Puck Soup - Big in Columbus

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Sean and Ryan talk outdoor games, changes for the Blue Jackets, going to PWHL games, and more. Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off), Hatch (hatch.co/puck), Bespoke Post (boxofawesome.com promo code puck20), and AG1 (drinkAG1.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McAnew from The Athletic. And folks, me and Sean have a little something in common today. We both went to our first PW. Yeah, that's right. We both went to our first PWHL games over the weekend. Sean went on Saturday. Saturday afternoon, yeah.

And I went yesterday because they had one of the... Now, I know up there they don't have presidents, so I'm sure it's called like Prime Minister's Day or something. We don't have that at all, but we do have a lovely holiday here in Ontario called Family Day. Is that only in Ontario? I think it may be one or two other provinces as well, but the nice thing about Family Day is it's a provincial holiday, not a federal one. And here in Ottawa, where everybody works for the federal government, it's that nice mix where, like, all the schools are closed, but nobody gets the day off work. We love it.

That's very, that's so sick. Yeah, when I was growing up, like Martin Luther King Day was not a holiday celebrated by all states, and I think it still isn't. Dude, I was listening to Public Enemy back then. I know all about this. So like my cousins would not have the day off from school, and we'd be sitting there feet up, you know, we're watching the prices right. Yeah. Yep. What goes on with that? I say this all the time.

There should be at least one long weekend per month and probably closer to three or four. You know, three or four sounds good. I like the one holiday a month thing, but I got to say if they wanted to take like the February one and drop it into June or something double us up in one of those months, I would be okay with that too. Well, again, this is why I'm saying, you know, two, three, four. Four, sure. I like it. I'm fine with that. Now look, I don't have a real job.

When elected, Ryan is going to... I don't have a real job. It doesn't really matter to me at all, you know? But just one of those things. Anyway. Yeah. So, what was your PWHL experience like? It was a good one.

The games in Ottawa are played at... I think it's TD Place Arena or something like that. But it's the old Lansdown. It's where the center. originally played. If you're an old-time hockey fan, you might remember the senators when they started playing

in this weird arena that is like a full-sized arena on one side and has like 10 rows on the other. Weird. The roof is diagonal because it's built into the football stands. Oh, okay, sure.

So it's a unique environment. It's where it's 67's play. But it's good. Building holds like 9,000. That's a good number, yeah. They were pretty close to a sellout. It was not easy to get tickets. And it was even when we got the tickets weeks ago,

there was not a lot to choose from. Good crowd, a lot of kids. I tweeted about this, but I didn't realize I miss this until Saturday, but there was a whole lot of homemade signs in the crowd. I miss when that was a thing. Do you, like, I don't remember when we lost that. But I remember as a little kid making, like, a sign to bring to a Blue Jays game. And then it kind of, I don't know if it was like, just like so many good things in life, just pro wrestling killed it off for everybody.

Well, I was going to say, all the signs are, they're just saying, like, you know, they're saying, what's a, what's a, what's someone from. PWHL, Minnesota, Fiers, PWHIHL Ottawa. Yeah, Darrell Watts 316 says, I just scored on your ass, you know, this kind of thing. Yeah, no, that's, but that was fun. Like, there was lots of, and they, part of, well, I think the main reason is they actually had like a little sign making station that I saw. Oh, did they really? Invite the fans and you can draw up your own thing.

But it was good. It was, the game itself was fine. It was Minnesota 1, 2 to 1, so close game. Low scoring, which I think is maybe something that we're seeing a lot with this league that at some point they may be a concern. Not right now, but it has become a bit of a 2-1 league, which is maybe the one downside when you're trying to get people to commit and come back. But everybody seemed to be.

enjoying themselves and it was it was good i'll go back yeah our our game was uh i think four two with an empty netter um and in fact i know four two with an empty netter but this this is this is the crucial part is uh i was just so excited because i got to see the short-handed goal lets the penalty version out of the box yeah the jail break yeah and the thing that made me laugh so hard about that was seeing that person skate over to the celebration like they did a fucking thing nice job guys yeah like yeah you know everybody's they're hugging they're doing all that and then there's just one person like do to do to do oh yeah I was here too remember that can can I just say I've I know a lot of people love this rule I have I'm not completely

solo just because I don't see it changing penalty kill strategies at all if I prove if If I'm proven wrong on that and teams get more aggressive trying to score when they're penalty killed, then I'm all for it. But hearing you describe it like that, we got to do a better job on the actual jailbreak. Like, there's got to be a button that somebody has to go over and hit. Like, I'm talking Mario Party style. Yeah. Like, you've got to, like, somebody's got to go over and hit a little button and then the

penalty box opens up and the person and it sprints out. I want them moving full speed. Yeah, like, uh, one, like one of the Sonic the Hedgehog like springy platform things, you know? That'd be good, yeah. Yeah. I feel like we can do better on it. Just inject your seat out of the penalty shot out of 30 miles an hour.

You go do your high fives at the bench and then the goal score gets to go over and hit the red button and the little cage lifts. I mean, that might be taking it a little far. Yeah, now you're talking elimination chamber taking back to WWE. Yeah. But yeah, no, we had a good time. It wasn't. It wasn't a great game, as you say, a little low scoring. The scoring chances kind of few and far between, I would say.

But, you know, there were definitely, you know, a few times where something really, really fun, exciting happened. And, like, there were some real standout players that, you know, you were like, oh, yeah, that's a really good player right there. You know what I mean? Yeah. But yeah, you know, not as well attended as it sounds like yours was. Yeah, and then we... That seems to be a common problem with Boston, I guess. Okay.

Because we also have to mention the, on Friday night, the Toronto Montreal game that was held at the... Yes, of course. You know, the big, the Leaf Serena. The Leaf Serena, yeah. Sold out. I've heard from a few people saying it was the... atmosphere was phenomenal. I bet, yeah.

Significantly better than a typical Leafs game. Sure, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, half the people at a Leafs game aren't there to watch the Leafs, right? They're not. That's absolutely true. I mean, the ticket, and I think this is becoming an issue around the league, the tickets are so expensive. Sure.

And, you know, hey, the tickets are going to cost what the market will pay. But when you've got, you know, it's all business-owned tickets or a lot of them are in Toronto. It's not the same atmosphere. And I guess that's the other thing that I would say is, you know, you're always at the ring watching college games. Correct. I'm not there as much.

It was just kind of a good reminder. Like, yeah, hockey's hell of fun to watch live. Way more fun than on TV. And yeah, so if you've got a BWHL team locally, you know, and you want to bring your family to a hockey game without missing a mortgage payment. I recommend it. Yeah, I brought my girlfriend. She's not a hockey fan, really, and doesn't, you know, she's been to a handful of, like, high school games when she was in high school or whatever for, like, band stuff, I guess.

But otherwise, like, this was her first, like, proper hockey game, I guess. And she said she had a good time, you know. and like I said, I was sitting there going, I mean the quality of playing this one, you know, they can't all be winners, you know what? I've definitely watched better PWHL games on YouTube so far this year. But she was like, yeah, I had a good time and, you know, it was funny. The chance of like, let's go Boston because there's no sports team, right?

You know, or team name, I mean? No team name, yeah. The best was, you know, know, like, please welcome to the ice, your Toronto Maple Leafs or whatever, they had to go, your PWHL Boston team. Yeah. Like, I noticed that when they were announcing the goal scores too. Like, I feel like you could just say Ottawa, Minnesota.

You know, that must be a branding thing, right? Like, but yeah, I was, I was like, what? We couldn't come up with something better for that. Yeah, I will say that. I had, so it was me, my two kids, and one of my kids brought a friend. Each of the three kids individually asked me, like, why don't any of the teams have names? That does seem to be something that. So that's another one where year two, you're going to want to nail that.

Yeah. A lot of jersey. I was surprised at the number of jerseys they sold based on the, they don't have a team name or logo or anything. It's just, it's lost in a diagonal font. Yeah, because, I mean, that's obviously very temporary. Of course, yeah. But, hey, it's, it's good, man. It seems like there's a lot more good news coming out of the league.

Yeah, no, we had a really good time. And, you know, again, it wasn't well attended, but it was also 430 on a Monday with, you know, everybody had school the next day. A lot of youth hockey teams there and that kind of thing. Yes. Yep. That, you know, um, that you get the intermission, uh, game with the, like, from the local. Oh, yeah, little kids there. Love that.

I love, I, I, I would pay just to watch a four-year-old in full goalie gear skate around. See, you put like a bright pink helmet, like goalie mask on that kid. I'm, I'm all in. This is another, um, I guess you would say, like, I see this, I, I saw this three times, four times this weekend. I went to four hockey games from Friday to Monday. That's too many, man. I don't agree. I had a lot of fun.

