Puck Soup - Against The Ropes

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final, new hirings, the three-way trade, and more.   Sponsored by Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck) and Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK)

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I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McAndu from The Athletic. And it's two nothing in the Stanley Cup final. Yeah, it's, I thought this was going to be a fantastic matchup. It still could be. Could be a long way to go. But so far, man, golden nights are just putting the boots to him a little bit. A little bit might even be kind of nice to the Panthers here.

might be, yeah. Well, it isn't, it isn't, right? Because the score, they're bad. Like, by the scoreboard, it's like, these are all blowouts. Like, Vegas is just coming in and ripping their head off every night. And then, like, you actually watch the game and it's like, oh, you know, one line is kind of doing a lot of damage. The Marsha So line is kind of doing a lot of damage.

Or Sergei Barbar. Vrovsky can't stop the puck all of a sudden and what's going on with that. So I think the games are closer than the scores have suggested and certainly the aggregate score is like shocking, I think would be the term. And you never want to be down to nothing in a series, obviously. But is this really, you know, a situation where you know, you. you feel like Vegas should have scored 75% of the goals in the series so far? I can't imagine, right? But some of that is that the game is just getting away from the Panthers to the extent that they're just sitting.

Like that's not what you want to, I mean, you never want to be behind in a game, obviously. But the Golden Knights are just sort of one of those teams where sometimes they're not great at, creating their own offense, but if you open the door for them a little bit, they just roll all over you. And I think especially game two, once they got that early second period goal and went up three, it was kind of like, uh-oh, here we go. So, yeah, for sure. What, where are you, like, what odds would you give the Panthers to make a series out of this?

Let's forget about whether they win or not. Well, you know me. I kind of feel like if you only, if you don't, if you even get at the six games, like who gives a shit, that's not that impressive. But, you know, the thing is that most teams, I would say, oh, you're playing two games at home. Yeah, you'll probably go like one and one, you know.

And so the idea that this game, series could go back to Vegas two, two. I wouldn't be surprised at all, but if the Panthers let it get to to 3-1 or 3-0, it's like, you know, shut out the lights. Like, it just doesn't because, and to your point earlier,

this is, this is kind of what I'm thinking here is Vegas doesn't make a lot of mistakes. And, you know, what were we saying in the first two rounds? Like, every time a Panthers opponent it makes a mistake, it's in the back of the net, right? Like, what was the stat? They had like nine or ten goals within five seconds of a turnover. Okay, I had seen that, but.

Yeah, and I think that was in the first two rounds or maybe even just against the Bruins, I don't quite remember. But, like, that was just how much they were playing their advantages when they got them. Um, and frankly, how much a team like the Panthers needed to be opportunistic or what you want to say against a, a better on paper team in the Bruins, right? Like, if, if they needed six, seven, eight goals within five seconds of a turnover to get to overtime of game seven, you know, it kind of, again, everything just went the Panthers way in the first three rounds. I think they were like after the first round, I think they went like eight and one on the road or something like that. Like everything went their way.

And so it would not be a surprise at all if everything started going their way again. But these first two games, almost nothing's gone their way. And I hate to say words like composure or whatever, you know, discipline. But like when these games get out of hand, they go, oh, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take a bunch of dumb shit penalties. Right. Which, I mean, in fairness to the Panthers,

that's how they played all year and all playoffs. And in two of the first three rounds, they took a fair number of penalties. There was one round where mysteriously they didn't take any, but we didn't get into that. That's interesting. But, yeah, I mean, they're sort of playing their style.

I mean, it's, it's, they're losing. So you look at it and you go, well, it's, it's, it's, it's the lack of composure. But if they weren't doing that and they were losing, we'd say they're not playing Florida Panthers hockey. Sure. So I, I don't know. I do have to say, can we stop, can we stop acting like the refs giving misconducts to everybody is the same as like a, a.

legitimately nasty, ugly game. Like, I've seen stuff where people are like, man, Matthew Kuchuk is going to break the penalty minutes record. Yeah, because they keep giving him misconducts for nothing just to get them off the ice. That's, and I know this is the sort of, all the same people who complain about game management when it's like keeping the penalties even.

Love game management when it's, I'm going to just give Matthew Kuchuk at misconduct for no reason at the end of the second period because the game's for nothing. And I figure it's probably over. And he just hit Jack Eichel. So I'm going to get him out of the game as long as I can. So there's not a fight or who knows what else. Like the guy's got three misconducts in two games. In two games.

Yeah. And I mean, geez, that game too, everybody was getting. I mean, people are like, wow, look at the Panthers bench. They barely got anyone left, like, as if this was some 1970s brawl. Like, nobody did anything in that game other than the refs just decided we're getting everybody out here because game management, and people seem to love that. They seem to like that's great. I'd be a little ticked off if I was a Panthers fan and, you know, I was watching early,

you know, after they score that goal early in the third period, it's 4-1. You got a whole period. Oh, but our best player is. out for half the period because dot, dot, dot, reasons. Yeah. I think, I think what I would say is, you're right that like this is kind of Panthers hockey a little bit

where they're trying to be in your face and, you know, they're, they're pushing and shoving after every whistle, that kind of thing. That's fine. I don't mind that, really. But the, the,

The problem is that they're not, Vegas isn't taking the bait, right? Like, Vegas is like, oh, you want to push us and shove us after every whistle and, you know, pie face us and all that kind of stuff. Go nuts.

We'll take, you know, understanding, oh, they're going to take the, the penalties that come with that. The Vegas is like, have at it,

you know? And while I don't, I don't disagree with you that, like, I think it was 12. 10 minute penalties given out in the last game. Like, that's ridiculous. Yeah.

Barring, you know, a full on line brawl, right? I think that's crazy. But with that having been said, like, if you want to say this is the standard, like, I think that's a relatively reasonable, like, take on the situation. But it's not, right? Like, this is the standard when it's game two. and it's six to two.

Well, game one ended the same way, though. And game one, too. But the point is, it's not going to be the standard in game five when it's two to one. When it's game five and it's two to one, you'll be able to get, you'll be able to mug anyone you want. Well, this is, this is, you know, we always talk about players sending a message when the score gets out of control. This is the officials do it too, right? And this is the officials patting the penalty minutes stats to keep in. anything from blowing up and, you know, that's fine.

That's clearly how the NHL wants this stuff officiated. But if I see one more quote of, like, penalty minute totals, I don't know. Misconduct shouldn't count in your penalty minute totals. I guess that's my take. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Again, like Matthew Kachuk has three major or three misconduct penalties in two games. But he also has, and this is, I think, the kind of the interesting.

the resting part here is they're calling a lot of penalties anyway, right? Like, he has, I think, three minors in the two games. And part of that's from him just kind of being a shithead or whatever, like the Matthew Kachukh promise in a lot of ways. I don't say shithead is like a bad thing. Yeah. That's just how he plays. I think it rocks, honestly.

But like, there's just a lot of, like, even leaving aside all the 10 minutes, there's been a lot of minor penalties in this, in this. series and some of them are offsetting obviously. But like I think I think they're just calling it tight. And I don't, I don't love that. I don't love all the special teams as we've talked about in the past. Like I think that's too much. But with that having been said, how are you going to do?

You know, I think the penalties aren't the reason the scores are getting out of control. No. No, if anything, I would say. the other way around. But some of them have been early in the games as well, absolutely. Yeah. So just on the topic, sorry, you mentioned Vegas not taking the bait. Did you see the clip that was going around of Jonathan, Marsha So?

I can't remember who the Vegas player was, but he was, somebody was miced up. So you see the Vegas guy go over and he like kind of shoves him and Marsha's goes, you're not worth it. But then he goes, you're not worth it, little man. And somebody was like, how distressing must it be to be called Little Man by Jonathan Marshesau? Yeah. That's got to be an all-time. That's got to send you back to the bench with some real questions.

That's, I found that very, very amusing. Yeah, that's a tough one for sure. I did not see that clip. That's funny. I love when they do, because whenever they do mic'd up, it's just like, oh, here he is sitting on the bench for a goal and he goes, yeah, you know, okay, great. Here he is going, let's go. Come on, boys.

Yeah. But, man, when you get a good one like that, it's like, that's the stuff they should be sharing. Like, I don't care that Alex Petrangelo was on the bench for a goal and he was very excited about it. Like, who gives it? The best ones, honestly, are like when they're playing and it's just the guy doing like heavy breathing. Yeah, that's right. It's like, what value is? ad is that. Let's go now to

to Jack Eichel. Here he is falling down and you just hear like the sound of someone dropping a mic basically. So bad. It's like awesome. So much better at football. I saw clip the other day of an NFL player miced up and he like at first you see him go over to one of his teammates and he's like hey just see him I'm miced up so you know which I guess is etiquette for that sort of thing. Yeah sure. But then like the teammate cut like later in the game the teammate comes out to him. He's like, hey man, did that, did that rash clear up that you were asking me about?

