Puck Soup - Best and Worst 2

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Sean and Ryan run down the best and worst teams in a few different tiers, talk about Presidents' Trophy odds, and round up the latest news. Sponsored by AGI (drinkag1.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAdoe from The Athletic. And I guess this is part one of our season preview episodes that we'll be doing for the next, well, I guess, week and a half, two weeks. I don't know. I think it's part one or two, I guess, is the right thing to say. This idea that we came up with to do season previews, if you hear any other podcasts doing it, they stole it from us. Garbage. And, yeah, we're focusing on, like, the teams.

today more so than we'll do like players and awards predictions and all that kind of thing next week I think. But yeah, I think we'll just do kind of what we did last season, which was a pretty good way to talk about a bunch of teams without having to talk about every team, which is to talk about which teams we consider the best and worst that we think are bad, the best and worst bad teams, the best and worst mediocre teams, and the best and worst good teams. Yes. How did we do last year?

I didn't listen back to it. So, you know, your guess is as good as mine. That's the right way to do this. Yeah, I mean, I can look and I can tell you what I had for my, for like my power feelings last year. And that's just what I've read from. So I can tell you how I did more or less. I'm just going to assume you did well.

Yeah, I think that's probably a good assumption. But we'll start from the bottom. them like we did last year, I think. I think we did this way. If we started from the top, that's me fucking up, you know. Who do you think is the best team in the league? Okay. And now, you know, 45 minutes later, we're like, who sucks?

Who's just like the absolute worst or the worst? We both say San Jose, we go home. So, yeah, let's start with, do you think the sharks are the worst team in the league in 2024, 25? I do. Yeah, yeah. I wish I had a contrarian view. I did, you know, I did try to think of something else, but the one other team that I think gets into the country, well, maybe Anaheim.

But then nobody's really sure how things are going to play out in Columbus. That's, yeah. That would be the other one, but I think it's San Jose. I think they are going to be very bad for another year and eventually. be pretty darn good in probably a few more years, but we're not there yet. I think that's about right. I think, how do I want to put this? I think there is room for me to be like, oh, they could get up to 20 nights.

Mm-hmm. You know, but that, I mean, being 29th still sucks. That's bad. Like, basically why I think that. And just for the record, if they do finish 29th, I do not want to hear from some Sharks fan being, oh, you didn't believe it up. Hey, this aged well. Yeah.

I think what I would say is I could see a world where Escarov gets a bunch of starts for them and is good. Not like great or anything, but like a 908 goalie. And that wins them plenty of games, probably. You know, I don't have it in front of me with their team safe percentage was last year, although I suppose I could quickly look it up. But, you know, they didn't. They didn't get too many stops last year in my recollection. You win 19 games.

Yeah, team 892. I think, I think Ascarov can be better than that. And if he is, you know, they'll win more games. It doesn't mean they'll be good or anything. But you just look at their blue line and then like their forward. You know, they added some forwards over the summer, right? But you look at their blue line and you're just like, this is an NHL. team, you're telling me. Sure about that.

You know, with all due respect, Jake Wallman, who was like a perfectly good defenseman. They got some guys who were perfectly good. Yeah. But, you know. But every team has some guys. Yeah, that's exactly right. You're supposed to have some guys. If you don't have any guys, then somebody really screwed up along the way.

But like, you know, they took on Barclay Good Droves. They were just like the bad contract dump and grunt. You want to give us Cody C.C.? You want to give us Barclay Good Drow? Tyler DeFoli, which... Yeah, he was like their one, like, actual good sign. Like, he's a good player. He was like, this is where I want to be.

And I don't know if you saw this, but he specifically said, I want to play with Maclitz-Clebrini. And, you know, in their first preseason game, that looked like a pretty good bet by him. Sure did. But also, like, this isn't one of the... Remember, was it Taylor Hall signed for one or two years in Chicago last year? and was like, yeah, I'll probably, you know, get a bunch of goals, sign one more big contract, something like that.

Yeah. You know. Tyler Tofoli's not in that camp. He's signed for four years. Sure did. He's getting six million bucks a pop, so that's pretty good. But, yeah, you know. Imagine making millions of dollars to live in California with no pressure or expectations.

What a chump. You're moron. Leave Joe Thornton, please. We love that guy Do we know who Tyler Tofoli is living with? Have we gotten in? Owen Nolan, I think. It would have to be like some much older sharkies living with Doug Wilson or whatever.

But yeah, to your point, I could see Anaheim being here, you know. Not so much Chicago, Columbus, like you say, like, who knows what's going on with all that. They're going to be pretty bad this year. I saw Dean Evesant, you know, you know what he wants them to do. He wants them to be hard to play against. You believe this? Have you, has he thought about maybe also like them having an identity? Yeah, I think he probably has.

I'm surprised a lot of teams haven't figured out that like you should have an identity. And then it's always exciting because you're like, what's the identity? High flying? Super high, high octane offense? No. Oh, it's being. The Brooklyn. defensively minded and hard to play against.

Got it. Okay, that's a great identity that no other team in the league has. Can't wait. That's right. Yeah, it's, you know, there's a pretty clear, I think, bottom four in the league right now. With the understanding that, of course, there will be one team that's like, we expect to be kind of good, who will probably end up down in the bottom four or five. Yeah.

That's just how it works. That's how it works. And usually one team that we thought would be at the bottom that, Like, you know, last year was Philadelphia. Yeah, absolutely. Again this year. See. Yeah, we'll see.

Who, okay, who do you think is, this is a more interesting question, who do you think is the best, like, team you would call bad? Okay. They're not good, but they're better than all these other bums. I'm going to go with a pick that'll probably just make everybody angry. Okay. Especially the fan base, because I don't think they're thinking of themselves as a bad team anymore, but I'm going with Montreal.

I have them firmly in the bad category, yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, I don't think it's even a lukewarm take to start with them in the bad category. And I realize they've got a lot of youth. They've got, you know, they've got pieces in place. Yes, sometimes we see a team in those circumstances take a big step. I'm not saying it's impossible. There's a reason to be optimistic with Montreal.

And yet, I got to feel like I'm, I keep seeing Montreal fans talk about, like, we're going to be in the playoff hunt this year. Like, they're, they are this year's team that they don't necessarily think they're making the playoffs. But they expect to be playing those meaningful games in February and March. Yeah, exactly. And I'm just not sure I see it yet. But I can see the path. But I think the path is unlikely, so I'm going to put them as my best bad team.

Yeah, I like that. I like that pick mostly because, once again, I look at this blue line and I'm like, who's their best defenseman? Is it Lane Hudson? If it's a rookie, that's probably not good. Yeah. You know, listen to this, you know, pick six out of these guys and you tell me how far you think this team's getting. Mike Matheson, David Savard, Arborzackeye, Justin Barron, Lane Hudson, Jaden, Struvel, Caden, Gould. Yeah.

And the prospects, like the pipeline for their blue line is excellent. Yes. It's really, really good. Yeah. And maybe we see some glimpses of that this year. But I don't, I just don't think it's likely. No, like I said, like if Ryanbacker makes the team this year, which you totally could, given all the names I just read, that's still not like, or anything.

Like, even if we think three, four years from now, Ryanbacker can be a huge difference maker on the blue line. Well, it's currently now and not three, four years from now. You see what the problem is, you know? Like, there are good players on this team. There are even better prospects on the way. I, you know, I just can't sit here and be like Sam Montaubo and Caden Primo are going to get a team into the playoffs.

