Puck Soup - Closing It Out

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about the conference finals, front office changes, and more. Sponsored by Mint Mobile (mintmobile.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And folks, we got a freaking series on our hands. Eh. No, of course we don't actually. I forgot to look this up. I saw before game four in the Carolina, Florida series, that there was like a 4% chance that Carolina could win it.

One in 25, that sounds about right, you know? Yeah. And I'm wondering what the number is up to now, now that they've won a game. And quite frankly, looked very good doing it. So watching the game last night, tell me if you agree here, watching the game last night, it was like, this is what I thought they could do for four games. Yeah. I'm, it was a good game for Carolina.

It reminded me a lot of game six. of the Leafs Panthers series where back in Florida a chance for Florida to wrap it up and they get shut out on whole ice

and everyone kind of goes uh-oh did the Leafs figure of them out? Is this a... Nope. No, no. Just a little off night

for the Florida Panthers. Now, I agree with that. But I would also say very much an on-night for Carolina. Right? Like,

Like they just dominated huge stretches of that game. But to your point, they only got the one goal, even though they looked phenomenal. And if you need to shut out Florida three more times or, you know, hold them to even one goal three more times, whatever the number you want to say is, I don't know. You know, it's hard for me to be confident about, but says here on Moneypuck, they're up to 12.5% to win the series. Okay. I guess that feels about right. Yeah. I mean, that's one and eight, right? That's basically saying it's three 50-50 games, three cornflips, and they've got to win all three. Yeah, I mean, the downside, the thing that scares you a little bit if you're a Carolina fan is we played a great game. We did control for long stretches. lots of things went right. It was basically a 1-0 win.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So, boy, you kind of, if that's your best, it doesn't leave a lot of margin for error, let's just say. Yeah. And, you know, obviously the way the first three games went, what was the combined score, like 16 to 2, 16 to 4, something like that? I think it is 16 to 4 now that I say that.

You know, it just Anybody who wants to be a detractor of how the hurricanes play hockey, it makes very easy to do that when they give up 80% of the goals in the series or whatever it had been, you know? And I guess my question for you is, what do you think is the differentiating factor? Because I have my theory. Is it, does it involve Florida being a bunch of dirt bags?

Nope. No, it doesn't. Okay. What's your theory? Well, I asked, I asked for your words for. I gave my answer. I said, they're cheating lousy dirtbags. They also, I mean, Florida's, in theory, got more high-end talent, although, whereas

Carolina seems to have a ceiling on what they can produce offensively. Yeah, that, the last. is my theory, is that, like, you're looking at two teams that play pretty similar styles, and one of them has, like, three or four all-stars up front, depending on how you want to define future $10 million player, Sam Bennett. God. Uh-huh. We'll talk about that in a bit.

Yeah. And Carolina has one or two. And, you know, the, like, tippy top of those, you know, Matthew Kachuk and Sasha Barkoff. Those are like MVP style players. Carolina just doesn't have one of those up front. And when you're, you know, when you're playing a team that plays a very similar style to you, like, you ever hear the phrase styles make fights? Mm-hmm. Yep.

Like the, when, when, uh, when, uh, when, uh, when, M.A fights or wrestling matches, when guys have two different styles, that can make it more interesting. and give guys that you wouldn't necessarily say as the favorite, the opportunity to do something impressive and win because they're just working in a different realm than the other guy. Stiles make fights in hockey too, you know? Like, if Carolina is playing Washington, which they do not play a similar game, I think you would say probably Washington has the better high.

end players, but Carolina has whatever you want to say, three second lines and a third line, you know. But if they're trying to play the same style as Florida, more or like, you know, obviously there are some differences, but like more or less the same idea of how they approach the game, well, the team that just has the better players is pretty much going to win most of the time. It's kind of what my theory is. Which is why we both predicted last week that the Panthers would win. in easily in this series. Right.

Don't go back and check. I just, that's what we said. Well, I'll also say, we are getting a lot of playoff, Freddie Anderson, you know, last night excluded. Well, I mean, we kind of got bad playoff ready, and then he got a little timeout. And, I mean, isn't this kind of the,

we already did this with Stuart Skinner, right? Right. This guy stinks, he stinks, he stinks. Oh, you can't score on him anymore. Yeah, and he just has to do that three more times, and they're golden. Well, he has to do it one more time. Okay, here's my question. If Carolina wins game five.

Because I feel like when it's three nothing, the first win doesn't really start the ball rolling of the wait a second one if they collapse. Right. The second one does. Does what happened last year against Edmonton in the final? help you or hurt you if you're Florida. Because, of course, last year they were up 3-0 in the final. They lose three straight games and then they hold on and win game seven. So are you sitting there going even if we lose game five, even if we lose game six,

we've been down this row before, or are you starting to go, you know what, for a team that's won a cup, we seem to have a little bit of a struggle closing teams out. Yeah, I think that's... I'll say this. I think there's, you know, you don't want to be in a position where you're losing three games in a row in a series ever, obviously. But the fact that they're doing that when they're up three nothing in the series makes you go, okay, you know. And again, Edmonton plays a very different style from Carolina. And so, you know, Florida's like, well, we know how to stop.

this. We play this in practice every day. You know, like, there's just more of a, um, a reason to be. And again, like, you, why did Edmonton get back in that series is, uh, Karam McDavid Lee, Andre Settle and Psycho, you know? Um, and, and Edmonton just has way more forward depth than, than Carolina does and the top end is higher and all that. Or Edmonton last year, you know, um, so to me, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, um, um, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just sitting there saying like, if I'm Florida, I can totally take this as a write-off. If they lose again, that's a different question.

Then you start to wonder, maybe. But, you know, gentlemen, they call it a gentleman suite for a reason. It's because it was basically a suite. Now, we should say we have to wait to hear from Rod Brindamore on that. You know, I was reminded of that going into this game. Like that actually, we didn't get swept. Mm-hmm. A few of us in the group chat were strongly trying to encourage Gentilly if Florida

while last night to put his hand up at the press conference and be like, So, right, is this a real sweep or just to see how that goes? But didn't happen. By the way, and this is very much media inside baseball, but pour one out for all the writers who thought they were going to get to go home for a little while and now get to go back to beautiful Raleigh, North Carolina. Yeah. The research triangle, they call it.

Do they know? They do. There's colleges there or something. It feels like one of those things where, you know, I don't know the history of it being called the research triangle, but I feel like this was a thing I heard like 15 years ago. And they just, you know, like how Detroit, everybody calls it hockey town. just like a marketing slogan that's stuck. Mm-hmm. You know?

Same gimmick. I think, I think like the, the greater Raleigh Board of, or Commerce or whatever, got in the room, they were like, what should we call this? How about Research Triangle? Good one, Jim. They, you know, they put out the, they put out the fucking bumper stickers or whatever. And it worked. It totally worked. Everybody calls it that, man.

So. Nicely done by them. They did it. They, you know. That's why they get paid the big bucks. We're sitting here talking about, is Carolina going to come back in a series where they've still only scored,

or you've been outscored, whatever, 16 to 7. And we're like, I don't know, they could be putting the fear of God in Florida here. Let's take it easy. Because, you know, remember, last time this happened, game seven of that Leafs series happened. You know what I mean? I don't recall.

