Puck Soup - Best Team To Never Win Cup?

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

The boys are back with the latest on hockey's coronavirus shutdown, including the Bruins' bad decisions, a wild draft lottery idea, the Memorial Cup cancelled and why the NHL needs to shut down its regular season now. Plus, our 16-team tournament to determine the best team that never won the Stanley Cup, how commercials have gotten weird and what we're binging. 

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 Greg Wischinski of Quarantine and also ESPN. I'm Ryan Lambert from playing eight hours of video games a day. Damn. I'm Sean McAdoe from sitting around and helping my kids make tournament brackets and gambling on the outcomes and also the athletic.

In your in puck soup, first of all, Lambert, does that qualify you as an e-sports athlete, is my question? You know, I don't know if it does because I refuse to play online games. And I think that's probably what you need to do to be doing e-sports. I don't think you're qualifying for anything, playing the last of us on the hardest setting and spending two hours trying to beat one level. I don't know that that counts. I play a lot of Fortnite, as you know, maybe on Patrick Line A levels of Fortnite, and I often get invited by people that I know to squad up in Fortnite.

One in particular is Dom L, won't even attempt the last name, from the athletic. just like Curtis Lecision, it's fine. It's not, it's that, it's, look at that name. It's, that is not, there's no fucking way that's Lecision. It, I've seen Lecision. That's not Lecision. You, sir, yeah. That's right.

I knew Lecission and you, sir, are no decision. Dom L always wants to squat up. And I, on the one hand, I'm like, this guy's fucking smart. Like, I bet he is a great Fortnite player. On the other hand, I'm like, what if I'm not good enough to impress Dom L on Fortnite? Like, it's already hard. enough being a guy who's terrible at math trying to be friends with the analytics community. It'd be even worse if he sees me and I'm just like a guy who hides in the attic the entire time.

And then Dom is disappointed in my performance. So I can't do it. Sean, you mentioned brackets. I saw that your kids are now making brackets of different things. There could be no further evidence that Puck Soup is genetic. Did I see that your children? Did not follow the advice of the bonus episode and disrespected Doritos during the snack food bracket? See, there's a lot of confusion about this because they put together a snack food bracket and I posted an image of it. And I've got people yelling at me over the results. So let me be clear.

They build the bracket and then they're like rolling dice to see what wins. This isn't them just filling out like their favorites. It isn't them sitting down. And I mean, that would just be, that's just making a list of your favorites. things. That's not, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no upsets, there's no competitive element of that. So yeah, I mean, if you're, if you're, if you're mad that your favorite candy didn't do well on my nine-year-old son's candy bracket, uh, go curse the, the, uh, the, uh, the random whims of the dice. Don't, uh, don't yell at me, uh, because,

unless you don't like the seating, in which case you can absolutely yell. With that having been said, candy corn shouldn't have been in the bracket at all. Discussed. Horrible candy. Yeah. I agree. That is an argument to be made, yeah. But yeah, it was an upset. And let's just say that my kids learned a valuable lesson that sometimes sports is cruel and does not deliver the result that you want. It's, it was basically, it was basically the equivalent of like Duke winning March Madness where just everyone is like, come on, just anybody but. But it happens. I think this speaks to capitalism because, as we've discussed on a recent bonus episode, Sean and I both created like dice-based games around sports cards when we were kids, I believe. That was a commonality between us, right? I think. Yep. And now your children are creating a dice-based game around market research, I believe, it looks like. Could be. Yeah. Great. I weep for the youth, mostly because they had to live through a pandemic. Speaking of which, so I got a column up on ESPN today, and I think it's pretty obvious. And I also think that having talked to a few NHL executives this week, that they really need to cancel the regular season.

Not the whole season. You could still find a way to do the playoffs. You could even find a way to expand the playoffs, as we talked about in the show. But the idea that we're dicking around with the regular season right now, when A, it's going to be a logistical nightmare. No one gives a fuck about the Red Wings finishing their season. And C, you have corporations like, I don't know, the Bruins and the Sabres and also Stubhub and Seek that are holding back refunds from fans as long as the games aren't canceled. Correct.

I think we should fucking cancel the season, the regular season at this point. Agreed? Yeah, absolutely. And especially because not only like our fans getting their money withheld, but like the Sabers and Bruins. are saying we'll only pay our part-time employees for games if they get canceled. And knowing the NHL, they'll be like, well, it's July 17th. I think we might have to call this one. You know, like...

Right, yes. And then, you know, just like we're now maybe getting checks, like, you know, in May or something like that, a one-time $1,200 check in May, these people will be getting their, you know, six games worth of missed pay in probably November. So let's just let's just call it now, get those people their money and fucking figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. Sean, cancel regular season? Yes, because of the reason that you outlined as far as the fans and the employees getting their money,

we're not going to play the regular season. I think everyone knows and accepts that. I think people are coming to accept also that any talk of like long extended playoffs is probably unrealistic too. I mean, if you just watch the news for a little while, you can kind of see where things are headed and the idea that we're going to be back up and running in May or even June is looking increasingly unlikely. I have a thing that I wrote that's, I think, going up tomorrow, where I basically said that, you know what, realistically, we all know where this is probably headed, which is we're not going to have a Stanley Cup this year. And yet,

I'm fine with sort of pretending that's not the case and people still bouncing around like these crazy ideas and hey wouldn't it be cool if there was like a tournament for the first pick and wouldn't it be cool if we did a 24 team playoffs? I don't actually mind that. Normally I'm kind of one of these realists where I don't like wasting time on stuff that would never happen. But you know what? If this is kind of how we all stay sane over the next little while, I'm good with it. And I think, you know, just having these kind of arguments and bouncing ideas around even if in the back of our head we know. that it's extremely unlikely that any of it's going to happen. I'm fine with that.

So I'm fine with not canceling the season right up until you run into a practical matter, which is the one that you outlined, which is when you're taking dollars out of people's pockets. That's the point where I think the importance of fixing that outweighs the importance of giving Red Wing fans and King's fans and some hope that they're going to see their hockey teams again this year, even when I think we all know they're not. Yeah, and again, like, when teams start using the excuse of the postponed games to just collect interests on people's money and to not pay their workers, I think it becomes a thing where it's more advantageous for you to cancel the regular season.

And then if you have time to have a playoff, you can have it in any shape, way, form that you want, as long as the NHLPA agrees with it, which means that if you believe canceling the regular season, royally fucks the ninth and tenth seeds that are right on the playoff bubble or what have you, well, you could create something that involves them. Like, you can do whatever you want. It's just that, like, at this point when you have teams and companies and businesses

holding, imagine if you had a, if you were a guy that put a down payment on a suite for somebody's birthday. Yeah. Like, and all your boys got together and put that money in. And now that money can't be yours until the season's canceled. which might be, like you said, in July? I mean, it's crazy. So those are the reasons. And then also the other reason, too, is, and I think Nick Folino did an interview with Emily on the site that I wish got a little bit more play than it did because it was really insightful.

In which he was talking about the idea that, look, you know, it's cool that the NHL is trying to find out arena availability in August, which is something that they've done for all teams. So the idea that they're not trying to play the regular season, and I mean, they're going forth like they're trying to play the regular season. And he said, look, that's cool at all. But like, you're really putting players at risk if we start doing this playing into August and September business and then, you know, going right into a season. I know that there's this thought of, well, look, it's your summer right now. I mean, yeah, but like the whole sort of fits and starts of playing in the course of a year,

that's going to be a lot on players. And I'm not quite sure how many are going to be down with one. to play that deep into the summer. Not to mention that some of them are going to have family members or friends that are still dealing with the fallout of this virus and, you know, to be told. And like we said last week, I mean, the idea that you're going to tell the Detroit Red Wings to come back and finish off a couple of weeks after two months off and, you know, everything else, it's...

What unrestricted free agents coming back from the break to play for? for a team that's, you know, nowhere near a playoffs. Which is unfortunately also why I don't think that whole play a tournament for the draft pick idea would work, even though it's one of those things. It's, I love the idea. But, yeah, I mean. Yeah, you would have to do the thing of like the winning team gets $2 million to split up. You know what I mean?

Like something like that. We all complain. I mean, it was only, it feels like years ago, but it was only like a few weeks ago, we were all complaining about the byweeks and how the quality of hockey when a team's been off for a week is it suffers. You know, when it's two or three months and you suddenly throw these guys in there with like a week of camp to remind them what the power play structure is. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. It's going to be a mess. We've mentioned it a few times.

So let's just get into it because it is on the syllabus for this week's episode. Our good friend Craig Custin's once in former, former and future, once in future, there it is, puck soup guest, had on the athletic this week, a story about the NHL draft lottery, which is going to be really fascinating. I mean, part of the equation in canceling the regular season, obviously, is what do you do for teams that have first round picks,

you know, conditioned to go to another team whether or not they make the playoffs this year? And, you know, if the season's premature, surely ended. That's kind of shitty, but hey, things happen and we go forward. But the lottery odds are going to be fascinating if they don't decide they're just doing by points percentage. And one of the ideas being submitted to the NHL, and like I said the other day, it's hilarious how any fucking crackpot idea submitted by a team to the NHL at this point can become a story for us. And I don't mean that to be sarcastic towards Craig. I mean, that's a great

thing for us right now in trying to figure out what to cover. Please keep doing this. Yeah, exactly. Please keep doing this. Yeah. Right. Every fucking idea that you want to send, like, just let us know. It's great. According to an NHL source, writes, Craig, at least one team has submitted a lottery proposal

that would include a tournament, a fucking tournament in which lottery teams play for the first overall pick. At its face, the idea sounds radical, but structured the right way, this has the potential to be a real asset for the league. first of all, got to imagine the team that submitted that idea, not Montreal, the prospect of trying to beat Detroit to get a higher draft pick, probably not going to happen. I don't even know how this is a real asset for the league. Who fucking cares about this?

