I said about the wild life, four or five guys under the age of 24, right? Mm-hmm. It looks like about eight or nine have played at least one game, uh, who are 24 and under. in for the for the ducks. Yep.

They've got, so, you know, they've got a long path ahead of them. Yep. But as we see with other good young teams, you don't, these,

these chances aren't promised. So, boy, they really want to, especially, I don't think they're ever going to be in a division this winnable again. So. And is,

yeah, That's a really good way of putting it. And this is where you go all out to win this series so you can have the honor of absolutely getting your doors kicked in by Colorado next round. Absolutely. Everybody play that clip back to me when the ducks are beating the wild in game seven. Let's move on now to the loser's corner and let's talk about the Philadelphia Flyers. They went out pretty meekly. Pretty me.

So at a high level, huge success of a season. Nobody thought they'd make the playoffs. They not only made it, they won around. And, you know, they didn't even, like, fluke their way into the playoffs. Like, yes, it was a weird year in the Eastern Conference, and especially in the Metro. But this wasn't, like, some PDO Bender fooling themselves team. Like, they did a lot of things good. I do wonder what that second round does to them.

And obviously, the Mitchkoff situation really stands out right now as what are they doing? It's one thing to scratch a kid in December, let him go up to the box and have a look and get his head straight. But when you're playing an elimination game against a team you can't score on and you don't put the kid who would. supposed to be the generational goal score. He doesn't even get it in the lineup. Yeah. It's, I think, I think now we can start wondering what the future looks like there. That's absolutely right.

Like, they're, we've seen this a million times of like a highly rated prospect who doesn't, quote unquote, play the right way. And his coach doesn't clearly does not trust him. He averaged 12 and a quarter minutes in this series, basically, in the three games he played, and he put six shots on net in whatever, do the math, 36 minutes, which is like a good rate, but not maybe unbelievable or anything like that. And you can say part of that is he's not being put in a position to, you know, you can go down the list back and forth of why they should or shouldn't. But it is something that needs to be figured out. they can't do another gear like this one where he's getting scratched sometimes and it's in the news

every time the coach like benches him for a period like you just you have to have a real plan here and like not just oh we'll figure it out this week or whatever like you have to have gone into the playoffs like if talk it's not going to play mitchkov here's what we're going to do and that That can be, you know, Mischkov is basically not allowed to leave Philadelphia this summer, right? You have to stay here. It could be, you know, like you just kind of make it clear to the coach. You're stifling a guy we use, what was he, the seventh overall pick or something like that, because you won't fucking play it. But, but I mean, it's been two years now and two coaches of this.

Like, this isn't being done against. Danny Breyer's will. Like, no, I totally get that. But I'm just saying, like, if you're Danny Breyer and you're like, fuck, man, like, I don't want to trade this player. Okay, well, you got to do something that communicates to the coach. What you're doing is not working. And you can say he's part of it, but like a coach's job is to find ways to make guys successful. And if, if Talket isn't willing to do that.

And the player, you know, isn't going to change, then you have to have a plan that's, that's not just, well, then we'll let Talk at Bencham every six games next year, too. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. Like, I'm not saying Mischkoff is blameless in any of this or anything like that. I'm just saying that what is happening is not working, clearly. And so what is the internal solution here? You have to fucking have one.

This can't be it. and it does feel like it kind of overshadows a lot of good stuff. Because the other thing with Philadelphia is like, do we trust Dan Blar now? Is he? Well, I mean, that is the thing, right? It's like all this stuff about they don't, they weren't expected to make the playoffs. It's like, yeah, you look at who their goalies were this year. Why would you expect that team to make the playoffs?

Ladar, Ersson, Kolesov. Erison and Kolosov horrible this year now Kolosov in like 4 or 5 games 4 it says here but like Vladar gave you 52 games of 906

goaltending which doesn't sound like unbelievable or anything but even even acknowledging that like league-wide safe percentages are down this matches a career high in save percentage and it's by far the

most games he's ever played. Right? At age 20, is he 29? He's 20, he'll be 29 in August. So how repeatable is this? I would argue probably not very. This is a, this is a perfectly okay career 1B slash backup goalie who went fucking psycho this year, punched way above his weight.

I don't think they can count on this next year. And if that's the case, what does this team do? Sam Montembow come on down. Like, is that, is it that simple? You've got to go out and get a goal you actually trust. Because Erzun just isn't the guy. Yeah. Full stop.

We know now. You can say, oh, well, the first couple of years, blah, blah, blah. No, I think we have pretty definitive evidence at this point. He's played 143 games in the NHL. He just isn't good. Oops. We tried. Oh, well.

So they got to fix the goaltending. I don't think Flaar's capital T, capital M, the man going forward. I certainly don't want to bet my season on it. No, no, no, no. And again, especially with like a young core. Because it's, you can, like, we can sit there and say that. But who did they go out and get? Because if they go and get someone who's clearly a level above,

well now you've just right Dan Vladar did everything you asked of him and you still you know didn't and you ruined his confidence and this and that you can very easily frame it whatever you can very easily frame it as we need someone better than Erson he stinks like and we believe in Dan Vladar but we need that extra insurance policy because we can't have 870 something backup goaltending we just can't do it we have real playoff pretensions now

you know and so you get Sam Montembow and you go okay they're platooning or whatever it is I just I say this all the time Sean people act like they never seen a PDO team before you know and uh it is kind of that simple for me I wanted to say this too about uh Mietchkov though you know who probably you know what he probably feels worst about is like uh this other this other high draft pick right winger who came into the franchise and everybody was like, is this guy the next Wayne Gretzky? Yeah. Porter Bartone feels like he fucking lapped Mitch Kov in about a week.