The guy's like, what? He's like, remember you were saying you had that rash? And then he starts laughing. The other guy realized what was happening. But that's what we need more of. Yeah. Well, again, I just like when it's the trash talk. We do love some trash talk. Speaking of Matthew Kachuk, what thoughts on the hit on Jack Eichael? look you know me i don't i don't want open ice hitting in the in the sport at all right like i think it you know that could have had a way worse consequence than like it seemed like ikel just got the air knocked out at the time yeah i but like have i said this when it happened like have you ever seen a hit where the guy gets up screaming like that yeah like i was like oh he separated

both of his shoulders somehow like i i was like oh you know whatever they did to his neck is to fix it is unfixed. Yeah. You know, like I, I, that was really scary. And then he's like, oh, you know, I'll just go and get a primary assist or whatever, no big deal. But yeah, hell of a hit, though. Hell of a hit. And Eichol said, clean, clean is the day as long, you know. Absolutely clean based on, you know, the rules as they are today. If you want different rules, you can, you can want that. But yeah, it was completely clean and also made far worse by Eichel kind of falling into it, which was, I don't know if, like, some people said

he toe-picked. I didn't really see that. It seemed more like he was almost kind of falling to avoid it, like almost like an instinctive, like bailout, but had the exact opposite effect. So, yeah, I was shocked that he came back because even putting aside the neck problems and everything else, like, how did that not either pop out a shoulder or break a collarbone or whatever else? Like, yeah, no. That impact. It was scary. You know, it's one of those, like, one of those collisions where you're like, oh, you know, this is like being hit by a car that's going 35 miles an

hour or whatever, you know, like he just, he just hit him exactly right in addition to, you know, being lined up. And look, like, I think that a lot of times the thing about, like, like, you know, well, he said it's a clean hit. I think that gets overblown in the same way that, like, well, players say they like when there are fighting guys out there, you know? Like, I, but Jack Eichel was like emphatic about that was a clean hit. It happens. I'm not going to get upset about it, like that kind of thing.

I think, I think, you know, watching that he's right. Because I'm, again, I don't like open ice hits like this, obviously. And so when they happen, I'm like, oh, you tried to kill that guy. Let's watch the replay 58 times and, oh, you know, he hadn't made head con. He didn't. It was clean. Like, as clean as you can possibly have a hit that big. That's how clean it was.

There's nothing for me to talk about there, unfortunately. I'd love to be able to be mad about it, but. It would have been interesting. Like, when you first saw a couple of replays, it looked like he hit him in the head. And if he had, it would, it still wouldn't have been a penalty because, as the rules are written now, like, The fact that... The point of contact, yeah. Yeah.

Well, not even point of contact, but also, like, does the guy change his position? And the fact that I guess falling forward would obviously have been a case. But it would have made for an interesting debate because I know there's a lot of people who say, you should make any hit to the head illegal, period, end of story. It is completely on the guy delivering the hit to avoid it. And that kind of would have been an interesting case if it's like, really, like, even if a guy falls forward into you, as you're delivering the hit.

But then you saw a couple more replays and you realized he just got him square on the shoulder. I still strongly suspect that, you know, Jack Eichol, in addition to getting the wind knocked out of him, let's just say may have gone back to the dressing room and got a needle full of something in the shoulder to finish that game. But it turned out to be a good thing that he did because that he goes out in his first shift

and creates the goal that restores the four-goal lead and puts an end to any sort of, you know, there was, when Florida scores that goal 14 seconds into the third period, after the big hit, after all, you're kind of going, maybe? Like, at the very least, you're going, if they get the next one, this game's going to start feeling a little spicy again. And Jack Eichael goes out on his next shift and basically creates the goal that puts,

puts an end of that. So, hell of a hit for the Matthew Kuchukh highlight reel and hell of a return for Jack Eichol. You know, two guys that are really up in their reputations in this year's playoffs. On that note, I have here written down, Khan Smythe. Now, I wrote the article the other day, and this was before he had two goals in game two, that Jonathan Marcioso. If Vegas wins, it should be Jonathan Marciusel. I can't remember and I haven't, I guess I haven't looked at the goal differential since the, since the, I wrote the article, I guess, so since before game two. But like huge, I think it was like 19 to 5 or something like that was, was his on ice goal difference in these playoffs.

And obviously he's, I think he's up to 12 goals in his last 12 games. and his underlying numbers are like some of the best we've ever seen in, you know, in the, you know, advanced stats era. His underlying numbers are unbelievable. 26 to 6. The Vegas is up by 20 goals when Marcia So is on the ice. And it shouldn't matter, but also if you're the sort of voter who wants a nice story to go with your consmite. I mean, this is an original Golden Knight, original misfit comes over from Florida.

Like, it's pretty irresistible. It does feel like he's moved. I was going to say, I'm deciding whether to say close to the top or just to the top. Because I think going into the series, it was probably Eichel for Vegas. Agreed. Aiton Hill, obviously, continues to be a great story. William Carlson hitting the double-digit goals

was maybe coming in as a guy that you considered but it does feel like maybe it's yeah maybe it is Marchau right now is the favorite because I feel like Aden Hill's been great but you have to be a level beyond great to win the cons might usually as a goalie like they will give the consmite to a goalie

but it's got to be like an all-time if Florida If Florida won it was going to Bobrovsky, I think. As much as you can say, if he had, if he had, if they had won the way they won against Carolina and Toronto, then yes. I think that's, I feel like that's over now, but. Boy, is it. But yeah, so you would say Marcia So as well right now?

I would say, yeah, I'm looking at the, he's, he's now within one point of Ikel now, and it has twice as many goals. I will say, I mean, Ikel taking the big hit and coming back and all of that. Like, this is still very much up for grabs. Yeah. And again, like the Jack Eichael story is a great one too. That's what I was going to say is like you can say it shouldn't matter or whatever. I would say what, 40% of Kahn Smythe voting is figuring out who has the cute little storyline.

Yep. And so with that having been said, like, Eichel and Kachuk and to a lesser extent Babrovsky coming into this series felt like they had the inside track on the storyline and then Marsha So was like, what have I scored three goals in the first two games?

It was unbelievable. And it's also like Carlson's been very good very productive I can like and when he's playing well, he's a very good player, and you notice him out there. But Marsha, so when he's on his game, he just feels like he's all over the ice.

Like, he feels like he's getting 40 minutes of ice time. You just notice him so much. And he's, yeah, I mean, I guess we'll see, like, we could be two games away from this thing being over, or we could be the way the schedule is, you know, roughly four weeks still to. to do this. So, you know, it will depend. But I would say if I had to bet on a guy right now, I think Marshall, so was past Eichel as the leader. Yeah. Hill number three, Carlson 4. This is, you know, I'm doing all the Vegas guys, obviously. And then, you know, I would say a monster next five games from Mark Stone puts him into the conversation too. But sure, that's, that's probably the list.

Yeah. One last thing I wanted to say about Marcia, so, and it reminded me because of what you said about, like, it seems like he's really all over the place when he's on. Is two, the goal in game one and I think the second goal in game two was just like, the defense moved and he like magically appeared right where they had been. Right. Like, I think it was stall in game one kind of drifted around, like not all the way around the net, but from the right side of the goal to like the top of the crease on the left side, basically. And Marsha, so like just poof. There he is just exactly where a stall was standing, bullet to the back of the net. And then same thing in game two, but from the other side of the guys.

Like this guy is just, you want to talk about opportunity. right like what florida did where it's like oh they made a slight mistaken coverage he jumped all over it in the in the games over now both i mean not in game one obviously because that was a that was a the i think the game tie angle but on just unbelievable how he's um how he's just like identifying the gaps in in florida's coverage and and just really twisting the knife every time they make a mistake. And like to use the cliche, but he's like, he's, he's that hockey player who's like, he's not even 5-9.

He's whatever he is, 5-9 listed. But apparently he missed the memo on that because he plays like, I mean, he's not out there throwing monster hits, but you're right. Like he just sees like, okay, that's where I need to go. I'm just going to go there. and if a 6'4-3 defenseman is in the way, then I will deal with that situation

and he winds up where he needs to be. He's been so good. If you're Paul Maurice, any thought to not going Bobrovsky game three? Yeah, I mean, it's been bad for Bobrovsky. Like, I don't know how to put it any different, right? like it's not just that obviously he's given up a shitload of goals or whatever it's that like the goals he's giving up what was what was it in game two there was one goal

where I was just like boy oh boy like how do you not oh I think it was the Alec Martinez goal maybe where yeah there was a little bit of a screen or whatever but he just like he just got flat beat from from a you know top of the circle or wherever that goal was I was like, oh, oh, no. I think the coach has turned back into a pumpkin here, you know. And I mean coaches in Cinderella, not coaches in Paul Maurice, although it just goes to show you, you know, you look like a fucking genius when your goalie's going 960. And suddenly, you know, now there's bad line changes. You only got four guys out there for a goal against.