I saw Boston College twice. I saw BU once. UMass. Providence. These are all top 12 teams. Had a good time. But yeah, after the little kids game, they pulled one of the kids aside. And they were like, what was it like being out there on the same ice that your favorite team,

PWHL Boston, and the little girl goes, it was thrilling. I was like, yeah. Awesome, nice. There you go. It was just such a funny word choice. But yeah, other than that, you know, I got dipping dots. The ice cream of the future. The ice cream of the present for me, my friend.

Are they still selling it as the ice cream of the future? You know, I don't think they have that branding anymore. I remember them doing that in the 90s. So it would be intellectually honest. if they had stopped at some point. That's right. Well, the future is now, as they say. They will shift to being the ice cream of the past.

Oh, no. Someone's going to come along and eat their lunch in terms of ice cream technology. I guess you're right about that. But yeah, had a really good time. Like you, like you, I hope to be able to go back this year. I don't know what their schedule looks like, how it lines up with the college hockey schedule. But, yeah, I'd love to go back at least one more time this year.

So yeah. Speaking of fun hockey games, a game I didn't watch a second of because I was at PWHL Boston versus PWHL Ottawa. And I forgot to mention Ottawa cheated the entire game and that's why Boston lost. I didn't see a single second of this game, and you know, apart from the highlights. Did you watch any of this Canucks Wild game yesterday? I missed it entirely and I was so ticked. I forgot that there was hockey during the day. yesterday until I saw a tweet in like the third period of the Leafs game.

So I flipped that on, watched the end of that pretty dull game. And then kind of went back to work and started seeing, like I was catching up on my Twitter feed. And it was like, you know, 45 minutes ago, wow, this game's crazy. 40 minutes ago. Holy so this is insane. 35. And I was just like, oh, man, I hope I catch up to the present before this game ends. and no, it was no such luck.

But here's my question for you. Sure. Let's say on New Year's Day, we said to you, there's going to be a 10 to 7 game where one team scored seven goals in the third period. Right. Which two teams do you think are involved? I feel like it wouldn't have taken that long for Vancouver to get mentioned. How long would it take them before you would have said Minnesota? I would have gotten through at least, I would say, 22 other teams.

Okay. I was going to put the overrunner at about 35. Well, look, I mean, Arizona, right? I'd have the Kansas City Scouts. I'd have the Philadelphia. I'm not saying the sharks. I'm not saying the dut. Look, there are some stinky teams out there.

We don't have to pretend, you know. Yeah. But even stinky teams are exciting sometimes. Like you could, if San Jose was playing Chicago. Sure, yeah. I could see that be dead. Minnesota. This is the teeth that the poster child for boring hockey, I feel like they just kind of.

Oh, I feel like they mostly shed that in the last few years. And then started really, we're like, okay, we're going to get back to being as Blame. I almost said as vanilla as possible. Of course, vanilla is better than chocolate. Everyone knows that. Correct. As ice cream flavors go anyway.

And probably as extracts go, you don't hear much about chocolate extract. You don't. I bet it's good, though. Probably is. Yeah. Oh, Dippin' Dod's flavors, by the way? Yeah. It was all like cookies and cream and, and they didn't just have like chocolate and vanilla.

It was pissed. Interesting. Yeah. Well, cookies and cream, though, that's an... Well, I ended up going with the... They had a flavor that they allege is exclusive to the Lowell Hockey Arena, which is the two flavors of the red and blue icy. You know, like wild cherry and... Blue Raspberry.

I was like, let's have some fun out there, you know? All right. I get a little silly. Okay. But yeah, anyway, so the thing about this game is, I don't know if you saw this, Sean,

featured three different hat tricks. Yes. It featured, I believe, four, five on three power plays. I think it had four for the, for one team. For one team, right, right, right. Which is insane.

Leaves had won all of last season. Okay, well, another tangent real quick. I went to a one of the games I went to was a Sunday afternoon, like 1 p.m. start between Boston College, the scariest offensive team in the country, and UMass, a very good defensive team. That kid, Michael Hrabble, who was a star for the Czech world junior team, six-foot-seven goalie. He's kind of, and they have two really good defensemen on that team as well. And so, you know, it's a, it's a, you know, immovable force or irresistible force, immovable object kind of a thing. And UMass is up three to two in this game in the third period. In the third period, the refs give B.C. a five on three.

What do you think happened? Cutter, go, T.A., Gabe Perot, Will Smith, Ryan Leonard. They scored two power play goals. BC wins easily. You know what I mean. BC wins, of course. It's inevitable. And after the game, the UMass coach, this is his full press conference.

Tough way to lose a game. Long pause. Everybody's waiting for him to elaborate. He stands up and he goes, we're done here? Everybody's like, have a good one, Greg. No problem. So 19 second press conference. Very good stuff.

The old. The torts. In and out. You know, what else is he going to say? He was pissed. I did not hear the Rick Talk at press conference, but I'm guessing it was probably not much cheerier. You know.

I know that I follow a couple of Vancouver boys, and there's like the running joke that every loss is a learning experience for them. I'm not sure how much of a learning experience this is. Well, I got one for you. Hey man, should we give up seven goals in the third period? No, remember we learned last year not to do that? Okay.

And we won't. Let me put it this way. You think they're going to give up seven goals in the third period again this season? You know what? Sounds like they fucking learned something, didn't they? Don't give up two hat tricks in a game. Don't let like four guys on the other team have four plus points. There you go.

If that repeats, well, you know, that's one of those things a coach can get mad about. But I feel like they got the message on this one. And this was basically the turning point, right? because the Vancouver's up 5 to 2 at the end of the second period. Yep, feels easy. Pretty regular games. 53. 5.3.

Well, 52 towards the end. Oh, sure, yeah. They start taking penalties. And they basically take one penalty, one minor penalty every minute. And coincidentally, Minnesota starts getting five on threes, and they start scoring roughly every minute to the point where they had, what, four goals in two minutes and change, four power play goals in two minutes and change over the intermission.

But that's when you knew things were getting a bit silly. And Vancouver almost pulls off the comeback. Yeah. It gets it to 8-7. What a fun game. What's, you know, look, what's better? The occasional wacky game is great. We had a couple days ago, we had two nine to two games on the same day.

Yep. That's fun. First time I looked it up, first time since 1917, that there were two nine to two games on the same day, which is completely meaningless. I just like to be able to talk about the first time in 106 years something has happened. That was so long ago they made a movie called The Year. Yeah. You know what I mean? Uh-huh.

Yeah. That was so long ago that the Toronto Maple Leafs had 50 years of Stanley Cups ahead when that happened. It's true, man. By the way, just real quick on the Leafs, we won't get into the Borgen-Riley stuff again, except to say four straight wins. Four straight wins. They play tomorrow they play Arizona. Yep. In Arizona, so not, you know, not an easy win, but that's a lot.

a winnable game. And then they go right to Vegas and they have to play the next night, travel in between obviously against a very good team. After all of this, the narrative of the Leafs going 5 and O without Morgan Riley and then immediately losing when he's back 100% in play.

Yeah. Very excited for this. Is Morgan Riley actually the problem? My column, Colin. Well, look, I mean, I don't think he's the problem, but I do think he's the reason Austin Matthews isn't scoring like, or averaging like two and a half goals a game.

He's just holding them back. Yeah. Yep. I'm with you. Boy, Austin Matthews, this guy's on pace for 70-something gold, 74, 75 goals. Somebody said era adjusted, it would be the second greatest goal scoring season ever. Which, yeah, era adjusted is a little bit dicey, but that just is pretty. I mean, this is crazy, man.

And like you said, his next game's, in Arizona. Oh, that's where he's from. He's going to be very motivated to score a lot of goals. And especially to get his 50th goal. Yeah, for sure. Which he's now at 49, and he might get like, we're in February and he's going to get to 50 goals.

Is he back in the MVP discussion for you? You know. Because he's been weirdly absent from it. Yeah, for sure. Until now, especially, you know, a guy who won it a couple years ago. So there's clearly people have no. problem. You know, he wins the MVP for scoring 60, and yet we're all just kind of doing the McKinnon versus McDavid thing. Well, I'm a little off the board on this one. I think, I think

that there has to be a very serious discussion about Connor Hallibuck that really isn't taking place. There should be, but there isn't because it's a forward award, and it shouldn't be. I'm with you 100% on that. All things being equal, Connor Hellebuck is probably the league's MVP this year. 31 or almost 32 goals saved above expected according to evolving hockey. And I mean, he plays so much for them. He faces a ton of shots.