You know? I think it took that long? Right, yeah. And that is, man, if I'm a Flyers fan, I'm bummed out about all this stuff like that's, I'm like, oh, right. Porter Martone, full year next year. Yep. 70 goals, 75? It fucking feels like, man, I forgot it was this good for.

him in the regular season. Nine games after he left Michigan State, four goals, six assists. Is that good? Not bad. He averaged more minutes per game than Mitchcove did on the season. Whoops. Uh-oh. But yeah, it's, uh, there's a lot to like about this Flyers team.

I just don't think the goaltending is one of those things or anything even close. And then if. Let's say, you know, this is obviously going way in the future now, but let's say we get to April and like the goaltending was the problem and they didn't address it. Don't you kind of feel like you left something on the table? You sure do, yeah. Yeah. And then and we all go, oh, how could they not see this coming? That's what I'm saying.

It's a tricky, it's a tricky needle to thread, I think. I don't think it is. Yeah. Let's put it this way. if you are the general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers, you're Danny Breyer, and you're sitting there going, I love everything about this team, especially the fact that Dan Vlodar is now just a 906 goalie. You don't deserve to have that job.

I don't know how else to put it to you. You know what I mean? Like, your job is to kind of look at it impassively if you're the general manager of a hockey team. You can't let your talk yourself into the thing so many. well, you know, we just made a deep playoff run. We're going to let this 32-year-old third-line right-wing walk. No, we're going to give them $4 million? Like, you can't do that.

That's your job. So I think the obvious thing here is, oh, there's one thing on the shopping list this year. It's another goalie. And again, it's so easy to frame it as this is Erson replacement, not Dan Vlodar safety net. Yes. We love Danvlar. We kiss him beautifully. But with all that having been said, we got a suggestion in the mailbag this week that I think is a really good way of thinking about it.

This was from a listener named Tyg. And he said basically, like, what's the they'll be backometer on the flyers and all the other teams that have been eliminated from the playoffs? And like, you know, just one to ten. I think this is a really good exercise of the flyers. like I'd say like a seven, seven and a quarter maybe. So is this, is this, they'll be back in the playoffs next year? Yeah, that's right. Out of ten?

Yeah, out of ten. I'd say the Flyers are three. I think a lot of, a lot of us are going to pick them to miss the playoffs next year. I love it. I love the difference that we have. I have a lot of confidence that they will go out and get a goal. I'm a really, okay, yeah. So, I mean, that's part of it.

But I'm, yeah, given how the lead-up is. that conversation went. I'm surprised that we just, we kind of wound up at different ends. You're a big flyers, you're a big gritty guy. Well, here, and this is the other thing, though. They make you put eight teams per conference in the playoffs.

You don't get a choice to like, and there are a lot of teams where I look at it in the Eastern Conference to go, I don't know, man. You know what I mean? Like, there's just, okay, let's put it this way. Again, this is the only teams that have been eliminated so

far. But Boston, I have them absolutely lower than the Flyers. Because as much as I think Jeremy Swamen is an elite goaltender, they shot, they punched way above their weight in terms of shooting percentage. They had a bunch of guys that, like, is Morgan Geeky scoring 39 again next year? Is Pavel Zaka scoring 30? Is Victor Arvinson scoring 25? How many, how many wins are we shaving off their total, you know, just from we don't think this many guys can score this many goals.

I'd still, I'd have Boston, I'm going to go a four for Boston, so that, I put them ahead. Okay, more confident than fit. Yeah, and I get the argument thing. Yeah, like, they have an elite goalie. That's going to win you a lot of games, but this

is kind of the Sorokan thing for me of, they have an elite goalie, and they barely made the playoffs. If he's even a little more ordinary, if he's not a Vesna finalist next year, they have a huge fucking problem.

So, I'm going to go like a five and a half on the Bruins. Okay. Tampa Bay Lightning. I'm going to say a seven. I do think, I mean, they're a great team.

I think they're still they clearly I guess I shouldn't say clearly they've given no indication that they're looking to take a step back which you always wonder a little bit but I could see them having

the window slam shut season anytime now I could see it not happening for the next five years but I could see it happening in any of the next five years yeah I think that they're probably right around

a seven for me Um, the, the, the, the, like, they have enough horses that the regular season isn't a problem. Again, they have an elite goalie. They have one of the best, uh, skaters in the world. They have a ton of offensive depth. Like, they have roster problems and they're not getting any younger, but they have enough guys that they can kind of outrun those roster problems for another year or three. So I'm going to say right around a seven as well. Um, the Pittsburgh Penguins.

I'll just say for me, this is where you get, yeah, this is where you get around a three or four. Yeah. Hey, great season for them. That's really nice. Let's be serious, though. I mean, a lot of it kind of depends on, I do think there are teams out there and GMs out there,

especially with the Sydney Crosby situation, who'd say, okay, we weren't sold last year. We kind of said wait and see, prove it. you guys did everything we asked you did prove it you made the playoffs we're going to go and get some reinforcements and take another swing try to do this again while we have Sid here

I don't know if that's a Kyle Dubas move I kind of don't think they might get this might be one of the very rare cases where I could see a team being stuck in the middle and I can't blame them you know what I mean like how often do we say you know people

people know the stick here right like If you're not moving forward, you're, you better be going backwards. And if you're not a real contender, then start stripping assets to become one in the future. I would get it. If Pittsburgh went into next year kind of the same basic outlook, I would, I would, I will criticize them. But it'll be a little tougher than it would be for other teams. Yeah. Ottawa.

