Puck Soup - Death To The Shootout

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

The boys discuss John Tortorella's face turn as a 3-on-3 OT supporter and shootout hater. Plus John Carlson, David Pastrnak, texting after fights, calling out your coach, Mikko Rantanen, drone racing and a "Star Wars" hockey quiz. Sponsored by Seat Geek and The Athletic. 

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you'll commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wichenski of the worldwide leader in sports ESPN. If you like Texas Hold'em, I think we may have invented it. I'm Ryan Labert from Yahoo. I don't think we invented any card games.

I'm Sean McIner from The Athletic. We will probably be covering Texas Holden at some point in the near future. And you're in for that. Yeah. Did you guys even even know about Texas Holden before it was like an ESPN 2 sport back in the day? I don't know about here. It's like ESPN, it wasn't an ESPN thing. It was a NHL lockout thing.

and then all the Canadian channels that cover hockey 80% of the time had a year of airtime to fill, and so we all got like Chris Moneymaker and Texas Hold'em. Yeah. I think they started showing it. They were ahead of the curve. They started showing it on ESPN2 and kind of portended the poker craze. I don't think that we'd have movies like Rounders,

were it not for the popularity of poker on television. Did you guys ever going to say that Rounders? predated the popularity of poker on television. 98 is Rounders. Yeah, poker is a little bit past that. You're right. So maybe Rounders was the reason we got poker? Is that the chicken and the egg thing?

That could be. I mean, you know, worst movies have inspired, you know, other crazes. What inspired drone racing? Because that's what I was watching after the game last night on NBCSN. Star Wars episode won the Phantom Menace. You might be right. That's what I call drone racing. Remember that?

From the movie? So you're saying that Quadroneros and Sebulba inspired team drone racing, which, by the way, when I first saw drone racing, it was kind of ingenious because they would do it inside of stadiums or stadia that were not being used at the time because it wasn't baseball season or it wasn't football season. Now it's like they do it indoors, I think, which is like the difference between like, you know, real soccer and indoor soccer. It kind of feels like it's cheapened it. But, yeah, you know, it's just such a money grab. They're not in it for the for the drone racing anymore. The love of drones. You know, back in my day, we used to race drones in stadia.

Now it's all indoor drone racing. Oh, man. What would be more of a difficult conversation with your parents? Let's say you're like a 16 year old boy, like in body, not in like mind, obviously. What would be the more difficult conversation with your parents? I'm going to be a professional gamer or I'm going to be a professional drone racer. Drone racer, if you're going to be a professional gamer, there's like millions of dollars in that. Oh, there's clearly money in drone racing.

It's on NBCSN. Well, listen, they don't put anything on just anything on NBCSN, okay? Classic car auctions, drone racing. It means you've hit the big time. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, look, they sell out like, you know, NHL arenas, NBA arenas to watch people play fucking Fortnite or whatever. Right. So, yeah, I think I would go with that one as the least embarrassing of the options.

What about you, Sean? What would be the more difficult conversation with you? with old mom and pa. See, I just figure if you were telling your parents that you were going to be a professional gamer, they would assume that was just your excuse to play video games all day, which is what you were probably already doing. So I feel like if you, like the drone thing, they also wouldn't understand, but at least if you were like, I have to go outside to do this, they might prefer that.

Yeah. I mean, like with gaming, like, gaming, they're going to think, oh, you're just looking. for a reason to stay on the couch and drink Red Bull and play video games. With drone racing, they'll be like, oh, thank God our child is entering the military industrial complex

through this this fucking last Starfighter esk recruitment tool that is drone racing. Yeah, when you really go pro, you're triple tapping your many weddings in drone stuff sucks.

Stupid. Remember the the fucking panic that was like, oh my God, kids playing Call of Duty are being indoctrinated into the military industrial complex. This is actually piloting a fucking drone. Yeah, and now people are like, and by the way, it's cool that they were. Yeah. You know, I mean, you need bodies for the war, I guess. Yeah. And it's going to shock you, but in my time watching professional drone racing at NBCSN because I was too lazy to or drunk to change the channel, definitely a few military ads during those programs.

Who would have thunk it? Who among us would have thunk it? Speaking of the military, John Tortorella, I got to tell you, boys, as you know, me and Torts don't really have all that much in common. We're both Americans. We both have a mutual affection

for the canine species. We've both been called an asshole and also called Larry Brooks an asshole. I think that's probably about it. But I came to find out this week that he and I are now best friends because he hates the shootout with every fiber of his being. The actual quote from Torts after an overtime between the Blue Jackets and who did they play in overtime? I forget. Oh, Edmonton.

Yeah, with the Nyquist penalty shot overtime. Torts said, that overtime is dynamite. They should just, I don't know what we're waiting for to get rid of the shootout stuff. I know they're worried about the time limit, but it's not going to last that long. If it goes past five minutes, it's not going to be many more minutes after five. I just think it's dynamite. So there you go. Three on three over time for like ten minutes and maybe just keep playing and get rid of the shootout.

And that's one of the single most refreshing things. And by the way, I didn't really think he'd be that guy because frankly, he seems like the kind of guy that would like the shootout of just trying to Oh, I don't know about that. Oh, but like, have your goalie carry the day and try to minimize, like, like, team skill as much as possible. That kind of seems like it's the tortale. I would dispute the idea that John Tartorella seems like the sort of guy who would like anything. So that's my starting point.

But, no, he's, he's 100% correct. This is, this, the NHL has got a lot of issues and challenges. and many of them are difficult, and this one isn't. This is a really easy one. Because if you make overtime 10 minutes, which I think is the suggestion here, we're not saying unlimited overtime. We realize that in the regular season you don't want, even if it only happened once a year,

you wouldn't want teams going like 20, 30 minutes of overtime. But they do it in basketball? Like, who cares? Play until you win. Yeah, but I think it's, I think it is, it is different and it is the level of, not to turn into, not to imply that basketball is, is not a physical and difficult game, but I do think it's, it's a little bit different, but you, you go. Especially compare it to the three on three. Like, you compare it to the three on three.

I mean, that's, it's a different animal completely. But you go 10 minutes, you accomplish several things. First of all, you get 10 minutes of three on three, and three on three is awesome. It's great. I thought maybe when it first came in that it would be like the shootout, and it would be cool at first, and then you'd kind of get tired of it. And that hasn't really happened. It's great very often. Not all the time.

Sometimes it gets out of joint, and you get those, like, stay where people are circling back and it doesn't click. But when it does click, it's fantastic. So let's have more of it. you would have less of the shootout, which would be a good thing. But also, the shootouts you did have would feel important and interesting again. And not just like something you roll your eyes at and go, oh, yeah, here's another one of these stupid. Like when they first came in, the shootout was kind of cool because there was a novelty factor to it. And that's gone now because there's so many of them.

Yeah. That would come back. Like, it would suddenly, if you were, you know, just on Twitter and somebody was like, hey, shootout coming in this game, you'd be like, oh, I might actually go check that out as opposed to, like, I've written about this. I have, I stopped watching shootouts years ago. Me too. And it has, I just don't even care. Yeah. I change the channel. I don't bother. I go look for actual hockey to watch. But do you think that, do you think that we're, like, we are, it's amazing to hear that all three of us do that same thing. But like, do you think that we're in the majority or we're in the minority when it comes to that? We're in the minority, but there's, we're not some tiny niche. Because when I wrote this, I expected to get like a lot of eye rolls and stuff from people. And I got some of that. But I also got a ton of people going, yeah, I've been doing the same thing for years.

