Puck Soup - Did NHL Get Restart Right?

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

The boys break down every aspect of the NHL's "return to play" plan, from training centers opening to the 24-team playoff (maybe?) format to the draft lottery to the NHL Awards. They discuss the Red Wings not firing their coach and the Sabres not firing their GM; the best aspects of "Rise of Skywalker"; and play a new game show on journeyman players! 

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Oh, too. Hey, I am Greg Wyshinsky of ESPN, the worldwide leader in talking about hockey for the last 48 hours, because Emily got on SportsCenter and Levitard, and I got on the first take radio show,

and the front page of ESPN.com. So it's been pretty good. Hope we get another pandemic next year. I'm Ryan Lambert, and I don't want that to happen. Okay. Yeah. Sean back to the Athletic. I mainly don't want it to happen, though,

because it has helped your career. And that's... Oh. Just kidding. I'm just kidding. That's really rude. I know. But, I mean, at the same time, you're right.

You're in Puck Soup. So, we don't, I mean, we don't necessarily have what you call a format for this episode because there's just a fuck ton to talk about with the NHL returning to play and opening up their training facilities and all of that other stuff. So let's, I guess, start. with the beginning of the week, which was the NHL making me read a 26-page memo on a memorial day, which wasn't the best. The one thing that really stuck out about, the two things that really stuck about about

the return to training facilities part of this equation was the demonization of commercial air travel, where the players have to quarantine for 14 days if they, like, take Delta back from wherever they are to their home cities, which is interesting. And then the other thing was the thing that we asked Don Fierre about when we talked to them this week, which was this incredible overlooked notion of the NHL differentiating between players who contract COVID-19

during the course of their duties as a player and players who contract COVID-19 during non-hockey activities. Are you aware of this clause? either of you? I mean, I saw that it was talking about. You're going to have to explain this to me. So, Sean, the way, it's kind of incredible. And we asked fear about it, and I don't think that a lot of people really picked up on it.

Basically, inside of the return to play document, there's a section called symptomatic persons during phase two. So phase two is the returning to training facilities. And it says, Um, but a, about, about about, if the player, uh, the player shall be deemed to have sustained an illness arising out of the course of his employment as a hockey player for such period as he may be removed from training, practice, or play, and his condition shall be treated as a hockey related injury for all purposes under the CBA. Unless it is established based on the facts at issue that the player contracted COVID-19 or the resulting or related illness outside the. the course of his employment as a hockey player, which to me would be like, I'm Mitch Marner. I went to a club and got COVID at the club versus I went to the Leafs training facility and got COVID there. And now what does that mean? So it ends up meaning, I think, just

shit for insurance purposes. But like, the language of this was very much squared to the language of the typical player contract, which is that you could terminate or suspend a player for a non-hockey-related injury. And this was sort of the same language. It really was a fucking odd part of this return-to-play thing. I love to see him fucking prove it. Yeah.

Right. That's what I'm saying. It's crazy, right? Like, like, I mean, we can't even get our asses in gear for contract. What's the contract? No, no, no. It's, what's it called? It's, oh, contact tracing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. To begin with, let alone, you know, where a player was infected by COVID. Right. I've seen stuff about, like, doctors and nurses might have to prove that, like, or not just doctors, but like frontline workers, essential workers or whatever, like, people at a grocery store would have to be able to prove that they got it at work to, like, call out sick or something like that. Right. And it's like, yeah, that would be impossible to do. Like, to be. to put the burden of proof on the person who gets it. But it's the same way with like, yeah, like you said, if Mitch Marner goes

to a club, you know, like, can the league And it's COVID, it's COVID night, you know, they have DJ. Can the league prove that it was that it was him going to the club that caused it? Or, you know, like him,

you know, seeing someone on the way to the rink. Like, who knows? It's COVID night. All COVID-19 positive tests get in free, along with ladies, tunes by DJ COVID. A COVID night. We got it. Yeah, no, it struck me as being very odd.

And a part of you was like, oh, it makes sense. It's just for insurance purposes. And then a part of me is like, or it could be a general manager who, I don't know, plants COVID in the trunk of Mike Richards car at the border. Yeah. Not that that would ever happen. Yeah, I had not heard about that. I'm now picturing like these situations that crop up in sports from time to time where somebody will like blow at their ACL playing pickup basketball and then like limp to the practice facility

and then so that they can be injured. Through a slip and fall. But my only thought here is if this is their way of saying to the players, hey, don't be an idiot. don't go out and put yourself at risk. Yeah, don't put all these things in place. If you do and you get this, you're on your own and we're not going to be. Like, that I can kind of get and support. But other than that, it just, yeah, it seems strange.

You know, you got a 26-page assignment. You've got to pat it out a little bit with some. Yeah, pat it out, yeah. It does seem more for just like, don't fuck around insurance against the players as opposed to, like, actual insurance purposes. But, okay, yeah. What if one of them gets a, attacked by a demonic golf cart filled with COVID, like an Eric Johnson kind of situation.

What happens then? Is that a problem? That seems like it would be a problem, yeah. Yeah. All right. So that was the return to play, return to training camp thing. Anything else about that struck you as being, it's interesting, it's voluntary, by the way. Also interesting, we talked to Rod Brindamor yesterday on ESPN and ICE, and he said that there's a good chance the European guys might not even

come back at the beginning just because of like why like if you have the ability to go continue training on your own in Sweden with a bunch of players uh why why come why leave your family now and come back here it makes no sense i'm genuinely curious as to whether we will get a player who just says no i'm not coming back and how that is dealt with whether they go really strong on trying to you know you're this violation of contract etc etc etc or whether it's under the circumstances treated differently. I'm sure to depend on who the player was, but I'm not convinced that we'll see that,

but I would not be surprised, and I'm curious to see how that would be approached. Well, hold on. For the purposes of definition, do you mean a player that won't come back at all? Yes. And won't play this summer? Yeah, a player who says, like, I'm not taking part in this.

This is not, you know, I'm not going to go. Go ahead. Come back. Yeah, no. I was going to say, we've asked Bill Daley this. and I asked them really early on. And to put a time stamp on it, Lambert, I asked him under the auspices of a Roman reign situation,

like we saw at WrestleMania. Oh, you, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I said to Daily, like, what if somebody who is immunocompromised or just doesn't believe in coming back to finish this? What if they just opt out? What if they just don't want to come back?

And the league's stance has been that if it's a couple of guys, that feel this way, then they're going to make concessions for them and say, you know, no harm, no foul. We completely understand unprecedented times, yada, yada, yada. If it's a lot of them, then they're going to have to kind of figure something out. But I think they're prepared for the idea that there'll be some guys for personal reasons, for family reasons, for whatever reasons, that might not want to come back and play. Now, the other side of that conversation, obviously, is the hockey culture that permeates through the NHL, where guys don't report injuries, where guys play through injuries, where they do all these things because they don't want to be ostracized by their teammates, how many players will actually stand up

and do this knowing what the repercussions are going to be? Like, you'd have to be a UFA to do it, basically, is what I'm trying to say. You might. And that was kind of the other thing from that document was the whole idea of a lot of the testing, at least the basic level testing, being something that the players would either do themselves or that the teams would be responsible for. And again, as people have pointed out, we've seen players go to ridiculous lengths to hide injuries or to play through injuries that they shouldn't be playing through because it's the Stanley Cup

and it's the hardest trophy to win, blah, blah, blah. Do we really think somebody who reads a little high on the thermometer is going to go and report that? Or do we think that people are going to go, hey, I'm tough, I'm going to play through it? I made a joke about this and someone in an NHL front office was like, please don't like, Because the joke I made was like, oh, yeah, we're going to have, like, rammer and Keynesy freaking running their own test and being like, oh, yeah, I'm good to go, coach, you know, put me in, whatever. And someone in a front office was like, nobody's going to do that to practice with five other guys.

No, not one person's going to do that. And then, you know, when you get into, like, the actual playoffs and that kind of thing, it'll be out of the players. Like the players will not be putting it up to themselves. The real issue, though, is, like, team, like, you know, we've seen teams be like, oh, yeah, he's going to go to the quiet room. He hit his head. Oh, I didn't miss a shift somehow.

That's crazy. What a weird coincidence. Yeah. Right. And then, you know, is there pressure on medical staff in, say, the conference finals or something like that to be like, yeah, he's. He's got symptoms, but he's, you know, we can kind of ignore that. Maybe, but also, like, I'd be a little more surprised just because it's not, like, a concussion puts one guy at risk,

and infectious disease puts the conference final at risk. And so that's the difference, I think. And, yeah, and that does make sense. I'm curious to see what the reaction is going to be, because I feel like right now, every fan is like, yes, of course, if somebody is, has any symptoms or anything whatsoever, they have to shut it down, of course. But when it's your star player and it's game seven of the conference final and you find out he's 0.1 degree over and he isn't going to play,

I guarantee some segment of that fan base is suddenly going to not be quite as firm on that. And it's going to be interesting to see them navigated. It's easy to be altruistic when, it seems to be altruistic when, when you're talking about like player X, but it's different when it's Nathan McKinn or Andre Vasselisky. Right. Like, it's a completely different conversation.

For sure. And the other thing I was going to say, though, is, you know, it, like I said, these guys will be like, oh, I can play through it, whatever. But if it becomes a situation where it's like, well, we can't have a Stanley Cup final for two weeks because the entire Colorado Avalanche all of a sudden has coronavirus, like, that's a whole different situation that I really, I really. genuinely think nobody would fuck with too badly. And the other thing to say about this, of course,

is that, like, 10% of the league are all QAnon guys who think that, you know, this is all ginned up by the Bill Gates Foundation or whatever. So, yeah. Yeah, they're preparing to get microchipped at training camp. Exactly. You hit on an interesting point, though, about, like, this entire notion of the testing and how forthright teams are going to be. Like, I completely agree with you Lambert.

Like, there's a part of me that wants to give them the benefit of the doubt that they're going to take this seriously, that they're going to treat it differently, that they know that it runs the – you can't contract concussion from somebody. Like, that that will be the approach. On the other hand, this is a league that actually had to hire people to sit in the stands to observe players who are, are concussed to ensure the teams don't fuck with them and to ensure the players don't put themselves at further risk. And so that being established, there is a very cynical part of me that wonders how this self-policing is all going to work out. Yeah. And quotes after the game about the coronavirus testers, a fucking joke, man. They should have let me go, you know, all that shit that happens every time somebody gets pulled out by a spotter.

Like, yeah. I just don't think. And maybe. Maybe I'm being naive knowing my general attitude toward the NHL, but I don't think anybody would fuck with an infectious disease as opposed. Like the mumps thing, you know, they didn't try to make anybody play through having mumps, right? Can I ask a question? Because I honestly don't remember, because I've seen the picture of Sid a few times. Was that a situation where Sid's face blew up to looking like, you know, SpongeBob? but they said he didn't have the mumps?