And he's, what, 925, something like that? Like, he's been unbelievable. And he's not, like, the only reason the Jets are as good as they are, but he's, like, the biggest reason by a decent margin, I would say. So for me, like, Austin Matthews is in a kind of dicey situation where he's just going to end up a mile behind McDavid and McKinnon in scoring, I feel like. And Kutrov, I feel like, is starting to drop.

off a little bit as a legit candidate. Just because I don't think Tampa is going to be viewed as being all that good. Yeah. And then you've got probably two guys in Vancouver splitting the vote, which is not Hughes and Patterson, I think, are probably that, that. But, you know, the interesting thing is if you look at the way the MVP is traditionally voted on, not the way it's defined. but the way it's traditionally voted on,

you would expect Hallibuck or someone from Vancouver to be the best candidates, because those were teams that weren't expected to be as good as they are. Colorado, Edmonton, Toronto were all expected to be a hundred point team. Yeah, if anything, Edmonton obviously. Underperformed, right, of course.

Yeah, Edmonton kind of had the dip, but they're going to wind up there. So, yeah, it'll be, it's interesting. It's going to be crowded. Looks like it's going to be a crowded. Like even a week ago, we were kind of talking about it as a two-man race, and then Austin Matthews was like,

how about if I scored nine goals in a week? Okay. Yeah, that rocks, man. That's so cool. I guess the big news that we should talk about, finally 20 minutes into the episode or whatever, is that they finally fired Yarmou Keckleinen. Sure.

And the least surprising firing in recent history, apart from maybe the timing. Yeah. And who did the firing and the replacing in that we kind of figure John Davidson might go too. I had multiple people ask me this weekend. Why didn't John Davidson get fired? And I do not have a good answer. Well, I mean, he not only wasn't fired as president, but he takes over his interim GM.

Well, I mean, somebody's got to, right? Well, somebody's got to, but I mean, there's got to be assistance in that. that sort of thing. So, I mean, that's kind of, I guess what I'm saying is there's two ways to look at it. You could say either somebody has to take over, so that's why they didn't fire John Davidson. They need somebody to guide them through the trade deadline. And he's going to be the guy. And then at the end of the season, they can get them then if they want to. Or you look at it and you say this is the vote of confidence that ownership has decided that Davidson's the guy to. lead them to the next because he's also talking about you know this is what our

thought process is going to be in interviewing for it so um and you know the reason i you you assumed that davidson was potentially in trouble was back during the whole mike babcock debacle remember there was that very weird media thing with the owner where he was like you know what i might fire even more people but we need some stability right now and that's when everyone kind of looked at Yarmall and went, you're dead man walking. Yeah, for sure. But we kind of assumed it referred to Davidson as well, and maybe it did at the time, and he's been able to manage it to the point where they feel like he's the guy going forward.

But it would be, like, if you're going to let a guy you're going to fire handle your trade deadline, why not just let Yarmow do it? Well, this is the fascinating thing to me, is it was implied on 32 thoughts when they discussed this the other day that part of the reason why Yarmou might have gotten fired now three weeks out from the deadline, which is a very strange time for a team to make that kind of a decision, let's say, is that he perhaps wanted to move on from Boone Jenner

as part of like a larger rebuild thing and the, you know, either Davidson or the ownership or a combination thereof kind of hit him with that doesn't work for me, brother. Right. And there were also reports that he was in on Elias Lindholm. Right. Yes. Who obviously is a guy who moved to Vancouver but needs a new contract. So it would either be a rental, which would make.

make no sense or would get traded to Columbus and just had them over a barrel as far as what kind of contract he would get. And, you know, I mean, obviously Yarmou has had such success with acquiring guys on that line from the Calgary Flames a couple of years ago. Wouldn't you love to, Lyslinholm gets asked about his going to Columbus? Oh, let me call my buddy Johnny and see what he has to say. Yeah, you want to talk about getting hit with that doesn't work for me, brother. No, thank you.

Although, at that point, you know, he's only getting Matthew Kachuk away from really having a great line from 2021 or whatever, you know? There you go. You're in good shape at that point. But, yeah, I mean, let's just talk big picture here, because we can all agree that on the reasons he got fired, like, this season, right? But I think this is like a bigger picture kind of issue with this team where it's just like, you know,

everything kind of went wrong for them this year, right? Like, it's not just the Babcock thing. It's David Gerichick being sent to the, to the HL and publicly bitching about it. It's, it's, Kent Johnson, same deal, right? he got sent to the HL. He's clearly too good for that for that league.

You know, you talk to people who watched the the HL and it's like he isn't really putting in max effort, let's say, down there, or, you know, or wasn't. And it didn't matter. He was still scoring so easily

that they really didn't have a choice but to bring him back to the big club. you know obviously like earlier this year like Johnny Godroes getting benched and so many I mean that's what I mean like there's just so many weird things going on with this organization that like yeah obviously you move on from Yarmu nobody's nobody's like well how could they make this decision you know but I I I just I I just wonder, like, what, what a new GM even starts with out there, especially if it's like, well, we've moved on from Yarmo because he wanted to trade a 31 year old who's hurt all the time.

Like, what? That's the problem here? It is a, so I was going to say it's a very strange organization. Of course. So here's my question. Is this an attractive job if you're a GM? Or do you want no part of it? Because I feel like it's one of the two.

They've got, it's not very often that you see a team with as much young pieces in place, have an opening. Sure. You're a GM. You don't have to come in and do a full-on rebuild necessarily. Or at least if you do, you've got a nice head start. Or is this something where you look at all the weird decisions and go, I'm out? Yeah, so I mean, I don't know if you've heard this, Sean. There's only 32 of these dang jobs out there.

Let me run the numbers on it. Are you familiar with this idea? Yeah, math checks out. And the thing, even beyond that, they're going to give you like seven figures to do this job. You know, like it's a pretty lucrative one. And right now, I wonder what the expectation. are there.

You know what I mean? Like, are they going, and of course, you know, anybody we hire, we need to be competing in two years. Look at all the young talent we have. Yeah. Because I got news for you. This team isn't competing in two years. I mean, you can like all the young prospects they have, and I think elite prospects had them, like, as the third best system going into the season. And, you know, basically everything we've.

written about the guys in that organization. Like, you know, I can't remember who wrote the article, but somebody had the article of like, well, obviously, David Yerechek's too good to be in the, uh, the HL. Everybody understands that, you know. And so if you're starting from there, that's, that's not a bad place to be in terms of like, we have, we have high level talent at most gold-ending position, or, uh, most positions. They have Tarasov for, uh, for their goalie of the future, I believe. Am I kid, is that right?

Now I'm second guessing myself. Hold on. But like, you know, up front, Kent Johnson, Yerga Shinikov, like, they got, you're a check on the blue line. They got guys that like everywhere that you're like maybe three or four years from now there's something, right? But also. I mean, you'd like to think it could be sooner than that. You would like to think that is, I guess, I guess you're right about that. that you would like to think.

There's lots of things, though, you might like to think. And that's, that's, so here's what I wanted to say about that. Because everybody's like, oh, well, look, say what you want about Yarmo. He's like a prospects guy. We love this guy. He's so good at picking out your, your coal cylinders and your Carol Marchankos or whatever. And it's like, but the thing is how many of those guys are going to stay in the organization? Because you seem, it seems like you're actively pissing a.

couple of them off. And this is not an organization that historically has done a good job of keeping young talent happy. Am I wrong about that? Yep. That's, uh, that is true. And boy, is there, is there, what would you put the odds of a coaching change in the off season?

100%. All right. Yes. I mean, even beyond. it's a new GM, it's a coach that had no behind the bench, or not behind the bench, but like no NHL head coaching experience before this, and took the job whatever, a day before training camp opened. Mm-hmm. And there is no reason whatsoever for whoever the new GM is to come in. And I, frankly, I have, you know, I don't, I don't have any insider information on this, obviously, but I, I, I, I, I don't, I don't have any insider information on this, obviously.

but I wouldn't expect them to like rush this decision. They're going to talk to a lot of people. They're going to take their time with this. It's not like they're going to go, you know, we'll make a hire tomorrow. And, you know, here's the keys to the deadline. It's whatever you want to do, that's as long as it doesn't involve trading Boone Jenner, I guess. That's the red line. No one can cross.

