Puck Soup - And New!

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

Sean and Ryan talk about the end of the Stanley Cup Final, the Hockey Hall of Fame, coaching changes, draft rankings, and more.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And we have a new Stanley Cup champion. It's crazy.

Don't keep us in suspense, man. Like, you got to tell us. Okay. The Ottawa Senator. There was a huge percent. Cashed in their money in the bank. I don't even remember them winning it. Yeah, I don't.

But they had the briefcase, so who am I to question? No, obviously it's the Colorado Avalanche. I'm going to say this, right off the bat here. I know it only went six games. That was the best Stanley Cup final, probably since Penguin Sharks. Ooh. Yeah, hard to argue. I mean, Boston St. Louis went seven.

Yeah. But the seventh game was fine. Total blowout. But it wasn't, you know, we didn't get like a classic. The other ones were short-ish or had kind of dicey teams. Yeah, you could go sharks. You could convince me you could probably even go further if you wanted to. That was a real, it was a good series.

I thought, it would have been great to go seven, but. Yeah. I thought both those Penguin series were really good. And then I guess I would struggle to come up with a better one until you get to what, like Bruins Canucks. I mean, Chicago Tech was pretty good. It was, it was. The Kings series, Kings Rangers only went five,

but there was a lot over time and that. Yeah. Chicago Boston had the memorable ending. Like the, I think I focused too much on the ending. Like Pittsburgh, you said the both, the Pittsburgh series are good, but the,

the end of the Nashville series, that last game being like zero, zero, and then it's a lucky bounce from behind the net. And that's like the Stanley Cup winning goal. Like that kind of soured it for me. But I, yeah, this was a great series that mostly lived up to the hype. Like there were two blowouts.

Two overtime, though. And, you know, the last two games were quite good, down to the wire. I think they said, I think it was on the PDO cast. They said that apart from the two blowouts, neither team had a two-goal lead for, like, the vast majority of the series. Yeah, yeah. Which is crazy. Like the whole time at something.

was within one basically for all the meaningful games you know five and six I guess but um yeah I you know this I guess the I guess the point is like uh like with penguins and and sharks or penguins and predators um when you have just two like really good talented deep teams the hockey's pretty good this time of year you know yeah yeah absolutely do you just just really quick only because we didn't, I think it was the night of the last time we recorded. The overtime game, the too many men, the popular was scored with no mask on the goalie. Like, did you, do you, A, did you have strong feelings on that? And B, now that the series is over, do you look back on those as like memorable deciding

moments, or do you think those are going to mostly get forgotten? I think the goalie, no mask, like, that's a classic situation where it's, like, Like, oh, as soon as the goalie's mask comes off, they should blow the play dead, like immediately. Otherwise, a guy's going to die, you know? But then, of course, you would have every goalie in the league, like springloading their mask. Which happened in the next. The second someone's coming in. I think it was the next game.

Yeah. I think it was Vasilevsky, like, you know, he just shook his mask off. And they did stop the play because that's how that and correctly. But I know people are like, what do you think goalie is going to be taking their mask? off. Yeah, I do think that would happen. So that was the right call. Because that puck was right there. Like, I mean, there's no one inch in front of him, nobody in between him and the puck. So, absolutely. But yeah, like the too many men, it's like, there are a lot of guys from Tampa on the ice at that point, too. There were. I can't be mad.

In fact, yeah. I can't be mad about it. Have as many guys as you want, I think. No, I don't think that should be the role. I don't think that should be the role. That would feel... Okay. I guess my big take on the series is that it took a weird, like a lot of weird twists and turns to get there, and we're going to talk about the lightning's injury list in a minute or two here. But like, the right team won. And you almost...

Almost always when that happens, I'm just like, I guess I don't really care how we got here then, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's that simple. Tough injury luck for Tampa, but also, I mean, when you have played 12 playoff rounds in less than two calendar years, yeah, it's not surprising, I think that they were very bad. Yeah, they. Full credit to Tampa, man. I got nothing bad to say about them. They were fantastic. Great team. Champions, all that stuff. And as was pointed out by a few of the players, like this isn't goodbye to Tampa as a contender.

This isn't like a window closing. They could absolutely be right back in the mix for the next few years. Yeah. No, absolutely. I think we're going to talk about that in a minute, too. Like both of these teams are going to have a lot to figure out in the postseason, but like, if you came to me from the future right now, you had like really shiny clothes on, you know, like mirrored clothes and some kind of thing.

Yeah, some sort of visor. And you were like, hey, that's absolutely. And you were like, hey, the 2023 Stanley Cup final is the Colorado Avalanche versus the Tampa Bay Lightning. I go, sounds good. When do I get to watch that? And you would say, well, it's about 12 months from now. Okay.

And then you'd be like, why do you look so different if you're only for? a year from now and then the person will go, oh, you'll find out, and then they'd vanish. And you'd be like, that's... Oh, no. Oh, no. I didn't like that at all. The sun's exploded, by the way. Goodbye.

Yeah, I'll see you later. I don't like to learn that. Did you like Cal McCarr as the Khan-Smith winner? Yeah, I was a little surprised that it was unanimous, I guess, but, you know, he was... Now, it seemed like something, yeah, it seemed like something that got to... decided, you know, in the third round. Everybody was just like, unless he, like, falls off a cliff in the middle of the Stanley Cup final, like a literal cliff.

Like, he goes sightseeing in Denver on an off day, just falls down a big mountain. Which would be tough, because I don't know if you've heard, but the altitude is quite high in that area. That was mentioned. Yeah, he'd still be falling if that were the case. He's just Ozzy smithing all his way down. They still go on to play without him. Yeah, yeah, he's good week for him, man.

Norris, Conn's Mike. Same few days. Not bad for like a 14-year-old or whatever he is. He's doing well. Yeah, the one thing I will say is I was pretty surprised to see Val Natchush can only get a couple of, or two or three third place votes. Mm-hmm. I know he was obviously playing on, like, a badly broken foot or whatever,

but I just was, like, pretty shocked that, like, Miko Rantononan got more love than he did. I thought he was unbelievable the entire playoff. Yeah, especially when Miko Rantan, like, didn't score until, like, well into the conference final. Yeah. I mean, that would have been like kind of the classic heavily waiting, like, what have I seen with my own eyes in the Stanley Cup final, you know, big goals or the thing. A couple votes for Vasilevsky, which third place votes. I think that's fine.

Yeah, no big deal. Nothing for anyone outside of the final. So if you were looking for like a McDavid or someone like that, that did nobody even threw them a courtesy vote. which, you know, like that's one of those things where it's like, yeah, obviously the Oilers don't get anywhere without McDavid going, you know, having the best playoff since like Mario Lemieux or Wayne Gretzky or whoever. Absolutely. That's true. But I really do think you probably do have to make the final to get consideration. They play four rounds. You can't play only three of them. Like if we ever see a situation where somebody does the McDadee.

it for three rounds. And then the two teams in the final are like boring defensive teams. They kind of grind it out. You know, the goalies get the vote. I could see something like that. But when it's as star-studded as this one was, I don't think this was the year for. Absolutely. Yeah.

I will say about the Kail McCar thing, people are already like, well, look, he's going to be in the running for the heart next year. It's like, no, I know that. But like, we don't have to, every time a guy wins the consmite, we don't have to go, is this the best player in the world? Like, we don't, we can stop doing that. Yeah. That's fine. Especially when the actual

best player in the world has just flexed as hard as he did on everything. Like, this is, it's not like there's a gay, because you're right. We do this all the we did it with Crosby, right? The infamous Claude Jouroo. Oh my God. With Crosby,

anytime a guy had two goals in a single game, like regular February game, they're like, it's, now look, We all know Sadie Grosby's good, but is shifely, the best player in the world? Like, no, come on. Don't do that. And, yeah, same thing here. But being the best defenseman in the world at his age, not bad.

Unequivocally the best defenseman in the world. I don't think there's even at this point the only thing that would prevent me from saying he should win the Norris in a walk next year. is, you know, he gets hurt kind of a lot. You know, I guess he only missed like five or six games this year, but like last year, in the year before that, he did not play close to the full season, if I'm not much mistaken. And so it's just one of those things where if Cala Car can stay healthy, he's easily a top three player in the world, arguably top two, but is he better than Carlin' David? We all know he's not.

car McDavid just plays with a bunch of bombs that's not his fault yeah Kel McCarr you know who he plays with Nathan McKin heard of Mika Randman like Devon Taves like go down the list there's like 15 guys on the Colorado

avalanche where you're like oh wow that guy's really good yep yep the avalanche were not so much the Edmonton noise a super super well-built team and again I got to go back to it like I I've had so many wrong takes, but my wrongest take, I think, was after that 40-point season, after the trade

deadline in that 40-point season, when the avalanche basically didn't do anything, even though they were 40 points out of the playoffs. And I was like, Joe Sackick is in over his head. He can't do this job. This is a classic team that went and put the famous star player in SGM, and he's, he can't do this. He's not good at it. Whoops. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's one of those things where, I don't know, do you look at, you look at all the players they kind of gave up on, right? They gave up on Ryan O'Reilly, and everybody's like, what are they doing? They gave up on Tyson Barry.

Everybody's like, you know, he's not unbelievable. This guy is like a huge. asset as a number two or a number three puck moving defenseman, right? You know, everybody knew their trade match, Dusha. Chene kind of forced his way out, but the one that really got me back then, and you know, in hindsight, was the fact that they had Jerome McGinla and they got nothing for him at the trade deadline, literally, nothing for the greatest leader. I mean, he stunk back then, but that doesn't stop teams from going out and getting the,

the leadership and the you know and the this guy's going to chase a cup for us and they got literally zero they traded him to kings for a conditional pick the kings missed the playoffs and conditional pick was nothing and i was like aha joe sackick is bad at this right sorry sorry joe i think i'm i'm back on the fence on this one it's 50 50 could go either way yeah yeah no they just um very meticulously over the last like three or four years have become the team where it's like if you, I said this in my column, if you see Joe Sackick on your caller ID, send him to voicemail.

Yep. He's trying to rip you off and he's going to do it. He's going to make you go, oh, this guy was like a third line left wing for me. I don't really need him at all. He'd be like one of the three best players on your team. You're like, really? And he just talks to you long enough that you're like,

okay, sounds good. Yeah, I did a, I had a column that just came out this morning where I went through all the cap bear and I said, I have every champion, who was the team that, like, helped them do it by making a very stupid trade with them? And some of them, some of them were easy. And some of them were tough because, you know, teams didn't trade a lot. The avalanche were, like, the one where I was like, it's hard to narrow this down. It's an embarrassment for me.

