Puck Soup - Big Questions

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Sean and Ryan talk about the end of the first round, the start of the second round, and some awards candidates. Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off), Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck) and AG1 (ag1.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndew from The Athletic. Oh, no. You don't like that? Why are you laughing at you? I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at, uh, you sound, you sound like someone ran over your dog. You know what I mean?

I wish somebody would run over my dog. I wasn't, I honestly wasn't going to start. Let's just start with Bruins leaves. Get it out of the. away. Maybe you can have your, uh, your, uh, your, uh, your, uh, your, uh, your survivor Applebee's moment here. Um, um, and, uh, you know, we, we can get it all off our chests. Uh, the, the, the, I, I guess let's start with this. Can you say you were done with these losers? Didn't you say that? Did I say that? Yeah, I think you were at a whole article about it, if I'm remembering right. I don't, uh, uh,

I didn't say I was done with them. I said that the Bruins were better. I said that when it was three to one. But then I also said in many places, and I apologize, I don't remember if we discuss it on this show. Something that happens to me is whenever things are bad for the Leafs, I suddenly get called by every radio and TV station in North America. Yeah. So I've been having this conversation a lot over the last week, and I said to multiple places,

it would be a very leafy outcome for them to claw their way back, win game five and six, and then lose game seven. I think at least once I even said win game five and six, blow a third period lead and lose game seven in all the time. So this is not, you know, any, who's looking at Leaf fans be like, are you shocked? Are you blown away by how that went? How could you be? No, of course not. Still wasn't a fun watch, but here we are.

As a neutral fan, that game wasn't a fun watch, right? Like, that's the... It must have been great theater in the sense of like, the fact that you had all the usual Leaf stuff plus the Bruins almost at the same level of crisis. if they had lost, but from a pure entertaining hockey point of view, that that probably was a slog. Yeah. I can't remember where I said this, but it was two teams being like, I really don't want to win this one. Can you win this one, please? And the other team going, absolutely not, brother.

By the way, I like this new thing we've kind of stumbled on where we just claim to have said. the perfect thing. I remember I can't remember where it was, but I said that Austin Matthews is probably going to get really close to 70 goals, but I would watch out. And I can't remember where it was,

but I said Willie Nealander should like take a Tylenol before he goes to bed, just in case he's got any headache issues when he wakes up. Yeah, I just remember just the other day. I don't know who I was talking to, but I was like,

I think the Bruins will give up a goal pretty late in the third period, then score 84 seconds later, and then David Pasternak will completely redeem himself for a bad series with one goal. I don't remember where I said it, but I do remember. No, it was to somebody.

Somebody definitely heard me say that. But, no, it's just like the leafiest outcome possible. Just to give you a sense of what the Leafs experience is, I actually I feel like I get it but I actually go ahead I actually watch game seven at a friend's place

which I almost never do but what happened was I it was actually my buddy Ian Mendes had a few of us over including some friends from from college that I hadn't seen in forever

now did Ian do that as like a mean trick to you no this was this was something that was planned weeks ago and we had even said at time, you know, this will probably be game seven of some playoff series. But the guy that I was going to see, especially he had his wife for there, but he's a buddy of mine from way back when, and he's a diehardly fan. So the idea was, you know, we're all going to eat dinner and then the guys are going to peel off and go watch the game. And in the hour leading up to it, you know, we're sitting around, we're having our barbecue. I'm not obsessively checking my phone,

but every now and then I'm sort of checking in to give the group updates on the Austin Matthews watch. Sure. And we're all expecting that we'll get the notice that Matthews is out because why would a good thing ever happened? And then a good thing actually does happen. We're scrolling and it's, yeah, it looks like Matthews is going to play. He's in, yeah.

And I literally got to be happy for 15 seconds until I scrolled up maybe 15 minutes in my timeline and it was like, oh, the goalie's out. And the crappy goalie that nobody likes is going to stir games. And I read that to the group. In fact, Ian was working the barbecue. I shouted it over to him.

And he was like, he was literally confused because he was like, that, you have to be joking, but there's no punchline here. Right. And I was like, I'm not joking. You're a good grillmaster, by the way? Pretty good. Yeah, he's...

Hell yeah. That's what's up. He knows what he's doing. Hell yeah. Yeah, I mean, so it was on ABC down here in the States, and the pregame show was just like the local guys, not ESPN. Like the local ABC station just had their own pregame show. And they were just like, oh my. God, they're not starting Joseph Wohl?

It was, that was how I found out was like a local guy who clearly didn't know who Joseph Wohl was going like, whoa, this is crazy. You know, because you don't need the, you don't need the context of like they're going back to the goalie who they didn't want to play before, you know, like we get it instantly. But yeah, that was how I found out. Yeah, man, it's, look, I don't really feel. feel like we need to say a ton about the game beyond what we already said. Tough,

tough watch. As a neutral fan, tough watch is a Leafs fan, obviously. Good watch is a Bruins fan, but only because of that last like 10 minutes or whatever, you know? But let's just get into it. Do you buy into anything at all that came out after, like,

you know what, actually, given how well they played in games, four, five, and six or whatever. I guess it would have just been five and six. Two at a seven. That's enough, right? And the injuries where Nealander missed the first three, I think, Austin Matthews missed two, they have to go, as you say, to their starting goalie in game

seven, and that's a problem for them. Is there anything at all? They had to go to that bum, that absolute sim that they made the conscious decision at the deadline to go into the playoffs with. Yeah. Do you put any stock at all into they might bring Sheldon Keefe back? I mean, I'll put stock in it in the sense that I will never put it past this team to take the easy path. Yeah. but as a as a fan as a I mean I can try to do my my analyst thing even though people know I'm a raving homer like there's no scenario there's just no scenario where you're going to be able to sell that and I give the usual caveats you know Keith may very well be a good coach he may very well go on and have success in Pittsburgh or wherever he heads next quang dong tigers cut style situation for me, I think. Maybe.

Whatever it is, it's at the very least. I mean, it's not even at the very least. Like, the changes have to start there. That's the easy one. That's,

I mean, it's the low-hanging fruit that turned rotten and fell on the ground probably three years ago. Go over and kick it out of the way. Yeah. It's,

I couldn't believe I was seeing people saying, that stuff. I literally was just like, what is this guy talking about? You know who, I mean, you all saw it. I didn't. Can you? Oh, yeah, just a lot of excuse making from, I think, I think, uh, Greg said something about, uh, about like, well, look, I mean, the injuries and stuff like that. I mean, you can, you can mention the injuries. Yeah, for sure you can. They're part of the story, but I, I, I, uh, just Born had a column that I think as we're recording this just dropped. And he made what I thought was a good metaphor, I guess.

And this was talking about the Leafs as a whole. He compared it to like when, like a Tom Wilson type guy throws a questionable hit. Yeah. And maybe there's a debate to be had over intentional or otherwise or, you know, how dirty was it, but when it's Tom Wilson, or whoever, they've lost the benefit of the doubt. We don't have that conversation. And he said, that's where the Leafs are read. Like, yeah, you can have the conversation. Bad luck, injuries, they've lost the benefit of the doubt for that. Yeah. I'm trying to think definitely, I just saw people providing a little bit of cover for Sheldon

Keefe. That's all. Like, it was somebody on the sports panel, which I, I would caution people that that that might just be the basic human instinct to like cushion the blow on the way out for the guy, you know, like don't necessarily have to send him out the door with a dozen knives in his back, but you better send him out the door. I'm not even, I'm trying to even imagine what that announcement looks like if Brad Trilliving or whoever sits down and goes, yeah, this is, this is, this is, our guy. Yeah, we should say

we're recording this on Monday instead of the usual Tuesday because I have travel stuff. And basically it's, what is it, the players and coaches meet with the media today, and then management meets with them

on Thursday, meets with the media on Thursday. Which is a break from how the Leafs normally do it, which certainly seems to imply that there are big changes in announcements forthcoming, maybe even given our luck in between. One minute after the show,

although that would be, usually you don't, I mean, I'm honestly mildly surprised that Keev hasn't been let go already. Presumably you would not have him meet with the media and then fire him 10 minutes after that. Like at least save him having to be in the same room as us. The jackals, yeah. So, yeah, presumably you will get a bunch of eye-rolling quotes from, you know,

the usual loser shit from this group. And then Tuesday and Wednesday, what happens in between? Who is the management that's going to be available on Thursday? That's the other question, isn't it? Because that's the big. I mean, it starts with Shanahan at the top, right? Again, new CEO in place. Keith Pelley, a guy, no stranger to the sports world,

but we don't know exactly how he's going to handle this whole situation. Do the Leafs make a change at the very top? Do they let Shanahan have the one more year on his contract? Do they do the leafiest thing? that they could do, which is given them an extension. Because I don't know if you know this. Nobody can work in Toronto unless you have like five years on your contract of... Yeah, you just need that runway.