You know what? Again, like, I would be 100% with you. But my buddy Jesse Granger, the goalie whisper, loves the Montreal goalies, like right now. Okay. And I generally trust him as much as I could trust a goalie, which is not very much because they're all huge weirdos. But when we did our goalie, like our big goalie rankings in the summer, I was stunned at how high he was. Like, he didn't have them as, like, elite, like, you know, Igor Shasturkin territory, but he had them, like, firmly in his top ten.

Yeah. And, uh, yeah. Monta Bow. So we will see. Look, man, I don't, I don't know. I look at Montaubo. I don't see, like, oh, yeah, this is a guy. He can be like 9, 10 or whatever.

He's, I'll just read you his year by year stats. 894, 890, 891, 901, 903. Mm-hmm. That's. That's what I look. And Jesse, if I remember right, had looked at some of the high danger. Yeah, sure. I get it.

And had found that he was facing a ton. You don't think he's going to face a ton this year, Jesse? Well, that's it. You know, this is the problem, right? Well, that's it. And Jesse would say that, you know, you can, he could play great and still not put up great numbers because of the same in front of him. In fact, he probably would say that because that's what every goalie secretly thinks.

Of course. Every time they give up a goal. Goes without saying. But. Yep. And also, it must be said, we said it last year with Ottawa when everybody was like, oh, Ottawa, you know, they want to play meaningful hockey. Have you seen the fucking division they play in?

Those are good teams. You know, pick the order in which you think these teams are going to finish. Toronto, Boston, I mean, I think maybe we'll talk about Boston in this episode here. Toronto, Boston, Tampa, Florida. You know, you got to leapfrog two of those teams to get a guaranteed. provisional playoff spot. And doesn't it feel like we spent all of last preview season talking about like,

you know, which one of those four teams could drop out? And then at the end of the year, it was those four teams. Yeah, of course it was. It took the playoff spots and everyone else had to wait. Yeah, and like, it's the same. This is the other thing. You know who else Montreal has to leapfrog? Ottawa and Detroit.

Yep. Two teams that were closer to the playoffs last year. year. Buffalo fans are furious right now. No, but that's the thing. Look, I know they've scored like 14 goals in their first two preseason games. We're all on the Sabres train. I'd love to see them win a game in January before I'm willing to say literally anything about the Sabres future.

You know? How many times have we been burned in the last like seven or eight years? Oh, they won 15 games in November that one time. Remember that? Remember that? Mm-hmm. They had that huge winning streak. everyone's like, this is the year. They fucking won three games.

Dude, I've done that every year. Yeah. Every year I fall for it. I can't wait to do it again. So excited. It happens, but this is what I'm saying. It happens in this division specifically all the time. Ottawa Senators, last four summers, we're the offseason champions. Look out for us. Fucking 76 points. Mm-hmm.

End of the year. Who cares? Get lost. Dude, speaking of Buffalo, I was doing like my, not so much season previews, but. off-season reviews and everything this week. I had forgotten who they hired as their coach. And I got, oh, what a big smile that put on my face to remember it. It's funny you say that because, like, I didn't forget, but then every time I'm reminded, I'm just like, oh, man, that's tough. That's, this is the big plan to take a step, huh?

Okay. All right. Well, anyway, my best bad team, and again, this is a team that I think, you know, if they're the best bad one, I think they could very easily, you know, work their way into a stronger position. But they weren't very good last year and they got very good goaltending is the St. Louis Blues. Okay. You know? They made some changes this summer, let's say. You know, you'd like to see the full season with the new coach.

The blue line is what I keep saying, look at the shark's blue line, look at the Canadians blue line. Do you want me to read the blues blue line to you? It's scary. I don't. Okay, I don't blame my whole day like that. Their big ad was Philip Broberg, who's like fine. And Ryan Suter. the other one.

They're like, you know what? We got to do something here. We got to go sign a 40-year-old. Yep. 38, 30-nays. He's been bought out nine times. Oh, it's only the two, I think. But, yeah, I mean, look,

I think we probably said this last year. You know, if Cairo and Thomas take a step, dot, dot, dot, dot, those are two guys, I think we're, like, legally required to say our good. And we think they're good. And then, you know, whether they deliver on that, really on a case-by-case basis, you know? Sure.

But like, if I'm remembering right, Thomas had a big year last year, and they still sucked, you know? So every, I guess my point is, everything kind of could come together here a little bit for me. And I'd be, I'd be happy to say that, you know, I was a little bit. little bit wrong on these guys. I don't think they're going to, again, it's a very competitive division. I don't know that they're going to really push for a playoff spot. But, you know, I don't think anybody in St. Louis is going to be like, I can't believe someone thinks this team's not going to be good.

Right. You know? And that to me is the ultimate, what do you want to say? Like, if even the locals are like, yeah, sure, I get why you would think we suck. that's a tough look for any team, I'd say, regardless of sport. Mm-hmm. So. Who do you think is the worst mediocre team?

I guess technically this would be the one, the team that's like one slot above, uh, above the blues. I had a few teams I was thinking of. And I, yeah, I don't even, I would consider the blues for this spot. Yeah. But I'm going to go. You know what, I'll go with the Flyers. Yeah, I think that's fair.

I mean, God. You know, what was their big problem last year? Why did they shit the bed is, you know, the goal tending down the stretch was horrendous, right? Yeah. Who are their goal just here again? Remind me? Same guys. Uh-oh.

They overachieved last year based on, I mean, I feel like even a Flyers fan would look at that roster last year. and go, John Torborella rung everything he could out of that. And it was still an 87 point team. Now, I should say they didn't overachieve in like the sense of they didn't have like a 105 PDO all year long and, you know, shoot 13% or whatever. Yeah, just everybody thought they'd be like a bottom five or eight team and they were an eight, like you said, 87 point team instead. So, but it does kind of feel like last year, everything went about as good as it reasonably could. could have? They were seventh in five on five expected goals percentage last year. So now, they do have Matthew Mitchkoff coming in.

Yeah. What's my, what's my, what's my, you're, you're a prospect expert. What's my reasonable expectation on him other than he's going to be fun as hell to watch? He's going to be fun as hell. He's probably going to be a Calder guy. but like most Calder guys are like 65, 70 point players. And that's awesome for a 19 year old or whatever he is. But at the same time, like you just,

you can't really be in a situation where, and I've been saying this for a little while now, just because like when I do what we learned every weekend, it's just like, Mepvei Mitchcock, Mepve Meshka. Like, you know, it's like it's the Gabbo thing, right? Where they're just saying gabo, gabo, gabo. And it's like, yeah, but there's like other guys on this team, right? And the people covering the team are like, well, I mean, no.

That's the issue here, you know? And that's not to say like, you know, Kinecti and Farabee and Keturier, like Owen Tippett had a goodish year last year. There's reasons to be excited about this team. Sharks-wise, you know, three, four years from now. I wonder how, look, if they're a top seven expected goals team again next year, they can be probably not a playoff team, but like, you know, around it. Again, playing meaningful games down the stretch, that could happen, I think. But when you're just saying again, I said it with Montreal or whatever, like if you're saying, oh, the best player on our team is going to be a rookie. I don't think that's good.

Yeah. Unless that rookie again is like Sydney Crosby or Connor McDavid. Yeah. And I mean, even, I mean, Connor McDavid was hurt for half his rookie year. But like even Connor Begarde didn't come in and transform a team in year one. Yeah. And look, Chicago had a ton of injuries last year. Must be said.