I would say six out of ten. I think they're, like I say, I think they were a better team than their record showed during the season, largely because of the goaltending. I think they are, and unlike some teams that had bad goaltending, I think there's a realistic hope that it could get better just on its own. as Linus Allmark hopefully gets his head back together and go into next year full health and ready to go. I don't put a ton of stock in how badly the playoffs went.

I'll look at the 80 game sample over the four game sample. And I think there's, I mean, we're obviously not putting a lot of the Eastern teams all that high. So there should be a path to the playoffs. But at the same time, Like, the ceiling on this team isn't outrageously high for me.

So the margin for error is not great. We saw that this year, right? I mean, the margin for error just wasn't, there wasn't enough to make up for when things didn't go well. So, yeah, put me for a six. Yeah, I think that's right. I was going to say like five and a half, five and three quarters. There are a lot of, obviously this is the way the like season. and shook out, right?

But there are a lot of spiritually, like, 94 point teams in this, in the Eastern Conference. Okay. Yeah. You know, like, just like teens are you're like, yeah, they're pretty good. Are they great? Absolutely not. Not even close.

You know, like you can say that about Boston. You can say that about Ottawa. I think you can say it about Detroit. Obviously, I think we all believe Florida is going to, you know, have a little bit of a resurgence next season. you know, Philly, Washington, Columbus, the devils, the islanders. Like, I just feel like there's a lot of teams where you're like,

yeah, them getting to 94 points is the most believable thing in the world. Maybe not Columbus. But everybody else, you're like, yeah, absolutely, you know. And if that's the case, like, just somebody's going to finish on that cut line and somebody's going to finish below it. so whatever um LA um

two yeah point of order can we do negatives on this one yeah yeah i mean with those I just don't see it with these guys and and look Copartar retiring gives you the perfect excuse to take a step back yep now the flip side of that is

doughty still there and yep you hired Ken Holland they will have a new coach I think it will be an upgrade so you know and look man we

we all kind of point it and laughed at their Cody CCC summer and they ended up making the playoffs again were they the worst playoff team of the cap era yeah they were but yeah in a lot of ways that's correct yep I

yeah two two out of ten all of that is my reason why I'm being respectful and saying a two instead of a one. Am I wrong that they still haven't officially named DJ Smith the new coach of the Kings? No, I would assume that they're going to shop around. He was interim. That's what I thought.

How long are we going to wait, guys? You guys got eliminated three months ago. That's a good point. I don't know. Well, apparently, and we'll talk about it, but apparently they're one of the teams that might be interested in Bruce Cassidy. They were mentioned in Frank. You know what? Fuck it. Let's talk about that now.

Let's talk about it. Because it's so weird. So Vegas apparently got a call from Edmonton. Hey, can we talk to Bruce Cassidy about coaching for us since you guys fired him? And they were like, you're in our division. We're going to say no to that one, which you almost never see. You can because even though they fired him, he's still under contract. This is the whole relieved of your duties instead of fired thing.

Mm-hmm. But it is, and this was Franks, Sarvelli had the, I guess the scoop this morning. I didn't see this anywhere else. Correct. That this was all going down. And it's interesting on a few levels. From the Vegas side, what a dick move.

Yep. Which fits that organization's entire personality, right? I mean, they're just, when it all costs, Kelly McCriman is not a guy that, you know, people want to hang out and have a beer with necessarily, but they're pretty ruthless. and this would fit into that and saying like, you know, we're going to let Edmonton twist in the wind here a little bit. Frank mentioned in his column this morning that he wouldn't be surprised if there's a phone call from Gary Bedman here. Wow.

Saying like, guys, come on. This is not, this is not what anyone does. And the example Frank uses is like when Pittsburgh decided to move on for Mike Sullivan, they didn't stop him from going to the Rangers. Mm-hmm. There's a rival. They're in your division, all that stuff. But you don't stop somebody from taking a job somewhere else.

Yeah. When they have no future there. Now, the other part of this that's very interesting is Chris Knoblock's sitting there. He hasn't been fired. That's exactly right. Yep. Not fired yet. And they haven't fired him.

But they're apparently at least, you know, they haven't broken up. Apparently, they're on Tinder trying to, trying to swipe on some, some upgrades. Get some lines in the water, yeah. Hey, look, you don't, you don't, you don't move for, what's the, what's the saying? You don't try to steal a base without taking, I don't remember what the saying is. But you know what I mean? Yep. They're, they're, yeah, I don't know.

They're, they're in an interesting position. Like, I assume, this is even, even more interesting from an Edmonton standpoint, is when they went out, there were a lot of people, remember, who said, like, yeah, obviously Chris Knoblock is on the hot seat. Yep. You read back to those comments from Connor McDavid at the end of the year after the Tampa game. It wasn't hard to see that maybe there was some questions brewing up there. There were a lot of people who thought Stan Bolbin was in trouble, or even Jeff Jackson,

who's won one up. if they're making calls on coaches, presumably they're staying? Like, I don't know. Nothing's been formally announced in Evanton. I haven't seen any sort of vote of confidence. Stan Bowman's the guy. But if he's assuming he's the one making the call.

Now, maybe that's the other. Maybe Stan Bowman's waking up to this news going on in Call Vegas. And then, uh-oh for him too. But don't you wonder who put this out there? Do you think Vegas put it out to? I think probably Bruce Cassidy did. I guess that makes, I guess that makes sense. Like that, I mean, that's, or Edmonton.