It's an embarrassment. So many guys that they just stole. And, yeah, that's, and you know what? That's part of being a GM, you know? Yeah. Everyone's, oh, it's a draft and developed league. it is, but also, once you've done that, you need to make the right deals and maximize. And he was busy at the trade deadline, which is good for us as fans because, you know, we like the trade deadline.

And yeah, he's been aggressive. And can you guess there were six players on the Colorado Avalanche championship roster, whatever you want to say. that were drafted by the Colorado Avalanche. You never see that first. Is that it? You never see that. That's it. Only six.

Now can you guess who those six are? So it's McKinnon, McCar, Landiscaug, Ranton. Yep. Yep. Ah. There's one more defensemen and one more. Byram. Correct.

And then I assume we're not counting. No, Samna Gerard wasn't drafted by them. He was a national. Nope, you sure wasn't. And then who would be the last guy? No, I don't. Alex Newhook. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't get that.

A guy who at the time, everybody was like, oh, they just, like, stole a draft pick here. It was, like, the 16th overall pick. And basically within four months, everybody was like, yeah, future NHLer, like, no problem there. He's going to be really good. They've just done such a good job of identifying talent, first of all. like Connor Timmons was another guy who was like whoa this kid's going to be really good and then they were like yeah we need a goalie

so we're just going to trade them that's fine bye see ya yep um was that was that the timmons trade was the Kemper trade I don't remember I know they gave up a first for Kemper

um and a condition I feel like it was there was a prospect that don't know maybe I'm wrong oh no it was I was right Connor Timmins a first round

and a third round pick. Where it's like, yeah, Conner Timmons is going to be really good, but, you know, they have Kail McCar, Santar, Devon, Taves, Bowen Byron. So they feel like, you know what, I can let it Carter Tames. Might be okay. That's fine. Nope, no big deal. And, yeah, so, like, it's just, they're really good at identifying needs.

And look, like you say, the, the, the Nazim-Kadry trade. They offload Barry, and they go, we'll give you a poor man's Nazim-Cadry, right? And like I said, they traded from an area of strength, and, you know, like I said, a first-round pick where, okay, well, it's going to be like the number 30 at worst. So, who cares?

They get Darcy Kemper. he's I wouldn't even say fine he was like a little below average he was good enough he was good enough good enough that's all he needed to be behind the team right

um but yeah they trade for lecannon they trade for burukovsky they trade for um Josh Manson obviously like guys who who played big roles for them and they were just like yeah we can get those guys be a trade no problem and burraca or

leckenin is like oh all Also, he is an arbitration-eligible RFA. Like, we control his rights beyond this season. Unreal. What incredible work by the avalanches, like, entire front office because, you know, people I know from Twitter or whatever who are, like, little analytics nerds, you know, those guys had a decent, have a decent amount of pull in that organization. Mm-hmm. And you don't, you don't get to. having all these players, like, again, just consistently winning trades without having buy-in,

like identifying guys who are maybe undervalued or areas where you can deal from a position of strength to bolster positions of weakness without having organizational buy-in on like, this data matters, you know? So, you know, maybe I'm just saying that because, I'm friendly with a couple of those guys or whatever, but like, I think that's true. Like Tampa's another team where it's like they clearly value data

and drafting and development and all that stuff and a way other teams don't. So. But yeah, let's move on and we'll talk about the list of injuries reading like the in-memorial from the Baby of the Year awards. Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Uh, yeah, like, uh, Andrei Vasilevsky, throat slashed. Yep. Pancake by a dump truck. Yeah. Uh, so I'm just going to read it down here. Pierre Edward Belmar, meniscus injury starting the postseason. He entered the postseason with a meniscus injury. You don't want to do that.

No. Uh, Anthony Sorrelli, AC, joint sprain, and a dislocated shoulder. That kind of explains why he didn't do very much down the stretch. Mm-hmm. Brandon Hagel, foot fracture. Nikita Kutrov, MCL Sprane, Corey Perry, AC Joint Spray, Braden Point, significant quad-tair. Yes. This isn't one of your run-of-the-mill quad-tair.

I hate when people make a big deal out of some minor quad-terre. Although I was surprised, like they made it sound like, you know, in the regular season, he would have been, like, out for weeks, not months or, you know, which, so. Yeah, you're right. It doesn't sound that significant. Suck it up. Get out there, point. Did you see anything?

Because I didn't. Have they said anything about him re-injuring it or, you know, it getting worse? Because it, like I think we said last week, it felt like he was getting close early in the series. And then it sort of became like, don't worry about it. It's not going to happen. Yeah, I think it, well, he played that one game. And I think it was just a thing of like, no, I can't do it. Yeah.

You know? Boy, that's what, like you say, that could be like a month's thing, right? Like a significant quad tear sounds bad to me. And then Ryan McDonough, this is the pancake by a dump truck thing. Mangled finger. Yeah. I don't want to hear about that. And I feel like nobody even knew about that one, which is a little weird.

You can have anything that is mangled. Yeah. I think I might have put it in a column or something like that, but I definitely had the thought at various points in the last, even like toward the end of the Eastern Conference final, where I was just like, he does not look good out there. And it turns out it's maybe in part due to his mangled finger. It's not a word.

That is the one word that you never want to hear on your injury report. is corruption. But number two is mad. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's, um, look, like, we're going to find out about the avalanche as we, as we mentioned. Valenechuskins already posted his, uh, his x-rays of his badly fucked up foot. Yep.

Um, and I'm sure in the next day or three here, we're going to hear even more about all this kind of stuff. but yeah like it just goes to show what guys play through are willing to play through it this time of year and you know the kind of stuff they might be injected with to make that possible well that's yeah so I guess the bottom line here is if the training staff had done a better job Tampa wins the cup but yeah absolutely no question about it sorry guys um the one last thing I guess you got to talk about here telling the haters, putting the haters on notice, some were saying. On blast, as they might say. Telling people to kiss his ass if they thought he was a liability in the playoffs.

Yes. Now, Nazim, I don't know if you remember, but there was like, I think it was 17 playoffs in a row. You got suspended for throwing your stick at a ref or whatever it was. You know, like the idea that he was a great player or whatever was never really in question. It was always, can this guy like stop trying to kill people, like right in front of an official? Correct. In a playoff game, a pivotal playoff game. Yes.

And yet also, I don't know. Very, very funny moment for him to do it. And did it on live TV here in Canada. And I should point out, because I know a lot of people who, if they're not seeing it, they only saw the people quoting him. And he was quoted accurately. said it very like laughingly. It wasn't like, you know, he wasn't like staring down the camera and like he, he, he said it very much, uh, as a, as a, as a, as a, you know, with a laugh. But, uh, yeah. And I saw, you know,

I thought it was great. And then, you know, I saw a lot of people getting mad that, uh, you know, they felt like, oh, he's, he was, you know, he was throwing that at the Leafs or their fans or whatever or he was, you know, like you said, he was a liability. I mean, that wasn't, that really wasn't question. Undeniably. But still, great quote. Like, if he had said to all the people who said you can't win with me, kiss my ass, that would have been like a perfect mic drop moment because they did, he did help the team

win. But anyways, still very cool. I thought it was, I thought it was. And look, I'm a Leafs fan. and a media guy who was back then probably like, yeah, they got to trade him. So I should maybe feel targeted. But I don't. I thought it was a great moment for a guy who has earned it.

Yeah, I should say. Like, I'm a Nazim Khadry fan. And I think it was funny that he told people to kiss his ass. I wish more hockey players would say that kind of thing. All the time. Yeah, every single game. Yeah. You know, hey, what did you see on that goal?

Well, you know, I was just going hard to the net and a good play by Bergerie to get me the puck there. And also, I would like all the fans to kiss my ass. That would be fantastic. We need that. Yeah, that would rock. That would be a plus. But again, just a classic situation where I just kind of feel like, oh, it seems like he did the thing of like, Like, everybody's against me.

Again, my haters are my motivators. Yeah. Everybody counted me a guy who's like a perennial 30-goal guy or whatever. I counted me out. Everybody thought I sucked. Well, it's not really an accurate. But, like, fair play to you. You know what he did have to do?

He had to find a way. Yeah, and he had to prove people wrong. Yeah. He had to hashtag do your job. found a way this year the team slogan find a way to beat

and the way was having 15 all stars on the Ross that's right have they did it way better players

than everybody else and then go out there and find a way yeah okay so let's do the thing where we pull up the cap-friendly pages for these teams

because both of them have really interesting summers ahead of them I mentioned Lekanin is an arbitration-eligible, restricted free agent,

so they've got to find a way to re-sign him. They got to find a way to resign Nicholas Obey Quabell, who was, by the way, a waiver claim. They just picked that guy off waivers for nothing.

It didn't cost him a thing. Unbelievable. Yes. And then... Was he the one who dropped the Stanley Cup, by the way? I think he was. I feel like that's his claim to fame.

So, which also, very... Very, very funny. The photo of the team reacting to that is arguably one of the great hockey photos of all time. Like, that was right up there with Bobby Hor. That was one of those where, like, every time you move on to a new face, it just gets better. It was so, I'd love that.

And you know what they say about if you're the guy who, like, damages the cup, when you got to win the cup first. That's right. Hats off to them. Full credit to Nicco Biggie Bell. Also, me and my sledgehammer at the Hall of Fame proved that wrong. I think, you know what, if you can get in there with a sledgehammer and really do some damage, they should let you at least pick it up.

Yeah, I think so. But here is their list of UFAs. This is a crazy list of UFAs for the apps. Andre Berkowski, Andrew Cogliano, Darren Helm, Nazim Kodry, Val Nishkin, Nico Sturm, Jack Johnson, Josh Manson, Ryan Murray, Darcy Kemper. That is a lot of guys to have to resign. Obviously, you're like, you know, I feel like we can find a replacement for Darren Helm out there pretty easily.

Yeah, and it's like a huge issue. Some of those guys are just, you know, I think it has been knowing all along that Josh Manson, Manson was a rental. Nazim Cadbury wasn't coming back. you know, Berkovsky and Kemper are probably the question marks. But even if neither one of those guys came back, like I don't think you're significantly dropping the abs down your list. And they have like 20 plus million in Cap Room to work with. So it's not like they're up against.