You need the runway. Which Fast and the Furious movie is it where like the last 25 minutes take place on a plane that's taking off? Yeah. And it's just like, how long was that runway? Like, 14 miles? Like, what the fuck? Yeah. There won't be any trades, of course.

you know, any of that stuff happens later in the summer. But that has to happen too. I mean, I think most people are thinking Bradford Living's back. It's no guarantee, but that certainly... Really, huh? Well... You don't think it's a guarantee that he's back? I think it kind of has.

I don't think it's a guarantee in the sense that if Shanahan's gone. Yeah. Especially if, and, you know, this being Toronto, it's not out of the question that Keith Pell... shows up and says not just the maybe at this point expected announcement that, you know, Brandon Chanahan has been relieved of his duties and the search for new president starts immediately, but that he comes in and says, here's the new president. And then maybe it's a big name or maybe it's not.

Who knows? Well, what I was going to say is... What I was going to say is... What I was going to say is, wouldn't it... But then whoever that new person is might come in and say, I want my own GM. but it also certainly if you're going to do a search, it gives you somebody to keep the lights on in the meantime.

And then that person comes in and it's the NHL. So they say, oh, I need a year to figure out what's happening. Well, it's all about stability. Got to have stability, man. Don't, don't, don't, if it's, if it ain't broke. Mm-hmm. Don't do anything at all ever. Now, also, what if it is broke?

then also don't do anything at all. Okay, that checks out. Just wait for it to fix itself. What I was going to say is, does Keith Pelly, you know, who the way people are talking about him, like I should know who this guy is, I don't, but the way people are talking about him makes me think, oh, I'd like to introduce you to the new president. Me, Keith Pelly, I'm running this team. Nobody else is running the team.

I don't think, no, I mean, he may be running the team in the sense that he'll be, more hands-on than than what was there before. But no, they'll want a president of hockey ops to be the buffer. And the other thing with the, I mean, you know, you shouldn't know who he is. He's not, I mean, he's a big shot in the sports

and business world. I mean, he's very accomplished, but not to the extent that he should be some sort of household name. He had been with TSN for a while, so some of the, there may be more familiarity from some folks in the, media than

that comes across in the reporting where you're kind of left going like should I know who this is? No, but you're about to

because one way or another he is he knew the job he was signing up for. He's going to have a fun fun summer. What would you do? Give me the outsider

objective view. I obviously you know, thank you for your service, Sheldon Keefe, get ready to learn Chinese, all that kind of stuff. Marner, see you later. You know, and you can just make it clear like, yeah, if you can keep your no move clause. You can exercise it, but, you know, have fun on the fourth line, you know.

You just have to, you have. How ugly are you willing to get with Mark? Oh, man. How ugly was he willing to get a few years ago, you know? I'll get down in the mud with your big dog. That's fine by me. All right. I'm sitting here with a big smile on my face, but...

Yeah. Yeah. I got another one for you. John Tavares, we'll pay your insanely high signing bonus. Then we'll booting your ass out the door, too. See you later. Like, by paying the signing bonus, you make him extremely attractive to, I was going to say Arizona, obviously, that's a different thing now, but like, you know, somebody will want him at that price if the, you know, if the money's been paid already. You know what I mean?

Yeah. His, I'm looking at it now. Yeah, his base salary is under a million bucks. Yeah. You can, you can make that work somehow with some other team. But I, it's just you can't have. whatever it is. He has the no move clause. Yeah. He has the... So, yeah, I mean, it is very possible that a guy like that at some point

talks to management and says, look, if there's an opportunity in, you know, someplace like these teams, I'm open to it. But let's say he doesn't. Let's say he says, no, this is, I'm here for the childhood dream.

I signed for seven years. I want to do all seven. This is my home. This is where my, you know, my family is and everything. I'm not going anywhere. Okay. Have fun on the fourth line. Look, I know, I know you set up that one goal in the series, but come on, man.

You know. Yeah. Yeah. I, I just think there's not a. scenario where you can pay those guys $20 million next year or whatever it is. 21 million, 22 million. 22, right? One's a little under 11.

One's 11 on the nose. That's right. Yeah. You can't pay those guys $22 million and have them be pending UFAs. I know you're selling low on both of them to a certain extent. If you can even sell. If you can sell. But.

So here's, I guess, here, here's my question. do you say to someone like a John Tavares, stay home? Do you buy him out, even though buying him out would, you know, save you like a nickel? Like, do you do something like that so it's like literal addition by subtraction, even though you're still a 60 point guy, we're just vanishing you off this? I don't, I don't think so. Just because, like, as you say, it doesn't make financial sets. Would I rather have the $11 million in cap space?

Like, would I trade John Tavares for a seventh round pick? Just to get the cap space. Yeah, of course. Just for the caps space. Of course you would. But I just. I don't, I don't know that that's feasible. That there's a scenario where that happens.

Yeah, no, I agree. And we should say, 30 goals, 65 points last year on a team that can't score in the playoffs. Well, and isn't that. That's the whole thing. Isn't that the whole thing? When the games get tough, he starts to look a little bit slower, doesn't he? You know, he starts to look a little bit more effective. He is what he is at this point.

Until it's overtime and then he somehow levels up and. Yeah, I can't remember who, I can't remember who he beat to the outside on that one overtime goal. Yeah, but whoever that is, I think it was Carlo. Whoever it is. I think it was Carlo. Yeah. That's, that's, when John Tavis beat you from a standing start.

Yeah, that's tough brother. Yeah, but he did. I mean, that was season on the line. You need one play. Somebody make a play. I saw people saying, you know, oh, they got to bring back Max Stomy. Max Domi had a good year. You want to guess how many goals Max Domi had for them this season?

How many? Nine. Was really that it? Yeah. Now, I know he's a setup guy. But like nine goals, we got to bring this guy back. We have to. Domi.

I liked him in the playoffs. Let's see what the number is. Doing Diet Marshand stuff, yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess Bertuzi would have been the guy doing the Diet Marshand and Domi's like Marshan Zero. Maybe.

That sounds about right. I was really surprised that Bertuzi didn't say anything to twist the knife on the Bruins as the Leafs were coming back to Force Game 7. Like, shouldn't he have been that, like, yeah, man, I was in that dressing room last year. I'm sure they're freaking out.

Like, I remember exactly what it was like. You know, just really twisted on them. I mean, that would have been real glass houses shit, though. Like, because then David Pasternak or whoever could have been like, yeah, man, you're on the Toronto Maple Leafs. I don't want to hear about it. Did you see the Matthew Kachuk quote? Which where he was saying. I saw several.

He was like they were asking him about, you know, the matchup. and you were waiting for the other series to find out. And he was like, ah, we all knew it was going to be Boston. He's, yeah, he basically said that a couple.

Last week we talked about that he was like, oh yeah, he said, he said, he said, yeah, probably Boston when it was like three one. But even he was like,

yeah, you know, even as they were coming back, he's like, yeah, we all kind of assumed it was going to be Boston. Yeah, good call.

Yeah, he was, he was right to make that assumption. And sure it was. You know, like, I can't be mad at him for it. Especially, again, he's doing the Matthew Cichuk act.

I got no problem with it. He's working. When stars on other unrelated teams are just calling you your organization losers, I don't know. Tell them when he's telling lies. Some teams would take that personally and perhaps react to it. But I don't know. I'm just, if I sound distracted, I don't know what time the media availability starts, but I'm going to be here to refresh on Twitter.

You guys will hear me react in real time if it starts, even though Ryan will be trying to talk about other things. Yeah, if you just hear some like soft whimpering and moaning in the background, that'll be Sean. If he mentions, you know, the Oilers power play and I suddenly begin to cry. Well, speaking of power plays, another change I'm making, I got to bring in a defenseman who's actually good on the power play. Like I know Morgan Riley, he makes all that money or whatever. but and I'm not saying the power play woes

are entirely his fault of course like you know Guy Boucher's running the fucking thing what do you want me to tell you you know I had somebody asked me they're like if they fire Keith do you think Gie Boucher's the guy and I was like I will punch you right in the mouth

come on you can't ask me questions like that brother that hurts and you know it hurts but But yeah, to me, I need to upgrade the defense very badly. Like every pending UFA, see you later. We're all set. And in part because most of the pending UFAs were like 35 years old or whatever, right?

