Puck Soup - DJ Canner

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about the coaching change in Ottawa, the potential coaching change in Buffalo, the goalie market, fun stats, and more. Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off), Nuts.com (nuts.com/puck), Hatch (hatch.co/puck), Factor (factormeals.com/puck50) and Betterhelp (betterhelp.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And another week, another coach gets fired. This time, it's DJ Smith in Ottawa. He gets fired. That came out of nowhere, didn't it? I know. Nobody saw it coming at all.

This is a classic Mike Babcock situation. You know? Yeah. Now, I saw a lot of people, I guess, just to get this out of the way, being like, ah, they did it a week before Christmas. Okay. That's, I mean, what did, what? It's, at this point, this was almost like a mercy firing.

A million percent. To force him to, you know, go another two weeks just so you could fire him on boxing day, I don't think is any less. And he could get booed the whole time. Yep. You know, like. And every day it would just be like, they got to fucking fire this guy. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Yeah. It was a bad situation. And look, there's been, you know, a lot of stuff in Ottawa the last couple days about DJ Smith being like a genuinely good, decent guy that everybody liked. And, you know, as far as I'm concerned, he's still a youngish guy. He might be a very good coach in the NHL and another opportunity at some point down the line. But this had to end. Like it was, it was getting very bad here and all.

It's ridiculous. It was ridiculous a month ago. Yeah. You know, this to me, and, you know, I think, I think you said something about this. Like the whole stability thing. This is supposed to be a team that was going to at least compete for the playoffs, which, you know, we always say this. That's a loser mindset. I think that more often than not, you're going to set that as your goal.

You're going to end up looking stupid. you know. Yep. But like the whole stability thing, it's like if this was supposed to make the play, this was a team that was supposed to make the playoffs. They did the Bruce Boudreau thing a couple years ago where it's like, yeah, we waited like three weeks longer than we should have torpedoed any chance we had of meaningfully competing for anything.

But now that the change has been made, we're also going to be maybe, I mean, last night's game aside, we're going to be arguably a little too good to get like an actual good lottery pick. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the timing here was a mess and it's been well documented that the situation was at ownership

slash management. So Anderlar and Steve Steyas didn't want to make a change because of they were pre-examination. reaching stability and continuity and that that had come from the players that when this new group took over, they had been told by players, hey, please, you know, there's too much going on, too many side shows, too much chaos. We just want to calm things down a little bit.

Right. Which on, you know, on one level, sure. You can begin to understand it for sure. I don't think when you look at the last five. years in in Ottawa that you stability is necessarily something that comes to mind even though they headed at the GM and the coach levels had their hand forced a little bit on the GM side didn't you know certainly didn't want to be hiring a new full-time coach without having a GM in place that all makes sense but I I can tell you the the vibe here in Ottawa it had gone from a huge chunk of

of the fan base wanting to see a coaching change. Right. I mean, that was the case over, I mean, recent years even. I was going to say like two years ago, people were like, okay, that's enough of this, right? And it had, because that messaging had gotten out there. And clearly it had come from ownership management that they had put this out in in the media, that this is why we're trying to take the patient approach. You had started to see here in Ottawa some fans not just turning against the management, for that in what is supposed to be their honeymoon period, but saying, you know, like, why are these guys not doing anything?

To it's starting to trickle down to the players where you were starting to see fans going, like, what are we babying these guys? Like, is stability more important than winning for these guys? They'd rather just have a stable season where you miss the playoffs by 10 points than get jolted out of their comfort zone. And so it was bad. And it went too long. And it was, it's now a situation where you almost look at it. And there's three ways that this can go. Number one is they make the change and boom, everything falls into place. And they make the playoffs this year.

Right. Great. Awesome, happy ending. Jacques Martens, a hero. he gets a statue. I think we can agree fairly unlikely, but... I believe the number I saw from Dom this morning was 6% chance to make the playoffs. Okay.

So, and, you know, that 6% doesn't factor in the coaching change directly. So maybe you want to be more optimistic. But, yeah, not a great chance. Option two is they play better and they get back into the race, at least, and have the sort of season where they play meaning. full hockey into the spring the way that their fans were told was going to happen, which is good, but then you're going to have exactly what you just described with the Canucks Travis Green Boudreau switch a few years ago, where you're going, the fact that you

waited those extra few weeks potentially cost us the season. Yeah. Or the third option is they don't get better, and then everybody goes, uh-oh, maybe it wasn't wasn't the coach. Maybe there's a bigger issue here. Because this is a roster that on paper has lots of talent, lots of young talent, but it's not

so young anymore that you're just factoring in improvement continually. A lot of these guys are in their prime now. And there's nobody, there's no big prospects on the way. There's nobody on the roster now who's young enough that you're thinking

they're still taking big steps other than probably Jake Sanderson. So this is kind of what you got. And if this version of the team stinks, now you're like, wait a second, are we just Buffalo? That we do the rebuild. And the metaphor I always use, you finally throw it into drive and you hit the gas and the tires just spin out and you don't go anywhere. Yep. It's a very, I think that's a very likely outcome at this point. because there's a, okay, there's a couple things you've got to say about this team.

One, I think that, I think it's fair to say that DJ Smith didn't get the most out of all the players on the roster. Some players look really good and other players look fine, but other players, like you said, like Brady Kachuk's a great example. I don't know how much more juicer squeezing out of Brady Kach's potential. You know what I mean? Like at this point, he's a good play. He's a really good player. But he's not like, you know, one of the great game changer.

Like he's a, he's a 30 goal power forward who kind of plays a throwback style. Yeah. Seems to be a good leader. But he's not. For example, Matthew Kachuk, right? Like there is, there is a qualitative difference. At this point, if he suddenly became a 40 or 50 goal score. that would be an unusual development path.

A hundred percent, yeah. And like he's a good, he's a player with really good underlying numbers, but I've seen enough people who are smart say, you know, there's maybe good reason to be a little skeptical there because he's just like getting a lot of rebound chances, but jamming them into just pads

and they're not actually being converted and all that kind of stuff. That's an argument just, you know, like where the numbers in the eye test meet that I think is interesting. I don't know how much stock I put into it. But again, like, he could go and score an extra like five or six goals a year. But I would be surprised. I've also, I should just say that I've had a few conversations with smart people who have suggested that, you know, he's, he's very well liked here in Ottawa. He's considered a great leader.

I've had some people kind of raise an eyebrow and go, is he actually a great leader, or is he a guy who knows how to look the part? Like, he knows when to smash the stick. He knows when to get in the meaningless fight in the third period, which maybe isn't that meaningless. Absolutely, yeah. But sometimes it could be.

But I love him on my team. Everybody. Right. I'm not here to shit on Brady. But I don't know if I'd love him as the number one. winger on my team trying to win. Bingo, correct. And the other thing to say about this roster is that there are a bunch of guys who kind of stink, veteran guys who kind of stink, who get brought in because it's like, well, we've got

to take a step. We got to, we got to bring in a mediocre veteran. And, you know, like, you don't have to be a genius to be like, oh, this Vladimir Tarasenko thing. This could really go sideways for them. Hasn't worked out. Yeah. Full stop. Low risk yield, but has not... Yeah, but like, you know, that's $5 million you could have spent on someone who's actually good, you know? And more to the point, I guess, this is a problem on defense where guys like Travis Hamannick are just like taking up a roster spot and not fucking going anywhere, right? Yeah. There's just a few too many...