Okay. I just, for me, you don't want to get the Florida Panthers in a situation where they are bleeding their own blood. They don't like that, you know? Here's my question. Okay. I raised this, I think, on the other show last week. But given what you talked about with Carolina and the high end scoring and all that, if they lose this series, let's say in five games or six games. And that ends up being the sort of post-mortem is it wasn't enough high and stuff.

Do we start to say they should have kept Miko Ranin for one playoff run and just taking their swing? I think no, because how has Miko Ranton done in the Western Conference final so far? he's been pretty good in the playoffs overall though overall there was a two-week stretch there was a two-week stretch where he looked like Connor McDavid Cam Neely and you know pick another like ultra-impactful forward

like just super powerful looking undeniable like clutchness whatever you want to say he had everything going for him for about a week and a half Before that, not so much. After that, not so much. First few games of round one, he was off. That's what I mean, yeah.

And then first three games of this series, he's two points, six shots on that. So not exactly Kahn Smythe, run away over. And who scored for the one non-empty netter for Carolina last night? Yep, Logan, Stan Coulton. Yeah, he's been. really good in this series. Well, as good as any Carolina Forward has.

I don't know that Rantman is like breaking them out of whatever torpor this is, right? Like, it's just not, it's not like, you're not looking at this saying, they need one guy that makes the difference. Because they're not losing most of these games

by one goal. They're losing most of these games by like two, three, four goals, right? So my, My thing is they need like two impact forwards. Okay. So Mitch Marner's one, who's the other one going to be? Well, so here's the thing.

No, we'll save that for the off season. How many teams, because I wrote the like, where do they go from here article yesterday in case they lost last night? How many teams do you think have more caps space than Carolina next summer this coming summer? It's not many, right? They've got a ton, I believe. That's correct. It's only like, I'm going to do this off the top of my head. but it's like Chicago, Anaheim, San Jose,

and there's one more that I don't remember who it is. But, oh, it's Columbus. It's Columbus. So, like, if you're in the top five of Capspace in the summer and you really don't have much work to do, I think they have to resign Burns and Orlov if they want to. And the only other, like, kind of notable guy is Jack Roslavik, and everybody else is taking care of.

So they could spend a decent amount of, money, make some trades happen, that kind of thing. And I think they have to, right? Like, even if you're fairly convinced that there are very good team one through 20, obviously, again, they're just missing the high end. And easier said than done, obviously, to just go get like two all-star caliber players. Yeah. But to your point about Mika Rantaninan, they've shown the understanding that that's what they're missing, I would argue. And then they made the best out of a bad situation with Rantinan wanting out.

And they have the financial and arguably with four, I think they have four first round picks in the next three years. They have the like assets. Right. They have the assets to go out and get. somebody if they can, you know, pull all the right strings. There you go. There's our off-season plan for the Carolina Hurricanes who are still. Still alive.

Technically, still alive. Is one of those players, Sean, Sam Bennett? For Carolina? I don't think. If you can't beat him, join them. I, look, I think, here's my issue with Sam Bennett. Here's what I can't figure out. Is he this year's David Clarkson or this year's Dave Boland?

Oh, don't make me choose. Who is my favorite players ever. Magical mix of both. You know, it's funny. Sam Bennett is going, somebody is going to sign Sam Bennett to such a bad contract, and I don't want to say anything more because I have a bad feeling about who that team might be. So I saw an argument. I think it was Tom Drant said this.

We're kind of in a post-war. worrying about cap hit world for the next few years. Just because of how much it's going up year after year after year. Like it's baked in how much it's going to go up, basically. And because of that, you know, if somebody gives them $10 million now, like three years from now, like if we're talking about $10 million in 2024-25 money, like a guy who makes $10 million this season, three years from now, the way the cap's going up, it's going to be worth like seven and a half or something like that.

And if you told me Sam Bennett at seven and a half, I'd go, that sounds very good to me. Now, maybe you don't feel that way when he's 35, 36, 37 years old, obviously. And he said one 50-point season. Right. But I would argue that if you're Carolina, for example, or Toronto, quite frankly, you're really only concerned about the next two, three, four years. I don't think it's a Carolina fit.

No, I agree. Because like we've said, Carolina needs the top end talent. And he's not that. And he's a very good, like, middle six guy that you drop in. So, yeah. But yeah, you're right. I mean, this is the thing. And look, we'll do all this in the off season, but I'm so tired of hearing fans.

And, say, oh, like, man, my team's got a lot of cap space. Caps going up. We've got caps. Everybody's got cap space. Right. Which means it's going to get nuts. Be such a good year to be a free agent. Oh, my God.

I would argue probably there hasn't been a better one since the early days of the cap when it was going up like 8.5% a year or whatever it was. And people hadn't figured out not to spend to spend to the, the max on free agents. So, like, guys were getting in the high teens percentage-wise back then. Hey, shout out to all those great young players who signed eight-year deals. Really good. Yeah.

Really good move by you that your agent who gets to put all that in the bank right away to talk to you into. Nice work. So you want to know something? So, okay. On Samsung TVs, there is a channel that, It's called the Letterman channel. And it's just like, here's a funny clip from Letterman in like 1996.

And then here he is interviewing David Spade in 1990. Well, whatever it is, you know, it just bounces around. And it kicks out. Like, I have it said, the TV that I, that I have this set on is the one that I use to play video games primarily. And so when I turn on or off my PlayStation or Xbox, uh, I get, you know, a couple of minutes of the Letterman channel. I'll just sit there and enjoy it. You know what I mean?

And I was laughing because this was a clip from very, like, it was in standard definition. We'll put it this way. And it was jockeys talking for like jockeys who had been in the Kentucky Derby. And it was like top 10 complaints by Kentucky Derby Jockeys. Okay. And this was, I was really laughing about this because they were, they said like, one of the jokes was like, if Patrick Ewing can make $15 million a year, I should too, because I'm a better jockey than him.

The joke was something along those lines. And I was like, wait, Patrick Ewing was making $15 million a year in like 1997? Carter McDavid doesn't make $15 million a year. Now, that's crazy. What a sport. Well, but here's what you should do. If you're a player and you're embarrassed by how little you make, in compared to every other sport.

Here's my plan. What all the players should do is figure out which markets in the NHL generate the most revenue and then all decide that they don't want to play in any of those markets. And keep going to all the markets that generate no revenue. I feel like that would really increase the size of the pie. And then the rising tide lifts all boats. Speaking of all that, did you see the like listed destinations for Mars? like the interested parties.

No, I didn't. Oh, God. I think it was LeBron. Let me look this up really quickly. But it was something else. I don't know if I'm going to be able to find this. But basically it was just like Anaheim, Columbia, just like all the like small American markets basically.

And it was like, oh, yeah, no, that's absolutely where. if I was Mitch Marner, I would want to be. It's cool. It's a cool league. Yeah, it rocks. God, I can't find. Oh, Anaheim, Detroit, Chicago, L.A., among teams interested in Marner. Florida and Vegas are of interest to Marner, among others.

That's what people are. Of interest. Oh, okay. You want to go someplace that's already won cups and be like the sixth most important player. That's exactly. Awesome. Awesome. Love it.

