Puck Soup - Blackhawks Scandal Aftermath

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

Hey everybody, it's Future Greg. I just want to let you know that at the end of the show, after the overrated, underrated this week, we talk about the Morgan Riley signing and the Kevin Shevoldeoff ruling from Gary Betman. Those two things broke moments after we had finished recording. So we added on a little coda at the end of the show to address them. And with that, here is this week's edition of Puck Soup, which may or may not involve the Chicago Blackhawks.

Sticks and hits and goals And saves and slapshots and goons We've got Sportly commentary To what if you commute We also cover movies TV shows It's in tunes

It's your weekly Bowl of Hockey and Nonsense I'm I'm Greg Wysinski VSPN Home of the Point Where I met My new best friend

John Tortorella For the first and last time. I'm Ryan Levert from EP Wringside. I've never met John Tortorella, and I never will. And Ryan, did we fill our Sean quota for the week? You know what? Normal Sean is...

Tied up with life things. Yep. Yes. There's some stuff going on. So we brought in a different Sean, and it's maybe not the one you're thinking of. I'm Sean Leahy from Mika. auto auctions, ready to put you in a brand new 1992 Chevy Camaro today

and also NBC Sports. Hi, how are you? It's our old fuck daddy friend, Sean Leahy. Layhe, how are you, man? I'm good. I haven't been on the podcast since some guy Dave was hosting it. You guys remember him?

No, it doesn't ring a bell. Lots changed for you since the last time you were on. I stole your rights. So I apologize for that. ball, but but glad to see that you're still chugling along at pro hockey talk. Yeah. How are things?

It's interesting because I used to be able to know like when every single national game was during each month. And now I have no idea one games are on ESPN, ESPN, ESPN, TNT. I'm just completely, I'm completely lost. I have to check on NHL.com like every day to see what games are on that night. Yeah, it must be really tough for you because you're also an Irish barfly. And most places don't have stream. yet, so I understand that might be an issue as well.

Well, most of them didn't have NBCSN either, so. Are all these bars and hotels? Oh, wait, I'm sorry, rephrase that. Are all these bars and hotels when the NHL isn't in town? Yes. So they don't have that network. That was, again, one of my single favorite things in life was going to a hotel in a town where the NHL wasn't holding an event and then seeing NBCSN was nowhere to be found.

And then going there when the NHL was in town for like all. Star and all of a sudden you go to HDTV or some shit on your cable listing and all of a sudden it's the NHL Network and NBCSN. It just popped up there. Oh, I wanted to watch house hunters. Come on. I apologize, by the way, if there is some clanging in the background at some point. We do have some plumbers here to clean out the shit in our pipes. And speaking of cleaning out shit in our pipes, Chicago Blackhawks made some news this week. Holy smokes. I I don't even know where to start. As we're doing the podcast, it's Friday.

I got to tell you, man, like scheduling worked out okay this week because if we had done the show on a Wednesday, by the time you listen to this on a Friday, everything would have changed. It's incredible how fast this movie, this story moved. I guess let's start with the report when it came out about what was then known as player John Doe, now known as Kyle Beach, and a very graphic recounting of his sexual abuse at the hands of video coach Brad Aldrich of the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010. If you've not read the report, it is vivid about what went on there and also really, really depressing and frustrating,

and it will make you infuriated at the organization. that won the Stanley Cup in 2010. Ryan, did you read the report, and what was your reaction to the record? Yeah. My reaction was, oh, this is all really bad. This is like a failure

at basically every level of the organization. And, yeah, I mean, you know, how do you not read that and go, oh, like none of these guys should work in hockey again? You know? Like, I think that's, That's roughly where I landed on it is everybody should be gone. And, you know, I think the thing that everybody kind of landed on with this was like,

why did all these guys get to like resign? Well, I think we'll get to that. I mean, timeline wise, but we'll definitely, I mean, just to jump ahead. Like, I'm sure it has something to do with the league. Egalities of financial compensation. Like, there's no way that Joel Klanville's not getting something out of this financially. And there's no way that Stan Bowman didn't get some sort of parachute out of this financially. Like, let's just be honest.

This is how things work. But before I go to Leahy, though, like, I wanted to ask you, I know that we, when the investigation was announced, and it was announced that the Blackhawks were helping to facilitate it. We were all very cynical about that. And we're like, hey, NHL, why don't you run the investigation about one of your teams instead of having one of the teams run it? I got to say personally, I was surprised that it was as forthcoming as it was and detailed as it was. Were you or do you still think that there was a little bit of hinkiness about the team kind of commissioning its own investigation? I mean, let me ask you this, because I don't remember. Did they initially say they were going to make a report public?

No, no. That was from pressure. That was public pressure that made them. And they didn't even announce that it was going to be public. Remember it was like Mark Lazarus reporting that there was some memo that was circulated saying that it was going to be public. Yeah. So speaking of being cynical, do I think that it would have been made public if they had started for two and one? Well, you know, I don't know.

that it's you know there's a lot of stuff to be cynical about and all this and yeah I really you know fuck that that whole organization I don't care Laney let's move it forward so after the investigation is released

now now we're seeing the Domino's fall the Blackhawks had president of hockey operations and general manager Stan Bowman resign or step aside, as they said, along with Senior Director of Hockey Administration Al McIsaac. And the takeaway from those two resignations was that, boy, they really pointed the finger at John McDonough, didn't they? The former president of the team, the guy credited for many, many years with being the reason and the Blackhawks were back in a position of prominence in that community and creating new fans and making bank. I mean, obviously the success on the ice was one reason, but McDonough was always credited with being a big part of the organization moving forward past the dark days of Bill Words.

And Stan Bowman, very quick to say, hey, I thought this guy was handling this shit. I don't know what happened. It's his fault, probably. So what did you think of the resignations of Bowman and McIsaac? I don't think we're done. I mean, obviously, Q resigned last night. And I think there's going to be more people coming out of this. Just reading the report and then hearing from people like Brent Soapel, Nick Boynton,

Kyle Beach, obviously saying everybody on the, especially on the team knew back then and having players deny it in post-game press conferences, wishing that they did more. But, yeah, it was just, it's just mad. And a lot of people were tweeting us out the other day that, you know, this organization covered this up for a video coach. You know, what we do if it was a stark player or a bigger name executive? It's just, it's just head spinning. And hopefully this can, this, the spotlight stays on this, which I think it will and hopefully

doesn't slowly fade away now that it's kind of out there. But like I said, I think there's going to be more names coming out. out, just reading the report and just seeing what was in there who more than likely knew. And obviously, hearing from McDonough, if we ever do hear from McDonough, what had us he respond to what Bowman said and obviously the report in general. We heard from McDonough and the report. And so a couple of things about the report that just absolutely fucking enraged me. The first one was John McDonough, who is the leader of a business.

not only in the Blackhawks case, but in previous cases. He's a businessman, and he's been a businessman who has been the highest executive in organizations. And this motherfucker goes to human resources and questions the accusations of Kyle Beach because he can't comprehend how a player of that size. Oh, and by the way, a big fuck you to the law firm of Jenner & Block for putting enough descriptive information in the report where Kyle Beach had to come out and do a 30-minute interview because he had been frankly identified in the report. He even noted that in the TSA interview that people were putting the dots together

and that's one of the reasons why he came out like he did. Yeah. Yeah, so, exactly. So he goes to HR and he can't believe that a player the size of Kyle Beach could be assaulted by a diminutive video coach in Brad Aldrich. And there's a lot of that, a lot of stuff in that report. that left me mouth agape and shocked. And the fact that this executive,

and he's obviously not the only one in that organization that felt this way, but the fact that this executive doesn't understand the dynamic, that doesn't understand power dynamics, and doesn't understand that, you know, a coach threatening a player's livelihood, threatening to crush a young player's dream, is the reason this thing happens,

it's just it's fucking insane to me that someone doesn't understand that that it's such a it's such a simplistic approach to sexual abuse um and sexual assault that i i i just i couldn't believe i was reading it and then of course the other thing that infuriated me was the meeting um which has now become i think the crux of everything that's come after it which is this meeting that occurred during the playoffs where the information about Kyle Beach's allegation against Aldrich was bought to senior leadership. It was bought to McDonough. It was bought to Bowman.

It was bought to McIsaac. It was bought to Kevin Shevold-Dayoff. It was bought to Joel Quinville. It was bought to others. And it was there. And they had a choice to make. And the choice they made was, in Bowman's telling of it, let's let John McDonough handle this. and then John McDonough didn't handle it for three weeks.

Even if that's the case, no one else thought to follow up on it. And even if that's the case, as we, you know, have now seen the aftermath of Joel Clenville, the head coach of the team didn't go, hey, this motherfucker shouldn't be taking pictures of us in the coach's room. He shouldn't be part of the process.

He shouldn't be here. We don't need him. He's a video coach. It's the fucking playoffs. Who cares? But, you know, as we saw in the report, this, like, slavish commitment to not disrupting the chemistry

of the team during a Stanley Cup pursuit caused them to make some of the worst decisions in the history of the league based on what the aftermath looks like. It just infuriated the shit out of me to read about that. Yeah, that's right.

I mean, you know, like, it's one of those things where it's like, oh, like I said, you read it and you're like, Jesus Christ, like everybody screwed up like every decision they could have possibly made, you know? and I like

I guess it didn't matter to them specifically because they were winning and they had a good chance to win the Stanley Cup and all that sort of thing and it's like yeah I you know it well it didn't matter to them because he didn't matter to them let's be honest like like like like if this was gone on page or whatever right yeah

I mean like like Kyle Beach said in his in his interview on TSN like when he watched Aldrich celebrating with the cup And this was the part of the interview that, I mean, there's a lot of the parts of the interview that devastated me. But that one really, really got to me. And Emily Kaplan, my colleague, reports that the team has requested that his name be removed from the cup, which was the obvious thing to do. But hearing Kyle talk about, like, how he felt less than human and how he felt the organization believed Aldrich over him by watching this guy celebrate the cup. It was clear that they just didn't care about him. He was a black ace.

