Puck Soup - Cashew Crew

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Sean and Ryan look at real quotes that define struggling teams' seasons, injuries, signings, and more. 

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McNeue from The Athletic. And folks, one of the things that's happening a lot in the NHL these days is there's a lot of focus on why is this team so bad? Why is that team so bad? And I want to just explain to you really quickly why people are focusing on that sort of thing. First of all, everybody just kind of acknowledges the way the standings look right now, that's bullshit. That's not real.

Yeah. To an extent that we've, I feel like we've not seen in many, many years, if ever. Somebody posted a, like, a chart on some social media where it was like the standings and the range and the little bar showing you where everyone's fitting in. And it was Colorado and then like everyone else is separated by three points. and it was extremely historically unusual. That makes sense. So let me put it in to your point, Sean. Colorado Avalanche, they have 37 points from 22 games.

The next closest two teams have 30 in 22. So they're just flat out running away with it. The apps have a plus 38 goal difference. The next highest in the entire league is plus 13. These guys are going to win the president's trophy in a walk unless something really bad happens to them. Like nuclear meltdown under, like in the secret base under their arena level meltdown. But to your point, Sean, Carolina Dallas, 30 points apiece.

And that's tied for second in the league. I'm going to scroll down here until I hit teams that are more than five points out of that. 25th in the league is the... Wow. I'm sorry, 24th. Winnipeg has 24 points from 21 games, and Edmonton has 25 from 24. That's the 23-24 range.

And that just tells you, like, the only, there's nothing interesting about being like, oh, the penguins kind of punched above their weight more than expected. Why is that? I don't know, kind of all is fake this year. Like that, there's nothing really interesting to say about that, except maybe with like Seattle and the Islanders. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. I mean, there are some interesting teams that are overachieving, but nobody to the extent that it couldn't be, that if you swapped two wins into two regulation losses, that it doesn't seem about right. And nobody's out of it, right? Yeah.

We're going to talk about, we're going to talk about a bunch of, teams that are off to bad starts or whatever and like basically we're looking at where a bunch of teams are through the lens of like what the people who run them are saying yeah right and even those teams with with a few exceptions are like two wins and we're and we're in like third place in in the conference you know like it's really it's really weird that this is happening. So that's why everybody's just kind of mad about where bad teams are and not so worried about like, why are good teams good?

With the Islanders, I can tell you right now. Matthew Schaefer's way better than anyone expected. And everybody else is kind of playing, not everybody, obviously, but kind of playing right around where you expect are a little above. I'm starting to think with the Islanders that I may have been wrong on my, they should take James Higgins because he's the local kid take. I'm starting to think that's one for Matthew Darsh over me. Look, Matthew Schaefer, you know, I get the inside access to all the elite prospects, like, ranking stuff.

And we have a million people who vote on like a Calder power ranking and that sort of thing. And like everybody just has Matthew Schaefer won. And then, you know, take your pick from every other rookie in the league, two, three, four. It doesn't really matter. Like if they, you know, obviously there's 60-something games left in the season for most of these teams. But every, like season ends today, Matthew Schaefer is the unanimous rookie of the year. And frankly, he'd probably be top five on a lot of like Norris ballots. He'd show up on a few of them.

Yeah, he should. Yeah, for sure. And like, he's just been so sick. And, you know, if you have one one guy who. like punches way above his weight and he plays a lot of minutes for you or whatever. That can make you a team that, to your point, instead of having 20 points from 23 games where we're like, that's kind of how it goes, they have 28. And it's like, oh, okay, that's something else, you know.

It's that, it can be that simple this early in the season. But again, the second place team has 30 points. the 25th place or the 23rd place team has 25 points. Five points separating, humiliating defeat from, we're one of the two or three best teams in the league. It's unbelievable anyway. Now, are you at all receptive to the argument that this is actually great and it's so fun because you never know. Gary, is that you? Yeah.

We got Gary's League going on. man. That's what it boils down to. Gary's league. I saw a stat the other, I think it was in the Puck Soup Discord. I'll try to pull it up really quickly here. But like the percentage of games that are going to overtime this year

is way above the normal pace. Loser points are being handed out like candy. And I'm talking candy like at Halloween at your place with the full size bars, not even That's right, baby.

Not even the snack size. No, it's, it's, it's crazy. I can't find the stat, but it's crazy. How often teams are just going to overtime, getting the loser point, and saying, you know what, we're happy with that, and then whatever happens happens. We're just way above pace for that. And I don't, I wonder how much of that is, by design, how much of that is just like, hey, You know, hockey is the most random sport we got.

So sometimes there's going to be a lot of overtimes in a 20 game span league-wide. And it's a compressed schedule this year because of the Olympics, and it was a compressed schedule last year because of four nations and, like, things get weird. I can buy all that. I can also buy. There's just a lot of mediocre teams in the league. And when there's a lot of mediocre teams,

they're all going to be jockeying for position. and not really separating themselves. That totally would also make sense to me. Sounds about right to me. All right, I'm going to read some quotes here that really kind of tell you like the state of the mindsets around some teams that are underperforming, let's say. And let's start in Calgary,

where the flames are one of the few teams that are like fully out of it. They would need seven points just to get back to like top half of the league. And they've got more games played than almost everybody else. So, this is from Don Maloney. The only time you enjoy the first pick at the draft is at the draft. There's a lot of suffering to get there, and that's the farthest thing from our mind. No one has an appetite to just burn it down to the studs, take it all down. I feel for the fans, because I know the narrative is out there.

They should just blow it up. They're not going anywhere. Why aren't they playing these young kids? Just get rid of the older guys, get young guys, get draft picks. If we could trade somebody and get a top three pick or a premier prospect, there's no restrictions on us making deals if the deal makes sense with our long-term plan. If Craig Conroy got a call today for whoever, and it was just like, wow, this is good for us long-term, then of course. So the idea that we're digging our feet in the sand and saying, no, we're realistic where we're at.

We've got real things to sort out short term here, but we're going to continue this process of drafting well, developing well, work at deals that make sense for us longer term. What the fans don't get, and this is the part that rocks, what the fans don't get is that we have a team next year that we have to put on the ice. And what happens if some of these younger players aren't quite ready? And then you're, you know, your 32nd place team next year. Yeah. Those dumb fans don't get that there's a season next year.

Well, the thing is, the people who are saying they should tear it down, Don Maloney's like, well, we'd be the 32nd place team next year. And they're all going awesome. Yeah. If you're asking for a tear down, you're not saying for the next four months. If you're asking for it, you are tacitly acknowledging, this is a three or four year process. but it's better than what this is. Those fans who want you to rebuild but don't realize that there are future seasons. That's a real person who exists.

We should point on Maloney as the president in California. Yes, he's above Craig Conroy's boss. And in theory, he is the guy talking to the owner. Yeah. Quite a bit. So I thought that that quote was interesting. and it's, so this is from a sit down interview with Sportsnet with Ron Francis. So he just gives a lot of long, Ron Francis is a different guy.

Yeah. Eric Francis. Uh, too many guys named freaking Francis in this league, my opinion. I've never thought about this. Any relation, do you think? I would assume not. Not that I know of. Okay.

Well, we got to fix that. Um, we're going to fix that. We got to like, what, marry off their kids or something? Yeah. Okay. I'll make a few calls. I'll see what I can do. Yeah, like in Crusader Kings 3, we can form an alliance.

Okay. And, you know, anytime there's a case as bell-eye, they can go, well, I've got to go to war now with Eric Francis. Because my son married his daughter or whatever. Anyhow. So, like, Don Maloney's giving a lot of, like, big, long answers. he's being asked like kind of philosophical questions about the state of the team. This is good shit for me, right? Like this is what I want to see all the time.

