Puck Soup - Awards Picks

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Sean and Ryan go through the favorites for all the major awards, then talk Australia games, the Senators sale, and more.   Sponsored by HelloFresh (hellofresh.com/50pucksoup) Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off), Athletic Greens (athleticgreens.com/puck) and Hatch (hatch.co/puck)

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 Prospect. I am Sean McNeugh from The Athletic. And the preseason has started. It started over the weekend.

the coyotes, I think, played 26 games so far. I don't know if you saw that. Of all the preseason games that you've watched, give me like a top ten. Top ten, well, I've watched, I guess, five or six? Sickle.

At least, at least bifth and pieces. People always say, oh, RL hates this fucking sport, it hates the NHL, whatever. I'm always saying that. I mean, you and a lot of other people. I hate hockey. I watched, let's see,

I watched two of the, uh, well, I guess both of the, uh, Australia games. I watched leaf senators the other day.

Uh, what was that Sunday, I guess. I watched, uh, a bit of wild abs. And then, uh,

uh, the, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh,

the, uh, Vancouver Calgary game last night. , nice. I watched, I don't know if you saw, you saw,

saw that Vancouver Calgary final score. Was that the 10-0-0 game? 10-0, yeah. I checked out part of that just to see what all the fuss was about. Nothing to worry about from Hubert O anymore. It's all good. Yeah, he's good again? Yeah.

That's good to know. All he has to do is play the Vancouver Canucks CCHL team every game. He's going to be in great shape. There he go. I watched, just for the record, I watched seven hours of football on the on Sunday. That was... About as fun for me as being one of the victims in the movie seven

would be watching that much football. Dude. Well, good. No, I know you're a big swiftie, so that's probably why you were checking. That was what it brought me in. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know.

I almost said I'm loving this start to the... That's not true. I don't want to lie to the people. it is nice to have it back. It is nice to see highlights and, you know, all of that stuff. Yep. This guy, well, we'll talk, we'll talk more about the preseason stuff in a minute. I wanted to start off with kind of our, we're going to do, we're going to do our season preview kind of week by week for the next little while here, as opposed to doing like one seven-hour episode that none of us want to get involved with, including you, you, the listener.

And so we're going to start, as you saw in the title of the podcast here today, we're going to start with awards picks. And by the way, can I just say with this multi-week preview thing, don't go expecting consistency from me at least. I'm going to change my opinion week to week. Yeah. And then that way I'll be right. Right. I'm doing the power feelings tomorrow. I'm sitting down, I'm writing my first power feelings of the season.

And at that point, you will know what I think. And I'll have, more importantly, I'll have something to refer back to. What did I think again? Oh, never do that. Never refer back. Well, it's certainly better than just kind of guessing what I thought. Like, it's nice to have the ability to be like, okay, I guess if I put this in black and white. You know, put it on paper that this actually counts for something.

But like, you know, if you're expecting me to have hard and fast opinions on why this team is like 18th in the league and that team's 15th, you know, you're barking up the wrong tree. It's all vibes at this point. For sure. I don't have a model, you know? I'm always talking about this. I don't have one of these models. I'm just guessing. But I do a pretty good job.

Better than many. Maybe better. Which is all I'm really shooting for, you know? As long as I got someone to point at and be like, you can you believe this idiot? Jesus Christ, what a stupid idea. A moron. Yeah. As long as I got that, I'm in good shape.

I just need the one guy. It's that thing about you don't need to be faster than the bear. You need to be faster than the other guy who's running away from the bear. This dude didn't think the Cracken would make the playoffs. Ha, ha, ha. 100% of Puck Soup people thought. Seattle was a lock to make the playoffs 100 point team we were saying all last season yeah anyway uh yeah this is awards and uh let's let's just let's just do it nice and simple we'll give a two or

three picks for who we think are going to win every award i don't think we need to go hard and fast here oh i'm 100% convinced that uh logan coolly he scored that goal he's got to be the Calder guy, right? I do feel like he, I'm not joking, improved his chances 20% by scoring that. Scoring a ridiculous goal in a game that was the only game anyone was watching at the time. I almost said everyone was watching, but that would clearly not be true. It definitely got a lot of, a lot of play, right? As well, it should have.

Yeah. Now, I said this on Twitter. I told him to score that goal, and he said he would. do it. That was good. That was lucky for him. But I think you also said you told him to score only that goal. No, he said, I'll do it, but I won't score any other goals the entire rest of the season. And I said, you know what? I'll take that trade off. That's fine. All right. But yeah, so let's start with the Calder then. I got the bovada odds right in front of me here. Don't bet on sports, but I have the odds here.

And this is a pretty good thing of like what people are broadly thinking, you know? And I, by the way, have a different page full of odds because the link you sent me, it turns out I can't use in my country. Huh. Probably because of our, because of Trudeau and his woke government, I'm assuming. So it sent me to a different one, which I'm assuming is going to be the same list that you have, but maybe not. We will see.

We'll find out. Yeah, I'll just give you the top five here real quick. Connor Bedard, number one, Luke Hughes, two, Cooley three, Devin Levi, four, Adam Fantilly five, some other names, Matthew Nyes, Shane Wright, Nemich, Yerechek, Rossi, et cetera. I think all three of my picks are in that, are in that top five, though. Yeah, I mean, I think that top five is, about right. I think it's crazy to put Luke Hughes too in that list.

Just like he's not going to get the power play opportunities that Logan Coley is. And he's a defenseman. Yeah. It is tough for a defenseman to win. That's, yeah. Although. It's happened, certainly. But it typically happens in what you might call a weaker year for rookies.

Yeah, for the top of my head, I can't, I can't remember a case. where like there was a really excellent rookie forward and a defenseman took it, but I'm just accidentally insulted. That's right. So Kale McCar's year, let's look at that.

Because that's obviously the most recent. That came down to him and... And Hughes. And Dominic Kubalik was the distant third. Before that was Aaron Eckblad. Who did Aaron Eckblad beat? it was Mark Stone and Johnny Goddrow. But neither of them were like spectacular.

They put up a lot of points. And this is the other thing that allowed Eckblad to, to, it didn't matter. That team sucked, right? Like him, he played 22 minutes a night. I get news for you. If Luke Hughes is playing 22 minutes a night, that's a lot of five on five time. don't see him, you know, hopping on the power play much over, over Dougie Hamilton or whatever, you know?

Yep. So I like Badaard, obviously, but I think my secret pick will be Devin Levi because if they make the playoffs, it will be in large part, I expect, because they didn't get like 890, whatever, goal tending. Yeah, I would agree with that. And he's like the guy there. Yeah. I think that the Sabres path to the playoffs.

probably involves him playing, you know, 50 games and playing them well. Yep. Like, well enough to win, like, 28 or 30 of them. And if so, yeah, I think that's... Other than picking Bedard, which feels obvious. I mean, I think... I'm basically on the same page as you. Hughes is a little too high.

I think Levi is the guy that I would pick as much. upset pick. And he's 12 to 1 in the odds I'm looking at. So, I mean, that is... So I don't know how that works. Yeah. On this, he's plus 1,200. Is that the same thing?

That means 12 to 1. Okay, great. That's what I thought. If a guy's a minus, that means they're saying, like in the case of Connor Bredard here, minus 140, that means they're saying he's more likely than not to win. Of course. Yeah, I know that part. than one to one, which, you know, that feels...