Dominic Kubelik's another one, I guess. but there's just a few too many guys where it's like yeah that that guy just like you know you you keep trying to square peg this round whole of well you know how he's perceived that's where we'll play him and then you play him there and he stinks at it right and then the other thing is uh the whole corpus salo thing right like he's been bad we don't have to sit here and slice and dice this he's been bad full stop and And I don't think I'm telling tales out of school here when I say this is one of the worst goalies of the last several years, right?

I looked it up. This doesn't count. I don't even know if he played for him last. I did not watch that Senator's Coyote's game. You'll be shocked to learn. I don't know if he played last night. But going into last night, he was like a minus 31 expected goals. A goal saved above expected for his career, which is one of the worst in the league over that time, which tells you two things.

One, he's consistently bad. And two, teams without better options keep playing him, right? He has, I want to say, three seasons ever above expected. And they were his first two and last year. And every other season, he's been in the league since 2015. every other year he's been a negative goal saved above expected guy and the senators brought this guy in going this is our fucking solution not a thought in their head

oh then maybe this isn't going to fucking work out for us and look that though that was Pierre Dorian all those moves you just mentioned so yeah absolutely yeah and Corpsollo wasn't was the goalie last night he was wasn't his fault but you know he gave up four goals How do you think Jacob Chikrin's feeling right now? No shit.

Going back to Arizona with the team where he's like, I want to play meaningful hockey. I didn't hear, I don't think he got too rough a reception, but there ain't no need to kick a man when he's down, right? Yeah, I also think like, you know, there aren't a lot of coyotes fans that are going, how could he make that decision? You know what I mean? We get, we have to get it if we're, but the thing you said about it, it wasn't his fault last night. That's the, that's the Junus Corpusallo, like career thing you say. Yeah. Right.

Oh, if you just put this guy behind a good team dot, dot, dot, dot, it happened one time ever, man. This guy's been in the league since 2015. He played whatever, 15 games. behind the Los Angeles Kings, it happened once ever. And again, I had someone saying to me, well, you know, we've never seen him on a good team before except for his run with the Kings. And I looked at the senators and I said, I don't think we're about to see one. Well, yeah.

You know. And also, I mean, when you were a starting goaltender and you're like, yeah, I mean, all my teams miss the playoffs by 10 points every year. It's crazy. It's like, yeah, maybe. That's exactly right. And as you say, those are all Pierre Dorian moves. And some of it, you're like, okay, well, Dorian had to go from like managing an owner who was very involved in player decisions and shouldn't have been, all that stuff.

Okay, we'll give him pass for the first like six years of his career or whatever it was, right? Everything he did after that didn't really indicate to me that he was like a guy who had a firm grasp on how to build a good hockey team, right? The summer of Pierre, how'd that fucking work out, you know? Sorry, which summer of pier? Well, that's exactly right, right? For consecutive summer of pierres did. It was so funny to me that Ian Mendez used the term Lucy in the football when he was like, well, they had to do this, right?

Like, Doc, you were the one trying to kick the football for three. Like, not you, like, Ian, but you, like the Ottawa Senators fans who every summer were like, well, this is it. You had to understand, I don't know how many years you wanted to, like, be Charlie Brown here, Ottawa Senators fans. But, you know, you got to look in the mirror at some point with this, man. But my point is, Dorian, like, things got inverted when Dorian got fired because of the losing the first round pick thing, right? Yep. Because it was supposed to be.

that was around the time he was going to fire DJ Smith, bring in another coach, get another nine months out of this before he got fired. And then it just didn't work out that way because he made a stupid mistake like two years ago or whatever, right? And because of that, that is, I think, kind of what's going to be seen is this is what ultimately cost the senators their ability.

to compete this year and certainly their ability to tank and get that first round pick this year. You know what I mean? Like, if Dorian doesn't get fired when he did for the thing he did, he got fired for, we're probably not having this conversation right now because they fired the coach a month ago. Yep. And I mean, gee, there is, there's a really fun altered history to be written probably about if this sale hadn't dragged on so long. Sure. And if the new ownership had been in place in like, say, June, do they, do they fire Dorian then with someone, you know, with with, with the GM having a full off season to, I don't know.

I guess, I guess we won't know. What are your thoughts on Jacques Martin being the guy to come in and with Daniel Alpherson. It's the classic thing. Don't be mad at us. We brought the back the guys you like. Remember that? It was only 20 fucking years ago.

Yep. No problem. You like these fucking guys, right? And again, all the other senators fans are like, yeah, all right, great, perfect. We love these guys. And then there's Lucy holding the fucking football again. And they're like, okay, I'm going to take a couple steps back. Daniel Offerton yelled at a guy briefly on the bench last night.

And people are like, this is what. They needed. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, look, I mean, Jacques Martin has been a very successful coach. Hasn't coached in 12 years. I was going to say, when's the last time Jacques Martin climbed behind a bench? He had the two and a half years with Montreal from 2009 to 12. Yeah, okay.

Great. 11 fucking years ago, man. Yeah. Had all his success in Ottawa before the cap era. So, I mean, this is just, look, we all like. like the guy, but if this was, you know, how many times do we say it about Mike Babcock or whoever else, right? You go like, yeah, but is this guy still the coach for the modern game? You mentioned Ian Mendez. Ian dug into it and we're pretty sure Jacques Martin is now the

oldest coach in the history of the NHL. That seems impossible. He is 70 years old. 71 as a matter of fact. 70, maybe 71. His birthday is October 1st, 1952. He is 70. He is the only coach in his 70s. The previous, as best we could tell,

because we did some research on it, as best we can tell, Scotty Bowman coached until he was 69. He had previously been the oldest coach, with the exception of Al Arbor, got one game. Remember when he came back for his 1500th game? Ted Dolan stepped aside.

He was seven. But as far as actual coaches, you know, full-time or interim in this case, but holding down the job, Jacques Martine is the oldest coach in the history of the NHL, we believe. Like, it's funny because I was like, well, surely Rick Bonas is like 800 years old, right? And I looked it up and he's like three years younger than Chuck Martin. There are an enormous number of guys that, uh, there have been an enormous number of guys. that there have been an enormous number of guys that you look at and you're like,

oh, they were so old. And then you find out they were like 45 at the time. Right. The way people used to age is very crazy. Yeah, and this is also for me. And another record, the longest gap in years between a first game, because as a head coach, he made his coaching debut.

Do you even want to guess when Jacques Martin debuted as a head coach? Again, I have the page open, so I know that the answer is 1986. With the St. Louis Blues, which nobody even remembers. He had the mustache and everything. Yeah, as Ian says, his coaching debut was in Los Angeles, and his opponents included Marcel Dion and Tiger Williams. Now, I'm just going to look up very quickly. The experience is great, but I, this, and the other thing is,

Martin, especially in Ottawa, those pre-cap senators teams, he was the defensive wizard, right? Right, right, right, yes. He was, those teams were stacked with talent and boring as hell because with Jacques Martin, like, even in that dead puck era, you're like, this guy, it goes over the top for defense and low scoring. Right. Right. Now you've got a team with a ton of talent that's always making these careless mistakes and blowing leads and people are like, yeah, this guy is the perfect guy to come in. I mean, he is perfect in the sense that he knows the team, he knows the organization, the fans like him, he's available, and he's not any threat to be like the long-term coach.