But yeah, I mean, I think this is a longer process. And so why would any GM be like married to this coach who, again, it seems like he's actively pissing off the players by benching them or whatever when, you know. It was such a weird, like just even from a, I guess maybe my issue is I'm looking at it from the standpoint I look at most things that coaches and GMs do, which is protecting their own job first and foremost. Sure. To come in and like you're not going to win that battle. Against the young guys, and the GM who hired you, you know. Against the young guys and Johnny Goddrow. Yeah.

And Patrick Clay, right? Yeah, and Brent Severson. And, like, it just to, I mean, I guess the simplest explanation is he just thought that that's what this team needed. Like some real, you know, be a real hard ass. I almost wonder if he was maybe asked by front office to do that. Like, just go in for a year and you be the bad guy. Yeah. But like I say, why would any new GM be like, and of course, the guy who coached this year's Columbus Blue Jackets team and, you know, kind of fell backwards into that job.

He should keep his job, obviously. Let's just see what he's got under the hood when, you know, another year of this. And look, we talked about it, I think last week of the article about, you know, Yarmow and Davidson going to the local media and being like, actually, the way everything it's going is actually very normal and fine. You know, five days later, Yarmu Kekyllian, it's out of a job, something like that. Yeah. The one thing I might have considered if I was Columbus is, do we not let Yarmu work his deadline magic of making some random player worth a first round pick? Yeah.

Or maybe he had tried and he had. Yeah, maybe that player was Boone Jenner. And they were like, no, no, no, my friend. think again. It's a good point. Probably could have got two first for Boone Jenner. First and a third maybe, yeah. But yeah, you know, again, the thing about this team,

and I've said this over and over again, loser mindset, all we're trying to do here is get to ace in the east, you know? Yeah. And it didn't work. Well, I mean, it kind of worked if you want to look at it. 2019-ish.

Well, again, my big theory on this, and I've said this a million times, people get mad when I say it, but tell me what I'm telling lies about it now, folks. 2019 set this franchise back four or five years. Yeah. You're going to tell me I'm wrong now? I mean, if they had traded all those guys that they could have traded, might be a different. And it's hard to say that, because you're talking about as sad as it is. the greatest week in the history of the franchise. But what I'm saying is

it's not even trading all those guys. It's also not trading for all those guys that they did trade for. Duchenne, yeah. It wasn't just Duchenne. They got other people too. I can't remember who they were. Dushan's obviously the headline.

Did they get Ryan Zingle? Yeah, that was one of them. And then I think there was one more. But yeah, and then like the same mind at this summer. They're like, okay, well, you know, we're just a Damon Severson and Ivan Proverov away from, again, maybe being eighth in the east. And, you know, that might be a chicken and the egg thing with Babcock, right?

Where it's like, we need to convince Babcock that we're going to be a competitive team by acquiring those guys. And then if we can do that, well, then we have Mike Babcock and two middle payer defensemen. And we're off and running because we got the young guy. We got Fantilli. We got Johnson. We got Marchenko, you know, Yegoroshenikov, all these guys. And it's just like, yeah, but do you, man?

And then, I mean, let's put it this way. I don't think with Mike Babcock behind the bench, I don't think this is a competitive team this year. No. No, I don't think. And it would be fascinating to see, but. But it was, it's always been just such a thing of. like, no, you don't understand. People do want to come to Columbus.

All we're going to do is give Damon Severson $6.5 million. He wants to come here. Sack Werensky was happy to stay as long as we made him the third highest paid defenseman. And the captain and full no move. Or he's not, he's not the captain. That's right. He's just got a out of that, I think.

We'll be once. Well, no, you're not allowed to trade booting. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Now, but here's the thing, right, is. Because, yeah, I just, to me, especially, like, do you know Boone Jenner makes under four million bucks a year? Did you know that? I feel like we knew that just because he came up as a guy, one of the few guys who signed an exact identical contract back-to-back times.

But that is the only reason I would know that. And also, he's always on my, like, all best team you can put under the cap. Sure. Yeah. But like, point being, you know who, you know what's a position everybody kind of wants, uh, this, this deadline is, is centers. Yeah. And, uh, he's, nobody has any cap space.

Oh. Wait a second. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, Yarmo finally like starts making a good decision about the future of the franchise and they're like, wait a minute, brother. That's not going to fly here. We got, we're going to make sure this guy.

Look, he wants to be here. Nobody else does. I mean, from that point of view, I guess it's true. But yeah, I just, you know, this was a long time coming for me, as far as I'm concerned. And like I said, I'm shocked John Davidson is keeping the job. Just because, again, like, he hired Yarmou Kekalainen. That's how long he's been doing that. He hasn't been there that long, has he?

Well, I think he, I think the timeline is then he went to the Rangers for a little while and then he came back, if I'm remembering correctly. All right. But still, this guy hired Yarmok Hekhalinen, and now more than a decade later, he's hiring Yarmok Echolinen's replacement. And at no point, like, does it occur to them? Maybe we have a bigger problem here than just Yarmow. And, you know, like, again, Oh, they have the third best, they have the third best farm system in the league. Mm-hmm.

Sure that, yeah, okay. Well, they picked really high a lot of times. They sure did, yeah. So, you should. Am I wrong about this? And apparently, I guess the other thing is they want, according to a report that I saw, I want to say it was Elliot, but it may not have been saying that they, they're looking for experience.

They want someone who's either been a GM before or has been around for a while, which would seem to rule out some of the up-and-coming names that you might think would be great fits in a smaller market that has a lot of pieces in place. Well, to me, when I'm thinking of who their new GM should be, the first thing I think of is who coached Rick Nash and Jr. If we can get that guy, I mean, the sky's the fucking limit. I got good news. Yeah.

It's just, you know, I think the Davidson quote is we're taking this outside the building. Good idea. Really good idea. And by that, I mean we're taking this to people outside the building who I definitely have, you know, hung out with many, many times. Oh. In fact, in fact, we're taking it so far outside the building that security is escorting me there right now. You know, hey, if that was the move, I don't think anybody could argue against it. But anyway, why don't we take our first break and then we'll come back and we'll talk about some other stuff that happened recently.

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I didn't play. Like a lot of outdoor games these days, I forgot about it until a few days before. Yeah, I think that's right. But I think it, I think all things considered, it checked most of the boxes. A football stadium is never as cool as like a ballpark or something.

A hundred percent correct, yep, absolutely. But other than that, you know, they had the, of the local flavor and all of this. How funny was it? How funny was it the Islanders pregame outfits? I thought it was simply so freaking epic. These guys aren't doing the costumes.

Okay. I feel like all the costumes have been freaking epic for years, but if it was all building to that punchline, then it was worth it. If it was all building to, and then we had a Lou Lamarillo team and they just came in wearing gray suits, that to me is legitimately funny and I'm good with it. But like, so the thing is, I don't think they were like, wouldn't it be funny if we didn't? I think they were just like, you're going to fucking do it. I'm saying that's the best kind of funny for me.

Yeah. I'm just so sick of this Lou bullshit. You know what I mean? Where it's like, oh, you're not allowed to have a beard. You're not, you know, you got to have a haircut. you can set your watch to all the okay we get it man you're you're a hundred years old dude it's working that's why the islanders are crushing it the way that they that's what i mean man like this this shit made sense when it was like oh yeah we we accidentally went to back-to-back

conference finals when when you're like nine points out of the of a playoff spot or whatever they are right now i have even less patience for it than before um um i and then again Like, isn't that classic Lou? I mean, I guess it is, man. Like, it's like, oh, you know, we went in the Islander's locker room and they were watching Matlock on the TV. Isn't that freaking classic? Yeah. No, I get it.

He's old. No, that's fine. We don't, like, to me, it's just like, we don't need to comment on everything as, oh, it's freaking classic Lou. Yeah, I know, I know. Good old Lou. What should they have dressed up as? What even is like Long Island

Because they should have all dressed up as MJF There you go There's Long Island culture for you Dude There's somewhere There's 20 scarfs sitting in a box The most beautiful place on earth Long Island New York

Yep that's right Um Look you know What was that was Snooky? Was that a Long Island or was that in New Jersey? No that's Jersey Shore Oh yeah I was trying to remember the name of the show

I guess that would probably tip me off if I got there. Island shore they called. There's something had a shore. Islands have shores. All right. Yeah, I don't know. Again, just crushing the pop culture side of this podcast. I legitimately don't know, like, was everybody loves Raymond set on Long Island or was that Queens?

I didn't watch it. You know what? I know the King of Queens was Queens. Okay. Maybe that's it. Maybe it had nothing to do with Lou. Maybe they just looked around and they're like, we can't think of it. anything.