I think those guys are all, well, I mean, Brody's done. Brody had a tough thing. Giordano's done. Yeah. Those guys are both. And Giordano's my age, so of course he's done. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Labushka and Edmondson both played well in the series. Now, I don't think, I think both of those guys, you have to let them probably walk to UFA just because their agents are going to be telling them. Like, this is the last contract. Yeah. You just played in Toronto under the big spotlight. You had a good series. See what's out there. I can't remember who said it on Twitter during game seven, but someone was like,

Edmondson looked surprised every time they pass him the puck. We were talking as we were all watching the game. Every time Marner, the only time you saw Marner until the end was him making a move and then passing it and you got excited for a second and realized it was Joel Edmondson.

Right. Getting the pass. And including we had a long debate over, like, at one point, Edmondson was like motioning for like the pass for the one-timer. and then got the pass, stopped it, got set, took a rich shot. And we're like, does Joel Emerson know how to do a one-timer? The Joel Edmondson experience.

Did Mitch Martyr just call his bluff on... Dude forgot which button was the one-timer button. But I think he was... He and Bouchkin were both good. But yeah. Now, when you say someone to run the power player, you're thinking like a power play specialist sort of guy? Or are you doing the thing where it's like they should go out and get a number one defenseman?

I think they should go out and get a number one defense. We talked about it last week. How many, on how many playoff teams in this postseason would he be the number one defenseman out of 16? But there aren't that many. Who do you go and get? Well, right. I mean, that is the thing, right? Like, it's tough.

And there's not a, there's probably not a good answer that they can actually pull off. because even if you're like Neelander in our next first or, well, they don't even have that, right? Like they'd have to. Well, I mean, we have our next first. It's just, it's just in a year that starts with a three. Right. You know what I mean. Yeah.

I don't think, no, isn't that they do have this year's first? They don't have next year's. They did hold on to this year's first. They don't have any picks next year. But they famously decided to tinker at the deadline this year because they're like, you know, we're probably not going to be like one goal away. Right. And then the other the other obvious move is like both their goalies are UFAs.

So as far as you mean like Martin Jones and. Yeah, right. Yeah. Wall will be back. But as Justin points out, he's got a injury history. You got to. You know what? I guess I didn't realize he played 25 games for them.

him this year. Yeah. And would have played more if he hadn't been heard. He had the high ankle sprain. Right. So I don't know. You do. Yeah.

I mean, you want a power play guy. I hear John Klingberg might be available. I'm not going to do the H.F. boards thing. It'd be like, uh, kneelander for, uh,

UC Soros and then you, you know, do whatever you, like cap retention to, to, to, make the money dead even or whatever. I don't, I don't, I don't think that's feasible.

And I, and I know for sure that there are probably 25 teams the way people are talking about it that are looking for a starting goalie this year, or for next year, I mean. So when the Leafs acquire Saros, do you split him time with Shisterkin? Or do you, no, Serochan. Sorokin, yeah. You know what, screw it, Shasturkin, too. Getting all three of them. If you get all three, I feel like you're going to be an okay shape.

I feel like you should be pretty set. Then you can rotate them every third game. That's right. Did you have any closing thoughts on the Leafs here? Let's move on. Not really. All I can say is I have not had maybe in my life as a Leaves fan. think I've had a playoff version of this team that I enjoyed less, which in a way is,

like I've had a couple of people who were like, like I put out the mailbag. I've had a couple of people like, yeah, here's my mailback question. Are you okay? And it's like, we got a decent amount of that on the Patreon today as well. It's like, dude, I am taking this playoff loss better than I think pretty much any that I've ever had to watch with this team. Because it's just like, oh, they lost. I'm disappointed for five minutes, and then it's like, all right, good, get out of here.

I have not enjoyed watching this version of the team in a few years now. Really, ever since the Montreal thing, although you try to fake it for a while. Sure. Cool. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Get out. Start.

You know, let's detonate this thing now. Well, what do you want to change for the sake of change? Yep, that's what I want right now. Yeah, you have. You literally have to. Even if it makes them more, I prefer it made them better, but yeah, just anything that's not the status. Worse how, you know what I mean? Like, what are we saying is worse here?

But I'll leave you with this. Extremely funny that Marner and Riley refused to talk to the media after Game 7. Awesome, really good. And then I go on elite prospects this morning. what do I see up in the top left-hand corner. Happy birthday, Mitch Marner, parenthesis, 27. Big salute, kid. You did it.

I bet he was on social media. Just like, I should check in and see. Everybody's being nice, probably. Everyone's wishing me a happy birthday. Yeah, it's tough out there. Stars nights. Good series. I don't know that last night.

I get kind of like we said with the Boston Toronto. Like, it wasn't a great game, although it wasn't like, it was a smoother game than Saturday night's game. Sure. You know, even as two ones games go. But great drama, two great teams. Two great teams.

Yeah. Hell of a, hell of a series. One of those series that, I mean, it felt like in the moment they dropped the puck, you're like, let's just go to game seven, man. We're headed there. And, I mean, it's very disappointing if you're, if you're Vegas, clearly, given how much they, they loaded up. They will be fascinating. Very few rentals, though, with the load up.

Yeah, especially once they got Hanifan signed. And hurdles locked in, obviously. Yeah. You know, they'll be back it. Well, now they do their thing, right? It's the Travis Yost thing where it's like they become sellers in the summer. Mm-hmm. And buyers at the deadline.

So now it's time for them to say, who knows? They'll take John of the Marsh so out behind the barn or whatever they need to do. Like there's going to be no motion, no... Yeah, it rocks. They will just do whatever they need to do, unlike some teams that I could mention. Um... And a great, you know, great for Dallas. That was a brutal matchup to pull in the first round when you're...

Yeah, I was thinking... I was thinking about it in terms of, like, you know, if they could have done the thing where, like, those two teams crossed over into the Boston Toronto series, like two sweeps maybe, you know? Two four-one series. But, yeah, just really good teams and fortunate that one of them had to lose in the first round, but that's how it goes. and I got to say this, do you know how many goals Vegas scored after the first period?

They scored three in the first period of game one. You know how many goals they scored after that against Jake Ottinger, not into an empty net? How many? In whatever. Basically almost seven games worth of hockey. The answer is 11. Wow.

Not going to win like that. As a Leafs fan, I'm impressed at that offensive output. That's crazy. Good for that. them. Yeah, to me, it is just like, yeah, they, Dallas didn't let them anywhere near the net. And I'm not saying like Vegas was like super like, oh, please, Dallas, you know, like, it was just a tight defensive series. And I want to say like the shot difference was only seven or eight, something.

like that. It was really close in terms of like just pure shots on goal. And then, um, you know, Wyatt Johnston. I don't know if you looked at like the, the underlying numbers for this series, but individual scoring chances. Wyatt Johnston had almost twice as many as the next closest guy on the team. It was like 40 to 21 or something like that, um, between him and Jamie Ben. He just went nuts. Their ability to find young players. It's crazy. That's what I was going to say. Outside the very, very top of the draft is, I mean, they haven't won anything yet, but, wow, that's, it just gives you a lot of confidence that, like, you know, Joe Pavelski talking about guys that are getting up there, Joe Pavelsky's like roughly my age as well. And, uh, oh, okay, we'll, we'll just,

we'll just, we'll just plug Wyatt Johnston there instead. What, you know, when he, uh, when Pavelsky can't go anymore. We'll just find some guy that's exactly as good as him. And it's like, well, how? And they don't worry about it. We got it. And then they do. It's crazy. They're so good. Ointinger, obviously, you know, some concerns early in the series. He, you know, really shut the door the last few games. Like you say, Dallas was kind of a leafy game by game scoring thing where it was like three, two, one, one, one, two, two, you know, that kind of. the thing. Dallas is just super impressive and well now you've got to play the Colorado Avalanche. Have a good one out there.

You know? It's tough. And by the way, can we just last thing on Vegas pour one out for the dream of seeing a team win a division title in a division they're not in? Yeah. They really felt like our best hope. They really did. Very, I mean, for all the ups and downs of the first.

first round, there's a lot of people who probably went eight for eight in their picks because it was all eight Vegas favorites, like as in odds maker favorites, won their series. The only home team to lose was Winnipeg and Colorado was considered a slight favorite in that series. Yeah, and that checks out. I actually, by the time people are hearing this, the article will have probably published, but I wrote yesterday about how basically easy a lot of of teams just had it in the first round. And then a few of the teams that made it through to the second round, like Boston, it's like, oh, if you think you can get away with playing like that against Florida, I don't know what to tell you.