Yeah. Chicago is an interesting one, though, because he would be their second most important player. Chicago, Detroit, Anaheim are all very interesting to me because I think they've all got cap room. And they will all throw big money at you because none of them, they're all going to be able to talk to themselves out of the, well, he doesn't perform in the playoffs thing. Because they'll say, we've got to get to the playoffs. We'll worry, if this guy can't score in the second round, we'll worry about. that and be happy to have that problem in a couple years. When we get to the second round, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, he's, he's going to make a lot of money. He certainly is.

Can I say one last thing that I, that I wanted to say about, uh, this, this Florida series and then we'll move on to Dallas Edmonton. Sure. I was kind of hoping for a sweep last night because it would have been really funny to be like last, last, last time we talked about, uh, the start of the season, that series. Yes. And this week where we're talking about it's over already. I thought that would have been like a funny.

We missed an entire series in a week. But we all work out that way sometimes. I remember one time the Leafs, the one time the Leafs swept the Senators way back when, like telling my Senators from like, your entire postseason ended between episodes of Survivor. That's right. Because back then it was like on.

I think it was the Thursday nights and there was like one missing night off. So where they squeezed two games back to back. And it was like six days. That's it. You're done. Yeah. That would have been convenient, but, oh, well. Hey, speaking of high pressure Canadian markets. Yep.

That's my segue. Oh, okay. That's it. Well, sorry. I mean, you can follow up with a thought on Edmonton. You can get a segue or a complete sentence. You can't get both. Fair enough.

I haven't finished that advanced podcasting, according. Eminton looking pretty good all of a sudden. Looking all right. looking all right I mean really I don't know that I'd buy this but you could try to sell me on Edmonton's one eight of the nine periods in this series so far

I don't even think that's a question they had one horrible period meltdown yeah and frankly one guy had a bad third period yep and that guy either gives up five goals or gives up zero slash one every game. I was so mad that he broke this street for people who don't know.

I'm sure you saw this on every fucking broadcast. But I think it was like he either has in every game in the playoffs before game three. Stuart Skinner either had like an 830 or worse save percentage or a 1,000 save percentage. Nothing in between. So fun. Goaltending is so fun. I would. What a cool element to this sport.

I got to tell you, man, if I was the GM of the Edmonton Oilers, I would be like, I cannot live like this. I can't have whether, like, whether I'm good at my job or not, come down to this guy who is either going to pitch a shutout or give up 14 goals. from the 1970s Canadians or he's Steve Dryden from the hockey news in the 90s. I was going to say Dave Dryden but then I'm like, no, you know what? Dave Dryden was okay.

He was fine, yeah. I had to scramble to find, sorry to Steve for catching a stray there. Might be a perfectly good goal. Steve sitting at home, what the fuck? Yeah, exactly. The camera just focuses. What the?

Don't do the voice. All right. Yeah, so where we are we, are we, this is, this feels like a classic trap series. Two one, one teams won two games in a row. You're going, oh, this thing's head towards being over. And then this time on next week's show, we're doing game seven previews. I don't think so. I think game seven.

You're right. We're doing game seven in review. That's right. Because I think game seven is next Monday. Yeah. They do, the conference final, they went. Every two days in the conference. They did a good job on the, on the schedule.

Yeah, shout out to the schedule makers on this one. One game a night, every night for two weeks. You guys did a great job. Feel free to take a random week off now. Yeah, a six-day gap between, yeah, that's right. So we can rest up for the. But yeah, you know, taken as a whole, like you say, I think, I think you got to feel very good if you're Edmonton,

especially because you're, won two in a row now, you know. Nice for game four. Yep. And if you, if you would mix in the insane loss, like in game two, maybe you're a little more nervous. But it feels like the offense really has it rolling downhill now.

Like they've just built up a ton of momentum. Everybody's starting to score. Heimann looked really good the other night. Yeah. Still getting the death scoring. It feels weird to talk about Zach Hyman. like a 50 goal guy is death scoring, but he kind of is, even though he's on David's life. Exactly.

And I did like the takes. I found it very funny even though I agree with him, the takes of like, oh, oh, Connor McDavid's decided to score again. Like, oh, yeah, teams had been limiting McDavid to like one and a half assists a game, but now he's decided to start scoring goals again, so Dallas might be screwed. I think that's a pretty reasonable take. Yep. But again, like the whole thing you're concerned about is whether Stuart Skinner has it all figured out.

And you never know, right? But everybody's saying that that game three performance was his best of the playoffs. I think they're right. Like, he was actually asked to do a lot in game three. and did it. You know, he gave up the one goal, that's life, whatever, who cares. But I think he was asked to work a lot harder

than he was for any of the recent shutouts. We'll put it that way. And if this is what Skinner's going to look like for even two of the next five games, they're all set, four games. Are you at all concerned about Jake Ottinger now? Like that, I've seen a bit of that. God, this is, it's insane how we talk about goalies in the playoffs.

Yeah, no. Much like he ruined Connor McDavid, or Connor Hellibuck's legacy. Conorke's legacy is ruined, and he's not the Olympic starter, even though he's been the best goalie in the world for three years straight, you know. Jake Ottinger, the, the iron horse of the goaltending world. America's never produced a better goaltender than this. This guy can't stop a puck all of a sudden. He's a bum.

Yeah. Yeah, he sucks. He's eight feet tall, but... Eight feet is shit. So is he the guy getting the shutout tonight to... Yeah, of course he is. That kind of feels like it, right? Yeah, this is hockey, man.

You know, you want things to go normally watch a different sport. That just isn't how it works here. Never has been, never been. What's the equivalent in some other sport? Like, does this happen in basketball? Does, like, Steph Curry just go, like, completely, ice cold for a couple of games and then go back to being the star. Does that, like, like in football, you don't see, like, you, you will see

quarterbacks have a bad game. Tom Brady throws six interceptions. But, yeah, you don't see, like, suddenly, like, you know, Pat Mahomes is throwing with the wrong hand and, like, he can't, you know, remember what to do. Like, it's, it's, it's. Yeah, no, it doesn't, it doesn't work. Like, in basketball, guys do have cold shooting nights, but you know how they get out of it is by shooting the ball more.

just like they get their mechanics back. You know, at least top end guys, I'm sure guys just do play themselves out of starting roles or whatever, lower down the lineup. But like, Steph Curry, they just go, hey, Steph, your little cold shooting the ball tonight. You only went like three of 15 from beyond the arc or whatever. You were allowed to shoot your way out of it in the NBA in a way that, like, you know, they're not just going to be like, Hellebuck's not feeling it tonight. Let's just let them shoot the bucket. That's what they should do.

They should. They should. They should. To save his way out of it. Just. It's honestly not a bad idea. Five Dallas stars just leaning on the bench like they're watching a penalty shot, which is like, oh. Five on O.

Look at him. Oh, we're down nine nothing. Just let him see it. Yeah, just let him see it. I feel like we've heard that a few different times in different series where like goalies have gone. Like when they start telling you how much real time

it's been between saves. Yeah. It's 47 minutes between that. You know, that's actually tough on it. Yeah, really? Because I feel like I could have

thrown a shutout streak together facing zero shots. Apparently it's very, um, mentally like your mind just wanders. Please. That's what they say. Yeah.

They being goalies. Right. The weirdest people on the planet. it. Right. Yeah, it's really hard to do my job when I don't have to do my job. Shut up. Cool.