And again, we got a lot of that this week because there's a million teams that thought they would be good, but suck instead. So all these GMs and presidents of hockey operations has to come out hat and hand and go kind of, yeah, you know what? I think we suck shit, but here's my thoughts on that. And, you know, so. What do they always say about rebuilding in Calgary? Ownership won't let them do it, right? Because they want to sell tickets and all that kind of stuff. I'm not seeing anything in that Don Maloney answer that tells me that's not what their situation is.

So Eric Francis, not Ron Francis, asked very directly, like, there's a narrative among fans that you're not allowed to tear it down because of ownership. And here's what Don Maloney says. No, I don't think that's accurate. We have a collective group here with Dave Nones, Craig, myself, Brad Pascal, Peter Hanlon, and we discuss how we move forward. We all want to win a cup. Yet we, there's a dynamic in Canada. You have 82 games.

You want to sell tickets to get people to come to your games. It all kind of works together. No one has an appetite to just burn it down to the Suds, take it all down. There's examples out there right now where you're talking about potentially decades it can take to rebuild. true. That's undeniable. The draft is such an inexact thing. If you could be guaranteed that you could get a superstar or a

franchise level player every year, I'm sure ownership of any team would say, okay, yeah, we'll suffer for two or three years. But we just don't think that's the way for us. We prefer a Dallas model, where they get Miro Heiskin in at three, but also good players in the 20s and the 30s.

We've got to get better at drafting and developing versus saying, let's just lose for everybody. We don't want that culture as part of this organization. There it is. I was wondering when that word would show up. This is a great idea.

Just copy the Dallas model, the model that's working on one team. I like how he's like, like, we just want to be like Dallas. We just have to get better at drafting and developing. Oh, yeah. You know what? Here's what I think. You should be like Dallas and get better at playing hockey on the ice this season. Like, if we're copying Dallas.

It's just going to go into the scouting meeting with a, Dallas Star's logo on an 8 and a half by 11 and just point at it and everyone's going to go, oh, okay. Anytime I see the name Dave Nones in 2020. Yeah, that was a fun surprise, right? I'm like, oh, there he is.

I forgot about that. Not, I would say, the standard bearer for sound decision making in the hockey world, Dave Nones. Not exactly. Was he the one that's like, who had a better off? season him or a potato. Yep.

Awesome. He got, he lost to a potato in 2013. That was a long time ago now, but. That was David Clarkson year, so. Yeah. So for people who don't know, there was, I believe, pension plan puppets in a leaf's blog that was like, uh, who did better? Dave known us or a potato.

And Dave known as signed David Clark's a potato didn't do anything. Yep. And, and the point was by not doing anything, the leaves would have had a way. way better offseason than they did under Dave Nones, who was allegedly trying to improve the team. Anyway, he's sitting in on what's making the Calgary Flames good or bad. There's a bunch of other quotes. I encourage you to read it if you're interested in this kind of thing, the whole interview.

But the other thing I wanted to point out here is that multiple times in this interview, he's asked about Gavin McKenna, number one picks, that kind of thing. And he's like, oh, yeah, trying to get the number one pick. And this is the quote he keeps using. That's a fantasy world. This is fantasy hockey. And it's like, well, no, like somebody's going to get them. Yeah.

Don't you want it to be you? Wouldn't, what, you know, they got Miro Heiskin in at three. Well, that wasn't a fucking accident. You know, they saw a guy they liked when they picked really high. Mm-hmm. Especially because the flames have, like, if I'm not mistaken, they have never picked high. I think their highest pick is fourth. Fourth.

Bennett or something. They had a couple of guys at six. Yeah, Matthew Kachukh. Matthew Kachuk being one of them and I think Sean Monaghan, but they have never, I don't think in the history of the franchise had like the number one pick. No, they have no. They're one of those teams. Yeah.

Vancouver, Detroit, teams like that. And it's been working out for them. I mean, they've won a lot of cups in the last 30 years. So. Right. Yeah. Did you see Frank Saravelli's response to this? This is what I.

I wanted to bring up next. Yep. This is, again, how you know things are not going so well in Calgary is when insiders feel free to go after somebody. And Frank Sarajevoi, I don't have the direct quote in front of me, but he was basically like, the sooner the Calgary Flames fired Don Maloney, the sooner they can actually get good at hockey. That's basically what he said.

And again, that's just. a classic example of when you feel like you're allowed to say that as an insider and nobody's saying don't go there to you that's how you know it's fucking open season on a guy especially on the president like I'm I'm guessing outside of Calgary there weren't too many fans who knew who the president of the flames was

okay here here's the quote the sooner that Craig Conroy and the rest of the Calgary Flames staff don't have to report to Don Maloney is the sooner the rest of his this franchise will be better off. And that's kind of fascinating, because it makes you wonder, like Frank is an insider. He is one of these guys who's quite plugged in.

Yep. You would presume that at some point in his travels, he's probably had a few conversations with Craig Conroy. And so when you hear him say that, you kind of, like, is this, is this what either Conroy himself or allies of Craig Conroy are? whispering is this that, you know, it's, which I guess would be to say,

are we already at the point in Calgary where it's, like, we've got that level of positioning and politicking and figuring out who the scapegoat's going to be? Because the other piece of this was that Craig Conroy's contract is up. Yeah, and Maloney wouldn't comment on that aspect of it. Yeah, gave him the vote of confidence, like, verbally as far as like, yeah, we like this guy, but didn't say anything about getting the contract done. Yep. And Calgary is a get...

Calgary is one of those markets where, you know, if Toronto decides to fire Craig Baroube, it's not going to matter that he has two years left on his deal. They'll eat it and they'll move on. Calgary is probably looking at things like not wanting to pay guys that they maybe are walking away from. Yeah, I didn't, I honestly, I feel like reading that interview, like, I didn't think Maloney came across badly. Like, there are times where some of these guys do interviews and you're going like, what the hell is this guy talking about?

We're going to get to a couple of those in a minute. Absolutely. I felt like Maloney did as good a job of putting lipstick on the pig of they're not going to rebuild. And it is ownership. But he just said it in as nice a way as possible. but now he's the guy wearing. He explicitly said that's not what's going on here. Right.

That's the narrative, but it's not accurate. And then spent the other 90% of the interview. Absolutely confirming that that's what's going on. And so the thing with Don Maloney is he, God, when did he get hired by the flames? No idea. All right. I'm going to Google this. I think it was around the time, 2016.

So I was going to say was when he was hired as a professional scout. And I feel like that was Brad Trilliving doing his old dots of favor, kind of. Mm-hmm. And, you know, he's just gone up and up and up in the last 12 years or nine years, I guess it's been. But what have the flames done in those nine years, you know? It's not like they've been good. So whatever they don't they had that one weird now in hindsight, outlier, good years. year.

Yeah, and they were fine last year. You know, they, they missed the playoffs, but like, better than expected. And there was another, there was another question in there where it's like, you know, same team, same coaching staff, same leadership group in the front office, basically, like, why was last year's success and why is this year not going so well? And it's like, well, Dustin Wolf didn't start out so well is one thing. But also, an older team in a lot of way, like all their best players are older guys. and they're all one year older than they were last year.

And sometimes that's going to happen to you. But sometimes. Yeah. Most times, I would say. Sure. So I guess my thing is like this is always like in the band of expectations like you were talking about earlier, right? For the flames, maybe not being one of the absolute dog shit worst teams in the league. But missing the playoffs by a decent margin was absolute.

on the table for these guys. And they just don't have an answer for what comes next. Which, if it's an ownership thing, or just you have a bunch of older guys who have like no move clauses and they don't want to get fucking traded. That's going to be a problem for you.