It's like 25-ish, yeah. Yeah. So they can do this. But a couple of things with that, though. One, I think if you're going to read, if you're going to get in the business of resigning guys, I would probably try to get Berukovsky and Nachushkin back. Those would be my two. You give those guys six, seven years each. I don't know that you're like

super, maybe, maybe toward the last two years of those. You're kind of worried about the production, but like, you know, they're both like 26, 27 years old. It's not like they're going to... Are you making that kind of commitment to Valerie Nacuchin? like one good year that he's ever had and yeah you're on one good year we no i mean one good year production wise i think you could say um but like he's a guy 20 this was his first year out of the 20 point like to hit the 30 point mark let alone the 52 we wound up with yeah sure i guess i guess my thing is this man has been uh a demon on uh you know the 200 foot game like

Is he going to put up 50 points, 20-something goals every year? No, he sure isn't, probably. But he's proven, not just this season, but like in recent seasons, if you need him to move up to the top line, yeah, that's no problem. He can keep up with anybody up there. If you need him to drop down to the third line, yeah, he'll, you know, he can play with guys who aren't even particularly good,

and he just gets in on the forecheck and... Yeah, I just, I don't know that, like, I agree. with everything you're saying. I just don't know. If he can play on your third line is part of a selling point, I don't know I want to go a big commitment to a guy, especially given that, like, he's a guy that given the playoffs he just had, if I'm his agent, I'm like, dude, we got to get to the market because some GM is going to get stupid with an offer to you.

This is just, again, like a guy who has been, I think undervalued. And now maybe this year you would say he's like overvalued probably. Yeah. But if he's willing to be like, look, the Colorado Amalanche took a chance on me when no one would. And they've always put me in a position to succeed. And even if I wasn't putting up points, I was like, you know, like elite defensive forward. Not even 200 foot game, let's say.

But like not a guy who would get like Selky consideration. but probably should have at some point before this year. And now next year, of course, he'll win it because that's how the selfie works. But he's a guy that I've really liked for a long time, I think, is like super valuable. And yeah, I guess it just depends on if he wants to test the market

and someone's like, we'll give you $6 million for seven years. Well, then, you know, thanks for your service. You know, we'll see you at the, at the cup engraving or whatever, you know, but like, if he's willing to take like five, well, I really have to think about it if on the avalanche, honestly. Yeah. But yeah, Camper is one where it's like, I guess I'd need to know what the backup plan is for goals. Because like, I don't, I think we said it in a recent episode of like,

is Powell Frantzosa's going to be like your guy next year? You can't enter the season that way. I don't know. I don't think you do, but I do think that, I mean, Kemper didn't have the sort of playoffs that's going to have people kicking his door down, even given that he just won a cup. But if he, if he, I mean, they let Philip Gruberra go last year. Then I think you go out and you either trade for another guy or, I mean, there's not great guys in free agency, but certainly there will be goalies who want to play for that team.

I don't think you're going to have to drag anyone kicking and screaming in. I think if you're Joe Sackick, you're willing. Obviously, you don't want to constantly be training first-round picks for one year of a goalie. But, yeah, I think it's going to be easier for them to fill that spot than it would be for like a Washington or even a Toronto or whoever. Not to mention some of the truly bad team. that are out there looking for guys. Yeah, and so as we say, like, keeping one or two or even three of their big UFAs doesn't seem like outrageously difficult because of their cap situation.

But it all comes with the caveat that they need to give Nathan McKinnon a new contract, and that's probably going to cost like $11 million. Yes. And McKinnon, it's an extension that would kick in next starting in 2023. Right. Which means, you know, they don't have to fit it in to this coming season's cap, but also unless you're signing guys to one-year deals, you can't avoid that that's going to happen.

Do you think he's going to top McDavid? Do you think he'll break that ceiling? No, no. I think he gets $11 million because for a couple of reasons. First of all, he's not as good as Connor McDavid. That's the number one reason. that you can't pay him more than Congress. Yeah, but at some point, like, Connor McDavid, taking a cheap deal can't hold down every other star player.

Well, the other thing is the flat cap. I agree that if, you know, normal situation, the cap's going up like 5 to 8% every year, then, yeah, you get to break the bank. But, like, I think we're still, I think they said two years away from, like, the cap going up as normal. If I'm Nathan McKinnon, I'm signing an eight-year deal that's going to be kick-in next year. So nine years total commitment. I and the flat the cap's going to be flat for two or three of those years I'm sitting there going like am I better than McDavid? No, but he signed his contract however many years ago, four years ago.

Am I better than Austin Matthews? Well, not necessarily, but I just want a Stanley Cup. I'm at least in the conversation with Austin Matthews. I'm not taking less than the 11 point whatever that he got on a second deal, especially given that I've just spent the last five years hearing about what a bargain I am. You know, I mean, this guy left probably $20 million on the table in hindsight by signing the deal that he did. I mean, somebody's got a, Connor McDavid can't be the highest paid player for all eight years. No, for sure. Because, like.

And Matthews is probably going to pass him in two years anyway. So if I'm McKinnon, I don't want to sign eight years at 11 million or whatever and then watch Austin Matthews get 14. And now here we go again. you know, I'm Mr. Discount again. Now, I don't know what motivates Nathan McKinnon. Maybe he's one of those, maybe he actually is one of those guys who wants to take less to build, you know, to keep winning. But that's usually something we say after the fact when somebody got screwed on a deal.

I'll say this about Nathan McKinnon taking a discount, potentially taking a discount. Seems like everybody in Colorado does a little bit. Look at the Devon Taves contract. Even the Kail McCar deal, which like 9 million, is not fucking cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Looks good now, doesn't it? Looks real good now, and the same can be true. Maybe you say Miko Rantman's actually maybe even a little bit of an overpay at 9.25 or whatever he is.

And Landiscaug, I mean that that was a case of getting like the extra years at the end. The extra year helps. But like him at seven, I think most teams would consider that not necessarily really taking, excuse me, taking market value. Look, when you're a really well-run organization, top to bottom, yes, players want to play there, and they will often take less than full market value to stay. I'm just saying that, you know, if I'm Nathan McKinnon, I'm,

I don't know what I'm doing. I put it this way. If Nathan McKinnon said, I want to be the highest pay player in hockey, I don't think there's a good argument against it. Right. Sure. Yeah, especially because he'll be, what, like 20, seven when the new deal gets in.

So like this isn't, this isn't a case where it's like, oh, I'm finally hitting UFA at 29. Yeah. Yeah, you're not paying. I mean, he has every right to go in. And again, if this isn't necessarily what he would do, but to go in and say like, you know,

I'm 20 million in the whole to start this negotiation because of the last contract I signed. So this is what, you know, and go from there. But yeah, it's not like you're buying six declining, you know, well, maybe declining, but terrible years in rewarding a guy all for the past. Like he could absolutely be MVP level for at least the first half of this new deal. Yeah, if he goes eight years, he'll be getting, you know, to 35, basically.

And, and, you know, that's old in hockey terms, absolutely. But also, like, you know, Nazan Khadri just had the best season of his career. He's, what, 31, 32 years old? Mm-hmm. So, you know, and, boy. Boy, that is a thing that makes that contract interoperate. Like, who's going to give him six for six by six or six by seven or whatever it is, right? I'm really interested to see that one.

Somebody might. Somebody might. Maybe he, maybe the- Absolutely might. The feeling is he's a little too much of a shithead to justify that kind of a long-term commitment. But he's... He's a shithead with a Stanley Cup, and I think there's going to be a lot of GMs. And he was really good this year.

He was really, really good this year. There's a lot of GMs that probably look at their team and go, we need more guys like that. Yeah, there was a stretch where, you know, he was getting MVP consideration. Like at the middle of the season, people were like, don't sleep on Nazim Khadri for an MVP, you know? And I don't know that he would have won it even if he had stayed healthy for the full season. but he might have cleared 100 points. Yep. Again, at age like 3, 1,32.

Can't wait to see how that one plays out. Yeah, that's going to be really, really interesting. All right, let's do Tampa now. They are in, you know, the typical Tampa mode where it's like... I'd love to see the lightning wiggle their way out of this one. Exactly. And they easily do it. Yeah, they're already $2 million over the cap.

they haven't signed anybody for next season. They're $2 million over the count. That seems bad. I did not realize that. Yes, that is not great. Is that with Brent Seabrooks? No. And obviously you can exceed the cap by $10 million in the off season.

So like, you know, it gives them a little more wiggle room. But they still only have like maybe five-ish million to spend total. against the cap. It's five or six, I think. And here are their UFAs. Riley Nash. Okay, no big deal. See you later.

Don't really care. Nick Paul, a guy you'd maybe like to keep, but also I don't think he kills you to. I think he made himself a lot of money this off season, or this postseason. Jan Ruda, who had, I thought, a decent playoff. And Andre Palat, who. That's the top.

He's in the Nazim-Cadry mold of like he had an insanely good playoff and he, you know, he was pretty good in the regular season, too. He had like 50 points or something like that, if I remember, right? And he's also 31. And so he's done plenty of winning. He's kind of in the Nazim-Cadry boat of like, if he wants to stick around because he likes the fit and, you know, he feels like he can remain competitive, makes perfect sense. but also he's got his two cups. He's been to like five Stanley Cup finals or whatever in his career at this point. He can, or four, I guess, he can very easily just go forget it.

It is a little tougher with him than Cadre because he's been there forever. Yeah, this isn't a guy who, you know, you've had for a couple years. I think that's one where, you know, they would like to bring them back. Again, Tampa's another one of those organizations that I'm sure. he would take less to stay in Tampa than, you know, go play on the first line in Columbus. But can you figure out a way to make it work? You know, if they want to do that, I guess the other thing becomes like, who do they move? Like, do you find somebody to take Alex Clorrin at four or not?

Well, the problem is that, like, everybody on a reasonably big money contract has, like, at least a modified no train. Yeah. And Anthony Sorrelli would be the one that I guess You could probably move and get Pretty decent You definitely could But also like he's your center

Of the You know Middle term future right? Like he's 23, 24 years old He's very good He seems like you know If you move him up in the line Like, well, I guess Braden Point is your, is maybe your more typical center of the future since he's signed forever.

And he's a few years older than Sorrelli. And he's really good and when he's healthy and all that kind of stuff. Whereas Stamcoast only has, it says, two years left. So, you know, then you start asking some, some tough questions about the Stephen Stamcoast extension if he wants one and that kind of thing. well i mean you know he's staying so right but like but how do you work yeah how do you work it is is the is the issue right because if if you know he wants like

hey you know why don't you just give me the nick back from contract but i too have a bunch of injuries and i'm 32 years old or whatever um that that's a tough one i don't know how you work it out but obviously that's a bridge you cross when you come to it um but the point being i don't move Sorelli, even with the understanding that he's got one year left on his contract. I guess I just say to Alex Colorn, there's not a place for you here. Bye.