Right. You don't have, the deck will be nice and clear for the new GM in the summer. For sure, yeah. But, I don't know. And certainly last night. was not a great. If people didn't say the senators were up three. Well, he's going to get a system in place.

They're up three, one with ten minutes left, and they blow it and lose in regulation. Yeah. Did you see the winning gold? I did. Travis Amonick basically kicked it into his own net. Yeah. Yeah. It's right.

No, as I mentioned, he's one of these guys. You've got to keep him around. And that's why he has a no trade clause. By the way, I just looked it up. If Jacques Martin's career as a coach was. was an NHL player, it would be the 12th oldest player in the league right now. So there you go. Jonathan Quick is about eight months older than it.

Okay. And let's see here. Evgeny Malkin is about, no wait, Evgeny Malkin is about three months older than it because he's July 31st, 86. And so Martin would have started coaching in October 86. I might have done the math wrong. Apparently they let DJ Smith run practice on Monday. They did indeed, yeah.

Right after. Yep. Why not get your money's worth if you're the senators? You know what I mean? Sure. What is Martin, does Martan like come into the dressing room and just be like, forget everything you just learned? Don't do. Yeah, it's like when a judge tells the jury, like you get, objection, okay, you ignore that last part.

Yeah. But no, you know what? I was wrong. It was, it was skaters, not goalies. If you add in goalies, it's like the 13th or 14th oldest. So, anyway, yeah, look, I'm really curious to see who, like, I don't even care who the new coach is, really. I got to know who the new GM is. Because I don't know, man.

I don't know who's digging them out of this hole. I know that a coach isn't making the fucking difference in all likelihood. There will be no shortage of people wanting to try as a GM because... Sure, of course. Good, you know, good situation. The cap isn't great, but it's not a long-term mess. Got a lot of good players signed to very nice deals. You've got an owner coming in saying he's going to spend money.

That will be interesting to me, too, is do they, you know, do they go out? out there and go after one of the bigger name coaches, knowing that that's going to cost money. You can't be the 30th in the league in terms of paying for your coach. Or maybe you can, and that can work because you can find someone who's young and fresh and comes in with some new ideas. But it's going to be interesting to watch because, you know, again, like if it doesn't turn around now, the GM is gone. the coach is gone, the owner is gone, all the people you blamed for holding back this clearly

and obviously playoff worthy roster are gone now. I don't know. I got a very funny tweet from somebody who's like, I can't wait to listen to your show and listen to you, be optimistic about the senators while your co-host is right about everything. It happens a lot, doesn't it? Shout out to that guy. I'm used to it, man. It's not...

It really is this simple. If they weren't in this division, I could maybe see a path toward the playoffs at some point in the last few years. But they are in this division. And so if you want to blame Gary Betman and whoever comes up with the alignment thing for, you know, what is it, seven years

without the playoffs in Ottawa, something like that, if you want to blame someone else, I totally get why you would. because I you know there there were probably times where if the divisions weren't laid out like this or whatever they they could have they could have made the playoffs but again just making the playoffs they let fucking more than half the league do it for most of those seven years so who gives a shit I just making the playoffs to me again loser mindset what did you say in your your column that you wrote about them that like some teams aim for the stars and some teams just aim for low earth. Yeah, no, like, it's the, it's the thing about like, shoot for the stars and even if you miss, you'll, you'll land on the moon or whatever the fuck that saying is, right? And it's, and there are so many teams in the league that are like, if we can just get out

of like Earth's gravitational pull a little bit, we'll be in great shape. And it's like, if you want, if you want that to be your mindset, you know, that to me is a team that's like trying to line the owner's pockets and not actually do anything in this league. Yeah. Which, I mean, the senators probably were that team and now they're supposed to not be. And look, the new ownership has been in place for months. Yeah. It's not, nobody was expecting them to reinvent the entire franchise.

But I do feel like they, they misplayed their hand in preaching stability to a fan base that doesn't want, stability because stability has equaled a whole lot of losing. Yeah, and, and, you know, it happens a lot when you get a new owner, right? Where you're like, okay, now everything's going to be different. Yeah, now we got it. And so far, that just hasn't been the case. And I want to talk about another team where it looks like they're about to fire the coach. You think?

As we recorded this morning, that hasn't happened yet. but it really feels like you give up nine to the Columbus Blue Jackets. You sent me the outline last night, and one of the line items was, you know, is Buffalo going to make a coaching change next? And I was like, oh, man, do you think? Maybe. And then the funniest thing happened, they played the Columbus Blue Jackets. And to be clear, I'm not like a genius.

I sent this, well, I mean, I am, but, you know, I sent this, like, in the, middle of the game. They were already down like six to nothing or something like that. So, you know, I didn't, I wasn't that like, well, of course, we all know Columbus is going to light them up like a fucking Christmas tree. You know, I, I didn't, I didn't have that taking place. I, I was deep into it at that point. So, yeah, I, the only reason I did it, honestly, is I saw multiple Buffalo fans on my Twitter timeline last night going, Let's fire this fucking guy. That's it. I'm done with this shit.

And I would have thought he'd get a little more leeway. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's... But... It's a weird one, right? Because he came in replacing Ralph Kruger, who was a fascinating hire that just absolutely did not work in Buffalo. Comes over back from the soccer world.

and really, in hindsight, was almost the worst possible choice because he just couldn't get anything out of the young players. Yep. And Jeff Skinner, of course, was, you know, that was an ongoing story too. And Granado comes in, and suddenly, you know, Skinner's good again.

You start seeing the young players develop. You start seeing the optimism. And so it was almost, like the gap was so huge that they you know how do you not love this guy sure except then you get to a point where you you just step back and look at his actual record and you go wait a minute I'm sure that this is I mean he's got to have one of the worst records of the loser point era as far as uh 480 years in like you you're under five That's, you know, that's DJ Smith territory.

One season above 500, obviously, that was last year and they still finished fifth in the division. 91 points. And when you're like, oh, look, if they could just get to 91 points again, we're going to be a bit like, no, man, that sucks. 91 points is a horrible number, actually. And, you know, I think last year, they kind of took a huge leap. they won 10 more games than they did the year prior. They jumped from 32 to 42. That's good.

That's a good number to jump to. And if they jumped to 52 this year, that would be fucking great, right? But here's the problem was last year, they scored 293 goals. That's a shitload of goals to score. They gave up 297, right? And you went into last season going, well, their goals, are like Craig Anderson and Ugo Peckalooka. They're not exactly setting the team in front of them up for success with those

goalies. They also shot 11% as a team last year, which is a quite high number. So the goal scoring was going to come down, but the hope was that the continued maturation of the young players, your Casey Middle stats and your Tage Thompson, so, you know, tages missed some time, I guess you would say. Not as much as I think, I just look. He's only missed, quote unquote, only missed nine games. That's a pretty good chunk of the season, but it's not like, you know, a huge number.

