Puck Soup - Deserve-to-Panic-o-Meter

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about how much some teams should be panicking, Gavin McKenna, and more.

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And folks, today we wanted to talk about the number of teams across the league, I guess you'd say, who should maybe be freaking out about how badly they've started their season. Maybe. Maybe. Okay. I'll give you an example. I'll give you a team that's not on the list here, the Calgary Flames. Here's why I don't think the Calgary flame should be freaking out about this.

This is all kind of within the realm of possibility the way they've been trending the last few years. Last year, obviously, they get a little bit of overperformance and goal. All of a sudden, you know, oh, we're a borderline playoff team. Very borderline. They missed it on a tiebreaker, I think, right? They, I don't, it was tiebreaker or very close, and they had more points than two of, of the Eastern playoffs. Right.

But the goaltending hasn't been that good this year. All their old guys are a year older. A few of their younger guys aren't performing quite as well. Here we are. I don't think it's crazy to say this was always in the realm of potential outcomes for them, right? Yeah. And also, I feel like you, if you're on a boat, the time to panic is when the boat starts taking on water.

Right. When you're already on the bottom of the ocean floor, you might as well not bother panicking. Yeah. That's right. So, yay, Calgary. There's our little. Yeah, they're just not going to make the playoffs. And that, you know, again, always in the range of outcomes.

But let's talk about, for example, the St. Louis Blues, right? Yes. This is a team that I don't think anybody saw this coming. They're 5-8-3. That's three games below NHL 500, six games below real 500. And they just like don't look good, you know? I don't know how else to put it to you.

Yeah, it's quite bad. And again, this is a team not only made the playoffs last year, yep, had the President's Trophy winners beat. Yeah. In a game seven. Yep. And then a miracle happened. Right.

And maybe this is linked to that. I don't know. Like is this, we all kind of went like, oh, that's going to be a tough one to shake off. But this is, this is, it's been a mess. And what surprises me is like a lot of people, I looked at the blues and went, Jim Montgomery is a great coach. Let's see what happens when he gets the full. That's exactly what the problem is for me.

me because they are a pretty good five-on-five team and all situations in terms of like expected goals they've actually been out courseied a little bit shots a little bit unblocked shots a little bit but expected goals they're there's top ten in the league in all situations that's really all you can ask for and they're getting just like unbelievably bad goaltending is is what their main problem is. For a while there, they also weren't scoring, but that sorted itself out a little bit. And so, the reason that this is a should they panic situation is the goalies aren't going anywhere, first of all.

And they've been kind of, in recent years, flirting with maybe we got to trade one of these. Maybe we got to trade Kyru. maybe we got to trade Thomas. Our defense is not very good. Look, I know we traded for Cam Fowler, the goat defenseman of last season that everyone thinks is the best defenseman in the world. Mm-hmm. But I seem to recall there was brief talk in the last year or two about them trading Braden Shen as well. I don't know, you know, what the story is there.

But I'm looking at this roster and I'm just going, I don't know. I don't see what they're like off ramp for how badly this season has gone is, other than the two goalies start acting like they've played in the NHL before. Yeah. That would help. And the other piece that is so interesting to me for the Blues is the front office situation. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

where you have one of the only times where we, you know, I'm sure some of these teams we're going to talk about today, we're going to get into like, well, what's going to happen to the GM? Is the GM going to get fired? Is he on the potsey? We know there's GM change happening in St. Louis. They told us a year ago that next summer is when Doug Armstrong hands off to Alex Dean. Yeah.

Doug Armstrong's a pretty good GM. What do you do in a situation like, this. And we should, it's not like Alex Deen is sitting at home and, you know, has no say in this. I'm sure the transition is already happening. But it's a very unique situation to have a team doing so poorly with the GM who's already out the door. Totally. But so, I mean, does he do the rebuild? Does he trade a Robert Thomas or a Braden Shen or whoever else? Does he bring in short-term help? Does he try to upgrade the goaltending? Or does he do anything?

Or does he kind of sit there and go, you know what? I don't know. It's not my place to make any long-term changes. So we just ride it out. Well, right. It's not like Alex Dean is sitting in like a locked room and not able to communicate with Doug Armstrong on this. Like that's, I think if you're Doug Armstrong, you just kind of take your hands off the wheel and you go, okay. I'm not going to make any decisions for the long-term health of this franchise.

As I see it, I'm going to let Alexine be the guy that's like, yeah, you're not allowed to trade Robert Thomas, man. Like, what are you talking about? You know what I mean? Whereas with these older guys maybe, like a Braden Shen, for example, I'm kind of saying to him, I should be trading this guy, right? not that like Cairo and Thomas are spring chickens anymore. They're in their late 20s. But, you know, anybody over the age of 30, I'm at least saying to Steen, what about this guy? I think I should trade this guy?

Mm-hmm. You know? And at a certain point, obviously, you know, you're like, oh, well, if we trade Colton Perrako, we're trading him at the nadir of his value. True. but also like, I don't know. For me, they're in an interesting spot because they were bad enough last year that they had to fire the coach. Or, well, no, that's not a total. They were okay enough last year that they were like, we can talk ourselves into firing the coach because one of the best coaches in the world just came available.

That was it. They saw a guy and they were like, you know what? But that was after already having hired a new coach. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Like they brought in a guy and he was fine for 16 games, but he wasn't Jim Montgomery. And they were like, let's get this guy out of here. So it's tough because, you know, there's nobody on the team that even with the good five-on-five play and now the puck's going in the net for them, you know, the expected goals are goals at this point, right?

it's tough because, like, you don't look at this roster and go, well, this guy's driving the bus offensively. You know, Jake Neighbors leads the team with six goals in 15 games or whatever it is. Oh, he's only played eight, but the rest of the – but that kind of tells you the problem. The rest of the team, nobody's scoring at like a huge rate. Nobody's got a ton of assists or anything like that. Yeah, everybody's still single-digit points. Right. So –

So you can't. You can't even look at that and go, okay, I see a path forward here. There's nobody who's driving the bus. I don't know what you do other than maybe you just try to get the high draft pick this year and run it back. Wouldn't be a bad way to start for Alex Dean. No. And again, like, how does that, like on a scale of 1 to 10 on the Panicometer, like where do you, if it continues like this,

where it's mostly the goaltending, let's be honest, how do you, how do you, like, what do you put that number at, you know? Yeah,

it's, the thing is, goaltending was supposed to be a strength. Yeah. This is, you know, I get it that there are some teams

where you can just go, well, you know, we went into the season and we figured we were, we were pretty good, one through 18 on the skaters. but we knew that we needed the goal.

They'd have a good year, and he hasn't really happened. And okay, this is, you got your starter locked in, and you got your young guy who was the future. And they both look pretty bad. So. Yeah, Hofer has the better save percentage of the two, and his is in the 860s. So that's not good.

Which is good. It's up from like the 700s where it was not that long ago. That's right. Good for him. Um, so the other thing that I think of like, I don't know. Again, if I'm putting a number on it, I'm at like a six and a half just because it's like, I don't know, maybe this is all bullshit, right? Is we've seen Jordan Bennington just go like 925 for three months. Mm-hmm.

And now you know me. I'm the world's biggest Jordan Bennington defender. You love the guy. Yeah. He's one of the best. But, you know, I don't think there's basically any. who's ever made, like, gotten an NHL contract who's this bad. Do you see what I'm saying?

Like, nobody's an 8.50-something goalie. If you've ever gotten an NHL contract. Well, at least in the capier. I'll put it. I can't speak to the, like, 60s or whatever, you know? This is, by expected goals in all situations, the second best defensive team in the league. if I'm the blues, I'm sitting there going, I think this is all not that big of a deal.