You know, like good player, good soldier, all that kind of thing. But he's not a spring chicken anymore. He's got one year left. And he, unlike all these other guys, doesn't have a full, no move or no trade, you know. And he makes a decent amount of money. Whereas, like, if you try to move Corey Perry or. Pierre Edward Belmar. It's like, you could probably

get someone to take him, but it's not freeing up any real money on your cap. Yeah, that's fair. The one other guy I might think about is Mikhail Surgachev, who I didn't think was great, especially in the last few rounds during the playoffs.

But, again, like he's a 24, 25-year-old defenseman who can play both sides of the ice, has a strong pedigree and all that kind of stuff like I don't know it'll be a real tough one to figure out for sure as as you say they'll they'll find a way to wriggle out of this one pretty easily because they're the Tampa Bay Lightning they always do and at the end of the day like you know the guys that we just we just mentioned a bunch of guys that they would like to keep we didn't mention anyone that they need to keep like anyone where we're like the like

None of those guys moved the needle to an extent that it changes your contention window. The core is locked. Correct. Yes, absolutely. And so, as they said, and as you said earlier in the podcast, they're going to be really good again next year. Plot, no, palat. It doesn't feel like that matters. They'll do the thing they've done the last couple of years and that now Toronto's doing where it's like, we'll find a 35-year-old who's still pretty good.

We'll pay him the league minimum. and he's going to come and he's going to be awesome. It's worked out great for Toronto, so you got to. Well, you know. All right, one last thing to wrap up Stanley Cup coverage here on the podcast, and then we'll take a break, and we'll be back with some other stuff. We got the odds to win next year's Stanley Cup. Yes.

Colorado, number one with a bullet, to nobody's surprise. Nick Perkins. Yeah. Are you looking at the, you're looking at June? me Shapiro, our old pal or did a different set. I did not receive that. I'm a guy going to be the one.

How are you not on his mailing list? Who's not on his list? Everybody. I'm on Josh Barton's mailing list, I think. Oh, I don't know, Josh. Okay. Maybe it's the same one. The one he sent Colorado four to one,

which is very heavy favorites. That's rare in any sport. to see a team that heavily favored. I know 4 to 1 sounds like, you know, 20% chance. It doesn't sound like much, but in a 32 team league, that's significant. Yeah, then next up. Sean, who do you have next? Tampa at 15 to 2.

Oh, okay, yeah. So we have very different odds in front of this thing. Because the one I'm looking at has the Toronto Maple Leafs at plus 9. 100. Okay. This one's got, it's got Tampa at, like I say,

15 to 2, so that'd be plus 750. And then it's got Carolina, Florida, and Toronto all at 12 to 1. Tide for 3rd. All right. The ones I'm looking at

Florida, Tampa, and Vegas tied for 3rd at plus 1,000. Hmm. Okay. And then Carolina's right behind them at plus 11.

Okay. So still, I mean, this is definitely, if you're going to bet, use my list because they're giving you some higher odds. I've got after Carolina floor of Toronto, the next wave is three teams, Vegas, the Rangers, and Edmonton at 14 to 1. Yeah, Calgary and Minnesota here at plus 1,000. Okay. Calgary was the one that jumped out to me. They're at 20 to 1. They are down.

they're after the wild and the blues. Calgary is not... That's crazy to me. Yeah. That is, I think, outside the top 10 for a team that was heading into the playoffs, seen as number two in the west now.

Yeah, and rightfully so, I think. That's not nothing, but... Yeah, the next wave here is Pittsburgh, Edmonton, and the Rangers all at 2000. The Blues at 2,500, the Bruins at 3,000, and then you're down into like Islanders Kings territory.

Other than Vegas, are the Islanders and Kings your top non-playoff teams? Or sorry, Kings did make the playoffs. Are the Islanders your top non-playoff team? Like as far as their cup odds? Yes, they are, yeah, by a decent margin. The next one, they're plus 3,500. The next one are the Canucks plus 4,500. Yeah, I'm...

Which is interesting. I think they're not going to win the Stanley Cup next year. I've got the Islanders and then the Jets at 40 to 1 ahead of, significantly ahead of Vancouver. Yeah, I'm really shocked at how much these are diverging, honestly. Yeah. I would have thought they'd be all, you know, in the same neighborhood. But who do you have... Okay, let me ask you this.

Who do you think will make the playoffs next year, knowing nothing about, like, the, obviously, obviously anything that's going to happen this summer. Who do you think will make the playoffs next season, but have, like, uh, worse odds? Like, who have the worst odds,

but... The worst, okay, the lowest, uh, team. So I'm working from the bottom of my list, Arizona,

Seattle, then New Jersey, Detroit, Chicago, Buffalo altogether. I don't think any of those. I mean, if I,

you know, New Jersey's, been aggressive in off seasons the last little while and Detroit eventually you would think would have to be, but I don't know that I see that. San Jose Columbus, Anaheim, Anaheim did have a bit of a run. They did. And then Philly, Ottawa, Montreal. Boy, I'm, like, I'm not seeing anybody that makes me think they're a playoff team. And yet, we know that it's quite like, like, I might have to get to Vancouver before I saw a team where I was like, you know, I could see them. moving in.

I've got kind of a hot one here. All right. And they're tied with Anaheim on my odds. And they're tied with Anaheim and San Jose, Seattle, and Chicago. And that's the Columbus Blue Jackets. I can kind of see how it comes together for them a little bit. I think they'd have to get a little aggressive in the offseason, but I think they can make it happen. I don't know why I feel like that convinced about them, but I kind of do.

Okay. Interesting. So there you have it. All right. Why don't we take a break? And then we'll be right back and talk about, boy, all the other crazy news that happened in the last, like, weaker. So, so, uh, be right back. Today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Sunday.

Uh, I will tell you a little something about me when it comes to my lawn. Uh, I don't mind cutting the grass. I really don't. Yeah, I throw on some headphones and get out there. It's pretty high on my list of chores around the house that I don't really mind doing. What I have never been a big fan of is the rest of the stuff, fertilizing, trying to figure out how do I get this to grow properly, get rid of the weeds, all of that. And that's where Sunday comes in, because Sunday has lawn care products that are quick and easy, and you don't even have to go to the store because everything gets delivered. right to your door. Your yard is your personal oasis, and it deserves the best. And Sunday helps you grow a beautiful lawn control pest, fight weeds without all of the toxic stuff. It's effective and super easy. You just go to Sunday.com, you put in your address, and their lawn analysis tool does the rest. They use soil and climate information to create a personal nutrient plan and deliver it to your door right when you need it. Their lawn care products are made with your family

and mind. They use ingredients you can feel good about like seaweed, iron, molasses, stuff you can pronounce. And the best part is that it really works. And right now Sunday is offering our listeners 20% off. That's full season plans starting at just $129. And you can get 20% off when you visit get sunday.com slash puck at checkout. That is 20% off your custom plan at get sunday.com slash puck. All right. The other big news this week was that they put a bunch of guys in the Hall of Fame again this year.

And I guess the big thing to tell you. talk about it. They put the emphasis on guys in this one. Only one woman put in. Again. Rika Salinen Yeah, again, absolutely. Riga Salinen, who I didn't know much about her. I was looking up her info last night online.

She played in the top flight women's leagues in Sweden and Finland for like 30 years. She was born in like the early 70s and she just retired like two years ago. Yes.

So why? A life for somebody that, you know, not super well known, I don't think, to North American fans where we're sort of used to it being all about Team Canada and Team USA, which makes it a good pick because this is an international Hall of Fame. And sure, no issue with that pick on its own. Yeah. But. Yeah.

Well, the other thing to say is, I wanted to say this really quickly. You know, have you ever seen that thing of, like, in Finland, they have their own version of baseball? No, I never have. It's called, like, Pospinen or something like that. It sounds very Finnish. Okay. And apparently Rika Solanin was also the best women's, whatever it's called, player of her era back then as well. Okay.

So, like, in the summer, she was just like, no, I'm, like, also. like the best baseball, like weird finish baseball. You can go watch like full games on YouTube. I highly recommend it. It is baffling, but very fun. It's a very fast-moving version of baseball, I think is what I would compare it to.

But anyway, yeah, only one woman gets it. Yeah. That's insane. It is. It's because... Was it Megan Dugan became eligible this year? Megan Dugan. Am I right about that?

Carolina Lulet. Yeah. Julia Chu is not in. Like, there are... multiple very strong candidates. You know, nobody is suggesting that you have to put into women every single year if you don't feel like there's two worthy candidates.

But that is the maximum. And I mean, that, too, is objectionable to some people who have said, why do we let maximum of four men and only two women? Yeah. Even putting that aside.

I, I get the argument where it's like, yeah, there's like four countries that are any good at this. So like the, It is a smaller pool. It is a smaller. But it really doesn't matter because in 2010, the first year that they inducted women, they inducted Cammy Granato,

Angela James. And then that's it. They have not put in two women any years since. Right. And it's getting to the point, it's getting to the point where there's like a backlog. Yeah. I mean, there's no argument against two or three. at least of the additional candidates that we just mentioned.

You know, as a Canadian, who led to me as a just absolute no-brainer. And it just, at this point, I don't know if it's stubbornness. I don't know if it's petulance on behalf of the committee where it's like a bunch of strong-willed, mostly men. There's two women on the committee of the 18, but who are like, you're not going to tell us, you yelled at us for not putting in two women and we're not doing it again.

I mean, they didn't put any women at all in for, I think, like, four of the six years after the initial class. I don't get it. Like, there's no, and I don't, and maybe, maybe the argument is, you know, hey, we don't want the overall class to be too big, and, you know, we're putting in a builder and for, well, okay, but then why is it always on the women to be the ones that, you know, are one short. You found a way, they found a way to put Gary Betman in, like, you know, 10 years before he even

retires his commissioner, whatever it's going to end up being, right? And they're just like turning out their pot. I love, hey, who loves women more than the hockey hall fame, right? But what am I going to put in more than one? Well, you can put in two. I mean, come on. What are you going to? It's, it is just, um,

I don't get it. I really, I, I, there's no shortage of candidates. There's no reason not to, it's, and it's not like it's, it's up for debate of, you know, well, what is the right number? No, two is the right number. That's the maximum. Like, there's no, there's no need for the committee to sit and go, well, you know, how many, should we put in more than one?