You know what? God bless the team that actually put that idea in there. The fact that somebody is at least thinking that creatively, I'm all for it. Yeah, you've got nothing better to do, right? Like in a perfect world. In a perfect world where they actually did this and the hockey was good, this would be amazing. Like, you guys know, I'm for years been a big proponent of the gold plan, this idea that you make teams actually win their way to the pick. I know you guys aren't as on board with it, fine.

But, you know, this is that idea on steroids where you actually hold a tournament. I think it would be amazing to watch like Detroit play the Kings for, you know, for the first over. I'll pick. That would be incredible if it worked and you were watching good hockey with motivated players. I don't think you would because even in the best of times, this idea that, okay, after the season and after you've just finished in dead last and you're miserable and you're beat up and you just want it to be over, we're going to send you out there to play a tournament. For your team to draft a kid, who's going to come in and then probably take your job?

Or, you know, you're like, like, you know, if I'm Jimmy Howard and I'm a, I'm a free agent at the end of the year. Like, do I really care? I mean, maybe Jimmy Howard cares about the Red Wings because he's been there forever. But any guy who's, you know, a free agent, am I going to be going out there blocking shots and that so that my team can kick off a youth movement that's going to push me out the door? Like, I think it would be all-star level hockey at best, which is not very good hockey. So it wouldn't work.

And that's even in, you know, regular season, a let alone one where we've had a, you know, international tragedy for, for months at a time. So it wouldn't work, but I do love the idea that somebody put it out there. And I hope that as things get closer to some level of being normal again, that same level of creativity is still out there and maybe it gets, gets put in some other directions and instead of this league, always just doing the same thing they've always done before. Yeah, two things. First, I mean, it's a microcosm of my problem with the gold plan, like you said, you know, the idea that the player is going to be motivated to do anything to help a team that will not be employing them, like, within a week in this case, it's nuts. Second thing, like, and this is an important point you made, I really hope they are creative. Like, the NHL is not going to just be able to fire up the machine again for a traditional playoff and necessarily get the response.

from fans they're looking for. Yeah, we're all starved for it. Absolutely. But like the minute that these restrictions and start getting lifted and the infection rates start to subside and everything else, you know what? Remember how hard it was to get people interested in hockey in June? Now, imagine if it's August and everything you've not been able to do for four or five months, you're now able to do. Yeah. Who gives a shit about hockey at that point?

I can tell you, in Canada, it is tough to get people to watch playoff hockey in May when the weather is nice again. And you're sitting there going, like, there's a game on at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. No, I'm going to go outside. And I mean, I've said it a million times. People in the NHL only care about their team. There are not a lot of people who are like, oh, watch literally any hockey game they put on TV. Like there are for football or basketball or baseball, just the number is smaller. And so, you know, the real concern I have for it is that there's going to be like a race to be the first league back because everybody will watch those games if it's the NBA or Major League Baseball or whoever.

And it really becomes a concern where like they're going to put somebody in danger because they're like, well, we just got to be the first past the gate here and figure out how to how to get everybody back playing. That's why I was a little bit surprised of Vince McMahon postponed the XFL to be quick-handed. Like, I really thought there was a chance that the crazy old man, you know, when they were like, you know, Vince, all the other leagues are paused. We're playing. The spotlight's ours. I really, really thought, like 65% thought that the XFL would keep playing for that

very reason, which is that they'd have the floor to themselves, which is why I believe Belarus now is making $5 billion this season on their playoffs. for being the only team, the only league that's still playing in the world. I think it's going to take some sort of form of the playoffs and some model of the playoffs to get people excited. And so, like Sean said, I am hoping for some level of creativity. And again, give me a one-season anomaly tournament. We don't have to do it every year. Whatever we choose isn't going to be equitable because the season got prematurely ended.

Like, just go fucking crazy. Yeah. They're going to put five asterisks on it. matter what happens. Yeah. So just be as fucking insane as you want. Who cares? I don't know if I need 24 teams.

I think 20's enough. But like the players on their elite player text chain that we assume Philip Forsberg wasn't on, they said 24 teams. I don't need that. I think 20's all right. If they're going to go to do more than 16, they're going to go to 24 because that gets you Montreal in Chicago. It certainly does get them Montreal in Chicago.

That's right. It's two of your biggest. the biggest markets. And I can understand the argument that, well, we should just do 16. I don't think they're even going to have time to do 16. But if you're going to say, we're going to do a bigger playoffs somehow, it's going to be 24 because you've got to have those markets in there. That's a really good thought. I mean, Chicago, because they get every outdoor game and Montreal because they had the, they still owe Montreal for burying John Scott in the minor leagues.

So obviously you're completely correct. That's it. Yeah, I'm all ears about like what formats they want to choose. And I am all for expanding the playoff field, not only to Trojan horse playing games from a fan of, but also just because, you know, if you cancel the regular season and then expand the postseason, that's obviously the way to go at this point because otherwise you're just, I mean, you're hurting too many people. Speaking of hurting people, Jeremy Jacobs and Delaware North. So here's a quick timeline. the Bruins were the last team in the NHL to announce plans to pay their part-time game night staff. They were the absolute last team, 30 teams, maybe even fucking Seattle, too, announced shit before the Bruins did.

And then when they did announce it, they said, yeah, we'll take care of these people, probably with this fund, maybe when the games are canceled. So it was a real bullshit kind of approach. Fast forward to Wednesday, and Delaware North, the New York-based company chaired by Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs, a literal billionaire, said that they are going to, that 150 members of the NHL team and employees of TD Garden will either be placed on temporary leave or have their salaries reduced. 68 full-time salaried associates will be placed on temporary leave, getting one week paid leave and eight weeks of full, eight weeks of full benefits. Wow, how fucking generous. And in addition, 82 of our full-time salaried associates will receive an indefinite salary reduction. None of this affects contracted employees, aka executives, but it does affect the rank and file. I got to say, though, reaction from Bruins faithful to this makes me think that maybe this will be impactful on their bottom line. Like, fans are really pissed off they've done this, but who's to say, really?

Yeah, they're going to sell out 41 games next year. I don't. What are we fucking talking about? I mean, I don't know. They seem really angry at him. Maybe. Yeah, but they're angry at Jeremy Jacobs all the time. Like, you know, I saw somebody yesterday going, like, reminder, Jeremy Jacobs said bad stuff about Cam Neely after they won the Stanley Cup because he couldn't win it when they were, or whatever, you know, whatever they're mad about.

But nobody talks about that anymore. Like, this is the only, it's the thing where they like, they remember every once in a while. Oh, yeah, Jeremy Jacobs, like, sucks. He's a really bad person. And most of the time, they don't care. I appreciate the sentiment. I find Jeremy Jacobs to be an upstanding citizen and a scholar. Yeah, well, that's because he's in your dressage league that you're involved with.

This has nothing to do with him giving full boiled lobsters to the media at TD Garden during the Stanley Cup final. Yeah. Well, you're getting to do. bill for that probably in the next couple of weeks. It's a scumbag it's a scumbag thing to do. And again,

what the fuck is the rush? Like, the thing that, here's the thing that pisses me off most about this Bruins thing. You know what teams always tell us? They always tell us that playoff revenue is essential because it's unexpected. You don't budget for it. It's bonus

money. It's filling your coffers with cash. It's a fucking Scrooge McDuck money bin of money that you don't expect to get. And that's why long playoff runs are great. These fuckers went as far as you could possibly go insofar as important home games in the postseason last year. Four rounds. Four home games in the Stanley Cup final. And they still were the first team out of the fucking gate to do this to their employees.

I mean, God damn. I don't think that's true. I don't think they were the first team. I think Montreal beat them to the punch on one or two with those. things. But your point stands that, yeah, look, again, this guy has been compared to Charles Montgomery Burns on multiple occasions. And with good reason. He is like the cartoonishly evil billionaire. You know, he's behind all the lockouts that we've had. You know, he's one of the driving forces. Like, he's just not, you know, the only thing he cares about is that extra

$15 million in his pocket, you know, that's extracted from, you know, exploiting labor and all that kind of. I mean, this is how rich people get rich. But, you know, like, he is the most cartoonishly evil one. You never, you never hear from him. You only ever hear from his kids and that kind of stuff. Like, it's bad. And, yeah, I mean, you know, but let's not ignore the fact that, like, Carolina basically said the exact same shit yesterday.

And everybody's just mad at the Bruins because Jeremy Jacobs is more of a obvious villain. Yeah. And at least with Carolina, you can sort of buy the idea that, hey, this is a, it's a non-traditional market. They're not exactly swimming in cash, we assume. Tom Dundon probably is personally. But, you know, the team itself maybe feels a little bit different. Or maybe it's just the fact that, yeah, like you say, Jeremy J.