And, you know, you kind of can't find the answer on defense. The Pobarys comedy show press conferences are not getting the laughs. I'm laughing. But yeah. Should we just seen this coming with Brobrovsky, though? Like, we were doing... Well, yes and no. I mean...

Because here's the thing. When we were doing our preview on the other, on the athletic podcast, and we have Jesse Granger who covers the Golden Knights, but he's also a goalie. So he's like my goalie whisperer. I ask him all my goal-tending questions. And the thing that I went in to that series, and this was before game one, so we hadn't seen any of it yet,

I was like, man, Sir Kiprovsky was on this heater, this hot streak, but he said 10 days off. Like, is it, is, doesn't that hit reset on your hot streak? Like, how can you, how can you stay hot with a 10-day break between seeing actual game? And, you know, Jesse explained why that wouldn't necessarily be the case, but it would be a concern.

And it sure looks like that, right? It sure looks like, you know, he is turned back into Sergey Bobrovsky, Panthers version. Well, standard issue. I mean, I think he's turned back into Sergey Brabrovsky like one of the absolute worst goal he's in the league. 826 in this series. Yeah. And, I mean, it's two games, but. Eight goals on four.

46 shots. Boy, oh, boy. It's, uh... And then meanwhile... It's rough, man. Good old Aden Hill is just... Chilling out at the other end, man. Goaltending makes no damn sense in this sport.

And yet, it, like, it, like, determines half of everything that happened. Oh, man. Probably more than that, right? Probably. But your thing about, like, oh, he had 10 days off, what's like, well, Aiden Hill had, what, four or five? Like, it's not like... He rolled in there the day after.

And of those two, which one would I have said is more likely to have gotten a reset or, you know, more likely to come back down to Earth a little bit? I guess I would have said Aden Hill just because, you know, he, again, we talked about it last week. He's like their third or fourth string goalie, depending on how you want to look at it. And he still is. So, I mean, we're talking about, well, the series is two nothing. and we're talking about scenarios where the Panthers could get back into it, that's a pretty obvious one, right? Is you go out, get two early goals in game three, suddenly, you know,

this kid isn't so relaxed anymore and you're right back in it. But, yeah, so far. They're making it easy on them, though. You got to say that. Vegas is making it real easy for Aden Hill in a way that, I would say even Florida wasn't doing, against like Carolina and Toronto

and stuff like that. Bovrovsky had it pretty easy especially against Carolina not a ton of traffic in front of the net and any of that kind of stuff. You know,

that was like Florida's stock and trade offensively and they just cannot do it to Aden Hill. They can't get guys in front of him. It's crazy. So. one other thing I wanted to talk about with this, and I kind of alluded to it earlier,

and then we'll move on to something else. Panthers D in particular seems like it has hit a wall, and like injuries or whatever, and Radco Gudis didn't play a good chunk of game too and that kind of thing. But that does seem to be the problem for me, where the, I think, I think if you would said going into the playoffs, what's Florida's biggest weakness?

You would say, well, look at their blue line. Yep. You know, and it looks like, to me, it looks like Vegas has kind of figured that out a little bit. Yeah, and Florida kind of pulled it together and the unit was playing great. But I think the fact that we're talking about a Ratko Gudus injury as critical is kind of both tells you. you how well everyone had been playing and also how flimsy maybe that blue line was. Yeah, because once you get past, once you get past Echblad, you're like, who's their next best defenseman?

Yeah, I mean, Montour's been great. Montour's been absolutely. I think Montour has been there, when I say, Ekblad. I think Montour has been, well, he's played more minutes than Xx. in Eckblad in this series. So he's number one, in Eckblad too. Right.

So once you get past two, it's like, is it Gustav Forzling? Is it, Christ, well, it's not Mark Stahl, but like,

could it be Mark Stahl? Like, Jesus Christ, man, like, you want to talk about a guy who's been bad in this series. Aye, aye,

aye, he has been horrible. And, uh, that, you know, they don't have a guy who's going to step up. Like,

you can't, you can't ask Casey Fitzger Harold and who's the other defensemen they've been, Josh Mahora, is that who they've been using? Like, as their third defense, or their seventh defenseman in the series? Like, when you're bringing those guys up, that's, that's why, that's the difference, right?

Like, that's why the Vegas is, uh, is, is sitting up two games to none. Because who's, who's Vegas is like fifth defenseman? Like Nick Hague? Nick Hague's been good in the series. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, It is tough. And, you know, you talk about injuries and we see guys leave, but you never know.

Two months into the playoffs, you know, this is where you find out like, oh, yeah, one of Aaron Neckblad's kneecaps fell off in round two, and he's just been playing through it and all of that stuff. So it's tough. I mean, the path out for Florida seems tough right now. Again, like, compared to where they were against Boston, I'm not counting them out

but if you had to pick right now an outcome for the series team and games what would you say I said Vegas and six last week I'll stick with it yeah I said Vegas in five and I'm I'm looking okay now yeah I mean I guess that's it right nobody's counting the Panthers out like I don't want some Panthers fan being like oh you said we had no chance

nobody's saying that But it's very clearly like, A, you're down two games, period. And B, it's not like, you know, this isn't like the Carolina series or something where it's like, yeah, it was two games were a coin flip, but the same team won both. Like, one team's been clearly better. Yeah. And that's the team that's up to nothing. So that's two strikes against you. And, you know, they can start fighting, fighting some pitches off here and get back in the at bat.

But they, they're in a hole for sure. Money Puck says it is an 11.4% chance for Florida to come back in this one. So a shade over a one and nine chance. That feels about right. Yeah. I mean, I feel like if you gave me 9 to 1 odds on the Panthers, I might be tempted. But it's certainly not much higher than that. And it goes without saying game three is the season.

I mean, you... Totally. Vegas has a 29.7% chance to sweep the finals, and Florida has an 11.4% chance to win it. That's rough. Yep. Don't like to see that. All right, why don't we take a break?

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back and we didn't, I think we kind of knew it was maybe going to happen last week. I don't remember the exact timeline now, but obviously it didn't get announced till Friday, and that's Kyle Dubus to Pittsburgh. Yeah.

As the president of hockey operations and kind of rather pointedly, not the GM. Not the GM, although based on his description, he basically is the GM. And people interpreted that as him saying basically he's going to do the GM job until they hire somebody. I read it a little differently. I read it as him saying, like, I'm going to be the GM for now and then we'll see. I don't think it's out of the question that he's just going to permanently be the GM. But obviously, the idea that they could have Dubas as the president, as a hands-on guy, but also have a GM job to offer, does open up a bunch of possibilities for bringing in other people from around the league.

it was a good day to be a penguins fan, I think. Yeah. You know, even as somebody who was like, you know, I'm, I kind of land in the middle in the great Toronto Maple Leaf Kyle Dubas wars of, you know, is he, was he the greatest GM of all time or was he a bum? I'm kind of in between. But as far as guys who were available, that's, I, I, I don't mind having him running the show if I'm a penguins fan.

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's. I think that's right. If I'm a penguins fan, I kind of do want an extra set of eyes in there, just because I think that's a better, you know, you can never have enough people or smart people. Putting opinions in the ring and all that kind of stuff. That's not really a phrase, but whatever. So, like, I would just, you know, if I'm kind of. Al Dubas, I'm kind of looking at who's out there.

And believe me, there are plenty of options still out there for smart GMs and that sort of stuff. And I think a lot of people look at this and say, like, even though Dubas is a, you know, a younger guy and, you know, this isn't a case where you're going to go out and hire some veteran GM. This feels like a good opportunity to bring in someone not necessarily younger, but, you know, maybe somebody who's, you know, maybe somebody who's, hasn't held a GM job, maybe somebody that you ordinarily couldn't pry out of another organization, but because you can offer the GM title, it becomes a promotion. Yeah, you're talking about the Eric Tulski types, just the kind of guy. Tulsi would be an example. You know, Brandon Pridim in Toronto is somebody that has been mentioned.

There's guys in Tampa that, you know, everyone is pointing to where, you know, if Kyle Dubas is saying, hey, I want this guy as my assistant GM. A lot of these teams are going, no, go to hell. He's our assistant GM. We're not going to give him to you. But if he says, you know, wink, wink, I'm going to make, well, I should say that, actually, because I'm making it sound like it would be, they would be GM in title only. And that's not fair.

But it's, you know, a situation where it does become a promotion. Yep. Presumably comes to the nice raise because they got owners there with, with, with, uh, some money to spend. And it's going to be a smart front office. And that doesn't guarantee anything. But it's a hell of an upgrade on Ron Hextel, isn't it? Yeah.

I mean, like not having a GM as an upgrade. Because if you don't have a GM, you can't make the Granlin trade. They have upgraded their general manager position already. Yeah. Like, it's the classic, like, Dave Nones versus. Was it a potato? Yep. Yeah.

For those who don't remember, there was a thing of like, you know, who had a better, who had a better, was it free agency day? Yeah, it was basically that it was an off season where they tried to simulate what a potato would have done versus what Dave Nones did. Not even would have done. What a potato did. Yeah. A potato did not make this signing. Therefore, he had a better day than Dave Nones. Right. By the way, Dave Nonas works for the Calgary Flamesaw.