But he's seemingly taken a step back in addition to being injured in that time. Dahlene has been good but not great. Owen Power hasn't taken the huge step forward. and this is the crucial part. Everybody's counting on Devin Levi to turn things around for him. Not so much. They rolled the dice on that. Yep.

It has not worked. And yeah, you're right. A lot of the big steps forward that we saw last year, like Tate Johnson being the obvious example. Like he is, he looks like. A guy who no longer feels like the sort of franchise level star that you thought maybe you had. Yeah, and here's a big reason why. Do you want to guess what his shooting percentage was the previous two years?

Higher or lower than now? I'm going to say. The answer is 15 and a half percent over the last or over the previous two seasons and now he's shooting 10 percent, which is still a good number. Yeah, like I mean, we remember, right? But 15 is crazy. Nobody's, nobody does that. and then he signed the extension, and everybody was like, oh, there you go. Classic mistake.

And then he was phenomenal. He shot 16%. Yeah, last. Yeah. So I, yeah, I don't know, man. What do you do you get, do you need a goalie? Is that just? Well, we'll talk about that coming out of the break.

Let's out of the break. But I, you know, again, it's a team where they were like, okay, we need to accelerate the rebuild a little bit. We need to, we need to go out. We need to sign Connor Clifton and Jordan Greenway. Well, I guess they traded for Jordan Greenway. But like, we're just going to go out and get solid vets who are going to, who are going to improve. Eric Johnson is going to improve our defense.

Is that, is that right? Are you sure about that, man? And, you know, I think, again, those, like, those guys aren't guys you plug in and go, okay, this is going to allow us to take the next step. Those can be like, you know, you add those guys to your lineup as your, as your five, six defensemen, and that should be a different story. But, you know, you just can't count on those guys to be like, and these are the guys that are going to turn it around for us. And again, obviously they've had other injuries. Jack Quinn has only played one game, it says, here. So, you know, that, you get a guy like that back and maybe that helps a little bit.

But yeah. Once again, you're just looking at it and you're going, okay, they're scoring an average number of goals and they're giving up a shitload. Well, you can't win like that. So this is a kind of foreseeable outcome for these guys. Do you think if they make a coaching change, is this a team that brings in one of those veteran names that has just shaken free? Like if you're, you're Jay Woodcroft, yeah.

Yeah. Are you calling up Craig Baroubaer or Dean Evanson or someone like that and saying, you know, this is, because they are in a situation with presumably stability in management with Kevin Adams, where if they make a change, they don't have to go the interim, think about it, we kick the can down the road till the summer route. You can, but I don't know, does Terry Bougoula need to go drill in? well for Craig Barrube. Yeah. Well, I mean, hey, speaking of owners where they came in with a lot of optimism and what was it? We're going to win a cup within five years or something like that.

Something like that. Signed, you know, signed all those great free agents right away. Yeah. Fantastic. You know, but that's the thing, too. It's like, maybe Kevin Adams isn't the genius he was made out to be. Well, I mean, the goaltending gamble. really did feel like a gamble.

And it was one you could understand. Totally. Yeah. No, I was with it with that. I was like, for lack of a better option, why not? Yeah. And what you didn't want to do. I thought it wasn't going to be this bad.

Yeah. Because you didn't necessarily want to, just to use an example, since we were just talking about Ottawa, of going and signing a Corpusalo type guy to a four-year deal. Million percent, correct. And now you're in the, you know, Spencer Nights. Sergei Bavrovsky situation where you're like, why did we do that? But I also feel like you need a plan B in your back pocket because not just for your season,

but for Levi, you know, for Levi, you think you don't want him like, hey, sorry, man, we got to throw you up for 50 games to get shelled and get blamed for the season because we don't have anyone else. Right. So, anyways. Yeah. I think, like I said, once you see it on Twitter of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, okay, we got to fire this coach.

I don't know how many more weeks that last. Like, these aren't, like, I don't follow dumb Sabers fans, right? Like, that's just not how it goes for me. And when those, so, like, when the smart Sabers fans were, like, you know, legitimately, like, I want to see these guys succeed. And I don't think this coach is the guy to get it done. I don't know. I think you start the clock on someone's getting fired. for this.

Yep. When you take, when you feel like you took a step and then it feels like you took a step back to where you were before, that's a problem for somebody. And the GM's not going to be like, and it's, of course, my fault to you later. I resign and disgrace. So. Agreed. Yep.

So there you go. Why don't we take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about the goalie stuff and, you know, other things that are going on, I guess. This week's show is brought to you by Hatch. And I have to talk to you about this device. The Hatch Restore. They sent me one, and I can report that it has pulled off a miracle. This thing is doing the impossible.

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Our next sponsor this week is game time. If you listen to the mailbag on the Patreon, you will hear or maybe have already heard Ryan and I having a discussion about the PWHL, the new women's pro league, is starting up in January and how it turned out to be pretty tough to find tickets to that league. It's a hot ticket, lots of sellouts already. I just opened up Game Time, took a look for the Ottawa team, and sure enough, I've got some options there, some tickets available through the GameTime app. So I know we'll be looking when it's time to take my family to a game. You shouldn't have to worry when you buy tickets to your next big event or small event.

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How much this team needs a goalie? And needs to trade for one specifically. The Edmonton Oilers, let's just start there. What did we say the scale was? One to five, let's say. Three and a half, I would say. Yeah. and maybe increasing, but it feels to me like they've got three guys who could all be okay.

And so trading for another guy who could be okay, I don't think makes that situation better. Who is the third guy you think they have who could be okay? I'm really curious about this one. Jack Campbell, not the guy. Didn't he make seven saves in an HL game three weeks ago? Yeah, he's getting yanked out of HL games now. To me, that's not an option. but like Stu Skinner and I think Calvin Pickard's their backup now.

They just need those guys to be like roughly average and they've been a little below that even of late. Now, I guess the flip side would be of all the teams on the list, they I think are the highest as far as the how big a disaster would it be if they. are not good the rest of the Yeah, I think that's right. It's not a huge gap. I would say between them and, let's say, a different team on this list who's in Canada.

But, yeah, I mean, for them, they don't need a lot. They don't need a lot from the goalies to win. But what's interesting is they are kind of on the razor's edge, right? Like they're, they're in a situation where, you know, they won eight or nine games in a row, whatever the number was.

And they're still, because they keep losing now, two games below 500. Yeah. That's unbelievable to me that they could, that they could be in that position even after a huge fucking winning streak like that. Like, you know,

every time they won, you were just like, well, surely this gets them back into the playoff race. And it's like, no, they're still below Seattle, a team were again.

And they're talking about like... It was like they won eight in a row and gained like one point on Vancouver over that stretch. That sounds about right. And Vancouver wasn't even all that good. It's just this is how you dig yourself a hole. They dug a huge fucking hole. And here they are. It's very tricky because, again, with like each successive loss, you're like, okay, that's two points.

We're just straight up not getting back. And, you know, the last two games they've only... scored one goal, but, you know, it's been an all-out assault on the, on the opposing team's goalies in these losses. They're, they've lost their last three games despite out-shooting opponents, 127 to 84. Yeah. Right.

When you look at these teams and the, like, what they have to make up and the pace they have to play at, basically every game you lose in regulation, you need two wins. Mm-hmm. That's right. You need to win your next two. And then you look back and say, okay, we train. right in water for those last three games. Right.