Yes, you should. Your bylaws say that, that if there are two or more worthy, candidates that you should put into. So that's not up for debate. And, and, you know, I know that the way the committee works, it's all behind the scenes and it's very frustratingly opaque and what have you. But it is not a situation where you could like, just because of the nature of the voting, wind up with, oh, no, we only elected one because we split the votes between

Julia Chu and Megan Duggan and whoever else. Like that because there are multiple ballots. So you could absolutely, that committee could absolutely say, hey, we're putting in two women this year because we have four or five or six strong worthy candidates. Let's hash it out and have the votes and the arguments about who those women end up being. But they could absolutely get to two. Like one is a choice at this point. And it's, it's. Yeah, absolutely.

And it's, I can't figure out a way to defend it. I really, I really can't. Yeah, like I said, if you want to make an argument that because the talent pool is so small in, in any given year, there's only going to be one reasonably eligible person, who becomes eligible, right? Or reasonably qualified who becomes eligible is what I meant to say. And, okay, sure. like you say, they've only inducted one woman every year since 2010, max, right? I think

maybe there wasn't a year where they didn't induct any women at all. There were several. There were several years where they didn't induct any. So they are averaging well under one a year. Right. Okay. So, but that's, that's only in furtherance of the point that at this point, there are, like you said, four, five women where it's like, she should probably be in the Hall of Fame. There's at least an argument to be made. And they keep just being like, and yet it's crazy this keeps happening. One or zero are getting it. Like you said, it seems like it's like petulance at this point more than anything else.

I don't, like, I don't think it's, I mean, I really don't think there's an argument that, you know, Carolyn Alette, you know, Jennifer Bonner-Row is another one that is eligible forever. You know, like, I don't. Yeah, Julie Chu should absolutely be in. Julie Chu was so fucking good for so long. She won the Patty Kazmeier. Like, she was considered at one point, you know, one of the three or four best women's hockey players in the world. And certainly the best in college hockey.

Excuse me. I think she's still the career, or for a long time anyway, she isn't anymore, I should say. But like she was for a very long time, the highest scoring woman in the, history of college hockey. And they were just like, whatever. Julie doesn't need to be in here. Okay. Sure. It makes perfect. And, you know, again, like,

it almost feels like they are on the women's side, they're taking the small hall approach that you've got to really be. While on the men's side, it's been, like I'm looking the men have inducted that on the men's side, there's a max of four. And they have used all four of those slots.

Let's see. This year, last year, which included Kevin Lowe. The year before that, they did only three, but they found a spot for Giacarbono. And, you know, three, so they've been doing three or four on the men's side every year. The equivalent would be for the men to only induct two. And I think I don't even know how far back you would have to go to find a time where they only found two men that were worthy. And certainly, in fact, the last time I'm late was 2010 when there was two women and then even then when they could have

said you know what we're just we're just going to let the women have the spotlight uh they slipped in dino ciceroa so all right i don't get it yeah i i agree let's talk about the men's side of things the sedans get in on the first ballot roberto loongo gets out on the first ballot and then Danny Alfredson gets in and again like this is it's now become a thing of every small market team who's the guy who played their 19 seasons and was very good for most of that time

that guy should be at the freaking Hall of Fame has he ever gotten any kind of consideration for like a major award after you know Adpherson won the Calder won the Calder and I think

think that was a year. It was even kind of a runaway maybe. But it's like after that, like, did he even finish top five for any award? He was an all-star once, like a postseason all-star one time. And as a way. So when you, and when you say this kind of thing, people are like, oh, you hate, Danny Alfordton was really good for a really long time. A fun player to watch, a really likable player, all this shit. But like, it's this and like Patrick Ellie. We've got to get Patrick Eliosh in the hall. We fucking got to put Patrick Eliash in the hall. We fucking got to put Patrick Elias in the Hall of Fame? Patrick Eliash, who was never even like the third best player on his own team?

What are he fucking talking about? Oh, I miss Greg right now. But yeah. People are very strongly about him. Oh, my God. It's insane. And Hendrik Zetterberg is another one, which, you know, not a small market, but that's another one where Detroit fans feel very.

I'll say, like, look, Daniel Offertson is. Henry Sederberg. Exactly. Like, Daniel Offerson is exactly in that middle zone for me. I was absolutely fine every year that he didn't make it. And I'm not that worked up that he made it this year. He's an absolute borderline Hall of Fame case. I just get mad at the people who go like, oh, I was an injury.

He should have been in five years ago. How can you possibly not have a guy who scored 400 goals in the Hall of Fame? And it's like, yeah, I mean, that one time, one time second All-Star, well, we'll probably do Rick Nash pretty soon because that's another guy. And like, I've said it a million times. No one's a, no one's a bigger Rick Nash fan outside of the city of Columbus, I guess, than I am, right? Like, I fucking love Rick Nash, but like, he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame.

And, like, part of that is his career was shortened by injury. But here's the thing. Rick Nash, won a Rocket Richard one time. Can't say that about any of these other guys or it's like, oh, this other guy should be it, you know? Like, is Eric Stahl a Hall of Famer? Because I would say he had a better career. Yes.

Once all the Carolina weirdos who want Rod Brindamore in either succeed or get bored, then Eric Stahl will be the next one. Bill Garon, put him in. Like, how many of these fucking guys? He played for too many teams. Yeah, I guess you're right about that. But how many of these guys were it's like, yeah, he had like 440 career goals or whatever? Yeah.

Man. But sorry, ladies, you can win six goals. medals or whatever and we're not going to be able. We got... The committee got tired. We're going to get the guy who was like the 14th best player in the league for a couple of years. We all got 1.30 T-times, ladies.

There's just nothing to do here. Alfredson was... Again, I have no problem with Daniel Alford. I like Daniel Alton. So let me ask you this. On the basis of numbers, couldn't you say the same thing for the Cedines? Siddins at least one, well, one of them won. the most outstanding player, one of them

one most valuable player. Right. And probably the other one, the one who won most outstanding probably should have also won most valuable. Yes. I would agree with that. And that and, you know, art and that sort of thing. So. Yeah. I guess the thing about the Siddins

is they probably don't, if they're not twins who played together their entire careers, do they get in? I would say probably not. Yep. But like as, but again, One of them, you know, they won an Art Ross. They won a heart.

They want a... What's his name? What's the player's MVP one? Ted Lindsay. Ted Lindsay. Ted Lindsay. They won all that stuff. And like they were probably the reason the Vancouver Canucks of the early 2010s were a juggernaut.

Like, I get it with the Cedines. lot more again just because they won a fucking big trophy both of them did yeah yeah so what am i gonna say and and there also is and this i mean it's it's it's very hard to quantify it maybe it shouldn't be part of the conversation at all but it is the hall of fame and there is a certain element of yeah i mean when if you took your kid to a game and vancouver was in town like you'd be like hey those are the sedans man like you know they're they're twins they always they are. They watch how they play together.

They, you know, in a way that I'm pretty sure you weren't doing with Daniel Alpherson or Patrick Aliasher, whoever. So, and then Luongo, no-brainer, right? Like, are we, is there any? Yeah, I, I think so. Yeah. Have you, what are your thoughts and have you even heard this, this thing that it's like, this is the cupless Hall of Fame?

Like, none of these guys won Stanley Cups and we're putting them all in the hall. That is. I mean, I think that's like kind of an overrated thing. Like, the problem is there's so many guys that got in just because they were on great teams. Yep. Right? Yeah. The 70s Canadians.

Yeah, a perfect example. The 80s Islanders, same thing. Where it's like, yeah, I mean, again, like that becomes the thing of, well, he's famous because he won like six Stanley Cups or whatever. So you have to put him in the Hall of Fame because he, you. He's famous from that. And it's like, I guess that's true. I would never, let me put it this way. I think that winning cups should bolster a borderline case.

But I don't think that losing, that not winning cups should like hurt you in any way, if that makes sense. And I mean, I'd even go further. What bolsters the case to me is if you pointed a guy and say, man, he dragged that team to a Stanley Cup that year. Not single-handedly necessarily. Oh, sure. you go like like a guy like for example that i thought was you know a pretty borderline case on the merits of like marion hosa where you say when that guy got to chicago that's when they took off yeah absolutely great point versus kevin low where it's like yeah you won six

cups but all right what's like you know as the second pairing defensive defenseman on a bunch of all-star teams um i don't i don't buy that the same way but like i i i we got to get our heads around the fact that we have a 32 team league now and just some really, really, really good players are not going to win Stanley Cups. Not, you know, it's not the 16 league anymore. It's not even the 80s where there were 21 teams, but how many of them could actually win? Like how many of them weren't just trying not to go bankrupt or not to let their terrible GM run them into the ground, like maybe eight or 10 contenders?

there's there's going to be great legendary players that are going to play for 20 years and never win a cup because there's 32 teams and it's parity and all this other stuff and what can one guy do like i'm i'm i'm done hearing about it plus the fact that all four of these guys did win olympic gold medals so if you want to say that they're not winners or they never won anything that's yeah like i don't i don't want to get into all that because like you know again like i don't i don't i don't consider that a huge factor but for a guy guy like Luongo where they go, well, he's a goalie, he's supposed to win. Yeah, he won the biggest game of a decade. So, yeah, I dismiss any sort of, well, he wasn't a winner talk. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And then we should also mention Herb Carnegie. Carnegie, I don't know. Herb Carnegie, I'm thrilled.

This is so great. It should not have taken this long, just like Willie O'Reci. A classic thing, they waited until he was dead. Yeah. He's been dead unfortunately for 10 years, but there had been a push lately, like his family had been pushing, and like you started to see some momentum. And thankfully here, you know, I think this is one where you could make a really good case that it should have happened years ago. Rather than get stubborn and wait five more years, they did the right thing. And they put him in and I was thrilled to see that.

Like, of all of these, that was the one that made me like kind of jump out of my seat when I saw it. that I was, I'm just so happy for his family, his fans, everyone that he influenced, you know, if people don't know, this was like,

basically the first black hockey star. Star being the critical thing. Yeah, like well before Willie O'Rey played, was good enough to play in the NHL, didn't get that opportunity, partly due to racism, partly due to,

you know, other factors, but was a superstar, played with John Belvo in the Quebec Senior League, back when that was close to an NHL comparison in terms of the talent, three-time MVP in another league, and didn't get that opportunity in the NHL, but should have. And he deserves this honor just as a player.

But, you know, certainly everything established after retirement, he established like the first hockey school in Canada and, you know, all sorts of things. I wrote about him on the athletic. Like, if you don't really know the story, please seek out that piece and read it because I'm just like, I'm very, very pumped that he finally got in. Yeah. That's one they got absolutely right. And it's, again, like the builders one is usually they're just like, and here he is. Jeremy Jacob, like, oh, my God.