Welcome to the club. Like, I don't watch the shootout because you don't need to. It's, you're going to find out who won within two minutes. You've got somebody on your phone live tweeting the stupid thing anyway. So it's not like you need to see. And if something cool does happen. It's going to be on your phone in 30 seconds. So why would you sit there and watch this slow plotting, uninteresting,

usually skills competition? You know, like I'm beyond the point. I've stopped being the guy who wants to bring back ties or whatever. I get that that's never going to happen. And this league has decided that there has to be a winner every night. So let's do it in three on three. And I get that three on three is also gimmicky, but it's still hockey. It's passing and a defense and transition and stuff like that as opposed to just a guy coming in on a long, winding breakaway and doing one of the only three moves that pretty much everybody does now.

Yeah. That's the thing that really bothers me, too, is the utter predictability of the shootout, not just in like there being a finite number of moves, but in the sense that you know how. the game is going to end. That's, I think, the biggest sin right now at the shootout is when you watch the three-on-three, it could end in fucking 5,000 different ways, you know, as far as, you know, who misses a shot or a weird caram or a guy falling down. Like, who the, like, fucking look at the sharks yesterday night where, like, Kevin LeBank and Tim O'Mire tried to stay out there for all five minutes and then fucking blew the game, much of the chagrin of our sweet boy, Logan guitar. The shootout is always going to end with a breakaway. It's just how it is.

No passes, no defenseman, no nothing. It might be a different move occasionally. It might be, you know, the goalie fucking up or something occasionally. But it's the same play, essentially, each time the game ends. And that is so tedious. I will say that I made this point somewhere in the last couple of weeks. I wish something that exists in basketball, existed in hockey. And that is, like, instead of having a guy who sits at the end of your bench

most of the game, just a fight. You have, like, a gimmick player who's either insanely good at three-on-three or, like, ridiculous at the shootout to make it more. But it's just like, no, we're just going to put our three best forwards over the boards or whatever. And that's, on the one hand, you go, well, that, of course, makes sense that you would just, you know, put your best players out there. But, like, wouldn't it be cool if there was just, like, the player I was talking about

specifically is this guy, Taco Fall from the Celtics, who. who's, I think, seven foot six or something like that? Like, he's enormous. Like, and he's like a gimmick player where it's like, well, I mean, he comes out there and we like to see him because he's freakishly tall. Yeah. And, like, wouldn't it be cool if there was a guy who he's only on the roster because, well, I mean, he's freakishly good at just the three-on-three

or freakishly good at just the shootout. This would be like the Robbie Shremp role. Yeah, exactly. Or kind of how Yossi Yokenin was viewed for a long time, right? Where it's like, well, he's good at one thing. And he actually is quite valuable to the team in a way that a lot of guys maybe aren't, like at the end of your roster. Because, you know, he's providing a thing that will tangibly get you points at the end of the game. You know, and so he can be worth four or five points over the course of a year if he's like, you know, a six. 70% shootout guy.

Or like, maybe that's too high, but you know what I mean. I just think it's really admirable that you're trying to find Linus Omar work in the NHL again. Yeah, let's go. That was, remember when he did the, like, the, the, spinorama in the shootout, and, like, everybody, like, we had to have a fucking, it was the lightning. The lightning got pissed off about it.

Yeah, we had to have a week-long, uh, you know, discussion about is this, is this real hockey or whatever? And it's like, well, the NHL's apparently decided it's real hockey, so yeah. Mm-hmm. All right. around the table here for a second. Sean, I think you sort of spelled it out, but just to get you on the record,

what is your ideal overtime format? It is 10 minutes of three on three, followed by a shootout, and we also have a 3-2-1-point system. So it's three points for regulation win so that we're not going to have 10 minutes in the third period of teams batting the puck around,

waiting for the magical loser point fairy to show up and make the game more valuable. So yeah, three, three, two, one, three points for a regulation win, zero for a regulation loss. If the game goes to overtime, there's still three points on the line, but now it's two, two and one. Same for the shootout, if we have to have them. Ten minutes, 90% of games would end in overtime, and the ones that did go to the shootout would feel kind of special and interesting again. I take it back. The thing that sucks most about the shootout is that it's worth as many points as a regulation win.

It's a fucking farce. Like, come on. That's like, that's like idiotic that it's worth as worth as much as winning in the first 60 minutes. Like, what the fuck are we even doing for 60 minutes? If you could just skate the goal eight, you know, three or four times and fucking win the game. But all of this stuff is going to happen at some point. And we're going to look back in however many years and be like, what the hell were we doing for that era where we had some games were worth more than others. And we encourage teams to not play for the win in regulation and all of this stupid stuff.

Like our kids are, it's going to be like when you look back and you're like, what doleys didn't wear masks? What the hell? Like, how did nobody think that was a bad idea? And your like grandparents are just like, ah, I don't know. That's just what we did. We're going to be the same way with this stupid loser point. Or whatever assistant commissioner we get from the NBA to run the NHL after Batman leaves, we'll put

the shootout in the playoffs. No, it's going to be like the assistant commissioner of like e-sports or some. crap like that that we'll have passed the NHL, but we'll all still pretend it's fine because record revenues and the NHLPA announced negotiations continue with NHL Commissioner

Ninja over the next collective bargaining agreement. Oh, boy. No thanks. What's your idea? I mean, overtime format. I, yeah, I already said it is frigging

three on three until somebody wins. I want to fall in the middle here. You know, a real Pete Buttigieg in this conversation. Me and Mark Zuckerberg, drive it around. Comedians and cars having coffee. But, by the way, should Facebook have hired Jesse Eisenberg to be Mark Zuckerberg for the congressional hearings? Because he was pretty fucking terrible. That was cousin Greg, I thought.

That's right. That was the thing. People said he was Tom Wombagans or whatever the fuck during that congressional hearing this week, which I thought was great. It's fantastic. If it's, if it is to be said, so it be. That was the Nick Weiger joke from this week, right? He says, Sorkin Zuckerberg, and it's like this eloquent fucking Sorking language from the social network. And then real life, Zuckerberg is like, uh, I hate lying.

fucking great no I will sit in the middle and say that I'll go three on three ten minutes then the game ends in a tie I hate shootouts that much I don't think it's a necessity for people to go home with a winner or a loser

when I was a kid we used to go home all the time after ties and you know what you felt you felt like hey what a great feeling to not have lost maybe it was just because I was a Devils fan at the time, and we weren't all that good. But I would leave the Meadowlands Arena walking through smoky corridors because you could smoke

inside and feel like, you know what? It's great. It's great that we didn't lose. We didn't win, but we didn't lose. But 10 minutes of three on three, more likely than not is going to give you a victor, as our good, my new friend, John Totorella said. I think that's the situation. I'd be fine with that.

I don't, I mean, I didn't list that as my option just because I don't think. it's realistic that this league would do that, but I'd be fine with them doing it, especially because, like you say, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be like the old days where a team could have 20 ties in a season. There would only be a few. The one thing I'd say is if we're going to do that, just make every win worth two points and the tie worth one point per team. Like, let's just, like keep every, you know, at that point, I understand that the league, even though they insist on having shootouts, also doesn't think that a shootout loss should count as a real. loss because they acknowledge the shootout is kind of dumb. But if you're going to have, you know,

two points for a win, zero points for a loss in real hockey and otherwise you get one point each for a tie, that would be fine as well. Last thing on this, you think that there's in the last few years been more of an acceptance of the three-on-three as an actual hockey thing. Yes. Like when it first came out, there was definitely this sort of backlash against it saying, oh, this is fucking circus hockey, it's not real hockey, yada, yada, yada, even for the people that were comparing it to the shootout. But I feel like there's, and this is completely just sort of observational, I feel like there's less of that now than there was when it first was introduced.

I think there's less of it maybe because the novelties worn off a bit, but I think if you expanded it, you would hear from those people again. Like, there certainly are people who think it's as gimmicky as the shootout or close enough that they still have an issue with it. So, yeah, and we would hear from them again. And I don't, like, they're not necessarily wrong. It is gimmicky, but it's the good kind of gimmick. And you're right, it's not real hockey because real hockey involves blocking shots and playing a sound, positional, defensive structure and just chipping the puck in and not

making mistakes. And three on three takes a lot of that out of the equation. So yeah, it's not real hockey. It's better in short doses, which is, is what we're talking about. Yeah. I wish there was a way that you could just predict what games were going to have a three-on-three, so you don't have to waste your time picking games that don't have a three-on-three.