And he was treated as a black ace in this situation. They put pursuit of the cup over humanity. They put playoff success over morality. They put all of it ahead of the fucking law. I mean, the idea that you don't even go to the cops on this shit is fucking insane. So it was just like maybe angry and angrier. You know, there was a point, and I'm sure maybe other people were like this, where I read that report and I said to myself, okay, you know, maybe it is a situation where a guy like Quinville leaves. the meeting, thinking that it's going to be taken care of.

But then you think to yourself, oh, except for the fact this fucking guy who's taking pictures with the video coach after winning the cup. And except for the fact that this fucking guy who's writing endorsements of this guy for future gigs after the season, giving blowing recommendations. And then you come back to the thing that we learned about in the report, which is the most infuriating fucking thing, which is that by not taking care of the Aldridge situation, when they all learned about it, this motherfucker assaulted an intern. During the cup celebrations.

And then a couple years later... They had a, the Michigan arrest as well. Exactly. Yeah. So like it just was, you get angrier and angry you're reading it. And then, okay, so Bowman's out, McIsaac's out. And then we get to Beach having to give this interview to Rick Westhead. By the way, again, as to pile on to everybody's accolades,

kudos to Rick Westet and Katie Strang and others that have, there's an NPR station in Chicago that was on it that have written about this. and did incredible work on this story and affected change in a way that, you know, I think is going to benefit the league for years to come. So Kyle Beach goes on the air, pours his heart out, puts a human face to it. What did you think of that interview, Lambert, in aggregate?

What did you take away from it? Tough to watch. I mean, you know, like, I don't, maybe I don't want to go so far as to say they, like, ruined the guy's life, but you could make that argument, I guess. They certainly derailed his career, and, you know, the fact that it came in the same, like, time frame as the Hamea Haleu allegations and all this kind of stuff. Like, oh, that's, that's crazy.

Wow. You know, I want to pause there for a second because, because, no, because you guys, you make a good point, and both all three of us. have written about like the draft before right and like done the whole who's a bust and who's you know good and who didn't work out and all this other shit like we've all written about it before do any of us kind of like view that differently now because i know i do i mean i i know that i look at the situation with with kyle beach and and before that like you said the situation with keem ali-u and i said to myself okay what's going on under the hood that we don't understand

about some of these situations you know who's getting buried by their team to because they're trying to fucking keep a Brad Aldridge situation to check. You know, who just fell out of favor with a coach and then had his fucking career crush? Like, I feel like now in looking at this situation, I'm approaching the entire player development arc in a different way because it's not always about like, the guy didn't want it or he didn't hustle enough. Yeah, I mean.

You know, when you hear shit like he didn't fit the culture, well, that's code for something in a lot of cases. Right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a million different reasons, guys. don't make it, you know? This is kind of like, you know, just, oh, this is another reason a guy might not make it. And it's like the worst reason you can think of, obviously.

So, yeah, I, you know, I think the bigger thing for me with regard to all that is just the, like you said, oh, well, what is like fitting in the culture mean? And what is that, you know, what does that really entail? That's the, that's the bigger thing to me. It's like, oh, oh, he doesn't fit the culture. Oh, is that because he's like maybe not a bad person? You know? Yeah, right. Right, exactly.

Because it seems like the culture sucks. The culture sucks. So, isn't that interesting? Yeah. And you'd hope this line of think would kind of take place more often as far as people not just completely trashing guys because they don't work out because now that's, you know, there's so much attention now on mental health and, you know, there's so many factors, like you said, that could play into why a high pick just doesn't pan out, right? Like you said, we don't know

what's going on in their personal lives that could be affecting their on-ice abilities. And obviously, this certainly had played a role, I'm sure. I mean, he never played in the NHL as a first-round pick. And I mean, look at his trajectory. He had the first round pick. He goes from junior that spring to the H.O. playoffs and becomes a black ace for a Stanley Cup winning team. I mean, that's just, just think of his emotional state just how excited he was at that time.

And then to have this shit happen to him completely just affects him 11 years later and will probably affect him the rest of his life. We've talked on the show before about how it's a different landscape now for players with regard to mental health. And like, they can talk about it more candidly and know. that they're going to get support from the hockey community for it. If this story got out in 2010, I mean, we were all writing for the same site, right? Like, what would have the reaction have been?

Like, what was the landscape at that point, not only in the media, but also in hockey, where if a black gay is accused a video coach of sexual assault, does he have the wind in his sales like he does in 2021 from fans and from the media and everybody in the media writing there, the Blackhawks in hockey have to do better calls. problems. Does he get that in 2010 or is it a different landscape? I honestly don't know. I think it's a different landscape, but also like I don't think anybody is like, well, he's making that up obviously. You know, like, I think that people are, it's maybe not treated with the kind of the same gravity it deserves in the broad. In 2010? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I also don't

think, like, people are like, and Chicago is right to ignore this until the playoffs. Like, you know, I think that there's kind of, like, it's kind of a middle ground, maybe. Do all these guys resign in 2010? All? No. I mean, you know, plausible deniability and all that. Like, oh, geez, we thought McDonald, like, the same shit they're doing now. We thought John was going to handle that.

Right. The same shit they're doing now, but it would have actually been effective. Yeah, it probably would have been the case in 2010. Yeah. I think it might have had some effect just because that was around the 2010 was around the time when Theo Florey's book came out with his revelations. And the grand game stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, that was on the minds of everybody. So if this comes out then, you know, maybe it's not as big as it is now in 2021. But I think there would be some effect. You would hope back then there would be. Would the report have happened? No, all these guys would have resigned in that. would have been the end of it. Yeah, there was something under the rug like that.

Interesting. All right, so Kyle Beach talks. It's striking. It's amazing. Westhead does a great job. It is heartbreaking. It's tragic. And then an hour later,

Joel Quinville coaches the Panthers, which is just like, what the fuck is wrong with this sport? What the fuck is wrong with the sport? And on this one, like, the Panthers are culpable, obviously, because they had the first chance to say, hey, let's sit this one out.

I mean, fuck, they told him to sit out the press conference after the game. Could have easily just said, hey, sit out this game too. But then that we get to the NHL, which clearly is going to do something to Joel Quinville, because you don't have a meeting in New York with Gary Betman and walk out without anything happening to you in your career. That's right. And again, I think back to a story we covered on Buck Daddy,

where fucking Sean Avery made a sex joke in the locker room and then was suspended indefinitely that day, hours before the game because of that situation. And like you couldn't step in and just say, hey, we're going to have a meeting tomorrow and figure out what the fuck's going on here. Maybe don't coach tonight. That's where the NHL failed in this one, for sure. Hours before that game, George Richards asked Quenville when he had his little no comment conference

about whether, you know, that was, his situation would be a distraction for the team. And Quentville said, I think we try to eliminate all distractions. Well, going out there that night is a distraction because no one was focused on the game. Everyone was focused on the fact that he was coaching, and then obviously Zeta comes out after the game and reads that statement. Um, the Panthers could easily put out a statement before the game said, hey, Quenvo was not going to coach until after the meeting, whatever, whatever, whatever. But I thought they were all about eliminating distractions. And yet there are quenval was behind the bench during that game. And that's all people were talking about.

Well, he gets to decide what is and isn't a distraction, right? Oh, right. That's, yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. Right. And like I, like I said on the point yesterday, man, like the whole point, the whole thing about this Blackhawks situation is their decision to put winning above everything else. And they did the same fucking thing, the Panthers. Yeah. They put winning before everything else. They're undefeated. They're playing the Bruins who they know they're going to be as a major division rival.

And they wanted Joel Quinville to coach the game. That's right. Because everything else would be damned. Like, what the fuck? That's the whole point of this. Where's the NHL could have easily stepped in, right? Easily. Easily.

No, Daly tells Ken Campbell something about, you know, he doesn't think it would be appropriate to intervene because they want to, you know, Quainville's entitled to fair process. Just having him step away for one game while you sort this situation out, I don't think it would be overstepping the balance of the league, concern what they've done in the past with other people. Yeah, and along those lines, like, they, you know, suspend players pending a hearing fucking constantly. Right. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember who said.

it, but someone on Twitter had the joke of like, well, if it's an in-person hearing, he's getting suspended at least five games. So they get him's under control. Exactly. All right. So he goes to New York the next day. He's there with Zito and Matt Caldwell and Betman's there and Daly's there. And you know he's walking out with something, right?

So I thought Emily Caplin nailed it yesterday when she bought up the Bill Peters thing. The Bill Peters thing, of course, is the situation where he didn't get suspended by the NHL and still hasn't been suspended by the NHL or so he should be. but resigned his position with the Calgary Flames. And so that's the same sort of situation here with Quenville, is that he goes and meets with Bettman. There is no formal suspension or anything like that. And he then, his resignation is tendered and accepted by the Florida Panthers

and by the National Hockey League, who were also pretty happy that he resigned as well, apparently. So here's like, I mean, it's interesting because they're kind of suspended by the league, like Betman has said, like, they will have to meet with me before I let them be in the league again, which is like, okay, that's... Should he wish to re-enter the league in some capacity in the future, I will require a meeting with him in advance in order to determine the appropriate conditions under which such new employment might take place.