They probably don't finish anywhere near where they did if they don't lose half their top six to like season long. injury. Yes. But. They signed a bunch of guys. They certainly. If you are playing a game of who he play for this year and you're stumped, just say Chicago.

There's a good chance. Yeah, that's exactly right. We'll do who he play for next week, I think. Okay. When we do the players. But yeah, I mean, you know, there is reason to be optimistic about the flyers for a lot of reasons, but the goalie battery of Ivan Fedetov and Sam Erson is, I'm going to say, not one of them, you know, horrible goaltending. We didn't do anything with it. Have a good one.

We'll see you in 2024, you know. That's tough. You know, again, they're good. I have them a few spots higher than the team I'm about to say is the worst mediocre team. but, you know, I think they're going to be on the lower end of mediocre. Mine is Utah. I need to see it. I think I had them as one of the better bad teams last year, maybe. And, you know, there was a lot going on, let's say, in Arizona. Okay.

Well, first of all, just for the record, this is a completely new team. So I don't know how you have. You're right. This is a brand new. Did we ever figure that out, by the way? Like whether they are carrying over any of the franchise history? No, they're not. Although, you know what?

Now that you say it, I feel like what's his name, giving up the rights to the team or whatever? It feels like it's just kind of hanging out there. Anyways. Do we want to? Do we want to? I just claim it? Yeah, like you and I?

Yeah. Yeah, okay. There you go. Puck Soup now has the... Shane Don, the best, the highest scoring guy in Puck's history. Single season goals record for Puck Soup is Timo Salanis, 72. Back in 76. I'm sorry, back in 1993.

Way to go, Timo. We will be hanging your number at the Puck Soup rafters as soon as we have any physical location whatsoever, which is to say never. That's exactly right. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, you know, obviously they made a lot of improvements to the roster this year. And I think there's going to be a lot of excitement around the team just because it's a new location and all that. But like, there wasn't any point where I watched the coyotes last season where like these guys are fucking going places.

You know what I mean? And again, I really like Vamelka. Um, I really like Clayton Keller. I really like Nick Schmaltz, obviously. Um, again, the defense is just like super improved and that should help quite a bit. But I, so I'm like very willing to have, you know, the Washington Capitals end up below these guys in the standings or the flyers or who, you know, pick your like mid teams. Like I think the, the, that Utah can get above them.

But I'd love. like to see it first, that's all. It's fair. I don't know. Like, I, I guess I don't feel like I have a ton to say about, like, I'm going to believe the coyotes are good when I see it beyond that, you know? Right. There's some stuff to really like on this roster.

And then there's some stuff to be like, right, these guys used to be the Arizona coyotes. Mm-hmm. Logan Cooley, though, I'd love to see that kid take a fucking step, wouldn't you? Yep. I think I'm higher on this team than you are. And I totally get why anybody would be. But I do see where you're coming from.

And again, I'll keep saying it. They're in that division. You know, that division is going to be very difficult to get out of. I have, you know, a handful of two teams in my top five are in that division in the league. Right. So, yeah, and greatly improved. Nashville, yet in the central's tough.

Central's really difficult. So, yeah, that's all. I just think that that's a big problem for them, big stumbling block. Who do you think is your best mediocre team? I'm going to go with a team whose fan base will be mad about this, but that's okay because they like to be mad.

Give me the Vancouver Canucks. I love this. I love this pick. I just don't see them as like elite. To me, mediocre means you're not one of the elite contenders. And especially with the Thatcher Demko questions, I will put Vancouver there. But hell of a lot of talent. Going to be fun to watch.

Yep. Did it last year. Made people like me wrong all year long. By shooting 12% for, you know, first three quarters of the season. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe Rick Tocot will tell them to do that again. Might work.

So, yeah, I will put them at the very top of my meteoricru listing. And as long as they don't win the president's trophy, no one can yell at me because, well, I guess if they win the cup, you can yell at. But, you know, honestly, if they win the cup, go out and celebrate. Very chilly. Well, be very normal about your celebrating. Try to be. Unless those anarchists from out of town show up. Yeah.

It ruined everything. So I have, I have Vancouver a couple spots above best mediocre team, but like they're on the low end of what I think would be a good team. Sucking up to the fan base. I get it. Well, it really, like you said, it really depends on, on Demko. Like if he's out two months, that's a very different thing than if he's out four months, obviously. I don't love a rotation of Arturis Celovs and Kevin Lankin.

We'll talk about that in a minute. But I think they have enough talent. I like you don't like to see a team lose as much as they did in the summer, but I think they did a pretty good job of making up for it. To be clear, I have Vancouver as 11th in the league to start the season. And very ready to accept that they would be lower than that based on the goaltending. That said, my best mediocre team is the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yep.

Okay. And they're, to be clear, 13th in the league by my vibes-based evaluation or whatever. So, you know, obviously, again, this is a team that had to lose some time. guys this summer. The way it's been for them forever, you don't want to lose the guys they did. You don't want to lose Steven Stamco's. You don't want to lose Surgachev, but you have to. And I don't know that they replaced those guys too effectively.

Obviously, Jake Gensel up front is the Stamcoast replacement, you know. Now let's look up who the Surgichiev replacement was. Oh, it's Ryan McDonough. Yeah. That's another one I forgot about until like a couple of days ago. Yeah. Ryan McDonough is back. I literally had to sit like I was doing Nashville and I'm like, right, they did get rid of McDonald.

Where did he wind up? Yep, exactly, man. Wow. So like I think Gensel can, you know, more or less replace what Stamco's brought, what did he score 40-something goals last year? Mm-hmm. Low 40s? I think Gensel can do that. That's not.

that's not the issue I have with the team. The other thing is, I don't know if people remember this, but like Vasselowski, he missed a good chunk of time at the start of last season. And they weren't very good out of the gates, if I'm remembering, right? I don't think Andre Vasselovsky is going to miss time this year. So that's good. That helps them. But I just think that, you know, the roster's been a little too hollowed out for me to say,

you know, this is the lightning I remember from two, three years ago, but they're still going to be a good team, in my opinion. So I don't know. Yep. I think that sounds reasonable. Yes. I consider them for the spot. Yeah, you know, again, like they are the classic in the Penguins realm

or even the Capitals before the last few seasons where it's like, yeah, they got to show me that they can't be counted on. to make the playoffs before I will count on them to not make the playoffs. So, yeah, who is your worst good team? All right. Let me think about this hard. Who should be yelling at me? I will go with, you know what, I'll go with a team that actually probably would feel okay about being here.

Give me the Nashville Predators is my worst good team. Yeah. Spent a ton of money. Obviously, in the UFA, hit the UFA jackpot, we think, in the offseason. Made their decision. Yeah. Made their decision on goaltending, locked in their guy. I think maybe they and they being like the front office there, view themselves as legit contenders now.

and I'm kind of borderline on it. But I'll choose the positive vibes instead of the negative and put them at the bottom of my very good team list. I have them a few spots higher than that because, well, the reason is this. It's very simple. Soros wasn't that good last year. He was like pretty good. He was above average, but not, you know, Vezna quality.

And I think there's a real chance he returns to Vesna quality. You know, when we talk about the people that Arizona or Nashville added, you know, obviously Stamco's and Marciusor are the big names, right? But they also added Brady Shea on defense. Yep. And that's a good player. You know, is he like a game breaker or like a huge name like Stamco says? No, of course not. But like, that's a player I've liked for a really long.