Cultural wasteland. Forget it. Yeah. I straight. There's going to be like good bands or something from Long Island. I don't know. Can't win them all, I guess. Yeah, maybe they tried.

Maybe they just looked around and we're just like, I guess we're just going to wear fucking suits. There's nothing here. Again, Maxwell Jacob Friedman. I'm looking up like what is Long Island famous for and I'm seeing white sand beaches. And I'm like, I don't think so. I don't think that's. the Hamptons baby

That's what that's all about They're talking about that damn Hamptons That must be it Um Yeah they could all worn like You know like the white Hamptons party Like all white outfits That would have been fun I guess

You know what I just looked up bands from Long Island And I've never heard of most of them But apparently public enemy So there I go Big oversized clocks for everyone And as timely a reference as you're going to find on this show Exactly. And I believe the second one that I've dropped in this episode.

Yes, that's right. John's such a big public enemy head. It's that simple, folks. Nobody's been making any new music since 1989, right? I'm all caught up. Yeah, you're good. But yeah, so again, I was at college hockey games all weekend. I didn't see one second of these stadium series games, but I will say this. Again, you want to talk about a cultural wasteland. You know, they're like, oh, yeah, we got little things that are like Boston or like Chicago around the rink. And they were like, what about a park?

That says, nothing says New Jersey like a park, right? People walking their dogs out there. Yeah, nobody else does that better than Jersey. Having a place where people walk their dogs. I thought that was very fun. Flyers dressed up like Rocky. Cue the Bill Burr. Well, that and also, I guess it was fitting,

because if you ever see the movie Rocky, Rocky fucking loses. Yeah, that was a good guy. The Rangers game was a good one. The comeback was, I mean, not, obviously, if you're an Islander's fan, but it was pretty good one, and the devils get a big win to get back in. and yeah, it was, and what, 150,000 something that over, over two nights? Like, for middle of the season, February NHL games, that's pretty impressive.

It really is. For sure. You know, I think that the big strike against outdoor games for years and years and years has been that they're overdone. And I kind of, when I first saw, you know, they're going to do two in the same building back to back. but I felt like it worked. I think doing it with four different teams, as opposed to double-dipping the Rangers, like they did last time they did this.

At Yankee Stadium, right? Yeah. Yeah. That was the right choice. It kept it fresh. I liked it. I thought it was a good weekend for the league. Yeah, I say this, you know,

who's more cynical about this kind of thing than me? But I went to the winter classic at Fenway last year, and I had a fucking blast because I, like, just was walking around the stadium taking in the game from from different vantage points and that kind of thing. And again, Fenway, obviously, it's a little more opportunity to do something unique. Sure. And all the angles are just so weird there that, you know, you don't get that with a football

stadium, right? Like, that just, it doesn't go that way. It's a big oval, you know? Yeah. But yeah, apart from like, it just kind of feels wrong for the Flyers to, like, okay, Rangers Islanders, sure, no problem. But it does kind of feel wrong for the other game to be Flyers Devils. Just because it's like, well, that's not the Flyers or the devil's biggest rival. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it did, but I mean, you need to have. No, I get why. And then you sort of. And, like, yeah, you're not going to have Carolina or Washington. and be that team. No, like, it makes sense why it's the Flyers. They're right there.

I get it. But, yeah, it is just kind of like, the reason they double-dipped last time is because the Rangers are the number one rival for both of those teams. But, yeah, one thing I do want to talk about, though, that was, that Devil's Flyers game was kind of like a four-point game in terms of making the playoff race more interesting. But now the Devils are right there. You know, I don't know that anybody was writing them off as like no chance they come back. It was starting to look a little grim.

It definitely was. Look a little bleak, but, you know, they're a good team. And once everybody got back, well, I mean, not Dougie Hamilton, but once everybody besides, Dougie Hamilton got back healthy, you were like, oh, they could put something together, especially if they get a goalie, which they still haven't done. Was it last week or the week before about the Jack Hughes quote? Oh, that if, yeah, we're a lot better. They're pretty good teams. We can get a fucking save.

Yeah. Pretty good stuff. So that obviously needs to change, but suddenly the devils are kind of looking like they could make something happen. that, you know, they're... So right now, as we record here, they are four points behind Detroit, who's looking pretty good again, honestly, and five points behind Tampa,

but they have three games in hand on the lightning and one on the Red Wings, and they have two games in hand on the Flyers, but they're five points back. Okay. So it's getting interesting for the Devils. I'm very curious to see if they can... I still think they make it.

I think they have to make a trade that would convince me that they can make... Because, again, we talk about it all the time. Two points is a big gap in this league, unfortunately, you know? And so, unfortunately, for them, I should say. I don't care one way or the other. But they're just... They feel like they have life where I wouldn't have said so even. even two weeks ago, you know,

especially because the flyers seem like they are slipping lately. The flyers just feel like not, not as an organization, they just feel like they're waiting around like, we want to sell, somebody please knock us out of this playoff spot so we can do that. Yeah. And everyone's like, no, you, you know what, you keep that. Yeah. Which makes them interesting because it's interesting because.

It's interesting because. at the beginning of the year, they had unbelievable underlying numbers. They spent a good chunk of the first, like, month of the season with the best underlying numbers in the league. And as one might expect, they've kind of fallen off that pace. But their numbers are all still pretty respectable,

even if you, like, break it out, okay, ignore that first month of the season. They're still, you know, around the top eight or ten and most underlying numbers. percentage-wise anyway. But what I think you're seeing now is the fact that they don't really have a lot of talent catching up with them. They have been getting the most out of what they have all year long. Up until the past like three, four weeks, I would say.

Maybe, yeah. Their shooting percentages back down below league average in the last month. Their save percentage has gotten really bad. And of course, you know, they're not going to have Carter Hart for the rest of this year. Which I do feel like is something that we haven't, it kind of gets skipped over when you talk about the flyers for obvious reasons. It's like it feels gross to talk about it just as a pure hockey story. But if a team lost their starting goalie to an injury for the second half, you downgrade that team pretty significantly. Yep.

And Sam Erson, I think that's how you pronounce his name. Samuel Erson is like he was holding his own for a while there, but it seems like he ended up in the deep end of the pool and he doesn't know how to swim. You know what I mean? Not that he has a lot of help in front of him. I'm not, you know, but he's had a rough go of things the last little while here. And I, you know, I don't know how optimistic you can be that it gets a lot better. Whereas like, you know, the devils, they've had bad goaltending all year.

quote unquote, only four or five points out of it, depending on what spot you think they're gunning for. But to your point about the flyers selling, what makes it interesting is there is that huge gap between them and anybody else in that division, where like, even if they end up below, you know, like the Atlantic does end up getting two wild card teams. it's not like New Jersey's a huge threat to pass them. You know, it could happen, obviously, but I, they might just kind of be locked into that third spot

whether they want to be or not because of how strong they were in the first little while. I'm very curious because, you know, everybody's like, oh, let's just, you know, circle these defensemen that they might want to trade like buzzards. There was talk earlier, I don't know if you remember this. There was like, oh, they might trade Travis Kinectney too.

Why not, right? Yep. In the off season especially. Well, even during the year, people, I remember people like kind of joking around about like, oh, yeah, he's representing the flyers for the, for the All-Star game. And we didn't think that was a possibility even like two months ago or, you know, it was possible that he wouldn't be doing that even two months ago just because they might have traded him. but yeah, I'm,

they're one of the more interesting teams in the league now to me, the Flyers. Because it's just like, what do they do? I would, uh, I would agree. Yep. Um, and then, yeah, the Islanders probably done. The Rangers keep their kind of stranglehold. Although, again, you know, Cheryl has closed that gap.

They're, they're seven in a row. They won? Yeah, something like that. Like, I feel like we all kind of got hyped up on the Rangers in the first half, and then they cooled off, and we're all like, okay, that's it for them. And I don't know, I'm saying we're all. I'm probably just projecting myself.

But, you know, now you look at it. It's like, oh, right, they're flying up. And then flying up to the top of the east with the Florida Panthers. Florida Panthers. We haven't talked about a ton. It looks scary. Holy shit, man. nine and one in their last 10.

Yep. Winners of five straight. I think they have like a nine game road winning streak. They put a fucking beating on the lightning the other day. Oh, that was one of the nine two games. Yeah. Remember like a month ago? Maybe like around New Year's people were like, man, this, you know, Panthers seems pretty good.

Well, how would they be if Matthew Kuch woke up? I feel like we had that exact conversation on this podcast. I was like, it's already started to happen. He's got like six points in his last five games. He's awake. And it's not going great for all the other teams. They look very, very good. Yeah, they're days away from passing the Bruins.