You know what I mean? Even like the Rangers, we'll talk about game one of that series in a bit. But even like the Rangers, like, I didn't think they played particularly well against Washington. I think Washington just sucked, you know. And it worked in game one, good for them. But, you know, there was just a lot of a lot of teams where it's like, yeah, okay. I mean, the playoffs barely started for you guys.

And then you just had a full week off. I'm interested to see how things proceed in the second round here. I really like the playoff schedule that they released last night. It's, you know, just two games every night apart from tonight, basically. Um, very weird how you had round two starting before round one is over. And we're going to get several nights worth of hockey and then then Edmonton and Vancouver show up. Right. Yeah.

Them not starting till Wednesday is straight. And the fact that like last night people were like, we don't know when that series starts. I was like, really? I kind of assumed it started tomorrow. But I would have thought. I did see, I feel like I saw, maybe I'm misremembering now, but I feel like I saw like a bunch of Vancouver people being like, I'm pretty sure it's Tuesday. And then the NHL's like not so fast. Yep.

Big conflict for us there. But yeah, like you say, tough for Vegas just because they drew maybe the deepest like top to bottom team. in the maybe you know they don't have the high end like Colorado does in terms of just pure star power but um one through 20 who's deeper than

Florida I guess would probably be the only answer you really can come up with and uh that's not fun for Vegas but that's the playoff format folks I don't know what else to tell you and and you know what it's also I know we beat

the topic into the ground everywhere about Vegas, you know, putting guys on injured reserve. But this is the risk you take, right? Is that even if you know you're making the playoffs, well, I guess the difference between catching L.A. or not probably wasn't that big a difference because it's still Edmonton. Right. But I think Edmonton would have been a better matchup for these guys than Dallas was. Because that's the thing, too. When I was looking at stuff this morning, I was like, well, surely, like, you know, they trade, they changed between Aden Hill and Logan Thompson in the series and that kind of thing.

Like 920-something goaltending from the goalies in this one on both teams. And it's like, yeah, you know, you lost by one goal to a team that is probably a little bit better than you on paper. How it goes sometimes, you know, that's life. You know, again, the playoff format dictates. that you're probably not going to get the very best teams advancing out of every single round. And the sport itself, right? Like, that's the other thing. But, I mean, it's hard to argue that other than, I mean, who are the eight best teams in the league?

Maybe you take out Boston and put it in Vegas? Yeah. We pretty much got them. I mean, this is, if you love upsets and chaos and all that stuff, it wasn't a very good first round for you. But if you, if you want to. want the best of the best. This is a pretty good outcome. Yeah, all I'm saying is like, like you said earlier, you know, they might go, Christ, you know, we're this really good team, had a lot of injury difficulties this season, blah, blah, blah.

And for making the playoffs, our reward is playing the Dallas stars who are sick, you know? Yep. What can you do? Especially in this year where there were like 10 really good teams, but with. with nobody clearly being the better team. Like this is, yeah, this is where it's going to go. Yep. It could be a good second round.

Can't wait. I hope so, yeah. Do you have any thought? So I think this is the list of teams that got eliminated since we last spoke. The Kings, the Jets, the Bolts, and the Preds. Any thoughts on those guys? Not sure where the Kings go, but I feel like we already kind of talked about that. Almost since game one of that series.

Yeah. They're like, oh, these guys are done. Lightning, I mean, I know there's been a lot of talk of, okay, is this now the next team to enter that dreaded the windows closed, but they don't know it. Zone. Tough to say. Stamco's will obviously be a huge story to watch. Can I say this about the Kings? You can.

When I wrote my like, what will they do this summer article, it didn't even enter my mind that Rob Blake would be potentially not coming back. And then immediately some Kingsman on Twitter was like, yeah, you know, like Rob Blake's probably not coming back, right? And I was like, it didn't even occur to me, but it makes perfect sense that they would maybe want to make it. You can't lose to the same team three. Even if that team is the Edmonton Oilers, you can't lose to the same team three years in a row and expect, like, minor roster changes. Not when that team's in its prime sitting in your division.

Yeah. I mean, it's tough because Rob Blake has done a real good job. In some ways, yes, in some ways, no. Yeah, he is still dealing with a little bit of carryover. But not as much. He's had that job quite a while now, if I'm remembering, right? Like six or seven years. Yep.

And I guess the only, the only, like, real criticism I have is, like, they need those young guys that they rebuilt with or four or whatever you want to say. You know, like, they need Quentin Befield to, he had an awesome season, but I think they probably need him to take that another step. I think they need Brant Clark to, like, come in and be a full-time NHL defenseman and, like, make a difference, that kind of thing. but like other than that what guys that they got during this rebuild are you like oh yeah no that's a guy who's going to be like an anchor of this team like the guys they got that are making a difference during the quote unquote rebuild are like filled a no and gavergaverkov was awesome this year or was that Matt roy you know whatever you can make up your mind on that one for yourself but then you look and you're like Oh, their goalies this year were Cam Talbot, Dave Ridditch, and Phoenix Copley. Yeah. That feels like that's a problem, you know? But if you look at it, like they don't, the only goalie they have in the pipeline is Eric Portillo, who they traded for.

They didn't draft. Buffalo drafted him, and I'm pretty sure he refused to sign with Buffalo, if I'm remembering, right? And he really only has one season of pro hockey under his. felt. So he cannot be your starting goaltending option, even though I think he was, if I'm remembering right, pretty good in the AHO. But I'm really curious to see what they do this summer, just because like, if they make a change at the GM position, I guess that wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't be like upset. Like, how can you do this or anything? But I don't know that there are any, like, immediate fixes that get this team competitive next season, apart from trading for UCSR,

every team in the league's trading for U.S. Dude, I'm just thinking as you say this, as we're talking about L.A. is, I'm picturing New Jersey, the team that we were all waiting for them to make the big goalie move during the season. And when they didn't, and they tried. But when it didn't happen, a lot of people say, well, they'll just do it in the summer. And I remember saying, well, yeah, but by the summer, there's going to be more teams out there that want a goal. And sure enough, L.A., Toronto. Who else?

Tough. You know who doesn't need a goalie is Winnipeg? That was a brutal way to end a really impressive season, especially under the circumstances, knowing the situation with ticket sales and all of this, boy, a nice long playoff run would have been... It's tough, man. We talked...

Really, really important for that franchise. We talked about it last week. Like, they were bad in that series, like, including Hallibuck, you know, totally took ownership of it. And I was a little bit like, yeah, man, every goal they scored against you was a guy all by himself. Getting a clean look at you, like on a cross-ice pass. I don't know how much he was supposed to do beyond what he did.

Again, he wasn't good or anything, but like, I don't think any goal he's going to be good in that situation. But it does seem like, so going into the summer, Rick Bonas, has a team option, I believe, is what it is for next season. But the way he was talking doesn't sound like he's going to be too excited for them to exercise that option. So, you know, another team on the looking for a coach pile, I guess. And, hey, if you want a guy who has a lot of experience with first round losses where you can make some excuses. You know, it's wrong on Maple Leafs have just the guy for you. You got a guy for you.

He is under contract through, so you'll have to trade us multiple first round picks. That's right. Shake him free. Yeah, it's tough to know what the Jets do from here. They just don't have a – I feel like they don't have a ton of options on that roster to, like, make a big change. Like a lot of guys have at least one more year on their contract. Or are guys you wouldn't want to trade, basically? I don't know.

They're in a tough position for me to, again, like they had an impressive season, but how much of that is, well, Connor Hallibuck said I'm going to go up and stop 92.5% of the shots we face tonight, you know? Yeah. For whatever, I don't know what it says here, 60 games, I would have guessed it was even more than that. I don't, I don't know what they're in. answer is. It's tough. That's a tough division. You wonder if we're not going to look back on that Jets team and say, you know what, maybe they should have made the big shake up in summer of 2023 after all.

Because they, you know, we thought this time last year, we assumed they would do it. They didn't. We said, well, that's crazy. You're not going to be able to re-sign your guys. They resigned the guys. Everyone said, hey, good job by them. And then they have a great season. perception can change a lot in two weeks in playoffs. Nashville is the last one? Nashville is the last one, yeah. I mean, disappointing the way the series went as far as, you know, nobody, you go in as a wild card against a very good team,

you expect to be the underdog, but then their two best goalies get injured? Yeah. Now you feel like maybe that series is there for the taking. Plus, obviously, you had the one game that you just completely coughed up. Yeah. All that said, I'm not sure. They weren't supposed to be here. So the fact that they were, like, I guess you just have to say good for them.