They just really solid. They needed a guy like that. And I think if Soros can, you know, get back to, he doesn't even have to be Vesna quality, but like being well above average instead of like slightly above average, I think they could, you know, I have them as ninth in the league right now in the preseason. Okay. So I totally get why you're saying it. I haven't done a full ranking, so I don't know where they would be for me.

I think they'd be like borderline top 10. so we're not far off. Yeah. Borderline top 10, I have them ninth and like, I'll just read you the teams I have just below them here. Boston, Vancouver, and the worst good team in the league, in my opinion, until proven otherwise, is the New Jersey Devils.

I think we all got burned by these guys last year. Mm-hmm. You know? I think they've done quite a bit, obviously, to improve their goal tending, which was not their big, I think maybe you would say injuries was their, and goaltending and coaching, were their biggest problems.

But if I'm remembering right, they had it, Brett Pesci. I think they did that over the summer, right? They did, yep. Yeah, okay. Takes a little bit of the pressure to be unbelievable off of Dougie Hamilton. They have, well, so what's the story with Luke Hughes? Like, how long is he supposed to be out?

I think it's a week's thing, is it not? Yeah, I think that's right. But, like, you know, they'd obviously like to have him more in the... Yeah, six to eight weeks. And that was a couple weeks ago that that was a net. Yeah, so like a month. You'll miss the start of the season. Yeah.

And then you never know with especially young guys coming back how quickly they hit the ground. But Nemich, Hughes, like, there's reason to think that, you know, those guys can take a big step. or even like a medium step would be nice. Brat and Jack Hughes are really good players. Nico Hesier, good player. Dawson Mercer, they'd like to take a step after they gave him that new contract. Like there's a lot of reason to believe in these guys, and obviously they changed the coach over the summer as well.

Don't look up how the new coach has done previously. But the guy got him into the playoff, put the other team into the playoffs all the time, you know? So, like, I like the devils. I think there's, you know, there are a higher ceiling team than being 12th in the league for sure. But show me. I keep saying show me, show me, you know.

But yeah, they're a really good team. I don't know. Or they have the potential to be a really good team. They're a flatly good team, but not, I'm not willing to go. wall in on them as I was last year. I do find it a little bit weird that there is so much optimism around them

this year. Like it feels like there's nearly like we're almost back to last year as far as this team is a playoff lock, maybe the best team in the division, maybe even a sneaky Stanley Cup pick considering they had like

81 points last year. And everything you just said about them improving and obviously Jacob Markstrom fixes the goal tending, you would assume, at least in the short term. I don't know. Like this is a team that could be 20 points better and still be borderline home ice in the first round. Can they be 30 points better?

Maybe. But I don't know. I just, I find it interesting that everybody feels like they are 100% back on. board. Yeah, like. I'm on the bandwagon, but I got like one foot hanging off just so that I can be the first one to ditch it and then say like, I told you so. That's right.

I think if I'm remembering right, I had them like second or third in the league last year. It looked like a damn idiot. But a lot of people were like, this is maybe the best team in the East last season, right? And so I think they ended, if I can look at it right here, they ended last season at 23rd in my power feelings. I don't know where that puts them in the standings last year. But I bumped them up to 12th. They had a good summer, obviously. They got Markstrom. They changed the coach. There's a lot to like with what they did over the summer, but now they have to like put it all together and make it work. And we'll see. Who is your best good team?

So this is basically just our pick. President's trophy, whatever. President's trophy. And I don't have anything spicy here for you. Give me the Oilers. Yeah, same here. Okay. You know, there are a few complications here, but they also, you know, they added so much over the summer and, you know, did the thing that, whatever.

Chicago used to do or it's like, oh, are you a good player coming off a kind of bad year and you need a one year deal and we can play you with one of the best players in the world? Great, sign up for one year, three million bucks and we'll see you out there. You know?

Yeah, there's nothing revelatory to say here. The only thing is like, you never know. Guys get hurt. Cold shooting streaks, cold goaltending streaks, the Oilers would know a lot about that from last season to start the year, right? They got the coach fired when we all thought they'd be an elite team.

So that's all, that's all like very within the realm of possibility, but it's a remote possibility, I'd say. And I got to be honest, like I'm looking at my, again, I don't have a list, but I'm sort of forming it. I don't even think I have anything especially spicy as like a top, you know, like, you know, but you know who I've got third is. and then I hit you with a surprise. Like, it's, this just feels like a year we're heading into the year. It's kind of the same teams near the top. We know it won't finish that way. There is a surprise out there lurking somewhere that we're not saying.

Yeah, of course. But I just, I don't have it at this. Do you have anything in like your top 10 that would shock anyone? I'll read you my top 10. 10, Boston, 9, Nashville, 8, Vegas, 7 New York Rangers, obviously. six, Florida, five, Toronto, four, Dallas, three, Colorado, two, Carolina, one, Edmonton. So I guess people, me putting Toronto ahead of Florida, it would be the big surprise. And I've seen some people more down on Carolina than...

And I get why you would be, but... And again, this is one of those lists where I don't know how yours plays out, but in a lot of cases, it's like, how could you have Carolina two and Florida, you know, five or six? And it's like, well, I've got them separated by like three points in my project. Right. I don't go ahead and like flip it. I don't do points or whatever. Like I just go like, I think this is where they're going to end up more or less in the regular season.

Part of it is with Florida, they just want a Stanley Cup. Like the number of teams that win a Stanley Cup and then are the best teams. in the country, or the league. So the reason I said that is the NCAA preseason. College vibes are coming out. Well, yeah, the NCAA preseason, Paul came out yesterday, and they're like, the number one team in the country this year, that's right, the team that just won the national championship.

And it's like, well, I mean, you know, they lazi booing. You know, there are, there are reasons to think Denver won't be the best team in the country this year. I certainly don't have that. I have them, too. And so, like, I can't get mad at people making them one. But it's just like, you don't have to automatically say the previous Stanley Cup or national championship winner is the best team in the country or the league for next season. That's all.

That's it. So, yeah, I think. We should point out, though, that it's true that it's very rare for the Stanley Cup winner to roar back the next year. but also it's very rare for the Stanley Cup loser to do it. And A, we're picking Edmonton, and B, the Panthers last year. You know, that was a reason a lot of people sort of were cooler maybe on the Panthers last year than you would have expected. Well, didn't they start the year with guys injured two last year.

Am I remembering that? Yeah, and I mean, they've been an eighth place team the year they went to the final in loss. So it wasn't like it was this huge stretch. And again, like the way I do it is I color code all these things. And so like the darkest green are like I think these are, you know, basically like I group these teams together in. It wouldn't surprise me if these, the teams in this color finished in any order. And so I have Florida in the, they could finish first and it wouldn't surprise me at all tier. Like one through six are they could finish first.

No surprise there for me. You know? right below them, I have the Rangers Golden Knights and Predators as like, I'd be a little surprised if they finish first, but like it's not, you know, the Rangers won the President's trophy last year. So, you know. But yeah, I, I'm not like saying, oh, I think the Panthers are going to be, I think they're going to be one of the best teams in the league this year.

But maybe not. Do you see, like if I, if I'm remembering, yeah, you had, so you've got the Leafs as the top in the division. Do you see that as improvement for them? Or is that kind of just other teams coming back to the pack a little bit? I guess. Considering this is a team that has pretty consistently been like 105 points and, you know, forget about the playoffs. Not as good of a regular season team as they're made out to be. yeah, I'm just, I'm very concerned about this Bruins goaltending situation.