But, like, that's the idea with Ron Hextall. So, but, you know, look at, look at how not even, this is just an example, but like how a lot of teams do business now is like the guy who's the GM, like Carolina, for example, is a team that I think of. The guy who's the GM, Don Waddell is the GM in Carolina, right? But he's not making unilateral decisions. They're getting. a bunch of people in a room and they're saying, what do we need? Like, he's the guy picking up the phone, making the trade work, you know, talking to the other GMs, that kind of thing. But his decisions are being made at a conference table, but like, you know, what are putatively his decisions. Yeah. The things he's getting credit for on like GM trade history websites and stuff like that.

These are, these are decisions made by, I don't know how many people, five, six, seven, eight, like something like that. Like, people are getting in a room sitting down and talking about it. and more and more front offices are doing that. And obviously they've always done it. But I think in the past, GMs had a lot more unilateral power. And now that just isn't the case anymore.

So like Kyle Dubas will be sitting in on hockey decisions if he hires a GM, whoever that GM is. And, you know, maybe you say that leads to the power struggle that led, that kind of force Kyle Dew is out of Toronto. I think you can make that argument as well. but I think that just getting an extra, like I said, set of eyes in there, you're going to be in good shape.

And it's always, you know, it's tough too, because we've seen it before over the years in the NHL, in all sports, where you will have front office people who are very, very smart, great track record, great resume, and then they move up and become a GM, and suddenly there's all these other elements to it that you're not used to, including the fact that you sort of become the face of the franchise. And you're dealing, you know, not just dealing with the media,

but just dealing with all of that constant churn and feedback and everything. And Kyle Dubas did live that for five years in Toronto, and now, in theory, at least, he's going to live a big chunk of it in Pittsburgh, which takes some of the heat off of somebody else who might come in. And, you know, whether it's giving cover or just sort of having that, you know, there's not a lot of GMs who, I think navigating the end of the Crosby era is going to be tough. And there's not a lot of people who would enjoy being front and center in that. But Dubus has been through the fire in Toronto. It can't be that much worse in Pittsburgh.

So he's a good guy to have there and a good guy to build up a team. And it'll be interesting to see what, you know, obviously who follows him from Toronto will be part of it, but just who he brings in and how much leeway and resources is he have. Because he kind of had, I wouldn't say, a blank check in Toronto, but he had a lot more resources available to him than, just about any other team would have. And he used them.

And he built something that was, by all accounts, was a really good team, front office team. Ultimately, didn't have the success on the ice, but I'm curious to see how he does it in Pittsburgh and how he's allowed to do it. But I think it's a great hire. Right. Yeah, no, they made, I think, the best,

higher they possibly could in that in that regard like yeah they could have just hired tulski or pridum or whoever uh to be their GM but like having a guy who's been a GM and like you said kind has had a lot of apparent success not obviously on ice success but the has generally done a a pretty good job of building that Toronto roster, you know, people can, people can certainly, uh, say, well,

if they didn't have the success, uh, on the ice, then that means they fail. Okay, fair and I, I get that. But,

you know, having a guy with that kind of high end, uh, uh, regard, I think among a lot of people in the, in the league or, or,

and around the league. in our jobs and shit like that. But again, if the idea is Kyle Dubus is the GM and the president of hockey operations, they're effectively one job. I'm less enthused about that. But I think eventually he probably would make

a hire there. I mean, I think one way or another, clearly, Kyle Dubus didn't go from being a GM for five years in Toronto having reportedly power struggles with Brandon Shanahan so that he could go to a different team and hand over full control to somebody else. So he's going to be really involved. It's just a question of how they make it work, like you said. And there's a lot of paths forward that could be very positive, I think.

Yeah, for sure. With that having been said, the next few years will be kind of rough. So I don't know. I don't know, man. It's going to be really interesting to see how they approach things, even starting this summer, because I think the expectation in Pittsburgh will be, you know, playoff competitive at the very least.

Yeah, it certainly sounds like that is the plan. And I guess the other piece of this that is maybe obvious, but we should mention is full vote of confidence for Mike Sullivan, like any thoughts that maybe, you know, I know people, oh, Dubas might bring Sheldon Keith. Nope, not going to happen. So for the next few years at least, they are still in contending mode,

which doesn't necessarily mean buyers, doesn't mean they're going out and trying to add at the expense of the future. I think you'll have to keep one eye on what is right now a very poor prospect base. But they're not, he's not being brought in to a rebuild. Nope. Malcolm to the Kings probably not going to happen anytime soon.

Hey, we'll talk about the Kings making a trade in a minute. But first, we have to talk about a different team in that King's trade, making a coaching hire that they can't announce yet. It's Mike Babcock to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Yeah. Speaking of weird stuff with the Leafs, because I can't remember, have we ever had... Finally, it all comes back to the Leafs. Have we ever had a hire where, like, it was a, not announced, but was publicly known this far in advance,

and they're just waiting for his, because Babcock is still under contract to the Leafs until July 1st. I mean, and I guess Columbus presumably reached out to the Leafs and said, can we hire this guy and The Leafs said no, or, you know, no unless you're willing to cover some piece of the contract. And Columbus said forget it. But I can't remember. He wants to keep cashing that check. Well, yeah. And, I mean, he would be able to.

But, I mean, it's not, you can't do compensation for coaches anymore. So this isn't the Leafs trying to squeeze a seventh round pick or whatever out of the blue jackets. This is them presumably saying if you're going to hire our coach, then. you know, you're going to save us some money, and I guess, I guess not. But just kind of a weird situation. But yeah, Babcock is back. Where are you at on this? I guess I don't get it.

Okay. And it's not like, I don't even want to get into. He was really mean to Mitch Marner and half the guys on the Detroit roster and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Like, everybody who's ever played for him has kind of been like, oh, it seems like he sucks, you know? Like, maybe not ever. But certainly, um, when he, when all that stuff went down in Toronto, people came out of the woodworks to be like, it sucks dealing with this guy. And some of that can, you can see that as a pile on. And some of that you can see as kicking a guy when he's down and that kind of stuff.

I'm not defending Mike Babcock by any means. Um, in that regard or in, you know, in the regard of his record as a actual coach. I'm not defending that either. But the thing that I think is weird about this is Columbus is a team that's trying to come out of a rebuild, right? When's the last time you were like, and of course, Mike Babcock really good with like the 22 year olds or whatever? It's never fucking happened. Yeah.

That's the thing that I, because look, I think. Except that you could make the case that he did take a dead last Maple Leafs team and get them into the playoffs in the Austin Matthews rookie year. Sure. Now, I don't think anybody looked at that and said, that's all coaching, baby. It was adding three elite young players to a roster that had been openly tanking before that. But I guess that's what you would point to. Sure. But, and I guess the other thing to say with that is, you know, Columbus has done a good job of tanking, like how they've gone about it has, I think, really worked for the most part.

But they don't have an Austin Matthews, you know? They do not. Anyway, that is the thing I don't get. And the other thing, I guess I should say is like, what is what is Babcock's success in the NHL? Yeah. Okay, yeah. You very often point out that once you remove Nicholas Lidstrom. Even, how about this?

Even the year before they lost Lidstrom, I believe they lost in the first round in five games before Lidstrom retired. But let's see. If you're including that one in five, like the last year of Lidstrom's career, they went, or one and four rather, they went 20 and 35. or Babcock went 20 and 35 in the playoffs, you know, with Lidsstrom kind of sunsetsing to no longer in the league. Not good. That's not good.

And yeah, obviously he won a World Cup. He won an Olympic gold medal or maybe even two. Did he win two? Mm-hmm. Yeah. You want to talk about a potato could have done that, you know? How fucking hard is it to say, yeah, Brad Marchand, you're on like our fourth line. Ask Mark Crawford, I guess.

But you know what? The point is, even if I feel like you and I can disagree on whether there's a skill to coaching great players, not relevant to going to the Columbus Blue Jackets right now. Don't think anyone's getting them mixed up with the 2010 Team Canada. Yeah. So I just feel like with Babcock, there's two, I think, separate questions. The first is, should this guy be back in the league given the stories that came out about him? And, you know, has he, as people like to say, has he done the work that would allow him to be forgiven and, you know, all this stuff?

And, I mean, that's up to the Blue Jackets to answer. certainly his sort of half-hearted attempt at a redemption tour a few years ago didn't seem to go over all that well. No, and it shouldn't have, right? It was, but that's, what was that, two years ago now? Like, I don't know, he could have done so. Again, I'm not. You would assume this was all discussed in the interview process. And, you know, when the announcement happens, presumably we'll get more insight into his thinking.