I can't decide if I think that they're on the right track or if I'm worried they're going to be one of those stuck in the middle teams. I think they kind of just by the nature of their salary cap situation, they kind of have to be. Where, you know, like their ceiling is maybe sixth in the West or whatever. And given how good the West is, like, that would be great for them. But they need, they need Soros to, like, have a, have a Connor Hellebuck style season, which he's totally capable of, I should say, to be, like, really, feeling competitive in the Western Conference. Let's not forget, like, their season was done and dusted until that U-2 thing, you know,

like everybody's like, that's it, bye, see you later. They sold at the deadline in certain, or, no, I guess they bought a couple of guys at the deadline because of the U-2 thing had already happened, right? But they were shaping up to sell at the deadline, I guess, what I'm remembering. But then from that point on, they were, you know, lights out, yeah. Arbitrary endpoints and all of that. but from that point on,

they were one of the very best teams in the league. I think somebody said they were scoring at the same rate as the Oilers from then on. Right. Yeah. It's weird. To that point, though, you really expect that that keep happening? You know, Ryan O'Reilly is like their second best forward. Good player, but like, come on, man.

If he's your second best forward, maybe you don't have it as much as, uh, as much as you might want it. Yeah, it's really tough for them just because you kind of go, like you said, where are we going with this team? I don't know that they know what the answer is. I'll say this, though. The reason everyone's talking about UC Soros to fill in the blank, one year left at five million bucks, and he's 29.

Do they want to re-sign him? I don't think they do, given that they've got, what's the kid's name? Ascarov? Ascarov, yeah. That's true, yeah. So, you know, do you get out in front of that? I think you have to. Interesting.

Yeah, I mean, I could see it going either way, right? Especially, again, given the number of teams that right now are probably, forget the number of teams, the number of GMs who are saying, I need to get a goalie. Mm-hmm, sure. Yeah, it's, you know, it's interesting. I think they have a great coach. I think they need to upgrade at the four.

I was going to say every position, but goalie, you know, unless they make a trade. I guess my point is they need to pick a direction and fucking really go in it. You know what I mean? They need to go,

are we going to be the sixth best team in the West? Okay, how do we make that more replicable? or they got to say, are we going to be like the 12th place team in the West? And they got to go in that direction. They got to, they, a lot, fewer, fewer of their guys than you would think for how veteran the team is have any kind of trade protection. We'll put it that way. And do you think, Ryan O'Reilly with three years left at four and a half million bucks, you think that appeals to someone out there, you know?

Maybe. But they need to choose and they need to really like pursue that goal hard, like hard, hard. Because where they're at right now where it's like, oh, you know, it was really good for them in the playoffs was like, Kiefer Sherwood. And it's like, well, hold on. That can't be a real guy. It's like, I assure you it is, you know. So I'm interested to see what they do this summer. But yeah, for sure.

You never know. All right, why don't we, after all that, take our first break, and we'll come back and we'll talk about some second round series. This week's episode of Puck's Whoop is brought to you by Raycon, and folks, you've heard me talk about Raycon on here before, their everyday ear buds, and you've heard me say, oh, it sounds just as good as the other guys, the big guys, the big name brands, but it costs half the price. And you might be thinking, how's that possible? Some of you who already bought the Raycons, you know what I'm talking about. You know that it sounds great. You know that it's half the price, but whether you're a skeptic still or you already followed through, now's the time to get in on Raycon because here's what just happened.

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Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem the code Puck. That's PUCK for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, we're back. Let's talk about it. Carolina, the Rangers, what do you think? Good start for New York. That's what you're looking for. What do we all say? Five on five, blah, blah, blah. You scored twice in the power plant, 20 seconds. Doing all right. I mean, that's another series is going to be a tough one. All the series are going to be good ones, I think.

I think you're right about it. Did you have a pick? I mean. Going into game one, I would have said Carolina. Yeah, I was going to say, do you have the guts that still go Carolina? I'll still go, you're not in trouble until you lose at home, you know. I still, I'll put it this way. I still think that Carolina is the better team.

Again, one through 20. They don't have the top end that New York does, obviously. And if Mika Zabandajad is going to play like that, it's Rangers in four, right? Like, he went nuts in that game. But I thought the Rangers also carried play at five on five for the most part, which I wouldn't have expected going into that series. I would have said, you know, it's a game that they're going to win or lose on special teams, and they did, of course.

You can't put the Rangers up on those two power plays in the first period when you're already down a goal. Yep. You just can't do it. And look, the first goal they gave up where, I guess it was Zabanajad. They were just like, oh, we won't cover him. It's not like he's like a lethal goal score when he has space or anything. Which I personally would not have done that that way. I would.

No, I would have had a guy on him. But I guess that's the difference between me and Rod Brindamore, you know. Hey, by the way, not to sidetrack. Yeah. The Brindamore contract stuff, are we? Mm-hmm. Is this just the same story as a few years ago where goes around? It feels like there's more media involvement.

Yeah. But. Yeah, I think I think Elliot said on 32 thoughts last week that it's more that like Rod Brindamore proxies were out in the media

or like, you know, getting the message out to the media that it wasn't. It wasn't fair how he was being treated and all that kind of stuff. And maybe Rod Brindamore himself, was like, I don't, I don't think we need to make this as big of a thing as it is. I've, I'm somewhat surprised I've seen a few places talking about like, well, this is just Tom Dunden, man, this is how he does business.

It's like, yeah, it sounds like he's taking his most valuable, loyal employee and taking extreme advantage of their loyalty in order to keep more nickels and dimes in his own billionaire pocket. Yeah. Which, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't love working for that, but all right. Let's say that's a well-earned reputation. I don't know that that's, again, you know, just based on what you hear, whatever, from insiders, quote-unquote. I don't know that that's actually what happened here, but, you know, it's all going to get taken care of, I guess.

Well, I mean, if a guy who everyone agrees could be close to the highest paid coach in the league on the open market ends up getting slightly less than that to stay in a situation he likes, cool. Yeah. If he takes a big haircut because, like I say, the billionaire owner just knows that he can put a knee in his back, then I don't know. Yeah. That's not my money. Who cares? But yeah, obviously, you don't want to put the Rangers on two first period power plays when you're, on frankly, dumb penalties, not good penalties to take.

And you don't want to go down 3-1 or whatever it was at the end of all that. That's just not a team you're going to have an easy time coming back against. Although, they made it look like it might not be that hard if you're the Rangers. And then this is what I want to get your take on here. How bad was that fourth goal that Freddie Anderson gave up? Don't start the playoff Freddy stuff. Don't go doing that. The guy's going to probably win the Master's a great story.

It is a great story. But, and I'm also a longtime Freddie Anderson defender. He's going to make that fucking safe. Agreed. I don't know what else to say, but yeah. You know, if you're looking at the... But there's nothing there. There's nothing in that game if I'm a Carolina fan that makes me go, oh, we're in trouble.

Totally 100%. Taking stupid penalties. Yeah, which is fixable. And the fact that you lost, I mean, great analysis here, but, yeah, winning's better than losing. Yeah, well, the other thing about, um, the other thing about, um, penalties is as series go on, there tend to be fewer of them called, which does not benefit the Rangers, I would say. You know?

Yep. So there's that as well. It's tough to really like start breaking everything down in the series because like you're, we're in that no man's land of, well, we already saw the one game versus, you know, like Bruins Panthers. We can be like, oh, I think this could happen or that could happen. We saw one game here. And if it goes like this again for the hurricanes, that's bad.

That's my analysis. You know what I mean? But yeah, I just, I guess like I said with Freddie Anderson, I look at it and I go, would I rather have him in goal or Igor Shistercate? Well, it's pretty close one, but I guess I'll go with. It's a tough one. I guess I'll go with Igor. But yeah, I thought that was a fun game.

can't say anything bad about the entertainment value. So big shout out. Let's stay in the East. Bruins Panthers, your thoughts. I mean, everyone's picking the Panthers. Not hard to see why. You have to. Yeah. They are the better team.

They are rested. For sure. I mean, it's fun to see the dynamic flip from last year. Yeah. Florida were the underdogs. Boston comes in as the 130 point. Get upset. So now it's the, in theory,

it's the revenge tour for the Bruins. This is your payback. And you've got the opportunity to pay them back the way they did you, which is as an underdog that nobody's picking. I think given what happened last year, certainly there should not at any point be a point in this series that anyone's saying, well, that's it, until it's over.