Yep. I think they improved in other parts of the, you know, they're talking a big game about Elias Lindholm right now and that kind of thing. But like, they're, they're going to enter the season with Corpusallo and I don't know who their third string guy, Brandon Bussie. Right? Like, if that's, if that's your tandem. to start the year for the first month even.

That can really put you behind the eight ball pretty quick. Yeah. And I got to say, go ahead. I was not worried about Swamen until I heard Sweeney say, we're going to get it done by December 1st. Well, I feel like we've been saying all summer, or at least I've been saying all summer, like don't worry about it until we get to camp,

until we get to whatever. None of the, you know, the warning lights on the dashboard are not lit up. they all lit up as soon as I saw December 1st mentioned because that's not good for anyone, but especially a goalie, because I'll tell you what, he's not showing up December 2nd and, you know, just absolutely dropping into Bezina form. The one thing I'll say about that is I liked Elliot Friedman's theory on that, which is if he says, we'll get it done by the end of camp. Then when the end of camp comes and goes and the deal's not done,

that makes everybody look bad. That is. It's a good point. And so for him to say December 1st, he's just like, look, that's the last date I could possibly fucking sign this guy for this year. So whatever happens, you know, happens, basically. But like, I think he's just saying, like, leaving the room for that to happen any time, that idea makes total sense to me. Okay. But on the other hand, my version allows me to panic and scream.

and make wild narratives. So I'm going to look. What is this podcast about it? It's not for. Disaster. I heard I heard Tuka Rass did a sit up the other day. Is he coming back? He's coming back, baby.

But yeah. You notice no one's denying it. The Bruins have not put out a statement denying that Tukarask is coming back. Right. So, but to your point, here's how I have that division finishing right now. is Toronto, Florida, Boston, Tampa, Ottawa, Detroit, Buffalo, Montreal. That's my, that's my eight in the, in the Atlantic. And, you know, Florida and Toronto, I have them separated by one spot.

So, like, yeah, I think, I think Toronto could win that division. I think that's probably my most likely outcome, except to say, course that the Leafs are a loser organization that sucks, right? Like, we always kind of expect them to underperform a little bit. I don't know that Matthews is scoring almost 70 goals again, right? But he could. He could very easily. I don't know.

I think they, I think the Leafs, like, tightened up their defense enough that I would, I would just count on them to be slightly better. but I think it's going to be a more down year for for that division overall as well. Did you, in your order, did you have like which of those five, six, like, does the five team make the playoffs or is it still a top four? It would be, let's, let me see here. I'll just, I'll just, my east goes like this, I guess. Carolina, Toronto, Florida, the Rangers, the Bruins. the devils, the lightning, the penguins, the islanders.

I have the islanders at 18. I don't know if I just counted off 18s. Okay. But. I just pronouncing islanders with a question mark in a season preview is like actually kind of nailing it. Yeah, I think that's right. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

I have the cut off as the penguins as the 16th team in the league. Okay. We'll see. Believe me, you don't have to do a lot of convincing to get me to go, yeah, the Penguins miss the playoffs. You know, but like we said, there's always a PDO team. Frankly, there's always like two or three. So, you know, we'll see and all this will sound stupid in the next six months or whatever.

While we take a break, we'll come back, we'll talk about some other team-related stuff, some news, et cetera. How's that sound? This week's episode is brought to you by our friends at AG1. Fueling your body with Whole Foods is important, but every diet is going to have its nutrient gaps. That's why you should start your day with AG1. It ensures that you fill in those nutritional gaps, supporting your whole body health, and starting your day off right. AG1 is a foundational nutrition supplement. that delivers daily nutrients and gut health support,

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That is drinkag1.com slash puck. Check it out. All right. We're back. And I got in my email inbox the other day, a blessed delivery. It's President's Troveeods from the goat, Jimmy Shapiro. The legend. Yeah.

Now, a lot of this follows kind of what we were just talking about with the Oilers and great teams and all this kind of stuff. The Oilers are the most likely at first. Five to one. That sounds right. It does. And that is a high, like those are pretty, well, I get low odds in the sense of it establishes the order just pretty significant favorites. Yes. Now, if you think the oilers are a sure thing to win the president's trophy, obviously you're jumping at five to one.

But this is, you know, they are squeezing you pretty good. good on this. Yeah. There's 31 other teams in the league. Panthers 8 to 1, abs and stars both 9 to 1. And then this is interesting. Devils, Rangers, and Leefs, 12 to 1.

Mm-hmm. Um, I don't know. I sent you the list. What do you think of, what do you think of these? Like, is there any value here or whatever you want to say? Yeah.

Is there anybody you're looking at and it's like, oh, no, this, this, this like, long shot, I'd take those guys. Yeah, and because that's what I look at this for. I mean, I'm, I will occasionally put a bet on like a long-term season-long prop, but I'm getting, as people have probably seen, increasingly sick of the gambling stuff. So just, you know, we're not pitching this to you as like, here's where to throw your, throw your money down. It's, but it is interesting, right?

Because it's interesting to think about it in this context. This is, yeah, especially when you hear stuff like, you know, some, you know, some Rangers fan will be like, everybody knows the Rangers are president. It's like you look at it and you go, okay, well, they're the sixth or seventh or eighth team listed. I wonder what the Rangers were last year to win the president's trophy. We can look that up. Wow. If you hold tight for a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah, the teams that jump out to me, I would say the main one would be the hurricanes, even who, as we sort of discussed, not getting a ton of respect for a team that's been very good for years now. 16 and 1. tied with the Golden Knights, which is another team that a lot of people, I think, are sort of off on. But the Golden Knights did not have a great regular season last year.

And they didn't have a great summer either, well, frankly. So the other one, well, I mean, the Predators at 18 to 1, that, again, if you're a big optimist on what they did, you could maybe find... Talk yourself into that for sure.

Talk that one. The Bruins at 22 to 1. For a team that won the president's trophy two years ago by quite a bit and were significantly better last year than I think a lot of people expected would be very interesting to me, except obviously the Jeremy Swayman situation is baked into those numbers. So I don't know. The Jets being behind the Kings is maybe a little bit interesting to me.

But I'm not sure I see anything else that, you know, If I had to bet on a long shot, I'd probably take one of the younger teams, like an Ottawa or a maybe, maybe Utah. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Utah at 75 to 1. I'd think about it. But I don't see anything here that. I mean, the days of like, oh, the odds are just wrong. They've got the, you know, those days are past.

Yeah, I remember I was like, it's too bad. there is, you know, that year the Leafs like, pedioed their way to whatever, whatever, fucking 108 point pace. And it was like, you know, their plus, or their over under was like 98. And I was like, can I take out four mortgages to, to take the under on that one? And, you know, you're right that those days are mostly gone. There's always going to be a few where you're just like, yeah, that's, that's, that's a weird number. but nothing that I don't think at this point is ever going to look like.

Just remember that the way these odds get made is these massive gambling corporations pay a lot of money to the smartest people they can find to figure out the most likely results. They generate odds based on that and then they squeeze those odds down even further to get the juice out of you. So finding a really great value is tough, especially on these. as it used to be. If you sit down and, like, actually figure out, like, you know, you find out that they're leaving all, you're leaving all sorts of money on the table. If you bet on this. Don't bet. Right.