Like, just the worst, the worst people to honor. It's usually the old boys club patting themselves on the back. Or it's somebody, some old timer you've never heard you don't really care. And not only did they put them in, and I don't know if this was intentional or not, but they put him in as the only builder, unlike Willie O'Rey, who had to share, not only share the spotlight, but cede the spotlight pretty much to Gary Bettman that year. They couldn't have waited one more year on that. That is, of all the complaints I would have about how they've handled things over the years,

they got that one exactly right. I'm really thrilled for that. Yep. All right, let's talk about next year's class. We have, I think, three big names that are being eligible for the first, we're becoming eligible for the first time. Number one, no doubt about it. He's in the Hall of Fame.

It's Henrik Lundquist. First ballot should be fucking unanimous. Any doubt at all that he was going in is erased by Luongo going in. Like if Luongo for some reason had been held out, then you might, you know, they are weird about goalies and all. but no, Lunkwist is in next year, book it. As well, he should be. Best of his era.

And an era of goal tending, Hammer-Glunk was routinely the very best of the best. And I think he's the only one of the new class that's going in. Yeah, so the other two big names that TSN listed are Corey Crawford, who's not a Hall of Famer, as much as... As much as... Didn't play long enough as I think is what I would say. And also, if he had been the goalie for that third cup of theirs, or I guess the first cup, I should say.

The first of the three. That might be a different situation. Yeah. But it was. Very good goalie. Underrated, I would say. Yeah, agreed. Awesome player.

But not a Hall of Famer. Yeah. Although it would be funny to put him in just to make all the Chris Oz good freaks really lose. And then the other guy. that TSN listed here is Justin Williams, who like... Guys, it's not the hall of nicknames. Like, if we're putting 800-point players in, because they had a few big games.

It's outrageous. Wanna Conn-Smith won two Stanley Cups? Good player. Yeah. I love Hall of Fame debates. The only thing I don't like is, it feels like you're criticizing a guy when you say, like, Justin Williams was great.

I wish he had played for my team. He was absolutely a difference maker. He doesn't go in the Hall of Fame with 300 goals and 800 points. Like that's not, oh, that'll be, that'll be like in the Guy Carbino territory if he makes it. Oh, I think that would be way worse than Guy Carbino. I think a guy, like you say, not even 800 career points he played like almost 300 games. that would be like putting Shane Donne in the Hall of Fame to me

well just not just an outrageous decision yeah and so with that having been said and knowing that they love to just get as many guys into the hall every year as possible um

McGillney obviously that's the one everybody's like you gotta be shitting me yeah I'm that's the one that that really I don't understand the McGilney anything. I know, like, some people have said, like, maybe they felt like this wasn't the year to put a Russian in. I can't imagine that that was high on their thinking. I know there's always been some concern that, like, McGilney might not even show up for the ceremony or whatever, but so

what? It's, it's, this isn't about your ceremony. It's about, it's, you know, it's about having the right guys in the Hall of Fame. I, the fact that maybe that he was at Canuck, maybe they were like, man, we can't have four Canucks going in this year. But that doesn't explain why he's been waiting for so many years. Like, he should be, I know some people have made the argument that it's tilted too far with McGilney now to the point where it's gone from, hey, this guy should be in the Hall of Fame to, hey, this guy's an absolute slam dunk, no brain, or what's happening, you know, and that maybe we're pushing the case too much.

But I'd put him ahead of several guys who, were in already, including Alpherson, and everyone on the list of other than Lundquist for next year. I guess the issue with McGilney that I just said, like, nobody ever considered, you know, at Danny Alfredson, like one of the five best players in the league. Well, not nobody, but broadly considered maybe not one of the five best players in the league at any point in his career. That's almost certainly true of McGilney. He got less awards consideration than, like, half. the guys I just said should never.

But was also a two-time All-Star compared to Alfredson only one. And as well as a lot of guys who never were, like Cicerelli never was. Dave Anderchuk, I don't think was. But, you know, there are guys who never got a postseason honor, including All-Star and made it in. And, you know, McGilney would have won the Rocket Richard with Timo Salani that that year if the award had existed. Right. Right. And then But the other thing to say.

Which shouldn't help his case, but then was like, I don't even, I don't even want it, which should help his case like that. Everybody loves that. But the other thing to say is this is maybe the most historically significant player of the like late 80s, early 90s, because he is the first Soviet player to defect to the

United States. Right? Like, he opened the door for your Federovs. And, you know, all the every other guy where you're like well obviously he's in the hall fame yeah like the berets whatever McGilley kick that door open yes

and there can only be the first guy to do it and and you know if if you don't know the story go find it because this isn't like you know well I mean somebody was going to be first and you like I mean this like literally defected like smuggled in the back of a car

you know men in black suits chasing him around Buffalo I think it was like this is, this was a crazy story. And it, it, he did it at significant personal risk. And it was a history changing thing. And, you know, you could, I guess on some level argue that, hey, it's, it's the, it's the hockey hall of fame. It's meant for, if you're a player, it's just about how you played.

It's just about what happened on the ice. It's not about, you know, know, but, but they put Vakov Namskiy in, who was, you know, a similar influence as a Czech player, like that door's been cracked open now. Like that, any case of precedent is now very clearly that this is something that we consider. And you want to say, you want to say, well, it matters what you do on the ice. He's in the triple gold club. Yeah.

One Olympic gold, one world juniors, one world championship, won a Stanley Cup. Had one of the greatest, I mean, it, you know, people go, well, you know, if you take away that one insane season he had, well, okay. I mean, yeah, that's true. Most guys take their best year away. And also, and again, I know this isn't a strong argument, but when you watched Alexander McGilney, you thought you were watching a Hall of Famer, his whole career. The guy was a magician. I get that his numbers, when you look at it and, you know, maybe people aren't as familiar with his work, they're looking at his hockey. reference page right now going, oh, he only, he didn't even get 500 goals. He only had like

a thousand points. Um, yeah, uh, but this was a, you know, his second half of his career, very, very good two-way player was an important part of the Devils, uh, winning a Stanley Cup, uh, when he came over his, his one full year there, uh, certainly made the Leafs much better when, when they got him, but it just, just a guy that you were, like, he was kind of, the guy I would compare him to a little bit. Um, uh, the guy I would compare him to a little bit. it, and it's not a direct comparison, but a little bit like Pavel Datsuk in that he was,

you know, the numbers aren't crazy. And he wasn't the sort of two-way player, obviously. But just the things he could, he was just on another level skill-wise. And, yeah, like a real good player. And yes, if you take away his one monster season, then all he other had was a 55-goal season and a 40-goal season.

and four more 30 goal seasons, five, sorry, and, you know, on down the list. Real good player, just put him, put him in. Just put him in. Put him and Lunkwist in next year and be done with it and put two women in. And then you can put whatever, whatever cronie you need to put in for the builders. Because I don't think, I feel like the backlog for men is, I don't know. I mean, I know that Patrick Elish is probably getting in now that Alfredson's in. Um, I don't know.

What? The other thing about McGilney, he's from Siberia. That's cool. That is cool. He's from, uh, Haberavsk it says here. That's in Siberia. Um, so yeah, that's, that's what, like I said, let me give you like, once you do that, let me give you like five names and you just give me a yes or no.

Sure. Uh, Rod Bernaborne. No. Uh, Henrik said, well, no, let me, let me amend that. Oh, give me another, like, like, five years of him being a really good coach. And then we'll talk. But that doesn't, see, the thing is, the player and the builder categories are in theory.

I understand. Completely separate. But in theory, in actual practice, they, of course, are not. So that's, yeah, so that's why I, that's why I say, give me another five. But. Henrik Zetterberg? No, definitely not. Curtis Joseph, now that, now that some of the goalies who don't have cups are going to be in?

That's a real borderline. case to me, I'll say no for now. Pierre Turgeon? Nope. Keith Kachuk. Yes. Mainly because, you know, this is one of those things where maybe it's because I'm saying this because I'm from the United States of America, but it's one of those

things of he's one of the best American players of all time. And I feel like that kind of tends to matter a little bit. Like you said, they do it with Czech players, so why wouldn't they do it with? Americans. And, you know, he's a guy where the counting stats are insane. He's got like, what, 550 goals, something like that. So like, look, I mean, there are some players who were in the Hall of Fame because they're American, like Joey Muller, I would say. So, and it is kind of straight. And Ronick is another guy that probably on the merits should be there, but they're not going to induct him because he's going to do something stupid and embarrass them between now and

the induction ceremony, probably the same as Theo Fleury. Whether you like it or not, we don't need to deal with that. Plus, you could chuck in as a builder. He has a builder. His boys are real good. He's supplying the next generation of players. Oh, and the other name, I guess we should say here, now that I get to the end of this TSN article,

is Sergei Gonchar, still not in the Hall of Fame. Doesn't make sense to me. Really good player, really long time. solid case you know you could yeah real solid case like

you know if he had the same kind of quality and he had been a forward he'd be in already I think he's he's another one in my um

Alfredson zone where it doesn't bother me that he's not in but if he was in I'd be fine um

I guess the last thing I'll say on the McGillney thing um it tough um A tough break for the Hall of Fame always puts in Toronto guys that McGilney's still out there. I had somebody hit me with that. They're like, if the Siddins have played in Toronto or Montreal, nobody would even be debating this.

And I'm like, dude, they got in on the first try. And Alex Gilney didn't. You know who's also not debating it? Most people. Yeah. Meanwhile, McGilney, not in. Curtis Joseph not in. Pat Burns famously took forever.

You know, Sakukoi, who, not even being considered. Like at some point you got to get over the whole Toronto Montreal thing and just accept that, you know, people are like, if Daniel Lufferson played in Toronto, he would have been in already. Maybe, or maybe he got in because he had an entire city behind him because he's like the one star player that they've had. The one guy from that city. Yeah. How. Congratulations. All right.

Let's move on to, maybe not all. Let's move on to Bob McKenzie put out, I'm going to say this. For people out there who are not big draft nerds like me and the company I work for and all that kind of stuff, I feel like the Bobby Margarita annual draft ranking is like the Bible, basically. He puts out the thing, everybody goes, well, that guy should be number one. End of discussion. What are we even talking about here?

And the reason this is in any way notable, because usually Bob will just say, like, oh, this is what the consensus of everybody is and that kind of thing. That's how he does the rankings. He just talks to a million people. And this year, the million people he talked to said, you know what? It's Jury Slavkovsky. That's surprising because everybody would have said Shane Wright. Well, like, I feel like the Shane Wright has not been, I would say consensus number one pick, but not certainly not unanimous at the level. Like, this is starting to feel a little bit like, was it 17, the year that it was that, yeah, 2017 when it was Nolan Patrick's year.