You lose two in a row in regulation. Suddenly you've, like it's, this is man, the stupid loser point, you know, this lie that it keeps playoff races closer. And meanwhile, if you're chasing, man, does it ever, it feels like it's the exact opposite.

Right. I mean, I don't know what, what's the current, like, math on what the playoff cutoff is. I don't know either, but let's say it's whatever, 93 points or whatever. That means the Sen. Or the Oilers need 66 points from their last, what do they got left? Like 50-ish games. That's doable for them, but.

It feels doable for sure. But it's also a 108-point pace. And they have to do that starting right now. You know what? bump him up to a 3.75. That's what I was going to say, brother, let's go. That would have been my number. I guess I didn't say my number.

But yeah, I would have said 375 trending toward 4. Do you guys see the way he manipulated me into agreeing with him without even telling me what his view was? Mm-hmm. All right. Let's stay in Canada. Let's talk about Sean's beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah, I would say the Leafs maybe a two just because Joseph, the wall has looked good and he is going to be back.

He's got the high ankle sprain, they say. Although that was really weird. I've never seen in my... A high ankle sprain looked like that. I've never seen a high ankle spray happen without any twist or butt. We're told high ankle sprain, which is not great, but...

And the Leafs, unlike the Oilers, the, you know, partly because of the loser point have banked enough points that I don't think it's a panic situation. Totally. I will say, however, that I saw a lot of people in the last few days going, well, look, maybe Martin Jones is everything you need to bridge the gap to Joseph Wall coming back. And it's like, look, if Joseph Wall is like your guy, I say more power to you. I don't know if I agree with that. Here's one of the thing I definitely don't agree with.

Martin Jones is the solution for any problem you have in net. I know he had like two good games in a row or whatever it was, but like, come on, man. Let's be serious here. This is the Corpusillo thing. Yeah. What does history tell us versus what are you pretending you can hope for? I think, you know, Martin Jones is the perfect veteran third guy for exactly this situation to come in. Ilya Simpsorov does not

inspire much confidence, but I do think Jones and Simpsona for a month when you're already It's feasible that they could be fine. A lot of points that you probably didn't deserve, but this is the nice thing about about banking points. I think I'd go a 1.5 on the leaves.

Yeah, I'll I'd go closer to two just because I don't know how much I trust. wall, but, you know, he's been fine so far and, you know, obviously very limited. He's only got, wow, 26 games in his NHL career. Yep. But his AHL numbers are fine, you know, or even better than fine, I guess you would say. So maybe you can have some hope there, but like also you're going to be, you're going

to be willing to pull the trigger if you're Brad for Living to get a little more help as needed. because again, like, making the playoffs isn't the question for this team. The question for this team is getting out of the first round or more. And I don't know that you can count on a battery of Wall Samsonov and Jones to get you there. That's all. That's fair. The Carolina Hurricanes. I would say four, if not more than that.

This is a team. Stanley Cup aspirations that is not banking as many points as they would need to feel comfortable. Well, I mean, you say that, but they have 37 points right now. They are doing better in the standings than I think the way they're talked about

what it would kind of imply. Okay. They're in a playoff spot and like by points percentage or by you know, they're the seventh team in the east. They are a couple teams in front of them have a game in hand, but they are within striking distance of the Flyers and the Islanders for second and third in the Metro.

So it's not, and that, and to be clear, that's with 880 team goaltending. This is a good team. And the way they're talked about, I think it's because their losses are like kind of so ugly. When they lose, you're just like, Jesus Christ, you know. So I don't know, I don't know that it's really bad, but it's not good. And pending whatever, you know, Freddie Anderson comes back as. And it sounds like Freddie Anderson is not necessarily a guarantee to come back.

Although I did see some stuff Yesterday or the day before That it's like could be soon actually He could be back soon All right Okay if Freddie Anderson is coming back Healthy Then yes

I would Significantly dial down my My 4 out of 5 Because that becomes the guy That you're going to add Like Obviously Ranta's been a mess

Um If Anderson's not, if Anderson's not back by and playing well by the deadline, like, or at least playing healthy by the deadline, then I, I go back to my four for this team. But if he's expected back, then yeah, I'm, I guess I'm more comfortable than. Here's what it is. He's about to start skating soon. Okay. That's what, that's what it says.

It's a good skill to learn. Hey, you know, I, I can't disagree. But I put these guys. kind of in the in the Edmonton category of they don't need they don't need world beating goaltending obviously they're they're a playoff team with some of the worst goaltending in the league so they don't need to be unbelievable in net they just they just need to be able to get by obviously they're not doing that very consistently right now again i think that i think that good against Vegas that's what i mean there are games where where the goalies look

more than adequate and there are games when it's like have these guys ever like skated before to your point earlier have these guys ever put on a pair of skates before and there's almost no middle ground um so so to me i just uh i'll go i'll go a step or two below you i'll go with like three and a half three and a quarter um but it's not like they're giving away a million points like the like the oilers are that's all um but they they i would say they need help uh the Jersey Devils, speaking of teams that need help. The New Jersey Devils, um,

again, just like sub eight nine, their 889 is a team right now. Vanichek has been, I would say worse than that, although I believe, uh, he, he looked pretty good last night if,

if memory serves. Yep. Um, and it, they, they didn't lose to the flyers in overtime because of him. Let's put it that way. Um,

so yeah, I, I, this feels like an untenable situation for a team that, again, pretty high expectations. Very high expectations. And again, not banking the points they would need to make you say, hey, write it out. They are in a playoff spot by points percentage.

No, that's not true. The capitals would be ahead of them. But I mean, there's way too much talent here to be a playoff bubble team. Yep. Absolutely. Especially when you're looking up at, you know, you're looking up at the Rangers. That was a tough series last year. I don't know that you want to go into the playoffs with what they've got.

And again, like Buffalo, they, everybody saw this in the off season. Totally. When there was, you know, not to say that everybody saw this and said if they don't get a goalie, they're going to be a playoff bubble team. But people said this is the missing piece for this team. And everybody was talking about, oh, they should trade for Connor Hallibuck, they should do this. That's the, like, you know, during that time, and obviously Hallibuck was never available, was never an option for these teams. But when it looked like he would be, those, it was Buffalo and New Jersey, where the two main teams that you said, they should be, they should be making the call.

And neither team, you know, again, he wasn't available. It's not like there were, you know, we say it's all time with goalies, right? Like, it's not like there's five Vesna winners out there. Teams are just trying to give away and, and nobody's taking them. It's hard to go out and find guys. But clearly in the case of the devils, the gamble has not worked. I think that's, I think that's, like, obviously right. But I just want to say that I think Akira Schmidt,

Because of what he did in the playoffs and down the stretch and everything last year, I think a lot of people said they should be fine even if they don't upgrade the goalie. The lack of the lack of definitive like this guy's great goaltender, like it was going to be what held them back from maybe being like a true cup contender unless Schmidt took a step or showed, you know, that he could continue to be whatever he was last year, like 9, 10 or whatever. There's a great story in the playoffs. That's what I mean. Like they were just like, okay, this feels like their guy. He was 922 in the regular season and 921 in the playoffs last year. If they, I don't think it's reasonable to expect any goal to be 920 year after year or whatever. But like if he was 910, we would not be having this conversation right now.