I think, you know, the idea that, and I said this on Twitter and some people are mad at me, I don't count the Mitch Marner thing as abuse. There was nothing in the Mitch Marner story that was like, this guy shouldn't coach again. It was a story of a coach screwing up and, yeah, and apparently apologizing, trying to make it right. Mistakes happen. That's not, I mean, it's not a story. Like it's the fact that he put a young player in a bad position and, you know, hurt some feelings. Look, there's a long history of coaches in all leagues being hated by their players and still being effective.

There's, you know, that now, the Detroit stuff. Right. Yeah, exactly. The Detroit stuff with Franzen and some of the other stuff, okay, maybe different. That hasn't been as sort of well understood, I don't think, but I'll leave the door open that there absolutely could have been stuff there that. would be much more concerning. But, you know, I don't, I think it's safe to assume that Mike Babcock is coming back a little bit, maybe with his tail between his legs to the point where he's going to have

to acknowledge that, yeah, some of the techniques I used to use are not going to fly anymore. But, you know, I can't sit here and say he deserves to be back in the league because we don't know what kind of things are happening behind the scenes, what kind of reflection, what he said. But I'm not, I don't think we should be slamming the door. I don't, and this is, you know, a lot of this stuff with him came out kind of around the same time as like Bill Peters and then obviously Quinville was later.

And I just think it's a, we tend to like group everyone together. Like these are all the bad coaches who can't come back. I don't think Babcock is necessarily a guy that should have no path back to the league. Now, having said all that, is this the best coach available for the Columbus Blue Jackets? Is the second part of the question? Right. Regardless of whatever, you know, even if he has come back and completely made amends for everything, is this 60-something guy who's sort of an old school guy had, you know, brought the ducks to the cup final 20 years ago, is he the guy to lead your rebuilding team? And I think that's a bigger question.

but I do kind of get why a team like the Blue Jackets is like, we need a guy with a name and some credibility. That's what I was going to say too. Yeah. Like I talked about it from the hockey perspective. And I think that the, you know, did he do the work stuff? Obviously, that's important. But I'm not just going to say he should never be in the league.

Because again, like I, if I don't think like prison, like you should. should like be sent to prison after committing a crime or whatever. I don't, like I can't sit here and go and this guy should never be in the league again. If he did the work, which, you know, who,

I don't know. And, and I, I think I would say nobody knows, uh, right now. Well, we'll probably get the glowing features about all the stuff he did.

If he did any. Which of course, we will all take with a massive grain of salt. Yeah, of course, 100%. But what I'm saying is, again,

just from a hockey. perspective. Even leaving aside, like, you know, will his coaching style have changed and, like, be kid friendly and all that kind of stuff in a way that, like, look, we just saw the Calgary Flames. Darrell Sutter got fired because they're all snowflakes. Right. Yeah. You know. Um, and so like the idea that, that Mike Babcock's coaching style would be accepted by, again, like kids, when I say kids, obviously, I mean like 22 year olds or whatever. I don't know. Maybe he's changed that.

Maybe he hasn't. Again, feels like we're about to find out. But just like, is, I guess this is it. If we're saying that from what we know about Mike Babcock's style is that this probably won't work so well with how we know younger players. like to be coached. Is this just because of the name thing and to get out in front of the thing about like

nobody wants to fucking play in Columbus? Yep. And apparently, according to some of the reports, like the two years of Brad Larson, that it may have, things may have broken down in the room as far as the lack of focus, lack of discipline,

all that stuff. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see how much can Babcock do? Because I'll tell you right now, not to be cynical, but if he comes in and tries to play the real hard ass, and that doesn't fly with the players,

and look, a lot of players just want to win. A lot of players are probably sitting there looking at some of their teammates going, I hope somebody comes in and kicks their butt. But if he comes in and he plays it, and the stars, especially on the team, are like, we don't want this guy around,

it'll take one story leaked out to the media about Mike Babcock going overboard and he'll be done. So he's, you know, it's, I don't know what the contract will look like, but the balance of power is going to be pretty clear here. So he's going to have to navigate that. We'll see if it works. It could. It could also blow up. And if so, I don't think too many people are going to be shedding tears over it. Yep.

And the one last thing I want to say is you wonder where the organization feels like they're at in their rebuild process. Because I don't look at this team as it's currently constituted and say, this is a team that can weasel its way into the playoff picture in the metro. As much as you want to say, like, oh, you're not really impressed by the penguins or the islanders. like playoff chances or their rosters or any of that kind of stuff as it stands right now obviously you know we're coming up on free agency in the draft so things can change but it feels like they are kind of in the buffalo sabers Ottawa senators oh we're really excited for this season it's like well are you better than uh the rangers and the hurricanes like whoever you think is third in the metro like I guess that can that can be up to you

but like are you better than three teams in the, or two teams in the metro? Or I don't know, man. It's, it's tough. And look, a lot of us thought they would be better last year, obviously with Goodro coming over.

They did lose Zach Rurenski early. So he's back and healthy, you know, and maybe Babcock lights a fire under a Patrick Liny or guys like that. It's, but it does feel a little bit like, is, is the upside for Mike Babcock kind of like, John Tortorella in Philadelphia, where this coach comes in and squeezes everything he can out of a bad team,

and the end result is you're picking 10th instead of third at the end of the year where you were never close to making the playoffs. So, you know, I just pulled up the standings page for this year because I couldn't remember. I knew Columbus was bad, obviously. I couldn't remember quite how bad. You know what their goal difference was last season? No. minus 116. That's not great.

No. So I guess my point is, okay, where Rensky comes back, you're changing things with your D group. You're hoping for a better year from line A and Godreau. You change your coach. How many goals is that worth? 40? 50? Mm-hmm. Okay, so like, let's say it improves their goal.

difference by 50 goals, which, whoa, that's a lot, right? They still have a worse goal difference than last year's, to your point, Philadelphia Flyers. I don't know, man. Like, they just don't, if you want to change the coach after a year where you have a negative 116 goal difference, yeah, no shit. Who wouldn't, right? But I don't know. I look at this team and I say, they're not even fucking close.

So yeah. One other team made a coaching change this week. And it was the Anaheim Duck. Well, I guess they made their coaching higher this week. I shouldn't say their change because they already fired the coach. But or just chose not to bring it back. I think it's a better way to put that. Greg Cronin will be the next, or is the next coach of the Anaheim Ducks.

I think they already introduced them. Interesting because I do not recall seeing. his name come up very often in any of the offseason stuff. And in fact, I think a lot of people when he got hired were like, who's that? But I'm reading a lot of good things about this guy. Especially as a work with young players. You talk about Babcock and Columbus. This is a guy who does seem like someone who works well with young players.

Totally, totally. Now, how about this? You know, this is a guy, this is his first NFL head coaching gig. He's like two months younger than Mike Babcock. That's kind of, yeah, because we saw that last year with Lambert and Lalone too, right? Yeah. Old, you know, guys coming in, oh, rookie head coach and you sort of picture this young go-gatherer. He's 62 years old, yeah.

No, both of them were 60. Isn't that funny? but just a guy with 20 years of experience and one guy different paths man yep just to run it down real quick he was he was an assistant in the NHL for a long time he he

was a head coach in the AHL for off and on for a few years in his career he was the head coach at Northeastern in the mid to late 2000s, I want to say. And spent the last, I think, four or five years coaching Colorado's AHL team.

And apparently all those guys love him. All the guys who played for the Colorado Eagles were like, you know, can't praise this guy enough. And so, you know, again, like Sean said, if you're trying to power out of a rebuild and you

got a lot of young guys on the roster, and you're trying to teach them what it takes to play at the pro level and all this kind of stuff. A coach who has decades of experience doing that at various levels of developmental hockey, as well as being in the NHL, like, that works for me. That's, I don't need to really be convinced on that one. Especially coming over from an organization that went from absolute rock bottom to Stanley Cup in five years. Not that he was part of all of that, but yeah, I don't, like, I'll be honest, when the announcement was made, I kind of went, eh,

and then dug into it a bit. And I was like, you know what? Yeah, I think that feels like a fit in Anaheim. Now, like every other rookie head coach who, you know, comes in the NHL, time will tell, right? Like, I mean, could have said some of the same things about Brad Larson and Columbus, and it just didn't work. So we will see. but solid

roll of the dice, I think. Yeah, and it's interesting, like phrasing it as a role of the dice is interesting because, like, there is a decent amount riding on this, right? Like, you can't, all these really exciting young players that the Ducks have either on the roster already

or coming in over the next few years, even starting this season, like, you don't want to waste too many years of their primes. So it is a role of the dice insofar as like if this doesn't work like, you know, two years from now, what are you paying Trevor Zegris? What are you paying Mason McTavish and Jamie Driesdale and all these guys? Like, it's interesting to think about that. I don't know what the answer is, right? So I think this is like, it's not a safe choice by any means, but I think it's a smart one if that's.

that makes sense for all the reason we just said. And like it's a little fun to see an NHL team kind of go off the board like that, not just you know, go, oh, we'll get Gerard Gallant. He's available. It's fun. I like this for them. Yep. So I don't really have much else to say about it.