Are they really that they're that good defensively? Yes. That surprises me. The avalanche at 2.6 expected goals against per 60 and the blues at 2.97, right ahead of the Ottawa senators and the Florida Panthers and the New York Rangers. That's your top five. Wow. Okay. So if I'm putting it at maybe a six,

just six and a half maybe, just if, you know, the goaltending doesn't hold up, you're just like, okay, that's life, I guess, you know, I can't get too worked up about this if I'm Doug Armstrong. I'm not, I'm not panic trading anybody or even not panic trading anybody. I'm just like, I don't know, maybe we run it back, maybe we trade some older guys at the deadline, just like guys on expiring deals, whatever, but. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It Because the other thing we should say about Armstrong is it's not like he's out the door. Like he's getting the promotion and, you know, all of that stuff. But I wonder if that's, I wonder if he is interested in being a GM elsewhere.

And then it becomes like the art how in Moneyball, right? Like I'm managing this for my next job. And does it become something like that? But I think I'm with you. I think six and a half is about right. Yeah. Let's stay in the Western Conference here, the Edmonton Oilers. Now, they won last night.

They had the big shootout comeback win over Columbus, which... We had done this at about halfway through that game last night. Or was it, it was the end of... It was like not good in the third period, if I remember. Was at the end of the first or the second? They were down 3-1 and getting booed off the ice. Yeah. by the home fans.

I mean, we could say they came back. Connor McDavid was just like, no, we're not doing this. You know what? And I guess that's the place to start. He had a pretty poor start by his standard, right? Where he couldn't score a goal for a while there and, you know, blah, blah, blah. He's up to 24 points in 17 games. It's all fine with him.

He might be all right. As it should be, you know. but the other thing to say, I suppose, is that, you know, they haven't had Zach Heimann all year, right? So, like, they're in a situation where, you know, they, okay, they always start badly. You know, they got their coach fired a couple years ago and all that, like, because they started badly. And I feel like it's not even until around Christmas, really, that you go, okay, the Oilers are. a fucking juggernaut again. Yeah, you kind of look down and then you look back up and they've won six in a row and

you're like, ah, okay, we're doing this. Yep. And so you're not going to believe this. The problem here is goaltending. Yeah. And... Except that we just finished saying in St. Louis like, man, the goaltending should have been a strength.

Like, we all thought they were going to be in good shape. And I don't feel like... Right. I feel like there may have been one or two folks out there who raise some flags about the goaltending in Edmonton. The other thing, too, is, you know, unlike the Blues, they're not like a good five-on-five or all situations team. Like, they, again, this is going to shock you. The Oilers don't exactly have a lot of depth. When the big guns are off the ice, it doesn't go so well, you know?

Mm-hmm. And I guess, I guess, I guess, where, do you put the panico meter on that, on, you know, the start and everything, given what we know about the Edmonton Oilers? So you're right. Like, I don't want to, I don't know, this is like the opposite of Charlie Brown kicking the football in that, you know, I, every year you're like, oh, no, they're going to swing and miss and go flying.

And then Lucy does put the football down at the last second. and they... And they... 80-yard field goal. Yeah, no problem. To just fire it down the street. But at the same time, the context here of everything that's happening with McDavid, with the extension, with him basically saying, like, you got two years, it is, it is concerning.

And it's... I mean, what is the move that they have to make on the goaltending side? You would think that that's where it has to happen. How long do you wait and all of that? You know, am I panicking in the sense of, oh, they're not going to make the playoffs? Yeah, no, of course they are. And once they're in,

they're 6 and 0 in the Western bracket the last two years. Right. Yeah, McDavid's just going to will them to at least another conference final if not another cup final. But it's like one of those things where you, you know, you see some of this stuff sometimes out in the real world where it's like, okay, the odds of the bad thing happening are very small. But if the bad thing does happen, it's so catastrophic that you have to worry about that bad thing. And it would be so catastrophic for the Oilers to have this be the year where they don't just snap out of it in mid-November and go nuts that I have to be at least decently panicked.

So put a number. I'm pretty sure it's going to be fine. Give me a number. I'm going to give you a nice solid five out of ten. Five out of ten. Yeah, I think I'd go a little higher than that. Okay. Five and a half or a six.

Yeah. But like, so, you know, I'm saying they're in the same neighborhood as the blues thereabout. But like, there are degree, like, I'll give you the good example. Sometimes you go to a movie if you're me and you're like, eh, at the end of it, you're like, eh, that was like, a seven out of ten. I'm a little disappointed. And sometimes you go to the movies and you're like, you know what? That's like a seven out of ten.

You know what I mean? And so there are degrees to what like a six is to me. And I think the oilers are probably around a six, five and a half, but it's like very different from, because like I don't think the blues are ever going to win the Stanley Cup with this group as currently constituted, right? The Oilers very much could. And so for them to be around the same place in the standings, it's like disastrous for the Oilers. Where in a way that it is not for the Blues.

Do you see what I'm saying? So like I think it's like a bad six. And the blues is more like an okay six. Okay. All right. Because like you say, they have two years or three years, I guess. guess that two years after this one with McDavid. They're going to make the playoffs.

That's, we're all taking that as a given. I think that's totally reasonable. But when everybody goes, you cannot go into the season with this goal tending tanem. You just can't do it. And Stan Bowman's like, watch me,

motherfucker. And then like, it's that tweet of like, I fall on my face and it's unclear what I was trying to do. You know? Like, that's, that's what this.

is. He's like, oh, you don't think I could go into this season with a guy that everybody's saying is unplayable for an elite team? I'm going to do it. And then the guy sucks. And it's like, okay, well, you got me. I don't know what to tell you. So you got to trade the goalie. And you have to, you have to trade for a goalie. I mean, this being the NHL, probably what you do is you make like your equivalent of the McKenzie Blackwood trade, which is you find someone else who's not, all that exciting, but it's a good fit. And, you know, you scouted them out and in a different situation, they're better. Right.

As opposed to the Ilius-Sorocan trade or the UC-Seros trade or the, you know, the big swing that so many of us will be looking for. But it's, I mean, it's only getting harder. I have a saying that I invented that says when you're a GM and the other GMs know you're in trouble, they don't they don't throw you life rafts they throw you um anchors okay i made that up hey show up for a minute i gotta write that down yeah write it down but then put a dash and put my name after it well i was that's my quote goes without saying yeah um and yeah by the way can we just point out if you see somebody drowning and not only do you not help them but you throw anchor at them, you're kind of a jerk.

Hey, man. It's all, it's all fair and love and war, you know? I guess. But yeah, it's, it's only going to get tougher. And it's, I don't know. Like, I, I sort of get what Bowman maybe was thinking in the sense that I'm sure he worked the phones over the summer, didn't find anything at a price that he liked. and he's sitting there going, you know what,

goaltending is so damn weird. Let's just see. Maybe Stuart Skinner. And I totally get that. One of those great years. And then we're okay. And I don't have to spend my resources or I can do things in other areas

and address depth and all that stuff. Knowing that if it doesn't go well, now the pressure really ratchets up. And that's where we're at. Right. Like, I totally get the, hey, look, goal tending, who knows, blah, blah, blah. But when it's, when it is a problem in that scenario, you have to have a fucking contingency plan and it can't be, well, let's just see for another month or two.

You know what I mean? Like, I'll tell you, there aren't a ton of goalies that I'd be like, you know what, let's just trade for him and see what happens out there. There's one guy that, I don't know, I feel like we've heard his name a little bit. Elvis Merslickens. Hey, you guys played that guy's team last night. You know? There's a guy that they've been trying to trade that guy for years. I just, what do we have to do to make this work?

I'm not like the biggest Mersleekins guy, you know, like at all, in fact. But I think that, I don't know, you got to try something. You do have to try something, but the thing you try has to either. A has to work or B has to be at a low enough cost that you can keep trying other things. Yes, that's true. And that's what, that's what worries me about Merzleekins is the contract is not cheap. So. Yeah, I guess you're going to have Columbus eat some of it.