I guess Edmonton would make sense too. But no, but why would you, if you're Edmonton, you're going to then fire Chris Noblock, like, do it now. I obviously agree with you. But so here's the thing with hiring Bruce Cassidy, though. They're going to sit down with Connor McDavid. They're going to be like, okay. So Bruce Cassidy, this guy coached you when you were like 12, 3.3. 13 years old.

No, no, he was the coach of the Bruins then. Okay, well, clearly he would have coached you when you were like nine or 10. No, no, no, no. He's actually never coached me. And they're like, oh, we can't hire this guy. So, like, not since you were seven? Can't hire this guy. It's tough.

I just, to me, the whole Bruce Cassidy thing was always like, he makes your goaltenders amazing. So this is real David Copperfield. Let's test the outer limits. Yeah. Let's test the outer limits. the outer limits of his ability to do that. Can you make this look good?

And he's like, oh, I don't know. He's like, you know what, boys? I'll let you give me $4 million to find out, though. You know? Yeah. With that having been said, let's do the Edmonton. Will they be back ometer? Ten.

Of course they're going to be better. Yeah, I think that's right. Like, if they got the goaltending they got this year and made the playoffs, they're fine. Dallas, here's another 10 for you. You know? Yeah, Dallas is 10 plus. There's nothing to discuss. Now, here's an interesting one, Utah.

I feel pretty good about Utah. I've just been, like, I feel like I've spent the last few years being a step behind on Utah to everyone in terms of the enthusiasm. But I still think they're their playoff team. I put them, what did I say for the Senators six? Give me 6.5 on Utah. I think six sounds about right. I think there aren't a lot of spiritually 94 point teams in the West like there are in the east. Unless you say, like San Jose takes that next step and Winnipeg does, like goes back to not obviously a president's trophy team, but like a 9800 point team because they have.

of one of the best goalies in the world. You know? That puts the mammoth in a tough spot, I think. But other than that, yeah, I just don't see a lot of teams being super competitive with them. That being said, I also think they may be overperformed a smidge this year. Again, they made the playoffs as a 92-point team. It's not like they were unbelievable or anything. So, yeah, I'll go, I'll go like a five and three quarters or a six.

Okay. Hey, speaking of San Jose, they didn't win the draft lottery, but they came in second because the Leafs won the draft lottery. And all these people who were saying, the guy from Wendy's, he actually sucks. Well, who's fucking laughing now? Exactly. You know? Who's a winner now? All right.

Let's do, I mean, it was a week ago, but let's first talk San Jose. Because I got, I got yelled at by some people because on the. The Wednesday podcast, we were reacting to the Leafs winning and we didn't talk enough about San Jose. You had other things on your mind than San Jose sharks? Crazily. I don't know. That's wild. People seem to be surprised that a Leaf fan and a former Leafs player talked more about the Leafs than San Jose.

It's crazy. But yeah, my reaction to San Jose picking second is yikes. because damn they are stocked. They are really sad. And not only that, but like Chicago, now given how this played out, Chicago might get Stembourg. So to play on Bedard's wing,

because there's a lot of talk that San Jose will take a defenseman, that Vancouver might be settling in on Malhotra, the center. this is all, of course, assuming the Leafsteak McKenna. So both Chicago and, like, those kind of two teams that have been just stockpiling for five years might both come out of this with, again, elite prospects once again. Yeah. That would be a good name for a website.

I agree. Yeah, it's really interesting because I also think, look, nobody trades, uh, high picks anymore. It just doesn't happen, right? But it creates a situation where it is the most likely to happen that it's been in quite a while, you know? Like you say, what does Chicago need another fourth overall pick for? What does San Jose need another second overall pick for? I think in San Jose's case, they do, I mean, most people,

would look at that and go stalked up front, got their goalie for the future, could use some on the blue. Now, do you trade down? Do you, like, that's the thing. Like, the, I know you're not an NFL guy, but there's a lot of that in the NFL draft where teams move up and down. And sometimes it's just picks. There's no players involved.

And, like, I don't understand why you don't see it. I understand why you don't see it as much because of the nature of the draft and positionally, it's not, it's not the same. same, but you would think a lot of the same logic would apply. And yet, you're right. Like, teams just hold on to these things once they get them. I think, I think every team should be open to it. I think the Leaf should be open to it.

Every team should be open to trading everybody at all times. That, that's my, like, you, again, I say this, the, the example is, oh, you want Connor McDavid? I'm listening. What are you got? And, like, 99.99, 99.99% of the times are going to go, you got to be fucking, come on, be serious, you know? But like, if the Leafs called it offered me, for example, if I'm, if I'm Sam Bowman and the Leafs called and offered me like Austin Matthews, the first overall pick, obviously they don't have the future first.

But like the Leafs could in theory make an offer to me for Connor McDavid that I'd go, yeah, okay. Yeah. You know? Again, in theory, in actual practice, probably not. But let's find out. theory about everything. But San Jose, because of the strength of their season and how kind of like arriving early Maglens Sellebrini as he's the captain of Canada at the world championships.

And, you know, you can say the world championships, that's kind of who gives a shit. But like the fact that he's captaining that team kind of tells you what everybody in leadership at hockey Canada sees him as. And so, like, if he's getting here, like, he's way more precocious than anybody thought as, like, a second year player. And, you know, he's up for the Lindsay this year. We'll talk about that in a minute. Then I can see the argument that drafting a guy that's going to be playing maybe college hockey next year doesn't really help you. and do you go out and get an elite young,

I don't know who that defenseman would be that you go get because I don't know that there are a ton of guy, like Jake Sanderson for the first overall pick, would you do that if you're Ottawa? Or the second, I mean. I don't think I would, but that's, you know, that's the kind of player you would be, and that's the kind of player you would be targeting your San Jose,

like a young, really good proven NHL defenseman who fits into your core age group to a certain extent, but also, you know, again, has proven it at the NHL level. That's what I'd be thinking about if I was San Jose, but I think also they're just going to take the player, or, you know, whatever, best player available. Yeah. Because you can also just trade a guy later for a defenseman if you want to.