Right. Like, and he hasn't been. He's 980, 897. Sorry, if he was 987, they'd really not have a problem. feels unsustainable to me. I think that's right. But 897, again, that's just flat out not good enough. I think the league average is like 907 or something like that right now.

I might be wrong. I might be even a little high on that. We'll find out in the third act here. But yeah, to me, again, this is like the Oilers. Every passing day, you're just like, they've got to do something. soon. So I'm going to say my number here is a four. Okay.

Because it's just not proven that that Schmidt or Vanichick can be, is it Schmeet or Schmidt, I can never remember. But him or Vanichick can be like consistently, reliably good in a way that maybe you would hope for with like even Stuart Skinner. You know what I mean? There's just a little bit more track record with Skinner than Vanichick even. So did you give a number for these guys? I have four.

Yeah, okay, great. Maybe even four and a quarter. Now, this is the last one that I do want to touch on here because it's only interesting insofar as it doesn't feel like Cam Talbot can be a 926 goal the all season, right? And Phoenix Copley is now injured and he's been bad when they've used him. Now, what's the nature of the injury? How long? Phoenix Copley. I think it's week to week.

I don't know the full details, but I believe I saw the phrase week to week bandied about. I'm going to say 1.5 on the Kings. They're an excellent team. They banked a ton of points. They're safe. And, you know, is Camp Albaq going to be 920 all year? Not necessarily. I wouldn't hold my breath.

on that, yeah. But also, who are you going to go out and get that's going to, I mean, they got Dave Ridditch as their veteran third guy. Yeah. I mean, I guess if Copley was going to miss long-term time, then this is a team where maybe you want to go and get a backup that you feel confident in if Talbot falls off. But they're fine. They're relative to what else, you know, again, if Connor Hellibuck suddenly shakes free and I'm the Kings, I'm going, we win the Stanley Cup this year if we go get this guy. But it's not a guy at that level isn't happening. So I think they're fun.

Check the standings where the Winnipeg Jets are. They're not trading anybody anytime soon, right? Don't see that. Wow, yeah. They went a lot and they went a lot in regulation, which is important. But yeah, so I really only wanted to talk about the, the goaltending situation, vis-a-vis teams that have, like, legitimate playoff hopes. And the reason I didn't mention Detroit in that is they went out and they got their goalie of the future here. They signed Michael Hutchinson.

Yeah. They're all set. That's always fun when you get those like, oh, they still make that moments? That's right. Yeah. Wow, he's still. I can't remember who, but someone on Twitter yesterday called him a, called him a, called him. like the cockroach goalie.

Like he's just never going to not be in the league. You can't get rid of him. Or maybe it wasn't Twitter. Maybe it was the Discord. I don't remember now. I don't want to misattribute these kind of things. But I do want to talk about the Red Wings because they are a very interesting team right now.

They started the year 5-1-1-1. Then they went 3-5-and-2. Then they went 6-1. and before tonight's game at Winnipeg, they are one, five, and one in their last seven. Yeah. As somebody who starts to form opinions about teams on a slightly delayed basis

and it takes me about a week to get my thoughts together, I would really like it if the Red Wings knocked it off. Sure. Because every time I form a firm opinion on them, I look and I'm already wrong. Mm-hmm. As opposed to being imminently wrong, the way that I usually am.

Well, here's what I think. think here's what I think I would say about the Red Wings overall. They have been outshot over the course of their 31 games. Not by a ton, but like enough per night that it's, they're getting outshot. You know, they don't generate a ton of shots. And when they have success, it's because they, as a team, they're shooting 11.7% right now. I think that's the most in the league. let me double check that very quickly.

But they're shooting 11.7%. That's a very high number, regardless of whether it's the most in the league. No, it's third in the league behind Vancouver. Of course, I should have known that. And Dallas. But mostly they're doing it on the power play. When they are putting the puck in the net, they're scoring a lot of power play goals. They're not like lighting it up at five on five in particular.

They're, you know. So the question I think is, what is this team, right? And right now they, it looks like in the standings, if I can just pull up the standings very quickly. They are below New Jersey in the standings, but also like, you know, they have a decent enough points percentage. They have a better points percentage than Tampa, for example, that they can pretend they're right in this, you know? And that's what the Eiser plan has turned into, folks. They are, they are shooting to be a bubble team this year. And they're a bubble team.

So they did it. You know, you can talk about, oh, they're up and they're so up and down when they're high, they're high, when they're low, they're low. Let me ask you this, Sean. Can you think of any teams who are in that division who in recent years, years are like going on crazy runs in like November and December. And everybody's like, oh, here we go. Here it is. And then they just stop doing that.

Can you think of any teams that that's happened to in the last several years? It has happened to both Buffalo and it's been a while since Montreal did it, but it used to be their trademark two. Yeah. Point is. Ottawa usually waits till the last month. Yeah. They're like, so then the locals. They beat seven fourth string goalies in a row and go.

we figured it out. Yeah, I call that the Columbus syndrome of like, I just remember when I first got like into hockey writing like, you know, from 2008 to 2012 or whatever. Every year the Columbus Blue Jackets were 14 points out of the playoffs, but we did win eight of our last 12.

You know what I mean? And it's like, okay, yeah, because nobody gave a shit against, about playing you. That's right. and, uh, but that's just enough that like, the locals there could be like, and they're ready to take the step next year. And then, of course, they didn't.

Oh, wow. What happened? I don't know. Um, and so, you know, the, it won't be, it won't surprise anybody to learn that the problem for the Red Wings, in part is the goal. They, they don't have a deep enough roster, obviously, but if you're looking at one thing in particular, uh, it, is, It's the fact that, like, especially lately, they haven't been able to get a safe. And again, you go into the season with Vili Huso, Alex Lyon, and James Rimer as your goalies. Like, I think being a little bit league average overall, you may be lucking out a little bit, honestly, you know?

I mean, Rhymer's been good. Ryan's been actively good, but he's also injury. to be the guy. They went out and got a couple of years back because you're, which I think was a reasonable move, right? Like when a young guy who has shown some signs of being a strong NHO goal, he shakes free

because the job wasn't available in St. Louis, got him at a reasonable price. Sure. But has not worked yet, and he's hurt now. So they, I, yeah, now talk me about Patrick Kane. Because you're telling me he's not good anymore. And you also told me that he had decent numbers,

and I looked at the numbers, and I was like, oh, hmm. One goal. He's scoring a little bit, right? I goal, 4.7 games, minus seven, which is a bad stat, but also at the extremes. You don't want to be minus X, where X is the number of games you play. Yeah, so when he's on the ice at five on five, well, first of all, they've been outscore, the Red Wings are running a shade under 16% in goals when Kane's on the ice. That's not good. Obviously, that'll come up. But they're getting outshot by a pretty wide margin and outchanced and all that kind of stuff. The expected goals is actually not, it's a little above 50%, which is, I think you would say,

surprising. But, you know, I think that when you bring in a Patrick Kane fresh off hip surgery, you're like, okay, this guy wasn't good defensively to begin with. Can he keep up with the opponents? And, you know, I haven't looked too deep into like who he's playing with and that kind of thing. So maybe that has something to do with it. Again, I think there are a lot of like mediocre to submediocre veterans. that Steve Eisenman sought out to round out the roster. Is he not playing with De Brinkett?