I don't, I don't have Puckpedia open. But is he, is he up after? I thought he was up after this year. Is that wrong? Is it a UFA after this year? Even then, though. I mean, you got to. you got to fit it in for

one year after this one okay maybe that's not such a maybe that's not such a good idea but you know again like there are Buffalo has like eight goalies you know go get one of them oh uh hookoh peka lukin is not uh not

maybe going to be a long term fit I have a great idea you know it's it's and it's got to be you gotta be tearing your hair out if you're an oiler's fan because you know we mentioned Mackenzie Blackwood like Colorado

was in this situation a year ago. Mm-hmm. And they flipped both their guys. That's right. And I feel like they're doing pretty well this year. I don't know. I'll check the standings, but it seemed to work out okay. I don't know.

You got to try it, but other than that, are you just like looking at the clock going? Well, I mean, Zach Hyman's going to be back soon. It's going to sort out all our problems. They're also, again, not like a good five-on-five team or anything like that. You don't even have that to point to. It really is just, boy, I hope McDavid has like three points tonight. We'll be in good shape if that happens.

And the great news is he probably fucking will. Yeah. And the thing is, you also look at it and, you know, for all the way we're talking about them, they're tied for the last playoff spot in terms of points. Right. They've got games in hand, so percentage wise and all that. Like, they've got ground to make up. But they're looking ahead of them going, okay, Seattle is tied.

with us. They have games in hand, but can we make up that ground on Seattle over 65 games? Yeah. Totally. Of course they can. Can we catch the Kings? Yes. Of course we can. If we catch both those teams, we're in, right? We're in the top three. Even if you think Anaheim's for real,

even if you assume Vegas is, you know, who by the way, they're also still tied with. So it's, the path is very clear. This isn't like a situation where you're going, yeah, you know what? All this stuff is good, but they're five points back. That's a lot to make up over the, no, they're fine. Well, again, it's about aspirations, right?

Like, they, let's put it this way. Dallas fired Pete DeBore for only making it to the conference final three years in a row, right? Like, and again, maybe you say it's how he managed the goal tending. I'm just going to underline that a little bit, you know? But maybe there were other factors, but at the end of the day, Dallas is like, we can't just keep making the conference final and be happy with that. And it's the same thing with the Oilers. You can't go to the cup final two years in a row and then go, well, you know, if we make

the playoffs, anything can happen. Like that's true. But I don't know. Like I say, I think their aspirations are higher than all that. So that's what I'm concerned with if I'm them. Sure. One last one here. Let's stay in the Pacific Division and let's do the Canucks who are, you know, dead even 500.

But they, you know, they just don't see that good. And they're in a situation where they're in the Oilers situation where they are not a good five-on-five team. They're not a good all-situations team. and four and eight and regulation too yep OT merchants that's right

and a little bit OT shootout um good fortune which yeah and and here's what what's scary

obviously the the scariest situation in Vancouver is the whole Quinn Hughes thing hanging over everything but there wasn't really going to be anything in the first month

of a season that was going to give you clarity on that. The other thing hanging over Vancouver is you've got an $11. something million dollar. Megastar who maybe is not a megastar and maybe is fundamentally broken. And you're looking at that going, okay, if I'm a Vancouver fan on opening night and you're asking me what I want to see in the first month, I'm going, you know what, yes, I want them to win every game.

I want him to be in first place. I want everything to look great. But I need Elias Pedersen to look like his old self. And he's had his moments. I think it's been better than last year. But if there was a hope that J.T. Miller being gone and out of the situation and all of that being cleared up would turn this guy back into the 100-point guy that he's been, doesn't look that way.

Three goals and 17 games. 11 points. One point off the team lead, so not bad, but that's not the production you're looking for. Yeah, and the other thing... If he's not going to be that guy, if he's going to be more like a middle six guy at what you're paying him, you're kind of screwed.

Totally. And the other thing to say about this is that, like, they've probably only gotten where they are in the standings or whatever you want to say. Because Kiefer Sherwood is shooting 30% right now. He's got almost 20 or more than 20% of the team's total goal output and he's Kiefer Sherwood. Do you see what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. So that to me is a concern. A guy who has never scored 20 goals.

Right. And he's a fan right now. This is the second highest of his career that he's tied with. Keith for sure, by the way, is 30. If anybody out there is going, like, I'm not really familiar with that name. He must be a young, up-and-coming guy. No. Right.

It's one of the oldest forwards on the team. So, yeah, that's part of it. And you just, you know, you go down the list. Like, Evander Kane hasn't clicked. That's not really working. Brock Basser's been good, but... He's been... He's been...

I mean, you know, he's like a little bit more, but... Yeah, it just... Up and down, the one guy who has been good is Thatcher Demko. So... Yep. You know, and that's the double-edged sword, right? Because it's... Obviously, you want your goalie playing well.

But also, a goalie playing well is the most fragile thing. If that's the only... only thing holding you up, then you are one either injury or slump or who knows. You know, a butterfly lands on his shoulder and that throws off his goalie mojo. Well, especially with Demko, a guy that historically, I'm just going to go out on a limb and say this, isn't the healthiest and in the lineup goalie I can think of, you know? So. And you're not getting great goal attending from Kevin.

Lankinen, your surprisingly expensive backup. Yeah. Who's playing half the games and he's, I mean, 879 and 371 for Kevin Lankin. Yeah. The Blues would take that. They'd love that. Oh, that'd be great for them. A dream of that.

Yeah. But, yeah, it's so. And the other thing we should mention, Vancouver is they had the coaching change. They did. Sometimes you like to think that at least in the short term, you get to sort of a bounce from that. We think about that more for mid-season changes, but you have a rookie head coach in Adam Foote,

but also a guy who's been there for a while. So you're kind of thinking, like, you know, maybe this is, maybe this guy's really good at this. Yeah. Maybe he was, and I don't think he's done a bad job, but there certainly hasn't been any first month magic. that makes you think like, okay, we, they really got somebody here. No, and just, I don't know, man.

Like, for me, like, all the quotes from Quinn Hughes over the summer, and again, I hate to do this, but, like, the Quinn Hughes thing is the only thing there is to talk about with this team. It's, that's just the reality of it where he's like, hey, remember when we went on that playoff run? That was so sick. I'd love it if we could do it again. Like, that's a quote he had over the summer. I'm paraphrasing it, but, you know.

and we're in another season where it's like, you know, if everything goes exactly right for us, we can be the seventh place team in the Western Conference. Yeah, and get our doors kicked in by. No, they went to the second round that time. They pushed Edmonton to game set. I wish I was this fucking stupid. You know what I mean? I wish I, you want to talk about Lucy holding the football.

She's not even holding a football. She's like, it's there, though. You've got to trust me on this one. I'm going to pull it out at the very last. last second, you just start running. You know what I mean? As she's holding it at her, at your level. Yeah, I just, can you imagine buying it with the Vancouver Canucks at any point at that?

You know what I'm saying? Like, it just doesn't, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that you'd go, I actually 100% believe this team is good. At any point, ever, no matter what they do. because it's just like, yeah, everybody's hurt, you know, like, sure, okay, yeah, absolutely. I get it. But they're the fucking Canucks. All they do is barely scrape into the playoffs, maybe have a good performance, and then who knows?

Is there, is there like operating philosophy? I just don't see how you're optimistic about this team. You know what I mean? So, okay. So let's get to a number for them because that suggests to me that maybe your panic number isn't going to be that high because you don't think there was much here to start with. Yeah, this is a loser franchise to me. This is just, it's that simple. Like at this point, how can you say otherwise?