And then you started, as he got closer to the draft, it was like, yeah, maybe not. And he ended up going second. Kind of feels the same way with Shane Wright. But you're right. I mean, having McKenzie make that call is. notable. It makes you feel like Montreal is going to take Slavkovsky.

It potentially does. I think that's what it says to me anyway. Like, I think somebody said earlier that like McKenzie's first, like, number one prospect has gone first overall

every year since like 2006 or something. Oh, really? Is that? Okay, I hadn't seen it. That's, that's very interesting. It's been many, many years that his number one didn't end up going number one. Okay. According to the one guy I saw say that. According to the one random thing I saw on Twitter, yeah. Yeah.

I should point out that just as much as we all love Bob McKenzie, that the athletics own, Corey Pranman did have Slefkowski as his number one ahead of Shane Wright as well, and that was a few weeks ago that that came out. That's his rankings, not based on his projection, but I think that is interesting as well. Yeah, so elite prospects, for those who aren't aware, they run down basically like the entire, like every major ranking. And so here's what it is.

On average, he is the number one ranked prospects. Elite prospects has him number one. FC hockey has him number one. Bob McKenzie has him number two. McKean's hockey has him number one. TSN slash Greg Button has him number one. NHL Central Scouting has him number one among North American skaters, obviously. They separate those things.

I don't know why. Sportsnet has them one. ISS hockey has him two. Recruit scouting has him one. Dauber prospects has him one. Draft prospects hockey has them one. Smot scouting has him one. Puck Authority has him won.

So those are all like the people we think are the most credible, I guess, you would say. and he's number one on all but like three of those rankings is Shane right. So, but Slavkovsky, I'm sure, without clicking on it here, is number two on all of those. So I, maybe. I wouldn't necessarily think. And that's part of what makes this, this draft very interesting is it's not. Well, actually, you know what? You're right.

Because now that I click on it, a bunch of them have Logan Cooley number two. Logan Cooley is up there. Scott Wheeler also at the Athletic, and I'm looking at. at his ranking. He has Shane Wright number one. He's got Simon Nemick as number two, a defenseman, then Logan Cooley, then Matthew Savoy,

and then Slavkovsky. Wow. Yeah. Slavkovsky is a big winger. Yeah, whereas right's the center. You can't teach six four and it. You can't teach six four, but also, you know, center versus winger. And it would be very interesting if,

I mean, Montreal's eternal quest for a number one center that it feels like they have been on. Nick Suzuki. Somebody to learn and play behind Nick Suzuki. Okay, that makes a lot more sense, yeah. If they finally get, they get the number one overall pick in a year

where a center has been atop the draft board for most of the year and they went with the winger, it would be guts. It would, you know, it takes some guts to do that. But, yeah, there is like some Logan Cooley love out there. And I hope we're a week and a day away from

the draft, I hope that it remains secret. It's cool when you get to draft night and you don't know who the top pick's going to be. I hope they play the cards close to the vest just for entertainment sake. Yeah, I'll just run down the top, I don't know, the top 10 or whatever in the elite prospects combined rankings. So just like this is the average of everybody's picks here is Shane Wright, Logan Cooley, Uriislavkovsky, Simone Nemich, David Yeresec, Joaquin Camel, Matthew Savoy, Frank Nizarre, Cutter-Godye, and Jonathan Le Carimaki. There's your top 10 right there.

So, yeah, it'll be interesting because everybody kind of has it pretty open. Cool, though. I'm excited for the draft. It's next Thursday. Yeah, should be very fun. Obviously, in Montreal, with Montreal having the top pick is, we'll add to that. It would be great if they were like, and we're going Logan Coolly, the big center. He's not big at all, of course, but we'll go with Logan Coolly, the center who's American, first overall.

He's going to, Minnesota, I want to say. Yeah, he's, uh, he's, he's. he's going to be real good, too. Is he committed to that? Like, he's definitely... I would imagine so, yeah. You know? Oh, wouldn't it be a shame...

Wouldn't it be a shame if we picked a guy who can't help us next year last again? Well, here's the thing. I don't think, Shane Wright, I don't think anybody they pick first overall is helping them very much next year. I'm just going to say that right out of the gate.

Shane Wright is so interesting, man. He has been... If people don't know, He was one of the, what do they call it in junior in Canada where exceptional status, basically he got in a year early, which if you go down the list of guys who've been granted that status. With the exception of Sean Day, they're all really good. It's several like either mega star, like Sydney Crosby, Codder McDavid level stars or John

Tavares level guys and then like one or two guys that didn't pan out at all. and Shane Wright was one of those guys, which immediately put him on the radar as being, like, the next big thing. And then it's a lot like Nolan Patrick, I guess, as the hype has just sort of slowed down. I think part of it is just when you're number one,

everybody nitpicks and they look for the flaws. And, you know, skating isn't quite a plus level or, you know, well, the thing, the thing with Wright specifically is he wasn't great this year. Yeah. No, he wasn't dominant. This was not a...

He was very, very good, but he wasn't like, oh, my God. And the problem was he was that the year before. Everybody was like, holy shit, this kid is unfucking believable. Didn't really get a world juniors to really flex and, yeah. But like, I think it was, I think he went fucking psycho at the World U-18s in 2020. Yeah. Yeah, nine goals, five assists. 14 points in five games.

It's interesting. Like when you see like the trajectory for him seems headed in the wrong direction, but is this just a guy being at the top of the list for so long that everyone's contrarian instance? Everybody overthinks it. Yeah. That said, I think everybody kind of has always agreed, oh, this is like maybe a guy who's going to be a low end 1C, high end 2C.

Yeah, he's certainly at this point not in the. McDavid, Matthews, McKinnon level of... Although, I mean, when McKinnon was picked, he was not necessarily at that super elite level. But no, this feels more like a Jack Hughes level prospect. Yeah, the cop is usually Patrice Bergeron, which, like, Christ, I mean, you know, obviously. Not bad.

But, like, in terms of, like, what their toolkit is and that kind of stuff where nobody would ever be like, oh, you know how Patrice Bergeron is? got to be a first-round Hall of Famer with like blinding speed, unbelievable skill. None of that shit. Like, he's just an insanely smart, very talented, but not that doesn't do anything like truly outstanding, like immediately apparent on the ice. You know what I mean?

And that's kind of the, what everybody kind of says about Shane, right? Whereas Slavkovsky is the opposite where it's like, whoa, boy, look at this kid. You can do a million good thing. And it's like, uh, I, I think, you know, People would say, like, he hasn't put it all together, but all the tools are there. So if you take him in the top three, that's kind of what you're betting on, is that he becomes everything you think he could be. But we've seen a million times that, like, a toolsy player doesn't always work out. Anyway, that's my take on the draft rankings.

One thing I wanted to talk about that I think you would ask me about in recent weeks. weeks, Sean, is now that the Stanley Cup finals are over final, sorry, not allowed to say finals, how did I feel about the ESPN and the TNT broadcast? And it's interesting because going into the season, I would have said, Turner is the one loading up on X NBC guys. And I have long been vocal in my NBC's, product was boring, like almost to the point where you're like, it's intentionally boring, right?

Like, that's kind of the point. Um, and yet Turner was the way better broadcast, I thought. ESPN more inherited the, uh, the, you know, this is kind of like the thing for old hockey men where like, you know,

it's Chris Shelley O's and it's Mark Messier. And they're trying to have a little bit more fun, but it's like, at the end of the day, they're still just going, you know who I think is going to win is the team that wants it more? And they kind of say, okay, well, it doesn't really help me. And they're, and it's, again, not really having fun necessarily in the way that obviously Turner was like, this is way more personality driven, like our NBA show. And, you know, but I would say this, though. In-game, I prefer Sean McDonough and

Ray Ferraro by a lot to Kenny Albert and Eddie Olcach. So pluses and minuses for both. I would give Turner the edge for this first season, and I hope

ESPN can kind of make a leap between periods. Yeah, it was the first year. You'd expect some unevenness. so um but yeah i i think i think i should say both of art were definitely noticeably better than nbc for sure no question about that in my mind um i would just like to see esPN be a little more fun um that's fair so yeah that that's kind of where that's kind of where i land with with all of that

But like I say, I think they're both better than it was last year by a decent amount. Oh, yeah, the other thing we've got to talk about is the latest on the Hockey Canada fallout is. It seems like it's getting bad for Hockey Canada. Well, it's getting very bad. Like any thoughts that they were going to be able to sort of finesse this or I won't say sweep it under the rug, but that this was going to be something that people were going to be mad about for a few days, and then it would go on to the next thing. Has not happened.

Even with this story breaking in the middle of Stanley Cup playoffs and final, it's the latest is that the major sponsors are now while pulling out on Hockey Canada, or at least pausing, Scotia Bank being the first of them. They put a big open letter in the newspapers that was pretty much demanding some significant action, and now all the other sponsors are kind of one at a time following along. Again, pausing, not canceling, but this is, there is now, in addition to public pressure, and you would hope just the moral and ethical aspect of it, there's now a ton of financial pressure. So nothing really new to report as far as details what we know in the case or that sort of thing.

But again, anyone out there, and clearly there are people out there who have been banking on this, going away or being a small thing, not going to happen. This is going to, this is going to be big, and it is big already, and it's going to continue in that direction. Yeah, sponsorships paused

by Scotia Bank Canadian Tire and TELIS, aka the three things you see ads for when you watch a Canadian broadcast. So that's a problem. And then a bunch of other companies are like, we're keeping an eye on this. We've told them what we expect them to do and that kind of thing. And it seems like some real changes are going to have to be made before the money starts rolling back in,

which, you know, it's probably a good percentage of what hockey can. Like, you know, you vote with your dollar or whatever the saying is, right, and a bunch of corporations. and this is why I always say corporate spending his speech. But, yeah, like... Of course it is. It's a... It's going to be a real tough one for hockey Canada to Canada to, as we said before,

wriggle out of, and I don't think they're going to do it easily at all. They're going to have to countenance some real, fucking systemic change in a way that... I wouldn't have thought was going to be... possible even like a week ago. I wouldn't as maybe maybe a little more than a week ago. I would have said, oh, they're going to kind of maybe be able to make this go away a little bit. But again, like you get called in front of parliament and the, I said it last week. But when the leader of your country is like, this sucks.

It's bad. People are going to notice that a little bit more, I think. Anyway, let's move on. One last thing, I think. Two last things. Let's do coaching round up real quick here, as we have been for the last little while. Luke Richardson to Chicago, sure, great. I don't know anything about this.