No, that's it. I guess we're still waiting on the Rangers. And Calgary. And Calgary. Speaking of Galant. Although Calgary. like, yeah. Is Galant? Do you think Calgary is an option? That seems to be where everybody's kind of indicating, yeah.

You know, I don't know for sure, obviously, but it seems like that's just one of those things where it's like, yeah, that's going to get figured out. And then the other one is Toronto, we don't know yet what they're going to do. We have a pretty good guess, but yeah. It certainly seems more, seems like we do. Yeah. You know, I guess we'll find out. And that's, I guess that's the, right up until the flames make their announcement two minutes after we hang up.

Classic shit. A tale is old as time. Why don't we take another break and we'll be back to talk about a couple other things that happened in the league this week. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Raycon and folks. Look, we've all seen the freaking gas prices out there, you know? We've all seen what groceries cost these days. Inflation, you know, price increases, all this kind of stuff.

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You want to get high-quality audio. You go to buy raycon.com slash puck today to get 15% off your Raycon order. That's buyraycon.com slash puck to get 15% off. by rakeone.com slash fuck. All right. So, big trade yesterday. Kind of came out of nowhere. You don't usually see any trades at all during the playoffs.

Certainly not during the Stanley Cup final. It's distracting from the importance in the league of the Stanley Cup. I mean, yesterday I was watching ESPN and they were doing four hours on this trade and didn't even mention the Stanley Cup final. It's just wrong. You know what? I believe the second half. of that, that's for sure. But,

uh, yeah, so, uh, I'm going to give you the details of the trade. It's a bit of a complicated one. Uh, it looks like the flyers trade to the Kings,

Ivan Proverov, and take back, uh, Cal Peterson, Sean Walker, Helga Granz, who's like, uh,

he's a, he's a decent enough prospect. for them, but he's nothing like super unbelievable. And a 2024 second round pick. The Kings then retained 30% of Ivan Proverov's salary and sent him to Columbus and get back Kevin Kahnaten and Hayden Hodgson. I don't really know who Hayden Hodgson is. Kevin Kahn, not really.

When the elite prospects guy is saying, because I'll tell you folks, I don't know who most of these guys are. Well, sure. Well, now, see, you say that about elite prospects. Hayden Hodgson says here he's 27 years old. Okay. So not really a prospect at that point. So I'm just going to say that those are two AHL players that got sent to L.A.,

probably just to make the contracts balance out a little bit. and then Columbus sent Philadelphia for Provorov at 70% of his normal salary. A 2023 first round pick, which is actually L.A.s that Columbus already controlled. And a conditional 2024 second round pick that can, they get to choose whether it's 2024 or 2025. So the net impact of that is L.A. takes on Peterson and Walker and get grands and three picks that aren't super valuable. Columbus gets a decent, if a little toxic asset in Provarov. I think, you know, if you can hide him in the lineup a little bit, that he can be a useful player. He wasn't good last year, but it's not really his fault. uh in a lot of ways and uh la gets a shitload of cap space yeah um not a ton because they're they're doing the retention but they get out from under the peterson contract which is really

the key there because that was again like how often do we say there that kind of looked like a borderline untradable asset and and it wasn't so um that's It's a nice bit of business by them. And then the assumption is they're going to take that cap space and use it to sign Gavakov, which is, you know, again, another Columbus, the Columbus connection continues there. So complicated deal, which is nice, right? It's nice to see GM's getting a little bit creative, especially a new one in Philadelphia. Yep.

And this is, you can see where every team. is what every team is thinking here. You know, I think from LA's perspective, it's the easiest. This is about creating cap space. Philadelphia, it's about using some cap space and moving an asset that we all knew they wanted to move.

And getting, I mean, you said the picks aren't all that valuable, but it's not a bad haul for a rebuilding team. Yeah, and I mean, they're not, you're right that, you know, we say, oh, first round But it's going to be late-ish first-round

13th or something like that, right? Like that's... Yes, absolutely. And then, you know, for Columbus, it just comes down to what you think of Proverov, right? Like, this is a guy who a few years ago was considered one of the good young defensemen in the league. Has numbers-wise, whatever numbers that you're looking at have been bad for a couple years now. But the team's been bad. And some people say, you know, maybe we factor that in.

Maybe we don't. Yeah. It's, it's not like he's going to an All-Star squad in Columbus. No, I think you do, but, you know,

I think you do have to factor in. Like, he was the, the, I guess you would say, number one defenseman on a horrible team last season. Right. And they weren't good the previous two years.

But like last year, they were fucking unbelievably bad. And so for him to be the number one defenseman, like, we, okay, I don't, want to make the comparison of this guy is like Eric Carlson dot, dot, dot. But look at the Eric

Carlson situation in San Jose this past season, right? Where it's like if, oh, you know, he, he was a negative player and he had 90 points or whatever it was. And it's like, yeah, man, I mean, he was on the ice for like 20, I think it was like 22, uh, empty neck goals, which counts as a minus and that kind of thing. Like, it's just if you play big minutes for a bad team, this is the point. If you play big minutes for a bad team, you're going to look bad. Right. I'm not saying he's particularly good. I think he can be a good middle of your lineup defenseman. Yeah. I mean, and like, so, you know, they're going to hide him behind Werenski. Yes. And we're going to go, oh, you know, Proverov, when he's not playing with fucking Tony DeAngelo, he's actually pretty good. Yeah, no shit.

Yeah. But I mean, the flip side of that is, I mean, when you're the number one defenseman a bad team, you're going to look bad. Sure. Yeah. But also, if you're the number one defenseman on a team and you're bad, your team's going to be. Totally. Like I said, I think he's a good middle-paring defenseman in certain situations. So does Columbus give up too much here to get a solid middle-paring defenseman? Who's under contract for a couple of years, not really at a great rate, but again, there's salary retained. So- I guess the question is, do you think this is a guy who's worth $4.725 million as a middle-payer defenseman? He can.

I mean, I guess is what I'd say. That's what I mean. Yeah. I think if you use him right, he can be. But that's the going rate, but do you want to give up a first round pick for that? Well, kind of crucially, it's not your first round pick, right? This is the LA first round pick for next year. But it is the first round pick you got for trading your two best assets that you combined at the deadline.

So, I mean, it's not your pick, but it was your pick. I'm sorry. I said it's for next year. It's the second round pick is maybe for next year. But the first round pick is for this year's draft. So let me correct myself there. but I think this is a perfectly reasonable price to pay for a guy that you think might have a little bit of upside still. And especially if you're getting him at the discount.

Yeah. And again, we sort of hit this all the time, but it's Columbus. They may have to be a little more aggressive in acquiring players than they normally would be. Totally. And if it doesn't work, well, it's only two years in a pick that wasn't yours in the first place. Yep. So, and the second round pick, I mean, the value of a second round pick honestly isn't that much worse than, or that much, yeah, that much worse than the value of a late first round pick, quite frankly. So, like, this is going to be the number 22 pick.

Like, anybody you get at 22, unless, barring a miracle is like three years away. way probably right so i don't i i i think the unequivocal winner of this trade is LA you said they save a little bit of money against the gap it's like over five and a half million dollars this year and i think three next year it's like okay like that much good um and uh you know like you say they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna go out and spend it on a goalie i don't i don't know if i like that for them uh you know with this particular goalie i I wouldn't want to give that guy $6 million or whatever.

But, you know, the interesting thing with Gavikov is that the reports are that he wants a two-year deal. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Isn't he exactly the sort of guy

you would think would be out there try to hit the long-term deal? I would think that, yes, because he, Gavrokov is a classic guy where it seems like the whole league just decided, you know what, why don't we give this guy a lot of shine?

Why don't we say this guy's insanely fucking good? And then you look at the numbers and you're like, well, these say he's not good. They're like, well, trust us, man. And you kind of got the same argument that I just made defending

Proverrovo, defending, it's an overstatement, I think. But just contextualizing the Proverrovo's performance last year. And you kind of got that with Gavrakov too, where it's like, is he great in his role? No, but like, could he be better in a reduced role? Yeah. But with that having been said, I don't think he was that good for L.A., quite frankly.

And if L.A. is kind of like, well, look, you know, we got to save a little bit of money for Corpusallo and stuff like that. the gamble here, I guess, is if he only wants two years. In two years, the salary cap is going to be like $93 million or whatever. I mean, he's betting on himself huge. And it sounds like also that, you know, the cap hit will start with a six. So it's, I mean, yeah, that's pretty big money. I mean, if I'm L.A., I'd rather. have them for two years than six years.

Totally. Oh my God, yes. But it's, it's because I guess that the other contract we'll kind of segue into is the Cole Cawfield contract where a young guy takes the eight-year deal. And here we have, I mean, Gavroft's 27, he's not old, but an older guy takes, from reportedly, asks for the short-term deal to bet on himself. it feels like that's backwards. Totally, yeah. And like Gabbercott, you know, I just looked this up.

You know, he's 27 years old? That's not a spring chicken. It's not, but it's, you know, it's, I put it this way. He can get, if he gets a two-year deal, like at 29, there will still be some team out there willing to give him another big contract. So, I mean, that's the thinking there.