How can you, like, their aspirate, their grand aspiration is maybe we get into the second round. And you're like, and that'll convince Quinn Hughes to stay, by the way. Yeah, right, man. I don't know what to tell you. If you believe that, if you believe that this season so far is convincing Quinn Hughes, I got to stick around. What? I'd be pretty upset if I were a Canucks fan. Yeah, so I'm higher on, my number is going to be higher for them than the other two Western teams we talked about.

Sure. I don't think it's off the chart, but I mean, I'm, I'm into the seven. on this, only because I do think there were scenarios you could talk yourself into heading into the season where if everything clicked just right. And I don't mean like everything was just right as in everybody shoots 20% and the goalies are going a heater and all that and you pedio your way to 120 points. I mean, that in theory can happen to any team. I'm talking about within the range of expectations, if enough guys were towards the top of that,

that this would solidly be a playoff team with gusts up to maybe looking like a legitimate contender. Sure. And I think other than Demco, you go down the checklist and I don't think you're checking off any of those boxes have happened. Right. I mean, even Quinn Hughes, he's missed some games. He's been very good when he's in there. But he's not picking up this team and putting it on his back and dragging it to where. it needs to be. Not that anyone should expect that from any player, but that was like your,

your emergency, you know, break open the glass hope. Totally. And even that's not really playing out. And I don't, you know, unlike with maybe some other teams that are struggling, like, I don't see the escape hatch here either. Because A, you've got Pedersen locked in forever. You've got, you if you were to start a rebuild, you're almost guaranteed that that means Hughes is gone. I got news for you. Hughes is gone regardless. I don't, I just don't think you're going to accept that to, yeah.

So fucking trade him. Yeah. Like, that's the thing. There's a pretty clear off ramp for this. Like I said with the Blues, like there, where there wasn't an off ramp, there's an off ramp here. It's trade Quinn Hughes. get like six pieces for him.

This is arguably the best defenseman in the world. It makes it pretty easy. Can you get those pieces from anyone other than the doubles, though? No, he will just be like, I don't play there. I play for the New Year's. And that's why the one bit of kind of, oh, man, I was going to say good news for Canucks fans.

Canucks fans don't want to hear this. There is no Canucks fans still listening right now. they're mashing the skip ahead button until we stop talking. But the one little bit of good news is that if that scenario does come into play, it's really good news for Vancouver that the devils look great this year, look like contenders this year. Yeah. Where you could, if you're in New Jersey and somebody goes, hey man, we can get this guy for free in a year and a half,

you're going, yeah, but two playoff runs, two extra playoff runs with them. Yep. we might want that because we're really set out we we're probably the best team in the metro right now definitely one of the best two our path is there let's let's go do it now let's not try to be cute about you know saving resources by by waiting totally other than that i don't it's it's tough in in vancouver and again this is all assuming that the owner would even let you take steps back which is not necessarily a sure thing. So to me, what I think my like attitude toward all this is, again, accepting that the owner is like, I think that even the owner, maybe this is maybe this is me being just a sucker.

Maybe I'm naive. But I think even the owner would have to say to you, well, look, if Quinn's leaving, what choice? do we have. Do you know, you know what I mean? So that's the only thing I can think of. And that's not obviously an ideal scenario. But like,

I'm, panic is, is an interesting, like, idea here only because this was always a foreseeable outcome. Right? So,

so. I don't know. I'm saying that their panic ometer should be at like a six. No, I can't say six for fucking every team actually. I'm going to... You can't. No, I can't. I'll bring it down to a four and a half only because, again, this was an extremely

projectable outcome. Wow, crazy. The Canucks are mediocre. They're a 500 team. Yeah, but this is... See, to me, it's like... you know, it's like the check engine light is on in your car and you take it in and you go, it's a very foreseeable outcome that this might cost me a ton of money that I don't have and I can't afford and I'm going to be really screwed.

Sure. But also, you know, maybe it's just one of those. And maybe I just, maybe I hit a button somewhere. Maybe they're going to call me and they're going to say it's okay. And then you get the call and they go, it's not okay. Yes, it was foreseeable, but I'm still, I still think this is, this is a higher number for me. I totally get why it would be. I'm just saying that if you're a Canucks fan, at some point you have to just be like, yeah, man, I don't know, whatever.

You know, like, I can't, I just don't know how a Canucks fan is still invested is what it really boils down to. or at least as like, no, no, no, no, no. We're like one guy away. We're a good Evander Cain trade away. Well, they already did the Evander Cade trade. You know what I mean? Like, they're just, I don't see a lot of light at the end of this tunnel personally. That's all.

Yep. So, yeah. Yep. That's all. That's it. These guys suck, man. I don't know what to tell you. Anyway.

It's rough. It is. All right, why don't we take a break and we'll come back and we'll do some Eastern Conference teams. How does that sound? All right, we're back and we're still doing Panicometer and we're doing the Eastern Conference now. And Sean, I'm just going to wind you up and watch you go here, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah, over 500, baby. They figured it all out.

It's perfect. Eight seven and one. Yeah, it's, it's. There is a... The record is okay, but that's kind of where a lot of the good news stops. Yeah, I think that's a great way of putting it. Yep.

They are... The record is flattering them a little bit. Not in the same. Like, they're not going crazy, PDO-wise and all that stuff. But it's just more... And you almost hate to say it, but... If you watch the games... the eye test.

I never will. So, you know. There's, yeah. There's a lot here to be concerned about. And it's, and look, it's been up and down. There was the last week, about a week ago, things weren't looking great. And then they had the Monday night game against the penguins

when they were getting crushed. And everybody was like, this is it, this is the end. They come back, score four goals, win in regulation, win the next game, I think. And you're going, okay, they're right back. you know, hey, classic Toronto, right? We're all worried and now they're fine again. But they had a, it was not a good weekend.

A couple of regulation losses. And not, there is a lot of talk in Toronto these days about identity, which I hate, by the way. I'm so sick and tired of teams talking about their identity. It's bad news when the word identity is being brought up. We can be comfortable putting it that way. We're all talking about like an identity. Every single team in this league has the same identity or aspires to the same identity.

That's exactly right. Like in the NFL, there are teams that are like that team's identity is they're a defensive team. And this team's identity is three yards and a cloud of dust and they're going to run it down your throat. And this team, they're an indoor turf team. So they're a track meet. They're a speed and, you know, all this sort of thing team. In the NHL, it's 32 teams that are like, we want to be defensively responsible, get pucks in deep,

that's right. That's right. Hard to play against. Yep. And it's, that's not an idea. Like, you might as well say our identity is we want to wear skates and play hockey. Like, you're not giving me any. Hold on.

I've got to write this down too. Yeah. Put the dash. Mm-hmm. The only team in this entire league right now that has an identity that isn't that identity is probably the ducks. Yeah. Young and dumb and high scoring and all day. And I guarantee that what,

that's not the identity they want. No. They're behind the scenes pulling their hair out. I hate that we're fun. Fuck off. Oh, this, we've got to figure out a way to, to not be fun.

So that, all that said, when you think about Craig Baroubae hockey, that's not what this team is. Totally. And they made, you know, they made their changes over the, over the summer.

Obviously, you knew that Marner leaving was going to hurt. It has. You hoped that some of the new guys would make up at least some of that in the aggregate. Not really. So far.

But the other thing is, as a few people pointed out, this team isn't radically different from last year's team. It's just that last year's team got great goal-tend and had a really good power play.

And they had great goaltending last year from a guy who was a career backup before last year. And that's... Anthony Stollers. That's why my Panicometer is like an eight on these guys. Okay. Because...