Find some giant equipment to. They're just reading all, like, the board ads and they're going, Gillette Razors. Wait a second. How come they're not changing? When I'm watching TV, they change. What's going on? But yeah, it's a, it's just one of those things.

where Edmonton looks like the ideal version of the Edmonton Oilers, once again. And Dallas just kind of, you know, doesn't have a Connor McDavid and Leon Drysidal type. I mean, they do in Rantanin, but... No, they don't. Nobody... Well, that's what I'm saying. But, I mean, Rantin looked as close to those two guys for a stretch. So if he pulls it back up... The other thing that I'm interested in, is...

is like, where's Jason Roberts in all this? Yeah. And I understand he was hurt. And I understand it's like I've got my all-playoff bus team coming tomorrow. And I'm always so scared to write it because you never like, you're like, oh, this guy didn't score. And then, you know, they're like, yeah, my hamstring tore off the bone two months ago and I'm playing through it.

But he had the one goal. And that was his first of the play. in game three. If he gets going, like, he's almost a guy that you, it's not that you forget him, but you're sort of like, right, this is a guy who was a hundred point player a couple years ago, was an 80 point, I want to say, player this year.

Despite missing time, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a really good player. And he hasn't produced much of anything, which, as we always say, at this time of year, is that double-edged sword, because it's really hard to win when your best players aren't your best players. but also Dallas has won nine playoff games without this guy.

What if he eats up? Right. Well, to me, to your point, like how, what percentage are we seeing Jake Ottinger or Jason Robertson at, you know? Like, it's the Matthew Kachuk thing that we were, I think we talked about last week where it's like, yeah, Matthew Kachuk at 80% is still a really effective player. And we've seen that even in this series where, like, like he can still go to the front of the net.

He just can't do all the stuff that he usually does. And he can draw penalties and all this by being like a Matthew Kachukh style player, let's say. And A, I don't think Jason Robertson's as good as Matthew Kachuk. But B, if you're saying he's playing at like 80, 85 percent, well, you know, that's hard. That's, I'll put it this way. The only reason we're talking about it is because Dallas, is down in this series and hasn't looked particularly good, right? We weren't really talking about it last round when Dallas was like, oh, we're actually

making it look pretty easy against the President's trophy winners. So, yeah, like you say, obviously, ideally he's playing well, but I wonder how, how injured he really is. You know, I don't, I can't imagine he's, he's fit as a fiddle. You know? And as we're recording this, I don't believe we know if Rupa Hintz is going to play. Yeah. Tonight it sounded like, I mean, he took the warm up for game three briefly.

Sounds like the plan is for him to do that again. So probably an actual game time decision unless we hear otherwise from coaches. But what did you think of the slash? I don't think that's a. suspension worthy necessarily, but I think, you know, five would have been an appropriate penalty. Yeah. Yeah, that's about right. He really got that guy, you know? He got him. He took, I mean, took a little cross check and then it wasn't like, if you showed me that slash and freeze framed it right on impact, I would have gone, like, that's pretty big slash, but I don't think that's going to take a guy out. But it did.

I'm curious if what, like, that's a weird one. Like, usually if you see a guy get slashed, like, right on the shin. Oh, is he a deep bruiser side? Like, obviously, he didn't break anything because he's... I thought, you know, honestly, I thought it was more, like, on top of the foot, like, where the foot meets the ankle. Yeah, okay. You know?

Yeah, that could do it. Did you hear the small but vocal group of Euler fans who were claiming that Hince was faking it? Well, if he's faking, he's really committing to the bit. He's really committing to the bit. They really want the Oilers' third most important defenseman to get suspended for one game. I say this. I think I can't remember who I said it about in the last round. But it's like, absolutely, every team, if a guy leaves a game with an injury due to a penalty the other guy, the other team did to them, you know?

It behooves every team in the league to be like, we don't know if this guy's, ever going to play again. Yeah. Department of Player Safety, we should really look into this. This is a potentially career threatening injury. Yeah. The guy shows up like at practice the next day and like the full body cast with the

race and the sunglasses and the blind cane and all of that stuff. But then if the guy misses the game, well, that's how you know he really is hurt. You know, like that's the thing. And honestly, that's why I was a little surprised.

Nurse didn't at least get. whatever, a fine for that, you know? I think it's just tough because, like, if you're the Department of Player of Safety, if you decide that it is worthy of something and the other team's first line center is injured, it almost has to be a suspension. Right.

So that's why you go, no, it's fine. I love making that kind of calculation. He doesn't play for the leaves. It's okay. We don't know. Do we know if Ekholm is playing? Again, have not heard. He sounds like he's real close.

Did you see the Stetcher quotes? No. Stedger was like, because they were like, hey, Troy, you know, if Matias Echholm comes back, like, you're probably going to be the one that sits. He's like, yeah, that makes sense. He's better than me. Yeah, okay. Like, he was just very clear-eyed about it.

He's like, oh, yeah, the guy who's, like, one of the best defensemen, like, shut down defensemen in the world. Yeah, I couldn't have a problem coming out of the line up for that guy. I'll open the door. I'll open the bench door for you. No problem. How'd you go, big dog? I thought that was really funny.

But, yeah, again, like, I think we talked about it last week, where I was like, do you, do you break up the extremely, useful Bouchard pairing that he has been working without Echholm and have three good defensemen on, or a good defenseman on three different pairings? Or do you just, you know,

Echholm Bouchard? That's a really good pair too. But, yep, nice, nice little quandary for Noblock to have there, for sure. I'm still sticking with Edmonton to win this series. then? Yes. Yeah. Very brave of me

to pick the team that's leading the series. Yeah, but I will say they've literally won twice as many games. Do not feel like this is anywhere close to being over. Yeah.

I might change my mind 12 hours from now, let's say. But as things are going right now, yeah, I like this to go six or seven for sure. Hey, by the way,

Yeah. I know, like, last night, there were two empty net goals, but every game so far in the conference final has been three goals or more difference. Could we get a little overtime? Is that? You want overtime? You got to watch the PWH. Okay.

We'll talk about that. Might do that. Nope, too late. Okay. We'll talk about that in the second second. Sunday. Sunday was the day for overtime, man. You're going to start at 3 o'clock.

That's when you hit his first. with the double or triple overtime. Yep, absolutely. I'm sorry. I stepped on your segue. Oh, no. The segue was going to be, we're going to go to a break.

Is that okay? Okay. Absolutely. Okay. All right, great. Well, let's go take that break then. We'll be right back. This week's episode of Puck Soup

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then full price plans are available. Taxes and Fees Extra C. Mitt Mobile for details. All right, we're back. And much like the last few episodes, it feels like, we have a lot of front office and coaching stuff to talk about here. Let's start with Matthew Darsh is the new GM. And I think also maybe like vice president of hockey operations or something like that.

Like he has a step above the GM title as well. Yeah, he got like a president title or something. Yeah. Sounds like... For the New York Islanders. Yeah. Which is pretty interesting. I like it as a hire.

You never know with guys who haven't done the job before. We have seen guys be the assistant somewhere, the, you know, the name that shows up in interviews. And then they get the job and it doesn't work for a variety of reasons, potentially, because it's not the right situation or whatever. you, but it's a good swing. I like this hire certainly more than I would like going into the recycle bin for Mark Bergervan or somebody like that. Yeah, I agree. This is a guy obviously comes from the Tampa Bay Organization.