Jacobs has been behind all these lockouts. He's, he's the guy who kind of tells Gary Betman to jump. And Gary Betman says, yes, sir, how high. And then we all get mad at Bettman. But, yeah, it's a mess. And a lot of these guys are showing us who they really are and have been all along. Showing their asses, as they say. In Montreal's case, at the very least, I think their thing was we're going to pay a percentage of

the salaries that aren't covered by unemployment. Right. I think part of the problem with the Bruins that they're met, like, like even in Carolina's case, which was a total cluster fuck on, on Wednesday, where the news and observer reported this layoff thing and then the team pushed back and said, no, we're not laying off people yet. The Bruins are offering no wiggle room. There's no waiting for the government bailout package.

There's no unemployment benefits, you know, thing. It's just like, here's, here's what we're doing to our employees. Yeah. And the other thing, the other. The other thing, to that point, they called everybody into various meetings and played an audio recording. And we're like, okay, now get the fuck out of the building. Yeah. Really good stuff.

Yeah. It was very up in the air. George Clooney kind of calculated and cruelness type deal. Without that little check from Pitch Perfect to make your day better. Yeah. Who is so, okay, I pulled up the quotes from Don Waddell. yesterday. This is from Mark Armstrong, who is a sports anchor at ABC11. And it says, when I asked Don about the optics of a billionaire laying off, a potentially laying off regular folk, Don Waddell said he can't look at it that way. He has to run a business that's currently taking in zero revenue. When I asked what he'd say to understandably nervous employees, Don said he'd tell them what they've always, that they've always done right by them in the past and we'll do everything to keep that. comp act in place now, except, I guess, continuing to pay them, even though their owner is a

billionaire and all that kind of stuff. Easy for Don Waddell to say. Like, he probably doesn't have a contract. He's not even, like, he's just showing up. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, he's, he doesn't even work there. He just doesn't realize it. So, that said, I'm sure many of those employees are getting free swag from a failed minor

league football league. So that's pretty cool. And, hey, look, they can, they can probably. get Dundon to float him alone at like 25, 29%, something like that. There it was. You are honestly one of the first people I thought of when I saw that Carolina news

because you have been on that subprime shit since he bought the team. Yeah, because he's a vulture. He's a horrible person. I wouldn't say he's a horrible person. He gave the world top golf. Have you been to top golf? It's fucking fantastic. You keep saying this. Oh, great. Like a sport

for rich people done just inside. It is bowling but golf. It is no more a sport for rich people than miniature golf is a sport for rich people. Now, granted, I use a solid gold putter, but that doesn't mean that it's a sport for rich people. I just want to say,

we just spent five minutes criticizing the Carolina hurricane, so congratulations in advance to them on the six new T-shirts. I'm sure they'll have on the market immediately that we'll all pretend are hilarious and clever. So yeah, good good job on that guys. They sent me a David Ares shirt, by the way. I was thinking about repurposing it to you, but I kind of like it. Sean, do they have miniature golf in Canada? Yes, we do. What's it look like? Is it a clown's mouth at the end or like a no, you know what? It looks pretty much the same except we don't have like those. Well, I shouldn't say we don't, but but like you guys in certain places go really.

big on the miniature golf? Like you drive by these insane things. Yeah, there's like a giant King Kong on and empires. All the holes at these big American miniature golf courses are like 450 yards. You need a bunch of different clubs to get the ball there. It's crazy.

I think he means like the pirate theme thing. Yeah. I'm talking the ones that have like active volcanoes. Yeah. Where you drive. And there's like six of them on the same street. And you're just like, what the hell is going on? Like having just been in Myrtle Beach and kind of remembering

that. Whereas in Canada, as I'm guessing with like 90% of the US, it's just like, here's a couple of little things where you have to make a put and then it goes down a hill. And that's pretty much it. So no elaborate theming. That seems pretty on point. I'm sure there is one somewhere. And now I'm going to get like angry tweets from like some dude in Thunder Bay who's like mad that they have volcano mini golf and I didn't know about it. But generally speaking, I would say it's, uh, it, it tends to be, uh, pretty, pretty similar. But, uh, yeah, it's, uh, this, there's one billion percent, some former leaf that has a hockey themed mini golf course somewhere. Yeah, we're more like, miniature curling is bigger up here where you get like just, like, just

the little sick. I'm kidding. That's not a real thing. Oh my God. I was going to go to Canada. Like, right, right. If I was allowed to leave quarantine, go to Canada right now. Uh, we've got cancellations. Uh, we've got cancellations. Goodbye. NHL scouting combine. Schedule for Buffalo. the last chance for teams to see how many chin-ups prospects can do before not choosing them because of that. So that sucks. Goodbye NHL Awards in Las Vegas, at least for this year. They do plan on bringing them back next year to Las Vegas if they're able to. But no awards ceremony this year.

That's bad news for the no comedy writers that get hired for that. Bad news for David Ayers. He's off the hook on that horrible skit that they were going to make him do. Oh, yeah. Where somebody comes out and like, oh, the microphone doesn't work. And then they're like, oh, we got to let's anybody know how to fix this? You know what we found out? Do you know what we found out this week?

David Ayers is now signed to CAA, the Hollywood agency. Yeah, they're getting a tree. He's got an agent. That's fun. Yeah, that's great. Goodbye NHL draft Oh man

In Montreal I mean hockey writers Is definitely pouring out a few about that shit Because that would have been a party But they'll They'll definitely bring it back to Montreal I'm sure next year I was looking back

Can you So everything that's ever been canceled or postponed The teams have been made right Within the next like two or three years Except for that fucking Glendale All-Star game That was canceled in 2006

Oh yeah For the Olympics You ever that? They never got the All-Star game back. It's been 14 years. I think that's right. Never got it back. Oh, I don't know.

I think a trip to the fucking desert during January would be all right. Haven't it? Haven't the coyotes fans suffered enough? Plus that you have to do the whole like getting hometown guys on the team. So like Christian Fisher would be an all-star. Speaking of which, Kristen Fisher dating Joe Buck's daughter, telling apparently people like Joe Buck that the players are under the impression there's going to be a one-week mini-camp and then the playoffs.

That's what Joe Buck said on ESPN radio this week. His daughter's boyfriend told him that. That sounds about right. So Christian Fisher. Christian Fisher, the official usher at the arena told my uncle. That's right. His uncle works at Nintendo and there's a secret level in Super Mario Brothers three where the Chicago Blackhawks get to be in the playoffs.

Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, so that, that sucks. What do you think they're going to end up? We already talked about the lottery. What do you think they're going to end up doing with the draft? You think they're going to, Sean, you think you're going to go back to the old school,

all the executives get together at a hotel or the even older school, all the people do it over the phone. And that's how you end up with Taru Tsujumoto of the Tokyo Catanos. Yeah, it's, they could do that. And that's probably the right way to do it. We, it's sort of like the, they'll go back to the Sydney Crosby draft playbook, uh, if at the, at the best. And if at the worst, yeah, just do it, do it over the phone. Like, you know, so we all miss out on listening to every single NHL team,

thank the hosts and congratulate the Jen and all this other stuff. That's fine. I do. But how am I going to know which kids scored 58 goals for Mississauga of the OHL, uh, over the last two, see, all that shit? Yeah. Yeah. And how will I know which assistant scouts birthday it is that we have to

and giving the shout out to the draft viewing party at the some random sports bar? Yeah. It just, you know what? Good. Just send out a press release. Here's who got picked. Here it is. Boom.

We're done. Thank you. I think it's going to be. That's our loss for my, my loss is not having reports on on Sportsnet and TSN about which GMs are talking to each other on the floor. Those are the most intriguing ones. Well, yeah, except this time it'll be like, you know, like Mark Bergervan and Kyle Dubes are standing six feet apart on the draft floor, the minimum amount. They're still shouting at each other so we can all hear everything they're saying.

But, yeah, they're... Darren Drager, TSN, I can report exclusively that Mark Bergevan dressed as a bellhop and went to Kyle Dubus's hotel room in the Ottawa Marriott. perhaps for a clandestine conversation. Back to you. And now a nice glass of Merlot. The Memorial Cup was canceled. Condolences to Canada. First time in 102 years.

The Memorial Cup will not go to a junior hockey team. How much of a big deal is this for you guys? I mean, it's a big deal in the sense that it's just yet another thing that kind of drives home the seriousness of what's going on. And certainly for those junior teams and the players, obviously, but the teams themselves, like here in Ottawa, the 67s were really good this year. And if people don't know, junior hockey is very cyclical, like you kind of, when your team is good, you mortgage everything to be really good that one year and then take a step back for a few years. And this was kind of their year in the cycle to really go for it. And they lose out on that. And that is tough.

And it's, you know, it's news up here. It's not like at the level of, you know, college basketball being canceled down in the States. But it's just kind of the fact that this had never happened before. This isn't even an NHL situation where there's been a couple years where there's no cup. This has been a constant for literally a century. Yeah. It was sort of, I think everybody knew it was coming. Nobody was surprised, but it was just kind of, just to hear it said, it was like, oh, wow, like this is, yeah, yet another reminder that this is serious stuff.