It's his to lose, certainly. It's tough to say like he's more likely than the entire field, but he might be. Yeah. One other one that I wanted to note here that I kind of like a lot is Marco Rossi. I was thinking about that, yeah. Yeah, apparently he did a lot of, a lot of work in the summer. And obviously he's played a full season of HL hockey and he highly regarded and COVID set back and all that. Great story.

Great story. Great story is critical to this. I feel like I probably over-emphasize the story factor with some of these guys. But it's, I don't know what level of factor it is, but it's not zero. Because it's writers who are voting on this stuff. Yep. And we love a good narrative. So, yeah, Ross, he's a.

an interesting one. All right. So let's move on to the Selke. And that's Nikohesher number one, Mitch Marner, number two, Pedersen 3, Barkov for Kopitar 5. And all the way down at number 11 is a guy I'm going to straight up pick here

because I saw a headline on NHL.com and I said he's got this award wrapped up. It said, Austin Matthews to get more PK time this year. No further questions, Your Honor. We have Selke winner, Austin Matthews, 25 to 1. Lock it in. It's going to happen.

Yeah. He is. They had him practicing on the penalty kill in camp. And apparently he said it was his first, I can't remember if he said it was his first time ever on the penalty kill or just in a very long time. Yeah. but, yeah, this will be an interesting award because obviously with Patrice Bergeron gone. Finally someone else can fucking win the thing.

So the question is going to be, do people look at this and say, okay, well then Bertrand's gone, Jonathan Taves is gone, do we just go, you know, back to Copatar? Do we go to Barcov? Cotterre is allegedly going to play this season. Yeah. He's a past guy who... Or is it... He won it, right?

Yeah, is it like a changing of the guard sort of thing where... Who knows? You know, maybe they throw it open. Maybe they even say that, I don't know, maybe a winger could win it again. Well, you know what? I just realized a few spots below Matthews and Mark Stone is a little kid. He's out of Cole Harbor, Nova Scot. His name's Sidney Crosby's 30 to 1.

they're going to. We love the Ron Francis, Steve Eisenman, late career. And I'll say this. Like when we get to the Hart Trophy, I was looking at Crosby for that because we can all see Pittsburgh getting back into the playoffs this year. And if they do, we're going to want to like give credit for that.

But I just don't know if Crosby's an MVP candidate given that Carlson coming in will be viewed, viewed as such a push revelatory thing, yeah. So, you know, obviously, like when I say Crosby, if he has 120 points or something like that, then obviously he's in the discussion.

But, yeah, exactly. But I just, as far as the story we're going to tell ourselves, I don't know if we're going to be able to say, like, yeah, Crosby will this team into the playoffs. So as a consolation award? That and like, he hasn't

look, I say this all the about the Selke. They go, who should have won this two years ago? Yeah, he's going to win it this year, you know? And, or it just goes to Patrice Bershron. Those are your two options for the last several of these, let's say. And there was probably a point in the last decade or so where Crosby should have won one. And if they want to give them a makeup award this year, the Selke is probably the fakes of the major awards just in terms of like, we don't really fucking know. Yep. We're just putting some names down and we're talking to players.

Who's good defensively? Who, you know, who's a good out there? And it depends on all these writers if, like, the guy was a minus two in the two games they watched, you know? So this is the fakes most major reward. Just give it to Crosby. Who cares? He's great. We love him.

He deserves it. There you go. Cumulatively. But is he the most likely? That's interesting. He's not the most likely. I'll just, I'll say that. But anytime you're looking at this and like, like, you know, we talked about with the Calder, like Connor Bedard, you're not going to bet on Connor Bedard.

You're not going to throw down 50 bucks on Connor Bedard in October. It's not that fun. So that you can win 48 months from now. Like, you're going to look for a longer shot that you can, that you can root for. And Sidney Crosby is my favorite pick out of this group, even though I wouldn't have him super. high up my list of list of guys who are actually likely would win it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. No big deal there. Let's see. Let's see. Jack Adams. Rod Brindamore. Yeah, always a fun one because it's, it goes to like the unexpected guy

very often. Although the last few years, it seems like it's moved a bit away. It's a little more down the middle. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, here's your top five. Brindamore Rough, Bednar Woodcroft, Granado. Sabers get in, Granado's winning it. I don't know how else to put it to you.

Yeah, I don't know if I would say it quite that directly, but I think he's, you know, you essentially, your team has to get into the playoffs to be a candidate for this award. Totally, yes. And if they do, then, yes, I do think there's a very strong chance that, that he could be the guy. Brenda Moore's interesting, man. Did you see the thing about his contract? It's getting worked on, I guess.

Well, he's into the last year of his deal. Yes. And, of course, it's Tom Dundon. And so we have to read all these pieces that make vague reference to how, like, oh, Dundon does things differently. He thinks different. And, yeah, I don't know if you've,

have you seen how Tom Dundon thinks? He's got this crazy thing where he wants, all the money should go to him and not to the people who work for him. It's pretty wild. I don't know why no one else thought of that. But apparently, according to, I want to say it was Pierre, Brindamore is making $2 million a year. Okay. And for comparison, Todd McClellan in the same article was making $5 million a year. Right.

But this was also in the Pierre article where he got a quote from Dundon that was like, we're working on it right now, basically. I don't have it in front of me. But it's just, you know, remember last time, this went right into the offseason. And there were like two groups of people. There were people going, this is kind of weird that this is going right up to the summer. And then there were people saying, don't worry about it. This is just how they do things in Carolina.

It's fine. And I guess in a sense, those people ended up being right. Because Brindmore got his extension, got the extensions for all of his staff, and it was all a happy ending. And I guess it probably ends up that way again. The line that stuck out to me in Pierce's piece was he said that, you know, Brindamor has said he doesn't want to coach anywhere else. And I'm just like, Rod, buddy. Just say you want to coach somewhere else from. Say you might be open to coaching somewhere.

You don't have to want that. The heart wants what it wants, but maybe just say, just put it out there that you might possibly, you know, and maybe, I don't know, take some money out of the owner's pocket and put it. Because of, because of how my brain works, when I see stuff like this, I'm always reminded of the Brian Danielson, the wrestler Brian Danielson had a quote where he's like, Cody Rhodes showed me how fun it is to lie all this. time. And it's like, yeah, Rod. Oh, yeah. Do it. Rod, it buys a lot of, it's going to buy a lot of protein shakes if you just put this out there. Just tell one report. You're just going to be working, brother. Yeah. You know, Rod, Rod, tell me, I'll put it out there for you. At our next, you know, I don't know if you know, there's just a group of us who all work out together. We all like

sure, yeah. Like I coach up a crew. I'm not going to say who else is in it. But, you know, the next time you and me and Gary Roberts are all chilling out having our protein shakes, just just plant the seed and I'll put it out there for you. Yeah. Look, Hulk Hogan and the Iron Sheek, they weren't really enemies, you know? Maybe that's a bad example. The Iron Sheik famously did not like Hulk Hogan at all. Yeah.

But you know what I mean? Him and Andre the Giant. Andre liked the Hulkster, you know? Yep. You could just pretend. But yeah, any... DJ Smith is another one that is just... I think he is far, far more likely to get fired.

Yes, I agree. But the fact that he is so likely to be the first coach fired, actually, I feel like it makes him more likely to win the Jack Adams than if he were just going into an average year, right? Because, again, we love the storyline. And in this case, I'm saying we, it's not the writers who vote on the Jack Adams, but it's broadcasters. It's similar.