You know, if it's 3-1 or something, okay, see where it goes. But on paper, Florida is clearly the better team. And we should win this series in five or six feels like where we should be headed. But as we learned last year, that only takes you so far. It doesn't always work out that way, for sure. Um, yeah, I, I, the thing that I wonder about first and foremost is what Boston does with the goaltending, because Swayman just played five games in a row for the first time all season. Mm-hmm. And I have seen the suggestion, which I am intrigued by, I don't know if I agree with it, that, um, what they might do is go Allmark Games one and two.

and then you go back to Boston with Swayman, like, fully rested up, ready to go. And, I think that would be crazy, but I'm not, I don't think it would be outside the realm of possibility, let's say. I get the idea, you've got two great goalies. Swayman was fantastic against the Leafs. Unreal. Has been fantastic all year. Allmark was the vest. a winner last year.

So I get the idea that if you've got two great goalies, hey, keep them fresh, go back and forth. But, I mean, at some point, I mean, Jeremy Swamon is going to be the long-term starter in Boston. Can this guy be a full-time goalie or not?

That is the question they have to ask. You know, why can every other team start its goalie night in and night out in the playoffs? But Boston can't. And if the answer is, well, the drop off to the backup is so small compared to other teams. Okay, sure. Right.

But, I mean, if, like, five games in a row, it's not nothing. But, you know, maybe if they'd won it in six, we wouldn't be having this. I mean, there'd be plenty of reasons we'd be having that discussion. But if they'd won it in six, we're probably not even thinking about Allmark, and now we have to. So I think what you're saying is the Leafs really did beat the Bruins in a way. way. Just. It's the mental game.

It's the long game. You know? Yep. And yeah, I, like, I'd stick with Swayman just because, as you say, goalies play two games, or, you know, five games in row, six games in a row all the time in this league. He's, maybe at some point last year he played five games straight, but 44 games this year, 37 the year before that, 41 before that. This isn't a guy who is getting a ton of run out.

And as you say, there's plenty of reasons for that. Allmark has been great the last few years. But like you got a shit or get off the pot with this. Is he your starting goalie, your goalie of the future or not? And by the way, he's a pending RFA with arbitration rights. And Allmark has one year left on a deal with a modified no trade clause. So, like, you know, you can get the party started on Jeremy Swamen is the guy right now. Mm-hmm.

And he's given you no reason to think he needs the rest. You'd just be doing that just because it's like we need to mix it up a little bit. And also, I forgot to say this about, we talked a lot about the Leafs, obviously, in the last segment. But with the Bruins, like, they. seemed like they got in their heads a little bit about, are we also the losers here? Mm-hmm. You know, like staying in a hotel and all that kind of stuff.

Um, I don't know if they won that game so much as Toronto lost it, that kind of thing. I'm very curious to see, uh, to see how they handle like lineup decisions and things of that nature. Um, nothing they do would surprise me, I guess is my point, you know?

Yeah. And you wonder, like, it's kind of a whiplash going from, we're going to blow 3-1 series lead, everyone's getting fired, this will be a disaster, right into underdog mode. Nobody believes in us, no practice. Including us. Yep. Yep. So, again, we're going to say this for all four of them, but good series. in theory. Like you say, I think this is one of those series

where it's like, could get ugly, actually. Because look, like the Bruins, the Bruins couldn't generate a ton of scoring chances against the Toronto Maple Leafs. You think they're going to be doing that against the Florida Panthers? Who's like, whole thing is you don't get to go near our goal?

Mm-hmm. You know, a team with maybe one defenseman had them on the rope. What about a team with three? You know, like Sasha Barkov as a shutdown guy is maybe not that much different from Austin Matthews, but, you know, maybe Barkov's going to be at 100%. He just had a week and a half off or whatever it was, you know? Uh-huh.

The only, the thing, I saw Kachuk address this yesterday, I think it was, or maybe he did it on Saturday, and I only saw the quote yesterday. But he was like, yeah, you know, the rust might be a factor, but we get up to speed pretty quick, is what he said. And it's like, you know what? That is the only, if the Bruins as a team that just played the other day can kind of come out and catch the, catch the Panthers with flat feet or whatever you want to say to start the series, maybe that'll make it interesting. But I do, as you mentioned, I do kind of expect this to be a five or six game series. Sounds right.

Yeah. It does. Bruins are a pretty good team, not a great team. Panthers are a great team. Let's move out west. Oilers Canucks. I was going to say that that feels like a segue into Oilers Canucks. Great team versus good team.

Yeah. Yep. Is there, I mean, if I'm a Vancouver fan, I'm tearing my hair out again. Once again, no respect. Once again, nobody's buying into us. Can I say, though? That series against Nashville, they earned that no one's buying in dust thing. I think it was five out of the six games.

They had 21 or fewer shots on goal. You think that's going to cut it against the fucking Edmonton Oilers? I don't know, man. Not likely. No. It would not want to be a third-string goalie facing the Oilers. And, I mean, who knows? It's the NHL.

No, for sure it is. I could have a 50 save shutout in game one. Absolutely. But is that the most? likely outcome. Doesn't seem to be. Right. Yeah, no, like they needed a Nashville meltdown to get to this point. And the Oilers, you want to talk about making it look easy on the power play. Holy shit, man. You take a single penalty against the Oilers and you can just put a goal on the board, it feels like.

And it's, I've never seen a. power play like this. Not just in terms of the success rate because it's phenomenal, but yeah, we've seen power plays get hot. But like, it's just the way a power play is supposed to work, where you get in, you get set up, whatever setting up

it looks like. It's effortless. And this, it just feels like it's five guys just flying around. Yeah. They seem to know what they're doing, but it's like watching a flock of birds where you're just like, how do they all know where to go when? Because it's different every time. It's unbelievable, yeah.

There's no structure, but there clearly is structure. Or maybe there isn't. It's just flying around and McDavid's going everywhere and it's a whirlwind and then suddenly the puck is to Drisdell in that one spot and it's in. You ever see the Harlem Globetrotters? You ever see the Globetrotters? When they do the thing where they're like running in a figure eight and just passing the ball effortlessly in between all of them and the generals are just like,

how do we defend this? I don't know if you know this. games are actually rigged. What? For the globe? Yeah, it's true. And, um, but it does feel like in a not rigged way, they're doing the Harlem Globetrotters running in a figure eight thing.

Like you just, it's like this whirlwind of activity and then the puck's in the net. And you're like, well, I don't know what just happened to me. But I, I guess we'll go take this face off at Santa Rice. And what do you do? You go back to the bench and look at that on an iPad and go, here's what you should have done in this situation that will never occur again because their next power play is going to look completely different. Yeah.

Good luck. Did you read the Pierre LeBren piece where he like talked to a butt, he talked to like Patrice Bergeron and Ken Hitchcock and was like, what would you do? Yeah, how would you defend this? And like everybody was just like, good luck, man. Just don't take penalties was basically the answer. Yep. That must be.

And I'm trying to think like, I get. I guess I don't think that Canucks like took a ton of stupid penalties or anything in that in that Nashville series. I don't take any. Let's see here. Well, you know what? The Predators had the second most power play minutes in the first round. Is that good?

Because like if the Predators are drawing penalties on you, that's probably an indication. that you're having a little bit of trouble keeping up with them? Who's a faster team than the Nashville Predators? I'm trying to think. Yeah, interesting. It's a tough one. So you're clearly picking Edmonton. You have to.

Third string goalie, like you said. God, they scored nine power play goals in five games. You know, even if the Canucks can somehow start staying out of the box. the way, the Canucks drew the third fewest power play minutes in the first round. I had only Vegas and the Islanders. Wow, I didn't realize Dallas only gave Vegas 18 power play minutes. That's crazy. But yeah, so to me, I'm a little nervous if I'm the Canucks. I just don't know that there's a good answer for how you go forward here. Because, okay, you're going to not play them on the PowerPlay?

Fine. How do you feel about playing these guys at five on five? Oh, all so bad you're saying? Interesting. It's tough. Is there a scenario where Vancouver wins this series? Sure, there is. Yeah.

I mean, you know, there's like a 20% chance or whatever. Ooh. Right? Mm-hmm. Maybe that's not what like the odds are on like Money Puck or whatever, but that's, that feels about right, doesn't it? Like that it's possible but not likely. Yeah. You know what?