Don't bet. Again, it is just interesting to think about, like, San Jose 750 to one. Well, the way I like to think about it is, like, if they played the season with, uh, you know, like these exact rosters or whatever, And all the expectations that come with this season. If they played this season 20 times, the lightning would win one president's trophy, according to these odds. Right? And, hey, that could be this year. You know, like that, that's how I think about it is, is, you know, like, what the, how many times would you have to play this season for the Calgary Flames, 125?

And they'd win one president's trophy. Yeah. That sounds about right to me, you know? But even then, I would kind of bet against them every single time. 125 times I'd be like they're not going to do it this year. So yeah, I just thought that was interesting. So here's some big news that's happened since the last time we did a show. Bunch of stuff, as you might imagine.

It was initially reported that Evander Cain had surgery over the weekend. And that he would be out two to four months. Oilers last night said looking more like five to six, which is looking more like they're doing the Tampa Bay Lightning LTIR. He'll be back for the playoffs thing. Yeah. Which is kind of what I think a lot of people suspected right away, except that they may not necessarily be actually doing,

like actually putting on an LTIR because they want to accumulate cap space. Remember when they didn't match the offers. there was a lot of talk at the office sheets. There was a lot of talk about, well, you know, they want to keep cap flexibility. Right. So they can add during the season. And you can't do that if you are into LTIR

because you're not acute, or at least you're not accumulating space anymore. So we'll see, but yes, it would not be a surprise to see them add during the season right around the same time say, oh, geez, Evander Cain's had a setback. And then it all works out the same way it does. for who knows how many other teams and there's no point getting mad about it.

Yep. Except I do plan to get mad about it. Yeah. How could you know? These guys are, you know, these guys are doing stuff that shouldn't be a lot. In fact, all the rules should change. Except when my team does it.

That's okay then. Well, I mean, that, you're just, you know, using the rules to your advantage. Yeah, exactly. So that's fine. Yeah. Some other news, Robin Lainer. didn't show up to

camp to get tested and told, yeah, you can't play in the NHL this year, which is standard operating procedure. Like any guy who's basically LTIR retired, still has to show up to a doctor's office at the beginning of the season, get tested.

They go, you're not good to play this season. It's a formality, but you got to do it. And he didn't show up. And there was talk that, like maybe Vegas was trying to terminate his contract or whatever. It was a weird story.

It's a, well. Because they kind of made it sound like he was like AWOL. Right. And he was like, no, I, everybody knew about this. Yeah. And like, and now it's like, oh, the league and the NHLPA and the team are all working together to find a solution and blah, blah, blah. Who knows what's going on? You know, this is a guy obviously.

He's had some, some mental health. difficulties in his in his past and that kind of thing you just hope he's doing well um or as well as he can be doing or however you want to phrase it but it's just one of those things where we're going to have to wait and see weird uh weird circumstance but it does not say at least my impression is it doesn't sound right now like there actually there's going to be contract termination or no it doesn't sound that way but we'll see see. I mean, who knows? It's Vegas.

I mean, if any team was going to do it. Yeah. If any team was going to be completely heartless and push for something like this, it would be the team that just put a footprint on a Kahn-Smith winner's back on his way out the door. Or it didn't. I don't know. I don't know how that actually went down. But again, my more dramatic version is more fun for me.

I mean, the thing is that like, you know, apparently they tried to do the, hey, don't you want to defer some money? thing that worked for Carolina and he was like, no. And they were like, okay, well, then see you later. Yeah. This is basically how it sounded like that went. Some signings in the last few days here. Vancouver extends Kevin Lankinen.

Or not extends. Sines him, yeah. Signs Kevin Lankin. And I had extends on the line below this one for a different guy who did get extended. Vancouver signs Kevin Lankin. And this is not really, good news if you're in the Thatcher Demko should be playing all season thing. An insurance policy, but not one that necessarily makes you feel great.

Yeah. Like Lankinen is a fine backup is maybe the best thing you can say about him. And, you know, it just makes you go, oh, this Demko thing is like bad, bad. But also people are saying like they would just carry three goalies when, when Demko comes back regardless. Which they're also doing in Minnesota this year, which I find interesting because for years we've been told that's completely impossible. You can't have three goalies and then got a team.

Absolutely. No, we'll be fine. Yeah, it's interesting because like a lot of the stuff you hear about Demko these days is like, oh, he's going to have to change the way he plays the position and all that. And it's like, yeah. Oh, that sounds. That sounds not good. Yeah.

Yeah. To me, if you're asking me, my opinion on this, not great. No, not at all. But point being, if he has to, like, learn to play in a different way, you know, with new physical limitations or whatever you want to say, like, what's the timeline for his return? And also, you know, then anytime there's a long-term injury, you know, you know, you know, any time there's a long-term injury, You're always thinking like, okay, when is he going to be back? And when is he going to be back to normal? To be.

And you hope it's the same thing, but sometimes if a guy's got to learn a new way to play. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows if you're going to get the Vesna version back? I don't know. Yeah. I don't like this if I'm a Vancouver fan. No.

And again, like, this is why you're sitting there saying, like, well, them, like, being a president's trophy contender, making the playoffs, all this kind of stuff. has to feel way more up in the air than it did, you know, on July 3rd or whatever. Yep. So, yeah, something to keep an eye on there. Here's where extends comes into play. Colorado extends Logan O'Connor six years,

2.5 million AAV. The classic, we like this guy as a depth piece. He's not that old. We'll just give him six years and, you know, feel like we really can dust our hands. off. We don't need to worry about that position anytime soon. Mm-hmm. And again, like, I don't love the idea of signing up long-term, but something like this, yes, go ahead. Get it. Do what you got to do.

Yeah, and especially, you know, like. Makes sense. Two years from now or whatever, 2.5 million is going to be nothing when the cap's $100 million. or whatever. So what do you care at that point? You know? Again, I really like the player obviously like when I'm pretty sure he was undrafted, just played at the University of Denver for a few years was a good player there. And then almost immediately, I don't feel like he had a ton of AHL time in his career

and just was like, oh yeah, I'm like a perfectly serviceable, you know, depth like penalty kill guy. pretty cool good good path to to making whatever

like 15 million bucks on the six year deal yeah I like the player a lot Winnipeg resigns Colper Fetti gets that bridge deal done two years 3.25 million

on this one and this was an interesting one to watch just because it dragged gone. It did. And yet you still, like,

Profetti seemed to be trying very, very hard to make it clear that there was no bad feelings. No actual. Showing up at team events. He was doing, you know, all this stuff. Didn't show up for camp because, I mean, you don't have a contract. You don't do that. But, and then Elliot had just a couple days ago said, like, at what point does this maybe tip into not being as friendly as it has seemed?

Right. And then it got done. So I guess as a Jets fan, you're probably happy. You know, maybe you would have loved him to sign one of those eight-year sucker deals that so many young players love. But a bridge deal makes sense. Yeah. Especially for a guy who hasn't fully done it at the NHL level quite yet. And they need to do the thing that Rick Bonas refused to do with young players.

And now they've got to put him in a position to succeed. right? Because you can't have another season where, again, I can't remember the stat off the top of my head, but it was like Adam Lowry got more minutes than like Cole Perfetti, Brad Lambert per game, all like for, you know, last season. And it's like, yeah, that can't be, that can't be how it goes. If you want to, you know, not miss the playoffs or whatever. But yep, good player. I like, I like them a lot. What about this one? Dylan Gunther. Eight years, 7.142, 875 million.