The guy who was, oh, everybody thought, he was going to get fired last year, and then he leads the senators to the playoffs, even though it's probably really like Tim Stutzel and Brady Kachuk leading to the playoffs. There's your coach of the year. Yeah, easy. I could see that. He's at 16 to 1,

by the way. He's number nine on the list tied with Pete DeBore. And Peter Lavellette, who I would not bet on. I got I got one more that I wanted to bring up here. I got a log shot. I wonder if we've got the same guy.

Well, first of all, I will note that one of the long shots on this list is Mike Babcock. Uh-oh. Yeah, that's a big long shot. I really don't feel like that's going to happen. Yeah, probably it isn't. But I kind of like Ryan Huska from the Flames. Way down deep in here. He's 28 to 1.

And, you know, flames could bounce back very easily this. season. You know? So. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good. And that division, who knows? Edmonton, Vegas, your guess is as good as mine.

That's how that division feels like it's going to go. Yep. Let me go even further then. Okay. Almost all the way down at the bottom. Dead last is David Quinn at 100 to 1 on my list. Yeah. And I wouldn't even advise, advise that.

Just throw your money away. In a group of the second lowest odds, André Tournier, there's 66 to 1. Now, again, I'm not saying that he's my pick to win the Jack Adams. I'm not even saying he'd be in my top 5 or top 10. But it's 66 to 1. Would he be in my top 30? The coyotes. I mean, because the other guy with him is Luke Richardson.

Sure. That's torterelly. Like, clearly, these are just the bad teams. These are the teams that everyone thinks are bad They're not going to make the playoffs And like we said You got to make the playoffs to make it But because everybody thinks

They're not going to make the playoffs If any of these coaches Did get their team into the playoffs They're going to get a ton of votes And I think Arizona out of everything Like it almost doesn't it feel like I know everyone It's overdone to talk about like

All the vibes around this team I'm not talking around the team But it doesn't feel like everyone is maybe not everyone. It feels like a lot of people are just tired of beating on the coyotes and are kind of like. Yeah, they're trying to talk themselves into something for sure. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff here about like, you know, and the whole, you know, the Mullet Arena and the ownership and all this stuff.

It's actually good. In January, there will be, it's actually really going great. And you look and they have like nine regulation wins. Yeah. Cool, man. That's, that, it's far more likely than not. that the coyotes stink. Oh, yeah.

If they don't. Better than expected last year, if they just get some crazy goaltending, whatever else happens. I mean, if they get, I said you have to make the playoffs. I feel like if they get into the playoff race solidly, he's getting some votes.

At 66 to 1, I don't, you know, I'm just saying. You throw down five bucks, and if he wins, you get like a monster big screen TV. and totally a few other things that's you know maybe just maybe all right uh let's do the norris number one on the list here is young man lives in uh Colorado his name's kale McCar

pretty heavy favorite honestly yeah plus 175 and uh next closest is Adam Fox then Quinn Hughes Miro Heiskenen, Rasmus Dahlene. There's your top five. Adam Fox is 600, like plus 600. So it's six to one. McCarren Fox, I feel like that's the right order, but that feels like a much bigger gap. Too big of a gap, yeah. I agree.

Quinn Hughes, you can sort of feel the momentum building there. Yeah, he's the captain now. Dude, let me throw this at you. From Captain Phillips, look at me. Yeah. Let me throw this at you. Calder Norris Heart Trophy, Hughes Brothers, sweep the big three. That'd be pretty sick.

You talk about loving a storyline. I'd hate to hear about the fiery auto wreck that Connor McDavid and Leon Drysidal were in that allowed Jack Hughes to win it. Okay, fair enough. Names that I like beyond that top group. I think if I had to bet on those five, yeah. If I had to bet on those five, by the way, Mira Heiskin at 10 to 1. Again, not because I think he's more likely to win than Kelmacar,

but I'm not betting $100 on Kelmacar to win 175, 8 months from now. Yeah, sure. Boring. The name that jumps out at me a little further down is Moritz Cider at 33 to 1. Yeah. It feels like he took a step back last year, but, you know, if Detroit ever pushes for a person, playoff spot who's that's going to be a cool story in a big market who's going to get the credit

for that yeah i think he gets um who are you looking at well the one that just if the bruin's are good this year charlie macko is going to get a hell of a lot of credit for it and he's 14 to one that's you know that he's top he's seventh basically he's tied for seventh with dougie hamilton um the rest of these guys the one i one i kind of am interested in here is Jacob Chickren, because again, if the senators are good, he'll probably be a big reason why, like, he'll help on the power play, all that kind of stuff. All right, get, let me throw this at you. Yeah.

Because I actually don't love Chickren here because I don't know how much power play time he's actually going to get. And they've got the, they've also got Thomas Shabbat on here. And I didn't particularly love him either. He's, he's much further down. but I feel like he's a case where it's like, by this point, we kind of know what he is. Yeah. Jake Sanderson is not on the list.

Right. But sometimes on this stuff, if you're ready, you can ask them to add somebody or, or you can keep track. Yeah, it does say others available upon request or whatever. Like a month in, maybe sometimes they might. Like, I could see, we have seen guys take a big second year leap. Sure, we have. Yeah. And, you know, Sanderson's a bit older than those guys.

He's been top of mind because of the contract. and again, like, we love a good storyline, right? So guy comes along, has a decent rookie season, team gives him a big contract, everyone goes, uh-oh, that might be a big risk. And then look at that. Turns out, guys a superstar. I would say if anyone on Ottawa to win an award,

I kind of like him as a presumably a long shot. At least they've got guys here that are 100 to 1, 300 to 1. You figure you could get pretty good odds on them. Yeah. one more guy I would like to bring up. He's deep down on this list. He's 150 to 1. You don't think Shea Theodore is, like, I don't know how you watch Vegas and go, well,

Shay Theodore is obviously the, like a much worse candidate to win the Norris than Alex Petrangelo. Like, more than twice as unlikely according to the odds. And it's like, if I'm picking anybody on Vegas, I'm picking She's. Theodore. That's not bad. And him at 150 to 1, like that, that feels like it's an easy. Now, this is insane to me. One of the people on the list is Justin Falk. Yeah.

What? Tyson Barry's on there, too. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's at least a guy who he's going to get a lot of a lot of power play time in theory, right? Like, there were a few guys where it's like, in theory, this guy's going to get a lot of power play time. And that, like Shane Gostis-Barr is. Is Tyson-Berry going to get a lot of power play time?

Well, again, in theory. In actual practice, I would think not. But like... Osi is going to be the number one guy there, so... Right, but the thing is, what other value does Tyson-Berry provide any team that he plays for? Fair. Right?

Like he's in a lot of ways, look, the guy had 55 points last year. It's pretty good, honestly, Barry. But I just worry with a guy like that, and obviously, I don't have to talk anyone here out of betting on Tyson Barry. The one that you never want to hear on anyone in an award is, yeah, but he's not even the best blank on his own team. And I just can't imagine a season that Tyson Barry could have where people are going to not see. He's better than Roman Yose. Yeah, of course.

Whereas with Shea Theodore, maybe. I could see that. And in this category, one other guy that I would look at maybe just as 100 to 1, again, looking a little bit at storylines, but certainly, you know, ability and all that. Chris LaTang in Pittsburgh, we all kind of assume he's going to take a step back because he'll lose power play time. He said that, yeah. How is he going to work? I'm happy to step back and give Carlson the man up at Ice Time.