Yeah, have already passed them in terms of points percentage, although it's essentially a tie. By the way, the Panthers up to the second best goal difference in the league. They're plus 50 now. Okay. The only team ahead of them is Vancouver, and maybe things are starting to slip for the conducts a little bit. Slow down a bit, ma'am. That's a different conversation. But yeah, just to cycle it back to the stadium series discussion, they already said who the next one's going to be, folks.

Oh, is it like a really popular successful team? Marky matchup. Okay. Marky matchup. One of the biggest the league could put together. Some team that's hitting its stride right at the right moment to host the world. The Columbus Blue Jackets will be taking on the beautiful Detroit Red Wings. Look, this is, say what you want about them.

This is one of the eight best teams in the Eastern Conference. So. One of them. Yeah. Maybe. Might not shake out that way by the end of the year. So I, we were talking about this off air and I asked you. you, what rivalry in sports do you think has the biggest discrepancy between how one side views it and how the other does?

Because Columbus clearly views Detroit as their biggest rival. And I'm wondering, like, where do you think on Detroit's list, where is Columbus on there? Considering they're not even in the same division. Like, the whole rivalry is based on college football as best I can understand it. Yes, that seems to be correct, yeah. So it's interesting because I feel like in my head the biggest rival for the Red Wings, like historically speaking, or not even historic, like not, you know, the long, but like it since I started watching, is probably Chicago. Am I crazy to say that?

I mean, you've got to, there's Chicago, obviously for a long while it was Colorado. That was, but now that there are different conferences, that sort of. Well, so Chicago, no. Chicago was, too. But Chicago had more of the history. Original 6, Norris Division, all of that. You've got Toronto. I know they had their run-ins with Tampa over the years.

Yeah. Boston, not as big. You know, Toronto works because Toronto was also in the Western Conference for so long. So they kind of moved over almost at the same time. But there's a good long list. Montreal might be ahead of Columbus on their list. I don't know. Yeah, could you not put all original six teams on there?

And then St. Louis was there for a while, right? St. Louis was in the Norris, yeah. How many of the Atlantic Division rival? Like, it's, I don't know, I would love to, I don't know. I need a Red Wings fan to ping me on this. Like, where honestly is Columbus on your list? Because I don't think they're number one. I'm just going to go ahead and say.

No, I think that's more than safe to say. Like, it's just, it's so weird, right? It's two teams in different divisions. They have never met in the playoffs. I cannot off the top my head remember any, like, great controversies or, you know, brawls or whatever else. It's just they're both from places where the college football teams don't like each other. Yeah. That's the rivalry.

Yep. Very strange. You know what is going to make it a rivalry when they pry Steve Eisenman away to be the new GM? of the blue jackets. Okay, now we're talking. Here's the thing, though. We're talking about, oh, the rivalry, the rivalry between the football teams and the colleges and all this kind of stuff. They are, I think Butchagross reported it.

They're not doing a Michigan, Ohio State game on that outdoor rink. Hmm. Why wouldn't they? Quick question, what the fuck, guys? Yeah. Yeah. And, like, that's a, you know, that's a big 10 matchup. would they would be playing each other multiple times over the course of the season,

uh, in regular conference play. Mm-hmm. So I don't know, I don't know why they wouldn't be doing it. I don't have any insight into that, but it is very strange to, I,

I, I don't, I don't get it, but that, that is, that's what's been reported. Maybe things could change. Um,

but yeah, I think, we were talking about this at, at one of the games yesterday, like, or the, the BC UMass game yesterday, or two days ago,

I guess it would have been. It felt like when they started doing the outdoor games, like everybody got a crack at playing on that rink. Okay. You know, like high school teams and like low level, like Division III college teams and stuff like that, got to play on the,

on the Fenway rink. Um, And hell, in later years, they even let me, like, I've played hockey on the rink at Fenway, right? Like, we cannot see it as that big of a deal anymore, you know? Yep. But I think maybe just kind of like the NHL gets to say, like, we're going to try to, as much as you can when you're doing like four outdoor games a year, try to preserve the specialness of the outdoor game by just being like, no, there's only one game happening on this rink. All right.

So that might be it. I don't, I don't know. But it's interesting. But yeah. So Columbus, they act like they're a rival for the penguins, for sure. Because again, they played each other in the playoffs that one time. Like, who is their big rival? Like, who do they think of as their biggest rival?

Because, you know, obviously. Columbus thinks it's Detroit. I mean, that's it. I don't know who. I'm not even sure there's a close. second. Okay. And again, yeah, for, it's probably Pittsburgh.

I don't, maybe it's changed, but for the penguins, where does Columbus rank for them? Well, I mean, below Philadelphia and Washington, obviously, almost certainly below probably all three of the New York, New Jersey teams. I would think so, yeah. Devils, I, you know, maybe a little hesitant, but they might be there with Carolina. Yeah, top, maybe they squeeze into the top five. Pittsburgh's got an underrated rivalry with Boston, too, although that's... I was going to say that, yeah. Again, they just kind of played each other in the playoffs a few years in a row, it felt like.

Maybe it's just the one, but that I'm thinking of where Boston, like, killed them. Well, they had, back in the early 90s, they played a few times. And then it was the Jerome McGinley year where they both thought they traded for them and then... Yeah, I think that was the year where they just ran flurry out of the building. Yeah. They swept them in the conference final. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, it's funny because what Chicago...

Is it Chicago St. Louis is the... Yeah. Yep, they have a good one. Well, no, aren't they getting the winter classic? next year. Oh, okay. Chicago is, yeah, is it St. Louis? I think it's St. Louis, and I feel like we've already seen that.

We have, yeah. But how she goes, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. Again, it's not for the national audience. Like, we're going out. Who cares about this? Yep. All the people are going to be wild men for that game.

We should say Columbus, it's been 25 years. This is their first. outdoor game they get to host. So that part of it is cool. Yeah. So good for them. And again, you'll go, you'll have a great fucking time if you go. Yep. Pretty much, unless they get killed, you know, I bet. I, because I, I went to the, the one at Foxborough where the ruins like lost five or six nothing to the Canadians. And I don't feel like many people were having a good time at that one. Maybe not. I'm not quite as well. But the other ones I've been to, the two Fenway ones, it seemed like everyone had a real good time.

And again, probably not coincidental Boston won both of those games. But, yeah, you'll have a good time if you go, even if you don't care about either team, which, you know, why would you unless you live there? So, yeah, you know, go, you'll have a good time. That's the message on outdoor games at this point, I think. We don't, we don't have to, who's this for? It's for people who aren't you, man. Yep. And that's fine.

And I'm as guilty as anyone of saying that kind of thing in the past. Yep. Why don't we take one more break and we'll be back with more news and notes? Our next partner this week is AG1. Guys, taking care of your health is not always easy, but it should at least be simple. And that is why, for years now, I'm talking about AG1. It's something you can take every day. No exceptions.

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and folks you've heard me talk about Bespoke Post on here before. was sending me something fun and interesting. Every single month, I've gotten a desk organizer. I've gotten a kit to make hot sauce. I've gotten, you know, travel bag. This month, I unwrapped something for bespoke post that changed my life. They sent me a freaking hatchet. Now I'm waving this hatchet around them chopping stuff everywhere I go.

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Mm-hmm. And then they were really bad on home ice and Barry Trutz was like, you don't get to fucking go now. Teacher canceled the pizza party, man. It's true. That's a rough one. Yeah. So apparently the idea was they had a game.

They were going to fly home and practice for a few days. and then they were on to Vegas. And the players at some point went to the bosses and said, can we just go straight to Vegas? And we'll do, we'll take everybody to go see you to at the sphere. Yeah, like everybody is in support staff. Yes, exactly. And they were told, yeah, go ahead.

And then they were so bad coming out of the All-Star break. Apparently not just in their games, but like practicing and all that. Yes, that's right. that Andrew Burnett went to Barry Trots, I think was the story and said, I want to take this away. And they did. So now we all get to wait and see how they play in their next few games,

whether this was a great move for the culture or whether it tore the whole team apart. And it seems like, again, just from what has been reported, it seems like the players are pretty fucking mad about it. Yeah. Which, of course, I get why they would be. they wanted to see freaking beautiful day live. They wanted to, hello, hello.

You know? And I mean, now they don't get to. A rare chance for a bunch of rich young people to see a concert. Yeah. You do feel for the support staff, right?

That's the first point everyone's making. You know, clearly if you're the assistant stick guy or whatever, this probably would have been something circled on your calendar. Yeah. There was an interesting debate on Hockey Night in Canada that I'm assuming you did not see. I was at a BU game, so no, I did not.