They, you might have heard, have had some success in recent years. And, you know, I think the reason I really like this hire is that there are, there are things to like about the New York Islanders roster, but the farm system's not very good, and the depth isn't very good. And those are two things that I think anybody who has like a decent amount of GMing experience can, um, can can improve. Hmm. Especially when you've got the first overall pick. Well, that's exactly right. Which is nice. the thing that we haven't heard out of New York, out of the Islanders, is that it's a rebuild.

Do we think that by hiring a youngish first-time GM, is this, are we in rebuild territory, or do we think that they're still going to try to? Because I just, like, Matthew Darsh, there's, as we always hear, there's 32 of these jobs. etc. But he was a pretty sought-after guy who had some ability to dictate some terms here. You know, we had heard that he wasn't necessarily interested in going over if it was going to be, you know, if Brandon Shanahan, who we'll talk about in a bit, was going to be there, or if Bergervan was going to be involved.

I don't see him taking a job where he's being told, this is the direction you're going to go in. We're not doing a rebuild, by the way. Okay, have fun. Right. Now, maybe he looks at the Islanders and says, oh, we don't need it. I've got a plan to get us where we want to be. But I think most of us look at the Islanders right now, it's hard to see a path to a Stanley Cup. Oh, yeah.

No shit. Right? Like, back to the playoffs. Yeah, you can do back to the playoffs. But I don't know. my my thing with it i would say is that well first of all if you were picking first overall uh that that's usually a pretty good indicator that you don't have a good team in for on

your hands you know um i don't think the islanders are like worst in the league bad but like they're not i mean they got lucky in the lottery which is they certainly did fine um But they have a guy who I think, I think we can all still say, this is a world-class goalie, right? And he's, oh, God, I think he turns 30 over the summer, this summer. And so, I don't know, they probably have like three, four more kicks at it with him being a reliably good netminder, you know. but nobody that you're that you're like looking at this roster going apart from him they have superstars. They have several very good players, let's say. I like a few of their defensemen.

Obviously, Barzell and Horvatt, you got to like those guys. I like them. I don't like them as my top two forwards. Well, right. And, you know, I neglected to say this about the hurricane. but it's the Dylan Larkin thing that we always talk about, where it's like, man, if he's your second center, like I'm talking about Sebastian Aho,

like if he's your second center, you have such a good team. Holy shit, he rocks as a number two center. If he's your number one, maybe we have some other issues to talk about, you know? And it is very much that with the Islanders, where you're like, they have, I would argue, two, very good. number two centers.

They do not have a number one. And that's kind of what you need. And look, you know, I don't, I don't like their, their, a lot of their depth,

um, pieces, obviously. And, and that's where it all kind of falls apart for them. Because like, you're like, okay,

you like, you like, you like, like Barzell and, and Horvett, right? Yeah, of course. Who wouldn't?

Okay, do you like, uh, Andrews Lee? Well, no. Okay. Well,

He's like probably on paper. Well, he's certainly your third high is paid forward, right? Because I don't think any. God, Pajo's still on that team too, isn't he? Man, so like this is the problem Matthew Darsh is facing. It's like, boy, there's a lot of stinky contracts on this, on this roster. And I understand. You might have heard the caps going up.

But nevertheless, you've got to make some moves here just to get back to a, a point where you can be reasonably competitive for a playoff spot. Would you consider trading down out of the first overall spot if something was available? If somebody calls you up and says, you know, we're sitting at three or four, we got a guy that we really want. Who's the defenseman? Schaefer. That's the guy we want.

You know, we'll move up. We'll give you a few extra picks or maybe a player. Like is that, are you open to that or do you look at this? Yeah, I definitely am. We're on a rebuild. We got the first overall pick. What are we doing? I mean, the other thing with the Islanders, obviously, is you've got Higgins as the local kid.

Right. Who I think the consensus is probably not someone you're looking at at first overall. But if you could drop, get some picks and still get him at three, four, five. So coming into this year, hey, Megan's was pretty much the consensus number one pick. Oh, yeah. And he, I don't want to say struggle. That's not the right word.

He didn't look like Macklin Celebrini or, oh, Christ, Adam Fantilli, right? Where it's like, this is a draft eligible guy that we think is going very high in a draft playing college hockey at age 17. He didn't go, he didn't do what those guys did. Those guys won the Hobie Baker. he wasn't really even in consideration for it. But if he had played in the OHL or the QMJ, well, I guess it would have had to have been the Q, right? But if he had played in Major Junior, he would have fucking torched those leagues. We wouldn't be sitting here saying there was like a 12-game stretch where he shot 4%, which is what happened to him in college this year, right?

He would have easily scored a shitload of goals and nobody would be. saying, I don't know if James Hagen's is even like a top four pick. Let's put it that way. He played really well at World Juniors. He was the number one center on a team that won the gold medal. He's, you know, he has a really good resume. He just didn't look like Macklin Celebrini and no one ever thought he was going to, right? Like everybody always agreed, eh, not like the best draft class.

So with that having been said, if someone, you know, with the hometown thing, if someone wants to, we really like Schaefer at one, we don't think he's going to be there at two or three. Can we swap with you? And you really like Hagen's or Michael Mesa as the case may be? Porter Martone, I guess, is the guy you could also like, but I think you would prefer Mesa and Hagan's personally. You know, I don't watch a ton of Major Junior. But for me, I'm happy to trade down if on the island. And I can get maybe like a second first round pick out of the deal or something like that. Like, you know, 20th overall, whatever. I'm happy to do that because it's such an easy sell with Higgins. Do you know this guy was an islander's fan growing up? You don't have to worry about the fucking pajamas, you know? There's that.

So that alone, I think, is maybe a decent enough value proposition. But Schaefer does look like he's, you know, future. All-star caliber defensemen, let's say. Right. And I don't know that Hagen's does, or Mesa. It would be interesting to see him do that. I just can't, I don't know. We do this every year, right?

We talk ourselves into why there's going to be all this movement and then there never is. But, you know, new GM, some fresh ideas. It's not like, I mean, the interesting thing is it's not like the lightning for the last five years have been building through the draft. draft. Exactly. Yeah, they can't. This guy's like, what's the first round pick? What do you mean?

Exactly. What do you mean I have to be there when the draft starts and not walk in two hours late? Mm-hmm. So, yeah. I like the higher. I think he's got a decently steep hill to climb, but I wouldn't imagine he has any, like, illusion. Like, he's not like, okay, we have a playoff team. We're ready to go.

He has to be looking at this going, This kind of sucks for me. I got a bunch of work to do. But, you know, it's not like, like Ken Holland getting the L.A. hire. It's like, yeah, I think I can tinker around the edges. Matthew Darsh has to be like, I have to go a little wild here. Which I think that, you know, that's why you take the job. Mm-hmm.

So. What did you think of Jeff Blashell officially getting hired in Chicago? I was surprised. when that name first surfaced. I have read up on some of the, you know, the reasons why people think he will be a good candidate to be one of those coaches who finds success the second time around. So, you know, I'm okay with it. I thought maybe Chicago would go, given the pressure that Kyle Davidson seems to be under, I thought maybe they'd go for a bigger, more veteran name, a little more established track record, but I see it.

Yeah, you know, I was thinking about that And I want like when I as I was writing the article about it I was just like I guess there really isn't one The bigger more established name that I'd be like Comfortable with you know what I mean? Like what are you gonna go get John Tortorella? Yeah Who else is out there?