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looked bad. Like, you can kind of never tell with lower body injuries, just how bad it is on, at, you know, first blush or whatever. But yeah, I think they kind of caught a break with, just week to week, but it's still very bad for them. Well, I mean, week to week can still add up to months. So I don't know, let's wait and see. But yeah, that looked ugly. And And it's, yeah, there's like, sports injuries are weird. Very often you see something and it doesn't look that bad and somebody will even walk off or skate off. And then you find out it's real serious and you're almost kind of used to thinking of them that way. But that was one where you're like, oh, that guy's foot is pointing in the wrong direction.

That's probably bad. It was like perpendicular to his body. It's fucking gross. Like your foot is not supposed to spin around like Daffy Ducks beak. Like that's, I'm not a doctor, but that's. It's generally bad when that happens. I thought there was a chance that his footstroke might start vomiting pea soup like Reagan and the Exorcist. That's how far it twisted around.

It may have. I think they're going to be okay. One of the things I really like about Colorado is the depth that they have this year. And by that, I mean, I hopped on Jonas Danskoi, the minute I heard rant and it was going to be week to week to get him on my fantasy team. But still a bummer because this team was rocking and rolling something pretty strong. Hopefully he gets back soon. This is the hockey news portion of the podcast, you just realized, because we're also going to talk about Nico Heeshire for a second, because I don't believe that we talked about Nico Heeshire last week when we did the pod. Well, he had not signed his new contracts at the time, so that's probably why it didn't come up.

But Ryan, as you know, as the guy who broke the PKK Suban trade, I have all the inside. That's not true. I just got lucky. Nico Heeshire signs a extension for seven years and $50.75 million. And a lot of people were like, what the fuck? Why would you sign Nico Heeshire to that contract? And Ryan, you were a full-throated defender of said contract in your column recently. Yeah, I mean, you know, there was the, I think it was an NHL.com poll the other day that was like,

oh, the most underrated player in the league? Why, it's the guy who's been the most underrated player in the league for three years now. It's Sasha Barkov and it's like Control F, Nico Heeshire, not on there, that's weird. It really

is a thing of, you know, you can doubt the advanced stats or whatever, but his war over the last two seasons since he came in the league, 20th among all skaters. And yeah, he played with Taylor Hall for a pretty good chunk of that, obviously.

But also, he was a teenager who got, you know, only minutes with Taylor Hall for his, like, he got, and it's not like the devil's had other lines that other teams had to worry about. So he's getting, like, you know, the, like how, you know how Colin White is getting as, well, now he's hurt, but how, how, Colin White was getting his ass handed to him when he didn't have Mark Stone on his line anymore. You know, Niko Heeshire had to do that anyway. And like, it's not like Taylor Hall is Mark Stone, you know. And, yeah, he has done very well. You know, there are aspects of his game that need to improve. But, yeah, he's, you know, again, you can say maybe war is not definitive or whatever.

But all the guys he's around in those war stats are really, really good. And I don't think he'd be like the one accident to sneak through where it's like, you know what, Nico Heeshire is not, okay, let's say he's not top 20. Is he top 30? Is he top 40? And that's among all skaters. How much of this is him being the number one, number one guy and not being like a super I feel like his draft position is always going to be kind of a slap in the face if he's not like, you know, challenging for the art Ross.

Well, right. And that's the problem. Like, people only look at his goals and assists. And they go, well, he's not worth 7.25 minutes. And it's like, well, first of all, 7.25 million, you know, is forever evolving as a number we should like it. You should always just look at percentage of the cap. And it's not that big of a. percentage anymore and that number's only going to go down when there's the new TV deal and stuff like that in the next few years. And then, you know, three, four years from now, we're looking at him and we're going, damn, this guy's good. And he's cheap. I do want to pause on the NHL.com overrated. I'm sorry, not overrated. Why the fuck would they ever say overrated? That'd be interesting. Most underrated player list that you referenced just before. I'm going to throw out a couple names, and you tell me if it's humanly possible if this person is, is underrated at this point in their career? Nick Backstrom. No, properly rated as very good. Sean. Yeah, I mean,

the thing with all of these, though, is it's like, properly rated by who? Like, people like us who spend all day on this stuff and, you know, look into the underlying numbers and all of this stuff, or by like the typical Joe fan who has other things to do and is just kind of like, yeah, Capitals, that's Ovechkin. He's the guy there. And then maybe Baxteram is underrated. Like I always feel like, I know we always see this stuff. And you kind of roll your eyes and you're like, oh, yeah, Patrice Bergeron is underrated.

Sure, he's universally considered one of the five best players. Yeah, but is he among just the broader population of fans? I don't know. I guess it just kind of depends on who the presumed audience is on a lot of this stuff. That's actually what I was going to mention, because I do struggle with it. I kind of feel like there's underrated in the sense that, boy, you guys don't realize how good this guy is. And then there's underrated in the sense of you guys don't appreciate the fucking hockey god you're watching. And like a couple people said, like one person said Burjohn, one person said,

Malkin. And like, I think there's a case to be made that like, that there is a lack of true appreciation for how good Gino is. And how he's like a fucking MVP award. I feel like when you won an MVP and a cons smite, like, maybe at that point we got to, you got to check out of the underrated hotel. But like, but like, but that's what I'm saying. Like, I understand that that's the reaction you just gave me is the reaction to, is this guy

really good? it's not like, you know, like, is Malkin mentioned, if you said who are the top 10 players the last 20 years, is Malkin in the top 10? He is for me. Yeah. But that's what I'm saying. But that's what Sean said. But that's what Sean said. But that's what Sean said.

Like, would he be in the top 10 for everybody? Or would it be SID default, obviously, and then you don't put Malkin on the list? That's, to me, that's, that's, you could make the argument that's underrating him. Yeah. I get where you're. coming from, I do think that Malcolm is broken through to the point where he is viewed as kind of a 1-1A situation, sort of like how if you were making that list, like Taves and Cain would both be on that list for most fans. They don't, they, they don't view it as a case

where one guy has to be, uh, has to be the guy for, for the Blackhawk. So I feel like it's, it's the same for him. But for other guys like, you know, that are on those lists, and Ryan mentioned like Barkop being on that list every year. And at some point you're like, how can you be underrated every year if you're always showing up on these lists? It's the Louis-Earics and thing. But most fans don't see these lists, right? And I do think that if you, you know, forget about the NHL.

Like, if you went to a typical fan, and I'm just talking, I'm talking about someone who's a legitimate hockey fan in their two hours of spare time a day. And that's it. Like, that's what 90% of the fan base is. And you just said, like, name the 10 best players in the Atlantic Division. they give you a couple of lightning, a couple of leaps. They go down, and I could see Barkov not being on that list for a lot of people. So in that sense, I think, yeah, he is probably still underrated,

but partly because he plays for a team that nobody outside of the market cares about. The only guy on this NHL list, by the way, that these players mentioned that I think is overrated is Jaden Schwartz. Like, I'm just not a Jaden Schwartz guy, I decided. I think he's fine. I think he's way too streaky. I just, I'm all right. That's a bad take. But, you know, yeah, it's one of those things of like, you know, they don't define who, who is doing the not properly rating.

But I just feel like if Nico Hescher's name didn't come up at all, you know, I don't know what the fuck the criteria even could be. Right. the criteria is not be a goalie apparently because not a goalie's made the list. I'll be thinking of Jonathan Taves, by the way, boy, has he been hot garbage earlier this year? Oh, interesting. Yeah. A minus 40 in shots for, shots against while on ice. And currently right now, according to natural stat trick, a 31.51 expected goals percentage.