You have a lot of 21-year-olds who look good now, you know? Yeah. And then the question is, is which defenseman do they like? Could they move down? Could somebody, like, it's tough to move to it because you're not going to be able to move down to three, I don't think, because Vancouver knows you're going to take a defenseman.

Vancouver wants it forward. Right. Chicago's, again, like, they've got a chance to get a guy who most people had number two on the draft board at four. They're not going to be looking to move up. Does New York or Calgary? Calgary should do it. They probably should.

And then, you know, if I'm, if I'm my career, do I feel like that's enough? You know, what risk am I taking? Am I happy with the second best defenseman if the guy that I want gets snide? And these are all conversations. Yeah, and who do you want from Calgary or New York that, like, is making a difference for you this year as like a youngish defenseman? I don't think, I think you probably don't get anyone, but you get. You know, you get an extra pick or a pick next year or something, and you just kind of keep stockpiling that ammo that you can use.

Yeah, I'm looking. There's nobody on the Calgary roster that I'm like, oh, yeah, I'll take that guy for sure. Yeah. Is there anybody on the Rangers that I'm feeling like is helping me this year? You know what? Can I say this? Are you going to say Adam Fox? I am going to say Adam Fox.

I love it. How fucking beast would that be? if they drop down four spots and get Adam Fox. I mean, you'd need more if you're the Rangers. I don't think your Fox for the second overall doesn't quite work. Fox for two and five or six. The Rangers five or six. I think they're five.

Am I right about this? If that doesn't. But there could be the start of something there. Oh, that would be so. There could be something there. Oh, I would love it. All right, let's do Toronto now. Yeah, I mean, just good news after an absolute debacle of a week and a weekend and an offseason.

Very funny outcome. I think they're most likely just, it really did feel like even the first 48 hours there was like, oh, what are they going to do? Trade, you know, are their guys different eyes? And then it just kind of settled in on McKenna right away. Yeah. I think unless there's like some extraordinary circumstance, you just keep the first overall pick. Why would you ever fucking trade it in the way the NHL works now? I mean, the answer is, is this year where number one is truly like an elite difference maker guy?

And I don't think so, no. So, you know, I mean, put it this way. Keith Belly loves his analytics. The analytics almost always says to trade down. I just don't see it. I think... I don't... Let me put it this way.

As soon as you start putting in the meta-factors of, you know, Cheka and his job and how he's perceived and everything, it just doesn't. Just... This is a bit of a tap-in. I think you just take the easy... You just take the easy tap-in and you don't think, overthink it, even if you should be open to some different scenarios.

Well, again, you should obviously always be open to it. But I think just realistically, like, who's going to give you anything that you're not going to get in insane amounts of trouble for this is the decision you made? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, if you can trade it for Connor McDavid straight up. Okay, sure. But what if the Rangers call up and say Adam Fox for the first overall pick and let's fill in on either side? I don't know. There's, if I'm John Jake.

I'm going, hey, everyone in this league thinks I'm so dumb. All right. Let's get the phone ringing. I'll take advantage of the dummy and see what I can do. Well, to your point, though, about, like, I just think there's such a possibility for Chaka in particular to be like, again, the knives are fucking out for this guy. Yes. In Toronto, right? And so the idea that you would trade that pick and Adam Fox has another mediocre season, or not,

mediocre by his standard, not like he's still an elite defenseman. And the lease aren't any better. You're not going to fucking win the lottery again. And then every time Gavin McKenna scores a goal. That's exactly right. Three networks up here break into programming to show it. And then at the end of the year, he go, oh, he had 13 goals and 34 points. And again, doesn't matter.

Yeah. What did I say, Sean, when you texted me immediately, after the... I was all excited and happy and you were like he should go back to college. He should go back to college. Or now that the AAHL allows it, he should play in the AAHL.

This is why I don't... This is why I don't text Ryan when I'm happy. Because I, frankly, I think the Leafs could use another high pick if we're going to say it's trending that way. I think the Leafs maybe don't have the infrastructure in their roster to really

because look, again, we've said this a lot on this show. Like McKenna didn't have like an unbelievable first season in college relative to other guys who have gone really hot. You know, Jack Eichel, Macklin Celebrini, Adam Fantilly. Like those guys had

Hobie Baker style seasons, and McKenna was a step below that, and he doesn't play what you'd call like the premium position of center or anything like that. Going back to college, you know what went back to college was Kale McCar. Did that hurt him at all? Mm-hmm. But has it not been, I won't say decided, but I was under the impression that everyone around McKenna had already said he's not going back. I agree that that is what's going to happen.

Okay. If I'm the Leafs, I'm like, didn't you really like homework and stuff like that? Were you saying earlier that you actually love, like, having a backpack on? You know what he might have loved is not playing for Craig Barubei, which... Yeah, that's a great point. You like Guy Godowski, right? Do you like Craig Barubi, too? And he's like, oh, maybe I don't.

But all I'm saying is... You're going to have to play under Craig Barrowy. for the first of 20, 25 games of your pro career. Wow, being really generous to Craig Barubi there. That's nice of you. But yeah, to me, if I'm the Leafs, I'm just kind of going. It'd be really cool, I think, if you went back to college. Don't you agree?