If you're him. Unless. Unless. Yeah. You know, he kind of remains what he was the last few years. And, look, L.A. is certainly a better situation than Columbus. They can hide him, again, hide him in the lineup more and that kind of thing. Use him more selectively.

It wouldn't surprise me if he was perfectly good, maybe not worth $6 million, but perfectly good for L.A. but yeah the team I don't get all this for is Philly I don't get it a lot of people have really liked the deal for them I guess that's what I don't get I guess that's what I'm trying to wrap my head around because I don't think Cal Peterson's an NHL goalie and you're going to pay him five million bucks you know well I don't think he is either I think that's a salary dump and maybe one where you're hoping in the back of your mind that change the scenery, hey, we can, maybe we can fix them.

But I don't, I don't think they're excited to be in the Cal Peterson business. And he's got two years left, we remember. So, um, it's, that's a rough one. Yeah. Now look, like, again, toxic asset with, uh, with, um, Proveroff, right? Like, the number of teams that we're going to, want to take him on after everything that happened last year with the Pride Night stuff, like probably pretty small.

And that's going to, but like it seemed like everybody was in agreement like change of scenery necessary. So it's, it's really tricky because like, yeah, they got three picks for them and they got Sean Walker who's like an okay NHL defenseman. I guess. But I don't know, man. I really don't. Unless, again, this is them saying, you know what, like actual rebuild time.

At which point, okay, you know. Which I think that's what people are, across the board, are viewing it as that this is new GMs coming in. And it's like, all right, we got to, we're doing this now. We're actually doing the rebuild. We're getting creative. We're using some cap space. And we're selling. I do feel like, I like this for Philly, I think, more than you do.

But I do feel like some of the initial reaction was impressed with the fact that a new GM comes in and makes this sort of, you know, his first trade is a three-way trade with all these moving pieces and being, like, impressed with the complexity of it. And that's great, but complexity in the service of a bad deal would still be a bad deal. I don't think this is a bad deal, but... To be clear, I don't think it's a bad deal either. I think it's like a... How do I want to say this? Like, a net neutral, like...

Okay. You know, again, they had to get rid of Proverob. Fair enough. Walker, I think, can be a decent enough replacement. I don't get why they're taking on the Peterson contract, except... that it's like buying draft picks a little bit. And with that having been said, I feel like they paid a little bit too much

for the draft picks they got. And L.A., frankly, paid shockingly little to get out from under the Peterson contract. It's $10 million against the cap over the next two years. They don't have to pay anymore. And obviously it's a little bit... It's more like dating change, but...

Yeah. I mean, obviously, and maybe if you're Philly and you're rebuilding, we saw this right with Chicago and they go and get Peter Merizek. If he stinks, who cares? We're tanking. Maybe it's sort of that, but I mean, this is a guy, like, we talk about bad contracts a lot. Usually you're talking about a bad contract of a guy in the NHL. This is a bad contract of a guy buried in the minor leagues and not even playing that well there.

Nope. So. Do you know, do you remember his, his saved? percentage in L.A. this year in 10 games with the, with the Kings? I do not. 868. And he was 895 last year. Yeah.

And I mean, this was a case where the Kings had every motivation in the world to fix this guy, get him right? Yep. And just could not. Yeah, maybe it works in Phil. And the other thing is that I'm somewhat surprised is there seems to be a lot of chatter about the flyers maybe moving on from Carter Hart. At which point, Cal Peterson is like, well, I guess we need someone to play a goal. I mean, that to me is it, yeah.

I mean, if you move Carter Hart and go into the season with Cal Peterson as your starter, you're just going all guns of blazing for the first round, for the first overall pick, which, again, the fact that you've got a coach who specializes in squeezing loser points out of teams is not ideal. Yeah. It'll be interesting. Put it that way. All right.

Yeah, let's talk about that Coffield contract. Eight years, what was it, 7.85 or something like that? Eight years seven something. He came in under Nick Suzuki. 785, I was right. Yeah. Like you said earlier. I don't know why he went long on that one.

I mean, I guess it's hard. to argue with somebody saying, like, we'll pay you more than $60 million for the next eight years of work. I mean, that sounds nice. That's always where it starts, right? You know, as soon as you express any surprise that any of these guys are signing these contracts, somebody shows up and goes like, oh, so you turned down 60 million? No.

I wouldn't. No, I guess I wouldn't. And, you know, or they'll say the somewhat less aggressive version, which is, hey, I mean, this guy's going to, the guy's getting 60 million. like, what's he going to do? Why would he hold out for 70 million? You know, he's not going to, he's barely going to be able to spend the 60 million. And that's true.

But then as soon as you think of it that way, then it's like, well, then why not go 50 million or 40? Like, obviously these guys still want to be paid relative to what they can produce. And I think there's a very good chance Cole Cawfield outproduces this deal, given where the cap is going to go. Yes, totally. Like, I understand a lot of guys just want the security. I totally get that. I have a hard time getting my head around why guys like this, guys like Jack Hughes, guys like Brady Kachuk are signing eight-year deals knowing the cap is about to start shooting up. But I think those deals are very likely to look great for those teams in not too too long.

Now, with Caulfield, I've had even some Montreal fans kind of push back on that going. This guy is smaller and he's already had a bunch of injuries. Is that for a bunch or is it just the one from this year? Well, he's missed a bunch of time to injuries, I guess is the way they would say it. I guess I don't remember. But, you know, I like the gamble for Montreal a lot. And I guess, you know, for Cole Coffi. Hey, some guys are also built different, right?

Like, some guys, I think every agent who signs one of these deals for a client has got to sit them down and go, are you okay with the fact that in four years you might be on every list for most underpaid guys? Or is that really going to drive you crazy? Because it sounded like Nathan McKinna was pretty pissed off with hearing this by the end of that deal. Sure. But other guys might be like, man, I don't care. Am I happy? am I on a good team and treating me well?

Like, go ahead. I don't really care. I guess we'll see. But it's got to be pretty nice to be Montreal and have this de facto rule in place that nobody on the team can make more than Nick Suzuki. That's, it was funny. I made the, I made like a somewhat tongue-and-cheek comment

to somebody that, you know, Cole Cawfield in a few years is going to be, making third line money and people are like, what, you think third liners make seven plus million? And somebody replied that Nick Suzuki already does.

So, yeah, you know, we will see, but yeah, I don't get it, man. And I'll just say this. This is my one dip in my toe into not quite conspiracy land, but I,

the one thing that would concern me a little bit, especially if I'm a young player or somebody around a young player who's being offered an eight-year deal, that agent is getting their percentage of that eight-year deal. And players change agents sometimes. And I just wonder, is the agent really looking out for the absolute bad, I don't know who called Caulfield's agent is, I don't care, because this is a more generic comment. Is the agent looking out what's very best for that player, or is the agent saying, hey, I'm not going to get this kid a two-year deal

and then he switches agents in two years and somebody else gets the big deal. I'm going to lock him in right now. That's the part that would concern me a little bit if I'm one of these players. But at the end of the day, I got $60 million in my pocket. I think I'll be okay. Yeah, it's, you know, the thing about,

about like, oh, you know, he's still making $60 million. bucks. It's like, well, yes and no, because, you know, he could make 10 million bucks for the next two years and then 80 million bucks after that, right? So that is that is the tricky part with all this, but like, you know, you're not starving making almost $8 million a year. Yeah. Right. And, you know, or sign for however many years walks him right up to free agency or, you know, and you have to negotiate it with the team. too, right? I mean, you don't just get to name your own price. But again, I'm very surprised that as the cap is about to shoot up, that you're getting in right now. You're saying like, yeah, the last year

of the flat cap era is when I want to lock in the biggest contract I'll ever sign. But, hey, offer me that deal and see what I do, I guess. Yeah. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't hate it for Coughfield. I just, like, like we said, it's just a little surprising that he was like, yeah, yeah, give me eight years. I wouldn't want that to be me. It seemed to be a lot of young players who just want to. And part of this is also some hockey players just hate this stuff. They just hate the uncertainty.

They hate that, you know, they are not wired to do this. So the idea of sign this and you don't even have to think about this for most of a decade. is they're happy with it. And I guess we'll see. All right, one last hockey thing here. Chris Chelyos will not be brought back by ESPN. I know Sean doesn't get to have an opinion on this because he doesn't get to watch the ESPN broadcast.

Excuse me, I get to have opinions on all sorts of things I don't watch. Fair enough. Roughly 27 NHL teams. But I think this is an interesting call only because it's not novel to say it at this point. The TNT broadcast is kicking the ESPN broadcast's ass up and down Main Street, taking their lunch money. I've seen a bunch of people say this. Give me the 30. Like, why is that?

They seem like they're having fun on Turner broadcast. and it doesn't seem like they're having that much fun on the... I'll say this. P.K. Subin is trying, and then Mark Messier and Chris Chelyos are doing a lot of no-selling, I would say. Yeah. So I think, you know, I'm not... I'm certainly not saying like he was necessarily bad in his job.