Is that the thing? I thought they said he had the mumps. I'm pretty sure. Well, they did eventually, but initially, like, there was this outbreak going on, and people were like, Sid looks kind of mumpy, and they were like, no, no, he's fine. And then they brought him out, and he looked like that. And people are like, really? And they're like, yeah, we tested him.

He's okay. And then, like, the next day, they're like, whoops. Yeah, he totally has the mumps. And you probably do too now, sorry. He comes out looking like Mickey Rourke and, Sin City and they're like, no, he doesn't have the Mumps. Hold on, I just pulled up a quote. Sydney Crosby on Mumps'

photo, quote, that's not what I looked like before I went on the ice. This fucking league, man. I take it all back. Again, they don't exactly, haven't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt yet. You're absolutely right. What was I thinking? Whether it's concussions or previously infectious diseases, Apparently. Like, shit, man.

All right. So that was the training facilities part. I do find it fun that, like, there was not even an attempt by the teams that didn't make the 2014 team playoff to even, like, start up again. They're just like, all right, season's done. Let's have our meetings. Like, I thank them for that, actually, because it would have been stupid if the kings were like, yeah, Anjek Kopitar. Stop doing push-ups with your kid on your back and come back and skate. for fucking two weeks for no reason. Yeah, I mean, enough guys made noise about it

like players and I think Rob Blake even had quotes about like, yeah, I can't imagine why we would want to do that as an organization. Like I think they just made too much noise about it immediately that it was like yeah, this is never going to.

There was never a chance that they were going to even make it, you know, 31 teams in the bottom seven are playing for something different. Like it was just never going to happen. I still, there's a piece of me like 24 teams and I know that number got floated a lot, but there's there's like three or four teams in that group that had no chance of making the playoffs previously. Are we sure that every player on those teams has been like working out and staying in shape over the last three? Like there's got to be at least one guy

sitting at home this week with like a bag of Cheetos on his lap like, oh no, really? Oh, absolutely. I'm back in a couple of weeks. Oh man. All right. This is going to be. going to be, this is a problem. That's why they were, they were like, bring them back to camp for training facilities. We definitely have to have three weeks of training camp. We definitely have to have two exhibition games. Like, I think the teams are cognizant of the fact that there are going to be guys that have literally just been, you know, drinking, uh, full on Coca-Cola and playing call of duty for the last three months. Like, it's, it's clear. Um, that that's the case. All right. So moving on to the return to play format. And once again, a caveat, very important one,

because I think it's been lost on a lot of people this week, especially those from the outside looking into the hockey bubble, not an approval by the players to come back and play, an approval by the players to say, if we do, this is probably what we'll do for the most part. The details still have to be figured out, but it's kind of the framework of what we're looking at. And I really do feel like the genies out of the bottle. I think if you asked a hundred people that have a tangential knowledge of the National Hockey League did the NHL announce they're coming back this summer, I would say like 85% of them would say yes, you know, as far as, as, as that nuance goes.

But I guess let's get cut into it. 24 teams, two conferences, 12 apiece, four team round Robin to determine the top seeds in which the Dallas stars and Philadelphia Flyers hilariously could jump a dozen points in the standings if they go 3 and 0 to get the top seed in the conference. and then the big old qualification tournament. That's not a playoff tournament, but is qualification tournament, apparently. Or is it? Five versus 12, six versus 11, yada, yada, yada, yada.

Who wants to take the first crack at this monumental document? And Gary Bettman Press Conference that was unleashed upon us on Wednesday. Or Tuesday? Tuesday? I think it was Tuesday, yeah. I mean, we've all been mentally preparing for this for at least two weeks, right? I don't think anybody was shocked by this having been the outcome. I was maybe a little surprised by the top four seats being in a round-robin tournament to determine seeding,

just because I figured they would defer to the Bruins on this one. Original six-team important. The owner makes a lot of noise whenever labor issues come up and makes the other owners a lot of money. I figured they'd just let Boston have it and say, you know, like, these points count in the standing so in theory you could move up blah blah blah but yes i'm really surprised that like you said if if the flyers go two and one and the ruins go one and two the flyers somehow are the fucking eastern conference champions but that does see i i was also surprised by that i don't think that's the best way to do it but that is a response

to like the Tampa's of the world who voted no on the format largely because they figured that they were at a disadvantage, even though they had a buy, that they were going to then be facing a team that was up and running and they were going to be rusty because they would have been playing these round robin games that didn't really matter. Well, now they matter. Now they matter a lot. And sort of one of these careful what you wish for situations, because I don't know if this is exactly the solution of that problem that the lightning would have wanted. But I'm also sure that lightning weren't the only team to express that concern. I would imagine every single team that's in these round-robin tournaments now.

I felt that way. But here's the other thing, though, is, you know, we don't know yet what they specifically said in the presentation, they haven't decided if they're going to do brackets or reseeding. but a few days ago, it sounded like they wanted to do brackets, and now they've sort of walked that back. If you do brackets, finishing number one seed might mean you get the toughest matchup out of everyone. It means if you finish first and it's a bracket format, you're guaranteed to get eight or nine.

Whereas we know, like a 12, 11, or 10 is definitely going to win because these short series are going to be coin flip. So maybe finishing first isn't even that big of an advantage. I mean, you're getting home ice in the playoffs where home ice is going to matter less than ever. I don't know. Maybe that's kind of the balancing point is, you know what? This is going to feel like it's important, but in reality, maybe it's not. Maybe it doesn't really matter.

Let's put a fine point on it. It is fucking idiotic if they bracket it. It's just so fucking dumb. Like, what the fuck are they thinking? And I don't understand why they would do that because. Yeah, I mean. the thing, like we've, we've been arguing for years over divisions versus conference, right, which playoff format. And division gets you the rivalries, but conference gets you, in theory, fairer matchups in terms of the seating. And in this, it's kind of interesting, they don't, they didn't have to, but they've decided to go back to conference formatting. And yet they're, if they do it bracketed, they're doing conference formatting in a way that still gets you the unbalanced, unfair matchups. It does. doesn't make sense. I know people always tell me, well, people love to fill out bracket.

Nobody's filling out an NHL playoff bracket in any way that like generates revenue or except. Like we all go and click through the page and then completely forget about whatever we picked. You're like for like a few hours on one day, your Twitter feed is unusable because everyone's posting pictures of their brackets and nobody cares. And then that's it. It's like it's you're not going to be March Madness. Like that, that isn't going to happen. So that's not a. reason to do this. I don't know why they would. But Sean, the part of the part of this I don't understand is that if it's about the bracket, if it's about like make sure that you can, you know, get Bob from accounting on your office Stanley Cup bracket. When we don't have offices, but yeah. But you still

can. I mean, like, all they're all I think the players are looking for is recede after the qualification round. And then you can get your fucking 16 team bracket after that. I mean, it just, it's, it's, it's mind-blowing that they would do this like, uh, bracketed out of the qualification round thing, because already these teams get no fucking benefit for having done so well in the regular season. Like, at least give them a crumb. At least allow them to play the 11th seed instead of having to play the fucking blue jackets or Leafs. It probably all doesn't matter because that 11th or 12 seed under these circumstances is probably going to be just every bit as good as the 8 or 9. Like I, you know, we're, we're already assuming.

that the standings have actually told us which of these teams are better than others, and I'm not convinced that happens, especially with loser points and all this other stuff. I mean, it's, you know, you're going to play a pretty good but not amazing team that, and then you're going to do it with all of this randomness from empty arenas and a three-month layoff and some people being rusty and it's, it's going to be chaos. You're going to have to beat four teams. We're talking about, oh, you know, the play-in round might be five games, and all the other teams are only guaranteed three games, and does that help the playing-in-round team and blah, blah, blah?

Well, now they're talking about maybe the first two rounds of the actual, the quote-unquote actual playoffs might also be best of five? Like, now we're just totally flipping coins. They're talking about that. They're talking about, you know, the first two rounds of me being best of five. Insane. Because of the, how much it would take to get this thing done. Yeah, that's a bit much.

I don't quite understand, I mean, the logic behind that at all. But, you know, it's, it is what it is. Any of the, of the matchups jump out at you as far as what we now know are going to be the first. Let's dial it back for a second. What the fuck do you make of this whole, like, the qualification round is or isn't the playoffs stuff? I mean, it's, it's semantic. I think it doesn't ultimately matter.

Who cares? It's, it's funny that the NHL is like so, no, of course it's not the playoffs. But they're all in the playoffs. So, hey, okay. But where do this? But here's the thing. It's not semantic, because there's a lot of stuff that really matters on this. Like, if it's not the playoffs, then I think the players have a very strong.

strong case that it should be the regular season, which means it should count for their stats, which means, you know, they should be able to use these numbers in arbitration, for example. I don't think, you know, there's a difference between going into arbitration and saying, I'm a 30 goal scorer versus I'm a 28 goal scorer. And I don't think anyone trusts the arbitrators to make the distinction that, well, if I pro-rated over a full season, blah, blah, blah. So that matters. Some of these, in theory, some of these trades that we're talking about with the conditional picks based on whether guys make the playoffs. People could have bonus language in their contracts based on making the playoffs. And my favorite weird one, and this is like super

specific, but as Larry Brooks has pointed out, Brendan Lemieux is still owed a suspension. He got, he did something suspendable on the last. So is he getting the two for one discount for the playoffs? Or is he not? Or is he getting like a like a 0.75 of a game? Like I, I, I, I, I, All this stuff, and I love that they're just, the NHL, apparently their plan is to just not answer the question and just let it sit as like some weird, like in between. And I love that the player, like Donald Fierre is like, no, we haven't decided that yet, actually. Well, I said it in the newsletter yesterday, but another funny thing about it is the Rocket Richard race, right? Because you have Pasternak at 70 games. You have Ovechkin at 68 games, but his team played 69, I want to say.

I think he just missed a game. And you have Austin Matthews, one goal back of them, with the same number of games played, I think, as Ovechkin. And so in theory, if the Leafs-Columbus series goes five games and, like, he could actually pass them both in games played. And, like, how fucking funny would it be, he, you know, wins the rocket Richard on an empty net goal

in game five that they couldn't, that Pasternak and Ovechkin never had access to. Yeah. Like that would be so fucking pissed if I was Ovechkin or Pastor Dac, but that also would be insanely funny if it happened.