Okay, and is that good? You know, based on my numbers, and again, I'm no math major. I didn't even take trig. No, not really good, I don't believe. Interesting. I'm sure he's just a product of his line. I'm sure it's not anything that's bad about Jonathan Taves. I don't, he's, he's over 30.

Guys hit a wall, and that's the end of it. Like, you know, I can't. You don't necessarily have to, like, have a rhyme or rea. he's coming off a career year. Is he going to keep it up? That was what everybody in Chicago said all summer. He could do it. You know, he could, the new system and all that kind of stuff. Okay, sure. Yeah. I feel the same way, man. I think I did my best writing with AOL Fan House. John Carlson is leading the NHL in points. I mean, come on. What is that even about? It's completely sustainable. I think it's going to be, no, I mean, he's a good offense. defensive defenseman. He's a really good offensive defenseman. On a super big heater right now. And that's, uh, yeah, that this is, this is kind of where you wind up and it'll serve him well because this is moving him to the top of everyone's kind of early Norris lists. And those early lists tend to get

anchored in as the real lists as the season goes on. So even when he inevitably cools off and isn't Bobby Orr and Paul Coffey combined, uh, he'll, he'll still be in the running. I mean, part of it is like the whole argument with Edmonton and Colorado and all these teams, or Buffalo, I guess, I meant to say instead of Colorado, because I thought the ass would be pretty good this year. But it's like, well, yeah, I mean, it's not sustainable, but also they're banking the points. And like at the end of the year, like, at the end of the year, you're not going to be like, you know what? I can't, I can't in good conscience count all the assists he racked up in October as part of the year. You know what I mean? So, like, I obviously get the whole, like, this isn't going to last thing.

But at the same time, you know, he's been very productive. I look back at it since, I think it's since 2017. He has the same number of points in the same number of games as Brent Burns. But, like, how many times has John Carlson's name ever come up in the conversation of, like, goat of all offensive defensemen at the league? It's pretty crazy. I think he finished fourth in the Norris voting last year, which was a shock to me because I figured coming off the cup and also having like 70 points last season that he definitely would have been in the top three. It's a weird oversight, I think, on the part of the voters that he wasn't. But that'll be corrected this year.

I'm pretty sure. Also, say hello to your new hockey god, David Pasternak. My fucking God. Somebody mentioned it the other day. I forget who it was. But like maybe top five most exciting players in the league right now, maybe top three as far as like guys you tuned in to watch just to see what he does. As a Leafs fan, I disagree. I do not tune in to watch this guy.

In fact, I'm quite tired of watching this guy because he's fantastic. He's and yeah, he gains extra superpowers. time he plays the Leafs. So I don't know how it is that you can be like 23 years old and already be having like your third breakout like that. That should work that way. You get like one breakout. That's it. And then you go, okay, yeah, this guy is leveled up three times in, in like three or four years. He's great. He's all sorts of fun to watch. That line is just ridiculous. It's unfair. And yeah, if you're a Bruins fan, you just enjoy it while you can because, uh, this is just a perfect hockey line that is just clicking perfectly right now.

Yeah, I dig it. He's fantastic and also on my fantasy team. Finally, in the hockey news section of the podcast, a story that, oh boy, really made some, enemies for me in the Minnesota Wild fan community, Jason Zucker mentioning Bruce Brew by name saying that he has to be better while also talking about the rest of of the team. Since that time, by the way, the wild have actually kind of played a little bit better.

But I don't know. I felt like this was cut and dry that you don't talk about your coach to the media. You could talk about him after he's fired, but when your team is in a shit spiral, to fucking evoke

the name of your coach in criticism of the team is like, I mean, maybe it's just been drilled into me that this is not something you do, but it just wasn't something that I think you should have done. He apologized. for it. Internally, it wasn't a big deal, but I just felt like, optically, what the fuck are you doing?

Yeah. No, I agree 100%. And I was, I wrote about it a little bit too. And I got, I think, similar pushback to what you got from wild fan saying, oh, it's not a story. This is the media making something out of it. I know even Elliot Freeman mentioned it and said, you know, this is, this is, we say we want these guys to say interesting things. and then we turn it into a bit. Can I pause on that for a second?

I am so fucking sick of that. Like, I like Elliot a lot. But, like, why is it whenever we criticize something that said or somebody speaks out of turn, the fucking default setting is like, it's like seeing a goddamn unicorn in a field. Like, oh, fucking don't disturb the unicorn. You might never see one again. Like, why is it default setting now? Like, we can't say anything about what these guys say or else they're going to fucking turtle shell it

and never say anything interesting again. Or like, it's two diametrically opposed views that, oh, we hope that they're more candid and interesting. Oh, but don't say anything about them or else they'll never say anything and it'll be your fault. Like, what the fuck is that? I never understand that. Here's the thing.

Like, I get that sentiment sometimes where a player just expresses some personality and then gets rung up for it or they express some level of emotion beyond, let's get pucks in deep and move on to the next game. I do think that happens sometimes, but this wasn't that. This was a player on a team where everything was imploding, mentioning his coach by name as somebody who needed to be better. And that's, I'm sorry, that is a story. In any sport, in any market, that's going to be a story. Now, I'm perfectly willing to accept that that wasn't, he didn't mean it as a direct criticism.

him. The quote maybe got it got away from him. He was certainly, it was very clear from the context. He wasn't just singling out his coach. He was pointing fingers at everybody and basically saying everybody top to bottom needs to be better. And I get that. And that's part of the story is including the context and explaining the follow up and saying that, hey, this is this is what it looks like. But that doesn't mean that you don't talk about it. And it doesn't mean that we don't point out that it's very unusual to name your coach. when you're criticizing, criticizing a team, especially when you're a leader on a team, especially when it's a coach who is considered to be on the hot seat and whose job is viewed as potentially in danger and you go and single them out.

And I think the fact that Zooker went and apologized to him, not even after this became a story, but apparently immediately afterwards. Like he realized what he had said and he went to him on the plane before Boudreau even heard about it. And yeah, if they sorted it out

and everybody's with it, great. That's part of the story too. But you can't have a player say something, immediately realize they have to go and apologize to their coach for it and then get mad at the media for reporting it as a story. It's clearly a story. And it's a story that, and the story is not Zucker hates Boudreau and is calling for him to be fired and all the ways that you could, you could turn it into something it isn't. But it's also not, oh well, let's not even mention this all as well, and we move on. Like, that's not how this works and it's not how it should work when a player is calling out

his own coach by name in the middle of a losing streak. Yeah. Well said. What did you think, Ryan? Yeah, no, I mean, look, it's one of those things, and I say this all the time. So I feel like I repeat myself often. But like, the wild are not playing well. Everybody agrees with that.

But like, look at that fucking roster. What's he supposed, like, is he supposed to be like, oh, you guys thinking about making a save tonight? Is that, you know what I? Like, it really is that simple for me of like, yeah, he could definitely, you know, do something different. But at the same time, you know, I don't know how much more you can expect to get out of this group. And, you know, we all say things when we're frustrated. And, you know, we don't necessarily. mean them and all that kind of stuff.

But at the same time, it's just like, yeah, man, I can't sit here and go, this is Bruce Boudreau's fault. Like, he can do better, sure, but like how much better, you know? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't know. The wild fans who push back on me, a couple people in particular, were just kind of like, this is a media construct. It's a mountain of a molehill. You guys don't know the whole story, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I don't care what the fucking catalyst was. You just don't talk about your coach. And like, Sean said, like, it's the same in every sport. You know, if Pat Mahomes was talking to the media after a Chiefs game, it was like, you know, fuck Andy Reid. Like, that's a, that's a story. Well, I'll say this. It's not don't talk about your coach.