Yeah, to that point about teams going all in, I'm going to ask a dumb American question. Does that usually sync up with the team that is hosting the tournament and therefore gets into the tournament by virtue of being the host? Is it usually that team that spends a lot of money to get good? They will, yeah. I mean, that team, because the way it works is the, it's a four-team tournament, one, the team that wins each of the three leagues plus the host. So in theory, you could host and you have a terrible team and you still get the play. But yeah, typically those teams do load up.

But then just other ones like junior hockey, they will do, you know, obviously it's a different set of circumstances because players' careers can only last four years at the most and some of them last even less than that. But they, I mean, they'll do crazy, they'll trade draft picks like five or ten years in the future to get guys right now, which is great. I wish the NHL was like that. But, yeah, like, it's a lot of times it's based on, oh, we've got one or two elite guys. They're clearly going to go in the draft this year. Let's load up and really build around them.

And if somebody is in their last year of junior, because they're going to get drafted, because they're a top prospect, and they're not on a contending team, then they get traded to one of the contending teams because there's no point holding on. It may be like if Connor McDavid and Austin Matthews and all these guys were always going to retire at 23, well, you'd see crazy trades in the NHL where those guys would get shifted around to the powerhouse team. So it's actually pretty interesting as far as an exercise and roster building and all that, but not to be this year as far as getting a payoff. So it's not like in the Olympics where.

you know, you have to invite the host city into like the hockey tournament, even though they're fucking atrocious. It's usually the host city is pretty good, right? It's never like a really bad team host tournament. I feel like there have been some years where they were pretty bad, but yeah. But then the thing is then then the tournament is like single elimination more or less. I mean it's like maybe round robin and then like it's set up to like there could be upsets. Like you could get a pretty bad team, uh, end up winning it. But usually that's not how it goes. Teams know that this is their showcase, their chance to be in the spotlight. And they try to make sure they're pretty good.

Yeah, that's cool. Sometimes to the point where they're so good that they make the finals of their league championship series, in which case you then have two teams. They're both guaranteed that they're going to the Memorial Cup anyways, kind of going through the motions in a championship series, which is always a little weird. One last thing on coronavirus and hockey. Did you guys see the videos of Ilya Kovilchuk and last? Adamere Tarasenko working out by bench pressing their partners.

I saw Colichick. I've seen a bunch of, you know, all kinds of videos of guys doing stupid shit for fun. Miko Ratan was using his dog as a wait. I saw a couple of guys doing that, yeah. Yeah, Anjikopatar did 10 push-ups with his children on his back. But both Tarasenko and Colvichuk use their wives. In Tarasenko's case, I think he benched her or deadlifted. her. And then in Kovlchuk's case, he was using her on his shoulders for like squats.

And it may be briefly wonder what gyms in Russia look like. Isn't Teresan coming back from shoulder surgery? Yeah. And the whole point was the blue. So like, boy, the shoulder looks good, doesn't it? I'm like, sure. It certainly does. Yeah. That's a thing too about like, I assume that with it, I'll give it another week and a half before we get a monsoon of stories about which teams will benefit the most from the layoff injury-wise. And, like, is it Colorado?

Because, like, you know, if they come back, shit. Everybody's out right now is back. I think that's true for literally every team, though. Yeah, probably. All right. Before we get into the meat of the show, I want to talk about commercials getting weird. I can't believe how quickly corporations have turned around their like coronavirus quarantine ads.

I know that it was out of necessity because you've bought ad time and you don't want to not be able to read the room. Like for example, if you're Hotels.com and you've got commercials on the air for the next like four or five months, you can't be having, hey, go come stay at a hotel commercials. It's fucking nonsense. No one can go anywhere. So they quickly pivoted to the Hotels.com guy eating out of a bowl of popcorn and being like stay at home. I was very impressed by that. Burger King has been very aggressive in saying that they can deliver their terrible food to your family. And you can come to their drive-thru to get the terrible food.

But the interesting thing about all these ads that I found is that none of them, for the most part, actually spell out what we're all dealing with actually mentioned coronavirus or quarantine or anything like that. It's like they don't have the rights to say it like at the Super Bowl. They just talk around it. They call it like the difficulty your family is facing. The troubles we're all going through. Have you noticed this trend in commercials so far? I have not seen a commercial in three weeks.

And with the lack of life sports, I don't think I'm going to see one ever again. Yeah, the only commercial. I just do them on sometimes. I don't get to see commercials unless I'm watching a live hockey game. So, I don't know. I guess I support sponsors more than you guys, but I found it very interesting. These businesses got their shit in order so quickly. I'm missing all my favorite Canadian commercials.

I'm never going to find out if that one dude got his foot fungus under control. That's going to haunt me. My favorite one so far is Olive Garden. Olive Garden is like, hey, we're comfort food. Come bring comfort food home. And my other favorite one was there's a DoorDash commercial that lists all. Do they have DoorDash in Canada, Sean? I don't even know.

Probably. We have the delivery service stuff. I don't know if we have them or not. Yeah. So they have a commercial that talks about all the things that you can't get right now that they can bring to you. And one of the things is Chinese Setsuan hot pot where you have to go to the restaurant and actually like, like cook your meat in the boiling oil.

Okay. And I was trying to figure out the fucking dynamics of that. So they're just going to bring you some boiling oil? I don't think I would trust a door. Yeah. All right. Yes, apparently. And not only, it's a DoorDash person.

So it's inevitably something that's just going to be spilled inside the bag. Not to say DoorDash isn't competent, just saying that's something that does happen when you get food delivered. All right. So as we talked about on a previous episode, during this time away from actual hockey games, some of these episodes are going to take the form of a bonus episode in the sense that we're going to center it around a single topic after we get through the perfunctory talking about, you know, coronavirus and layoffs and all that happy stuff. Sean, you have given us a glorious topic to debate today.

Take it away, sir. Yes. So in the spirit of current circumstances where it is possible that there won't be a Stanley Cup this year we thought we would look at. The best team to not win a Stanley Cup. And we're doing this as a 16-team tournament because it's March. And I figured that doing something in a tournament style would be really fresh and creative. So I've volunteered to come up with some candidates. And I've broken it down into four regions, which is to say four different eras.

have four teams in each. And I think the idea is here is we'll just go through them, uh, discuss, vote two out of three. And, uh, and we'll see who, who emerges as the all time greatest single season NHL team to not win the Stanley Cup. And what I like about this is that you've included teams that weren't simply just the bridesmaids, that weren't simply just the team that lost in the final. Right. You got teams that never even got off the launch pan. Right. Right, in the playoffs. Which I understand for some people will say, well, how could that team,

they couldn't have been that good if they lost in the first round. But, you know, I'm going by what this team did in the season and to some extent, you know, what the roster looked like if we, if enough time has passed that we can kind of place it in a context. Some of these teams are really, really good. But as we know in hockey, just being really good isn't necessarily enough. And sometimes you get beat. And so, yeah, some of these teams came very close. and some, in hindsight, not close at all.

But anyway, it's not the hall of really good, Sean. No, it's not. That's right. Now, when you, one question about formatting here, is this a, am I to assume this is a one versus four, two versus three, and the winners play each other? Okay, although I did think of, you know, maybe we should, like, in a nod to the NHL, do it as like one versus three, two versus four, which is how they did it during the original six era, which made no damn sense whatsoever.

But yeah, that used to be. the case that if two teams were fighting for first place in the NHL season, the team that finished first got a tougher matchup in the playoffs. And this, again, I've made this point before, but if you are mad about the playoff format now, I have bad news for you about the entire century of NHL history. The playoff format has never made sense. It has never been good. So, yeah, but yeah, one versus four and two versus three, and then we'll just sort of go from there. All right. So let's get at it. Let's start with the eldest of the groups. Yes.

This was Sean's original six region. The original six. And I should say I started in the original six era. So technically I said this is all NHL history. It's not. But let's let's let's be like the NHL and pretend that NHL history started in 1942 and just ignore all the weird stuff that happened before. Oh, okay. Yeah, we'll start with the original six. Okay.

This is weird because the first seed in this region is the 1920 McAnaw Wanderers, which is kind of weird. They won every game by 40 goals, and then the ice broke and their goaltender fell into the Athabasca River. Into the—and it was— Yeah. It's a shame. Again, one of the best didn't win. All right, no, number one of this region is the 1945 Montreal Canadian. 80 points in 50 games plus 107 goals differential.

That's Rocket Richard Richard's 50 and 50 season. Lost to a barely 500 Leafs team in the first round. Yes. They're facing the 1962 Montreal Canadiance who set an all-time record with 259 goals, had 98 points in 70 games. We're talking Jean Belvoir, Jacques Plon, boom, boom, Jeffriand, and lost to the Chicago Black Hawks in round one. Because back then they were the Black Hawks.

and not the Blackhawks. That's right. I'll go first. I gave the nod in this one to the 62 Cadians for one reason, and that's Jacques Plont. I mean, Jacques Plont's a better goalie than what 45 had, who I think was Bill Durrion. Bill Durenne. Bill Dernan is a... Not Jack Pant, though.

Yeah. But Bill Dernan was one of the greats of all time, but his career only lasted seven seasons. And I think he won the Vezna like six of them. So he's... He is one of the all-time. time, like, what if career shortened by injury, in his case, illness. So I'd put Dernan up there. He had coronavirus, is that right?