So, yeah, it's basically like, when you come back, you're going to have to miss the first 25 games, whatever season you decide to coach him. Right. Pretty much what that says. Which, like, I don't... Why not just suspend him then? Like, again, like, okay, even if you're not going to go, okay, we're going to ban Joel Quinville from the National Hockey League for life. Why are they not just like, oh, yeah, he doesn't get to resign.

Like, he's suspended. I don't know. Until such time as, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like, do they want to just not put a timeline on it? Well, I think the premise of your question is, like, did the NHL say this guy has to resign? And it's an interesting question because, like, at the end of the day, much like the entire Blackhawks image, he's damaged goods. Sure. Like, you can't get around the fact that this was a coach that supported a sexual abuser and looked the other way in favor of success on the ice.

And it's detrimental to the image of the team to have that person still involved in your hockey operation. So the idea that the Panthers would act independently of any. punishment from the league. It's not too outlandish, but I'm sure it was probably encouraged in the room. You know, hey, maybe don't have this guy who'd be a part of this team right now. So, yeah, I think rather than suspension, that's probably what they determine. So he gets, he's out, second leading winning coach of all time, out the door. Andrew Brunette takes over on an interim basis.

And the Florida Panthers takes shrapnel. I mean, this is a fucking undefeated start. Like, looking really good. Like, playing extraordinarily well, looking like they could contend for a Stanley up. And because their coach was derelict in his duty 11 years ago, who the fuck knows with them now? Yeah. Like, and that, because I saw people being like, well, the Panthers should fire him.

And it's like, well, I mean, it's not really up to the Panthers to do that. Like, you know, as far as they're concerned, like, he's doing a good job as coach. And, like, like, I don't know. Like, again, from the, from like a legal perspective, like, Like, does it make sense that you would be like, oh, we're going to fire this guy? Well, the firing part of it's really interesting, because I did see somebody bring up that on Twitter last night, which is the idea of, like, if you fired him for something that happened 11 years ago with another organization, you could probably do some morals clause thing. But, I mean, it would probably be a murky territory. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Like, you know, it doesn't. There's not like even leaving aside like the legal implications of it or whatever. You're just like, well, what did he do to get? like fired by the Florida Panthers. Like obviously he shouldn't be allowed to coach, but like from the Panthers perspective, like he's he's just done the job of being the coach of the Florida Panthers and done it really well.

So to this point in the season. So to kind of move it ahead a little bit more, Blackhawks. So I reported today on ESPN, what I've heard about the jobs there, which is that the theory around the league right now is they're going to hire a president and a Gia. And the president's going to be your Eddie Olcheck, Kevin Weeksy type to like come in and be the front-facing person for the organization and to sort of lead the Blackhawks 3.0, for lack of a better term, regime of fixing the team and fixing the franchise and making the decisions. that need to be made in order to get them back to a position of prominence and create fail safes and do all the things that they're going to have to do

from a heavy lifting standpoint to be a better franchise. And then you hire a GM like Jeff Gorton, let's say, to do the other thing that has to happen, which is the trade Seth Jones. By the way, can we pause on that for a second? Because it's like, okay, all summer, they're like, we're just going to wait and see. We're going to wait and see. And also we're going to let the guy that we're going to fire or we're going to ask to step aside or whatever, seven games into the season. We're going to let him redirect all the resources of the franchise toward like trying to save his job this year.

You know? And then they were like, ah, we can't do that. Never mind. But your point is interesting, though, because, like, I think that might be an endorsement of this report and this investigation being as legit as it is. Because they probably didn't know what was going to be in it. And they probably thought, hey, this guy, you know, we like the stand guy. He's our guy. One of us three cups.

If we can get through this, you know, like, I mean, USA hockey clearly did. That was the other part we didn't talk about was the other. USA hockey has their own issues, as we know, with the guy who's still employed there in upper management. Which one? It had to be more specific. Sorry, good point. Yeah. Yeah, so Bill Garron might take over.

He, of course, is still embroiled in some chicanery with the Pittsburgh Pan. and an investigation there during his time there. It is a mess with USA hockey months away from the Beijing games as Stan Bowman steps aside. But yeah, no, to your point, though labor, like, I feel like that's indicative of the attitude of this entire franchise of everybody involved in this cover-up, which is that they thought it was a settled matter. And they thought that everybody was Teflon. They thought, you know, investigation would come out. hey, John McDonough, guy who's supposed to fix this, he left in 2020. Go blame that guy.

And they thought they could get through it. Oh, yeah. They definitely were like, it seemed like especially, or even at the time, it was like, oh, they're just going to throw the guy that just fired under the bus. Yeah. So, yeah, precisely. So what do you think about this franchise going forward? Like, do you think of this is, well, yeah.

Well, let me ask you this, because this is something I also heard in asking around the league was, are they going to be in a Washington football team situation where as part of the overall image overhaul they're going to have to finally change the logo? Yeah, somebody on, again, somebody on Twitter, I don't know who it was, was like all these highly paid PR professionals carefully crafting every word of every memo they've sent out for the last several days.

And then they're like, and we're going to put it on our most racist letterhead possible. Like, yeah. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that part, too, yeah. It is a fall from grace, man. It is a fall from grace that no one could have anticipated. We didn't talk about Kevin Shevold-Dayoff. I know it's not a popular opinion to say that Kevin Shevold-Dayoff may have a little bit more coverage here than most.

I think everybody considers everybody in that room be equally culpable and get them fuck out of the NHL. And that may still happen to Kevin Shevold-Da-off. But you have to understand that as an assistant general manager in that room, He is probably the least powerful person in that room. And if you were going to say anybody in that room could have walked out to say, well, Stan and John and Quinville, they've got this. I'll go back to my draft board now. It's probably that guy. Not to say that he should get off scot-free.

Not to say he shouldn't walk away with the suspension. He very much could. A resignation wouldn't surprise me because everybody else in that room is out of a job right now. But it would also surprise me a little bit in the sense that I don't think that outside of maybe being the guy who three weeks later should have been like, what the fuck happened with this Aldrich guy? Why is he partying with the cup? Like, he wasn't really in the same position of power as the other people in that room, is the fact of the matter. I'm not trying to say he's not culpable.

They all are. I'm trying to say that of the people in that room, Kevin Shevold-Dayoff was not in the same position as Stan Bowman or John McDonner. Yeah. And the other thing is, like, all this. stuff about that's coming out now, and this was the case with Quenville, too, where it's like, oh, his previous public statements are kind of contradicted by the findings of the report. Isn't that? Yeah, and shovel day out flat out lied, yeah.

Yeah, that's a problem. Oh, geez, I didn't know what thing about this. But I was talking to somebody about that yesterday. It's not against the law to lie to the media. Well, sure. No, of course. But it's not a good look. Well, it's not a good look, but what Gary Betman's trying to figure out is, did you lie to

the investigators? Sure. That's the thing that is on his plate is, okay, you can't fuck around with the media all you want. We do it all the time. That's right. You can't lie to investigators. The Chevroletal said in July that he wasn't aware of anything until just before he left the Black Oaks, which I believe was, what, a year later, 2011 was when he went to the Jets when they started? Yeah.

I think that's right. So he was around. It wasn't like he just disappeared after that they won the cup that year. Yeah. I didn't know anything until in my exit interview, they were like, oh, and by the way, don't bring any of this. Come on, man. yeah yeah um all right so finally you know we've talked a lot about him in sort of like roundabout ways and sometimes directly but like not to not to pan a treakly column here like everybody's been

doing but man Kyle Beach is a fucking yeah I don't I can't I can't put into words like heroes I've seen people say hero I mean he's heroic for sure but like just just think about the position this guy was in for 11 years and living with this and thinking that hockey had let him down, we're not in the hockey, the NHL had let him down, and the Blackhawks let him down. And then getting this moment

when he can speak his truth and affect change. And the other part of that interview that really struck me too was when he broke down about not being able to help the other victims of Brad Aldrich. How about he was the only one

who's apologized for anything? He has no reason. to apologize, but no one else has said, I'm sorry, Kyle Beach. And he's the one that said, I apologize. Well, yeah, I hope, there's no way he listens to this idiotic podcast, but if he's cognizant of anything, I hope that he's cognizant of the fact that by doing everything that he's done in the last couple of years with this investigation, by putting a face to it on television with Rick Westhead, like, he has done more than enough. Yep. To help victims and, and to change hockey. I don't think.

this is fleeting. I think it's a tip of the iceberg thing. And I think it affected real change and show that there, and show that there are fucking consequences for the shit that you've done. Not the shit that you're doing and not the shit that you might do,

but the shit that you've done, that you buried, that you thought you were past, that you thought you could get away with. Well, look at the fucking carnage. And then ask yourself if it was worth it. Because the next, the next Kyle Beach is coming. It ain't going to be long.

Promise you that. And at every level, not just in the NHL. Anything else to add to this mess? I mean, it was a hell of a week. Like I said on the show yesterday, man. Like, it's, it ain't easy to be in a hockey fan sometimes. And this week was one of the toughest

for being a hockey fan. Yeah, really, like, you know, let's put it this way. On Wednesday night, when all this stuff was really like the shit was hitting the fan, I happened to have had tickets to a wrestling show, and I was really happy I didn't have to watch hockey that night. Yeah. Boy, oh, boy.

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Find something for your loved ones. That's brooklyn.com promo code Puck. Always like when they make the promo codes easy. People are always asking me, what's the promo code for blah, blah, blah. I'm like, it's probably Puck. All right. hockey said, we wanted to touch on a belief Lambert, you said Alex O'Vatchkin for a little bit

here. Alex O'Vatchkman is second in scoring in the league right now, and he leads the league in goals. He's pretty good. That's fucking rocks. And he wasn't supposed to play, right? Because he was hurt. Wasn't that whole thing in the beginning? Yeah, there was that preseason injury.