If you feel like talking about your coach, talk about your coach. But, you know, like, like you guys said, it's a story when that happens. And, you know, like, what, like, I'm not saying anybody should be insane. isolated from criticism, obviously. But, like, yeah, the idea that this isn't a story or whatever, like, he said it to the media. It's not like somebody fucking took an off-the-record quote and was like, one wild player says, you know, like. Yeah. And it's your source of that. And again, it also wasn't something where like the wild came in on Monday morning and the media is suddenly asking about it.

And they're all like, what are you guys even talking about? Where is this coming for? This is, he went and apologized immediately after he said it. So either he realized he had screwed up or somebody realized where this was going to go. Like this, this wasn't just, you know, we've seen it. We've seen, like, I'm a Leafs fan. I've seen reporters go in and decide that a guy was wearing the wrong colored hat and that's on the front page of the next day.

And you're sitting there going like, where did this come from? So we do sometimes, and we is in the media, sometimes we do kind of manufacture stories out of nothing. and sometimes we do it because sometimes we do it just to make a story where there shouldn't be one or sometimes maybe our judgment is off and we think something is a story, but it really isn't and we push it too hard. But this wasn't that. This was a legitimate story, even if it's just a story for a couple of days. Something got said, they had to iron it out, they did iron it out, they won a game onto the next thing.

That's all it has to be. But this idea that it shouldn't be talked about. That's what's not being talked about. It worked. Everybody's doing great now because Jason Zucker said this and it's going to work forever. And that's the thing. I heard from wild fans when this first happened going, oh, this isn't a story. And then two wins later, suddenly it's the turning point in the season that the veteran stood up and called out everybody.

You can't have it both ways. It can't not be a story when you're losing. But then if you win, suddenly it was this big turning point moment of your season. season. Like, you got to pick a link. Right. Exactly. That's a good point. That was fun. We covered a, I think we got like a half dozen topics in there, hockey related. If you enjoy stories about many, many hockey topics.

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that you will thank me for. I couldn't help but notice that you didn't mention drone racing. Does the athletic have a drone racing correspondent yet? Or is that not a hole in your game? I can't comment on our plans with regards to drone racing. Because I don't know what drone racing is. But if you do develop one of your fans, fancy internal podcasts, I would suggest droning on for the name of a drone racing podcast.

It's a free idea. I'm going to take this as your application. Yes, please. We will get back to you and we'll let you. I appreciate it. Sean, you wanted to talk about Brian McGratton getting salty about texts between guys who fought. Yes. Well, speaking of the athletic, this was a story that we had a couple days ago where, so there was a

a fight in a minor league game. And it was, unfortunately, one of these sites that we see every now and then when it comes to fighting in hockey where one guy got, got caoed.

It was... Yeah, this was, this was Colby Cave and Martin Popasil. Yes. And it was, it was a, it wasn't like nobody got jumped.

It wasn't a sucker punch. It was just two guys squaring off and one of them got tagged and went down hard. And of course, these days, we know what that can mean in terms of concussions and head injuries and it's a serious situation.

And so I guess the guy who threw the punch after the game texted his opponent to basically say, I hope you're okay. And they text it back a little bit. And then the guy who got K-Oed posted that series of texts on social media at basically saying like, hey, this was a classy gesture. and it's led to a lot of people feeling like this is great. This is part of the hockey code. It's the honor among these guys.

But then there's been some pushback, including from Brian McGratton, who felt like he basically said, look, I did this job for a long time. The NHL, I won a lot of fights. I lost a lot of fights. I never offered or expected an apology or a text after a game after a one-sided fight. And I don't know. I mean, I get the feeling that most people are kind of firmly on the side of this, this is fine and maybe even, maybe even a good, a sign of good sportsmanship. But part of me does kind of see where Brian McGratton is coming from. And certainly he's, he's one of the few guys who has lived that role.

And, you know, I do get that there is this, I don't know, this kind of element of it where it's sort of like, I don't think we have to go back to the. days in the 40s and 50s where you couldn't even put two teams on the same train because there'd be a fight in the dining car. Oh, missed that. But these guys are supposed to be opponents. If they're getting into a fight, presumably it's because they're mad at each other or they don't like each other. The fact that they're immediately checking in, I don't know.

It doesn't bother me and yet I can see where some people would sort of roll their eyes at it a bit. Back in my day, if somebody put you in the hospital, you'd never heard from them. And that was how we liked it. Like, shut the fuck off. They went to the hospital and they finished the job. Yeah, like, just shut the, like, who gives a shit? Dude, like. They send one of us in the hospital.

We send one of those for the mall. Yeah. I cannot. Like, if you watch that video, it is gross that, like, all these hooting chuds in the audience are like, we love it. We love that this guy is clearly, like, in horrible distress and needs to be rushed to the hospital. Right. Like, and when I said, like, I don't know how you can morally defend this as part of the sport anymore. All these people were like, oh, I guess you don't want boxing in MMA to exist either.

And it's like, well, first of all, A, I wouldn't give a rat's ass if either of those sports went away tomorrow. But B, like, those guys have big gloves on. You ever notice that? Like, it's different than getting. bare knuckle punched in the face. Like, you know, it's just one of those things of, shouldn't we be past this as a sport and you're not, you don't get to go, oh, it's actually, this is what makes hockey great is this guy who punched another guy for no fucking reason at all.

The, you know, the, the 20th guy on the HL roster fought another, you know, for, like, what? you know, I just don't fucking get it. I thought the interesting comment on that story, by the way, and if you want to read it, when is it acceptable to reach out to opponent

story on the athletic? Was from Archie Ordano, who said, you know in your gut if you should reach out. Nobody ever wants to see anybody lying on the ice and not being able to get up and not being able to continue to play. We all love the battle,

the competitiveness that comes with our sport, but you also respect that we're all men with families who have people who care about us off the ice. That last part being whatever it is. The first part to me is the most important part, which is that I think these guys know when shit went sideways on a hit, on a fight, on something to reach out. Do I think it's like mandatory every time something happens in what is an inherently violent game? No. But, uh, but, but, you know, it's as much as I'm the guy who doesn't like the fucking handshake line, because I, I like the, you know, the, the, you know, the,

Fabe of these teams hating each other and they're all warriors and yada, yada, yada. It is nice to hear that, like, if you know you fucked up, that these guys can send a note to say, hey, I did. Well, it's not even the thing. Like, the argument is he didn't fuck up. Like, this is just what happens when you get in a fight. And it's like, that's true, which is why the fighting is. I wasn't, I wasn't saying in the context of the fight, I'm just saying that in the context of what Giordano is talking about, which is, like, if shit goes sideways, then, you know, to reach out to a guy.

Which is that's the part that's confusing to anyone who's not a hockey fan because they're sitting there going like you punch the dude in the face. Like, you know, you never want to see somebody lying on the eye. Then don't punch him right in the face as hard as you can. That seems it's where it kind of gets confusing. The other piece of this was, and Tom Wilson's in the article, and he basically says that he's, he has sent a few of these texts in his day. And certainly he'd be somebody who'd know. But he and he made what I. I did think was a legitimate point, which is if this does happen and you're going to send a text, you don't expect it to get thrown up on social media.

And maybe that's more the issue here is that does this need to then be posted publicly or can it just be two guys having the exchange and then you move on from there? And I think that it seemed like that kind of rubbed him the wrong way a bit that it was immediately publicized and that he felt like maybe putting himself in the shoes of the guy who had done the damage and had sent the text that maybe you would. didn't expect that that was going to immediately be publicized the way it was. Yeah, that's a, and that's an interesting point. That kind of leads into a different area of, of, you know,

perception and things like that, which is a different conversation, but an interesting one. I don't know. That's, it's, it's, it's an interesting topic.