Oh, no. All the way back there, did he play briefly for the Wuhan Canadians, right? Yes, that's right. I still think Jock Juan here, because Bill, was it Duryon, Dorian? Bill Dernan. Duran. Duran. Duran.

Not featured in any of the children's books about hockey I read as a kid, but Jacques Punt mentioned prominently. I do if we're doing this based on children's books, the rocket, that god-awful piece of propaganda that Canadian school children have to read. My vote is going to be with 1945. I, to me, one of the most famous seasons ever by one of the most famous players. So, yeah, that that means that a tiebreaker comes down to resident historian and noted fan of the original six era. All things Canada. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm going to go with the 62 team. If you lose to a barely 500 team in the first round, that's a tough sell. And, you know, like you said, they scored 259 goals. The 62 team scored 259 goals in 70 games. That's a lot. That's a lot of goals. And when you have shock plonk as your goal, maybe you don't need that many, but fuck it. I think Ryan just gave us a spoiler for the cap error region with that the announcement of losing in the first round to barely 500 teams.

I do want to make the point, though, the team that lost to the barely 500, that was the 45 team. The 62 team lost to the Hawks who were decent, but also not super great. So I don't know if that tilt. That's what he said. No, he picked, that's why he picks 60. Okay. They lost a much stronger team. We already have our first upset, a four-season.

Major upset. Yeah, one seed goes out. All right. The 1967 Chicago Black Hawks, first place overall by 17 points. Makita and Hall in their prime, Glenn Hall and net, they lost the Leafs in round one.

And as Sean points out, reacted by trading a young Phil Esposito, which is a logical and measured response. And they're taking on. Anyone who thinks that, like, it's only our modern hot take era where we decide that, teams lose in the first round because they don't have the right makeup and there's not enough

compete and grit and heart and all that like the 67 hawks yeah lost in the first round and we're like you know who we should trade the 23 year old center who just finished 7th in week scoring let's get him out of there and get some more grit into the lineup he's a good player but is he the right type of good player they said and then it's not right he definitely was yeah for our group. Yeah. That was Tyler Sagan Trade's version 1.0. They are playing our number three seed in the original six bracket.

The 1951 Detroit Red Wings, that is your Gordy Howe, Ted Lindsay, Sid A.l, Kelly, Prime, 101 points in 70 games, lost to a 65-point Habs team in round one. So that's a bit of an upset there. I took the Hawks here. 6.71 points percentage in the regular season, first in goals and also first in goals against average. Give me Chicago over what I believe at this point, where were Gordy and all them? Were they in their prime? Yeah, I guess they were in their prime. I'll still take the Hawks, the upstart Hawks. Gordy was a little bit past his prime. He, of course, you know, he was in his late 20s, 1921, I want to. He was down to his last 30 years at that point.

Give me the hot. Yeah, same. Let's see. Oh, there it is. Sean doesn't really matter what you think. It doesn't matter what I think. I would make it a sweep, I think, just based on the fallout, on two things. The fallout of the fact that they kind of dismantled themselves.

And also the fact that one of the things that you'll see kind of come up throughout this tournament is a lot of the teams that we're talking about, while they didn't win the cup that year, they may have won it the next year or the year before, whereas the Hawks... Right, they sandwiched it. Yeah, I mean, the Hawks had not won since 61, and as we now know in hindsight, would not win again for another 40-plus years after this season. So, yeah, I think that resonates a little stronger. I'm going, make it a sweep. But luckily, no one could see all those losses on television. So at least there was some benefit.

Exactly, yeah. To Hawks fans. 67 Montreal Canadiens versus, I'm sorry, 67 Chicago Blackhawks versus 1962 Montreal Canadiens. Oh, man, I got to, I got to go with the HABs here, right? Like, that's a fucking 700 points percentage team we're talking. Yeah. A cadre of Hall of Famers, a great goaltender. Hawks, very good team, really good team, great team in fact. But I'll take the HABs in this original six region matchup.

Absolutely. All right. There it is. So the 62 Canadians are our first member of the Final Four. That is an upset. And I just, I want to register my disagreement, but I will bow to the wisdom of the crowds here. The Americans on the podcast.

Yes, the Americans. While, yes, although I do want to point out, the 67 Hawks were only, we're a 94 point team compared to the 98 points for those for those haps. Sounds like they're four points worse. Sounds like it. Grow out your sideburns, throw on your neon shirt and do mountains of cocaine. it's the 1970s, 1980s region. Next.

Your 1 versus 4 series. The 1971. Boston Bruins. 121 points. A plus 192 goals differential. Esposito and Ore smashing records. Four 100-point players lost to Montreal in the first round, as often one did in the 1970s. That's right.

Versus the 1916. 79 New York Icelanders. 51 wins, 116 points, plus 144 goals differential. Mike Bossy's nice 69 goal season. Denny Potvan, 101 points. And they lost to the Rangers in the semi-final. I'm going Bruins here for two reasons. One, I do think you have to take into account.

And Sean mentioned this off the top. to what happened in the playoffs for these teams. And what happened to the Islanders in the playoffs was their offense dried up. 4.48 goals per game to under three in the playoffs. See, I did research. And also, and this would be a reoccurring theme, this was an Islander's team that did not have a full puzzle.

The peace, butch-goring, would join the team in 1980 to then lead them into a dynastic four seasons. But they did not have Butchkooring now, I will say the Bruins advance from this matchup. Yeah, and the Bruins, the other thing to say about them is this is the best player of all time. At the height of his powers, basically, Bobby Orr, just... Who, Mario? Oh.

Bobby Orr. Completely changed the game. But they won Stanley Cups around that year, so I'm going to assume that this is a really good fucking team. Anyway. Yeah. So I got to go to the 71. This was an amazing team, yeah. And it's so good that sort of one of my, kind of one of my favorite stats about this team is that Phil Esposito, in an era where 50 goals was still considered amazing, he scored 76 goals.

Yeah, that's insane. Which shattered the record. I mean, it just blew away the record. and had 152 points also blowing away the record and still finished second in MVP voting on his own team because that's how good Bobby Orr was. It's almost like this, it would be the equivalent of somebody in today's NHL scoring 110 goals and 250 points. And still losing to Leon Drysidal, right? Exactly.

It's that sort of thing. So I do give the Islanders some. credit for, A, the fact that I think you could really, putting aside Stanley Cups, make the case that this was maybe the best Islander team of the dynasty, and they didn't win the cup. And the fact, I'll also give them bonus points that they lost to the Rangers, which I think is a little extra twist of the knife. But the Bruins lost to the Canadians. And they lost in seven, and they blew a series lead in making it happen. So, yeah, this one, get out the brooms. That's a sweep for the Bruins.

No butch goring The next matchup is between This is a good one This is a really good one In 1986 Edmonton Oilers Mid-Dynastie Gretzky Curry Messier coffee Grant Fure between the pipes

They scored into their own net in a game seven To undo their cup run Against their number one rivals Battle of Alberta The 1980 The 1980 The 1980 Philadelphia Flyers this was the team that had a 35 game on beaten streak,

still had Bobby Clark on the roster, still had some good players in the roster, lost the Islanders in the final, and this is such a fucking down-goes-brown addendum here, partly due to a blown offside call. So we have two, one team that was their own undoing, one team that was undone by the bad officiating.

Who do you pick in this one, Sean? So this is Steve Smith versus Leon Stickle is basically the, uh, what we're going for here. Who you're taking, buddy? Uh, I, you know what? This is of all of them, kind of the toughest one for me to weigh like the context of what happened in the years around it. Because the 80 flyers, obviously they'd won in 74 and 75, but that was five years ago. And they, they have not won again since. So this, this is the sort of thing where you look back and go, that was a really good team.

and that particular mix of team never won the cup versus the Oilers. They won the two years before. They won the two years after. So there's kind of this temptation to go, well, you know, you can't win every year. But to me, just the fact that they scoring into your own net to cost yourself five straight Stanley Cups, which would have tied the all-time record to me is just a different level. So I'm going 86 Oilers get my vote on this one. Ryan?

Yeah, I have to agree. I do think it's a situation where those teams are, I mean, look, they probably should have won at least five straight Stanley Cubs, but those teams are just like, there's so much mythology around them, you know, that it's easy to go, well, they couldn't have been that good. I don't know, man. Like, Gretzky, Messier-Curry, like, you go down that list and it's like, Hall of Fame or Hall of Fame or Hall of Fame or, like, their roster is ridiculous. And so you, yeah, you... And they're real Hall of Favors, too. This isn't like, you know, the fifth defenseman on the 75 Canadians who, like, gets in the Hall of Fame because he has... Yeah, they were all good elsewhere.

They were all good, like, with and without each other, that kind of thing. And it all just came together. I think you've got to go 86 Oilers. And you know the real Hall of Famers, because the guy that Sean just described is Kevin Lowe and he's not in the Hall of Fame. That's exactly it. It's the Kevin Lowe test. 71 Bruins against the 86 Oilers. Who wins that fucking Battle of Titans?

I think I might go Bruins on that one. I think I might do it because... Who's their goalie at that point? Ooh. Cheever's, I think. Cheever's and Eddie Johnston were basically splitting... I just pulled up their roster, basically splitting time right down the middle, and they were both really good.