Yeah. How about this? Money Puck says 48.2% chance to make the third round. Wow. That's better than I would have thought. Oh, a lot better than I would have thought. Yeah. Dallas has a 49.4% chance.

but the other thing to say is that of the underdogs Vancouver is second out of four and that does include the Rangers already having that one win against Carolina so that obviously skews things a bit I don't know what they were going into the first or the second round but yeah I'll tell you this about Vancouver you know who needs to start putting the puck in the net

is Elias Pedersen. Our old buddy Petey. Yep. They need him to play way better than he has. If they want to have any chance at all. I'm not telling Tales out of school, am I? No, not at all. And, I mean, if you're a Vancouver fan,

you're pretty confident that that could happen. Yeah. No, it's not like Edmonton has like an unbelievable defense or whatever. It's the way they play defense is by, having Connor McDavid out there and he has the puck for his entire shift. That's usually how they play defense. In fact, I'm looking at the underlying numbers right now. They weren't that good at five on five against the Kings.

They didn't need to be, obviously. But like 46% of the shots, only 50% of the goals at 5 on 5, 48% of the expected goals. There's room for Vancouver there. Not a ton of it, you know. The other thing is, obviously, like, you would say maybe Edmonton can't trust the goaltending. Which is, it's something we've been saying about this team, but then you get to Vancouver and... They have, they're on their third string goal. Does Edmonton have the goaltending advantage in this series?

Probably. Feels like it would, yeah. Although Seale-Oves plays like he did in the National Series. That's it. Like I said, there's a path forward here. It doesn't feel like it's the easiest path to take. Does not. Av stars.

Awesome series in theory. I hope that the rest isn't such an advantage for Colorado that it deprives us of what should be another seven-game classic. I have no idea who I'm picking in this way. You want to talk about goaltending question marks. I don't have the first clue what to expect from. the avalanche there. Totally. Yeah, it's, um,

they're obviously a, a great team. And apart from, you know, the one insanely bad game, the goaltending was actually pretty good for them in that jet series, although the jets didn't, uh,

didn't exactly threaten a lot of those games, you know? Um, but yeah, I think the, I think the rest thing, you know, rest versus rough.

like what is the they haven't played in like a week and a half or whatever by the time the series starts I think something like that Is it gonna be that long? No, you know what? I'm thinking of Edmonton's rest. They haven't played in fucking forever

by the time the series starts on Wednesday. Well, I think Colorado's had like a... The game starts at four in the morning, so that will allow Vancouver to catch up. I'll look up the last time Colorado actually had like a a game, but it's, it's been quite a while, certainly.

It was April 30th, today is May 6th, so. And they don't play until May 7th. So about a week and a half, turns out. A week and a bit, yep. Yeah. It's a long time to go at this time of year. It's kind of the Bruins thing. Would you rather have just played?

And yeah, you played a grueling seven game series against a team that was pretty evenly matched with you the whole way. but yeah the thing is like again Vegas got really good goaltending and didn't win that series you know a bunch of one goal losses basically I don't I don't know if you can count on on Colorado to be as easy to defend

easy is not the right word but you know what I mean And like I think the Colorado attack will give Dallas a lot more to think about than Vegas did. Which is saying something given that the Vegas attack was good enough to win a Stanley Cup last year. But you're right. Like this is, oh, this is going to be a good series. I mean, this is. Yeah, it's what it's all about, man. Imagine being Dallas and like your path to the final is Vegas, Colorado, probably Edmonton.

If they get there, you can't say they didn't earn it, you know? Good Lord. Like I said, that division's a meat grinder. Like that's why I'm looking at Winnipeg and Nashville going like, I don't know what you guys are doing next year. But they're in like kind of a, the like Ottawa, Detroit situation where it's like, I don't know who you think you're beating from this group, Buffalo too. I don't know who you think you're beating from this top three or top four. but like good luck. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Same thing with the Utah Yeti. You know, like, oh, you guys want to be competitive next year? Okay, you're in a division with Colorado, Dallas. Enjoy it. Yeah. Unreal, man. Anyway, yeah, I don't know what to expect from this series,

except I expect to be pretty entertained by it. And, you know, I guess. I'm looking forward to it. This is going to be. This will be a great series to be a neutral third party fan watching. Absolutely, yeah. It'll be agonizing for fans of those two teams. Right.

Too bad. That's what you get for picking a team that makes it out of the first round sometimes. Get what you deserve. Give me your picks real quick for this round. I mean, I picked it. I feel like it should be the law that if you pick a team to win the cup, you have to pick them in your individual series. So give me Dallas.

So you're saying, oh, I thought you were going to say Toronto. Yeah. Give me Edmonton. Give me, I'll take the Rangers. Why not? And Florida. I was trying to talk myself into it. Yeah, you can't.

You can't, right? I'll stick with Caroline. I'll go Florida. I'll go Edmonton. I'll go Colorado. I don't know. It's... I think this is going to be a fun round,

apart from maybe the Florida and Edmonton series. I think the other two should be really good. So here's hoping. Yep. All right, why don't we take one more break? We'll come back. We'll talk about the awards nominees. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by our good friend.

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The finalists are Quinn Hughes, Roman Yosey, Kail McCar. Sounds about right. Sounds about right. Quinn Hughes will win. Yosey probably moved from third to maybe second. I think it's going to be close there. But yeah, I think that's where we're headed. Yeah, that feels, that feels correct.

I don't have a ton to say about it, obviously. I think Hughes, I said it last week, or maybe two weeks ago, should be in the MVP conversation. He was so good for them this year. And yeah, I got no problem with him winning it. He should get a couple of cracks at this before his career's over. So why not get the party started now, you know? The Masterton, Freddie Anderson, Connor Ingram,

Oliver Shillington. Yeah, I mean, the Masterton, you've, there's never like Masterton nominees where you're like, that guy, what? Sure, there is. There's plenty of times. Yeah, where it's just like, this guy's 37. He's still going. You believe it?

It's like, yeah, they're paying. I mean, there's guys on the, on the original lists, like when all 30. Well, that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying by the time you get to the final three, it's like, sure. These are all good stories. It seems like Freddie Anderson's going to win, but... Yeah.

He has the dual, the dual, like, selling point of... He's been around for a really long time, which voters love. And he has, as you say, like a compelling, like, you know, he dealt with blood plots. So it felt like it might be the end of his career. And a better player, which doesn't matter, but it kind of does. Sometimes it does, yeah, absolutely. And of course, that means that all that stuff, Schillington and Ingram went through this year,

which was awful for them. Not as impressive. Sorry, that's how this award works. Didn't matter. Nope. What a stupid award to, like, have finalists for. Just say, like, a guy won. You know what I mean?

Yeah, that might be better. The losers. Yeah, it just creates the situation where... First of all, like, 29 huge losers that got nominated and didn't even... Pathetic. Didn't even make the finalists. I mean, not even talking about the 700 enormous losers who didn't even get their team nominations. Yeah, it's pathetic, man.

It's really sad to see. This one's actually an interesting trio here for the Jack Adams Award. Rick Bonas. Andrew Brunette, Rick Tocket. So Tuckett's going to win. And I think it was, Gurg said that the flyers dropping out of the playoffs

kind of opened up a spot. Totally. Yeah, of course. Which presumably is Bono. I think Andrew Burnett probably finishes second. I mean, you could have made arguments for other guys. Yeah, Bonnet. Bonus has the kind of master teny, like, you know, he had a rough go of things, and the team was really good this year. Well, really good is maybe overstating it, but was good this year.

And, you know, I expected, which is what you're looking for in the Jack Adams. And again, how much of that's the Vesna? Did they say, I don't think they did do the Vesna yet. Oh, no, they did. And everybody's just like, oh, it's Carm McDavid. Yeah. Or Carmick David. And then people think that like Bobroff's.

was the third guy. It's like he's going to finish third a mile back. Who cares? Yeah. The only one we don't have yet is the heart, which is tomorrow. Right. Today is yet, today is yet another one of the Nice Guy Awards.

One of the six. I got to see who's a finalist for the Messier. Oh, so many good options out there. Oh, I got a hero. Yeah. Anyway, like you say, Talk it feels like it's going to win. but the top three got a little interesting just because I am a little surprised.

Like, even with the flyers dropping out, I thought Tortorella would have squeaked through. Yeah. And he didn't. So. Now, I know this is your favorite award, the Lady Bing. Hmm.

Austin Matthews, Leas Pedersen, Jacob Slavin. Sure. I'll say this. I hope Slavin wins. I like when a defenseman wins it. Yep. But I like all three of these players.