So I'm kind of rooting for the stats count as regular season stats, but only if that is the exact thing that happens. Well, I think the issue is they have to count as something, right? They're either regular season stats or their postseason stats. They can't not exist. They can't not be anything. Yeah. They can't, they can't be another column on fucking hockey reference. Like, they have to count for either the regular season or

the playoffs. Correct. You would think so. And like, yeah, like, what happens if we go out there and it's game one of the qualifying round and some team is just really rusty and it's, you know, it's just bad hockey and it ends up being a crazy shootout? And somebody goes out, out and scores nine points. Is that the playoff record for points? Or is it not? Like, there's, there's so many pieces of this. And I think where this is coming from is the league just doesn't want people saying

2014 playoff. Like, I really think that's mainly what the issue is. Because remember, Gary Bettman in the past when people have talked about wildcard play-ins, he's very picky on this, that he really doesn't like that idea because of the sanctity of the 16 team playoffs and blah, blah, blah. And it just feels like somebody's kind of got like a bug in them about like we do not want people saying 24 team playoffs. In fact, when they announced this, the NHL.com website had a headline saying 24 team

playoff and they changed it like half an hour later because obviously somebody was like, no, don't say it. So it's clearly the playoffs, but I still predict. I've said this before. I may have been on the show. I think what they're going to try to do is say that the play in round is the postseason, but not the playoffs. Right. It's going to be the dumbest thing of agitable, but they're going to try that just so that Gary Betman doesn't have to hear people say 24 team playoff, which in theory, you know, makes it sound, I don't know, to his ears, less something.

Well, right. I mean, we're talking about the sanctity of the playoffs and all that shit. And so now you're also starting to see all these people come up. out and try to get out in front of the asterisk talk by writing stories about how actually when, you know, the devils won the, one the cup. Nobody, they, they don't think they need an asterisk and all that shit. No, well, no, I mean, it's happening. I agree, it's dumb.

But also, like, I've seen multiple people be like, actually, I think these playoffs are going to be even more difficult to win. Oh, the mental preparation. You know, all the toughness, you have to resiliency. No, it's, they are more difficult to win because there's an extra. round. Well, like, no, they're more difficult to win because if they're shortening rounds, like your, like, you know, it's, like I said, it's even more of a coin flip. So it, it, it,

it stops being a thing of, like, which team is the best necessarily. And it starts being a thing of which team had its goalie play 10 insane games. The, the, the, the, the, asterisk thing makes me fucking mental. Like, I haven't read Lazarus's piece where he goes back and asks the Blackhawks who won the last lockout shortened cup. Should there be an asterisk. I assume they all say no. But like this whole notion of like the comparison of a lockout seasons to inventing a playoff format after postponing your season for a global pandemic in which you add a round to the playoffs. That's not the playoff round, but it is a playoff round. And you play short in series and you might lose a guy to fucking COVID-19 during the fun. Like,

I know that asterisks have been demonized because of lockouts and Barry Bonds. But you, you throw a fucking asterisk on this season. There's nothing like it that's ever happened. It's fucking bonkers that we wouldn't. Anyways. No, there was a thing that you mentioned about, what the fuck was it? That's gone now. I had it and it's gone.

It happens. It happens. I think there should have been some benefit to the teams that were in playoff position when the season ended. one idea that I heard that I kind of loved was the idea that if you were a wildcard team or a playoff team based on points percentage, you should start your series up 1-0. What say you to that? Yeah, I said it last week. Like, that's the right approach.

You know, that's probably where I heard it from then. That's right. Yeah, no, I can't remember. It's some sports league does this already in elimination tournaments. Every cool idea we come up with, someone immediately is like, actually, there's a European soccer league. And it's like, oh, okay. Well, somebody beat us to it. So it was probably, yeah, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

No, not at all. I had some of the drink last night and it killed some brain cells. And now I remember what I was going to say. Because we did Mizan Pod. And as you know, that's the drunk episode each week. So the designation of postseason and playoff and regular season and qualification round. Part of that for the NHL is, as Sean pointed out, you know, do players hit certain bonuses for games played, stats, whatever, for the playoffs or the regular season? Part of that is also this whole notion of these teams coming back, the games appearing on local broadcast networks, the games.

the games featuring local sponsors. Right, right, right. And in contracts, there is a clear delineation between regular season games and playoff games because you charge more for playoff games. They are a premium. So I think part of the designation here is they go back and say, here are your games to get you to 70 or whatever the fuck number it is to satisfy that contract. So you don't have to credit it towards next year. So there is a bit of that sort of game being played. as far as the semantics for contractual reasons.

And then the other thing I wanted to say that I just remembered is about the NHL.com thing. Do you guys notice they redid their entire stats page for the standings? You know, Greg, I don't go to the NHL.com stats page pretty often. But this is important because what they did was they created a new page that details what the standings are and added points. percentage, which has not been there ever. Oh, my goodness. Before. Yeah, they redid their fucking standings page because they just realized the value of the thing that we've been valuing forever. Yes. As fans. That's incredible to me. This is something that, uh, yeah, with their,

this has been in the works for a little while. So I'm glad to see that. Congratulations to the person who won that battle and got that on the page because that's, uh, that's, uh, that's cool. Yeah. It's, that's, uh, that's, uh, that's neat that they have that now. I'm seeing that, uh, for the first time, right on. Now, maybe, uh, everyone else can fix their standings pages that still, that still list, uh, ROW as the tiebreaker, even though we change that at the beginning of the season. And it turns out not to matter, but I'm still, I'm looking at the, like, NHL.com slash standings

right now, there is both a column for RW and ROWW. Right. Because RW is a second tiebreaker. Yes. So this is... But the other thing to say is, on the actual standings page itself, there is not a points percentage column yet. Right.

Yes. It's just, it's like your landing page. Yes. That you go to, yeah. It's hilarious. If you click through to like the divisions, they don't have it there. It's fucking great. Wow.

All right. First round I'm sorry, there I go again. Qualification round matchups. Round zero. Yeah. Round zero. Should we start at the bottom or the top?

The least compelling or the most compelling? That Nashville series is by far the least compelling. I can't wait to not watch that. Okay. I would agree with that. I don't care. Good luck to Taylor Hall. I hope he does get that second playoff win, but I don't care.

I would say next for me is probably the Islanders in Florida. I can see that going either way. That could end up being a huge shootout just because of the way both teams are set up and have been playing. But yeah, in general, I think the default is that that would be a pretty low-key series. That could be like a lot of two-one games, though,

if Bob, like, if uses this break to recapture his Bobness, like it could be a real low-scoring series. But it's just not sex. It's not sexy. Yeah, I've mentioned before that, like, the Panthers, I think, are a sneaky, if you're looking for, like, a bottom four team to go deep, I could see the Panthers being that team. But, yeah, I mean, we saw this matchup a few years ago, and it was, nobody remembers it. So this is, it's, any of these could be good, but, yeah, I don't. The Islanders like to win two to one, and I don't know, I don't like to watch two to one games.

Would the next on our list be Carolina and the Rangers? Oh, no, that would be... I like that one. That's pretty close to the top for me. That's going to be awesome. You think that's towards the top? Let me throw some out there.

We got Calgary and Winnipeg. That's going to be great, man. That's old school smite division. That's smite division. And as somebody pointed out to me, that series is going to be huge in Atlanta, right? Like, I mean, all the hockey fans, this is the battle of Atlanta. This is it. We're finally doing this.

Oh, that's great. Loser has to move back. That should be the stipulation on that series. You got to leave the territory and go back down to Atlanta. You got to leave the territory. That's right. Liser Leaves Town match. Oh, fuck.

That's so good. Please somebody steal that. No, what am I talking about? Sean's going to steal it. Is Toronto Columbus next then? Is there not a lot of juice to that series? I mean, a Toronto matchup is always going to be interesting, especially under the circumstances,

where it's like, does this even, again, does this even get, like, if Toronto wins, does this get the monkey off their back of not being able to win playoff rounds? And Columbus is a very interesting team because they, first of all, we know what they did last year. We know the story this year with the goaltending, especially, and they were really beat up, and now they're going to be healthy. So I think this is, it's not, there were, from a Toronto perspective, there were matchups that would have been sexier or whatever, but that's a pretty intriguing match. Yeah, I think, I think the big, the big issue with this series is that Columbus is not, like, a

necessarily super fun team. Like, they're, I would say, a middle of the road team in terms of entertainment. So, you know, Toronto is, can be a pretty high-end team in that regard. But, you know, I think Columbus drags them down a little bit. And, but also, and I know there's not going to be a ton of media, but, I mean, John Tortorella dealing with the Toronto factor, is potentially. I wrote about that today. Like any time you give Torrance the chance to be the underdog

and like, fuck man, the Blue Jackets against the Evil Empire, I mean, that's a pretty, that's a pretty meaty, meaty underdog story for him. Which, okay, which of these two matchups do you think is less compelling? Vancouver, Minnesota or Toronto Columbus? See, to me, Vancouver, Minnesota is a team that just always, I know they kind of made a push. I know they're...

Speaking of two-one games. But yeah. And Vancouver to me is like a fun, interesting team, but like I don't, I don't want to see them lose to Minnesota. And I kind of have a feeling that might end up. I also don't want to see Minnesota lose to Vancouver. Like, I think they're both teams that it's like, yeah, we're just better off not really having them in the playoffs. I want to see Vancouver as like an underdog against a better team and trying to run and get. I want to see them win and then play Vegas or Colorado or something where you're like, well, they shouldn't win, but let's see.

This is not a great. I think it's, I think it has the potential to be good because, I mean, you mentioned two to one games. Like, Minnesota is scoring a lot of goals under Dean Evanison. And I wonder if that's going to continue in a playoff. But, I mean, I like, I mean, as you know, I pick Minnesota to make the playoffs. I'll assume that I was right being that I consider the qualification around the playoffs. But I, I mean, I like the idea of Patterson. and Hughes and all those guys getting a crack at the round of 16 against a better team.

I agree with Sean. I hope they win that series. But I'll put them third last and then put Toronto fourth last. Now we come to, here's what we have left in the table. Pittsburgh, Montreal, Carolina, the Rangers, Edmonton, Chicago, and Calgary, Winnipeg. Those are the other other series that we have. Of those four, what's the next? Okay.

I don't know. I would probably put... I agree. I put Calgary Winnipeg fourth. I like Edmonton, Chicago just because, you know, all the narratives that we hate are going to come. The star factor plus the, this is going to be the modern version if Edmonton wins. This will be the modern version of that old urban legend about like Gretzky and Messier walking past the Islanders dressing room after the 83 final and seeing everyone was so banged and then realizing what it took to win. Like this will be, this is Edmonton. playing, you know, the grizzled Chicago team where they all have rings and they all know what it takes.

And Edmonton will either lose and the narrative will be that they haven't figured it out yet, but maybe they've learned. Or they'll win and the narrative will be now they know the light bulb's gone off. And it'll be nonsense because it'll be a five-game coin flip. But this is the story we're going to tell. Yep. Brent Seabrook comeback tour. Let's go. Hey, listen, man, I agree with Sean.