Yeah. Because everybody was like, well, Anthony Stollars, this is one of the best goalies in the league. And he was great last year. year. And I will say, well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. I had people tell me when they made, because when they first added him, I was like, oh, Anthony's going. And I had a couple of smart people were like, you wait, when you, when this guy actually gets a chance to run with, because he wasn't going to, you know, obviously he wasn't going to beat out Sergei Bavrovsky in Florida or whatever. Totally. But they said, you give this guy a chance. He's, he's better than you think. The Leafs might have found a gem here. And I'm okay. And it worked out that way. But it's just also, gold hunting is weird enough to begin with that. you know, I, this is a team that had two strengths that are hard to sustain. Now you would expect the power play would be something closer to something that they could duplicate,

except Mitch Marner was a big part of that. So, I don't know. There's Austin Matthews didn't look great to start the season. He's been better lately. He has. scoring. They're very top-heavy on the scoring side. Nealander, Tavaris, Matthew Nyes,

are all putting up a ton of points. After that, it drops off significantly. They haven't found the line combos that work. The blue line is not jelling. Morgan Riley hasn't been great. Chris Tanna has been hurt. There's just a lot of, defensively, it's a lot of this, you know,

Baroube says they're kind of an immature team is the word that's come out a few times from players and the coach, which they're not a young team. Well, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. The sharks can be an immature team. This team isn't young. This isn't even the core isn't young, let alone the veteran pieces that have been put around it. Sean, average age, the Leafs are 29.6 years old.

Yeah. How many teams have a higher average age in the entire national hockey league? Oh, they've got to be in the top five, right? They're not in the top five, actually. They are seventh. Winnipeg, an old team. Los Angeles, an old team. Florida, predictably, an old team.

Pittsburgh, not really is surprised. They have like four, 40-year-old, so that they're up there. And the Lightning, a team that won a bunch of cups four or five years ago and kept the band together. They're an older team than the Leafs. But like, with the exception of Winnipeg in L.A., Cup winner, Cup winner, Cup winner, Cup winner in the last decade or whatever. And a President's Trophy winner in Winnipeg at the very least. That still looks very good this year.

Yep. And you know what? No draft picks either for the lease. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which is both in terms of restocking the cupboard, but also in terms of Bradshaw Living's got to go out and make a deal with what? He gave up.

He gave up, they have no first round picks for the next couple of years because they wanted Brandon, Carlo, and Scott Lawton. Yeah, that's right. So all that said, they're right in the playoff mix. They, and to an extent we have seen this the last few years of the Leafs being slow to get off the ground in October. and we all do this whole like, oh, what's wrong with the Leafs and everything? And then the twist is in recent years, every time, as soon as the calendar flips in November, that's when they go in the heater. And we're 10 days into November here and it's not happened yet.

So, yeah, I would say there is a high level of concern both for this year and for the future. Like there's so far nothing this year in terms of Indian. injuries or whatever, where you'd go, okay, you know what, maybe this, maybe this year isn't the year. Mm-hmm. But they'll be right back on track next year. Like, this is kind of what they are. And it really feels like the, uh, the window, if it was ever open is not as open anymore.

And it was open. Like, they didn't go through the window, but the window was open. Mm-hmm. Yep. And yeah. So I'm going to go, uh, let's, you, you said Nate? I did. Ish.

Yeah. Yeah, I think an eight works. Let's do an eight. Let's do an eight because it's Toronto. I mean, Toronto, we, like, we start out of five, so. Right, sure. The other thing I want to say about this is, again, we're talking about, and this is a blanket for all of the teams we're about to talk about in the Eastern Conference.

Being in the playoff picture, you know, we said before. Yep, that's all going to happen for you. You're going to be in there all year. it looks like, no matter if you're the best team in the conference or the worst. You're just going to be in that picture. We're only four points out, whatever it is. Fine. That's great.

Yep. But, again, my thing is about the aspirations, you know? And the Leafs are supposed to want to be better than this. Then maybe we'll get there. You know, we'll figure it out. whatever. But even that, like, I'm assuming you saw Dom had a tweet yesterday, I want to say, where his model dipped below 50% for the Leafs for playoffs.

Yeah. And it was the first time since the 2016-70. So the first time since all the kids were rookies that they've been under 50%. Because you look at, you know, again, you can do the whole, hey, they're one point out of a playoff spot. right now. Right. But look at the Atlantic, right?

Montreal is certainly running away from the Leafs. I think that's a young team. We expect them to have some ups and downs, but it's, you know, they're, they look like a better bet than Toronto right now. Boston, I understand some people are not going to believe in them. Totally. But Ottawa has kind of evened it back out after a shaky start. Tampa's ahead of them.

And then you look at down below the playoff cutoff. Oh, right, the Florida Panthers. Do we all think the Panthers are missing the playoffs this year? Or do we think they're going to find a way to get it? Yep. So even if you say, okay, you know, one of Boston or maybe Ottawa will fall, if you write in Montreal, Tampa, Florida, and then one of Boston or not,

there's only one spot left. Right. And again. And that's assuming you get the extra wildcard spot, and that might not be the case. And they don't have the chess master GM, Brad Trillivings, four moves ahead on this. This guy's like, oh, I got to go get Brandon Carlo or whatever.

He's working really hard on the David Conf trade, okay? It's any day now, man, that's going to happen. It's only been five months that he's been working on this trade for a fourth line center. It's complicated, man. You don't understand how hard these guys' jobs are. That's true. I don't know.

I did, I feel like yesterday was the first day that I saw Pete DeBore's name mentioned in connection with the Leafs. Wow. So that felt fun. That felt like a new, like here we go. I just saw him at a college hockey game a couple of weeks ago. Did you ask him about... No, there was a guy talking to him.

You're like, hey, man, we know there's a team out there. And he was like, I don't know if I'd be a good fit. I'm kind of a loser. I only went two playoff rounds every year. Pete, have I got... Have I got news for you, my friend? Boy, oh boy. What did you say, two playoff rounds in nine years?

No, no, per season. Okay. I think we can work something up with you. Um, but yeah, his kid plays for Holy Cross. So that's, that's why he was there. And I was like, wow, there he is. The man himself. Does this kid, like, just go over and cross-check his own goalie in the mouth every time?

He's pretty good. He's a pretty good player. Okay. Um, okay, so that's the Leaps. What about the Washington Capitals? Yeah, that was kind of a funny one because obviously they surprised us two years ago by just making the playoffs. Last year, we all go, well, they're not going to make the playoffs again.

They have a great year. Yep. Far better. And then this year was sort of like, you know, even then, not everyone believed. And they got off to a good start. And, I mean, you could just picture Capitals fans being like, what more do you need to see? I said it a couple of weeks ago. I'm done saying these guys suck.

I don't buy it. Yep. Jokes on me. Yeah, should have. Yeah. Because they're down to 500 and not good lately. I think, in fact, if I'm, if you scroll by the last 10 column, they are the worst team in the conference. Is that true?

At 3, 6, and 1. They are. There is nobody else with fewer points in their last 10. That's not good. No, it's not. There's got to be, is there anyone worse in the, yes, there are worse teams in the, but in the last 10 games, only the Predators and Blues are worth. Even the flames have gained ground.

Wow. On the Capitals. Yeah. What? How panicked are we here? Well, pretend I never said all that stuff about I'm done doubting these guys, you know? Mm-hmm. Like, I should, I just, this is what I'm thinking.

Tell me if this is crazy. A team where the top three scores are Tom Wilson, Dylan Strom and John Carlson, maybe they're just not good, you know? The crazy, the crazy thing about Washington is they are number one in the league in goals against. Yeah. They have the fewest. The best goalie in the league right now, basically. Logan Thompson is unbelievable.

Now, they've played fewer games than other teams and all of that. Well, Thompson's, I think, 930 right now. He's got the best goals against that. And that's the exact number. 930 is where he's at. So that's tough. You know, in theory at least, he's, when your goal is on that much of a heater, you'd like to be better than 500. He's got you in a playoffs.

Yeah. Yeah. So let me ask you this. Just put it flat out. Is Alexander Ovechkin cooked? It kind of seems like it. I saw the stat last night. He has not started a single shift in his own zone this year.