College is nice. The last thing I'll say on this is, can we admit that it is pretty funny that a guy who allegedly punched out a fan for being lippie? is now going to Toronto. That's pretty good. We're joining the... Mitch Martyr's already on the fucking horn. Get out of there.

The other group chat we were talking about like his first bad game, he's going to be walking down King Street, like the corridor scene from Old Boy. Absolutely taking you a left and right. That'd be good. That might be good for the fan base. Thin the herd a little bit.

Oh, that's good. Hey, speaking of, teams that are picking high. You mentioned the Vancouver Canucks are maybe circling Caleb Malholtra. I believe, B.U. next year. Now, there's a guy going to college next season. It's a pretty interesting path for somebody

else to take, maybe. But the Canucks are getting closer to hiring a GM. It may happen today, for all we know. One thing we know for sure is it's not going to be Pierre Dorian after all. Holy smokes, did that? Because

everybody found out about it and was like, No, don't do it. They were like, okay, hint taken. That trial balloon got gunned down like I've never seen before. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know how the periodic table works. What's like a really heavy element? Like forget lead balloon. Yeah.

What's one that, like they dropped it off the side of a building and it went into the core of the earth? Yeah. That's got to be rough for old Pierre, right? I wouldn't feel great about it if I were him. I don't think I'd feel ideal. But yeah, we don't know who it's going to be, but we do. Did they form? Hold on.

Hold on. Yeah. That's a rumor right now. We have breaking news. Oh, no. This is unbelievable. Charlie Coil signs a six-year extension with Columbus, $6 million a year. I'm just going to Google how old Charlie.

Coil is really quickly. I hope this six-year deal works out okay. What the fuck are they doing over there? They're paying the Columbus tax. And Charlie Coil was probably... 34 years old. Charlie Coil probably went in and just held up a printout of this year's free agency class and was like, I'm going to offer you guys a huge discount because I would

definitely get $8 million a year from some team. I saw him referred to as the best center available in UFA under the age of 39, which I assume is the Evgeny Malkin. That's correct. That is the age of Gennie Malkin right now. And so the fucking blue jackets go, we'll see your 39 who will raise you one. And that's when this guy will be hitting UFA again. This is, look, $6 million isn't a lot of money anymore. if you want to put it that way.

But in my opinion, people shit on me for having the like, don't sign a guy over 30 thing. Can anybody shit on don't sign a guy over 34 for a six year deal? Is that literally, is there anybody out there defending this deal?

Name one person outside the Columbus front office. I don't know if you're going to be able to do it. I bet they're out there. But, yeah, it's, I'm just going to scroll the replies to the Chris Johnston tweet that I Ryan, I think something you might be missing here, though, is the cap going up. Does that change? That makes Charlie Cole younger, right?

The cap goes up 10% a year. For a guy who had a career year at 34, by accident, he shot 13.5%. No, I'm sorry. Hell yeah. He shot almost 14%. I gotta be honest, you can hear the disappointment in my voice because I did see that earlier and I wanted to break it to you live. And, but I feel like this. Holy fuck man.

Why would they do that? What? Six years. He's 34 years old. Like, look, I get, if it's three. I almost get if it's three years. I don't really, but I almost do. They said, take that three years, let's double it.

Why not? What? And I think he's a pretty good player. Pretty good. But this is crazy. I'm blown away by this. This is something, speaking of the, I'll bring it back to the Vancouver Canucks.

This is something Jim Benning would have done. It is probably did as a matter of fact. Yeah. Need to do, man. It's hard to get players in Columbus. It can't be that hard. Charlie Coil is a player I like. The number of players I like who I would sign to six years at the age of 34 is like maybe five guys.

Ever? Like, Ovechkin, Crosby, these are the guys where I'd be like, I have a pretty good feeling. that they're going to live up to this deal to a certain extent, to one extent or another. Six million is a little rich for Charlie Coil on a three-year deal. On six, I just, what are we doing here? The Vancouver Canucks, though. They're not hiring Pierre Dorian.

It seems as though their options have whittled down to Ryan Johnson, who's like their in-house AGM guy. Yeah. Evan Gold, who's Boston's AGM, who would allegedly bring Boston's head of analytics with him is what they're saying which I don't know

why Boston would let them do that but okay sure you want to talk about blocking hires and everything and then yesterday they were like oh yeah maybe Shane Done too

huh what? Maybe Shane Done and the Siddines in some undetermined role which you know got it

imagine cheering for a team that just like throws your popular Swedish former captain in front of the yeah but Sean imagine if there was a guy who looked exactly like Matt Sundeen who was also there

and his name was like Pear Sundeen all right hold on might be on to something um I'll say this about the whole like gold versus Johnson thing hard for me to have an opinion it's all a fucking black box what AGM's do or

Oh, he was actually in charge of negotiations and talent development, and this guy was in charge. Okay, yeah, uh-huh, sure. It all seems fake to me, and I'll give you a great example of why. No, it was the AGM of the Boston Rooms before he got a job in Vancouver. Jim Benning. Oh, this guy, he's the big development guy, blah, blah, blah. How to go with Jim Benning in Vancouver? Good.

Do we have video of Evan Gould talking about the Bruins way? Yeah. Is that video available on YouTube that we could maybe watch? But can we win with Elias Pedersen? Yeah, exactly. This is maybe not a good example, but, you know. Yeah, I guess I don't really have a big take here. It'd be funny to see them hire someone who's not their in-house AGM.