The solution is, don't give them the no move clause, you know, whatever. Well, I do wonder how many, yeah, I do wonder how many of these guys are slamming their fist on the table say in no way. I'm not going anywhere. It seems like Nassim Khadri might be, honestly. I don't, well, I think a lot of these guys, certainly, if you call them into the office and go, we got an offer from Buffalo, might be like no things.

Well, again, we're going to get to a team that's in a pretty similar boat to Calgary. Well, let's do that then. Let's. Untray. Okay. Well, then we'll skip ahead to the Nashville Predators. I didn't have them next on the call sheet. That's fine. Nashville Predators. Barry Trots, a lot of interviews these last few days. Did one with Gorp over at Espin earlier this morning, but really didn't say a ton that was too different from an interview he did with the Tennessean over the weekend,

the Tennessee and the big local paper in Nashville. And this is the quote that I want to start with here. The confusing thing, the frustrating thing for everyone is that we just don't score. You look at the names on our roster, we should score more because we have Forsberg, Stamcoast, Marcia, so. We all think we're going to score. Did this guy watch the National Predators last year? I double-checked. This interview is from this weekend.

Not last- Summer of July 1st, 2024? Well, even, like even you get into this time last year. This was not from 2024 at all. And look, again. And I think you can probably look it up. I don't have it in front of me, but I think you can probably look it up and go, they're scoring less than expected.

Right? I think that's a totally reasonable thing that, in fact, they're scoring way less than expected. Five on five, they have 47.7 expected goals and 32 actual. So that's bad. Mm-hmm. You don't want that to be the, to be underperforming by like, almost 50% in my opinion.

Is that how that math worked? Whatever, who cares? But also, you saw them underperform last year. You can't sit here and go, damn, that's crazy. Right? Without also being like there are bigger problems at play here. And so here's the next quote here. over the next few weeks across the league, someone's getting fired.

You're going to see it. It's just going to happen. And what you're going to hear out of every fucking player, it says expletive, but I'm assuming that's what he said, is, oh, man, we just underperformed. He was a really good coach. We've got to be better. And it takes everybody off the hook. They go, it was him, not us. That is spoken very much like a 15, 15.

15 year head coach. And he's not completely wrong. There is an element of that. And I actually, I appreciate that insight. That's a good quote from a GM who is really a coach dressed as a GM. I still don't know that. I mean, if I'm Andrew Brunette, I'm happy to hear that because that suggests I'm at least maybe not going to be the first guy.

Right. Right. And then there are two more quotes along those lines. I know who makes mistakes. When the puck is on someone's stick and they pass it right to the other team, that's not Brunette's fault. And then he told Greg this morning, or well, I guess it probably, he didn't say it this morning, but in the article published this morning. As a coach, you can tell when you're playing decent or when you're playing poorly. Last year we were playing poorly a lot. This year we haven't played poorly, but it's not showing up in our record.

what do you mean you're not playing like systems wise you're playing perfectly but you're getting you can't score you're giving the puck away constantly like pick a lane man you know what I'm saying yeah um I also suspect that uh if you look at like the underlying numbers and stuff the the difference from last year to this year for the for the predators like in terms of outputs or whatever you want to say isn't that different if I just if I had to guess you know Like, they weren't good last year. We're all on the same page there. In fact, Sean, you're not going to believe this.

They were a better expected goals team last year at five on five than this year. Uh-oh. The difference is, last year they scored 40% of their goals of the goals at five-on-five. And this year, they're scoring 36% of the goals at five-on-five. So it's just the puck is ending up in the back of the net more. And that's, so he's going, I can tell you why it's happening. His guys are just putting it on the tape of the other team.

It's probably true. I don't watch every Predators game. I assume Barry Trott's does. And, you know, but my point is this. If it was 40 last year and it's 36 this year, right? And you're like, oh, we have a bunch of guys who I thought were good. And it's not the coach's fault. Does he have like any mirrors in his office?

He can maybe look in? that's kind of it right it's this is the team you got this is the results you've had and i get the idea of sometimes teams do underperform and not because of the coach not because of not even necessarily because of the bad luck and the randomness guys just go cold play poorly, lose confidence, whatever you have. For a hundred games?

That's it. It's been a year and a half now. Yep. I could even understand, I wouldn't have done it myself, but I can understand the idea of at the end of last season, you go, you know what,

we're a better team than this, burn the tapes, that was a, that season, you wouldn't want to say fluke, but that was the worst case scenario. Let's take another shot at it and show what we can do. But now we're 20 more games in.

It is what it is. Two more quotes from Greg's article. You hear this from a lot of teams. We're looking for a top six forward. You know, I have a couple top sixes. I've talked to their agents. I just want to get a feel for things. If we get this turned around, it'll be fine.

If we don't, then maybe they want to say, hey, I'm getting a little older. I want another crack at it. Can we do something? This is what we were talking about earlier. But the thing about if we get this turned around, dog, you are dead last in the NHL. What's turning around here? I'm being serious.

What does turning it around look like for these guys? They would have to go on an incredible fucking run to even get to the 25 points that like the 20th place team in the league has. They have one win in their last nine games. They got fucking smoked by Flores. Florida last night. And all these quotes are from before the Florida game. So maybe last night is the straw that breaks the camels back. But this is the other quote I wanted to read.

Speaking to ESPN before the Florida game, Trot said the next seven or eight games are going to be a good indicator. Seven or eight games? I just got to get up to that nice round 110 number before I realize these guys suck. What are we talking about Barry? You know what, though? here's what I can, and this is not a defense of Barry Trouts, but this is why I can kind of see it. And it gets to something that I found myself looking at recently

that surprised me a little bit. Because I was like, man, what happened with the Predators? Because they were good the year before they got Marsha's O and Stamcoast. Like they were a playoff team. Why, how did they get so much worse when they went and got those guys? And what I had forgotten was that was the U2 year. year, right? The famous concert at the sphere that gets can.

Where they stunk for three quarters of that year. And then you're like, well, they'd have to go on a crazy insane run. That's what happened that year. They had like a 15-game section of the season where they were unbeatable. And other than that, they were very average. Middling, yeah, that's right. And so I guess if anyone on any team is going to be like, well, what if we just magically get good for a month?

for no reason other than we made our players sad which you know good news if that's the magic bullet because probably pretty sad these days um and then this is the last trots quote

I do believe in Bruno he's talking about Andrew Brunette and not um uh not the character from the from the movie you know I've never seen Encanto I don't um

Because, well, I haven't either, but, I mean, I'm assuming Trots would not be talking about him. Like, that's... Well, I was going to say Bruce Willis's Jazz Man character. Okay. Also good. You know about this? Look at us dropping two. Oh, yeah.

What was the album called? Return of Bruno, baby. Return of Bruno, yeah. So he says, I do believe in Bruno. That's why I've been firm on that. I'm not worried about what people think. I think sometimes it's easy to fire the coach because it's the easy thing to do. Again, this is a former coach who's now a GM talking.

But I will agree that Andrew Brunette is not the main problem here. The main problem is whoever built this team and we're all trying to figure out hot dog meme. Yep. But also Andrew Burnett might not be the solution. That I said the main problem. Right. And I'm being very, I don't know that there's a lot of coaches out there. or any, quite frankly, who could go,

I know exactly what we can do to make 39-year-old Stephen Stamco's turn back into a 40-goal guy. You know, like, I don't know that that's a salute. There's a guy out there with that solution in their brain. I just don't think they exist. But not the main problem here. The main problem is the guy who was like, why don't we go get 39-year-old Stephen Stamco's and see what happens? You know, that's the problem with winning the off-season.

is what you I'm not saying I would be immune to this if everybody spent three months of a summer going this guy is a fucking genius holy shit I can't believe how smart this guy is look what he just did

incredible nobody's ever done it better than this I'd be sitting there going yeah you know what I'm pretty good you know like I think that's a totally human thing to arrive at but again, you've seen it for 100 plus games now and you're like, give me seven or eight more and let's find out. What could you possibly see if you're Barry Trots?