But let's see. There's talk of using them both, which rarely works. And certainly if it's old school, like pass it back and forth at the point and then somebody bomb it, it's not going to work because that doesn't work for anyone these days. But if they get creative, if you're like, I could see people going like, man, they went and they got last year's Norris. And now here's Chris LaTang, a guy who you talk about, you know, a guy who's never wanted that maybe people will look at and say deserves a lifetime achievement. Lifetime Achievement Award. You know, again, not in my top five list, but at 100 to 1. Sure.

Yeah. I don't hate that. Let's do the Rocket Rashard. McDavid, Matthews, Drysidal Pasternak, Rantan are your top five. Yeah, and they've got McDavid at 225, like plus 225, so two and a bit to one. Like, that's getting into the area where I might. I'm happy to, I'm happy to put that money up for sure. I mean, there's other guys on here that, I don't know, does anybody jump out at you as someone who could make, like, the big leap from 40 goal score or two, you know, similar to, I mean, Pastor Nack kind of last year did that, rant and to some extent?

Um, big leap. Like, I'm not seeing really anything that really excites me. The one that I'm interested in, I guess. just because someone Like, okay, they have Jack Hughes as 6th, but if I'm gonna, if I'm betting on like a guy

that's gonna lead the devils and goals, I like Tim O'Meier at 40 to 1. Yep. Yep. That's a solid one. But yeah, look, I wrote about this the other day.

They stuck a Mike in Sidney Crosby's face and they were like, you think McDavid could get to 170? And Crosby was like, yeah, sure. I don't know, I guess. Who would be surprised? Mr. Exxonement really, really sunk his teeth into that.

Well, because then the headline was Crosby. McDavid could get to 170 points or whatever. And it was more like, you think you could get there, right? And Crosby's like, yeah, sure, okay. And it's great, like, I wrote about this on Sunday. So it's like the number of things that went right for McDavid to hit 150, I think it's at 153 last year. Like, best power play in the history of the NHL, first of all.

A ton of power play time. They drew a lot of penalties, and maybe that's repeatable. Maybe it isn't. Him and Drysidal both had, like, maybe not career best shooting. I think McDavid's was career best, but, like, Drysidels was second best. You know, all you need to know about how right things went for the Oilers last year is Ryan Nugent Hopkins was 100. player.

That's how right things went. And it's like the idea that there's a lot more to ring out of the sport for McDavid. Like, you know, you don't have to score 60 goals next year. He could score 55 and win the award. That's fine. Yeah. But yeah, the room for growth of them, I'm not totally convinced on here. Fair.

Yep. Let's get them to 160 before we start saying 170 out loud. That's all. but yeah he would be my bet for sure just you know

he's going to shoot the pocketon and he's going to get a bunch of breakaways and look who he plays with you know hard to pick against him

anybody else on this list jumping out for you you're a big it's really not crieder guy right you were saying

crieder yeah he's I'm huge on him yeah he rocks definitely he's he's gonna be there Yep. Okay, the Vesna,

Sorokin at 4 to 1, Shasurkin at 6 to 1, Saros at 6 to 1, Vasselovsky at 6.5 to 1, Hellebuck at 6 and a half to 1. There's your top 5. So basically, Sorokin is a slight favorite, and then 4 guys just,

and Jigal, your number 6. And then a big gap down. Then a big gap, yeah. And I can't argue really with any of that. if I got to pick one guy further down the list for the same reasons you already said Devin Levy I think would be Levi would be the guy that I would look at I'll give you I'll give you kind of a deeper one that's pretty far deep down actually Stu Skinner this kid in Edmonton yep again same page 80 to 1 and this is the one

that's voted on by the GMs, and everyone always says, what are the GMs? They just want to see wins. I don't see. They've got Jack Campbell right behind him. Yeah. Which, yeah, that makes sense.

Maybe Campbell's the guy who wins the job back, but I think right now, Skinner's the best goal in Edmonton. Yeah. Couldn't you see him having like the Linus Allmark type of year? Maybe not where he's like 9.50 for three months or whatever, but. No, but. a good year on a very good team where he's sort of and he only has to play 50 50 50 like all mark wasn't it used to be that you kind of had to be the 60 or 70 game starter to win the

mezzana and that isn't the case anymore so i do like skinner 80 to 1 sure i mean put it this way joseph wall is 100 to 1 that's right i liked steward skinner and 80 to 1 just a little bit better. Yep. That said, I'm not going to get, I'm not going to bet against Sorokin. I'm not going to bet against the New York guys, I guess I would say. I think there's a reason those two guys are the heavy favorites. But I did want to say this.

I don't know if you saw this over the weekend. There was a worrying quote if you're a Tampa Bay Lightning guy from, from the coach, where he's like, is it a long-term injury? Not at this time. That's not great. Yeah, again, I don't have the exact wording in front of me. I mean, I'm pretty sure no injury is a long-term injury. But John, but John Cooper basically was like, is it a long-term injury? Well, I guess we'll see.

And that, you know, don't, if you want to be a lightning fan and sleep soundly at night, do not look up who the backup is. No. So, yeah, that's interesting. And then Hellebuck, like, that guy could change teams mid-season. I like Ottinger as the sixth guy. I think, you know, they're going to be good this year. So we'll see.

But, yeah, the only other one, I guess, is Georgiev, if we're saying Colorado bounces back a little bit more. Maybe, yeah. Maybe. We should say, by the way, all mark 20 to 1. Yeah. So just behind Gore-Giv, a little bit ahead of Gustavson. Yep. And I think we got everything but the MVP, McDavid,

McDavid, minus 105, and then everybody else is basically 10 to 1. Matthews McKinnon. This is enormous. To have for the MVP, like, it's one thing for the Calder Trophy where, you know, there's like five or six realistic candidates and then maybe room for a few surprises. The heart field is usually pretty wide open. Like Ilya Sorokin is, geez, what? like 20th on this list.

There's a lot of really good players in the NHL. So for Connor McDavid to be negative odds, it's crazy. It's pretty ridiculous. And yet, I can't, I can't argue. Like I said,

I said it about, about McDavid hitting 170 points. I'm not betting on it, but would it surprise me if it happened? I'd be like, well, fuck it, he's Connor McDavid.

What am I going to say? You know? And anybody where you can be like, it's extremely plausible. to me, if relatively unlikely, that this guy breaks two points a game,

well, that's why he's the runaway favorite to win the MVP. Like I said, Matthews and McKinnon, 10 to 1, they're tied for second. And then Posternak Drysaitle and Matt Kachuk are rounding out your,

I guess, top five, even though that's six guys, but you know what I mean. Yeah, they're tied. So we've got about 30 guys listed here that are 100 to 1 or worse. Give me, give me one name. 100 to 1. Let me scroll through here. I've got two for you while you do that.

Brad Marshan at 100 to 1. Yeah, I'll go Connor Hellebuck at 100 to 1. If the Jets make the playoffs, it'll probably because he went psycho mode again. You know what? That one's better than both of mine. Okay. You win. Bradmorechand, because everyone, it feels like everyone is expecting Boston to fall now.

Sure. And then the other one, I get back to what I was saying about Andre Tournier, Clayton Keller at 150. Clayton Keller, yeah. If he gets 90 points and the coyotes make the playoffs by one point and McDavid has 135 and the Oilers make the playoffs by 30 points, I could see a lot of people voting Clayton Keller. Yeah, McInty.