Well, I mean, it's interesting, right? Because everybody seems to like the guy. Yeah. And there seems to be, and I think you could make the case that if you don't hire him, he should be let go to pursue other things if they're out there. And in fact, maybe even the guy who comes in wouldn't want him there. Because now he's a threat, right? The backup plan is sitting there.

but at the same time, like a little bit of a tough sell to have a 60 point season and then be like, we're going to promote from within. We got to keep the band together. Totally. Yeah, it seems like they're swapping out

that entire regime, doesn't it? So why? Yeah, it's just, it's a challenge to sell it, I think. Yeah. And that means that a guy they like will presumably, exit the organization. I don't know how you like get up for that promotion and then they go,

yeah, you're not getting it. And you go, okay, I'll see you Monday. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's really not how it usually works. And there are other, um, there are other teams that are looking for GM still, right? So maybe, maybe there's something there, although, I don't know, Nashville seems like it's really settled on Tom Fitzgerald. And I don't know what the, what the weight is here. But anyway, um, another contract is. extension that got signed this week. I think Carolina just got bored. And they were like, oh, let's just give Mark Jankowski another two years.

Why not? It doesn't caught. Yeah. Look, idle hands are the devil's playground or whatever that saying is, you know? And, yeah, I don't, I don't mind this one. This is fine. He's a fine player for them. Depth guy.

Cost him less than two million bucks. No problems for me. You know, we haven't talked about awards finalists that, that have been kind of slowly rolled out the last little while. So I figured once we missed like the first couple, I was like, let's just do it all in one big fell swoop. And now's our chance because they've announced everybody.

And we'll start with the heart. McKinnon Kuturov McDavid. Yeah, a lot of people are mad. Three forwards, three high scores again. No celebrini is where the debate comes in. I, okay. Playoffs, not playoffs, all that stuff. I'm going to say this.

I don't think that's where the debate should be. Okay. I think the debate is, let's put it this way. What do you hear now that every vote gets like published? Is I sat down, I slaved over this, I agonized, I couldn't believe it. It was so tough to make a choice. This year, it is 100% indiscernible from, I went to NHL.com slash stats, sorted by points.

Which is the problem for me. It's three forwards that you've landed on, these are the three best players in the league because they had the most points and their teams made the playoffs, right? Yeah. I think it is discounting Quinn Hughes, for example. I think you could make a pretty good argument that a goalie should have at least been in the mix, but nobody has. the...

This wasn't a goal a year. Yeah. And here's the thing. Like, I hear what you're saying. And I've talked, I've mentioned it. We're now 25 plus years since a defenseman was even a finalist for the Hart Troop. Yeah. Makes no sense.

Did anybody really think they were going to wake up on Hart finalist day and Quinn Hughes was going to be one of the names? I didn't think that because I have a low opinion of voters, but like he should, it's undeniable to me that. Would your top three have been then? I would have had probably McDavid-Selabrini Hughes, maybe not in that order. Like, I'd really have to think about it, but it wouldn't have been all these, all three of these guys, that's for sure. Okay. My top five, maybe all three are all five of those guys that I just mentioned are in there. Maybe.

Yeah, and that's part of it, right? Like, it's this whole, the part that I like a word debate. the part I hate is when the finalists come out and people are like, well, this guy should have been on them. Well, okay, who do you take off? Well, I don't know, but this guy should have been there. Like, the thing about a top three is you've only get three. Yeah. No, you know, and you know who I'm forgetting who, again, his team didn't make the playoffs.

So he just never had a fucking chance to get in. But Sider absolutely should have been in my top five. Sider could have been there. I mean, Werensky, you could argue, is more valuable as far as being the the best player on his team than any of these those guys though they didn't have a charlie coil support i mean that's why you give the guy six years yeah um so yeah i again it just it just really it bugs me when voters act like oh this is the hardest decision i've ever made this was a real sophie's choice for me blah blah blah and then it's like i sorted by points so you know like okay man

Let's mix in a defenseman. That's all I'm fucking saying. We should. I don't know if this was the year for it, though. And same with God. Like, if I had a ballot, I think this would have been a forward heavy year for me. I can't, I can't hate any of these three. Like, I don't think any of these three are.

No, it's not egregious or anything. But again, the answer for me is Quinn Hughes. Let's put it this way. If he'd gotten traded in the summer and not. like, whatever, 25 games into the season or whatever it was, I think he has the kind of season in Minnesota that is impossible for voters to ignore. Yeah, probably.

Obviously, that's not what happened. I just think he was fucking unbelievable this year. So there you go. Let's put it this way. I just pulled up on evolving hockey, and this is, the stats not everything, blah, blah, blah, okay. But by goals above, replacement, you know, his season just in Minnesota before he got to, like, this doesn't count

anything he did in Vancouver is the fifth most valuable season in the league. Wow. For skaters. And that's not kind of, that's, that's, that's, that's in 48 games. That's ahead of like, Werenstki, McKinnon is behind him. And that, and that's just Minnesota Quinn Hughes. It's not counting Vancouver. So the Lindsay Celebrini Kutrov McDavid, again, let's mix in a defenseman, but whatever, sure, we all agree.

So Celebrini swapping in for McKinn in there. And I think that's absolutely the right call. Yeah. So there you go. The Norris, I thought, was really interesting. Another one where everybody's like, I wanted to vote for 14 guys. Everybody's so good. Dahlene McCar Werenski, the three guys that you probably could have guessed in, like.