I would put Calgary the next least interesting, and then I would put the Edmondson series, because the Edmond series gives you two things. It gives you the potential for a, it gives you three things. It gives you the potential for McDavid and Dry Settle just popping off and playing out of their fucking minds to win a playoff series, which would be fun. Then it gives you the You've Still Got It Chant aspect of the series of Chicago rising up to win a playoff series against an upstart team. And then if that happens, it gives you a third delicious thing, which, is, as we'll talk about in a moment, the distinct possibility that the Edmonton Oilers could end up with Alexis Lefranier playing on Conner-McDavid's wing for the next 15 years.

Let me say this in defense of my Calgary, Winnipeg pick being more interesting. Those two teams are fifth and tenth in the league from the bottom in expected goals against per game. So I just think that would be a very fun series to watch. And also it would bolster Connor Hallibuck's heart chances, which is the only thing I care about. Oh, God, we got to talk about that in a second. The thing about Calgary and Winnipeg, though, that I feel like we should mention, one, even though we all would love to see an old-school Smite Division Smackdown, I don't know if both of these teams are built for that kind of thing. Like, we know Calgary can mix it up. I'm not sure if Winnipeg can mix it up.

The other thing is that I really feel like out of maybe all of these series this is the one that suffers the most by having no fans in the building. It's hard for me to conceive a Winnipeg playoff game without having a Winnipeg crowd.

It's really difficult for me to understand that dynamic. You know what I mean? Yeah, having those extra 12,000 people in the building would really make a huge fucking difference. Come on, I'm talking about the aesthetics. The aesthetics of the crowd, man.

And same thing with Calgary, the fucking Sea of Red and shit like that. Like the crowds, the crowds, the crowds when you watch like Battle of Alberta games, for example, are fucking dynamic. It's so much fun. And so I think that's really lacking here. So I'll put that below the Edmonton one. So that leaves us one more thing in for the Edmonton Chicago series. Of course. Can you imagine if this comes down to a deciding game and a controversial call goes Chicago's way, the meltdown that's going to happen in Edmonton over this being.

fixed and rigged for the precious league favorite Blackhawks and the and how the this poor Canadian team is getting screwed over and it's going to be fantastic like the staples columns alone will just be mind-boggling like do you remember uh do you remember um in a green lantern how uh didn't see i'm going to stop you right there no the big monster uh grew stronger when he felt the fear of somebody and consumed that fear, I will become, I will become as strong as fucking Thanos to consume that energy from Edmonton if in fact they feel that way. I will fucking devour that energy. It will feed me.

I will burn with the fury of 10,000 suns if that happens because it will sustain me. All right. So of these two series, which is the most compelling? Pittsburgh, Montreal, Carolina, and the Rangers. I like Pittsburgh, Montreal. Well, Carolina Rangers will be fun, especially if it comes down to a game five, and we get to find out if Justin Williams still has superpowers or not. But to me, it's Montreal Pittsburgh. I mean, under normal circumstances, that would be, I mean, Sydney Crosby going back to Eastern Canada and coming into, you know, it's, that alone would be great.

Shea Weber versus, you know, the Crosby and Malkin. but the fact that it's all happening with this backdrop of Kerry Price suddenly being the boogeyman who's going to ruin the entire playoffs. And plus the fact that you've got this bizarre matchup between Pittsburgh, who I think out of all the teams that we've mentioned in this qualifying round, was the team that has the best claim to like, hey, we shouldn't be here. We were good enough to, you know, it's ridiculous that we're having to flip a coin here to just make the playoffs versus a Montreal team where, my impression is half their fan base doesn't even want to be in the qualifying round. They want to be in the lottery. They're mad that they have to, that they're going to play and maybe miss out on a sick, you know, their odds of winning the first pick went from 6% to 2%.

And that's, so I love it. I think that one's going to be, that, that's going to be the one that, and God help us, you know, Montreal wins, which they have a 50, 50 shot of doing. It's, it's going to be so, it's such a brutally unfurably unfurably unfurred. fair, ridiculous result that it's going to be team chaos is already on board. Yeah, it's, it'll be interesting. I agree. I think that's an interesting one.

But again, that could, that could be really not interesting pretty quickly if, like, Pittsburgh goes up to nothing. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like there's a certain amount of intrigue about what Montreal could be in that series, but at the end of the day, they're a 500 team. And they're not that good. They have 19 regulation wins. They stink.

Yeah. They're fucking bad. they're great they're great in theory uh but that no but i'll say this right now that carolet no no no i just i mean they're not they're not they're they're not great but like i'm just saying that like this whole carry price boogeyman thing is is sort of just in the abstract because even his numbers don't back that up in the last three years he also stinks this year um the carolina ranger series is really intriguing to me i fucking love it because i think i think it's going to be the A number one series to watch, like, just in terms of pure entertainment.

Yeah. The Rangers have nothing to play for. They'll get Criderback probably. Panarin is fucking insane. They're like a top seven, like top six or seven offensive team this season. And then you have the drama and goal where you have to imagine what, do they go with the Russian kid or they go with Hank's start to start? Lungwist, you know, I, I think, I think Larry Brooks had to call him today where he was like it should be Lundquist and I'm like I'm not sure I think any one of those three guys you can go

yeah it might be him like he might be the right pick I think I think you start with Lund with Shers and then if he falters you just switch to Hank like that's the play in my mind but I don't but it's tough like when you're talking a five game series it's tough to like get cute with your goaltenders yeah you got to end up like what is faltering in a five like if he gives up four bad goals in the first game back? Like, is that it? It's always like, like, lozo used to argue that you got to playoff goaltending. They should treat it like game seven in the World Series where they just go to the

bullpen instantly. Like one, you know, you have a bad inning. You're out. We bring in the next guy and we just, and I wonder if we see coaches approach it that way. Or does that like just ruin your goaltenders psychologically that you end up going from three goalies to heaven functionally none? Well, I don't know who this Lozo guy is. but I don't like comparisons to baseball.

I agree. Carolina Rangers probably near the top of the pops. We're right there with Pittsburgh, Montreal. You've bought up Connor Holly Buck before. What the fuck do we do about awards? Does this, does this, do I, can I get over the Hart Trophy mandate if they're in the qualification round? This is, for apparently, we need to know this in order to vote on our Hart Trophy, whether

they're the playoffs. You consider this the fucking playoffs. You just said that. So you don't get to say, well, actually, I don't think of... No, Panarin. My personal feelings, my personal feelings are not the official word from the National Hockey League and its Players Association, sir. I want to treat this as the postseason. I want to treat this as the playoffs.

But if it's not the playoffs, as you know, Lambert, you got to be in it to win it. Yeah, and they're in it. Well, that's what we did then up until... Up until a few months ago, it turns out you have to be in it or reasonably close to win it. Yeah. I don't know if they're in it. Connor Hallibuck for Hart. Their bean bag is on the corner of the hole on the cornhole board.

They're not in it. They're in it. Gary Betman says this ain't the playoffs. No, you just said it's the playoffs. You said it. By the way, by the way, I'm not, but I'm not Gary Bettman. Greg, we didn't even talk about the biggest implication on this whole playoffs thing, which is the gambling. All of these people who bet on whichever crappy team to make the playoffs and are apparently now getting paid off.

No, here's the thing. It's funny. So when the NHL announced it's when Betman went on NBCSN, and by the way, I don't know if this happened for everybody else, but it definitely happened for those of us who have YouTube TV. In the middle of Betman's press conference on NBCSN, they quickly cut back to their fucking car show. And we lost about three minutes of Betman speaking and a classic NBCSN move. The Caesar Sportsbook, after he got done, put out word that everybody who held a ticket that was a, will this team make the playoffs ticket? If their team was one of the 24, they won the bet. And then no less than 10 minutes later, they came back, and this is through the ESPN gambling guys that I email with, they came back and said, no, actually, you've got to be in the round of 16.

Oh, okay. I hadn't seen that. bet. I just saw the part that they were paying out. Oh, wow. There are some, there are some sports books that are invalidating the wagers because the minimum number of regular season games played the whole thing wasn't met. So that's the, that's the fine print. So they're just giving back money. But for like Cesar's, as one example, uh, they initially said, yeah, if you have Montreal makes the playoffs, we'll pay that out. But now it's, Montreal has to win their series in order to be a playoff team. So even them, even their

Lambert, like you have this point of demarcation between a qualification round in the playoffs. And as a voter, it baffles me as to how to handle this. No, I think you're just once again, like putting up with this fake fucking roadblock.

If you like, how do you, how do you look at everything that happened this year and go, you know what, I'd love to vote for Artemi Panera, but I just can't do it because the Rangers only got to game for the qualification. Like, if there's any year to, like, actually use your brain about this, this is the one to do it. Well, here's the thing. I would love to use my brain, and I would love

for the qualification round to inform my vote for the heart trophy. Yes. But does it? But here's, this is, this is the answer to your question, Greg, is the answer is it depends on when they tell us to vote. That's it. To me, to me, if, if, I've never been someone who thinks, you have to make the playoffs to get a hard trophy vote. I'm willing to consider it. I don't consider it like a firm criteria. But if I did, my answer is anyone whose team is still alive

when I fill out my ballot can go on the ballot. So if they tell us to vote now, then there's 24 playoff teams. If they tell us for some reason to wait until after the qualifying round and then vote, then they've answered the question for us at that point. But if they're going to tell us to vote now,

I, then, and it's no less ridiculous to me to say, well, I don't know if, you know, Panarin's in, but he might go out in the qualifying round than it is to vote for Taylor Hall because the devil's made the playoffs and then they get crunched in the first round and only win one game. It's, it's, you know, it's the same thing, you know, like if, if this is how you're going to approach it, if the team's still alive, you got to vote for the guy. I'd give, I know that you're like, the. ultimate Connor Hollubuck fanboy, Lambert.

And I would give serious mind to making him the heart winner. Like the thing about Panarin is that Zabanajad had an insane season. He only played 57 games, but he had an insane season. And he didn't play on Panarin's line. So you have kind of the same situation you have Adventin where you have McDavid and Drysidal playing in two different places.

You have Zabanajad Panan. Didn't you get mad that I said Ryan Ellis should be a Norris guy because you were like, well, he missed 20 games. Oh, yeah. But now you're holding that against Panarin for some reason. Oh, no, I'm not. That's a complete, it's two different complete, complete conversations.

You want to, you want to give a guy Norris who didn't even play a fucking fraction into the season. But I'm just saying that, like, Panarin is 20 points ahead of Zabanajad, but Zabanajad has a fucking, like, what is it, uh, 1.32 points per game average in those 57 games, not playing with Panarin, which is an incredible. It's an incredible number. So, yeah, nobody's saying he had a bad season. I just, I don't see how that detracts from Panarin's case in any way.