Like, you know, when he scored two goals in the opener, I was like, oh, that, you know, like, hopefully he can keep this up to some extent. He maybe gets to 40 goals this year. It's like, yeah, he's like, 20% of the way to 40 goals already. Yeah. That's incredible.

He's going to break Gradsky's record by Christmas, I think, right? Well, I was thinking about it, and it's like he might pass Yager by the end of the season now. Like he's like 30-something goals away, I want to say. That's, nobody would have said that was possible going into the season, I don't think. Like, you're not always on this podcast. Do you think he's going to break grants? his record or are you a cynic? I think he will.

Just because he's durable, right? Like, the way he plays, it's remarkable how few injuries he's picked up over his career that's caused him this more than like a game or two here or there. And obviously, his scoring rate is off the charts. And I think the fact that he won a Stanley Cup now that's off of his plate to do. Obviously, he wants to win Olympic gold medal, which he may have the chance to, February but this record is like the record of all records in hockey

right no one's touched this record for years no one's come close or even had even like been in the realm of possibility of breaking the record like Obechkin is right now with um you know what was he 35 36 so he still has a couple years left he can still average 30 35

goals a year the pace he's on right now like you said Lambert he's probably going to pass Yager and be third all time and then next year could potentially go by Gordy half, he's still scoring at the same rate. Yeah, it's possible, and it's fun because he's a fun player to watch. He's dangerous every time he steps on the ice.

He kind of reminds me of Tieri-on-Rey back in the day for Arsenal to bring up a soccer reference here. Oh, my God. Every time he had the ball and would go up to field, like you kind of knew something was going to happen. That's the same way I get when I watch Ovechkin. When he's charging up the ice, you just know it's going to be some sort of crazy scoring chance happening and more if

than not he's going to get in the back of the net. Two things about Leahy's soccer obsession. First of all the only time it actually paid off, do you remember this? Is when we were at the media tour in Toronto and you and Vladimir

Tarasenko bonded. Like I've never seen anyone bond with a player before. I'm just sitting here with my thumb of my ass while these guys are like rapping nostalgic about fucking European soccer and shit. Remember that?

That was incredible. Well, he's a big Chelsea fan, and Chelsea's owned by a Russian gazillionaire, so I was kind of, that was my inn there. And then we just spent most of our time with him talking about the Premier League, so I'm sorry. I'm like, tell me about the blue.

And he's like, oh, how about Chelsea? You tell us more about Chelsea? So it was incredible. The other thing is, I want to ask you, is I don't think we've really discussed it much on this show, but do you think that there's an effect from Ted Lasso to make soccer

bigger in this country? Do you think that's overstated? Yeah, I think that's overstated. Yeah, I think so. I mean, soccer's definitely grown in the United States, just the interest level. Yeah, I think it's just NBC has had the contract for what, like, almost a decade now

and it's on. We'll take that too, I'm sure. But I don't know. I don't think, like, any I don't think like any random person who's on a soccer fan who enjoys Ted Lassow is something going to start waking up at 7.30 on Saturday mornings in the fall to watch Burnley and Norwich. Right. And the other thing is like how many people really have Apple TV Plus? Like, gee, come on. You know, like. I don't know. I don't. Probably not enough, probably not enough though, because like they did do Ted Lasson sketch on S&L, which tells me that they didn't think that it would resonate enough. Yeah. Well, there might be a little piece. Here's Pete Davidson as Jamie Tart.

Like, they didn't do that. You know. Well, he might be still a little peeve that where Ted Lassau started and where he is now. You think it was NBC getting angry at Apple TV? Wow. That's a possibility. I love to read the back to that. Yeah, do you think that NBC had right of first refusal on the pilot because it was like commercials for their soccer coverage?

But it was so long ago. It was like seven, eight years ago when he did that. Yeah. Yeah. Still. Is this why Andy Sandberg Has not hosted SNL is because Brooklyn 9-9 ended up on Fox?

I like this conspiracy theory. It's pretty good. Lord Michael's like, they're all dead to me. Oh, Lauren has production credit at least on Brooklyn 9-9, right? I don't think he had anything to do

with Ted Lassow, which is interesting because I figured like, if you're an S&L cast member, Lauren just gets a chunk of everything that you do. Yeah, you would think. It's like when a WBE started as a movie and you see like, Executive Producer Fitzbeckmats. Definitely making bank off the McGruber movie. Oh, hell yeah.

The other, but you know, you bring up this Ovechkin record. I mean, you know, talking about the other Gratzky record being threatened, which is that counter McDavid's on pace for 205 points could become the first 200 point manse, 1984, my friends. I say he does it. He's playing in that division? getting to play the ducks the kings the sharks the coyote well no they're not in that division

yeah fuck shit my dude my dude my dude start it has six straight games with multiple points it's been the easiest prop bet to make in the entire league so far this year is just Connor getting multiple points like ride that and say you can't ride it no more just an incredible start for them you know what I guess we'll just do a quick spin around the divisions as far as like who's doing good. Start in the Pacific Battle of Alberta at top right now. Calgary

scoring crazy goals. How about that? Five and one of the road, the flames. Yeah, that's it. I mean, they have played mostly shitty teams so far is like the only, but like they're beating the brains out of them. So it's not it's not like they're barely winning against a bunch

of bad teams. Like they're kicking the shit out of bad teams and that's, I guess, what you want, right? Like, you know, again, are we going to really count on um, the, uh, Manjipani and Lynn Holm to,

uh, shoot 30% or whatever they've shot so far this year all season? No, I don't think so, but like you take the goals where you can get them. And again, like they're playing really well for the most part. So, uh,

you know, unbelievable last night. Yeah. And that's the other thing is, uh, they were bad last year in part because they gave him a huge contract and, uh, he was terrible.

right for a good chunk of the year i think the only the only other qualm that you would have had coming into the season is like can darrell sutter still coach in the n hl or has the game passed by or whatever and it seems like he can still coach in the nchel so yeah i there there we always said there would be like one team in that division that kind of jumped out a a little bit and looks like it's not going to be vancouver so californ I don't think they're going to be in Vancouver, yeah. The team that's starting to creep up, though, is the crack, and they've won a couple games in a row.

They looked a little bit better now. They got back on home ice. I think they're going to be okay. They'll be fine, but that's a bunch. They'll be fine. Borderline playing. Vegas, obviously, we don't know what they're going to be until they get healthy. And trade for Jack Geigel.

And trade for Jack Geigel. Anaheim has kind of come back down to Earth a little bit after an interesting start. And, boy, I mean, I know the Dowellieckle. injury is a bummer because he actually started off pretty strongly. But like, L.A. being a fucking 2.14 points percentage team after seven games is not something I would have predicted. Yeah, you would have thought they added enough to...

Can we go back to the Ducks for a second? Like, what are they going to do with John Gibson? Like, if they're not going to trade for Jack Eichol and take that step, what are they doing with John Gibson? Just trade away. What are they doing with half the guys on their roster, though? You know, like, I told, because it's, it's the Bob Murray plan. Robert Murray plan is like, I'm going to hold on to all these veterans,

and then eventually the kids will come, and hopefully it all comes together. And for like two games, it looked like it was. Like he looked like he nailed it. I mean, you know, like, Drysdale and fucking Zegers are playing great, and the vets are all kind of doing everything. Camp Fallers 29 already. Yeah, well, he's signed for, what, four more years after this one? Yeah, four or five.

But, like, Lynn Holm and Raquel are both pending UFAs. There's another guy that I'm not remembering who it is right now. Manson. Yeah. And it's like, oh, yeah, trade all those guys tomorrow. Or, like, I guess get to U.S. Thanksgiving, like we always say. And then, well, you have to say it or else people go, well, that was like three weeks ago. You know, I've noticed that in radio hits, I've been doing that.

You have to. It's sad but true. You have to do it. It's stupid, but it. But don't kidding. Canadians know that there's only one Thanksgiving and it's ours. They understand that, right? I don't know.

I think they would say there's two of them. No, it's like Christmas. There's only one Christmas, and it's the U.S. Christian Christmas. That's right. Is there a Canadian Christmas? Can we ask Sean this next time he's on? Yeah, it's September 14th. Yeah, it's weird.

Oh, okay. Is that when Gorge rose? I just assumed the Canadian calendar is like all our holidays, but just in weird places. Like Independence Day, February 4th. Well, no, there's his. fucking July 1. What? That's their,

that's when you go to the college. But is that, wait, hold on, but is, I can't we're having this conversation with the wrong show. Is their candidate day,

fucking their independence day? Yes. Or is it just like, who are they independent from, England? Yeah, I believe, yeah,

now, now you, now you got me. Just like us? Wait, I mean, they still have the queen on their money, very fucking embarrassing.

There is a British Columbia, right? That's right. Remember when the queen went to the Canucks game? That rock. Her portrait was on the wall in Winnipeg for a really long time. The anniversary of the Canadian Confederation. So it's like when it became kind of its own country.

So Canada's the Confederacy? Yeah, well, you know. Okay, yeah. We're starting to all coming to focus now. How about this freaking confederacy of dunces? Oh. I'm on page 225. I got a long ways to go.

Central Division. The St. Louis Blues are 5 and 1. Healthy. Yeah, Laddie. It looks great. I thought they looked like shit last night. I watched that game. They look bad, I thought, for much of it.

When you got your goalfinger swinging a stick at random players, that's not going to help you out, right? This is the Jordan Bennington experience. He's going to get pissed off into somebody for, no reason. And then he's going to be like, well, I didn't do anything. It was it was Codry, so you can excuse him for that, I guess, right?