I kind of assumed that... I'm saying defensemen specifically. Okay. But to me, I think this is like maybe almost a worst case scenario of like what's reasonable to expect for... Again, he's not going to be running at one in every six goals is a Red Wing's goal when he's on the ice, you know? Um, but like him being around like 41, 42, 45% like shots for, C4, et cetera, I think that's a totally reasonable expectation. Um, and when that's the case, you're gonna, you're gonna be in rough shape. Um, previous two years, it's, you know, ranging between the 30s and mid to high 40s. So. I think if you take the, you know, the average of the last three years, he's probably like a 45% underlying numbers guy. And that feels about right to me, even with De Brinket.

But they can outscore those underlying numbers because they have a lot of talent in theory. But I just, I'm just curious to see, you know, how much they can put him in a position to succeed, given his limitations and the roster. limitations at this point, you know? Yeah, that's fair. Good to see Dylan Larkin back. Yeah. I mean, like, that was one of the scariest. I, again, like, I was reminded of, oh, yeah, he's skating off under his own power,

and they're basically, like, dragging him off the ice. Like, it was, that was, that was really scary. That was ugly. I have seen a couple of Red Wing fans point out that the senators are now, oh, and since that game. Yeah, I mean, look, you can point it a lot of long stretches of the of the senator's schedule. You're not going to believe how bad these fucking guys are. Yeah, I know.

Good point. Yeah, I also, if I was the Red Wings fans, I would not be pointing out how bad other teams have been lately. You know? Very fair. Oh, you're 0.5 or whatever. Okay. How have you been since Dylan Larkin? Oh, you're one in four.

Congratulations. You know what I mean? But yeah, to me, I think this is just a natural byproduct of what? Again, what they were shooting for as a team this year of like, we want to be around the playoffs. You know, we want to be playing meaningful hockey in March and April. If that's your goal You know my hat's off to you You're doing it

But I don't know I don't know why that would be your goal Mm-hmm Yep That's fair Anyway why don't we take another break We'll come back I get a little quiz for Sean

And some other news So here we go This week's episode is brought to you By Better Help We're almost there Almost at the holidays How is it going for you as far as the gift giving, the planning, the shopping, all of that.

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Sean, just about some, I like to look at statistics over the course of a season and all that kind of stuff. There's a lot of really interesting stuff going on compared to recent years, I would say. And so the quiz is very simple. I'm just going to ask you a straight up question, very straightforward question about various stats, such as is the average penalty kill in the league right now above or below 80%? percent? Usually it runs in the low 80, so I will say above. It is currently 79.5%.

Wow. All right. Yeah. And I believe that's right around where it was last year. Again, the reason I ask is that was a little surprising to be. I would have said that that was, you know, going to be pretty straightforward. But what this is, I didn't write this down as part of the quiz, but you, I think you would be shocked at who the team with the worst penalty kill percentage is,

given who they have on the roster. Oh, I don't know. The New York Islanders. Huh. Isn't that weird? 72.04%. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Isn't that crazy? I would not have guessed. Now, they are scoring a shitload of shorthanded goals as well, as Simone Holmstrom has, I think, almost all of their shorties this year. I don't know if you saw, if you're aware of this trend. It's got like five shorthanded goals so far this year. Not bad. That's as many as Alex Ovechkin has total.

That's a fun stat I saw last night. Yeah, that one. That's an interesting one. All right, which team has allowed the fewest goals? So this is, in theory, going to be a team. that hasn't played as many games. Sure. And obviously has a good goal to me.

Is it Boston? It's Los Angeles. And even if you go by goals per game, they're the first by a, they're first by a pretty wide margin. But they've allowed, you were close. Boston is number two in goals allowed. And the Kings have allowed 11 fewer than the Bruins, although, as you say, in two fewer games played. But they're running away with this number right now.

The Jennings Trophy is theirs for the taking. How many teams have zero shutout so far this year? I will say five. You're very close. It's six. Okay. Can you guess which six? There are two that will be, I think, a little surprised.

San Jose, I would have to imagine Buffalo? Nope. They have one. One. Columbus, Anaheim, Chicago. Columbus and Anaheim is correct. Chicago is not. The other three are Montreal, New Jersey, and Calgary.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I mean, New Jersey is standing out there is... New Jersey and Calgary or two, where it's like, oh, you would have thought they would have had the personnel to make the difference. Is the league average save percentage up or down from last year? It's down again, I think.

Down by 0.01. It was 904 last year, now it's 903. The trend is, yeah. You know what, though? That's with goalies in the, like with goalies in the net. Overall, like if you count empty netters, I think, yeah, it's exactly the same, 899. So, very thin margins, but again, trending down.

It was 907 the year before last year. So I wonder if we're getting to a point where. You know, we're in the 890s again. I think it's possible. It'd be great. It was fun as hell when that was the case. What's the last time it was in the 890s? Let's see if I can find that really quickly.

I don't even. 95.96 is 898. Yeah. Usually the last year where everything was before the devils and Panthers ruined our beautiful sport. Is power plays per game? up or down from last season. Power plays per game. We have any crackdowns, actually.

I'm going to say slightly down. It's actually up pretty significantly. Really? It's 3.07 last year and it's 3.25 now. That's kind of interesting. That doesn't. Yeah. It does it with all the hits from behind.

You would have thought that's a lot of looking the other way. Yeah. Which team has the most. most short-handed goals. Oh, is this St. Louis? St. Louis and the Islanders and the flames are all tied with eight. So it was a bit of a trick question. St. Louis has been like their shorthanded goals versus their power play goals has been

their power play goals are finally plus one on short-handed goals. But if you count short-handed goals against, they're actually back down below. They're a net plus six on the power play. Oh, man. And Calgary is actually plus seven on the power play. They've allowed four shorthanded goals. Well, you know what? Because when you give up a shorthand, I mean, it's almost like a power kill.

Have you heard that? I've heard that, yeah. By the way, most shorthanded goals against the Carolina Hurricanes, they've allowed seven so far this year. They've scored six. So to be minus one in the shorthanded goal stat is actually not that bad. But anyway. How many teams have power plays that are running north of 30%? Boy, even this early in the season, that's up there.

I'll say two. It's three. It's the Rangers, Devils, and Lightning. You wouldn't have thought the Devils would be up there. Not necessarily. Not given where they're at. What's Edmonton at these days? Edmonton is running at their fourth in the league at 27.27.

Oh, wow. Okay. Which we're all going pathetic. That sucks. It's fourth in the league. Fire the special teams. Yep. I think they're way ahead of you on that one.

Which team is last in total shots on goal? Again, the reason I bring this up is it's a surprising answer. Okay. Because I was going to say Ottawa and knowing that they're 28th and shots on goals played. Okay, what's a team that should be generating offense? Is it New Jersey? No, it's the answer is appalling.

It's the Washington Capitals and it's not even close. Wow. Yeah. When you go per game, it's a little better, but it's so many things going bad in Washington and then you look at the standings and you're like, eh, all right. Totally, yeah. All right. One last one here. Which team has the most loser points and how many do they have?