Sure. You were a little surprised that the, you know, it struck me as being a scosh early to give him huge money like that. But is 7 million huge money at this point? Yeah, I guess, you know, it is hard to think about it that way.

But like, 50 points in 78 career NHL games over two seasons. He's a good player. I'm not saying he's not a good player. He's 20 years old, 21. He's 21.

I mean, 50 points in 78 career games. Like if you just make that his season total, like he's a 50 point guy, I think 7 million will probably be decent value for that. It's by the end of it. And that's, you know, they're not. buying any of his, like, they're buying up his entire prime pretty much.

Yeah. Not buying any of his declining years. Yeah. They're not buying up anything in the 30s. I think it'll probably end up being team friendly. But, again, it's so easy for me to sit there and say bet on yourself, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's, it makes sense. And we should say this kicks in next season, not like, he wasn't, you know, a current

RF. So it does, it does put it in that. He could have the breakout year this year and then we're all... And then we're saying it looks great. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think, you know, obviously there's a real trajectory here with him. He looks like he can... You'd like to see him do it.

I guess my point is you'd like to see him do it for a full year in the NHL, and he hasn't done that yet. But, you know, like you say, if he puts up 55, 60 points this season, we're looking at 7.14 and going... well, that's a steal. That's great. Yep. You know. So, yeah, there you go.

Like I said, I was just surprised that they didn't want to bridge him given just, you know, it's a new day in Arizona slash Utah history, I guess, you know? Just like the way that I'm used to them doing things, I have to reset my brain a little bit. Yeah. Okay. The Sends are getting a new rink maybe sometime. 10, 15 years from now? Who knows? Yeah.

This story was not as big a deal as it maybe initially seemed because it was like, oh, they've got an arena deal. Great. Finally. Not really. They kind of have a deal for the land. But it's not a deal. Like they haven't bought the land.

It's not like the city said, okay, here you go. Get some shovels in the ground. It's more like they have the right to, you know, first bid on the land and that sort of thing. It's going to happen. It's exceedingly likely that's going to happen, and it's going to be at that location, which is closer to, you know,

it's more of a downtown accessible area, certainly than what they've got now. But as far as, like, oh, this is finally, like, don't be surprised in like six months or a year from now. You're hearing, like, Ottawa Arena stories again. And you're like, didn't this get settled last year? No, it didn't. But it got moved closer in that direction.

It is good news, not bad news, but it's not the final piece of it. Yeah, give me an over-under on what year you think they opened the new rink. I would say 2028. I was going to say 2030. So let's put it right in the middle. 2029, your new Ottawa senators, the Andlauer pavilion or whatever. Yeah, that's right. Off we go.

And it's crazy because, like, their current arena, like, was built in the mid-90s. Right. Which is only 10 years ago. So, like, I mean, it's pretty new. But, you know, it's funny. I was thinking about that vis-a-vis TD Garden. Obviously, like, the Bruins arena and the Celtics Arena and where I've been to many events over the years, you know. It's obviously quite a bit different than it was even six or seven years ago, let alone when it opened in the,

again, mid-90s. But at the same time, I'm just like, yeah, are the, are the Bruins or the Celtics going to start, like, itching for a new building sometime soon? It's getting up there, you know? I want to say it opened in 95 or 96. So we're coming up on 30 years. That feels like what people act like is the life cycle of these things. So I'm very curious to see if that's a thing. When, so I don't know if you know this, the Celtics are rumored to be maybe getting a new owner, or at least, you know, the current owners are entertaining the idea of selling.

And there's a guy who's on a lot of Celtics broadcasts who on Twitter has been like, oh, and of course they need a new arena when they do that. And a lot of Celtics friends are like, no, they don't. No one's fine. everybody likes them and they're good. You know, like, what's the problem here? I guess that's the other thing we should say with the senators is no public money is the pitch being made right now. Right. So we'll see.

And that's just how it works. That's how it works in Boston. The TD Garden was built entirely with private money. Now, but is it entirely with private money or is it one of these things where it's like we will build it entirely with private money as long as you give us this incredibly expensive prime real estate. for a dollar. I believe, well, so they, I don't remember all the specifics now, but I believe they built TD Garden. Like, literally it was when Boston Garden was still standing and they were building the

fleet center next to it. There was like eight feet of space between the buildings. So I think they owned all of it already, all that land, but I might be wrong. It would have been an incredible coincidence for them to get a, a, uh, a, uh, like a sweetheart land deal or whatever. But I, you know, when, when the, when the, when the Patriots built Gillette Stadium, they were like, we'd really like to build it in Boston. And all you're going to do is give us public money or whatever. And, uh, and the city of Boston told them to take a fucking hike.

And they threatened to move to Hartford, I want to say. Okay. And then they just built Gillette in the parking lot next to Foxborough. Mm-hmm. Um. And there was talk at one point in like maybe the late 90s, early 2000s about building a new Fenway park. And it was going to, it was the same thing where it's like, all you'd have to do is give us a shit. And I might be getting details of this wrong.

But, you know, this is my recollections of like 25 years ago. But I feel like they were like, all you need to do is give us some like waterfront property that you're not using right now. And again, the city was like, yeah, we're not doing that. And they were like, okay, we'll put like hundreds of millions of dollars into renovating. Fenway then. Fenway is still going strong. It's America's favorite ballpark. Mm-hmm.

So I think Boston is just like as a city not going to be amenable to that sort of thing. We're still waiting for that revolution soccer-specific stadium too. Yeah. One of these days, folks. Finally, I guess, unless there's been breaking news that happened since we started recording, but I don't think there has been. The Toronto Maple Leafs Rogers bought out Bell's share of the ownership. Am I getting that right?

That is correct. They had previously Rogers and Bell, which are like the two big telecoms up here, like I guess in American terms it'd be like Comcast and worst Comcast. They shared 37.5% ownership. of the Leafs. And then there was a 25% ownership held privately. So they were basically a two-headed monster, and now one of the two heads has bought

out the other for billions, billions of dollars. And now Rogers is in full control, not 100% ownership, but 100% control of the Leafs and the Raptors and the Blue Jays and et cetera on down the list. And that's probably not. good. Yeah. When you said it's bad, like you said, I want to talk about this because it's bad for Leafs fans. Why is it bad specifically for Leafs fans?

It's not like the existing setup was great, you know, these two giant faceless corporations, but at least the way it was set up where they had the shared ownership, like they had, in a way, I guess if you're going for the optimistic view as a lease fan, having these two telecom giants meant everything had to be decided by the board and it was all voted. and Larry Town and Baum was kind of the tiebreaker, but maybe that's why things could take so long. Maybe that's why the Leafs often feel like a giant corporation, not just a sports franchise that has got to sometimes make hard decisions.

It always kind of felt like they were run by committee because they were run by committee in a way. And now that's not the case anymore. The flip side is Rogers has no track record of success as owners of a sports team. I included the Blue Jays in that group that they now own. They have owned the Blue Jays for a while now. Right. And the Blue Jays are not good.

The Blue Jays are not run in a way that gives you much confidence. And the guy who is the head of Rogers, who in theory is now the most powerful man in sports in Canada because he runs MLSC, He's a guy named Edward Rogers who... Oh, how do you get that job? No, but yeah, it's crazy, right? He got it from his dad.