I was a huge fan of the catnip that was him trying to go Codry into a fucking incident, you know. Well, it worked because the rest gave Codry 10 minutes for getting a stick swung at him or something. It was just for Trey strange. Yeah.

It's wild. They were like, well, Godry must have done something. Nasca Coddington. This isn't the Drenna Bittington we know, the sweet boy. Yeah. He would never do something unprovoked. Unprovoked.

The Wilder 5 and 2, they took an L in Seattle last night as we do the show, but they're all COVID-y right now. Well, are they? Because Capriza and Fiala aren't doing shit this year, I think, is the big takeaway. Joel Eric's neckling has that hat-trick in that one game and has done nothing else after last year. Yeah Well, that's all right I mean, he needs to just

Score a little bit more than that To win the Selke Right, and it's really funny That everybody's like Caprizov's not doing anything And it's like, well, it's because He only is almost a point of game You know, like he doesn't have a goal

Is what it is He has no go, I just looked it up No goals on 23 shots on net And it's like, I bet there's going to be a game Where he has like six goals now Because of a thesis on this work props props to the Jets

who were not very good at all in the early part of the year and yet have somehow rallied to a 63-4-3 points percentage despite having some injury issues and all kinds of shit going on so they've stabilized Pierce Luke

bounce back PL back here Dallas is didn't fine Nashville's fucking Nashville Colorado is going to figure their shit out at some point you'd figure and then of course and Arizona don't have a win.

Arizona, again, I am, they might be my second favorite team right now outside of the Devils, just because I'm in awe of how, how they're, how this is, like we've seen tanks before, we've never seen it like this.

This is incredible. This is, through seven games, they've been outscored 34 to 12. They're giving up almost five goals a game. They're scoring, it says here, less than,

less than two. They've been out shot by, 31 through 7 games which is like that doesn't sound like a lot that's a shit load but the number one stat for me is the team

843 save percentage yeah well look at their I'm sorry that I take that back it's 847 because they've allowed I think at least one empty netter so oh okay okay fair enough

847 that's much better They are committed. Imagine a remake They are committed. Imagine a remake of Weekend at Bernies where they took all of Bernie's internal organs out and filled him with shit and then pretended that he was still alive.

And I think that's the Arizona Coyotes this year. Unbelievable. You got to love it. And they ship all the internal organs to Vancouver. That's the other part of the remake. Yeah. Well, so the question is like when did they trade Phil Castle? Because that's, because everybody's like,

oh, he asked for a trade. And they're just like, no, we're going to keep you around to lower your trade value as much as humanly possible. Is it just so the like the cap number comes down a little bit? Yeah, that's the old. Oh, no, his owed salary, I think this year is like a million? No, I'm saying like because, you know, he's still getting six point whatever against the cap. He makes 6.8 against the cap. But here's the question.

He has a, he has an 18 no trade clause. So you can only send him to eight different places. Yeah. The Arizona is kind of a nice place to live. Are we sure that Phil wants to be traded? Yeah. Like, are we positive that Phil wants to be traded? He's got two cups, you know, he's good.

The other thing is they only have the ability to retain one salary on one more because they're retaining on Kemper and they're retaining on him and Larson. Yeah. So they only have one more guy they can do that for. and almost everyone on their team is a UFA at the end of the year. So, like, they got to maybe be a little bit choosy about that. And so they can't just say, yeah, we'll eat half of Kessel's money. It's so much.

I mean, I am in awe. They're killing it. How bad they are. I love it. It's how you do it, right? They have six or seven picks, potentially in the first two rounds in the next draft. Like I said, most of their team is going to be UFA. I mean, this is how you do it.

So depending, I just pulled up their cat-friendly page. Depending on how things shake out with Montreal, they're, oh no, they're good, okay, yeah, because they're going to get whatever's better, either Montreal or Carolina Montreal's, obviously. I don't know if, if there's like a, you can't, oh, if both are top ten, if either or both are top ten picks, Montreal will get the worse of Arizona.

What? I don't know. But anyway, point is... So there's like three conditions because Montreal has two first-round picks. We can confirm that Ryan Lambert is not the shadowy leader of cap-friendly. Yeah. We can confirm that exclusively on the podcast. The better of Montreal or Carolina's first-round pick, but if either or both are top 10, then Montreal will instead transfer the worse.

So they are getting three first round picks this year at a minimum, basically. But it depends on whose is better slash worse. So, yeah. Anyway, I know November is almost here. And I know that you guys are probably already thinking about a potential listeners' choice episode. Ryan reads draft conditions and trades. Bad news, folks. I get to pick what gets into the polls.

so. But yeah, point is, to your point, Sean, eight picks in the first two rounds right now. That, like, at a minimum. I mean, they won't trade one of those away, but yeah. Again, it is perfection in its imperfection. I know that if you,

you have to win the Stanley Cup to get a ring. I think that Bill Armstrong and the Coyotes deserve a ring of their own. Speaking of rings, Manly bands has sponsored this episode of, That was sweaty. Fuck, soup. B minus. Listen, gentlemen.

Fuck you, you're a guest. You don't even get to great the transitions. I have to fill the Sean quarter for the week. Sorry. All right. I've yet to hear you bring up guns and roses, so I don't think you're doing a very good job of it. You want to talk about the tragically hip now?

He doesn't talk about the hip. I don't think we've ever had a conversation about the hip on this show. Guys, the better part of your lives are better halves. have been fantasizing about the perfect wedding ring, cut clarity, character, color, you name it. But for us, there's not so much, and jewelry stories clearly think the same thing. That's why Manly Bands is here to rescue

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so the Prince of Wales Conference, as was once known, the Atlantic Division finds the Florida Panthers with Andrew Brunette as their interim coach. We didn't talk about that when we were talking about the Quinville stuff. Do you think that they're, like, if they keep a roll in,

and I'm not saying they're going to be undefeated, mind you, but if they keep rolling, Do you think that Brunette could stay behind the bench, or do you think they'll eventually name a new head coach there? If it's working, why mess with it? Because hockey teams like to overthink things, and Bill Zito has the Torts connection, and that's where it's going to go. He's going to want, with this team right now, with the role, he's probably going to want some with experience like Quinville, who can be a bit of a hard ass, and Torrance kind of checks those boxes, and has the relationship already. Because it's who you know right. It's the old boys club.

like Taylor Hall said last night. So Zito would feel probably more familiar with an established coach like Torrell than someone like Brunette who really hasn't had a chance yet. Yeah, I just, again, I don't feel bad for many people that took Shrapnel in this Blackhawk situation. But I do feel bad for Panthers fans that, like, you know, have been waiting since 96 for a team like this to come through. And their coach has to go because he was an asshole 11 years ago. The Buffalo Sabres are 5-1-1, obviously that's sustainable.

We've never seen this before, where they get off to a good start. Craig Ganges, to Mezna. The thing you've got to say is they're playing well. I was writing about this earlier today before we started recording, and they are ninth in all situations expected goals percentage right now. That's crazy. Obviously, yeah, they're getting like 950 goal-tending. and that's not going to last because it's Craig Anderson and Dustin Togarski.

With that having been said, like, if they play this way, you know, they're going to hang around. I don't think they're a playoff team, but they're going to hang around and like Tampa, Boston, and Toronto are like holding the door open for them saying, please pass us in the standings. We don't want to be in the top three. So, you know, like they just don't, they're not going to have the talent to keep winning games at anything close to this rate. But like the way they're playing is shockingly good. Yeah. I mean, I think if there's still over 500 by the end of November, then Don Granato should win the Jack Adams just for the sake of having done that.

Yeah, for sure. Detroit, I read about their rebuild on Thursday. Thanks for those of check out the column. Though, think about them that I kind of love is this top line of Bertuzi, Larkin, and Lucas Raymond. Obviously, a line that'll be really good in the United States, not so much in Canada. But, I mean, playing extraordinarily well, like one of the top five lines of the season by far. And Lucas Raymond's a cool story, man. That's a prospect that they wanted to kind of like keep percolating and bringing along slowly.

and then he's just like, actually, I'm going to score all the goals of rookie camp in preseason. And they're just like, all right, come on. They're on our top line. They wanted to do the old Red Wings thing of like, you're going to play in Grand Rapids until you're 27 years old. And he's like, what if I just scored a shitload of goals? And they were like, I guess that's fine, too. All right. That works to you.

I guess there's more ways to skin a potato. The lightning kind of rounding into four maybe? I mean, they'd beat the living shit out of the shit-filled carcass of the Arizona Cowdies there night. Yeah, but they also destroyed the penguins. And again, like everybody on that team's hurt, so whatever. But, like, you know, all you can do is beat the teams that you should beat, and now they're doing that. And so, you know, obviously Coutreau's out for, out until, like, Christmas at a minimum. Eight weeks at a minimum, yeah.

Yeah. So that's not good, but like, well, we've seen them be pretty good for 56 games or whatever without them. So I'm not super worried about it. Yeah, that won't matter. They'll have another random guy or two who step up and score 20 goals like they always do every year. There's a clone off from the age. They got fired a boule back, so there you go. There's your guy.

Yeah, and like the other thing is, much like Toronto, nothing really matters for Tampa until the playoffs stop. art, you know. Yeah. No, for sure. Yeah. I mean, we saw that last year, too. The leaves get a huge, I mean, typical leaves, right?

Like, they had to, like, eke out a win against the Blackhawks. Against one of the worst teams in the league, yeah. And who are, like, you know, just decaying from the inside. Who the fuck knows? It's Toronto. I mean, it's so tenuous. Boston three and three right now after six games. That's a little bit of surprise.