Like it's really not that big of a list of like guys where you're like Oh yeah I think that's a way sexier and more exciting name That I can sell easily There are like Gerard Galant's out there, Peter Lavalette's out there, Jay Woodcroft still hanging around. Jay Woodcroft is the one other guy that I, that I would say I was, because like, if I'm a Chicago fan and I'm like, they hired Gerard Galant? Fuck. Like, I would just be like, what are we fucking doing here?

Guys, like, been a Jack Adams finalist. Like, he's had a lot of success. Wasn't? Now, not always with the young. with the young players, which would be the question. But I mean, I'm just, I'm throwing a name out there as like, there were certainly, like, when you looked at all the coaching vacancies heading into this year, into this off season, were you thinking like Jeff Blasheel for any of these?

Oh, no, absolutely not. No, it's like the, it's the least sexy name you could come up with. Like, you know, the only difference is I think this is the, the first time, like the last three or four coaches that Chicago won't have a first time head coach? Something like that. And so, like, that alone kind of makes it make a little more sense to me, especially, we got to say, they had their number one choice was also a would have been a first time NHL head coach and David Carl. And he told them, thanks but no thanks. Right?

Like, this is the problem with being, like, so open about, like, we really want to hire David Carl. When he says no to you, which, again, I always thought he was going to, just from, you know, being around college hockey more than most, I just, I was just like, well, if, you know, if you're taking, like, the fun, sexy name of David Carl off the board, then you kind of just have to be. be like, okay, we're going to dial back the excitement here. We're not going to hire a first timer. Like a lot of other teams that are still looking for, you know, Seattle and Boston are still like almost exclusively being linked to first timers at this point. Chicago, I didn't feel I could do that again unless it was their guy, David Carl. You know what I mean? So, whatever. I, you know, when I wrote the article, my thing was like, it really feels. It feels like this is another, like, David Quinn style hire when he went to the Rangers where it's like, this is the guy before the guy a little bit.

Like, this is us trying to get through the tail end of a rebuild. Yeah. That is interesting. Like, when the Chicago Blackhawks win their next game in the conference final is Jeff Blasjillo coach. Or is it the next guy? Christ, it might be two, three guys from now. Well, it's not going to be Kyle Davidson in the... No, I think this is probably his last coaching hire for good or ill.

And, you know, you can infer from that which of the two things I just said I think is going to happen, you know? I don't, look, I don't think Blaschell necessarily is a bad hire, like even from an X's and O's managing the roster perspective. I just think this team sucks. and adding a Mitch Marner to the mix isn't going to be what magically fixes them. Getting all these first round picks into the lineup every night isn't going to be what fixes them. Not anytime soon anyway.

You know, three, four years from now, maybe we're telling a different story here. But again, I don't think Flashel or Kyle Davidson are still there if they're relatively bottom of the barrel team, three, four years from now. Sounds fair. I don't hate the hire, but, you know, how could you possibly be excited for it?

It's really telegraphing something that I think Chicago fans are probably not psyched to think about too much. Then again, maybe they're realistic. I don't know. I guess the only other, like, front office maneuvering we have to talk about here

is the Brendan Shanahan. The Shannaplan era is over in in Toronto. Sure. Done. Yep. Which we all expected, but was made official since our last episode. Uh, you know, it's, it's weird. As a Leafs fan, I'm, I'm struggling a bit with the cognitive dissonance of feeling

like it was certainly time for them to move on from Brendan Shanahan. maybe well past time. Given his obvious reluctance to make major changes, he becomes the major change. That's the way this goes. And yet at the same time, man, the more I look at the future of this team, the more I think they might be headed to some really not great places.

it's uh yeah i uh like i brandon shanahan did a very good job he inherited a mess of a franchise he built it into something that was far more successful than it had been for the last decade before he got there i think he had the right attitude and the right approach right up until it was time to make, as many people have pointed out, to make the Brendan Shanahan trade that the Red Wings made 20 years ago, 30 years ago, to put them over the top for whatever reason he couldn't bring himself to get there. And that cost him his job.

Rightly so, it was the wrong call. But, man, there's a lot of different ways this could plink out. down to a bad place for the Leafs over the next year or two. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's true. What I thought was interesting was that, what's the name, Keith Pelly? Yes. I thought that it was interesting that he was just like, oh, we're not like going to have a replacement for him.

It kind of implied like, oh, not really a lot of value added there with Brendan Chanahan by the end of things. we don't need a guy to do that job. Which is surprising. And Myrtle's got a piece today where he's talking about like how he thinks the Leafs should go out and get somebody. And he basically says, just identify who the best executives in the entire league are and go and double somebody's salary. Yep. Like they're paying 15 million to the guy who's the president of the Raptors.

now that guy won a championship so all right sure but go out and you know like there's a lot of talk about slimming down and cutting budgets around the Leafs which like I don't know man I I understand that for the most part for the last decade the Leafs have had not a blank check but they're you know they've been allowed to spend and Maybe there's just some dead weight there. Maybe, you know, when an org chart inflates and inflates, maybe there just is some, you know, some trimming for the sake of efficiency. But if we're counting pennies, like, what are we doing here?

And as I think most people know, the Leafs, they had been split between the two big Canadian telecoms for years and now Rogers, one of them, is going to take over again. like this this Keith's belly guy I've seen nothing from him that makes me think okay this guy's got a handle on it right now one of the things that that I thought was interesting is the way

Elliot Friedman framed some of the cutbacks that they're expected to make is that like you wouldn't believe the number of people who were just like around the team on game days like in the locker room area and stuff like that and he's like there is a feeling that there's a little too much redundancy and like it makes things like if you got to if you got to you know

deal with 12 different people on game days like how much does it really help at a certain point and could we get it down to like nine you know and that's that to me is fine if it's so like i like that framing yes yes okay but as soon as you're putting dollar values on it like i totally agree You know, but like, like Myrtle basically says, and I don't think he actually says the name. But, you know, he's like, look, if we're going to talk about, oh, you know, look at the Panthers. The Panthers are built to win. So, yeah, maybe we got to go get Sam Bennett. Maybe we should sign their backup goalie and their fourth best defenseman and, you know, all of this.

No, go get Bill Zito. Sure. Go get Bill Zito and say, do you want to be the highest paid exam? executive in the history of hockey. And, you know, see, there's got to be a list of guys like that out there. For sure. To me, you know, I don't know why I said to me. This is, this is just like logical.

Everybody says this. In a flat cap league where you can only pay your players a certain amount of money collectively, the one edge that a team like Toronto or the Rangers or whoever have over Columbus and it's not even one edge, quite frankly, because you can also do it at the AHL level, whatever. But like, you can just pay whoever you want however much you want. Yep. The Maple Leafs, the Canadians, these teams print money. Like, you would have to hire like 40 people for your front office to like high paying jobs for that to,

really like not be a rounding error for you. You know? And so like, yeah, like you said, just go out and be like, oh, you know what we really think is like incredibly smart is Bill Zito or Julian Breesbois, John Cooper, whoever you think it is, just go get that guy and give him a shitload of money. Do what they did. It's fine. What do you give a fuck? In the early 90s when they were not rolling in money the way they are now, but they went and plucked Cliff Fletcher out of Calgary, and a year later they got Pat Burns out of Montreal. Right. It worked okay.