I'm not talking about like, I'm just talking about pure overtime and shootout losses. I believe it is the islanders. It is not the islanders. Oh, is it not? They are second. Because aren't they like, yeah, they're like 14, 8 and 8 or something. 15 8 now after last night. Like some great record and then you're like, wait a second, you're losing.

It's not, it's not the Leafs. The Leafs go overtime, but they don't have loser points. I know there's a bunch of bad teams that have zero loser points, which is not what we were told. Not, okay, more than the island. I don't know. Seattle. They have nine. Okay.

Seattle. Yeah. But how about this for Seattle? They've been to overtime 12 times this year. Only Toronto has been more. Toronto has been 13. But Seattle, this is the crazy part. They are 7, 14, and 12 in regulation.

That's unbelievable, man. You want to talk about the John Tortorella system. Well, let's just get to overtime and see what happens. The Leafs, I think, have got, are even with... 9, 7 and 13. Yeah. In... They're at least above 500 in regulation.

Yeah. Yeah. They actually... They're not terrible in regulation. They're, you know, a little better. than the flyers. Well, I didn't, I didn't do any, we should talk about the flyers next week. As long as we're a little bit better than the flyers.

I didn't do any flyers related prep. I probably should have there. They're a very interesting story. There's our next film shows in two weeks, so we won't have to worry. Right. No, no between Christmas and New Year show. Right. If there's still, the flyers are still good in two weeks, we have to talk about the

flyers. 100%. And I will in fact make a note about that. Right now, I will write down, is Philly still good? question mark. There we go. He's writing a note to future, Ryan. I did. That's exactly what happened. Okay, let's end on this, though.

Mark Andre Fleury didn't get the start in Pittsburgh and probably his last game ever in Pittsburgh. And people were, I would say, understandably upset about it. Yeah. I think people were questioning it now. your first thought, of course, is here is the NHL slash an NHL team not having any sense of a moment maybe even being kind of a

I saw a few people make the comparison to Mike Babcock like, you know, scratching guys and Mike Madano and Spetsa and guys like that where it's like it almost seems spiteful. Now, Rob Rossi wrote a piece where he said that, actually Fleury maybe preferred it this way.

Yeah. And I think that's, I mean, obviously, if Mark Andre Fleury is fine with it, or even like prefer, like if he goes to John Heinz says, like, I don't really want to deal with this, the emotions of that game and everything, then that's fine. If he wanted to play, then it's inexcusable not to start him. And I get that, you know, well, you know, we're trying to make the playoffs. We're trying to claw back into the race. but I mean, if you can't, he's, he's, he's your one B goalie.

Like, you're going to use him. Totally. Use him in that game. But if he didn't want to, apparently, like, his last game in Montreal had been, like, kind of had felt like a big deal to him. And he wasn't sure that he wanted to go through it again. Then I guess, I guess we're okay. Yeah. Right.

And, like, you know, I saw, uh, on TSN last night during, during the Leafs game, one of the intermission. things was who's a bigger Grinch Steve Steos for firing DJ Smith a week before Christmas or whatever or uh or what's his name John Heinz and uh

and to me the answer is not even like we said earlier they were doing DJ Smith the favor firing him a week before Christmas um and the theory is like you're you're you're being

the Grinch to the fans there. To the fans, that's right. Whereas DJ Smith being fired was a gift to the Ottawa fan base. Yep. There you go. And then one last thing, Devon Tave's comments after the game last night, they lost to Chicago, which you don't want to do is a general rule. I think Chicago has overtaken San Jose for worse.

record in the league? They head for a while. I don't know if they're back ahead. You know what? Now that they won, they're actually, and the sharks lost, of course, last night. I turned that game off when it was 3-0. I was like, this one's over, folks. I'm going to bed. But yeah, now that Chicago won in San Jose lost, they're actually back to where they were before. The balance has been restored. How she goes. But DeVont-Taves, I believe the quote was we have some guys on this team who think they're playing well and if they think that they're kidding they're kidding themselves. Woof.

Especially for a good team, right? Like, I mean, it's not like Colorado's been. Good team, great record. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so. Yeah, it's getting a little spicy with the post-game moments in Colorado. We're having fun out there.

I'd say, I mean, this is the sort of stuff that if your team goes ahead, wins the next few games, everybody says that's great veteran leadership. And if not, we go, oh, somebody became a distraction or divided the room. Did they fight each other during practice, right? They've lost two of the last three, four of the last seven, seven of the last 11. So they haven't been great lately. I'll say this, though, for when you lose to a bad team like Chicago, and then one of your respected veterans

kind of rips the team. You don't necessarily want to be the next team playing that that team. For sure you don't. And their next game is tomorrow. They host the Ottawa Senators. Uh-oh. Let's go.

Yeah, these, you know, you're reading that, you're like, oh, wow, they must be in really rough shape. No, they are tied in points for first. in their division with a very good Dallas Stars team. They're actually below Winnipeg and Dallas in terms of points percentage. But, you know, it's the thing about like just when you have, when you set a high standard, any loss that you suffer is kind of like, what the fuck are we doing out here, man? We've got to get it together.

And then to lose to Chicago, of course. Even though I believe the game was in Chicago. So it's, you know, it's a road. loss. You can you can kind of write those off sometimes, right? You know, that's all fine. But I think they'll be fine. I just do, I do love that this is two weeks in a row where we've talked about a very fun quote from a guy on the avalanche regarding one of his teammates. What will next week bring? You never know. You never know. How soon are we going to see a fight in practice? That's always the number one question, right?

Did you see the Nathan McKinnon quote where he was asked, like, I guess they did one of these things or they asked all the players, like, what's something you didn't like as a kid, but you like it? And he said wine. Oh, okay. I was like, oh, okay. That's interesting childhood you had there. Okay.

I didn't realize he was French. That's... Maybe you just went to church a lot or something. That could be it, yeah. Anyway Sean, why don't you hit him with the plugs? Find me at the athletic You know, a bunch of fun stuff

On the way Continue to make my appearances On the athletic Hockey Show podcast Including we're doing some Some year in review stuff Over the coming weeks I also have another cool podcast-related thing

That I can't tell you yet But hopefully in the early new year So remind me to plug that as I got to have a lot of fun talking old school Toronto Maple Leafs with an interesting person. That interesting person? That's right. Me. I love the old school Toronto Maple Leafs.

I'm here to talk about them every single week. And then for me, you know, again, I don't do any of the major, or the major junior, the world junior stuff over there, but we're churning out a lot of content over at Elite Prospects. regarding World Juniors, which start in a week, less than a week, actually. It starts on Boxing Day, right? Does. So six days from now, you'll be strapped in. And if you have an elite prospect's membership, you can get all the info you ever need,

look so smart to your friends who don't have it, and lord it over them, which is what it's all about, really. It's making your friends feel bad. Mm-hmm. It's really what you want. No question about it. So, yeah, that's it. Oh, I guess patreon.com slash puck soup, bonus episodes, all that kind of stuff.

You know. And because next week, we're not doing a main show. We're taking the week off. We do still owe the subscribers over there a mailbag. So if you want our thoughts on everything that happens in hockey between now and next Wednesday, you know where to go. Patreon.com slash puck soup. Thanks for listening everybody

and have a good one. Enjoy the holidays. See you later. Yeah. Bye bye.