Well, they've played a pretty tough schedule if memory serves. Yeah, Carolina and Florida and the Flyers who are like, they look pretty good this year. Like those are their three losses. Those are three respectable losses. They beat Buffalo. They beat San Jose. Both teams were molten hot at the time.

And the Bruins handled them pretty easily. Handled both of them pretty easily. And so, you know, I think, yeah, three. and three doesn't look great, and they have to play Florida again. I think that's their next game, which isn't ideal because Florida again is playing really well. But, you know, again, Bruins will be fine. I don't think anybody's got reason to be super worried about them. So, as you mentioned, the Pacific Division right now has three teams over 500, and the Metro

division has... two. All of them? Eight teams. It's insane. What an absolute, just every single night in that division, man. I mean, Carolina is still undefeated as we do the show. Washington hasn't lost the regulation.

They're rolling. The flyers are actually pretty good so far. Carter Hart playing okay. Fucking Martin Jones gave him a good game the year night. Columbus, all of a sudden is a four and two. Everybody's over five. 100 at division, and including Pittsburgh, who's going to get Crosby back soon? So it's just like, holy shit.

What a division. Yeah, it's crazy. I now go back to the whole thing about like, you know, Montreal could come on, get out of here. Like, you know, we always said, well, they're not finishing top three in that division. And they were like, you're right about that. We stink, actually. And then it was like, well, then it becomes a question of, are they going to be better than the fifth place team in the metro? How about this?

Are they going to be better than the eighth best team in the Metro? Lagie, you're here. Tell us about your thoughts about your beloved penguins this season. What were your expectations and that you've seen them play? What do you think? I mean, it's no surprise that, you know, the Mark donks of the world are once again stepping up in the hapses. I mean, Evan Rodriguez was their number one, has been the number one center for the last few games, which would tell you a lot with Jeff Carter on the COVID-Lose.

list and he could potentially be out today. But it's funny because I was thinking about this the other day. Like, this is an organizational thing. Like, this has gone on for more than a decade. I mean, I remember in that Tampa series, I think it was 2011. They didn't have Crosby or Malcolm and Jordan Stahl was their number one center. And they went up 3-1 on the lightning before blowing that series. So this organization is used to having guys, their big guys, out of the lineup.

And then it's like the lightning. They just pull guys through the system. They put them in and they contribute and they have success. And I think one of the bigger things, which I know a lot of people were obviously remembered the Islander series for a big reason. Tristan Jarry had a pretty good regular season last year. He wasn't bad. It was just that week against the island was where everything just went to shit. And so far, he didn't play last night, but he's been good.

He's been really good, yeah. He's been a good player. And then, you know, they get guys like Drew O'Connor, Stampton, Hinen, of all people. I mean, and with Crosby knocking out and Gensis off to a slow start, and obviously Carter has been, Carter and Latang have been outside with COVID. So it's just an amazing job that they do every single year. And you got to give a lot of credit to Mike Sullivan for him to navigate the massive amount of bodies that go in and out of the lineup on a weekly basis. And then, yeah, and then Crosby's coming back and I, for one, you know, look forward to the return of our milk toast king.

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No. That's true. Yeah, that's very true. Attendance, not great in the league so far this year. I think very understandable given, oh, I don't know, the global pandemic. People still being a little bit worried about coming out and being around crowds. And also, the economy ain't all that great for some of us. And so attendance being down early, not a huge surprise to me, but I don't know about you guys.

I would have thought, like, you know, I've been to a lot of, concerts and such. Yeah, like I said, I went to an AEW show on Wednesday. It was packed. And so, you know, I think, I'm a little surprised that it's down just because I would have thought people want to go to stuff again. But, you know, hockey tickets are expensive as hell. And I think the other thing is, like, a lot of teams that normally do well in attendance,

are shitty this year, you know? So I think that somebody, obviously there are other factors going on, but someone last night posted, like the stub hub, like the secondary market ticket prices for Chicago, and it's all like $6 and $7 right now for the get-in price.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think it's a lot of bad things coming together all at the same time, and it's not good for, it's certainly not good for, the league, but, you know, I don't know how foreseeable it was that it was going to be this bad either. Yeah, Chicago, would they have a 535 game sellout streak that started in 2008 that just ended? I mean, fans are, they don't want to pay for a shitty product.

I mean, and they were, that streak ended before the report came out, so who knows what's going going forward there. But yeah, like I said, Lambert, ticket price don't exactly cheap or affordable, and we're in the middle of a pandemic where people have been affected by the, uh, financially, just think about what a night out costs between parking and the tickets and food. If you're bringing kids and everything else, it adds up. And there's other things that money needs to go to at this point in time for many people. Also, like, maybe this is just the world catching up to Devils fans.

Because, like, our attendance in October or November was always shit. And then in December, you know, everybody got, like, devil's tickets for Christmas or whatever. and then attendance would pick up. I was always, when I was growing up, man, like it was just the expectation was that the attendance would be soft, maybe because of like football going on and sometimes there would be baseball going on or things like that. It's never really, you know, hockey attendance in October

was always sort of specious to me because there's just so much going on. Kids went back to school and shit like that. So I don't know. All right. Anything else to talk about hockey-wise? I mean, my God, it was all off the ice this week. Yeah. for the most part. Yeah, I can't think of anything, I guess.

What about you, Sean? Anything? You do a collection of links and stories every day? Is there anything we missed? I don't know. I think we got all of it. I mean, it's... Eichael?

Still in Buffalo? Yeah. Yeah. Lots of talk about maybe it ending up in arbitration or something, about, you know, whether he's going to be able to get a surgery or not. A lot of Pat Brassan sending out information through the usual channels about the future of Jack Eichl and Buffalo. But he's still there.

Hasn't happened yet. And with that, I suppose we should end with an overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite. So, I told you guys there were two options, and you tell me which one you want to do. I'm good with either.

Simpsons Celebrity cameos or zoo animals. I like them both. I like it to you. Which one do you want to do, Lambert? Let's do zoo animals. Okay. Okay. Zoo animals.

John Waters in the gay... No, I'm kidding. That was the other category. Zoo animals. Overrated. That's an easy one for me. Most overrated zoo animal is a hippopotamus. It does nothing.

It literally does nothing. Yeah. As a kid, as a kid, it grew up playing hungry, hungry hippos. and seeing the agility of multi-colored in eating the marbles at a rapid rate. I go to the zoo, I look at this thing, it looks like a fucking log.

It doesn't even do anything. You can't even do... There's no prompt to even make it open its mouth. And it just lays with its head halfway into the water. It's like a... It's like a, you know, a crocodile that got into the Halloween candy. I hate hippos for that very... great reason.

Okay. So hippos are overrated. Well, here's the counter argument to that. You ever see freaking Fiona from the Cincinnati Zoo? She's a little sweetie. I'm sure she is.

And here's the thing. I've seen nature shows where hippos are portrayed as like one of the most ferocious. They are the deadliest animal in Africa as a matter of... They fuck you up. And I guess maybe, and this is

just me, when I go to the zoo, I would like to see a proper representation of the animals and a hippo you want to see a sits in shit it doesn't do anything you want you want to see like in Jurassic Park when they lower the cow into the

Velociraptor pen you want to see them do that was just like a poacher they just lower some guy in fatigues into the end and the hippo I want to see somebody with I want to see somebody with Don Jr. Stubble like that dude that was on curb this week

lowered into the fucking pit and then the hippo has his way with them you're completely right throw some What are melanch in there to crush with this gigantic jaw? See, how fun would that be? And instead, it's just like, here's a wet thing that's under the water and it's looking at you. Great. Fantastic.

I don't like when you go to the zoo, along kind of similar lines, I guess. You know, who just fucking stands around all day? Elephant. They don't do shit. But they, the thing about an elephant, though, that at least makes it worthwhile is like. paint some of them. No, I was going to say, I was going to say, like, seeing an elephant use its trunk to do shit, like eat bales of hay and stuff.

That's very exciting to me. That's something I don't get to see normally. But I agree with you, for the most part, they don't move. They just stand around, yeah. They just stand around, yeah. I'm trying to think the last time I went to a zoo, no, it wasn't an elephant. I saw a giraffe poop. I think dropped like 15 feet.

It was hilarious. Right. Elephants do shit a lot, too. They do. They do. Also, it's good to talk to them about, you know, what happened, like, a hundred years ago because they never forget, as you know. Leah, what about you? Most overrated zoo animals.

Kind of along those same ones, bears. Just because they don't do shit. They're like me on a Sunday in the spring. They just lay around and sleep and roll over and scratch their back against a tree. So this is true of, like, any bigger animal, I feel like, is what we're getting at, because, like, lions and tigers you see. them in the zoo, they're not doing anything. Like, jump up on something. This sounds like a stealth argument

against captivity is what this kind of sounds like right now. That's interesting. Yeah. No, I've never thought of it that way. At least get the banner like ride a bicycle or play hockey like that one did in Russia all those years ago. Oh, shit, that's right. I forgot about that. Good old days.

When they forced bears at gunpoint to entertain us. underrated Giraffes Underrated fruit Wait your fucking turn I was waiting for the pause I don't know

Greg great I'm really stepping on the bounce here Go ahead host Greg don't say giraffes Drunkin pissed I'm gonna be a little bit specific Like not specific non-specific on this one

I like any time that there is an animal at the zoo. Yeah, B-2. That's my favorite time at the zoo. When there's an animal there? Damn, that rocks. I like, anytime there's an animal at the zoo,

that's a variation of an animal that we've come to know in, like, everyday life. Like, say there's, like, a fucked-up deer. It's like, this is the Madagascar deer, right? And, like, it looks like a deer, but then it's got some crazy horns or weird spots or some shit

or, like, glue or some fucking thing. antelopes. I don't know if you're That's right. I like underrated for me as you go to the zoo and you see something it's like here's a chipmunk, but it's from Shanghai and it has a big mohawk or something.