Yeah, and Clayton Keller doesn't play with, Leon Drysidle. You know what I mean? That does help McDavid. Great. Now the Oilers are going to trade Leon Drysidal as soon as we finish for Clayton Keller.

Smart. Clayton Keller. Yeah. That's right. Damn it. Do you think the coyotes would do that? Knowing they got a pay dry saddle both in the,

I think it's the next two years or is he up after next something next year? He needs the extension next year. Okay. That's what I thought. Do you think they would do it? Knowing, obviously, Dry Seidel's a huge upgrade over

over Clayton Keller. Yeah. But do you think they do it? I mean, I think they would have to, if only because they knew that they could trade them for more in a year. Good point by you, yeah. Okay, there you go. Unless he's got a no trade.

And he says, hey, I'm not waving it. I think they do it anyways. Screw it. Live a little. That's right. Leandro Cytle is your MVP as an Arizona Coyote. You heard it here first. Must credit. Ryan Lambert. And one last award for you here, the Mark Messier Leadership Award. Great, yes.

We got a... We'll save the best for last. Give me Nathan McKinnon. Why not? Yeah, I don't know. I have to dig down and figure out which captain is going to abandon his team and get the war. Who's an old guy? Who's an old captain that hasn't won again?

Old captain hasn't won. Who won it last year? I don't even know. I don't, do they even do it anymore? Oh yeah. Oh, sure. Let's look this up. Let's look it up.

The Mark Messier Leadership Award last year went to, he's from, he's from Tampa Bay Lightning. His name's Stephen Stamcoast. There you go. Now there's an old captain. Okay. Yep. That's, uh, you talk about the Madden Curse. It's so crazy that all these great leaders as soon as they get this award, stop being great leaders.

It's, look. You hate to see it. Yeah, don't you? You do. All right, why don't we take a break? We'll be right back and we'll talk a little bit more about our old friend, Stephen Stamcoast. This week's show is brought to you by Athletic Greens and AG1. I remember when they first sent me a pack of AG1 to try out.

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I'm sick and doing this podcast this week. So we'll do it right now instead. He's mad that Tampa didn't negotiate with him on a new, on a contract extension. He wanted to have it done by the start of training camp. And he didn't get that wish granted, I guess. Here's my question. Should this be as big of a deal as everybody's making it out to be? I think it's always a big deal when the captain of a contender seems a little bit frustrated with things.

But the context here is pretty important. And the context being that this guy went to free agent, like walked right up to free agency last year. I don't know if he ever, no, he didn't actually become a free agent. No, it was that, it was that, it was that, I think it was the day before the draft. It was the, it was the famous hour with the Taylor Hall and P.K. Subway. So he didn't, yeah, he didn't actually, but there was that interview period. So he never, he never moved out, but like he went on a few dates and then famously resigned with the Lightning at a deal that even at the, you know, at the time people went, yeah, he could have got more than that as a free agent. So I guess there's two ways you could look at it.

The one way is to say, like, we've been down this row before. You know, this is, we're not going to get fooled again, right? We all, in 2016, we're going, whoa, geez, this is Stamcoe, is he going to go to Toronto? Is he going to go to, you know, whatever other big market? Ah, this is it for Steven Stamco's, and then it wasn't. Yep. So we're not going to get fooled again. I guess there's also a side where you could go, man, they walked them right to free agency

last year, he showed the loyalty, he took the below market deal, and this is how they're going to treat him? And boy, is he getting played for a sucker? He won't do it again, right? They'll figure it out. I mean, you can be frustrated, but come on. Right. And like, it's just one of those things where it's like, I know that you know how it works.

You don't have to pretend like, and again, I mentioned it earlier. he might be just working, you know? Get everybody mad at the team, and that puts a little pressure on the team to just get a fucking deal done. And they announced it around the end of training camp, and everybody's happy, right? But I don't know, like, I guess for all the other people who were like, how have they not?

You know, I saw headlines that were like, oh, they're disrespecting him or whatever. It's like, I don't know, he's like 50 years old. Yeah. You know? Yeah, you never know what, like, what's being asked for, right? Like behind the scenes, he could be like, yeah, I want McKinnon money. Yeah, if he wants like eight, nine million, like, let's put it this way. If he wants eight and a half million dollars, I left money on the table last time.

And it's like, okay, well, how long do you want eight and a half million dollars for? I know the cap's going up. And he goes four years. And it's like, brother, you're going to be 34 in February. I can't give you four years knowing. like all the other contracts the Lightning have coming up, right? Like, like, he's not the only one this year. I don't, like, no, I guess they don't have a ton of stuff coming up anytime soon.

But what they don't have is, like they have a dead money, like LTIR money coming off the books next summer. And that's what's going to be a problem for them, right? But, like, I guess I get it from the point. of view of like, well, Kuturov got paid, point got paid, Sorrelli got paid, Hedman got paid, Surgachev got paid, Churnak got paid, Pazelowski got, suddenly there's a lot, but yeah, the only other guy coming up who's like a notable guy, with all due respect to Tanner Janot, is Victor Hedman is up for, in 2025. So not this season that's coming up, but the one after that, and Hedman's coming up.

coming up, but he'll be the same age of Stamcoast at that point, as Samcoast is now. So, I don't know. It's a little tricky for me. Like, I definitely see where, look, I'd want my team to resign me as well, you know? Give me all the money I want. Like, at what point does your, your willingness to sign a below market deal? Like, at what point does it turn you into a sucker, I guess, is kind of what you'd be worried about if you're, well.

Stamco's or not at all. You might be like, it's a great organization. We got a chance to win the cup. I live in Florida. It's all good. Yeah. Like if I'm Stephen Stamcoast and I'm looking at it, I'm like, how much money have I made in my career?

Like $80 million or something like that? Mm-hmm. It says here on Cap Friendly, he's closing in on $100 million. dollars. Am I going to like go, you know what, fuck it. I'll move to, I'll move to Toronto or Detroit or whatever for three years to make an extra $6 million over those three years. I'm not Stephen Stamco's. I'm, my answer would be no. Of course not. But if I feel like my boss knows that and is taking advantage of it to underpay me, that's when maybe I I start getting along.

Well, again, it's the perception of being underpaid. Like if he goes, I'm, seven and a half million, why don't you just poke me in the eye, you know? Yeah, no, that's, I hear you. Where it's like, but, but Stephen, you're, you're 35 or whatever, you know, like, what, yeah, by the time that, by the season this contract, this next contract goes into effect, he will be 35 at the end of it, right? So this isn't even like, one of the. those 35 plus deals where you can structure it so that you're getting bonus money and it doesn't count against the cap until the next year and all that kind of stuff. That's all off the table on this contract. And so it's, again, if he's like $7 million, why don't you just kick me in the damn balls?

You know, like, versus like, I'll go make eight and a half and I'll play for a shitty team that has that kind of money laying around. you know because like oh yeah he's going to go to the leaps we're the leif's getting the money to pay stephen stamco's mm-hmm yep i mean you're not going to the you wouldn't think he's going to the leaves because that chip yeah we're gonna let he saw we're gonna lean knee yeah and yeah we're gonna let nilander go so we can bring in 34 year old stephen stamcoes big thumbs up on that one that would be a great call. Yeah, see, that would involve changing something. And that's...