Yeah. Would you like me to tell you about that team? Do we have four hours for me to... It went fine. No, that's exactly right. It worked pretty well. You know, getting Pat Quinn worked pretty well, and instead now it sounds like it's Brad Trilling,

potentially even it... some people are saying, you know, another year is GM and then he'll get promoted to president and be able to pan-pick his own gym. But it's like, all right. I mean. Yeah, and I saw something the other day. I don't know where I saw it. So maybe it was just like speculation or whatever that like now Craig Baroube is going to have more say over personnel as well.

And it's like, is this the direction we want to go? Oh, you know who I think we should get is a guy who like tries really hard and, back checks. Good shit, man. Thanks. You know, like, I don't know that I, that I need that. But, you know, look, think back to before the salary cap era. Who are the teams that were winning a lot of the Stanley Cubs?

Was a team like Detroit where it's like every 32-year-old former All-Star, we're just going to go sign those guys, and then they're going to play on our third and fourth lines, and then we're going to win very easily, you know? like you could do that but with coaches you could you know like when when you when you when you look at like Olympic coaches it's just like oh there's like three of the eight best coaches in the world they all are assistants for this one guy yes yeah obviously it's a little bit different in the NHL, but like you could go get just every good assistant coach in the league, double their fucking salary, like you said.

And they all work for whoever, if you think Craig Barube is the guy. They all work for Craig Barubia, but they're considered the best of the best in that regard. Best of the best scouts, best of the best developmental people, all that kind of thing. This just makes sense for any team, not just the Leaps, any team that like has a lot of money to spend. why wouldn't you do it? If you want to be competitive. If you want to make money, that's a different question, you know? But then you're like, well, as long as we get into the playoffs, that's good because we get like three days of beer sales or whatever, you know?

I'm so demoralized by how this is going to go. Brad Trilliving, who signed some of the worst contracts in the NHL with a bunch of cap space, that he will get to spend because of the exit of the star player who he should have traded but didn't have the guts to trade. To be fair, and you know me, I love being fair to Bradford. You love to be fair. To be fair, he tried and Mitch Marner was like, I'm good. But when Mitch Marner was like, my wife is seven months pregnant, so no.

Yeah. But they waited so long that it was, like, they should have done it in two, 2003, but, you know, it's, it's, that's when his wife was like negative 30 months, right? Should have done it in 2003, but Trillivin came in and he only had a month. And that wasn't enough time for him to do anything. Last year, Keith Pelley comes in, has to make a decision about Brendan Chanahan after they go out in the first round again, but he only has a month.

Right. I don't know, man. Maybe, maybe we start with hiring some people who can do a job in less than a month. month, just a thought. Yeah, I mean, again, it's easy for us to say this. These are million-dollar, you know, multi-million dollar business decisions that you got to justify to people above you and all that shit. Sure, I get it.

But if you're taking these jobs to your point, if you're taking these jobs, aren't you, aren't you feeling like empowered? What, are they going to fire me a month in? Dude, if I took a new job, you know, if I left the athletic and I went somewhere and, you know, I joined, you know, some sports writing place, and they were like, hey, man, feel free to take a month to get settled in. Like, don't feel like you have to write anything. I'd probably be like, sure. Sounds good.

And they're like, you know, and in fact, for the first year, just kind of get to lay the land. Like, you know, don't. All right. Twist my arm. Anytime they talk about like. Run a business. Anytime they talk about like for a year, like, you know, I just didn't feel comfortable in that first year. It's like a year?

You didn't feel comfortable? Yeah. I got to get my feet wet. You got to get feet. How about we hire someone whose feet are already wet? How about we start there? All right, I'm bummed out. Let's let's talk about something else. Well, just to put a bow on the Shanahan thing, it's funny that it lasted so long that he couldn't take the Islander's job. Yeah. All this, like, they were just so far along in their process. Well, and they also, it also was very funny that, and I don't remember if this had happened by the last week's show, but even before they fired him, they gave him permission to talk to the Islanders. That feels like a bad sign. Ryan, we haven't made up our mind if you're going to continue in Puck Soup, but if you want to talk to somebody on some other Pogaba, go ahead, feel free.

Yeah. I don't know if I'm breaking up with you, but if you want to go on a few dates, I'm not going to stand in your way. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's interesting times in Toronto, that's for sure. And, Sean, I don't want to let you know about a certain Chinese curse, but, you know. What's that? You don't know this?

No. There's an, the ancient Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times? Okay, yes, I do. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I just said, it's interesting times in Toronto. I root for the most interesting team in the NHL.

Yay for me. All right. Let's quickly talk about this. Minnesota wins a second Walter Cup. You know what I say. The fix is in. It's a good season for all the way, man. The crooked PWHL.

Nice to see that. But yeah, yeah, four overtime games. Yeah, there's never been a Walter Cup final. game that didn't go to overtime. Oh, did they all go to overtime last year, too? Yeah. That's awesome. All right.

I'm in. I'm pretty sure. I'm in. Now that I say that, I might be wrong about it. When I, when I abandon the Maple Leafs and just become a PWH fan full time, should I go with Toronto or should I just go like, go full local and go Ottawa? Well, yeah, I think, I think that would be the right move for you. Okay. But let's see here.

I'm clicking through on the... No, there was... There was only one overtime game in last year, so I was wrong about that. But that one went to double overtime. But of course, as we remember, they played Boston last year, and the fix was in.

Fixed. You're going to tell me, in a sport like hockey, one team can win the championship the first two years? Come on now. Come on now. I mean, all I'm saying is you've got a league and the same team has won every single year that your league has existed.

No further question here on. That feels unlikely. But to your point about like how are things going to feel going forward, completely different league next year. They're adding 33% more teams, you know? I think we talked about it on the show last week or maybe a mailbag. But like the expansion draft rules are crazy. They want Vancouver and Seattle being very competitive right away. Which they should.

I mean, you don't. You're a new, new-ish league still. You can't have two teams just getting by. But yeah, protect three. Imagine NHLGM's doing that. Remember how hard NHLGMs cried every time they had to give up? We couldn't give up our fifth best defense, man. This isn't fair.

Our ninth best forward. That's completely short-circuited my entire roster building plan. Yep. Imagine going to NHL. Man, that's... They should do it. I think the NHL, when they do the expansion draft for the Atlanta and Houston teams or whatever, Atlanta and Phoenix, however they want to do it, I think they should just have the exact rules.

You're losing in all stuff. fuck you we want these guys we want these teams to be as competitive as possible maybe that's a future bonus episode like if we had to if we had the exact rules like for over the summer if we had just thinking that yeah pwhL expansion rules all right i'm gonna i'm gonna put this in my little notes app right where i put bonus episode ideas um but yeah that's uh it's an exciting time in the pw hl like I'm very, I'm very curious to see how everything kind of shakes out. But unfortunately, the fix is in.

So, it's just how it goes. And then the one last thing I wanted to mention, the United States of America, country you might have heard of. They won their first world championship since 1933. I could not believe that. I mean, either. It's like, dude, like Latvia plays in this. You couldn't win one time in 92 years, 91 years, I guess. There's like seven teams that have any chance of winning.