That you're like, yep, okay. We haven't figured out now. We're turning the ship around other than the U-2 concert thing. And even then, you go on that kind of a big one. He's got to be digging around talking to guys like, hey, Ryan or right, what kind of music do you like? Like, but again, they're so bad this year that if they go on that kind of run, that probably gets them to around 16th in the standings, in the league standings. Who cares?

In a year where we're like, you know who's great as the Islanders this year? They're like 12th in the league or whatever. Who fucking cares, man? But it's all about gate revenues. That's what it boils down to. All right. Why don't we take a break? We'll come back.

We have even more quotes like this. Can't wait. Yeah. All right. We're back. And, uh, all right. Let's do the Vancouver Canucks now. Okay.

This is the one I'm excited for because I want to hear you read this verbatim. Well, I don't, you know what? I have the quote that some, like a lot of, I went and found the article with all the quotes in this. Because I was like, surely there's more than the dumbass one that's going around on Twitter right now. Yeah. And there was, you know. Okay. Um, but, uh,

While we're doing that, I will pull up the Twitter version of it. So I can at least read the one that you're talking about. Okay. And then you can do the to English translation of they cleaned it up. There's going to be a lot of brackets in that version of the quote. Okay. So you know what? I found it.

Here's the uncleaned up version here. I mean, but you know, I'm more happy with wins. and but I'm not going to blow up a kid or something being over-analyzed. By no disrespect, people that don't really know, but they're just looking at numbers from people that could be in Russia, in a basement, having cigarettes, cashews, telling their scoring chances.

Nobody's ever said it better than that. I mean, guy nailed it. By the way, I'd like to announce the launch of my new blog, cigarettes and cashews. It's an analytics-focused Vancouver Canucks blog. Finally, a not too crowded market for you to get

into. Yeah, we're, you know, the computer boys, they're out. The cashew crew is in, okay? That's right. I'm more of a pistachios guy. Somebody else referred to it as nuts and butts, which is pretty good, too. I like that.

And as somebody pointed out, um, this guy's just heard the name Dimitri Filipovich. It was like Russian guy. I knew it.

Yeah. You know? That's it. It's like that. Dom sounds kind of Russian. He's... Yeah.

I guess. But so this is the more cleaned up version of some of these quotes here. Am I happy with our defensive structure? Yeah. We allowed 12 scoring

chances against last night five on five. That's not a lot. But I don't want to over analyze or talk about it because our young guys got to learn the game. They're doing great.

Now, the game he's talking about, that's true. They allowed 12 scoring chances at 5 on 5. What rank do you think the Vancouver Canucks are in, and 5 on 5 scoring chances against per 60, not the number, they're rank in the league? 20. 31. All right. So who's below them?

Anaheim. Ah, okay. high danger chances. So, okay, let's take scoring chances off the board. You can get a lot of scoring chances from around the perimeter, not the perimeter per se, but like from a good distance out, those are scoring chances. Are we limiting like the in-close ones? No, they're 32nd in the league in five-on-five high-danger scoring chances.

Right. And so why, why, though? It's our injuries. It's just that simple. It's logical, right? Do you know who they're, like, injury? guys were around the time that he was saying this? No.

The only injured defenseman was Derek Forward. That makes all the difference right there. And he's been out for most of the year. As has, and this is the other thing. Look, it's a five-man game. You've got to have your forwards out there as well. And they do have a good number of forward injuries. They missed like a Ramaki for a good number of games there, like 10 or something.

Houghlanders missed basically the entire season, as far as I know. Teddy Blugers has missed a good number of games, and obviously since Philip Heedle got hurt, he's been out, whatever that was, like two, three weeks ago. And when I look at Blugers, Heedle, Lechiramaki, Hoaglander, I think defensive stalwarts that are propping up the Vancouver Canucks scoring chances against numbers. And obviously Dempco's heard as well But he doesn't play defense Well I mean I guess he kind of does

But you know what I mean So I don't know how logical that is But so tell the thing about telling the scoring chances He then said this Which I think is actually pretty interesting We're going to depend on our guys We've got to keep teaching I'm not going to blast a kid for costing us a goal

and then the next game he's nervous to go out there and make a mistake. I'm going to teach him. I like to keep things in-house. There's accountability, but I like to keep it in house. I actually think that's great. I think that's a good quote to have. And a good like organizational philosophy, coaching philosophy, whatever you want to call it. There's no point in being like mad at your sixth defenseman who's like 23, like Tom Willander, for example, right?

Like, if you're, if you're going to get mad at him and go, this guy sucks, like, I can't believe he, you know, flubbed that breakout pass and it ended up on the other guy's stick and then two seconds later, it's in the back of the net. That's not, like, productive. And also, even if they're young guys blowing them up in the media, they know what they fucking did, you know? So there's all that as well. That having been said, this team sucks. Right. They're, they are currently,

uh, third last in the league and, or a second, wait, hold on. Third last in league by both points and points percentage. So it's not even,

you know, um, a little smoke and mirrors. Oh, we don't have the games played or whatever. They're 435. Only Calgary and Nashville are worse. And again,

I was, going to say you hate to keep harping on it, but I guess I bring it up constantly. They're like 16 months away from having to lose Quinn Hughes for nothing. You know? Whatever.

I just, I don't know what you do because all the guys, they brought back everybody they could this year. They were like, you know what, Brock Basser, come on down. They're, they're, the word is that they're like, we're, we're putting Connor Garland out there. in hopes of getting a number two center. The David Camp signing hasn't worked out.

The Lucas Reichel trade hasn't worked out. These guys are not number two centers. We're putting Connor Garland out there trying to get a number two center. Who? Connor Garland just, like he has an extension that hasn't even kicked in yet with a full no-move clause through 2032. And he's 29 years old. Who's trading a number two center for that? That's depressing.

I did not realize my silence there was me really getting my head around that contract status. He's, and like, he's not a bad player at all. That's not what I'm saying. But not too many teams out there are like, oh, this 60-point guy we have on our second line. You're being extremely generous. Connor Garland's career high in points is 52. Well, that's what I'm saying, like, they're going to trade that guy. Oh, right, right, right.

get Connor Garland and pay him until he's 36. Yep. Look, I think I, like last year when they traded for Marcus Patterson, was that two years ago now, I was like, this is a good idea. They should do it. Their defense stinks they need to shore it up. But like, Tyler Myers is still on this team. Derek Forbert can't play, but he's still on, like can't play right now, but he's still on this team. What was it?

Last week, two weeks ago we had the stat where like when Quinn Hughes was off the ice, they were minus 1-11 in scoring chances in the last like two or three weeks. Or shots on goal maybe it was. I can't remember now. But it's like, yeah, man, your big solution this summer was let's go get a Vanderkane. And again, the rumor is the owner said let's go get a Vanderkane and they had to do it. You know? But regardless.

I don't know if the owner was like, let's give Jake DeBrusk six years or whatever, seven years. Did he get eight? That's a good question. I don't know what the answer is. Well, the answer according to Elliot is they're open to trading almost anyone, which is better than the messaging out of Calgary, at least. and so the report from Elliot was that he'd been told that all the veterans are available not counting Quinn Hughes

and then I think he also or maybe someone else later said that's probably Philip Roneck as well would fall into that category and then Ronex agent our old pal Alan Walsh had like a snarky tweet today about that pointing out that running has a no movement clause. He certainly does. With a little eye roll emoji.

Four, five, six other Canucks. Yeah. Not including Thatcher Demko, who has won the kicks in next season. Oh, good. Which he's signed for three more years after this one at eight and a half million dollars. That's fine. That'll be the Oilers problem after they trade them to Edmonton.