And like you said, like, say what you will about Brian McGratton, but I think he's an interesting guy to talk about this, too. I always, I always find him to be insightful on matters of this stuff. And the reality is there have been like what, like 50 guys in the NHL, 50 or 100, that have actually done this job for years and years.

So I think we should listen when they talk to us about this stuff. I mean, this is, I'm never one of those people who's like, oh, you didn't play the game, you don't get to see it. But there's a very small group of people who have walked in his shoes. And I am interested to hear what people like that have to say about this stuff. As a sidebar, are you, are either of you of the mind that the department, of player safety needs to embiggin the tent, if you will, to bring in different

types of players, like the people that were victims as well as the people that were perpetrators? Or is it better to just have the guys that did the sneaky shit kind of running the department? Yeah, I mean, I think that it shouldn't be players who are making these decisions at all. Oh, interesting. Because it's just like a thing of

the Brian McGratton, like, oh, you friggin never, you never expect to get a call and it's actually bullshit that what, like, who cares what this old idiot thinks? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, things are different now than they were when you played and like Brian McGratton didn't play that long ago and now that I call him an old idiot, I'm sure he's roughly my age, but, you know, it's just one of those things of, like, yeah, he's two years older than me, so, oops. But yeah, it's one of those things of, you know, you can't just leave it up to the, like, Chris Pronger's going to look at this guy and go, oh, yeah, that's a headshot. But is it the kind of headshot that I think should still be in the game?

Well, you know, like, yeah. Is it my type of headshot? Exactly. So, like, you know, just get people like, oh, no, you have to have played the game to understand when a, when a hit is bad or, you know, suspendable versus just a bad outcome. or that kind of thing. It's like, I don't think you do. I think like any fan can watch it and go, ooh, maybe not so much that one. And that's why everybody gets mad about it all the time is because they're trying, like,

the Department of Player Safety is trying to parse like when it's like bad and scary versus like. Bear argument on that is that it takes hockey people to know these things. And that's the argument the NHL makes against the neutral arbitrator, right? It was that like this is a person that never played the sport looking at video of a hockey play. Yeah, I love to hear you got to play the sport to know if a hits like insanely bad. That's fucking stupid. Well, that's their argument. I know what their argument is, but it's stupid.

See, I disagree. I think there is value to the perspective of having been there and haven't been out there, especially when you're talking about in a lot of these cases, I mean, yeah, there are extreme examples where anybody with two eyes can see that, something's out of line. But in a lot of cases, they are trying to parse like split-second decisions. And could this guy have not thrown the hit? Could he have changed direction? Did this last second move impact how the hit was thrown? I think it is useful to have guys who've been in that perspective. I think it would certainly help them. I don't, you mentioned making the tent bigger. I don't think we need a committee at 20 trying to rule in on these things. I think it would help them

to have at least one person in the group who was viewed more as a skill player. I think in a perfect world, and I doubt he'd ever do it, but like Paul Korea would be amazing in that kind of role to have a sort of a different voice at the table. But I actually like what they've got. I like that they've got some people who have been in the middle of this stuff, and on both as recipients and as the ones throwing the hits. I think that is a valuable perspective, and I do absolutely think that. Chris Bronger has a better perspective on this stuff than I do as a fan, even one who's watched for decades, because he's been in the middle of it.

Well, to say he's been in the middle of it, like, it's like, well, you know, this guy who has multiple drunk driving offenses, he knows what drunk driving is. So, like, he's the expert here. Yeah, but there's not a gray area of drunk driving. where we really struggle to figure out what I mean. You know what I mean, though. No, but that's the thing, right? No, Ryan, Ryan, I do know what you mean because you're basically, because you're, you're right. Like, essentially what you have is a guy who's driven drunk looking at another drunk driver

and saying, but he didn't even have any tequila. Like, that's kind of the Chris Pronger perspective on these things. Like, he's done the dirty deeds and do these dirty deeds, which are clearly dirty to anybody. Like if fucking Paul Correa was in that front office, looking at this thing, he'd say, fuck that guy, suspended for 80 games. Like, Chris Proger's going to look at it and be like,

well, at least he didn't stop on his leg. You know, like fucking, like I did. I get what you're saying on that. But I cut you off, Sean. I'm sorry. No, I mean, I think I said my piece. I do think these guys bring value. I think that, you know, somebody, one of you guys mentioned that, well,

this is why everyone's always mad at this department. No, everyone's always mad at this department because they're dealing with incidents that very often fall into grade, areas and people are mad because it's the player on their favorite team who gets suspended. And they feel like homers when they say that, so they go and come up with other reasons to complain and get mad and all of that stuff. But it is, it's a very difficult job in many cases, not all of them.

Some of them are cut and dried one way or another, but a lot of them aren't. And I do appreciate that we have some people with a better perspective than I think the average fan or the average whoever it would be that you would put in instead of these guys. I think we need that. And I think we're going to be mad anyways because it's the nature of the job that we're always mad at these guys all the time. So if that's the case, then at least let them come at it with enough perspective to at least have a chance of getting this stuff close to right. I know this is going to jinx it. But do you realize that we are almost in November and we've yet to have a,

suspension by the Department of Player's Safety for an on-ice incident of violence. Because Netssov for Coke, Kane for abusive officials, and then Zykoff for PEDs. Those are the only three suspensions we've had so far this year. How you've done it. Isn't that crazy? Now you've done it. It's talking about a no-hitter. We've had three fines.

Cedricot, Nick Ritchie, Darren Helm. By the way, that talking about a no-hitter thing is something I'm. evoke maybe once a week in my marriage, like when Ruby says, oh, my God, we're making such great time or something like that. And we're trying to think. I'll just say something like that. I'll just be like, and it's entering the sixth inning a no hitter for the, blah, blah, blah. There is some sports voodoo that I believe with every fiber of my fucking being is true.

And calling out the no hitter before the ninth inning is without question. the things I believe wholeheartedly is is a karma breaker. My view on this is I think it's stupid to pretend that there's such a thing as jinxes, but it's the kind of good kind of stupid that I think is sort of a fun part of being a sports fan and I have no issue with people, except that if you're going to buy into the idea of a jinx, then you have to go all the way. You can't get cute about it. You can't, you know, you see this with hockey fans when it comes to a shadow, right? You're not supposed to say shut out when there's five minutes left. Fine, but then you actually have to not mention it.

You can't be sitting there being like, well, the other team hasn't scored any goals. That would be something that this goaltender hasn't done yet. Like, you just not saying the word, you've got to commit. You got to sell as if you have no idea what's happening until the final buzzer goes. And then you can, you can't be sitting there going like, oh, gee, there's a big round number on the scoreboard. I wonder what that means. Go all the way if you're going to do it. Live the gimmick, absolutely.

That's a great point. I will say this, though. Yes, please. I believe more than the triple double one, I think this applies directly to, or I just said it, more than a no-hitter, I think if you're at a basketball game or watching a basketball game, and you're like, oh, wow, that guy's only two assists away from a triple-double. He is never going to get those two assists. It's just not going to happen. Not going to happen. I've been to enough basketball games where it's like, wow, it's halftime, and he's only, you know, it's half time, and he's only going to get those.

only four rebounds away from 10 or whatever, and you're just like, he's not going to fucking get there now? I just said it. Exactly. I mean, I think the only thing I can say about sports jinxes at this point is that there is ample evidence that if a member of your front office taunts a group of female reporters because he bought low on a domestic abuse of relief pitcher, it's pretty much jinx.

I think we can all agree on that so far. Yeah. Didn't work out great for him. It didn't work out so well. what, I think that whole incident has nothing to do with what's happening on the field, but I'm 100% okay if they get swept with us all pretending it did and blaming this idiot assistant GM and hanging that on him as the guy who lost his team, the World Series. I'm completely fine with doing that.