But I would say that when everybody is out there, They're going, damn, you know what broadcast is really way better than ESPN's? It's the only other one there is. Like, you don't, you don't want ESPN to be a carbon copy of, like, just try to do the exact same thing they're doing. But, again, like, I just, I just saw a lot of, uh, cellios and Messier kind of going, like, look, we're not to having fun show a little bit. And that's, that's not what you, that's not what you. that's not what you want.

You want it to be kind of light and... Well, okay, let me put it this way. My big complaint with the NBC broadcast when that was still a thing was that nobody was having fun. You were actually supposed to be frowning the entire fucking time you were talking about the game you were watching or the league in general.

And for me, honestly, I think Turner gets a little too wacky sometimes. where like it if to the point where it feels a little forced quite frankly and I'm you know that's me nitpicking a little bit like I think that the Turner broadcast is head and shoulders above the ESPN one but I don't know like it just the the ESPN broadcast felt a little too NBCish

a lot of the time even though Turner is the one that brought over all the NBC guys they have Liam McHugh, they have Keith Jones. And by the way, can I say this? I don't know if you know this. Keith Jones, the president of a hockey operations for the Philadelphia Flyers, has just been calling games for Turner this whole time. Yeah. If I'm Vegas and Florida, I'm getting fucking Betman on the horn.

I'm like, is this not fucking tampering? What are we doing here? That's crazy. Luckily, there is no tampering in the NHL. No, if it's really lucky, there isn't. But like, I'm just, just to be a little stinker, I'm saying that, you know? Like, I'm just like, what the fuck? It's so weird that this guy, because they were talking about it during game two.

They're going, yeah, you know, he's leaving us after this series, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah, he should have already left. He doesn't, he shouldn't be working here anymore. How's this guy getting two paychecks? Mm-hmm. But it might be a situation where, like the, like the Babcock thing, where it's like, yeah, we all know it's going to happen. but he's not actually collecting a check until July 1. Okay, fair enough.

It's still tampering. I'd be filing the complaints. Again, just to be a stinker. But anyway, the fact that Turner turned most of the NBC guys into an extremely good broadcast. And ESPN was like, we're going to go our own way. And it's like too NBC-ish for me. I feel like they needed to change something. You don't want to see guys lose their jobs, obviously.

But it feels like Chris Chelios will be doing just fine. I don't know. He'll be all right. But, yeah, I don't know. It was just interesting to me because I had not really sensed that vibe that people were enjoying one of the American broadcast so much more than the other. And it really seemed to bring that out. So, well, well, got to keep trying until you find the mix it works.

Yeah, and I think that it's certainly better than doing what NBC did where everybody's like, hey, we hate seeing Pierre McGuire on the broadcast. And they were like, well, then fuck you. Why don't we do more of it? Why don't we do more Pierre McGuire? You know, real thumb in the eye stuff. And it's nice to, uh, it's nice to, uh, you know, see ESPN being willing to, to change things up if they're not working.

And I think they weren't working. Is Chelyos the reason why? I don't, I would suspect that. That it's not just him, but I'm doing the finger thing right now that indicates money. I bet he was getting paid a lot. Well, that's it, right? That's the ESPN is reportedly on the verge of doing a whole bunch of cutbacks. Oh, not even on the verge of.

They're doing them. Yeah. So this is clearly part of that as well. And all right, one last thing. I don't know if you saw this, Sean. This just came across the wire in the last like 20 minutes or so. RIP to the Iron Sheik. I did see that, yeah.

Yeah. The all-time great heels. A guy that I'm a bit older than you, so like my very first wrestling memories, like he's front and center as the, this was after he had been world champion, but like he's in the tag team with Nikolai Volkov. And they're just the most despicable bad guys

that you've ever seen. So, yeah, a classic. Yep. And, you know, a guy who had an insane life as well. Um, you know, an Olympic gold medal, uh, wrestler, first of all, the, the Kurt Angle before Kurt Angle. Um, I believe was in the, like, the guard of the Shah at the time of the, maybe a little before the Iranian Revolution. Oh, wow. Okay. Um, but like, definitely like, what, yeah, like, like, yeah, like. Like, like, yeah. Like. had that kind of role, gets involved in professional wrestling, like you say, becomes a world champion and super famous. And then, like, has this weird, like, ninth act of his career where he just goes on Twitter and goes, fuck Hulk Hogan. And everybody's like, yeah, we agree.

Yeah. Which, I mean, how many of those do you think he actually typed? Oh, I would say zero. Considering that, like, even a few hours before they announced his death, he was, like, posting about like iron chicisms about the wildfires and stuff. Yeah, he said fuck wildfires. And hey, living in a place where the sky is orange? Yeah.

Look what happened to him, man. Don't talk crap about the wildfires. That's right. But yeah, he, I guess my point in bringing up the Twitter thing is like people listening to this who never saw the Iron Sheek wrestle know who the Iron Sheek is. because he would be like, again, fuck Ultimate Warrior or whatever, and you'd be like, salute.

All you can say is RIP, Bubba. That's right. Because everybody Baba. I don't know. Yeah, a bit of a sour note to end on, I guess, but this is at its heart of wrestling podcast, and so we do want to acknowledge one of the big names of all times, certainly.

So there you go. Sean, you got any plugs for us, bud? Find me at the athletic. I will be writing all week, including, I just, I have a post that just went up just as we were doing this show, where I worked with one of the very talented designers from the graphics team to do a post about the Stanley Cup and just some of the interesting stuff about that, including this was the designer's idea, but a very funny visual of what the Stanley Cup would look like today if they never took any pieces off.

As I think a lot of people know, there are sections get retired as it goes. Let's just say that's a good idea because it would be pretty ridiculous right now. And I think also myself and Pulitzer Prize winning journalists, Sean Gentile, are doing our commercial review for the Stanley Cup playoffs this week. Hopefully. I haven't done it yet, but.

maybe by the end of the week. So get in there now. Wouldn't want to miss that. Yeah, I'm looking at your Stanley Cup thing right now. 72 plus inches if they never took a ring off it. Yep. Pretty crazy. Completely.

I want to see the wingspan that it would require to comfortably hold that. I think Jonathan Marshall is out of luck on this because... Yeah, the Stanley Cup pick him up. That's right. Yeah. The other thing, we did the cup fakeness rankings or whatever, like my highly scientific method of determining how fake Stanley Cups were over the years. Yep.

And someone asked if they, like, if they should award a Stanley Cup that is worth, you know, like if it's worth 0.65 Stanley Cups, they should just have 0.65 Stanley Cups out there for the guy to pick up. Okay, sorry, would that be shrunk down to like 0.65 or would it just be like sliced off at a certain point? That was the question. Ah, okay. To me, I think shrunk down would be funny. I feel like my power rankings are I feel like shrunk down is funnier than cut horizontally, but cut vertically might be the funniest of all. You know what?

Yeah. You're absolutely right. It should be cut vertically. Absolutely. Guys cutting their hands on the sharp edges. Yeah. Guys like pouring champagne and it just dribbles down because they didn't get to the 80% that you need to preserve the bowl. Yep.

But yeah. That was a fun question we got. And then for me, my plug, of course, the elite prospects, 2023 draft guide is out. It came out on Monday. Sean, you know how many pages are in this thing? I think I do. 1800. That feels like a lot.

That's a crazy number of pages. I think it destroys the previous record. I think it's way bigger that like, you know, three, four hundred pages bigger than the previous record. If I'm not mistaken. That's like one of my old Grantland posts right there. 1,700 pages. And again, this is like,

do you want to know about the guy that your team is going to take 112th overall. He's probably fucking in there. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I think it's usually like 120 or so guys that we break down. So, you know, in-depth stuff on every, not everybody, everybody, obviously your Connor Bedard is going to get a few more pages than the guy who goes 78th, you know? But yeah, it's, you know what? I just click. looked on it, 400 players inside an analysis, it says here. Wow.

So 400 players, I mean, how many players get drafted? Isn't it like 200 and something? Yeah, that feels like it's probably right. Yeah. So yeah, check that out. And if you want to sign up for an annual subscription, use the code 2023 draft guide, all one word, and they'll knock 50% off your annual subscription.

That's a better deal than I'm using. usually given you, you know? I don't know when that expires, so clock's ticking, I would say. Get out in front of that. And, yeah, check that out and also check out the PuckSoup Patreon. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup bonus episodes. You know, it's the start of June. So we're going to have some new bonus episodes coming out later this week.

And then I think me and Sean will do like a formal Puck Soup bonus episode probably early next week if I had to guess. but, you know, I can't commit to anything right now. Again, patreon.com slash puck soup. And thank you for listening. Thank you for all the support and all that kind of stuff. And game three is tomorrow night. And by the time you're hearing this,

I'm sure you're going to be so excited for it. So have a good one, folks. Bye bye. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary. To what if you commute We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes

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