It's so, yeah. It sounds, and what was interesting about that is Elliot pointed out, Jim Rutherford tends to move quick. For all my complaining about how it takes four months to make a trade in the NHL, even the most simple deal, it takes forever to Plinko chip its way through all the different levels of two teams. Rutherford doesn't work that way. No. Jim Rutherford will make a deal in November.

He will make a deal. Like, he's old school that way. So the fact that this is being floated out there suggests that maybe things are closer than you would assume for just about any other team where you'd go, okay, well, I'll check back in three months and see how that's going. So we'll see. Maybe by this time next week we've got a Canucks trade to talk about.

Yeah. And I mean, this is the time. of year when this kind of starts to happen. It's almost always right after Thanksgiving. I think last year, like the week after Thanksgiving, was when everything started to shake loose for the Rangers, for example. They made the Jacob Trubah trade and all that. I believe that was the week after Thanksgiving last year,

and then, you know, people progressed from there. Again, this just boils down to, I think, that you're not allowed to rebuild in Vancouver. and because you're not allowed to rebuild, you've got to keep as much of the band together as possible. Like, I'll put it this way. The Elliott report about like almost every veteran is available, except Quinn Hughes and maybe Philip Roanick, right? Like, they're not making, they're not trading Brock Besser, for example,

a guy they just resigned. They're not trading him for like a first, a second and a third and like a B prospect or anything. They're like, we need guys who are NHL players right now. Like, maybe they want to get two years younger or whatever. I don't know why any team would do that. But in theory, that's what they want to do. And that ultimately is the problem for the Canucks. They are another team that is, again, horrible at five on five, right?

And I don't know that like there's any real difference in quality. between the guy who was the coach last year and the guy who's the coach this year. Like, or not in terms of quality of them as coaches, but like what they're putting out on the ice and getting from those guys. I don't know that it's, that it's much different. Mm-hmm.

And so, you know, we say it all the time, but like, it's the ownership is the problem. And until they get a better owner, I don't know why you would buy a single Canucks ticket or Jersey or whatever. Like,

Because, again, like, to go back to the Maloney quote about like, hey, we got to sell tickets next year. Who's buying these tickets? Like, what kind of sucker do you have to be? To be like, look, there's a difference between it's a fun night out. I like going to a hockey game, that kind of thing. And going and being like, I expect I'll see the Canucks win this one. Yeah, exactly. And it'll be a meaningful game that counts for something in the standings.

And if they win, that wouldn't actually hurt their chances to get the best possible outcome because they should be trying for draft picks and that kind of thing. So, but the freaking cashew boys were at it again. Riggin Russian base, but he did mention basements, right? Like that. He did. Of course he did. We're not so far past the old days that. No.

Okay. It's nice to get that. throwback sometimes though. Remember those days? You could say to you? I do. Yeah. This is what it's all about. All right, Sean, here we go. The Toronto Maple Leafs. Can't wait. These are real quotes from Brad for living. And this is from what I thought was an awesome article in the athletic comparing quotes about Craig Barubi when he got fired in St. Louis to quotes that are coming out right now from Okay. I honestly did not see that. It was like the May the May the Maple Leaf Weekend report or something like that.

So it starts off with a large part of the frustration is you don't know how it's going to look every night. That's one quote from Brad Trillet. I'm pulling up the comparisons now. This is a quote from Doug Armstrong. It's uncomfortable when you go to the arena every night and you're not sure what the team is going to look like. Okay. Yeah. This is another quote from Brad Trilliv.

I think far too often, even in games that we've won, we haven't won the game. This is Doug Armstrong two years ago. There were more nights than not where I felt like we didn't win the game, not by the score, but by the eye test of, were you the better team? Brad for Living. I think as we sit here today, our record is indicative of how we played. And here's Armstrong two years ago. I don't know if we're a better team than our record indicates. I really don't.

Mm-hmm. And then... That's very interesting. Well, and then, and then here's the, the quote from Brad True Living that doesn't have a, uh, a cousin from, from Doug Armstrong a couple of years ago. Okay. Uh, yeah, I've got all the faith in our coach right now. I don't look at that as the issue. Now, hold on a second.

Mm-hmm. I'm doing, I'm doing the Andre the giant gift of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Um, that's not the issue. You just described so many things that Like, okay To bring it back to the Canucks, the Flames, whoever I don't know that you're getting too many games Where you're like the Canucks look like

Fucking World Beaters Yeah And then the next night you're like The Canucks look like they've never skated backwards before That's happening with the Toronto Maple Leafs They have run it up on multiple teams this year And also looked like they've never met each other on consecutive nights.

Whose fault is that? Is it the players? Because it sounds like it's not the coach. If it's not the coach, it's either the players or the guy who put the team together. You get to pick, Brad, you know? Yeah, it's hard to argue. So what do you think?

You think this is the classic vote of confidence to buy myself two weeks and file the coach? Yeah, I think so. So, and said with the hope that things will turn around over those two weeks so that he doesn't have to fire the coach. But I think, A, I mean, he's probably telling the truth when he says he thinks Craig Burb is a good coach and et cetera, et cetera. But also he knows that as soon as the coach has gone, now it's 100% Bradtree living on the hot seat, which is he's already mostly there. but he would be thoroughly there. So you want to keep that, you know,

that safety net as long as you can. But I don't think it can last too, too much. Like it feels right now in Toronto a lot like it did in the weeks before Mike Babcock got fired. Which, remember, Mike Babcock got, had a longer runway, but he also had that. eight-year contract. So it was like, you know, when they fired him, there was like four years left on the deal. Like, it was a big, it was a big thing. But it just got to a point where it was like,

this, this isn't working. Totally. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is in, in Toronto either, because like, this isn't a, uh, a situation like Quinn Hughes where you kind of know like, eh, he's not going to stick around this organization. He's going to New Jersey the first chance he gets. We got to get as much, we got to squeeze as much juice out of this as possible and, you know, you're squeezing a stone.

But that's what you've got to tell yourself. That's what you're going to tell the people who are buying your tickets, whatever you want to, you've got to tell your owner. But like Matthews, Nealander, these guys aren't going anywhere for a while if they don't want to. No. Tavares, just got a big extension.

Yeah. You're not going to move. You're not going to move Tavares because he just took a huge discount. And I mean, I'm not even going to bother looking. I'm assuming he's got full no move protection on that. I have the page open, yeah. You're not going to move Matthews or Nailender because that's just not what teams do anymore. And, yeah.

You're not going to move Matthew Nyes. No, probably not. So now who are you moving that has enough value that you're going to get something in return that might help? I'm going to put this out there. And the problem is he does have a full no move. But the most overrated player in the league is Morgan Riley for me. You know, I've said this a million times. He'd be a guy.

I just don't get it. And I sort of alluded to this last week. Like, if you move, like in the olden days, the team was doing something like this, they would take Morgan Riley and some winger, you know, Max Gomi, and they would trade them for a winger and a defenseman from some other team that were, you know,

roughly the same value, and then you would hope it worked better. Now, is that shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic? Yeah, maybe. Might be. But right now, the thing, Brad to Living is giving like a big time, I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas,

vibe right now. So I don't know, man. Maybe Riley would be the guy, but Riley has protection and he seems to love in Toronto. Full no move. Yeah, that's the problem. And also, I mean, is he overrated? Sure, but.

He's not like a bummer. The blue line stinks and he's arguably their best defenseman, and that kind of tells you what the problem is right there. the other part of it is he is also their like second youngest defenseman yeah he's 31 years old can you believe enough time it's past that Morgan Riley is 31 I know it's frustrating it is it is wild and it's but I'll tell you what they are tell you what they better not do they better not move any like an East and Cowan for like man the and the and the thing that's me is Brad Trilliving making a deal like that for like, let's just say it's a Rasmus Anderson type of guy who needs an extension.