We get it. We get it, man. I just love college hockey. No one loves it more than me. That's my new gimmick that I'm rolling out. No one respects it more than me. That's good. No one could.

The, it was basically Kevin Baxa said he didn't mind. And Kelly Rudy said that his issue with it was, that he was saying you can't give the player something and then take it away. That it's one thing if you say no to something because you're playing like crap. But it's another thing to say yes and let people get excited and make plans and all of that and then yank it away. BXA was more saying, look, when it comes to anything at home, whether it's even as simple as a day off, you don't mess with that because that's when people make plans with the kids. and families and, you know, all of that stuff.

But he said on the road, go ahead. Because on the road, it's just, I mean, this is just the boys having fun and it's okay to take that away if they haven't earned it. Yeah, I guess I get both sides of that. Where, again, the thing that it really sucks is for the support staff and these guys that are going to go to this experience. probably otherwise couldn't afford to go to. I'm sure there are non-rich people going to these YouTube shows, but everything I see is just like, Jay-Z was there. I don't know that Jay-Z was there, but just like, blank was there.

Isn't that crazy? And it's just all famous people, you know? And rich people and that kind of thing. And so, like, yeah, the opportunity to, I'm assuming, have really good seats to see you two with the sphere, you know? that doesn't come along very often and to like Kelly Rudy's right that to take that away especially for like a collective punishment thing

you know like you said the teacher canceled the pizza party that does that does suck and I get I get why anyone would be pissed off about that but I do see like yeah you guys you guys have been looking a little too forward to this U-2 show that you're, you know, because, you know, you'll hear sometimes, oh, do you think this was a situation where you were looking past the Arizona Coyotes because you had a game against Vegas coming up or whatever? And that's not acceptable, right?

So, like, to look past the St. Louis Blues because you have a U-2 concert coming up, like, if you want to look at it that way, I can see why a coach would be like, you don't get to go to U-2 now. They did play well in their first game afterwards. So I would like to know, because I think it was their, I think they had played two games. I should look this up as I talked, but I think they had played two games, and it was like both games were bad. I wonder if after the first game, if they dropped it on them, like, hey, we're canceling this trip. Yeah, they came out of the deadline. They beat the coyotes in overtime, lost to the devils, and then got absolutely crushed by the stars.

Nine to two. There's that score again. Yeah, and apparently Part of it is they were bad on home ice specifically Because I don't think, look, I don't think anybody in Nashville is under any illusions as to what this team is, right? Like nobody's like a playoff mix though, I mean they're I mean, again like the sure they are. Yeah, okay.

In the same way that like the Minnesota, look, we're saying oh, the Minnesota Wild, these guys are dead in the fucking water. They have the exact same record pretty much as the, they have the same points percentage, at least as the Predators do. Right. And so if we're going like, oh, you know, of course, this seems cooked. Yeah, no, I know that, you know. They're a point ahead of the Seattle Cracket. Like, we don't have to pretend this Nashville team is going places. But to the point that several have made at this juncture, you know,

You know, they were bad on home ice. And even if you're rebuilding, you've got to, like, give the fans who are buying tickets a reason to show up to the games. And if you're Barry Trots, you can go, I'm actually just pissed off at the effort level. Like, I don't expect us to win every game, but I expect us to try hard or whatever. Yeah, 9 to 2 is pretty hard to eat. That's what I mean. And so, like, I do see it. I see why the players would be pissed.

I'd be fucking pissed if I was one of the players. But if I was very trots, I'd be like, you guys fucking gave up nine goals to a division rival. You can't do that. We're in the playoff mix. After the, if after the loss of the devils, if he had said, hey, guys, if you're thinking about this U-2 thing, like, I need to see a good game on, what, Thursday or whatever. Thursday, yeah. And then they go out and lose nine two. Then, yes, by all means.

cancel it in the second intermission. But, yeah, I mean, I guess at the end of the day, like, you know, you can sit there and say, yeah, I understand why the players are pissed. You do this knowing your players are going to be pissed. Oh, no, of course. You do this knowing the players are going to hate you a little bit for it. Right. They're not like, whoa, wait a minute. You guys are mad about this?

Yeah. But, yeah. You want them to turn that frustration into on. Like, just be like, you know, you pull someone aside and you go, oh. I don't know who they're next games against, but you're like... Golden Knights tonight, so it's a tough one. You're lining up across from Jack Eichel. Get out there and take that frustration out on Jack Eichael.

Can I just say this is probably obvious, but it just popped into my head. The Golden Knights have to be playing U-2 songs all night long, right? Tonight. Yeah. Of course, man. You're just non-s, every break in between, like, you've got to be. going. Cue up where the streets have no name, brother.

If you can get Bono to come do the national anthem, that would be fantastic. That would fucking rule. Let's go, man. Now, see, if I'm going to the sphere, they're like, you can't go see Dead in Company. I'd be like, I'll kill you Barry Trots. Yeah. That's right. They're like, Sean, for the last time, that band isn't playing the sphere because they broke up 30 years ago.

I'm like, you, screw you, man. I mean, you know, you could say that, like, that would have been a plausible thing to say about you, too. But you know what? They're still plugging away. That's true. You're still plugging away. And I do know. Mm-hmm. You ever see them live?

Nope. I saw them. Don't push your luck, man. I don't know. They were popular when you were paying attention to pop culture, I feel like. Yeah, that's true. You know, they got their start in the 70s? I remember seeing that at some.

At some point. Yeah, it was wild. I think their first album is like 79 or something like that. I'm not the biggest U-2 historian. But I did go see them. I'm not even that big of a fan, but I went and saw them when they did the tour where they're like,

one thing you can be sure of is that you will hear every song off the Joshua tree. Whatever, like six, seven years ago, I think this was now. And that's the only record by them I like. Like front to back, no skips kind of a thing. So I was like, well, I might as well go see you too. And they were so fucking good.

It was an awesome show. So I bet the Spears did. You will hear everything off of the pop album. Yeah, that is. Everything off Zeropa. I know they're like big, like, no, that's their best one. Octung Baby is their best one. And I'm just like, now the one with all the hits is the best one.

Look, you're so mainstream. I know. music. You just... But like, just look at the track list on the Joshua Tree, man. The first like five songs on there is like,

well, that's one of the biggest hits of all time, unequivocally. And then like the deep cuts, like Red Hill Mining Town or whatever, it's just like, you can't go wrong. They do have that one really in a bullet the blue sky. I don't like that song at all. And I'm pretty sure that's on that one. But, you know,

you can't go see you too if you lose a number. Nine to two. It makes sense. 9-2, you two, you know? There's something there. You can't make that work. Yeah. There's something there.

And I'm not going to workshop it now. No. The other big piece of news in the NHL this week is, of course, they retired Yarmier-Yager's number in Pittsburgh. And everyone was happy about it. We spent the weekend talking about how cool Yarmory Jager was, which... Yeah, we all like Yarmier. I am all... Fun guy.

And he practiced with the team and took pre-game warm-up, which is a lot. which is always kind of fun when that that sort of thing happens. You know what my take on that was? He should have come out with the big frickin' wig on. Everybody else is wearing the wig. Because, like, okay, they're all wearing yager jerseys. They all have the wig on.

If you're up in the nosebleeds, he just looks like another guy wearing the yager jersey. You know what I mean? He didn't wear like a different color jersey or anything like that. And so to really lean to the bit and then he takes the wig off at some point.

You got to guess which one is him as you're... That's what I'm saying. And like the big reveal, the whole place goes fucking crazy. Yep. It's like when Sting took the mask off and it was Sting under there. And he had the other mask. Yeah. And then you, he skates over to the bench and sits down.

And everyone realizes that he is misunderstood what is happening and it gets awkward. And then he probably goes out and gets four points. I think he could have gotten a second assist or two. Although, you know what? What was a 2-1 final out there for that one? Something like that, yeah. Yeah, not great. Could have been 3-1.

And then Kyle do was... No, the other way around. It could have been 2-2. And then maybe the Penguins just losing a shootout. Speaking of the Penguins, did you see... I'm sure you did. This is your website. Did you see Rob Rossi got quotes from Crosby

about trading Jake Gensel or not trading Jake Gensel? I did see that. That was interesting. Yeah. Basically for people who didn't see it, Rob Rossi, the ultimate Penguins insider in terms of the big guys will sit down and give him on the record quotes, which they don't usually do. And yeah, they were like, what do you think? Would you be mad? And he's like, it's not really up to me.