I think is cheever is better than grant fewer? I think he probably is. As you know, I'm not the biggest. No, same. I mean, you know, like I could have stood back there and they won a cup. And just because I'm looking at it, yeah, they have chevers. We mentioned Esposito and Orr, all three of them in the Hall of Fame. They also had Johnny Busick, who was 35 years old but had a 50 goal, 116 point season that nobody even remembers,

even though that would have been record shattering a few years earlier. But those are the four Hall of Famers on that team. Don't forget about Kenny Hodge and Wayne Cashman. They got a lot of those very... Good old Derek Sanderson. I'll take the Bruins too. I think they'd probably find a way to win that game. I think the ease with which Bobby Orr, maybe not ease,

but I don't know that Bobby Orr would have a huge amount of difficulty shutting down Wayne Gretzky. well bobby or is a poor a poor man's paul coffee so that's basically a wash but um i'll take i'll take espizito and the rest of that roster i figure that team i figure that team is built to figure out an edmonton team that's otherwise running rough shot over people in the mid 80s so 71 bruins advanced to the final four all right now we're getting to the point where some of the people that listen to this show have actually seen these teams the 1990s 2000s region this is a pre uh canceled out season era. Right. The trap years, as they're known by some. I'm sorry, the Mario years and then the trap years, as they're known by some. The 96 Red Wings is our top seed.

That's a team with 62 wins, 131 points. You remember them from many conversations last season with regard to the Tampa Lightning and their regular season achievement. Plus 144 goal differential. A lot of Hall of Famers. Plus Scotty Bowman, they're the team that lost to the Colorado Avalanche in that Claude Lemieux series. And they are taking on the number four seed, the 2003 Ottawa Senators.

How you like that? 113 points, President's Trophy. And of course, Blue Game 7 on home ice against the Devils. That was the Jeff Frieson goal? Yep. It was. It was. That was the Jeff Reason.

And I should say here, I had a lot of trouble coming up with a four seed for this era, partly because it's the smallest era. It's only 15 seasons. and partly because towards the lockout, even then before we have a cap, like the parody era starts coming in. And so we don't have. In fact, I was very close to putting the 2001 Devils here. That was an excellent team. That was a team that lost to the Ray Bork Avalanche, except that year's Avalanche were even better than that year's devils.

So I'm not sure that you can be the best team to not win a cup if you lost to a team that was better than you versus this Senator's team. team. Yeah, the 2000 Devils team was probably their best team that won a cup. So I, and I think the 2001 version might have been a tick down from that. So, so I went, and there were a few other teams that I kind of considered, but I went with the senators here for, for a couple of reasons. One, unlike, a lot of the teams were talking about, this is a team that never won a cup. They never got over the hump. This was their best shot. This was in the middle of the Battle of Ontario where they lost the Leafs every year, but this is the year the Leafs lose in the first round. So suddenly the path is cleared and you're game seven on home ice, you've got the Anaheim ducks waiting in the

final that everybody thinks, so basically everyone feels like this game is for the Stanley Cup. Right. Because everyone figures it, Anaheim's not going to win the cup, although they did, as it turns out, give the devil's a hell of a series. Everybody figures, this is for the Stanley Cup, you're on home ice, two minutes left in regulation, and you blow a defensive zone coverage and get scored on. I think as far as like the the dagger in the heart of a way to lose your season and your best chance at a Stanley Cup, I would argue this team even better than the 2007 team that went to the final. I nudged the senators in here.

But having said that, 96 Red Wings. Yeah. I would agree with that. I'm sorry, 1993 Pittsburgh Penguins. 119 points, five players with 90 plus points, Mario's cancer comeback year, finished the year with 17 straight wins, lost to the Islanders in game seven overtime,

or everybody remembers that, versus the 2000 Blues. That, of course, is the Chris Pronger MVP, Norris year, lost to the sharks in the first round, 114 points in a president's trophy. Got to go Penns here? Yeah. With due respect to that blues team.

Well, the thing with that blues team, right, is we saw what, like, you know, just destructo mode Chris Pronger could do with any team over the course of, like a decade and a half where he was just like, no, no, I got this. And drag the flyers kicking and screaming to a cup final. Drag the duck, well, I mean, the ducks had Scott Niedermeyer as well. But, you know. No, but the oilers.

The oilers are the one you're thinking of. Well, no, that oilers team was fucking horrible. And they were, you know, a Dwayne Rollisen injury in game. one of the cup final away from winning the Stanley Cup with ease probably. Yeah. Yeah. The thing with that Blues team is it was a really good team, but they had Roman Turric in that.

Yeah. And it was kind of that, it was, I think we've used this, this comparison in the past. It's like that Mulholl and Drive scene where it's like, you know what you're afraid of. You know exactly what's going to happen. And somehow the scariest thing that can happen is that exact thing. Right. Exactly the way you imagined it. And this was the season where Game 7 playing the eighth-seated sharks

who were not a very good team, and Owen Nolan winds up and scores from center ice with seconds left in the first period. And that's just the moment where you can tell. Like the building goes dead quiet. It's like, oh my God, this is actually going to play out this way. Versus that 93 Penguins team, the thing that's fascinating about those Penguin Cup teams in 91 and 92, they were stacked. They were amazing.

neither one of those teams even had 90 points in the regular season. That's incredible. Like they kind of, whereas this was the team where it all clicked, and they figured it out, and they kind of hit the gas, and they were unstoppable. And literally, the last 17 games of the season, unbeatable. And then they go into the final, and they lose to the Islanders in game seven, in a game where a lot of people, everybody remembers David Volick scoring. A lot of people don't remember the Penguins were down two goals with like,

minutes left in the third period. And you're watching it going, I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe this is happening. Then they score. They get within one. They pull the goalie. They score to tie it. And you're going, okay.

And now, here's, now Mario and Yarraeager and everyone are going to score in overtime. And the Islanders had their chance. And no, it ends up being the David Volick goal. Yeah, my vote there is for the Penguins as well. It's just a monster good team. Here we go. So, clash of the, again, what a, what a fucking final this is in this region. 96 Red Wings versus

1993 Penguins. I am taking the penguins here. Yeah. They were a better defensive team than the Cup winner of the previous season. And also the other thing, like I mentioned earlier about teams

not quite getting the total puzzle pieces together yet. This is a pre-Brendon-Shannahan Red Wings team. They traded for Shanahan that fall after this playoff disaster. So maybe one down. led to the other, but then, then, you know, off, off they go. So I think that this is not a fully formed

Red Wings team. This is still a Red Wings team that took it on the chin from the Devils in the previous season. So, I will take, I will take the Penguins in this matchup. Which, which in a way, just to cut in, in a way, at the time made this loss more crushing, because when the Red Wings lost in 96, after they had had that amazing season, there's a lot of people who are looking and them going, it's just never going to happen. Like this is, there is something fundamentally flawed about this. If we can win 62 games and still not even make the final in this case, uh,

it maybe something is broken. And this was around the time where there was talk about trading Steve Eiserman because he wasn't, he wasn't a winner. He was like the Joe Thornton of his era. You could can't, can't win with this guy. Yeah.

They were going to trade him to Ottawa for Alexei Yashin, just to give you a sense of how insane the, the narrative around that was, uh, versus the penguins where they, already won two and you're kind of like, ah, they'll win another one. But in hindsight, we know that they never did. Like Merrill Lemieux never got back to a final, never won another Stanley Cup, never, you know, Yager never won another Stanley Cup with this team and on down the line.

So, yeah, this one's probably too close to call, but I think you guys have both gone penguins anyway. Yep, we have. So sorry to Red Wings fans, but also happy anniversary, March 26th today, the anniversary of the infamous avalanche Claude Lemieux revenge game that came the following season.

So you can go if you're disappointed you can go ahead and go watch old clips of that make yourself feel better. In other news the Canadian apologizes.

Original sixth region, 62 Canadians, 70s and 80s, 1971 Bruins, 90s and 2000s, 93 Penguins, which brings us to the CAP era,

the 1-4 series, 2000-19, Tampa Bay, Lightning, 62 wins, cap error record, plus 103 goal differential. Oh, that's right. Swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round. That's correct, yep. Versus the number four seed.

Very interesting seating on this one. The 2011 Vancouver Canucks, 117 points, first in goals and goals against, and of course, loss of the Bruins at home in game seven of the final. I didn't hear about this. What happened? Two people made out on the street. That's all you need to know. It was sweet. That's nice.

I'm taking I'm taking Vancouver in this one. Insane. That's crazy. What's wrong with that? I will say, by the way. They were a better team than the Bruins in that series. They just couldn't fucking handle the physicality of the series. Well, no, I mean, they couldn't handle the fact that Tim Thomas became the best

goaltender in the world for two years by like a factor of five. Like he was just so much better than everybody else He was fucking incredible I don't like the way he plays I agree with Roberto Luongo I don't like the way he plays When I did my like Favorite hockey kinds of hockey guys

The Tim Thomas type of A goalie who's going to make Insanely stupid decisions sometimes But also Is athletic enough to make Ridic saves 15 times a game Was high on that list I love a Tim Thomas

type. And by that, I mean, Ron Paul supporter. But I think the team, I think the team that beats that Vancouver team is that Boston team. It's a team that could beat the fuck out of them. And I'm sorry, but Tampa, and I don't like throwing this word around a lot, was very soft against those blue jackets, weren't they? I mean... Well, they may have been soft, but if we're disqualifying teams for being soft, then I think that that canucks. I mean, that was the...