Really? Yeah. Not a single one. I like that. Yeah. I mean, like let's just like, let's just max it out, you know? let's let's take this to the absolute logical extreme of Ovechkin doesn't play defense

okay here's what we can do about that you know but three goals this year yeah none on the power play yeah this might be it for him okay that's fine he's 40 years old I don't you know I can't be mad at the fucking guy yeah I mean we yeah you can't be but also

like we know he's going to have like seven goals in four games at some point. There will be that run. Absolutely for sure. But yeah, no, he is not looked very good. Nope. And yeah, Tom Wilson is the leading scorer, which feels not ideal. That's interesting. Also leads to the league in penalty minutes, by the way.

So that's fun. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. But let me say this. We're talking about all the underlying numbers, blah, blah, blah. The capitals are one of the five best five on or all situations XJ teams in the league. Okay. 54%.

They're running at 53% of the goals scored as well in all situations. So there's stuff to like here. In fact, you could say that with the goal tend to, like, Lindgren's been so bad that it almost completely cancels out what Thompson's done. Mm-hmm. And again, maybe you call that a predictable outcome. But what I think the Capitol's problem is, in the Pierre-Luc Dubois injury certainly isn't helping. He's out for the rest of the year, I think. At least a few months, yeah.

Yeah, it says here the rest of the year. Oh, is not expected to miss the rest of the year, but a while anyway. To me, this is a thing of, this is a really well-coached team with some good players. No great players. Not a single one, you know? A lot of good players. Some maybe very good, you could say. They don't have a great player on this team.

And sorry, you need that in the NHL these days. It's really that simple to me, is that you just like, you've got to have a game-breaking player and they don't. Is it as simple in Washington as you just, you try to squeeze as much as you can out of the Ovecchanera, and then when he's done, that's when you start the rebuild? Yeah, sure. I mean, because, like, with all due respect to Ryan Leonard and a few of their other young guys, like, those guys aren't necessarily, again, game-breaking talents. I think Ryan Leonard's going to be a very good NHL player. I don't know that they have another Alex Ovechkin in the hopper.

You know what I'm saying? No, of course. Yeah, another John Carlson in the hopper, let's say. you know, like that's really what it boils down to for me is they just, they have a bunch of good players, they don't have any great ones. And if that's the case, I don't know, I don't know what the future looks like for them, you know? Yeah. They're in good, good shape cap-wise.

The John Carlson's deal comes off the book. Yes, it does. Not his extension yet, but. I guess what I guess what my long-term thinking is, yeah, of course you rebuild under Ovechkin, or like once Ovechkin's gone. But we don't know what that looks like. They haven't rebuilt in 20 years. So I don't know, like, are they one of these teams that's like, you know what, fuck it. Let's rebuild.

Or are they like, we don't rebuild for the Washington Capitol? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know what their mindset on all that is. I mean, yeah. Ovechkin's deal is up after this year. Is this it? I mean, if he finishes this season with like 15 goals, is he really going to want to come back?

I guess we have no way of knowing, right? No way of knowing. You know, Ted Leontz let them tank in 2004, eventually. You know, they had the whole weird yager thing and all of that. But so, yeah, to be determined, I guess. So what's our number on these guys? I feel like I'm back down to the fives and sixes here because I, maybe even less. Because you're right.

The underlying numbers are good. They've got a great coach. Ovechkin is going to heat up to some extent. Yep. I'm worried about the goaltending regressing, but. Of course you are. You know, goalies can stay hot for a year. And Logan Thompson's a good goal.

This guy was in the Vezina mix, at least to be a finalist last year. So, you know, it's not coming out of nowhere. So I feel like this is maybe a five for me. Yeah, I'd go four and a half. I don't, again, I don't think this is a good team. I think they're a really well-coached team. I think they have plenty of talent. Like, what I think my issue is they have a lot of middle-six talent.

in the top nine of their lineup. You know what I mean? They don't have really a guy I think of, there's a clear first line guy, especially, again, if Du Bois's out for four months or whatever the number is. Yeah. And with the sort of injury,

we don't even know what he'll be like if and when he gets back. But great news, the whole East sucks. So you don't even really have. to like, I don't, I think they're going to play well enough that they're not like taking on water all year, right? Like, they're, they're dead even 500 right now. And half the teams in front of them are one to two games above 500 right now.

So, and again, if they miss the playoffs, it's not the worst thing in the world for them. Get the draft pick, trade some guys, whatever, who cares? I'm going to go with like a four and a four. a half or a five. That's fair. Last team I want to talk about here, the New York Rangers. They finally pick up a win at home last night. First one.

Scored goals, man. Yeah, all they have, lit it up. All they got to do to win at home is shoot 33%. I think they had 18 shots on goal last night in the win. But they scored six, so it all worked out awesome. Where are you at with the range? Rangers. I mean, I think the whole

Can't Score at Home thing is, I mean, I was going to say unsustainable. Obviously, they're not going to keep getting shut out right. The majority of the time on home ice, but even the home road split. Like I wrote on

Monday about how they really have been like two different teams home and road. And that's not going to continue. There's that said, this is another team that's older. They sure are. High expectations made the big coaching change.

So again, you're kind of sitting there going on. Mike Sullivan will fix this. Hasn't really been able to do. Did you see the Eric Carlson quote from a day or two ago? No. Where they, I don't know what the actual question was, but he's like, yeah, it's nice to, to have a coach who like lets you play to your strengths

instead of telling you how to play. Something like that. Little damning of Mike Sullivan where he's like we're actually being put in a position to succeed whereas Mike Sullivan was trying to square peg a round hole. Yep. I thought that was interesting. That is interesting.

I guess the thing with the Rangers, I just don't know what they are, what they're trying to be. I don't think Chris Drury knows either. Or if he knows, I don't know that. he's enacted it yet. Yeah, he's not Mr. Answers, that's for sure. So all that said, I don't think I've, you know,

they haven't been that surprising to me. They are over 500. They're a classic fake 500 team. Yep. That's lost more than they've won, but they're over 500. We talked about the East not being very good, especially the Metro has got the two teams at the top, and then it feels pretty wide open.

Mm-hmm. The, as we've said for some other teams, you would look at this team and go, the goaltending should be a strength. It hasn't been amazing. It's fine. It's fine. And Jonathan Quick is maybe the best backup in the league, the best clear backup in the league. As far as a guy who's not trying to be a one-a. So I think these guys are low-ish for me.

They might be the lowest of the group. I might put them at a three. Yeah, I think that's about right. They're, again, their underlying numbers are good. There's not really a lot to complain about on the underlying numbers front. And, yeah, they're sixth in the league in all situations. It's all you're really looking for, you know? And I think that if you combine.

that with the fact that as a team, God, what are they shooting right now? They are shooting 8.6%. Say what you want about these guys. I know a lot of people are down on the Rangers this year. I don't think this is an 8.6% shooting team. I think they can get up around 10 pretty easily. And I don't, I'm not one of these guys. I buy into the home road split very much.

I think small samples can. Not when they're so extreme. And especially when they're so extreme and flipped. If it's great on home ice can't play on the road, maybe you think there's something there, but there's nothing that this team all of a sudden can't play at MSG. That's, yeah, for sure. Again, you know, I can pull this up really quickly. I wonder what they are shooting as a percentage on the power play specifically,

because that has been one of their all-time strength. you know, or, you know, whatever, for the last, for the Artemi Panarin era, let's say. So, yeah, to me, I'm just, I'm not too worried about them. Again, do I think that they're like, unbelievable this team?

No, of course not, you know? Right now they are shooting 7.9% on the power plate. That is the lowest of the advanced stats era by a pretty wide margin for the team. maybe not for the whole league, but they were at almost 12 last year. They were at 15, 2 years ago, 12 and a half, 3 years ago, almost 15 and a half in 21, 22.