Yeah, that's all that is very cool. A variation of a normally seen animal in the United States that is at the zoo and it comes from someplace else and it looks all fucked up is underrated. Yeah, that's that is a good one. I have I'm having a tough time deciding here because one of them, the hyena, you know why?

Because they just walk around laughing the whole day. You know, like they, like they, to your point earlier, they do the thing as advertised, right? They walk around and they're just going like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, all fucking day long. And that, you're like, I go to the zoo. If I see a hyena, I want to see that motherfucker laugh.

they deliver 100% of the time. They're performers, you know? They're like the freaking joker. They're a little twisted. They're a little twisted, they're a little twisted, but they're laughing. They're laughing the whole time. Minus all the murders. Well, again, I eat is weird.

Or not. I mean, I eat as fucking. Jaw strength, they can shatter bone with their jaw strength. That's how powerful their jaws are. They, they, they, hyena's rock. Anyway, the other one I love, again, because you're going to see them do what they do. I can also shatter a bone with my jaw strength, by the way. I just want to let you know that.

Cool. Go ahead. The giant ant eater. You go to a zoo with a giant ant eater. That guy's eating a lot of ants, you know? Oh, they look cool. They rock. I love a giant ant eater.

Very underrated animal, my opinion. I agree. Yeah. Can I go now? Is it my turn? Yeah. Hold on. Spoiler, I think he's going to say giraffe.

All right. Giraffes. Wow. You did it. Yes. See, like they look like... I love that... What?

No, I was just going to say, I love that you think that giraffes were underrated, yet, you know, like, they sell stuff drafts, and, like, people are like, hey, where are the fucking giraffes? Like, I feel like they're very much a rated animal. They're top three. Are they, though? Because, I don't know.

I think so. They look like they don't do much, but they're, they're way up. they're high, they look like, you know, you, you, they, you know, I wish they could put like a, like a, like a, like a saddle on them, you know, because they have that, that long back to ride. Um, but they're just, I don't know, they're elegant. They're, they have a little, they, they have a personality, which I think is, have you, have you ever fed a giraffe? I did over the summer. There's a, there's a small zoo out here where you can feed the giraffes twice a day and, uh, I, I was able to do that. And it was cool. Um, we made Icon.

contact. I feel like we had a connection. His name was Bobo. He's only two years old. What a sweetie. He was a bobo. He was very sweet. Wait, did you go to wait, you went to a zoo on the island where they had a giraffe? Yes. That's a fucking goat with a turtle

off on. That ain't. It's like Lord of the Rings Force perspective. Sean's like, oh, he's huge. Well, whatever it was that I fed, he was very adorable. had a very

purpley tongue, and when he would take the food out of our hands, our hands would return purple from whatever was on his tongue. But yeah, they're very underrated. I think they need even more love. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, giraffes are cool. They're big tall guys. The other thing, one time I went to a science museum and they had a thing of like, you know, how your heart works to like pump blood and it takes a certain amount of pressure.

They were like, we've recreated like at scale what it, how much blood, like pressure it takes to pump blood to a giraffe's brain. And you've really had to fucking squeeze the shit out of that thing to get it even close all the way up the neck. It was wild. Like, you don't, uh, you don't think about, um, I don't know, that, that kind of like biological, the amount of work that a giraffe's body has to do just to like make its heart work. It's fucking crazy.

All right. So favorite. This is a tough one. I like a lot of animals at the zoo, but I think that my favorite would have to be I went back and forth with the small mammal pavilion that they have at certain zoes, or you can go inside and see the little fuzzis.

Yeah, little cutie pies. A tiger, though. A Bengal tiger would be my favorite animal at the zoo. You obviously can't see them in nature necessarily. here in the U.S. unless they escaped where they're being kept, uh, or escape the magicians that own them, I suppose. Uh, but, uh, tigers are fucking awesome.

They always look cool. Like, a tiger is like one of those things where as a kid, you would see it in a drawing and then you'd go to the zoo and you're like, this is even fucking cooler than the drawing. And it's come to life. Um, and they're usually not as, as boring as lions who live up to their name and just lie around. Bengals are like active.

Bengal tigers are like active and they're fucking cool and they look cool and they're scary. Tigers are my choice or favorite animal at the zoo. I don't know how you can talk about going to the zoo without talking about the noble ape, your chimpanzees, your gorillas, your orangutans. These are the A plus. Because to the point about lions and tigers, they don't really do very much. Apes and monkeys,

they're swinging around the entire day. Gorillas are like having fun with each other. They're social, like they're such social animals that they kind of don't ever not do something. Even if they're lying around sleeping,

like they're sleeping in a big pile on top of each other or whatever. It's great. Anytime you go to the zoo and you get the chance to see something that fucking big is cool. And,

um, I do want to give a brief shout out, though, to the zebra, and because of the thing you said earlier about, you know, you don't get to see um, or, you know, any, like any of these animals out in the wild, uh, earlier this month, there was, uh, there was a story about there's like, a, there's like a small herd of zebra, uh, roaming around Maryland. They got out of, like, some, uh, like, private collection.

And they're just like on the run. and like literally the climate of Virginia or Maryland or wherever they are, could they could just like live there. Like if they start breeding, they could survive in the wild. And that would be so cool of like, oh yeah. Oh, you know, this county in Maryland with its native zebra population. That's awesome. Yeah, the football team is looking for a mascot.

That would rock. Oh, man, if they were the zebras. That would be so cool. Striped uniforms, that'd be sweet. Yeah, no one's done that before, like, the Bengals. Lakey, what's your favorite animal at the zoo? I got to go with Lambert. The monkeys.

Another giraffe. Oh, monkeys? Okay. Monkeys. I like an animal with some personality, one that I can imagine jumping into the pen and playing with for a little while, you know? Again, just getting your genitals and face ripped off. like just a second you account for you I love it

it's rocks preferably not a zoo in Cincinnati but um yeah like anything like monkeys are playful right though if you're behind glass they'll come up to the window and like play with you they'll stick their tongue out at you

that's just my kind of animal that's why I hate cats and dicks did you see the uh the orangutan I think it was a zoo in Asia or something like someone dropped their sunglasses in the orangutan It's like one of the huge

both like upside down and we're just like, oh, whoa, like taking them off, putting the back on. Yeah, they're fantastic. The sign says these gorillas are from a lost city in Zinge in the Congo. They seem friendly. I'll jump in. Least favorite

animal for me this would be a controversial take, I think, because I think that people do generally like this animal and generally like this gimmick at zoos. how do I put this kindly? Fuck a butterfly pavilion. You're right. You're absolutely right.

One, the sensation of getting swarmed by bugs sucks. Two, sometimes it goes the other way, and you don't even see any fucking butterflies. They're just like up in trees and shit. I've never had that experience. You see a butt. Like you go into a butterfly pavilion. I feel like they're hitting the trees with sticks to be like, okay, up and at them, boys. We got paid customers there.

But, like, most of the time, it's, first of all, it is like, the thing is like the size of your, of your shed outside, right? Yeah. And then, like, you walk through it. It's hot and humid as fuck. And you're probably at the zoo in the summer. So this sucks already. And then all the butterflies swarm of your face, like a bunch of fucking mosquitoes with pretty wings. And it sucks.

So the least favorite is the butterfly pavilion. We have one out here at the Long Island Aquarium. It's indoors. And it's a very small room. you have to walk through, and they tell you beforehand, now watch where you walking him because they can land on the floor and you can step on them, which is a nice warning to give as you're walking through trying to look at these butterflies and not kill like half a dozen of them as you're going through the whole thing.

And you've looked at the butterflies like, oh, those look like goats with fairy wings. That's exactly what I say. Along similar lines, a much better one is when they have like the small bird pavilion. where they give you like a little handful of bird seed or whatever and like 40 parakeets land on your hand. That's great. That fucking rocks. I love that shit. That's a 10 out of 10 for me.

My least favorite animal at the zoo, I don't need to see a snake. Again, you want to talk about? Oh, yeah, I hate snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? That's what I'm always saying. But like even beyond that, again, they just fucking sit around. They don't do shit. So not only are they nasty looking, like there's a reason man has a natural, uh, uh, what do you want?

I don't want to say like fear necessarily, but like unease with snakes. They're nasty looking little freaks. And also they just sit around all day and then sometimes eat a mouse or whatever. Get lost. Get the fun out of here. Robin Laders, don't listen to this podcast. Or Jake. Like, I was considering, yeah, right? I was considering snakes for my least favorite, but I have to admit that, like, just like we were talking about before with other animals, like, the ability to see a boa constrictor, you know, without having to, like, find one in the wild.

Like, there's a part of me that does enjoy that. You've seen one snake, you've seen them all. They're just all different sizes, but it's the same. Okay. All right. This one doesn't have any legs either. What do you know? Least favorite.

Well, if they did, that would freak me the fucking. That means they could, next thing you know, well, then they're just a, that's a lizard at that point, Greg. Yeah. All right. What's a very good point? All right. Lady, what is your least favorite animal?

I'm sorry, Lambert. Any type of bird. Fuck off. Get lost. Some of them are nice to look at. You know, the ones are very colorful, but I mean, they just fly around in their little area. They poop everywhere.