But I'm saying the lightning are so soft that the Canucks are tough. Well, I think the other thing to say about that Canucks team is here's how good they weren't that everybody acted like Aaron Rome getting suspended was the difference between them winning and losing a fucking Stanley Cup. Like get a fucking grip. It's the lightning. Fair enough. Fair enough. The one thing that's in it. I find this one to be actually the hardest matchup only because when you look at the 2011 Canucks, we have the historical context.

We now know they never got that close. again. That was a great team that literally never won a cup and has never, the franchise has never won a cup versus we don't know sort of what the story is going to be with the lightning. So it's a little, a little tougher. I will say this, looking back at that 2011 Canucks team, great team, great results. You look at the roster, not a star-studded team. It's basically Luongo and the two Siddines and then a bunch of guys who are good. Yeah, for sure. Good players. Not only are, not only are those going to be the three Hall of Famers. Like, there's not a good of anyone else who's going to be in the conversation from that team.

Like, no one's putting Kevin BXA or Ryan Kessler in the – but it worked. And it, you know, obviously that was a well-made team because they, I think, won the President's trophy the next year. Yeah, three years in a row. But my vote is – my vote's going to go with the lightning because I just – I feel like they were historically good, even though we don't really know how that's going to work out. That, that this year's lightning team is probably better than last year. Oh, yeah. So that's pretty fucking crazy.

Can I'll put notice that you left Alex Burroughs out. Is that because he's already in the Hall of Fame? Did I miss? Because he's a sure fire. He must be. Exactly. So where did we wind up on that? Did we go lightning?

Yeah. Lightning one said Lightning. I stand with the Friends of Vancouver. Blit decision. 2006 Red Wings versus the 2010 Capitals is the other matchup. This one is. You know I'm fucking tough, man. I, it, I as well-ins last year for the 2006 Red Wings, 124 points, lost the Oilers in the first round, big upset there.

This is the Capitals team that was 121 points, led the league in scoring by 46 goals. And this was the team that lost that infamous series to Yaroslav Halak and the Montreal Canadians the first round. This is a tough one because, like, it's a Red Wings team that clearly knows how to win. and just didn't that year versus the Capitals team that demonstrably could not figure out how to win for the next, you know, eight years or whatever it was. But that said, that Capitol's team was so fucking good. Man, were they good? I'm going to take the Red Wings, though. The Capitals would find a way to blow the series if it was a seven-game series.

I think you have to take the Red Wings just based on the fact that, boy, they started winning cups real fast after that, right? Like they were just like, oh, okay, we got it now. And, you know, they had won, I think they won in 2002, if I'm not mistaken, as well. So, like, yeah, they were. And this is that, this is the Datsuk, Zetterberg team. This is the 2006 that won two years later, went to the final in 2009. But this was, like, it sounds weird to say that this Red Wings team was like the end of an era because they're back in the final two years later. But, I mean, this is the end of the Eisenhower era.

And it's sort of... Shanahan and all them, yeah. But what's interesting to me is this 2006 Red Wings team, like, they lose and Eisenman retires and, you know, guys move on because of age and the cap and everything. But for the most part, they stick to the plan. They don't, they don't blow it up. They don't panic. They sort of just go, okay, you know what, good team. We like who we've got.

We like who we've got. Still on your roster to stick to the plan. Well, yeah, except that then you look at the 2010 capital. which was the team that became the poster child for, we lost to a hot goalie, we have to change everything, we have to change our style, we have to make Alexander Ovechkin into a two-way play,

and all this stuff, and really just burned multiple years of the prime of a very good core. Which is why I'm going to cast my vote for the capitals, because I think given just the impact, yeah, I'm voting for them. Well, we both took the Red Wings, didn't we, Lambert? I think you both did, yeah. All right.

All right, Cap Arrow Region, 2019 Lightning versus 2006 Red Wings. Wow, that's a good match. It's really good. I'll, I'll, I'll, uh, fuck. I feel like the lightning would find a way to blow it. They'd just disheartened me so much in that Blue Jacket series. But then again, they're also really good. They're faster and probably better.

Now, I'll take the Red Wings here. I feel like defensively they're going to be able to figure out that light. Yeah, they have Nick Lydstrom. That's... That's going to help. Yeah, I have to agree. You know, I think that it was, it's weird to say it was so long ago now because it doesn't seem like it was that long ago. But like the mid to late 2000s Red Wings are the best team of the cap era.

You know, just demonstrably, they did it year after year after year. I think, you know, we're not, we're never going to find out with this with this lightning team because they, They blew it last year and then they didn't have a full regular season and who knows what's going to happen in the playoffs. But like, could the lightning have become that or surpassed that level? I think they probably could have just based on their talent level and how many guys they have signed for the next two, three, four years. But we don't know that right now. So I have to take that 06 Red Wings team. So I think that's two votes for the Red Wings, which spares me from having to make the tough call,

because, yeah, I don't know. It's tough. It's really close. It is. That was, you know, that Red Wings Air team was also like the first one that kind of as analytics started to emerge that people were like, holy crap, these guys are really good. Like, even better than they look. I, yeah. And, you know, again, we talked about the capitals in Halak, but again, just a team that ran into a hot goalie.

Dwayne Rolson just stands on his head. But I'll cast a vote for the lightning. out of pity, but the Red Wings are going to take it two to one, I believe. That's right. All right. The final four. Let's start over in the old side, on the old side. 1962 Montreal Canadiens versus the 1971 Boston Bruins. Sean, the floor is yours. Oh, boy. I got to go with the Bruins. No great surprise. They're the only number one seed left. and I'm the one who made the seeds.

So yeah, I'm going to go with the number one. Fair enough. You got us there. I'm going with the Bruins. Yeah, I forgot to mention that's the Cinderella, 1962 Canadians. The only four seed to make the final four. I'm taking Bobbyor over Rocket Richard. So there you go. Yeah.

Much like the beloved George Mason Colonials, I believe they were, or whatever the fuck they were. In the NCAA tournament, they fall just short. Yeah, I'll apologize. agree with you. 1971 Bruins of the Canadian. Any grape on that one, Lambert? Not that it matters, but yeah, no, I totally agree.

All right. Bruins is easy call there. Welcome to the championship game, Bobby Orr and Phil Esposzito. 1990s-2000s region winner, the 1993-Pittsburg Penguins against the 2006, rather, Detroit Red Wings.

Like Sean said, The transitional era red wings, a past their prime collection of incredible Hall of Fame players, an in-their-prime collection of Zetterbergs and Datsukes, but none of them are a match for the 1993 Mario Penguins. I'll take the Penguins here. I'm pulling up their roster now. Yeah. Oh, boy.

Holy shit. Lemieux, Mullen, Murphy, Recki, Yager, coffee, Francis, Trottier, all Hall of Famers on that roster. I think this is a pretty easy one. And Kevin Stevens, a guy who looked like he was headed there before the terrible injury and everything that came after. Plus, Tom Barrasso, who a lot of people argue should be in the Hall of Fame. The 2006 Red Wings were very good. But you look at the roster and you factor in ages, this was not anywhere near the best Red Wings team.

Yeah, right. Certainly of the Eiserman era, and maybe you could argue of the era to follow. Whereas that 93 Penguins team, that was just, that was a team that won two straight Stanley Cups and then leveled up into something totally different. Yeah. They've got my vote. that may be my favorite like non-leafs team of all time just as far from my favorite season of all time

just as far as looking back at the how ridiculously Starryo had 131 points in 64 games coming back from having fucking cancer he missed he was leading the league in scoring got cancer missed two months to do cancer treatments and then came back and was like yeah I'm still going to

win the scoring title and he was like he was way back when he showed up and then got like, I mean, just some like 50 points in 20 games or something and was like, see you later, Pat LaFonte and I'll just, I'll just take this. Yeah, but yeah, fucking ridiculous. But over, you know, fucking Murph with this cup of Duncan over here still thinks Bobby O'R is the best player of all time. That's my review. Bobby O'R is the best player of all time. So, I mean, you know. All right.

The championship game, ladies and gentlemen, it's what we're all here for. Game series, what have you. 1970s, 80s region 1971 Boston Bruins 90s 2000s region 1993 1993 Pittsburgh Penguins Or versus Mario

Esposito versus Francis Yager versus I don't know Kenny Hodge Who takes it Whose cuisine reigns supreme In the championship game We'll go to you for Sean

Oh boy This man This is a tough one I'm looking at the two rosters I'm looking at I mean, on paper, not even on paper, but just in terms of the records, the Bruins were slightly better. But, man, I look at these rosters. You could smell the sweat on his brows.

The Bruins's roster was really, here's why I'm hesitating a little bit. There's a part of me that worries that I'm doing that thing where I'm putting too much emphasis on the team from like my childhood versus. stepping back. But I'm going 93 penguins, man. This roster is so stacked and they did make it to the second round, but to lose in overtime game seven on home ice. And as I pointed out in my column earlier this week, a Goliath that lost to a literal David in David Volick. I mean, how hard can you hit the symbolism? I'm going with the I'm going with the 93 penguins. I didn't think this was where I was going to wind up on this when I put this together, but give me the pens.