He's fucking awesome. He had an incredible use. I don't disagree. I'm just saying that that might be, hey, I'm trying to build a case for your guy. Like, as far as him versus Padarin versus dry sidel versus Pasternak. Well, they're all just going to give it to fucking dry sidel, even though he hasn't been in the defensive zone since fucking February. Well, I mean. Which maybe that's not even a good comparison.

I should have said November. but oh man the guy hasn't even taken a shot on goal since March that's right he's been invisible lately

yeah very stupid guy I apologize but Sean I agree with you man like it all depends on when they say that we vote on these things

and what the qualification round ends up being which again like I think we touched on this maybe before we started recording but then didn't really go into it too deeply it's kind of

stunning how many fucking loose ends were left untied when they decided to announce this. Okay. You say that, though, but we're talking about the NHL, right? So, like, it's not that surprising that they were like, oh, yeah, we're just going to, I guess, fly by the seat of our pants and also have four different draft lotteries. But it's also kind of, it's a little bit, I mean, there's the sort of mission accomplished banner aspect of it of being like, don't look at the dirty laundry in the corner of the room that is, you know, testing and protocols and where we're playing and all this other important shit. That's like one aspect of kind of moving ahead with Lucenz, but then there's just like, we don't even know how long the playoff rounds are going to be.

And we don't even know if this is a playoff round. Like, it's fucking, it's kind of bonkers. But you know what? It is bonkers. But I'll say this. They did the right thing by announcing it when they had it 90%. Sure. Because at some point, you got to put some news out there. You got to get your fans excited. There's a lot. There's a lot. a million little details. If you wait until you have everything locked down, you probably go, and it's all going to leak out in the meantime anyway. So I think they did the right thing by getting it out there once they were pretty close. And to get to be first, a lot of people were like wondering which league was going to be first to market with an idea to get back.

And I got to tell you that in doing as many radio hits as I've done in the last couple days and talking to people that don't necessarily follow hockey on the reg, it's been really interesting to see how many people were absolutely astonished that Gary Betman was the guy to bring to like announce this and and to get his sport back before the NBA and baseball. And because there's a perception, I think, and well earned, that Gary Betman is the guy who cancel seasons and not like restart seasons. So there was a lot of sort of like, why was this hockey? How did hockey get the shit together? Kind of, kind of impression from people outside the sport. It was an interesting viewpoint that that was kind of, but again, like, hey, they, they, they, they put the conversation on hockey for a good 48 hours this week, at least until like it looked like baseball might completely fucking fall apart.

And they took the spotlight. So good on them for doing it. And isn't that more important than getting it right, being, being in the news cycle a little bit? Yeah. But this is the sort of stuff that they're, I mean, getting it right is going to be. completely subjective anyways. So unless they try to make, unless they try to make the first two rounds best of five,

which will be clearly and objectively wrong. It's so dumb. Speaking of doing their best to get it right, I want to point out something about the draft, which we'll talk about now. You mentioned before the four-team round robin being a reaction to teams being concerned that they didn't have important games to play

before the next round of the playoffs. And I agree. And I think, I believe in my heart of hearts that the NHL was just being as petty as it could possibly be about these whining teams and being like, okay, you want meaningful games? How about this? A team can jump 12 points in the standings over you

and get the top seat. How about fucking that? How's that for meaning, fucking Boston? So I appreciate that pettiness. I will also look at this NHL draft plan as a reaction to the abject pettiness of the general managers who are like, oh, but what about the 0.001% chance that the same team could win the lottery and the Stanley Cup this season?

And then the NHL's like, all right, you assholes, how about this? How about we make it so the same team can't win the cup and the first overall pick, but the penguins might be able to. Like, I fucking love that this was the solution. to a problem that didn't exist. All right. Do you want to hear my crazy draft lottery take, having had a few days to digest this?

By all means. I think they pretty much got it right. I really do. I think what they've given us is basically as close as possible to the existing or previously existing lottery. It's 15 teams. It's pretty much the same odds. And the ring.

being how do you work in the teams that lose in the qualifying round, which according to Gary Betman means they don't make the playoffs. If you're not a playoff team, you should be in the draft lottery, even if you're as good as the Penguins. I mean, this is kind of the, this is compensation to the Penguins for having to flip a coin

to make the playoffs, despite being one of the better teams in the league. The second draft thing is a little confusing, but it's not super confusing. You know, we don't need a bunch of people on Twitter pretending like they can't possibly understand this. It's not that confusing. No, it's not confusing. I actually like... Strange.

No, I like it. They didn't, you know, 15 teams in the lottery, same as previous years. The odds being stretched, same as previous years. Three teams, you can jump to the top, same as previous years. They basically gave us what we already had and came up with a somewhat creative way to do it, given the one thing I would change, their apparent insistence on doing the lottery before the play-in round. I would just wait, do it after the play-in round, and then you've got no confusion. You just say, these are the 15 teams and we hold the usual drawing. But if, for whatever reason, they can't do that, I feel like this actually was the right way to go. My take on it was you don't need a second draft lottery. You just say, okay, like, we're

basically reseeding the draft lottery after the qualification round. But like, let's say, placeholder team four wins. The draft lottery, the first time around, you just go, whoever comes out of the qualification round with the fourth lowest record or lowest points percentage in the regular season, that's who is going to be picking first overall. Yeah. And that makes sense, but I think what they don't want is the perception that any teams might have an incentive to not win. And I say perception because nobody is going to tank. I wrote a thing about this for tomorrow. No one's going to tank the playing round for a draft pick.

Right. But they don't want the perception. They don't want people going, oh, this Leafs Blue Jackets game five is actually for the loser gets the first overall pick in the draft. I understand that. I understand that. I understand that. What I'm saying is it would be fucking cool if the oilers are like looking at a game five and they're like, but fuck, if we win, Calgary gets the first. overall pick. We don't want that to happen. So we might as well lose because we just, like,

we'd rather, we'd rather screw Calgary out of the pick. I think that's funnier. I don't think it would ever happen, but I think it's more interesting way to do it. But obviously, I know why they would never, ever do that. Why could it be a situation where they could, they could, have asked teams whether or not they wanted to be in the lottery or not, like Montreal, for example. You could be like, listen, you could either be a playoff team or. or a lottery team. And then if they're like, we want to be a lottery team,

then you go to the Sabres. And you're like, would you rather be a lottery team or a playoff team? And they're like, we'll be a fucking playoffs team. Who's going to say they want to be a lottery team, really? Like, I can't imagine that. Just knowing,

I would agree that Montreal, yeah, Montreal should pick the lottery over the playoffs, but they're not going to. This isn't how, even putting aside like Mark Berger-Vans job security and all that stuff, like that's just not how any of these guys are wired.

to say like... Lambert, I go there. And the players would be furious. The players would revolt if you took away a playoff spot because, well, yeah, but we're going to get this prospect who's going to be really good in three years. And oh, by the way, he'll probably come and take your ice time, if not your job. Lambert, I go the other way. I think it should have just been the seven teams that didn't get playoff spots.

I think you're probably right. But again, I'm just saying what's the most fun way to do it. And this is super fun. ruins a like one and five hundred chance to do it is incredible can you imagine if it's like the first the third pick is is ottawa right the second pick is the red wings and then the first pick is a fucking placeholder and then we have to wait like a month before we find out it's so come on man you tell me that's not going to be fun that's going to be fantastic from an equity standpoint it's stupid from an excitement and entertainment standpoint it's like the best draft we've

ever had. You know, the one group I do feel bad for sincerely on this is Red Wing fans, who obviously have had enough to feel bad about this year. But they wind up in the exact same place that they started when we started having this whole argument a month ago with the same odds that they knew all season long they were going to get. And they had all season to wrap their heads around. We're going to have a 20% or 18% chance at number one and, you know, on down the line. And a 50% chance that we pick fourth, which they know well because it keeps happening to them in previous years. But then for a couple of weeks, because the NHL floated out that weird trial balloon, Red Wing fans have had two weeks to convince themselves that actually they deserve special

treatment and they deserve 100% chance at the first two picks and convince themselves that was going to happen. And then it gets yanked away from them like, no, we're going to do it the way we always did it. I can understand why a lot of them are not dealing. with that especially well. Famously, the NHL has it in for the Red Wings. If you remember, Shea Weber didn't get suspended that one time. Detroit fans are pretty, yeah, they're pretty adamant on that. But I've heard from a lot of really mad Red Wing fans who are like,

screw you, we deserve this or that. Well, you don't deserve. You don't deserve anything by having a 30-point team. But I get why it does kind of suck to, like, have that cookie put in front of you and then at the last second be like, actually, you know what, no. We're going to give you back a piece of celery. They deserve not to have to stay up with 10 o'clock to watch their team play road games. That's what they deserved.

It's a tough one out there for the team that won 15 cups in the last 30 years or whatever the number is. Maybe the greatest team in the 1990s, but oh, it's been a real rough one lately. We haven't made the playoffs in four years after making it 72 years in a row. It sucks. A franchise that was actually able to put together an entire wing of the Hockey Hall of Fame as a roster in a pre-cap era. But yeah, tough sledding these days. Anything else that cover on the return to play shit?

I mean, obviously, you know, there's a lot to be decided as far. Oh, let's talk about Hub Cities real quick. Like, Vegas keeps on getting talked about, but nothing's actually set in stone. Edmonton obviously created their next DVD presentation to send to the league or whatever about their golf courses. Boy, the local media up there is really, it's, they're really simping for being a hub city. It's crazy how into it they are. What I love is that, you know, David Staples, who's, see, I got into something with Staples on Twitter, as often people do. I don't really care about the infection rate in Edmonton or Alberta.

Congratulations on not being a fucking hotbed of COVID, I suppose. it allows you to then bring in a bunch of people from New York to come to your province. Yeah, very smart. But like it was his sort of, and I really don't want to go down this road too much, but like the flipping, if you don't feel comfortable, you're more than welcome to stay in your homes in perpetuity. The rest of us will go on with our lives. It's not how it should work. It is not, I mean, it is akin to walking into a supermarket that says that you should wear a mask. being like, I will not wear a mask.