Well, look. They changed the GM. They got the guy who's always making great decisions. They changed the GM who had the press conference where it went, you know what? Maybe I do need to change the roster. Did you see the interview with Brad Trilliving with the athletic where he was like, yeah, it was not an option to change the core. Not an option.

I didn't see, I did not see that. I would have thought it would have been. I thought it would have been an option, but you know what? What do I know? That's really funny, yeah. No, not really. No. The Stamco's thing, no, I'm laughing.

The Stamco's thing, like, I get it, you know, the classic, I understand both sides. But like, the way people talked about it, oh my God, Stephen, see, he, he's going to be, he's going to be leaving or whatever. No, probably not, man. Like, 75, 25, he stays versus he leaves. Yep. And frankly, if he leaves and he signs the kind of contract that would induce him to leave, quite frankly, you know, that other team kind of maybe did Tampa a favor. Mm-hmm. Hate to say it.

Well, I don't hate to say it. I say it all the time. But that's how it is. Yep. So anyway. Yep. Uh, yeah. We said we'd talk a little more about the low.

fucking cool you think. That was a really fucking good goal. It was a great goal and, you know, it provided a memorable moment on a lot of these international games. You know, they're very cool for the local markets. Yeah. Good experiences for the players and the teams and all of that. But they're not typically really producing the most.

Did we get any pictures of like, I don't know. What's his name? The guy they got from the Jets, the Kings got from. from the Jets. Why am I blanking on his name? The Australian guy. No. Oh, Pierre Lutebois. Pierre Lutebois.

Did we get any pictures of him like holding a koala or whatever? Like how much touristy shit did they do down there? There was that one where, well, they all went to Australian rules football game. Yes, I saw that. I don't care about that. And then I think they, yeah, I think at one point they like, said it up. I need this guy hugging a freaking wall of you. Yeah, they had like a dingo dragged the Stanley Cup away and everybody was like, oh, cool.

There you go. Yeah, well, I thought it was kind of crazy that when one of the fights happened, they brought a kangaroo out on the guys and he just beat the shit out of two guys on the coyotes. Yeah, he flexed up and, oh man, they're vicious. You don't mess with kangaroos, man. They'll fuck you up. You do not. Definitely. You really don't.

But yeah, I did see a bunch of stuff about people. I saw the, what's his name, the Arizona reporter being like, oh, the ice here is really bad. It's like you don't get to say whose ice is good or bad brother. No, don't... Come on. You don't get to say. Come on.

You don't get to say. I've been to that arena. I get to say it now. Okay. But yeah, no, it was fun. And, you know, coyotes got to circle the drain

in the opposite direction this time. So... There it is. That was the joke. There you go, folks. That was the joke. I've been teed up for, That's a good one.

I like that. Yep. Your tickets cost $900-dus. It's, you know, look. Everything I know about Australia is informed by that one episode of The Simpsons and the movie The Proposition. Oh, okay. I'm not Procodile Dundee.

Oh, you know. And or what about 80s? I guess I do know what is. Did he inform anything for you? I guess I do know what a knife is. because of that movie. There you go. But, you know, a lot of that, a real lot of that movie, people forget, most of that movie took place in the New York City.

That's a different kind of wilderness, you know what I mean? Exactly. But yeah, it's one of those things where it's like, I bet a non-zero number of Australian mates, you know, they saw. that goal and they were like maybe I'll check out this hockey thing that's pretty fucking cool. Mm-hmm. And so it worked. It's one of those things where we're only kind of seeing like the media coverage and obviously it's going to even even the non-NHL affiliate media is going to try to make it look good, but

it did look good. It looked like it was a pretty cool time. Well, it's like, you know, when they do the global series games or whatever in like Sweden and the Czech Republic or whatever, it's like, I don't need those people convinced that they want to watch hockey, you know what I mean? Like it's more interesting when they're. they go to China or whatever. What are the other countries they've been to?

They've done Japan, right? Yeah, they've done Asia, they've done Europe. They've done North America and now Australia. That's the four continents they've been to. Yeah. So like, you know, a lot of these other countries, they don't need convincing. Yeah, we like hockey already. You know, but Australia, they don't know.

They don't know what they're doing down there. You could have sent a great team like the coyotes down there really. Nothing good hockey-wise has ever come out of Australia. Well, you mentioned, is it Nathan Walker? Yeah. Is that the guy? Yeah, he's on the blues. And they asked him about it and he's like, yeah, it sucks.

I didn't get to go. You would think. Yeah. Oh, well. Again, you know, again, Simpson's episode, but it's like, it's a bleeding out right, G, GED is, you know? Is that how they talk out there? That's how they talked in the episode, certainly. This is a documentary, man.

You can't push back on that. Yeah. I heard that when you took a minor penalty, instead of making you serve the two minutes, they just gave you a booting. Okay? I could do this all day. Well, I could do it for 28 minutes, I guess,

or however long that Simpson's episode was. 22, I guess. One last bit of other news here real quick, before we get into another break, is Gennie Kuznetsov. Didn't have a lot of nice things to say about Peter Lavellette. Isn't that interesting? No, it was interesting.

Isn't that interesting that... I do not hear this much, but... That Kuznetsov didn't like that they were like, you know what you should do is play in the net front and dump and chase. Yep. That was, yeah, weirdly enough, not, he wasn't super, super thrilled with that.

It's really interesting. I wouldn't have expected such a thing. No. But like, you know, it just, if what Kuznetsov is saying about what they were telling him to do is true, it does kind of show why the capitals weren't good the last few years, you know? Well, yeah.

Maybe Spencer Carberry has a little more to unlock than I maybe might be. a thought before. Like, if Gennikuznetsov is not necessarily a guy that when he criticizes the coach, you go, oh, okay, this is, I'm on the side here. I think some would call that unreliable narrator. Yes. You know? Thank you.

Yeah. But the way he was describing an uncreative, let's just say, system that was set up. Yeah, I could see it. There's an opportunity for Spencer Carberry to do something. I would say still not a. a lot. That's a team that's, although I guess T.J. Oshy's like, I feel, I feel as good as I did five years ago or whatever. Sure you do, T.J. I bet. Amazing that he would say that because you can't lie about something like that. No. No, they don't let you. But yeah, the thing that I thought reading,

that article, or at least the translation of that article, I guess I should say, is good luck to Artemmy Panarin. Yeah. It's going to be fun. Off the glass and out. What do you say, Artemey? Dude, they would not have hired this guy after five weeks if he had not been their number one choice. I'm really interested, though, because, you know, last few years, Rangers have been like, we mostly do power play really good.

And we get the goaltending. It's like, don't look. Day one, I think they asked Spencer Carberry. So how you fixing that power play? And then the Rangers, the team that's been dining out on the man advantage for like three years. They're like, we'll bring in the guy who couldn't get an Alex Ovechkin-led power play off the ground. That'll go great, right? And I did like the way that Carberry's answer was he said, well, you know, maybe we won't have the, just do nothing but feed the puck to Alexander Ovechkin in that one spot.

And then like a little cane kind of appeared. That's right. Started pulling him off to this. That was. Brian McClennon just off camera doing the throat slash. Yeah. Ted Leonese is just like, all right, we're done here. Thank you.

Yeah. So, yeah, that'll be fun to watch. Again, reliable narrator. Oh, the other thing with that is, weren't they trading this fucking guy? What happened with that? Oh, yeah. That was another one that sort of. Ship has sailed.