You know what, Sean, you're a pretty okay writer. Lambert, what do you say? You know, so I should have said this earlier, but this is all with the caveat that we're like adjusting for errors and stuff because then, you know, I would say probably like the 2019 Red Wings are as good as half the teams on this list, right? Like, right. Yeah.

That's just, that's just how it goes these days. I mean, Jimmy Howard alone. Yeah, well, I'm just saying. So with that having been said, like, yeah, the fact that I just read off like nine future Hall of Famers and a couple of guys who, uh, were pretty, pretty close borderline kind of guys too, um, I have to go with the 93 penguins. Um, as much as I, um, do think Bobby Orr is the greatest player of all time.

And you want to talk about a guy who, you know, his health problems, uh, held him back from really being, like having a really long career. He only played what? 10 years in the league. And he won anyone, uh, I think nine Norris is. So, yeah, you know, he's, he's the fucking greatest player of all time. But, you know, if you run up on a team with Yager and Lemieux and Paul Coffey, and Ron Franze, what are you supposed to do?

I do wonder, I'm not, I'll say this, I'm not familiar enough with the role players on that Boston team to say with certainty that the Sean McKeckerns and Troy Loneys and Peter Tagliannettys of the world on the, on the penguins, were all that much better than the grunts on the Boston roster. But that said, Lemieux Francis. There are two and a half full lines of future Hall of Famers.

Yeah, you're talking about two lines of Hall of Famers and a really good goalie. One other thing to throw in here, the Bruins team that they lost to the Montreal Canadians. That Canadian's team went on to win the Stanley Cup. That Canadians team had 10 Hall of Famers on it. Now, some of them were in the Gila Point mode that we've kind of talked about, but they had 10 Hall of Famers, including both goaltenders. They had Roshi Vachan

backing up Ken Dryden. So that was a real good team. The 93 Islanders had Pierre Terjean and a bunch of guys, and Terjohn was hurt and couldn't play in that series. Like it was, as far as upsets go, it was unfathomable that that was the team that knocked off that penguins.

Blind squirrel finds a nut theory. I'll complete the hatcherick. I'll take the penguins as well, if only because I love the idea. of a Boston team being topped by an Ulf Samuelson team. Great tournament, man. That was fun. We'll do more stuff like that going forward on the old pod as we all deal with this, with the troubles. Congratulations to the 71 Bruins on becoming the best team to not win the best team to not win the Stanley Cup tournament. It reminds me of my favorite not necessarily the news bit.

You remember that show from HBO that was on back in the day? They did a, they did a, they did a, they did a sketch show. They did a sketch, uh, the, the making of thriller was a very popular documentary, the making of Michael Jackson's thriller. So they did the making of the making of thriller, which was following the people that did the documentary. And they're at the craft services table and all this shit. It's really, really funny. You can track it down. Uh, great stuff.

Before we go, just real briefly, two things, a bit of housekeeping. There's been a clamor on the Puck Soup Patreon, which I hope you're all subscribed to to get Ryan's awesome newsletter and all the bonus content for us to do a top chef podcast. Well, damn it, we've done one. Mizan Pod is the name of the podcast, a name selected by Ryan Lambert through my... It was by committee. It was my own macon, yeah. It was my committee, but it was my machinations to set it up where it was clearly the best

name, but I put it third to make it seem even better than it was. Mizond Pod, I think we're going to do it every week for each Top Chef All-Stars episode. If you're not familiar with Top Chef, cooking show, Bravo Network, this season, if you've not seen it, great season to jump on board. It's awesome. Because it's an all-star season, which means you're getting a bunch of awesome chefs

with great personalities. And it's on Thursday nights. So do check it out if you've not seen Top Chef. It's my favorite show of that genre and maybe in life. It's fan fan fan fantastic. But here's the other news about it. Not just me and Lambert, Yack.

And Ruby, my beautiful wife, is also on the show each week to chime in. And this week's episode, we go through the roster of chefs and also reveal mine and rubies teams that we drafted and our own draft rules. If you want to get on board with the top chef draft, you can listen to that episode and get on board yourself. And then that was all the housekeeping. Real briefly before we go, one thing that we're reading or watching during this sheltered period that you might recommend to people or just something that you found yourself rabbit-holing during this time. Let's start with you, Lambert. Anything in particular?

probably video game-wise. Well, again, I have been playing a decent amount of The Last of Us. But I just finished watching the Showtime Limited series from a couple of years ago, Escape at Danamora. Oh, yeah, the Ben Stiller thing. Unbelievable. I loved it. It's, yeah, Ben Stiller directed every episode. It was seven episodes.

And it's about two guys breaking out of two guys on, like, who had, who were in prison for life. And they broke out with, uh, with the help of some guards and that kind of thing. And the, so it's, uh, played by Paul Dano and Benicio del Toro. One of the, uh, workers who helps them get out is Patricia Arquette. And the other one is a, hey, it's that guy actor whose name I don't remember. Um, but they're all really, really good. It's, like I said, it's seven episodes and it could have easily been, you know, two or three, but, they really got into the minutia of like why these guys wanted to break out and how pains taking their efforts were and that kind of thing. It's awesome. It's so good.

And it's streaming for free on Amazon Prime right now for I think at least the rest of the month. So I really, really recommend it. It's great. Sean? You know, I haven't been watching a ton of stuff, but I have been squeezing in some Netflix stuff. stand-up comedy specials. It's actually been a really good month for that. If you've got extra time, there was a Mark Maren came out. Burke Kreischer last week and then Tom Sagar

this week, which were three of my favorites. Mark Maren, probably people are familiar with from the podcast world. Would you say he's one of your guys? Okay. That's it. Bye. Good night. It shows over. So that...

He's a good stand-up, though. He's been doing stand-up for fucking ever, man. He's a stand-up guy, who became a podcast guy, and now is, like, the podcast guy who also does stand-up. But his special is very good. Burke Kreisher's was very good. I haven't watched Tom Segura yet. Sigur is, like, one of my, like, top, like, probably five favorite comedians, so I'm

sort of saving that for a night when I need it. But I'm, I can say blind that that one is probably all so excellent. And, yeah. So, yeah, if you're like me and you're kind of, were caught up on your Netflix stand-up heading into this month. It's been a good, good month for new stuff coming out. Netflix is a really good curator of stand-up specials, except for that Pete Davidson one, which sucked.

You didn't like that one? Oh, I hate it. That was fun. It was like 40 minutes long. I did like his opening bit on Louis C.K., and I did like some of his Ariana Grande stuff, but he's done the same 9-11 jokes about his dad for like a decade now. or maybe 15 years now, and I feel like the last bit was sort of repetitive. And it was just really short.

And I don't know. I think part of it, though, dude, is that, like, my views of him as a stand-up have really changed because of the way he was treating his crowds. Like, he was very combative during his recent appearances and also being a real prick about people, like, reporting on the jokes that he was telling. So that probably, that probably colored it a little bit, too. But if you like Pete Davidson, you'll probably enjoy it. I just thought it could have been better.

The thing, first of all, if you're looking for comfort food, Ruby and I have been falling asleep each night to House Hunter's International on Hulu. Always good to see people going to a foreign city and trying to find a three-bedroom apartment for $500. And then getting told that doesn't exist. Always a good time there. And then, what if I? Oh, you know what I watched? And unfortunately, it's not streaming for free anywhere. you have to drop a couple bucks to rent it from iTunes.

I had never seen it all the way through. I had seen bits and pieces on it on HBO. But Pop Star, never stop, never stopping. Yeah, it's very funny. Very, very funny. The Lonely Island boy band movie is really fucking funny. And the parts I, it's one of those flicks where you've seen things here and there, either through like YouTube or through catching it on HBO for a few minutes.

And you're like, oh, man, I got to catch up with that movie. And I just never did. And we were looking for something. dumb and funny to kind of put on one night and fuck is it funny it's really really good the songs are so funny the songs are great it's vulgar as shit uh it's very it's got some really cool like inside stuff on the business as well uh i dig it it it was it was really good if you're looking for goofy ass fun uh drop drop the three bucks or whatever it is and rent uh rent pop star uh you know if you're a lowland island you saw it opening day you can't stand in the

theaters you saw opening day there were Two other people in there, I think. Not a commercially successful film, but it's very, very funny. The movie that I saw that had the fewest people in the theater with me was the King of Kong. I was in there with one other person. Yeah, that was one I came to when it was on Netflix. I never saw it in theaters. Yeah.

I saw it in an art house theater in D.C. All right. That's the show. Thanks everybody for listening. Obviously, no guests. No ads. but they'll be some soon, according to our producer. And, yeah, enjoy the Patreon stuff.

We're going to have a new Sepult layup this week. And I'm Greg. You can read my stuff in ESPN and listen to ESPN and I ask my other podcast. Sign up for the Pucksu Patreon. That's all I have going on. So please keep me alive. Goodbye. You rhymed on with on right there.

That's pretty good. Sean. You find me on the athletic. You run Sean with on and on. Wow. There you go. Wow. Yeah, find me on the athletic.

This week I did my weekend rankings where you've rerun from 1993. So if you enjoyed this show and you would like to hear. This is where I turn earnestly to the camera and say, if you'd like to learn more about the 1992-93 NHL season, you can check out my work from this week. Yeah, it was fun. That was clever. All right, everybody.

Thanks for listening. And we'll talk to you soon. Bye. See you. Bye-bye.