A mask is not for me. It's for all of these scared. The guy who thought a urinal and a sink were the same thing. Like, we're not talking about like the fucking best and brightest here. These are not the smartest people here. Greg, if you don't want drunk people driving around, then stay off the roads. The rest of us who are brave, we're going to get, yeah, it's a dumb. Like, I'm sorry. His sentiment might have been like the rest of us, as in those of us who don't have the

pandemic in our provinces. Like, if that's the sentiment, whatever. I mean, it's a dumb argument to begin with. But like, the prevailing thought from him in a lot of his commentary on this stuff is very much that like us, us and them, uh, aspect of a global pandemic. Yeah, because that's, because that's all that he knows how to write is us versus them. This guy. He's just the smartest fucking guy in the, like, you know, I, I, I, quote, tweeted that that take just because I was like, this is fucking classic staples, you know, you're getting the you're getting the uncut shit with the

staples on this one my favorite thing about that was I my tweet about I hate talking about like Twitter on this fucking podcast and people hate it but like when he wrote that tweet about like the rest of us will go all their lives my my response was did a pandemic write this

and Nina Kimes then reached out to me and said who who what did this person say and I'm like here's what they said and she's like he has me blocked so I couldn't read it I'm like, in what fucking world does David Staples have Mina Kimes blocked in the sense that Mina Kimes would ever give a shit about what David Staples is writing? It's a very bizarre thing.

But anyways, that's cool. I'll just say this. In terms of the Hub Cities, I get that it's important. I get that there's a ton of details. I will say that out of everything going on right now, the ratio of how much coverage this gets versus how much I as a fan. care about it is very high on this one. I don't care. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't. I get, economically you want, you know, I'm not going to be there. Yeah, that's it. It's not going to, and even this argument over like, should some team have home, you know, should, should the hub be in

some team's home area? And is that going to give them an, I don't care. Let them put it in Columbus and let the blue jackets play there. It doesn't matter. There's no fans. The rinks are the same. Nobody, you know, oh, well, they're going to know the boards. No, they're not. Not in a way that's going to make a difference. Here's how you level that playing. Put it where it makes sense. The people, the guys who live there, they have to put up one of the, one of their opponents.

So like, Brad Marsham just has to stay at, like, Ryan Reeves's house. There's a part of, like, the thing I can't figure out. And it's one of those things that the NHL, in the last, you know, two and a half months when we've asked them, has never been able to really communicate to me is how any of these hub cities make any money. Like, they're all bidding for this event to come to their town. It's not like they can build events around it. It's not like they could do a fucking viewing party in front of the arena for the game. Like, how do these cities make money?

If, if, I've not, I mean, I know the hotels make money. I know the restaurants make money, whatever the fuck. But, like, if you're bidding on this from like an Olympics perspective, you know, whatever the fuck. Like, I'm still not quite clear what's in it for the cities that have these events come there. I'm not quite clear on what's in it for cities hosting the Olympics. It seems like a big money loser. But, hey, I'm not a mayor of the... Oh, that's easy, Lampert. Crazy city in Uzbekistan or whatever.

You're paying the IOC to come in and bulldoze your slums to put up a velodrome. So, I mean, it's very important stuff. All right. Moving on, a couple of... Have we covered return to play sufficiently? I think we have, right? Okay. The Red Wings are bringing back Jeff Blaschell. All right.

Yeah. Look. Wow. Everybody needs a babysitter. He signed through 2022. Thanks, Ken Holland. They're clearly not going to be any good next year. There's a prevailing thought that he could be a good coach if he had a good team to coach.

I don't necessarily share that. He does seem to work well with younger players, so that's good. But again, that's all they should care about. That's all they should care about. Yeah. And so, like, having him there for a caretaker is, I guess, fine for one more year. They're going to be shit. So did he was under contract?

Because I thought at one point, we thought he was on an expiring deal. I read something that said Blashell was signed through 2022. But I'll look that up real quick. Okay. Because that's what I'd be curious. Did they actually give him an extension? or was they, I thought there was, they'd talk that there may have been an option involved.

The other thing to think about with the Red Wings here is that at the end of next season, they have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Thirteen guys coming up the books. Oh, okay. And then the next year there's another like four, five, six, seven, eight. Yeah, so, you know, we're talking about a lot of roster turnover. And, you know, the only three Red Wings signed beyond 2020, 21 are currently are Dylan Larkin. Great, sure, no problem.

Franz Nielsen and Justin Abdel Cater. So they're going to, you know, we talk about how many bad contracts they have on the books. That's not going to be the case very much longer, especially if they're compliance buyouts. He signed a two-year contract extension in April 2019, so he signed through this season. So I guess they're figuring why pay a guy not to coach when we're just going to be shitty anyway. It is kind of a fascinating question of when you're a team that is like at the rock bottom of a rebuild, when do you make the change to the coach that you picture leading you back to contention? Like Jeff Blassoll is not going to be the coach the next time the Red Wings win a playoff series.

I would be very surprised. So, you know, do you wait until you've climbed out of the rock bottom and then you tell the guy, thank you very much and you move on? Or do you do like the least it a few years ago where they went out and got Mike Babcock back when we all thought Mike Babcock was a good coach? Even though, and then had him steer them to a last place finish in year one and then turn it around. I don't know. There's different ways to approach it. Like in my head, I have nothing to back this up. but you bring him in the year before you think you're going to be good.

Right. Because isn't that, is that not what Chicago did with Quenville, too? Like his first year, they brought him in midway through. They brought him in, like, and they were good. They were like, they were only like a handful of games into the season. And then basically, like, as the legend goes, Taves and Kane were like, Denny Savard's not working out. But that could be urban legend.

But they went to the conference final. year before, right? And then they won the cup. Am I right about this? No, it was the conference final, I think was the Quenville year. Yeah, but it was 2009 conference final 2010 won the cup. Yeah. Got it. And I think Quenville came in early 2008. Jason Botterill is still the general manager of the Buffalo Sabres. The Begul has announced this through the AP as Betman was speaking on Tuesday. Seven minutes after. Oh my God. The greatest news dump. They're so good.

Ever. On something that they could have announced literally any time. So, yeah, if you're wondering if they've got their finger on the pulse of how this is going to be received in Buffalo. Yeah, apparently they do. It's the ones that they're getting right these days. This was phenomenal. I love that. They acknowledged, and their, Kim Bougula acknowledged that it wasn't going to be a very popular move.

but they argued that consistency is the key here. I love any team press release that's like, okay, you have to promise you won't get mad. That's so fucking funny. And like, look, you know, is a new guy going to come in and fix this overnight? No, you know, is there a situation where, you know, let me pull up their cap-friendly page here real quick. But, you know, there might be some shit coming off the books that, like, they're, oh, yeah, they're turning over most of their roster. I mean, they get out from under that Jeff Skinner contract in, like, seven more years. No, like, I think, I think the idea that, okay, you know, this is, if they're feeling like, okay, they can maybe get a compliance buyout or two, like, see a later, Kyleock Posto, that kind of thing, maybe.

but at the same time, like, you know, the way Bauderl has really kind of fucked up their defense situation where they had, I think, 17 NHL defensemen under contract and didn't trade any of them somehow, and then traded only the wrong ones later. You know, the best part of all this, by the way, is that Lawrence Pillett is going to apparently sign in the KHL because the Sabres just refused to. fucking play him. I, I, I, this was, Brandon Montor or Jake McCabe. I know that this is probably a subject for the mailbag because this is where we, that's where we usually get asked, what is your

worst take? Um, every fucking week. But I was, what is it, Greg? I was very high on real quick. I was very high on Casey Middlestad. He clearly is not a very good player. Is that maybe? They should have kept him in college that year. But is that, they should have kept him in college that year. And we could talk about his development or

whatever, but like in totality, has there been a more devastating draft pick than Casey Middlestad for the development of a team in the last like seven or eight years? I mean, it's hard. Like, there, there probably has been, but I just. There was some real. Yeah, I picked him to win the Calder that year. So I'm just going to maybe recuse myself for any Casey Middlestead. I thought, I thought he was going to be thrive in the same way that Barzell thrived behind

Tavares. That was my theory that year. And he just, he didn't have it. And it could be development, could be whatever. But, like, they drafted him under the auspices, and they developed him under the auspices of that he was going to be, like, the second line center behind Eichel. And he just, he was a bust.

Completely fucked him up. Yeah, I mean, it, it's, you know, he might be the one most damaging. But, like, even, you know, like, Jake Vortan, never really worked out the way Vancouver thought. he was, oh, he's a big boy, you know, all that shit. What's his name? Also from the fucking Sabres. Sam Reinhart never really became what everybody thought Sam Ryanhart was going to be.

He's been better lately, but, yeah. Yeah, but, like, people thought he was going to be, like, he was a, what, second overall pick? Yeah. Best of the Reinhards. Yeah. Yeah, drafted second overall in 2014, like, picked one spot ahead of a young kid. I might have heard of him. Leon Drysidal.

Oh. German fellow. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. The first German. Hey, Aaron Eckblad too. The first German to ever win the Art Ross maybe, I believe, is his current title. That's right.

All right. So let me just say this on the Sabres thing on Botterol. Yeah. I would not be surprised if we go an entire off season and we don't see any major firings in front offices. Just given how compressed it is, how weird everything is, I can see a lot of teams going. this is not the year to make a change. I had a conversation with someone a while ago that kind of changed my thinking on this

where they were explaining to me what, because I'm always like, fire this GM, he didn't make a trade, when? And they're like, do you understand what needs to happen when a GM gets fired as far as just this seismic change that goes through an organization? And I can see a lot of teams being like,

this is not the time to do it. And I can see us starting next year whenever that starts with the same 31 GMs that we have right now. And maybe the same 31 coaches, too. I mean, we might even get through that. Was the person you were talking to Bob Murray? It was not, but probably could be.

No, but let me extrapolate that point, though. Do you think that extends to interim situations? Because the devils are obviously going to hire a new coach. Well, that's, yeah, that's where it gets tough. I don't necessarily think so, although it probably, does help the interim guys a little bit, especially if any of them are willing to take one-year deals, which you probably wouldn't want to. But if that's your ticket to a full season, then maybe you do it.

Yeah, I don't know how that applies to interim guys, but I don't think we'll see. Put it this way. If Botterol's safe, I think that gives you pretty good idea of which way the wind is going. Wait, gun to your head, though, Gerard Gallant, Dallas or Jersey next year? Or Seattle. bonus does in the playoffs or not. I'll throw Seattle in that mix too. Yeah. I'll throw San Jose and that mix too.

I mean, that's the one. That's the one. I'm shocked that Detroit didn't jump on the chance to bring him in when they had it. Yeah, it's weird. All right. Well, we could spend the rest of the show talking about how Mike Tyson showed up on AEW last night to scuffle with Chris Jericho. But that's a limited audience. So instead, we'll have one of our patented.

patented game shows. Separate from the bonus episode game show that we're being forced to do. I know Lambert's excited about that. It's fine. Should also mention in the Puck Superverse on the Patreon, Meas and Pod dropped on Wednesday night. Again, extraordinarily timely, considering the next episode of Top Chef is on Thursday night.