Yeah. Oh, man. Can you imagine being the agent of a guy like that that gets traded to the Leafs sitting down to negotiate? Just. You have sent your wife like the, the rich guy equivalent of the like Sears catalog. Yeah. Like start circling stuff. We're getting three new boats off of this one.

Absolutely. Like, it's, it's good, you can speak to this, obviously. It's going to be very frustrating as a fan of a team that's like, I don't want to say circling the drain, because I think probably the Leafs in a world where maybe they've been better coached or whatever you want to say, you don't look at this roster and go, these guys should be like the Vancouver Canucks in third last place in the league. They should be better. And like every other team, they're two wins out of wild card race.

So. Yep. But you do look at the bottom of the roster in particular and you go, yeah, it makes sense that these guys actually kind of suck. You know, like it's not that they have any like unbelievably bad players like the Canucks do, for example. But they don't have a ton of good players either. You know, like you're, you're Stephen Lawrence. You're not like, oh, Stephen Lawrence, that guy's horrendous. He's just like not a big difference maker.

Yeah. You know, Scott Lotton, he doesn't suck or anything. Yeah, that's it. Like you hear on any given night who's coming in and out of the lineup and you're like, all right, those are guys. Yeah, those guys are interchangeable at the bottom of any NHL lineup. Mm-hmm. Or any good NHL lineup, I guess you would say.

But again, if they're not getting the bounces or whatever, and let's be honest, like a big part of this, that they're not getting the same percentage they did last year. So, you know, yeah, again, like, I think the Leafs are a team with maybe a little more hope than like Calgary or whatever. But I don't know. I just, there's no answer that's like good here because almost every guy on the Leafs that's tradable in theory has some sort of movement protection. And to your point, the only guys that aren't are like Matthew Nyes and like Joseph Wohl where it's like, well, we wouldn't trade those guys.

You shouldn't unless you're a GM trying to save his own job. And the last thing I'll say for the Leafs is because I agree with you, they're better than Calgary, they're better than should be better than Vancouver. But also they don't have their next two first round picks. So even if you wanted to say, all right, you know what, rebuild. time, or at least, you know, we're going to hit the deck for this year. The pick for this year is top five protected. So if they've completely bottomed out, they get a nice high pick.

But even if that happened, that means now, okay, so now you're picking in the top five, you presumably had a terrible season. Now you definitely don't have your picks the next two years. There's no more protection after that. So Boston's got one and Philly's got the other. And so there's, you can't strip it down to this. Or at least there's no reason to strip it down because there's no reward for doing it as far as the high pick. It's a mess.

It's very bad. Can I say this, though? When they attach the top five protection, this is me praising Bradford Living. When they attach the top five protection, I think everybody was like, well, that'll never happen. Mm-hmm. And now Maybe Brad Treeliving He's got one more

Trick of his sleeve The old Fox gets out of the Dan again, you know I'd love to see old Brad Trilliving wiggle his way Out of this one Trilliving does absolutely nothing Ah

And yeah Well here's the thing He knows that if he gets fired in Toronto He'll only have to wait like three weeks He's just a classic guy Where it's like he's gonna do this forever Are there any track

track record here of success? Well, no, but... We just found out Dave Nones is kicking around. That's exactly right. You don't have to be a GM in the league to have a position of authority, make a good amount of money.

Not the Bradshaw living needs the money. He's got that pizza cash, you know what I'm saying? He does have a lot of that pizza cash. But, um, you know, you can just be, go be like the head of, the deputy

head of hockey ops for some team and have a relatively anonymous role where you make six figures very comfortably and you just kind of have to, your job when things go badly is to just kind of frown and go, I don't know if we can rebuild. We don't want to instill that kind of culture. And everybody's like, totally agree. You're a genius. Awesome shit.

And then there's one more quote here about a team that is struggling that I thought was really interesting because, and this is, I think, very indicative. of what, like, fans think they know, or what you're seeing on the ice versus what your expectations are, and then, like, how you try to connect those two things, okay? So the Edmonton Oilers have really struggled in a lot of games this year. Now they're a game above 500. Everything's fixed because they beat the Panthers. We don't have to worry about it, except they're 23rd in the league with a horrible goal difference.

and, you know, the exact thing everybody thought would be their problem and inability to get saves is exactly what their problem is. Right. And this is the quote from Chris Knoblock that I thought was really interesting. Again, addressing the idea that part of the slow start was that they changed the systems. Quote, we've been playing the exact same systems as we have the two previous years. Oh, okay. Well, that's my bad. And we've talked about how things will work out or turn around, but it has got to the point where things haven't turned around 20 plus games into the season.

And now we're starting to alter some things. Today we adjusted one thing. It's hard because we have had so much success going to the Stanley Cup final twice. We didn't want to change anything. But now we are playing like we have for as long as we have. We have to start thinking things won't just work themselves out. We need to make some adjustments. Whether that's moving guys around or changing our system, we are starting to do that.

I think that's a really good way of talking about it. We know we have guys that we can make it work with. We are playing badly, and we have for 20 games now. So we have to think, what are we doing wrong and how do we fix it? I think that's about as much as a coach can do without saying, by the way, it would be nice if we could get a fucking save every once in a while. Yeah.

Team save percentage. 874. Let's get that up to 890. And they have two extra wins. We're not saying any of this stuff, you know? Yeah. Slow star for McDavid got mixed in there. That's true.

Absolutely. You know what? He started slow. You know what he's up to now? 33 points in 24 games. After a slow start. This guy's fucking ridiculous, man. If they were getting any saves at all,

we'd be saying yet another year, Karam McDavid, the MVP of the league, you know, like in his last 14 games, he's got 9, 12, 21, and that's after a slow start where he had one goal in his first 10 games.

He's unbelievable. Any coach can just go, you know what I think the solution to this is? let's give Connor more ice time. Yep. And it works. It'll work every time. Put him in net.

I'm not convinced that he wouldn't be fine. He is on right now. This is true. And this is actually true a lot. They give him a lot of minutes to start the season and then kind of taper it off as the playoffs approach. But he's, if things held right now, he is playing the most minutes of any year of his NHL career, almost 23 and a half. This is a good solution. Okay, I have the idea.

Instead of every fourth shift, every third shift you're out there. Yep. What you're going to do is you're going to go into the options menu. You're going to turn off line changes. That's right. He's so sick, man. But, yeah, again, there's no great mystery here as to what the problem is. The problem is Stuart Skinner.

The problem is Calvin Pickard. Yep. That's it. And who do they go and get? If anyone. Right. Yeah. It has to be someone.

It has to be, right? Like the if anyone qualifier sounds so ridiculous. Mm-hmm. But here we are. Yep. If they miss the playoffs, are we doing the

Connor McDavid watch in the summer? No. I don't think so. But we, I mean us, like in the narrative business. Not necessarily would it happen. No? Well, okay. Because there's just such an obvious fucking solution.

Get a goalie. Right. So if they don't get a goalie, if they literally go through a whole season, they don't get, and when I say get a goalie, I don't mean go and get, you know, some third stringer off another team who's interchangeable with Calvin Picard. I mean, get a certifiable number one upgrade goalie. If they go through the whole season without doing that at Stuart Skinner, Stuart Skinner's again in the playoffs?

Sure. And your Connor McDavid, is there not some part of you that would be like, guys, I gave you, I started the clock. I made it very clear what needed to happen. And you guys just wasted another season

of me. Yeah. Well, so I guess my answer is, well, we're going to get a goalie this summer. And you're like, are you now? Well, that's what I was going to say is, look, Stuart Skinner got a, like, this is the argument you could make if you wanted to defend Stan Bowman, which I don't really have any interest in.