That's it. Like, that's what you do? Like, do you do any tricks? Like, something. Give me something. Oh, yeah. Giraff's doing a lot of tricks out there. They're fucking juggling.

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, they at least have a personality in giraffes, you know? Oh, birds don't have a personality. You ever talk to one of these parrots? Some of them say swear words. Only one is a goddamn cracker. I'm sorry. That's true.

Giraffes. Giraffes only want one thing and it's fucking disgusting. It's a branch with the roots on it. One of my favorite things with this entire conversation was like when lady he was saying giraffirondereated and he's like, they're tall. I'm like, yes, we know.

That's the whole gift. What are these birds doing? They're just flying around. Meanwhile, a lion's like sitting on the ground like behind a rock and you're just like, oh, this fucking rocks. This is the coolest shit I've ever seen. All right, that's Puck'soo for this week.

a challenging week, no doubt, but thanks to everybody for listening. Anyway, um, I hope he did it justice. And shout out to Kyle Beach again for incredible bravery in the face of all the shit that he's still out way

for the last 11 years. Uh, you read my stuff in ESPN.com. My column this week was about the Detroit Red Wings rebuild. Touched a bit about the, uh, Black Hawk scandal of the column. Um, have a couple

big stories that next week. Also, you can check out the, my episode of The Point. that I was on yesterday with Bucci Gras and Tortorella in which I explained to John Totorella how to smuggle a catfish into a game was one of my life's joys that's available on ESPN Plus

if you missed the episode Go to E.P.Ringside.com sign up for a one-year subscription. I already kind of don't remember what I wrote about this week. Oh, the Leaves in Chicago and I think I hit publish on that Chicago article about like,

there's no way out for these guys. One minute before they announced they were going to have the little press conference. So not the best timing on that. But, you know, and then, yeah, if you sign up for an annual subscription and you use the code, I Love E.P, all one word. You will get an extra three months tacked on to the end of your subscription for free. So check that out. Yeah, you can read my stuff at NBC Sports.

where what I do this week? Oh, I was one of the 300 people that Mark Messi talked to with his book coming out this week. Hey, hey. And, yeah, everything else there. Finally, a book from an old hockey player, you know. It's about leadership. I actually asked them, I actually, one of my questions is how does he come up with the winner of the leadership award? And he said, it's not just him.

He consults with media, players, coaches, executives, and he gets all these names. and out of that pile he picks the biggest leader for the NHL for that season so that's how the sausage is made on that award Wow It's funny when I used to goof on the award Before obviously it became the most important award

After he was hired at ESPN I did hear from the league They're like you know he takes it very seriously I bet he does no I bet he does But also who gives this shit if he does I've come to accept the fact that he does really care about it. No, like one of those things was like, like stop, stop. When we were at Buckney, they were like, stop goofing on the Mark Messier Leadership Award.

He really cares about it. I'm just like, does he? He's just like, hey, Shane Don't. Do you want to go to Vegas? No, like I said, I think he definitely cares about it and takes it super seriously. I think that we as a group of people who follow the league shouldn't care who Mark Messier thinks it's the best leader in the league. Who cares?

And you know who didn't care about? Whoever made that trophy because it looks like a third-grade art project. Boy, the gloves are off now that he doesn't have the TV rights anymore. But what if it's coming out of the corner like Jake LaMotta. Now, now that being said, what if it was an art project created by an elephant? I mean, would that be a different vibe better word or no? It had to be created by a giraffe.

Like when I was painting, you know, like a giraffe painting. I like them. They're high. Yeah. Incredible. The easel budget on this project is going to be through the roof. Literally. Okay. Goodbye. All right. Thanks everybody for listening to Puck Soup and supporting us.

Come to the Patreon for the bailbag and the bonus episode for this month and support Arthur Sean Leahy. He is one of our favorite people and we're happy that he's chugelun along over at NBC. Thanks everybody for listening. and we'll talk to you next time. Bye. See you. Bye. Hey there. It's Future Greg and Future Lambert here. Hello.

And we have to add a CODA to the podcast today because the moment we signed off, news broke. Morgan Riley signed an eight-year contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and then the Kevin Chivaldea off non-punishment came out as well from the National Hockey League. I suppose we should probably start with Riley.

The timing is a shocker for this to come down in October. Yeah, really weird. Eight-year deal, $7.5 million. They're paying a lot of money to a couple players next year, Lambert. Yeah. I don't know what this means for you. Well, I mean, you know, they don't not have the cap space in theory, but also like how many guys are they?

going to pay like six and a half million or more, right? Like, and like I think Morgan Riley's good. I, but it feels like, it's so funny because it's like, oh, now, now that we've won a game against Chicago, uh, in overtime, uh, you know, we can start, we can keep the core together. This is great. And, and now we don't have to trade Mitch Marner, which everybody was kind of hinting at last week. Uh, we don't have to do that now until they lose another three games in a row.

and then that's a whole thing again. That's a whole thing again. I like it from the simple fact of a couple things. One, three-year window for this team. As much as people in Toronto are inside a pressure cooker and losing their minds at all time about them not getting past the first round, bottom line is that, you know, until Austin Matthews walks away, if you might, the window's wide open.

He's got this year and then two years left, I think, after this year before he's in the UF.S. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's right, yeah. And then in Martyr's case, and Tavares' case, they got this year and then three more left, if you really wanted to extend the window for a little bit longer in case Austin Matthews doesn't sign with the coyotes to play with Chain Wright. So that established, you're not finding a defenseman on the market that's going to sign for, let's say, three years at $7.5 million.

That's as good as Morgan Riley. It just doesn't work that way. You just won't. Oh, and also that wants to play in Toronto. Let's caveat out that as well. So the way this works is you give them eight years, you get the AV that you're looking for. If it works out that you win a Stanley Cup in the next, you know, three or two or three years, fantastic. Then it worked.

Then you've done great for yourself. If you haven't, this is not going to be. It's all fired anyway. Who gives a shit? Yeah. This is not going to be Kyle Dubus's. problem. It's a really, really great signing for Kyle Dupus in the sense that you've either landed a player that's going to help you, or retained a player, rather, that's going to

help you within the window that you've established to win a Stanley Cup, or it is somebody else's fucking problem. Yeah. So, good on him. The word I would use to describe this contract is fine. It's fine. Sure. It is. He's a good player. He's not a great player. He's a good player. And I think this contract is going to be fine. And we, can't stress this enough. Fucking, don't concentrate on the eight years. The eight years or whatever.

Who cares? If it works out, they win, then the next three, great. If they don't, then you're just, you're going to have to blow up the team anyway. Yeah,

you got until 2025 and then the rest of the term on this deal, who cares? Doesn't matter. Exactly. Exactly. All right. The other thing was this Kevin Shevel-Dayoff news.

We talked about it on the main show, how being an assistant general manager means that you're not one of the power brokers on the team. And lo and behold, Gary Bettman agreed with that. While on some level, it would be easiest to paint everyone with any association into this terrible matter with the same broad brush, I believe. That fundamental fairness requires a more in-depth analysis of the role of each person. Kevin Shevold-Diaf was not a member of the Black Hawk Senior Leadership Team in 2010, and I cannot therefore assign to him responsibility for a club's actions or inactions. He provided a full account of his degree of involvement in the matter, which was limited exclusively to his attendance in a single meeting.

And I found him to be an extremely forthcoming and credible in our discussion. Like I said, you can lie to the media. Lie all day. Nobody gives us shit. As long as you don't lie to Gary Bettman or the investigators, then you're going to be okay. And I'm not shocked. I'm a little surprised that Shevleda off didn't get at least something because you're walking out of a meeting with Gary Betman and not getting a suspension is unprecedented. Yeah.

Yeah. And so I'm a little surprised there. but kind of kicking it over to the Jets and saying, hey, if you guys are okay with this dude not having spoken up after three weeks and being like, hey, why is the guy that we said we were getting rid of, taking pictures with the Stanley Cup? Then, you know, go with God on that one, I guess, for Betman. But I'm not, I'm, I thought his, his explanation of the situation was how I read it to.

I just thought maybe he'd toss a little something, Shevolde off way for the effort. Yeah, you know, it's all about, I think we said it on. the main show I don't remember, but it's all about plausible deniability. He can go, like, he can go, oh, I thought Stan or John or even Joel was going to take care of this and

crazy that they didn't. And it's the same thing about, you know, all this stuff about, well, everybody knew, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, but can you, like, prove that Duncan Keith and Jonathan, Taves, and Patrick Kane knew? Like, you can be mad at them for saying they didn't, and maybe they did.

I don't know, you know. Yeah, and we, we didn't really talk about that too much on the main show but yeah like Taves and Cain's statements on this thing especially Taves is where Oh Taves was yeah Taves was straight up

bad like I think Kane said more of what you would want someone to say in this scenario you know but also yeah like all the stuff about him actually Stan Bowman very nice to me so I don't I feel bad for him and nobody needed that but

yeah like I don't I don't quite know how Taves comes back from that. Also, you should mention that in case we didn't get it in the main part of the show, that Brad Aldridge's name will be removed from the Stanley Cup. The parties agree that the request is

appropriate and that they will have further dialogue, including with the Stanley Cup trustees on how to best effectuate this request, probably putting a bunch of X's over his name, I imagine. Yeah, I think that's what they said is going to happen because there's not really a way to like, without redoing the entire ring, there's no way to, like, remove it. Yeah. I'm not a silversmith, you know.

Well, if you were, your last name would be Silver Smith. That's the way it used to work in the old days, right? John Hancock was a silver, no. Paul Revere was a silver smith. Oh, no, John Hancock was. All right, that is your Puck Soup Coda. Enjoy the mailbag, and we will talk to you soon. Take care.

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