Without a single fucking second thought, absolutely. And the other thing that came out, and I know a lot of people know what we're talking about this assistant GM with the Austros. The other thing that came out, apparently, is that he had had previous back and forth with one of the reporters about her stance on domestic violence and having, like, tweeted out a DV hotline number

and, like, him dogging her for it. Like, fuck that guy, then. That becomes sort of a... He seems cool. It seems like a really nice guy. Well, you know, and screw whoever it was in the team that put out the press release. Oh, my God, right?

This fake news that, just is just what idiots yell when they get caught red-handed these days. They should fire the whole bunch of them. Yeah, and that's what people, the people maybe outside the industry don't understand. Like, if you're throwing around the word fabrication, that's not simply like fake news or an exaggeration or, you know, didn't get the story, right? A fabrication means that you intentionally created fiction and published it, which is a fire. offense.

Exactly. It would be like accusing an athlete of throwing a game. Right. Precisely. And then being like, ah, well, you know, figure, like, no. You can't. Yeah. So fuck the Astros.

Fuck that guy. It was stunning to see how they botched that. All they had to say was like, caught in the heat of the moment. Be better next time. Apologues to reporter, blah, blah, blah. But they had to double down on their ass hattery. So, all right.

on to happier things so I wanted to talk about the Rise of Skywalker trailer but I forgot I forgot to do that so we're just gonna what trailer I don't know what we're talking about Lambert Lambert doesn't watch trailers for movies that he wants to

see is that accurate yeah as best I can like if I go to the movies you know there's not much I can do to avoid them but I will like for a big movie like Star Wars I will close my eyes and like hum like literally close your eyes and hum the Star Wars theme?

Or whatever, just like so I don't hear or see anything. And like, I don't want to get into a situation where it's like the fake spoiler. Oh, you know, this is where Kylo Ren and Yoda Kiss or whatever. Like, I don't want to do that either. Not interested. Yodocus, the shorter cousin of Jadikis. If I knew a Jada kiss song off the top of my head, I'd have a very funny joke right now. But I don't, so.

I'm on the other end of this. I've been reading the Star Wars Leaks Reddit. I know basically what the plot of the movie is. I'm not exactly thrilled with knowing that a lot of it's been confirmed. It kind of seems a little hacky. But then again, as many people have pointed out, if you read the plot of Avengers Endgame, just like on a Reddit before the movie came out,

you'd probably think it was fucking dumb too. And it turned out to be an amazing movie. Wow. My heart's... Okay. My heart's open. My mind is open. I think it'll be fine.

But we won't talk about any of the details. of the rise of Skywalker trailer out of respect to Ryan. Instead, I will get my Star Wars on with a Puck Soup quiz, Sean versus Ryan. Now, I believe we've done this one before on Puck Soup. I want to say this was a Lozo error quiz. If not, I'm sure somebody who's listening to my various podcasts will correct me. But I think it's time to resurrect this, especially for this week. in honor of the Rise of Skywalker trailer

and in honor of Sasha Barkoff being named the most underrated player in hockey, it's time for another round of Star Wars character or finish elite league player. Oh boy. Who gets to go first? I forget. Or who gets to a punt or kick or a kicker or receive, I should say.

I don't know. I think Ryan won the last one. Okay. The last time we went head to head, I think Ryan won. Kick or receive? I'll kick. Okay. So, Sean.

Yes. Star Wars character or finish Elite League player. This is the SM Liga, by the way. Oh, good. Finish Elite League. I'm glad you specified that. Yes, please. Roon Hako.

Star Wars character, Finnish Elite League player. Rune Hako. And if any of you guys need a spelling on any of these, I was going to ask, yeah. To give you one. Can I get a spelling on that, please? Sure. R-U-N-E-H-A-K-O, Rune H-A-K-O, Rune H-Hako. That's Finnish.

He's a hockey player. Rune Hako was the Nemoideon second in command to Newt Gunray and settlement officer of the Trade Federation, Slashed down and killed by a Sith-enraged Anakin Skywalker in Venge of the Sith. No, sir. Rune Hako is a... I'm going to get my ass-haw-war's characters. And do we...

Is this the part where I say, I knew who he was? Is that... I mean, you could say that because then you could feel shitty for having kicked. Yes, you could say that. Yeah, okay. Okay. I'm going to lose five to nothing in this course.

All right, Lambert. Team Toe... You want to spell that for me, please? T-W-E-M-T-O. Sounds like a muffler company. T-W-E-M-T-O-E-A-G-L-I-E-S. Team T-T-O-Pagalies. T-T-Pagolies.

Greg, are we talking about the pod racing ace? Christ Almighty. You mean the vinknoid pod racer competing in the Bung-2-Eve classic pod race and the fan of the fan of? of Menace? The Pod Racer famously shot down by the Tuscan Raiders? Why, yes, Ryan, you ever want nothing leave?

I couldn't have told you what planet he was from, but, yeah. Sean? Yes. Juna Monto. J-O-O-N-A-M-O-N-T-O. Juno. I'm going to say that's a Star Wars character. That's a fincially lead player.

Yeah, he's a forward for H-P-K Hamilina. Lambert, I have a feeling we may have found Sean's Achilles heel. What, pop culture? Wow, that's, yeah, this is great. It's a quiz about pop culture in Ryan's one area of specialty. Yeah, this is fantastic. Actually, I was referring to finish elite league players. Lambert, Eero, Elo, E-E-R-O-E-L-O.

I'm going to say that's a lot. a Finnish guy. It is in fact a finish guy. He plays a forward for Luko Ramua of the Finnish Elite League. Sean. Yes.

Cadel Co-Connix. K-A-Y-D-E-L-K-O-C-O-N-N-I-X. That's clearly a Star Wars character. Fucking A-Rite. Look, the rally is on. Yeah, of course. She's a human female serving as a junior controller for the resistance during their conflict with the First Order and the Force Awakens,

played by Billy Lord daughter of Carrie Fisher. And did I know that too because of who plays her? Yeah, I did. That's fine. Kay Ryan. Okay. Topi Jachola. T-O-P-I-J-A-A-K-O-L-A.

Topi J-Cola. Finnish guy. That is correct. Chocola is a defenseman for the Pelicans Lati, the Finnish Elite League team. I imagine owned by accomplished actress Christine Lottie. I thought I was going to be owned by Zion Williamson, Pelicans. Oh, yes. He certainly has the money.

Sean. Yes. Jan or Jan Bedona. This is J-A-N-D-O-D-O-N-N-A. Jan or Jan Diodona. You know, Greg, I feel like you would know how to pronounce that if it was a Star Wars character. So I'm going to say Finnish hockey player. General and leader of the rebel base on Yavin Ford.

Right. He plans the Starfighter attack. He's the Star, the new hope. He's the guy who stands before the big exhaust schematics. Yeah. Fantastic graphics, by the way, for that movie. Yeah, pretty cool. Pretty cool stuff.

But now it's one of those things where now I don't remember if they were, if they were cool or, you know, if just the special editions or whatever they were called made them look cooler than they were at the time. Like, I don't remember now. I don't remember what my initial impressions of it were. I like the part of the movie where the Death Star is approaching Yavin-4, and it looks like a fucking chart for expected goals. It's one of my favorite things. and the guy steps in the poop, remember? Finally, Ryan, as you've got this thing wrapped up, going for four for four on your end. Yoka Yohola, J-O-U-K-A, J-U-H-O-L-A.

Sounds like a Finnish guy to me. That's correct. Forward for Porin Asat, which I always read as Porin Ashat, even though there's no H. Is that the one with a weasel is the logo, Assad? I think it is pretty cool. I'm just going to throw a dart at my SM league aboard and say, probably. I will now administer the tiebreaker.

There is no tie to be broken, but I feel like doing it anyway. Closest without going over. So this is fucking Price's Right rules. there are 11 Star Wars movies. Oh. Wait, is that true? Yeah, the two Star Wars stories and the nine main movies. Not counting the Ewak Adventure?