The argument you could make, if you wanted to, is we went to the Stanley Cup final two years in a row with this guy. And kind of like, remember that Peter DeBore quote from a few weeks ago where he was like, look, if I made it to the first round and then the second round and then the third round, instead of just making the conference final three years in a row, I wouldn't have gotten fired. I think you can make that style argument about Stuart Skinner where you're going, okay. Yeah, it blew up in our faces. And yeah, that was always a risk. But we had to dance with who we came to the dance with to a certain extent. This is a guy we went to three Stanley Cup finals with. And it's not like we got to the finals and got nuked because he was bad.

And certainly you can also just say, like, you know, who is really good is Florida. You know? What's interesting to me is that, like, this was the foreseeable problem. but one of the things that we're not talking about so much is that, and look, the oilers do this every year where, like, I go, these guys are finished. They need to make huge trades and changes and all this kind of stuff. And then McDavid and Dreisdell go absolutely apeshit for three months. And they finish with like, you know, 112 points or whatever it is, right? they right now have the 19th best five-on-five offense by expected goals in the league.

They're behind the Rangers. They're behind the Canadians. They're behind the predators. The Calgary Flames are ahead of them, the Minnesota Wild. And this is a team with Connor McDavid and Leon Drysidal on it, you know? So there are bigger problems than just the goaltending. But if you're the Oilers, you're always going to score your expected. goals because you have two of the three best players in the world, let's say.

Arguably the top two, quite frankly. Yep. And the one thing you could have addressed is goaltending and you didn't do it. So I loved that knoblock quote where he's like, okay, I'm here to officially say it's not working. And what we were doing has to be changed. I think that's the right like mental approach for a coach to take. but yeah now now the GM has to kind of adopt the same thing yeah it's time um and then I got one more quote for you here and this one actually has kind of a happy ending this is this is a quiz though

Sean this is a trivia question all right locking in who said this who said this quote this is like end of last week I want to say I think we got a little too high on ourselves after a couple of wins. We think we're better than we are instead of remembering what got us those wins. Who said that? I'm going to say, let's see, it's a good team that's kind of struggling now. Give me, uh, give me Sheldon Keefe of the Devils. That was Tage Thompson of the Buffalo Sabres. So, uh, the Sabers have a five-game losing streak around the start of November. They beat Detroit. in overtime, then they beat Edmonton 5 to 1. Then they

lose to Calgary 6 to 2. And Tage Thompson's like, I don't know what the fuck we're thinking. We got high on our own supply, baby. And he rips the team for giving up 6 against Calgary. Then what did they do? They go out, they score 9 against Chicago

and they beat Carolina 4 to 1. Tage Thompson, this guy. This guy, nipsed it. New captain. I just love. If I was Calgary, if I was Calgary. We think they'd take Connor Garland for him from Vancouver?

Yeah. I'd make that call. That, that quote just struck me as very funny. That is excellent. We think we're better than we are. Hey man, you're at the Buffalo Sabres.

Slow it down. How is that even possible? But, you know, okay. All right, we got some other news here. Connor Hallibuck is out four to six weeks with a knee injury, or knee surgery. Yeah. Yeah. Minor knee surgery, but they're really, in the sense that it sounds like they're, they have the, he has a procedure and he'll be back and he'll be fine and no long-term concerns or anything like that.

But four or six weeks is a lot. And the thing is normally you'd look at it and you go, okay, well, it's a good thing that Jets got off to a good start. Gave themselves some padding. Well, they're not in the playoffs right now. Correct. They are struggling a little bit and... By points percentage, they are ninth in the West right now. So the guy who is the MVP misses a month and a half, yeah, that adds up to a problem. Yeah, that would be a big concern if I were, if I were the Jets. And right, like the point is they're ninth.

and they were probably a little higher than that before the surgery, but their ninth, with Helibuck having played in the bulk of their 21 games to date. Yeah. And with, in what a lot of us consider the toughest division, but you've got Colorado running away with it. You've got Dallas looks almost as good as Colorado lately.

You've got the Minnesota Wilde who kind of have gone from, yeah. Yeah. So it's getting to be a concern, you know. It's like that could be three spots already taken. The mammoth have cooled down, but yeah, it's no guarantee. And I mean, you talk about a team that needs to make the playoffs. You can't. Oh, totally, yeah.

Yeah. Hellebuck hasn't played since the 15th. The Jets are one and two since then, nothing, like everything in regulation. I'd say they've just looking at the numbers really quickly they've played pretty well but let's see if I can pull

the team save percentage for these last three games obviously a small sample they have allowed nine goals in three games that's a lot on 80 shots uh oh you're not going to make the

you're not going to stay in the playoff race with that kind of a team save percentage nope Um, Romanov, after that big Rantaninan hit, he is out five to six months. Yeah, that's... Miko Rantanin, the bad boy of the end. The goon.

Yeah. The automatic suspension. Yep. And nothing else. They didn't. Yeah. Well, you know, honestly, I say all the time, like, they need to start throwing the book at guys.

I think that in both of those cases, they were, like, bad hits that don't necessarily rise to the level of suspension in and of themselves. And that's how they kind of judge it at the Department of Player's Safety. And he got kicked out of both of the games, which they kind of look at that as like a one-game suspension on its own, right? Yeah. They don't. So in soccer, I don't know if you know this, Sean.

They have a thing where you can get a yellow card for what's called persistent fouling. Okay. where like, you didn't do anything that was, like, crazy enough to get a yellow card, but you're being enough of a dickhead out there that they're like, okay, man, we need to turn down the temperature on this one a little bit. And so I was, I was kind of expecting, like, an extra game tacked on to that just to be like, you can't do this twice in a week. Yeah.

But that's what the automatic suspension is, right? I mean, that's the, although it's not. but it's not two in a week it's two in like four months or something so it's like 40 games actually I think I think it's half a season no oh right that's what the rule is yes yeah it's that's but that's what I'm saying like there's a difference between two and four months and two in a week you know right so that that's why I thought they might go okay all right man let can we can we like just chill out it's only one it would only be one extra game that's fine but whatever.

It sucks for the Islanders, though. Again, they're like one of the great stories of the season so far. Mm-hmm. In a, you know, a season where not a ton of those lying around. Um, and it's not like Romanobs, like an unbelievable player for, or anything like that. He's missed some time and, you know, he's a minus seven on a team that I don't think there are a ton of minuses out there. Um, so whatever.

But, like, he's on the younger side. He's a decent player, and you don't want to, you don't want to ever see someone get, uh, get hurt for five to six months. That's the whole season, basically, unless they, like, go on a deep playoff run, which, you know, they're the Islanders, so I'm not counting on it.

Um, okay, some other news here. Alexander Tessier, uh, out in St. Louis, contract termination, whatever, immediately goes to Montreal. all, hey, they need to help up front. That's fine. Yeah. It's interesting. We're seeing more of these contract termination situations, right? David Kempf was another one. And Brandon's out last year. Yeah. It's where it's sort of like, all right, get me out of here and I'll go make maybe as much money, maybe not, but I'll be playing in a better situation. And I wonder, I wonder how. I wonder how

how Marty Walsh feels about this, if you could hook them up to a lie to it. Because on the one hand, clearly these players are doing it because they feel like it's better situations. You don't want somebody to get locked into somewhere they don't want to be. But also, like, you know, teams are noticing this. Teams are going, okay, well, we got contracts we don't like.

What if the guy was really miserable and he just was willing to walk away from it? Yeah. And clearly, I mean, you're not going to get, away from some, you know, massive contract that way, but... Right. For some of the smaller stuff, I wonder if there's... Well, it's an interesting push-pull just because, like, the player has to agree with it.

Yes. Right? And so, or agree to it, I should say. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a mutual thing, but it's also, it's like, we fought hard to get and keep guaranteed contracts. Totally. Yeah.