Abandoned storylines that we were promised and then never, never backed up. Yep. It's like a freaking episode of Lost. That's right. It's exactly what it is. Boy, I'm referencing all the current show. I guess The Simpsons is still on TV, isn't it?

So anyway, yeah, why don't we take another break? And then we'll come back and we'll wrap it up with a few more news items. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Hello Fresh and folks. Fall is here. When fall arrives, you find yourself in new routines than what you had during the summer. And to help you make the best of that new routine, Hello Fresh is here. Because it handles all the meal planning and shopping and it delivers everything you need to cook up a tasty meal right at home. They do the hard part.

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One more bit of really big news in the NHL is that the sale of the Ottawa Senators is officially official. Michael Landlauer owns the Ottawa Senators. about time I guess is the best thing you can say about this because we've been explained I mean it's it's a weird thing because it took so much longer than it was

supposed to it felt like it just dragged and dragged and yet it never felt like it was in danger like you never got to that like oh something's going on or like even here in Ottawa where you know it's a small town you hear things sometimes before they're meant to be heard I never heard

anyone go like oh this yeah there's something going on behind the scenes other than it was just a complicated thing and it took forever. And the fact that it didn't go through until now could ultimately have impacted, you know, what changes maybe, you know, maybe if he makes this, this happens in June, who knows, maybe we get a different, maybe we get a different outcome as far as Piertorian, as far as what happens in the offseason, all of that stuff. or maybe not. Yeah, I think from what you can kind of put together here

is they were trying to find maybe one or two more people to come into the ownership group, basically. And then they did, and it's all set. And now it seems like the focus is going to be the arena, which you would know way more about that shit That has been a thing in Ottawa for a very long time. We're all kind of waiting on this new arena, even though, I mean, the arena therein isn't that old, but certainly isn't an ideal situation. It's more the location than that, yeah.

Yep. So, yeah, and there's different places being considered and different pros and cons. One of them is your backyard, right? One of them is, wait, my basement. My basement. Got it. Okay. Yeah.

Or as it's going to be referred to going forward, the mullet basement. And that's just after the hair style you go. That's right. Yeah, it was just purely coincidental. But I just, yeah. But yeah, you know, it's one of those things where I've seen enough owners come in and, oh, blah, there's a lot of excitement around this ownership group or whatever. Sure.

And it's like, yeah, one of those owners is Terry Pagula, you know. Oh, this guy said they're going to win the cup in 10 years. Crazy. Yeah. How'd that go? You know? Oh, finally some stability for the Arizona Coyotes. Well, oops.

Now, the difference is, obviously, Anne Lauer was part of the ownership group from Montreal. And that, you know, is basically the definition of stable, I think you would say. And has been involved in junior hockey, too. So theoretically, this is a guy who knows a little bit about hockey. He's a hockey man, yeah. But, yeah, like I say, I'm more just on the, oh, everybody's excited about this new owner. And I'm like, I'm going to actually wait and see for a minute before I really decide. Because again, like, this has been pointed out.

But like when they asked him about the new arena or in talking about the new arena, he was like, look, man, politicians, you know. Who can say? And I don't know if I'd be the first thing I did as the owner of the Ottawa Senators is like kind of vaguely pick a fight with politicians in Canada the way things are going right now up there. Yeah. But, you know, he's probably a lot more savvy. Like, you know, you don't make that kind of statement without feeling, unless you're Eugene Melnick, I guess, without feeling comfortable. you know what the response is going to be. But again, I just like to see, I'll give this a little more room to breathe before I make a big,

make a big pronouncement about like, I'm, because look, this guy couldn't even get like snow or some other like C tier Canadian performer to come in and be part of the, part of the ownership group. Yeah. I feel like snow probably didn't have the cash on hand, but. Maybe But possible Yeah It's just

I would I'm glad that You know For for senators fans That they probably feel like Oh Our long national nightmare is over

But the question is Is a new Because again Last year or two Post Eugene Melnick's Death It seems like it's been a lot

More smoother sailing You know Everything's just And obviously it's always been part of it's trending toward someone's going to buy this team. So we have to kind of keep a tight lid on things. But, you know, I think that I think that the way things have gone the last few years is probably a solid indication that this organization can actually stay on the rails a little bit, which you wouldn't have said two, three years ago. Yeah. The ownership change will help.

Yeah, and it certainly has been more stable than under the Eugene Melnick era. Well, that's what I'm saying. Will help? It hasn't been crazy stable. So there's still some room for a new firm hand to come in and hopefully. I'm saying, I'll say this, should help. I will not commit to Will help yet. I mean, I'll commit to is going to be better than Melnick.

I'll say that with confidence. Okay. I'll go with you on that one. That works for me. But again, you would have said, oh, Terry Pagooli, he's going to straighten these guys up fly right, you know? Not so much. Not always. Yep.

I've just seen it just enough with, we talked about this on a recent mailbag. Luser franchises, you know? Mm-hmm. You never want to make any broad statements about the future of this organization is safe. It's in good hands now. Yep. No, it's... Again, should be.

True. Should be. But let's wait and see. Yeah. And, you know, the, being an improvement over Eugene Melnick does not mean. It's a low bar to clear. And you know what? Hey, speaking of low bars to clear, I'm sure you saw the quote that was going around yesterday from Adam Van Tilly.

I thought we had like a new sponsorship from like a no company. Yeah, we got all excited. Yeah. But no, Adam Fantilly has a. a quote yesterday about how good of a cook Patrick Linae is and he's going to be living with Patrick Lione this season. It did see this. And he's like, oh my God, this guy's a wizard with the air fryer.

We had some steaks out of the air fryer, some chicken. And he made some minute rice that was pretty good too. And it's like, dude. If I showed this guy how to like pan fry some vegetables, he'd be flipping out. I mean, the thing that keeps you from. making a decent steak at night is supposed to be that you don't have access to steak. It's not supposed to be that steak is like so hard to cook.

I mean, like famously, you just need it to change color on both sides and then it's edible. And then from there. Air frying a steak, man. I don't even know if that's a thing. Like, I'm not an air fryer guy, but... I do not own an air fryer.

I don't know. It says here that I'm seeing a lot of recipes for an air-fried steak. Okay, there you go. That's, uh, as a guy, I don't love steak or anything, but every once in a while, it's nice to have one. Uh, if someone was like, oh, I air-fried this steak, I'd be like, why don't you get me a real steak, please?

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, yep. For me, an air fryer is like, an air fryer is like, oh, I got some like chicken fingers from, from the supermarket in the fridge. Frozen. I'm just trying to have a, like, yeah. quick meal.

I got some dino nuggets. They're frozen and we're going to eat them up. And we got it. But, uh, yeah, air frying a steak, you know, some tater tots maybe. Yep. Yum. But, but yeah, an air fried steak and minute rice. And it's one thing to enjoy that.

Look, we've all, we've all had little nasty meals we've made for ourselves at home. But to be like, bro, you have got to try this air fried steak. to enjoy it and then to be like, you know what? To enjoy it to the extent that you're telling strangers about it. Exactly right. Adam, why don't you come over my house? I'll make like some mashed potatoes for you from scratch and you'll be like, does this guy have a Michelin Star?