But it was a really fun episode. and dealt with one of the most amazing last chance kitchens that they've ever produced in Top Shift history. Incredible. So join me in Lambert and Ruby for that. Lambert's newsletter continues unabated. And I hesitate to say this because I feel like one member of the panel will chime in with his opinion. But I dropped the five things. I rather enjoyed about the rise of Skywalker upon my second and potentially final viewing essay on the Patreon.

The five things took up a combined 14 seconds of screen time. That's how good this fucking movie is. Yeah. I got to say, Greg, I read that and I enjoyed that piece, but I got to point out that, like, of the five things, I think three of them you didn't actually enjoy. You were just sort of like, I enjoyed how bad this plot twist was, and I'm like, eh, I don't know. I feel like you were stretching. I watched it again on Disney Plus, and I wanted to give it a fighting chance because here's the thing. Like the topic the other day on the big picture, the Ringer podcast came up of, what is the movie that you watched that you didn't like it first but liked upon subsequent viewings? And there's a couple of films like that for me.

The Master is one of them. the Paul Thomas Anderson movie. I didn't really like it the first time I watched it, but then as I watched it a second time, some other things opened up for me in it, and I enjoyed it much more. And in that category of movies is the Phantom Menace. The Phantom Menace, I, you know, like everybody else,

fucking hated when I saw it. Because it was so disappointing, based on the movie that you had in your head, based on the hype surrounding the movie. But over time, I've come to really appreciate some aspects of the Phantom Menace, especially in contrast with some aspects of the rest of the prequels and now the sequels. So I gave Rise of Skywalker a fight and chance to maybe improve upon a second viewing, and it is a terrible movie.

It sucks. It sucks so bad. It's really fucking awful. But yeah, just to give people a peek behind the curtain, on Greg's list was I liked two people who had cameos in the movie. Literally, I mean, I was joking. That's like, yeah. I like, yeah, and the two cameos are, one was Jody Comer, who I love on Killing Eve as Villanelle. It's like one of my favorite television performances of all time. And the other one was Dominic Monaghan, one of the little fucking hobbits from the Hobbit movie. Yeah, one of the things you said in there was like, he's too big for this.

And it's like, has he done anything since Lost went off the air? I don't think so. Well, he was in Lord of the movie. the rings, though. I mean, it was like one of the most successful franchises of all time. Jonathan Reese Davies. Are we going to say Jonathan Reese Davies is too big to have a five-line part in a Star Wars movie? I'm going to say, no. Wait, wait, Jonathan Reese Myers. Is it also Jonathan Reese Davies? I thought so, right? Wait, you talk about the guy who played the fucking dwarf, right? Yes. Oh, my God. Yeah, Jonathan Reese Davies. Or John Reese Davies. It's John Reese Davies. It's John Reese Davies. It's John Reese Davies. God of the Reese Myers played the fucking... Is a different guy.

The fucking Iggy Pop... Wait, did he play the Iggy... No, he played the Bowie proxy in Velvet Gold Mine. And Ewee McGregor was the Iggy Pop proxy of Vobo Blime. No, you're thinking of a young Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yeah, sorry. So, yeah, one of them is Jody Comer. The Dominic Monaghan thing was because I loved the backstory of it

where he made a bet on the World Cup with J.J. Abrams, and that's how he ended up in the movie. Yeah, another stupid thing about this movie is that a guy's in it because he fucking bet on the World Cup against the dumbass who directed it. I love that whole story of the World Cup bet. I don't remember that scene in the actual movie, though. I'm pretty sure that did not happen in the movie you were trying to defend.

But the glut of the column is the part... I mean, the inspiration of it was the part about Exigal. as a concept and how and I truly mean this like upon in in hindsight the concept of there being a Sith planet and what are all these people

doing there for years and what does that society look like? Is there a Sith pub and shit like that? Like I said in the piece like it very much does harken back to the clerk's contractors on the Death Star conversations back when Star Wars was fun and before

it became yelling at people about who's Mary Sue and shit like that. So I came to appreciate the absurdity of that concept and then thought of four other things to complete a column, basically. Yeah, that sucks. And I will say that I will be forever grateful to Rogue One, which is the best Disney Star Wars movie by a wide margin. For retroactively, I guess retconning, you would say, oh, the guy who designed the Death Star, didn't want to do it.

And so he made the... And it's like, good. Now, shut the fuck up forever about that. The industrial engineering. Yeah, okay, we know. The, um... But I do believe that they finally figured out what Poe Dameron should be in the last movie.

They just didn't... They just, you know, didn't do it. So you liked one thing out of the five things that actually... Oh, like, exigal. It's a fucking... It's a fucking... It's a dopey concept that I... Cool.

At one point, at one point the people in Exxical had had to bring fucking paint samples to the Palpatine clone and be like, what kind of racing stripe do you want on these Star Destroyers? It's like, it's the kind of absurd bullshit robot chicken aspect of Star Wars that I've always really loved, which is they introduce a concept and then we have to kind of figure out how that society functions or what these people do on their off time. Like, I really do like that there was a concept like that in this last movie because it's so fucking dumb that I really enjoyed it. Anyways, so where do me? Oh, yeah, there was a game show and Lambert did it. So what's going on? That's right. Okay.

So the game doesn't really have a title yet. All right. Oh, so you betmund returned to played the game show. You know, in my head, I'm just calling it the Journeyman game. but, you know, we can work on. So I looked it up, because I was thinking about this the other day, like last week. And there have been 61 guys, sorry, who have played for at least eight teams since the start of the 1980s. Say it again?

There have been 61 guys to play for at least eight different NHL teams since the 1980s. That's, okay. I'm writing this down. I'm writing these facts down like I'm one of the Shark Tank investors. But you know how they always just start writing shit down? I've never seen that show. I've never seen that show. What?

Oh, you'd love it. I wouldn't. I don't like business guys. I think they're stupid. You love capitalism. Yeah. The perfect show for me. So, yeah, 61 guys played for eight different teams.

I'm, I have sorted them by a metric of when they last or when they last, or when they entered the league and numbered them one through 61 and I'm going to use a random number generator and then I'm going to, so I'll press random number generator. For example, if I said random number generator, 34 and I go down on the list

and I go, okay, this is the guy, this is the 34th guy on my list. I don't want to say who it is because in case it comes up again at a later date. Okay. And I would just want you tell me what teams has he played for? Oh, man. Okay. You go, you go until you get one wrong

and you will each get three of them alternating back and forth. And the one with the most correct teams per guy wins. Oh, so a little bit of Schlempt code, DNA in this. I appreciate it. Okay, can I just ask one question? Sure. Is this like if somebody played on, let's say, the Nordyx when they moved to Colorado. Does both of those teams count? You know what? I just went by what hockey reference said, so let me see if I can figure this out.

Because I'm just saying as someone who has looked at hockey reference on stuff like this, there's that. Like Joe Sackettick, since I know he, like what they think. And then check also guys who played for Chicago or Anaheim, because those teams change names and sometimes, Uh, the black reference tries to, yeah.

Yeah. All right. Let's see. Uh, so it seems like they did do that with, uh, all these fucking guys. Okay. So that's fine. So some of them are seven. That's okay.

You can just sort of flag that as a, again, they are, they are considered, uh, you would, you would say they're journeymen. Yeah. I don't think the difference between seven teams and eight teams is going to really throw off our, right. Internal logic. And, you know, like, you can go, oh, fuck, did that guy play? I know that guy played for Quebec, but did he play for them when they were Colorado as well?

Like, that actually maybe throws a different wrinkle into it. That's a good catch, though, Sean. I'm glad you said that. And then, so, like, the one other rule is if you get a guy where you're like, oh, I'm pretty sure he was on the Blackhawks. And I go, he wasn't. And you're like, oh, fuck. I know he was on the Rangers as well, though. Like, I will give you one extra life that you can use on any one player per.

Okay. All right. So you just, total score across all three rounds wins. All right. That's it. So I will hit the random number. Greg, you go first since you won the, the, what's it called? The frickin.

Pat Falloon? Or the... Pat Flune game, yeah. It's my game. Sean won Pat Flune, didn't he? Oh, did he? I thought you did. Yeah.

I got the first question right, but then Sean pulled it out in the end. Got it, got it, got it, got it. Okay, well, Sean, you get player number 25. And this is a guy who played from 1992 to 2010. And that's Dean McCamond. Dean McCamond played for nine, played for nine different teams. Oh, wow. In 17 years.

All right. Dean McCamond. I'm pretty sure he played for Ottawa. You are correct. That's one. The other one that... What's that? No, no, no. Wait, don't I go to... No, Sean goes until he...

Intually gets it wrong? Yes, and there's no opportunity to steal. Yeah, this is like... Dean McCamond is my guy and then Greg will get his... Correct. The other team that... I'm picturing Dean McCammon playing for

is the Edmonton Oilers You're correct about that as well Don't you don't need to Hey Greg you don't need to be in the background Making it sound like this is easy all right Come on man this is Oh god Dean

Now it gets tougher McCammon Did he He played for Chicago right Like he did That was his okay If it helps you it seems like he played for Chicago on at least two different occasions.

That helps me not remotely, but thank you. Right. Jesus. Yeah. I'm trying to think of like Dean McCamond trades, but I don't. I should also say some of these guys are going to be a Dean McCamond level guy. Some of them are going to be a far. more high profile guy and some of them are going to be guys where you're like,

that guy played for fucking 14 years in the NHL? Okay. All right. Like Dean McCammon. I am now, I am now going to just start randomly listing teams that gives me like a that's fine. McCammon type of vibe.

Go for it. Flyers? That's correct. Rangers. No. So you got four. Okay. Do you want to use your extra life?

I mean, I could. guess again, but I do not have, like, I don't have another one in my back pocket where I'm like, oh, I should have said. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay. The other teams, you said Edmonton, Chicago, Ottawa, and Philadelphia, right? Yeah.

So the other teams were Calgary, Colorado, St. Louis, the Islanders, and the Devils. Oh, was he in the, was he in the Chris jury trade with Calgary? I'm pretty sure he was. He was definitely... So I even said I was looking for a trade and it was right there. That would have got me too. He was Jerome McGinla's linemate the year. He scored 52 goals.

Wow. All right. I probably would have said the Islanders, but then in hindsight I was probably thinking of Dean Chenowth. Well, Greg, I'm going to hit the random number generator. It's now 1 through 60. Okay. And you get player number 45 who, this. This player played from 1988 to 2004 for eight different teams.

And his name is Ron Tugnut. Ron Tugnut. Ron Tugnut is the fellow. The Tugger. Yeah. The Tugger. All right. So Tugger played for the Ottawa Senators.

That's right. He played for the Quebec Nordiques. That's right. You've named his two most played for teams. He played for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Correct. Now it gets a little bit dicey. You play for eight teams, he said?