No, I get it from, I get what you're saying for sure, and I get it from the people who would be like, well, if the player wants to take less, so like, what's interesting, or not interesting, I guess, about it, but like, what's notable about it is that all these guys have one year left. And so they're also playing for their next contract. And so, like, they have to weigh the cost benefit of, well, I'm making like $4 million this year, but next year I might make nothing if I'm not playing in the NHL. So I think there's an interesting push.

pull there a little bit, but I'm not, I totally see what you're saying, but I think it is a little more like, maybe you don't want it to be a trend, but it's not like this is happening to guys who are making a shitload of money for the most part. Correct. Yeah. I don't know. And to that point, Alexander Georgiev has been placed on unconditional waivers for the purpose of contract termination two days ago.

and then he cleared waivers and the expectation is that he's going straight to the KHL. So that's big news, mutually agreed on contract termination between him and whatever team it was he was employed by up until two days ago. Don't look into that.

I had no idea. I honestly had to refresh my memory that, yeah, he was a Buffalo Sabre. Yeah, I just knew he was a member of like the foreheaded monster in Buffalo where it's like, Well, surely one of these guys it's going to work with. There's no way it doesn't work with one of the four, because they also have, you know what, it's five guys, because they've liked what Colton's done so far.

Or Colton Ellis, I should say. Alex Lyon, Uco Peckalukinen, of course. And then, yeah, obviously Georgiev and Devin Liva. I was going to say, like, is he still kicking around? So yeah, like they had five goalies and they were like, oh, one of them was going to hit for sure. And it didn't work. And, oh, yeah, well, that's life. And then one last bit of news here before I just want to comment on one other thing in the league.

Adam Lowry, big extension in Winnipeg, five years, five million bucks per. Classic, you don't want to lose the guy, so you overpay him slightly. A little bit, a little bit too much. A little bit of a Winnipeg tax, but also he's important of what you're doing. He's their captain. Yep. So you keep your captain. I get that.

I don't really have a ton to say about it, but, you know, it does bear mentioning that this is what they're going to do. But what's interesting is, I don't know if you know this, Sean. Right now, the Jets have the lowest, like, cap hit for their whole team in the league. I did not know that. Yeah. Hmm. And so, Adam Lauer, we're getting a one-point-stance. $75 million a year raise?

Like is, okay, sure, yep, that checks out for me. It's not a huge problem except it pays him until he's 37, but by then the salary cap is whatever it's going to be. But if they're already kind of going to be the budget team, I don't know how much higher their payroll goes. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. So it's interesting that this is the, again, they don't have, they don't have

the ability to just be like, yeah, we'll walk away from our captain who has been here since basically day one, right? He's been there for fucking never, hasn't he? It's been there a while, yeah. Yeah, 14-15. He's been with the Jets. So, long time. But yeah, I get it from that point of view, but I just do, it did peak my interest that

he's, that they're the lowest payroll team in the league right now against the cap. I don't know what the actual, like, outlay is. Anyhow, one last thing I wanted to highlight. How about Alex Ovechkin, folks? He's going psycho lately. He had a hat to the other night. Slow start, much like Connor McDavid, slow starter this year. I think he had two goals in October.

Well, now he's up to 8, 6, 14, and 12 games in November. he's on pace for 35-ish goals. We love it. So sick. We love it. And I like how I, and maybe I'm wrong, maybe some Caps fan will correct me on this. But I saw lots of people pointing out that he hadn't had a very good October. I didn't see anybody doing the, is this guy done routine?

Because everyone's just like, we know what's going to happen. I know as soon as I hit send on that. Yeah. Well, it's more the, I believe this is the last year of his contract. And the idea that he, I don't think anybody was like, this guy's cooked, right? Like, you're always two good Ovechkin games away from he has five goals more than he did three days ago. And so you're fine. But there was a certain thing of like, is this it for him in the NHL just because he's 40 and he wants to go back to Russia or whatever?

as opposed to is Alex Ovechkin no longer an effective NHL player. Stinks. Terrible player. So, yeah, he's on pace for like 35 goals or whatever. And all you can do is tip your cap. The trend line on pace four is pointing to the top left, or top right, rather. So, yeah, I just wanted to say that. It's fun that he's doing this again.

He gets to 35 goals by the end of this year. He's at 9.30 something. Yeah. What does he have to get to to get to the combined? I think he's already pat. No, like the playoff and. Okay. The stat I saw the other day was if you take empty net goals out of it,

he now has more regular season goals. than like, because that was always the thing. He has more empty netters than Gretzky. Now he's just passed Gretzky in goals with a goalie in the net. He's, he came into the season 42 goals away from tying Gretzky for most in the regular season and playoffs put together. Got it. So. So he's probably not going to get there this year.

42 is a big ask, but he had 44 last year in 65 games. They get to the playoffs too. That gives them an extra. Three, four, five games. Six, seven games at least, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I just wanted to shout that out. And why don't you hit them with the plugs?

And let's get out of here. You can find me at the Athletic. I will have the athletic hockey show with Sean and Frankie tomorrow. I will have a post up later this week where I'm going to go through all 32 teams and come up with a reason to be thankful for them. Why would you be doing that at this time of year? I'm just feeling generally kind of thing. But why do I need a reason?

Why does there need to be some excruciatingly tacky tie into? Yeah, it's just the positive vibes that I'm feeding off of. Wow. And the new newsletter dropped today, so check that out as well. It's the Red Light Hockey Newsletter. Subscribe, won't you? Okay. I mean, I already do. Oh, okay.

And then for me, EliteProspects.com. I'm doing all kinds of college coverage over there. And what's funny, Sean, is that there are a few conferences that are very much like the NHL these days, where it's like, yeah, we're going to win about, I don't know, 55% of the points available to us all season long. How does that sound? It's like it doesn't sound like it's a recipe for success. And they go, well, that's what we're doing. So we'll just have to see.

There's a bunch of teams that are just like every weekend. Split, split, split. It's crazy how much it's happening. And yeah, I wrote about that this week. And can I tell you something I'm excited about? Absolutely. This Friday, the day after U.S. Thanksgiving, 1 p.m. game, Notre Dame at Boston College.

7 p.m. game, Michigan at Harvard. That's not bad. Nice little day in Boston. This is what it's all about Michigan, the number one team in the country this year. They look unfucking believable. I'm so excited to see them again because I saw them back in October.

So yeah, check all that out. And frankly, folks, we're getting to be about World Junior time, aren't we? So where would you rather be than over at elite prospects? We have the best coverage of that kind of thing anywhere on. the planet. Nobody's going to do it better. And it's in Minnesota this year, so I know we're going to have a bunch of boots on the ground.

Very cool. Anyway, you can also check us out at patreon.com slash pox soup, where we have a bonus episode coming out later this week, where we are going to have to, the idea is this. Every number in the league that has been retired. And there's a lot of them. You have to determine one player to represent that number, and then that number, like Wayne Gretzky's, is retired for everybody. So you go down the list. Who's the number four to represent all the number fours? You know, we go, okay, it's Bobby Orr. But what about 33?

What about whatever? You know, pick a number. What about nine? What about two? We're making those decisions. We had a blast with it. And that's coming out, like I said, later this week. some hopefully some pre- Thanksgiving driving entertainment for you and your beautiful family.

Mm-hmm. And yeah, so check that out, Patreon.com slash pox soup. More bonus episodes coming your way all the time. And that's it for us. Thank you so much for listening. Have a nice Thanksgiving or if you're Canadian, a regular Thursday. That's right. I hope you have a good regular Thursday.

Why not? You know, I'm a nice guy. It is. It's a regular Thursday with more football. Why is there a football game? on at the restaurant at 1230 during my work lunch. Oh, well, guess we're staying here all afternoon. That's right. Okay, have a good one, everyone. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.