I don't care. Which means they're fucking trading Jake Gensel. I hate to tell you, folks. Jake Gensel, overhearing this in the dressing room, just being like, oh, no. Oh, although maybe he doesn't care. He can go play for a Stanley Cup. He was on at least one of those cup teams, right? Jake Gensel?

Oh, it must have been, yeah. I would assume he was on both, wasn't he? 16, 17? I'm looking it up. All right. He was on 1617, so I think he missed the first one and then he played 40 games the next year. Okay. Right?

They were 15, 16, 17? Yes. Right? Yeah. So, yeah, I was right. He only got one of them. Well, well, well. Look who's right again.

But yeah, no, they're trading him. That's what that means. If Sidney Crosby's like, I offer no opinion unless they come and ask me and then I'll tell them my opinion. This is a good sign to Kyle Dupus. Kyle, don't ask him his opinion because he'll say yes. He'll say keep the guy. He's one of the best winger's Sidney Crosby ever had. So, you know, he'll probably tell you.

you to keep them. I don't think it would be the best idea for your team. Go get that first round pick, brother. That's easy. That's an easy call. But we'll see. Um, yeah, nothing else on Yager. No, I, I don't think it was just a fun weekend. Yeah, Rager rocks. It's good to see that everything has been smoothed over with the, with the penguins over the years. And yeah, it was, it was a cool weekend. Yeah. I know there's some, there's been some discussion. Like, do you have him, do you waive the waiting period for the Hall of Fame?

No, because they've stopped doing that. So they made a, you know, they used to do that. They did it for, I want to say, 10 guys. And then after Gretzky, they said, we're not doing it anymore. Now, with Yager, the one thing that I think you could do, is not to say I'm waving the waiting period, but do we do anything with the fact that this guy keeps playing

a couple of games a year keeps playing, you know, he's never going to make the Hall of Fame because he's never going to stop playing. Maybe that's where something like that could go. Can I tell you my opinion on that? I think that's cool.

I think the fact that he keeps pushing the waiting period back because he played like four games with Cladno or whatever his team is. That's awesome to me. I don't know. Like, I want to see Yarmir Yager at age like 65, just finally accepting. Yeah, like, you know, he's got white hair, big, big bushy beard. He's like, I'd like to thank Mario, you know, like old guy voice Yager.

Yeah, that would be so cool to me. Just because it's like, oh, no, he was in the Czech like third division two years ago. He played five games. Gotta push it back another year. That turns out he just really hates to all. of Fame. So yeah. Do you have any thoughts on the, I mean, you probably don't, but you brought it up to me earlier.

Any thoughts on this NBA All-Star game thing? Not really other than that it's nice to see another league having this crisis. I feel like every league has now had this crisis, though. I mean, baseball, the crisis was a little different. Baseball, it's never been about they don't try and the game stink. It's been more like, you know, we're squeezing everyone. in the lineups and we run out of pitchers and that kind of thing. Right.

Yeah, apparently. But like the Pro Bowl isn't... The Pro Bowl doesn't exist anymore because it was so awful. And basketball was always like, yeah, you know, it's going to be high scoring, but it'll still... And apparently, there was just no effort at all, and one team scored 200 points, and it was just unwatchable. So, I did like the tweet from... from John Boy, where he says, I was really disappointed by the NBA's annual crappy game

that doesn't matter this year. It was honestly kind of crappy, and on some level, it didn't even feel like it mattered. Yeah, I mean... That's kind of captures the spirit of the thing. So two years ago, it was bad. Again, I didn't watch this game, but two years ago it was bad, and I did watch that.

Oh, you didn't watch a game? Where were you? I, well, I, I was at a municipal waste concert on, on Sunday night. So, yeah, I didn't see a second to the NBA All-Star game. All-Star game. Unisible Waste and Gould, good show. Had a blast. But I did see last year's, and it was bad. And the thing about it was that Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, going into this All-Star game was like, and this year it's going to be good. my that's my that's the Adam silver guarantee yeah and then it's apparently it was even fucking worse asking the players to try yeah and and then it was even worse than last year apparently yeah

and uh i just think at this point with the you know what we know about like sport science and like you know kind of the kind of the the the Donald Trump theory of like the body only has so much energy to give out? Yeah, there's only so many heartbeats. Can't use them up going upstairs. Well, I mean, if you do, you're going to do it very carefully. But I think, I think that is, there is something to that in like the NBA and the NHL, right? Like, why am I going to, you know, I only have so many jumps in these knees before I can,

before I can no longer jump. And the NBA is certainly a league. That is not for older players, right? The NBA is, I think I think I saw a quote. I might be wrong that I saw this quote now, that Janice was like, I'm the second oldest player on this All-Star team. And Janus is what, like 29? Yeah, he just turned 29.

He's like, I'm the second oldest player out here. Meanwhile, in the NHL, like, you know, there's multiple 32-year-olds or whatever. Yeah. But, you know, in the NHL, it's like, what, are we going to check each other? Who gives a shit? No. You know? Like I've always said with the NHL, it's like none of the scoring.

Because I had somebody email me and they're like, you're the guy, you never stopped complaining about there's not enough scoring, and then the All-Star game comes around and you complain that there's too much scoring. And it's like, yeah, but the scoring doesn't matter if nobody's, trying to prevent it. Like that's... Right, yeah. A goal is just like off talking to somebody in the front row, like in the corner,

somebody scores a goal. That's what the All-Star game's like. Yeah. So... Again, I, you know, who gives a shit, right? Like, if you're mad about the quality... If you're mad about the quality of an All-Star game, I don't have anything to say to you. I don't know what to tell you.

The other thing that I did see and maybe this links had been. back to hockey as a sort of cautionary tale is that people thought it was even worse than usual this year because of the mid-season tournament. Yeah. And because that was possible. There was a big financial incentive behind that. And then the players get to the All-Star game and they're playing for like 25,000. And they're like, forget.

Right. You get a Kia at the end of this one. Yeah. A guy who drives a Bentley is like, cool, thanks. That's awesome. Excellent. All right. Yeah.

All-Star games are bad. Yeah, there's no There's no fixing them You cannot do anything to make the players care Other than maybe tell them They can't go to you two if they lose Yes You'd get a big response out of that one

But yeah, anyway Why don't you hit them with the plugs? Let's get the hell out of here All right, so you can find me at the athletic Including my new podcast with Sean Gentilly, which debuted last week We got We'll be on tomorrow

We got Frankie Carrado joining us. So we get a, we'll ask him if he ever tried to go to a YouTube concert or had a coach, cancel his pizza party. And you can also find my writing, you know, I'll have a bunch of trade deadline and trade adjacent stuff. Yeah. What about you? That's, I mean, I don't have a podcast with Frank Carrado or anything. Okay. So, do you have one with Sean Gentile? Is that? I do. Yeah. Hey, if you want to hear that. If you want to hear that, you want to hear other Puck Soup bonus content. You can go to the Puck Suit Patreon, patreon.com slash Puck Soup.

We do a lot of stuff. We'll be doing a lot of stuff in the next few days because we're coming up on the end of the month. So now's the time to get in there and check all that stuff out if you want to. And E.P.Rinkside.com. Check out all my articles. I have written a lot in the last little while. And like Sean, I will have plenty of. Trade deadline stuff coming up as well.

Grading all the trades, that sort of thing. I will give every single transaction. You're doing that again, eh? Pretty much no matter how small. Like, even if it's a straight-up AHL-B. What's just pretty much? I want everything. Well, so in the lead-up to trade deadline day, like, you know, if there's an AHL trade now,

you're not getting a grade on that. But if there's an AHL trade on deadline day, I will. be grading it for some fucking reason. Mental illness, I guess. Boy, you aren't kidding, brother. So yeah, check all that out. And if you are not signed up for EPRinkside, and now's the time because we're doing all kinds of prospect check-ins and that sort of thing.

E.P.Rinkside.com and use the code, I love E.P. When you sign up for an annual subscription, because it will get you an extra three months tacked on to the end of that 12 months. Absolutely free. Good stuff. Hey, one more thing just before we go real quick. Yeah.

Shout out to Helene Elliott. Yes. Retirement. Legend. Absolute legend in the business. Yep, absolutely. Covered the Kings for God. I don't even know how long.

For a long, long time. And a trailblazer for women in sports. Writers. I believe I saw that she is the first woman to be in a North American sports hall of fame for journalism. Okay. Yeah. Just a legend.

Yep. Good call. Thank you to her for everything that she did over the course of her career. Yep. One of the greats. All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll talk to you next week.

Bye bye. Bye-bye.