February. Quinn Hughes, again, the best defense went in the league, not on the fucking list. I just don't understand. Again, I think all all three of those guys would have been in my top five. And I'm sure that when voting comes out, that will, like,

cider and Hughes will also be in the top five, and I'll go, well, they have the five right. I just don't agree with the order. Mm-hmm. Is that kind of where you're at? I mean, again, I don't, yeah, Hughes is tough because the mid-season trade, you're making a strong case for him. I think the rest of them, yeah, this is, no surprises.

And again, nobody that I'm furious about either left off or on the list. Yeah, again, if Detroit makes the playoff, siders on there, Werenski's not. But other than that, we're all in agreement here. I think, again, I think the five is going to be pretty, not uniform, obviously. Like, people will make the case for Hudson, and I think they'll be kind of, kind of, he'd probably be my six, maybe. But, yeah, to me, there's just a pretty clear. Oh, Evan Bouchard is another guy.

I guess I'm forgetting. But other than that, like, you know, hey, that's fine. The Vezna, Sorokin, Swamen, and Vasilewski. Yep. Tough for, tough for old, uh, hoggy-loggy down there in Washington. But, yeah, this is, this is a perfectly good three. Mm-hmm. The Calder, it says they only put one guy as a finalist.

Oh, they just listed them three times. Interesting. Yeah, it's nice, an honor for Demadov and Seneca to be nominated. It is an honor just to be nominated. That's right. The Selke, Sorrelli, Brock Nelson, Nick Suzuki, Nick Suzuki, congratulations on winning the Selke. And deservedly so.

I think he was awesome this year. So I got nothing bad to say about that. but you just know that like seven, eight, nine voters were just like instinctively wrote Barkov at the top of their list and we're like, okay, see you later. Probably a couple. And finally, the Jack Adams, John Cooper, Dan Mews, and Lindy Ruff. Is this the year? Is this the year? I still think it maybe is not the year for Cooper and that maybe, but.

So many other strong candidates emerged. But I wonder if all of those types of candidates split the vote enough to get Cooper in. It's tough. Rough or Mews? I think if anybody who, I think the winner is going to be Lindy Ruff personally. Got the Buffalo Sabres into the playoffs. Yeah, but Dan Mews, like he got the... I get it.

Damn, most years, he would be such a slam dunk. This is another year where, you're... much like the defenseman, when they show me the five of like who are the top five on every ballot or whatever, there's going to be guys left off that five where I'm like, he had Jack Adams level season in a lot of ways, you know? So I, this is another one where I can't really be mad at anybody who wins.

Because it's not the, it's not the award for best. coach now and in the future, right? Like it's... Yes. Yeah, okay. You want to say your team punch. You want to say a team punch above their weight?

Yeah. I'm going to agree with you. But like Rick Tocke got the flyers into the playoffs, right? You know what I mean? Like there's just, Martin San Luis, can you say that guy didn't fucking do an unbelievable job? I said, I think in one of the previous shows, I think San Luis would have my vote if I was... Yeah. Totally.

and like, again, you can just kind of go down the list. There's a lot of coaches who had really good seasons this year. But. Or there's a lot of, or there are a lot of teams that we were all wrong about and we're attributing that to coaches. Sure. But we're also smart.

So, I mean. Well, anyway, the guy, the guy who got the Buffalo Sabres into the playoffs feels like the lock for me. I'm sorry. The PWHL, they just announced last night that game five between Minnesota and Montreal, a decisive game five, right? Yeah, we're going to take all. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah.

That game is postponed because too many players on one of the teams was sick. Yeah. Because of illness, they did not announce, at least as of this morning, what the illness was. although they said it's not the the Hanta virus. Yeah, that's the kind of thing they say, though, you know? Yeah, of course. There were reports not from the league,

but there were reports that it was multiple players on Montreal, and they've rescheduled the game to tonight, which is good news in the sense that, you know, pushing it back one night would suggest that the situation was not as, as, as critical as it as it could have been. The downside is that means you've now got both the Montreal teams going head to head tonight, which is a bit of a tough one.

Yeah. But find out Minnesota is going for their third straight title. Montreal trying to knock them off. Ottawa waiting in the final, so it would be a rematch of last year if it's Ottawa, Minnesota. We'll see. We will see. I'll tell you, man. I looked in to get some tickets for the charge.

And not easy to do. They're playing in the senators arena, so in the big rink. And they haven't put everything on sale yet, but what they do have is going quick. So good for the league. I think that's awesome, yeah. there was talk that if Boston had made it to

the final that they would have that they would have played at TD Garden as well at least for some of their games. So that would have been cool but that's the way she goes. It's the simple. The fix was in. Boston never had a chance.

All the forces of evil arrayed against them, the only moral team in the PWHO. So anyway. I think that It's been nice to see Boston sports get a break. I'm always saying this vis-a-vis only the Boston Celtics and the fleet. All right.

Why don't we, won't we hit the plugs and get out of here? Find me at the Athletic. Subscribe to the Red Light Newsletter. Listen to me at the Athletic Hockey Show with other Sean and Frankie. And I'll have more posts coming up later in the week. Yep. along similar lines, I have one post that might go up this week and one that published while we were recording, which is just my notebook on some of the stuff we talked about on here because that's all there really is to talk about at this time of year. But just like, you know, like I said, digging into the dominance of the Stankovin line, very few lines in the history of the advanced stats era have been as good as them.

and if you're going just by goals, none have. They're running at like 90% or whatever. So, yeah, I just talked about that, talked about dobbish, talked about undrafted players, that kind of thing, check it out. And then head over to patreon.com slash fuck soup where we're going to have a bunch of bonus episodes for you this week,

including the mailbag that we're going to go record right now. So thank you for listening. And we'll talk to you next week. Bye bye. Bye-bye.