So like that number's coming up. That, it's that simple. That number will be on the rise. And again, if you're looking for positive, regression or whatever you want to call it, that's where it's going to come. They're going to start scoring on the power play. You'd like to see him draw more penalties, too,

but that's a different scenario. So, yeah, like, is the band of Jed good? No, I don't really think he is, you know? But do I think that, like, these guys suck? No, of course not. But the question is this, for me. if they continue kind of muddling through, when does the Panarin talk kind of ratchet up a bit?

That's what it boils down to for me. Yep. Yep. And how good do they have to be to say, no, we're keeping him? He's a UFA at the end of the year, obviously. Big ticket guy, there have been reports that he will be looking. to maximize his payout. Yeah.

So not taking the big discount. Right. And I totally get the Rangers being like, yeah, we're not going to give a 35-year-old huge money. It's just not going to happen. That makes total sense to me. Why wouldn't they? But if that's your attitude, what do you do with them?

Yeah. Obviously, if you're in first place overall and you're the cup favorites, you keep them, you do the whole like, you know, own rental thing. What if you're an eighth? Right. What if you're a solid bet to make the playoffs, but nobody thinks you're a real cup contender? That's right.

And Team X comes along and says, first round pick, you know, on down the list of nice assets. Yeah. I don't know. I wouldn't be shocked if Chris Derry made that move. No, again, it comes down to aspiration. right? Like if they're in the if they're in the president's trophy mix, which they aren't, but if they were like they were two years ago when they won the fucking thing, you go, well, we're not trading, we're not trading Panarin.

But them right around the playoff pick, like if they're, if they're in the six, seven, eight range in the Eastern Conference at the at the end of this season, what's that conversation, you know? So I'm not really panicked if I'm the Rangers. I'm like probably at a four and a half or so. But we have to have some really interesting conversations here. You know, that's all. So yeah, that's four and a half for me. Yeah, I'm with you on the low number. And yeah, I think they're going to be okay,

but I don't know if okay will be enough. but I'm not sure that they're going to not see that. Well, okay, I don't have this written down, and we don't have to do a whole big thing about them, but like, what's up with Detroit? Yeah. They're like, they're so mediocre now. They're trending down to your point.

Maybe after a decade or whatever it's been, you're just like, you know what, if we're in the playoff picture and we're like, if we get the eighth seed, we're dancing in the fucking streets here. They've lost four of their last five, and they haven't won a game outside of a shootout in their last six. But I think that Detroit's a team where, again, to go back to kind of one of our themes,

the aspirations, if they can just make the playoffs, that's enough for now. Yeah. They need to show, like, we need to proof a concept of, and it looked like they were there, right? because they were nine and four a week ago. And now they're, you know, not just have they lost three in regulation. They scored two goals. Yeah.

In those three games. One other one to throw out there, and we can just maybe just slap a number on it, but the Panthers, two-time defending cup champs, not in a playoff spot right now, eight, seven, and one. Obviously, the injuries are a huge part of it, but the injuries are long-term. Oh, yeah.

For sure. Are we panicked? Are we worried? No, I'm not. I think the flyers and the penguins of the world are going to come back to Earth a little bit, and that opens the door, or even the senators, and that opens the door for them. They haven't played a ton at home where they've been really good. and the only thing that I'd be concerned about if I'm Florida is that Sergei Vibovsky save percentage is sub-900.

I just looked it up, it's 893. So it's not even close to 900. And he's 37. Do you count on him to be one of the best goalies in the world? No, but in this scenario, where you're going to have Barkov out, maybe for the full season. Maybe, you know, who knows,

Kachuk's not coming back until January, maybe. You need Bobrovsky to be good to, like, uphold, you know, let's put it this way. Brad Marchand leads this team in goals. He has 11 in 15 games, which is crazy. What happens if Brad Marshand, also 37 years old, stops being the best goal score in the league almost. You know?

You're leaving a little too much up to chance, and it's not totally your fault. But there's a little bit of panic there because you can't go to two, or win two cup five, not even just go to. You can't win two Stanley Cups and then miss the playoffs and then go, well, we had a couple of guys hurt. People are going to be like,

I don't care. Aren't we the best team in the league? Shouldn't we be able to absorb two injuries? Maybe not to those two players, but here we are. Yeah. One note on them, 11 of the next 12 on home ice. They're 5-1-1 at home. I feel like I'm, you know, I'm not too worried about it.

Some tough matchups, tough-ish matchups, but yeah, yeah, there's a good chance that by the first week of December, they're right back in it. I'm also not super panicked. Great. Well, there you have it. We were talking the other day, me and you, Sean, and you said, hey, what's the story with Gavin McKenna and, you know, how things have gone in college so far? And if you are not a big college hockey head, which I know a lot of people around the hockey world are not, certainly not in the way I am, this is like asking someone who's like in the Vancouver market

hey you have any thoughts on Quinn Hughes it's all anybody's talked about for the first month of the season is what's up with Gavin McKenna what's up with Penn State and so I'll just repeat what I said to you kind of last week but the the deal with him is that people had insane expectations for what he was going to do. He is currently tied for 14th in the country in total points with 14 and 12 games as a 17-year-old.

That's really, really good. That's really good if you're 22, and he's 17. So there is that. The issue I think you would point to is he has done all. almost all is scoring at five on the power play. I think it's, I don't have it right in front of me here, but I think it's nine of his 14 points are on the power play, and another one's at three on three.

So you don't want a guy to have just four points in whatever, 12 games at 5 on 5. That's not enough. Even if you're saying he's 17, he's adjusting, blah, blah, blah. He hasn't been scoring enough at 5 on 5. I totally agree. They're also, though, playing him a lot. He's up around like 21 minutes a night, something like that.

22 almost, it says here. And he's also not, like the guys in front of him on the, on the Arizona or the Penn State depth chart, their first line is just going psycho. It's two of the highest scoring players in the league and then a guy. who's like fourth or fifth in the country in scoring. So you let the big dogs eat, you put McKenna in a position to succeed on the power play, all this kind of stuff.

Makes sense. But people don't like that. People were saying, is there a potential for 80 points, 100 points this year? And it's like there never was. No, never in a million years was he going to get that high. It was just not going to happen. he's on pace for like 50-ish right now, which like, gosh, Maclin Celebrini was like a 60-ish-point player in college.

And so 50's great. It's just not as good as the hype, you know? So that's kind of where he's at personally. But the other thing to say is everybody thought Penns. State, because they had McKenna, and they went to the Frozen Four last year, and Michael Mesa's older brother is on the team, and he's a really good prospect and all this kind of stuff. Everybody's like, the ceiling on Penn State is incredibly high, and they've been

kind of mediocre, except to say that they are currently nine and three. That's what they've won. nine of their 12 games. But a lot of weird results, a lot of overtime, not a lot of overtime, but like some overtime wins that should have been blowout wins, you know? And they haven't really played anybody until this past weekend when they played Michigan State, and they got outscored 7 to 1 and two games, both of which they lost. And maybe you say you'd like to see McKenna really grab the bull by the horns and lead

the offense more. He did score their only goal this weekend, and it wasn't very. five on five. But the thing with McKenna is that he, as a 17-year-old, he's not doing the, the Maclin Celebrini, Jack Eichel thing of like, I'm the best player on my own team, right? Mm-hmm. So if a guy that you think is going to be the number one pick isn't even the best player on his own team, that's maybe why you get, again, they're nine and three, but

the results are a little lackluster. They're barely beating like teams that don't even have a conference, that kind of thing. That's where he's at, but I will say that I haven't really talked to anybody that's like, and he shouldn't be the first overall pick because of this. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, it felt like this week, even after we had that kind of offline conversation, and started to see more of the prospects guys talking about this, and that seemed to be the consensus, is still the number one pick, maybe not the lock that he felt like. Well, okay. The other thing is the guy that people at least talked about

is Keaton Verhoff, who's also playing college hockey at North Dakota, and he's a 17-year-old defenseman, who I don't think is like getting the, mega minutes that you would maybe expect a guy who is, again, like the potential number two overall pick, maybe even number one depending on. But he, let's see here, Keaton Verhoff is playing a little under 17.5 minutes a night, which is third on the team.