One of those crazy coincidences or... Never hear about this. He is not a guy that inspires great confidence, let's just say. His two main claims to fame previously are that he just kind of disappears as the Blue Jays fade and never... All the fans are very mad and calling for, you know, GMs and presidents to be fired and he just kind of has done like the Homer Simpson into the hedge thing. His other major claim to fame in the sports world in Toronto was he was the guy

that did, tried to get rid of, what's his name, the guy who built the Raptors and won the championship and then, you know, there was all sorts of bands. Asa Jiri, yeah. Yes, thank you. And he was, Rogers was like, no, this guy makes too much money. and they fact didn't end around on him to keep him. So the good news, I guess, is he's not a Steinbrenner, Jerry Jones, Eugene Melnick type owner who's, you know, tries to be the star of the show.

He's almost too far the other way where it's like, do an interview every now and then, maybe. He did one with Ron McLean, who is, of course, a sportsnet guy, and they own sports net. His employee, right? Yeah. But, yeah, definitely not a guy that you look at and be like, this is the dude who's going to lead the Leafs to the Stanley Cup. Maybe the good news is we've often said that the very best owner is somebody who has an enormous amount of money and gets the hell of the way.

Shut up and sign the checks. Yep. Yep. Maybe that'll be the approach. But I don't know. It's not one guy, right? It's one guy at the head of a massive corporation that has all this fingers and all these different pies and all this other stuff. I don't know.

I certainly don't love it. I guess we'll see. Yeah. Eddie, you want to come on the podcast to do an interview. Prove me wrong, buddy. Let's do this. Well, here's the thing, right, is like if it's me and I have, you know, tens of billions of dollars and I can own the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Raptors and the Blue Jays and a telemed. you know, a telecom and all this.

What am I going to go talk to the fucking media? Oh man, I got better shit to do, which is to say not anything. You know? I'm just sitting on that big pile of money like smog himself. Remember him from the movie? And the book, I guess. Big dragon. He loves gold.

You're never hearing from my ass if I have $10 billion. You know, because here's the thing. There's all these billionaires that's like, oh, yeah, you're hearing about these fucking billionaires all the time. That's not the kind of billionaire I'd want to be. I'd want to be where it's like, oh, yeah, he owns like, you know, evil corp or whatever. But you never see, nobody knows what he looks like. Yeah. Do you own evil corps?

I wish, man. People know what I look like. It's a tough thing. Sounds like the sort of thing that you would say if you owned evil corp. I guess the thing is, like, you want the owner, you want. sign the checks and shut up, but you also want the owner to be like one of these hyper-competitive billionaires who like buys a yacht that's two feet bigger than the guy next to him because he thinks that's important and views his sports team that way. Well, I mean, now you're describing Terry Pagula. Do you want that guy on the Maple?

No, I said sign the checks. Oh, mm-hmm. Well, look, we were told recently that they actually didn't have like any kind of an internal budget and the fact that they're $12 billion dollars. under the salary cap. I'm going to look that up, actually. What's the actual number? They have $7 million in cap space, and they're like, we just think we got a good team.

We're ready to go. Yeah. Hmm. But then, you know, they're pointing to these preseason results, and they're going, huh? Do we need to sign more guys now? Nothing will ever top the Eugene Melnick, where he's like, anyone can win when you spend the cap.

Like, as if he's just like, his team was so good, they were going to do it with degree of difficulty. they're just going to challenge themselves. That's right. Yeah. Like he already beat the game. Now,

like he already beat Mario and now he's going to beat Mario. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. He's going to, he's going to. Anyone. Yeah.

Anyone can do it. Yeah. And this team where it's like Jordan Greenway is like their fifth best forward, they're going to be competitive this year. Don't worry about it. No problem. So, yeah, I think.

that's it for the show this week. Do you have anything you wish to plug? I will plug, but also just to close a thread from earlier. I did find those President's trophy odds from last year. Oh, okay, let's go. The New York Rangers were 13 to 1,

which, as best I can tell, puts them 8th. The favorites going into last year, in order, Carolina, Colorado, Toronto, Edmonton, New Jersey, who missed the playoffs, Vegas, Boston, and then the Rangers at 13 to 1, right between Boston at 12 to 1, and Dallas at 14 to 1.

It's interesting. If those were their odds this year, they would also be 8th. Currently, they are 12 to 1. So, you know, winning the president's trophy last year, bumped them up one to one. And in case you're wondering if last year, the next team after Dallas was the L.A. Kings, which is kind of interesting, we were all a lot, or many of us were a lot higher on them than going into this year for sure. Florida at 20 to 1,

despite coming off a Stanley Cup final appearance. And then, you know, you scroll down and down and down. Three teams that were tied at 50 to 1, the Sabres, the Senators, and the Winnipeg Jets, who finished with 110 points, four points back of the Rangers. And then if you scroll even further down, the Vancouver Canucks were at 80 to 1 behind the Islanders and the Cracken just ahead of the Red Wings. And they, of course, were in the running for the president's tour.

We most of the year finish five points back. So there's usually value hidden in somewhere. It's just a question of figuring out. You got to find the deeply undervalued teams with elite talent at least one position is basically what that is sounding like to me. And again, the reason I say this is not to. encourage people to go out and, you know, throw money on 80 to one underdogs, but to point out that the consensus last year was that the Canucks were not going to be good. So if you're a Canucks fan who says like, oh, you know, everybody, everybody should have known we were good last year. Well,

I mean, I hope you put a couple of bucks on your team and put your money where your mouth is because you would have, you would have almost. Well, in that case, I hope they didn't do that, because they still lost. No, but it would have given you some fun. But yeah, you would have. would have lost. And that is, yeah, that's another thing, right? This, you look at this stuff and you go, oh, 50 to 1, 80 to 1. Like, yeah, but those teams didn't win. So you're still lost.

By the way, the current 80 to 1, there's only 1 80 to 1 team right now, and it's the Buffalo Sabres for this coming season. So like you said, anything can happen. Now, now I'm just going to look and see where is that elite talent on the Buffalo Sabres roster? Okay, never mind. Mind the bench, baby. Sean, want to get him with the plugs? Let's get the hell out of here. Yeah, Bizarro meters coming out this week.

I think probably Wednesday, Thursday, maybe Thursday, Friday. We'll see. But this is where I go through every team recap their offseason and try to figure out who had the strangest offseason. Not the best, not the worst, just the weirdest. And, yeah, it's always a lot of fun, except for that one year where it wasn't fun. And then starting next week, back to the faucet will be turned all the way on and it'll be all sorts of preview stuff. And by the way, the prediction contest should be returning this year as well. Hell yeah.

I've got to lock a few things down on that. But get ready to get in and help us prove that nobody actually knows anything about anything. Great. for me, head on over to Elite Prospects, E.P.Rinkside.com, all that kind of stuff. A lot of season preview stuff. I've already started working on the college hockey preview stuff that there's a lot going on with that, obviously, and it takes me a couple of weeks to work through everything, but, you know, I'll have five, six, seven articles previewing the college hockey season from different angles in the next little while here. So keep an eye out for that.

And then, yeah, if you want to sign up with the code, I Love EP, all one word, on an annual subscription, you get three months tacked on to the end of that year. Absolutely free of charge. What a deal. And then head over to patreon.com slash puck soup, where we have all kinds of bonus episodes coming out this week and that kind of thing. We'll, you know, we'll figure everything out. But there's a lot going on over there at patreon.com slash puck soup, all kinds of podcasts. and that. So check it all out. And thanks for listening.

And we'll be back next week with more season preview stuff. Thanks. Bye. Bye-bye.