No problem. Whatever. Okay. Now here's another really interesting one, because it's a two-horse race, obviously. Sasha Barkov, Austin Matthews, Jordan Stahl. Is that even a two-horse race? Well, so it is because Barkov is the guy they decided in September is winning this award, right? Yeah.

Tell me I'm wrong, you know? This is one of those awards where they just, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they. get together, the PHWA, they get in a smoke-filled room, and they say on September 1st, this is the guy who we're all going to push to win the North. There was a succession plan in place. Yes. When Bergeron retired, we already had the other guy ready to go. Yep. And I say this all the time.

This is a, this is an award with like kind of a long tail where it's like, did you deserve it three years ago? Okay, you get to be in the conversation now. you know what I mean and I'm not saying Barkoff didn't deserve it this year he's a great player obviously one of the best defensive or 200 foot players

in the league and all that kind of stuff but the reason I think this is interesting is that Austin Matthews continued his reputation for playing really good defense and scored almost 70 fucking goals you know what I mean

like people act like this is a defense award it's a 200 foot player award. It is. And to me, like, if you score almost 70 goals and you notice how hard I'm trying not to say 69, so people be like, you sign the number. But, yeah, to me, like, if you play that much good defense and you score 69 goals

and 107 points and everything, you have to at least have the fuck. fucking conversation. You know what I mean? Barkov is going to win. You know what's crazy? Is that us, imagine at the beginning of the year saying that somebody is going to win the Rocket Richard by double digits

and be a Selky finalist. And he's not going to win it, yeah. And probably not even a heart trophy finalist. It's unbelievable. And not necessarily, I'm not even saying it's wrong. It just kind of speaks to the, you know, what a fascinating season it was. But

But the only other player, I think, who's ever come close to that, like, Fedorov the year that he won the Selke was, I want to say maybe second in goals in the league. That sounds. And won the Selk. And won the MVP. He was, like, 50 goal season. The fact that somebody could win the Rocker Shard by 12 goals, I think it was, NBA Selky family. elite defensive player. And it's just like, I'm sorry, man, there's not going to be any real.

You see how many assists this other guy got? Yeah, please take a hike. Tell your story walking. You and Connor Hellibuck. Yeah. It's true. Like, if it weren't, if it weren't for like, you know, all the, I'll put it this way. David Posternak.

The whole game seven, they were talking about this guy hasn't done shit in this series, blah, blah, blah, blah. 47 goals in the regular season. That was seventh in the league. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. 47 only gets you to seventh in the league in, in 2024. Is that not crazy? Mm-hmm. Like, it used to be like three guys maybe max would get 50 goals.

Max, yeah. That's what I mean. Like, well, people might not remember this. Yeah, people might not remember pre-lockout. I think it was the last year before the Lockhart or maybe the one right before it or two years before it. There was a three-way tie for the Rocket Richard. And it was Eginla Nash and Kovilchuk, I want to say.

And I think they had 41 or 42 goals to lead the league. And now it's like, yeah, you don't get into the top five if you don't have 52 or whatever the number was. Awesome. What a cool league this is all of a sudden. But all that being said, you know, if the MVP award were voted on in a way that actually took value into account and not was just like, look at how many fucking secondaries this guy had. The top three would be like McDavid, Matthews, Hellebuck, right? like in terms of pure value to their team, Quinn Hughes may be up there as well.

But in terms of pure value to their team, that would be a really tough top three to crack. And I don't think any of those guys are winning the award. And I think only one of them is going to be top three. Sounds about right. Because again, they decided Nathan McKinnon was winning this fucking thing. I mean, I can't see. And I'm not saying Nathan McKinney, he had an unbelievable season.

points or whatever. Yes. No, awesome player. Unbelievable. But, you know, look at all the other guys

on that team. You know what I mean? A lot of, a lot of really good players on the, on the Colorado avalanche. Fewer on a lot of these other teams. Fair.

That's all. Yeah. That's all. But yeah, I like you, I expect, I expect Barkov to win and I don't,

I don't think he's like undeserving, I'll say. But I do think that Matthews is more deserving. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah. Okay.

Well, I mean, you would say that, right? Freaking Homer. Homer. I guess that's the other part is people, you can't vote for Matthews because then people yell at you on Twitter when you reveal your ballot. And they call you a Leafs Homer and Toronto Media guys. So you've got to show that you're not that. 69 goals.

And elite defense. Okay. but also Gus 417 Who Come on Gus Has a picture of a Leafs logo With a circle and a line through it As his Twitter avatar

Is gonna call me an idiot So Gus, we need to get you thinking 21st century hockey You know what I mean, brother? Hate hearing from Gus Stupid Gus Sucks

Why don't you hit him with the plugs We'll get the hell out of here You can find me at the athletic What have I got this week? I've got my annual draft lottery power rankings. Tomorrow. That's fun. The draft lottery is tomorrow.

We didn't really talk about it, but I don't know what people want us to say. Ping-pong balls are going to bounce around and... Okay, let's say this. Someone's going to be happy. Someone's not. Who do you hope wins it? Who do you hope wins it? I would say...

I mean, San Jose needs the guy. They do. And there's a California connection and all of that. Let's go San Jose. I like that. Yeah, I mean. You can talk me into a Buffalo or somebody like that. Not Chicago.

I mean, the jerk in me wants Pittsburgh to win, but they don't move all the way up. No, they would not. Didn't. Oh, yeah. No, San Jose got their pick anyway. So who cares if they win? I'm sure it's protected, though. Wouldn't it be?

I'm on tankathon.com and it says it's San Jose's, it says it's San Jose's pick. Interesting. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like San Jose for all the reasons you said they need the help. It would be really fucking funny if Utah won it. It would be. Wouldn't it be?

Mm-hmm. Welcome to the league. Oh, nobody would think it was fixed at all if that happened. All you got to do is write Gary Betman to check for 1.2 Bill. Mm-hmm. You get a first overall pick out of the deal. No problem, buddy. According to cat-friendly, Pittsburgh pick is protected, by the way.

Oh, okay. Before people get their hopes up. Well, Tankathon lied. People died. So, yeah, thanks so much, everybody for, oh, wait, no. My plugs. Oh, and find me on the Athletic Hockey Show. We got Frankie this week.

I'm sure it'll be a fun one. Probably responding to the Sheldon Keith firing. That's true, yeah. Better be. What if they wait till Thursday morning? What if they wait till a Thursday morning in 2006? Just give this thing a couple more swings. Look, I mean, they got so close.

Hear us respond to the Sheldon Keith extent. We didn't even talk about the fucking Sheldon Keefe quotes. Which ones? The ones where he's like, ah, you know, the, the, the leaves, teams put the leaves in a position to beat themselves. Unbelievable. Buddy, I know you, I know you're getting fired, but you can't say that out loud, man. This guy's bad at talking. It's unreal.

He also had to, like, can't question the effort level, which I think we did talk about last week because it was. Yeah, we did for. can't question the effort. You know what, Sheldon? Watch this. This is going to blow your mind what I'm about to do. I'm going to question the effort level. Oh, man.

You can't let this guy go. Good luck. Good luck in your future endeavors, Sheldon. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, and for me, E.P. Rinkside, obviously, I got plenty of stuff about all the teams that got eliminated and what they might do this summer. I have what we learned coming up about, you know, how easy teams had it in the first. Some teams had it in the first round.

And then I don't know what I got coming up after that because I'm on a little bit of a vacation for the next week. I got some family-related traveling to do. So, you know, I'll be around. I'll be watching. I'll be if, you know, maybe I won't write about the Sheldon keep firing. I feel like I've said everything that I need to say on that. But, you know, if other stuff happens, I'll be around. And then because I won't be around for most of the next week,

next week's puck soup will be on a later date in the week than Monday or Tuesday. We don't have anything nailed down on that front yet. But, you know, stay tuned, I guess. And the way things are going, we'll probably catch you with at least one team on the brink of elimination, perhaps. So maybe Maybe and then go over and check out patreon.com slash puck soup Sean and I already recorded a bonus episode

that'll come out later this week, I want to say. And we, I don't want to speak for Sean, but I had fun doing it. Yeah. But what was it? I don't remember. Well, I don't want to spoil it. All right.

Don't spoil it. No, I do remember. It was good. Okay, there you go. Yeah. So check that out. Like I said, we had a fun one. And yeah.

that's it. Thanks so much for listening everybody. We'll talk to you at some point like a week and a half from now, I think. And see you later. Bye-bye. Enjoy the second round.