He did. Jesus Christ. I'm going to... Oh, do you play it for the Penguins? Pittsburgh Penguins. He did. He played seven games for the Penguins. All right, so I got to four.

You have tied him, yes. And so then I'm going to go with the one that I was going to go with, but I kind of remembered in being a penguin, so I'll just go with this one and throw it out there. Then I'm just assuming it's... Oh, wait. Did he play for Edmonton? Played 29 games for Edmonton. Fucking A, right.

All right. Now I'll go with the catch-all. This is like in the Douglas movies game when you say JFK because everybody was in JFK. I'll just go with the Flyers. No. Nope. Another team like that, though, he definitely did play for the Dallas Stars. The Dallas Stars of the mid-to-late 1990s were a...

big time. This is where a veteran guy goes, kind of a place. The other teams, let's see here. I already forget which ones you said, but one of them is the ducks. One of them is the stars.

It was the Canadians. He was on the Canadians. Oh, wow. I would have never missed that. That's great. I was just impressed that Greg was like, well, he obviously played for the blue jackets. Like, yeah, yeah, obviously.

Of course, we all remember those early blue jacket teams. Yeah. Either you were in on David Verrobuni or you weren't, okay? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Sean, you get player number 14. He played from 1998 to 2019.

Oh, fuck. Eight different franchises. And his name's Matt Cullen. Recency bias. All right. Recy bias. Yeah. So don't confuse him with John Cullen

Yeah that's the thing you know like it's I'm going to say okay so working back from the teams that I definitely remember him playing for Pittsburgh that's right and Minnesota That's also correct There we go And that is the full list of Teams that I actually remember He played for eight teams? That's incredible.

Yeah. And none of the, I guess this is kind of a hint, but none of the fake, like, well, he played for both this team and after it moved. None of that. Okay. He earned his, all right, I'm going to say, was he on the Carolina Cup team? He, I don't know if he doesn't look like he was. Oh, no, he was on that. the Carolina Cup team. You're right. Yep, he was.

Okay. Point being used on Carolina. Yeah. Yes. Fuck. I just kind of forgot what year that happened. So I was like, uh, really straining. Are you, I'm looking at his page right now. Are you on three? Yeah.

Because I think, I think I would have pulled four, but that would have been it. I'm, I'm out of options. So I'm going to, I'm going to guess on this one because it seems to fit. a pattern so far in this game that all of these guys played like half a season for Ottawa. So I'm going to throw Ottawa in the mix. She played 21 games for Ottawa. Beautiful. Okay.

And I'm terrified that one of these guys, one of these guys, like, I'm going to lose because they played for the Leafs and I have no recollection of it because that happens to me a lot. But I'm pretty sure Matt Cullen didn't. So, um, we're going to, we're going to throw out a guess. Uh, Matt Cullen, he gives me like an LA Kings vibe. No, he shouldn't. No, okay.

No, okay. All right. Then, uh, yeah, I'm, and I will weigh my extra guess because I'm clearly in guess. Would you like to use your extra life now that Greg has given you a close though? No, not, uh, I, I will pass because I legitimately don't know, but. Who is the, I think it's San Jose or Anaheim? It's Anaheim. He played most of his early career with Anaheim, which I had no idea. Did he? No recollection of that.

Yeah, he played 427 games for the Ducks. Let's see here. Sorry, Ducks fans. Pittsburgh, Minnesota, and Carolina. Florida, Nashville, and the Rangers. I remember the Rangers, but I wouldn't have gotten most of those. You know what? I feel like Florida is another one of those teams that you should just throw out their

that's your Hail Mary's Yeah All right So that's another four We're going to hit generate here Number 43 Greg You're going

You're going backaways here But this is a guy You get the first real bonus Where this is a guy who played for 10 teams From 1988 To 2010 This young man's name

Matthew Schneider 1988 1988 to 2010 Yep it's Matthew Schneider All right, so I would Would you crush this? I would

Probably get my standard three And then start guessing But yeah All right So Matthew Schneider played for Detroit Yeah Played for Montreal That's right

Um I think he Didn't he have a little bit of time With the Um Did he have a little time With the Islander? He did, 78 games.

Yeah. Did he have a little time with the lightning? Not seeing the lightning on the list. Okay, I'll use my lifeline then. All right. Was he a leaf? He was a leaf, 115 games of it. Came over in the Wendell Clark trade from the Islanders.

As we all know. I feel like he might have been a duck. He was a duck, 65 games. I feel like he might have been a Ranger. Yep, 155 games. Oh, man. All right, smoking. I feel like he might have been a king.

You're correct. All right. How many teams is that? It's enough, Greg. It's seven. You're done. You're up to seven out of ten. Seven out of ten?

Was he a panther? No. Okay. All right. The teams you missed were, and it was like a combined like 80, 70 games for the thrashers, Vancouver Canucks and Phoenix Coyotes. Oh, I would have never guessed he was a Canuck. That's crazy. Or a thrasher or a coyote, apparently.

Okay. Random numbers. All right. Random number. Ooh, Sean. this, who knows for sure, but 46. I'm already like three behind, I think. This is desperate measures, all right.

And you get the bonus of this guy played for nine teams, not just eight. And this fellow's name played from 1985 to 2002. His name's Grant Ledyard. Oh, Christ. Eish, whoof. Good. Lord. Wow.

Grant Ledger is just hearing the name is giving me like a really strong. Do you play for the Hartford Whalers? No, that's it. Oh, hold on. Okay. I get my, Gray got like six Matthew Schneiders off his lifeline. So I'm going to, uh, all right.

Yeah. And I think that you could, if you really put your mind to it, I think you could pull this. Is that like some. hidden hint or something or is that I just I just think you you need you need to drill down and remember Grant Ledger

Yeah because he did have a couple of significant runs Okay Sure he did Um uh uh grant ledyard

I There are like eight Um interchangeable defensive defensemen that I kind of get mixed up from that era

and he's definitely one of them he has strong Gerald Didick energy you know what I was thinking of Gerald Didick so you've just throwing me right off because I was going to say like he got traded from screw it

I think this guy got traded for Yerke Loomay at some point so give me the Canucks that's one and was it It would have been the Dallas Vancouver. That's correct as well, yeah. Okay.

All right. All right. Now we're cooking. Did he play six games for the senators for no really good reason? He played 40 for the senators, yeah. Really? Wow.

For no really good reason. For no really good reason. Okay. I'll dip in the bag again. The Panthers? Nope. Okay. I'm out.

I'm out. Buffalo, man. I'm out. I'm going to Grant Ledger's hockey reference page right now. Buffalo, LA, the Rangers, the Capitals,

the Bruins, the Lightning, and that's it. That's all of it. I question whether Buffalo was a run. That is, but yeah, that is good.

Not none. It was parts of four and a half seasons. He may have been included on like NHL 93 or, 94. Yeah, and he was not, he was not traded for Yerke Loomi, and I'm looking at Yerke Lumey's page, and I have no idea. So somebody help me out on what miscellaneous second pairing defenseman trade I'm

trying to think of between Vancouver and Dallas, and it may not even have included. I don't know, but he was traded from Buffalo to Washington for Callie O'Hansom. There's that. You know what? I'm looking at like Gerald Didick once got traded for Craig Ludwig. So that might be what I'm thinking of. Something in that ballpark. So not Lou May, but Ludwig and not great.

So other than having both players wrong and one of the teams, I think I pretty much nailed it on that one. Now, Greg, you already won. You're up 12 to 11. Oh, geez. Brilliant. After two rounds here. Do you just want your third guy here? Because I probably do.

Of course I do. I want to see if I can run the category. Go throw all your top guys out on the power play with three. minutes left and see if see if I don't take a number for next game go ahead this guy played from 1999 to 2012 for eight different teams his name is Josh green who the fuck is Josh green that's what I'm saying baby that's that's the game there are there are multiple Hall of Famers on this list and there are also guys where you're like could not have hooked us up with a Paul coffee or someone like that I'm I'm like Googling who is Josh Green question mark

right now. Let's put it this way. This, oh my God, he played like 300 games. He played, 341 games over nine years. His,

he played, his longest stint with one team was 90 games. Eddie played for eight teams. Look, Greg, he named some fucking teams. Yeah. I don't, listen,

I hate, I hate, I hate to do this. Is it G-R-E-N or G-R-E-E-N-E-N-E? Just like the collar. Okay. Edmonton Oilers. That's right.

Okay. It's like I kind of remembered there being a Josh Green on the Oilers. Hey, got to catch them all. Ottawa Senators. You're wrong. Nope. The Edmonton Oilers were his second longest team. He played 88 games there.

You miss the Rangers, the Vancouver Canucks with whom he played 90. The Kings. Islanders, the Washington Capitals, the Calgary Flames, and the Anaheim Ducks. I'm looking at this. He was, and I have no recollection of this player existing. Sorry, Josh. But he was in the Oliocan and Ziggy Palfi Blockbuster. And he was also in the deal that brought Eric Brewer to Edmonton, which ultimately begat Chris Pronger. So that and the fact that He played an average of six games per every team in the NHL. That's, uh, that's impressive.

I will also say, I will also say the name was ringing a bell. I scrolled down on his page. He played, uh, parts of two seasons for the low lock monsters of the HL, which is why I know who this guy is. There it is. I, I, I would have, I would have felt real bad if like he was a devil. I didn't remember him. But, uh, yeah, that is, that is a name.

there are some names you've there are some names you've not heard in quite a long time and then there are some names you're pretty much sure you've never heard before that was your penance for getting Matthew Schneider that was yeah

Matthew Schneider was the hockey game show gods were coming back at your heart on that. I got the luck of the draw on that one I will say by the way there are two guys on this list who have played this season but that's it

there's only two So we have another 55 to get through So we can play this game for a while Hey Patreon voters next time Best of 55 me versus Greg Let's do it make it happen There you go through all of them All right

Speaking of Patreon We're going to go there and do our bonus episode Thanks to everybody who chimed in on our question today We've run out of time I'm sure you have very good opinions And I'll retweet some of them We should mention the NHL has sent out a press release congratulating Leon Dries title for the Art Ross

Alex Ovechkin and David Pashtenak for the Rocket Richard So there you go Tuka Raskin Yarosophilak for the Jennings and the Boston Bruins for the President's Trophy So I guess we have closure on the regular season Congratulations to the All the way down, baby

Congratulations to the Bruins on being the potentially first President's trophy winner to ever be the fourth seed in the playoffs in their conference Gotta love it, folks. So there we have it. All right, so that's the show for this week. Join us on the Patreon for the mailbag.

Join us on the Patreon for your bonus episode, your C-Polt-Lay for the month. And yeah, thanks for listening, everybody. You guys are awesome. And talk to you soon. See you. Bye. Bye-bye.

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