Well, I've said it before. I think like when I had roommates, like we're, I think we were like 20 years old. and I made a pot of chili and you would have thought it was alchemy like the amazement that they that I had mixed five ingredients into a warm pot

and you and I have been men in our 20s right like I remember I used to make just like you know chicken drumsticks that you buy like an eight pack for six dollars like you know that just go to the supermarket by it

And all I would do is put, like, olive oil and then, like, a bunch of different spices from the spice rack on these things. And my roommate at the time would be like, these are so good, dude. These are unbelievable. And I'm like, yeah, they do. You know, look, I put, like, garlic powder and a little bit of cayenne pepper and, you know, just whatever the mix was. But he would be raving about them. For like two days. You gotta make more of those.

Okay, sure. It's, you know, it's not a big deal. And I'm not even saying, like, I was like ever a good cook up until, like, I, you know, I can make a few things pretty well now. But I was never air frying steak and having people be like, bro. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. Holy shit.

But maybe this is what passes for, you know, I've never really, I've been to Columbus once. So I don't know what goes on out there. but I was really laughing again it's the minute rice thing where he's like the minute rice is actually pretty good is like that was the no it isn't the cherry on top yeah I was gonna say but then if you had put a cherry on top that would have just completely blown out of Fintilly's mind you can do that bro look and Connor Bredard I don't know if you saw he was talking about a similar thing where he was like he's like oh I'm trying to cook for myself and they're like, how's it going? He's like, great, I face-time my mom and she walks me through

everything. Perfect. It wasn't there, what was the Connerberg? Wasn't there a Connerberdard quote or something where they asked him and he gave an answer? And then they were like, can you give us more details? And he was like, dude, I'm lying. Like, that didn't really happen. I'm just trying to say like what I'm supposed to say. He just wasn't prepared for the cross-examination. Salute. I get it, man. We've all been 18, you know? You're dumber than shit, when you're that age.

That's not a slight on on Conrad or Adam Fantilli. When you're a teen boy, you don't know anything. No. And you won't for like another, I don't know, 15 years? 15 years, yeah. For sure. You're going to be like early 30s before you are allowed to leave the house as a man.

That's right. Yeah, and then the one last thing. This is W.HL news, but Kevin Constantine is in some hot water. Some extremely hot water. Under investigation by the W.H.L. And I'll just read this tweet verbatim from Ryan Kennedy of the hockey news. From what I'm hearing, the allegation, and right now it's still an allegation while they investigate, against Kevin Constantine involves the use of a racial slur.

Uh-oh. Yeah. That's bad. Not good at all. Nope. So, yeah, to be determined. Great off season for the W.H.L. Yeah.

Kevin Constantine, if the name sounds familiar, was an NHL coach way back when. He coached the Sharks. Who else did he coach? Did he coach New Jersey or somebody? In my head, it's one of the, like, Columbus, Minnesota. I'll look this up. But, like, one of those teams, I might be wrong.

He coached the Devils. He coached the Sharks. He coached Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh in between. Pittsburgh, okay. He was a Devils coach for 31 games, which, I mean, that could mean anything under loop. But he was the guy who brought the sharks to the playoffs in their first, the first year they made the playoffs.

Yes. He was a young guy then. A whopping 82-point season, 84 games. And he looked like, I remember him being described at the time as somebody wrote that Kevin Constantine looks like a fist with hair on it. and that was when he was 35 and he's, that's what, 25 years ago plus.

So he's in his 60s now, I'm, I'm guessing pretty old school. So, yeah. This is, yeah,

they'll investigate. But if you, yeah, if you had any Kevin Constantine stock for the long term, you may want to get away from that. Yep.

Yeah, we just don't know, like when, when Sean mentioned we should talk about this on the show, I was like, yeah, do we know anything other than the investigation thing? And then like an hour later, Ryan Kennedy tweeted that. And I was like, okay, great. Yep.

Or I guess I saw the Ryan Kennedy tweet. It's from around 1 p.m. today. So we're recorded. We didn't mention this earlier. We're recording this on Tuesday. It's coming out Wednesday morning. Okay. It's my bad.

So, yeah. As far as we know, that's everything. that's out there right now. So not good. And by the way, he is the coach of a brand, what was it, like a BCHL team that elevated to the WHL, basically? The Wenatchie Wilde.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing Wenatchie right, but could be Wenatchie. I don't, you know, what do I know? But, yep, he is suspended pending investigation and we'll know more in the coming days. No further statement, all that kind of stuff. That's a fun, fun story to end on. Great note to end on.

That's how it goes, I guess. It happens too much in the hockey world lately. Oh, how about this? We'll end on a slightly more fun note. Did you see the jerseys for the outdoor game that's happening in Edmonton in like a month? Yeah, I did. They seem fine. I'm as you know

I'm not really a jersey guy but I know that's Greg this is that's right yeah I realize that something I like is if you're if you're going to do a whole different

jersey logo everything for these big games which I still part of me doesn't understand like you're going to have so many more eyes on you why are you changing your brand for one day only but that ship is sale the answer is that you're going to sell a bunch of it's about selling the shirts yeah so i like what both teams did which is they have new logos that are inspired by teams from the past but they have like kept the color

scheme so you're not going to turn on your tv and be like why is a purple team playing green team right have to figure like it's still from a distance which if you're an outdoor game is what you'll be watching it is uh it still looks like oilers and flames and then you get closer and you see it's something a bit different i like them thumbs up don't don't don't really like the flames one. I like the concept of the oil. Like, I like the oil drop with the number on the inside of it. That's fun to me. But these are both like, you're 80% of the way there. This, these, hey, you know, these needed a little more time in the air fryer, is what I'll say, you know? But, hey, I got a question for you. Do you think Patrick Laney's ever made spicy pork?

Okay. And freeze frame on Ryan and I laughing. Yep, that's right. Hit him with the plug, Sean. Find me on the athletic. It's a Bizarro Meter Week. That's where I go through every team and try to figure out who had the strangest offseason. Can I guess one team?

I don't feel like there's a ton of suspense this year for the number one spot, but we'll see. I had a few people tell me that it was, it felt like a much. much more normal offseason than we're used to and potentially. A lot more boring for sure. Yeah, but we'll see. Definitely some stories in there that will maybe refresh your memory of things that you'd forgotten about. And it's always a fun one to write because it's kind of like the, it's like my official, like, all right, now we're officially into preseason.

And we're going to go. So it's go time. It's go time. And then for me, yeah, I mentioned earlier, I'm doing the preseason power feelings where I just say how I feel about every team's ability to win the Stanley Cup. Feelings can't be wrong. And feelings cannot be wrong. You're not allowed to yell at me for having the team you like, whatever, 12th and you think they should be ninth. Okay, shut the fuck up.

So I'm doing that. That'll be out either Wednesday night or Wednesday afternoon, Thursday morning, if I had to guess. And then also I've been working for the last couple of weeks here on a hefty college hockey preview. You thought it was big last year. It was like 5,000 words or something like that. I'm not done the conference by conference breakdowns yet, and I am well past where I was last year. So a lot of college hockey season starts, not this coming Saturday, but the one after that. So keep an eye out for all this stuff in the next week and a half or so.

Sign up for an annual subscription. I Love E.P is the code you're going to want to use. You'll get three months tacked on to the end of your 12-month subscription for free. And then Patreon.com slash Puck Soup, bonus episodes and all. all kinds of stuff over there. I'm doing a lot of bonus stuff this week. So check it all out. And

that's it. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week with another aspect of the season preview. And yeah, thanks again. Have a good one, folks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

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