And I get that for a huge chunk of that, it was all Iron Curtain teams. Canada had their own, like, but I mean, how have you guys not won in the last 30 years? Have you seen, like, the teams we would send to the Olympics as recently as, like, 2006 or 10 or whatever. These aren't exactly loaded with all-stars. This is the thing I always say. Tim Gleason was on a team that went to overtime in Canada. Okay. And lost to the Canadians on home ice. Tim Gleason, perfectly good NHL defensemen, but like Sidney Crosby was on the other team. You know what I mean? Jerome Gindler. I tell you, man, if we had Sydney Crosby this year you guys would have been in trouble.

Who did Canada lose to it? It was some embarrassing country. Denmark, was it not? Yeah, you can't be losing to Denmark if you're sitting in a Denmark if you're Sidney Crosby. Honestly, if I'm Kyle Dubus, I'm sitting there going, we've got to blow it up. That's it. This is it.

This is this Crosby guy cannot win. Crazy. And then the US beat Switzerland? Yes. Yeah, this is why I can't take the world championship seriously. Shout out to Tage Thompson. Hey, big goal for him. Biggest goal of his life, let's just say.

Period. You know, watching the highlight of that goal, I didn't watch that game live, obviously, but watching the highlight of that goal, I was like, man, was there a game recently where the United States needed a guy to score a big goal in a big moment? Probably not. In overtime? I don't think so. Probably not.

You got to have Brock Nelson out there, you know what I mean, bro? Grind it out. The Tim Gleason of forwards, Brock Nelson. You know? That, poor Tim Gleason. Just absolutely catching. I said he was a good player for a long time in the NHL.

But, you know, pull up the 2010 Canadian Olympic roster and you tell me where Tim Gleason fits in on that roster. You know what I mean? Stay what you want about that, team. They got fucking mileage out of all those guys. In fact, I think Canada should be embarrassed to have only won in overtime in 2010.

Probably right. We're going to give it back. I think that's only fair. Get over it. You know what I mean? I guess that's it for the show this week, though. We're, we don't really have a lot to talk about other than that, I don't think. Again, Boston and Seattle seem to be circling.

their hires here. If I had to guess, I'd say Marco Stern for Boston. That sure sounds that way, yeah. Yeah. That feels like that's pulling into the station. And that's nice, former Bruin. It's crazy. What are the odds?

We looked at every coaching candidate in the world. And a guy who used to play here is the one we went with. He knows how it works in Boston. You think on, like, his first day at orientation, they're like, okay. We're going to tell you about, like, where the employee parking lot is and he puts his hand up and he's like, you know what, this is actually crazy.

You guys aren't going to believe this, but I used to work here. And they're like, no, get the, there's no way. Didn't he, am I wrong that he scored a big goal in like the Fenway out, the first Fenway outdoor game? All I know is he was, he was part of the Joe Thornton trade.

Part of the Joe Thornton trade. Which Boston won because it allowed them to win the 2011 Stanley Cup in Yeah, four years. Well, honestly, honestly, what it really did was free up the money that they gave to Zadano Chara, and that actually did work out for them pretty well. Right? Because didn't Chara come over, like, Summer 07? He came, he came, 06, I want to say.

It was after that. It was after the Thornton trade season. That's what I mean. So, like, yeah. So they just took all the money they were going to give Joe Thornton. and they gave it to Zadano Chara. I think both San Jose and Boston would say that actually worked out pretty well for us,

all things considered. But like I said, Marco Sturm knows how it works in Boston. You just have Tim Thomas and Patrice Bergeron's Dano Chara. You know, you have those guys on the roster. Easy. Simple. I don't know who Seattle's going to go with.

I wish whoever that person, is good luck. Yes. Okay, why don't you hit them with the plugs and let's get the hell out of here, Sean. Find me at the Athletic. I'll be on with Sean and Frankie tomorrow on the athletic hockey show. I also have the red light newsletter, which you can get in your inbox on Monday mornings, plus a bunch of articles every week. Am I overworked? Some are saying it. I think we need to get you roughly a month off

by getting you hired to run the Toronto Maple Leafs. You don't have to do shit for that first month. I mean, get a year to sort of get the lay of the land. Get a feel for things. Because, you know what? I couldn't tell you in less than 12 months. Until I see it with my own eyes. Perfectly.

I have no idea. I mean, yes, I know you. could say, like, there's all this history and statistics and all the information is right there. But I'm so smart that until I see it with my own eyes, I can't judge. And then for me, I got the notification in the company Slack during this episode. One week from today, Tuesday, the Elite Prospects draft guide is available. And, folks, you're not going to want to miss this, especially if you're one of these Islander fans. who's so excited about maybe picking James Hagen's or Matthew Schaefer or Porter Martone or Michael Mesa first overall.

I'm just going to read what it says on the cover here. 350 plus prospect profiles, 5,000 plus individual game reports, 130 plus ranked prospects, track data for hundreds of games. Does that all sound good to you? Sign up for Relief Prospects Premium. You'll get all that shit. and more. All my beautiful takes.

Perfect. I believe Cam Robinson, either today or tomorrow, has a, has a, like his first mock draft from talking to all these scouts and people around the league

and that kind of thing. I'll tell you this. I've already seen it. I was surprised we went number one. That's all. Wow. We call that a tease. Mm-hmm.

Again, that's either today or tomorrow, I think. I read the article. Connor McDavid. Weird. I got to tell you, if you're the Islanders and you can get Connor McDavid first overall, I'm not trading down.

I'm keeping that first pick. I know how much he costs. I know how old he is. I'll take the chance. Wouldn't be quite so weak of a draft year, in my opinion. If you could get a guy who, like, he comes in and he puts up, like, 130 points first year. Just something to think about. So yeah, head over to Elite Prospects.

Sign up for that. Included with Elite Prospects premium. So you sign up for that, you get the takes, you get the draft guides, all that stuff. One neat little package. And I say this all the time. The Elite Prospects app is good. Sign up for the Elite Prospects app, download it, all that kind of stuff. You know what?

I just looked it up. As of half an hour ago, that mock draft is live. top 32 picks. So there you go. And then head over to patreon.com slash puck soup. Doing all kinds of bonus episodes, including this just wrapped up. I don't know if you saw this, Sean. We have been asked to go through by our listeners for the for the

listeners choice bonus episode for the month. We go through old hockey news covers. like the famous one with Marner and Matthews and Nielander. And we just be like, boy, they got that one wrong. Hockey News goofs. That's what the bonus episode this month is. And the great news is, the hockey news has every cover of every issue just available to view online.

They do. So we could go back to like the 50s and be like, can you believe they said Newsy Lalonde was the best forward of, 30 years or whatever? That's crazy. These guys don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Let's second. Bobby Orr number two.

Bozos. Gush Lemenski number one. I'm excited for this one because I don't have any real context for a lot of this old stuff, but I know Sean's going to be like, what were these fucking dumb asses thinking over at the hockey dudes? I know he's going to have these takes ready to go. This is going to be a fun one. Just going to dunk on Bob McKenzie for.

an hour straight. It's going to be awesome. I'm very excited for it. So yeah, that's it. Thanks for listening, everybody. And we'll talk to you next week. And I think we'll know, almost certainly, no, definitely we will know the Stanley Cup final matchup. I don't think they will have. I don't think they will have. Because we'll be in the middle of 13 days off for no reason. Got to talk about something. Yeah. Okay.

Thanks for listening. Stand like a preview part one next week. Smart. That's good. That is a great tease. Okay. Thanks for listening, everybody. Have a good one.

Bye-bye.