No idea really if it's the right move, but very happy for Luke Richardson, who has been doing this forever, waiting for an opportunity that had not come for the longest time. And, you know, obviously we saw him in the bubble with Montreal. or not, sorry, not in the bubble, but in the playoff run with Montreal. And other places, Ed was with the Ottawa organization for years. Great for him. Love seeing a guy like that.

Get a chance. And, you know, if you're Chicago, you've found the next great coaching mind or you haven't. And it's the Connor Bidard here, and I don't think you lose either way. Yeah. And again, like, speaking of Conyard and Bredart, the other thing is, keep an eye out for this, Matt Vame. Keechkov kid, he's fucking unbelievable. Like, if this, I forgot to say this earlier, if this draft is like, yeah, you might get a guy who's like going to be a decent contributor, maybe get some power play time for you in the next three or four years.

That's this coming draft. Next year's draft is, as much as everybody has said Karnar Badard, Mitchkov could be just as good as Kahn Bred. Maybe like a scosh worse, but like. As we just saw, you know, just finished talking about the fact that. everybody points at one person is the consensus top pick for years. Doesn't necessarily. Well, the other thing is Mischkov is like a little, he's older and that might be the thing. Like if he was, I think it's two months younger, he'd be in this year's draft.

Okay. And he would be the unequivocal, no question about it first overall pick. Like, people would be like, Shane who? Because Mishkov would be that much better than everybody else. Like, it's so like, that's, if you're going to tank, this is the fucking year. to do it this season coming. Yeah, it's going to be. And a lot of teams are going to do it.

But on a fast, right, I mean, even with the changes to the lottery, two franchise players, potentially, you finished dead last year, not guaranteed a top two. Right. But even three, I can't remember off the top of my head. But, like, basically people say this is like a five-deep, any one of these guys would be, like, a consensus top two pick in this year's draft, like, I think the top four or five. So, like, next year's draft is insanely stacked, whereas this one is more kind of, like, like Sean said, the Nolan Patrick draft. But anyway, yeah, like, apparently Luke Richardson's whole thing is, like, he's good with kids because he was once an NHL player and that has, like, somehow made him.

Well, he's coached in the minors, too, for quite a lot. Right. Yeah. So. But, like, he's going to be. like the prospect whisperer kind of a coach apparently. And play forever in the NHL and was a high pick, but also, you know, was some super skilled guy.

Like this isn't this isn't the superstar coach going like, like, just be like me. Like, what are you doing? So I'm just happy for him. Yeah. Yeah. No. And like you say, it doesn't matter if he's any good this year. Maybe next, maybe two seasons from now, it'll matter.

but not this one. The other big coaching news this week, Barry Trots tells NHL.com, I'm not coaching this season. Yeah. So Winnipeg. Crazy. Winnipeg spent a month pestering the pretty girl to go to the prom,

and then she was like, you know what, I'm not even going now. I'm just going to stay home. Yeah. Crazy. Big news. He sort of vaguely, you know, reference some, you know, family situations

and that sort of thing. So you just wish the best of it for him. And whenever he does choose to make himself available, he will... 25 teams. Be at the top of everyone's list. Tickets in their hands. Here you go.

And there's probably going to be a lot of teams like, you know, halfway through the season, looking at their own coach going, you know, we can finish the year with this guy. But somebody put out a feeler to Barry and just find out if he's interested at all. Yep. And so we circle back again.

to Winnipeg, Boston, and Detroit. Apparently, I saw this, I think it was Elliot tweeted out, that we might get the Boston coach kind of like leaked today. David Quinn's name was out there a lot, which... Yep, that is the name you do keep hearing from people. I don't know about all that. As the great Kevin Nash might say,

that doesn't work for me, brother. If I'm if on the Bruins, I'm trying to run it back one more time with Patrice Bergeron, who apparently is coming back next year now, it seems like maybe. It's sounding more likely, yes. And of course, Don Sweeney just got his new extension. So hire whoever you want. It doesn't really fucking matter. I think some people are, you know, were surprised by it.

But his, Don Sweeney's contract was up this week. So if you weren't going to extend him, then you weren't going to have a GM. Which? Which feels unideal heading into the draft, but what do I know? Yeah. Could have had me do it. I didn't have done a good job. Probably.

Give me like $1,200. I'll run your draft for you. Do a great job. Swing on up. Yeah. Hey. So Detroit, you know, everybody's been joking for weeks that they were just waiting for the lightning to get eliminated. Before they made their decision.

And, well, now the lightning have been eliminated. So I kind of expect that in the next week or so as well. And then, yeah, Winnipeg's going to circle back. And I don't know how many other guys are from... Scott Arnale sounds like the... He's the name that you've heard all along as sort of plan B. Yeah, the fallback position. I don't know how I feel about that.

Yeah, you know, neither do I. He didn't coach the blue jackets ten years ago. I was just going to say, like, only the one run in Columbus as like a head coach in the NHL. And then, yeah, I'm looking at it here. He is not from Manitoba, but he coached the Moose for a million years. And he played for the Jets. Twice. And he played for the Jets.

The Jets draft pick played for them, had a couple of stints. Most recently, an assistant coach with the Cats. capitals for the last four years. So, yeah, I mean, I don't think the Jets are any good anyway. So Barry Trots could have made them good because they would have been like, oh, we're taking a guy who could before this season have said, I'm the best goalie in the world. And everybody would have been like, yeah, it's a pretty good argument for that.

And then you put him behind a coach or Barry Trots coach team and that you take off from there. I don't know what Scott Arneill does for anybody. I really have no idea. So, yeah. He made it like a season and a half with Columbus. So now, granted, this was the early 2010s Columbus Blue Jackets. So believe me, I get it. And, you know, 10 years since, I'm sure he's, you know, he wasn't sitting at home playing video games.

No, he was an assistant coach like all throughout the 2010s. like basically took six months off and got right back to work. Head coaching, AHL, Chicago, and then associate with the Rangers for a bunch of years, and now he's on the caps. So, or, you know, yeah, he could be good. He could not be good. I have no idea.

But, boy, doesn't that just describe the Winnipeg Jets next year? It kind of does. Oh, I guess that's the other thing we should say is we got a lot of, The Winnipeg Jets are going through big changes maybe in the next few years because they are maybe open to trading Blake Wheeler now or Blake Wheeler made it clear like, maybe you want to trade me, huh? How's that sound?

Change of scenery kind of thing. And obviously the Mark Schifley stuff is still to be determined. Yeah, we will see. And then Pierre-Luc Dubois said, apparently said, I'm really not interested in sticking around two years from now. so good luck i don't know yep uh yeah he oh and so that's the thing is dubois is uh is a pending r f a right now he'll be an r f a right but does not but the jets are doing the the real big loser energy thing of like we're going to try to convince him to stick around has that fucking ever worked um

i'm sure it has but yeah it's not a not a great Like I say, that to me is real loser energy shit. I don't let them go. I don't really put a lot of stock into that. But anyhow, the one last bit of news here is, since getting a real arena, Sean, you're on the ground. Senators, not, it's not locked in at all, but they are back in the running for it. Basically, this is the, there have been this fight between Melnick and the city,

and he had eventually said, oh, screw you, we don't want, we don't even want your arena. The city has some land closer to downtown that, you know, they want to build something, but was it going to be an arena who was going to build it? There was a competing group that maybe wanted to build it. And then Melnik was like, well, I'm not going to put my team there and all this weird stuff. The city has now gone back to the senators and says, it's yours if you want it. So you are now the ones who can come up with a proposal. does not guarantee anything, but certainly is good news.

If you're an Ottawa fan or just somebody who doesn't feel like driving out to Canada to watch hockey in Ottawa. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't really... Good for them. Like, you know, it's nice to see a team get an arena that they've wanted for a really... You know, for the fans of that team, I guess. I suppose I don't really care for the senators themselves. but for fans of that team, that's...

Yeah, you don't have to like the senators to understand that they have been through some not great times over the years. So, yeah, it's been a good week in Ottawa, the arena and Alfredson. Good times to be a Ottawa senator's fan. Yep, absolutely. So, yeah, that's it. We're done. I don't think there's anything else. Again, like, I'm sure we're moments away from the Bruins.

saying, and we've hired Claude Julian to be the coach of the Boston Bruins. Oh, wow, that's crazy. So, yeah, Sean, why don't you do your plugs? Why not? You find me at the athletic. All my stuff, we're in off-season mode, so we can start getting weird. My piece today is on a new award that I have come up with for the, as we mentioned, the team that made the dumbest trade with the Stanley Cup champion every year.

I call it the Cond Smyth. Okay, it works for me. And so, yeah, and have some other stuff next week. I'll be in Montreal for the draft, so looking forward to that. And you hear me tomorrow with Ian Mendez as he and I will probably talk Daniel Offrensen again. I'm sure he feels just as strongly as Ryan did about it. Yeah, he's pissed.

I'm going to read all of Ryan's quotes to Ian and just have him react. That's fine. And then for me, E.P.Rinkside.com, obviously. And if you sign up with the code, I Love E.P. You will get an extra three months tacked on to the end

of your annual subscription. Math-wise, that works out, I believe, to an extra 25% value. Can't beat that. Not bad. What's better than that? So, check it out. Had a lot of stuff on the cup final and the abs and the hurricanes, or the hurricanes, the lightning.

The last few days here and, you know, I got to go. The takes don't stop just because the season does. I'm going to write some more stuff today. So, yeah, it's a lot going on over there. And, of course, you sign up for EP Rings Side right now. You get a little thing called the Elite Prospects draft guide, which has, I think, over a thousand pages, info on basic. any prospect who would be picked in the draft. Like I would be shocked if there's more than like five or six,

ten guys, something like that, who get picked and we don't have some info on them over Italy prospects. And again, I say we, I had nothing to do with putting the draft guide together. So if you don't like my shit, first of all, why'd you listen to two hours at this podcast? Yeah, that's... But second of all, I don't have anything in there. So it works out great for you.

And then, of course, the Puckoo Patreon, where we are coming up on a bonus episode picked by the listeners where me, Sean, and we got this guest, Greg Wachinsky to come on. And we're going to talk about retiring and unretiring one number for almost every NHL team. You can't unretire a number for Vegas, for example, or CF. So there you go. Check that out. That's coming tomorrow, I believe. And so we'll do it then. That's it.

We're done with plugs and we're done with the show. And we're done with the NHL season. That's right. Info to come on the schedule for the summer also. That's right. We don't know yet. We don't know yet. But until next time, whenever that might be,

thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting the show. and have a good one. 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 and tunes.

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