Not a movie. It was on TV. Okay. You know what? The good folks at Netflix might disagree. Closest without going over, Timu Salani finished god of hockey, career points. Closest without going over. That was a tiebreaker.

1,300. Okay, Ryan says 1,300, Sean. I think I'm going to say... Claces without going over. See, I feel like... I was going to say in the 1,200s. I feel like he may be over, but I'm going to go strategically and say 1150.

You know what? I tried to help you, man. 1301 would have been the one you wanted because team... That's correct. 1,457 points. Did he really? That's a lot.

Played forever, Sean. I did play forever, Sean. Yeah. Mm-hmm. There you go. Everybody's favorite MAGA player, I believe, as Ryan will acknowledge. Oh, I think Max Domi's got him beat. It's so popular these days.

Max Domi definitely had more of an opinion on immigration policy than Timu ever did. You're probably right. Here's my fun Timu Salani piece of trivia. Because as you guys said, he, he, he, did play forever. He played well into his 40s. You know, he only ranks fourth in games played in his draft year. Holy shit. There were three guys drafted in his draft year that played more NHL games than he did. Who were they? It was, uh, the first overall pick was Mike Madanel. One pick before was Rod Brindamore and Mark Recky, who played 1600 games. I thought maybe Mark

Reckie would be there for sure. And Trevor Lendon and Jeremy Roanick were very close. Because Salani played it, remember, he did start his career until he was like 22. That was what was throwing me off on the points thing. I'll just claim. All right. All right. One last topic before we go.

Watchman. Ryan, you saw it and I saw it. Did you have watchmen up there, Sean? You know what? We do? We've got like a version of HBO and it's kind of merged with a Canadian. Is it called HBO? H-B-O.

Swish, baby. That's a good one. I like that. Nice work. It's not, but it should be. And we just, we have it free in my house now for a couple months. So I, I could be watching watchmen, but I'm not. Who watches the watchman?

Who watches the watchman? You do not watch the watchman. But I, but I could. So you guys could talk me into this. You guys could sell me on this. Sean, I'm going to tell you not to bother. Okay. Unless you read watchman in which case.

I have read the comic and I saw the most. movie. And the comic I thought was good and the movie was fine. I know some people really don't like it, but I wasn't into the comic enough to really have strong feelings about what the movie should be. So I thought the movie was fine. But I watched the trailer for the TV show and it seemed weird and confusing to me. So I abandoned it, which is how I deal with being confused in my life.

What's your 60-second review, Ryan? It is a show that should not. exist. If you were to make a Watchman TV show, take the fucking source material and give it like the full 10, 15, 20 hours that the source material, like just make a shot or a panel to pay or a page to screen remake. That's it. You don't need to be like, well, what happens 30 years after Watchman and start doing all

the Damon Lindeloff like, is this guy? hooded justice and it's like well i mean hooded justice would be about a hundred and twenty years old at this point i think probably based on their timeline yeah yeah and so you know it it just you know it doesn't need to exist and i know that he damon lindelof's take on it is you know i i i don't know how you could cat like do a better job with it than zach schneider and it's like i think the Zach Snyder version is, like Sean said, fine. If you're going to turn it into a two and a half hour movie, I think they probably did more or less as well as they could have, given that we're talking about Zach Snyder here.

But like just either don't do it or don't make it like the gritty reimagining of the, you know, 30 years post the events of the squid attack and all that shit. I loved it. I think it's really good. I think you avoid a lot of issues that you would have otherwise faced if you tried to just do the comic because like no one will ever be happy with any adaptation of the comic itself. So you push that to the side and you do a different thing. I do find it interesting that like people have debated whether or not you should know the source material before going into the series. Like you don't need to know.

You kind of fucking do. Yeah, you definitely do. If you don't know who Dr. Manhattan is and you see a scene of this little blue speck on Mars building buildings out of sand, and don't know about, like, the Dr. Manhattan energy signature causing cancer, and that's why they stopped using it in batteries or some shit. Well, that was just an Adrian Vite conspiracy. They didn't actually cause cancer. Okay, but, like, you don't have a point.

Like, fucking, you need to know the backstory. Right. Or, like, just even the stuff of, like, Jeremy Irons going, I call it the watchmaker's son. And it's like, unless you know that's Dr. Manhattan, it's fucking meaningless that it's like the end. Yeah. Like, so yeah, like that's, that's kind of my thing with it is like, there's too much winking going on. You know what I mean? Like, either have it stand on its own or just do the original thing.

Don't do like this kind of in-betweeny stuff where it's like, you know, I guess I would say at least the, white supremacists understand fundamentally that Roershack is a fascist and, you know, should be treated as such. Like when we talk about the book itself, but yeah, you know, I just like, it doesn't need to exist. I can't remember somebody, so I listened to a podcast where somebody talked about it and it's like, Damon Lindelof took an assignment on this one. Like he clearly doesn't have like this huge passion for making, for like telling the story. like HBO, I believe that he's a huge watchman fan, but HBO was like, we're going to make a watchman show. Do you want to do it?

And he was like, yeah, okay. I think it's got some, we're only one episode in, but it's got some interesting things to say about race. And it's got some interesting thing to say about law enforcement. Yeah, the police are checked by bureaucracy at every turn. And that's why the cop at the beginning gets shot. And it's actually a black cop getting shot by a white guy. so it's not racism and it's not political. Like, that was another thing I hated about it is Lindelof's like,

we're going to make this an apolitical watchman. And it's like, then don't, like you didn't fucking get watchman. Well, I didn't see him say that, but it's impossible to do the story. That was the thing he said, for sure. It's possible to do the story that they're doing without it being political. I will also say that there's some really clever touches in the pilot. Like, you know, the evocation of the Black Wall Street massacre was sort of a controversial touch. but reframing it as a sort of krypton proxy to send this child away was pretty fucking cool from a comic book perspective.

I don't know. I dug it. I'm willing to stick with it. And you and I have both avoided the reason that you probably should watch it, which is the fucking score. Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor doing a watchman show. Oh, I don't care about that. Oh, God damn. Put that in my veins.

But, I mean, like, there were definitely good things about it. Regina King is awesome. Awesome. She's great in everything. She's great in this as Sister Knight or whatever the character's name is. Tim Blake Nelson. Awesome. What I guess I would say is you can tell more or less this story. Like whatever you, like if you want to make a gritty superhero show, just don't fucking invoke Watchmen like the number one, like the best thing about like gritty superhero reimagining. You're saying this is sacred text. That's your argument. Yeah, no, like, don't, you know, just, you didn't have to fucking do it. Like, I mean, somebody was going to just because, like, that's how, like, you know, entertainment works now.

Like, if there's an IP, it must be exploited at all costs. But just don't. There you go. There you go, Sean. Now, you are born of two fathers on this issue. And you can choose to believe me, a person with good. takes, Brian on it. I'm not going to watch it.

The choice is yours. Thanks. There you go. That's a boy. All right. Well, there you go. Glad we got to a point of a two to one vote. That is this episode of Puck Soup.

Our thanks to no one for joining us. Our thanks to the Athletic and C geek for sponsoring us. I'm Greg Wischinsky. You could read my stuff on ESPN.com. You can follow me at Wyshinsky, WS-H-Y-N-S-K-I on Twitter and listen to my other podcast, ESPN on ICE with M. Kaplan, we had Bruce Cassidy on this week for a nice chat with him. Not bad, not bad.

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You can find me on The Athletic this week. I wrote a story that I had a lot of fun with that I didn't, I wasn't actually sure people were going to like, but people are kind of into it where I talked about, my addiction to going back and watching old NHL clips on YouTube from like the 70s and 80s and 90s and how much fun that is, but also how strange it is, because there are things that you forgot were part of the league that starts showing up. So I kind of wrote a bit of a guide on what you should be prepared for when you go back in time to watch what the NHL used to be. And

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