So he's like a middle-payer defenseman in terms of his minutes, but they're obviously giving him a good amount of... You know, power play time and all that. But what people have mostly said is I haven't seen like a ton of North Dakota games. I've seen a handful, let's say, and they've played 10 so far. People are saying that he has taken to the college game more effectively than McKenna has. Okay. And how does that change things?

Well, you know, whoever drafts first overall, they're not drafting this guy to play college. They're actually drafting him to play in the NHL for 15 years. Interesting. And so... Probably a good plan, yeah. Yeah. I like that. And so people are like, the upside with McKenna is just like higher than it is with

Verhof. And it's not like McKenna's drowning out there. He is over a point of game at 17 years old. But, you know, Verhof is a guy that there, when he came in, people were like, if McKenna struggles, which. which again, I'm not saying he has. He struggled relative to absurd expectations. Verhof could put himself into that number one overall conversation.

And I don't, again, talking to scouts and things of this nature, I don't think he's done that. Like, again, he's only playing. If he was playing 22 minutes a night and playing like this, people would be like, oh, we got to have the conversation. I don't think that conversation's happening. People on the outside of the game are trying to make it happen. And again, I 100% have Penn State as a whole on fraud watch.

Okay. I'm just going to say it, you know? Once they get into the teeth of the Big Ten schedule, they're hosting Michigan this weekend after being at Michigan State. Michigan, another, like, one of the best teams in the country, teams. For my money, the teams I've seen, they are the best. I'll put it that way. And so, like, if Michigan also smokes Penn State like Michigan State did this past weekend,

they're not even on fraud watch. They're just frauds to me. They can barely get past some okay teams. Good teams are smoking them, is what would be happening here. But yeah, I'm not worried about McKenna yet. we're just not we're not at that point in the conversation. Again, we get to like January, February,

he's still not scoring at five on five. Maybe it opens things up. But right now, it's to me, not a conversation worth having. Fair enough. Along similar lines, though, let's talk about the, I heard this on 32 thoughts yesterday.

Maybe pump the brakes, on your expectations for teams to be able to put one 19-year-old in the HL per season. This is the, I feel like most fans want this. And most teams, NHL teams want this as well. Yeah, we've all seen the situation where, you know, somebody's not quite good enough for the NHL, but sending them, if the only other option,

is send them back to Junior and they're too good for Junior, you're not good enough for the NHL, if only there was somewhere in between. Right. Oh, yeah, there is, but they can't. So I thought we were trending in this direction. Yeah. So Elliot said on 32 thoughts yesterday that basically, like, the CHL went to the NHL GMs and was like, you can't do this to us.

Because they're like, we're your best development league. We're, which we'll see how true that is one year from now, first of all. But second of all, like, you know, their attitude is like, we're already getting wrecked by college hockey. We're losing the Keaton Verhoffs and the, the Gavin McKenna's to college hockey now. You can't then come in and take our best 19-year-olds as well. And that doesn't even get into the Cole Reschney's, the Ryder Richies, the other guys who are like leaving the CHL before their CHL eligibility is up. basically. So they're saying you can't do this to us.

And I get why they're saying it, obviously. But I wonder how much the NHL, to your point, is like, yeah, I get it. But we're a couple of months away from the NCAA just being the clear number one best Development League in the world. And so what do we care? What you think, you know? We're going to do what's best for us, not what's best for you. I think it seems to be the prevailing attitude among NHL teams, even with like, there are guys

who, of course, have strong CHL ties and blah, blah, blah. But it's interesting in the context of, I don't think like the number of, the number of, like the number of guys going to college hockey is going to slow down. So I don't know what the CHL does here, you know? It is. I mean, it's, you could understand the CHL's. Oh, a million percent. From their point of view, they're getting,

they're going to now get rocked in back to back summers by new rules that like completely fuck them over in terms of retaining their best players. And again, I said this, I think over the summer, this is, this is a situation. where it's like, yeah, sorry, you guys are just like on the level that USHL has been for the last like two decades now. You know, like you're just, you're just the secondary development league now. That's just how it is. As soon as they let guys go play in college after playing, starting in the CHL, that was the end of it as them being at the top of the development pyramid. I totally get why they would say, let us keep our 19-year-olds.

I just wonder if the NHL's actually going to listen to them. Yeah, and what happens if the NHL doesn't want to listen? Because, you know, where does this go? Because this, it's hard for me, like, I understand where the CHL's coming from, but it's hard for me to think this is a good scenario for anyone but the CHL. That's exactly right, yeah. Again, like, why wouldn't an NHL team be like, you know what, Why don't we tie our own hands behind our backs?

If they're not, again, when they were the best development league in the world, the NHL kind of had to go, well, don't want to piss these guys off. You know, now that they're not, they can't go, you can't do this to us without the NHL going, well, it's a question of whether we want to want to. Right. So I just thought that was interesting. Yeah, it is. It's interesting development. Yeah. Especially because there was also the report of like maybe the USHL and the CHL just merge,

which people brought up, you know, a couple of years ago. Do we think that's a legitimate possibility? I think I don't, I haven't talked to anybody who works in the USHL about this, but like just, you know, doing the thing where I lick my finger and hold it up to the wind, you know, be like, oh, yeah, it's going that way. It feels like it's going that way. I don't know, you know, I don't have any insider information on that kind of thing. But, yeah. Cam Robinson wrote an interesting article talking to a bunch of like XCHL players and college coaches and stuff like that about why.

why so many top prospects are choosing the NCAA all of a sudden. And to me, the answer is kind of obvious. If you're 17, you get to play against like 24, 25-year-olds. And that's good for your development. But it is interesting just to see how it's all shifting and what comes next. It seems kind of inevitable to me. that the U.S.HL and CHL just kind of goes, you know, it turns out our interests are pretty aligned on this, you know?

So that's all. Mm-hmm. Why don't you hit them with the plugs? Let's get out of here. Beyond the Athletic Hockey Show with Sean Gentile and Frankie Crato tomorrow. I just had a new edition of the Red Light newsletter go out either. I don't know if it's gone out yet. By the time you hear this, it will have.

Great. And I've got a couple of posts coming later this week, and I haven't decided what those are going to be. That's what's up. But they're going to be fantastic. I have no doubt. And then for me, of course, elite prospects. I'm doing college hockey stuff all season long.

Remember I was telling you about that team that beat Kwinipiac? And then, like, they had a game at Kwinipiac, and it was like a big surprise or whatever. that they had beaten them. They tied them in like one of the craziest games I've been to in a while last Tuesday. They get out shot. I don't remember what the number was. Let's say it was like 50 to 15.

It was around there. I'm probably giving them a little. This is the Alaska is the team that tied Quinnipiac and then beat them in a shootout. They came back from having two goals reviewed and they were down late and all this. and they won it in a shootout. It was a crazy-ass game. So shout out to Alaska. And yeah, I just...

College hockey stuff all year for me. This is what it's all about for me. I love it. And then patreon.com slash pox soup, all kinds of bonus episodes, including last week, me and Sean did an episode, where we said, okay, from now on, the NHL or the Hockey Hall of Fame comes to us,

and they say, you guys are in charge of who goes into the Hall of Fame. We said that only makes perfect sense that we should be. And they said the only rule is now only one person can get in per season. And so I think we went to 2040 projecting forward in time. Who would be the one guy to get in every year between now and then? And we had a lot of fun with it. People liked it.

So check that out. And that's it. Thank you so much for listening. And we'll be back next week. And that's it. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.